A Little Darkness in the Brown Sector

Posted on Wed 15th Jul, 2020 @ 6:08am by Purulence Addams & Ignatius Collins & Yuliette Marayan Dr.

2,410 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Resolution
Location: Brown Sector and The Zodiac
Timeline: MD-14, Peldor Festival

Purulence Addams and Ignatius Collins stepped out of the turbolift with a small knot of other people after traveling 'south' from Deck 1554. Ignatius wore a pair of well-worn work trousers and a work shirt with the sleeves rolled up--his typical clothing. Purulence wore a long-sleeved burgundy dress in a vaguely Bajoran style, her hair flowing down to her waist like a sheet of black satin.

"I wonder what your hair would look like if it were curly," he said as they walked out of the small plaza that surrounded the tram and turbolift core.

Purulence snorted. "You will be wondering for the rest of eternity," she said, linking arms with him. "I have pure Addams hair. It's straight as a board. The most I've ever been able to do with it is braid it or string beads in it. Perms just don't take."

"Beads, huh?" Ignatius considered that. "Venetian glass beads. There's a little shop on the Via San Samuele--"

"And whom did you buy beads for?"

"If I said my mother, would you believe me?"

"Heck, no!"

Ignatius laughed. "Sally Mercer. I adored her in high school." He sighed. "She adored me, too--but then she went to Juilliard and married a violinist. I was crushed."

Purulence eyed him. "You seem to have made an astonishing recovery."

"And very glad I am of that!" Ignatius said. "So where do we find renewal scrolls?"

"Good question. The ritual doesn't happen until later today, so let's look around," Purulence replied.

'Looking around' took them hither and yon, ever deeper into the decks of Brown Sector. They eventually found ornate boxes, decorated to look like containers for the Bajoran Orbs, containing scrolls. Purulence wrote "Doubt." on hers; Ignatius wrote "Whatever P. is so afraid of" on his.

"I guess we keep them until it's time to burn them," Purulence said. "Hey, take a look at these huge statues all in a circle. Is that bizarre, or what?"

Ignatius stared. "The 1930's called. They want their statues back." He studied the area where they found themselves. It looked pretty run down. Most of Brown Sector looked run down, but this area particularly so, with apartments stacked on top of each other unevenly as if they were cardboard boxes. It puzzled him to see impoverishment like this on a Starfleet-run starbase. What was the reason for it?

Aloud, he said, "The taste police need to arrest somebody--or should have arrested him before he designed this. They look like the signs of the Zodiac. See, there's Gemini and Libra. That's Sagittarius. I guess that's Virgo over there."

"I wonder what they're for?" Purulence muttered. "I mean, why such a grandiose arrangement way out here? This is the boonies--used to be the boonies, anyway."

Ignatius shrugged. "Why does any artist create anything? Maybe someone just felt like it. Or got paid."

"Paid. That would explain it," Purulence said. "We'll create just about anything if we're getting paid--"

A smallish woman pressed past them, her face obscured by a printed faded blue head scarf and large sunglasses, which she dipped to steal a glance around her, taking in the happy sounds of a bustling festival. She looked in at the bin of scrolls curiously, but uncertainly.

"Hi," Purulence said, smiling at the small, slender woman. "Can I get you a renewal scroll?" She wondered if the woman had poor vision, given the sunglasses.

Yuliette looked at her, but couldn't see her features clearly so dipped her head to look over the glasses once more. The other woman was about her height, but probably had the darkest complexion of anyone she had ever met. "They're for just anyone?"

"They're for the Bajoran Gratitude Festival," Ignatius explained. "And yeah, for anyone."

"You write your problems down on one of these scrolls. Then, at a certain point during the ritual later today, you burn the scroll, symbolically vanquishing the problem," Purulence said. "At least, I think that's the idea."

"Oh, I see. Bajoran tradition." Yuliette bit her lower lip. "I probably shouldn't."

"Entirely up to you," Ignatius said. "Nice to meet you. I'm Ignatius, by the way, and this is Purulence." He wondered for a moment if she was a celebrity, an actress, perhaps, as she was so covered up. But no, she didn't have bodyguards. Ah, well, it wasn't any of his business.

"Ignatius. Purulence?" She repeated, curiously. There was someone out there who would name their child Purulence? Well, Yuliette would be the last to judge someone by the taste of their parents. They seemed genuinely kind, so Yuliette decided to test out her latest attempt at a name. "I'm Neone. You're here to visit? For this festival?"

"Glad to meet you, Neone," Purulence said. "I'm living on the station with my sister for a while. She has a house in Tivoli Gardens. I really ought to find my own place, but Chlamydia designed her house to look almost exactly like our family home in New York, so I adore it and have been putting off moving out. Also, I'm lazy and hate the idea of packing. I pay rent, clean up, and make breakfast, instead."

"She also paints. I'm living at The Hangman's Noose," Ignatius said. "I'm an asteroid miner and am having a ship built."

Chlamydia? Their parents had maintained something of a theme. And the Hangman's noose... Yuliette's hand went to her own covered neck reflexively. "Maybe I will take a scroll," Yuliette decided. "There are a few things I could stand to ask non-corporeal powers for a little help with."

"Here you go!" Purulence took a scroll and pen from the box and passed them to Ignatius, who passed them to Neone.

"Thank you. How did you get into the business of mining?"

"It was pure childhood rebellion," Ignatius said to Neone. "I do genuinely love geology, but I also wanted a career that was as far from the three martini lunch lifestyle as possible. I wanted to work for a living, not just live the high life off dividend income." He gestured at his clothing. "I am not a corporate business suit kind of guy. It was important to me to accomplish something."

"Really?" Yuliette's interest piqued. "People lie, cheat, and kill for that kind of lifestyle."

"I know," Ignatius said with a wry look. "Pitiful, isn't it? Well, they're welcome to it. This is so much better. I feel like I can breathe. What about you? What do you do?"

"Do? For work? Oh, my mother told me to marry rich and never worry about it. I rather like Purulence's approach though, move in and make yourself useful. I may have to try that." And then to Purulence she asked, "how is it you're paying rent?"

Purulence burst out laughing. "Your mother cracks me up! As for rent, I really am a painter, which means my schedule is flexible, so I have the time to do housecleaning. I specialize in portraits, but most people nowadays will just take a photograph or make a holographic image because that's faster. I prefer to do it the old-fashioned way, where the subject actually sits for a portrait. If I can't find any portraiture work, I paint whatever clients commission me for. Lately, it's been children--which is fun, but I prefer adults because they've done more and seen more, so they're more interesting to me."

"Mm, yes, a story behind the image. I can see how that would attract the muse." Yuliette's mother had spent a few fortunes in art trades, although Yuliette was fairly certain her mother understood nothing at all about them apart from the attention some of the purchases brought her. Still she'd spent more than a few nights at gallery openings being encouraged to talk to other trust fund kids and on-the-rise entrepreneurs. "Artful Holoimages have some of their own cleverness in the art-of-lights, often thanks to tricks of light, shadow, perspective, and signal sampling. But a good portrait in any medium usually exposes something from the spirit of the subject that lenses can't otherwise reveal. Are you classically trained? Or self taught?"

"Both," Purulence said. "I started out self-taught, but I also took art lessons or went to art school from age eight on. You know--once my parents believed I was serious about it."

"Age eight. Incredible. Is there a way I could view your work?"

"It's online; any library will have it," Purulence said, "and I've got my SketchPADD with me, if you'd like to see what's on that." She pulled it from her bag, tapped the device a couple of times, and handed it to Neone. "Just scroll down or swipe, and it'll show you."

Moving towards a nearby table and chairs along the Drift which had been set outside of an eatery especially for the Peldor Joi festival, the Cardassian set herself down and took off her shades, scanning through the artwork. "You have incredible skill," she said at last. "I love your surreal work."

"You can't tell it to look at me, but I'm blushing," Purulence said, smiling. "I'm glad you like it." She pointed at a thumbnail image. "My favorite piece is the two cats in the archway. That was at an old country villa in Rome on Earth."

"Oh yes. very sweet. Very nice work on the architecture. You can see how much you love the creatures. And the halo lighting in the fur is so heavenly." Yuliette looked to Ignatius. "Do you favor any of these works?"

"The cupped hands from age 13," Ignatius said and pointed it out to Neone.

Purulence stared at him, and her eyes went huge. "The original just sold ten days ago. Did you buy that?"

Ignatius grinned. "You should see the look on your face."

Purulence's voice squeaked. "The original, Ignatius?! Oh, my God!" She raised a hand to her lips in shock and blinked a few times. "They're Grandmama's hands."

He nodded. "I figured they probably were."

Yuliette smiled, looking into the thumbnail of the image. The time-worn hands by the artist in her early years would never have garnered a glance by everyone she ever knew to collect art, but they would have been overlooking the personal meaning, the preservation of generations and the message there. There was the high art world, but then there were people with talent and heart. Never the twain should meet. She passed the padd back to its owner. "I wish there were something I could do to support your work. I'm afraid I haven't got access to any funds right now."

"That's rough," Purulence said. "I did notice you never said what your work was." She thought a moment. "So you are looking for a job?"

"I ought to be. But I haven't any skills to ply. I've an idea or three but I'm mostly getting the lay of the land here. Don't worry, I've a place to stay and it turns out the station provides essentials to Brown Sector residents. I was a little panicked until I figured out how to apply." How to apply without an actual ID, anyway. But it turned out not to be as rigorous a process as all that for a little food.

"Hm. So you recently came here, too." Purulence thought for a moment. "How would you feel about working as an artist's model?" She raised a hand slightly. "Hear me out, first. You clearly don't want your face seen. But I don't always paint people's faces. Or I paint them blurred, or in shadows." She smiled. "Or I just paint hands. You have lovely hands. I would be more than willing to hire you as a model for hand studies; they're the most difficult part of the body to pant. Would you be willing?"

Self-consciously, Yuliette looked at her hands. Her long, slender fingers with their carefully tended nails sometimes led people to inquire if she were a pianist or played any Vulcan lyre. The fingers had no callous and had never seen anything approximating hard labor. She missed practicing healing arts with them. "It sounds agreeable." She especially appreciated Purulence's sensitivity to her privacy. "As long as we meet in Brown Sector, for now."

Ignatius flicked a glance at her, but Purulence nodded. "I can do that. I'll need to find a place down here where I can set up a small studio. I've seen all sorts of interesting people down here, so you won't be the only person I paint--if they'll agree to sit for me. Is there a way I can contact you?"

Yuliette dug through her bag for a scrap of paper, wrote down her address and passed it to Purulence. "I guess send me a note. I don't have a comm line right now."'

"Do you have email?" Purulence asked as she read the address. "All the kids I know who might deliver a note for me are in school."

"I could play courier," Ignatius said. "My ship's still being built. So I could either sit around getting fat on Toad in the Hole at the Noose, or make myself useful and deliver messages."

Purulence blinked at him. "Oh-kayyy." She glanced at Neone. "Is that all right with you, if you don't have email? At least then, you'd know the note was legitimately from me."

"Sure, that would work. If that's not too much trouble. Until I figure out something easier."

"I'd be eternally grateful," Ignatius assured Neone. "The only other exercise I get is jogging with her every morning at 0500. Walking's so much better!"

"Hey, you asked to jog with me, bucko," Purulence said. "It's not my fault that was just a ploy to spend more time with me."

"Worked, didn't it?" Ignatius countered. He looked at Neone. "If I come by and you're out, where should I leave the notes? Is there a message box, or should I just slip it under the doormat?"

Yuliette loved to watch their easy rapport. "Under the door would be fine." She unfolded her glasses, slipped them back on and stood, gathering her little scroll. "I hope you'll both enjoy the Festival today. It's been a pleasure meeting you."

"And a pleasure meeting you, too, Neone. Have a good time at the Festival!" Purulence said as she and Ignatius got up from the table.

 

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