Want (Numbered #1, YA Scifi Dystopian) Wattpad Featured Story

Chapter Two

The entrance hall of the shuttle bay was enormous. With shuttles easily being a hundred floors tall and the shuttle bay needing to be able to access all areas of a shuttle, the immense hall was as tall as any building Aurelia had ever seen. The echoing space above her made her stomach feel watery so that she clutched her father's arm.

"It's not as empty as it looks," her father said, noting her discomfort. "Look more closely."

Gazing into the height of the hall, Aurelia could just make out the movement of semi-transparent drones flitting around. "What are they for?"

"Most of the ones in here are simple message drones," her father said. "They're programmed with messages from Lunar City to the Ruling Class in Earth Empire cities. They're good messengers because they can be programmed with a message and then programmed to destruct if they're messed with, as well as sending back an alert to whoever programmed them saying that a message was safely delivered or that the drone was forced to destroy itself. They'll ride on the shuttles too."

"Aha," said Aurelia, taking in the information and filing it away in case it became useful later.

"Most of the ones in there," said her father, pointing towards a large gate that marked the entrance to the terminal waiting rooms, "are security drones. They're there to make sure that no one gets on a shuttle who shouldn't be on one, though mostly they redirect lost passengers to their allocated shuttles."

Aurelia glanced over at the gate. "I guess..." she began.

Her father nodded, looking at the time reader on his wrist. "I guess so," he said.

Aurelia swallowed. "You can't?"

"No, I can't go past the security gate. You need travel coding to get past," he said. "But you need to go on through. If you're not through in time, your reservation will automatically be cancelled."

"Okay." She hesitated for a moment, then hugged her father.

People milling around the entrance hall looked over at them. Such displays of public affection weren't common in the city, at least between parents and children.

"You're gonna do great, Aurelia. Don't worry."

"Thanks, Dad," she said, into his shoulder.

"Go on then," he said, pushing her away. "Off you get. And don't forget to intercom."

"Right."

He turned quickly, but not quite fast enough that Aurelia couldn't see a glint in his eyes. Tears. She swallowed again and sniffed, willing herself into control as she watched her father in his grey-and-blue tech Worker uniform fade back towards the entrance doors and the walkway that would take him to the transport pod.

After several seconds Aurelia took a breath and squared her shoulders. Let's do this thing, she told herself, and she started walking towards the security gate.

There was a line of passengers waiting to go through the gate, and Aurelia joined them. As she waited she passed the time watching the elegant fluttering of the messenger drones circling inside the hall. About halfway through the line, the one queue split up into several different channels, and Aurelia waited for an orange indicator light to tell her which channel to join, then resumed waiting.

At the front of the line was a Worker dressed in a drab uniform coloured light grey and dark grey, marking him as a transport Worker.

"Number," barked the Worker.

"1-3358-7-43-22-3," said Aurelia without thinking. She'd repeated the number so many times in her life that it was as familiar to her as her name.

Suddenly, a buzz sounded and a red light began flashing over the head of the Worker she was speaking to.