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

Chapter Six

The shuttle shuddered, and there was the sound of metal screeching, but it came to a halt without the dropping feeling that Aurelia had feared. Then there were mechanical noises, hissing and the hum of hydraulics. Aurelia sat up. They were here.

The announcement system told everyone to stay in place and that they would be evacuated as soon as possible. Aurelia assumed that those on the hospital decks would be amongst the first off the shuttle, so she and the other female med Worker went around to the patients, administering anti-tranquilisers wherever possible so that people would be able to move under their own steam.

It was about half an hour before the hull door on the undamaged side of the ship opened. Suddenly, the deck was full of med Workers and sec staff, lifting patients out or supporting them as they walked. Aurelia waited until almost all the patients were gone, then accepted the offer of a fellow med Worker to see her off the ship.

The transport arm was the same as the one back on Earth: narrow and windowless, so Aurelia could see nothing outside it.

"You'll be taken straight to Lunar City Hospital," the med Worker told her as they walked. "But you look like you're supposed to be there anyway."

"I am," Aurelia said.

"Well, they'll check you over before giving you clearance to go about your business. Normal procedure."

Aurelia could see the door of the transport arm coming up. She quickened her pace, and the med Worker skipped to keep up with her.

Coming out into the terminal, Aurelia was disappointed to see that she still wasn't going to get a look at Lunar. Once again, there were no windows. It wasn't until she was loaded into a transporter along with three other shuttle passengers that she saw the city.

The transporter hummed and lifted itself off the ground, before turning and pointing its nose towards the city. Then, as it pulled out of the shuttle bay, Aurelia finally got her view.

The first thing she noticed was light. There were lights everywhere, in colours that Aurelia could barely even name. Huge vid screens shimmered and fluttered from the sides of buildings, which were far taller than she was used to. The buildings themselves were the familiar white, soaring up towards the dome.

And then, the dome. The feat of engineering that had made Lunar City possible. A huge, arching presence that glowed dully, a pale white-blue colour, and protected the entire population from the atmosphere, or lack thereof, outside.

It was only because of the dome that humans had been able to build a permanent settlement here. The structure was sentient, could heal itself, and changed in both colour and brightness depending on the time of day. Huge machines built at strategic points of the city manufactured the correct composition of gasses to make the air breathable, and the whole shebang was pressurised as well. Under this dome had risen one of the greatest cities ever built. Thriving, rich and the heart of the Earth Empire, Lunar City was enormous. It supported a population just less than a third of that of Earth, although only a tenth of that was permanent residents. The rest were the Workers who were responsible for the day-to-day running of all the systems that kept Lunar alive.

Aurelia was stunned into silence. As she watched, the transporter dropped a level and began its route to the hospital. The transport lanes here were not only split into floor levels as in City 01, but also into channels, so six craft could share one floor level. Aurelia soon saw that this was very necessary, as there were far more personal transport pods here than she was used to seeing on Earth.

Not only that, but there were people on the streets. It was clearly night time, as the dome had a pale colour and the dome light was dull, but everywhere she looked Aurelia could see people. There were a fair amount of Workers in their familiar uniforms, but there were also Elite, their clothes unique, wearing bright colours and fashionable styles, with hair dyed every shade imaginable.
Aurelia had seen Ruling Class citizens before, but never in such numbers, and never in their natural element. The Ruling Class on Earth tended to be government functionaries and conservative in their dress, or else they toned down their fashion sense for the trip. Here, though, she could see the true freedoms of the Elite.