Promissory Note Read online

  When Laura reached the house she didn’t go inside. Instead, she ran around to the side facing the Field and over to the ladder. Laura had made the ladder out of scrap metal she had scavenged from a dozen different places. She had made the rungs flat and broad, so she could walk up the ladder with something in her hands if she needed to. The ladder leaned permanently against the side of the house.

  She dumped her string bag at the bottom of the ladder and almost ran up the steps, her heart working too fast.

  At the top she stepped onto soil.

  It had taken her nearly a year to accumulate enough earth to cover her roof to a depth a little greater than her knees. The flange that ran around all sides of the roof that was designed to hold another apartment firmly in place if it was placed on top of hers was exactly the depth of the soil. When she had first examined the shallow bowl of the roof with its containing walls, she had wondered why others had not had the same idea as her.

  Then she had tried to find the earth to fill the roof. That was when she had begun to understand why no one else had tried. Earth had to be one of the most precious commodities on the ship. People used a pot of good, mulched soil for trade all the time. That quantity of earth could be made at home, using compost and a small amount of starter soil.

  Huge piles of dirt, the amount needed to fill her roof, had taken time, trade and ingenuity. Luckily, she’d had unique resources and over the year, she had slowly backfilled the roof, using boards to dam back the soil and form a square for the next area to fill.

  As she had filled each square, she had planted her crops, using seeds from expensive earth-grown food she had bartered for. As she had quickly learned, seeds from printed food were non-viable. Only earth-grown food would reproduce.

  Over the next three years she had learned to grow the luxury food that Kelly Peck had insisted she supply.

  Laura walked through the narrow paths between the rows of vegetables, fruit and herbs. There were strawberries and basil, lavender and fast-growing lettuce. Blackberry bushes rimmed the front edge. Onions and tomatoes—lots of tomatoes. She couldn’t keep up with the demand for tomatoes. She had tried to grow many things in this little garden, but had learned to give the most soil space to the crops that were in demand. In the corner closest to the lights, she had been coaxing along a dwarf cocoa bush, wrapped in its own environmental envelope. That had been this year’s experiment. Kelly Peck had been impatient to know if it would work. Earth-grown cocoa beans could be bartered for almost anything.

  Tivoli and Keton climbed onto the roof behind her, looking around curiously.

  “I knew you were growing stuff for the market in the Aventine,” Tivoli said. “I didn’t know you were doing it on this scale.”

  “I was doing it,” she said bitterly.

  Keton bent to sniff the lavender.

  “Are they supposed to be drooping, like that?” Tivoli asked.

  “They’re dying,” Keton said shortly.

  Laura drew in a shaky breath.

  “What, all of it is dying?” Tivoli asked.

  “The radiation was washed out by the rain, which fell on the soil,” she said. “The soil is ruined. I’ll have to recycle it.” Her eyes stung and she blinked hard to clear them. “Everything,” she added. “Even the seeds.” Her precious cache of seeds were in the lockbox in the corner by the cocoa bush. The box wasn’t radiation-proof.

  “Wow….” Tivoli breathed. “Still, you can start again, right?”

  “It took me three years to get this far,” she said heavily. “A year for the soil alone. The crops take a couple of years to come in properly, especially the fruit.”

  Tivoli shrugged. “It’s all fixable, right?”

  Keton, though, stood up, brushing the soil from his hands. “Laura has a promissory note on the garden.”

  Laura drew in a deep breath and let it out. It didn’t help. She still felt sick and hot and shaky.

  Kelly Peck would kill her. Worse, he would demand his house back. There was two years left on the note. If she couldn’t deliver the crops he wanted to use for his stall in the Aventine, then she would have to give the house back to him and go back to sharing a slice apartment in the First Wall, with some assigned roommate who would stick their nose into her life….

  She could feel herself breaking out into a sweat despite wearing nothing but the flimsy robe.

  Somehow, she had to find a way out of this disaster. At the moment she had no idea how, but there was no way she was going to go back to the Wall.

  Chapter Two

  There was no way around it. Sooner or later, Laura would have to talk to Kelly Peck. He had to be told the bad news. Perhaps, if she laid it out properly, he might be willing to extend the life of the note she had written him. After all, the arrangement had been mutually beneficial. Her crops had given him produce for his stall and he had profited hugely from the exchanges, while Laura had enjoyed living in her little apartment house in the lonely corner of the Esquiline, all by herself.

  They had both liked the agreement. Surely he would be amenable to extending the note if it meant the deal could continue, if he would wait nearly three years….

  Laura sighed. She would have to convince him the wait would be worth it. That was her only possible argument. She had nothing else of value to offer him in the place of the note. She was a lowly software engineer and she had spent all her spare time tending the garden that was now worthless.

  The next day, after her shift was done, she rode up to the Aventine and walked through the big markets to where Kelly Peck kept his stall. The colorful bunting over and around the stall was new, the colors bright. Kelly was a masterful bargainer and it showed. She only had to look at his profile on the Forum and see the number of lucrative notes and exchanges posted there to know he was doing very well indeed. She was not the only person on the ship who had given Kelly a note over the years. She wouldn’t have been surprised if he had invented the idea of promissory notes.

  He was a large man and it wasn’t muscle that gave him his dimensions. Kelly’s bargaining abilities meant he got to enjoy far more than the basic rations and his profession as a farmer was an additional guarantee. Marsha, his partner, was just as round.

  Kelly’s hair was thinning and he kept it close-cropped, his high forehead shining under the Aventine lights. When he saw her, he smiled and lifted his hand in cheerful greeting. “Your pineapples went in a day! Please tell me you have more?”

  She stopped in front of the stall, with its display of a staggering range of produce. The tomatoes in the basket to one side were clearly not hers. Hers were bigger and a deep red.

  Or they had once been so.

  Laura pulled her hair to one side and flipped it back over her shoulder. “You had everything tucked away when the alarm went off yesterday?” she asked. “I was wondering how you fared.”

  “Luckiest thing in the world,” he said and glanced around at the other stalls. Most of them were empty, the tables bare, revealing the frames that were normally hidden behind bunting and banners. “I was late yesterday because of some business. And since those kids starting stealing the plums, I take all my stuff home with me every night.” He laughed again, in a carefree away. “You came through, too?”

  Laura held herself still. This was when she should tell him. Only…she couldn’t speak the words.

  The back of her neck grew sweaty.

  Kelly’s joviality faded. “You didn’t come through at all.”

  Laura sighed. Then she shook her head.

  “All of it?” he breathed.

  “I can rebuild the garden,” she said quickly. “You can have more pineapples as soon as I can grow them. Tomatoes grow in weeks and you always do well with my tomatoes.” She couldn’t help looking at the pale red fruit in the basket.

  Kelly was staring at her, breathing hard. When it came to bargaining his joviality tended to disappear quickly. He wasn’t saying anything now.

  “I was thinking,” she said,
fighting to keep her voice light, to make this sound appealing and nothing like the disaster it was, “that if you extended my note for another three years, then you would get your last two years of produce just as we arranged.”

  Kelly shook his head. “I can’t.”

  Laura stared at him. “Why not? You just have to amend the note and sign it. I’ve seen you do it before.”

  “I don’t have the note anymore.”

  Now Laura realized that Kelly looked upset. He wasn’t angry at her. There was something else at work here. “You signed the note to someone else?”

  Kelly rubbed his sweaty brow. “That’s what made me late yesterday. I was putting the deal in place. Your note was the biggest part of it, although as far as I was concerned, it was completely one-sided. That’s what he settled for, though. I wasn’t going to try to be reasonable, not with him.”

  “With who?” Laura asked, bewildered. Her thoughts were floundering. Would she now have to deal with someone she didn’t know and understand? What if he wasn’t as amenable as Kelly? “Who did you give the note to?”

  “You have to understand,” Kelly said, speaking quickly. He kept his voice low, as if he was afraid someone might hear him. “It was the deal of a lifetime. You know that house in the Palatine, right by the first creek?”

  “You traded my note for a house?” Laura breathed, stunned. “A house in the Palatine?”

  “I told you it was a sucker deal,” Kelly said quickly. “He wanted my apartment here, in the Aventine. Said it suited him better. Your note just topped up the deal. Well, it did as far as he was concerned.” Kelly snorted. “I would have held out for much more. It’s a freaking house in the Palatine he gave up.”

  “Who?” Laura repeated.

  Kelly sighed, all his nervous energy running out in a gusty bellow. “It’s Micah Thorn. He’s got your note.”

  Laura gripped the edge of the table, keeping herself steady. “Micah Thorn,” she repeated woodenly.

  She had never met Micah Thorn. They moved in completely different circles. She had heard of him, though. Everyone had.

  Micah Thorn was an organic coder. Some said he was the best the ship had ever seen. He wasn’t the head of the Institution, though. He didn’t get along with people, an essential skill for institute leaders, who were part politician and part nursemaid to an entire professional body.

  There were stories about Micah Thorn and his legendary inability to deal with people. The insults he had delivered, the rude manner he used with most people. The first time Laura had ever heard of Micah Thorn was when she had been told the tale of how he had made a house AI lock one of his enemies inside for three days, then in addition, had caused the bio-waste systems in the house to reverse their cycle.

  The man had emerged babbling and ill.

  Laura wasn’t certain the story could be true. To do that to another person without consequences was unlikely and Micah Thorn was still alive and functioning.

  Yet everyone who had helped tell the story that night, the six of them sitting around the table in the garden retreat, had believed the tale without hesitation. They thought Thorn was capable of doing it.

  This was the man who held her note, to whom she was now obligated.

  “What on Earth does Micah Thorn want with two years’ worth of produce?” she asked, still unable to wrap her head around it.

  “I guess you’re going to have to ask him,” Kelly told her. “He’s the one holding your note, now.”

  * * * * *

  Laura stayed home in her little house, that night, debating with herself. The idea of confronting such an unpleasant man as Micah Thorn was bad enough. Being indebted to him was far, far worse.

  Perhaps if she pretended she didn’t know the note had been traded…only the Forum had posted the transaction already and sent her a notice. She couldn’t bluff her way out using that excuse.

  Perhaps she should just quit now. Give up and go back to the Wall.

  The thought made her feel nauseous.

  So did the idea of defaulting on the note. People were informally shunned for something like that and while she preferred to live alone, it was offset by all the many friends she had in her institution, in the district and all over the ship.

  She looked around the main room of the apartment. It was small, but it was hers. She had changed the wall colors to a soft, warm green and eked out enough energy rations to print cushions and other small items that appealed to her. Others she had traded for.

  When she walked in the door each day, she often paused there to take in the warmth, the coziness and the silence. Her home was precious to her. How could she give it up and share with someone again?

  She couldn’t. That was the bottom line.

  The next day, when her shift ended, she returned home to change out of her work gear and make herself presentable. She consulted her journal, to remind herself yet again of the Aventine address, then travelled up there on the train. Reluctance weighed her down, making her walk slowly.

  She checked the address again, as she wove through the corridors, reading off apartment numbers. The doors were anonymous, the halls carpeted, sound hushed in reverence for the tenants and residents of the Aventine.

  If Micah Thorn had given up a house in Palatine, then this Aventine address had to be his place of business, which made sense—most of the coder institutes kept their offices and administration in the Aventine.

  She found the number and pressed her thumb against the pad. She expected she would have to wait, as she had no appointment. There would be a check of her profile, a discussion about why she might be here. Then someone would decide that asking her directly might be useful. Then the door would be opened by a junior worker, to find out why she was here.

  At least, that was what she guessed would happen. She didn’t know any organic coders personally. There were only a handful on the ship and they didn’t mix with engineers of any sort.

  When the door bounced open almost immediately, she was startled. There was no one standing there to greet her.

  Just inside, she could see people sitting at screens. They were barely moving. As she watched, one of them spread his hand over the screen and twisted the display there, reforming the data so it was displayed laterally.

  The door stayed open. So Laura stepped inside and pushed her hair back over her shoulder. “Um…hello?”

  No one looked up.

  “I’d like to speak to Micah Thorn. Is he here?” She said it loudly.

  Everyone looked at her. The room, which had been quiet to begin with, fell into complete silence. There were eight of them in the room. The ones at the back stood to look at her properly.

  They were various ages, both genders and completely normal looking. She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting. Did super intelligence not mark itself in some way? These were the most gifted intellectuals on the ship. She had expected…she didn’t know what she had expected. She just hadn’t expected normal.

  “Really?” someone asked. It was the woman sitting closest to her. “Micah?” she added.

  “I…um…is that a problem?”

  The woman smiled and got to her feet. “It’s Micah. It might be. It might not be. I’m glad I’m just the messenger, though.” She walked around the desks and turned through a door at the back of the room.

  Everyone else was still looking at Laura.

  Laura started to tremble. “Hi,” she offered. “I didn’t see the game the other night. I hear the Warriors just killed the Planets.”

  The man sitting at the desk closest to the door laughed. “It was an annihilation,” he shot back. “If I’d been a Planeteer, I would have gone home and shot myself.”

  “The Bullets could have taken that game,” the gray-haired man at the back of the room said. “If they had the resources the Bridge provides the Warriors, they would have kicked them into tomorrow.”

  “No way!” the first man with the big nose cried. “The Warriors don’t need Bridge resource
s. They barely touch ‘em as it is.”

  “That just makes them stupid,” someone else said in the corner.

  She couldn’t see who had spoken because the man with the big nose had gotten to his feet. He was looking at her. “We just made coffee. Want some?”

  Laura wasn’t a huge fan of coffee but she nodded. “That would be great.”

  “This way.” He jerked his head and walked over to a kitchen area that was divided off from the main part of the room by plasteel glass. The aroma of fresh coffee was unmistakable and she sniffed. “Real coffee,” she breathed eagerly.

  “Of course.” He pulled out a row of cups from the cupboard and put them on the counter.

  “I don’t know your name,” she said.

  “Havel.” He put the first cup under the tap and poured.

  “Havel…. I’ve heard your name before.”

  “Havel Badcoke,” he said.

  “Oh.” She pressed her lips together. “That’s why. Do you get teased about it much?”

  “Only all the freaking time,” he said and sighed. “Coders have no dignity.”

  “Really?” She was surprised. “Even here, they tease you?”

  “You’re not a coder, are you?”

  “Not even close.” She took the cup. “Thank you. This is going to be divine, I just know it.” The smell alone was intoxicating.

  Havel glanced over his shoulder out into the main room. “Bunch of three year olds, most of the time.” Then he grinned. “Me, too, I guess. I’m the only Warriors fan in the room and they can’t stand that the Warriors are the champions this year. So I remind them every time I can.” He jerked his head again, this time toward the main room.

  Laura followed him out.

  The other coders had gotten back to work, staring at their screens in heavy concentration. The utilitarian room seemed to be designed to encourage nothing but work. The walls were bare and the default silver color that meant they had never been programmed. The desks were also basic and unadorned.

  “So you’re really here to see Thorn?” Havel asked, sitting back at his desk. He turned his chair, then pulled out the chair belonging to the woman who had gone to get Micah Thorn and patted it.