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Chapter 3
Natasha
Larla checked her hair in a mirror. “Now we need to talk about Andaris....”
“We don’t talk about Andaris, no, no...” I sang under my breath. I hadn’t actually seen the film but the song had been on the radio in shops and cars enough that I’d caught the drift of it.
Larla was unimpressed. She frowned and shook her head. “This is no time for levity. You need to know how things work down there.”
“I thought we were going to a place called Epsilon, but that’s twice you’ve said Andaris. Which is it?”
“I’ll start at theverybeginning. Epsilon is the planet. Andaris is the country. Like Earth is the planet and Scotland is the country you’re from.”
“Okay.” I was still having a hard time believing all this space stuff but what she described made sense, and the stuff I’d seen so far today was starting to convince me that this might not be a hospital.
“Andaris has some big cities. The one you’re going to is here.” Larla pulled out something that looked like an iPad and opened up a map.
“Xanar,” I read off the map. Then I blinked because the characters were obviously not the ABC I’d learned at primary school. But I’d just read them with ease. Was this that weird implant? “What are all those numbers?”
“Areas. Sectors one to four are the richest areas, with three and four being more middle class. Sectors five to eight are working class, and they are a mixture of people who work in low-paid jobs and people in total poverty. This is where all the organized crime takes place. And our reports say the crime funds Beta Liberation.”
“What’s Beta Liberation? That tall bloke mentioned it, too, but I don’t understand it.”
“They are terrorists who want to rid the world of all alphas and omegas. They have killed several high-profile figures and made an attempt on the Emperor’s life recently.”
“Emperor?”
“The planet is split into three countries, Andaris, Swerga and Kalima. Each country is ruled by a king as an absolute monarchy, but above the king there is an Emperor who rules the whole planet, and all our outposts and colonies.”
This was so much to take in. How was I supposed to remember it all by tomorrow?
“What if I forget something important?”
“The betas may kill you if they find out you’re a spy. So don’t forget anything important. Now we need to talk about culture. Music. Famous people you should have heard of. Food and drink...”
It was too much. I couldn’t do it. “Listen, I’m not brainy. I can’t learn all this stuff.”
“You must. We can’t get inside the organization and take it down without you. Alphas have no way of trusting any betas, and most omegas don’t look right. You’re tall and slender, your body shape isn’t very curvy. You are exactly right to impersonate a beta.”
“And then I can leave?”
“Of course. Now let me show you some of the food and drink, and how our technology works. Ships have special machines that trans-mat things out of storage and heat them up ready to eat or drink. On the planet surface, cooking is different. You can buy ready-made food in shops and heat it up, or cook things from ingredients.”
There were so many things I still didn’t understand, like why some places had future space magic food and others didn’t. Then I realized it was like the difference between those posh people who could afford Hello Fresh or Uber Eats and those people who had to go to the supermarket and couldn’t buy half the stuff because they didn’t have a cooker. Or saucepans. Like me.
“Here, I’ll pick some common foods from Andaris and you can try them out.” Larla went to a machine at one side of the room and pressed buttons. She brought many plates to the table and we spent the next half-hour talking about what they were while I tried them.
The food was pretty good. It was nothing like anything I’d ever eaten before. Another puzzle piece, convincing my reluctant mind that we were really in space. I found myself wondering for the first time whether it would be so terrible to stick around for a bit, if they were going to feed me. Now those drugs were out of my system, I felt hungrier than I remembered feeling in my entire life.
***
Natasha
The ship landed late the next day. It was going dark when I disembarked. I was bundled straight into a vehicle which hovered above the street but was mostly a car. Larla went elsewhere, but Urgoth got into the car with me, along with another man.
“I will meet with you every day at lunchtime. You will report what you’ve learned. This is Ryon. He’s a cleaner. You’re going to live in the same apartment as him. He’s been building up his cover story for months. The area accepts him, but he can’t get directly involved with any of the gangs because he’s an alpha. They would never accept him.”
“A cleaner, like, knows his way around a mop and pail or a cleaner who shoots people?” I’d heard of both.
