Out of Mind by Matthew S. Cox

Author:Matthew S. Cox [Cox, Matthew S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Science Fiction, General, Action & Adventure
ISBN: 9781950738359
Google: vxXZzQEACAAJ
Publisher: Division Zero Press
Published: 2020-09-15T05:00:00+00:00

14

Stupid Creatures

Tuesday, a little past noon, Sima sat on the grass under a tree, nibbling on her lunch.

The park behind the Center made for a nice break from a day spent inside classrooms. Somehow, a modest copse of trees around a stream survived the first ship landing so close. It had to be a miracle. She could step across the little stream and not get wet. Not even the smallest kids could swim in it. The big river she and the children swam in months ago passed about a quarter-mile away on the east side of the colony, throwing off a handful of such streams. One happened to mostly cut through the middle of town.

She daydreamed about what might have happened if they decided to try making a boat and seeing where the river went. Certainly, they’d have spotted the colony after however long it took them to go roughly 160 miles.

Occasionally, a spray of sparks spat out from the giant form of the Progenitor II in the distance, wherever workers cut away squares of hull to use as sidewalk tiles. Her time as an Outcast made it uncomfortable to watch a ‘useful’ object be torn down… but her feelings about Earth counteracted any sympathy she might’ve felt toward the dying starship.

The number of people on the planet she knew longer than eight months increased to two.

According to Oema, Pim—the eleven-year-old boy who gave her attitude because she swatted a Pixie inhaler out of his hand—had been arrested in the same raid as her. Unlike Oema, the boy considered the idea of going on a spaceship the ‘most awesomest thing ever’ and didn’t fight or resist once they told him about it.

Yesterday, once Mom and the kids returned from the amusement place, they’d all escorted Oema to the Center. She didn’t get in trouble for running off, merely asked to ‘please not do that again.’ Of all the things a traumatized former street kid could do in response to forcible interplanetary relocation, suffering an anxiety attack and fleeing ranked as pretty mild.

Being done with remedial classwork allowed Sima to enjoy the idleness of a lunch period and not feel as though she wasted time. Some of the other students complained about it being ‘too warm for May.’ She thought it fine, if a little cool. Her old home on Earth tended to be quite warm during the day and cold at night.

At some point hundreds of years ago, the Earth had been as beautiful and untamed as Mirage. She didn’t believe the majority of humans intended to ruin it, merely did what they needed to do in order to survive. Some humans definitely exploited the planet for money, but most of the pillaging occurred long before the End of Nations. By the time war broke out, there hadn’t been many natural resources left to exploit. Perhaps the scarcity on top of massive civil unrest at such an imbalanced distribution of wealth had something to do with the war happening in the first place.

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