⚒️ The Curve Of The Downwards Spiral

⚒️ The Curve Of The Downwards Spiral

by Joel Glover

Ayşe had inherited her role on Minikoi, in a way. Her predecessor Chihiro had lived in a cabin opposite hers. Every time she had seen him, he had told her of his plans: save up enough money to eventually return to Brasília. She had been on station for five years—Chihiro for at least fifteen—and she had no doubt that his hometown would have changed beyond recognition in his absence. He kept on, saving his illicit income until one day he could afford the ticket.

The morning after his leaving party he had left a key-fob hanging from a magnet affixed to her door and an email with several tutorial videos and e-reader documents attached. 

It was not a role she would have chosen for herself.

At all.

But it did come with some advantages.

The name was not one of them.

“Hey, Pigman!”

The voice was loud enough to overwhelm the sound of the fasıl music in her earbuds. Nobody who would call her Pigman would have known to shout that loud on their first attempt, which meant she had a customer who had been waiting for some time and was now impatient. She paused the music with a gestural command, and lifted her head out of the vat she was cleaning. 

“How can I help?”

The customer was at the start of the precipitous slide down the social strata. Ayşe had come to be able to spot the signs as quickly as Chihiro had been able to, by the time he left. The rockjack’s suit was bespoke abantu stuff, or had been. The vibrant red of the fabric had a galaxy wheel spray of scuffs and scars, micro-abrasions from cutting tools and debris adding a character to the design only truly living in it could give. The customer’s face had the same, ‘rockjack tan’ marks around the eyes, a relic of goggles worn within a suit helmet when cutting. The decline was given away by the neon pink gloves hanging from the tool belt, a personal choice to be sure, not one enforced by an employer. So they had gone solo. And of course they were here, at her door, buying cheap lube. Because going solo wasn’t paying off the way they had hoped it would.

“I’m looking for sealant and lube.”

“I have both.”

The canisters she used for storage were space-cast metal, repurposed industrial waste. They were stamped with a crescent moon where Chihiro had favoured a rising sun. It was one of the few things she had changed in his business to make it her own.

“Will you be paying in shilling, minerals, or scrip?”

This was her other innovation. The Pigman was a station institution, a vital part of the grey economy—tolerated by Big Blue and the remora enterprises which clung to it, tolerated but never acknowledged. By taking the informal station scrip or minerals in exchange for her work she took herself further out of the control of the corporates, and was able to make a small profit on the volatility of mineral prices. 

Chihiro never wanted to be here, had only ever wanted to go home.

She never wanted to be anywhere else since she arrived.

She played the long game.

“Scrip?”

They really were only at the start of their decline if they had no scrip.

She looked the man square in the eyes, or as square as she could, at least, as she had to tilt her head to look in most people’s eyes. His were the brown of dark chocolate or coffee and his face was pinched around them like a mouth recoiling at that bitterness.

“You can pay in shillings, or you can pay me in mineral credits rather than bank them. Or you can pay in favours or services: Minikoi Scrip.”

“What happens if someone doesn’t deliver their favours or services?”

Ayşe sighed. Typical rich kid, always looking for an angle, always looking for a way to be the exploiter, not the exploited. Some of them could learn, given time, some of them never did. Out here it wasn’t win or lose. It was collaborate or die. The space between the stars didn’t care about how dry your family’s salt was back on Dünya, or whose homeland won which war before the Leap Into The Stars, or how many credits you could cheat from another rockjack playing dominos. It did not care at all.

“Have you seen any accidents since you’ve been up here?”

She knew he had. The days without an accident counter glowed a healthy ‘17’ above the main concourse. A comforting lie.

“Of course.” He looked like a mule being fed flint.

“Who came to the rescue? Who made sure the victim got their gear back in one piece, nice and clean? Who brought food to the infirmary or sent a letter to the family? We aren’t alone out here, we are together. But you can be alone if you want, it’s as easy as picking hair out of butter.”

“Are you... threatening me?” He sputtered at her. She doubted he’d ever been threatened in his life, not in earnest. She had. She knew what it felt like.

“Don’t turn a flea into a camel, friend. You asked what would happen if you let people down, and I merely pointed out how much you rely on people not letting you down. No threats here. I am happy to take your money, your minerals, or your word. All the same to me.”

He scowled at her, those bitter eyes in a face which would be sweet otherwise.

“Shillings.”

She rang him up, taking his money. 

It was always shillings the first time. Then minerals. Eventually favours. That was the curve of the downwards spiral.

The pigs were waiting for her in their pens. Always hungry, never satisfied.