Free Ground Zero: Prequel to Numbered Series by Magus Tor

 
 
    GROUND ZERO  
     
     
    Aurelia stood at the window of her bedroom pod,
looking out at City 01 spread beneath her. Each carefully delineated block
housed thousands, all encapsulated in towering, spiral buildings, just like
hers. She knew that every window she saw looked in upon much the same room as
she was in. A bed. A desk. Storage. All carefully moulded into the plastic of the pod,
built in with soft, gentle curves. White. So much white. With a sigh, she wondered how many of those
rooms held someone like her: a soon to be graduate. How many bedroom pods were
home to someone as simultaneously happy and nervous as she was?
    She leant her head against the thick, cold plastic of
the window, letting the coolness bleed into her skin. Then she shivered a
little. Today she was going to become a fully fledged Med Worker. Just like
that. Her training was over, and now... Now she had to save people. Or not. The not saving was a whole lot harder than the
saving. She blinked and swallowed as her mind drifted back. It was only three
days ago that she had been in that room, been alone there with Marnee, and yet
it felt like a lifetime.
    “Can you remember the day we met?” Marnee had asked, clutching
her hand, her voice breathy and words slurred.
    “Definitely,” Aurelia had said, smiling down at her
best friend. “I can see it in my head right now. Sitting in
the auditorium, waiting for the Head of the Medical Institute to address us. Our very first day, and I was terrified. Terrified that someone, somewhere had got everything wrong and I wasn't supposed to be there at all.”
    “They never get it wrong,” Marnee had said, shaking
her head a little. “They don't make mistakes.”
    “No,” Aurelia had said, softly. “No, they don't make
mistakes, do they?”
    Marnee had shifted her head slightly on the pillow,
closing her eyes as if the effort of keeping them open and moving at the same
time was too much. And Aurelia had realised that she was moving into dangerous
territory. So she had gripped Marnee's hand tighter, then brushed the pale blonde hair away from the girl's forehead.
    “I was terrified anyway,” Aurelia had whispered. “But
you were there. Right next to me. Holding my hand just
like you are now.”
    Marnee had given a weak laugh, her green eyes
sparkling a little for a moment. “And it was cold. Just like it is now.”
    Head still against the window, Aurelia felt a tear
trickle down her cheek, tickling her skin. She could skip the ceremony. It
would be frowned upon, but she could. But then she'd promised Marnee that she
wouldn't, that she'd be there, that it would be a celebration. And still, even
if she didn't attend, she'd need to go and pick up her job posting. Find out
where she was supposed to spend the rest of her life.
    “It's time to go, Aurelia,” came her father's voice over the com system.
    She swallowed again, scrubbed her face with her hands,
and straightened up.
    “Coming, dad.”
    For the last time she looked at herself in the mirror
wearing her cadet uniform. The next time she was in here, she'd have a whole
new look. She gave herself a half smile. She'd spent so long dressed as a cadet
that the uniform was more familiar to her than her own skin. A change, she
decided, turning away from the mirror, might be a good thing.

 
    ***

 
    The auditorium was huge. Breathtakingly
huge. Aurelia's eyes widened as she saw just how many people were in
there. Leaving her home that morning, her parents proudly walking her to the
public transport pod, she'd been confident. No, she corrected herself, she'd been scared and confident. A
strange mixture. But she'd felt ready. Ready and sure
that this was the right thing for her. Out of all the specialisations,
Med Worker was the only one that she'd felt drawn to. Her father was Tech, her
mother Chem, but she'd had no interest in either.
    Desperately she scanned her eyes down the aisle,
looking for the number that she had been given. She was about