Chapter 21 In space with a junkyard ship

I had only walked in this crowd a few minutes before a memory flashed in my eyes. For a moment, I was back on Earth before my accident, with my family as we went to a convention. It was mostly fantasy and sci-fi. Right now, where I currently was, kinda reminds me of that time.

The only difference was that back then, it was modified humans who kinda looked like animals, but now there were people around me that looked fully like upright animals, and some who just looked like animals with robotic enhancements. Then of course there were the people who were wearing swords and other melee weapons.

“Lola, you know this reminds me so much of the fantasy and sci-fi conventions back on Earth?”

“Yes, I could see that.”

Seems like she wasn’t that interested in that, but I was. Genetic modification had gotten quite big even before I was born, so cat ears were quite common in some parts of the city. So it wasn’t too hard for my mind to make the leap that this was just a normal place back on Earth, and I shouldn’t be walking around with my mouth slightly open every time I saw some new kind of species.

Currently, I was kind of forcing myself to accept the reality around me, making connections so that things would make sense. What helped the most was that everyone was acting so normal. I do not understand why I expected aliens to act so differently from humans.

Thanks to my AR, I was also able to witness a completely different world from the one without it. Everyone had information about them openly shared whenever you looked at someone for a few seconds.

It displayed usually their name, ID code, what language they spoke—usually that part also had a download link or a URL to the universal translator key of that language. It was like I was playing a VR game.

One thing I wasn’t going to do was download those language packages or even try to search the URL. Who knows what malware those could contain? Some also had a short advertisement for their ship or what services they offered.

There were also people who didn’t have anything listed, and even their ID was hidden. As I continued to walk toward the registration office, I looked up the laws about this ID system.

Turns out that you were allowed to completely hide it without any repercussions because the station's security could still identify you. You couldn't hide it from them, but changing stuff like your name or ID code was incredibly illegal.

Most of the light came from huge light sources on the ceiling that were obviously trying to mimic natural light. The building designs looked a bit alien, but they were similar enough that if you squinted, you couldn’t tell the difference between this and Earth.

As I was walking past what was obviously an open-air café, I was able to confirm that yes—everything that had in it or on it some food or drink also had an AR system listing for what sort of food or drink they had, with all the restrictions and even a molecular breakdown.

There were some things that would be dangerous for me to drink, but mostly everything was colored green making it completely safe for me to consume. The real question was: would they taste good?

It took me about 20 minutes, but finally I made it to the very edge of this arm, where it connected to the rest of the station. This place reminded me of any government office—there were lines and different sections for different things. A lot of people seemed to be waiting in line to complain about something, but there was also quite a long line to register yourself to go into the rest of the station.

It seems like I need to go and stand in that line.

“Lola, I made it to the line. How are the communications holding up?”

“I’m having to use the station's personal communication line extenders. But right now, we can still be in contact with the ship’s and your onboard communication arrays, although the connection would be quite bad.”

“I guess no sensitive information should be talked about. Let’s keep this line currently strictly for needed information.”

“Acknowledged.”

The line moved faster than I expected, but I was using this time to continue to read up on the laws of this place. There were so many, but most of them were just common sense—probably had to be included in the laws because someone was abusing the system in a way not intended to.

Eventually, I made it to the front of the line. The person standing behind it had white skin with quite large bumps like lizard skin. The colouring of it was not exactly white but more of a rock white—it was hard to accurately describe. They seemed to be the most common species around here.

"How can I help you today, sir?"

"Hello, my name is Remi Graves, captain of the Forward Horizon. I would like to fully register so I could go inside the rest of the station."

"Yes, of course. I will get you the paperwork to go through and answer all the questions. Would you like that digitally or physically?"

She obviously confirmed my identity using some sort of wrist device she was wearing that seemed to communicate with the screen that looked like a regular computer display on her desk.

I saw that there was an open digital port I could use to send documents, so I sent everything Lola had filled out to her.

"This should cover everything."

For a moment, she was confused, but then she focused on the display and started to read—most likely what I sent her. It only took her a few moments before she answered.

"Yes, everything seems to be in order. The preparation is appreciated. I will be sending you your next destinations and tasks you would need to complete to finish your registration. Have a good day."

"And a good day to you as well," I said as I was looking over the information she sent.

It seems like I needed to go inside this building now. First stop was the vaccine shot, and then afterwards I needed to go to the offices of the station security. Most likely that's where they would conduct the interview. Hopefully, they won’t ask too many questions that I wouldn’t want to answer.

There was a short line to get the vaccine shot. The doctors, or whoever were giving the shots, were wearing complete protection suits. I wondered why that was. Perhaps it is some sort of uniform for medical personnel. Nice to see that they were still using needles, that means that the technology limitations we found still apply here. Although they did look a bit different from ours in the way they delivered their content.

They were more like IVs connected to a larger device, and I wondered if this was safe. They were wearing full protection suits, so there was no way—even if they were using the same needle over and over again—that it could transfer anything they didn’t want to.

When I sat down and presented my right arm, I finally got a close enough look to confirm that yes, that needle was purified every time after each use as I could not detect anything biological on it. But more interestingly, I wondered what kind of material it was made of to keep it sharp even after thousands of uses—or perhaps there was some sort of limit for uses on one needle.

I realized it was a weird thing to fixate on, but that’s just how my mind worked sometimes. I used my other hand to point to where the main vein was, so they wouldn’t have to use that scanning device to find where to stick the needle in. The one who was doing this seemed utterly professional, but I actually couldn’t see their face, which was a bit off-putting.

It seems that he was a species called Frildil, and when I searched for an image of one on the web, I could understand why they hid their face. They seemed to have what looked like boils all over them, but in fact, it was just natural skin that looked like that. I certainly would have been a lot more hesitant to get treatment from this person if I had seen his face and it looking like he had the plague.

The needle pierced me easily, but that was because that particular location was made in a way that a needle could easily pierce. Now, I wasn’t entirely sure if my skin could hold up to whatever that needle was made out of, but this way we wouldn’t have to find out.

This was also useful for another reason: when the needle was pulled out, none of my blood or DNA was left on it.

DNA protection became quite a serious necessity quite a while ago back on Earth, but I saw no reason why not to use those protection methods even here.

My nanomachines also started reporting that new contaminations were detected, but other than that everything seemed to be fine.

The vaccine shot helped protect against about 800 diseases—each one of them sounded truly horrible.

The next stop wasn’t too far away. This place looked exactly like a mid-sized police station. I got in line, but there were only two people in front of me. It took a bit longer than I expected because the person in front of me and the officer behind the reception table had a bit of a heated argument.

Apparently, she had lost her briefcase or something similar to that and was demanding it be either found or that she be reimbursed. Eventually, some other officers came and guided her further inside the building.

“I apologise about that. How can I help you?” the officer said to me. She looked kinda tiny—definitely in the small species category. She also had fur and a name that I definitely couldn’t pronounce, like most other names I’ve seen.

“Hello, my name is Remy Graves, captain of the Forward Horizon. I’m here to finish up my registration to enter the rest of the station.”

“Oh yes,” she said after she used a similar wrist device to scan me like the receptionist earlier.

“You would need to go through an interview—but not to enter the station. I could already let you through. You know, it's impressive. You've only been here for such a short time, but already there's two major investigations that you're a part of.”

“Two?” I asked, utterly confused. One was most probably the species nation, but what could the other be?

“Yes. The most recent one being a false claim of a species nation made by the Terran Cooperative. The other being a pirate investigation—of a pirate group called the Crivordid Pirates. It seems that you survived one of their traps and even published their fleet composition. That's some good work.”

“Thank you,” I answered. That was probably a bad thing. Hopefully those pirates wouldn't want revenge or something, but knowing my luck, they probably would.

“It says here that your main purpose for a visit here is to become an adventurer. Is that correct?” the officer asked me, and I quickly answered yes.

“This is how we will do it. I will give you permission to enter the station, but I’m scheduling you for an interview six hours from now. That would be plenty of time to get registered. If you miss that time, a warrant will go out for you. Don’t miss it.”

“If you are an adventurer, there would be a lot less bureaucratic nonsense keeping us from doing our job and tying you down with endless paperwork. Would that work for you, sir?”

That actually sounded perfect. I had read up on the adventurer side of things in the bureaucratic landscape, and it seems like adventurers sort of act like their own entities—like nations and organizations—which means that you could have it so there’s no other authority above you. Which seemed to simplify so many things.

“Yes, that sounds perfect.”

She immediately smiled or at least that’s what the AR said she was doing, because what she was actually doing was changing the orientation of her fur on her face. That seemed to be their version of a smile.

In just a minute, she finished filling out some things before she spoke again.

“So everything's in order. In six hours, you need to be back here, preferably a bit sooner. But right now, you will have access to the rest of the station and everything that includes. I’ll send you the pathway that would take you to the closest Adventurer Association's registration compound. I’ll see you in a bit.”

“Thank you,” I said and then started to follow that path.

“Lola, is that actually the closest path?”

“It is, and I have access to the rest of the station web. I will start indexing everything.”

“Good. I don’t want to stay here for too long. We need to get the ship fixed because I have a feeling that we’ve already made some powerful enemies.”

“Acknowledged.”

“That’s just rude to say it like that.”

She didn’t answer back after that. Which made me smile.

It was finally time to get registered as an adventurer and find out what my innate ability actually is—and, of course, the last of my three affinities. As I have no idea what it could be.