Chapter 6

The corridor widened to allow people to be funneled through several work stations. Since she was obviously not a resident, or even a legal alien, a pun that didn’t slip by her, there was no use in even trying those lines. Instead, she chose the line for tourists, which moved about as slow as any line she had ever been in back on Earth. Perhaps, she thought, some things were universal. Whatever line you happened to be in would be the line that moved the slowest. She took the time to observe her surroundings, and examined the process the tourists and custom officials were engaged in. When her turn came, she emulated it nicely. Enedelia pulled out her fake ID which she had used to get into bars in Dallas before her mother had so rudely moved her out to the country. She handed the ID to the Custom Official.

Lights and bells began going off before the agent even began scrutinizing the card. Guards came out of nowhere and surrounded the station blocking any escape for her. They brandished weapons at ready and it was obvious to her they would be happy to use them if she made even the slightest wrong move.

The Custom Official handed the fake ID to the chief guard. The chief guard took it without examining it, and turned to Endelia. “Do you understand G-basic?”

“Um, yes,” Enedelia squeaked.

“Follow me,” the guard said. It was an order, an order he expected to be followed. He pivoted on his feet and marched off, never looking back to see if she would comply. It wasn’t as if he had given her a choice. All the guards moved in unison with their leader, without taking eyes off her, and had she not followed the chief guard, they would have walked over her, or picked her up and carried her. Since she was not inclined to be touched, much less be carried kicking and screaming, she fell into stride quickly.

Enedelia was brought to an isolation room. Four of her escorts took up positions inside the room, standing at attention. Two others took up positions just outside the door, while the remaining continued down the corridor. The chief guard stood facing her, staring at her as if she were a common criminal.

“Is it about the ID, because I can explain,” Enedelia began.

The chief guard didn’t respond. Enedelia stopped her rambling when another entity entered. The creature appeared human only in the fact that he had two arms and two legs. He was much shorter than her and had a bluish skin tone, one eyebrow, and a flattened nose. Except for the blue skin, he might have resembled an Oompa Loompa from the original Chocolate Factory movie. He took the ID from the chief guard, examined it, and then examined her.

“You are Maria Gonzales?” he asked, presently.

“Um, well, no, not exactly,” Enedelia answered.

He looked up at her, pushing his glasses back into place, making his eyes look even bigger. “Explain not exactly. This is your picture, no?” he said, showing her the ID card. “Are you a clone?”

“No! I’m not a clone, and yes that is my picture,” she said. She couldn’t deny that much. “You see, Maria is my alias.”

“You are a spy?” he asked, the middle of his eyebrow dipping.

“No!” Enedelia said, her voice squeaking. “I mean, no. I used this to get into dance clubs that have age requirements. See, I’m from Earth, and we have this little custom...”

“I know where you’re from,” the blue man said.

“You do?” she asked.

“Of course,” he said. “We’ve scanned your body and found traces of radioactive strontium-90, a waste by-product of nuclear power plants. Since there are only six known planets still using such an archaic energy generating device, and three of those planets didn’t evolve humanoids, that means you could have only come from Earth. This ID, of course, helped narrow it down to Earth, specifically the Dallas Fort Worth area. Besides these radioactive particles in your body, there are also elements that reflect other aspects of your specific region where you have been living. For example, judging by some of these trace chemicals, I suspect your planet is still burning fossil fuels. There are traces of lead in your body, as well as mercury, and higher concentrations of particular trace elements than should be normal. Though none of these contaminants are pushing the threshold of toxicity, they provide a clear signature, a finger print of you will, of where and when you come from. Still, you’d be a lot healthier without the led, mercury, plastic, and Teflon in your system. I bet they even put fluoride in your drinking water and MSG in your foods. I also suspect, though you aren’t personally a smoker, or drug user, you do associate with people that do drugs. Yeah, it all gets into your system and leaves the tell tale signs. We can read you like a book. And we haven’t even begun discussing your personal genetics, yet, which is a whole other story.”

Enedelia blinked.

“But, that’s not why we pulled you aside,” the blue man said.

“I got radioactive particles in me?” Enedelia asked, still taking it all in. “And mercury?” She had heard that pregnant women shouldn’t eat tuna because of the chances of mercury affecting the fetus, and she had even heard of a debate of mercury being used in child immunizations but she didn’t think she was contaminated. “I feel fine,” she tried to assure herself. And lead? “Lead?”

“Do you really think your society could use leaded fuels without there being any contamination issues? No doubt the strips of land near your highways are saturated with lead! I even bet your society still hasn’t replaced all the lead pipes in your water delivery systems,” the blue man rambled on. “And to imagine your species thinks itself civilized. How long have you known that lead was dangerous? Since the Roman era? You damn, cave dwelling, mountain Hill Billie’s are still probably throwing rocks at the moon thinking the world is about to end.”

Enedelia was about to argue the point, but then remembered a water fountain at her new school. Near the drain, right where you would look should you bend over to fetch a drink, was a little silver sticker that said, “this fountain is guaranteed to be lead free.” Why would they put that sticker on the fountain if there wasn’t still a lead pipe issue? Her tendency towards paranoia and conspiracy gained a little weight.

“You’re whole planet is a toxic dump,” the blue man rambled. “You wild humans are simply disgusting. Releasing ungodly amounts of known bio-posions, and tons of other chemicals I couldn’t even begin to pronounce, into your biosphere without a thought of the repercussions. It’s amazing anything is still alive on your planet. It just goes to show you how tenacious life can be once it has a foot hold. But don’t distract me from my purpose. Hand me your bag.”

Enedelia handed him the bag without thought of resisting. As the blue man took her backpack, a table slid from the wall as if the room had anticipated he would need it. He opened the bag and dumped the contents onto the table. He shook his head in dismay.

“It’s even worse than I imagined. It’s bad enough you dump raw waste into the open environment, but you have to consume this garbage? Processed foods! Not a bite of nutrition anywhere to be found in this entire pack. And just who were you bringing this stuff to?” the blue man asked.

“It’s mine,” she said.

“You expect me to believe that you were going to consume all of this?” the blue man demanded, waving his hand over the chocolate. He picked up the bottle of coke and approached her, pointing it at her. “Just the caffeine in this bottle alone is sufficient grounds for me to have you locked away for the rest of your life.”

“Caffeine is an illegal substance?” Enedelia asked.

“Caffeine is the most nefarious, insidious substance in the known galaxy!” the blue man said. “Do you realize what would happen if a clone were to consume even a fraction of this? Do you? No! And you don’t want to know.”

“I’m sorry,” Enedelia pleaded. “I didn’t know the stuff was bad.”

“How could you? No doubt your entire, so called, free education was sponsored by this crap,” the blue man said, beginning to pace. “I know your backwards planet all too well. I’ve seen it all a million times, right before you’re annexed into the Republic, we have to go in and repair all the damages for you wild, uncivilized creatures committed, wasting precious resources that would be better spent on our own kind. I bet you even consume processed foods made from mostly corn syrup. You probably even drink cow’s milk and your society wonders why it has an epidemic of obesity?!”

“Well…” Enedelia began.

“Don’t say it. I don’t want to hear it,” he said, walking right back up to her. “By law, I’m forced to overlook this first infraction, partly based on your ignorance, but mostly because this stuff is currently legal on Earth. Again, based on the trace elements, we have confirmed that you indeed hail from this primitive, backwards world. According to the language virus that you’ve assimilated, this is your first visit to any place civilized, so I am going to let you go with just a warning. But mind you, I got your DNA mapped, your fingers printed, retinas scanned, your body ran through every biometric calculator you can think of plus one, and used every other sort of identifying, non evasive technology we have. If I catch you carrying this garbage in my city again, I will have your hide. You understand me? And don’t try that caffeine free crap on me either. There’s enough caffeine in one cup of caffeine free tea to put you away for sixty years. You got me?”

“Yes, Sir,” Enedelia said. There was caffeine in caffeine free products? Did that mean that there was no way to get a hundred percent of the caffeine out of a product? If so, why do the corporations market it as caffeine free? Why don’t they call it reduced caffeine instead? No doubt, it was all about money, and trying to fool the consumer.

“Your profile has been updated into our system, which can and will be accessed by others in the Republic agencies, so ignorance of this specific law will not get you off so easy next time. In fact, you should know, carrying caffeinated products into some planetary systems could catch you a death sentence. Do you understand this?”

“Isn’t that a bit extreme?” Enedelia asked.

The blue man stepped in so close to her she could smell his breath. His breath alone was enough to have her regretting the question, much less his looks and the loudness of his voice. “We take addictive substances very seriously in our Republic. Any substance with an addictive potential that is not utilized by your body or created by your body for its continued biological function will most likely be considered contraband. So why risk it? It is for the good of all society that its members remain drug free.”

Enedelia simply nodded and waited a moment after he resumed pacing to take in a breath of untainted air. He really did smell awful, and it wasn’t just his breath! His shirt had dark patches indicating sweat.

The blue man turned to the table and began throwing the non-addictive stuff back into the pack. Which meant the only thing she had left was her cameras and the bottled water. He handed this back to her. The remaining stuff disappeared into the wall as the table retracted, leaving a perfectly seamless wall once again.

“I recommend trading in your plastic bottles for unbreakable glass bottles. You’re free to go,” the blue man said. “I’ll be watching you closely. Behave yourself.”

“I will. Thank you,” Enedelia said.

Enedelia hadn’t noticed the door had slid open once more. She was still staring at the wall where most of her stuff had disappeared. “So, what are you waiting for? Get out of here,” the blue man waved.