Topsoil
Chapter 1: Terra
by Lulucille
Tags:
#cw:noncon
#D/s
#dom:female
#dom:male
#f/f
#pov:bottom
#sub:female
#bondage
#cw:drug_play
#cw:dubious_consent
#cw:kidnapping
#cw:personality_death
#cw:presumed_death
#cw:surgery
#dom:nb
#Human_Domestication_Guide
#humiliation
#petplay
#scifi
Topsoil is a type of soil that aids the growth of fertile plant life. Roots grow thick and strong in topsoil, and without it entire gardens would fail. It doesn’t matter how much dirt you have under the surface- the last little bit of topsoil is the difference between life and death for a budding floret.
————— Terra, 2549 CE —————
Luris gazed through the window pane. Ashy grey soot clumped together, drifting lazily in the wind as it floated to the ground. The larger the clumps the faster they fell. “Smogflakes” they were known as, clumps of soot and pollution so large that they fell from the atmosphere like rain.
The thick haze that permeated Terran air did nothing to dissuade the fear that one may accidentally inhale an entire smogflake while walking down the street. Occasionally the stuff would penetrate your breathing mask and make you cough something fierce.
Luris couldn’t remember a time in her life where the smogflakes didn’t exist somewhere on Terra. Of course there would be clear days with no pollution clouds overhead, days where you didn’t even need to wear a mask to breathe fresh air. But these days those were few and far between, even outside of the overpopulated metropolitan areas.
The idea of a city had been left by the wayside centuries ago. Such massive expansion and urban sprawl had lead to the death of what Terrans once considered a city. Suburbs upon developments upon absorbed satellite cities built uncoordinated and overcrowded urban hubs. Where cities once stood, there was now only a population spike, and historical place names. Everywhere in Terra was either overpopulated or not populated, so much so that Terrans just assumed you were talking about urban areas unless otherwise specified.
The gentle whir of her apartment’s centralised filtration system was unceasing. At this point Luris was used to it, it didn’t even register as a sound anymore. The system ran 24/7. She was lucky to be able to afford one, those who couldn’t inevitably ended up wearing breathing masks inside, which was actually more expensive in the long-run than a simple home filtration unit.
That was the life of a Terran. Can’t afford to live, can’t afford not to. Luris was one of the lucky ones. She had a job that let her have all of her creature comforts. Unrestricted internet access without injected ads. A cozy single occupancy apartment on the 40th floor of a gated building. Access to medical care. The ability to afford safer public transportation.
She was going to miss her charter flight if she didn’t get a move on. Prying herself from the cold embrace of the sight of the region that she called “home”, Luris finally found the drive to grab her go-bag and double check it’s contents:
A week’s worth of clean clothes; toiletries and hygiene products; medication; identification documents; paper travel cards.
In the past she would have carried a mobile phone too, but since signing with Management Centre she had been provided with an implant to carry out those duties for her. The operation had been simple, a small incision into the wrist and a week of medication and bed rest. The implant could be used to send and receive messages, call others, unlock doors, verify oneself, and of course; make payments.
The implant detected the signals used to move the muscles in the hand, then read them like any other electrical signal. Certain hand motions performed inputs on the implant, which could communicate an output through wireless audio or video devices, such as the smart glasses that Luris wore any time she wasn’t asleep.
The notifications were ceaseless, waking her at any and all hours of the day to obey her corporate overlords. “That’s what you get for being salaried” Luris mused to herself, at least she made up for her lost personal time by wasting the hours between client meetings calling her friends. Well, she only ever really called Moleyn, and he only ever really called her, as far as she could tell.
Rousing herself from her train of thought (and instead onto the thought of her train), Luris headed over to the bathroom mirror. Her usual work attire, a simple white button up blouse shirt and plain black cardigan, would more than suffice for the transporter. She wouldn’t be expected to dress up, not upon her immediate arrival.
These management fuckers always wanted her to wear nice clothes and go to work parties with her. Being one of the aforementioned management fuckers, Luris was compelled to join them. It was part of the job:
Get boozed up with clients so that they’ll pick Management Centre for their future work.
Receive pointless emails at 4am Neptune station time while hungover the next morning.
Seethe with fury about Bertha from accounting reheating salmon in the office kitchen, stinking out the entire building.
“Just a day in the life of the marvellous Luris Sharpe, management kingpin of the Terran Accord!” Luris really wished she had an AI announcer to do her dorky introductions for her. She’d definitely get one with an old-timey boxing announcer voice if she could justify the subscription fee, imagining herself facing off in the ring against her manager, who sent her on this stupid Neptunian assignment in the first place.
Heading for the front door and out onto the streets, Luris was hit with a deluge of useless information. Street vendors peddling crap nobody wanted. Obnoxiously bright shops, devoid of customers, selling foreign candy at ridiculous prices- an obvious front for money laundering. Huge billboard advertisements with her personal preferences plastered all over them, one of the bigger flaws of having an implant.
Luris just hoped nobody would talk to her. It was easy enough to ignore strangers on the street, but the people of this city had a nasty habit of trying to start conversations on trains and busses. Some of them wanted to grift or steal or flirt with you, Luris could understand their motivations. They wanted influence, money, power. No, the ones who truly perplexed her were the ones who wanted nothing more than simple conversation. Where Luris was from this would be an absolute faux pas, but she wasn’t there anymore. She had chased money, and money had dragged her around the solar system.
The train was a simple process since getting her implant. She just walk straight on past security, they knew exactly who she was, how many times she’d been searched without event, and even where she was going today. The system automatically calculated her fare and deducted it from her bank account. The efficiency was really something to behold.
For those without implants, lengthy searches were regular. There were those who wished to use transporters to smuggle things that the Terran Accord deemed to be “immoral”, which would be accurate if you conflated morality with company values (which were almost always profits). The real reason that the Accord had integrated security across all public transport wasn’t to make it easier to get to your destination, but to enforce the use of more invasive systems such as implants. Every inch of convenience that they gatekeep through the implants was another inch of profits. Another stake in your life. Another share, another dividend that would pay out.
The trains were expensive. Not in terms of money, but in terms of everything else. That’s the way it was with the Accord.
Today’s flight would be to the outstation at Neptune. Even though her destination was still within the original solar system, the light-craft she would be taking would have to make its first warp jump outside of the solar system first. It was cheaper to fly via another spaceport first than to book directly within interplanetary jump points, despite the massive energy cost of traveling such an order of magnitude further. Something to do with free-space tax laws and the “planet of origin” of the vessel making the trip.
Boarding the shuttle was second nature now. It didn’t even register in her mind that she would be leaving the planet. As Luris began to settle into her routine of sleeping during the 8 hour flight, she thought about her situation. She had spent more time on spacecraft than she had cared to admit, travelling frequently to do management consulting work for various companies. This (unfortunately) included travel to the Neptune outposts, the most venomously boring over-corporatised place in the entire solar system.
Despite being only 23, she’d been doing this for years, even during her time at university. The world was cutthroat, not even “well off” families could afford pointless degrees without working full time throughout their studies.
Luris looked down at her paper travel pass. It stated her full legal name, which she absolutely despised. Unaluris Kaeyra Sharpe. Unaluris was such an old fashioned name, she much preferred her shortened “Luris”. If it wouldn’t have caused such an argument with her Aunt then she would have absolutely chosen a different name, but there were worse names to have- she supposed.
The pass she clutched in her hands was redundant. Her implant handled everything, from planning the trip to sourcing the tickets. Why did Luris continue to carry a vestige of days gone by? It had been centuries since digital passes became mandatory for all transportation, the paper was nothing more than a physical reminder of the date and time of her journey. But something about it made her feel safer. It was a habit she had for as long as she could remember.
Finally, with the pre-flight announcements made, Luris finally let her heavy eyes drop down into heavy languid relaxation. The best part about her job was that space transporters, for whatever stars-forsaken reason, dropped her to sleep like a hypothetical sleeping newborn baby.
With that, she dropped into slumber, oblivious to the danger that awaited herself and her fellow passengers.
————— Eight hours later —————
Amara stared at the display in disbelief. It had been hours since she received the message from the charter company. Despite the words “asteroid collision” and “total loss of life” reverberating throughout her mind, she was still holding onto the idea that her little Unaluris survived.
Her body was a sheet of ice, needles stabbing at her gut every time she engaged her brain. Objectively she knew that nothing survived in the vacuum of space, but Terrans did not easily accept change, and Amara did not believe that Unaluris could be dead.
Despite crying for the better part of the evening, Amara knew she had to start thinking. Moving. Doing. Anything would be better than this. Her mind turned to the logistics of it all.
Even if they were able to locate the scattered debris, the chances of them finding an identifiable body would so slim that they likely wouldn’t even try.
Cost benefit analysis.
That would be the type of test used to justify the lack of search. The company would conclude their investigations by writing off the cost of the transporter and claiming an “Act of the Stars” that could not be predicted.
Her Unaluris was… lost. There was nothing even to lay to rest. Now Amara would have to go wake up Lucia and give her the news that her sister was gone, and they’d never find her. After the girls lost their parents Amara had hoped that nothing of this sort would ever happen to them again, but it would appear that her worst fears had come true.
Amara raised herself from her chair, steeling herself for what she had to do next.
Thanks for reading! This is my first time writing since I left school years ago. It’s been a lot of fun, and I’d love to hear any constructive criticism you’d like to give! I’m mostly writing this for fun, I just hope someone else likes it too :)