The woman across the broad metal desk from Marika had a long thin face, a nose so sharp it seemed to search between the air molecules for indiscretions, and a very dubious expression.
“Miss…”
“Stjärnasdotter,” Marika brightly repeated for the third time.
“Precisely,” Ms. Sabine Prothess, the Associate Operations Director of Benefit Intake Flow said, with a twist of her thin lips. “Your case, Miss… is quite unusual.” She made the word ‘unusual’ sound as if it meant ‘putrescent’.
“I didn’t think it was unheard of for fringe-dwellers to claim citizenship.”
“Not at all, not at all… however, they usually arrive on a Federated planet, rather than drifting into a shipping lane, and they generally are of an age of majority.”
“I am of an age of majority!”
“The age of majority, Miss, is 17.”
“Yours may very well be, but I’m quite major at 14. And you didn’t say ‘of the age of majority’, you said ‘of an age of majority’. Among my people, that age is 14. I’m of it.”
The AODBIF’s face seemed to get thinner to provide the material for her eyes to bulge in incredulity. “If you wish to avail yourself of the rights and privileges of citizenship, you are undertaking certain duties and constraints. Attempting to flout the Federated Systems’ rules and regulations is hardly a fitting first step!”
“Oh, I’m not flouting at all,” Marika said, with the same inpenetrable brightness. “It’s just that I’m an adult. I left my family and I can’t go back—it’s our custom! Even if I told you how to contact my parents, they wouldn’t take me back, because I’m not their responsibility. I’m mine.”
“Even leaving that aside for the moment,” Ms. Prothess sighed, “You can’t prove your age. Where were you born again?”
“On a ship. I belong to a nomadic people.”
“Just so. There’s no record of any Slarnas…Starass…of your family name anywhere in the Fedbanks.”
“Oh, I made it up.” At the AODBIF’s appalled silence, Marika continued, “We don’t have last names among my people, but the nice young man with the form-term said I needed one.”
“So you waltz in here…or drift, rather! Without a name, without proof of your birth — which you claim occurred on an undocumented transport — underage, and want full citizenship.”
“That’s right.”
“It can’t be done, Miss Sternersdachtyl. Our age requirements are quite strict. Anyone can undertake citizenship, provided they’re of age.”
“Anyone from any culture.”
“Of course! The Federated Systems pride themselves on their polycultural sensitivity and do not deny citizenship based on race, ethnicity, religion, creed, culture, custom, breeding practices, gravitational or other adaptation, or history of anthropophagy*. *Provided no future incidents occur.” She looked rather smug as she rattled off this dictum.
“But…I can’t be a citizen because in my subgroup, adulthood begins at a different time.” Ms. Prothess deflated and blanched, and Marika slid off her chair. “Very well, I suppose my business isn’t with your division any longer. The Office of Polycultural Equity Judication and Investigation is one floor down, isn’t it?”
The AODBIF’s face lengthened by the span of one dropping jaw, and Marika shrugged on her pack and reclaimed Pakriti from a large potted plant he’d been scaling in the corner. “You’ll be hearing from us again soon. Thank you for your time!”
Marika had already opened the soundproof panel in the frosted glass wall, and the sounds of the office without bubbled in as the woman gasped softly, “Not the OPEJIs, please! I’ll lose my job! Come back!”
Marika turned, and smiled pleasantly as the panel shut out the world once more and the ashen woman’s fingers flew over her terminal screen. “I can do a Specially Dispensed Accelerated Citizenship Form, and push an expedite… I’m sorry to ask, sweetheart, but could you spell your name, please? Yes, and…date of birth we have, skip those fields, yes, yes, full privileges, yes…” she looked up with a sickly imitation of a smile, “and you wanted to enroll in a resident school, you said?”
“Oh yes, ma’am.”
“Call me Sabine, dear,” she crooned. “Now, which school did you have your eye on? I can enroll you with the citizenship form, which should save you several weeks’ wait on your school ID.”
“Junior Space Academy, Sabine.” Marika reclined dangerously in the tasteful slate office chair. “I want to be a Fed.”
Comments
But, but, but
I’m starting to understand how readers of old saw Dickens unfold stories in Serials…
Don’t you understand this is an instant gratification society? I keep refreshing the page, why aren’t you feeding me Part 5 yet? I’m hungry here, where’s the rest?
-Novel
Re: But, but, but
Ah, you mean that your experience of waiting for Part 4 was as long as an American reader’s wait for a new Dickens serial to be written, printed, AND brought across the Atlantic? Four months and five days…you might have a point!
Sadly, I am paid to do Other Things. If anyone wishes to pay me to produce fiction (I’d like health insurance too, and I’d love half-price footwear but I can do without in a pinch) I’m more than willing :)
I’ll see if I can rustle up some time to write another installment tonight and post it tomorrow. I’ve got a busy schedule, what with scrubbing my bathtub, paying some bills and possibly cutting out some curtain fabric, but I’ll see what I can do. Flattery will get you far with me.
Re: But, but, but
Yeah! & put in some spontaneous combustion so it’s like a real Dickens novel. Well, this portion of the peanut gallery would certainly like some more up and coming updates (as well as general amnesty for this sentence). I fear for the next chapter ‘cause I don’t want it to get weighed down in schooly stuff, but I wants it much & much.
Re: But, but, but
Dude, that’s only in ONE Dickens novel.
And I must admit that the reason I did not come up with a Part 5 as yet was a desire to make school not boring. An uncertainty as to the best tack to tackle.