The Desert: Part 2

  Utopia

  It was still hot when Lucy left the mercantile. For a moment when she stepped out of the relative cool of the building her aching joints felt just a little better.

  Old age is not for the faint of heart. The thought made her smile for a moment. But only for a moment. The sun was going down and soon the less savory element of the city would show itself.

  Utopia City was a misnomer in almost every sense. First: it was not a city, it was barely a town. Situated on the edge of a vast desert and the rugged hills that were being mined for a rather pathetic amount of coaxium fuel of even more pathetic quality. Second: while a utopia implies a perfect setting for a perfect society, this Utopia was gritty, dirty, and the residents were more like slaves than actual citizens. Most of them toiled away their days for only enough compensation to pay rent back to the company that employed them. The rest went to buy the food and pay for the entertainment provided by that same company.

  Lucy turned down the street and headed past the saloon toward her home on the outskirts of town. She passed three Ugnaughts: Vilnius, Miska, and Utena who were going into the saloon. They grunted a familiar porcine salutation and passed into the shabby building.

  In truth the whole town was shabby. The Ugnaught group —there were about a dozen in town— did their best to keep up the maintenance but even as conscientious as they were, they could only do so much. They also provided maintenance services to the mine and that occupied the majority of their time.

  Lucy offered a greeting of her own before they disappeared and she proceeded on her way.

  At the end of the street was the sheriff's office. Kiro, the deputy, was standing outside. He wore the typical tan colored, loose fitting uniform of a law enforcement officer, his blaster hanging conspicuously off his right hip. He wore a wide brimmed hat to ward off the sun and a pair of black tinted goggles to keep the blowing dust out of his eyes. The threadbare sarape he wore flapped slightly in the warm breeze. As Lucy approached he took the toothpick he’d been chewing from his mouth and flicked it into the street. He touched the brim of his hat, “Ma’am.”

  Lucy nodded a greeting. She’d known most of the younger people in the town since they were children and Kiro was no exception. She actually harbored a secret pride in this young man. Many years earlier, when he was a mere boy, she’d caught him shoplifting a handful of candy from the mercantile. The stern lecture she’d given and the expression of disappointment she’d worn must have had an effect given the strait laced officer of the law now in front of her. Some of the townsfolk thought him slow mentally but Lucy was sure he was just reserved. “How are you, Kiro?” Lucy inquired with a motherly inflection to her voice.

  “Just fine, ma’am. You?” was the reply.

  Lucy smiled, “I’m well.”

  “Good to hear. Have a nice evening, ma’am.” He ended nearly every sentence with ‘Ma’am or Sir’.

  “You too.”

  Lucy continued on her way. She passed the last business on the street, the doctor’s office. Doc Mason was locking his door as she did. Must be the end of a long day for him, she thought.

  Most of the time the Doc closed up around midday and spent the afternoon in the saloon drinking with the clientele or —more often than not— by himself until the night crowd came in.

  Utopia had been without a physician for as long as Lucy could remember when Doc Mason showed up two or three years earlier. His background was a bit shady as far as she was concerned but he had somehow managed to ingratiate himself to the Colonel.

  The rumors about the medical man ran the gamut from the Doc saving the Colonel’s life at some point to them just being drinking buddies but Lucy wasn’t so sure. She thought there was something else entirely that made the Colonel tolerant of the Doc’s obvious drinking problem and questionable medical competence. Since the Colonel was basically the mayor of Utopia in practice, if not in actual title, that gave the Doc some legitimacy, at least in the minds of some. Lucy was not among them. She had resolved to travel to the next village if she ever needed medical attention. They apparently had a Twi'lek herbalist there who was quite good at her craft.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Doc Mason turned from his door and, taking notice of Lucy, offered a “Hello there!” that seemed a little too enthusiastic. From his blood shot eyes and acrid breath Lucy could tell that seeing a few patients in the afternoon had not stopped the Doc from his usual indulgence.

  Lucy may not like or even trust the Doc but she was still polite. “Good evening, Doc.”

  Doc Mason smiled wider. “Have you been well?”

  “I have, thanks for asking.” She replied. Even if she had been dying of a plague Lucy doubted that her answer would have been different. She continued on her way with a quickness in her step. She had no interest in a prolonged conversation.

  Lucy headed to the outskirts. She lived in the last cluster of three buildings on the edge of the desert. The dilapidated buildings were arranged in a U shape with Lucy’s apartment being in the right hand end of the middle building. It was marked with a number five. The building itself was at the base of an embankment that was at least twice the height of the roof. Beyond the embankment was the desert.

  Her apartment was a single room in line with the other four. There was a door but no windows. It was quite hot and stuffy inside despite a small air conditioning unit that barely attempted to make the space livable. Lucy only had a single bed and there was a tiny area where she had fashioned a tiny kitchen of sorts.

  Instead of going inside immediately, Lucy made her way around the end of the building. She maintained a small garden in the space between the building and the embankment where she grew some peppers and an indigenous type of corn that seemed to do very well in the heat with little moisture.

  She drew a small portion of water into an old, dented can from a spigot at the back corner of the building. She had to be careful with how much she used. If the landlord noticed what he considered excessive water usage he could increase her rent and she could barely afford what she was paying now.

  Lucy lovingly tended to her plants. The corn stalks were short, only coming up to her chin, and the corn itself would not be ready for many more weeks. She poured the water and removed the sickly, yellow weeds. A couple of the peppers were ripe and she carefully picked them, dropping them in the now empty water can.

  Lucy stood up and leaned backwards, stretching. That’s when she saw the stranger at the top of the embankment.

  The stranger was dressed in the style of the desert nomadic tribes but he wore a hooded traveling cloak usually favored by some offworlders. His face was sunburned and dry, crusted sand clung to his eyes and scabbed, cracked lips. His breathing was heavy and not regular. An empty water flask slipped from his grip and clattered to the base of the embankment. A moment later the stranger’s strength appeared to fail and he also tumbled down the embankment.

  Lucy gasped. A fall like that could be lethal. She raced to the now crumpled, unconscious form. Once at his side she was relieved that he was still alive but he was so dry she suspected he’d become severely, dangerously dehydrated.

  With some effort Lucy was able to drag the stranger around the building. When she got there she called out for their community’s protocol droid, “VP! VP16!”

  The droid ambled out of one of the apartments where he was helping cook a meal for one of Lucy’s neighbors. He saw Lucy with the unconscious stranger and exclaimed, “Oh my!”

  VP16 had originally been assigned to the mines but a few years earlier he’d been replaced with a newer model. VP was stripped of his power cell and dumped without ceremony on the nearest scrap heap. That was where Lucy found him. She had enlisted the help of a couple of her neighbors who helped to drag the nonfunctional droid to their little community. A power cell scavenged from a wrecked speeder brought him back to life and he’d served the little community ever since.

  VP lifted the stranger with little apparent effort and carried him into Lucy’s apartment. He placed the unconscious man onto the bed at her direction.

  Lucy retrieved a cup and filled it with water. She cradled the stranger's head and poured a bit into his mouth. There was a moment when Lucy thought he was gone but then he sputtered and did swallow a tiny bit. She pressed the cup to his mouth again and he drank.

  “Slowly,” she admonished. She let him have some more. Then she took a rag moistened with the water from the cup and wiped the sand from his face. He seemed to relax a bit.

  She looked up at VP who was standing just behind her. “Will you please get me the medical kit?”

  “Yes, indeed,” the droid replied and left to get it.

  She gave the stranger more water and then slipped the cloak off his shoulders. She used some water to cool the stranger and continued to give sips of water but he did not fully regain consciousness. Finally, he appeared to be resting fitfully.

  Lucy pulled a thin blanket over the stranger at last, noticing the silver cylinder in his pocket. She lifted it out of the pocket, turning it over in her hands.