The ships breach the atmosphere of Nuremberg rather easily; it almost seemed as if there was no resistance at all in this part of it. The cloud banks gave way to a vista of a windswept and rain soaked landmass, the most noticeable part of which was a city in the distance towards which Maren seemed to be headed. She lands on a sky-scrapers roof, a second pad ready for Moebus' ship. As you land, you can see Maren already jumping out of her vessel, eagerly, as if in a hurry.
Dankien gets out of his ship. taking a long breath
D: “yeah it smells different from the artificial air on stations, but I am not surprised, so what do you want we do first?”
Maren, who has a tiny hand bag slung around her shoulders, approaches, smiling broadly.
M: "Well, I've herded us here, which is basically opposite of where the hospital and the house of my parents is located. This way, we have to travel around this city, Nordgau it is called, and experience the local climate a bit. We will also pass some sort of garden, which is in the city centre, where you can take some soil samples of urban soil."
She stretches, a clinking sounding from her bag.
"So, are you up for a Stoll? Don't worry, I'll pay tickets."
D: "Ok, I'll take a bag with some bottles for the samples. I will need my GPS to precisely locate the samples of water and ground. I suppose they accept sirius credits, no need to pay for me then."
M: "Aw, how kind of you."
Maren waits patiently for Dankien to gather his stuff before beckoning him to follow. They leave the landing pads and enter the building proper. Maren nods to a man behind the door, who appears to have been waiting there, muttering something inaudibly on Rheinlandish, before continuing. They enter an elevator and on their way down from the one hundred and seventy sixth story, they can see the entirety of the city before them through the glass. Industrial complexes in the distance blow dust into the air; almost seeming like little volcanoes from the distance. The middle of the city seemed to consist completely of tall buildings between which were spaces of several dozen metres that seemed like gaping ravines. Vehicles flitted to and fro, giving the city a bustling appearance that seemed to mesh strangely with the ever present smoke that seemed to dominate the air. The further they went down, the less sunlight reaches them, until only the artificial lights of the elevator casts their shine upon them.
"What do you think? First impressions are the most important, they say."
D: "well, when you don't know the situation, it seems like a crowdy industrial city. Of course, I can see now better the pollution in the air. Unfortunately, it is now pretty common that we destroy the environment on planet or even in space. And now that we are in the shadow and dust, it becomes seriously oppressing... Not so long ago I was on planet Erie, in a remote location... That was totally different. A natural lake into the country with almost no trace of humans.
“I don't think we can solve the global environmental problem here. I would require a total change of the society. However, if we can solve the dark matter issue it will still be a great achievement. So, tell me. The government is aware of the situation, but why does it do nothing?”
They reach the lowest level and a satisfying 'ding' sound can be heard as the doors slide open to reveal a spacious atrium of what appears to be a hotel. The guests, strangely enough, completely ignore either of them, either due to pride and unwillingness to associate outside of their own circles or something else...
M: "Oh, of course they know." She rolls her eyes. "Can't really ignore this, as it is affecting the whole system. Never you worry about Daumann, though: there's Aluminium to be mined in Munich, so they'll only leave when that's gone."
Maren beckons for Dankien to follow her out of the hotel, onto the street.
D:"I imagine the government cares more about the natural resources than to the people, but I cannot believe natural resources on Planet Nuremberg are already depleted. So the government still need people to extract it. Or... they intend to replace human by machines?
M: "Well, no, I don't think Nuremberg natural resources are depleted. Most of the mining operations are performed in space, though. Nuremberg's biggest exports consist of military apparel. Most people that still live here are in some way affiliated with Republican, who lead the production of these on Nuremberg."
They leave the hotel, treading onto the street. The first thing which really seems unsettling was that there was absolutely no sunlight down here. The streets were illuminated by streetlights and the ever present neon facades of shops, bars and other, seedier establishments that reside here. It is immediately obvious that this is actually a nicer part of town, as the people here are well clothed and mostly walk in pairs, speaking quietly with each other. They start to walk down the street.
"The biggest problem is the criminality. I've lived here first hand and it is not pretty living in some parts. This one here," she gestures around herself, "is, as you may have guessed, actually wealthy. The disparity is due to the fact that, well, poor people can't pay the prices here. Salaries are low. Yes, most of the processes are done by machines and thus many land on the streets. Almost happened with me, actually."
You approach a strange apparatus, with the letter T on it. Maren holds her hand before it and it begins glowing green.
"Rheinland simply has no money to do anything about the dark matter. Since the war with the GMG, they never really had."
D: "I suppose the situation is getting worst slowly and certainly with the richest people leaving. The concentration of poor people and criminality could cause a violent crisis soon or later. We should really work on that."
Maren looks at Dankien skeptically. "You are welcome to try. I'm afraid it's not that easy."
A vehicle approaches the site where Dankien and Maren stand. Huh, the curious apparatus seemed to have called it. They both enter and Maren instructs the driver to take them on the way that would take them around this part of the city most towards the garden in the centre.
"The thing is simply that people without any means will resort to violence. The Federal Police has problems even responding to all the things that happen during the night. They catch many, but can't jail them all because jails are simply full. Police has to let them go again, because they can't present them to a judge to convict them."
D: “I know the task is incredible. What I mean is we could focus on poor people to help them to have a better life here so they won't become criminals. And at the same time, we could relocate some of them in a better place where they would find a job. Freeports are always welcoming new citizen. And I think there are still a lot of places in Planet Gran Canaria that could accept refugees”
Maren looks ponderous, hugging her bag against her chest, as the vehicle takes them all through the air. The gloom underneath gives way to some natural light again and with increased height, it is possible to take good looks at the edifices around themselves. Most seemed to be fine, though colourless and mass produced, many of them, though, were in varying states of disrepair.
"We would need resources... get ourselves friends with bleeding hearts and pockets that bleed money into our hands. The Rheinland government hasn't done anything, but maybe it can be provoked into having to act if the problems on Nuremberg become too glaring for the other houses to disregard. This is all fancy talk, though. Theoretical. What counts for now is the reality."
The vehicle descends again, though this time, the buildings do not blot out the sun light. The garden appears to be several kilometres in diameter, almost like a green heart of the city. Meadows upon which children play can be seen and even a small forest.
Maren pays the pilot and Dankien and she leave the vehicle, approaching the garden/park.
D: "that is a complex problem indeed. Of course we will prepare a report to officially inform the government about the situation. As I said before, we can't' really expect they will follow the recommendations we will propose. Well maybe there is one that could be accepted: we could relocate criminals from prisons to zoner places where they would start a new life.
However, in a second time, we could inform the media of Sirius, including independent ones. This could make an additional pressure on the government to take action"
M: "It might."
They enter a small walkway that leads deeper into the garden. It appears to be a rather popular picnic site, with the rather wild growing grass on either side, almost tall enough to completely hide some of the smaller children who played therein.
"I would suggest maybe arranging a meeting with the Bundschuh. They're rather interested in Nuremberg and might be able to lend you help." Maren stops and looks at Dankien lopsidedly. "That is, if you can bear maybe being found out. The welfare of people surely has a higher priority than your relation to Rheinland, right?"
Dankien smiles: "you know, we zoners, are officially neutral with everybody. This means we deal with everybody. Regarding what we do with Bundschuh, the government does not need to know about it.Moreover I've some admiration for the Bundschuh, their objective seems very fair. They already have my sympathy."
Maren smirks triumphantly. "Wonderful. The more the merrier, I'd say. Didn't you want to—" whatever Maren was about to say, she got interrupted by a scream some ways off
"Thief!"
A hooded man can be seen running away from a couple seated on a park bench some ways ahead. He is running down the walkway, straight towards Dankien and Maren, apparently intending to ramm them aside. Maren shrieks, jumping to the side.
Dankien instinctively jumps on the side to free the way and get ready to protect himself.
The thief evidently has no interest in either Dankien or Maren, who's tripped and fallen to her knees, spilling the content of her bag on the ground.
"No, no, no..." She begins collecting the contents of her bag again; Dankien can see something purple that Maren seems almost desperate to hide from his eyes.
Meanwhile the thief got away.
Immediately, Dankien helps Marren to collect her things. He notes the purple vial that she is trying to hide but don't say anything. "Are you alright?"
Maren responds shakily: "I'm alright. I'm alright."
The couple from the bench approaches the two, a man and a woman, both apparently in a relationship, judging by the way the man comforted the woman.
"Are you hurt?" the man asks Maren, who looks up to him, shaking her head. "Thank god. That could've gone worse."
The woman, with shaking voice, speaks: "He's only stolen a neckless made of false pearls anyways. It was just... harrowing, having him tug at my neck like this." She rubs some red spots on her neck; the thief has apparently just grabbed the necklace and torn it off, with no regard for the woman's safety. "May I ask who you are?"
D: "I am Dankien Moebus, I am an outlander. Maren, was just explaining me the situation here, and the criminality problem. I did not expect a such direct demonstration. Hopefully, it was more scary than really hurting this time. Does it happen often?
They all share handshakes in greeting, in true Rheinland manner. The woman replies: "Astrid, my name. No, usually not. It's... mostly during the night and you can lock your door when that happens."
The man sneers. "To do this in front of the children here. Truly a disgrace. Wolfgang. Pleased to meet you, Dankien, Maren."
Maren turns to Dankien and mouths the word "samples" to him, smiling encouragingly.
D: "Pleased to meet you too, Maybe I should explain the reason of my presence here. I have founded an aid organization. And we have various project across Sirius to help civilians.
Maren contacted us about the situation on Planet Nuremberg. The problem with dark matter, the rate of criminality, the social imbalance, the inaction of the government. So we've decided to visit the planet to prepare a sanitary report addressed to the government that would scientifically state the situation and possibly provide solutions. Concretely I am here today to collect samples that will be analysed in our laboratory. Maybe you would like to participate?”
The two seem rather flashed by the amount of information that they just heard, but they nevertheless agree to help, asking what they need to do.
D:“well, if you know very polluted area where I could collect ground and water samples it would be a good start. Then I am also interested in biological samples, I don't know if there is safe place where we could go, but if you could provide me some piece of nails or hairs and ideally some urine and blood that would be awesome.”
The couple, though weirded out by the requests, invites Maren and Dankien to their home for a drink, if they wanted to. All four backtracked to the taxi station and Wolfgang called one. The ride didn't take long and soon the vehicle came to a halt in front of a rather spacious manor outside of the city.
"Our home," stated Wolfgang rather superfluously. "We own some shares of the local production in this city, thus we are not actually needed there for work."
Maren looks at Dankien, frowning. "He's a shareholder?" she whispers angrily as they all approach the building, where a suit wearing man waits and takes away Wolfgang's jacket. He leads the group into a quite spacious living room, completely decorated in a stylish woodwork, which gave the room a rustic charm.
Astrid was the first to speak. "Please, sit down. Would you like anything to drink? There's this root which makes for a rather pleasant tea. It's indigenous to Nuremberg and we grow it ourselves in our garden."
Dankien nodes at Maren when she whispers to him "I am afraid yes, but I won't judge them".
Then Dankien and Maren go to the place with the couple. Before entering their home, Dankien ask the authorization to collect some group sample in the garden. While the couple agrees, Dankien pulls out a little shovel and a small bottle. He proceed carefully to the sampling, digging a small hole in a part of the garden not directly visible from the street or the path to the building. He also takes the opportunity to collect a mushroom and some other vegetables. Once inside the building: "That is very kind of you to welcome in your home. This root mixture sounds very good to me"
Maren declines any offered drink as respectfully as she can, her dislike for these people visible, yet not to a degree where it would be insulting. They all settle down in the living room.
Maren, hugging her bag to her chest, inquires as to their willingness to donate blood and fluid samples for the cause, to which they somewhat reluctantly agree. Maren withdraws a syringe from her bag, a tissue soaked in alcohol and begins cleaning Astrid's arm before withdrawing a small amount of blood from her. She repeats the process with Wolfgang. With that done, Maren gives the syringes to Dankien and asks if he could give them some sort of container for the fluid samples. She seems extremely eager to leave.
D: "sure. here is the refrigerated bottle (pulling out the thermo bottle from his bag, he open the bottle which is actually more like a thermally-isolated box than a bottle). Dankiens has noted the signs from Maren and finally declined the drink: "this is really great you contribute to this research. We will submit our report to the Rheinland government as soon as possible, it should be public, but if not you may still be interested to read it. If yes, leave your contact information. For now, I forget we have to move quickly to another site where we are expected soon, so we won't have time for a drink"
The couple vanishes to provide the samples. After they return, Maren inquires about the Nordgau hospital.
"That one? It is still there, though it will close soon. Something about lack of funding and nobody is willing to buy it," replies Astrid, who busied herself in the kitchen next door.
Maren raises an eyebrow. "What? They're closing a hospital? That's madness!"
Wolfgang just smiles sadly. "We agree, though where there's no money, there's no way." He hands over the samples to Maren, who hands them over to Dankien.
Maren thanks the two and turns to the door, waiting for Dankien to finish.
D: “This is sad news indeed. For now I don't know what we could do.”
M: "Well, it's still open, isn't it?" calls Maren from the door. "So, we can still go there. It's also not like it's the only hospital in this city, it's just the only one I know people in."
D: “Sure, let's go there, we will see. Also, we could ask the employees if they know more about the needed income”
Excusing themselves, Dankien and Maren leave, calling another taxi.
"Well, I guess we don't need to visit my parents with parts of them in our bags," said Maren sardonically as they waited.
"I just hope this guy gets here fast, I really need to pee and I didn't want to ask these fat cats for anything more than was necessary."
D: “Actually they seem gentle, maybe we could succeed to convince them to support our project.”
M: "You're welcome to try, but I know evil when I see it. They are the problem, Dankien."
The taxi arrives and they get in. Maren tells the pilot where to go briefly.
"They might be irradiated just like everyone else down here, but they leech off of the working population so they can live their comfortable lives outside the city. People get stabbed for a loaf of bread, goddamnit, and they just sit there!"
Dankiens sits in the taxi.
Maybe I am just too optimistic about the nature of human beings. I don't believe people are truly evil. From what I've seen so far, it is more that people are not well informed. However, it is true that people tend to be selfish and do not really try to be informed about the consequences of their actions
Maren looks ponderous.
"It's just circumscribing the same concept. We are talking about a banality of evil here, an evil that is accepted by everyone because it is just so mundane and common that no one bats an eye..." she trails off, looking out the window where the sun is almost setting, tinting the city in a radiant orange, making the ever present smog seem like fire that consumes everything. Nary a word was spoken until they arrive in front of a large skyscraper, the facade fully made of glass. A red cross with the scrip "Nordgau Hospital" is fastened over the large entrance. The last three letter of the last word are crooked.
"Shall we go in? I know someone who will give us what we want. We've... shared some experiences in the past. Kind of a friend from childhood, so to speak."
D:” I just think that in our position we cannot really afford to close close some doors for that reason, this would limit the help we can receive. Actually, I've experienced in the past to receive help from people I would have really not expected anything.”
Then they arrive at the hospital.
Yes sure, we should enter
M: "You are free to approach them, Dankien. I can't tell you anything. You're an adult." They enter through the giant double doors. Patients, visitors and petitioners alike are strewn across the entrance hall, the reception is to the far side of the room. The two approach the queue and wait patiently for their turn. Once they stood before the man who currently operated the reception, Maren asks: "Hello, sir, could I please speak to Helena Viermann? She should currently be working here."
The man looks credulous. "She's currently busy, please come back later." He begins working again.
Maren leans forward, whispering, "Remember Zwickau."
The man stiffens, answering: "She's in room 248, second story, the floor to the right once you exit the elevator."
"Thank you," Maren smiles at the man before turning towards the elevators.
Dankien smiles while they are going to the elevator. What was that?
<Well, basically what she did was using a Bundschuh code phrase to signal her allegiance to the guy at the reception. Helena is a political advocate for the Bundschuh, and a friend of Maren. They know each other from university. Maren would ask her to give you medical data on patients, which diseases frequently occur and so on. It would become apparent that forms of lymphatic cancer et cetera are the most common recurring disease, alongside skin diseases. They'd depart shortly afterwards and part ways.>
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