1 Gold Bullion For desert

Life is almost never equal for many people. Especially not on Austerra- the second rock from the twin stars of Hydrea B, currently the capital of the Human Unity Group for Development or HUGD. Often interchangeable with UG or The Empire. They are a meritocracy on paper, but in reality are a technocratic oligarchy. anyone with even a tiny amount of power or wealth is already heads and heads above those without.

On the space ship UGTS (united group terraformer ship) we follow someone who is in a rather unlucky position: Damien Limon, age 43. He is currently putting on his tie, using the mirror of his 'all but a coffin in name' apartment that is essentially a bed on a wall, a mirror that doubles as both a drug cabinet and his clothing closet, and a dim light. He is a command staff assistant- his job is to help the captain and his heads of staff run the ship by acting as a errand boy for them.

Despite his job, he is considered a '0 class citizen'. He is almost entirely unaugment, save for three special chips in his brain that effectively 'lease' him for five years. This is the fate of those who can not afford augmentations, biological or technological. They end up working for peanuts.. or in this case, two hours for a loaf of bread that barely meets his daily nutrition intake- at least back planet side.

A loaf of bread is 0.01 credits. To give you an idea of just how fucked he is. A feeling that he's felt for almost every day of his life- and today, those feelings are at their worst. He has to attend a banquet with his bosses, acting as a glorified man-servant. Right now he's doing his best to try and pretend he's not starving, but the sharp pain emanating from his stomach break the facade easily.

The first chip is a loyalty implant: effectively meaning he can't so much as raise his voice or curse his bosses, even if they deserve it. which they do. all the time. It also means he can't eat on the job, he can't sleep on the job, he can't express rebellious thoughts, and when he DOES express thoughts the chip deems unsuitable, it will censure and 'adjust' them in real time- usually by beeping and replacing the word or just leaving a vague 'beep' in it's place.

The second chip is a skill chip that contains information that makes it possible to understand the otherwise super vague details a lot of command staff give when talking. Examples being "DO THE THING" gets translated to "TURN THE AIR PUMPUS OFF" or "SCRAPPABLO" translate into "YOU WORTHLESS SHIT STAIN". One could argue it's more of a translation chip than anything.

The third chip is a emotional stabilizer chip- for obvious reasons, dealing with rich psychopaths tend to not help a person's metal health. Therefor: in order to at the very least prevent suicides, the chips inhibit the upper ranges of certain emotions. Even though Damien is aware his situation is absolutely similar to the Gluttony level of Dante's inferno, the chip in his brain prevents him from undergoing total psychological collapse and allows those with the chip to endure harsh circumstances for long periods of times. (5 years). This chip, in it's final hours, usually whitewashes memories in order to promote emotional stability after the fact.

The three chips are temporary- eventually dissolving on their own and slipping out of the brain through the blood brain barrier. The chips are cheap and are usually assembled out of nanites that the wielder imbids as a vial or pill. The cost of such a pill is effectively 0 (or in this case, worth a tenth of a bread) so there's no limit to the number of people that take up jobs on the frontier or in space in service to the government and those that 'merit being in power'.

Damien stops at another 'apartment' and kocks on the door, a woman with a long braid of black hair steps out, dressed in a green suit and skirt combo. They are peachy to Damien's sandy skin, their eyes are green to his black, their hair is a long black braid to his black, short curls.

Oppenheimer 'bo' Borsch. Another damned soul like Damien trapped on a underworld voyage for the next five years.

"Bo." Damien says, before picking the pace up. Bo follows behind Damien. "Lemon boy. Good to see you again you cock sucking fuck head. You ready to watch a entire turkey get devoured by a piranha?" Bo says. "For fucking sure Bo. Can't wait to see you claw your own wrist like some hungry cat eating monster." Damien says, getting some cursing out of their systems as they moved down the hall. "Let's see... I'll get the fine china down, you get the silverware ready. The robo servant should be getting the glasses." Bo says.

"The robot servant has a name you known. A.. weird one, but a name." he says, referring to Ja Robi- the integrated positronic brain that worked on the bridge as servant for food and drink. Bo and Damien called him J because they renamed him into something ~-GREAT-~. Damien rubbed his head as they got to the wooden doors, Bo pushing inside. J was already there, working on a large electric powered stove plate next to a buffet- quickly cooking eight different meals at once. Bo pulled a metal, toy like key out of their pocket and started opening the cabinet for the fine china.

Damien took a deep breath, tried to ignore the smell of steak, and stepped inside the dining room to set help set the table for the command staff of the colony ship. This was going to be a painful four hours to survive on a empty stomach.

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Damien focus was razor sharp and finer than a laser. So pointed and straight that if he had any sort of vision based ability, it would have burnt a hole in the far wooden wall and the majetic green-gold curtains hanging from it. His focus needed to be so immaculately pointed because otherwise, he'd end up focusing on the meal being eaten by the five humans and ignored entirely by a ~-TOASTER OVEN-~. Why did this room even need those? There weren't windows, there was a door there, was it to hide a painting they didn't have? those were questions he'd probably never get answered.

The banquet in question was three roasts, four potato dishes set four different ways, two noodle dishes, three soups, one entirely ignored salad, and deep fried meat cut they kept calling 'steak'. Damien had never tried a single one of these dishes, yet the smell alone was enough to make his mouth water. He risked a glance over at Bo and Ja- Ja of course had no trouble since they didn't need sustenance in the same way as a human does but... Bo was crossed eyed and looking like they were on the verge of madness. Then again so was Damien and the only reason they weren't going down the rabbit hole was willpower and a very carefully practiced routine he'd do to distract himself from the food- otherwise known as the Brand series.

See, a flaw in the chip that was suppose to control his behavior was that it was made by greed McFucks, so they accidently left in a loophole that lets a person think of Brand Name versions of objects even though they might be related to something undesirable. Such as a McFuck cake, or the McCunt Shake. Ivy Fern's Double Fuckalicious disaster was his favorite- Ivy Fern being the name of the captain. A common theme with the command staff was that their names could best be thought of as two colors. X and Green. Maybe it was tradition, maybe it was just their code name. But Damien certain enjoy Amber's double stack of absolute Fuckshit since it was probably the best way to describe the scenario.

And right now, he was staring at a fucking McWhopper of McFucking portions. It was a McFuck ton of meat on a Big King sized fuck of a bun. Son of a Whopping pile of McChicken Shit. That'd be all he'd need to lose his focus- watching thse McFatfucks eat a burger the size of a McBaby!

Damien's mind slipped- despite how easy it was to curse, it was hard trying to turn the curses into advertisements. Suddenly his mind was filled with endless beeps and buzzes as the chip censors him repeatedly as he ends up in a loop- getting censored for cursing, and cursing because he was censured while staring at the feast on a empty stomach. He had to force his eyes closed and emptied his mind- a trick he had to pick up on these sorts of voyages in order to get out of these cursing loops.

After a moment Damien opens his eyes and looks at the feast. They had platinum style goldschlager, but that sort of alcohol was more for showing off than for feasting. Still, the last thing he wanted to do was-

Bo suddenly spoke up, a crazed look in her eye. "Sirs! It appears you don't have enough booze for this... feast!" she says, a empty smile. "Why dont you send the two of us to get you some different boozes from the kitchen?" she says. Azure Emerald laughed and held up a empty crystal stein up. "That's right! the schlager won't last us long enough." the medical chief said with a laugh, tapping a golden wand with a blue crystal in the tip on the mug and causing a bit of alcohol to teleport from a bottle of platinum styled goldschlager that had a similar crystal in the top. Bluespace crystals- part of the base of most technology. Damien had no idea what the actual mechanics were, at least not the mathematical mechanics- all he knew was those tiny blue crystals of synthetic material were capable of downright unnatural things- including being the source of the ships faster than light travel. to damien- the fact they could so casually use the crystals in some sort of funky magic wand went far to explain their wealth.

"You and uhh.. the shitty boy can go get us some good wine and booze." says Amber Lime says, tossing a holo-card at Damien- who caught it between his fingers and tucked it into his pockets. The heads of staff completely lost interest in them after that.

Now he had to do a most dreaded activities. He turned and left towards the double wooden doors, with Bo close behind. Bo must have been going crazy with hunger, or anger. Either way... they had to go mingle with the 'normal' people. Damien had to rub his temple to calm his aching head as he struggled against low blood sugar. He was part of the '4ths' or those that didn't fit into the top three tiers of the caste system. The heads of staff- whose laughter was fading behind him- were part of the 1st class. the 2nd classes were a bit more sane, and the 3rd classes were saner still. A large part of the crew were made out of 4ths because it was their chance to become a 3rd or 2nd class through merit. Though that usually meant dangerous and experimental self modification on their off hours to 'merit' the promotion.

And for those 4ths that were assisting with the command staff? They were hated by everyone- or rather, looked at with a mix of disdain and pity since they were the lap dogs of the command staff. Usually if one shows up, it's to give some insane order or command that has to be wrangled by their second in commands.

As the two approached the end of the main hall- which was vaulted like the dining room- the door hissed as the ships AI opened it up to let them out without having to bust out their ear phones to call over the noisy common channel for them.

The moment they exited, Damien looked up and around the 'ball' that served as the command staff living quarters. It was a icosahedron structure, made out of black panels of some high tech design, with large smooth, rounded rods of blue crystal jutting out at each Vertex of the structure, bolts of energy streaking around between crystals and rods- held up by metal lattices. Not that such things were needed- the structure was being held in place by stasis rods- Another form of advanced technology Damien just barely understood. it was some sort of advanced field manipulation that messed with physics. It was also the basis for stasis pods- the - FUNNY BOYS - would get to arrive at the colony in style while everyone else got packed in like sardines- they even got actual beds, if Damien recalled right.

Bo and Damien walked towards the edge of the domed room before turning and heading clockwise towards the airlock that would lead them further into the ship. Damien was -OVERJOYED- about this job since, as he had stated, most of the crew thought the support staff were basically the command staffs lap dogs that did tricks and stuff for them. They weren't wrong, considering the chip doesn't do anything about his thoughts about being a lap dog.

At any rate they were exited the command living area's maintenance hall and into the main bulk of the ship. one would imagine the structure would be something like a Connor Cylinder (renamed after Connor McBucks donated fifty Connor Cylinders to the government) but that was further down the line. The ship was a twisting mass of corridors, stairs, elevators, and rooms. The colonists were expected to live on the ship as they acted as a orbital center of advanced production as a lucky few got to go down to the planetary surface and build the first city for the colony ship to lock into and become a arcology.

Damien and Bo took a right, slipped into a stairwell, went up two flights (of 200 and -198) from Level 0 and exited into a service area. The support staff walked with purpose and poise... in this case, against their will. The chips didn't want the two of them to make the command staff look bad, despite the fact they are --WONDERFUL--