The Light Years

by R. W. W. Greene

  “This isn’t going to work,” Ramona said.

  “Only way to know is to try. Look,” I pointed out a group of young-looking people crossing by the front of the park, “let’s go through with them.”

  We hustled to not quite catch up with the group and spy on their conversation. They were all university students, heading into La Merde for a wild time. The border guards waved us through without looking at our IDs, but I saw one guard smirk and say something to his colleague, pointing out Johnny. The man nodded and said something like “ass kicked for sure.”

  Johnny put his arms around our shoulders and strutted like a pimp. “I told you it was going to be okay. They have everything here… drugs, booze, sex. My brother told me about going to a show and watching this girl having sex with–”

  “We’re here for the Square and a guitarist. In that order,” I said. “Then I’m headed back.”

  “If you want to stick around after that, it’s up to you.” Ramona looked back at the checkpoint. “I bet they check IDs more closely going through the other way.”

  “We’ll deal with that when it comes,” I said. “Which way to the Square?”

  Johnny let go of us and waved vaguely toward the group of college kids. “Follow them. I’ll catch up in a minute.”

  “Where are you going?” Ramona said.

  He grinned. “See a guy and get high. Don’t worry your pretty little tails. I got this.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and legged it down a side street.

  “Should we wait?” Ramona said.

  I grabbed her arm and hurried after the college kids. “Let’s just hope they’re going to the Square and not to one of Johnny’s sex shows.”

  We got back to eavesdropping distance again. Unlike Johnny, they were dressed normally. One guy asked about music, and a girl said there’d be plenty of it and advised the guy to avoid eating any food sold on a stick.

  “I think we’re on the right track,” I whispered.

  We followed the kids about seven blocks before we started hearing it. It started low, like a bass note, and filled in slowly as we got closer. I started to make out individual shouts and cheers. Finally, we heard laughter as we got within sight of the tall fence that enclosed the Square.

  “It doesn’t sound so bad,” Ramona said. She looked nervous.

  According to the documentary, the Square covered four square blocks. A hundred years ago it was supposed to have been midtown housing or office space, I forget. When the refugees started coming in, whatever company had planned the project pulled out, leaving a big fenced-in area. The refugees poked holes in the fence and took over.

  We followed the college kids in through one of the gates. They kept going, but Ramona froze in place. “It smells incredible.”

  Dozens of little carts were set up inside the walls like mobile kitchens. People were queued twenty deep at some of them, talking in half a dozen languages. They were skinny and grimy, but they were laughing harder than I’d ever heard anyone laugh before.

  “Do you think that girl was right about not eating anything here?” Ramona was practically drooling.

  “They’re eating it. Some of it should be okay.”

  “Did you bring any cash?”

  “Let’s see what they have.”

  We wove in and out of the food stalls, squinting to read the menus. Most of the vendors had written them out by hand, the script laughable. Others featured languages I couldn’t begin to understand.

  “What do you think that means?” I pointed at one stall with a particularly illegible sign.

  “It probably says ‘rat burgers’.” Ramona grabbed my hand. “Come on. Let’s go back to the frito stand we passed. At least we know what that is.”

  No one talked to us as we stood in line, although a couple of little kids tried to pull us into a game of peek-a-boo between their parents’ legs. The kids were scrawny, and their clothes weren’t much better.

  “What do you want, city girls?” the vendor said when it was our turn. His French was strongly accented.

  “Alpim frito.” Cassava fries, or whatever they were substituting them with. My New Portuguese was really limited, but I had read somewhere you’d have more street cred if you tried to speak the local lingo. He asked me what we wanted on top of the fries, and my vocabulary failed me. I was reduced to pointing and nodding.

  We steered clear of the meat sauce because there was no way of telling what it was. The cost of the meal took about a quarter of my cash.

  “He charged you at least twice as much as he charged everyone else,” Ramona said.

  “I can afford it.” The line had grown behind us. “I don’t think they can.”

  We sat to eat the fritos, which were delicious by any standard, and resumed our search for music. The Square was really a square within a square. Only the outside edges were used for the perpetual festival. The inside square was a community garden. The gates to the inner greenery were guarded, and the gardens were divided into family-sized plots.

  “This was in the documentary,” Ramona said, apparently forgetting I’d seen the film, too. “It’s like a co-op. They pay for a plot and share responsibility for the water supply and the guards. It’s not licensed or anything.”

  “Do you think the frito guy had a license?”

  The next corner of the Square was like an outdoor shopping mall. Everything in it was either used or handmade. Ramona picked through a table of obsolete electronics. She squealed and held up something that looked like a dead baby. “It’s a Terry Talker. I had one when I was a kid.”

  She tugged its arm, and the baby started singing a song about friendship.

  “You want?” The woman behind the table was old in a way people in La Mur never got. Without money for injections, hormone therapy, and skin transplants, her face had wrinkled into deep brown furrows.

  “We’re just looking,” I said.

  “Ask her how much it is,” Ramona said.

  “You don’t want it.”

  “Ask her.”

  The old woman gave me a number that would take everything else I had in my pocket.

  “Too much. Let’s go.”

  “But I want it,” Ramona said.

  “You don’t have any money, and I don’t have enough. Let’s find the musicians and do what we came here for.”

  “Music.” The old woman pointed at the singing toy. “You want?”

  “We want to hear some live music.” I pantomimed playing a guitar. “Music.”

  She smiled, showing a sunny mixture of missing and dead teeth. “I tell you.”

  Ramona put down the toy, which immediately stopped singing the stupid song.

  The woman looked back and forth between us, still smiling.

  “Why is she not telling us?” Ramona said.

  “I think she wants money,” I said.

  “Give her some.”

  “If we keep walking, we’ll find the music. The Square only has four corners.”

  “She could save us time,” Ramona said. “Give her some money. She needs it more than we do.”

  I handed the woman a few coins, and she tucked them into her pocket. She pointed in the direction I had already planned to go. “That way.”

  The music was not in the next corner, which was full of ragged tents and ramshackle huts. As soon as we got within sight of the place we were surrounded by children, arms outstretched and begging in a dozen languages. The kids were filthy, and they smelled like they had never taken a bath in their lives.

  “It’s my worst nightmare,” Ramona said. “Do they live here?”

  “I think so.” The huts and tents were child-sized. “I think they’re illicite. This is like a camp or something.”

  “They must have parents somewhere.”

  “They might be in prison. Refugee births are pretty tightly controlled. Any government aid you get requires sterilization.”

  “You try to live free you get this.” Ramona crossed her arms over her chest to keep her
hands away from the kids.

  “Please, madam,” one girl said. Her hair was matted. Had my parents made different choices, she could have been my little sister.

  “What’s your name?” I said.

  The girl’s face lit up like she’d found a treasure in the back of her memories. “Chuchu,” she said. “My name is Chuchu.”

  “What kind of name is that?” Ramona fended off the grasping hand of a little boy.

  “It’s probably something her mother called her,” I said. “It means ‘darling’ in New Portuguese.”

  “Can we go?” Ramona said.

  I took the smallest coin out of my pocket and pressed it into the little girl’s hand. “Get some food. Don’t let anyone know you have it.”

  The coin disappeared like a magic trick.

  “Let’s go,” I said. “I don’t have enough to help them all.”

  “Why would you want to?” Ramona said. “They’re like a swarm. They’re barely people.”

  I wanted to punch her. “They’re people. They just don’t have what you have. It’s not their fault.”

  “It is their parents’ fault,” she said. “They knew what would happen.”

  “It’s not always a choice.” It sounded like something my mother and father would say, and it felt strange coming out of my mouth. “They don’t have the options we do.”

  A few of the kids followed us partway down the next corridor, but they stopped at some point that meant something to them and went back to their little village.

  “They weren’t in the documentary,” Ramona said.

  “Putting a bunch of illicite on film would be a great way to get the Square raided, don’t you think?” I said. “They probably thought of that.”

  “If the company that owns the land found out they’re using all this for free, I bet you they’d try like crazy to come up with a way to charge rent.”

  “Yeah. Let’s hurry up and find a guitarist before it happens.”

  The walls along the way were filled with stalls of people selling handcrafts of various kinds. Ramona noticed one selling shoes made out of old vehicle seats, and we giggled when we saw a pair that looked exactly like Johnny’s survival boots.

  We heard the drums first, and then the wail of something that sounded like the world’s angriest guitar. The path opened up into the last corner. There was a stage and a rickety sound system that bands seemed to be taking turns on.

  The guitarist was a girl about our age backed by a boy on a simple drum kit and a long-haired guy playing bass. Their music sounded like nothing I had ever heard before. It was fast and jangly. Angry and loud. Sloppy but completely under control.

  “I think we lucked out,” I said.

  “You can play better than that.”

  “Better, maybe. But not like that.”

  The drummer began an awkward solo, and the girl picked up a bottle of water. She drained it and flung it at the audience. She picked the song back up with a riff that sounded like post-argument sex and screamed into the microphone. She was rail thin, her hair cut into a wedge. She had more tattoos than Johnny.

  “I think I just came,” Ramona said.

  I nodded, utterly entranced by the girl on the stage. She took up all the room and light.

  The band played a short set, six songs, no encore, and then started unplugging to make way for the next act.

  “Is this the one?” Ramona said.

  I was already headed for the stage. “You’re pretty good,” I said, looking up at the girl.

  She looked like she’d been about to smile at the compliment but scowled instead. “You don’t belong here. Better go home before someone notices.”

  “We have a band, and we’re looking for a new guitarist.” The look on her face told me I was on the wrong track. “Correction, we had a band. It fell apart, and we’re building a new one.”

  “What have you got?”

  “Just the two of us.” I brought Ramona into the conversation. “I play four or five instruments. Ramona is good on vocals, a little keyboard. Next weekend we’re going to put some people together and see how it sounds.”

  “What do you play?”

  Ramona and I rattled off our influences, a lot of Earth stuff and a couple of bands from the asteroid belt.

  “Not bad.”

  “We can get you a visitor’s pass,” Ramona said. “Pick you up at the border and escort you to my house.”

  “Worried I might come in and steal something?” She laughed. “Because I will. Anything small enough to fit in my pocket will be going home with me.”

  “You don’t have to steal,” Ramona said. “I can–”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Steal from us, you might not make it back.”

  The guitarist grinned. “You might belong here after all. My name is Marjani Conteh. Leave me a pass and the directions at the border. Maybe I’ll drop by.” She pointed at the two boys packing up her gear. “Leave us all passes. I don’t go anywhere without my boys.”

  “Give me their names.” I looked at Ramona. “Will your mother sponsor them all?”

  Marjani laughed. “You hear that, boys? We’re going to have a rich-bitch sponsor. Our dreams have come true.”

  Ramona flushed. “She will. At least for a day pass.”

  “See if you can make it a weekend. We might need it.”

  We left before the next band’s set. Ramona had a curfew and breaking it would not have helped to convince her mother to fork over the sponsorship deposit. We exited back at the food stalls but didn’t stop for more fritos.

  “That wasn’t so bad,” Ramona said. “I wonder what all the fuss was about.”

  Johnny was waiting for us when we came out. “Where the hell have you been?” His voice was high and scared, and the blood on his face told us why. He was being held, nearly held up, by three guys.

  “Jesus, Johnny, what happened?” Ramona said. She took a step toward him, but I grabbed her arm.

  “Don’t,” I said. “What do they want, Johnny?”

  “Money.” His voice was shuddery, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “I told them you had cash. If you give it to them, they’ll let us go.”

  “What will they do if I don’t?”

  The men around Johnny laughed. “Find out,” the smallest rowdy said.

  “How much do you want?”

  “Just give them everything you have!” Johnny grimaced in pain or fear. He was missing a couple of teeth in the front. An easy fix for his dentist, but it looked like it hurt.

  “Okay. Okay.” I reached into my pocket for the rest of the coins I had brought along. It wasn’t much. One of the boys stepped forward, and I dropped the coins into his hand. He brought them back to show the guy who had spoken.

  “Not enough.” He punched Johnny in the stomach. Johnny doubled over and threw up on his stupid boots. “You want him, pay some more.”

  “I don’t have more.”

  The lout hit Johnny in the face with the back of his fist, sending him sprawling. Johnny made a noise like a scared kid and started sniffling.

  “Maybe we can make some sort of a deal,” I said.

  He pulled a knife out. “No deals. Payment or pain.”

  “Give ’em a break, Carlito.” Marjani stepped through the gate with her band. “They’re going to make me a music star. Can’t do that if you kill their boyfriend.” She curled her lip at me. “He yours?”

  “Sort of.”

  She laughed. “See? Take the money. Maybe take his clothes. Then let these fools go the fuck home.”

  They talked in a language I didn’t understand, back and forth for about thirty seconds. Finally, Carlito threw up his hands in disgust. “Get his clothes,” he said. “He can keep the boots.”

  Carlito’s friends pulled off Johnny’s clothes. He fought feebly, but was quickly stripped down to his undersuit.

  Carlito stabbed a finger at Marjani. “You owe me, irmazhina.”

  She blew Carlito a kiss. “Front row tickets
to my first show in La Mur, baby!”

  I yanked Johnny to his feet. “Come on. Let’s get this idiot home.”

  ADEM

  Two weeks out of Freedom

  “We’re definitely slowing down.” Lucy contradicted herself somewhat by flipping two more pancakes onto her breakfast plate. “I ran the numbers last night. We’ve lost .03 percent of c since this time last year.”

  “Did you tell Mom?”

  Lucy answered through a mouthful of pancakes. “She says the you-know-what will solve everything.”

  Adem rubbed his face. A drop from .9997 of the speed of light to .9994 was huge, even if not an immediate emergency. It was still a long way to nine-tenths c, a speed at which their current loop – Gaul to Imbeleko to Freedom and back to Gaul – would be a ten and a half relative-year slog instead of the ten month jaunt they were currently on schedule for, but the downward trend was concerning.

  “How long have we got?” Adem said.

  “There’s no way to predict. I’d love to be able say we’ll lose .03 percent every year of use, but that’s not the way it works. At some point the engines are just going to stop working. There’s nothing we can do about it.”

  They’d be lucky if that’s how it happened. If the mass-grav system failed first, they’d all die before they knew what was happening. So, maybe that was the lucky way.

  “Well, it probably won’t happen today, and I need to get to work.” Adem rose from the table. “Chef says the burners on his stove are operating at different temperatures. He wants me to calibrate them so they match exactly.”

  “It’s not wise to piss him off. Fly, be free, or we’ll all be eating nothing but meal bars for the rest of the trip.”

  “Are you coming to the gig tonight?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it.”

  The job required taking the old stove to pieces and scrubbing every square inch. When Adem got it all back together the chef tested the burners and acknowledged that it was good enough. He promised to make Adem’s favorite breakfast – gravy over biscuits – sometime in the next week. Adem chalked the day off as a win and went back to his suite to wash up.

  Vee was in his bed when he came out of the shower.

  “We said we weren’t going to do this anymore,” Adem said.