by Walker Long
“Bureaucratic bullshit,” Jabara grumbled. “We can wait for the next train, I guess.”
“No!” Quantrill exclaimed. “You guys go. I’ll catch up later.” Quantrill had no intention of catching up with them, but hoped they would be too drunk in a few hours to care one way or the other.
“Come on, we better get on the train,” Potter insisted. “Q! Bro! Call me if you get lost, yo?”
“Will do,” Quantrill agreed. He watched his squad – except for Corporal Vanlanding, of course – get on the train. He waved, trying his best to look disappointed not to be going along with them.
When they were all on board, he turned and sprinted back to Barracks 14. His personal effects had been salvaged from Jericho and brought down to the planet earlier that week. Fortunately he had always been fastidious about securing his locker. Some Marines had their belongings strewn all over the ship when the Q-ring depressurized. They would be lucky to ever see their crap again.
Quantrill opened his locker and pulled out his extra fatigue pants. He unfolded the pair at the bottom of the pile and stuck his hand up the pant leg. He had hidden the slinky, tropical dress he found on Lapis Lazuli inside. He didn’t know why he kept the dress – he never expected to be able to wear it again. It just seemed a shame for such a beautiful dress to slowly decay away on an abandoned planet. It was lucky he had, though. If he was going to spend his shore leave as a woman he would need something to wear.
He hung the dress on his bed frame and tried to smooth out the wrinkles. Then he dumped out his duffle bag and set about putting the clothes back in his locker. All those men’s clothes weren’t going to be much use.
“Oh, you kept that dress?” Hardaway asked.
“Sir!” Quantrill jumped to attention. He hadn’t seen the Lieutenant come in.
“At ease, Q,” the Lieutenant said with a laugh. He felt the silky material of the dress between his fingers. “I’m glad you kept this. It was beautiful on you.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“But,” Hardaway went on. He held up a tiny bag. “This will be your primary uniform for this deployment.”
“Uniform?” Quantrill took the bag. It was miniscule. There couldn’t be more than a handkerchief inside. What kind of uniform was he talking about?
“And here is your … medicine.” Hardaway handed him a tiny, single use hypospray. That was the PinkVector, Quantrill figured. “And this is your ticket. Your train leaves in twenty minutes.”
“My train?” Quantrill asked. “Aren’t we going together? Sir?”
“No, I have a meeting with the Major this afternoon,” Hardaway told him. “Besides it wouldn’t be proper for us to be seen leaving together.”
“Right,” Quantrill agreed. People were already talking after Quantrill and Hardaway paired up twice during R&R.
“I will take a later train and catch up with you this evening,” Hardaway explained. Quantrill nodded. He hoped the Lieutenant meant what he said more than Quantrill when he said the same thing to his friends. Then Hardaway handed him a sheet of paper. “This is the reservation information for the resort. You’ll check in as Mrs. Bale Hardaway.”
“Mrs.?” Quantrill raised an eyebrow.
“It’s just a little white lie. You can hardly check in using a man’s name,” Hardaway pointed out.
“Good point,” Quantrill agreed.
“So you better get going to catch that train,” Hardaway instructed. “Go ahead and check in and wait for me. You can order room service. Just charge whatever you want to the room. I’ll see you tonight.” The Lieutenant turned on his heel and marched out the door.
Quantrill stuffed the few things he was bringing into his duffle and made for the train station. The departure board listed dozens of destinations. New Caledonia was one of the largest of all the colonies. There were cities and towns spread out over hundreds of kilometers in every direction. The resort town of Montego Bay where Quantrill was heading was more than two thousand kilometers away. Even on an 800 kph maglev train the trip was going to take more than two hours.
Fortunately Lieutenant Hardaway booked him a private cabin. It wasn’t much bigger than a large closet, but he had been expecting nothing more than a seat with other passengers at each elbow and the row in front bumping his knees. The cabin seemed absolutely luxurious.
Quantrill got settled in and soon the train moved out of the station. He watched the city slide past his window as the train slowly accelerated. He passed tall office buildings, vast warehouses, networks of roads – all the signs that New Caledonia was a colony with wealth and power. By the time they reached the outskirts of the city the train was up to speed and the buildings zipped past in a blur of gray and brown.
Then the city abruptly ended. The blur of suburban homes was replaced with empty rolling hills of hard packed dirt. New Caledonia was basically a desert without the heat. Temperatures were mild, even cold for someone used to the greenhouse of Earth, but the surface of the planet had very little water. There were some frozen ice caps at the poles and a few swampy spots near the equator, but otherwise New Caledonia was bone dry.
That is to say, the surface was dry. There was a huge supply of water down deep underground. Colonists found plenty of places where a deep well would get you a reliable source of clean water. Everywhere else was barren desert. Now and then the train would zip past a valley carpeted with thick, green vegetation – for a desert they managed enough agriculture to feed the whole planet year after year – but for the most part the scenery was dull and monotonous.
Quantrill decided to make the most of his time on the train. He put out the Do Not Disturb sign, locked his cabin door, and pulled down the narrow bunk that was folded into the wall. He stripped down to his boxer shorts and found the hypospray in his duffle bag. “Here goes,” he said and jammed the injector into his thigh.
With a hiss of compressed air the scavenged PinkVector was forced into his bloodstream. Quantrill climbed onto the bunk and lay down. He could already feel his temperature rise. Tiny beads of sweat dotted his arms and chest. The drug was working! He got on the train as a goofy-looking Marine but he would get off as a glamorous woman. He closed his eyes and drifted away.
***
Quantrill was awakened by a soft but persistent chiming. He blinked his tired eyes and looked around for the source of the noise. The vid beside his cabin door was flashing the message “Arriving at Montego Bay.”
“Oh, shit,” he exclaimed and sat up in his bunk. His heavy, round breasts bounced against his chest, making him smile and look down. He held the two bulging globes in his hands – each more than a handful – and giggled. “I missed you guys,” he said.
Quantrill splashed some water on his face from the tiny sink in the corner of his cabin to freshen up. Then he pulled the tropical dress out of his duffle bag. The fabric was so light and soft – none of his own clothes were like that at all. His dress blues were the nicest things he’d ever owned, but they were a canvas sack compared to that dress.
He folded up the fatigues he’d been wearing earlier and stuffed them and his all-terrain boots into his duffle. Then he froze. He didn’t bring shoes! On Lapis Lazuli he’d run around the hotel and the beach in bare feet. That wasn’t going to work in a train station. “Damnit,” he grumbled and pulled on his heavy, thick-soled boots. Hopefully with the dress hugging his curves like a coat of paint nobody would be looking at his feet.
Quantrill clomped down the stairs to the station platform feeling quite a bit less glamorous than he had planned. The station was buzzing with travelers. Montego Bay station was much smaller than the main station back in New Caledonia City, but it seemed quite a bit more crowded. People filled the space from wall to wall, but no one seemed in any particular hurry. Everyone here was on vacation.
He needed to find a way to get to the resort. First, however, he needed to eat. He was starving! He spotted a small travel pub across the platform and headed in that direction. He was able to maneuver thr
ough the crowd pretty easily. Most everyone was towing large suitcases and trunks along behind, but Quantrill had only himself and a small duffle. He weaved between vacationers easily.
Still the packed crowd made him uneasy – if there were any kind of emergency nobody would be able to respond because they’d all be tripping over each other. Didn’t they realize that? They all stood around chatting happily and taking selfies – seemingly oblivious to their tactical vulnerability. Fucking civilians.
Quantrill breathed easier in the pub. It was mostly empty and there was a window. If it came right down to it he could throw a chair through the glass and make a retreat that way. He walked up to the small bar and frowned at the rows of liquor bottles. A stiff drink sounded pretty good right then, but first he needed some food. Maybe the place had a lunch menu or something.
The small pub had one other customer – a soft-faced young man in his early twenties wearing a glittery shirt sat at the far end of the bar. When Quantrill sat down, the chubby kid got up and sauntered over to the stool next to him.
“Smile, sweetheart,” he said in an oily voice. Quantrill turned to regard him with a frown. Up close he realized the guy’s shirt wasn’t actually covered in glitter, but had some kind of electronic color-changing threads that altered the pattern constantly. Swirls of color danced across his shirt as though he was standing in front of a theater vid screen and the stream was projected onto his torso. The crazy shirt couldn’t hide the paunch around his middle, though. He was the kind of slob who wouldn’t last two days in boot camp.
“Are you trying to tell me what to do?” Quantrill asked in disbelief. Who was this joker?
“I’m just making conversation, beautiful,” the stranger replied with a leer that made the young Marine’s skin crawl. Then the guy made a great show of checking the time on his elaborate and most likely extremely expensive wrist vid. “How about you let me buy you a drink, hot stuff?”
Quantrill’s frown deepened. “No, thanks.”
“Hey, don’t be unfriendly,” he insisted. “You’re only wearing that sexy dress to attract attention am I right?”
“My clothes? What the fuck?”
“You know how it is, baby,” the stranger oozed. “You look so fine a man can’t help but take notice. Although you should really do something with your hair. You could be a knockout. I mean, your face is nice and your body is perfection. But this hair? No way.”
“Well, you should really lose some fucking weight,” Quantrill blurted in anger. You don’t let people get away with that kind of shit in his neighborhood.
“Hey, I’m only trying to help,” the chubby stranger grumbled. “You almost look like a man in this hairdo.”
“So do you,” Quantrill growled. At least, he tried to growl. His voice came out sweet and delicate anyway. Damn feminine vocal chords. “Almost.”
“Whatever,” he pouted. “You think you’re so hot. I been with way hotter girls than you.”
“VR porn doesn’t count,” Quantrill shot back.
“Listen here, bitch.” The stranger loomed over Quantrill and glared down at him. “We have ways of teaching mouthy sluts a lesson where I come from.”
Quantrill stood and stuck out his jaw. The man was a head taller but Quantrill returned his glare without batting an eye. He had faced down 400-kilo giant killer spiders. If this jackass though he could be intimidated by some spoiled, soft-living civilian he had another think coming. “I’d like. To see. You try,” he said slowly.
The fat kid stepped back. The cocky look on his face melted away and Quantrill could see the fear in his eyes. His type was common in the ghetto: a tough guy up against someone he marked as weak and vulnerable, but folds like a house of cards if you show you’re not afraid of him. Apparently assholes were the same all over.
“Women should know their place,” the man spat. He turned and slinked back to his corner to sulk.
“Whatever,” Quantrill rolled his eyes and sat back down.
A young waitress with long, blonde hair came out of a swinging door in the back and walked to Quantrill at the bar. She was wearing a floor length, black gown and towering heels. It seemed like an awfully formal outfit for just before noon on a Wednesday, but Quantrill guessed she was part of the ambiance. Like a bit of scenery for weary travelers.
“You are my hero,” she leaned over the bar to whisper. “I would have loved to tell off that sleazeball the way you did.”
“You could,” Quantrill pointed out. “He’s all bark and no bite.”
“Oh, no,” she said with a nervous laugh. “I need this job.”
“So you have to put up with that kind of shit?”
“Well, yeah,” she said as though there was never a question. Quantrill nodded. He knew his own mother had to put up with a lot at her jobs. She didn’t like to talk about it, but he picked up on things anyway. Some nights she would come home and cry alone in her room. He would hear her talking on vid with her sister, saying she didn’t want to go back ever again. Of course, she always did.
“Embrace the suck,” he said with a shake of his head.
“What?” the waitress laughed.
“It’s an expression,” Quantrill explained. “It just means sometimes things suck and you can’t do anything about it. All you can do is enjoy the ride.”
“I will remember that,” she said with a wide smile. “I’m Aeryn, by the way.”
“I’m Q,” Quantrill said immediately.
“Yes you are,” Aeryn replied enthusiastically – and somewhat mysteriously. “So what can I get you? Mai Tai? Piña colada?”
“Do you have any sandwiches?”
“We have a really good roast beef sandwich,” she suggested. Then she added with a wink, “It’s made with real beef.”
“Great. I’ll take three.”
“Okaaay,” she looked at him with wide eyes. “I’ll get those right out for you, Cutie”
“It’s just Q,” Quantrill offered but she was already gone. “Nevermind.”
She was right about the sandwich, though. They were delicious. Quantrill inhaled the first two and then sat and savored the third. He paid for his bill with cash – a DNA scan wouldn’t have turned up anything since he didn’t actually have his own DNA anymore.
When the waitress brought back his change, she also slid a small card across the bar. It had the name “Aeryn” and a contact code written on it. “That’s my number,” she said with a shy smile. “If you want to get together later. I could … you know … show you around.”
“Thanks,” Quantrill said. He stared at the card in shock. In his whole life he’d never had a girl just randomly give him her number. Apparently he had to become a woman to finally attract women. Life just got more fucked up all the time.
Even worse, he had to blow her off. “That’s really nice,” he told her. “But I’m meeting … uhh… someone special.”
Chapter 15
Iberostar
Quantrill unfolded the reservation confirmation that Lieutenant Hardaway gave him. He needed to get to the Iberostar Hotel and Resort, wherever that was. He walked along the wide, circular drive in front of the train station and saw row after row of taxi cabs waiting. He could take a cab – but how much would that cost? He didn’t have a lot of cash left after lunch. Real beef wasn’t an affordable choice on an enlisted man’s salary.
There was one small bus that caught his eye. It had “Iberostar Hotel and Resort” painted across the side in huge letters. He went up to get a closer look and saw a bored, middle-aged man leaning against the side of the bus. He had a rumpled uniform with a nametag that read “Paul” and identified him as an employee of Iberostar. If this guy was driving back to the hotel anyway, maybe he had room for one more person.
“Hey,” Quantrill said to get Paul’s attention. “Can I get a ride to Iberostar?”
“Certainly!” he exclaimed and snapped to attention. He wasn’t as quick as a well-trained Marine, of course, but Quantrill appreciated the effort
. “Do you have a reservation?”
“Yeah, I have this.” Quantrill handed him the reservation sheet. The man looked at the sheet and nodded his head.
“Very good,” he said. He waved the paper in front of a small p-vid and tapped the screen a few times. “This is all in order. I will just load up your luggage and we’ll get underway.”
“Nah, don’t worry about it,” Quantrill waved him off. “I’ve got it.”
“It’s no trouble, miss,” Paul went on. “I’d hate for such a beautiful young woman to have to exert herself.”
“Dude, it’s okay,” Quantrill insisted. He wasn’t sure how beauty related to luggage – did only ugly women have to carry things on New Caledonia? – but didn’t bother asking. “I’ve only got this one duffle bag.”
“Of course, miss. I wish you could teach my wife how to travel light!”
The inside of the little bus had enough room for a dozen people and their luggage, but Quantrill was the only passenger when they rolled down the road. He looked out the window and watched the resort city scroll past. Everything about the place was over the top. Huge colorful signs in a rainbow of blinking lights and massive, animated holograms loomed over the road. There were shops, casinos, hotels, clubs – all competing to be the most outlandish and spectacular.
“Must be amazing at night,” he remarked to himself.
“Oh, indeed, miss,” Paul agreed. “It’s quite a sight. They say it’s the brightest thing on Caledonia when you look out from space.”
“I believe it,” Quantrill said without looking away from the sights. It was like nothing he’d ever seen.
And the people! There were people everywhere – on the sidewalks, crossing over the road on arching pedestrian bridges, going in and out of the casinos and hotels and shops. Some wore subdued but classy clothes – like the sleaze in the pub – but some were like the buildings: competing to be the most outlandish and spectacular. There were bright colors, reflective fabrics, huge headgear, and every style imaginable. Quantrill was feeling decidedly out of his element.