by Read, John
Leeth sighed, “I still don’t know where you’re getting the cars.”
Kevin tapped the game board. “John, what are you waiting for? It’s your turn.”
“Hold on a second, I’m concentrating,” I said. “We need a reason for people to be driving,” I replied. We all paused, deep in thought.
“What if they actually need to go to the hospital?” Kevin said, a grin slowly spreading across his face. He held up his drink and winked.
I looked around, now both Avro and Kevin were beaming. Avro looked over at Kevin, “You have a still hidden in the machine shop right? Moonshine?”
“I do, and yes,” Kevin said, sounding extremely proud of himself.
“Where is this going?” I asked, very confused. “I have no idea where this is going.”
“Kevin’s going to spike the punch,” Avro said, leading me on, making me ask the questions.
I rolled my eyes. “Where is he going to spike the punch?”
Kevin answered, “At the greatest party since 2069.”
The next day, Kevin printed several hundred flyers. Each read, “Greatest Storm Party since 2069” as well as other important details such as “Free Drinks.” I recommended circulating an email and posting on social media but Kevin insisted on poly-paper flyers, stating, “It’s not junk mail if it’s on paper!”
This wasn’t Kevin’s first party and he had all the contacts. First he called Magnus Haze, Mars’s premier trance rock band. They accepted the gig, and their sound guy agreed to procure the space and file the quota exemption on Kevin’s behalf.
The band set up in an empty warehouse in the two o’clock dome. The interior had more than enough room for the band, as well as a DJ podium and a makeshift bar. The garage had formerly held Project Bakersfield’s coil trucks, currently stranded out on the surface. The two o’clock dome had no residential apartments, so the colony’s police wouldn’t bother to kick them out. They might have even joined in. Mars’s cops were as bored as everyone else.
Avro found a couple of guys vaping in an alley near the pavilion. They agreed to pass out the fliers and bartend for free drinks. To give them extra credibility, we let them say the party was their idea.
That evening, Kevin arrived at the garage, dragging a large empty keg behind the bar. He wrote “Phobos Moonshine” in sharpie on the keg, mixed in some tang and tap water, then added two liters of actual moonshine to the mix. He’d start them off light and harden it up as the night went on.
At ten p.m. a twenty-minute long keyboard solo rocked the two o’clock dome. People poured in from every dome in the circumferential. Many people walked, but some drove, leaving the cars to park themselves along nearby streets.
Kevin milled around as guests trickled past the bouncers. He lit the garage using LED Christmas lights. The lights flashed on and off, providing minimal light, which was ideal for a party. Kevin wore white pants and a traditional Indian collared shirt. His sports jacket shimmered, changing colors from silver to metallic blue and red.
A blonde and a brunette floated past him on Meissner heels. They looked overdressed for a party in a garage. Kevin grabbed two drinks from the bar and headed over to the women.
“Hey,” he said to the brunette, handing her a drink. She took the drink and checked him out.
“Nice jacket,” she said.
“Thanks, nice shoes. I heard from someone at Central that everyone’s quotas are being cut to one kilowatt hour.”
“What! That’s ridiculous!” the brunette said, clumsily tipping her cup, splashing alcohol onto the floor.
“Can you do me a favor?” He handed her an envelope. “Can you give this to the DJ? I think you’re taller than me. I’ll get you another drink.”
The woman looked at Kevin, took the note, and smiled. She twisted a knob on her belt and her shoes gave her an extra five inches of height. She bounced her way over to the DJ and got his attention. They chatted for a moment and she passed him the note.
Magnus Haze’s drummer completed a raging solo and the crowd went wild. Then he stood up and tossed his drumsticks into the crowd. The band took a break, letting the DJ take over as the musicians went to the bar.
After the first mix, the DJ made an announcement. “Word in the dome! Quotas are being cut, so you better party like its 2069!” he mixed the announcement with a pulsing drum beat. “Charge those cars tonight! I say again, charge those cars tonight!” The DJ turned up the volume and hundreds of people took to the dance floor.
With the seed planted, it was time to get people to the hospital. Kevin walked up to the bar and handed the bartender a wad of bills and then winked.
The bartender nodded, reaching for the jugs Kevin had planted under the bar and poured the clear liquid into the keg.
At midnight, Leeth’s clinic received its first visitor. Thirty minutes later, it received its fiftieth. All fifty parking spots in the parking structure were filled and a parade of empty auto-cars circled the nearby streets waiting to park. Inside the garage, orange charging cords glowed in the dark. The vehicles were sucking the building’s quota dry.
At the PDC, I received the call I’d been expecting. On my phone was Director Jackson Carver from Central Control. He must have been awfully surprised to see a quota violation at one in the morning.
“John? John Orville? Yes, sorry to wake you, this is Jackson.” He talked in typically southern fashion, slow and relaxed. This was the first time I’d actually seen him without his sunglasses. We usually talked during the day when he was in the control tower on top of the central dome. He looked tired, and if it weren’t for his dark complexion, I’m sure there’d be bags under his eyes. “We’ve received word from the hospital that they’ve flagged a quota violation. I’ll need you to clear that.”
“Oh, hi, Jackson, I hear they’ve got a run on the clinic’s parking garage, I’m going to go down to the substation and disconnect the garage’s power. Those people can charge their cars at home.”
“Damn right they can. Why are they charging at the hospital anyway?”
“I have no idea.”
I drove to the hospital’s substation located on the outside of the building. Using a universal key, I opened the panel. I saw the fuse marked “parking garage” and ignored it.
I got Jackson back on the line.
“Ah yeah, hey, Jackson? John here again. I’m having trouble with the breaker, feedback or something. I talked to one of the doctors. There are no surgeries going on. Mind if I cut the power to the clinic? That should free up the breakers.”
“That’s fine, but be quick about it. This is a hospital you’re talking about.”
In her padded cell, Amelia heard a buzz indicating the arrival of a food tray.
“What the hell?” she said. The meal arrived at least five hours late and her stomach rumbled. A dim red light illuminated the tray. Amelia immediately realized the entree was missing. Oh God, they’re trying to starve me! she thought.
She picked up a muffin, throwing it at the wall. She punched the padded food dispenser, momentarily too pissed off to eat.
Looking back at the tray, she decided what nasty food to eat first. She reached for a coreless apple, inspecting the bruises. Then she saw the note. Confused, she picked it up, and held it under the food dispenser’s red indicator light.
“Go to the bathroom at the end of the hall and wait,” the note read.
“What the hell?” This time it was a real question instead of a rhetorical one. “How the heck am I supposed to…” she paused, something was happening.
The lights went out. Not that it was ever particularly light in the padded room, but it was never completely dark. Amelia assumed the power outage and note were related. She pushed on the door. It opened with a creak.
Amelia looked down the hall. In one direction she could see light from the outside. She ran over to the window and noticed a line of cars driving toward the hospital, then down into the garage. To her left, a stairwell descended into the darkne
ss. On her right was a bathroom, a men’s bathroom.
Well, she thought, I did get a note under my muffin. She pushed open the bathroom door. Inside, it was pitch black.
“Shit!” she said aloud, but just then, the clinic’s power came back on. Amelia looked in the mirror, studying her face. She looked pretty rough after being confined. Her eyes were tired, her brown hair matted and slick, and her lips were chapped. At least I don’t see any new wrinkles, she thought, thankful she still didn’t look a day over twenty five. Her breath fogged up the glass, and she wiped it clear with her sleeve, glancing at the scar on her left wrist.
Leeth opened the door. “Hey,” he said, “you get my note?”
Amelia stared at him. She was here, wasn’t she?
“Doctor thinks I’m with a patient. Here, take this.”
Leeth handed Amelia a cylindrical metallic bracelet and a neoprene wrist brace.
“It’s to cover up your RFID tag.”
“I know what it is,” Amelia said, placing the bracelet over her wrist. “You shouldn’t have helped me.”
Leeth shrugged. “I had to put a stop to your screaming somehow. Use the door at the bottom of the far stairwell. It leads to the dome’s wall-alley. There’s a change of clothes in a tree a block to the north. Head north, through the channel into the three o’clock dome, and someone will meet you there.”
Amelia looked at Leeth, turned, and walked out of the restroom. She flew down the stairs, finding the door at the bottom. Looking both ways and finding the alley empty, she followed the curved path behind several other structures. On her right she saw her reflection in the dome wall. Her bright orange scrubs almost glowed in the dark. When the hospital curved out of sight, Amelia stopped at a twelve-foot-tall tree.
Placed between the branches like a bird’s nest, she saw a pouch the size of a purse. She jumped up and pulled it down. The parcel contained a pair of sweatpants, a baseball cap and a collared shirt.
She looked around, her eyes fully adjusted to the dark. The alley was empty, which was not a surprise. Mars didn’t have transients. Well, not yet anyway. Most people were at home in bed.
Amelia changed into the clothes and tucked her brown hair up into the ball cap.
Something bulged from the left breast pocket of the shirt. Reaching in, she retrieved a pair of eyeglasses. She looked at them, and noticed a holographic projection of open eyes in the lenses. The eye color in the novelty glasses was bright blue, not her eye color. They must have supposed this would add to her disguise.
Amelia stepped out onto the street. Several people were leaving the hospital and heading in different directions. A dozen people headed toward the channel leading to the three o’clock dome.
Amelia eyed the people moving in the direction she intended to go. It was quite a scene; people had bandages over their eyes, while others stumbled in threes, holding each other up.
These people are drunk! she observed, wondering what the hell was going on.
Amelia joined the gaggle as they walked down the street. She figured she might as well blend in, doubting they’d notice her novelty glasses in the dark. The group moved slower than she would have liked. Walking down the street felt great after being imprisoned in the hospital.
When they passed through the channel, Amelia looked back in the direction she had come. The street teemed with people from what must have been a raging party. In the distance, she could see the clinic with its emergency sign illuminated. In front of the hospital a police car flashed its lights, illuminating the dome in a vibrant light show.
An MDF truck zoomed past, stopping in the channel behind her. Several soldiers got out, and started milling through the bodies. Someone must have reported her missing. Each soldier held up a facial recognition detector, which they panned around the crowd.
Amelia kept her head down until she came out of the channel and into the adjacent dome. She looked around, not sure what to do next.
“Psst!” A voice said, “Amelia, over here!” It was male and had a slight Latino accent.
The voice came from the door of a nearby apartment building. Amelia couldn’t see who was talking, but the door was propped open, so she walked over and stepped inside.
“How did you know that was me? It’s dark out here,” she whispered.
“Look at your hat,” the voice instructed.
Amelia looked at the hat. “What the… nice. Really nice.”
The hat she wore was illuminated by a glow-in-the-dark Batman symbol.
“I’m not sure how I didn’t notice that,” Amelia said.
“It lit up when you put it on. Follow me. We need to get to another building.” It was dark in the hall and Amelia couldn’t see the person’s face, but she could tell he was tall and fit.
Amelia followed the shadowy figure though the building and into the alley that ran along the dome wall. He seemed to know where he was going. They continued walking past several buildings until coming to a stop.
“This is it,” the man said. “Go to apartment 228. The door is open. You can sleep on the couch and there’s food in the fridge.”
“You’re leaving?”
“We all need an alibi,” the man said. “Mine is that I’m home in bed. And I don’t live here.”
“All right then,” Amelia said. “Apartment 228?”
“That’s right. I’ll see you soon.” He briefly placed a hand on her shoulder and then disappeared into the dark.
I arrived home that morning to find Amelia sleeping on the sofa. She found the sheets and pillows we had laid out for her but she looked uncomfortable. Her bare feet hung over the arm of the couch. A half-eaten box of Oreos and a milk-stained glass rested on the coffee table. On the kitchen counter sat an empty box of vanilla ice cream. I smiled at this. I guess if I were in her situation, I’d want ice cream too.
At nine hundred square feet, my apartment had one of the larger floor plans in the colony, even if it was only a one-bedroom suite. The living room’s picture window faced the outside of the dome. The area directly outside was a staging area and made my apartment a great place to watch the drones exchanging supplies and whatever else drones did. But during a storm, there was nothing to see. It was eight in the morning and the window looked like a black hole, as if the colony rested at the bottom of the ocean.
When I opened the fridge, letting its light trickle into the room, she woke up.
“Wah?” said a tired voice from the living room, “Who’s there?”
So much for sneaking back to bed. I turned on the kitchen’s LED.
“John Orville. How are you, Amelia?”
“Glad to be out of that stupid cell,” she replied groggily.
“I bet,” I said, pouring myself a glass of OJ. “Want some orange juice?”
“Sure,” she replied, moving into a seated position. “So why’d you do it? Why risk yourselves breaking me out?”
“Risk ourselves?” I said, “You have the law on your side here. From what we could tell from the news, they had no reason to hold you. You should go to the Council today. They’ll at least give you some sort of immunity—”
“No!” Amelia yelled, then calmed down. “We can’t let anyone know where I am.”
“Why? What’s the big deal?” I asked.
“I’ll tell you, but wait until your friends are here. The guy from the hospital—”
“Leeth,” I said. “And the other guy was Avro. They’ll be here this afternoon. Oh, and Kevin too. He’s the one who threw the party, our distraction.”
“And that’s everyone who knows about you helping me?”
“That’s it. If anyone asks, we didn’t help you. You got out on your own.”
“Smart,” Amelia said.
“So why’d they send you to the hospital and not the brig?” I asked.
“A brig couldn’t drug someone. In the clinic, they prescribed me drugs for the criminally insane, drugs that would mess me up. Even if I did speak up, no one would believe me.”
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br /> “Did the drugs work?” I asked.
“Fortunately for me, your friend the nurse is terribly unreliable,” Amelia said with a smile.
I smiled. “I don’t think that’s why. Leeth was worried about you. He didn’t believe that what the MDF was doing was right and probably refused to give you the drugs.”
“Oh, I ah, didn’t realize that.”
“Well, that’s Leeth for you,” I said. “Anyway, I’m exhausted. I’m going to turn in for a few hours. Maybe tonight I’ll sleep on the couch and you can have the bed.”
“Thanks,” Amelia said. “Thanks for busting me out, I mean. We can talk about the sleeping situation later.”
I showed Amelia where the extra toothbrushes were and lent her a pair of socks. Then I went to bed.
Four hours later, a beam of sunlight hit me on the head. I rolled over, pulling the pillow over my face. Wait a minute, the storm is over!
I got up and faced my bedroom window. Like the living room, a floor-to-ceiling window faced the dome wall. Sweeper drones purred back and forth across the dome’s glass, sweeping the dust onto the ground.
With the storm over, we’d all need to get back to work. I called the PDC and Jimmy answered via Skype.
“John, good to see you,” Jimmy said. “Nice of you to dress up.”
I was just wearing my boxers. “Thanks for letting me sleep in,” I said.
“Since you volunteered for that shift last night, I figured you’d need your rest. Anyway, the Pelican is ready to go but Avro’s MVA is half buried. I’ve got some guys from Central digging it out now. There’s a sand dune blocking our equipment garage. I’ve called for extra drones to clear the sand but there’s a delay. Apparently, all the cleaning drones are occupied at the spaceport.”
“What can I do to help?”
“Nothing I can think of, but you probably won’t be going out on the surface until tomorrow. I’ve got everything under control until then.”
“Will do, Jimmy,” I said. “I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
I hit the red “End” button on the screen, and looked up at the mirror that hung over the dresser. Looking closely at my reflection, I noticed a few grey hairs amongst the brown. I thought of Marie, wondering if she had had any grey hair. She’d never let me know if she did. I’m sure she’d dye her hair, intent on looking young forever.