Phoebe shot up from off the couch and shoved her index finger a mere three inches away from my face. “Shelia is a liar! She says whatever she wants to about everyone ’cause she thinks she’s the queen of The Loge!”
I pushed Phoebe’s finger away; she knew where I was going with this and she was already on the defense. I couldn’t back off. “Shelia says that you were fired two weeks ago for stealing some Kobe steaks.”
Hellen grabbed Phoebe by the arm. “Phoebe…that’s not true, is it?”
Phoebe picked Hellen’s fingers from off her arm.
“So tell me, Phoebe, if you weren’t at The Loge, then where were you during the day of the robbery? And please tell the truth this time.” Phoebe started tugging on the collar of her dress; her eyes darted across the room. She was stalling, trying to think of something else to say. I couldn’t let her do that! “Well, Phoebe, where were you?”
“I don’t remember!” she screamed.
“You don’t remember anything at all?” She shook her head no. Oh, how convenient. She had a bad case of selective amnesia. But I had something that could help jog her memory. I pulled the note that I found in the flowerpot out of my purse. As I slowly unfolded the note, I kept my eyes on Phoebe. She uncrossed her legs and started to tap her feet on the floor. I held the note out in front of me. “Dear Phoebe, all of the preparations for today are finished. The only thing I need you to do is bring me the rings. Contact me after you have everything finished on your end.” I dropped the note in Phoebe’s lap. “I need you to tell the truth. It’s obvious that you’re an accomplice in the robbery.”
Phoebe pressed the note to her stomach. She let out a few ragged breaths. “No, it’s not like that. I wasn’t even there that day!”
I’d had enough with Phoebe and her lies, and being nice wasn’t working; it looked like I would have to get a little rough. I got up so fast that I ended up pushing my chair over. I placed one hand on the arm of the couch on which Phoebe was sitting. I looked Phoebe in the eyes; I was so close to her face that I could see the tears that were sitting on the edge of her eyelids. “Do you think I’m stupid! I watched the footage from the cameras that day. You do realize that there are cameras on the security room floor, right? No, you probably forgot about that, just like you’ve forgotten about everything else today!” I pulled apart her fingers, which were pressed on her abdomen, and pried out the note that she was so desperately holding on to. I dangled the note in front of her face. “There’s only one Martian janitor by the name of Phoebe and that’s you, sweetheart! So tell me—where are The Rings of Saturn, Phoebe?”
Phoebe covered up her ears with her hands and then pressed her stomach to her knees. “No, no, no, you don’t understand. I wasn’t there that day!”
“Yes. Yes, you were there that day. On the camera footage, I saw a young Martian woman, a janitor, running straight toward the scene of the crime. You had your hair in a big fluffy ponytail that day. Do you remember now?”
Hellen started to rub Phoebe’s back. “Phoebe, just tell her the truth. It will make you feel better!” she pleaded.
I moved my mouth toward Phoebe’s left ear. “Maybe I should ask Cole about all of this since you can’t seem to remember a thing.”
Phoebe removed her hands from her ears and slowly turned her face toward mine. A trail of shiny black mascara and tears ran all the way down to her chin. I backed away from her; she looked like she was finally ready to tell me everything and I wanted her to have more than enough room to do so. I reached over to my seat to grab my pen and notepad. Without warning, Phoebe sprang up from out of her chair. I didn’t have any time at all to protect myself from her attack; her sharp nails were already lodged into the straps of my dress. I tried to push her off me, but it was too late. Phoebe swung me with all of her might toward the other side of the room. I ended up falling into the dirty dish bucket. I turned around, but Phoebe was gone and the quilt in front of the doorway was flapping inside of the living room. Oh my God, she ran away. Hellen helped me to get back on my feet.
“Oh. By the Goddess. I’m so sorry.” Hellen handed me a towel. I wiped off the water on my arms. I looked back at the quilt in the doorway; there was no use in trying to chase after Phoebe. This was her home; she knew every nook and cranny in this place better than I did. I was sure she was hiding someplace safe where I couldn’t find her. I would ask the other security guards to help me, but this place was a ticking time bomb and performing a search for yet another Martian woman would be just enough to make this place explode. Plus, there was no need for me to worry. This place was on lockdown and there was nowhere for her to go. Eventually, she was going to have to come back home and, when she did, I’d be waiting for her with some added assistance. She wouldn’t get the chance to run away from me next time. I handed the towel back to Hellen.
“Hellen, I’m going to go. If you can remember anything at all that can help your daughter to get out of this situation, please call me. My office is on the security room floor. If you happen to call, just ask for me, okay?” Hellen shook her head yes, then she dropped down onto the couch with the damp towel pressed to her face. I collected my things and I left Hellen alone, slumped on the couch, a steady stream of tears rolling down the side of her face. I had passed the first house next to Hellen’s when I heard a long, deep, soul-stirring bellow. The kind where, as soon as you hear it, you can feel that person’s pain all the way down to your bones. Everyone on the street stopped what they were doing and, just like me, with a somber look on their face, they gazed toward Hellen’s house. I had a certain amount of sympathy for Hellen; when your child is in trouble and there’s nothing you can do fix the problem, what else can you do but cry?
I turned around onto an empty street corner so I could write down everything that had taken place while I was talking with Phoebe and Hellen. I was just about to wrap things up when a small red rubber ball bumped up against my ankle. Over to my right was a trio of little Martian children—two rough-looking little boys and a girl who was missing her two front teeth. I picked the ball up and handed it over to them. “Here you go.” The two rough-looking little boys pushed the little girl with the gap in her mouth forward. The little girl slowly inched toward me. As she got closer, her eyes kept darting from me and then back to the red ball in my hand. When she was close enough, she snatched the ball out of my hand and made a run for it at top speed, her two friends following behind her.
I smiled; she was so cute with her little gap in the front. She looked like she was around Anthe’s age. Oh my God; Anthe! Oh my God, I hadn’t talked to her or seen her since I’d gotten back on the ship! She’d been all alone by herself in my hotel room! I needed to go check up on her! While I was at it, I needed to check up on Wendy as well. I wondered if she was still with Kari and Hati. I started spinning around in circles; this place was so dense and all of these metal houses looked the same and I couldn’t even remember Kari’s house number! Well, I guessed the best thing I could do was call the Bestla Hotel and check up on Anthe first.
I decided to use one of the employee telephones next to the employee elevator. The operator was able to connect me to my room in no time at all. After about the fourth ring, someone finally picked up the phone. “Hello?” My heart leapt for joy. I recognized that sweet-sounding voice. It was Wendy.
“Wendy! It’s me, Cosmo!” I cried.
“Cosmo! By the Goddess, child, where are you and where have you been? And what in the name of the Goddess is this little girl Anthe doing here in your room? She said something about you helping her mother. Have you gotten yourself into some sort of trouble?” I ran my hand over the top of my face. I couldn’t hide anything from Wendy; she deserved to know. It took me twenty minutes to catch Wendy up to speed on my situation; of course, I didn’t tell her everything. I might have left out a few minor details, like almost dying out in space and spending a small amount of time behind bars. Wendy didn’t need to know every tiny detail. Wendy suddenly became very quiet, for almos
t half a second I thought maybe the call had been dropped or something.
“You had dinner with her Highness, third in line to the throne. Oh, Cosmo, I’m so proud of you. And what exactly are you going to be doing as the princess’s ambassador?”
Oh geez, I’d already stretched the truth as far as I could. If I were to stretch it any more, my whole story might rip straight down the middle. Here goes nothing, I guess. “Basically, I’ll be relaying messages to the princess’s ship, little updates on how things are going with the investigation. But enough about me; how did you get back to the hotel room?” Hopefully, by making Wendy the topic of our conversation, she would forget any questions she might have for me.
“Oh well, basically, the security officers had no control over anything that was happening; you saw that for yourself. They couldn’t question us anymore and a lot of people were upset because they wanted to go back to work. They ignored those who wanted to go back to work until their bosses started showing up and pleading for them on their behalf. A lot of the Martians here do the dirty work that no one else wants to do and since no else wants to do it for them, they needed to be released. There was a group of ladies who were heading back to the Bestla Hotel; I think they clean the rooms here. I just kind of blended in along with them as they were leaving. No one questioned it and I traveled back here to our room just like that.”
“I’m glad that you’re okay. Look, I’ll talk to you later when I get back to the room.” I put the phone back on the receiver.
For a brief second, I contemplated going back to my room for the night. My feet were killing me and it was pretty late. It was going on ten o’clock and I had no clear idea where this guy Cole could be. The Titan was a huge luxury ship with many rooms, restaurants, shops, and even a few game rooms. I thought there was a little mini casino somewhere onboard. Either way, Cole could literally be stationed anywhere. In the meantime, I decided to take a quick stroll through the same oasis garden I’d walked through earlier when I was trying to find a way to get onto the security room floor. I wanted to go over the information I had collected thus far. All around me, people seemed to be in good spirits; a waitress with a tray of colorful martinis offered me something to drink, but I declined, of course, because I was not old enough to drink yet. I kept flipping through my notes. I tried to concentrate, but my train of thought became derailed by a group of painfully drunk adults. There were two security officers and four women, all huddled together not that far from me. I thought that they were trying to dance, but the alcohol had turned their legs into rubber, so it looked like they were stepping over each other. One incredibly inebriated young lady tapped on the shoulder of one of the security officers. “You should use that fancy doodad thing of yours to call over more of your friends.” She pushed the officer’s shirtsleeve up, then she brought his wrist up to her lips. “This is Erica. I’m calling in from party central!”
The security guard quickly pulled his arm away from her mouth. “Stop spittin’ on it. That’s not how you use it.” He gulped down the rest of his martini, then he tossed the glass into the oasis that was behind him. I couldn’t see it earlier because the young lady was blocking my view, but the officer had a dark green cube attached to an adjustable black strap on his wrist. Using his fingernails, the officer pulled a small silver antenna from out of the top of the green cube; immediately, high-pitched hissing noises filled the air. The noises kind of reminded me of radio static.
The officer placed his lips over the top of a small circle on the green box. “This is Edwards. I’m calling from the oasis garden on level B. Come on down here for drinks and some fun!” After another short burst of static noise, a voice came from the green cube.
“Edwards, stop flooding the airways with your crap! Some of us have work to do.” It looked like he was able to communicate with his fellow co-workers on that wrist radio thing of his. Oh! Oh, he could communicate with his co-workers on that thing; that was so great! I could use that to find Cole. I might not know where he was, but maybe his co-workers did! If I could get that guy to ask on the radio where Cole was, that is, if he was still working this late at night, then maybe I could find out where he was! This shouldn’t be too hard; this guy was already drunk, which should make it even easier for me to pry any information that I needed out of him.
With a smile on my face, I made my way toward the drunk security guard. Once I was close enough to him, I carefully wrapped my arm around his. He instantly turned his face toward mine. His cheeks were crimson red and if I hadn’t been holding on to him right then, I was sure he would have probably toppled over into the oasis behind us. In a voice so sweet that it could kill a honeybee, I said, “Hi! I was wondering if you could help me find a friend of mine. He works here on the ship as a security guard.”
“Sure thing, sweetie. What’s your little friend’s name?” The noxious alcoholic fumes that were trapped in Edwards’s mouth nearly knocked me over. My eyes began to sting the same way they would if I were peeling an onion; geez how many drinks had this guy had?
“His name is Cole. He’s pretty tall and has bright-red hair.”
Edwards jerked his head back. “You talking about Cole Surtur, that scumbag extremist!” I shook my head yes. Sounded like Edwards was not a big fan of Cole. I wondered what he meant by “extremist,” though. Edwards pulled me in close. “Forget about Surtur. Instead, why don’t you and me get acquainted? You’re kind of cute, you know that?” Between suggesting that we should try to get to know each other better and the rank odor that was coming from inside of Edwards’s mouth, I had all I could do not to upchuck everything in my stomach. Edwards grabbed hold of my wrist, leaned his face toward mine, and puckered his lips. All I could think about was how this drunk man was going to steal my first kiss from me unless I acted fast!
“Don’t go kissin’ some other girl while I’m standin’ here!” Erica shouted before she shoved Edwards into the pool of water. He nearly dragged me in with him, but I managed to catch myself before I fell in by holding on to the edge of the pool with my right hand. My left hand was resting on Edwards’s wrist; the bottom of my palm was brushing up against the wrist communicator. I couldn’t rely on him to make the call for me; the best thing I could do was to take the communicator from him and then make a run for it. Both Edwards and Erica were still yelling at each other. I slipped my fingers underneath the black band on Edwards’s wrist. There were two crescent-shaped metallic buttons on each side. I pressed the two buttons together; both sides of the wristband popped up against the radio communicator. From out of the corner of my eye, I glanced back at Edwards; his attention was still fixed on Erica. This was it; now or never! I plucked the radio communicator off of Edwards’s wet wrist, pressed the communicator to my chest and, without looking back, ran as fast as my feet would carry me away from the oasis. I could hear Edwards yelling at me to bring his communicator back. I wasn’t too worried; he was too drunk to run after me and I was sure within the next minute he would consume another drink and wouldn’t even remember what happened to him.
Once my feet started to ache, I stopped running and took refuge in between two gift shops that had closed for the night. After I caught my breath, I snapped the radio communicator onto my wrist and pulled out the silver antenna. For a while, all I could hear was static. I walked around with the wristband up to my lips until I managed to reach a spot where the static wasn’t as bad and my signal was much clearer. “This is an emergency. I’m looking for Cole Surtur.” With my other hand placed on my hip, I eagerly waited to hear from someone on the other end who could help me. For a while, nothing happened. A low static hum came from the radio communicator. I looked down at the communicator and my heart became filled with anxiety; was no one going to talk back to me? Could anyone hear me at all?
“You looking for Surtur?” some husky voice blurted out through the static. At last, someone heard my cry for help. “Surtur is on level A. He’s keeping an eye on that assembly going on at Skoll’s Bar.”
Just like level B, level A was brimming with lots of late-night activity. But unlike level B, there was way more security up here, probably due to the fact that there were more bars up here. I was sure they wanted to keep any minors out of there. The bars here were of a different variety. The workers behind the counters wore neatly pressed tuxedos and the patrons were decked out in the latest fashions. Once I passed the first few bars, I entered the mini casino that was right in the middle of level A. There were a few guards circling the casino. But their eyes were on the zombie-like customers who were stuffing space credit after space credit in the slot machines. Thankfully, nearly every person in the mini casino was a smoker; the entire area was blanked in a thick, fluffy white cloud of smoke. The white nicotine cloud came all the way up to my forehead. This noxious cloud was just the cover I needed so I could sneak past the guards and make it to the other end of level A undetected. Upon exiting the smoke cloud, I could hear the strumming of a banjo. It sounded similar to the banjo that had been played the day of the robbery by that guy who was holding that anti-Martian assembly. What was the old guy’s name? I thought it was Jimmy. I wondered if that guy was holding another assembly up here and if that was the assembly that Cole was watching over.
As I continued to follow the light strumming coming from the banjo, it eventually led me to a lively crowd of people; they were singing and dancing merrily to the music that was being played by a small band near the bar. The bar itself was shaped like a horseshoe and the logo hanging above it was a black ferocious wolf standing over the top of the word “Skoll.” Draped underneath the word Skoll was Pluto’s national flag; in the center of the flag in gold was Pluto’s astrological symbol. A line was drawn through the center of the flag; the top half of the flag was black, while the bottom half was red. Even though this was Pluto’s flag, it was more so associated with the anti-Martian/natural order movement, since they kind of adopted the flag as their unofficial symbol. I was definitely going to have to be careful while I was here; most of the time, these anti-Martian natural order people could be pretty crazy and high strung. But I thought I should be okay as long as I didn’t point out how incredibly backward their mindset was.
Cosmic Callisto Caprica & the Missing Rings of Saturn Page 20