by Jason Winn
Axel had to wait for his idiot boss, Franklin, to finish his round of afternoon beers at the bar down the street before locking up for the night. This annoyed Axel to no end. Franklin, a devout fundamentalist, spent most of the afternoon getting drunk with his fellow good Christian citizens, rather than doing his actual job. But that was the life of a professional government worker these days. No doubt some of them, fearing ethics investigations, would make for the closest visa offices with thick wads of foreign cash in order to bribe their way off-planet before the reprisals started up.
Axel was a lowly contractor and had no such protection. He reasoned that Franklin and his buddies were toasting an end to the good ole days as things were sure to change with the new president. By God he hoped so.
As Axel sat alone, watching the sunset over the swamp that was DC, he tried to put the sight of the tourist hovercraft crash out of his mind. He couldn’t help but fixate on it. It reminded him of the war. How many ships had he seen break apart in orbit after being hit by railgun or missile fire? How many bodies had he seen thrown into the vacuum of space? The names of all his old buddies started coming back to him.
Jessup. Rider. Ramirez. Olson. Burzynski. Jesus, I stopped counting.
If he really thought about it, he could sit there all night recalling the names of the dead. Across the water stood the Vietnam Memorial. Those friends of his never got and probably never would get their memorial. The politicians, most of whom only lost their jobs, had fought tooth and nail to try to paint their failure in the Solar War as a victory. And although Axel never entered the Church of the Pentagon, he suspected there were plenty of self-congratulatory monuments to the glorious generals who managed to save America from China and Russia in the war.
His eyes drifted upward to the darkening sky dotted with constellations of orbiting space stations. His dad used to tell him it was possible to see stars at night from his backyard in northern Virginia, but Axel found that hard to believe.
The shouts of business owners and hustlers filled the city streets in Georgetown. State-sponsored graffiti covered the building walls. Most of the subject matter consisted of prayer hands with the names or pictures of high-ranking officials who died in what became known as the Great Rapture. In truth, the Great Rapture was the great poisoning. No one knew the actual number of faithful Values Party members who had died a year before from the tainted batch of Righteous Fire Soda, but it was at least several hundred thousand. Some estimates placed the death toll as high as a million, but the real number remained elusive.
As fortune would have it, the death toll was enough to swing the election for the Horizon Party, leading to their ultimate victory last November. The Denver White House and Congress now belonged to the Horizon Party, which by all accounts was moderate, judging by the old-school political spectrum. They were secular and had run on a platform of reintegrating the United States into interplanetary society. The antique political parties known as the Democrats and the Republicans maintained a token presence in the post–Solar War America.
Each storefront along M St. hid a secondary, illegal business—gambling, drugs, prostitution. All of which were probably elated they no longer had to pay the secret sin tax to the local Values ministers. UN troops, who were nowhere to be found during the inauguration protests, stood at every intersection, daring protestors to disrupt the general peace.
Axel ignored them all—city cops, UN patrols, Blue Shirt militias, street gangs. He’d lost track of who controlled what neighborhood or district. It seemed they shifted in the night, one bribing or threatening the other, and the next day a different group was guarding the same intersection.
His dinner tucked under his arm, all he could think about was getting home and watching the news. He wanted to see if the state TV had been taken off the air yet. If he was lucky, one of his favorite black net streaming services would be up for a few hours and he could watch old movies. Rumors of the American Internet being reconnected with the interplanetary net exchanges would probably not be realized for at least another few years. The country’s communications infrastructure was woefully behind the times.
Axel’s apartment was above a recruiting office for a French engineering conglomerate. Pictures of young happy people in various office settings adorned the front windows. However, he could not remember the last time he saw one person walk through the front door who wasn’t an employee there. He always wondered if it was just some sort of tax dodge, but he never bothered to ask. Keeping a low profile was priority one for someone with a bounty on his head and a target for the war crimes commission. He doubted anyone was actually looking for him in a backwater like DC, but he was not going to take that chance.
His apartment consisted of a single room big enough for a narrow bed, a chair, the desk, and a wall-mounted computer monitor. The bathroom down the hall was shared between three other units. In the old days all four units would’ve been a single apartment. The cracked plaster walls were adorned with pictures of his many romantic conquests and the results of those conquests, kids. Younger versions of Axel stood next to a parade of beautiful women, some of whom had born him children. There were no pictures of any of his children after the age of ten.
Axel sat in his chair, turned on the monitor, and pulled the tab on the bottle of his large bowl of noodles to activate the heating element at the bottom of the bowl. He sat and waited for the noodles to heat up as he scrolled through the few channels he could afford.
All the state-run media channels were blank, leaving Alex with three channels that aired mostly pre-war sitcoms and movies. All of which split their airtime into equal parts of scripted content and commercials. He found a rerun of Valley Forge High and muted the sound. An icon in the top corner indicated there were fifteen new messages. He clicked on the messenger client and opened his mail.
Most of the mail offered recruiting opportunities for American labor, espousing the potential employer’s love and adoration for the fabled American working spirit. If anyone bothered to read the fine print of these solicitations, they would see that these were opportunities for medical test subjects or chemical plant laborers, or corporate security recruiters looking for suckers to patrol gang-controlled territory in some settlement on Mars or Mercury. Axel deleted them all and began shoveling noodles into his mouth. He had a shitty job, fixing boats and hovercraft and building systems, but even if he was desperate enough to take one of those jobs, he’d never pass the background checks. If he was lucky, he’d be turned away before the interview. If he was unlucky, he’d be invited to the interview, where a Chinese war crimes hunter would be waiting for him. No thanks.
He finished his dinner and tossed the empty bowl into the recycling bin. Belly full, he sat back in his chair and let his mind drift. It only took a second before he saw the tourists in the water again. Only this time, their faces were replaced with those of his old buddies. He closed his eyes and fought off the urge to do a line of slate.
You don’t need it right now, he thought.
He turned instead to his family mural. It was Ursula’s birthday next week. He would call her and wish her a happy twenty-first birthday. The thought brought a tear to his eye. He could at least talk to her. She’d have to answer the phone. This was a big one. She could go out with her friends and celebrate. Wouldn’t she like to hear from her father, for once?
“Daddy!” she’d say.
“Hey baby, long time no see.”
“I miss you so much.”
“I know, baby, but I got too many things going on right now to come out to Saturn and see you. Maybe next month.”
“Oh my God, that would be great. I can’t wait to introduce you to all my friends.”
Did she have a boyfriend? She had to. Her mother was beautiful. She was beautiful. Was she beautiful? There was no way to tell. He hadn’t laid eyes on her in over fifteen years.
Jesus, you’re pathetic, he thought. She doesn’t want to see you. No one wants to see you.
Witho
ut even realizing it, Axel was opening his special wooden box and chipping off flecks of dark gray crystals. Slate. He felt his fingers crushing the soft crystals into power, and his razor blade pushing the little pile into a line.
“Goodbye, baby,” he whispered. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
With that, Axel did the entire line in one snort. Ten seconds later the prime slate blanked his mind and he went into the familiar ghost-like trance of mindless bliss. He didn’t even remember his name and he didn’t care. Slate wiped his mind clean, for a time, anyway.
Thirty minutes after Alex Nash wiped his mind for the night, a message popped up on his monitor. “Hey, old buddy. Got a job you can’t refuse. Seriously, you don’t have a choice. I need you and like it or not, you’re being volunteered. Don’t say no or I have to turn you in to the authorities. Call me. Cougar.”
DX907 threw her hands up and screamed at the sight of the mugger’s knife. The man, dressed as a junkie, waved the knife in front of her. Rust and dried blood covered the blade. He kept screaming over and over for her to give him her purse. But she wasn’t going to give it to him. That wasn’t part of the program.
“Help! Help! He’s got a knife!” shouted DX907. She pumped tears from her eyes, letting them stream through her perfect makeup. Her perfect blonde hair was now mussed and frazzled.
How could all those people just stand there, taking photographs and gawking at a beautiful, young blonde being mugged in broad daylight on a busy city street? But then again New Yorkers had a way of not caring about street crime. They were content to look straight ahead and mind their own business. Except for the tourists of course.
For a moment, time seemed to stop for DX907 and she scanned the faces in the crowd. A teenager with a crew cut bore his teeth and screamed for the mugger to stab her. He, like his old man next to him, wanted to see a murder today.
The mugger reached a shaky hand toward her purse strap. She batted it away. She took a step backward and tripped over a man sleeping under a pile of garbage. She fell to the cracked concrete of 42nd St. People in the crowd took pictures, while others clapped and hooted and hollered. But no one rushed in to stop the junkie’s advance.
Exasperated with her attempts to fight back, the burly man reached down and picked up DX907 by the hair and lifted her to her feet. He then drove the rusty blade into her stomach. He yanked the blade back and drove it in, again and again. She tried to stop him but the steel slashed through her fingers. Each time it buried into her gut. Blood poured from each new wound and soaked her jeans.
Through tears she could see the man’s expressionless face, covered in days-old stubble, scabs, and crumbs. Tangles of brown and gray hair stuck out underneath his black stocking cap. As he stabbed, his lips curled back to reveal decaying yellow teeth.
Finally, he let go of her hair and the strength left her legs. DX907 fell next to the sleeping wino as a puddle of blood formed under her. The crowd, which had grown to almost fifty people, cheered. Some clapped.
The junkie fumbled around her neck and cut the purse strap. It snaked under her arm as he retrieved his prize and turned to face the crowd. He flashed the bloody knife at a woman in the crowd, who in turn cupped one hand over her mouth and another over her stomach. Her boyfriend put up his fists in a mocking fighter’s stance. Several people laughed. The junkie growled, waved the knife at one other person, an old man, before sprinting off down the street.
About half of the crowd approached DX907 and continued taking pictures. Several stood in groups smiling and pointing at the bloody mess, who now for the sake of show was lapsing into convulsions.
The remaining tourists became bored as children tugged at parental clothing, some consulted maps and others strolled off to find another New York sideshow.
DX907 went into monitoring mode, her eyes narrowed for slits as she waited for the recycling teams to come by for their nightly collection run.
By 3:00 a.m. 42nd St. had been cleared of tourists. The street sweepers wound through the city, cleaning up the day’s refuse. A squeaky behemoth the size of an old garbage truck pulled up to the curb next to where DX907 lay in a pool of coagulated blood. A chunky old man jumped out of the driver’s side and strolled up to the scene of that day’s mugging exhibit. He was joined by a young wide-eyed kid. Both wore the same blue Department of Historical Reenactments cleanup crew coveralls. Synthetic blood caked the arms of the young one’s uniform.
“Okay, this one’s yours, Junior,” said the older one. He pointed down at DX907 with a battered scanner. An orange light washed over her, followed by a garbled chirping.
She remembered him as Frank, the one who dropped her off in the city two days ago. He had said nothing other than, “There you go, sweetheart. Have fun getting killed,” before jumping back into his delivery truck and taking off down 39th St.
“Wow, she’s beautiful,” said Junior. He squinted. “At least, she was.”
“Don’t get any ideas with that little carrot of yours.”
Junior sighed. “Throw her in the back with the rest?”
“Yup,” said Frank. “Just pick her up under the arms and chuck her in the back.” He pointed with his thumb to the grimy opening at the back of the big truck. Then, he walked over to the wino who lay slumped against the building. He knelt down to look at something on the man’s face, aimed the scanner at him, and was rewarded with the same chirp.
“He one of them?” Asked Junior.
“Yeah, but he just lays here. He does as much as those parking meters over there.”
Frank looked down at DX907. He smirked and shook his head. “What I wouldn’t give for a night with someone, looks like her.” He had a thick accent, similar to the one DX907 had been programmed to use. It was something labeled Queens—2025, young female. “None of these squibs ever look like real people, always fucking models. Fucking Chinks love to see beautiful young Americans getting stabbed. I think they get off on that shit. Who fucking knows?” His hands flew in all directions as he spoke. “You never see the Indians or the Europeans in the crowd. Just those slant-eyed fuckers watching and laughing and high-fiving, taking pictures. Fucking sickos.” He thought for a moment, tapping his chin. “I can’t ever recall seeing any Ruskies, though. You’d think they’d love to see that shit too.”
The kid bent down next to DX907. “Chinese got all the money.”
DX907 could feel the kid’s arms straining to lift her up and drag her into the street before hoisting her into the back of the truck. Frank followed.
“Plus,” said Junior, “I heard all the Ruskies were broke. That’s why you don’t see them come here.”
“What the fuck do you know about anything, rookie?” asked Frank.
DX907 fell onto a pile of inert squibs. Some had wounds like hers. Others were shaking violently, having overdosed on drugs. She could see an old man with wispy gray hair. Blood covered his face and something looked to be embedded in his forehead. Junior took a long look at the pile of bodies in the back of the truck, and the color drained from his face.
“Yeah, get a good look at all of that,” said Frank. “You’re gonna be looking at that for the next twenty fucking years. If you’re lucky and don’t fuck up. And be thankful for the union that the drones aren’t doing your fucking job for you.”
Frank turned and walked away. Junior took a deep breath and stared at the pile of dead and quivering squibs for another moment before following Frank. The doors to the front of the truck slammed shut and the bodies of squibs bounced as the truck rolled down 42nd St.
A black hover car with US government plates landed in the parking lot of the Jersey City’s Bright Star Squib Recycling and Manufacturing plant. It was a long white building along the waterfront. Pickup trucks, loaded with squirming bodies, rolled up into loading docks at the back of the building.
The hover car powered down. The gull-wing doors opened and Royce “Cougar” Monroe stepped out in gator-skin boots with silver accents. His long hair whipped in the win
d across his thick beard and mirrored sunglasses. He wore a blue and black Paisley silk shirt, a three-quarter length leather coat, jeans, and a high roller hat with a snakeskin band. A Colt .45 hung low on his hip and the words “Peace Breaker” were engraved in the polished Red Wood grips. His fingers were covered in silver and onyx rings.
His assistant, Eddie Sedgwick, followed. Dressed slightly more professionally, Eddie wore a simple gray suit and tried to keep up with his boss’s quick pace across the parking lot.
Cougar scoffed at the forest of church steeples on the other side of the street. Each one brimmed with old, angry people shouting about how the world was going to come to an end with the new president and his gang of sinners. Values Party flags waved in the breeze over the mob as they held up signs with the smiling face of the former President Jonas Petty IV. The Petty family dynasty would end with his loss and the loss of the Values Party in Congress.
Several members of the soon-to-be-outlawed Sin Fist Brotherhood guarded the parishioners, brandishing assault weapons and dressed in tactical gear. Their purple ball caps featured the Values Party American flag.
Cougar and Eddie entered the Bright Star building. They were met with a group of high school kids, led by a nervous looking teacher. A guide with oily hair and a thin mustache shepherded the group through a showroom. Tall glass display cases featured male and female squibs of all ages, dressed in everything from street clothes to formal attire.
“You see, kids,” said the tour guide, “this is going to upset your teacher, but our products started out as companionship for the wealthy.”