It was full of cash.
"There are a million United Earth Dollars in there," Hale said. "I have several more million in the trunk of my car. I want to hire you, Lizzy Pascal. And I plan to make you a very wealthy woman."
She frowned. "Hire me? What the hell are you talking about, Hale?"
The president smiled thinly. "As you might be aware, I own a little movie studio."
Lizzy rolled her eyes. "Yes, I've seen the marvelous adventures of Ensign Earth as he battled Lizzy the Louse. I must say, the actor you found to play me boasts some wonderfully fake tits. I wish mine were as big."
Hale maintained his smile, but it did not reach his eyes. "How would you like to replace that actor? Play yourself in my films."
She scoffed. "And let your nephew beat me up on camera? For no amount of money in the world. I won't play your grotesque villain."
"Not a villain, my dear! I'll write a new starring role for you. You'll no longer be Ensign Earth's enemy. You'll fight at his side! Together, Ensign Earth and Lizzy the Lioness will fight the evil Kenny!"
Lizzy couldn't help it. She laughed. "Have you missed the past few months of rallies? I oppose the war, Hale! I've spoken out against it from every stage I could find. Now you want me to play a superheroine soldier, fighting in your little minstrel shows?"
Hale took a step closer. His eyes narrowed and his smile widened. "Exactly. You will stand before the camera, Lizzy Pascal. And you will renounce your pacifism. You will endorse the war. You will encourage Earth to fight. On camera every week, you will boost the morale of our troops. Imagine it! You, the famous anti-war activist, fighting alongside Ensign Earth himself!"
Lizzy sneered, "You'd love that, wouldn't you?"
The president inhaled sharply, seeming almost in rapture. He licked his lips. "I would adore it. And in return, I will make you a multi-millionaire. You'll be among the wealthiest women on Earth."
"All I need to do is sell my soul," Lizzy said. "And the souls of Earth's soldiers and the innocents on Bahay." She shook her head. "There isn't enough gold in the universe, President Hale. I refuse. And I'll make sure the world knows that you tried to buy me out."
She turned to leave.
But the Praetorian Guard blocked her way.
President Hale spoke behind her. "I was afraid you would say that, Lizzy."
She tried shoving her way through the guards. "Move!"
"They are enhanced with cybernetic strength and speed, my dear," Hale said. "You won't be able to move them. If you try to run, they will catch you."
She spun back toward the president. "What are you going to do? Arrest me for refusing to act in your movies?"
The president pulled a gun from his jacket. He aimed at Lizzy.
"You should have said yes," he said. "Such a pity."
Lizzy ran toward him, screaming, prepared to pummel him with her bare fists.
Hale pulled the trigger.
Pain exploded in Lizzy's chest.
She kept running.
Hale fired again. Again. Again.
Blood spurted across her chest, and Lizzy fell.
She hit the ground at his feet, and her blood pooled.
I'm shot. I'm shot four times. I'm dying.
Oddly, she felt no pain. A bullet must have severed her spinal cord.
Hale nudged her with his foot. He flipped her onto her back and stared down at her.
I'm sorry, Carter, Lizzy thought. I'm sorry, Bahay. I'm sorry.
"And so the great war heroine falls," Hale said softly.
Lizzy stared up at him. She could barely speak. The world was fading.
"You… will… lose…"
He pulled the trigger again, and—
Chapter Twenty
Reunions
With a purse full of gold, Maria approached Bahay One Confinement Facility, known among the people as the Big Box.
She had never seen an uglier building.
It lived up to its name. It was essentially a big box of raw concrete, rising from a forest of barbed wire. The Earthlings had built this prison when first arriving on Bahay. For twenty years now, the Big Box had housed Earth's enemies: captured guerrillas, dissidents, spies, and any Bahayan suspected of "enemy activity." Which meant doing anything the Earthlings didn't like.
"All my friends are in there, Crisanto," she said. "Charlie. Pippi. All the other bargirls. We must free them."
She lowered her head. She remembered that horrible rainy day. The day the military police had captured her friends. The floodwaters had flowed across the city, washing shanties away. Lightning had flashed and thunder boomed. The Bargirl Bureau, Maria's network of spies, had fallen that day.
"Only I escaped. But now I will free the others. The Bargirl Bureau must rise again."
The Kalayaan, the peasant uprising against Earth, would not win this war. Even the Red Cardinal, the mighty leader of the Luminous Army, could not defeat the HDF. But maybe the bargirls, these forgotten prostitutes, these dregs of the slums—maybe they could do what even mighty warriors could not.
She approached the prison guards—two Earthlings in gray uniforms. The letters MP were emblazoned on their armbands and helmets. There were few people more hated in Mindao than the military police. Most Earthlings in this city were here to drink, whore, and forget the horrors of war before another tour of the jungles. But the military police was different. These Earthlings were here to lay down the law, policing both their fellow Earthlings and the natives. They barely looked human at all, what with their steel-gray armor and yellow visors. One could easily mistake them for robots.
But they were still just men inside their shells.
All men can be seduced, Maria thought. Some men are seduced by soft skin, the flutter of a short skirt, the hint of rounded breasts. Some are seduced by gold. Some are seduced by promises of glory or power. No man can resist seduction. We all have a chink in our armor, leading to the innermost dreams of our souls. That is where seducers shoot their arrow.
As she approached, Maria let the wind play with her dress, pinning it to her curves, and when the wind rustled her skirt, she did not press it down against her thighs. She approached the men and smiled.
"Hello, sirs. My friends are imprisoned here. They're just innocent girls like me. Girls who love strong Earthling men. Can you release them? They've suffered long enough. They would be so grateful."
But the men did not flirt nor soften. They stood impassively, clutching their guns.
One spoke, his helmet giving his voice a metallic tinge. "Are you aware that it's illegal to interfere with military police duties?"
"Leave now," said the other guard. "Or you'll join your friends in the Big Box."
Maria's dress was fluttering up her thighs, but that was having no effect. She smoothed it down.
Not a woman's skin with these ones, then, she thought. But all men can be seduced. Where a woman's charms fails, gold will succeed.
She opened her purse and pulled out two coins.
"I'm not going to be coy," she said. "I'm not going to put on a show, calling these a gift, or pretending to drop these coins in the dust. I'm going to bribe you now. These are real golden coins. You know what gold is worth. Take them and let me in."
They stared at her in silence for a long moment. Maria was sure they would arrest her.
But then one said, "Three golden coins each."
"Two," she said.
"Three or you can join your friends behind bars."
Maria sighed, but she paid up. It was most of her gold. And about what an average Bahayan earned in a decade.
And she was in.
She walked through the cell block. Barred cells rose three levels high, crammed with prisoners. This wasn't a large prison, but thousands of prisoners languished here like chickens in coops. A few prisoners were Earthlings, imprisoned for crimes within their military. But most were Bahayans.
As Maria walked between the cells, many prisoners hooted and catcalled, shouted, th
reatened, spat. They were not innocent people. Maria had no doubts of that. She saw men covered in gang tattoos. She saw hard, scarred men with sharpened teeth, gazing at her lustfully, licking their lips. An Earthling stared between the bars, standing tall and straight, his pale skin covered with swastika tattoos. Even Maria, a native Bahayan, know what that meant.
The prisoners reached between the bars, trying to grab her. She winced and hurried between them, slapping away whatever fingers came closest. The cells were no larger than her room above the Go Go Cowgirl, but many prisoners filled each cell, bodies pressed together.
Everyone was shouting, jumping up and down, reaching toward her.
"Hey baby! Take off your top, girl."
"The Hydrians are coming! The squids are coming to kill us all! You have to listen to me! You have to let me out! The squids are coming!"
"You slit-slut! I'll skin you and your whole family, you whore!"
"Hey, hey you, girl! Just bring this package to my buddy outside, okay? He'll pay you, honestly!"
Maria ignored them all. She walked through this sea of misery until she reached a cell at the back.
She saw them there.
The Bargirl Bureau.
They were huddled together. Charlie, graceful as a lioness, her bob cut and makeup still perfect, even here behind bars. The eldest bargirl, she acted as mother to the others, protecting them even in the Big Box. Pippi was here, clever little Pippi with her cowboy boots, striped stockings, and pigtails dyed bright orange. Pippi who always knew the most about cameras, computers, and all things electronic. All the others were here too. Grace, and Joyce, and Kim, and all the rest of them.
Prostitutes. Bargirls. The bravest women on Bahay.
When they saw Maria, they leaped up, stared with huge eyes.
"Holy Maria has come back!" Charlie raised her hands to the heavens. "A miracle." Her voice dripped sarcasm.
Pippi glared through the bars. "You abandoned us."
The others stared at Maria with dark eyes. Yes, only she had escaped the MP. But she had never forgotten her friends.
A few guards stomped down the cell block, clubbing the reaching hands of prisoners, breaking bones. The burly Earthlings approached Maria.
"Girl! We aren't allowed visitation here."
All Maria had to do was let her gold shine.
And the barred door opened.
And her friends were free.
* * * * *
The entire Bargirl Bureau spilled onto the sunlit streets of Mindao.
At once they mobbed Maria.
"You abandoned us to the police!" Grace said.
"She saved us!" insisted Joyce.
"Shut up, all of you!" Charlie said, then gripped Maria. "My children. Where are they?"
A few more voices rose from the crowd.
"And mine!"
"And mine! My children!"
Maria raised her hands, trying to calm the gaggle. They were all grabbing her, shaking her, demanding answers.
"All your children are safe! Come with me. I'll take you to them."
They stumbled along the sidewalk. The girls were still wearing their street clothes: miniskirts, high heels, tube tops, clothes to titillate. But when a few men approached, catcalls on their lips, the women shot them death glares, and Pippi even tossed a stone. The men scattered.
Maria flagged down two jeepneys. One was painted with parrots, tigers, elephants, and other animals from Earth legends. The other was painted with cacti and flowers under a swirling sky of rainbows. The bargirls squeezed inside. As the jeepneys rattled down the roads, coughing fumes, the bargirls waved at pedestrians, and Charlie even stood up and leaned out the window.
"We're free, bitches!" she cried and laughed, the wind in her hair.
"Watch out, Bahay!" cried Pippi, standing through the sun roof. "The Bargirl Bitches are back in business!"
Along the streets, people turned and waved and cheered. The girls blew them kisses.
"I missed you guys." Maria wiped away a tear. "I missed you so much."
The jeepneys took them through New Manila, the wealthiest neighborhood in Mindao—at least the wealthiest accessible to Bahayans. Palm trees lined wide streets, and the ocean gleamed ahead, thick with cargo chips, fishing boats, and squatters who lived on rafts. Billboards rose everywhere, each more colorful than the other, competing like flowers for the attention of bees. One billboard advertised skin-whitening cream, guaranteed to make you as pale as an Earthling model. Another billboard advertised eyelid surgery to give you round Earthling eyes, loans available at low, low rates. A third billboard promised to match Bahayan princesses with Earthling gentlemen, visas to Earth guaranteed or your money back.
"I want to get skin-whitening cream!" Pippi said, staring with wide eyes.
"I want an Earthling husband!" said Charlie, gasping at the billboards. "How much does one cost?"
But Maria glared at them. "Have some national pride, damn it. We don't have to become Earthlings to be successful."
"But Maria, the Earthlings are so powerful, so rich, so successful," Pippi said. "Why can't we be like them?"
"We can become powerful, rich, and successful too," Maria said. "But as Bahayans. Not as Earthlings. We need to expel their culture from our world and carve our own path."
Charlie snorted. "You sound like my Tito Diego, who joined the Kalayaan. He always talked like that. At least until the putes put a bullet in his head." She lowered her head. "He died fighting for Bahay."
"Tito Diego got a bullet in his head because he cheated a man on a bad shabu deal!" Pippi said.
Charlie crossed her arms. "Yes, and why do you think he got addicted to shabu? Because he was so stressed from the putes."
"That doesn't count!" Pippi said.
Charlie tossed her hair. "It totally counts, and you would know it, but your brain is so hollow a bullet wouldn't even hurt it."
"Girls, girls!" Maria couldn't help but laugh. "Was it like this the whole time in prison?"
Charlie pointed at Pippi. "Oh, Nini, this girl here—she never shut up the whole time."
"Yes I did!" Pippi insisted. "I always shut up. I never talk a lot at all. You just say I talk a lot, but really I'm the quiet one, but you are always arguing with me, and telling stupid stories, and saying I talk too much, and—"
Everyone groaned.
They spilled out of the jeepneys, gawking at Maria's lofty building, this ivory tower that rose above the coast. The girls all began chattering.
"Holy crap, Maria, you live in a palace!"
"I bet she has a new Earthling boyfriend. Richer than Mister Jon for sure."
"Hey, does it have a swimming pool?"
"It better have an elevator, I'm not climbing in my heels!"
"Ugh, why are there shanties on the coast? This is a high-class neighborhood, you know."
"Shut up, you stupid girl, you lived in a shanty before you lived in prison."
"Hey, do my puwit look good in this dress? I'm going to meet a rich Earthling husband here, I know it!"
As the bargirls teetered into the building, the concierge gaped. But Maria gave him a generous tip, and he bowed his head and summoned the elevator.
They were finally quiet during the ride up. Charlie wrung her hands. Another bargirl clutched her crucifix and whispered prayers. The tension was another passenger. And Maria knew why they had chattered and bickered the entire way. To keep that tension at bay.
The elevator stopped at the penthouse, and they stepped inside, and there they were.
Their children.
"Mommy! Mommy!"
The children all ran toward their mothers, weeping, laughing, jumping.
Charlie wrapped up her children in her arms, weeping, holding them so close. Grace wept as she cuddled her toddler. Nobody noticed the splendor of the penthouse, the towering windows, the majestic view of the sea. They cried and laughed and hugged.
Maria watched them, and she placed a hand on her belly. Her child was gro
wing. She could feel the baby kick sometimes. She wasn't quite showing yet, but almost.
Come back soon, Jon. I need you. Our baby needs you. We love you.
She gazed out the northern window. Past the city sprawled the smoldering wastelands of war. Jon was there. Fighting. In danger. Maria whispered a prayer.
* * * * *
"What?" Pippi gasped. "You had a real diamond that looked just like this? And you sold it?" She fainted theatrically, hand held to her forehead. "My heart, my heart! It's broken!"
Maria rolled her eyes. "Pippi! I used the money to bribe you out of prison, you know."
The two sat at the kitchen table, looking at the cubic zirconia. The other bargirls, along with their children, were scampering across the penthouse. They bounced on the bed, raided the cabinets, played the grand piano, suntanned on the balcony, lounged in the hot tub, and tried on every outfit in the closets. Some of the kids were even drawing on the walls.
But here in the kitchen, Maria and Pippi sat alone. They had important business to attend to.
Pippi looked a little ridiculous, Maria had to admit. She wore striped stockings, suspenders, and cowgirl boots. Her pigtails were dyed bright red, freckles were painted on her face, and she was licking an oversized lollipop. But despite her looks, she was the smartest person Maria knew. Nobody understood machines like Pippi.
"Pippi, you're a genius."
The bargirl nodded, pigtails swaying. "And gorgeous. And super hot. And a genius. Oh wait, did you say genius already?" She put on a pair of glasses. "Because I'm a goddamn Alfred Einstein."
"Albert Einstein," Maria said.
Pippi snorted and waved dismissively. "Ah, pute scientists, all the same. I'm the smartest at beating the girls at cards, and that's what counts."
"Pippi, you cheat at cards, that's how you win."
The bargirl placed her hands on her hips. "Yes, well, cheating takes brain power! I might not have a big head like you, but I do have a big brain. And bigger dibdibs."
Maria rubbed her head. "Don't mock my giant head or my tiny dibdibs. Help me. I need you to do some engineering." She tapped the cubic zirconia, and the gem opened like a locket. "I need you to build a recording device and hide it inside my gemstone."
Earthling's War (Soldiers of Earthrise Book 3) Page 17
