by Dan Ackerman
Arden dropped them onto the drainboard. They clattered. A chip pinged off one.
“You can’t be sad to see him go.”
“Not…I didn’t.” Arden forced a breath. He kept staring into the sink. “I thought it would teach him a lesson. A hard one. Hopefully a painful one. I didn’t think they’d kill him.”
“You didn’t think putting Morris Torre with a bunch of workers would kill him?” Oggie clarified.
“No.”
“Sugar, you’re his nephew and the most powerful man on Eden and he tried to have you killed. What he did to me was…pretty kind in comparison to what a lot of people got.”
Arden picked up the scrub brush from the sink and pushed crumbs toward the drain. “I know. I just…I know I just didn’t know. I didn’t understand. I’m too stupid to think anything through that much.”
“I wouldn’t lose sleep over it.”
“I didn’t want to be a murderer.”
“It’s murder if it’s on purpose,” Oggie pointed out, “Otherwise, it’s manslaughter.”
“I didn’t want to do that either.”
Oggie blew a raspberry. “Nothing to do about it now. You stripped his funds? I guess that means you can really spoil me now. What if I wanted my own apartment? Just so I have somewhere to go when you get sick of me.”
Arden unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth. He had a drink of water. He wanted Oggie to chastise him or shout, or something to make Arden feel awful. Right now, he didn’t feel anything except discomfort at his lack of guilt. “I’ll get you an apartment if it will make you feel better, but I didn’t take his money.”
“Oh. Cause he’s got kids, doesn’t he? I think he mentioned them a few times,” Oggie recalled.
“Uh. No. I added to the Public Health Fund.”
“The what?”
“It’s new. It’s…sort of. You know, money for public health. I need to sort it out better when I get back…Or, you know, I need to put people in charge of sorting it out.” He took another sip of water. He seized on this new topic to keep his mind off Morris. “Have you ever been to rehab?”
Oggie’s eyes narrowed.
“No, no, not like that, I’m not trying to send you to rehab. Peers with addiction problems go to rehab, peers who get hurt at work file for compensation. Peers go to therapy and the doctor and…I mean. How many of your addict friends every got any kind of treatment?”
“None.”
“None? Not even overdoses?”
“You know how much it costs to treat an overdose? Cheaper to die.”
A grim outlook if Arden had ever heard one.
“So that’s the thing,” Arden said. He retrieved his tablet. “Have you ever heard of a Form Fifty-Eight B?”
“No.”
Arden pulled up the form.
“I didn’t even know there were fifty-eight kinds of form to fill out.”
“There’s actually about a hundred, excluding the sub-forms.” He handed the tablet over to Oggie. “Form Fifty-Eight B, Request for Public Health Assistance in the Treatment of an Alcohol or Narcotics Overdose.”
“What the fuck is Public Health Assistance?”
Arden flicked to another form. “Fifty-Six C, Request for Public Health Assistance in the Treatment of Chronic Illness. There are two dozen forms for different kinds of medical problems. These forms date back to the first generation of citizens. Bex Torre signed off on these.”
Oggie squinted at the tablet. “I’ve never fucking heard of this.”
“Yeah, so I checked the records for people who worked in a Public Health Office. The last one died two hundred years ago. The offices are all closed. They’re storage closets in med centers.”
“Say it like I’m stupid.”
“Eden, in theory, provides healthcare to workers. Anyone who makes less than a certain hourly wage can fill out one of these forms, bring it to a Public Health Office and have their care paid for, as long as there is available funding.”
“Except they can’t.”
“Because no money ever got put into the Public Health Fund. A little bit, at first, you know, cause this was…Oggie, this was done with mind-blowingly systematic effort. The first generation of workers had rights. Step by step, Councils and Autarchs picked away those rights. Stopped replenishing public funds. Stagnated wages. Stopped upkeep on the Quarters. Reduced ration quality. Turned down the heat.”
Oggie stared at him.
Arden felt like he’d lost his mind.
He’d dug himself further and further down this rabbit hole since Rhys had gotten hurt in Hydroponics Three. All those nights staring down at Terra One, staring at his tablet, putting together these discrete pieces of information to realize what all his ancestors had done.
Bex Torre had not just created a narcissistic monument to herself, she had planned this for her indentured citizens. Extreme backlash to the Terran political state she’d left behind.
He shook the tablet. “My mother kept a journal. Most Autarchs do. She…She knew. She knew what she was doing. She knew what her predecessors had done.”
“She never told you?” Oggie asked.
Arden sighed. He tossed the tablet on the table. “She knew I wasn’t ready. I was younger than you are now when she died. She got sick and her mind went so quick. Her body lasted longer than her mind did. She never got the chance. If she’d lived another twenty years, I’m sure she would have…She would have told me. Planned the next steps with me.”
Oggie sat down. “How long have you known?”
“I’ve been putting the pieces together for more than a year at this point.” Had that long passed since Rhys’s injury? A bump on the head had set all this in motion. “I realized my mother was in on it…twelve days ago,” he said.
Oggie glanced at the date. “Twelve days ago, you cleared our debts.”
“Funny timing, huh?”
“Arden.”
“What was I supposed to do? Keep taking money from thousands of people that my family has systematically abused and enslaved for generations? I mean…What the fuck am I supposed to do? I can’t…I can’t fathom the evil it takes to do this to people or that I would have been part of it, and an active part, not just a passively awful piece of shit like I’ve been, if not for the fact that my mother’s mind rotted before she could show me how.”
Oggie clucked his tongue.
Arden barreled on, “I would have been just like them. Just as fucking awful…” He swallowed. Licked his lips.
“Don’t you think you’re being dramatic?”
“About how fucking terrible this all is? Absolutely not.”
“No, it’s…it’s awful. Immoral. Disgusting,” Oggie agreed easily. “I don’t think you get much out of thinking about who you would have been instead of working on who you are.”
Arden frowned.
“My father told me that. He pulled out a few gems every once in a while. I think…I think he would have been a good dad if he’d, you know, gotten the chance to be our dad. He tried, at least, when he was sober enough to talk.” Oggie waved a hand. “Anyway. Why are you telling me all this?”
“I have to tell someone.”
“Hard secret to keep,” Oggie agreed.
“And I need someone to help me figure out how to tell everyone else without starting a riot.”
“Fuck, Arden, you can’t tell people that! They’ll kill you.”
“People deserve to know.”
Oggie shook his head. “People in the Quarters kind of like you right now, Arden. They might fucking love you, actually, since you cleared their debts. Do not ruin that. Clearing your conscience is not worth destroying the first chance these people have ever had to trust their leader.”
Arden didn’t know what to say.
“Sugar, listen, this might be the first time you’ve heard this and it’s…Listen, look at me, okay?”
Arden looked at Oggie.
Oggie put a hand on his shoulder. “Not everythi
ng is about you. Your feelings don’t matter.”
“My mother actually told me that a lot.”
“Your job is to fix how hard your family fucked us.”
“I’m trying.”
Oggie cradled his face. “Try harder.”
Arden had to ask, “You used to hate me, didn’t you?”
“I did agree to fucking assassinate you.”
Arden’s eyes went painfully wide of their own accord.
Oggie grinned. He assured teasingly, “I never hated you that much. You should never listen to anything I say. I have no idea how to act like a person.”
“Up until right now, you did a pretty good job.”
“But would you even want me if I wasn’t damaged enough for you to fuck without feeling like you were ruining someone’s life?”
“What the fuck, Oggie?” Arden breathed.
Oggie leaned in and kissed his face, then released him. “Come on, let’s go give those dusty idiots one more chance to hurdle themselves into space based on promises from strangers.”
“Uh.”
“What?”
“Can…” He swallowed and couldn’t believe himself. “Can I blow you?”
Oggie tilted his head. “What about our conversation turned you on?”
“I don’t want to think about it, I want you to cum in my mouth.”
“When you put it like that…” Oggie untied the front of his robe and let it slip over his shoulders.
Arden knelt in front of him. He rested his forehead against Oggie’s hip. He had so many uncomfortable emotions and wished he hadn’t stirred them up. He wanted Twelve. He didn’t want to feel anything or think about anything. He didn’t want to have to work this hard to fix Eden.
He kissed Oggie’s stomach and glanced up at him.
Oggie smiled.
This had never felt like work. People had told him he gave good head. He’d never trusted them, of course; who’d tell the Autarch, or the Autarch’s heir, that he was a bad partner? He liked doing it though. He hoped people liked receiving it.
They always came, if that counted for anything.
He took Oggie into his mouth, semi-soft, but not for long.
The uncomplicated slide of tongue and lips. Warmth, the salt of someone else’s skin, and later their cum. A hand on his shoulder, or fingers in his hair. Whimpers, or groans, sometimes words or shouts. One thing he’d never managed to fuck up that badly.
Oggie let out a silly little gasping cry when he came, pushing deeper into Arden’s mouth and tightening his fingers in his hair.
Arden glanced up to see he had a hand pressed to his mouth.
A giggle escaped through his fingers.
Arden licked his lips and smiled. He held in a chuckle.
Oggie giggled a little more and then they were both laughing.
“Get up, fuck, get up,” Oggie said through his laughter. He pulled Arden up and into his arms.
Arden sank into his embrace. “Thanks.”
Oggie really lost it at that. He laughed so hard he cried. He laughed through getting dressed and throughout the day, sometimes he’d look over at Arden and start laughing.
Arden announced their intended departure and the Terrans stared at him like they didn’t understand why he’d told them.
Holly broke down her tent and stowed it in the cargo hold beneath the passenger seats.
He didn’t have the heart to tell her she wouldn’t need her tent.
A few more people followed suit, which surprised Arden. A slow trickle of people began to store things in the hold, more people than Arden had ever anticipated based on the lukewarm reaction he’d gotten to his tales of home.
People joined in so slowly and took so long that it was two days before everyone had begrudgingly stored their things in the hold.
He confided to Holly, “I didn’t think it’d be more than you.”
“We’ve been together for decades. I guess if one of us is going…” She rubbed the back of her neck.
“More friends than you thought?”
She shrugged. “That or we’re all more desperate to get out of the dusty shithole than we ever talked about openly.”
“It would have made it hard to be hopeful,” Arden guessed.
“Everyone on Eden is going to shit their pants,” Oggie noted.
“The Council is going to fucking kill me.”
Oggie kissed his cheek.
Once everyone settled into their seats in the passenger area and he checked to make sure just under one hundred people had buckled in, Arden turned on the shuttle engine.
Oggie scrambled to sit. Holly had made herself at home in another of the seats in the cockpit.
Arden didn’t breathe until they’d made it off the ground.
Slowly rising, then picking up speed, the shuttle hurtled upwards.
With the coordinates for Eden in the autopilot, Arden had nothing to do.
He tried to ignore the sounds of children in distress.
“Do you think they’re all right back there?” Oggie asked.
Arden got up but only to close the cockpit door. “They’re fine.”
“That’s a little concerning,” Oggie admitted.
“I’m overall very concerned right now so at least we’re on the same page,” Arden said. He returned to the pilot’s seat and stared out the window. He could see the ground grow further and further away.
He took a few minutes to compose himself. He checked his appearance as best he could in the mirror. He’d traded his Terran clothes for what he’d brought from Eden. He couldn’t go back looking like a prairie nomad.
He smoothed down his hair.
Little brown dots had cropped up over his cheeks and nose.
He took a breath, then another, then he headed back to the passenger area. He roamed the aisles, checking on people, assuring those who looked the most concerned. He played the flight safety video, then put on a cartoon for the kids so at least the adults didn’t have to worry about their children’s anxiety as well as their own.
He couldn’t believe all these people had decided to come to Eden. He’d expected half a dozen, maybe, and just the ones who wanted to have sex with Oggie.
He announced, “I’m up front if anyone needs anything.”
He’d sent Rhys a message a few days before he’d intended to leave. It would take a while to transmit, so the message and the shuttle would arrive fairly close together.
It had taken so long to get everyone on board, though, that maybe Rhys would have a better head start on setting things up.
He paced between the cockpit and the passenger area about ten times in two hours before Oggie grabbed his arm. He dragged him over. “Come sit. I’m trying to teach Holly to play jumble.”
“Something about ‘I can’t read’ isn’t translating for your man,” Holly said.
“I know you can’t read, but these are letters,” Oggie insisted. He held up a tile. “This is the first letter—”
She smacked the tile out of his hand. “I can’t read. I told you four times already.”
Oggie flinched like she’d struck a much harder blow. “I was trying to teach you,” he growled. He rubbed his hand.
Arden eyed Holly. He’d never gotten a hint of this sort of behavior from her before. Her cheeks had gone red.
She picked up the tile from where it had landed. She set it back among the other tiles. “Sorry.”
“Yeah, well, don’t do it again,” Oggie sulked.
Arden took his hand and kissed the red mark. “Let’s find another game.”
“I’m gonna go sit in the back,” Holly said.
“You don’t have to—” Oggie began.
“No, I.” She sighed.
“Holly, come on, we’ll find a game with no reading. What about numbers? Deck of cards has pictures, too.”
“I can’t see up close,” she admitted. “My gran was a reader. She tried so hard to teach me before she passed but I just, I can’t see. She taug
ht my brother instead, but he died when we were still kids. Our last reader.”
“You need glasses.”
She swiveled her head towards Arden. “I need what?”
“Glasses. They adjust your vision, so things aren’t blurry.” He’d never noticed the golden-hazel hue of her eyes before. He’d known her eyes were brown, but he’d never looked into her eyes like this. Or maybe he’d never thought about her eyes before.
She frowned.
Arden promised, “We’ll get you glasses first thing. It’ll be great. Mace used to have glasses when he was little…Made them a little easier to tell apart.”
“They aren’t identical, are they?” Oggie asked.
“They’re not twins.”
Oggie’s eyebrows raised. “Hm. Could have fooled me.”
“Everyone thinks they are.”
Holly shuffled around a few tiles. She sighed.
“Which one’s older?”
Arden stopped to think. “Mason…I think. I’m pretty sure Mace is older.”
“And he’s the one on Council?”
“No, he’s a supervisor in Hydroponics. Cole is a Council member. He won the—”
“The worker vote, you’re right. I remember now. Honestly, I feel bad, but I’ve only ever seen them together.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
Oggie let out a snort, dry and bitter. “I can’t think straight around your friends. They scare the shit out of me.”
Arden took his hand. “It will be different.”
“It won’t be. You’ll never make them think I’m not using you. We could be married for fifty years with six kids and people would still think I was—”
“Six! I don’t think I could manage one,” Arden interrupted, half-serious but mostly to get Oggie’s mind off what Arden’s friends thought of him.
“I can barely manage myself.”
“That’s because you’re twenty-six, you’ve got like two decades before you should think about having kids.”
Holly stopped shuffling the tiles. She gave Arden a critical look.
Arden explained, “I think…uh. Life expectancy might be a little longer on Eden than on Terra. People tend to wait until they’re ready.”
“Peers tend to wait until they’re ready,” Oggie reminded. “People keep asking Mara why she doesn’t have any kids yet. I think people assume I have a gaggle somewhere.”
