April 8: It's Always Something

by Mackey Chandler

  "Oh..." April appraised the height of the filet on her plate. "Have the needles six or seven centimeters long. When the steak has grown out near the ends have the needles retract five centimeters and slice it off. Then push them back out to full length."

  Ames looked distressed. "You'd have to anchor the remainder of the culture to the base...or hold it in place with a sort of fork temporarily, while the needles come back out. I can think of several ways to do that, actually. What made you think of that?" he asked, a little irritated.

  April borrowed a phrase from her good friend Barak. "I'm not sure. It just seemed obvious." The look of consternation on Ames face didn't make her enjoy the steak any less at all.

  * * *

  After discussing it with his sister, Kurt wasn't at all sure what to do. She had some practical suggestions about stretching his money out, but they all assumed he'd eventually get some sort of job and have income, even if greatly reduced. There were shortages that had no easy to see reason, and one of them right now was work boots. He'd paid almost two thousand bucks for a pair assuming he'd need them. Now it looked like it might have been wasted money, unless he could resell them. It was always something...

  He brought up moving to another area with an influx of refugees to his sister, and she had a fit about the word, warning him it was just as bad as his sick joke about working for the Devil. The official word was that all these people were not refugees, even saying migrants was starting to be frowned upon as the cop had clued him in on early. What would they call them next? They sure weren't on vacation.

  His sister warned if he said anything about refugees in a new job interview he'd likely end up on another list of disapproved people. Saying refugees, she assured him, labeled you as anti-government. He felt like he couldn't say anything safely. What did they think these people were? Tourists? He might move to say, Atlanta, and get banned there for accidentally speaking some forbidden truth.

  Kurt had lost track of what was acceptable to say publicly from being away working on M3. You had to be immersed in Earth culture to keep track. The faster you got with the latest acceptable phrase the better. Nobody on Home had lists of words that made them gasp in horror and shun you if you didn't know the current code. His sister had also confirmed what the cop said, that black-balled was also a long forbidden usage. He'd just rolled his eyes when she informed him it was racist. How did anyone come up with this crap? It was amazing they could sell black paint still, and not have to label it 'darkest grey' or some other euphemism.

  All the time he was away working construction on M3 he'd neglected to follow the news from North America or even Mobile. His sister sent him a text almost daily, but she spoke about her roomies and work. Neither of them had ever been interested in politics on any scale. He didn't identify with any party, and suddenly he found people wanting to know if he was a 'Patriot' or a 'Saint' before they'd talk to him about football or share a beer. He found that insane.

  He'd always thought of M3 as just that, a Mitsubishi property on which he was working construction. He was a little hazy on the parent company versus a subsidiary corporation. That all seemed as pointlessly complicated as calling refugees newcomers. But that sort of nit picking seemed to be what kept lawyers in big money. Calling it 'Home' also seemed a conceit and a bit silly to him too, like they were trying to be folksy. But suddenly he was feeling so isolated and alienated in his old hometown that Home seemed more like home...so he found himself setting his news reader to find out what was happening back there. It was stupid and irritating to find most search and direct access was blocked to both official sites and services hosted there, such as 'What's Happening'.

  It took about two minutes to bypass and see whatever he wanted through foreign proxies. Any grade school kid knew how to do it. He made sure the only identifier would be the coffee shop he was sitting in at the moment. If they wanted to know who was interested in Home badly enough they could pull the security video from the store. It all had to be forwarded to the government now, but there was a limit how much they could actually filter and review.

  Some of the ads in What's Happening did have some code words. The rowdier side of society, especially the beam dogs and temporary workers, tried to avoid offending some of the older more conservative people in their ads. That didn't seem as silly a word game to him as the Earth version for some reason. He was removed from that recently enough that he could still read the hidden messages, and smile.

  The ad that caught his eye however was in the clear.

  - Experienced space workers needed –

  A Lunar partnership with both Home and Central backers intends to assemble and position an auxiliary un-spun habitat in proximity to Mitsubishi 3. The primary phase of the project will aim to provide housing for two hundred. The initial phase is expected to last a year and a half, the first six months being entirely at the Central Kingdom on the moon. Expansion past the first phase is dependent on market conditions for housing, materials and other economic factors.

  Build standards will be the same as current Mitsubishi requirements or better. Workers need to be adaptable however, because innovative use of lunar materials will be an economic necessity for the successfully completion of the project.

  Full literacy in standard English is a must. Ability to use and maintain hard suits or moon suits a must. Ability to vacuum weld, vacuum bond, handle and use explosive fasteners, instant soldering nuts, zero G counter-force tools, and helmet talk are pluses. Programming, use, and design for 3D fabricators desired. Repair of 3D constructs and composites a plus.

  Preference to hire and salary are heavily based on verifiable hours of vacuum suit work, specialized training, extra languages, and pilot tickets. Power and data electricians, pipefitters, and airlock mechanics paid a premium.

  Paid on job training for vacuum work / zero G procedures are available to certified Emergency Medical Technicians, Nurse Practitioners, computer / controller repair technicians, and electric vehicle repair and maintenance technicians.

  Chefs / kitchen bosses, prep cooks, and a pastry maker needed. Ability to manage others, cook multiple cuisines and improvise menus to available supply a must.

  A computerized veracity interview and an investigation of previous ability to integrate to the workplace will be conducted.

  Contact / resumes : Jeffery Singh, Project Administrator, Home 1467 or Central 0002, Subject JOB.

  Details : WW5.HomeWebS.SinghTechnologies/projects/M3

  That sounded very interesting to Kurt since things in Mobile weren't working out as he'd planned. Unfortunately, he'd had a guaranteed shuttle voucher to bring him home, but no lift ticket to return since he wasn't employed anymore. From what he'd heard it was pretty tough to get a seat now. Maybe Mr. Singh would have some advice. Kurt still had an active account at the System Trade Bank. That was a Singh business too. It might not be a good idea to draw attention to himself by sending messages in the clear to Home right now, but he could leave a private message through the internal message system at the bank. They did things differently on Home. If he tried to contact an Earth bank executive through the customer message board, he had no doubt they'd just delete it. On Home he had every confidence they wouldn't freak out and slavishly follow the rules.

  Kurt logged on and was happy to see he had 6.732 Solars. They'd just posted 0.032 Solars monthly interest. Thank goodness he hadn't changed it all to dollars! His Great Southern Bank account charged him. They couldn't even change Solars for him. It wasn't legal now, and he'd needed to transfer funds through Hong Kong. They'd have exchanged it for him through Germany, but the swap through EuroMarks would have cost a half percent even though he didn't hold them in anything but the fleeting legal sense of the computer transfer.

  He thought carefully how to state his question. Better to keep it short for now going through this unorthodox channel. He outlined his dilemma and reasons for keeping a low profile and invited Singh to ask his previous employers about his service. On Home they'd ta
lk to him without being scared they'd be sued if they dare say anything negative about him. He wasn't worried about anything they could say anyway. He'd worked his butt off for them.

  * * *

  Gunny leaned back in his chair and his eyes did the quick scan thing that April had come to recognize. He always picked the chair against the wall if he could. Nobody had tried to kill her in like...forever. But she was still happy to have Gunny around for when she went to other habs. He was sort of on call now – she still paid him a retainer. He couldn't help being ON if he was with her, even though they were just having supper and he wasn't officially playing body guard.

  Home was a lot safer now beyond the moon. Their enemies didn't have the easy access from Earth they had in LEO. Both China and the United States of North America were pretty messed up internally, and had limited lift capacity. Any Norte Americano who came all the way to Home now stood out and was watched carefully. The Europeans still insisted in official propaganda that Home somehow had something to do with the Great Influenza epidemic. However they were never specific in their accusations, just subtle innuendo, and they didn't seem to allow that to keep European companies from doing business with Home. They certainly had no official sanctions in place like North America. In fact, the Europeans and the Australians, as well as the Japanese, all picked up a little coin repackaging or outright smuggling Home products into North America, and most likely China too. Jeff made sure he picked up a little cut of all that action, and that was all paid to the company he shared with April and Heather. So if the Americans wanted to pay through the nose to keep up appearances she'd be happy to take their money.

  April provided housing for Gunny. She had a rather large private cubic for Home, and he had his private room and tiny bath set off with temporary partitions. Housing was so expensive now she should probably just provide that for his services, and skip the cash retainer, but April would feel like a cheapskate to reduce his income even though he had other work now. It wasn't that much to carry.

  April had steady income from both the businesses she held in common with Jeff and Heather, and a bunch of little businesses her brother willed her. Neither did she have any really expensive vices or hobbies, other than being a coffee snob. Well, she'd spent some money on art by Lindsey, but that had increased in value so much that she'd been offered ten Solar for the big one of a kind drawing in her living room. She still had a chunk of cash Eddie had given her when she'd gone down to Earth. She felt safer to hold that in reserve rather than invest it with what she held in common with Jeff and Heather. That would be complicated. They after all both had other things they held apart and neither of them had increased their common holdings..

  Gunny was a real asset to have on site. Passive insurance you might say. A sort of security system. The possibility Gunny might be home reduced the possibility anyone would consider trying to invade their space, either covertly in a black operation, or a full frontal assault.

  His worth as a home security system was all the more true since Jan Hagen had leaked the video of Gunny being kidnapped by the North Americans last year. It made the rounds of Home and then inevitably, like anything let loose on the net, found its way to Earth sites. It was rather amusing, at least to her, Gunny found it less so. He found it an affront to his dignity and didn't seem to get that others found it frightening.

  The Americans had a corrupt data base, nothing new there, their government and military nets were a rats nest of old mismatched hardware and software, that translated between incompatible systems. Their agencies were too stubborn or broke to abandon and consolidate them. They'd told the American military post on ISSII that Gunny was still a deserter, after he'd been honorably discharged by Presidential decree.

  They were a bit over zealous to Taser him from behind in the international zone of ISSII and carry him away to their interest section. That irritated Jan Hagen, Head of Security for ISSII. Jan was on the short list April kept of people who you don't irritate or count favors owed back and forth too closely. Jan Oppositional Disorder was a defect she'd seen too many display that proved fatal. She'd seen Chinese officers take a space walk out the airlock without the encumbrance of a suit for provoking Jan only slightly more than the North Americans had by grabbing Gunny.

  The video didn't capture them Tasing Gunny from behind. It started with a security camera view in the officer's cabin, made into an improvised brig, where they'd thrown the unconscious Gunny. He was sprawled limp on the bunk in his shorts, having been stripped and searched before they cuffed him hand and foot and tossed him there. He woke up slowly and rolled over examining his prison and his frown growing slowly worse until he was showing teeth. He sat up and swung his legs off the bunk, set his mouth in a hard line, tucked his arms in front of him and spread them wide suddenly, snapping the cuff chain in a single clean jerk.

  The camera caught a full frontal shot of his chest with muscles taut and defined. He looked like the drawings of muscle groups in an anatomy textbook. However, what April always marveled at was his collection of scars. In fact, it fascinated her so, she'd watched it through three times in a row when Jon Davis, Home's head of security, first obtained a copy and shared it with her. April really enjoyed seeing Gunny snap that chain.

  The officer assigned to watch Gunny could be heard trying to tell his superior on com that they might have a little problem. He was being too professional and matter-of-fact about it and consequently made no impression on the man how dire the situation was at all. A little terror in the voice might not have been misplaced, under the circumstances. He got blown off, which delayed an effective response.

  Gunny shuffled over with ankle cuffs still on and used the toilet in the officer's cabin, back mercifully to the camera. He tested the ankle cuffs, but pulling one up and one down apparently hurt his shins too badly to tolerate. In the end he used his hands to help in breaking the chain across the corner of the desk. He pawed through the desk looking for assets, but they'd thought to clean it out.

  The bunk was secured along the bulkhead on the long side but the opposite edge was held up by two short lengths of tubing tacked to the deck at the corners. Gunny grabbed the edge of the bunk in the middle and heaved up on it. It bent and the corner supports leaned in, but it held. Gunny stopped trying, stood back and glowered at it in thought. After a moment he stomped on the peak he'd created and drove it back down and toward the deck a bit, inverted to a Vee now.

  Foiled, he changed his tactics, grabbing the corner and wrenching it back and forth. The edge rail and end posts went back and forth between alternate parallelogram shapes until the weld in the deck broke with a crack and the whole framework came loose from the deck and bulkhead.

  Gunny ignored the locked hatch to the corridor. He'd never even tried it to see if it was locked. He instead attacked the bare bulkhead into the next cabin with the folded up bunk rails as a battering ram. That was where the fellow monitoring the video camera had been stationed, conveniently close so he could respond and go into Gunny's cell if need arose.

  He didn't need to respond. Gunny was coming to him.

  The video then switched to the feed from the adjoining room. The watch stander could be heard urgently requesting a security response. The bulkhead bulged with a loud thud and got a crease drawn on it from the other side. There's was inexplicable pause, followed by a flurry of blows that formed an irregular bulge in the bulkhead, which grew with each blow. The metal was surprisingly strong and flexed back and forth a lot before the bunk frame finally tore a rip in the sheet metal. The end of the bunk frame was stuck briefly in the new hole and swung back and forth as Gunny worked it loose and pried the hole wider.

  By then two more North Americans had joined the duty guard on the wide angle camera feed. They all three held Tasers held in front of them, but stayed back as far as possible from the widening breech. Gunny's bare foot appeared, kicking the edge of the opening to fold the metal back. The hole was only about a quarter meter across, but the one guard saw a
shot and fired through the gap. He connected because the foot retracted and was a moment of silence.

  One of the new fellows then ordered the duty guard to go around to the prisoner's room and recuff him. The guard refused the direct order in profane terms and invited the fellow to do it himself. About that time the effect of the Taser wore off and Gunny could be heard through the opening describing in loud detail what he was going to do with the man's Taser when he got through the wall. It was unlikely the weapon would fit, but then none of them would have believed you could rip your way through a bulkhead like this either.

  Gunny's hand reappeared holding the leg ripped off the bunk frame and used it as a mallet to widen the hole. None of the men chose to shoot this time at the small target a moving hand presented.

  With the opening big enough Gunny did a clean dive through it, only getting a few small cuts since the edges were all peeled away from his side. He threw the piece of pipe at one of them, knocking his aim off. The other two got a clean shot at him and took him down again.

  This time they cuffed his hands behind him, managing to get three pairs around his wrists and two around his ankles with another stretched between the sets.

  "Get medical down here to sedate this...guy," the one in charge demanded. He still had wires on Gunny and appeared ready to shock him again if he came to.

  "Dear God..are all the Homies like this brute?" the other guard asked. It was interesting, because April had never heard anyone call them Homies before. But once the video circulated it was a common expression now, just a few months later.

  Gunny tonight was nothing like he was in the video. He was relaxed as he ever got, leaning against the wall, scanning the room occasionally like he was on a timer, and content with his thoughts, not reading or listening to anything. He didn't look like the enraged ogre in the video at all. He was however slowly squeezing and relaxing his grip on an exercise ball. He'd been doing that with his right hand ever since he'd lost it on an Earth mission and been forced to have it re-grown last year. April noticed that he'd switched to working the ball with both hands recently. His skin on the new hand looked just like the other one now, and his nails had grown thick again after looking thin and delicate. In the video you could see his right hand was still pale and hairless, but that hadn't seemed to impair him significantly ripping a hole in the bulkhead.