“The thing is...” Viekko stammered, as his libido launched a full assault on his sensibilities making it challenging to form a complete sentence. “The thing is...the last time you and I did... what I really hope is about to happen, you hated yourself. You hated me. We were both... what I'm trying to say is. It's been a really long time. A really, really… karaasan really long time since I wanted anything as bad as I want this. But, I want to do the right thing here... and I don't know what that is.”
“I realized something today,” Althea said as she leaned close and whispered in his ear. “I've been trying so hard to be something I wasn't meant to be. But not anymore. Not again. I want this too.”
She pulled his shirt down over his shoulders and pushed him backward onto the bed. Then reached down and pulled the hem of her dress up and over her head and threw it against the wall. She stood off to the side in her bra and panties. Oh Lord of the Endless Copper Skies; lacy, black borderline, transparent bra and panties.
“Still wonder what’s the right thing to do?” she asked, laughing. Then she crawled onto the bed supported on her hands and knees over Viekko’s body and pulled his face to hers. “Do you really wonder?”
“Nope,” said Viekko. “I'm good.”
Viekko pulled her on top of him and rolled over, so he had her pinned on the bed. They kissed, and his hand wandered up the side of her leg. This was happening, this was really happening. The warmth of her body, her scent, everything was as vibrant and real as if he were back on triple-T. Althea giggled as he started to kiss down her neck. Her nails scraped down his back, adding pain to the anticipation. Then a knock on the door ruined everything.
Althea went rigid, her heavy breathing stopped, and her eyes shot wide open. For a moment, she laid underneath him as if she wasn’t sure she heard it.
Then there was another knock.
Althea rolled out from underneath Viekko, nearly throwing him onto the floor in the process.
She slid off the bed and looked around the room in a panic. “Shit! Shit! Bloody Hell! Corpos! Is there a back door to this place?”
“Corpos?” Viekko was trying to steady himself on the edge of the bed. “Althea! What did you do?”
“I'll explain later. Back door!”
“Don't know if you realize the function of this building,” Viekko chided, as he got up, “but it ain't exactly designed for easy getaways.”
There was more knocking. It got louder, urgent and threatened to become banging at any moment.
“I wasn’t here,” she said laying flat on the ground. “Tell them I was never here!”
Viekko walked to the door. It was Blinky. Splendid. “Can I help you?” he asked.
Blinky looked at Viekko, who was stripped down to his pants and her eyes darted around the apartment, like a bird examining its surroundings; an unusually suspicious bird.
“What’s going on in here? I heard voices.”
“She wasn't here. She was never here,” Viekko recited.
“Who wasn't here? I know someone is in here, I want to know what is going on,” said the woman blinking even faster.
Viekko looked over his shoulder. “It's okay Althea, just one of the doctors.”
Althea poked her head just over the bed and gave her a nervous, half-hearted wave.
“Who is she?” Blinky demanded.
Viekko shrugged. “My doctor. Private consultation.”
Althea slowly got to her feet. The doctor started blinking at least fifty percent more often. “Dressed like that?”
“Very expensive consultation. Very effective. Why are you here?”
Blinky thrust an envelope into Viekko's hand. “Message for you. Just arrived and labeled 'Extremely Urgent’.”
While Viekko opened the envelope, Blinky watched Althea retrieve her dress and slip it back on over her head. “Young lady,” Blinky spat, “I would like to see your authorization papers for this clinic as well as your records concerning Mr. Spade.”
“Actually, won't be necessary. Got papers right here,” Viekko said, handing Blinky a translucent plastic sheet with his data scrolling across it. “Discharge papers; by order of the Ministry. And don't look so shocked and appalled, it's just temporary. A quick trip, then I'll be right back so you can use me as your own personal chew toy.”
Blinky took the sheet and touched the relevant data points to see them in greater detail with her eyes fluttering so much it was a wonder she could actually read the papers at all. “Very well,“ she said with a resigned tone in her voice. “I will put this through. But when you return...”
“...I'm full certain there’ll be questions, probably followed by unacceptable answers and a dose of unpleasant circumstances. I'm lookin’ forward to it.”
Blinky turned and marched back down the hall. Viekko watched her leave for a moment and closed the door.
Althea walked up beside Viekko. “What’s going on? Who’s it from?”
Viekko pulled another plastic sheet from the envelope and read the words that scrolled across its surface. “Isra. We’re going to Venus.”
Althea shook her head “Venus? When?”
“The shuttle leaves Cape City in eight hours.”
“Eight hours! That’s so… I need to get some things together.” Althea rushed for the door.
Viekko threw the dynamic paper and envelope onto the drawers near the burning coal lamp. “Now you don’t gotta rush off just like that. Lightning Rail don’t leave for another couple of hours. I can do a lot in two hours.”
“I’ve got to check all my equipment,” Althea replied in a distracted tone.
“An hour then. I can work with an hour.”
“You can get to the station by yourself, right? Is it okay if I meet you there?” Althea was already opening the door.
“Half an hour! We can go together, save a little time!”
She was already halfway down the hall, and she called over her shoulder. “Sorry, Viekko I just... I should go.”
Viekko leaned out the door. “Fifteen minutes!” he yelled. “Ten! It’s a rush job, but… ah, shatny deer baas!” Viekko leaned against the doorway. “That got downright pathetic in a big hurry.”
He went back inside and looked at the trash bag he’d left by the door in the excitement. The dead rat in the trap was still sitting on top of the rest of his household trash. He picked it up. “At least we still have our dignity, right little buddy? Between you and me, I think I’d be better off in the sack.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Adriana was taken from her home in Brazil and shipped to a privately-run prison in the United States. The hope was that she could be safely kept there quiet and out of sight. There would be no trial for the people to obsess over, no appeals to spark protests, not a single word to remind the world that she existed. She would just vanish.
This plan backfired in spectacular fashion.
For inside that hell, Adriana found other political prisoners of the various corporations. They helped craft her image and her message until it was sharper than any weapon. She also found prison staff, disgruntled at the low pay and slave-like conditions, more than willing to look the other way or outright aid communications in and out of jail.
Within a year, her book Julgamento Por Fogo or, in English, Trial By Fire, had been smuggled out, page by page and was a worldwide underground sensation.
-From The Fall: The Decline and Failure of 21st Century Civilization by Martin Raffe
The shuttle from Earth docked with Ministry Station Phoenix with such a hard jolt that it felt like something slammed into the hull. There was a soft murmur from the crowd as those that had slept during the entire trip were jostled awake. Viekko just sat staring straight ahead at the mass of bright red hair floating in a cloud several rows in front of him. He tested the restraints that held him to the seat, but they wouldn’t budge.
They needed to talk, and they needed to talk before they met up with Isra, but Althea appeared dead set on avoiding that. Althea’s seat ha
d been next to his on the train ride across South Africa, but she hardly used it. When she did, she pretended to be busy reading up on some obscure medical text. Before the shuttle launch, she changed her seat.
Viekko sighed and looked out the window. Even this close, the station looked like something cobbled together by a disturbed child with whatever happened to be lying around at the time. Compartments that appeared fresh off the design floor were connected to pieces that looked salvaged from the cloud of space trash that orbited the Earth. If there ever was a plan for its construction, it was sacrificed to the gods of expediency, financial limitations, and global politics.
The intercom crackled to life. “Good evening everyone. Sorry for the hard dock, these old space stations never seem to be exactly where they are supposed to be. Your restraints will release in just a moment or two. We encourage you to take a moment, as zero gravity might make you feel a bit disoriented, maybe even nauseous. Once outside, the crew will be able to direct you to your destination within the station. Welcome to Ministry Space Research Platform Phoenix.”
The moment the restraints lifted, Althea shot out of her seat and headed for the hatch leading to the station. Viekko launched out of his seat and tried to claw his way through the crowd that consisted of the usual categories; tourists laughing as they experienced weightlessness for the first time, novices who were suffering through various degrees of motion sickness, and veterans of space travel who watched both groups with an air of smug superiority.
By the time he managed to get to the hatch and pull his way into the space station proper, Althea was gone. There was only a group of people floating in a haphazard line in front of a Ministry official in a dark green uniform tapping information onto a screen attached to his forearm. “Sorry,” Viekko mumbled as he pushed himself through the crowd. “Gotta get through. Urgent business. Very important. Sorry.”
Every person he pushed past shot him a glare or mumbled some profanity or another, but he soon found himself at the front of the line and face to face with the Ministry official. He regarded Viekko with a measure of disdain. “Your name?”
Viekko held the top of his hat to keep it from floating away. “I’m lookin’ for someone,” he spat out. “A woman. Tall. Red hair. Gorgeous. She would have just come through-“
“Your name, please!” The official growled with growing impatience.
“Viekko Spade,” he mumbled.
The official cocked his head and fixed Viekko with a condescending look. “Please speak loud and clear, sir.”
“Viekko Spade,” he repeated with more conviction.
“Ah... I thought you looked familiar,” said the man dismissively as the data appeared on his arm computer. “The Martian. Going home finally?”
Viekko ignored the comment and tried to peek around the man’s body. There were three different corridors behind him and judging by the look of the place, each tunnel could branch off into at least three more. He could wander this junk heap of a station for years and never find Althea.
The official cycled through the information. “I see. You are to go to section Charlie Tango Seven. Take the left hatch. You will notice a green stripe. Follow it until you reach the waiting area. Captain Colton will be there…”
Viekko didn’t wait for the man to finish before he launched himself toward the tunnel the dock official had indicated, where several stripes of color were painted along the hallway; red, yellow, blue, orange, green, and some kind of sickly, mauve color. He clawed his way through the twisting corridors through tee junctions and four-way intersections like a gerbil in a habitat. Each time the paths diverged, another color disappeared until there was only the green line, which led to a cube-shaped open area about six meters square. Althea floated against a wall wearing a white coat, holding her black medical bag and looking impatient, until she saw him pull himself out of the hatch. Then she just looked annoyed. He floated in her general direction.
“Popular place today. Tough to get around,” Viekko said.
Althea ran a hand through her floating hair. “These space stations are becoming the first leg of the trip to take people out to the colonies, both old and new. The lunar outpost, Mars, a few asteroids, even Titan just opened up for recolonization. No thanks to us.” She laughed. “It's all a bit foolish if you ask me. Most of them haven't the slightest idea what things are like out here. They’ll get themselves killed most likely.”
“I think it’s kinda admirable. Folk followin’ a dream to make their fortune in the vast unknown, stepping away from everything they know for the chance of adventure; to really, really build somethin’ out there.”
Althea pulled up the sleeve of her coat, revealing the EROS suit underneath along with the computer screen attached to her forearm. She tapped at something absentmindedly. “Perhaps the thing they want isn't available. Perhaps it never existed at all. Then it would all be for nothing.”
Viekko shook his head. “Don’t mean a man shouldn’t try.”
“Yes, well... he should be prepared for disappointment,” said Althea, without looking up.
Viekko flipped around so he could look at her. “Yeah, well, all the same. I need to tell you something.”
“This is neither the time nor the place.”
“This is as good a place as any. As good as it’s gonna get anyway.”
Althea shut off her computer and looked him in the eye. “Fine. You’re right. I suppose I owe you an apology. And… perhaps a ‘thank you’ for not taking advantage. It’s been a confusing time for me as, I’m sure, it has been for you. But we have a mission now, and so I believe its best if we just let it go and pretend it never happened.”
The words were like a swift kick to the crotch. “Pretend it never happened?” Viekko repeated. “Althea, I… it’s been months, months since I felt anything that made me feel even a little bit human! Until you walked through my door, I’d given up feeling anything at all. Now you want to tell me… what? To just forget it? Just toss away the only moment I felt like a person, a real flesh and blood, livin’, beatin’ heart person?
Althea narrowed her eyes. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what, exactly?”
Althea drifted forward until their faces were just centimeters away. “Don’t try and pile some guilt trip on me. I’m sorry it’s been hard for you, but it’s supposed to be hard. Coming off of triple-T is hard. But don’t try and tell me that I’m putting that in jeopardy just by stopping by—“
“Just stoppin’ by!” Viekko exclaimed. “Is that what you call that? Bargin’ into my house, nearly rippin’ my clothes off. That’s what you call—”
“I did nothing of the sort!”
“Of course not! ‘Cause we’re forgettin’ it. It never happened! That works for you, don’t it? What’s goin’ on with you? One minute you can’t keep your hands off me, the next, you can’t be bothered breathin’ the same air as me. Walk me through that process. Really! Help me out. I’m curious!”
“Really?” Althea’s voice became harsher and more heated. “You want to discuss this right here? Right now?”
Viekko raised his voice as well. “No! I wanted to discuss this on the train or on the shuttle. You flat out refused to talk to me then. At least I’m makin’ progress up here.”
“You’re testing my patience.”
“Still progress.”
Viekko became aware of a third party nearby. He glanced left to see a man awkwardly floating near a hatch. He wore the requisite dark green Ministry jumpsuit, with patches that indicated he was a Captain, but the man's long hair and patchwork beard led Viekko to speculate that he might be some breed of space hobo who had managed to steal someone's clothes. When he caught Viekko’s eye, he made a long, drawn-out groan as if he wanted to say something but was afraid of the ramifications.
“Can I help you?” Viekko asked, raising an eyebrow.
The man touched his head, chest, and stomach in the three-point Ministry salute, a gestured version of the Ministry Armed F
orces motto, ‘Head, heart and guts.’
“Excuse me, friends. I’m Captain Colton of the Ministry extra-terrestrial expedition force. You are Viekko Spade and Althea Fallon?” The tone in his voice and slight grimace suggested that he really, really hoped he had the wrong room.
“That's us,” said Viekko.
“Please follow me, then,” said Colton with a slight sigh. “Isra Jicarrio is waiting.”
Colton spun himself around with well-practiced grace and launched himself down a corridor. Viekko and Althea both followed. Captain Colton showed practiced skill in the weightless environment as he pulled and pushed his way through the tunnels of the massive complex as if he’d been born on this station and it was the only movement he’d ever known. Viekko and Althea, by contrast, were sweating trying to keep up.
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