Out
A series about Mars
by Daniel
E. Machado
Chapter 1
"Good morning, Blade. It is Tuesday, July eleventh
2082, 07:00 AM local, 15:00 GMT. I have personal mail for you.
"Your aunt and uncle in Fresno request a
livelink. Atlantis Corp Transportation Services request final confirmation.
Roselene’s daycare called again about your past-due… "
"Off!"
Reaching out through sweaty sheets
Blade DeSilva stills the small fan humming on the nightstand. Sometime
later one foot slides slowly onto the floor and she drags her numb aching
body around upright, head throbbing, tongue glued to her mouth with the
tarry aftertaste of the last cigarette she’ll smoke for several years.
Once in the shower Blade flips on the terminal then stares blankly as steamy
drops bounce off the bright display. Blinking away water she dims the contrast.
"Mail, give me my personal post again. One
at a time. Reply to continue. Go."
Blade's mail isn't nearly as bad as
she’d imagined. The corporate transport people she voicemails back from
the shower. Roselene’s daycare had actually left two messages, one demanding
payment after receiving her notice of Intent To Immigrate, and a second
acknowledging her final payment, wishing her the best of luck, and notifying
her to disregard their first post.
Filtering her public box Blade deletes
most of the commercial stuff at a glance. An offer of big money to smuggle
secret technology out to Mars looks amusing, but the psychotic rantings
start mid-first sentence and she quickly deletes the rest. Clearing out
most of her mailbox Blade leaves a re-route change-of-address and then
as a final act she transfers her remaining mail to her corporate address;
an address Blade may be-using for the rest of her life. Flipping off both
terminal and water Blade grabs a warm dry towel from its sealed compartment
before stepping outside.
Scrubbed clean in the steam-hazed
mirror Blade's face looks far too young for her. Through a halo steam
she combs her hair back into a thick blonde shoulder length ponytail. Blade
looks back at the reflection of her dark Portuguese brows and long thick
lashes that frame her German-blue eyes, then down at her small nose and
full unglossed rose-bud lips
"You look like a baby." Blade mumbles
to herself, the smell of breakfast drifting upstairs from her mother's
kitchen.
Soon the bathroom mirror reveals her
sky-blue Atlantis Corp jumper, its blockish attempt at style still somehow
clinging seductively to her curves. "And, you! You’ve been
getting me in trouble since I was twelve." Blade shakes her head down at
the clearing reflection, half wishing she were a little dumpy, or maybe
even skinny. Flat-chested might help.
The sound of small happy feet come
pounding up the stairs as a bright blonde four-year-old girl bounces into
the room at a speed and volume quite hard on Blade’s still active hangover.
"Grandma Meg says breakfast is ready,
Mommy!" The leggy youngster explodes into the room, tip-toe hopping next
to her mother as Blade sits lacing her boots. "We’re gonna go to Mars after
breakfast today; aren’t we, Mommy?"
"Yes, Sweety." Blade smiles at Roselene’s
excited oversimplification. "But, first we’ll have to spend a few days
at the airport; remember?"
"Of course." The tiny girl squints.
Roselene resents being talked down to simply because she happens to be
small. "First we go to the big spaceport. Then we go see all the doctors
again. And, then after that we go up for a ride on the big space roller-coaster
plane."
"Ohh... Don’t remind me, Sweety."
Blade nudges her daughter toward the door, her stomach not exactly enjoying
the thought of freefall at the moment. "Now, go down and get some of grandma’s
grubby breakfast before she feeds it to the cats." Roselene flies squealing
out the door and down the stairs as Blade continues to lace her other boot.
A short moment later she steps down the stairs of her mother’s modest Oildale
apartment in search of food to fix her quivering stomach.
Today will be hard for Blade's mom.
As Meg's middle child, her problem child, the one who always wound up living
back at home, Blade's leaving somehow seems much harder than the other
two. And, then there’s Roselene. Meg has virtually raised her granddaughter
for the past year while Blade has been completing her final training for
Atlantis Corp.
Sneaking quietly through the apartment's
thin hallway in search of its happily echoes, Blade pauses at the door
to take in the small bright kitchen, committing the moment to mind.
Her mother Meg moves nervously across
the kitchen, as usual wearing one of her loose flowered sundresses, smiling
as she serves tiny pancakes to Roselene who bounces anxious in anticipation
of hot syrup. Blade sees herself -- both past and future – in the familiar
scene. Her future in Meg’s tiny wrinkles and slightly heavier frame, and
her past in Roselene’s bright mischievous smile. Even their hair all looks
very much the same; blonde, thick and straight.
Roselene babbles a stream of questions
and requests, only dimly aware of the day's significance.
Too young to be afraid.
Blade
sighs. Well, she won’t learn fear from me. Smiling Blade
steps into the kitchen and heads straight for the coffee-maker.
"Mommy!" Roselene shouts. "Grandma
made us sliver-dollar pancakes with strawberries from her
water-garden, and I got to help pick‘em!"
"Yes, I see." Blade looks down at
the plate full of tiny pancakes and sliced strawberries smothered in fake
butter and fructose maple syrup. Her stomach lodges a mild protest as she
leans over to kiss her mother on the cheek.
"Morning, Mom." Then back at Roselene.
"And scrambled eggs and sausage too, from the smell of it."
"Well, I wanted you both to have a
good breakfast before you..." Meg's words fade.
"Mommy, how come Grandma's crying?"
Roselene's brow rumples.
"Oh, I’m not crying." Meg fibs as
she reaches for a dish-towel to wipe her nose. "I’m just being silly because
I’m going to miss you, that’s all."
Blade leans in close to her mother
as she passes, but Meg whispers for her to go on and sit down at the table.
Blade knows how much Meg likes to pretend she's being brave, especially
when she's not.
"We can still call you for a while,
Grandma. And, we can always post."
"That’s right, little Miss Sneakybottoms."
Meg turns back to the table with both a smile and a tall glass of mixed
fruit juice for her curiously bright granddaughter. "And don't forget that
your grandma is going to be watching out for you all the time, just like
an angle in your pocket." Meg points up at the news-site up on kitchen
display. "From now on I’m going to keep a frame going of you up there all
the time. That's because you’ll be the grandbaby that's farthest away."
"We'll come back and see you again
someday, Grandma. Huh, Mommy?"
"Someday." Blade mumbles.
"Well, that doesn’t matter right now."
Meg tells the child, resorting once again to wiping away tears with a dish-towel.
"You just remember that your grandma will always be watching out for you;
Okay?"
"Okay." Roselene nods up a syrupy
smile.
Clearing her throat Blade glances
up from her coffee.
"Uh, Mom, we’ve got to call Aunt June
and Uncle Manny before we leave for the station."
"We?" Meg squints back suspiciously.
"Please, Mom? You know how Aunt June
is. You know she’ll just start crying on me. And, every time I even look
a Uncle Manny I feel like I’m personally breaking his heart."
"How come Uncle Manny doesn’t like
Mars?" Roselene asks.
"No, Sweety, it’s not that. It’s just…
It’s just that they’re both going to miss us, only they show it different,
that’s all." Blade turns a pleading look back at her mother. "And, if you
make the call with me then they won’t keep going on and on. Please, Mom?"
"Why call them at all then?" Meg shrugs.
"I don’t want to hurt their feelings.
And, if I don’t call before I leave for the station they’ll be all hurt
and whiny about it for months." No one has to explain to Meg about the
strange bonding rituals and symbolic validations used by her ex-husband’s
family. It drives Meg nuts, and she tolerates very little of it. But, in
the face of Blade’s pleading last-request Meg’s natural distaste wavers.
"Oh, all right." Meg grumbles as she
shakes her head. "But, that woman... "
"How come you don’t like Aunt June,
Grandma?" Roselene has the most annoying habit of quietily lulling adults
into thinking she’s oblivious to them, then popping up with exactly the
most embarrassing questions.
"Never mind." Her mother and grandmother
both tell her. Blade reaches up to the wall display beside the kitchen
table to input the livelink request. June and Manny reply in less than
a minute.
"So, today’s the big day, huh?" Uncle
Manny tries to look happy, but doesn’t. Although curiously enough he does
somehow manage to appear slightly proud. "Well, before you go, your Aunt
June and I would like to give you and little Rosie some good news."
"Oh, Bladie, you’ll never guess."
Aunt June seems much too happy. Meg leans in, her ex-sister-in-law's
demeanor not at all what she was expecting. "One of your cousins is immigrating
out with you."
"Which one?" Blade stares at the display
somewhat confused. For the life of her she can’t imagine which of June's
children would possibly have the balls to immigrate out,
but she stops short of actually voicing the thought.
"Do you remember your cousin Fredy,
Fredy Davis? He’s your aunt Mary's nephew. They live up near Visalla. You
remember, you saw him that time we all went camping up at Yosemite. I think
he might even have been at Jim and Barbara's wedding."
Oh great! Thanks, Aunt
June!
A little over five years ago at age
nineteen Blade had gotten hammered drunk at her Cousin Barbara's wedding
and decided to display her brand-new body tattoo at the reception. She
followed this by decking her brother Larry when he come out and tried to
rescue
her. Blade hears Meg snicker.
"Yes, Aunt June, I remember him. You
say he’s going out to Mars on the SS Flying Jib?"
"That's right."
"Crew, or Family Quarters?"
"Oh, no. I don’t think he's in Family.
Fredy’s a bachelor, you know. He's a navigator or a pilot or something.
On his way out to the Belt. But, at least you’ll have family with you when
you get out there."
"A man." Her uncle Manny interjects.
"Always good to have a man from the family close by. Just in case."
Realizing this must be important to
her uncle, Blade desperately tries to hold a straight face, but the notion
of relying on a man, any man, orbiting in a giant aluminum
beer can half way to Jupiter and on other side of the Sun, is almost too
much for her to contain.
"I’m sure we’ll run into each other
on the way out."
"We told him to look you up."
"Thanks, Aunt June."
Then the pause begins.
"Well, we’d better let you two go."
Manny’s resignation seems complete. "I’m sure you two still have lots of
things left do. Bye now, Pumpkin." Uncle Manny's image looks down at Roselene
from the kitchen display. "You be sure and post us real soon; you hear?"
"Uh huh." Roselene nods shyly, as
she often does when commanded to perform.
"You too, Blade." June says from over
his shoulder. "You better post us at least once a week, or we’ll bomb your
box."
"I will, Aunt June. I promise. Bye
now."
"Bye." They say together. Manny’s
hand reaches out and his thumb slides across the remote as their image
fades into the talk-show site Meg has programmed for this time-slot.
"Well, that was a bit
of interesting news." A smirk brightens Meg’s still pretty face. "Let’s
see now, a year stuck on a spaceship with a man who’s seen your tattoo
dance."
"Mother!"
"What’s a tattoo dance, Grandma?"
"Never mind. Now, finish your pancakes."
Blade instantly regrets demanding her child eat yet more
sugar, but doesn’t feel like contradicting herself.
"So, why did you want to know if Fred
was married?" Meg asks.
"What?"
"You asked if Fred were going out
in Family."
"Well, if he were married, then the
four of us could form a legal family-unit and apply for a quarters upgrade.
I love my darling daughter, but I've got to admit I’m not really looking
forward to spending an entire year alone with a four-year-old in a .3g
double."
"Is it really going be that bad?"
Meg tries not to sound too disturbed. "I thought those cabins were made
to hold two men."
"Double cabin's are two-meters by
two-meters by three. At least in Family Quarters I could stand up every
once in a while without bumping my head. But, hey." Blade’s eyes roll.
"It’s only a year; right?"
"Right." Meg says as another disobedient
tear trickles down her cheek. "Now eat up so we can get you two down to
the station on time."