Chapter 2C

The Troop Club was a chain of taverns that was owned by a subsidiary of Barkling Agricultural Industries, the third largest food producer on Mars now that the Agricorp-Interplanetary Food merger had been consummated. Only a minute portion of the intoxicant distribution holdings of BAI, Troop Club taverns were nevertheless a lucrative, low overhead venture. Located just outside of military establishments throughout WestHem's territory, they had managed to snare an incredible thirty-eight percent of the "off-duty military personnel market" and their very name had achieved the coveted status of "generic product identification" among their target group. What this meant is that when a soldier, whether stationed in Standard City or on Triad or in Alaska or anywhere else, wanted to go for a drink after duties, the phrase used was inevitably "let's go to the Troop Club" whether or not they were actually going to that particular tavern or whether or not there even was an official Troop Club branch operating outside of their base. The Troop Club had achieved the same status with this label as Coke had when carbonated cola was discussed or as Tylenol had when over-the-counter acetaminophen was discussed.

Indeed in Eden there was an entire three-block section lined with drinking and smoking establishments, all of them corporate owned of course, just outside of the main Martian Planetary Guard base and the main WestHem Marine Barracks. Though on Friday and Saturday nights all of these bars would be filled to capacity with both marines and MPG troops, it was The Troop Club that was the largest, with a capacity of more than six hundred, and the first to fill up. Soldiers only tended to spill over to the other establishments when The Troop Club became too crowded to accommodate any others.

The scene inside of the Eden Troop Club was fairly typical on this particular Saturday afternoon. The majority of the MPG troops had finished their training rotations for the day and many of them had gone over to drink reasonably cheap beers or harder alcohol and to smoke BAI Sensimilian buds. Cocktail waitresses, all of them dressed in tight shorts and chest-hugging tops, all of them physically attractive, circulated between the tables and the gaming areas where darts and billiards were being played. Twelve bartenders were on duty behind the three bar complexes that lined the walls mixing drinks and distributing pipes to the customers. Loud modern music, heavy with synthesized bass and drums, played from the surround sound system at a level that was just below the conversation hampering point. As always in this particular part of the solar system, the MPG troops and the marines segregated themselves from each other with the former occupying the largest main bar and the pool tables while the latter stuck to the dart boards and the smaller secondary bars.

Lon Fargo and Brian Haggarty, the two men primarily responsible for giving Major Michael Chin the worst pounding of the day were sitting at one of the tables near the bar drinking icy cold Martian Storm beers supplied by the very man they had pounded. Chin was sitting with them, drinking a Martian Storm of his own and smoking from a custom-made marijuana pipe that he carried with him in a small felt lined case.

"This shit's not bad," he commented, exhaling a fairly large hit of the house Sensimilian. "It's too bad you can't get that nice green that they serve in O'Riley's here though. In my opinion that's the finest bud in the solar system."

"But it's grown by Agricorp," Lon said, stuffing a hit into a bar pipe. "I should know. I've serviced enough humidifiers in the greenhouse since the merger. They got plants six meters high and spaced every meter that are just packed with buds. The smell in the place is enough to get you loaded all by itself."

"You ever try to stuff a few in your pocket?" asked Brian who, though he was a sworn police officer, had no moral problem with the idea of stealing something from Agricorp.

"Are you kidding?" Lon said. "The security in the bud greenhouses is as tight as at the damn fusion plants. Tighter even. They scan you when you go into the place and again when you go out. And one of the fuckin security guards follows you around while you're in there and watches everything you do."

"Wouldn't want any of those buds to slip away without someone paying for them, would we?" asked Chin sarcastically. "That might cut Agricorp's profits down a couple thousand from the trillions that it is."

"Yes," said Brian, sipping from his bottle. "It's a fine line, isn't it? The whole economy could collapse if you let something like that happen."

"That's what's so funny about the whole thing," Lon told them. "All that security equipment and personnel has to cost more every year than they would lose from theft by not having it. The picking is done automatically by stripping machines. Hell, the only ones allowed in the greenhouses are the horticulture teams and the maintenance guys. And the horticulture guys are smart enough to grow their own if they want some."

"Corporate mentality," Chin said. "Protect profits at all costs. We get it over at Alexander too. Even if it means spending a billion to prevent the potential loss of a million, they'll do it. They just can't stand the idea that someone might be getting high somewhere for free."

"Kind of like we are right now?" Lon said, grinning at the man he had defeated. "Those of us that kicked the shit out of a mechanized battalion today?" This caused a burst of laughter from the special forces troops at all of the surrounding tables.

"Fuck you," Chin said sourly, taking a slug from his beer. "You bastards got lucky. It'll never happen again."

"I read your mind out there, Chin," Lon told him, begging to differ. "When I saw your APCs all lined up nice and neat without tanks covering their flanks I knew you were up to something. And it wasn't a bad plan either. You almost caught us up there."

"Yeah," Chin said, "and I almost didn't lose two hundred of my men to those portable anti-tank lasers you have. You little sneaking fucks are unnatural, you know that?"

"It's what we do best," Lon agreed.

As Chin, Lon, and Brian drank at one table, their men drank with their counterparts at others. Captains and lieutenants of the armored cav shared spaces with the corporals and the privates that had massacred them out in the wastelands that day. There was a mutual respect between them that was independent of their respective ranks within the MPG. Though WestHem troops tended to segregate themselves along clear rank lines in their off hours, there was no such custom among the volunteers of the planetary guard. The officers of the cav did not feel superior to the privates of the special forces. All were merely weekend warriors with other, more menial jobs on the outside.

Of course a prevalent topic of conversation among the various groups, other than the exercises that had just taken place, was the Laura Whiting speech and the aftermath of it. At nearly every table, as men and women sipped beers and puffed from pipes, the talk would circle around and always end up again with the discussion of the upcoming legislature assembly on Monday morning. The vast majority of the troops agreed with the principal of what Whiting was doing but felt that she had not the slightest chance of succeeding in her venture. Despite this cynicism however, well over three-quarters of those Martians present admitted to having sent email to their representative threatening a recall vote. Of the quarter that had not, nearly every last one took the stance that it was only because they felt it was a waste of time. It wasn't that they liked their representatives or they thought they were representing them honestly and fairly. No one actually expressed that view. They just couldn't conceive of change happening in their lifetime, or in their children's lifetime. The solar system was what the solar system was.

It was here that a queer form of peer pressure took over. As more alcohol and more THC flowed through more bloodstreams, those that had sent email began to chide those who hadn't. They used the same arguments that were being used planet wide by other such groups, although with perhaps a bit more profanity. And, as it was doing all over the planet, the peer pressure began to have an effect. Personal computers were unclipped from waistbands and communications software was accessed. Drunken MPG member after drunken MPG member gave ranting speeches to their respective representatives in the legislature, most slurring their words quite badly, a few forgetting what they were talking about and having to revise, but everyone gleefully having their say. Major Chin himself, who had neglected to send an email of his own because of fears of repercussion from his employer (not an unreasonable fear, he was about as high on the corporate ladder at Alexander Industries as a person of Martian birth could climb), took one last pipe hit and then stood up on the table to compose his message. This started a trend among the other members and soon every table had someone standing on it and reciting a rambling, often obscene message to their local politician.

All of this revelry soon attracted attention from the other side of the establishment, where the WestHem regular marines were drinking and smoking. In WestHem culture the Marine Corps were considered an elite group of fighting men, the most respected and revered in the armed services profession. In a society with nearly thirty percent unemployment it was deemed a great honor to be allowed to join the marines and usually such appointments were given to those with family connections or those who scored extremely high on the ASVAB testing and the physical agility exam — a test that was grueling indeed. Though the majority of the marines in the bar were either enlisted rank or NCOs, they were all well built specimens of masculinity and all had been trained in various techniques of hand-to-hand combat. They also tended to be arrogant, almost bullying types that had little respect or regard for their Martian counterparts.

A particularly large squad sergeant was the first to foment the confrontation between the two groups. He had been stationed on Mars, which he considered a shithole, for nearly two years now and he hated everything and everyone that had been born on the miserable rock that they called a planet. And now, just as the football game piped to the bar's Internet screen was starting to really take shape, the ranting and yells coming from the tables on the other side of the room was drowning out all of the sound. He stood up and said a few words to the group of sergeants and corporals around him. They stood up and walked with him to the nearest table where a young MPG private of the armored cav — a man who had been "killed" early in the day when his APC had been blasted by a Mosquito — was just finishing up his email to his representative. Without saying a word the marine sergeant walked up to the table and kicked it over, sending the young private crashing to the ground and causing his PC to smash to pieces.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing, asshole?" demanded a drunken MPG lieutenant who had been sitting at the table. He stood and stepped up to the hulking marine where the top of his head came to approximately shoulder level.

"I'm quieting you fucking greenies down," said the sergeant. "You're getting on my goddamn nerves."

"You don't like it?" the MPG lieutenant told him. "Go drink somewhere else then."

The marine sergeant's eyes burned into him. "Why don't you and the rest of these little pretend soldiers go somewhere else," he countered. "This is a bar for real fighting men, not a bunch of greenie want-to-be boy scouts whose mommies let them out once a week to jerk off on their tanks."

This junior high school level insult had little effect on the Martians in the room. They were used to such comments from the Earthlings that lived on their planet. It did seem to cause quite a bit of hilarity among the marines however. They laughed as if this was the wittiest thing they had ever heard.

"Look," said the MPG lieutenant, "why don't you just stay over on your half of the bar and we'll stay on ours. We don't bitch at you when you start cheering and throwing shit at the terminals because of some sports game, so why should you..."

The marine sergeant put his hand on his chest and pushed him backwards, sending him crashing into the young private who had been picking up the pieces of his shattered computer. The marines behind and around all broke up into another round of derisive laughter at this spectacle. Immediately the men that served in the insulted lieutenant's platoon jumped to their feet, their hands balled into fists, ready to do battle. They moved in on their targets. The moment the other marines saw this, they began to move in as well. Though the numbers were pretty much even on each side, the marines were much bigger than the MPG members. There was little doubt what the outcome of a battle would be.

"Stand down!" a Martian accented voice shouted from behind the MPG members. It was voice with unmistakable command in it. It belonged to Major Chin. The MPG members, hearing it, all stopped in their tracks, whether they were members of Chin's chain of command or not.

"What's a matter with the little pussy greenies?" asked the marine sergeant in a baby voice as he saw them halt. "Don't wanna fight the real men? Afraid you might hurt your little hands?"

"Remember our prime directive, people," Chin said. "It applies here as much as it does on the battlefield."

It was exactly the right thing to say. The prime directive of the MPG, penned by General Jackson himself, was: Pick your fights carefully, try not to get hurt, and never fight face to face if you could avoid it. The MPG were sneaking, sniping cowards and proud of it. The MPG members all turned their cheeks and walked back to their seats. The lieutenant and the private picked themselves off the floor and dusted themselves off. They swallowed their pride and began righting their table. Though the marines tried to get another rise out of their quarry, they found themselves ignored. Soon they went back to the bar and started watching the game again, confident that they had bested their enemy.

Vic Cargill had been elected as the representative of district 38 for the past three terms. Though he was responsible for a district of one million Martian citizens, just like every other representative, he had the dubious honor of having the lowest voter participation on the planet three terms running. This was because the vast majority of his district encompassed the huge Helvetia Heights section of Eden, a horrid, squalid ghetto that he had never actually set foot in. Had his district encompassed only Helvetia Heights it was entirely possible that he, or anyone else for the matter, would not have received even a single vote to put him into office. The ghetto inhabitants simply did not vote. But the people that had drawn the district boundaries had been smart enough to extend district 38 just a little bit into the adjoining downtown neighborhood, allowing it to include several upper-end and lower-upper-end housing complexes. It was in these complexes that Cargill himself lived and it was from these complexes that all of his votes came — less than a thousand of them in the last election.

Cargill was basically a minor league player in the great political game that was Martian politics. He was a second generation Martian and a first generation politician, encouraged to go into the business by his father, who was an upper management partner in a semi-prestigious law firm. Vic's main sponsor in his political career was Equatorial Real Estate Holdings, a multi-billion dollar corporation that had made its fortune by developing, purchasing, and constructing housing units in the Eden and Libby areas. In Eden ERE boasted a 22 percent share of the upper and middle income housing market and a whopping 45 percent share of the government compensated housing market (in other words: the welfare apartments). Vic's job, as one of their mules, was to push through and vote on laws that helped increase the amount that the Martian government would pay to house "disadvantaged" people in ERE apartments. It was a job that he had done fairly well since his first term. He and the other politicians owned by ERE had already managed to increase government rent responsibilities by two percent in the last session alone. This success had led to increased campaign contributions and increased "gifts" from his grateful sponsor.

Cargill had naturally been as shocked and horrified as any other politician when he had heard Laura Whiting's speech the night before. This had not been because he liked or respected Whiting. On the contrary, Whiting was in the opposing political party and she was also sponsored by Agricorp, a corporation whose interests were in opposition to ERE's. After all, if the government paid more money for welfare housing for the vermin, that meant there was less money available for the vermin to spend on Agricorp products. Whiting and her other Agricorp sponsored chums had killed several of his bills in committee in the past, actions that always angered the ERE lobbyists that controlled his life. No, the reason Cargill had been so horrified at the events of the previous night had not been personal, they had been professional. The thought that any politician would get up before a live audience and tell them what the political game was really like, the fact that she would denounce all politicians as corrupt and living only for their sponsors, that was what was offensive. The public simply could not be told things like that. True, most Martians knew these things anyway, but she had legitimized these thoughts, had confirmed them. Even if ERE lobbyists from all levels on the ladder had not been emailing and conferencing him non-stop since the speech had ended, he still would have been a prime mover to get that bitch out of office.

He was in his own office now; a small rented space on the 182^nd floor of a low-rent downtown office building. He had a window, something that only about a third of the offices in this building featured, but he may as well not have. All it looked out upon was the office building across the street and the ones on either side. Only by standing directly against the window and looking directly upward could he see the red Martian sky. Only by looking directly down could he see the street level. His office was a place that he had rarely been in on a weekend before but the current crisis had forced him, as well as most of the other representatives, in on their traditional day of rest.

At the moment he was sitting behind his desk, staring at his Internet terminal, kissing the ass of yet another high-level ERE lobbyist, most of whom had also been called in on days off. "I understand," he was telling the suited image before him. "Believe me, I don't think any of the reps, no matter what party they're in, no matter what corporation funded their campaign, will have any problem voting for an investigation into Whiting. She's crossed way over the line. She's no longer one of us."

"That's what we thought as well," the lobbyist told him testily. "But we've already received some disturbing rebuffs from the other reps we do business with. Two of them are starting to hint that public pressure may force them to reconsider their previous stance."

"Public pressure?" Cargill scoffed, feeling nothing but contempt. "What the hell does that mean? There ain't no such thing, especially not in my district, where nine out of ten of the vermin have never earned a dollar in their lives. I'd be surprised if those ignorant animals are smart enough to turn on their Internet terminals, let alone use them to vote with. Hell, I would venture to say that most of them don't even know who Laura Whiting is or what she did last night."

"Those are our feelings as well," the lobbyist said, his Earthling accent thick and crisp. "But we just wanted to make sure that everyone that we've... helped over the years does the right thing when the time comes."

"Oh you can bet your ass that I'll do the right thing," Cargill said. "Whiting is as good as gone."

"We're glad to hear you say that," he said with a smile.

They exchanged a few more pleasantries with each other and then signed off. Once the terminal was blank Cargill sighed and opened his desk drawer, taking out a bottle of Vodka. He poured himself a healthy shot and put it in his stomach. He then lit up a cigarette and took a long, satisfying puff.

His terminal flared to life again a moment later, his secretary's face staring out if it. "Sir," she said to him, "do you have a minute?"

"Why?" he asked wearily. "Is another one of those damn lobbyists calling? How many more goddamned times do I have to reassure them?"

"It's not a lobbyist," she told him. "It's Linda. She'd like to have a word with you."

Linda Clark was his chief of staff. She was also his mistress of more than six years. "Send her in," he said, smiling at the thought of a little sexual tryst in his office.

But Linda was not interested in sexual activity at the moment. Her young, pretty face was all business as she came in through the sliding door. "Vic," she told him, "we have a problem."

"Who the hell doesn't have a problem today?" he asked rhetorically.

"It's about your constituents," she said, sitting in the chair before the desk without waiting for an invitation.

He rolled his eyes upward. "You mean the vermin? What possible problem could there be with them? As long as their Internet programs run and their intoxicant credits keep rolling, they stay in their little shithole apartments."

"They've been sending emails to you," she told him. "A lot of emails. All of them threatening recall proceedings if you vote to open an investigation into Whiting."

He was having trouble believing her. "A lot of emails from the vermin? Impossible. How many are we talking about? A few hundred? That can't possibly..."

"Try two hundred and ninety-six thousand," she interrupted. "And that's as of the last five minutes or so. They're still pouring in at a rate of more than a three hundred per minute."

"Two hundred and ninety six thousand?" he asked incredulously, sure that he had heard her wrong.

He hadn't. "That's correct," she assured him. "One hundred and sixty-three thousand came in last night, within the two hour time period following Whiting's speech. Now it seems that a second wave of them is underway. The numbers started to pick up about 10:30 and have been steadily climbing since. Of course we haven't been able to open them all — there's simply too many for that — but we've had the computer scan them all for basic content and every last one of them is a threat for recall if you vote for Whiting's investigation."

Cargill shook his head a little. "Incredible," he whispered, unable to think of anything else.

"Let me show you a typical one," she said, "Just so you know what we're dealing with here." She looked at the ceiling, where the computer voice recognition microphone was installed. "Computer, load and play one of the emails received in the last hour. Select randomly."

"Loading," the computer's voice said.

A moment later the screen cleared and showed a scruffy, thug-like young man in his late teens. The text on the bottom identified the sender as: Jeffrey Creek, Age 19. Creek was taking a puff on a cheap marijuana pipe that had been fashioned from discarded food containers. He held the smoke for a moment and then blew it directly onto the camera lens, momentarily blurring the image. When it cleared, he began to talk. "Check it, fuckface. The name's Jeff Creek and I'm one of your constituents here in this shithole known as Helvetia Heights. I ain't never voted for nothing or no one before but you can bet your ass that if you start fucking around and trying to impeach Laura Whiting, I'll be the first motherfucker to sign a petition to kick your ass out of office. And then once that petition is all signed and legal and they ask us to vote to get rid of you, I'll be signing on to do that shit too. Don't fuck with Whiting, my man. Don't even think of fucking with her. That's all." The image blinked off and the computer informed them that the recording was at an end.

"How uncouth," Vic said, disgusted. "Do they really expect me to take that kind of thing seriously?"

"That's a pretty typical recording," Linda said. "I've looked at several hundred of them myself and his sentiments are basically what they're saying."

"Who really cares what those ignorant vermin are saying?" Vic asked. "So they figured out how to log onto the email program and send mail. What of it? You don't really think they'd actually be able to mount a recall campaign against me, do you?"

"I didn't think so at first," she said. "But now... now that two hundred and ninety-six thousand of them have sent email saying the same thing, I'm not so sure."

"What?"

"More than a quarter of a million and counting," she said. "All of them angry, embittered shouts by the people you represent. Whiting told them that they have a constitutional right to vote you out of office and they've apparently locked onto that thought and embraced it. Surely among quarter of a million there are a few with the drive and the intelligence to organize petition drives and to rouse up others to go collect signatures."

"I hardly think so," he said. "That requires work, something that the vermin avoid like the plague."

She shook her head. "Don't underestimate them, Vic," she said. "They may be unemployed but they are not ignorant. They're frustrated with the system and they blame the politicians and the corporations for keeping them where they are."

"That's ridiculous," he said, automatically spouting the company line.

"Ridiculous or not," she said. "It's what they believe. They will be watching the assembly on Monday morning. They'll be watching and when the Lieutenant Governor asks the legislature to open hearings into Laura Whiting, they will take note of how you vote. It is all public record under the constitution. And if you vote to impeach her, I have no doubt that by the time the day is over there will be hundreds if not thousands of vermin out in the Heights getting fingerprints on petition screens. Within a matter of days your recall will be on the ballet and they will vote you out. They can have you back in the private sector in less than a month."

Vic's mouth was wide as he listened to her. What she was saying was so bizarre, so unheard of. "How can I tell my sponsor that I'm not going to vote the way they want? How can I tell them that? If I don't do what they tell me to, they'll withdraw their funding for my campaigns and they'll find someone else to give it to."

She shrugged. "Which action will kill you first?" she asked. "You can at least rest assured that you're not going through this alone. From what I hear all of the other reps are getting email in even bigger numbers."

Barbara Garcia was a two term representative from the Shiloh Park section of Eden. Her constituents were a mixture of working class Martians that lived in the northern part of the district and welfare class that lived in the southern. She had grown up the daughter of an agricultural worker and she was — thanks to her intelligence and frightfully high placement scores — the first in eight generations to attend college. With her degree in political theory from the University of Mars at Eden, she had gone on to law school and the Eden city council, the usual stepping-stone for a career in Martian politics. From there her popularity with her main sponsor — Agricorp — had made her a shoe-in for the Planetary Legislature.

Barbara had always played the game well during her career, knowing that it was the only game in town and that in order to succeed she would have to follow the established rules. She had taken campaign contributions from Agricorp and others ever since her first run at the city council. She had gone on the all expenses paid space cruises to Saturn and Neptune and Mercury, riding in luxury cabins and being pampered to her heart's delight. She had even taken unreported contributions when they were offered, contributions that had swollen her net worth to well over two million dollars. But despite these "perks of the job", as they were called when they were discussed at all, she had always felt more than a little disgusted with herself. She knew that politics was not supposed to be this way, that she was part of a perversion that had gone on for centuries now. There had been a time when she had tried to tell herself that she was only staying in the game for the good of the people she represented but those naïve thoughts had long since died within her.

Except now Laura Whiting had reawakened them. What Whiting had done the night before had been incredible, outrageous, the most shocking thing imaginable and Barbara could not help but feel a strong surge of respect for the woman. She was trying to change the game! After all of these years, after all of the lies and back dealing and jerking off of the public, someone was actually trying to make a difference! Amazing.