Greenies
Chapter 1B

Copyright© 2005 by Al Steiner

Science Fiction Sex Story: Chapter 1B - A riveting story that takes place on Mars, a corporate planet controlled by powerful firms on Earth. Although humans, citizens of Mars are treated as a lower class race. The wind of change brings a new Governor, Laura Whiting, who will lead the Martian revolution. What will happen next to this fascinating society? Will they succeed to live in a world free of corporate puppeteers?

Caution: This Science Fiction Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Science Fiction  

Lon Fargo brought the electric truck to a halt near the southern end of greenhouse A-594. The truck was about ten meters long and featured a thirty-meter extendible hydraulic boom that was currently retracted. At the end of the boom was a portable airlock that allowed a person to pass from inside of the pressurized environment of a greenhouse building onto its roof by utilizing one of the access panels. One such panel was directly above the truck now.

Lon and his fellow agricultural complex maintenance technician, Brent Shimasaki, stepped out of the cab and onto the dusty macadam surface of the narrow access road. This particular greenhouse, one of more than ninety thousand in the Eden area, was two square kilometers in size. The ground inside of it, which had once been gently rolling hills and gullies, part of an ancient wetland water shed, had been bulldozed to a nearly perfect flatness when the complex was built forty-six years before. Golden stalks of wheat, less than a month from harvest, stretched from wall to wall in all directions, broken only by the geometric rows between them and by the access roads that divided the field into grid quadrants. The air was dry and warm, kept at the perfect growing temperature and humidity by the environmental simulation machines on the roof. It was one of these machines, which were powered by a fusion plant just outside the city, that the two men had come to repair.

They stepped lightly and carefully as they walked from the doors of the truck, which were emblazoned with a brand new Agricorp decal, to the rear where a storage cabinet was mounted. The greenhouses, though pressurized and warmed, did not have artificial gravity fields in place. Inside the city buildings or on the city streets, magnetic simulation fields were sent through steel conductors that were built into the base construction. This field kept gravity at a comfortable and healthy Earth standard 1G. It had long been known that human beings could not live long term in anything less than .8G without losing dangerous amounts of bone density and muscle mass. The development of artificial gravity in the mid-21st century had been the key factor in allowing the biggest mass migration of humans in history to take place. It was the artificial gravity that allowed sixty million people to live and work on Mars and above it. But in the agricultural fields the artificial gravity was not necessary. Not only was it cost prohibitive to maintain and install, it was also somewhat of a hindrance to operations. The crops actually grew better in the considerably weaker Martian gravity. And the harvesting machines and maintenance trucks could carry more and used less electricity since they and their cargoes were lighter. But for human beings used to walking around and functioning in 1G, performing tasks in one third of that was something that had to be done carefully. It was quite easy to push a little hard during a step and suddenly find yourself a meter in the air and tumbling towards the ground.

This greenhouse, and in fact all of the greenhouses in the surrounding eight hundred square kilometers, had once been the property of Interplanetary Food Products, which had been the fourth largest agricultural company on Mars. But as of two weeks before, IFP had ceased to exist. Agricorp, thanks to a multi-billion dollar merger of assets, was now the owner of everything that IFP had possessed. It was a merger that had been much lauded in the business sections of the Internet services as being far-reaching and progressive. Agricorp stock had increased nearly fifteen percent since the merger became official.

"I hope we get this thing done real quick," Brent said as they opened the storage compartments and removed their folded blue biosuits. "It's almost quitting time. The overtime would be nice but a couple a hits of some good green at the bar would be nicer."

"Shit," Lon said, kicking off the canvas shoes he wore and tossing them up on the truck, "we can't work overtime anymore, remember? We work for Agricorp now. Overtime has to be approved by management in advance or you work for free."

"What do you mean?" Brent asked, wondering if his coworker was joking or not. "That doesn't apply to overtime we pull trying to finish a job, does it? I thought it was just for shift work."

"Nope," Lon replied. "It applies to all overtime, for anything. I checked with Jack before we came out here. He says if we're not done with this blower by the time 4:30 rolls around, to just pack up and leave it until tomorrow. Nobody is to run past their scheduled shift for anything. No exceptions."

Brent shook his head at the idiocy of that. "So they would rather have us leave a blower open to the dust all fuckin' night then pay us time and a half for thirty or forty minutes?"

Lon gave a cynical smile. "Ain't our new bosses smart? You ask me, I'm honored to work for the biggest corporation in the solar system. Their vision and frugality is something to be admired and imitated."

"God almighty," Brent said, kicking off his own shoes. "Now I've heard just about everything."

The biosuits that they wore were designed and manufactured by the same company that made suits for the Martian Planetary Guard. They were constructed of form fitting reinforced plastic that provided near-perfect insulation. An inner sleeve that formed to the body when the suit was activated served the duel purpose of maintaining the proper body pressurization — for the atmospheric pressure on Mars was considerably less than the minimum required to sustain human life — and maintaining proper body temperature — for the outside temperature of Mars, even on the equator, rarely climbed above 0 degrees Celsius. Lon stepped into his suit and pulled it tight, making sure it was properly positioned. Having a suit activate while a portion of the inner sleeve was askew could be a painful and even dangerous experience, particularly if the askew portion happened to be near the genitals.

Once things seemed to be aligned properly he pulled his helmet from the storage compartment and placed it on his head. The helmet was a lightweight, airtight vessel that would pressurize when the suit was turned on. The air supply came from a small, flat tank on the front of the suit. Attached to the tank was an oxygen and nitrogen extractor, a much smaller version of the machines that kept the air flowing in the cities. The extractor would continually draw in those two elements from the thin atmosphere and keep the tank full of breathable air. Lon, as a member of the MPG, was in top physical shape. As such, except during heavy exertion, the extractor on his suit would be able to supply the tank faster than he could breathe it down. This meant he could stay outside all day if necessary, urinating into a sponge device inside his shorts and drinking water from the small storage vessel that fed a straw in his helmet. Only the need for food or defecation would force him inside; two biological functions that were addressed in the military version of the biosuit but not the civilian version.

Lon gave his helmet a final twist, locking it into place. A small green light appeared in the corner of his visor display. This told him that the seal was intact and the suit was ready for activation. He spared a glance over at Brent, seeing that he was still struggling to pull his own suit tight over the bulk of his body. Brent was not a member of the MPG and was not particularly fond of physical exercise. What he was fond of doing was sitting in a bar or at home and smoking bag after bag of cheap marijuana, which in turn led him to eat quite a bit of food. The result of all this was that he was more than twenty kilos overweight and that he tended to draw more air from his biosuit than it could replace, even during non-exerting work. This technically placed him in violation of safety standards for an outside worker but IFP management had always looked the other way about it. As long as the work got done, IFP had not cared how it was accomplished or whether or not it was accomplished safely. But now that IFP management had been replaced by Agricorp management, who had already proved to be much more stringent and nit-picking about such things, Lon wondered if Brent's next physical exam was going to be his last. But then there was a strong possibility that neither one of them were going to even make it to their next annual exam. The blue collar workers of the former IFP force were still awaiting word on the inevitable merger-related "elimination of positions" that came every time two companies became one. Usually, especially when Agricorp was involved, it was the smaller of the two merged company's workers who bore the brunt of the cuts.

"Suit computer," Lon said into the throat microphone, addressing the voice-activated circuit that controlled the suit. It was necessary to address the computer by name, such as it was, so that it would not inadvertently mistake some aspect of normal conversation for a command. "User logging on."

"Go ahead," said the artificial, vaguely male voice that the cheap computer had been programmed with.

"User Lon Fargo. 897-78-98-9876-34."

The suit computer quickly accessed the Internet via a cellular antenna in the far corner of the greenhouse. It then accessed the Agricorp main intranet for Martian operations, searched its employee databanks and found that that name matched that social security number and that that employee was currently authorized to utilize an Agricorp biosuit. It then compared Lon's voice pattern with the pattern it had stored and concluded that they were both the same. This took a little over two and a half seconds. "Log on accepted," it told him. "Awaiting command."

"Suit computer," Lon said, "testing procedure."

"Stand by." The computer performed a complete safety check of all seals and circuits. This took nearly ten seconds. When it was done and satisfied that Lon would not be decompressed if he stepped outside, it said: "Test complete. Your suit is functioning properly."

"Nice to know," Lon muttered. "Suit computer, activate suit."

"Activation in progress," the computer answered.

Lon took a deep breath and braced himself. The activation sequence was not painful by any means, at least not if the suit was being worn correctly, but it was not exactly one of life's great pleasures either. He felt the entire surface area of his body, from the bottom of his neck downward, being slowly compressed. For a moment it was difficult to breathe at all as the plastic constricted the rise and fall of his chest. But once the proper pressure was reached, the constriction eased up, allowing free movement. No sooner had the body section pressurized than the hissing of air against his face began. That was the pressurization of the helmet portion of the suit. The air had an industrial, almost chemical smell to it that was actually caused by the delivery system, not the air itself.

"Activation complete," the computer told him when it was done. "All systems working properly."

"Suit computer, activate radio link with suit uh..." he paused to look at the number stenciled on the right sleeve of Brent's suit. He had to read it sideways since Brent, having just successfully closed his body inside, was putting on his helmet. "Five seven five nine three two... uh six."

"Link established," the computer said. "Be advised that the specified suit is not currently active."

"No shit, dickwad," he replied. The computer said nothing in return, had in fact not even heard his remark since the proper salutation had not prefaced it.

It took another two minutes for Brent to go through his safety check and activation sequence. Once he was done and had his radio link active, he looked over at Lon. "You ready," he asked.

"I'm ready," Lon said. "Let's do it."

He walked over to a control panel on the truck and opened the access hatch. A small computer screen was beneath it. He activated the screen and instructed it to link up with both his and Brent's suit computers. It asked for authorization in the form of names, social security numbers, and voiceprints. They provided this information. Once that was complete Lon instructed the truck computer to power up the airlock at the end of the boom.

"Airlock active," replied the truck computer over their radio.

The airlock was nothing more than a steel box, two meters square by two meters deep. At the top was a synthetic rubber cushion that would form a seal against the roof of the greenhouse. Lon and Brent stepped onto the back of the truck and picked up their two large tool chests, which had been stored against the hydraulic housing. Lon swung his leg over the side of the airlock first, the thin material of the suit allowing almost normal range of motion. Once he was inside, Brent handed him the tool chests, hoisting them up and over with absurd ease although, had they been in 1G, they would have weighed more than thirty kilograms each. Lon set them on the floor and Brent hefted his own bulk into the box. With the two of them inside, the quarters were a little cramped but they would only have to put up with it for a few minutes.

"You all set?" Lon asked, putting his hands on the boom controls. The glove portions of the biosuits were thin and were designed to allow as much dexterity of the fingers as possible but even so, any fine movements were awkward. As such the controls were overly large.

"Take us up," Brent told him, settling in against the wall. "Let's get this shit over with."

Lon pushed upward on the control yoke and the hydraulic boom began to extend, moving the airlock upward and outward. The roof access panel was 1.5 meters square and set into the glass of the ceiling twenty meters above the road. It was marked by an outline of black paint. The idea was to make sure that the entire outline was within the airlock before the panel was opened. If it were not, an explosive decompression would occur when the hatch was opened, causing the blast doors in the 500 meter quadrant around the hatch to come slamming upward from the underground panels in which they were housed. Though the blast doors would protect everyone beyond the immediate quadrant, those unprotected workers inside of it would die a nasty death of decompression and suffocation. Lon's aim with the boom was at its usual level of perfection. The rubber seal pressed firmly against the glass leaving the black outline in almost the exact center. A flip of a switch caused the airlock's hydraulic system to apply constant upward pressure, making the seal airtight.

"Truck computer," he said. "Decompress airlock."

"Decompression sequence in progress," the computer replied.

From below them the powerful exhaust fans began to remove the air from the inside of the lock and expel it out into the greenhouse. The airlock would not be reduced to a complete state of vacuum, as would have been the case had they been in space, but would instead be reduced to the atmospheric pressure outside. The outside air pressure was a greatly variable number on Mars. It changed constantly from day to day as vast portions of the mainly carbon dioxide atmosphere were constantly frozen and thawed and refrozen in the polar regions of the planet. The truck computer automatically established a link with the Martian Weather Bureau, which kept track of current conditions, and downloaded the latest barometric reading. Of course in addition to the constant shifting of pressure due to polar freezing, the pressure was different from place to place depending upon elevation as well. And, unlike on Earth, there were no oceans in which to base a standard 0 elevation. The MWB, as did the rest of Mars, used the elevation of New Pittsburgh, Mars' first settlement, as its standard. Since the Eden area greenhouse was nearly a thousand meters lower in elevation than New Pittsburgh, which sat atop a huge plateau, the computer had to do some adjustments of the figure it received. This was all a standard part of living and working in an environment where human beings were not meant to live and work. Most Martians hardly gave such things a thought although they frustrated Earthling to hysterics at times.

"Decompression complete," the computer told them ninety seconds after it had begun. "Airlock seal is intact. It is safe to egress."

"Got it," Lon said, looking up at the number printed on the access hatch. "Suit computer, establish radio link with Agricorp Eden Operations."

"Establishing link," the computer replied. A moment later: "Link is active."

Lon told the AEO computer that two workers would be atop greenhouse number A-594 near access panel A-594-12 for approximately one hour. He then asked the computer to open that particular panel for him. Once again he was asked for his name and social security number and once again his voiceprint was compared with that in the files. The computer then took the additional step of comparing Lon's stated mission with the work orders for the day that had been filed in its memory banks. At last, satisfied that Lon and Brent were not terrorists attempting to disrupt Agricorp operations and cut into profits, it consented to their request.

"Access panel A-594-12 is opening now," they were told.

There was a very slight hiss of mingling air as the square panel above them slid along its track. Red sand and dirt, blown up there by the constant wind that swept the planetary surface, dropped down upon them. Above them the natural red tint of the Martian sky, which had looked distinctly purple through the tinted glass roof, could be seen in all of its glory. The sky was completely cloudless. Cloud formations, while common in the higher and lower latitudes, were almost unheard of in the equatorial regions.

Lon climbed out first, stepping on the ladder that was a permanent part of the airlock's wall. He pulled himself out onto the glass roof and then kneeled down next to the hatch to pull up the two tool chests that Brent handed up to him. He set them to the side and then stood up, allowing Brent to extricate himself from the lock. This portion of the greenhouse roof was only a few meters from the southwest corner of the large building. Twenty meters below them was a paved access road that ran alongside. The road, which was used to access the roof if major repairs or renovations, those involving heavier pieces of equipment, needed to be done, had not been plowed in a while and had drifts of sand marring its surface. Back at the Agricorp operations building at the edge of the city (not to be confused with the Agricorp main building downtown — the Earthlings that ran the company certainly would not wish to work out of the same building as the common field hands) were large hydrogen powered trucks and even tracked vehicles that were used for heavy maintenance and repairs. On the other side of the road there was two hundred meters of open space — just enough to allow heavy equipment through — before the next greenhouse began. A narrow connecting tunnel near the far end joined the greenhouse to its neighbor which was in turn joined to its neighbor, and so on and so forth, all the way back to the main tunnel that led from the operations building to the first greenhouse. This allowed workers and heavy harvest machines, as well as container trucks, to get to where they were needed without having to go outside. It was through this system of tunnels and interior roads that Brent and Lon had driven their electric maintenance truck to where it was now parked.

Looking outward from the roof of number A-594, just poking upward from the western horizon, the tops of the Eden high rises could be seen some thirty kilometers distant. Aside from that the tinted blue of greenhouse after greenhouse, all a uniform twenty meters high and two square kilometers in size, covered the land like a blanket. Lon and Brent were at the near edge of the Eden area's agricultural land. They could only see to the horizon, which was not very far on Mars, so only about a half percent of the total number of greenhouses in the area were visible to them from twenty meters above the ground. And Eden's agricultural holdings, while the largest on the planet, were only twenty-two percent of the total on Mars. Eight other cities, all along the Martian equator, were centered among similar complexes of artificial growing environments. Staring out upon the sea of glass and steel and realizing that you were only looking at a minute fraction of what was actually there, one could begin to fathom why it was that Agricorp and the other food production companies of Mars were the most powerful entities in the solar system. Within those greenhouses everything from range cattle to marijuana to soybeans were produced year around, free of the perils of insects or weather. Nearly every type of food that was consumed by human beings or animals, whether they were on Mars or Earth or the Jupiter system, whether it was junk food or vegetables or meat, came from Mars in one way or another. It was hard to believe sometimes that all of this food production, which employed more Martians than anything else on the planet, and all of the wealth that came from it, most of which was sent back to rich stockholders on Earth, had been born as a simple experiment a hundred years before.

The first Martian colonists had come, not to grow food, but to exploit the rich deposits of iron ore that lay beneath the higher and lower latitudes of the planet. The supply of easily mined ore on Earth had been almost completely depleted in the early 21st century by the decade long World War III. The bloodiest conflict in human history had raged on three different continents and had killed more than two hundred million people. During the struggle, the combatants had mined iron ore at a mad pace from every available location on the planet turning it into guns, tanks, aircraft, ships, missiles, and bombs. By the time the last shell was fired and the formal surrender ceremonies were conducted, a large percentage of the reachable iron ore was gone forever, exploded into fragments that littered the battlefields of North America, China, and Eastern Europe.

Aside from wiping out the iron supply, World War III had also spawned the two spheres of influence that were now the constantly bickering entities of EastHem and WestHem. WestHem consisted of the North and South American landmasses and was ruled by Caucasians from the former United States and Canada. EastHem, the larger, though poorer of the two, consisted of Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia. It was ruled by Caucasians of the former British Isles, Germany, and France. EastHem and WestHem had been the victorious allies of World War III, defeating the Asian Powers alliance of China, Japan, Korea, and India. The Asian Powers had launched a surprise attack on January 1, 2009 into Siberia and the Middle East before jumping across the Bering Straight into Alaska, Canada, and, eventually Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. Their goal had been a lightening fast capture of the world's petroleum supplies before the opposition had a chance to gear up to a war footing and stop them. They had come very close to achieving this goal in the first months of the fighting. Only a few lucky guesses on the part of the American Army and a few instances of bad luck on the part of the Chinese Army had allowed the Asian Powers to be stopped short of the Texas and California oil fields in North America. Here, the war had stagnated into a bloody stalemate for the next eight years, with millions upon millions dying but with the lines not moving much more than a few kilometers back and forth. Only the development of practical, portable anti-tank and anti-aircraft lasers had broken this stalemate and allowed the WestHem and EastHem alliance to slowly, grudgingly push the Asian Powers back and eventually destroy them with strategic and tactical bombing campaigns against their homelands.

No sooner had the fighting of World War III ended then the long, bitter cold war between EastHem and WestHem began as each vied for superior resource development and strategic positioning. The cold war was marked by an intense space race as each half of the world tried to secure precious resources that were only available in space. It is one of the cruelest ironies in history that World War III, aside from depleting the supply of exploitable iron ore, also depleted the very resource that it had been fought over in the first place. After ten years of all-out mechanized warfare the world's supply of petroleum had been reduced to almost nothing. Thus fusion power for electricity and space flight and hydrogen combustion engines for propulsion became the rage of the future. Huge platforms were built in low Earth orbit and large, interplanetary ships — at first only for cargo and personnel, but later, warships — were constructed. An entire new method and theory of warfare developed along with the spacecraft as each side theorized and planned for the best way to fight the other if it came to that.

It was the need for iron ore to convert into steel that led WestHem corporations to Mars in the first place. Though the moon had a significant supply of iron ore beneath its surface, EastHem had had the foresight to claim the lunar surface as its own first by establishing a large mining colony there. With the development of artificial gravity and the second generation of fusion powered spacecraft, the trek across the solar system to Mars became a cost-effective endeavor. Triad Steel Mining and Refining was the lead company that struck out for the red planet. They established the beginnings of the Triad orbiting city in geosynchronus orbit to serve as an interplanetary shipping platform. On the surface of the planet, they founded New Pittsburgh, the first of four mining cities that would eventually develop.

It was only after the New Pittsburgh mines were up and running and the settlement itself was a thriving city of more than a million souls that the great experiment of Martian agriculture was attempted. A water supply was quite easy to secure on Mars since huge underground aquifers existed nearly everywhere on the planet. But food was a different story. Shipping enough food across the expanse of space to feed more than a million people was a very expensive operation. Particularly since most of what had once been prime farmland in WestHem territory had long since been converted to cities and suburban areas, leaving the entire half of the planet perpetually short on food stocks to begin with. The settlement of Eden was begun modestly, with only a few buildings and living areas made out of castaway pre-fabricated construction materials. The first greenhouses were built just to see if there was any possibility of raising Earthly crops on the surface. It was an experiment that was very controversial at first since a lot of money had been spent for it with little hope of success.

To the surprise of everyone involved, it was discovered that crops of all kinds grew extremely well in the iron rich Martian soil when supplemental nutrients were added. The greenhouses made it possible to simulate the perfect conditions for whatever was being grown. Wheat could be given a hot, low humidity environment with just the perfect amount of irrigation. Apples could be given the damp, cool, high humidity environment they favored. No matter what kind of weather, humidity, or temperature was needed, it could be provided for. No matter what the Martian soil was lacking as far as nutritional content, it could be added. Pests, if they managed to infest a particular greenhouse — something that happened from time to time — could easily be eliminated by flooding the greenhouse with carbon dioxide and displacing the oxygen. Gone was the need for fumigation. Gone was the need to worry about an out of season frost or monsoon wiping out entire crops. For the first time in the history of mankind, farmers could be almost completely assured that whatever crops they planted, they were going to harvest.

Naturally, once the profit potential of the Martian agricultural project was realized, investors immediately bought it out. Thus, the great and powerful Agricorp was born and the Martian Agricultural rush was begun. Greenhouses began to spring up as fast as the materials to construct them could be produced. Immigrants from WestHem, most of them from the ranks of the hopelessly unemployed, climbed aboard cargo ships and made the nine to twenty-seven week trip across space, lured by the promise of jobs in construction, engineering, or agriculture. Eden, in less than ten years, went from a makeshift settlement with a few thousand botanists and manual laborers to a city of five million. Soon, other cities such as Libby, Proctor, Paradise, and Newhall began to spring up along the equatorial region of the planet; each one the center of a rapidly growing expanse of greenhouses. All of this construction required extensive supplies of steel, glass, synthetics, and a thousand other resources. New Pittsburgh was simply not large enough to provide it all. And so the cities of Ironhead, Vector, and Ore City were born, popping up one by one over the next thirty years in the high latitudes to supply the mining and manufacturing demands.

For the longest time Mars was a complete paradise. It was true that an Earth-based corporation of one kind or another owned everything, but that was no different than life on Earth. On Mars, at that time, there had been no such thing as unemployment. Shipping a person through space was expensive for the corporations involved so they only did it if a job was available for that person. With no unemployment to worry about, crime was almost non-existent as well. There were the occasional fights in the bars and the occasional domestic problems, but street gangs, robberies, random beatings, drug dealing, and sex crimes were very rare. The Martians, as they began to call themselves, were living in the most modern of surroundings and participating in one of mankind's greatest endeavors. Most importantly, they were employed and making money of their own instead of living off of welfare handouts and public assistance food. To the type of person that took the rather drastic step of leaving their home planet and traveling to another in search of a job, this was a very important distinction.

But gradually, over the space of a few decades, the so-called Agricultural Rush petered out as equilibrium was established. The greenhouse construction slowed and finally came to a virtual halt as the point was reached where there was enough farmland to produce all of the crops that needed to be produced for the maximum amount of profit. To make any more greenhouses, to produce any more crops would shift the delicate balance of supply and demand upon its axis and drive down the bulk prices. And so, those in the construction and engineering fields were the first to face mass layoffs as construction company after construction company went bankrupt and closed their doors. Their former office buildings, which had once ruled empires of men, materials, and equipment were converted into the first of the public housing buildings that would soon become the ghettos of Mars. Other industries quickly followed. Though ore mining would always be a very important staple of Martian society, the end of the construction boom had caused mass layoff among mine workers and support personnel as the demand for iron ore was slashed to nearly a third of what it had once been.

On the day that Laura Whiting was to be sworn in as Governor, unemployment stood at a firm twenty-eight percent. Each year that number grew a little as corporations merged and created super corporations and laid off personnel as cost-saving measures. It was just this factor that threatened to reduce Brent and Lon from employed status to the welfare class. Those that serviced machinery were particularly vulnerable to post-merger job elimination; almost as vulnerable as middle-management employees. It was only natural that this subject and the impending doom that it implied, would continually dominate their conversation as they went about their scheduled task.

Brent, after considerable grunting and groaning, finally managed to pull himself out of the airlock and onto the roof. Wearily he stood up, already huffing and puffing and making the discharge warning light appear on his air supply screen.

"You really ought to start getting a little exercise," Lon told him, listening to the ragged breathing in his earpiece. "They have a gym in your housing complex, don't they?"

"Screw that," Brent replied, picking up his tool chest. "If I went up there and ran on a treadmill it would take time away from the finer things in life."

"You mean like smoking green and jerking off to VR porn channels?"

"And eating," he added. "Don't forget eating."

"Of course," Lon said, shaking his head a little.

"Besides," Brent said, "I might as well enjoy my food and good green and premium porn channels now, while I have a chance. As soon as those Agricorp assholes lay us all off I'll be stuck with shitty brown grass and welfare channels, just like all the other vermin. And they don't have exercise rooms in the vermin housing complexes, so why should I start an exercise program now?"

"We don't know that we're going to get laid off," Lon said with false hopefulness as he picked up his own tools.

"No, we don't know. We just strongly suspect. They won't tell us for sure because that way they wouldn't get the satisfaction of watching us stress about it before they shitcan us."

"That's depressing," Lon said sourly. "Let's talk about something else. I'm sick of talking about Agricorp all the goddamn time. It's all anyone's ever talked about since they announced the merger plans last year."

"Hey," Brent said, "it's the most progressive merger of the decade, remember? Aren't you thrilled to be a part of it?"

"Oh yes," Lon agreed. "A real boom for the business community. How could I forget?"

The environmental extractor machine they had been sent to repair was one of twelve that kept the greenhouse operating. It was located only ten meters from the hatch they had emerged from. A large steel box, twenty meters square and ten meters in height, it was part of the basic construction of the building. On the side of it that faced the hatch was a hydraulic lift that was big enough to shuttle up to four workers and five hundred kilos of equipment to the top, where the main machinery was located. Lon and Brent climbed aboard the lift and pushed the button. It ground slowly upward in a jerky motion, as if blowing sand had corrupted some of its interior parts. This was a fairly common problem with outside machinery on Mars.

"Shit," Brent whined, feeling the motion, "now we're gonna be out here tomorrow fixing this fucking thing."

"Job security," Lon told him, holding securely to the handrail. "You should be grateful that a lot of shit breaks around this place."

"Why should I be grateful?" he countered. "I'm still more than likely gonna be vermin this time next month. All this shit breaking will be fixed by the Agricorp maintenance guys. They'll get to keep their jobs because they signed on with the biggest, baddest, ass-kickingest corporation to ever rape and fuck Martians instead of the one that only partially raped and fucked us."

"Again with the Agricorp," Lon said, stepping off the lift as it finally reached the top. They were now on a narrow catwalk that surrounded the perimeter of the machine. "Can't you ever talk about something else? Why don't you give me that lecture on how to get the most for my marijuana dollar again? I liked that one."

"You continue to live in denial," Brent told him, hefting his toolbox over and walking towards the sand filter housing mechanism. "And I'll continue to be a realist. We're future vermin, Lon, have no fucking doubt about it."

Lon didn't answer him. Any reassurances he could offer would have sounded like a lie to his lips. Instead, he opened up his toolbox and removed a rechargeable electric wrench. He kneeled down and began to remove the bolts that held the motor housing in place. Brent, giving a few huffs and puffs, picked up his own wrench and walked around the perimeter of the catwalk to begin work on the other side.

As they went about the task of removing the cover so they could access the main fan bearings, which needed to be replaced, Brent softened his tone a little. "So what do you think the chances are of scoring full-time with the MPG?" he asked. "You're in the special forces division. That's who they always hire from."

Lon gave a shrug. "The only real full-time positions are in training or VIP security," he said. "I haven't been in special forces long enough to apply for training. Jackson is real stringent about that. A minimum of six years is required before you're eligible for a teaching position."

"That's screwed up," Brent declared righteously.

Lon shook his head. "I don't think so," he told him. "The MPG ain't like other places. You have to know what you're doing before they let you teach. I haven't learned everything there is to learn about all the stuff we do. How am I supposed to teach someone else how to do it?"

"I still think it's screwed up," Brent insisted. "What about VIP security though? Think they'll let you guard Whiting or the Lieutenant Governor or some of those other rich-prick politicians? Maybe they'll let you guard Jackson himself."

"I've applied for it," he answered, his voice far from hopeful. "But they're a pretty exclusive clique. Jackson handpicks them himself you know. Only one out of every two hundred applicants gets picked for testing. And only one out of every ten that pass the test gets picked."

"Well, it's a shot anyway, ain't it?"

"A little shot," Lon replied, dropping the bolt he had just removed into the pocket of his biosuit. "But, truth be known, they tend to take the older guys for the security detail, the ones that have been around. I've only been in the MPG for five years, and in the special forces for two years. I'm only a squad leader for god's sake."

"It's a better chance then I got," Brent told him. "At least you got a hope of something to fall back on. If Agricorp lays me off I got nothing. I'll never see a payday again."

"Well," he told her, "if they lay me off, I have to resign from the MPG, remember? You have to have a job in order to serve."

Brent shook his head angrily. "Ain't that just some shit?" he asked. "Agricorp comes in and buys up our company and boom, our whole fuckin' lives are destroyed. They take away our job, which makes us have to leave our apartments — I been livin' in that apartment since I was eighteen fuckin' years old! We'll have to move into Helvitia or some other vermin shithole where we'll have our food given to us and we'll probably end up getting killed by one of those fuckin' street gangs. And you," he pointed over at Lon, "you'll have to leave the MPG. You worked for years to get into special forces and they'll make you leave just because Agricorp bought us out. And why does shit like this happen? For money! Because Agricorp wants to make more profit to send to those fucking rich pricks on Earth!"

"It's the way of the solar system, Brent," Lon told him, trying to maintain his composure. "It's the way of the fucking solar system. Now let's get this bearing fixed before 4:30 so we don't have to come out here again tomorrow."

"Right," Brent said, watching the gauge on his air supply display carefully. Getting excited certainly had not helped it any. "Let's get it done. And then let's get our asses out of here so we can go to the bar."

"Sounds like a plan."


New Pittsburgh, Mars

Laura Whiting was dressed in a smart blue business dress, complete with the obligatory tie and dark nylons. It was a style of dress that was obsolete and shunned in all but political circles on Mars. Not even the most conservative of business people, not even lawyers or insurance agents wore such things anymore. Laura understood why such clothing had gone out of favor. It was horribly uncomfortable, particularly in the warm environment of a Martian city. The nylons itched her legs and the tie threatened to strangle her. The dress, though not uncomfortable in and of itself, she considered to be demeaning to all of the female gender. Dresses implied servility to men, a concept which still, even after all these years of socialization, pervaded even the highest aspects of WestHem society. Laura was grateful that no matter what else happened tonight, this most important night, this dreadfully nerve-wracking night, she would never have to wear a dress or nylons again. From this night forward she would be seen in nothing but shorts and a plain blouse.

She was in the so-called green room of the legislative chambers in the planetary capital building. It was a comfortable, friendly room full of plush furniture. Red carpet, the color of the Martian soil, covered the floor. An Internet terminal, which was wired into a service dispenser that could, for a small fee, provide fruit juices, soda, or water, sat upon an imitation wood table. The Internet terminal was blank, having been shut off some time before. The beverage dispenser was unused. She ignored the couches and chairs as well, choosing instead to pace back and forth and round and round. Her nerves were quite on edge. In a few minutes she would leave this room and walk into the chambers where, at long last, she would be sworn in as the governor of Mars.

The election had been three months before, her first attempt at high office, and she had won in a landslide. The race between herself and Governor Jacobs, the incumbent, had generated the highest voter turnout in the history of Mars, with a staggering 84 percent of the eligible populace casting ballots. This number meant that at least ten percent of the votes in this election had been cast by the welfare class, those perpetually unemployed and hopeless Martians that lived in the public housing complexes and made up more than a quarter of the population. These ghetto inhabitants, who typically paid no attention to politics and who were typically very fatalistic, had actually helped elect her. Though voting was not a difficult task to undertake in modern society — all one had to do was access any Internet terminal and Internet terminals were in every apartment and in every public building — the welfare class rarely bothered voicing their opinions when it came to planetary or federal elections. But this time a significant number of them had. They had turned on their terminals, accessed the voting software, identified themselves with a fingerprint and a voice analysis, and cast their vote for governor. That was an encouraging sign for what was to follow. A very encouraging sign.

Now, on the night that this mandate was to take effect, the legislative chambers was packed far beyond its rated capacity. Peering out through a gap in the metal partition Laura could see her former colleagues in the legislature all in their assigned seats, all dressed in clothing similar to hers. One representative for each district of a million people. Representatives of both sexes, of all racial backgrounds, of varying ages, with only one thing in common: corporate sponsorship. All had allegedly been elected by the people but only with the say-so of the powers-that-be. The people were just the mechanism that was used to put the corporate favorite in office. All had to vote the way their sponsors wished them to vote if they wanted to continue to be elected and to collect their campaign contributions. Though the people of Mars had elected them, they did not represent them in anything more than symbolic manner. Laura planned to begin the process of changing that tonight. Would she be successful? She did not know, could not predict. But she was going to try.

Behind the suited legislature members were the public seats that were usually, when the body was in session, either completely empty or occupied by nothing more than grade-school children and their teachers. Tonight they were filled with a collection of corporate lobbyists and wealthy corporate managers; the people who had propelled her to this place, to this moment, with their support and with their money. Laura had made promises to those people, had helped pass laws for them; laws that took the money out of the hands of the common Martians and gave it over to them. Laura had been so skillful at this that most of the common Martians did not even realize they had been robbed. She was not proud of her association with such people, with such a system, but it had been necessary in order to get her where she was. It was this group that was going to receive the shock of their lives in just a few minutes now. Soon the Chief Justice of the Martian Supreme Court would swear her in. She would take her oath of office and then she would officially be the governor of the planet. She would then give her inauguration speech. It was a speech she had written long ago, shortly after the Jupiter War when this crazy scheme had evolved from a vague idea into a concrete plan of action. The speech had been modified here and there in a few places, mostly to update historical references or events, but it had survived the years mostly intact. Tonight it would be heard at last, for better or for worse.

She smiled nervously, going over the words in her mind for perhaps the hundred thousandth time. She did not want so much as a syllable to be mispronounced or stuttered.

"Are you feeling okay, Governor?" asked Lieutenant Warren of the Martian Planetary Guard. Warren was in charge of the security force that protected her. He was in his thirties and had once been a sergeant in the WestHem army. He had seen combat in Cuba and Argentina before being discharged and sent back to Mars where his extensive training had entitled him to a job as a security guard in one of the agricultural fields. His status as an employed person had allowed him to join the MPG (only those with private income were allowed to join the planetary guard — the WestHem congress and executive council had stubbornly insisted upon this as a condition of inception). His previous experience had allowed him to be assigned to the special forces division where he had gradually worked his way up to the security detail and one of the coveted full-time, paid positions in the guard. Like all of the security force that watched over high officials, General Jackson had handpicked him personally for the detail and he had been subjected to intense training. He was a very loyal, very competent leader with a knack for his job. He was also one of the few people besides General Jackson himself and a few close, sympathetic friends that knew what was about to happen.

"I'm fine, Mike," said Laura, who insisted on calling those close to her by their first names. "I'm just fine. Thank you for asking."

Warren nodded, looking a little nervous himself. He was dressed in the standard indoor MPG uniform of red shorts and a white T-shirt with the Martian flag on the breast. Over the T-shirt was a Kevlar armor vest that was capable of stopping handgun fire. He had a 4mm sidearm strapped to his belt and an M-24 assault rifle slung over his shoulder. A helmet with a headset sat atop his head and a pair of combat goggles, which were linked to the combat computer/ tactical radio system, were covering his eyes. In the goggles he would be able to see status reports of his troops, maps of the location they were in, and other pieces of vital information superimposed over the display. The goggles gave him an almost insectile appearance but Laura had long since gotten used to that. "Don't you worry about a thing, Governor," he told her. "I'm not gonna let anything happen to you."

She nodded, offering him a smile. "Well," she said, "there are going to be a lot of upset people out there once I give my speech, that's for sure. But let's hope it doesn't come to violence, shall we?"

"It won't," he assured her, adjusting the sway of his weapon a little. "Politicians attack each other in different ways Governor. But just in case some of those tempers get a little too hot, remember that my platoon and I are watching out for you."

"And I appreciate that, Mike, thank you."

Warren basked in her praise, feeling a wave of protectiveness towards her that was quite similar to what a mother bear feels for her cubs. He checked the time, which was showing in the upper right hand corner of his vision, seeming to hover in the air before him thanks to the combat goggles. "It's almost time, Governor," he said.

"Almost," Laura agreed. "Almost."

Chapter 1C »

Close
 

WARNING! ADULT CONTENT...

Storiesonline is for adult entertainment only. By accessing this site you declare that you are of legal age and that you agree with our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.