Wasting Time on Mars by A. M. R. Taylor

Author:A. M. R. Taylor [Taylor, A. M. R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-05-26T22:00:00+00:00

21. Passive Aggression

IN THE EVENING of the day the Euro soldiers arrived I went back to my room to retrieve my gear. June was waiting, sitting on the bed, with glassy, dead eyes. She smiled faintly and it was all I could do to breathe. I looked around the room, grabbed some clothes from my drawers, and shoved them into a plastic duffle bag. In the back corner of the bottom drawer was the little bag of opium pills. I looked at it for a few seconds, then opened it and palmed a handful of pills. I threw them into my mouth and swallowed them dry. A minute later I threw them up again. There were still a few in the bag, so I took one and shoved the rest in the bottom of the duffle bag.

There was a knock at the door and Tony came in.

“You look like shit, brother. It’s time to go.”

He piled my spare suits and sleeping bag over my shoulders and pulled me onto my feet.

“There’s a spare bunk in Liu’s room. You’re gonna be his roomie for a while.”

“I thought…” I started. I wasn’t sure Liu believed I was innocent.

“Nah, it’s cool. I vouched for you.”

I looked back as we went through the door. June slowly raised her hand in a sad little wave. A wry smile played at the corners of her mouth.

Shao Lin was waiting in Liu’s room. “Here, take this. It will help you sleep.”

She handed me a pill, which I swallowed. By then the world had already started dissolving into strange, swirling shapes and colours. I lay down on the spare cot and Liu spread the bag over me. Dark, swirling clouds of dust gradually filled my mind. Faces formed, some screaming silently. Mostly, they were people who had died on Mars. People who had been returned to dust through promession, their blood spilled in the colony, their water a gift to the planet. I didn’t feel sorrow or loss or grief. I just watched them float away.

It felt like a thousand years later that someone shook my shoulder.

“Come on, buddy,” I heard Tony say. “Time to return to the land of the living.”

“Ugh.”

“Shao Lin gave you some really heavy shit yesterday, but now it’s lunch time, and I’m ready to get started on this resistance thing.”

“Thirsty,” was all I could say. He handed me a water bottle.

“I need your help, brother,” said Tony. “The Olympic Games are gonna become the Olympic resistance. And I need your skills.”

“They’ve got weapons,” I croaked. “And they’re fighting without conscience.”

“We have Hu. So they’re outgunned.”

I humphed. Hu was awesomely skilful, and I guessed she would be deadly with a Tobler weapon - one which used cold fusion with Helium-3 fuel. Any weapon, for that matter.

“I’ve had you assigned to the silo relocation,” said Tony.

“How did you manage that?”

“Ying is with us. She’s on the Olympic Organisation Committee, and they’re still using her in the Executive Office. She saw you with June enough to know you’d never have hurt her.

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