Aint Doin That by Richard Wolfe

I Aint Doin That by Richard Wolfe

Peters swings, misses Wong and catches me on the jaw and rings my bell

“Ow!”

I try to push them apart, but Wong is slippery.

Just another town hall meeting in Curie, Corpo northern hub on Mars, and biggest town on Old Dusty. There’s a million other things I’d rather be doing, than standing between these morons.

They’re running out of steam. I yank on the mayor’s puffy jacket, and get him off Wong, the town councilor. His shirt is ripped.

Fighting over water.

You’d think they’d do it in a ring, but who’d pay to watch old Wong and Peter’s go at it? Wong can barely walk, but he always gets in one good hit with his kung fu shit. Peters is going ballistic as usual.

“Get off me Smith!”

“Stop! Guys!”

I hold them apart. Like children.

Mayor Peters.

Councilor Wong. 

And like kids, they got no real power, anyway.

Corpo has all that.

& & &

Later, I’m driving down the street in Curie. Why’d they put this town here? In the dustiest little crater in southern Chryse Planitia? Could have put it anywhere. Little bit more water maybe. I don’t know.

Streets are full today. Shops all busy. There’s people. No one waves, not even the ones who know me.

That’s probably because I’m a cop.

Well really just a Corpo deputy, but muscle for Corpo is hated around here. Maybe that’s the way it is everywhere, but especially here in the north.

Hey, I’m just trying to get by like everyone else. I don’t steal. I don’t take bribes, well at least not big ones. We all gotta eat, right?

I pull up in front of the SecHab and swing around the building to the side entrance and through to the detention cells. I check on Terri. She’s a pile of sweaty clothes on the bunk. Still sleeping it off. I tap on the door.

“Hey.” I say. “You okay?”

“Um…”

“Picked you up at the pub last night. You were completely out of it. Good thing it was me.”

“Um…”

“I look after you little sister. We’ll have you out in a few. Gotta go talk to Cap.”

“Oh, Jimmy! You didn’t tell Sylvia? I’ll never hear the end. Wow! Haven’t done that since Talia was born. I don’t know how that even…” She shakes her head. “Hey, let me out. I really gotta get home. I’m supposed to take Syl to school. Um… What day is it?”

“Today, dummy!”

I should talk to Cap first, but I pull my keys and let her out the side door. Terri’s the youngest. Gotta look out for her. Think of it as a perk of the job. Have a few of those. No guilty conscience. Siblings on the Dusty is why I take shit from Corpo. Terri’s got a wife and kids. Sherman’s got too many wives and a bushel of kids. Not me. Thank God.

I can’t let family get jammed up. Not here. Corpo would bleed them dry.

& & &

  In the captain’s office I hang up my coat in the anteroom. The heater is blowing hard, but all it’s moving is the dust and I want to pull it on again. The air is cold against the parts of my skin that aren’t covered by my uniform. I reach for the coat and Cap shouts. I grit my teeth and keep from shouting back.

The mayor is there and immediately starts screaming. She points at me.

“I want you to fire Smith. He manhandled me. He put his hand on my chest!”

“Ms. Peters?”

Cap looks a question at me.

“Another dust up at the town hall,” I say.

“I want him disciplined, fired, something!”

Cap scowls at me.

“Is this true, Smith?”

I see how it is. I just nod.

“Ms. Peters, mayor, please. Take a seat. Not you, Smith. Stand at attention.”

“Ms. Mayor, I assure you that I will council Smith. Your reprimand will go into his permanent record.”

“That’s it?” She stands up. “I insist that you fire him!”

“Ms. Peters, I respect your position, but do I need to remind you that I am only required to take your consultation. I answer to Corpo. So, what I can do is limited to my regulations.

“So, you’re not going to do anything?”

“Frankly, Ms. Mayor, I do not work for you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a critical job to get to.”

“What! My husband works in Corpo management…”

Cap nods at me and I take Peters by the arm and she struggles for a split second, then walks out and slams the door.

Yeah, civilian government ain’t shit to Corpo. Maybe not how it should be, but what is to be done?

Cap waves his beefy hand at me. His jowls quiver as he shakes his head.

“No more wraslin’ with the mayor or the civilian mucky mucks. Leave ‘em be. Drunks is fine.” He squints at me.

“What’s up, Cap?”

“Got a job.” He called it a job. Not a task or errand. A job. I already know I’m not going to like it.

“Yeah?”

“Eviction.” He says. Fuck. I hate evictions.

“Details?”

“Tommy.” He says.

Tommy? He’s a friend from school. I remember his jump ball. Tommy had game back then. We hung out our senior year, dated the same girls. Then… what? We lost touch after he moved out to Acidalia. He became a kind of hermit.

My face gets hot, but I try to control my reaction.

“Tommy Lannigan?” I say to be sure. I try to keep my voice steady, but I sound shaky to myself. “No… I mean, Tommy?”

“It’s your job, Deputy.” Cap says.

“Eviction?” I shake my head involuntarily. “Corpo wants me to evict Tommy? Sure we want to be doing that?” Tommy lives in an old habitat up in Acidalia Planitia, way out on the edge of Kunowsky crater. “Why?”

“We don’t ask why,” Cap says.

“I’m asking. Tommy isn’t bothering anyone. There’s nothing out there. Corpos want him out? I gotta ask why.”

“He’s got a girl out there.”

“Kidnap?”

“Worse.” Cap says. “Married.”

Tommy? Married?

“More reason to leave him alone,” I say.

“Corpo figures he’s going to start a commune, or something. Want to nip it in the bud. Can’t have citizens staking any more claims.”

“His claim is valid, last I looked. But what the hell’s out there to claim? Dust? Rocks? A drop or two of water?”

“Bingo.”

“Water? Terraform’s almost done. Corpo’s already got most of the water locked down. What does Corpo need with Tommy’s few gallons, not even enough to take a shower. Doesn’t make sense.”

“Corpo wants it all, not some, all.”

“And you’re okay with that?” Cap gives me a hard look.

“Not okay. Got no choice.”

“Yes. You do. Tell them no.”

“Listen to me, idiot! If we don’t evict him, it’s our necks. I got a family. So do you.”

“So does Tommy, now.”

“Go out there and bring him in. That’s an order.”

“So, I go up there and kick Tommy and… and his girl out. Where are they supposed to go? To jail? You know what Tommy is like. Corpo jail? He wouldn’t last a week.”

“Neither would I. You have your orders.” Cap turns his back like that will shut me up. “Get to it!” I don’t move.

“You got this order in writing? Let me see it.”

“Not your business. Now go, before I send someone else. You’re a good man, Jimmy. I’d hate to have to fire you.”

He gets in my face and glares. Then he smiles.

“I know you let yer sister go. Terri? Right?”

I’m rooted to the spot. I’m hot. I don’t feel the cold anymore. I have a fantasy of pulling my sidearm and shooting Cap in the face.

“Lemme see the order.” Stupid! I can’t shut my mouth. “Ain’t goin’ out there not knowing.”

Cap jabs his finger in my chest. I look down at him, trying to keep my expression neutral, professional.

“You get your ass out there and kick that fucker out, or find another job.” I give him my stare that says, touch me again and I’ll break your arm. He laughs and turns away. “I’m not some drunk at the pub, tough guy. I ain’t yer sister. Go do your job.”

“Who gave the order?” I fold my arms so tight my bowie knife in its scabbard digs into my forearm. “Who!” I raise my voice just a hair and put a little gravel into it. Cap turns around. He shakes his head.

“If it will get you moving.” I nod.

He hands me the order.

Order comes straight from the top. Corpo brass. Someone named Beemis. Don’t know him, but I hate him. Kill a man. Kill his family for a bucket of water.

Do I really want to keep working for these people? If there was anything else I could do, I’d be doing anything else.

“Fucking Corpo.”

“Hey, Moron! Corpo signs our checks.”

I hate people managers. Don’t know a damned thing about people who get their hands dirty, who work for a living. They don’t know us and they don’t care. Fuck them!

“Really?”

“Dude.” Cap’s tries a different tack. Good cop. “Think, man! They’ll pull your cards. You’ll starve! Then they’ll go after your family. You’ll all end up as fertilizer. You know Corpo. Be reasonable. Or if you can’t be reasonable, be protective of you and yours.” Go after my siblings? After their families? Corpo would do that.

“But evict Tommy?”

“Just… talk to him.” Cap reaches for my shoulder. I flinch away and his hand drops to his side. “You’re friends, right? He might see reason.”

“Right. Talk. But tomorrow.” I say firmly. “It’s already late and I ain’t camping out in the rover again.”

“Okay.” Cap looks down and then back up at me. “But out before dawn, right? Sorry…”

I walk out and slam the door behind me before he can say anything else.

I know Tommy. Knew Tommy. Haven’t seen him in a couple of Martian years. But I don’t remember Tommy Lannigan as a reasonable man. When he’s hot, Tommy Lannigan goes off like a volcano on the old world. All boom and hot lava. Why does he lives out by Kunowsky? He doesn’t like people. Or maybe he just doesn’t like Corpo.

How’d he managed to get himself a wife?

& & &

The drive is a bitch. The road network in the northern hemisphere was never completed. I have to drive out towards Lyot and then catch the unnamed road that runs east west from Utopia to Chryse. Then over dirt to Tommy’s place. It’s a long day.

A long day of looking at Old Dusty. Thinking about Tommy.

We were sixteen. Tommy stole his old man’s dust rover and drove us out to the Acidalia plains to watch the sunrise. I was excited. I liked him. I thought this was a date. We drank some moonshine he got from somewhere. We talked about leaving Old Dusty. We talked about how that would never happen. He said he’d build something of his own someday, somewhere no one could tell him what to do. I kissed him and he kissed me back. My first kiss.

Now I’m driving out to take it from him.

It’s desert up here. Hell, it’s still desert most everywhere. But when the wind isn’t blowing, Old Dusty’s got his own kind of beauty. The sky is not quite blue, but close. The colors down here on the plains are pretty bland, brownish gray. The sun is so small here, but at dawn and dusk it still sends down rays that glint off the crests of the hills.

Corpo! Fuck me. All the companies that failed when Earth lost interest and merged into Corpo now rule everything.

Fuck them.

& & &

At the turn off to Tommy’s. It’s already noon. I hope this will go quick.

Stupid.

It’s not going to go quick.

I don’t want to be driving back in the dark. Night on Mars is illuminated only by the stars. Too dark to drive. In the shadows of the hills and in the valleys, it’s Stygian.

I was kicking up quite a cloud on the road. Now, my wheels are sending up a huge plume to merge into the reddish sky.

See it for kilometers.

Sky’s still red after all the changes, after all the massaging and mashing that we did to make it livable. 

Tommy will know someone’s coming.

There’s a track. Tommy plowed it years ago. Took him more than a Martian year. Sprayed it with something he thought would make the regolith stable. Most of it’s been blown away. I’m bumping and bouncing over the ground, almost as if he’d never done it.

Why did he bother?

Out here he was alone. Maybe he wanted to be away from other people’s rules. Away from the cards, digital account and ID, that store your worldly goods, salary, and savings. The Corpo system used to keep track of their, “assets,” meaning us.

All to make sure they get their cut. Yeah. I see why Tommy Lannigan set up way out here. And even in the Martian wilderness, hundreds of kilometers from the nearest town, I have to come and try to take him out of the life he’s chosen.

I pull up to a fence that looks recently repaired.

The homestead is bigger than I remember. Tommy’s expanded the farm biome. There’s a decent windmill and a ton of solar panels. He built a house around that old hab. It’s been years, but, wow! The boy’s been busy.

I get out of the rover and weave between outbuildings and an improbable garden planted right in the ground.

What the fuck is he growing? Didn’t think that was possible.

Tommy must be on to something. The path up to the hab house is lined with stone, well done. Doesn’t say Tommy to me.

The style of the house is archaic. When we first got here, people were all about earth architecture. Not so much anymore. Funny that Tommy built it that way. The way he used the prefabs to mimic the old fashion is ingenious.

I see Tommy on the porch. Next to him is a whip-thin, hard looking blonde woman.

At least they’re not armed.

The woman has her blonde hair up in a bandanna. Tommy’s black hair is all out like a halo around his head. He waves and smiles. He calls to me a hello. He pulls his wife close and says something to her. She smiles too, and her hard face brightens into beauty.

There is a ghost of jealousy that says, boo, and goes away.

I look at them smiling as I walk up and step on the porch. My heart is pounding. This is wrong.

“Tommy.” I say

“Jimmy.” Tommy nods. “This is my…” He looks at the woman. She laughs.

“You can say, wife!” She says.

“Yeah.” Tommy looks happy. I don’t see that much these days. “This is my… wife. Aphy.”

“Short for Aphrodite.” Aphy says. “Please to meet you, Jim.” She puts out her hand and I shake it.

“And you.”

“Come on in the house, Jimmy. We got a new batch of the hard stuff. Have a drink.”

Tommy grabs me around the shoulders and pulls me into the house. I resist. I don’t want to accept his hospitality and then tell him I’m here to evict him. What I had to do was rude enough. He ignores my reluctance and drags me past the dust curtains before I can say anything else.

It’s cool in the house, and spotless. Marriage has transformed Tommy. The house is a testament to how much he’s changed. We go through a room that used to be a seedy, one room hut. Now it is full shelves of books! You don’t see many paper books on Mars. Too heavy. Too expensive to transport. Most people just read off their slates.

There are comfy chairs and a couch. Doors lead off to a hallway and what I assume is a bedroom. I’m speechless.

“Tommy!” I say, and wave a question at the walls of books.

“They’re Aphy’s.” Tommy says. “She’s a scientist. Actually, she’s a genius. Has multiple PhD’s. Soil. Bioengineering. Physics. What else, Babe?”

“Don’t bore Jimmy, Tom. Let’s get him that drink.”

I follow them down the short hall into a big kitchen. In the center is a table of red Martian stone. It is marbled with greens and yellows and browns, and smooth as polished concrete. I whistle and run my hand over the surface.

“You like it? I made it from an outcropping that Aphy found. Not far from here.”

“Incredible! I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“She’s a genius!” Tommy says again.

“Ooh!” Aphy says. “Say it again. Say it again.”

Tommy laughs and hugs her and kisses her on the lips. She pulls away and Tommy pulls a bottle of a greenish liquid out of a cupboard and puts down two glasses on the table. He points me to a chair made of wood and I’m gob-smacked again.

“Is that…”

“All the way from Earth!” Tommy says.

“Are you, like, a trillionaire baby or something?” I say and Aphy’s face goes hard. “Sorry. Just a joke. Please. Didn’t mean anything by it.” I’m a moron, but her smile returns quickly. She pulls out the chair for me and I sit down. They sit on benches.

“Don’t talk a lot about my folks.”

“They’re old money back on the old world. They own slaves.”

“Stop.” Aphy says. “They never understood me. I never understood them. How they could use children…” She shakes her head. “I got on my high horse, wanted to make things better back there. I couldn’t. Not back there. It’s feudalism all over again. Not with my parents always… I came here to start again.”

“What do your folks think now?”

“I don’t like to talk about them. Please. Have a drink.”

Tommy pours and I see the color better. It’s a light greenish yellow. The liquid splashes into the glasses.

“Less tilt,” Aphy says. “You’re aerating it.”

Tommy’s jaw tightens ever so slightly, then he smiles.

“She’s also a sommelier. Forgot that one.”

“I’m not—” Aphy stops herself. “Sorry. Habit.”

“And a control freak,” Tommy says. “Not that I’m complaining.”

She slaps his shoulder with her fingertips. He flinches dramatically.

Tommy clears his throat.

“I’m a terrible host,” he says. “How’s your sister?”

I don’t mention that she spent last night in the drunk tank.

“Terri’s great. She and Sylvia and the kids are good.”

I take a sip of the weird green liquid.

“Still working on the recipe.” Tommy says. What d’you figure it’s made from?” He grins. I take another sip. “Wow! No idea.”

“Dandelions! Aphy fixed ‘em to grow out there, right in the ground.”

I look at Aphrodite. She really is beautiful. Tall and graceful. Not like my first impression. How the fuck did Tommy land this one?

“Just tweaked the genome a smidge,” she says.

“What? Got ‘em to grow out in the field, in the ground? You do something to the soil?”

Aphy’s smile tightens.

“Tweaked the genome, like I said.”

“No. I mean… the regolith, it… don’t look like… It’s like soil.

“Jimmy,” Tommy says. Tommy’s voice has an edge I don’t understand. “She said she tweaked the genome.”

I look between them. Aphy’s gone still. Tommy’s watching her, not me.

“Right,” I say. “Sorry. Just impressed.”

The moment passes. But I don’t forget.

I take another sip.

“Whoee! That’s got some snap!”

Tommy slaps the table and laughs.

“Told you, she’s…”

“A genius, right. Got that,” I say.

Tommy takes a drink and winces.

“Aphy thinks we should bottle it and sell it. God knows we need to up our liquor game on Old Dusty. Everybody’s always thirsty. Ha!”

I don’t know what to say to that. I feel my cheeks flush and I don’t think it’s just from the liquor.

Suddenly, I remember why I’m here.

I feel a cold tingling in my spine.

I’m a coward.

Evict them?

I need to keep them talking.

“Not drinking?” I say to Aphy. She puts her hand on her stomach.

“Well…” She looks at Tommy. “I shouldn’t.”

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

“Be right back,” Aphy says. And heads into a small hallway and through a door.

“You’re the first to know, Jimmy!” Tommy says. “We haven’t even told her parents.”

He takes my hands in his. I like it until I look into his eyes.

“Jimmy, I’m scared. A baby! Actually, I’m terrified.”

“You’ll be a great dad! But I don’t have much advice in that area. I’ll hook you up with my sister, Terri, she has nothing but advice.”

Aphy comes back wiping her hands on a paper towel.

“We’re waiting for perigee so we can have a reasonable conversation.” Aphy says. “Only four minute lag, or so. Be half a year, but by then she’ll be born and we’ll be sure she’s healthy. Don’t want to give my father any bad news. It’s going to be a tough conversation. They own a province in Ohio. They are going to demand that I go home. No way I can do that.”

“Would you?”

She looks at Tommy, then throws her arms out to take in the farm.

“My life is here.”

“Old Dusty needs her. I need her.”

“My life is here,” she repeats and pats her stomach, “with her.”

“It’s a girl?”

“Did my own amnio. So, yeah we know. Healthy girl. So far.”

“Did I say that she’s a doctor, too?”

“Hush!”

“Her parents don’t know about me.” Tommy laughs. “Low class, me.” He takes another sip from his glass.

“My father’s not going to like Tom.”

My stomach drops. I can’t do what I came to do. No way. Fuck Corpo!

I have to make small talk until I can get out of here gracefully.

“Jimmy, you are a changed man.”

He laughs.

“She’s a miracle worker.”

He takes her around the waist.

“Aphy’s even got me reading. Books!” He pulls out a tome.

“The Grapes of Wrath?”

“Reading it the second time. It’s a heart breaker. Reminds me of Old Dusty.”

“You…” I cast about for more small talk. “You’ve done a lot with the place since I was last here.”

“We’ve got ourselves more than self sufficient. Thanks to Aphy.” He hugs her hard and she kisses his cheek.

“Yes!” Great distraction. “Tell me about this romance. How did you two get together?”

“Aphy’s only been here a year. A Martian year. I met her in Curie. I was down for supplies and equipment. Joey invited me to a party. You know Joey Blake? He runs the Supply Depot and Pub. Anyway…”

“Anyway…” Aphrodite says. “Joey cleared space at the depot for a dance party. Invitation only. Joey was sweet on me. I liked him. There’s a lot of good men on Mars. An embarrassment of riches.”

I wonder if I’m a good man.

“We were drinking.” She goes on. “A little too much, I think. The dance music starts up. I never heard it before. Martian Bop, Joey said. It just makes you want to move and fly. Anyway, there, in the middle of the floor, dancing like a madman, was Tom.

We all laughed. He was funny but there was something about the way he moved. We joined in the dance and not even the Martian cold could keep us from sweating.

We danced all night. The sun was coming up when the music finally stopped, and we dropped where we were to the floor.

Joey leaned over to kiss me but missed. I laughed and asked about the music, who the composer was. He pointed at Tom and called to him.”

“I just dabble on the synth. Hardly composing.” Tommy says.

“That’s your music, Tommy? They play it all the time in Curie. Infectious.”

Butter him up. Don’t talk about why you’re here. Keep chatting.

“Anyway…” Aphy continues. “Tom looked over and our eyes met.”

“She brushed her damp hair out of those big blue eyes.”

Tommy jumps in.

“And boom! I was lost. Fell hard. Avalanche time. I wasn’t even drunk! She crawled her way across the floor to me. She said, ‘I’m Aphrodite.’” I said, ‘Of course you are.’”

“Got my living permit and moved here two weeks later,” Aphy says.

“We moved all her research stuff and books out here. We worked like a regular construction crew and expanded the hab and the garden and the farm. Built a proper lab. She’s been a one woman research institute ever since. And she’s a slave driver.”

He squeezes her hand.

“Had me digging around out here, working on the cistern. And guess what? My claim… our claim…”

He stands up and hugs and kisses his wife.

“Our claim is sitting on a lake! We’re rich! Aphy can fund her own research. We can make this whole region livable. No one has to go begging to Corpo anymore.”

“We’re going to found a new town.” Aphy says.

Fuck! Corpo must have got wind of this. That’s what’s got them stirred up. A town that they don’t control. A rival power. They are going to come down on Tommy and Aphrodite like a meteor. I’m just the messenger. They sent me to see what Tommy would do. They probably have a security team already on route from the south.

I was hoping that they would keep talking about anything but why I came, but Tommy turns to me.

“So, Jimmy. What brings you all the way out here?”

“Hey, I need a break. Got to empty my bladder. Long trip up.”

“Use our chemcrapper.”

Aphy points down a short hall.

I try to relieve myself, but my piss is blocked. I can’t do it. I’m not going to do it. I finally squeeze something out and go back to the kitchen.

“So?” Tommy says.

I guess the dandelion liquor is working its magic on me.

I can’t lie.

“Corpo sent me to evict you.” I say. Tommy stands up. His face twists into an ugly grimace. Volcano time. Before he can say anything, Aphy has her hand on his shoulder and pulls him back down to his seat beside her. She smiles at me.

“You’re not frightened? You should be frightened.”

“I was kind of expecting expecting this.” She says.

“Eviction?” “Or… Someone looking for you? Someone from the old planet, from Big Blue?” Why did I ask that? Cop’s intuition?

Aphy goes still. That same stillness when I asked about the garden.

“What does that mean?” Tommy’s face is contorted by rage.

Aphy exhales sharply. Looks at Tommy. Then at me.

 “My former employer,” she says carefully, “is a corporation called GenEarth. They funded my research for years. Soil rehabilitation. Drought-resistant crops. Bioengineering for extreme environments.”

“Like what you’re doing out there in the dandelion patch?”

“It is. That’s the problem.”

She places her palm against her stomach, a protective gesture.

“I developed certain techniques. Proprietary, they said. Belonging to them, they said. I said the techniques were mine—I developed them on my own time, with my own equipment, using my own geologic and genetic materials. They disagreed.”

“They sued you?”

“Accused me of theft. Corporate espionage. Tried to have me arrested.

She laughs a bitter laugh.

“I was planning to give it away, to anyone who needed it. To all you orphans here on Old Dusty.

Tommy’s face is unreadable.

“You never told me.”

“I never told anyone. I ran. I changed my name, my appearance a little—”

“Babe!” Tommy says.

She pats her husband’s cheek, and goes on.

“I changed my entire life. I came to the one place they’d never look, not for the daughter of a duke. I came here—a failed colony on a forgotten planet. I met you. I fell in love. I thought I was safe.”

“But Corpo found out.”

“No. Corpo knows about the aquifer.”

Her gaze is level.

I look down.

“What?” Tommy says.

“They don’t care about me. They care about the water. But if they start investigating—if they dig into where the technology came from, how the soil was fixed, why this homestead is viable when nothing else is—they’ll find GenEarth’s fingerprints. And GenEarth will find me.”

She leans towards me until I look up into her crystal blue eyes.

“So yes, Jim. I expected someone. I just didn’t know who would come first—Corpo, or them.”

“GenEarth. They’re bigger than Corpo?”

“Much bigger.”

“So if they come—”

“They won’t. Corpo’s a cartel. GenEarth’s a multinational. Corpo wants water. GenEarth wants me. But GenEarth doesn’t know I’m here, and Corpo doesn’t know what I am. As long as that holds, we’re safe.”

“And if it doesn’t hold?”

Her jaw sets and a little smile plays across her face.

“Then I fight. Or I run. Or I die. But my daughter doesn’t go back to Earth. My daughter doesn’t become their property. That’s why we’re going to win, Jim. Because I’ve already lost everything once. I’m not doing it again.”

I look at Aphrodite with new eyes. Tommy takes her hand and kisses it.

“We know what we’re going to do, Jim,” she says. “The question now is what are you going to do. So, what are you going to do, Jim?”

Aphy’s expression is calm and open.

Tommy is glowering and breathing hard.

“You’re not evicting us,” he says flatly.

“That’s what Cap sent me to do, but…”

“You are not evicting us!” Tommy is Olympus Mons reactivated. Aphrodite holds tight to his hand.

“Jim is not going to evict us,” she says calmly.

“Why not?” Tommy looks at her. “What’s to stop him?”

“What is stopping you, Jim?” She says.

She looks so confident. I can almost see the wheels turning in her head, ten steps ahead of me.

What’s stopping me?

Something in me breaks, like an earthquake back on Big Blue, the pieces of me rattle around inside.

I lose my mind a little and do something very stupid.

I pull out my phone and dial Cap and put him on speaker.

“Cap.”

“Smith. You did it?”

“No. I… I didn’t. I ain’t kickin’ them out. No, Cap. Ain’t doin’ that.”

“Sorry you feel that way, Jimmy. Really sorry. You should get away from their homestead. The cleanup team will be there in ten. Goodbye, Smith.”

I take a long pull from my drink and wish the ground would swallow me up.

“Sorry, Tommy.”

I can’t look him in the eye.

I pull my pistol.

“I’m not very good with this thing, but I’m not letting them kill you.”

Tommy grabs my shoulder. Hard.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“Yeah I did.”

“No.” He shakes his head. “You could have walked out. Told them you couldn’t find me. Let us handle it alone. You didn’t have to burn your life down for us.”

I don’t know what to say.

He pulls me into a hug. When he lets go, his eyes are wet.

“Whatever happens next, Jimmy—you’re family now. Not just because… you know. Because of this.”

Tommy reaches into a cabinet. He takes out a sniper rifle and two pistols in gun belts. Aphy takes one of the pistols and straps it around her waist, Tommy does the same with the other.

“We thought something like this might happen once word of our find got around,” Aphy says.

“We’ve been preparing,” Aphy says. She picks up a tablet and waves it at me.

“Come with me, Jimmy,” Tommy says.

“No. I’ll meet them and talk to them.”

“That’s suicide,” Tommy says.

Aphy nods.

“Could give us a couple of extra minutes.”

“No!”

“My choice,” I say.

“Okay,” Tommy says. He throws his arms around me. “Be careful, brother.”

“Get up in the crow’s nest, Babe,” Aphy says.

“Got a hidy-hole over in the top of that outcropping out there. Sniper nest.”

He points out the kitchen window.

“What? No, Tommy. They’re sending professional killers. Do not draw their fire. Let me try to talk first.

“What about Aphrodite?” I say. “Will she be safe?”

“I’ll be upstairs.”

She points back to a spiral staircase.

“Observation room, just looks like a wall from the outside. Got three hundred and sixty degree views. Don’t worry about me, Jimmy.” She pats her pistol. They won’t take me alive.”

Tommy and Aphy kiss, deeply.

“I love you,” they both say at the same time.

“They’ll come in a hopper,” I say.

“Expected.” Tommy says.

“I’ll go out to meet them,” I say.

“Call me and keep your phone on speaker.

What am I doing?

My heart is pounding against my ribs, and I have a hard time getting my breath. My knees buckle as I walk out the door into the wan, rusty yard. I almost trip down the porch stairs, and catch myself and jump the last two steps. Dust puffs up around my boots

I wait in the cold

“There they are,” Aphy says through my phone. “They’re not GenEarth. GenEarth would send lawyers, not killers. GenEarth would want me alive.”

“That’s good, right?” I say.

“It means Corpo’s the immediate threat. But if Corpo loses enough people, they’ll start asking questions. And if they ask the right questions—”    She stops.

“Then we deal with that when it comes,” Jimmy says.

“You don’t understand. If GenEarth finds me, they’ll take me back. They’ll take the baby. They’ll say she’s evidence, or property, or—”

“Heads up!” I say.

I take a deep breath and the hopper comes in low and fast, almost silent, dust swirling around the rotors. It’s black and menacing. It lands down by the road. Troops jump out.

“Looks like six,” Tommy says, “all in dusty cammo, all with machine guns and masks.”

“Remember,” I say. “Wait until I talk to them.”

& & &

The figures fan out in a semi circle and advance on the farmhouse. Just as they reach the dandelion patch, they stop all pointing their guns at me.

“I’m Corpo,” I call to them and raise my hands.

“Drop your weapon!” One shouts at me. Male.

“On the ground!” A female.

Conflicting instructions.

Typical cops.

I reach one hand down and take my pistol between my thumb and forefinger. I drop it just as one of them shoots me. My arm swings back and I spin around and fall on my stomach facing the killers.

There’s a hole in my left forearm, missed the bone, I think, but the pain sears up my arm to the shoulder.

“Tommy…” I hear Aphy say from my phone.

One of the troops is hit in the head and drops in a heap. The others scan and return fire in the direction of Tommy’s nest. They assume a tactical formation and back up towards the hopper.

“Watch this, Jimmy,” Aphy says. “Those are ours. Special delivery.”

Suddenly, a half dozen drone copters launch out of a shed to my right. They move in formation towards the attackers.

“Just decoys,” Tommy says. “Wait for their big mama.”

The troops notice and train their fire on the drones and take down one, then two. All the while they keep retreating towards the hopper.

I should be shooting back. I see my pistol. Out of reach. I keep my eyes on the troopers and crawl.

Two more drones go down just as the troops reach the hopper.

I get my pistol in my hand and draw a bead.

They are still shooting as the last two drones close in.

The retreat was tactical. The hopper is beginning to deploy a rocket launcher. They are going to blow us to kingdom come.

Then I see it.

“Boom!” Tommy’s voice crackles out of my phone. “Big mama!”

A larger drone is directly above the hopper, descending rapidly. It crashes into the top of the black monster. The explosion knocks me back, and deafens me. I cover my face. My pistol flies out of my hand. I grit my teeth and hug the ground.

My hearing comes back gradually.

“Jim?” Aphy’s voice.

“Jimmy?” Tommy’s voice

“You okay, Jim?” Aphy’s voice again.

I cough and try to sit up, the pain shocks me onto my right side. I crane my neck and look towards the hopper which is burning and in pieces. I don’t see the attackers anymore, no, I see the bloody stump of a leg.

“Holy…”

“Got ‘em all,” Tommy says through my phone. “Clear.”

Aphy is suddenly beside me.

“Jimmy!”

“Hell!” I say.

& & &

Back in their kitchen, I’m still shaking. Aphy is tending my arm. The bullet’s out. She puts in the last two stitches.

“Ow!”

“Don’t be such a baby!” Aphy says. She wraps the bandage.

“Too tight!”

She gives me a local anesthetic. As the pain fades, the enormity of what we just did floods in.

“God! You killed them all. I’m glad you’re not dead, but Corpo will just send more. That trap won’t work twice.”

“How many kill squads like that do you suppose Corpo has?” Aphy asks.

“I don’t know. I know they have them, but…”

“That was it. Being rich is sometimes a superpower.”

“Just a bribe in the right place,” Tommy says.

“We’re crazy,” I say.

I’m a dead man.

Fuck.

“I imagine…” Aphy says slowly. “I imagine that you are sick of Corpo, Jim.”

I rub my face and nod.

“I imagine that your friends, other deputies and security folks are also sick of Corpo?”

I nod again.

“I know Joey and his merchant friends are sick of Corpo. I know all my research buddies are sick of Corpo. We are all sick of Corpo.”

She reaches across to me and grabs my hands.

“I expected them to send someone. I’m glad it was you, Jim. I’m glad that it was a friend.”

“A traitor more like,” I say.

“You chose not to do Corpo’s dirty work. You were ready to fight with us.”

Aphy’s phone beeps. She looks at it for a second, then she hands me the phone.

A message. Addressed to “Dr. Eleni Kostas.” Oh! I read it and don’t understand.

“I don’t know what all this means,” I say. I tap the phone.

“It means, they’ve found the server,” she says quietly. “The one with my timestamps. My development logs. They can prove I developed the techniques before GenEarth filed their patents.”

“That’s good, right, Babe?” Tommy says.

“It means I could fight. If I wanted to go back. If I wanted to spend ten years in court, watching my daughter grow up through video calls, waiting for judges to decide whether I’m a person or property.”

She puts her phone away.

“Or I could stay here. Build something real. Watch my daughter run through soil I fixed, eat food I grew, breathe air I helped make more breathable.”

“And GenEarth?” I say.

“GenEarth can wait. The universe is big. They’ll find other geniuses to exploit.”

She places both her palms on her stomach.

Monster mother.

A chill runs  up my spine.

“Did I just kill us?”

I think of my brother and sister and their wives. I think of all my nieces and nephews. Did I just make us all paupers? Will we all end up in the fertilizer?

I run my hands through my hair and dust sifts down onto the table.

“What are we going to do?” I ask. “What can we do?”

“We,” she waves at her and Tommie, “are going to call our other friends.” She says. “You…” She points at my chest. “You are going to call your friends. I’ve already made a lot of calls. Tommy has, too”

“Folks are already on their way.” Tommy says.

Aphrodite tilts her head to look into my eyes.

“We are going to make Old Dusty our own.” Aphrodite says.

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Richard Wolfe 2026

Image Source: Photobank Kiev from Unsplash.com