The yellow clouds billowed over the white dome. The sun throbbed though the thick billows, nestled high in the graying sky. Another dust storm. The water would be gritty tonight when the girls got off shift. Each cold shower punctuated by a sputter and a brownish ribbon of moisture, before they gave up and slathered themselves in Ambrosia for Women (Now in Fresh Rain Scent!) from The Commissary and crawled into their beds and ate pre-packaged powdered donuts.

Riff, small for fifteen cycles, unfurled a long sheet of vinyl and pressed her fingertip into the dings in the material. She circled each imperfection with a red grease stick. She was lucky. This was the best job. She and the other QCer still had all their fingers. She counted the red tick marks and tapped the screen beside the enormous air table. The wind outside strained against the dome and Riff leaned against the table. Her guts cramped some. Not surprising, considering the lukewarm protein bags they had for breakfast were past their expiration date. Waste not, want not.

A supervisor rolled over. It zipped around the polished black floor, slamming into their heels with its square plasticine body. The hazy screen on the front reported back to Efficiency and Management every twenty seconds. The tiny camera mounted on the right swiveled and bobbed, like a bird in a mirror. All the supervisors had matriarchal melodic recorded voices. Before she was shipped to Mars for harvesting, an older girl told her that The Corporation programmed them that way, so they would never fall in love with their supervisors.

Another cramp pulsed in her belly. The supervisor’s camera glided close to her eyes.

“Riff, are you alright?” It crooned. “You seem tired.”

She put down her grease stick. “Permission to use the facilities?”

“Granted. Please enter the appropriate code.”

Riff dabbed the screen with her middle finger. This was definitely a 2359-02 issue.

“You have four minutes.” An illustration of a little girl snoozing in a red dress, poppies swaying in the breeze around her flashed on the supervisor’s screen. “Don’t dally, now.” A countdown materialized over the illustration. Three minutes; 45 seconds.

Her scalp prickled as another cramp spasmed in her belly. She dabbed at the sweat on her face with the back of her wrist, careful not to smudge the rouge made from her own powdered blood. The facilities seemed to recede at the end of the bright orange hallway. The fluorescents glared hard white light over the dust coated walls. Riff nearly jogged, pushing open the cool metal door. The bathroom was dusted yellow, and someone had written “Happy Monday!” in the dust on the mirror. She rushed over to the toilet and tapped her code into the screen on the back of the tank. The lid remained sealed. INVALID CODE. Riff rapped the code into the screen again, the pressure now becoming painful. INVALID CODE.

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Oh god. She would get written up. She had too many demerits already. Images of Venusian colonies flashing in her mind. Chemical burns from the filtered air on stick thin arms.

The screen above the toilet flashed: One Minute and Thirty seconds.

Riff looked desperately around. The trashcan. The trashcan didn’t need a code. She jerked the zipper of her jumpsuit down and perched on the thin-lipped vessel. The plastic edge cut into the backs of her thighs and her guts slackened with relief. She pulled some paper towels from the dispenser behind her and looked down. Blood smeared her inner thigh. Her first period.

Her heart caught. She was going to Mars. All expenses paid trip! She was going to the harvest. There would be a dance. Rumor had it that there was real dog meat and aeroponic fruits. She would see men for the first time.

30 seconds glimmered on the smooth, glossy screen above the sink. A video of a young woman swathed in layers of gray fabric encasing her face and arms popped up. A gloved hand reached across the screen and snatched the girl’s wrist, yanking her off balance, the fabric spinning behind her in diaphanous curls. A sunburst pierced the screen in a rainbow shatter. A rust-flecked blade hung suspended in the air for a moment and came down on the girl’s fingers, crunching through bone. The video ended abruptly in a black screen.

TEN SECONDS REMAIN :) :) :)

She leapt off the trashcan and zipped up her jumpsuit, almost skipping down the corridor. A supervisor bowled toward her. Its screen already ticking with the print of a demerit form.

“Supervisor, I have started menstruating.”

The machine halted. “Congratulations, Riff. You are registered in the 567 class making you eligible for Martian travel.”

All the screens on the production floor turned red and the supervisors switched on their speakers. A low hum permeated the room. The production equipment whirred along in the silence. All of the girls, from the tiniest, sorting grommets, to the oldest laying a perfect bead on an arc weld, stared at the screens. A kitten in a top hat sat mewing, surrounded by glossy balloons, until a latex-clad hand swooped under its belly. The word CONGRATS RIFF floated by on the screen. None of them had ever seen a kitten other than this kitten. The kitten that came to announce the blood. Jubilation to the lucky one.

Everyone clapped, except Gram, the arc welder.

Gram yanked at the sleeve of Riff’s jumpsuit, as the girls lined up to congratulate her. Gram was tall and slender, her skin punctuated by cotton candy pink burn scars on her hands from the welder.

“How could you do this to me?” She hissed. Tears brimmed in the cups of her eyelids.

“I didn’t mean to.”

“I thought we were in love.”

Riff wrapped her arm around Gram’s waist and patted her belly through the heavy fabric of her coveralls. Her shoulder tucked under Gram’s armpit.

“Soon you’ll start menstruating too and then we’ll be on Mars together.”

“I don’t want to go to Mars. I don’t want to bleed.” Gram jerked away and stomped to the back of the line.

A supervisor rolled past Riff and intercepted her. A sunflower swarmed with red winged black birds flashed on the screen.

“Gram, overt displays of aggression are expressly forbidden. You will receive one demerit.”

The other girls in line tittered. Gram glared at Riff.