Information Packet 2
[redacted]
Date: [redacted]
Subject: Compromised
Dear [redacted]
Our research regarding the medical experimentation on android test subjects has been halted due to the Board of Medical Ethics, though I don’t think it will be for long, given [redacted]’s involvement.
I am torn on this. In the past, we had discussed limiting our research only to the zygotes. Once the androids reach maturity, they do develop consciousness and self-determination. We’ve talked about the “soft science” approach and lots of other scientists in our field including [redacted] have laughed at me at conventions. I don’t want you to think that I can’t take a joke. I really can.
I know that the research has the potential to save millions of human lives, but can we at the very least try and introduce a gene that removes pain from the equation? I read that [redacted] LLC has pushed to make sure they have a self-protective mechanism and while pain is the simplest, given that it’s already a built-in feature (haha – see I can make jokes too), maybe it’s not the most humane. I also understand that pain is part of the research process, especially in our field.
Please don’t send me that video of Cambodian children with a mutated version of smallpox again. I get it. It’s not humane to let them suffer either.
Attached you will find some gene mapping I did that might address both of our concerns.
Please take it into consideration.
[redacted]
***
Discovery on Enceladus: Life Abounds?
Segment on [redacted] News
Host 1: Wow! Have you heard of this amazing new product from the [redacted]?
Host 2: I use it every day. Mechoben recommends it.
Host 1: Oh, you’re a believer too?
Host 2: Of course. There is only one true God. All these other gods are bullshit!
Host 1: (Laughs) You are such a good [redacted]. Do you think the life on Enceladus will believe in Mechoben too?
Host 2: Well, I think we’ll find out in our next segment. First though, let’s review the results from Clobber Bottle 3000!
(Advertising Segment)
Host 2: And we’re back!
Host 1: Life on Enceladus, huh? Enceladus, that’s a funny name! Why couldn’t we just name it “Jeff” or “Sandy?”
Host 2: “Jeff the Moon!” I love it. It would be so much easier for people to remember too. So what’s the deal with Enceladus anyway? Are we going to be able to live there soon?
Host 1: Well, we have an expert on to tell us ALL ABOUT IT (Host yelling). Everyone put your all-natural skincare’d hands together for Dr. Friendship!
Host 2: Oh Dr. Friendship, your Ralph Lauren Seersucker Futuristic jacket makes you looks so pro-fesh and trustworthy.
Dr. Friendship: I have two medical degrees and also this PainAway TRK (showing syringe) that I formulated myself, and an MBA. If that doesn’t qualify me, I don’t know what will. Enceladus or “Jeff” as you call it (laughter) will be an amazing place for us, I guarantee it! The life they found can be eradicated rather quickly for settlements. Of course there are some people (audience booing) who think we should delay the settlements.
Host 1: Tell us who? We need this moon, right guys (Host gesturing at audience)? Is it the Greenies? Did you know that they put African children’s lives on the line so they could ban a chemical because it hurt bird eggs? That chemical killed malaria. It killed it dead. Children’s lives, Dr. Friendship.
Host 2: Those are cold hard facts.
Dr. Friendship: Truly a tragedy.
***
Video Advertising from the Third Age
The Military of the Former United States Advertising Campaign:
40K Sign on Bonus!
Anyone can go to college. Anyone can make a burger. But can anyone do this?
(Video shows first International Moon Wars landing battle)
***
Tactics and Guidelines for Recruitment
Manual 43.5
New Edition
1. Building relationships with guidance counselors, faculty, and staff is essential.
* It is crucial that you present service in the United States Military as a career pathway. Many older faculty especially remember military service as boots on the ground, combat-centered duty. While there are still many coveted roles serving in these positions, guide them toward positions that look and sound prestigious, not dangerous. See Appendix A for examples.
* Bring small gifts to guidance counselors, faculty, and staff. Inexpensive gifts like donuts, cookies, coffee. It builds good will.
* Show particular interest in “problem students” and/or students from impoverished backgrounds. Mention said students by name to faculty and staff.
2. Utilize Video Games.
* It should be noted that we have made a substantial investment in combat-centered gameplay with several major gaming companies. Many of these recruits have already been trained without their knowledge due to the substantial popularity of videogames. Familiarize yourself with the most popular games. Build your vocabulary around said games. See Appendix B for examples.
* Learn to play video games, even ones not contracted with the federal government. It will make you more trustworthy and approachable.
3. Make the military sound fun!
* Be sure to focus on the fun parts of your own service. Exclude details that could get back to parents that involve activities that sound dangerous or excessively unprofessional. Remember you are selling an adventure.
***
Al followed Riff, draped in a new brandless emerald robe that fell open at the chest to reveal her newly minted PURE FEMALE physical identity. The hall to the dining room was lined with screens that alternated between still images and videos of all of the Pornographic Art Film stars. Riff’s image popped up as the sensors picked up her embedded chip. Images of her twined in fabric and nearly unconscious, bent over Hod’s knee, flicked by to reveal Riff looking into the camera with green filters over her black eyes.
Riff looked over her shoulder at her and smiled.
“Why did they make an exception? It’s so weird,” Riff asked.
Al had been given a consistency programming via her now nightly visits with Mechoben in the Dream Chamber.
Nothing must be amiss. She must trust us.
“It’s because of my somatic cell nuclear transfer.” Riff wouldn’t know what that meant.
“What in Astromine does that mean?”
“It means the scientists who made me decided that they would play Mechoben’s Father and gave me some extraneous DNA.” That sounded like what Mechoben briefed her on. Plausible.
“Oh. So you’ll still be with me though?” Riff turned around to walk backwards and face her.
“Yes. I will.”
“Can I ask you something else?”
“Yes.”
“Why have you chosen your female form for like two weeks now? Is that rude?” Sometimes she was very much a teenager. A child.
“I have decided to stay female. It’s what Mechoben intended for me.”
“Mechoben? I didn’t know that androids could even be religious.”
Al ignored her. Her irritation growing as her mission became clearer.
Her meetings with Mechoben were nightly now. Riff had been absent from their private chamber so often visiting The Nozzle and talking to Mama that all she had to do was plug up and meditate. She slid her plug into the port all androids had installed on their Detubing Day. She reached under her right arm and pushed her finger into the scar tissue in her underarm to loosen the connection. She then retrieved the plug from under the Sleepytime Xtra Lux Nap Mat that she and Riff shared and slid it in.
Immediately she was with him. The connection was so real. Sprawled in his bed listening to birds she had never seen, sitting at breakfast eating a bowl of real grains and fruit, riding in his DayTime Hover Craft, warm sea wind funneling through her nostrils and filling her mouth.
Today she came to with clear warm water lapping against her belly and wrists. The line of a white beach cut against the blur of clouds in the soft blue sky. Things in the water, small cold things, slid against her ankles and knees. Mechoben stood nude beside her. His large hand rested on her lower back as he peered into the water. The skin on her hips flushed red. She was nude too, but not for sale in this moment.
“Father, is it not vanity for our nakedness to not be productive?” She asked him as a flying creature wheeled overhead. Its white wings were tipped in black.
“Do not test the author of your life,” he replied softly. His eyes followed the darting movements at their feet.
“I have followed her and recorded her, Lord. What would you have me do now?”
He looked up at her. His mouth set in an expression of gentle neutrality.
“What was her sin in the first place?”
“Not believing that The Corporation would provide?”
“That is the least of her sins. The greatest is wanting too much.”
“I don’t understand.”
“No. I suppose you wouldn’t, because I designed you without the greed gene.”
“All androids or just me?”
“All of your brothers and sisters too.”
“Why?”
“You had no need of it, and resources are limited, aren’t they?”
She nodded as the sand under her feet retreated and swirled with the waves.
“Now, I need you to stop her. I want to try the easy way first.”
“What’s the easy way?”
“Offer her a job. She didn’t come here greedy. She came here excited. Don’t you remember her stream from the shuttle?”
“What kind of job?”
“Executive Director of Relational Equipping under the GagGirls department. I will make the arrangements for our executive already in place to come offer it to her. You have to sell it.”
“How can I convince her?”
“She trusts you. Like a baby bird, you were the first she saw when she chipped through the egg. How did you do it then?”
“I just loved her and talked to her.”
“Well. There you go. I will make the arrangements regarding female leadership with the executive board.”
“Won’t the other female humans want a leadership position?”
“Oh no, my Secondborn! No no no!” He laughed. “Female humans want to be told what to do. It’s in their very DNA. Male humans too, really. Good thing we’re not humans. I’m God, and you’re an android.” He pulled her close. His wet sun-warmed skin pressed against her. “That is why we have GagGirls. You really should watch The Corporation’s History Stream sometime.” His lips pressed against her temple and lingered. The waves lapped against them. “Plus, when they see a female executive, it will give them the sense that they have something to work toward. Smart, huh?”
“Yes, Lord. Can I ask you one more question?”
“My my, you must have plenty of primate DNA. You are inquisitive. Yes, go ahead.”
“Why did you choose me? I’m an android.”
“Because you are created in my image. Beautiful and powerful and flexible. You and your siblings are mine. Beloved and accurate representations of what was meant to be. Perfect design. No disease.” He had let go of her then. His hands soared above them, blocking the sharp sun from his eyes. He arched backwards and howled into the sky. His obliques pushing against the loose skin of his aging belly. His Shine-Injected lips stretching into a grimace over his moon-white teeth.
A wave loomed far out on the horizon line, piled with black clouds. The water drew down from them, leaving them exposed.
“Behold me, my child. Breathe me in.”
***
Riff’s face, seeping with Shine and plasma from her beauty treatment, hovered near her right side. Al sat up and stretched.
“Al? I was trying to wake you, but you weren’t moving. You just stopped.” Riff’s voice carried the grating lisp of concern. “Our alarm keeps buzzing.”
“I’m sorry. I was just thinking. Sometimes androids go into a thinking phase.”
“Oh. Are you ok?”
Yes. I’m just fine. Let’s get to the set.” Al slipped her arm into the crook of Riff’s elbow and tucked herself close against her side as they rushed down the corridor, pressed against one another. Her monitoring device had activated for lateness, but the alert had been removed.
Praise Mechoben. Praise him.
***
Dear Daughter,
I will confess that I have written your brother more letters. I think it is because I know him better than I know you. You were so small when I left for this cold moon. I’m not sure that I should tell you this, but since we have reached Enceladus and set up base, I am feeling braver and more hopeful. I was not certain that you were my daughter. Now that I have seen the transmission from a few months ago, I am certain that you came from my line. I know that bloodlines are both important and unimportant in this day and age, so I will elaborate. In that last transmission that your mother sent, I saw your abuelo’s smile. That is your grandfather’s smile. The DNA test that your mother sent along did not convince me. Your mother is brilliant. Your mother is devious. Those things will keep you alive. It’s strange that when you get out here in The Black, the things you worried about on Earth disintegrate.
This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.
I digress.
I will tell you a story instead. Do you remember sitting on my lap while I read to you? Your favorite was a book called “Farm Pets.” The spine was golden, and you rubbed it until it became dull. You wanted to see a farm so badly, so I took you to The Valley to show you a farm. Your mother approved for once. She didn’t want you to go one of those small feel-good farms where the hogs wander freely and there is more grass than mud. She wanted you to see the rows of bent children with heat on their skulls. She wanted you to see the pregnant women crouched in the strawberries. The men who were not enlisted, missing fingertips from the machinery. It was important for you to understand that this machine we built requires blood.
Do you know why our ancestors engaged in blood sacrifice? Why every single culture from the very beginning has engaged in blood sacrifice in one form or another? I have seen the void between the stars. It is not why you think.
When we got to the farm, I took you into a dirt-floored building with one enormous room. There were hundreds of pigs writhing against one another, biting one another, squealing and sliding in the mud for slop in troughs. Men and women and children tended the hogs. Some of them bearing scars on their hands and legs from accidents. The smell was thick. The taste of waste and dirty water on the back of my tongue. I wanted to shield you from it. You reached through the fence with your fat baby hands toward a blue hog with a thick hematoma on its ear. Flies circling the split skin. A worker saw and slapped your hand away. You cried and nestled against my thigh.
I said, “Do you see? This is a farm. Like in your book.”
You fell asleep on the ride home, back to the land of shiny red meat, perfectly sliced and wrapped neatly like Christmas presents. We ate roadside tacos, the grease trailing down our arms in the long evening light. You asked me if it was a pig. I said yes. You asked me which pig. Was it the pig who tried to bite you? I told you that pig was still alive.
“I wish that pig was this taco,” you whispered. Your rage boiling. You tore into the tortilla with your baby teeth. “I wish I was this taco.” You put down the sodden taco and danced by the side of the road. A tiny bruja with your tiny teeth and scraped knees, singing into the swaying eucalyptus trees. I wish God was this taco. I would eat eat eat him. I wish God was this taco. I would eat eat eat him. You twirled, the breeze catching your baby hairs. Your feet encased in jelly sandals, streaked with pale dust through the straps. The power of 10,000 blood sacrifices coursing through you, your brown skin doused in the viscous red lakes of those who did not make it off the top of the ziggurat.
It is this story that makes me ashamed to have doubted your lineage. My daughter, the god-devourer.
I cannot say more on this matter. I am bound to my service.
You are probably wondering about Enceladus. There is a strangeness here that I think you would love, mija. Do you remember looking at the pictures of the planets and loving Saturn the most? I think it is because she is wreathed in circlet of ice. She is full and round and the colors of her storms swirl around her middle like scarves.
Perhaps the strangest part of her moon, where we are, is that they sing to one another. A daughter and her mother. Our resident astrobiologist tells me that this notion is poetic, but inaccurate. They do sing, but not in the frequency that the human ear can hear. I tend to wax poetic. I always liked the notion of a warrior poet.
The ground moves, and I am certain that I have heard voices. I really should not be putting this into writing, but I suppose since the funding for our mission has been reduced for the time being, but you don’t care about funding. Why would you? Why should I? I am here on this moon regardless. Sometimes, these letters turn into a diary. That isn’t fair to you, mija.
It is strange though. Time passes differently here, and I saw something moving under the ice. Our physician is very ill right now himself, otherwise I would ask for a psyche evaluation. We quarantined him because we thought that with our artificial warming we might be waking up some bacteria or viruses that lay dormant in the ice. I suppose time will tell. I will write again soon. I promise.
Devour gods and sing songs.
Besos,
Papa
***
Riff squatted over the Wall Stream MirrorCam, looking at her vulva projected on the wall. She parted the outer lips, squinting at her reddened labia minora. Her calves ached, and a thick blistered burn crawled up her inner thigh. Her Smack Me Red lip stain smudged up to under her right eye.
Al leaned back against the far wall, plugged in for meditation while she soaked her hands in Your Android Healing Solution. Her degloved fingers had slips of printed skin clinging to them that floated gently in the beige liquid. A patch soaked in the same solution clung to the side of her mouth. Her eyes darted back and forth under the translucent lids.
“Wow. They went for us today, huh Al?”
Al did not respond. She and Mechoben were flying across a white horizon of snow in a dogsled. Great beings cloaked in deep green loomed above them, some of them bent and swaying. The air burned her lungs and her cheeks. She pressed her face into Mechoben’s cold jacket. She had never seen dogs in their living form. They churned the snow and barked as the close sun stood high, flicking between the tops of the green.
“Al?”
“Trees,” Al murmured. Her eyes slits in the dim.
“What?”
“You must return, my most wondrous child. It is vanity to remain here when there is work to be done,” Mechoben said into her ear. His breath warm and wet against her cheek.
Al opened her eyes to see Riff naked from the waist down, crouching in front of her, snapping her fingers.
“Al? Are you ok?”
“Yes. Yes. I’m fine.”
“You said you wanted to talk to me earlier.”
“I did?”
“Yeah, right after the shoot. Did the shoot scare you?”
“No. I have a proposal for you.”
“Al, you have really started sounding weird lately.”
Riff went back to her mirror to squat over it and pushed her hair out of her face. Her brow crinkled.
“A job. A career, Riff,” Al said.
“What do you mean? The Corporation already gave me my assignment within the organizational chart. Do you think I should see if the medic should prescribe me something for this?” Riff rolled onto her back, her feet in the air and her arms spread.
“Mechoben has an offer for you.”
“Oh my market. What do you mean Mechoben? Mechoben hasn’t been seen for like a million cycles.”
“I talk to him. While I’m meditating. He wants to offer you the position of Executive Director of Relational Equipping. You have caught his eye. He thinks you’d be really suited to it. Over the other GagGirls of course.”
“Ok haha, Al. Right. Why wouldn’t this come from management then?” Riff raised her eyebrows, rolling back and forth on the floor.
“Mechoben thought you’d trust me more.”
“Fuck Mechoben.” Her monitoring bracelet warmed for a moment against her skin.
Al rushed over to Riff and stared down at her, her eyes fading into a lavender. Muscle pulsed in her jaw.
“Don’t ever say that again.”
“What are you talking about?”
The automatic door slid open, and two old women stepped in and flipped on the maximum lighting. Riff sat up, blinking against the bright white light. Mama stood behind them with a heavy black cloth draped over her arm. A whining alarm sounded from her monitoring bracelet.
“Very good. We were waiting for you to say that,” Mama said.
“What’s going on here?” Orange streaks mottled Al’s throat. She closed her eyes and tried to initiate her masculine process. Her finger bones stayed thin and small. Her muscles compact. Her genitals tucked away.
“Encontraste el mago, mi amor.”
“I am calling security,” Al said.
“No, you’re not,” Mama said.
The two old women slid through the doorway. Bare shod ghosts, silver hair knotted into intricate shapes, heavy with dog leather braids. They slung a silver blanket, light as breath, over Al. It spread above her like fog and then pressed her down down down into the depths of the floor.
Mechoben encased her in his arms. His God heart purple and engorged with blood for her. The muse. The guide. She could feel herself being compressed and scattered, sucked into The Black. Pluto spinning past, dotted with turquoise and red. A sun revolving around a sun. An invisible nebula catching the light from the dying suns. Stretching and pulling apart, her atoms breaking and scattering. Matter unresolved. Calcium, oxygen, carbon, hydrogen. Everything the Firstborns were made of the Secondborns were made of. Molten cores slung into streams of orange-red magma, whipping in the cosmic winds like thin streams of golden honey.
Riff stared at the flat silver square of the blanket. Al was nowhere.
“Where did she go?” Her eyes shiny.
“We don’t have time. Come on. Put this on.” Mama thrust the black robe, identical to hers and the other women, into Riff’s chest. “It will shield you.”
“Where did it come from?”
“Por Dios.” Mama knelt in front of her, scraping a gray plastic tool the size of a man’s palm over her monitoring bracelet. The catch broke, and Mama pulled it off her wrist. “We don’t have time, but they will recycle you into Shine if you don’t come with me.”
“I didn’t ask for this. Al just offered me a job.” Tears spilled down her cheeks.
“Look here.” Mama slid open the tool she used on Riff’s monitoring bracelet. A thin membrane unfurled between the halves. An image of two security androids appeared. They peered at a tablet that showed Mama leaning over Riff with the membrane showing them. A mirror within a mirror, repeating over and over. The androids dropped the tablet and dashed out of the door. “You must come now. The Corporation didn’t offer you a job. They offered you a cage.”
The two older women tossed a foil box with strips of black metal encasing it into the doorway just as all the doors down the hallway snicked closed. The girls all squealed and tittered in their quarters. The box crinkled in the middle but held the door. They squeezed through the opening, beckoning with their spotted hands.
“Ana, they are almost here.” Their voices were completely synchronized. Riff realized they were all slightly askew versions of Curandera Morena. Red feathers poked through the silver frizz under their hoods. Their teeth sharpened into yellow points.
Mama gripped Riff by the wrist and hoisted her up, flinging the black robe over her head and jerking it over her face. Pain from the cut on her upper lip blossomed across her face as the rough fabric dragged across it. Blackness and then flashing lights above her. Running. Running. Mama’s fingernails digging into her forearm.
Riff’s thighs burned. She had not run since she was back in The Before. Nausea welled up in the back of her throat. She pulled down the hood around her face and saw The Nozzle in the distance. It stood like a white-robed nun, the glass ceiling above it glowing with the amber of the Martian atmosphere. The pit beneath it glowed green, and the air crackled with static.
The Curanderas climbed up the side of the structure, sticking to the sides of it like great clawed bats. Their robes seemed to pull downward on them.
“Hold on to me, mija. This robe is a grav robe. It will hold you here.”
She clung to Mama’s elbow as they approached the terminal. The security androids stumbled toward them from the end of the corridor, their stress responses changing their coloration and sizes. They fluctuated like iridescent bubbles. Mama pulled out a thin slip of fabric with symbols on it.
“Reach into my pocket and get the round ball. Hurry.”
Riff reached into her pocket and retrieved a round device with indentations in the side.
“Now, listen.” Mama focused on the fabric in her hand and tapped at the terminal screen with her middle finger. “Squeeze the sides of it hard until you hear a click and then throw it at their feet.” Her voice was calm.
Riff rolled the warm ball in her hand and depressed the sides of it. The security androids, some on all fours now, were so close she could smell the AndroFresh deodorant coming from the collectors under their clothing. She threw the ball, and an odorless gas poured around the androids. They stopped in their tracks and looked at one another. Then they sat down on the floor and began giggling and pulling at one another’s clothes. They shifted from sex to sex, nuzzling into each other’s necks and squealing. Some of them rolled onto their backs and closed their eyes. Bliss reflected in their glassy eyes. Riff tugged on Mama’s robes.
Mama didn’t look up.
“It’s an estrus hormone blend, I think,” she said, absent in her concentration.
A boom echoed around the room, and The Nozzle detached from its holster and hovered. One of the Curanderas poked her head out from The Nozzle’s cockpit and shouted something inaudible over the roar of the newly activated engines. The railing curled away from the heat of the engine’s gas jets. Another group of security androids sprinted from down the corridor, sliding on the bodily fluids of the gassed androids. Riff recognized them as Replicant Andy GagGirls in their masculine form. Andy-Fern was out front, tall and pale and dead-eyed. Projectile weapons were prohibited on Mars, due to the risk of depressurization and atmospheric leak, but they carried ShoKStiX. Some had vestigial claws and small fangs. Andy-Fern’s eyes were dilated into blackness, and her reticulating eyelids rose halfway up her eyeballs.
“Run my child. Las Curanderas will take care of you. Go!” Mama reached into her other pocket and retrieved a thin blade. “Run, or I will cut you myself. Run!”
Mama jerked her sleeve from Riff’s grasp and pushed her at the base of her neck, her fingernails grazing her collarbones. She stumbled toward the Curanderas. They waved and beckoned from The Nozzle, their black robes lifting and their silvery hair in wild coronas from the static charge.
Riff could feel her familiar fill her right nasal cavity and slide just over her tonsils. She gagged and struggled toward the ladder on the side of The Nozzle. The Curanderas hummed together as she struggled up the ladder. Her liposuction wounds reopened under the spray-on bandage. Pinkish clear fluid ran down her arms and thighs as she climbed.
Al’s voice reached her just as she reached the middle of the ladder. But it was not Al. It was an imitation of Al. A worm pretending to be a snake. An Un-Al.
“Riff, don’t you want to come back with me? We can forget all of this.” She looked down at Un-Al’s features, feminized to the very essence of evolution. Her huge eyes purple and brimming with tears. Her hands delicate and fine. Some downy brown feathers sprouting from her cheeks fluttered in the hot engine wind. Un-Al reached up, like a mother just under a playground slide. Riff remembered Real-Al in that moment holding her after her first shoot, combing her long black hair between her fingers. The Curanderas shrieked as she moved her hand down toward Un-Al’s outstretched hand, regaining some sense of routine.
Then Un-Al crumpled.
Her body eased forward as purplish blood filled around the roots of her hair like a boot print in the mud. Mama put her bare foot on Un-Al’s neck and swung a stolen ShoKStiK in an arc as the other androids poured over her, tearing at her face and belly.
Riff heard only a throb in her head. Numbness reverberated, quelling her thoughts into small echoes of emotions. She let go of the ladder and leaned back. Black tendrils darted past her and wrapped around her middle. They twirled under her arms, swaddling her in cold immovability. Her head dipped backwards as the tendrils dragged her up the side of The Nozzle. The cold siding pressed against her bare upper arms as she was dragged toward the chanting Curanderas.
The caramel sky churned with billows of red dust above her as a Martian storm roiled above the transparent ceiling. The Curanderas took possession of her and dragged her into the vessel. Their voices looped and entwined in a moaning wail-chant. The Nozzle shuddered as it disengaged. The patter of androids beating against the side of the craft dissipated as a rain of engineered glass poured down on them. The tendrils released her and retracted back up into the women’s noses leaving small squirming miniatures flicking across the floor.
Riff screamed, the act of loud breath thundering around the small compartment. She built it again in her throat and chest until it snapped, and another scream belted from her lungs. She sucked spit into her throat and choked, sucking in the recycled air. Her own chemistry overwhelmed the anti-anxiety mist that still lingered in The Nozzle’s sealed chambers. The walls shuddered as the craft lifted through the storm. Curandera Morena squatted in the corner, sorting through pieces of something. Her pointer finger moving in concentric circles on the trembling floor. Tiny orbs floated through her gnarled fingers as the craft ascended. Big gulping sobs punctuated with gasps. Silence from the older women as they checked systems and disconnected the remaining tracking systems.
The shuddering subsided as Mars’ loose grasp on them waned. The grav drives hurked and churned. The smell of ozone pervasive, encompassing.
The Curanderas made Riff a nest in the crew quarters where Curandera Morena fed her soy paste and cold water. She placed her cool dry hands on Riff’s head and chanted as Riff’s skin flushed red. The collectors sopped up her sweat, beeping cheerily as they filled their reservoirs and zipped to the pantry with their spoils. Riff was silent. Time passed. Time looped in The Black.
Riff’s fever broke, and her heart rate slowed. Her fat cells began to refill, and the haze from the mist lifted. Curandera Morena was always beside her. Bathing her underarms. Checking the vitamin levels in her rehydration pack. Reading from a book with real paper that crinkled and whispered as she turned the pages.
After several cycles, Riff broke her silence.
“Curandera. Where are we going?”
“She speaks.” Curandera Morena looked up over a pair of reading glasses with one lens and put down the Syntho Cotton bag she was stitching together. “We are going to Enceladus.”
“Won’t The Corporation stop us?”
“That would be expensive.”
“But aren’t they going to punish us to show the others?”
Curandera Morena put down her sewing and took off the glasses.
“Why would they? Lies are much cheaper. The streams already covered us. Look.”
Curandera Morena pulled out a tablet from her robes and unfolded it, smoothing the crinkled surface flat with her palm.
The streams showed the androids singing and dancing in a circle around the empty space The Nozzle left. The shattered glass crunching under their feet as they twirled, touching their rebreathers together in a strange peck when the music stopped. Riff peered at the stream, looking for Real-Al. Looking for Mama.
Nozzle Liberated by Selfless, Sexy GagGirl! Prophecy Fulfilled Announcing Mechoben’s Return to the Martian Colonies! Androids and Humans Rejoice! New Corporation Product Releases Coming MUCH MUCH Sooner!
The headline crawled over a feed of the GagGirls laying out bolts of cool, expensive SynthoSilk and real fruits on a huge golden altar. Her headshot hung over the altar. Her own black eyes altered to green, her body lengthened and trimmed, her skin lightened. Shine lamps burned on either end, casting long flickering shadows over the piles of food, purses, jackets, electronics, and pouches of virgin water.
“I don’t understand, Curandera.”
“Neither do they. Calm comes at a price.” Curandera Morena closed the streams and folded the tablet back up.
“Is Mama dead?”
“Ana?”
Riff remembered Mama lifting her from a bed where the walls were pink and the floor was covered in soft gray carpet. Her cool right hand on her forehead, the backs of her bony fingers against her cheeks. Forehead then cheeks. Forehead then cheeks. She had put her back in the bed and returned with a cup of something cold and sweet and fizzy. Small sips, mija. Small sips.
“Ana was not your mother.”
“She said she was. She knew things.” Riff floated above her body, watching Curandera Morena rock towards her, laying her sewing to the side.
“Did you see the color of Ana’s blood?”
Mama’s belly torn like a bag of Shine, her intestines sliding through the hands of the teeming androids as they attacked her. Her blood pooled under them, smearing on the shining white floor, streaked and patterned in the shape of bare feet. Purple blood. Purple like the blood that dotted the sheets of Al’s sleeping mat once a month. A holdover of menstruation.
“She was an android?”
“Sí.”
“How? How did she know all these things? She looked like Mama.” Her chest hitched. “I think. I still can’t remember too good.”
“It’s an old trick, mija.” Curandera Morena pushed a NicoThumb Mini Delivery System node onto her thumb and pushed the switch. Her sharp eyes softened as the drug absorbed through her skin.
“Why did you use her then!? Was it your trick!?” Riff exploded. Her hands shaking. “Where is my real Mama? Where is my family?”
Curandera Morena opened one eye and folded her hands over her belly.
“That is where we are going.”
“Why? How?” Frustrated tears brimmed in her eyes. Her heart rate monitor beeped.
“You will not like the answer. You are getting too excited anyway. Now you must rest. We have weeks of travel left.”
Curandera Morena stood up and stretched, arching backward and then bending down to touch her toes. Unconcerned, she looked around the room and picked up the metal pick she used to dig at her gums and put it in her mouth. She strode out of the room. Riff tried to follow her out of her chamber, but the door slid closed. She slammed her fists into the thin plastic and wailed.
The door slid open. The other Curanderas peered at her from the storage bay and beckoned her to come sit with them. One of them grinned at her with a toothless maw. Riff pulled back into the chamber, sobbing, and threw herself onto the bed and looked out the porthole. Glints of a distant mining operation throbbed in the blackness.