That Green Stuff

They stepped outside the tent, into the hubbub of the camp's party. The base resembled more of a busy bazaar now, with tables full of drinks and food. The camp denizens milled about stupidly. The camp girls served drinks and substances, adorned in loosely fitting and revealing two-piece clothes, barely more than underwear. The crowd cheered and raised their glasses when they saw the two emerge.

“To the craziest man I know!” roared a blindly drunk Aj; a camp girl in each muscular bare arm. “To Nameless!”

The crowd cheered, all repeating his name three times. Nameless smirked and nodded towards Aj, who stumbled backward into the table behind him, sending cards, drinks, and food flying in every direction. The girls who had been in his arms laughed at him while slowly walking away. Those who had been sitting at the now crushed table shouted curses and began landing blows on Aj who merely took the punishment, blindly drunk and numb, laughing on the ground like a child.

“Best make sure they don't kill my new best pilot,” Mama Jockus scoffed as she made her way over. “Go enjoy yourself,” she commanded and disappeared into the crowd.

Nameless scanned his surroundings, the noise and crowd were already too much for him. All hope of withdrawing seemed lost until he noticed a lone slender female sitting by herself on a crate at the edge of the camp overlooking the great chasm.

Nameless grabbed a bottle off the nearest table and limped toward her. As he drew near, his footsteps softly sounding among the orange dust and pebbles, Julia looked over her shoulder to see who approached. Her beautiful face was solemn, her grey eyes sparkling pools of sadness.

Nameless found another crate that had been lying by the nearest tent. With a pained groan, he dragged it beside his friend and sat down. He cracked open the bottle and chugged as much as he could before the burn was too much and he began choking.

Julia chuckled, no longer able to keep up the solemn silence she had maintained since leaving her tent.

“I keep forgetting you don't drink much either,” she laughed, outstretching an open hand for the bottle. Nameless passed it to her.

“I like drinking. I just hate whatever hover fuel this is,” Nameless retorted with a grimace as his throat and stomach now burned. Julia chuckled.

They sat in silence, gazing at the star-filled sky, with the occasional starship zipping over the horizon. Below the star-studded sky, the chasm yawned wide like a foreboding planetary mouth, waiting to engulf them. Time seemed to slow, and the two simply enjoyed the quiet company.

Julia was the first to break the silence. “She gave you her knife, didn't she?” Julia asked hesitantly.

“Yep.”

Julia took a long swig, coughed, and passed it back to Nameless. “I don't trust her, Nameless.”

“I know.”

Nameless noticed a slower ship climb toward the heavens and wondered where they were headed.

“You ever notice, all those ships, and none of them are coming down. Always up?” he asked.

Julia snorted, her face quickly brightening as she covered her mouth. “Yeah,” she said between her fingers. “I did notice that. Why do you ask?”

Nameless shrugged.

“All those colonies and we were born here. Kinda sucks, ya know?”

Julia studied him, her grey eyes glinting. After a long pause, she said, “You're going to get a nice chunk of the cut, ya know,”

“Uh-huh.”

He wasn't good with words, even with Julia. Everyone seemed to love to talk, so he mostly left that to them. That night was the first time, in a very long time, he could just sit down and relax. His mind wandered until Julia brought him back.

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“Let's run away!” Julia blurted out, the liquor loosening her emotions.

Nameless stared at her dumbfounded, trying with all his might to suppress a laugh. Julia pressed on. “I'm serious! We could go anywhere; we could even bring Aj.”

“Where would we even go, Julia?”

“I dunno. Anywhere, any place has to be better than this god-forsaken orange rock.”

“Julia—”

“Think about it, your talent, Aj’s marksmanship, my people skills,” her face brightened.

“We could live like kings and queens, start our own camp or something.”

“She would hunt us down like dogs, Julia,”

“Yeah, all right. Maybe she knows everyone, that doesn't mean she knows a lot of people out there,” Julia gestured to the brightly lit star-studded sky.

“I'm sure she has friends up there,”

“She has friends?” Julia asked, startled.

They both laughed.

“Okay, well, she definitely has contacts,” Nameless corrected.

Julia shook her head. “You're the first one to come back from that place, and you almost died. How long before her greed finally gets you killed, Nameless ?”

He shrugged.

“Perfectly honest, I don't think old age would suit me anyway.”

Julia softly punched his shoulder, causing him to wince. “Sorry,” she apologized, “but I got to disagree on that one,”

“Oh really?” He smiled.

“You'd make a kick-ass camp master,” she said wistfully.

“I don't want to be one.”

Julia studied his face, her words carefully measured. “What do you want?”

Money, he nearly blurted. Well, money, and maybe less pain. And he did want her by his side. He paused. His dreams rushing back to him—campfire stories, distant stars.

“In the chemical plant, there was this computer. It had a bunch of videos from this doctor on it; one of them had this green stuff growing out of the ground. I wanna go someplace with a lot of that stuff,”

“You mean grass?” Julia asked smugly.

He stared at her and she scowled.

“C'mon, you really don't know what grass is?”

Nameless blushed, feeling stupid. Julia sighed.

“I literally taught you how to read! Did you learn nothing from those books?”

Nameless was quiet, staring back at the stars. He had learned all right, just not about grass. Julia paused. She sighed and seemed to be gathering her response in a calculated manner. “Grass is this green plant that grows out of the ground. It's soft but also sharp. People on Earth and Jupiter are surrounded by the stuff,” she explained.

Nameless looked at her in wonder.

“How much grass is there?” he asked, envisioning a few camps full of the stuff.

“Last I read, half of Earth is covered in the stuff and water,”

“Get out!”

Julia chuckled. “Water is super abundant on other planets; lack of it is partly why we failed here.”

“The bombardment didn't help.”

“No, no, it didn't. But, if we ran away, I promise you, I can find plenty of grass and water.”

Nameless stared at her wistfully. “I'll get you out of here someday; we just need to be patient.”

They both fell silent, each one's mind wandering to a far, distant, less horrible future. Their pondering was swiftly interrupted.

“Guys! Guuuuuuys! I think they broke my face.”

Both turned to see a bruised and bloody Aj stumbling toward them clutching his face.

“I see you lost the fight with that table,” Julia laughed.

Aj made a crude gesture toward her, and she grimaced. Nameless snickered. He was relieved to no longer be talking about the future, he wasn’t much of a planner. All of his life, he had been reacting. Which was fine with him, people with big plans typically ended up in body bags dragged by Nameless and Aj.

Aj wandered past them, stood by himself a good ten feet away, unzipped his pants, and let loose at least two bottles worth into the dirt.

“Dude, cmon!” Julia yelled after Aj. “There's like a million places you could piss; why in front of us?”

Aj yelled something unintelligible over his shoulder, wildly spraying the ground.

“Five coins says he passes out in his own puddle,” Nameless whispered to Julia.

“You're on. I say he's gonna turn around and pass out,” she whispered back.

Aj hiccupped violently, twirled around, pointed, and then shouted, “I love you guys, man!”

“We know, buddy,” Nameless responded, grabbing the five coins out of his worn pocket.

Aj gave a broad smile, made it one step forward, and faceplanted into the Martian dirt.

“HA!” Julia said triumphantly as she collected her bet.

AJ groaned from the ground as the two got up to assist the drunken mess of a sniper/ace pilot.

“I'll grab this one,” Julia sighed as she picked up Aj's left arm. Nameless nodded and seized the right one. The two heaved Aj up, and Nameless grunted in pain.

“You, okay?” Julia asked, her eyes widening, over Aj's slumped head.

Nameless gritted his teeth and nodded.

“You get to put him to sleep,” Julia chuckled.

“Wait, what? C'mon, that's not fair!” Nameless whined.

Julia just smiled as they got closer to the camp.

“Cmon, buddy, time for bed,” Nameless said heavily as he struggled to rebalance Aj's far bigger body. Aj responded by vomiting on Nameless 's boots.

“Really, man?”

“Imma buys me, hick, imma, hick, imma buy me a big ass gun with this money,”

Aj slurred, clutching onto Nameless.

“I know, buddy, I know,” Nameless grunted as the trio trudged back to camp.