Silenced Page 12

  At the Memphis Launcher, I made it through security only because I left my weapons in my vehicle. My luggage only carried clothes and toiletries enough for one night. They didn’t question me about it. I had to carry something. Showing up without luggage to any Launcher set off warning bells to the security crew that you may indeed be about to blow something up. Everyone had overnight clothes or else you wouldn’t be flying…rather that be to the moon colonies or to the other territories.

  Even in this less than stellar time, people didn’t want to die while on the way to vacation, business, or relocation. Hope was launched with each take off to the moon. A bomb, or worse, a hijacking had a tendency to stamp out any balloons of hope floating around the passengers and their currency.

  After going the wrong direction to the wrong gate, I finally made it to gate MC3601 on the twelfth floor. Not many people were headed to the moon at eleven at night. I counted five in total, not including the flight crew.

  Only morons seeking murderers.

  Brownie points for me.

  Juan, the owner of the Joker’s Pun, held the blaster, a a gun much bigger and longer than my 350 to the soldier's chest. He fired without even blinking and the young man was blown backward to the wall, smacking it with a sickening crack before smashing forward to the floor. The wound at his back was the size of well-rounded pizza, complete with lots of sauce and tossed toppings from his uniform.

  "Ain’t skipping out now, are ya?" Juan muttered and tipped his hat back off of his head. A double helix tattoo decorated the right side of his meaty neck, and other tattoos covered the area of his forearms and biceps. There didn’t appear to be any theme or pattern to the inked art, random images… Very much like what traveled in and out the Joker’s Pun.

  He searched the faces around him, but I didn’t want our eyes to meet. “Anybody else wanna skip out on ya bill?”

  His mechanical eyes, an extra set above his other pair, slept in rotatin shifts.

  The bartender muttered earlier that Juan was an alien—the tattoo a fake; others said he was a hatchling gone array and the geneticists sent him here to keep out of the public’s, uh-hem, eye.

  I watched this from my spot at a rear table at the Joker’s Pun. The information came about in the last two hours of me sitting and floating amongst the regulars.

  And I wasn’t alone as a couple of guys picked up the now dead soldier and carried the body out, blood droplets dripping to the floor, creating a ghastly trail. I didn’t doubt they’d toss the guy into one of those cargo craft mass graves, like common garbage. No one sorted through the dead to determine what an actual fatal blast in battle or murder was The soldiers were identified by the barcode on their wrists, packaged into a coffin, sealed up like a piece of meat, and shipped home in dry ice to their families. It was like packaging frozen chicken fingers.

  A greasy guy by the name of Martin sat beside me, reeking of sour beer and sweat.

  “You got my bill, right?” Martin said with a smile that was amazingly white in such a dreary place.

  Up at the stools that encircled the bar, several of the regular patrons kept their gaze on their drinks, not at Juan, who still stood in the spot, waiting for someone to clean up the bloody mess. Several of the woring girls flinted around him, buzzing like bees and trying their best to appease the raging beast-Juan.

  "Must have been new around here," Raker, a fellow drinker, cackled and sipped the fallen soldier's beer as the music started up again. "He won't be needing this."

  "Cheers," Martin said and lifted his glass, as Raker about drained his. The smoke infested room held many shadows amongst the dust, drab and stank of spilled beer, dead corpses, and sex.

  For the last hour, all Martin did was drink. Fatigued weighed on my shoulders. I’d been here three hours too long already—not counting the eighteen hours to get here. I’d learned more about Juan than I ever wanted to know, and honestly, most of his patrons sold him out pretty cheap. No money ever changed hands—only booze purchased on my ticket.

  "Back in here again, I see, Martin," Shea, one of the three waitresses, cooed as she wrapped her arm around Martin’s shoulders and pulled herself closer. "You don't need company tonight, I see."

  It wasn’t a question, and it had all the ring of an accusation.

  "Not your kind of company, Shea, " Martin said, soberly, pulling away from her embrace. “I’m not accepting services, sweetheart!”

  This last he shouted in case Juan thought he was touching the girl without paying. Martin had been around the Pun long enough to know better.

  She pouted, making sure that her glued-on whiskers were intact. "Suit yourself. You’re the one missing out."

  “Can you excuse us?” I said turning my voice to ice. “We are conducting business here.”

  Shea frowned as she gave me the once over. For a second I thought she was going to give me shit, but she thought better of it and scooted on toward the back room where the dance hall thrived despite the early hour.

  “Martin, about the girl you said you saw here a few times,” I started, but then the front door of the Joker’s Pun opened, taking Martin’s attention with it.

  The doors swung open as three more soldiers dressed in the flat gunmetal gray trousers and shirts spilled in. Fresh cuts, scraps and bandages littered their face and hands. They wore that same look that all soldiers had…horror etched faces and wide eyes filled to the brim with violence, atrocities, and death.

  "They don't look older than snot," Raker yelled as the soldiers passed. "Eh, see Martin, they're sending up toddlers."

  "Yeah," he muttered and singled the bartender for another.

  Martin turned to me, bleary eyed and said, “You from Europe?”

  “No,” I said. “About the girl…”

  “Excuse me. Gotta go to the little boy’s room,” Martin said, as if he didn’t hear me and got up from the table. The desire to kick him swelled up inside me, but one look at Juan’s gun squashed it.

  Martin must’ve spent his entire pay here, and I don’t think Juan would take too kindly to me eliminating or injuring one of his regular, steady sources of colony credits.

  On the wire were transmitted games of soccer from Canada. Static and several wavy lines rolled through the screen, but the Joker’s Pun had to be one of the few places on the entire moon that picked up the games at all.

  The moon, dark, gray and pretty much dull, had been home to fighting amongst the two Earth colonies that had decided to park here. The divided territories that were once the United States fought it out about every other day, with a stalemate arriving at the day’s end. Then sometimes, I'd hear word that the Southeast Territories won; the next day, the Midwest.

  It was all the same to me.

  Death, death, and oh, did I mention, death?

  Someone down closer to the door lit another cigarette. The pungent fumes filtered across the patrons’ heads to the opposite end of the bar where I sat in a booth with Martin. I could see the fine, red glow of the cigarette. I thought of Jane and wondered how she was doing. Here any age could smoke, drink, or sell themselves for sex. Regulators, Territory Alliance Agents, and generals didn’t come here. Anarchy ruled.

  Enter at your own risk.

  Suddenly my eyes caught a blur of pasty white flesh and blue jeans as Martin raced to the door. I slapped down some coins on the table and followed him out to the parking lot.

  About three steps into the parking lot, he fell to his knees, held his stomach and lost all the great beer he’d had consumed and I had paid for.

  "That's nasty," I said. "Have you no manners? Skipping out on me."

  As Martin wiped his mouth with the back of his ratty sweatshirt, I caught a whiff of the odor, sour for sure, and rocked backwards. I nearly ran into a person who was passing by.

  "Watch it!" the female voice barked before I almost fell onto her.

  With determination I caught myself and whirled around to face the woman..

  "Excuse me," I said, trying
to show I still had a decent upbringing buried somewhere…deep.

  "Whatever."

  The girl huffed, sidestepped me and planted her foot directly into Martin’s pile of bile and sour beer vomit.

  "Ugh!" she cringed and swiftly removed her foot.

  She had long, curly brown hair that had hints of blonde throughout, and a narrow nose that stopped short above her full, thick mouth. She wore close to nothing at all, and her rail-thin legs stuck out from her incredibly short skirt like chop sticks.

  "Listen, I’m looking for information on a girl. How about I buy you a drink?" I offered.

  Martin had already passed out in the yellowish mess. He’d awake in the morning with a large hangover and a nose full of puke. Served him right.

  She frowned all the more. Young, nor older than twenty, the scanty outfit she wore with high heels seemed ridiculous. The girl had a starved look to her. “There are a lot of girls here.”

  “And I only need information about one,” I said, gesturing toward the Joker’s Pun doors.

  "You're new here," she said as she tried to get the last of the substance from the side of her shoe. “Ugh!” She rolled her eyes, a brilliant green even for this dreary place. Then hesitantly, she said, "Yeah, I’ll talk to you. You payin’?"

  “Every day of my natural life.”

  I followed her inside and she passed the bar, waving at Tony, on back to the thumping beat of the dance hall.

  "Well. Let me be the first to welcome you to the moon," she said with a smile, revealing a gap between her two front teeth.

  She stopped at a small area, no larger than a closet, stuffed with chairs. She sat down in one and I took the one beside her. The music was loud, but muffled by the closed door.

  "Okay." She shrugged making her slender shoulders beneath the gauzy blouse rise. "What do you want?"

  I showed her a jpeg of Amanda on my PDA. “Have you seen this girl before?”

  The girl shrugged again. Her eyes stared at the door. From beneath slivers of music slipped in and the girl tapped her foot along to the beat.

  “I buy you a beer, you answer the questions, that was the deal,” I said, my patience with the moon colonies inhabitants wearing down.

  She sighed again and looked at the picture. “Yeah, that’s Stacy.”

  “Stacy?”

  “Yeah,” the girl clucked her tongue. “She dances on the weekends, here. Well, she used to, but I don’t know. I ain’t seen her in a long while.”

  “By dance, you mean…” I didn’t want to hear the answer, but I had to ask.

  “Not naked or nuthin’. Stacy wasn’t like that,” the girl chewed her gum, looking younger than a few minutes before. “Now, if you lookin’ for a show. Stick around another ten minutes. I dance like a goddess.”

  I cleared my throat, thought of all the leery, creepy men here, and asked, “Have you ever seen her with anyone?”

  The girl nodded. “Some older man. Sugah daddy I guessed, but Stacy wouldn’t tell anybody his name. He like, came here only once, and all the other times, it was her.”

  “Thanks,” I said to her and dropped beer money into her hand. She simpered off to the main dance room.

  I waited about ten minutes and walked across the hallway to the dance room. I opened the door and stepped inside. The smoke thinned as I crossed the hall. The whining music proceeded to get louder and by the time I entered the crowded space, the level was at full blast. I could barely hear myself think. The pounding base felt like my heart, boom-boom-boom.

  The bar area smelled mostly of smoke and beer, but this place had another scent all together.

  It was the stale, sweat-stained aroma of sex.

  Dim and unlit except for a few candles and illumination devices scattered throughout, no one smoked back here. The smoke might interfere with what they're actually looking at.

  A sparse crowd of men sat across the room at makeshift tables. On the stage, the girl I had interviewed raised her hand and the guy in the bright yellow suit raised his glass in an offer of thanks. Or an invitation for later, I wasn't sure.

  Alone on the rug, nestled beneath a solo lamp, she shook her long lustrous hair in conjunction with her round, full breasts. She seemed to not be aware of the pack of men below the stage who slobbered and panted for her. The music blared on and she seemed oblivious to the rhythm. She danced, but coordination wasn’t high amongst her list of talents.

  If she danced like a goddess, then divinity had taken a nosedive.

  The men howled and whistled in encouragement, but she didn't need it. She was too busy riding high on the act of exhibiting her skinny body. The music blared as she performed to the beat, dancing with the song and losing herself in the bass. Showing off her ribs and too small stomach, caved in upon itself.

  I fought down the urge to run onto the stage, cast my clean shirt over her nakedness, throw her over my shoulder, and run for my life, hell for her life. This girl needed to be fed, not displayed like a starved sex kitten.

  Mesmerized by what I saw, I could not look away nor could I really look.

  The girl was barely legal if that. Finally disgusted, I made my way out of the hall, and down the cramped corridor to the bar. I noticed that some of the backroom spectators had trickled out to the bar area in favor of more entertaining programming.

  Soccer.

  I called for a cab to take me back to the launcher to wait for my flight back to Memphis. I had learned absolutely nothing, except that Amanda danced on the weekends at the Joker’s Pun. Nice, well-put-together women did not go to the Joker’s Pun for fun or social parties. The Joker’s Pun was a thinly veiled street corner for prostitutes.

  On the flight up to the moon, I met a woman who was looking for her daughter. I asked her why girls flocked to there. She told me that she believed it was the same drive for freedom, for exploring the unknown that had forced Columbus across the Atlantic as mixed up as he was. What they found, the woman said, was a ghetto—the same thing they could’ve found on Earth. She recounted how her daughter and many, many others begged for food and in return were often beaten, raped or otherwise abused.

  I couldn’t figure out why Amanda would run to such a place. The quad had many of places to slum it.

  Outside my window glittering fireworks were being set off in the north. The war was moving closer; soon this block of apartments and churches would be a battleground. My cabbie seemed not to notice. A robot guided the wauto without conversation or pretense.

  No human in his or her right mind would fly a cab in this shithole.

  For once I was glad a robot was behind the flight console, although, my hands were gripping the rear seatbelt in case I needed to unhook it and make a jump out of the door in mid-flight. Robots were not safe, but in this case, safer than a human being.

  I passed gates and high-level security compounds in various apartment buildings and rented rooms to the northeast, where the government military officials of both sides lived protected. Their lights burned brightly against the ink-black sky.

  “Coffee,” I said and the small, boxy metal coffeemaker shot coffee into a recycled paper cup. When done it beeped. I thought more about why Amanda and girls like her were here. All the females at the Joker’s Pun were here for one thing.

  And it wasn’t milk and cookies.

  Colony credits.

  Amanda didn’t need it so why dance at a dump on the moon when all she had to do was ask her mother?

  Not that Amanda would be the first to go out and slum it with the common folk. Juan definitely was a killer and could’ve killed Amanda, but what for? Because she wouldn’t dance naked? I didn’t get the impression that girls who did strip were hard to come by. Amanda could’ve been coming to the moon to score Zenith or some other drug, but why so far from home?

  Unless, she wanted to keep her new boyfriend secret. She couldn’t go anywhere in the quad because she was known as the mayor’s daughter. But here amongst death and destruction, no one cared who she was. H
ell, most people didn’t even know who they were on most days.

  I quickly ruled out the cast of characters from the club. No, none of the people at the Joker’s Pun had the means and money to get to Earth, kill Amanda, and then get back to the moon colonies. Time—yes. Currency—no.

  My gut complained to the strong, bitter coffee. Surreal and light-headed, my body craved sleep, but I couldn’t. Not until I was back in Memphis. I’d been awake for over twenty-four hours.

  I needed to know more about Amanda, who came to the colonies as Stacy to dance away her nights with an older man. There was still so much I didn’t know.

  But one thing was for certain.

  Jane was not going to like this.

  The Methodist Church of Southern Memphis sat at the end of a long stretch of paved road. Back when people used automobiles, the road must have been a terror for traffic, because it had only one lane each way. Yet the church sat about six hundred people. The parking lot wrapped around the church in a "u" pattern, providing enough space for people to park, even though the road didn’t give enough lanes for the herd of people who arrived.

  Sunday morning’s sun rose to a sky clear of clouds. Solo on such a grand stage, the beautiful sunlight illuminated the ugliness man continued to wrought. It was a precise crystal blue. Even though the day outside was gorgeous, inside the church was horrid. People plowed into the double set of doors beneath the overhanging cross with all the rudeness and outright crassness of those panicked, grief stricken, and nosy. In low, hushed voices, they whispered and some even had the grace to cry, but most were there to watch the spectacle unfold.

  Even the press came out, respectfully dressed in funeral black, but I was still pretty disgusted. The family should have been be able to suffer in private, without the teardrop count of Mayor Christensen making the front page webpage of all the e-news pages.