SKYLIGHT LEGENDS

 
ORGANS, BOUGHT WITH COUNTERFEIT CREDITS


Riley drank to forget. When she was done she kicked open the bar doors and left before she could get thrown out. The bartender had started to suspect that she wasn't old enough to drink, but she had a fake ID. She had forced herself to leave when that ignorant moisture farmer emerged from a dark corner of the saloon and grabbed at her bony body. Apparently he didn't know that she had killed the last person to try that. A year ago she'd have shot him in both knees, but that life left her the moment she figured out all her friends were dead.

Had she known who killed George or Mary, she'd have moved heaven and earth to kill them slowly and get revenge. She tried to find out, but there weren't any leads. Everyone who knew anything had been dead or gone for weeks by the time she even knew it had happened. 

She left Earth behind, setting her ship on a course for Mars, where she had embraced the life of a nomadic trader. "Petite Bourgeoisie" is what the late George would have called the lifestyle. Merchant is what most people called it. 

All of Mars was a quiet place on the fringes of human habitation - a serene and nearly empty place easily forgotten by bounty hunters and criminals. Riley had her spaceship and wits, which was all she needed to survive out here. 

Terra Alta was the aptly named trading post where she plotted to screw over a local vendor that had agreed to meet her later. She hoped to swindle enough real credits to be more honest someplace else. Her spending credits were counterfeit. She had had the foresight not to schedule the meeting at the bar, and never liked to visit the same place twice for multiple reasons.

The town had the most incredible horizon. Terra Alta was built twenty four miles in the sky atop Olympus Mons - highest mountain in the solar system despite seeming perfectly flat. There were two horizons - the top curved like a fish eye lense, exposing the glory of the wasteland and Mars' past volcanism. A thin layer of water ice made the sand shine. 

A flock of tourists wearing luxury space suits stood on a platform in the distance. They had came to see the spectacular view, but Terra Alta wasn't anything special otherwise. At a population of nearly a whole thousand people, Terra Alta was the biggest settlement on Mars. Most of the tourists looked eager to get back on their luxury liner, which dwarfed the other spaceships and shuttles parked in the dirt around it. Riley stood in the midst of a patch of prefab plasteel businesses open to the unbreathable air. A few bunker-like residences poked out here and there. They were the only places where life could exist outside of a spacesuit. 

The thought occurred to Riley that she forgot her gun in the bar. Just as she was considering abandoning it to avoid the temptation of shooting the handsy moisture farmer she'd definitely have to walk past in order to retrieve it, she felt something big and heavy lean on her shoulder. She silently thanked god for the thin air that protected the door way from the stench of piss beer that do doubt filled the man's suit. He muttered something designed to get into her pants, replaced by drunken spittle when she punched him in the gut. He stumbled back into the door frame. Her eyes laser focused on the barrel of her gun held in the hand of the pig.

She was able to make out a few words in between the coughing. "Forgot - gun - whore!"

The man before her looked like any other resident of mars besides being greasy unclean and fat. A thick, loose jump suit attached to hoses and a glass visored helmet kept him unfortunately breathing in the thin thin air. He heaved with all his might just to stand but extended his hand with the gun in it. It took her a second to realize that the man was trying to hand her the gun instead of threaten her with it.

"Just take it and get out of here!"

"Oh-" After speaking Riley noticed a few Imperial Tiger insignias on his chest which marked him as a veteran. "-Imperial trash."

Riley snatched the heavy revolver out of his hand. The larger man could have overpowered her easily, but Mars was a peaceful planet and he didn't try anything. She resisted the urge to shoot him and holstered her gun.

Holstered next to her gun was the MLF standard electro-stick. That she couldn't resist. In a fluid motion she drew it and set the charge to 'plasteel.' 

A smile painted her face. "Think this could cut your suit?"

"What are you doing with that? I don't want any trouble."

She savored the fact that both of them were imagining the electro-stick cutting his space suit leaving him a wreathing, suffering heap of meat that could maybe be dragged to somewhere pressurized before his eyeballs popped.

"Trouble? From a pretty girl like me? Nah."

Point made, she holstered it again and started walking in the direction of where she had parked her ship. There was only one sheriff on Mars, and she'd meet him today if she didn't make herself less jumpy.



Her last remaining friend was parked by some orbital shuttles that sat in the sand on spindly legs. 'SKYLIGHT' was stenciled in blocky letters on her bulbous hull. Unlike her neighbors, she was a truly space worthy craft - technically capable of interstellar travel, but not without permanently destroying the engine. C-52 cargo shuttles like her were primarily designed for interplanetary voyages, though on the really big cargo freighters they often served as escape pods. 

Unlike the nearby orbital shuttles she was more than a cylinder with some welded-on stabilizers and a pointed tip. She landed on her side, which allowed for cargo and people to be easily loaded in the back. She had four broad, long wings which allowed her to travel through atmosphere in directions other than up or down. Each one had an engine. Her landing legs were as sturdy and thick as the rest of her, and surrounded the main thruster. Besides when she was in space, the main thruster only burned during take off and landing. Spacers liked to call cargo shuttles like Skylight 'flying boxes.' It was an apt description.

Nobody had arrived yet, so Riley walked through the open cargo hold and climbed the ladder to the cockpit where her comfortable chair awaited. She lit a cigarette and waited. Deep breathes felt nice. It had been a long time since she painted the wall with anyone. Nicotine quelled the urge somewhat.

Being around people filled her with a bright hot anger that made her scared of the violence she was capable of. Times like these when nobody was around and she was just waiting were when the dark, cold thoughts came. She looked around at the glass bottles discarded in the cock pit to see if any of them still had whiskey in them. Picking up one she brought it to her lips but didn't drink. She couldn't smell too much like booze when the organ monger showed up. Human hearts were hot commodities and he could afford to get offended and back out. 

She remembered the last words Mary had ever said to her, about never giving up the fight. Buying organs with counterfeit credits for personal gain. Riley punched the little crusted button under the screen and it flashed to life. She was certain. Somewhere out there her cousin was looking down on her and frowning. Shooting someone suddenly sounded really nice.

She glanced at the clock under the throttle. "Wow," Riley said out loud. "This seller's never going to show up."

She played space invaders and waited.



444,444 points beat her old high score. The phone rang and she picked up the microphone which dangled by a frayed wire. The organ monger appeared on the screen - an old man with high cheekbones. He spoke something in Pan-Slavic.

"U tvoikh glaz meshki pod meshkami. Kto-to bukval'no vyyebal tebe glaza?" Riley considered running it through a translator, but then noticed the smile on his purple lips. The old man thought he was smooth, but it was clear he had just insulted her and was deluded enough to think that he was nailing it.

"Um, hello."

The wrinkles on his face jiggled as he fake gasped. "Ah, you speak Western! You have money, shlyukha?"

There was the urge in the back of her mind again. "Yes."

"Good. I have organs. See you in 10 minutes, shlyukha."

Riley rolled her eyes. As if everyone and their mother didn't know how to say whore in Pan-Slavic. Buying organs was good business and the organ mongers who grew them in clone vats could be contentious people, especially since there were only a handful of such organ mongers on the planet.



Outside skylight Riley watched the distant dust devil approach as she waited for the organ monger. It was miles high, and wide. Wind speeds exceeded anything found in tornadoes on Earth. Whirling and wooshing incredibly loud, it passed directly over Riley and her ship, which barely made her stumble. The atmosphere of Mars was so thin that even such a vicious storm was no big deal, although now everything was coated in an awful layer of dust that would not be fun cleaning off of the floor later.

She heard the organ monger's wet mucus filled curse words as he shouted a greeting in Pan-Slavic. They appeared from behind a rocky outcropping 30 yards away. The old hunchback man in an expensive space suit carried a cane despite floating on a sputtering hover platform. Behind him, his rusted robotic slave struggled to cope with the dust in her servo joints as she carried the enormous shining drum on her back which Riley guessed was full of organs. 

The robot had a mannequin-like face atop a lanky body that badly needed an oil bath. Plastic face was locked in a smile, but the way it stared at the ground seemed melancholic. 

To see robot slaves was hard on Riley, but she knew that it was nothing compared to what it must have felt like to hate your lot in life but have no ability to ever resist or even question it. She curled her lips in disgust, and pulled her hand away from the revolver. The urge to shoot something was still so strong. 

Red was such a metaphorically significant and beautiful color. The intoxicating coppery aroma of gore and the coming revolution. She grabbed her wrist to stop it from wandering there again.

At least the machine wasn't mistreated, she assured herself.

"Faster, you pile of bolts!", the loathsome merchant shouted as he hit her with his cane from atop his high hover platform.

Despite the rage building up inside of her, Riley gritted her teeth and kept her cool. "Is that really necessary?"

"What, are you one of those robot bothering gear fuckers? It's my property and you will pay for it and leave."

"...Yes. How stupid of me." Riley let go of her hand to pull the wad of colorful credits out of her pouch. She saw the organ monger's self satisfied grin and lost control. Before she knew what happened, her revolver was in her hand. 

The shot was quiet in the thin atmosphere. The glass on his space helmet shattered. Free of the rather considerable weight, the hover platform catapulted into the rocks with a sound that was louder than the gunshot.

The anger was finally gone. Smiling so hard it hurt, she kicked the organ monger over to see the ecstasy of red running down his forehead.

"Svolach." She laughed manically. The tourists were staring. Everyone in Terra Alta looked at her. The spotlight was on her. She was the star of the show, once again. Her electro stick was calling to her now. She knew that somewhere, Mary was smiling.

As the adrenaline sputtered, her trauma faded and she began to panic. She needed to leave this shipyard now.



Skylight's infirmary was ominously large, with six beds. The lights always flickered regardless of how often they were changed. Years ago, Riley had followed George on the raid where they seized Skylight and found the cramped dormitory that came standard with the C-52 cargo shuttle. It didn't take long to convert it. Just removing a few beds, installing a few rickety cabinets. Most of them got filled with power tools. A great big welder sat collecting dust in the corner next to chests of scrap metal and the neuro-computational nerve stapler.

Riley took a moment to catch her breath. As she undressed she reflected upon her decision. Her space suit's helmet came off with a shot of compressed air. She had acted impulsively. Not only had she committed murder, but she had done it in a public area, surrounded by witnesses, while on the only nearby planet where she wasn't wanted. It had been too easy to leave Mars, only because of what a no-matter peaceful backwater it really was. Nobody had chased her. Blasting off to space had used most of the fuel that was left, and there wasn't enough to get to Earth. She would think of something though. Right now she had surgery to perform.Her bulky rubbo-mold gloves came off and she began unstrapping her chest plate's hoses which all jerked around and whined as she did so. More to the point, she was a rusty roboticist. The Talons had trained her more in how to make junk look desirable to buyers, and she had always worked under supervision for the MLF. Still, she wasn't a rookie. If she messed up though, the droid would be permanently lobotomized, or dead. Worse, she was really more of a droid mechanic than a programmer. She could remove the neuro-computational matrix no problem, but if the nerve stapler ran into any problems, then the droid would be permanently lobotomized, or dead. Was this the right decision to make - to risk someone else's life for a choice they didn't make? She sighed as she tore open the front of her suit and wriggled out of it like an insect that bursted from its exoskeleton's chest. She had already made the decision. As she stepped out of the suit the riveted floor felt cold on her bare feed. She looked down past her small chest at her black sleeveless jumpsuit and decided that getting it covered in grease and oil was acceptable. There was no time to find boots. It was time to get to work.

The organ monger's robot lay on the operating table. Riley wondered out loud "What name will you choose for yourself?"


NEXT TIME:
HOW ALONE WE ARE