The night was pleasant and warm, as always in this part of the colony. The street lamps gave off a dim glow, enough to see by, not too much to be stark. The tops of the lamps were shaded so the light pointed downward for pedestrians and to reduce the light pollution, making it so if you were on a higher level there would be a more stunning view of the dome and the night sky beyond. This neighborhood where Jessica lived and shopped was for those with a little bit more means than others and who had access to those stunning views. For those who were the Good Citizens.
Jessica walked the sidewalk, looked around where she lived, and thought about the differences between her neighborhood and the others. Before, when she was a girl, there wasn’t that much difference. Each neighborhood and every aspect of the layout of the colony was mapped out long before the first colonist left Earth to come here. Physically there wasn’t much difference between her apartment building or city street layouts and the other neighborhoods. No, the difference came in the form of how much government services each neighborhood got. Jessica knew from her job in the Department of Energy, for instance, that neighborhoods like here got a full ration of energy and those neighborhoods that are being turned into modern day ghettos got a fraction over the bare minimum needed to survive.
Jessica lived on Capsilon Colony on a moon of Jupiter in the Sol Solar System. The colony was going on its third generation, including the founding generation, and was supposed to be more stable. When Jessica was younger there seemed to be that point of self-sufficiency and stability that a new colony is alway trying to reach. Jessica remembered the conversations at home with her parents and grandparents talking about how the colony was so close to meeting thresholds that meant we were self-sufficient and productive, contributing members of the solar system. Just one more generation and they should have built a good foundation for the future.
But then things began to go sideways.
Jessica comes from a good family and has an important job to the colony’s central mission. Used to be that people didn’t make those distinctions. Everyone did work that was important for the colony and everyone came from the founding colonists. But then newbies, folks from other colonies and Earth, had started to come and as life changed from stark survival mode to a more relaxed enjoy your life mode, well, that was the basis for the moral outrage that has been fueling this new government regime.
The outrage that the founding colonists of her grandparents generation who had worked so hard in the harshest conditions were having the fruit of those labors be uselessly spent on the spoiled layabouts who do nothing to contribute. Her grandparents didn’t feel their labors were being misused and that there weren’t any actual, real ‘welfare queens’ so to speak. But the belief was there and it was enough that the government was able to tap into those feelings, to prey on those feelings, of anger and outrage. Anger and outrage of what? she wondered for the millionth time. Anger and outrage that someone else had it easier than you did? Jessica just shook her head. Whatever they were angry about, it all seemed to be about how the new generation and new colonists didn’t have it as hard as the first generation which made them somehow weak or ungrateful.
Remembering long talks with her grandparents Jessica thought about her artist friends. People who wanted to actually dedicate their lives and their productivity to something as ‘inane, useless and frivolous as making so-called art.’ The artists were the first targets of the conservative movement and when that movement got into power those poor artists really did get the worst of the retaliation. Jessica’s two grandmothers didn’t understand why the colony making its own art was such a trigger but there it is. Art was bad because it was frivolous and we are a colony in space mining ore and ice. We don’t have time for that kind of nonsense. Jessica thought of her friends and the fact that they hadn’t spoken since Jessica made the decision to double down on her Good Citizen role which meant she didn’t hold with those kinds of folks. Jessica fought to control her breathing so that she didn’t show on her face the pain that thought gave her.
Jessica reached her destination, The Rose, and entered the brothel at about the usual time and on her usual day but this visit was to be unusual to say the least. She was greeted by the door check, her ID verified, and then a bit of light conversation with the manager. Tonight it was Harvey. Harvey was a cheerful sort of manager, always making sure everyone was having a good time while all of the rules were being obeyed. Not just the usual limits one would expect from any brothel from before such as consensual touching and good pairings. But the increasing number of new rules. The kind of rules that brings a feeling of as though you need to toe the line of the new order or else you might end up on the wrong side of these interactions.
Jessica spoke with Harvey and tried to laugh at his jokes which had a mean edge to them. She let herself be checked in and her presense documented, not for a head count or in case of contact tracing from the health department should the need arise; no, she was logged in so that the new morality police of the government can keep track of who used these services, how often, and with which prostitute. Then Harvey dropped his little bomb.
“Jessica, darling. I have a treat for you.”
“Oh?” said Jessica, going for light and flirty.
“You have such a wonderful talent for being able to settle the newest Flower of our Bouquet.” That's what Harvey liked to call the Providers. The Rose is the Brothel and the Providers are flowers. Get it? Kind of hard not. Ugh. “I don’t know how you do it except that you're such a sexy little minx!”
Jessica gave a laugh hoping it didn’t sound like how she felt.
“What do you have for me today, Harvey?” Not who, as in a person, but what, as in object or thing.
“I have a hot stud who is just full of delicious muscles. He is brand new so still a little jittery and I know that you are just the right lady to tame this tiger!”
Ok fucking hell, he’s setting her up with a newbie Patron! Jessica’s stomach dropped into her feet but she kept that damn smile on her face.
“Hmm, sounds intriguing. He’s not dangerous is he? Well, a little danger might be fun.” giggle giggle, wink wink. Sickening.
“You’ll be safe as houses, my dear. We will set you up in the room at the end of the hall so you know that we will be there for you in a blink if you need us. But you know me, I would never set you up with someone if I had any question about your safety! My darling Jessica, you are the shining light that makes the roses in our bouquet bloom. We would never risk such a light as yours!”
Jessica wanted to gag at the speech but smiled like it was pleasing.
Jessica went down the hallway to the locker room area. There would be cubicles that are fingerprinted locked where she can undress from her street clothes and dress in something more provocative or just nothing with a silk robe to be worn when in the hallways or public areas. Jessica had her own locker where she kept some personal effects but nothing incriminating that she would risk management finding in case they searched her locker when she wasn’t there. Would a search like that be allowed? Before, no. Now, oh ya.
Jessica’s mind kept thinking about the past and all that had changed because she didn’t want to think about what was waiting for her in the last room of the hall. It used to be that a person worked at the brothel because it was a choice and they were Providers. It used to be a person would patronize the brothel, the Patrons, because they wanted their sexual and skin touch needs met and for what ever reason did not have a relationship at home to meet those needs. The founders of the colony included paid sex as a service because sexual and skin touch needs are simply a part of being human and it can’t be guaranteed that every person on the colony was going to find their one and only and live happily ever after.
Jessica thought of when she first started coming here when she was in her twenties. She simply didn’t have a relationship at the time and didn’t think being horney was sufficient reason to try and start dating. Since then whenever Jessica was in a relationship she would get her needs met by her partner. Until for one reason or another they broke up and she would come back to the brothel. Basically Jessica used the brothels as intended, a place to get that extra company and attention that she couldn’t get from her friends. When she wants she would come here for some petting, cuddling, or steamy wall banging sex as the mood desired. Let’s be honest, when you're being paid for your service, it behooves you to be good at what you do. Sex like all things is a skill set and the good Providers were very skilled in their trade.
The amount of touching, petting, and the kind of sex she had engaged in was negotiated between herself and her chosen Provider. But these days, more and more the management was getting involved. And not just brothel management but the conservative colony ideals trying to paint the brothels in their version of Old Earth morality. Ideas such as sex as a comodity was inherently dirty and wrong. That if you have to pay for it then there must be something wrong with you. If you're willing to sell it there must be something deeply disturbed about you. Jessica tried to turn her thoughts away from that line of thinking because it was too close to what made her continue to come to The Rose, to the newbie waiting, but she couldn’t seem to stop following this line of thought.
The idea that selling sex as a choice must mean you’re a deviant has led increasingly to the Providers being those who have been convicted of a crime. Yes, it would be wrong to force a person into prostitution, there are too many iron clad laws on the books to force sex as work on a person. But, if you offer it as a choice, well, it’s not forced, now is it? The choice being presented by the courts was between hard labor in space, with a short life expectancy or to provide sex as comodity, which you do not get to participate in the profits of, in the brothels. All you have to do is ignore the fact that if there is no safe option then it’s not really a choice.
The brothels are not illegal because the conservative Old Earth movement couldn’t get rid of them entirely. But they can and did bastardize them to a new purpose. Not only are the convicts, all non-violent offenders, being placed here in lieu of prison terms but the population was being encouraged to use the brothels while also giving an undertone of disgust for anyone who did so. Twisted, right? If you're into moral superiority and purity then why encourage the good folks to use these places? And if you're going to encourage then why make people feel bad about it afterward? Because it kept the argument alive. It kept the nonsense debate going. It provided a point of contention for people to fight about and to not pay attention to what's going in City Hall. Jessica saw it as a smokescreen for the masses.
It seemed clear to Jessica that anytime the government needs to get involved in, and policing, who is having sex with whom, for what reasons, and then trying to guilt trip the populace at large, well that is the very big, red, waving flag of an authoritarian regime looking to take and keep power. Jessica had a front row seat to that very disturbing genesis in her own colony starting in the brothels.
So why was she here? Why was she presenting a front to Harvey? Why was she so determined to be a Good Citizen who followed all the new rules so much so that she lost her artist friends? Because she had found a way to fight back. What to do when your democratic government, in a colony in space isolated by distance, starts to aggressively become authoritarian with moral superiority as their fuel for change? You go underground.
Jessica reminded herself that she was here as an operative. She was here tonight to make a pass with her contact. When she reached her locker she got undressed, put on her robe, and palmed her message for the hand off. She had been planning to meet with her contact, a long term Provider here and her friend, but Harvey - damn him! - threw that out the window. So hopefully Jason would place himself so that she could pass to him and accept from him the messages. As she stepped away from the lockers she tried for calm, pleasant thoughts so her face looked right to those who may be watching surveillance video either today or in future playback.
As Jessica headed down the hall and passed a connecting hallway she saw Jason standing just around the corner. She got ready to do the message swap, but Jason beckoned her over. This was bad. It wouldn’t be good if Jason was going to risk being seen talking in the hall. It’s not that it’s not allowed, strictly speaking, since they were an old pairing and knew each other for years, but the Managers don’t like too much non-scripted, outside the bedroom interaction.
Jessica approached with a smile as though she was simply saying hi to her favorite boy toy.
“Jessica, I need to tell you about the new guy.” Jason hissed through his own false smile.
They leaned in for a quick, chaste kiss.
Jessica knew there wasn’t time, so she just waited with that damn smile plastered on her face. Jason gave a quick glance around, and through his own fake smile said in short, clipped words, “This new one isn’t right. I don’t think he came from a hearing. I don’t know where else he would have come from, though. But he’s super mad. Harvey says that if he doesn’t perform with a regular then he’s gonna give the new guy to Sally.”
Oh, shit, Jessica thought to herself. Sally was a sadist who did the pain with pleasure. Before it was for those who desired that sort of sexual relase. But now, she's more of an enforcer for the prostitutes than a Provider for the clients.
Jason went on “If you can, get him to fuck you, because it will be worse for him if he doesn’t. I couldn't tell him what's going on because the management has been keeping him segregated.”
Jessica didn’t bother asking questions, they’ve been in the hallway long enough. She looked into Jason’s eyes and saw the anxiety and fear there. She didn’t know even half the story. But Jason trusted her and she trusted him. If he needed her to help the new guy stay away from Sally, which was always a good thing anyways, then so be it. Jessica laughed like he had just told her a funny anecdote and not something chilling and they both moved on with her using one hand to slide down his arm.
Jessica may have been fine with paying for sex before but now, now it felt like what it was becoming. She was a woman of good standing in the colony, with a good income to pay for these kinds of not so cheap luxuries, that with the growing disparity between the have and the have nots put her firmly on the side of the haves. And she was going to go into this room to pay to have sex with a man who most likely came from the have nots, who got on the wrong side of the new politcal laws, who maybe was just an example, and she was going to use him just as thouraghly as the system did.
The social and political system was supposed to protect the have nots and to work towards equality and equity. Hell, when the colony started there was zero disparity. But not any more. Now it was about if you have the power and money you have the rights. If you don’t, then you end up in places like here being literally fucked. What she was about to do, why she was doing it, and the Goddess be damned power games that were being played that created this situation made Jessica hot with anger and cold with dread. By the time she got to the room, she had gone through her usual feelings of flashes of heat on her skin, ice in her veins, sick feeling in her stomach, and finally calm control.
****
Jessica walked into the room and found a very different man than she had seen before. Different not in looks, but in that energy which a person gives. Other newbies who came from the sentencing hearing had a feeling to them of being beaten down. Some are more beaten down than others but they all had it. Going through the criminal system, Jessica refused to even think of it as the justice system, puts a person through a world of trauma.
This man was anything but beaten down. He was captured but he was not subdued. The man in front of her was taller than her with dark, short hair, a darker complexion like coffee with a little cream, long limbs and a beakish kind of nose. When you took in the stance, the energy, and blazing eyes, you knew that here was a dangerous man. All he did was stand there and Jessica knew for certain that this was a man who knew violence, that he was enraged, and that she absolutely did not want to get within arm's distance of him.
But then he turned away and the move was wobbally; he was unsteady on his feet and ended up sitting on the edge of the bed. He was wearing a robe and he tucked the ends tightly about himself. That gesture tugged at Jessica’s sympathies. She knew the gesture and the anger. Here was forced sex worker, however he got here. He didn’t want to be here. But he was. So was she. Jessica remembered the message, the threat of what would happen if they didn’t comply. Jessica would never be hurt on purpose by Sally or Management but she would know that this man was being harmed and that was one more hurt she would prevent if she could. But how to proceed?
Jessica firmly believed in the absolute importance of consent. That being told you can work yourself to death in space or have your body used for sex by strangers was not a choice that lent itself to consentual sex. She has tried her absolute best with the aid of Jason to only have sex with those newbies who can handle it. But this man was not in the headspace to consent or to handle the situation of pseudo-consent that Harvey and his kind create.
As Jessica thought of the problem of how to approach this man, whose name she didn’t even know!, she was painfully aware of the video camera on them, because this room is always being surveilled and always used for the newbies. That’s what Harvey had meant about being able to respond ‘in a blink!’ if anything should go wrong. Subterfuge was the name of the game right now but how to convey that to him, to get in close enough to whisper to him while working the body language so that Harvey and whomever wouldn’t catch on? She needed this man's cooperation to do this because in this instance it was very much a situation of it takes two to tango.
Jason stuck his neck out a lot for the newbies. But there was something in his eyes in the hallway that told Jessica that there was something important about this man. Jesscia would do her best to get informed consent for sex, without watchers catching on, from this angy and scared man, who looked like he was absolutly not in the mood, so that she could prevent a trip to Sally the enforcer and without blowing her own cover. Easie peasie.
The room was what you would expect for a brothel. Small, with a double bed, and bathroom with a standing shower. It was nicely furnished because the Patrons were wealthy and deserved nice accomodations. As you walked into the room the bathroom door was in front, the bed to your left, and camera to the right angled to catch the bed and bathroom door. As Jesscia approached the bed the camera view would be from behind her. Very aware of the eyes on her from the back Jessica approached the bed and tried to shield his body with hers.
“Hi,” Jesscia said as she walked slowly toward the man on the bed. His eyes met hers and she had to breathe for a second. Talk about if looks could kill!
“I’m Jessica. What’s your name?”
The man just glared at her. Great.
Not only did Jessica want to avoid how she looked on camera, she wanted to avoid any possible audio. That means getting in close. Which he didn’t want. So more approach at a slow speed and then stopping a careful distance away. With her back to the camera she took a risk and did some quick pantomimes with her hands. Pointing to the eye and then jerking the thumb behind her to the camera on the wall. Then pointing to her lips, to him, and then to the ear. That was all she was willing to risk. Hopefully he got it. He kept his eyes on her and there seemed to be interest there instead of plain confusion. And he didn’t do the worst thing which would have been blurting out, ‘What are you pointing at?’ So far, so good.
Jessica came to stand in front of him. With him sitting on the bed his head was a little lower than hers. She leaned in for a kiss, but didn’t touch lips. Just stayed there for a moment, one hand on his shoulder, lightly, for balance. “I need to talk to you.” She breathed “But you have to work with me, put an arm on my waist.” She waited with her heart in her throat to see what he would do. And when he slid his hand around her waist, she breathed a sigh of relief. He was willing to go along with the subterfuge. But for how long? And how will he feel about changing it to something real? And of course, what if all of this was a set up? What if he told on her? If she got caught passing messages, well, she just wasn't going to think about that. Instead Jesscia leaned her head to one side to put her lips closer to his ear, like she was nuzzling the side of his jaw and down to his neck. He had a nice jaw, and a nice neck. And a really nice smell. Focus!
“I want to give you a choice, but it’s a bad choice. I was told if you don’t have sex with me now then Management is going to pass you on to an enforcer. She is a sadist.” Jessica felt the man tense under her hand. His whole body vibrated with his anger. He moved in closer to her ear, mirroring her pantomime kissing on his jaw and neck. And since he was facing the camera, he was actually kissing her. Jessica felt a thrill through her body which she was immediately ashamed of. Sex never used to make her feal ashamed. But then she was never with someone in quiet these not actually consent situations.
“You call that a choice?” he said with a low angry whisper.
“It’s the best I can offer. You can stop any time and I will leave. ”
“But if you do then I am given to” so much derision in those two words, given to; “an enforcer. For punishment?”
“Yes.” Jessica pulled back from his neck and took her hands back to fuss with her hair, putting it up in a ponytail, buying time for him to think and choose.
That’s the thing about choice, sometimes you just offer it and wait. She may be concerned about him going to the sadist enforcer because she knew what would happen. He may not know as much as her about what was in store for him if he refused her and if she could she would have given more info for an informed choice. But she couldn’t, they were under surveillance. She knew what she would choose for him, what Jason would choose for him. But in the end, it was his choice. Maybe he will choose punishment over sex with a stranger. If so, that was his choice and she would honor it. Meaning yes, she would just leave the room and make up some excuse for Harvey, knowing he would be punished. Was she any different from the court justices offering their choices, she wondered?
When she couldn’t delay any longer she lowered her hands. He had watched her the whole time, his expression controlled and closed. She looked him in the eyes and waited for his decision. Without a word he opened her robe, slid his hands up the lapels, and as he stood, pushed the robe off of her shoulders. He then dipped his head down and kissed her soundly and deeply. A thorough kiss that makes your toes curl and your bones lose structure. When he pulled back from the kiss Jessica was a little breathless. But she had to know one thing before they went any further.
“What is your name?”
“David.”
And that was the last talking they did for a long, long while.
****
Jessica used her history with this brothel and continued her regular visits here as a part of her role with the underground. There are those who are trying to fight back against the authoritarian regime and one of those ways is to clean up the mess. Meaning when the authoritarian regime of the Old Earth conservative party makes life harder or unbearable for the people, the libs do their best to counter the effects. In the case of the brothels, people who get convicted and then given a choice in hard space labor with a short life expectancy or to serve in the brothel are often never heard from again in either choice. Families are desperate to know what happens to their loved ones once they have been led away after the sentencing hearing. Jessica, as a Patron, goes into the brothels and tries to find the missing.
At this brothel, The Rose, her contact was a veteran Provider. The ones who had been sex workers since before still like their own word for what they do, they provide a service. But don’t let Management catch you calling the sex workers anything other prostitue, or worse. Jason had been a Provider since he was in his 20’s and he loved his job or rather, had loved his job. These days he was just trying to take care of the forced sex workers. He provided names and descriptions to Jessica to be passed along and to try and connect to the missing. Families can’t come and collect their loved ones, they are still serving a sentence, and you can’t even show up because it gives the game away that the person was found. But when possible, a family is told that their son or daughter was alive. Messages were passed. And in the back of the brothel, Jason worked with the newbies in their new life. Trying to adjust. Trying to not lose it. Trying to hold on to the end of the sentence.
Some libs in the courts have protested the use of brothels as a place to serve a sentence because of the trauma of the forced sex. But the conservative courts have simply said ‘If sex for money is so traumatic then shouldn’t all brothels be closed?’ When it’s pointed out that it's not traumatic when a person chooses sex as their trade then the justices had simply responded, ‘But these criminals were given a choice.’ So Jason does what he can with the newbies to keep them out of trouble and safe. Because Harvey and the other Managers would just love any excuse to recommend an extension of their sentence.
It was such a lovely, rigged game. If you made vocal your problems with the new government then they convicted you under trumpery charges then made you disappear. The families left behind got terrorized just as much as the political prisoner when their loved one was just gone one day. It was a wonder anyone tried to stand up to the government. But they did because it was worse to be bullied into living in an authoritarian regime. If you had no rights outside of prison then you really weren’t risking much to lose your freedom of movement with protests.
****
Jessica went back to David three more times over the next three days. Ordinarily she didn’t frequent the brothels this often. But the Brain Ship Cruiser Alpha was almost here and the whole focus of ops for the colony was on the soon to occur fly-by. Supplies, cargo, and people were all getting ready to board a shuttle for the ship. Warehouses and the Welcome Wagon Council were all getting ready to receive the same from the ship. Jessica’s job was with statistical analysis of energy usage in the power grid, so, not necessary for the fly-by ops. Everyone non-essential was encouraged to make themselves scarce so that every ounce of bandwidth, energy, and resources was devoted to that colosoul task.
In addition to having the time, Jessica was certain that this new guy, David, was somehow important to the underground. She wanted to support his connection to the outside of the brothel as much as possible. Jason clued David in to the fact that Jessica was the convict's line to the outside and she could pass messages. Jessica couldn’t sit down and have a conversation with him because of his newbie status. But she did get enough hidden conversations that she could tell he was way more than a disaffected colonist. He didn’t tell her who he was, how he got there, or anything else. Jessica couldn’t put her finger on why she knew he was important. She just trusted her intuition.
When Jessica passed messages she mainly worked with Jason who collected from the Providers. Occasionally Jessica and the Provider had direct contact to pass messages. It depended on if the message could be written down or if it had to be given verbally. David was only sending his messages verbally, he wouldn’t risk having them written down. Which meant Jessica had to meet with him personally which as a newbie not yet trusted by Management was always in the room at the end of the hall.
Jessica speculated on who he could be and how he could be of use to the underground and to the liberal movement. But she had no way of confirming any of her suspicions. She was an operative and not a leader in the underground. She connected convicts with their families, and provided the underground with limited intel from the Department of Energy. She had been fine with her role but now she felt she had stumbled onto a much deeper plot and wished she had more connections.
Jessica wondered if maybe David was a part of efforts to attract attention from the Brain Ship. That would definitely get him a one-way ticket to the brothels. The Brain Ship Cruiser was here to drop off and load supplies. It was also their contact, their touchstone, with the Coalition of Governments of the Sol Solar System as well as an enforcing arm of the Coalition.
The colony, ideally, in these kinds of troubled times could turn to the Brain Ship as an impartial arbiter to settle internal disputes but that wasn’t likely to happen. The current government wouldn’t initiate because if even half their abuses became known the Brain Ship just might intercede in a way that would make them lose much of their newly acquired power. There is no way the Old Earth Regime would want the Brain Ship taking too close of a look at what is happening here. In fact, they had been cracking down on dissidents and hiding them away in preparation of the fly-by so that no one could say anything out of line to the wrong people.
The underground was split over wanting to settle things themselves versus wanting an intervention. Most in the underground didn’t want the Brain Ships Command Crew getting involved in the politics here. As colonists there is a high level of independent spirit meaning most colonists like the idea that we can survive on our own with no outside interference, thank you very much. But some took the long view and knew that if there was a violent or even semi-violent overthrow of the Old Earth Regime then the new government would need to answer to and be absolved by the larger governmental coalition in order to be allowed to function as a member of that coalition.
The colony was on its own in the sense that it was really far away from it’s closests neighbors except for two pretty small space stations used to process the ores and ice mined at the colony. But it was not on its own in the sense that if the colony was to be truly cut off from access to the Brain Ships, the long haul cargo ships, or to lose its standing in the coalition of governments, well, that would just be a really, really, really bad day for everyone.
Management at The Rose seemed happy to give the difficult new guy to their long term Patron who seems to know just how to calm the brute. Each time Jessica came to the brothel in those three days she fought a little war with her emotions. She loved the experience of being with David. Loved the feel of his body above and wrapped around hers, the scent of his skin, the play of his hands. But she also felt disgusted with herself for feeling this way about a prisoner who essentially has no choice. She hated that couldn’t compartmentalize the experience away from her real emotions the way she had learned to do. Instead of dwelling on how she felt about being with him Jessica focused on why she was doing things which led to anger, a much more comfortable emotion. She felt rage at the whole damn situation and at the self-rightous ass holes who created this fucked up distopian nightmare.
As she rifled through these feelings and more she would enter the brothel, increasingly being called the whore house, chatting with management with a smile on her face. Laughed at their not so subtle insulting jokes. Insulting the prostitutes, little jibes at the Patrons, tee-hee, just a joke, don’t be so serious. She would walk to the lockers, cognizant of the cameras, assuming at all times someone is watching. Put her personal items in the locker. Undress and carefully fold the clothes. Carefully fold away the useless emotions, the emotions that will get her outed. Emotions like rage, anger, and self-loathing. Put the carefully folded clothes and emotions away in their respective lockers. Put on her robe and the useful emotions. She will be pleased to be here. She is looking forward to fun entertainment. She will be enjoying herself tonight. Robbed in both the silk and the useful emotions she steps out into the hall, down to the room at the end of the hall, and with a final breath to steady the nerves, she enters the room.
In the room is David, sitting on the foot of the bed or standing next to it. Always he has that same sense of contained violence. A power that echos off of his skin. He just looks at her as she enters the room. Just that look, which hopefully the cameras pick up as waiting passion, contains the fury of his predicament. Fury, passion, fine line between really.
Each visit the two of them play their parts for the camera and pass along the messages. Using their bodies and body language they say to the audience, we are just being soo passionate with each other. In the hurried whispers they say to each other, I have a message, and pass along the code. He always sends codes to his people and they respond the same. On the last visit, David passed along to her a data card. Super risky. Ya, it’s tiny and easy to hide. But it's electronic which comes with so many risks. Jessica didn’t hesitate, just accepted the data card and hid it in her hair. You come up with all kinds of neat tricks when you start playing spy, like how to palm a 2x2cm data card and hide it in your hair under a piece of office gum you keep there just for a situation like this all the while making it look like you're just playing with your hair.
The main act of the play of course is the sex between them. Jessica has some strongly mixed feelings about this. With David she can’t just cut away any personal feelings. Something about him breaks down those walls and she can’t help herself but to enjoy the feel of him for real. He was a powerful man, all muscles and strength. Strength that spoke of being able to fight and win. Yet when he held her he was so careful. He was careful to not hurt, careful to give tender touches and never bruising. Some people like a little pain with pleasure. To mark one another with a love bite or a bruising kiss. Jessica wasn’t one of those. The most that she would enjoy, if in the right moment of pleasure when the orgasim is so close, is for the full length of her partner to brush up against the end of her and hit the cervix. Hitting the cervix can be really, really painful. But in that moment just before orgasim, letting loose and plunging in all of him into the full length of her can be epically orgasmic.
David seemed to know that line. He knew to not pound himself into her like it was teenage rabbit sex. He knew how to work his well endowed self into and out of her so that it was pleasurable for both of them. When she was close, when she called it, he was ready to let loose. And the orgasim was amazaing. Jessica hoped fervently that David felt just as good about the sex as she did because it was the only consolation she could think of. She did what she could in bed to please him and to not hurt him. To not demand of him. It was a fine line when you're supposed to be the client.
It seemed to Jessica that David tried to give as well, to pleasure and to not just fuck. The way he would hold her so carefully in those powerful arms. The way he would caress her just to elicit a reaction which in turn pleased him. Like running his fingers oh so gently down her back. The skin of the back is this great big canvas that is hardly touched by another person. In the brothels you expect for things to go straight to the erogenous zones. Yet David takes the time to caress and gently kiss her back which makes Jessica think that he does it because of how she reacts to it. And her reaction was of pleasure. A soft sigh escaping the lips, a straightening of the body and pushing the back gently towards his hands. Each kiss down the spine is a tingling lightning bolt that is expressed in body squirms and moans. That, for instance, is a lover getting to know his partner and her every reaction. And Jessica has to very firmly pull herself back into the headspace that they are not lovers, they are not even friends, they are on the job and she is there to pass along messages so that he and others don’t disappear without a trace.
****
When David and Jessica are finished, Jessica showers, leaves, dresses, pays, and heads out into the night. She focuses very hard on what she has to do next and not on what just occurred. She will have plenty of time to dream about it later when she’s asleep. No, right now she has a message to pass along and there are things to consider. First being the route she is going to take to the burner cell which is kept in a safe house. She has three ways into the apartment that she believes will keep her Good Citizen identity safe. And she has five routes she can take to get there. Jessica the Good Citizen has to stay in her routine. She needs a reason to go out of her normal neighborhood. So the safe house isn’t far. She just needs to be very careful on how she approaches it each time.
The safe house is an apartment whose prior occupant was taken in a raid. No one knows where the father was taken to and the rest of the family relocated to be near the mother’s family. The apartment was then leased by an alias the underground had set up and was used by operatives. The apartment building was 20 stories high with a mix of single person and multi-person units. Multi-person units are usually for families but some folks like living with roommates that are not a couple or family. The differences between the apartments was layout but the basics such as size per person were the same for everyone in the colony. Well, it used to be the same.
Going back to the traditions started with the first International Space Station above Earth folks don’t have living quarters of different sizes based on rank. Before the International Space Station it was common practice among military and civilians that if you had higher rank, more authority, and more money then you got more room to live in. Even on ships at sea with every square inch being used to best effect, if you were an officer you had more personal space and more privacy. However, NASA and her counterpart agencies in other countries decided to set those old standards aside for their space station.
When the Capislon Colony was being mapped out and apartment buildings were planned it was assumed that every person regardless of other considerations simply each had the same amount of personal, private living space. With the new Old Earth Regime many ideas of old were being resurrected such as if you’ve got the money and the power then you, ahem, deserve more living space.
A news reporter had covered a story where a high ranking government official was trying to turn two apartments into one for their own personal living space. It created an upset and discontent among the population. The government decided to address the concerns by revoking the journalist’s credentials, putting the construction on hold, sending two pundits on air to start whinging about the brothels so everyone can argue about that again, and then ever so quietly going ahead with the plans anyways. Jessica had inside knowledge of just how many apartments were being converted into palatial suites because of her access to the energy grid consumption records.
She knew that in this apartment building none of that new construction was going on which is a part of how this apartment got the okay to become a safe house. It’s one thing to try and hide in plain sight. It’s far more risky to try and hide a safe house in the same building as an emerging oligarchy.
Jessica is not the only one who uses the safehouse but she has never run into anyone else. The apartment’s AI is set up to alert her bracelet if the apartment is being used as she gets closer to the building so that she knows to hang-back until the other operative leaves. Inside of the apartment there are a number of hidey holes scattered throughout with devices within them. Each of these devices are to be used for different reasons by different people. Her job is to use a tablet stored in the false bottom of a drawer to get together message packages about who is serving where and who has disappeared into the system.
She does some preliminary work on the data, which is all about finding the missing convicted. Jessica not only collects from the brothels who are working where but also from families that leave messages on community boards, the crime blotter release of who has been newly convicted, and any other source she can find of who has disappeared into the criminal system. She organizes the data and gets it ready for a pick-up to the next line of operatives. A nice, safe, dead-drop at the coffee shop she goes to each morning.
In addition, there are the messages to be sent for David which go out on a burner phone. There is a collection of these phones under the bottom of the kitchen cabinet so Jessica the Good Citizen doesn’t have to risk buying one herself. David provided a phone number and a cryptic 10 character message the first time he used her as a conduit to the outside world. When she sent the text to the number given there was an almost immediate response. Msg Rcvd.
Jessica spent a lot of time thinking about David and his cryptic messages. Was he also a part of the underground? Was he a part of the government? He couldn’t be an average Joe-smoe citizen. And he definitely did not originate from here, so how long has he been living here? Who was receiving these texts? Has someone traced the number back to this phone and to this safe house? Was it being watched by David’s people? Were his people watching for the sender of the texts? So many questions. One thing she didn’t question and just knew instinctively, is that David was the leader of any group he was in so those receiving these texts were waiting for his orders.
From her experience, Jessica knew that any person who was a good leader and in charge of a group would work to protect those in the group. Whether it was doing something hard and unpleasant to ensure the group survived or whether it was taking care of the needs of each member of the group, a leader looked out for all of them. And there was just something about the way David felt and acted that made Jessica believe he was the one in charge. So who was on the other side of these texts and how much did they know about her? About where he was? About what was happening to him? With that thought came the flush of shame. She couldn’t imagine standing in front of anyone who looked up to David and having them know her role in his imprisonment.
Shaking away those uncomfortable thoughts, Jessica memorized the incoming messages on the phone, got the dead drop ready, put everything away, ensured everything was as it was supposed to be, and left the safe house.
***
Trying to get the data card out of her hair without losing roots was a challenge. The office gum was this tacky block that you could pull off small bits to use to paste paper or photos or whatnot to the walls or wherever. Jessica had the bright idea to keep a bit in her hair to secure micro data cards. It worked getting the contraband out of the brothel. The hard part came in getting the damn stuff out of her hair!
Finally Jessica peeled free the last, hopefully the last, of the gum paste and the micro data card. She slid the card into the burner phone and sent out the data burst. Since receiving the card from David earlier this evening her mind was going over all of the different possibilities of what could be on it. Now that she had it in front of her, typically, it was all code.
Tonight when Jessica came into the safehouse apartment building she was using the ‘head in her tablet’ ruse to walk into the front door of the building but not have her face be captured on any video. Basically she just kept her head down like she was intent on reading her tablet, shoulders hunched, hair forward. Jessica’s peripheral vision was good enough to pull off walking and reading at the same time. To a casual observer or reviewer of the video the woman so intent on her tablet had little or no relation to Jessica Wellington.
In the safe house Jessica checked for messages from her contacts to see if there were any assignments for her, started to go through the crime blotter, and was just wrapping up when her bracelet chimed. Her wrist device had a tiny screen and it showed a text message, “Grab milk on the way home, honey.”
Jessica didn’t have honey at home to ask for milk or anything else to be picked up on the way home. No, this was the pre-arranged message that the underground was going to go for its big play, that they were ready for their assault to take over the colony. That assault plan centered on the payload launcher. The whole reason for the existence of this colony was to mine its resources and send those payloads into space via a launcher. Those payloads are then captured by drones and organized onto waiting transport to go to space stations for processing then onto a few trans-generational, long haul, cargo ships. Whoever controls the payload launcher in a very real way controls the colony. Jessica’s role was to use her persona of Good Citizen and a very special, very illegal, ID card to get to the launcher and to secure it.
The ID card matched her info but gave her access to systems she would never ordinarily be able to get into like the launcher control room. The ID card was an actual hard copy card with a chip, very hot stuff that could get her a one way ticket into space if she was caught with it. It was a one shot use because it would be all too easy for a security team to find out that a fake card is being used or recently had been used. Which means those operatives with these cards needed cover to gain access to systems.
Phase one of the big plan is to cause unrest in the streets so that focus from security in the facilities and the police force in general would be placed on the unrest. That cover would be good once she was trying to infiltrate the launcher complex but bad if she got caught up in it which means she needed to get ahead of any protesting. Jessica took a moment to focus on what she needed to do, grabbed the burner phone, the ID card, and shot out the door. Jessica took the phone with her because she knew that somehow David was the catalyst for the go order and she wanted that phone on her person. It was too high of a coincidence that she sends the data card’s info and within an hour the underground is ready for its biggest play to go into action.
****
Jessica laid in the hospital bed facing the wall, not really looking at anything or even thinking too much. Last night was the revolution, viva la revolution!!, they had been waiting for and she was recovering from the beating she took from the gang that caught up with her after she secured the payload launcher. The gang just saw a Good Citizen and descended with all of their pent up hate for the upper class. They gave as good as they had gotten for years. She was lucky to be alive.
But even here in the hospital she wasn’t free from prejudice. She was learning that the term ‘cold hospitality’ has found new life in the staff. They, too, see the Good Citizen, the upper class, the oppressor, when they look at her. She received decent, necessary care, but not good care. She had surgery on her right leg, the quad muscles, to remove some dead tissue from clots in the capillaries which means that she will never have full function of that leg again. Could it be if the doctors had acted faster, treated her case with more urgency, the leg could have been saved? An academic question.
Jessica continued the catalog in her mind of her injuries. Concussion, fractured orbital bone, fractured ribs, bruised internal organs though nothing ruptured. Hurrah for small miracles. She hurt and she wished for more pain meds. But the supplies were short, and there were so many injured that the doctor, with all apology, simply could not give her as full of a dose as he might otherwise. Jessica simply wondered if she was openly a lib, a member of the mob, sorry, Freedom Fighter, if that would change the priority of how much pain meds she was allowed. Another academic question. So many useless thoughts.
She didn’t even try to claim to be other than what they all thought she was. She had zero proof of being a part of the underground, that was kind of the point. Well, zero proof that she was willing to turn over to these doctors. She could hear others in the emergency room afterward claiming they weren’t really the bad guys, that they were just doing what they had to. They were just obeying the new rules. It’s not their fault. Zero sympathy from the newly in charge and formerly abused. Jessica did what she had been doing for the past five years, kept her mouth shut.
Her mind went back to the past day and night. Jessica was lucky and she had gotten to the luancher’s control room, she worked with the other two ops who also got there, and they did their end of the job. They inputted the new codes at the source and took over the launcher. Hurrah and hurray for the good guys.
Jessica laid in her hospital bed, trying not to move too much, letting the feeling of the pain flow through her because the pain meds were too weak to do much, and let her thoughts continue to wander. When a group of three men and women entered the room she looked up at them with a kind of dispassionate gaze. Though after a look at their ship’s uniforms and the security logos on their patches she got a bit more interested, and afraid.
“Are you Jessica Wellington?” the woman in the center asked.
“Yes.” Jessica answered. Why be coy?
“We understand that you were a Patron at The Rose.”
Oh shit, Jessica thought, here it comes. Those of us who used the brothels after they started using convicts are going to go on trial.
Jessica swallowed and answered honestly, because it was all she had, “Yes, I was.”
“Did you ever buy a man named David?” Now there was real anger in the woman’s eyes and Jessica surmised that this was a woman who knew David and she was pissed at the way David was incarcerated. Who wouldn’t be? And all of that anger was pointed at Jessica. She had time to wonder if she would live through the next few minutes. The rage from the lieutenant was very clear and spoke of violence rather than being simply arrested.
Very carefully Jessica answered, “There was a Provider there by that name.” That careful answer was not what the three in front of her wanted to hear and the tension level went up a notch. Jessica gave up on caution and settled for blunt. She honestly didn’t know what would keep her alive in this conversation so she just went for what was easiest to prove.
“In my purse there is a hole in the bottom of the inner pocket and inside the lining is a phone. The phone has only ever texted one number and these texts are still on the phone. If you're with David then those were his messages to you. You should be able to match the number, the texts, and the times to what’s on your end.”
Jessica’s heart rate had sped up and her hands were clenched in the sheets. She had never just given so much information to an unknown player before. She waited, scared that she betted wrong on who these people are, betted wrong that they only had one allegiance, and betted wrong that no matter what the LT was not going to let her live.
One of the men moved to the bag of personal belongings on the chair by the bed. He got out the purse, found the phone, and put in the code as Jessica gave it to him. He then handed it back to his superior and she looked through the messages.
“How did you get this?” she asked in a low, angry voice.
“I was David’s contact while he was at The Rose. He passed me the messages and I sent them on that burner.”
The woman gave a harsh bark of laughter. “His contact while he was at The Rose. You make it sound like a normal assignment.” She gave Jessica a hard look. “What happened to the Captain at that place was not a normal assignment.”
Jessica paled under that look and knew she had nothing else to bargain for her life. So she just waited to see what would happen next. And that one word rang in her mind. Captain. Shit!!
The LT got her rage under control and stepped out of the room. The two petty officers went with her but took up a post outside of her door which they closed behind them. Jessica let out a shaky breath and just waited to see what would happen next.
****
The burner phone was verified and as best as anyone could tell it was the original for those texts, not a dummy or a clone. That got her questioned by a security interrogator. Jessica gave up all of her info about being an underground operative. Her role was mainly to be a patron at the brothels tracking the missing as well as some inside info from the Department of Energy. But her secondary role was to be a citizen in good enough standing that when the flag went up that she could grab that ID card, also turned over to the ship's security detail, and secure the launcher.
Jessica was assured that codes on the card would be checked against the codes and access she had in her normal job. In this case that would be a good thing, to show that her having the crazy high access to the most sensitive areas of the colony, something Jessica Wellington’s real job had no reason to need, would lend more credence to her story of being an operative. Jessica also gave up the safe house even though it might mean compromising other operatives. But at this point, was there an underground anymore? Maybe not, but it still wasn’t her call to give up anyone else. In the end, she did it anyway. One more stain on her conscience. She gave up the safe house, the hidey hole for the burners that matched the one she gave them with the texts, and the hidey hole for the tablet with info she had gathered on the missing.
Jessica did all she could to cooperate and just prayed to Goddess that they believed her enough to not incarcerate her.
Through all of this she never saw or spoke with the Captain, because that’s who David is. The freaking Captain of the Brain Ship Alpha Cruiser that makes the rounds between all of the colonies and earth on a forever loop inside of the Sol Solar System. Holy fucking shit!
Jessica put the pieces together to come up with how David ended up in The Rose. Maybe one day she would be in a position to ask someone who knows how much she got right. From clipped conversations with the interrogator, the news, and any bits of info she could glean from the web, Jessica figured out that the Captain had left his ship to come ahead to the colony before it was scheduled to arrive because of the concern that something wasn’t right about the colony which needed to be investigated. The Brain Ship was far enough out that it could not do instant communications yet and was still relying on the pre-recorded message packets sent by the interstellar satellite relay system. The messages were starting to raise some concern. While the official messages were technically correct there were too many passengers and crew on the ship who were reporting lack of or something off about the personal messages they were getting.
The new regime really, really didn’t want the coalition of governments or the Brain Ship to know what was going on. Which means they had been controlling all outgoing messages. The Captain, of all people, came ahead to check it out. Jessica supposed that he underestimated the situation here and truly didn’t think he was stepping into something as dangerous as a colony takeover. So when his ship docked and he was met by a delegation from the government, he wasn’t prepared to fight back when he was taken into custody.
Rasheem, a senator and rising star in the conservative party, was the one who met the Captain when he landed and then took him into custody. His public statement afterwards when it came out what happened said that he was taking the captain into protective custody until the fly-by was over because of the threat of violence from the underground. He was just doing his duty.
Jessica’s guess was that Rasheem was getting pretty big headed at his new rise in power and really thought he could capture the freaking captain of the Brain Ship with impunity. His bosses knew otherwise but the damage was done so there was nothing left to do but to stash the hostage.
“Why in a brothel? Why not in a prison cell? Or just house arrest?” the interrogator asked, genuinely confused.
“Because brothels are some of the most secure places you can hold a person.” Jessica responded. “In some ways, better than a prison cell because you can’t just put a person in jail with no paperwork. The laws are still in effect from time of arrest to time of sentencing. No one can just be held indefinitely or secretly without someone noticing. But the brothels, well, those are designed to make the convicted disappear. Once in the brothel system you are tracked and controlled by the Managers. But anyone outside of the brothel system has a devil of time trying to find a person inside. Trust me, I’ve spent years trying to track the movements of convicts in the system looking for the missing. You want someone to disappear, hand them over to the Managers and that person is gone.”
The interrogator just gave Jessica a look that said plainly that he had never come across such a thing before and he found it very shocking indeed.
“How many have gone missing?” he asked, in a voice that almost said he didn’t want to know.
“Over the past five years I have had hundreds of names flow across the lists. The list of who is in each brothel at this time, who has shown up on the court paperwork as recently being convicted though not what the sentence would be, and the list of those looking for their loved one. I try to match the lists so that no name is left out alone. I do what I can but I am just one operative. I passed along the info. I don’t know how many of them are ever really found.”
“What does ‘really found’ mean?” he asked.
“Handing over a message from family to a Provider. Sometimes I tell them the message because it’s too risky to give them something like a data card or even a note because it can be found and confiscated. I look at them, I see them, as they hear words from their kin. That is really found.”
****
After Jessica was released from the hospital she was taken into custody. It was part protective custody and part being held until the powers that be decide what to do with her. The details of the underground operatives were slowly being released or leaked. On the one hand, it was a triumph of the people. On the other hand, it was graying the black and white situation. A person who was a Good Citizen and thus an enemy is actually a hero? Way too much depth for the victory speech.
Jessica was told that her apartment building had been trashed in the protests turned into riots. It was an upscale building that you only lived in if you were firmly on the side of the establishment. Everyone in the building got their places trashed because of their loyalties. Afterwards a couple of the protestors said they were looking for the palatial suites to show proof of abuse of power. Jessica wasn’t a student of history enough to know how this revolution's aftermath measured up in comparison to others, but from her point of view, it was a whole lot of political violence and grandstanding speeches. Not exactly what she was fighting for.
The calm, rational voice in all of this was the interim government set up by the Brain Ship. The Ship’s Command Crew had come in firmly and decisively to end the violence of the revolution but then to also nullify the current government. Essentially sending everyone back to their corners and the referee is in charge now. Invoking a clause in their standing orders, they set themselves up as impartial operators who were keeping essential functions running as order was restored and a new government was installed. What that meant for Jessica was she was waiting to see if she would go to prison or be absolved.
She sat for dozens of interviews and depositions with the prosecutor's office and with reps from the interim government. She had an advocate lawyer to plead her case and to protect her with the law. Sally Hansen was a lib lawyer who specialized in brothel cases. She had worked hard in the past five years to fight the changes that took place in the laws concerning how convicts were sentenced and how the brothels were being used as a black hole. She and Jessica didn’t know each other personally but they knew each other's work.
Sally recognized the data from the tablet that Jessica provided and told Jessica that her work had helped to find so many of the missing. A full tally wouldn't be known for some time, especially now that the system was being dismantled. Sally was an iron willed advocate who was going to protect her client. Jessica, for the first time, felt and believed that someone, at least one person, believed her and was willing to fight for her. She had never felt that since this all started and was grateful beyond words.
In the end, it was decided that charges will not be brought against Jessica but at the same time, she couldn’t be allowed back into the general population. There was too much resentment for all that Jessica represented and if she was released without accountability for her role as Good Citizen then there would be hell to pay. Making it public her role as an underground operative wasn’t an option because every aspect of that was still being treated as an ongoing investigation. A full report wouldn’t be out for months and an unredacted report wouldn’t be available for decades. So what to do with Jessica and others like her? Send them away to another colony, space station, or wherever.
Jessica sat in a warehouse where the boxes from her apartment were being stored and picked through the remains of her life the best she could. She was in her wheelchair with her leg propped up. She had started therapy and was told that with work she might be able to function with a cane one day. The box of her belongings was next to her and she sorted through what was left of her possessions. Living in a colony with only so much personal space per person dictated a possession light life. On top of that, so much of what she did have was trashed from the riot at her building. Whoever boxed up what was left in her apartment did so without care. Most of Jessica’s task wasn't so much as deciding what was precious or essential enough to keep, but what was salvageable and then from that pile what she will fit in the weight and luggage allowance. It was a small pile and she would not have a hard time reducing her things down to the allotted limit.
She thought about the decisions that led her here. The choices, the opportunities, the times she could have changed course. Would it all have led here anyways? Exiled from the only home she had ever known? A traitor and outcast to her people? What could she have done differently? And does it matter if she is an outcast and a traitor? No, not when she thought about the missing and the found. She had only to think of why she did what she did to know she made the only choice she could. It didn’t make it worthwhile, but it made it bearable.
She had a few character statements from the men and women she had sex with at the brothel. People who were there as a result of a conviction and then a choice. They all spoke well of her. Jason spoke highly of her. They all said the same. Jessica was fair, kind, and gave a choice for consent. Maybe it was their statements that swayed the powers that be to not put her on a public trial. It wasn’t because of her work with the launcher.
One of the other two operatives from the launcher was currently going through a public trial complete with protestors calling for the maximum punishment. What is the maximum punishment? Depends on who you talk to and how mad they are. Steven became a sort of scapegoat because his day job was too public and he had hurt too many people. He was doing more than just fitting in as a Good Citizen, he was looking to move up in the ranks. Steven says it was to be in a better position for the underground. But in the Old Earth regime, moving up in the ranks often required the demise of others.
Jessica didn’t know what to think about Steven’s situation and was just glad it wasn’t her. She knew how close she came to being in his place. How it could still happen if the right person gave the word.
Jessica thought about David as she folded some clothes. If he gave the word, would she be on trial? She couldn’t blame him. She had used him in the worst manner possible. She was a part of the system that used sex as abuse on the convicts. Jessica remembered being with him and her breath quickened. Not with remembered desire but with anticipation of fear. If he hated her enough for her role in his abuse would he give the word and everyone would obey him because of who he is, because of what he went through? Jessica just gave a silent prayer to the darkness that she would be allowed to leave the colony in peace and not be given up as a sacrifice to the public’s anger.
****
Jessica was sent to the Brain Ship and not put on trial. She was to be transported to a destination of her choice. Meaning another colony or Earth itself. Which meant years aboard the Brain Ship, wherever her destination may be. There really wasn't any other option since the space stations were a non-option given her lack of mobility. The plan was for her and the other underground operatives like her, who couldn’t be paraded about as a hero but couldn’t be prosecuted either because they were actually trying to do the right thing, were all to be integrated into the batch of folks who wanted to leave the colony.
Plenty of folks have had it and were looking to leave after the violence. Some looking to take passage on the cruiser were planning to leave anyways but had been getting their visas stalled by the Old Earth regime because they didn’t want colonists telling tales until they were too firmly entrenched to be removed. The Brain Ship was also carrying the usual load of folks who wanted to come to this colony, though now many had second thoughts.
Once the decision is made, though, you can’t back out. Each ship and each colony has a set number of lives that it can support. If 100 people come onto the ship for the purpose of going to Capsilon Colony, then 100 people must disembark when they get there. Jessica kept up with the info tracking, it was a habit by now, and found the message boards where folks were trying to bargain their way into not getting off the ship by way of swapping places with some other passenger. Problem was, not many people wanted to go to Capsilon and tons of people were looking to leave. There was another set of minor riots before incentives were put into place to compensate for the hardship tour and off the ship they went. Those who wanted on board but couldn’t get a visa were firmly kept off. Very firmly. You don’t want to mess with Brain Ship security.
Jessica made her way onto the shuttle and tried not to think too hard that she will never see her home again. She had had a last look over the colony last night from her favorite viewing platform. There are plenty of publicly available viewing platforms, now open to all colonists again, high up in the rafters of the colony's shield to allow people a spectacular view of their world. The dome stretches out overhead so high the edges are fuzzy. The buildings, parks, lakes, and everything that is the colony stretched out below you. The people are moving spots on the ground. As the lights of the day go down the lights of the city come up with a reddish glow at the horizon, like a hand swapping the light energies from above to below. Jessica loved this view and took it all in one last time. Today, she powered her wheelchair along the tunnel to shuttle, got in her seat, and just did her best not to cry.
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