Alone in the Dark, page 10
part #3 of Lunar Age Series
THANKSGIVING?
I went down to Thanksgiving dinner with my parents not expecting much. The habitat administrator, Major Steelings, had announced to everyone the day before that a relief mission was being sent to the Far Side Observatory to prevent them from starving. Due to how constrained our own food supplies were because of the lack of supply ships from Earth, we were all going to have to make some sacrifices. The special Thanksgiving day meal was one of the sacrifices that had to be made. Since the storm had hit in October, food had been rationed. I know I wasn’t the only one disappointed when Major Steelings had made the announcement that the special holiday meal had been canceled. I didn’t want any of the people at the Far Side Observatory to starve, but I had been looking forward to a nice meal. Things had been pretty monotonous on the food front lately.
I filled my plate with some carrots and grape tomatoes, a little lettuce for which there was no dressing, some mashed potatoes, and some french fries. We all drank ice water. Coke, milk, and coffee were long gone and even Dad’s Tang had run out the week before. We settled in to eat, but before we started, my mom said, “I know this isn’t the meal any of us were hoping to have today. I think we need to keep in mind that despite its affiliation with the holiday, food is not the most important thing we share today. We’re here with each other. We’re all healthy. We’re doing much better than we were last year when it seemed like Bryce might be deported at any minute. Despite, the lack of the foods we love, this is still a good Thanksgiving and you guys need to remember that.”
“Bravo, Cheryl, that’s telling them, hey”. Sam came up on her crutches and joined us. She said, “Bryce, I left my tray on the end of the serving table. Would you fetch it for me, please?”
I got up to get Sam’s tray. When I brought it back to the table, the Cherneski’s had joined us. Myra sat next to me and I said, “Happy Thanksgiving, Myra.”
She said, “Happy… Holy crap!” There was a commotion behind me and I turned to find that a fight had broken out at the serving table I had just left. There were two guys wailing on each other and everybody was just standing there watching them in shock. It was shocking, I’d never seen anything like it happen at NLH since I’d been there. Sam shot up and was away on her crutches and my dad was right behind her. Before Sam could reach the two brawlers, a security guy rushed in and broke them up. One of the brawler’s didn’t have enough sense to stop and threw a punch at the security guy. Security was well trained and the brawler got a face full of pepper spray. Sam and my dad restrained the other half of the fight while the security guy threw the blinded brawler to the ground and put handcuffs on him. Another guy from security showed up and relieved Sam and my dad of the more reasonable of the two fighters. One of the ladies that ran the cafeteria came out and started cleaning up the mess, while life got back to a much louder normal in the rest of the place.
I looked at Myra, the shock still on her face and she said, “It doesn’t feel like it, but Happy Thanksgiving, Bryce.” She was clearly disturbed by what had happened as were a lot of folks sitting around us.
“My mom was just saying that while current circumstances aren’t the best, we do have a lot to be thankful for. I’m thankful you can talk to me. Last year at—”
“Last year at this time, things were a mess. I was forced to stop talking to you because of the situation between you and Yang. Nobody even suspected it was Buddy behind the scenes causing all the problems.”
Myra frowned and said, “Bryce, there’s something I’ve got to tell you about. Somebody’s put up more posters.”
Myra and I had seen the first poster on our way to class two weeks ago. Since then, the stuff kept springing up and no one seemed to know who was doing it.
“So what did they say this time?”
Myra’s face fell and she said, “It was a picture of a mostly empty plate with a little bit of food on it. Underneath it said, “Hungry? Buddy wouldn’t put up with this. Bryce wouldn’t put up with this. What are you going to do about it?”
“What the… You’ve got to be kidding me. Buddy was a crazy conspiracy theory nut case who tried to kill everyone at NLH. I’m not the racist he tried to make people believe I was. Why would anyone write that? Why would anyone reading that think Buddy or I could help them get more food?”
“Calm down, Bryce. I know it’s crazy. For whatever reason, somebody is trying to use you and Buddy as symbols of resistance. Look around, people are scared. People are stressed. We just saw a fist fight and that’s never happened before. People feel like they have no control over their lives because of what’s happened since the storm. They want things back to normal and somebody is trying to take advantage of that to rally people to their cause, whatever that is.”
Sam was watching us so I turned to her and asked, “What do you make of this, Sam?”
She looked back at both of us with a rare frown on her face and said, “I’ve been spending most of my time over in Peary. I’ve seen more of the posters over there and Myra is right. Somebody is trying to use you and Buddy as symbols of resistance—”
“But—”
“I know how they’re trying to present you is wrong. The fact is though, you got a lot of bad press last year. Right or wrong, you were shown as someone who pushed back against the Chinese when a lot of people felt like the Chinese had undue influence here at the Habitat. To a lesser degree, so was Buddy when the whole story finally came out. “
“But—”
“But that really isn’t you. We all know that. There’s a lot of people living here that don’t know that. The place has grown and especially at Peary there’s new people that don’t know you and don’t have the whole story, hey. They’ve just heard bits and pieces and what they have heard probably sounds like you’re someone who doesn’t put up with being pushed around. What worries me about this is it all started after the rationing began after the storm. That’s understandable, but everyone also understands that a storm is an act of God you can’t do anything about. That’s changed now with the announcement about the relief mission. That’s going to focus the attention on the—”
“On the Chinese, but Sam,” I said, “nobody wants to let those guys starve.”
Sam looked at me for a minute and held up her glass of water. She said, “No reasonable person wants to let someone else starve. What if it’s a question of you starving or someone else starving. Who do you choose?”
“No one is starving here. We’ve got food. You don’t have to choose.”
“That’s the voice of a reasonable young man whose Mom runs the company where the food comes from and who’s friend works bringing the food in from where it’s grown. You know exactly what’s going on with our food. What about the construction worker out in Peary, who has only been here six months, hey. When he got here, he was able to get three square meals a day. He had choices about what to eat and what to drink. Now days, he’s still getting fed, but he’s got limited choices of what to eat and his only choice to drink is water. We had some extra food as a cushion that was going to be used for the holiday meals. Now that’s being sent off to the Chinese. There are folks that are wondering if the Chinese said they needed more, would they suddenly be going hungry.”
That really made me think. This all sounded crazy to me, however, I did know the food situation, in part, because I was part of CDB Farms. I was pondering what it would be like to be facing these changes in the food supply and not know what the situation was. I couldn’t believe anybody would think that they’d starve at NLH or Peary.
Myra had been thinking along the same lines and said, “If we were that low on food, we’d just start evacuating people to Earth or NASA would send a rescue mission with food.”
“You mean like the Chinese are? The Earth took a hit from that storm. Not nearly as bad as some folks thought it would be, but they still took a hit. There’s places even in the United States where people are going to be spending the winter without electricity. It’s like that all over the world. We’re helping the Far Side station because China can’t. China’s attention is needed elsewhere. Same for the European Union. Same for the United States. With the LEO situation being what it is, I’m not even sure how much help NASA could give us right now if we really needed it.”
Sam was painting a far darker picture of the current situation than either Myra or I had thought. I guess it showed on our faces.
“You two probably don’t pay much attention to politics. Since the storm, there’s been a backlash against space activities. There’s always been a small group of people against space exploration. Since the storm, they’ve got more support now and it’s harder to get things done. It’s dumb, but it’s like they blame us for the storm, like we had anything to do with it. It’s not just US politics where you see this, it’s all over the world. Once the power grids and the mess in LEO is taken care of, things will get back to normal. Until then, we are better off counting on support from Earth as little as possible.”
Myra said, “So, is there going to be trouble here?”
“Maybe, people are worried and under a lot of stress. That fight that broke out would never have happened before the storm. Now, it’s kind of hard to take the threat of immediate deportation to Earth when we are out of touch with Earth for at least another couple of months, maybe longer. If it was just NLH, I wouldn’t worry that much. Peary has a younger crowd with all of the construction going on. If we have trouble, it’ll come from there and I bet you that’s where the posters are coming from.”
“I can see that, but how did the poster get on the walls here if it’s coming from the construction workers?” I asked.
“It’s not just the construction workers who are worried, Bryce. It could be anyone here, but if there’s actual trouble, it’ll probably come from the younger guys. I’m not saying there’s definitely going to be trouble. I’m just saying what I see worries me.”
Myra asked, “So is Demarco doing something about this?”
“He’s aware of the issue and his guys are keeping an eye out for trouble. There’s not much more they can do unless they catch somebody in the act. This will probably all blow over. We just need to avoid any more surprises like Far Side running out of food.”
I couldn’t let this go. “So do nothing is what you are saying? Sam, whoever this is, they’re using me. They are linking me with that… I’m not going to just sit here.”
My parents had been listening and intervened, “Son, “ my mom said, “remember what I said before about sticks and stones. Who ever is doing this isn’t really hurting you. Promise me you’ll let Demarco and his men handle this.”
I reluctantly promised my mom that. Maybe I wouldn’t try to find whoever was doing this, however, their little posters were another thing.
TIME TO MAKE A POINT
“Now’s the time. We’ve got the posters out. We’ve been talking and getting people interested. Now is the time to start organizing them. Get them to commit to us.”
Regina was talking to her team, especially to Anne and Joran who tended to hang back.
“Anne, that was a good idea about using that kid on the posters as an example of standing up for yourself. It shows that even a kid can make a difference. You just have to speak up.”
Anne pushed back with, “Yeah, but Regina, I’m not so sure that’s the best example. It sounded good when I first heard about it, but I learned later that he backed off on the Chinese. A lot of stuff people thought about him wasn’t true.”
“Doesn’t matter. Look, that all happened before most of us were up here. People seeing the posters won’t know the real story. We own the narrative now. That kid probably won’t even notice he’s being used.“
“Alright, even still, people have a lot of questions about what we intend to do. They’ve got questions about what the companies are going to do. The pay is really good here. They don’t want to sign up with us and then find they get sent back to Earth for being a trouble maker.”
“Ask them how they liked their last meal. Ask them how they liked that slop we were served for Thanksgiving. Point out that as easy as it was for the Administration to send our food away to the Chinese, it would be even easier for them to cut back on our pay. You need to convince them that we have to stand together. Make them understand that if Earth can’t send us food, neither can they ship people home. We’re not asking them to go on strike. All we’re asking them to do is to put their name on the list to show that they’d be open to joining us.”
Samuel was Regina’s best recruiter and joined in with, “Just ask them to sign the list. Tell them this is just the first step in getting us organized. They can still back out at any time. Tell them other people on their team have already signed up. Nobody wants to be first.”
The meeting broke up after that. Samuel lingered until everyone else was gone and then asked, “So what are we going to do about that food shipment? If we let it leave , it just shows we have no real power.”
Regina gave it a moment’s consideration and said, “We stick to the plan. We get everybody we can on the list and then form a worker’s council. We start protesting the shipment and take our demands to the Administration at NLH.”
“What if they don’t listen to us? What if they go ahead with the shipment? The Admin at NLH isn’t paying our salaries. Even if we were to call a strike, it doesn’t affect them directly. They may not give a hoot about whatever we want.”
“That’s why it’s always good to have a plan B.”
“Do we have a plan B?”
“The less you know, the better. Just trust me on this one.”
Samuel shrugged and said, “You’re the boss. Just make sure nothing blows up in our face.”
Regina watched as Samuel made his way out of the room. She checked her E-pad for the time and then hurried off herself. The work site cafeteria, she was heading for was only open during the day shift and she needed to be there well before they closed. Regina had scheduled another meeting with the two guys who had encouraged her to start all of this. They weren’t much for joining, but they provided her with support in other ways, like lots of good advice and some funding when she needed something special. She had also gotten the impression they weren’t opposed to getting their hands dirty when it was called for. She hoped she wasn’t mistaken about that because she needed a way to stop the food shipment if Admin didn’t listen.
It had occurred to Regina that her new friends might not be totally acting out of the goodness of their hearts. If she succeeded in organizing the work force, Regina would be someone to reckon with in the hierarchy at Peary and NLH. Favors granted now would mean favors owed later. Some of them, like the one she needed now, would mean big obligations later. She finally arrived at the cafeteria and grabbed a tray before loading up with an unappetizing vegetarian dish that was all they had left at this late hour in the day. She made her way over to where the two were sitting.
“Hey, Joe, hey, Doug. How’s it going today.”
Joe gestured to his plate with his fork and said, “We’re still stuck eating this crap. Do you have to ask?”
“Yeah, I hear the same thing where ever I go.”
“So how’s your plan for dealing with it going?”
“That’s why I asked to talk to you. I need some advice.”
Joe exchanged a troubled look with Doug before looking back at her with a frown and said, “ You’re having problems executing your plan? It’s not that hard.”
“No, no. Things are going fine with the plan. We’re getting people signed up and I have a team working on the demands we’ll present to the Administration. What I need is advice on what to do about a plan B in case the Administration goes ahead with that shipment of food. We can’t let them ship it, it would make us look powerless.”
Doug answered this time and said, “It’s smart of you to be thinking about a plan B. We’ve been thinking about the same thing and have an idea.”
“Great, what is it?”
“Best you don’t know the details. Let’s just say for now, that you have a plan B. Leave a message in the usual place to let us know if we need to implement it. We’ll need at least a day to get things in place.”
“I’d prefer no one gets hurt.”
“So would we, but you know what they say about making an omelet. Eggs are going to get broken. You can count on that. We’ll try to minimize the damage.”
Regina could pretend before that these meetings were all about like minded friends helping each other. With what she was asking and what Doug and Joe were offering to do, she knew she had crossed a line. Better to get it out in the open now so everyone knew where they stood.
“What’s this going to cost me?”
Doug looked at Regina for a minute and then said, “Let’s just say we have an agreement between us. We’re helping you now because we like the way you think. You’ll help us later when we need a favor or two.”
The food tasted even worse in her mouth when she took the next bite. She knew she’d just made a deal with the devil and was now on the hook to Joe and Doug, or more likely, to whoever was behind them. She really had no choice, though. That shipment had to be stopped.
