It's My Party

They were also giving Tom and Carla a bit of privacy, something Tom did not fail to notice. He smiled at Carla and said, "You operate a very close knit team. A few subtle hand gestures and they discreetly give you the opportunity to pump some information out of me."

Carla grinned back at him as she realized Tom was not offended by the maneuver. "Well, not subtle enough if you picked out my hand signs. But I would like to ask you a few questions. Do you mind?"

"Oh no, not at all. That's partly the reason Jada sent me."

Carla nodded and felt herself relaxing. Tom was being so honest with her. It reminded Carla of Jada, and how much trust Jada offered her. Carla stretched her tired legs and took a moment to reflect on the forest below. "Wobanakik is a very pretty world, if you don't have to fear it."

Tom nodded and joined her enjoying the view. "The surface of the planet is beautiful too. You should see the satellite images."

Carla scrunched up her nose. "You have satellite images?"

"Better than that. Jada's husband Mark has partial control of an orbiting telescope."

"My gosh. How did you people swing that?"

Tom sighed. "It's a long story. Much of it isn't even my own. Parties #1 and #5 fought a war…"

Carla nodded slowly. "I remember you and… Mindy?"

"Mandy."

"Right. You and Mandy were from Party #5, and Jada was from Party #1 and she is in charge. Did Party #5 lose the war? Were you a prisoner?"

Tom shrugged. "It wasn't that black and white. Fortunately I never had to fight myself. Another guy named Charles and I surrendered to Party #1. They gave us an opportunity and told us they would forgive us and we accepted. My fraternity… We enslaved the women who were with us. Many of them were raped. We had a lot to be forgiven for."

"My gosh…" Carla squirmed uncomfortably on her rock.

Tom saw a question in Carla's eyes and added without thinking, "No, thank God I didn't rape anybody."

Carla blinked. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get that personal…" Carla felt momentarily confused. She was unsure whether she asked the question or not. She had no clear memory of speaking, but somehow she felt she had asked Tom if he had forced himself on a girl. And his answer! She was looking into his eyes as he spoke, and it was as if she saw straight into his heart for the truthfulness of his reply. That was so strange. It was as if there was no place to hide a lie in what he had just said, no place at all.

Carla shrugged off the strange feeling for future analysis and got back to what she wanted to ask. "Tom? One burning question, is getting back to Earth possible?"

He shook his head sadly. "I'll tell your group everything this evening, all the details. But no, there's no hope, none at all."

"That was my intuition too, but why are you so sure?"

Tom's jaw twitched and he whispered, "Sunday December 23, around 6 AM Eastern time, two days after we got here, Earth's sun had a collision with a neutron star."

"What?!" Carla had half shouted and she noticed four sets of eyes from her team turn to her. She gave a brief hand gesture that everything was okay and they uneasily went back to their break. Carla sat like stone for a moment and then whispered, "But everything is not okay…" Her eyes were filled with tears and she began to cry. Tom came over and put his arm around her shoulders, hugging her as she softly wept. Her other teammates looked at them in confusion but did not interfere.

Time: Saturday, March 2, 2019 3:55 PM

Paige and Allison were working a monitor shift at the Hilton Complex and were grinning at each other as they watched their screens. Akiko and Lynn had just announced that they had activated a new Leophone. New kayaks and supplies were already positioned at the bottom of the great stairwell. Tomorrow's rescue mission into the underworld looked like a go!

Paige turned back to her monitor screen and her smile slowly fell from her face. Alfonso and Jessica had been guarding Jacob's Bar and Grill. On a typical day, Paige would have guessed the two lovers still had four more hours to go on their twelve hour shift before being relieved by Jenaro and Hernando. The schedule had become routine. Paige would see Diego only briefly in the Mall, perhaps a few times a week, and Ricardo almost never. The other two pairs would rotate shifts at 8 AM and 8 PM.

Paige's face twitched as she remembered a scene from an hour ago. She had watched something with Allison and then called Fatima and received permission to delete a video, something they would normally archive. Alfonso had copulated with Jessica while they were on guard duty.

It was somewhat embarrassing to watch and also hard not to watch. The actions of the two spoke volumes about what kind of emotional pressure they were under. The two had been orbiting the store and making quick peeks with small mirrors down the mall corridor, just as Ricardo had trained them to do. And then after one series of observations that showed them the usual dull corridor, seemingly be chance Jessica was standing both directly in front of Alfonso and directly away from him. She simply put down her mirror and lifted the back of her skirt, exposing the flanks of her naked skinny rump.

That's all it took. Her longtime lover pushed her G-string aside and then unzipped his pants. Jessica bent forward slightly, legs apart… She jumped a bit when Alfonso entered her, but she seemed to like her fucking once he got started. But her eyes! They never left the freezer which was the back wall entrance into their home complex. And her face… Paige couldn't get the phrase "terrified rabbit" out of her mind.

Here was a woman who had tortured Paige, the one who had driven her to exhaustion when Paige was assigned "pussy-on-the-hoof" duty. Jessica had also laughed when she explored Paige's rectum for nonexistent contraband, and yet, Paige found herself feeling nothing but pity for Jessica's plight. Even her lover's orgasm inside her brought her no peace, just a quick jump for some tissues while Alfonso zipped his pants.

And now Jessica was looking terrified that her master had somehow discovered her fornication. Hernando and Jenaro had just entered the store, followed by Diego and then almost shockingly by Ricardo. To her knowledge, all six remaining people at Black Mall hadn't been down in the Mall together since the day Ricardo killed Uno and had the others drag his body into the Mall for disposal. As Paige stared and made sure they were recording, Allison connected Fatima and told her what was going on.

It was a particularly fortuitous day that Ricardo had picked to have his entire team down in the Mall. In preparation for their new missions, the Society had no away-missions out on assignment today. Kiyoko and Cassidy who were currently sleeping in preparation for their night shift duty, but for everyone else, within a few minutes they were all watching the unfolding events at various library stations.

"Do you notice all five men are armed?" Fatima's voice said over the network to no one in particular.

"All five men have guns…" Charles replied with a tone of mild correction.

"Uh, Charles, what's the difference?" asked Hannah.

"We can't see if the guns are loaded. It would be just like Ricardo to set something up like this, where nobody knows who is really armed and who isn't."

"Ah, got it. Thanks."

"Yeah, no problem Hannah… My guess would be nobody except Ricardo is really armed… Hey everybody, look at this! They're all coming out of the store!"

"Emily! Where are you?" It was Fatima's voice over the network. "Your team has a Leophone right now, correct?"

"Yes Fatima. Ann has it, and we're both here in the Red Mall Library."

"Excellent. Emily, take the Leophone and bike to the trapdoor at Esau's as quickly as you can. Don't do anything there. Just get in position and report back."

"I'm on my way. Fifteen minutes…" The last part of her comment was faded as Emily raced from the Library with Ann in close pursuit.

Paige wondered why Fatima would ask such a thing. Kiyoko had reset Black Mall's lounge elevator to a new code during Mark's rescue. Anyone in their society could now go there from any active elevator.

Ricardo's people were acting very strangely. They all stood in the Mall corridor just outside Jacob's Bar and Grill. They just stood there, talking to each other and pulling out notebooks. Then they stood in front of the store opposite Jacob's and began taking notes."

"What the hell are they doing?" Holly asked after a while over the network.

"They seem to be taking inventory," Toshi answered. "That's my guess."

"But why take an inventory from outside the store?" It was Fatima's voice. "Toshi, where are you?"

"Hi Fatima. I'm sitting with Holly in the telecom lab. We're getting a very good view of this. Akiko and Lynn are with us too."

They watched their monitors in silence. After about two minutes, the group of six moved to the next store on the outside arc, coming up the spiral in the direction of the hub. Again the five underlings appeared to be taking notes while Ricardo looked on. He idly took a few practice swings in the air. Jessica flinched as the cane came near her ear, but she didn't stop writing.

"Fatima," Toshi call out. "I agree. It doesn't make sense to do an inventory like this. Could they be making drawings of the floor plans? Or…"

"Or what?"

"It's a trap!" came Amber's voice in a shout. "I think they're baiting us!"

Fatima's mind flashed back to the day Uno died. As Ricardo and his remaining people dragged Uno's body in the mall, it occurred to several people that someone could take the elevator to the Black Mall lounge and go down and lock the door leading into Jacob's. But when they attempted the transfer, their origination elevator signaled its destination was in use. The obvious implication was that Ricardo had opened the elevator carriage at his home lounge and then blocked the door from closing.

Should Fatima order a new attempt now? She sat back in a comfortable chair in her home library at Yellow Mall and considered. If they did the test from an active elevator, it had better be Kiyoko doing the jump, because the transfer would activate Black Mall's elevator, and Fatima had to assume Ricardo knew the access codes to the other lounge locations. Only Kiyoko could deactivate Black Mall's elevator again.

"Opinions anyone?" Fatima asked over the network. "Should we attempt to lock Ricardo from the surface?"

"If you want to try it," said Lynn, "I volunteer. Akiko is nodding she's willing too. We have a few extra Black Mall mushrooms here, and we can use the new Leophone. Can someone wake Kiyoko up and have her jump here and join us?"

"Wait a minute people!" Amber said in an excited voice. "Think! This is probably exactly what Ricardo is expecting us to do!"

"But Amber," Paige replied, "we can monitor their presence. We can see everybody in their party. Look, they're moving down to another store now. And the further they move from Jacob's, the safer this is for us."

Fatima asked a question. "Amber, are you worried about booby-traps?"

"Sure, trip wires, chemical explosives, poisons, something anyway. Ricardo knows the risk he's running. I'm telling you Fatima, I wouldn't even nibble at his bait. Even if we test with the trapdoor, we might set off an explosive. That would tell him we could see his party down in the Mall. Why not leave him guessing about that?"

Fatima could find no flaw in Amber's argument. Over the next hour, they watched Ricardo march his team over two hundred meters from Jacob's before Ricardo had them all turn around and return home. Soon there was just Alfonso and Jessica in the Bar again and it was as if the entire excursion had never happened.

Allison was sitting by Fatima's side. "Well, that was interesting. Want me to tell Emily to head home?"

Fatima nodded. A few minutes later Emily and Ann were traveling a half kilometer to the trapdoor that led to the White Mall lounge. It was their quickest way home.

"What do you think Allison," Fatima asked. "How is this situation going to evolve?"

"Well, if I were Ricardo, eventually I'd see surface exploration as the only way out of my box. He could lock two people down in the Mall semi-permanently, just to prevent us from snapping a lock on Jacob's. And he'd have to leave somebody upstairs in the home complex, just to let him back in when he returns. That's probably the one problem he doesn't have an answer for, the one thing that keeps him from roaming."

Fatima nodded. "That's my analysis too. The only thing preventing him from exploring the surface is how to force the people in the home complex to let him back in."

"He needs some kind of doomsday device."

"Huh? I'm not familiar with the phrase."

"Oh, you know Fatima, a doomsday device, like I infect you with a deadly disease, and I'll give you the antidote after you let me back in."

"Oh hell. Well, fortunately I never saw any of the stores in the Mall selling plagues."

Ann shrugged. "I'll tell you one thing. Amber is really worried about Ricardo, afraid he'll figure some way out of this." There didn't seem to be anything left to say. After a moment Ann patted Fatima shoulder and got up to help with dinner.

Meanwhile, in the northwest foothills of Wobanakik…

Carla offered Tom her hand and helped pull him up a steep ledge. A few minutes later he had a chance to return the favor. "Thanks," Carla said as she smiled at him.

Tom smiled back and then glanced at his watch before continuing the hike with her.

Carla squinted at the linear sun. "What time do you have?"

"5:10."

"Huh?! Oh, wait a minute. You people are on a different time, right?"

"Yep. I picked up this watch a while ago in the mall I was telling you about. It jumps over the time from 11:59:07 PM to midnight. It's the right watch for down here too."

Carla nodded. "Because otherwise solar noon drifts backwards. We've noticed that." They walked together for a while. Tom almost lost his footing once and Carla caught him in a friendly embrace. "Careful."

"Yikes. I'm usually not this clumsy."

Carla grinned and gave his arm a brief pat before letting go. "Oh, it's not you. It's the light. This time of day, it gets very bright here in the western foothills. The sun is so close and it's so diffuse! I never realized how useful shadows are in bright light. It's the one thing I hate about Wobanakik, the lack of crisp shadows."

Tom nodded as he shielded his eyes against the bright rocks. "Yeah. Everything looks washed out now. It reminds me of skiing moguls on cloudy days near dusk. You know the moguls are there, but you just can't see them."

"Tom, can I ask you a personal question?"

"Sure."

"How hard was it for you to cope with the end of Earth?"

"Ah… It wasn't easy. I had to rearrange everything." He took another few steps. "There's missing everybody who was important to you. That's hard. And then there's stamping cancelled on all your expectations. There's new stuff to hope for, that helps of course, but you have to say goodbye to all the things you were hoping for in your old life… Carla? You were a U.S. Marine, right?"

"How did you know that?"

Tom blinked. Jada had seen much in her brief mind-link with Carla, and she had shared her information by linking with Tom a few seconds later. Tom hated the thought of misleading anyone, but he also agreed with Jada that the trail was not the place to talk about mind links, so he said simply, "I learned it from Jada."

"You did, huh? I guess maybe Abit and Oona told her. A bit surprising, but I never asked them not to."

Tom persisted. "Being a U.S. Marine, what was it like?"

"It was a tremendous amount of hard work, physical and mental. You wouldn't believe the volume of material I had to memorize just to complete boot camp. Why do you ask?"

"No particular reason… Actually, I was sort of curious, with your background, why aren't you in charge?"

"Ah… Well, you answered my personal question. I guess I should answer yours. My first couple of days here, I was kind of out of it. It took me longer to recover from the mind drug than most of the other women. It really was a shocking loss of morality. And by the time I could think clearly again, Patrick was in charge and he was doing a good job. I didn't have any particular desire to overthrow him."

Carla walked for a while in silence and then added, "I'll tell you the whole story. It was late morning on Christmas Eve. We were about two hours into our first big excursion into the forest. Suddenly people started screaming and running. There was a monstrous tiger-looking thing charging us and everybody else except Patrick was running away."

She paused for a second to step over a wobbly rock. "But Marines are trained to run TOWARDS the battle, not away from it. I ran towards Patrick without thinking. It was almost an automatic reflex. I picked up a rock along the way."

Carla gave a big sigh. "So fast! The cat got to Patrick first. It tore half his neck open in an instant, not from a bite. It used its forepaws and claws, incredible power. Patrick wasn't decapitated but not far from it. The cat turned to me and growled. I froze. All I had was a rock in my hand, standing about twenty meters away." Carla shivered.

Tom said very gently, "Since you're still alive and telling me this story, I deduce you did not throw the rock."

Carla shook her head. "I backed off. Patrick was my comrade in arms, and I let the cat take his body."

"Carla…"

"Oh, I know. I've talked about this with Abit and Oona. I'm a hero to them for doing as much as I did. But I'll tell you Tom, backing off, it felt like a really shitty decision. And meanwhile Sandra took charge and got everyone back together into one group. Afterwards a number of people wanted Sandra to lead. I had no objections. She's a very calm person, and I mean that in a good way. Sandra thinks very clearly under stress. I had no objections to letting her lead."

Carla took a graceful leap up a large step and turned to help her new friend. She then got back to her story. "After a few weeks our group developed some emotional problems. People were depressed and frustrated. Derrick offered to make me second-in-command the day before he took power. It's a lot of responsibility being on top and having people's lives under you, and I thought Derrick had the right vision for finding a way out of here. It was a huge mistake. I should have listened to the Indians."

Tom gestured with a questioning expression to the women ahead of them.

Carla smiled and shook her head no. "I meant Abit and Oona. We call these other women Hindu, just to avoid the confusion."

"Ah, makes sense."

"Yeah."

They walked another few steps. "I'm proud to be a Marine," said Carla quietly. "I will always be a Marine, even if I'm the only Marine."

"Did you want to make a career of it?"

"I was undecided. When I was overseas, my assignment was in ground electronic warfare. That was pretty interesting. I was expecting to graduate this spring. I was leaning towards police work, becoming a State Trooper if I could, but I also had the option of becoming a mustanger."

Tom smiled. "A what?"

"My C.O. was very interested in getting me to re-enlist. He said he'd offer me OCS on the spot, the moment I got my bachelors."

"I know C.O. means commanding officer, but OCS?"

"Oh yeah, sorry for all the jargon. Officer Candidate School. That's what a mustanger is, an officer who comes up through the enlisted ranks." Carla sighed. "You're right Tom. All the dreams, there's so much that has to get stamped cancelled."