Refuse

Published by SmartyPants Publishing, Inc, 2017.

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

Cover Design by Sloan J Designs

Body font: Constantia 11 pt.

REFUSE

First edition. October 1, 2017.

Copyright © 2017 Jennifer Roush.

ISBN: 978-1944677015

Written by Jennifer Roush.

Dedication

FIRST AND FOREMOST, this book is dedicated to my family, who will likely never read it because of the lesbian alien octopus sex starting on page 86 and especially page 218—go ahead and crack the spine of the book right there. But without my family, I would have less drive to produce. Their weird imaginations drive some of the strangest plot twists I’ve ever seen, and their love of story ties them together in ways they may never see.

A special dedication goes to my husband, who loses out on a lot of time with me because of writing. He misses me, and I miss him, but this thing under my skin drives me to the laptop sometimes, mindlessly but desperately, and it takes a secure and loving partner to understand that.

And to all the weirdos in all the writing groups who read and salivated over this manuscript (or just certain scenes)—thank you, too!

Acknowledgements

DESPITE OUR GENUINE, burning desires to the contrary, novels do not get written in a vacuum. Nor are they usually the product of just one person.

So many people helped get this book off the ground that I have a hard time naming them all. My family, of course, made the largest sacrifices. Dishes went undone, laundry unhung, books unread, conversations unspoken. I answered so many questions with hmm? that I think my family might really believe I can no longer speak.

Editors and authors of many different talents helped shape and polish this story. Sarah Jenson was a particular help, offering gentle, much-needed corrections and unlimited enthusiasm.

Mostly, though, I want to thank my mother, who passed on long before I could publish this. Her love of all things committed helped me view a prison as a paradise, and vice versa...

refuse

ref·use 1

rəˈfyo͞oz

verb

indicate or show that one is not willing to do something.

I refused to answer

REF·USE 2

ˈrefˌyo͞os

noun

matter thrown away or rejected as worthless; trash.

heaps of refuse

Chapter 1

THE BOX STRAPPED TO her hip vibrated hard enough to rattle her teeth. As if to apologize, it chimed a congratulatory jingle, full of synthesized trumpets.

She tapped its screen without looking at it. The itch of the straps nagged its way into her consciousness, and she scratched, careful not to dislodge any sensors or the thin tube that extruded out from the box and into her thigh.

Her motion roused a loud snort from Pierre, and in the miasma of his morning breath she smelled the first ketone traces of a cold. A minor rhinovirus, she corrected herself. Cold was not a word she could be caught saying aloud. Better to not even think it, or illness.

Or miscarriage.

Dread settled heavily on top of her uterus and clutched at it. Was it still alive? Of course it was; the monitor would have told her if she were compromised in any way—even if that warning came too late. Could it be starting now? Could it be strangling, suffocated by the viral infection she’d already now been exposed to? She nudged the oven-that-was-her-husband until he snorted again and started smacking his lips.

Get out.

He farted and snapped awake. What?

I said, ‘Get out.’ You’re sick.

He rubbed at his face and picked some sleep from his eye. What are you talking about? I feel fine.

She unhooked her own monitor and slid his out of its holster. Hers cooled her palm, whereas his nearly burned with the heat from his body. She held the devices side-by-side up to his face, careful not to tangle the wires or tubes. Look.

He snatched the monitors away from her and moved them forward and back until he apparently settled on a readable distance. He swore softly under his breath and tossed hers onto the mocha-colored blanket. His, he slipped under the covers and back into its holster like it were encased in filmwrap instead of indestructible plasteel.

It’s Week 12. He said it without any of the enthusiasm the monitor had offered her. In fact, he sounded hollow, defeated. A dangerous tone of voice, even here in the bedroom.

Yeah. And you’re sick. Get out of bed. Your pills are already in your slot; I heard them drop. And stay away from me for the next 24 hours until your antivirals kick in.

He gave her the Face: one only she ever saw, like he smelled something rotten. He gave her Stinkface whenever they were alone and he was displeased with her, which meant pretty much every morning for the past quarbit. My cold will not affect your pregnancy. You can have a cold and still carry a child. It’s the most natural thing in the world; women have done it for millennia.

She pulled her mouth into the sweetest smile she could muster, in case today was the day the government started surveilling their bedroom. Sweetie, this is the first day of Week 12, and I, she put some bass in her voice on that syllable, am not taking any chances with our unborn child. She cinched her smile tighter.  If you want, I’ll request a Deviation.

He sat up straight, his hand raising in a you win gesture. But it was short-lived. His gaze fluttered between each of her eyes as he analyzed his position. With deliberate slowness, he rearranged his face to echo her smile exactly. No, Dumpling, he responded in his most saccharine tones, that won’t be necessary.

Are you sure? You’re going downstairs now?

I’m going downstairs, Anty dearest.

And you’re staying down there. It wasn’t a question, but wasn’t exactly a demand. A demand would have been too loud; one of the monitors elsewhere in the house could pick something like that up. But he must have read the steel in her eyes well enough.

I’m staying down, he agreed. Not that it matters. But I’ll stay down because I’m supposed to be at work early. They still haven’t brought in any new counselors. We’ve lost three in the last week, and we’ve got an intake from Earth.

Earth? Antoinette shuddered. Then don’t even come home tonight. Earth is crawling with germs and bugs and—

He’s not from the street, Anty. He was a guest there, too. As he spoke, he grabbed a coverall from his stack. The rich brown was the same color as the blanket, the same color as Antoinette. Back when they were new, he would joke that he couldn’t see her in bed, that he had to feel for the wet spot to find her. That was when morning conversations included real smiles and laughter, not threats and fights and talk of the solar system’s rejects.

Tweaker? Half of the derelicts of Earth were Tweakers, caught up on a drug they didn’t even have here on Psyche, which was ironic, since the drug allegedly gave you enhanced mental powers. Psychic powers.

How awful would it be to have to hear the running monologues behind everyone’s government-imposed smiles? The Civic Smile covered a multitude of psychiatric sins, didn’t it? Or was it only she who gave herself pep-talks and speeches, who berated her wild mind when it wandered toward illegal subjects.

Did other people do that? Did their cheeks cramp from the endless smiling like hers did? Did they spend extra minutes in the privacy chamber not taking a shit—defecating, Anty—but rubbing the sore muscles in their faces?

No—Political. We’ve been preparing for him for diurns. He pulled the blanket up over his spot and smoothed it before sitting down and slipping his feet into brown boots. His movements were methodical, mechanical. Reliable.

But this was news. All thoughts of the potential contagion fled her mind. This was insider stuff. How do you ‘prepare’ a place like the Colony?

Well, we try to make him as comfortable as we can. We want him to feel safe so he can express his delusions and we can help him. So, we made a podium in the main square and taught some of the TBIs to go sit there. Apparently his conspiracy theories are popular among the guests. He’s riled up a few crowds on Earth—that’s why they’re sending him to us. We have tougher cases. It’s harder to rile ours.

Why?

He sealed his boots and his coveralls in a single gesture, then fished his monitor out through the special access sleeve to hook it onto his uniform. Oh, he said, and waved a hand around in the air. We just have calmer stock out here.

A lie.

Not that lying was unheard of in their relationship—no Assigned couple ever survived without a diet of careful, friendly lies, but they were usually surface lies, the smiles and the endearments and the compliments. Things designed to lubricate interactions and reinforce a loving, or at least civil, environment.

But this one was a whopper. His eyes shifted away from hers, and a new urgency overtook him.

Her skepticism must have showed.

He put that saccharine smile back on like a mask. I need to take my pills. Want me to bring you yours, hon?

She wadded the blanket over her breasts, dislodging his side of the bed in the process. No, dearest. You’re sick, remember? Then, with a sharper tone she knew he’d hear: Stay away from my pills.

He managed not to scowl at her, or at his spot she had just ruined, and instead bowed. He only got theatrical when he was tense. Happy and Healthy Twelfth Week to you, Wife. He turned to leave, took a step, and turned back.

Please don’t tell anyone we’re separated today. And remember to take your pills.

She smiled at him, what she hoped the government would consider a very warm, wife-like smile. And you don’t bring home any bugs from Earth, Husband.

She quieted the reminder buzzing against her hip, and by the time she looked up, he was gone.

Week Twelve.

It was supposed to be a celebration; if a pregnancy made it through the first 11 weeks, it was deemed genetically viable by the government and everything was supposed to be all right. Thus, the synthetic trumpet fanfare this morning.

But she had fallen for that line before. The first time she made it to Week Twelve, they’d thrown a celebration. Ordered special dispensation for luxuries like cake and two different flavors for drinks. She and Pierre had put on music and danced in their kitchen—a risky proposition if they hadn’t gotten advance permission for celebrating—and he had thrown back his head and laughed so hard his drink came up and out of his nose.

And the next morning, the shrill siren of dislodged sensor went off, only none of the sensors were dislodged. By the afternoon, cramps seized her belly, worse than her Lunars. Another siren, shriller, impossible to ignore, and one she didn’t hear often—Medical Emergency.

The doctors were at her door, whisking her away to the medical center, before she even realized what was happening.

She woke up in a room, on her back, dressed in paper with her legs up in stirrups. The cramps were gone, but so was that hard-ball sensation in her abdomen. At first she thought they took her uterus—weren’t they always taking uteruses and giving them to rich Earth couples to try for more babies? But the doctors smiled at her and petted her shoulders and told her she could try again next Lunar-and-a-half.

The second time she made it to Week Twelve, three miscarriages later, they didn’t celebrate. They went to bed early and held one another, careful not to mention anything related to babies or futures. Instead, they talked about work. Pierre talked about the administration at the Colony, always pushing him to be an example to the patients, and Antoinette had talked about the new boss and how she just wasn’t as good as the old one, who had left when he made enough money to take his family back to Earth. When the first, quieter, siren woke them up in the middle of the night, they dressed themselves and walked to the medical center on their own, tight smiles on their faces as they were expected to have. The Medical Emergency Siren sounded as the door closed behind them. The hospital staff praised them for foresight, their mental reserves, and their strength, and then vacuumed the corpse from her while she was awake, like it were just another bit of tissue in a faulty nest.

Now, today, she would not celebrate and would not anticipate grief, either. She would do what she was supposed to do without emotion, wouldn’t she?

She picked up each pill from her slot and rolled it between her fingers, looking at it from every angle before she placed it between her teeth and readied her cup of water.

Three ounces, her monitor reminded her, as it read the pill’s designation. She mentally marked which ounce she was on and tipped the cup back, swallowing five times. It made a dull thud on the countertop as she set it down and wiped her face.

Three ounces.

She looked down, but the monitor’s screen still showed the same message.

I drank three ounces, she told it. It wasn’t supposed to have voice-recognition, but it had always answered her. Always.

Dehydration detected. Three ounces, it answered.

She lifted the cup again and drained it. Five ounces. There, she told it.

Vitamin D.

It was the largest pill, bigger than the last joint of her pinkie finger. She had to swallow twice to get it to go down and stay down.

Lemme relieve myself first. She pocketed the pill and walked into the privacy chamber.

There weren’t a lot of mirrors on Psyche. Plenty of monitors—you could take your picture and look at it, or watch yourself smile in real-time. Monitors let the government look at you while you looked at yourself. Mirrors were simply vain luxury. But they couldn’t do away with them completely—people had a need to stare at themselves and evaluate their lives, whether the government liked it or not, and so each apartment now had one over the sink in the privacy chamber.

Antoinette stared at her reflection. The skin over her cheeks and on her forehead reflected the harsh white light, but the color itself was very brown. On Earth, it wouldn’t be such a big deal, but there were no other brown people on Psyche, not that she had ever seen. They’d been here for at least two orbits, which was almost ten annums. She poked her cheek to see if it would get any lighter, like Pierre’s did when she poked him, but it didn’t.

Maybe she wasn’t like the rest of them.

They all seemed to have it together—when the government had decided on a Positive Health policy, everyone had strapped on their Civic Smiles (now the only form of expression allowed, so as not to induce depression in anyone) and had gone about their business, as if it were easy. Yes, their eyes looked dead, but they didn’t look sad the way her own eyes did when she looked at them: black pools of sadness like tar, just waiting to suck all the happiness in and smother it.

The smile-mask didn’t come so easily to Antoinette. Hers was wider, faker than theirs. And damn it, she didn’t feel like smiling most of the time.

Hardly any of the time, anymore.

Especially not on the first day of Twelfth Week.

She checked the monitor, drawing the screen over to its menu and selecting Infant Heartbeat. In the small privacy chamber, the galloping sound of the baby’s heart filled it up. She’d done everything the government said, every time they asked her. She’d done more, even. And still, she’d never managed to keep this wild rhythm going.

Thumpety, thumpety, so much faster than her own pulse.

The monitor buzzed again, but she pushed the message away, just listening to the sound of life inside of her.

How long would it last this time? Until tonight? Tomorrow?

The monitor buzzed again, stronger this time, rattling her out of her reverie. Not a vitamin reminder, but an alarm.

Time for work.

She placed the Civic Smile on her face, even if it never really reached her eyes, and smoothed back her wild hair.

Yet another thing the others didn’t have to deal with, that she did.

It struck her, as she left the privacy chamber, that perhaps she wasn’t meant to be out here, the way the others were.

But in the safety of her own thoughts, she dismissed the idea. She had done everything the government asked her. Surely, if she wasn’t safe out here, or if she couldn’t produce, they wouldn’t allow her to stay. Hell, they didn’t allow her to even get three ounces dehydrated.

She did everything they asked her to do, but it just was never good enough.

She hadn’t quite wiped that look off her face before she turned from her apartment and caught the motion of neighbors across the street at C-52.

The smile-mask snapped back into place the same way a scalded hand would draw back from heat.

They hadn’t seen her, that much was clear. The man made abortive movements to walk around the woman and secure the door, while she danced from foot to foot, trying to get out of his way. She tossed her hair and her laugh tinkled sweetly across the thin atmosphere to stab at Antoinette’s eardrums.

Antoinette stood, rooted to the spot. Her hand was up, waiting for them to catch sight of her so she could do her neighborly duty and wave.

But the man had managed the door, and was now linking his arm with his wife’s to lead her down the street. A perfect little couple emerging from one of a double-row of perfect little apartment homes, all facing the street with happy little lights glowing from inside, or that smug darkness that high-class homes radiated when no one was home.

How did they manage it—the houses and the people inside—to be so happy? And here, she couldn’t even smile for real or manage her medications—her thought stopped cold, and the smile almost slid from her face.

The pill.

The vitamin D pill, as big as the last phalanx of her pinkie, was still in her pocket. She pulled her monitor off her suit and checked it, flying through screens. But there, right there, it said she took it.

But she hadn’t.

How could it think she did? She pulled it out of her pocket and held it up to the device, turning toward the house again to collect her water, but the monitor buzzed at her like an angry mother.

Negative. Overdose anticipated.

Overdose? She put the monitor back on its cradle. It would know, right? Wasn’t it constantly sampling her blood and checking all her levels? Maybe I should take it anyway.

She lifted the pill to her mouth, but the monitor buzzed at her again, reaching hostile-wasp levels.

Contraindicated.

Shit. What was she supposed to do? This didn’t happen to the couple in C-52. They were halfway out of the neighborhood now, holding each other’s arms and still laughing. And if she didn’t decide what to do soon, she’d be late for work; the sun was already crossing One Third Mark.

She looked both ways up and down the street, then pressed her hand to her side. Pretending to take in a long drink of bracing morning air, she took two steps and let her fingertips part.

The pill fell into the pseudograss without a sound. The monitor lay quiescent on her hip, and Antoinette shook