Chapter 7

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Mr. and Mrs. Gonzalez,

And there, Sonya Lee Nero got stuck. She supposed it was her responsibility to write death notifications. Sergeant Decker was dead, and Lieutenant Castle was on a different op. She was the one responsible at the end of the day. But she was still hung up on what to say. She hated the idea of writing form letters, saw no poetry in the stock phrases “died bravely in the line of duty” or “proudly served his country,” however true they were. Somehow she wanted to make each one unique, to let his folks know that Private Javier “Take-Out” Gonzalez had left some lasting impression on her memory. The only thing she could think of was that he’d fucked up and nearly got her ass shot off, and even she wasn't that much of an asshole to type that.

Someone slid a steaming Styrofoam cup across the table to her. The same hand tapped a finger onto the screen of the laptop computer and turned it away from her. Nero looked up to see a Marine still in his uniform greens seated on the corner of the table. He wore a lid with silver lieutenant bars on it, and the word “W. CASTLE” printed on it and over his breast pocket. He looked older than your standard ROTC jagoff, so he probably earned those bars the hard way.

“Aren’t you on downtime?” Castle asked. He seemed to be genuinely curious rather than hinting that she get lost.

“Yeah. Can’t sleep. My body chemistry’s all screwed up because of this glucose drip they put in me. Insulin, adrenalin, I don’t even know what. I crashed pretty bad a few minutes after the shooting stopped, but now they got me wired again. Thought I’d try writing—“ but she couldn’t seem to spit out the words “this letter” so she just gestured helplessly at the laptop.

“I’ll do it. You should try to relax anyway. You really do look like refried shit.”

“Thanks.”

“Hey,” Castle gave her a small smile as he sits across the table from her, “I mean it. You need to eat. Probably need some time to yourself. There’s a counselor in the administrative sector.” But he seemed to make that last offer as a joke, and Nero did indeed give it a laugh. She noted to herself that it’s been a while since she’d heard herself genuinely do that.

“Couldn’t do that! They’d send me away.” She pulled out the tie that held her hair back and ran her hands through it. She felt weary enough to sleep for a week, and yet she knew that all she would do if she laid down would be to stare at the ceiling. She gave out the frustrated moan of the restless dead. Lieutenant Castle watched her sidelong but didn't interrupt her thought process.

Nero picked up the cup of coffee. It was white, with a familiar green logo inked on opposite sides. It reminded her of the fast-food wrappers she’d cleaned off her bunk. “Where did this come from?”

“The galleria.” Castle said, as if it should be obvious. Then he seemed to realize that Nero really had been living under a rock for a while, or at least put in the freezer with her mail being held. “You’ve never been to Sisyphus. Most of the other Sis-stations on Callisto are automated, mainly atmosphere processors, but there are a few mining and refining stations. The colony stations like Sisyphus-1 were renovated with shopping areas, movies, discos, things like that. You should check it out.”

Nero wasn’t that surprised. A few outer colonies, particularly the ones with large worker populations had commercial sectors. But none of them were the kind of place with a food court where a casual shopper could get made-to-order cheeseburgers. The places Nero knew sold boxed or canned foodstuffs and pre-fab goods in bulk. Entertainment on her old edge of space consisted of whores, porno, cigarettes and liquor. Certainly nothing with a multiplex. Individual pay-booths, maybe, but no theatres.

It did sound like fun. She had money to burn; she’d been fed and clothed by the government for years, and all she’d ever done on her brief periods of shore leave was sleep and get high. Playing tourist sounded good right now, and once she was done she’d probably feel ready to sleep. Like a kid after a trip to her first amusement park. She thought she’d like some civvie clothes, a fresh burger, to sit down for a movie and pick up a really crummy novel. Although the more she thought about it, all she really wanted to do is get laid and forget—just for a little while—everything else but feeling good.

“You want me to send someone with you?” She must have looked a little agoraphobic right now. Maybe she was.

“No. I’ve always heard the best way to discover a new city is to get lost in it. Should be pretty easy.”