Al Steiner: Greenies

"Her luck has held this long," Lisa said. "Hopefully it'll hold through today as well."

"Fuckin' aye," Horishito said, looking at his PC to get the time. It was 1130. "Boarding for the train has already started. She'll probably wrap this shit up in another minute or two."

Laura Whiting was, in fact, planning to wrap this shit up even as they spoke. She had shaken hundreds of hands, talked to hundreds of people, been hugged and mobbed and even kissed a few times. She was weary and knew it was time to get on the train and hopefully catch an hour or so of sleep on the trip to Proctor. She had actually opened her mouth to tell the crowd that she was sorry for not talking to all of them but she had to go. And then she spotted the woman in the handshake line. She was a dirty blonde, her hair unwashed, her eyes bloodshot, her nose with the scattering of burst capillaries that denoted a chronic alcoholic. Laura did notice the flitting of the eyes, the wringing of the hands, the nervous, determined look on her face. She also noticed the slight bulge in the woman's right pocket — a bulge that could have been a make-up case or a PC or a marijuana case. Laura suspected, however, that it was neither of these things. She suspected it was a gun. She decided to stay a bit longer, smiling at the next person in line, receiving his thanks and his gratitude graciously, just as she'd received everyone else's.

The woman moved closer, person-by-person, her eyes locked looking everywhere but at Laura's face, her posture becoming more and more tense. Finally she was the next in line. Laura talked to the person in front of her, accepted a kiss on the cheek, and then wished him a good day. She told him to vote for independence. He promised her that he would. The man stepped to the side, allowing the woman to step forward. Her eyes were now locked onto Laura's face, a mask of hatred plainly showing now. Her hand dropped into her right pocket.

Laura smiled at her. "You're doing your planet a great service," she said. "And you don't even realize it."

The woman actually paused, confusion furrowing her brow as she tried to digest these words. Laura actually feared for a second that she wasn't going to go through with it. But then the hatred came back. The woman opened her mouth. "I got your fuckin' revolution right here, you cunt!" she yelled. The hand came out of her pocket. There was a gun in it.

The gunshots were shockingly loud on the crowded platform. Belinda had time to fire three times before the shocked bystanders surrounding her tackled her to the ground and stomped on her wrist, forcing the gun from her hand. All three of the hyper-velocity, hollow-point bullets struck Laura Whiting in her unprotected torso. They tore through her flesh, one ripping a hole in her ascending aorta, one destroying her left lung, the last exploding her liver and her hepatic artery. She staggered two steps backward and collapsed, the smile still on her face.

"Motherfucker!" Lisa Wong screamed, her own gun instantly in her hand. She rushed forward, pushing members of the crowd aside until she was kneeling next to the fallen governor.

Laura Whiting's eyes were still open. She was still aware. She looked at those around her and then, loudly and plainly, she said: "Keep Mars free, people. Keep Mars free."

She took a few more ragged breaths and then she faded. By the time the first dip-hoes got there four minutes later, she was dead.

No less than a dozen people heard her final words. Every one of these people reported these words to the MarsGroup reporters who wanted to know every last detail from every last witness. These words were broadcast across the shocked and mourning planet in every possible medium. They appeared on MarsGroup news sites, were told by weeping anchors during news shows, were repeated person to person.

"'Keep Mars free, people, '" General Jackson quoted as he cried for his friend during a press conference just twelve hours after her death. "'Keep Mars free.' With her very last breath in this life, she spoke those words plainly and for all to hear. That was her dying wish, her dying decree to the people of this planet. I don't think I have to tell anyone what she meant by that."

But Jack Strough thought that he needed to tell everyone what she meant. "It seems obvious to me," he opined — with a straight face no less — "that our revered governor, a woman we all respected deeply and loved passionately, in her dying moment, realized that a negotiated peace is the only way we can truly keep Mars free. That is the only explanation for why she uttered those dying words. One seriously doubts that a woman dying of multiple internal hemorrhages would have wasted the last of her energy telling us to 'Free Mars, people... ' if it did not indicate a sudden and perhaps divinely inspired reversal of her previously stated position on the matter — a position that she was, in fact, out campaigning for at the time of her death."

Jackson, sitting alone in his office, full of grief, in the preliminary stages of trying to plan a state funeral for the fallen governor, went into a near-murderous rage when he heard Strough's words broadcast over MarsGroup. Of all the sleazy, slimy, self-interested things Strough had pulled in the past, this was undoubtedly the sleaziest, the slimiest, the most horribly self-interested. He was actually trying to pervert Laura's dying words — that profound and heartfelt declaration — and make it seem she meant the exact opposite of what anyone with common sense would know she really meant.

Would the working class Martians believe Strough? Probably not, at least not in their hearts. But would they pretend to believe him? Would a sizable portion perhaps convince themselves in their own minds, out of a subconscious self-interest of their own, that Strough was right? Jackson thought that just might be the case. He needed to counter Strough in some way, to let the population know, in no uncertain terms, that Laura Whiting had died in stern, immovable disapproval of Strough's reconciliation goals. He needed to give a speech. He had only two days before her funeral but he needed to come up with something moving, something inspirational, something that would keep public opinion and the upcoming vote clearly on the side of righteousness. He needed to convince the Martians that Laura Whiting wanted them, needed them to be free and that to do anything less would stain her memory and lay waste to all she had accomplished for the planet.

He spent more than two hours trying to compose such a speech. He kept starting and then ultimately rejecting his efforts. He was either coming across too strong or too weak, either overstating his case or understating it. He could not seem to find the proper middle ground to occupy.

"Damn," he said, as hour number three rolled around. This was frustrating. He was a decent enough speechwriter — he generally wrote all of his own speeches — but for something of this magnitude, when the course of an entire people lay in the balance, he needed someone a little better at carving with words. He needed someone like... well... someone like Laura Whiting. Unfortunately, Laura really had no equal.

He computer terminal suddenly chimed, indicating an email had just arrived. As a public figure and the commanding general of an entire planet's armed forces, Jackson received hundreds, sometimes thousands of emails every day. He had two staff members who did little else besides sorting through this influx. Very few people, however, had his private email address, the one that delivered directly to his computer terminal in his office or to his PC. He called up the email program, mostly to give his mind something else to think about for a few minutes. He figured the email was probably from Zoloft or one of his other generals inquiring about the funeral plans he was supposed to be working on.