Seventeen Crimes

Four

"There is something more bothering you. I know it, Bae," Dylan said.

"I don't talk about my dad."

Brie watched Dylan shrugged, now on their knees on the bed, in the mirror.

"He abandoned you and your mom."

"He abandoned me and my mom...." Brie squirmed. "And he was one of the first colonists on Mars."

"Shut up. Shut your white assed mouth. Who is he?" Dylan asked.

"Stephan Hodges," Brie said.

Dylan's confusion clouded their face. "But your name isn't Hodges. Its Reyes."

Brie turned to her. "Because I took Reyes from a friend when my mom made it clear that she wasn't ever going to stop leeching off me. I didn't want to be associated with her, either, not professionally."

"That's hard," Dylan said. "Probably the right move."

They sat on the bed again, starting to remove their heels, lost in their own thoughts.

"You know, there's a lot swirling around where I work, about the possibility of the UN being more than just the United Nations, but also being an interstellar organization – and with good reason. Even if Mars never joins the Earth and submits to our ruling authority, there still needs to be a place for diplomacy and such."

"Why should they submit?" Brie asked.

"Why shouldn't they? They are from Earth," Dylan said.

"Do you know how many times the colony was ordered to vacate the planet in the first five years? How many times the colony ships were ordered to turn back?"

"No, not really," Dylan said, sliding out of their dress. "And it doesn't matter now, does it? They stayed. They are from Earth and they should have loyalty to their own kind."

"But they are not Earth?"

"Seriously, Brie. Aren't they human?" Dylan asked, folding their dress to hang.

"But they have had twenty years to develop and nurture their own culture. To say what you are suggesting doesn't make sense anymore."

Dylan's jaw remained tight.

"What are you suggesting, Brie? That they should be allowed to continue as they are?"

"Why not?" Brie asked. She shrugged. "Let them be by themselves and if people want to go, let them go."

"That's just it," Dylan said. They shrugged. "People aren't just going to be allowed to go anymore, not like they were then, when the colonization programs first sent their ships."

"What are you hearing?"

"Sponsorship," Dylan said, brushing their extensions from her face. "Right now, I am hearing rumors of the Martian colonists only allowing people to come to Mars on their ships and only if they have one or more sponsors in the colony."

"What about the Chinese Martian colonization program – what happened to that?" Brie asked.

"The ships arrived to Mars, safely. They didn't have any problems, certainly not to the level that plagued Martian Exploration. They even established a reasonably successful colony."

"But we don't hear about it."

"Because it's China. And they are ashamed that even they can't send a colony to Mars without it falling to the conversion effect."

Brie had so many questions jumbling up in her that she couldn't make them untangle themselves; it was the journalist in her, wanting to know everything.

Dylan circled around the bed, putting their finger in Brie's face, so close their nail dug into the tip of her nose.

"Mind you, what I have to say doesn't leave between you and me," Dylan said. "Mars' wrote off the colony after every single member converted to the Martian cult."

"What do you mean? Didn't they have access to China."

"Oh, yeah. The same way, I'm sure, that the Mars colony companies had access to their colonies on Mars – but one colony failed because of a system failure that killed every member of the colony. Remember that?"

"Vaguely," Brie said.

"It takes something like a half hour for a transmission to go one way – never mind unpacking the transmission, answering the questions and what have you. A day, thirty-six hours later you might have your results, maybe longer. The China discipline fell. First by one, then a second. Then twos and threes until the whole colony fell to the cult under that bitch. The colony is on the opposite side of Mars but they have completely defected and China... is... pissed."

"Pissed enough to do what, self-destruct the colony?" Brie asked.

"I don't know." Dylan shook their head for effect. "But this stays between us. No lover's pillow talk is going to make me confess the tea I've spilled."

"Oh, no, no." Brie placed her hand on Dylan's face, her fingers and thumb on the hollows of their cheeks and gave a light squeeze before pressing her lips to the delicate red lips. "But the question I have... why even say any of this to me?"

"If you are right," Dylan said, stepping back. "If you are right and the Stephan Hodges who fathered you is the same Stephan Hodges living in the colony known to us as Selah, Mars, then you would be on the short list."

"Short list?" Brie asked.

Dylan hesitated. "If you wanted, and you were on good talking terms with your father... which I doubt it, since you don't talk about him... you would qualify for a sponsorship and a seat on a rocket ship bound for Mars."

Brie didn't know it in that moment, but right there began the hardening of her partner's heart towards her, and the end of her relationship. 

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