Absinthe Moon

Prologue

Mayhew, without much delay, soon found himself next but one in line. His confidence was resolute—or so he had thought until this moment. The gentleman before him, it seemed, had received some disappointing news.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Jones," the receptionist said in a silken voice that betrayed just how accustomed she was to making such pronouncements. "I'm afraid you no longer qualify for the Moon's services."

"It can't be right!" he objected. "My results were acceptable last week. It's true I've felt a little under the weather, but it was nothing but a passing cold! If I were to rest for a few days, I could come back next week and—"

"Yes, you do that, Mr. Jones," she said in a sympathetic manner that was kind yet firm. "Come back when you think your condition has improved."

He nodded dejectedly, for they both knew the truth. Despite the promises made by the Icarus Project that everyone had a fair and equal chance of reaching the heights of the city's social stratum, once one's screenings disqualified a person from certain benefits, they were not likely to get those benefits back. To gain rank for good work while maintaining one's health and physical condition was one thing, but to regain rank after a decline was quite another.

The receptionist signaled the Praefectors, who stepped forward to assist the man out. He moved back to avoid them and bumped into Mayhew. The man looked up at him in something like awe. The Praefectors seized him, and seeing that it was pointless to argue or resist any further, he submitted to them. It would not end there, Mayhew knew. Poor screening results resulted likewise in demotion in all aspects of life; in employment, in living conditions, in the quality and quantity of the rations supplied—both to that person and to those who depended on him.

Mayhew watched as the man was led out of the building, but he was not unmoved by the scene. Inwardly he was panicking. That might be him, today, tomorrow, in a month or a year. Perhaps it wouldn't be his screening results that would prove his expulsion, but something else entirely. He was not without his flaws, after all, and some of them—one of them in particular—would prove devastating were it discovered.

"May I help you, Mr. ..."

It was the silken-voiced receptionist, calling his attention back to the task at hand.

He flinched a nervous smile. "Mayhew," he said. "Robert Mayhew."

"Welcome, Mr. Mayhew. If you would be so good as to grant me a sample...." She had the needle already in hand. A prick of the finger was all that was required, and so he offered his right index. He was pricked and the blood collected onto a small glass plate and then covered with another. These were placed into a wire frame and inserted into a slot on the desk panel. Then they waited as the clicks and whirs indicated the machine was hard at work examining his blood for toxicity levels and matching it to the information previously collected by the Bloodmen and entered into the databases that the Icarus Project collected and closely monitored. At last the computer finished its work.

The receptionist examined the results and then cast a curious look upon him. "This can't be your first visit to the Absinthe Moon," she said. "You've qualified these last two years."

"It is my first time," he assured her, but the information was superfluous. She had it there before her, after all, flickering on the computer's screen.

"You might have come," she said, looking at him as if she did not quite understand, "and yet you didn't."

"I've been busy," he said.

"Busy?"

Rather than answering, he glanced pointedly toward her computer screen, inviting her to take another look.