Planet Redemption: Episode One - 3. A Day with Ruiz

It was in the mid hours of the morning when Cecilia Ruiz stepped through the front door. Her shoulders and back ached. This was the third double shift at the process plant that she'd worked this week. She turned on the light and wasn't surprised to find Duke curled up on the couch. He was rolled over on his side so that his back was facing her. He was so tall that his legs dangled over the arms of the couch.

Cecilia couldn't remember the last time he'd slept in his room. Weeks, maybe even months. It was around the time he'd started to wake up, screaming and sobbing tears. She'd never seen him cry before, not even when their parents died. It was she that had cried; it was she that had always been the emotional one. Which was why at first it had scared the shit out of her. What could be going on in Duke's head that would get him sobbing and screaming in terror? But she knew better than to ask. When she asked he ignored her. He didn't tell her to stop asking or fuck off, he just pretended as if she hadn't asked.

She peeled off her parka and hung it on the coat rack beside the door. She scraped her boots off on the blue doormat and went into the kitchen area, doing her best not to make too much noise. She went about making tea, getting out the tea kettle and filling it with water. Though she was sore she wasn't quite ready to go to bed just yet. Not for another couple of hours. I just might take the day off tomorrow while I'm at it, she thought. Call in sick. I think I've earned myself a day off. She would have to see how she was feeling when she woke up. As she sat down at the kitchen table with a steaming mug of tea, Duke got off the couch.

"Hey sis." He blinked at her sleepily, leaning against the doorway.

"Hey."

"When did you get home?"

"Just a few minutes ago."

"There any tea left?"

"Help yourself."

She watched Duke go over to the cabinet and grab a mug. He filled the mug about three-fourths of the way full and then grabbed the bottle of Vodka from the top of the fridge and splashed some on top of his tea. That was new too. Before Duke had never touched so much as a beer.

What the fuck is wrong with you? she asked him silently. Why won't you quit being a spazoid and just tell me?

He sat down in the chair across from her, yawned, took a sip from his tea. "You've been working a lot lately. You haven't been home at all for the last few days."

"Just trying to make some extra cash."

"Why? What are you going to spend it on?"

She looked away, realizing what a hypocrite she was. She had secrets of her own. She decided to go ahead and tell him even though she knew he wouldn't like it. "I want to move to a different colony."

For some reason she expected him to scream and cuss at her, but he didn't. He may have been big and brawny like their father, but he had their mother's quiet personality. She'd never screamed even when she was angry. Cecilia remembered all their mother had to do was say ‘I'm disappointed in you’ and Cecilia would start crying.

"Why?" he said after a long, slow moment.

"I've lived here my whole life. We both have. Shit, I can't leave this cold ass planet so why not at least go to a different colony? A bigger one that has more things to do. Colony 10 has a casino and a theatre and shops. More people. More everything. Out of all the colonies we've always been the shittiest one."

Duke opened his mouth to say something but then shut it.

She snorted. "What? No words of wisdom?"

"It wouldn't do any good. Once you get something in your head there's no stopping you. Stubbornness runs in the family." He finished the rest of his tea in one gulp, got up, took his mug over to the sink and sat back down. He was staring off into space.

"How was your day?" she asked. She didn't like when he stared into space like that. It gave her the creeps.

"You didn't hear did you?"

"No. Hear what?"

"The transport came by today."

She felt her jaw drop. The last time a transport had come to the planet she'd been just lucky enough to have it happen in her lifetime. It had been a big deal, bigger than any holiday. Everyone had gathered in the middle of town and watched it drop out of the sky. She had been a little girl, no more than several years old. She remembered sitting on her father's shoulders and watching in fascination along with the rest of the town as the scientists dropped off the prisoners in their CryoSleep chambers. How alien they had looked in their white uniforms and their breathing masks. She remembered marveling at them, wondering what their planet was like, and feeling sad at the fact that she would never get to see it. How was she just hearing about this now?

"Diana didn't make an announcement!"

"She didn't know."

"How could she not know?"

"Apparently she wasn't notified."

"How many prisoners did they bring?"

"Just one."

"Are you fucking with me?"

He shook his head, face deadpan.

"Who is it?"

"All I know is that his name is Danni and he's young. Probably a few years younger than you. They usually don't send someone his age here." The only children on the penal planet were the children of those who had been transporter here from Earth. The people assumed that if one egg was bad then so were the rest.

"What do you think he did?"

"I don't know. It's none of my business. But whatever he did it must have been really bad for them to drop him off like this." He stood up for a second time, pushed his chair back in. "Anyway, I have to get up in the next few hours and give him a tour around town." He came around the table and hugged her and then went back into the living room. Not a minute later he started to snore again.

Someone was knocking on Danni's door.

He sat up and tried to orient himself. He looked around, trying to process the fact that he was no longer at the facility. I'm not on planet Earth anymore. I'm in a new century, on a new planet. A penal planet to be exact. My father condemned me here. Now I'm a prisoner too. He threw the covers off and crawled out of bed.

His hair stood up in a mess of blond curls. He wore nothing but a pair of white briefs. He wondered who it could be that was knocking on his door. He opened it enough that he could peek around the corner. It was one of the policemen that Diana had introduced to him yesterday. Not Mike to his relief, but Duke. Standing in the hallway he'd forgotten how tall Ruiz was - how tall and broad both men were. But unlike Mike, Danni did not sense the same predatory presence with Ruiz.

Ruiz smiled. "Good morning. I'm here to give you a tour of the colony."

"Right," Danni said; his mind was working slowly this morning. "Give me a second to get dressed and I'll be out there to join you."

He closed the door and leaned against it. He felt slightly nauseous. Reality was starting to kick in. He was trapped on this cold icy planet and there was no way off it. This was his new prison. He thought of his "father", of Alexander Aamodt, and felt a hate that he'd never felt before. I don't deserve this, Danni thought. Alexander was probably busy at work already, making another Danni, a better Danni, in reality a better Alexander. He better be glad he's on a different planet where I can't touch him.

Five minutes later he made his way towards Ruiz's snowmobile. He'd forgotten about how cold it was. That was okay, he supposed. Within time Danni would get used to it. It wasn't like he had much of a choice in the matter.

He climbed into the snowmobile and shut the door behind him. Ruiz had the heater running. The deputy looked at him. "How did you sleep?"

"Okay, I guess."

"I imagine you feel pretty confused," Ruiz said knowingly.

For a moment that seemed to stretch like a rubber band, Ruiz said nothing. Judging from the way his eyebrows were knitted together he was thinking about something and thinking about it hard. Danni opened up his mind to see if he could catch a snippet of thought. Some people were harder to read than others. Sometimes he caught thoughts, other times he just caught emotions. The ability was quite random. He couldn't read everyone. Alexander was one of the people that he couldn't read at all, something that had always frustrated Danni greatly. Ruiz was one of those people that was hard to read. He sensed that Ruiz was feeling guilty about something that he'd done. Something about a boy named Benjamin. Whatever he'd done Ruiz felt really bad. His mind was like a dark tunnel where there was no light. Black without direction. Danni didn't like it, so he stopped trying.

"This here is the processing plant," Ruiz said, pointing at a large white building. "That's where we keep our livestock and plants. There are all kinds of animals in there. Cows, pigs, turkeys. We raise them and feed them and then when it's time we put them down. It sucks but that's how we get food around here. A majority of the colonists work there. That's where my sister works. The work is hard, and they make you work long hours but the pay is pretty decent."

He pointed to a smaller building on his left. "That there is what we call the wet room. In other words, it's the sauna. The men's side and the women's side are on the left and the right side is where both can intermingle together so to speak."

"What side do you go on?" Danni asked.

Duke grinned. "Strictly the men's side."

"Why?"

"Personal preference."

Danni wasn't exactly sure what he meant by that, but he decided to let it go.

"On with the tour."

Duke showed him what dormitory building he lived in. "Feel free to come over sometime. My sister and I would love to have you."

Next was the radio building. "We play all kinds of things. The classics, country, rock, you name it. But all of it is pretty old. It'll be centuries before the damn thing gets updated. They play Led Zeppelin but hey, what else do you need? You know where the warden's office is."

The last building was the pub. "Are you hungry?" Duke asked Danni.

Danni's belly rumbled in response. He hadn't eaten anything since the hospital.

Duke laughed. He had a deep rumbling laugh; Danni loved the sound of his laugh. He couldn't help but smile. "I guess that's a yes. C'mon I'll buy you lunch.”

The inside of the pub looked much nicer than the outside; like all the buildings in Colony 12, the pub on the outside was of course white. The inside had more personality, and to Danny it was strange. The lighting in the pub was dim. The walls were made of stained wood and so were the tabletops. There were several booths placed into two rows. Small lights of different color were strung up along the ceiling. Several men stood in the corner hunkered hungrily over a game of pool. They wore camouflage clothing, knee-high snow boots, and they had the longest beards that Danni had ever seen. From where he stood he could smell the tobacco and beer on their breath. The smell of tobacco was bad enough but when mixed with ale it was all he could take. But it was nothing compared to the smell of grease and frying meat. His stomach grumbled impatiently.

"It smells great in here," he said looking around wondrously.

Duke nodded in agreement. "Damn straight. Benny is the best cook...I'm probably stretching when I say in all of the twelve c,olonies but I don't care."

A young woman smiled at them. "Hey Duke, who is this?" She glanced curiously at Danni.

Duke clapped Danni on the shoulder. "This is Danni. He's the new kid on the block."

"Hey there. Welcome to Colony Shitbag." The woman winked at him. "I'm Clara. Is it just the two of you then?"

"Yep," Duke said cheerfully.

"You want a booth I take it?"

"You know it."

"Alright. You pick your booth and I'll follow you over there in a second."

Duke picked a booth back in the corner. "Will you excuse me for just a second? I have to go to the john."

Danni blinked. "What's a john?"

Duke laughed. He had a deep laugh that seemed to come from deep inside of his belly. "The bathroom. Were you raised under a rock or something?"

Danni's face deadpanned. "No, in a glass cage."

Now it was Duke's turn to blink in confusion. What the hell did he mean by that? He decided not to ask and headed in the direction of the bathroom.

Clara grinned down at Danni as she brought by the menus. "Let me tell you something, kiddo, there is no better guy to hang out with than Duke. He's one of the few that has the least blood on his hand. And he's gay."

"What's that?"

Clara laughed. "You don't know what gay is?"

Danni shook his head.

She laughed. "Oh honey, being in a CryoSleep chamber for a hundred years must have done something to your brain. He likes cock. Enjoy your meal honey."

Danny pored over the menu. He didn't know what half of the menu was. He looked around. Country music was playing from the old jukebox in the corner. He drummed his thumbs to the music on the top of the table. He had never been to such a place. The facility was all he had ever known. The only view he had of the outside world was only what he'd seen on TV and Alexander had regulated the things he watched. Everything in the pub amazed him. The colors, the jukebox, the music, the people. It was all so overwhelming. He had a strange urge to get up and start dancing.

"Have you decided what you want?" Duke asked as he sat down.

''No. I don't know what half of this stuff is. What do you usually get?"

"Me. Steak, medium rare, every time."

"I'll get what you're having, then?"

Clara came back to the table and asked them what they wanted to drink.

"I'll take a beer," Duke said.

"What's beer?" said Danni

"It's alcohol."

"I don't know what that is, " Danni said. He looked at Clara. "Do you have any of that fizzy stuff?"

Clara's eyebrows drew together. "Fizzy stuff? You mean soda. We have Coke."

"I'll take that. And we both want steak. Medium rare."

Again Duke laughed. "Add fries and steak sauce for both of those Clara."

Clara walked off with their orders. Danni looked at Duke. "I'm sorry if I'm being weird."

Duke smiled. "You are weird, but I like it. And trust me, everyone here is a little weird."

"It's just that this is all so new to me. In one moment everything seems big, and in the next so small. But nothing is familiar to me. It's not like the facility back on Earth."

Duke blinked. "The facility?"

"Yes. Where my dad kept me. He's the one that had me sent here."

"Your father? He must have been very rich. That's kind of fucked up."

"Yes," Danni agreed. "It's very fucked up. How long have you been on this planet?"

Duke began tapping his fingers on the table. "I was born here. So was my sister. And my parents."

"So you weren't brought here on the ship?"

"No."

"Then why are you here?" Danni couldn't imagine being born on this rock. It was so cold, so desolate. "What did you do?"

"Nothing. We're here for being born."

Danni was becoming increasingly confused and troubled. "I don't understand."

"I'm here because of my great-grandfather. He was a drug lord back on Earth in Mexico. He also killed a lot of people. He was a very bad man. Very bad. So when the earth authorities caught him he was immediately frozen and sent here. That's how it is with most of the people on this planet."

"So your grandparent...your parent...you and your sister are here for something your grandfather did a long time ago?"

Duke nodded. He took a sip from his beer.

"Can I try some?" Danni asked.

Duke looked surprised. After a moment he said, "Sure" and scooted the bottle over to Danni. Danni took a sip and felt his body spasm. He had never tasted anything so vile. The first thing that came to mind was car oil even though he didn't know what car oil tasted like. His expression must have been funny because Duke was laughing his rumbling laughter and slapping the table hard enough to make it shake.

Danni passed the bottle back to him. "Why do you drink that stuff? It's nasty."

"The same reason everyone drinks it," Duke said, still chuckling. "To get drunk."

A little over an hour later they left the pub. Duke looked over at Danni who was so short and skinny and so...strange. The boy had torn through his steak and fries as if it was nothing. When Duke couldn't finish his steak - Benny made steaks that were so big that no one could finish them, not even Meize - Danni merely reached over and demolished what was left on Duke's plate. Duke had never seen anyone eat like that.

They climbed into the snow mobile. Duke started the engine and started heading in the direction of Diana's office.

Duke glanced thoughtfully at him. He had a beautiful face. His hair was so blonde it was almost white. His eyes were icy blue. And the bone structure of his face. Beautiful, just beautiful. He could have been Benji's ghost. And whenever Duke let his thoughts wander he thought of Benji. He heard Benji begging Meize and him to stop, begging for them to stop. He heard the terrible retching sound as Mike ran his blade into Benji's lower belly. The guilt he felt was so bad that he wanted to die. Why had he been such a coward and not just stop Mike. Yeah, Mike had threatened to kill Cecilia, and Duke knew that he meant it, but then Duke's soul wouldn't be damned. I raped him after Mike finished with him and watched as Mike slaughtered him. All because I was afraid...

"What does it mean to be gay?" Danni asked.

Duke looked at him. "What?"

Danni blushed, looking sheepish. "The waitress. She said that you were gay and that you liked cock."

Duke had to hit the brake; he was laughing so hard it was unsafe to drive. "She did did she?"

Danni nodded nervously. He was blushing so hard that his face had turned a bright red. "Yes. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up."

"That's okay. It means I like the same sex."

"Men?"

"Yes."

"What about women?"

"I like women I just don't fall in love with them or want to have sex with them. I only like men."

Danni grinned. "I like men too."

"You're awfully young. How are old are you?"

"I was seventeen when I left Earth. Now I'm not sure how old I am. They told me that I wouldn't age while in the CryoSleep chamber."

Duke suddenly felt both very sad and paternal for the boy. The boy was so beautiful and naive. Whoever his father was, was a cruel bastard. This was not a good place and Duke had learned that the hard way. The men on this planet would eat him up alive. They'd rape him. Duke had witnessed many rapes. Men and women. Sometimes to the point that the victim was raped to death. I have to protect him, Duke thought. I have to keep him from Mike. His heart was pounding. He wanted to reach out and run his hand through Danni's beautiful hair and kiss his beautiful lips. He could feel himself growing hard. He hadn't gotten hard since that night with Benjamin. But he restrained himself. He didn't want to take advantage of this beautiful boy's naivety. He wanted Danni to stay as beautifully innocent for as long as he could before the harshness of this world took him in its fist and crushed him into the ground.

"There was this man back on Earth," Danni said; Duke surprised to see that there were tears in Danni's eyes. From the way he worked his jaw Duke could tell that he was trying not to burst into tears. Trying real hard, as if it would have been a bad thing if he cried. "His name was Juan and I loved him...and I think he loved me. He had to love me. He touched me and kissed me and said things to me...and when he put himself inside me I felt free and human. Any other time I felt like an animal, like a freak on leash. And now he's gone, and I'll never see him again."

There was something about Diana that Danni didn't like. Unlike with Mike Meize he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Mike was just dangerous. He was like the Big Bad Wolf from Little Red Riding Hood; he liked to eat old grandmas and young children. You could see it behind his eyes, see it in his grin. You could see him coming from a mile away and at least get a head start. But with Diana her expression hid everything. She smiled a lot and seemed genuine - except she wasn't. It wasn't overly obvious, but Danni could sense it. She was the other kind of wolf, the wolf dressed in sheep's clothing. He decided that he would be kind to her but keep her at arm's length.

She passed him a medium-sized packet of paper that was neatly stapled together. "This is a test that almost everyone on this planet has taken. The adults anyway. It just gives us an idea of what job you would be most qualified for." She handed him a freshly sharpened pencil and an old digital calculator that must have come from the 20th or 21st century. "Take your time. There's no need to feel pressured. You can't fail this test."

Danni looked over at Duke. He liked having his presence around. He reminded him of Juan. He had Juan's calm personality and his olive colored skin and dark brown eyes. But he was different too. He was bigger, much bigger. Taller, more muscular. And he had tattoos on his arms - one of them looked like a dragon spitting out flames. He liked the way it wrapped around his arm and disappeared underneath the sleeve of his uniform. Duke nodded. "Take your time. I'll be waiting."

Danni nodded and turned to his test. There were various math problems that went from basic math to adult level Algebra and reading comprehension. He had to bite his tongue to keep from smirking. At the facility his dad and the people that worked for him were always making him do math and recite words from the dictionary and teaching history. This is nothing, he thought. He started working. He was vaguely aware of Diana typing away on her old computer and chewing gum. It smelled like cherry. Duke had his head leaned back against the wall, his eyes closed. He wasn't sleeping but doing what people called resting their eyes. Two minutes later he passed the test back.

"You're done?" Diana frowned. She flipped through the pages, her expression becoming one of amazement. She looked up this time looking upset. "Danni, I don't want you to just guess. I know you probably don't like tests, but we want you to take your time so that we know where to put you. So that you don't fall through the cracks. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"I didn't' guess," Danni said calmly. "Check the answers."

She frowned at him and went back to her computer. He was pulling her leg, she knew he was. She pulled up the answer key on the computer and felt her scorn shifting to disbelief again. He hadn't missed a single answer which no one had ever done before without using the calculator or at least a scrap of paper. But she'd be damned if he hadn't gotten everything correct. In two minutes flat.

She looked at him. "How? Did you graduate from school?"

"I wish."

"Your parents never put you through school?"

"My father kept me in a glass box. He was always doing tests on me. I remember everything I see."

"What glass box?"

"It was in one of his facilities."

Duke had begun to snore softly but neither one of them paid any attention to him.

Diana pursed her lips. "Danni, if you don't mind me asking, your father is Alexander Aamodt?"

Danni's expression became guarded. "Somewhat."

"He owns Aethyx?"

"Yes. And he colonized this planet."

"Have you told anyone else this?"

Danni shook his head. "It's too dangerous. I may not know a lot of things, but I do know that. I think that's why he exiled me here. He couldn't bring himself to kill me, so he sent me here so that someone could do it for him."

She didn't know what to say to this, so she asked, "What other tests did your father make you do?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

From the way his expression had darkened Diana sensed that she was not getting any more information out of him. That was okay, he'd given her enough information to spark her interest. She'd have to find a way to get the rest. There was something going on with Danni Aamodt and it wasn't just the fact that Alexander Aamodt was his father. She had the feeling that Danni Aamodt wasn't your average son.

Natalia Patel was sitting behind Diana, rubbing lotion all over her back. She remembered when rubbing lotion on Diana would have led towards more erotic activities - but that seemed so distant now. And Natalia was trying, she really was. She was starting to feel depressed. Why are you so far away Diana? Don't you love me anymore? Or is all you care about your work?

Diana had always been a workaholic. She took her job as warden seriously, relentlessly trying to make life on the planet easier. She didn't have much to work with. Out of all the other twelve colonies she had the least to work with: outdated technology, low-grade buildings with little variation. But in the end, she had always made it up to Natalia in one way or another and the wait was always worth it.

Diana was oblivious to the pleasure, love, and devotion that Natalia offered. She was too busy poring over her laptop, reading about God knew what.

Usually Diana was more tempered, strong minded, sure of herself. If anyone messed with Natalia, Diana was the first to make sure that they paid the price. Natalia was the exact opposite. She was passive and gave very little regard to herself. She was also the giver. She loved doing for others and cared very little for her own needs. But everyone had their limits. And I think I've reached mine, she thought. I've had enough of this.

"Put your laptop away," she said. "Leave your work at work so that we can have our you-and-me time at home."

"I'm sorry. I've just got so much to do, so much that's on my mind."

"The work can wait. Shut down your laptop, talk to me. Tell me what's on your mind."

To Natalia's relief Diana did shut down her lap top. She shut the lid and scooted it to the edge of the bed, just far enough away that it was out of reach but not so far there was any risk of it falling off the edge. "It's our new inmate."

"The Aamodt kid? What about him?"

"He...disturbs me."

"How so?"

"He's just not normal."

Natalia started working her hands in between Diana's shoulder blades, methodically working the tension out and working the lotion in. "How so? He's not any stranger than the rest of us. Personally, I find him pleasant to work with. He's not like some of these other shit pants who wants to rape me and do God knows what else. That's why I walk around with a gun in my purse."

Diana moaned in pleasure. "Oh, that feels good."

"See, if you weren't so busy all the damned time we'd have more time to do this kind of stuff."

Diana seemed to barely have heard a word of what she had just said. "I had him take the test, you know the one that helps determine where they’re going to work. He took it in two minutes and got all the answers correct. He didn't use the calculator or anything. Most of the people in this colony have gone up to a sixth-grade level in math and fifth in reading. I scored a ninth on both. The average time it takes for people to get through the test is two hours."

Natalia was becoming more and more frustrated. Her hand movements became more frenzied. "So? His father is Alexander Aamodt, isn't he? Son of the man who colonized the planet and has found a way to live up to three hundred years old and manage to look as if he's not a day of over thirty-five. You're close to his age and look just as good and that's without having the technology of the present century. It would make sense if Danni was a prodigy or whatever you want to call it."

Diana wasn't ready to give it up by God. "You should have heard some of the other stuff he said. He said that his father kept him in a glass cage and that they did experiments on him...I mean what if he was like a lab rat..."

That was when Natalia burst into tears. She hadn't expected it to happen but there it was. "I don't give a fuck! I really don't!"

Diana turned around, actually turned all the way to look at her in surprise. Natalia had never once screamed like this in the ten years that they'd been together, not even when they were in the middle of some dispute. Usually it was Diana that did the screaming, it was Diana that got her way. But not this time. This time Natalia was going to get her way. I'm not going to be her goddamn carpet anymore, she thought.

"All you do is work!" she shrieked through her tears. "Work, work, work! And I don't say anything! You know me passive Natalia! And if I did say anything you'd just make up some bloody excuse and I would just nod and say I understand and apologize while you pay my feeling no never mind!"

Still Diana said nothing. Natalia said nothing, pausing to wipe tears from her cheeks; in the process she got a small smudge of lotion on both cheeks. "I can't look at you anymore," she said. "It hurts to look at you. It hurts to fucking love you, because these days it's a one-way street. And to be quite honest that's not what I signed up for. Go find yourself a new puppy dog. We both know that's what you really want. Someone that will just nod and say that you know best while they rot in the background. So go. I don't want you sleeping with me tonight."

Once more Diana said nothing. She just put on her shirt and panties, grabbed her winter jacket, and closed the door behind her on the way out. Natalia reached over to turn out the lamp and crawled underneath the sheets. In the morning when we both get up or when she comes home from the office she'll apologize, Natalia thought. Her cheeks had begun to feel sticky. She'll say she knows that she's wrong and things will go back to the way they used to be. She'll love me again.

But Natalia knew this was false. Because Diana never took responsibility for the things she did. She could do no wrong. She was cold and unfeeling. How in the world did I fall in love with her? How can I be in love with her still?

Oddly enough for the first time in a long time, Duke didn't want to go home. So he went to the pub. He liked to go to the pub when it was evening. That was when the bar wasn't so noisy or busy. People didn't want to deal with ice-cold that cut through you no matter how many layers of clothing you wore. But I don't want to spend one more night in that fucking apartment. As long as I can get away for a few hours and get drunk then it's worth freezing my balls off.

He glanced over at a game of pool. Mike Meize was playing with two other guys. He looked away. Fuck Mike Meize. Duke had just started thinking of Danni when the door of the pub opened and Diana stepped inside. She was a mess. Her mascara was all smeared up; snow clung to the roots of her windswept dark brown hair.

"Hey Warden," Mike boomed. He saluted her and stood as straight as a statue with the tip of his stick pointed towards the ceiling.

Diana nodded wearily over to him and came over to the bar. She took the stool next to Duke. She waved the bartender over and pointed at Duke. "I'll have whatever he's having."

"I'm having whiskey on the rocks," Duke said.

"Jesus, are you trying to get shitfaced?"

"Something like that."

"Fuck it. I'm not going into the office tomorrow, priorities be damned. I think I'm going to get shitfaced too."

"You're already there, Warden."

She smiled sardonically. "Thanks, deputy Ruiz. Your face is always pretty shitty."

"I don't deny it. So, what's biting your ass today?"

"I pissed Natalia off."

"How so?"

"I haven't been giving her enough time."

"She'll get over it."

"She screamed at me."

"You must have really done it?"

"Yeah, I'm a bitch, I know." Diana pulled out a cigarette and lit it. Her eyes grew different. "Thing is Ruiz, I'm unhappy. I don't think I love her anymore."

"Why?"

"Honestly it's hard to say. Lately I've just been depressed. Keeping myself busy so that I don't have to go home, so that I don't have to think. This colony is just too small and there's not enough things to do. There's not enough people in this colony. Or on this planet for that matter. Like most people I've been curse by what some great relative of mine did and I have to pay for his crime too. It's like the whole Jesus dying for our sins thing, only it's the exact opposite."

"I see," Ruiz said. He understood what he was saying but he didn't quite agree with her. He'd never really liked Diana all of that much, but he tolerated her. She was a good Warden, the best Warden they had in a long time. At least there wasn't blood and bodies in the streets. It used to be people killed and raped other people in the streets; now they did their business in private places and cleaned up after themselves when they were done.

"There's something I want to ask of you," she said.

"What?"

"I want you to keep an eye on Danni."

"Why?"

She flicked a burning piece of ash into a nearby trash can. "I don't know. Just curious I guess. Let me know if he does anything peculiar."

A chill went up Duke's spine. He didn't like the look in her eyes. There was something dark and devious there. What are you up to Diana? he thought. Just to pacify her, he said, "Sure thing. Listen, I have to go." He left some money for the bartender and stepped out into the freezing cold. He was halfway to the snowmobile when a familiar voice said, "Have you fucked him yet?"

Duke turned. Someone was standing in the shadows. The ember of a lit cigarette glowed in the shadows. Then he stepped out into the light.

It was Mike Meize. Duke wasn't aware that he had left the pub. Mike must have finished his game at the pool table.

"Fucked who?"

Mike chuckled. "You know who. The second coming of Benji."

"No."

"You better before I get to him. You know I like to fuck rough. And I like 'em when they're young and ripe."

Before Duke could stop himself, he said, "You better not touch a hair on Danni's head."

Mike Meize cocked his head to the side. "Really? And why is that?"

"Because I won't let him become another Benji."

"Is that so?" Mike took several steps forward, closing some of the space in between them. "Because the first time you didn't put up much of a fight. All I had to do was threaten your sister's life if you didn't help me and you did everything I did. You helped me take him out near that mountain and you fucked him just like I did. First, I fucked him in the ass and then you fucked him. And then we fucked him together at the same time. You loved it too, I could see it on your face. And then you helped me dig his snowy grave and dump him in like the piece of shit that he was. Make no mistake, I will fuck every boy in this colony as many times as I please and there ain't nothing they can do about it. I'll fuck them so many times so hard that blood and shit falls out of their ass like rain. And you know my cock is long and fat enough to make it happen too."

A blaze was burning within Duke. He stepped towards Mike until he was right in his face. They were both the same height. "You touch Danni and I'll kill you. You just stay away from him."

Mike grinned. "Aww so you are fucking him. And you're going to keep him for yourself. That's just not fair. Sharing is caring. So, we'll just see how long that last. Good night Deputy."