“We can definitely do something with this cloth,” Fritz says, when the fabric swatches are all in their jars and showing the first signs of taking on color.
Cleve has accumulated a pile of clothes now, which Fritz will need to go through to decide what can be salvaged. Just having someone take charge of the clean-up effort here, handling the physical tasks without the emotional attachment, has been a big help. Cleve trots out his wry humor, holding up a piece and asking which side is the front. “That’s the latest in planetfaller fashion,” Fritz tells him, before joking that it’s actually an outfit for pet wolf beetles. It is so great to see him smiling again.
“Thanks for your help,” he tells Cleve. “I really need to right the shop… things are tense though. But, if you’re back,” he says, turning to me, “does that mean you have something specific in mind?”
“I wish I could say that it was only good news that we have,” I tell him, “but we’re on a bit of a clock because the Stepdaughters are going to start a blockade three days from now.”
Fritz’s eyes go wide. “Well this is serious then, now isn’t it…”
“And it would be great if that blockade was in support of a coup already happening inside the dome,” I continue. Fritz blows out another long breath, and I worry that I’m overwhelming him again. “But you’ve said that tensions are pretty high…”
“Very high, yes. Certainly we have a lot more support than we had a month or two ago, but there’s also a lot more animosity. Before, you know, things could be blamed on the Stepdaughters of Chiron, but no one would really think about it. Now it’s every day. There’s constantly something going on and someone else countering what’s going on. Louisa and I do not have full control over this.”
“Well, we’re here to help,” I tell him. “But like I said, we’re on a clock.”
“Right. You want to launch a coup, and you want to launch a coup in three days.”
“Yeah,” I say plainly. That’s the naked truth of it.
“Well, like I said, I can get you a meeting with Leyland Campos.”
“I don’t need a meeting with Leyland Campos, Fritz,” I say with all seriousness. He sighs, perhaps realizing where I’m going before I say it. “I’m not a resident of this dome.”
“Don’t you want to be, though?” Fritz slips in flirtatiously, but I don’t let him distract me.
“Cleve—by the way, this is Cleve,” I say. Clearly I’ve already been sufficiently distracted, seeing as I failed to make introductions earlier. Cleve dips his head in acknowledgement.
“I think I’ve seen you,” Fritz realizes.
“Yeah, he was walking the wolf beetles with me. Cleve is the de facto leader of Data Haven. Again, not the person who needs to talk to Leyland Campos.”
“I thought Roze was in charge,” Fritz says, mildly puzzled.
“Yeah, well, Roze insists that they are not.”
Fritz nods. “That sounds like Roze.”
“We’re here to support the people in the dome who wish to change their lot in life. We’re not here for a takeover; we’re here to support the local change in management,” I tell Fritz. That’s why I’m here, anyway. We’re here to stop the war going over Data Haven’s head or reaching our allies—that’s Cleve’s view. But what I’m proposing is a step in that direction—to hopefully undermine what launched the war to begin with and dismantle its support back home.
Fritz sighs, but his lips twist into a smile. “You’re such a nice guy, Mariah,” he says. “I like that; I like that you’re not coming to take over my town. But we still have to convince Leyland Campos. I think he’s the best shot for a new chair of the board. I know you mentioned that maybe I should be on the board—”
“I didn’t say chair,” I hastily remind him. “Just a seat at the table. It was just a suggestion… I hope I wasn’t overstepping my bounds.”
“No! No. No.” Fritz’s words are insistent, but his regard softens. “I don’t want to put bounds on you.” I—I’m not sure what that means. I think he’s as taken with me as I am with him. ¡Ay! I need to focus. Three days. We have three days. After that, we can figure things out. Everything is so jumbled together right now, but Cleve’s quiet presence in the room is a reminder of the large issues at play here. “But if you’ve got this bounty,” Fritz continues, pointing at the trunk, “I think you’re in the best position to explain to Mr. Campos how helpful it’s going to be. We can work together, certainly, but he knows me as a small-time shopkeeper.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” I assure him. “We are happy to be your subject matter experts in this regard.” Fritz clicks his tongue, thinking over how to proceed. “I don’t know very much about Leyland Campos, though,” I tell him. “I don’t know whether Cleve’s actual position will cause problems. Like, we’re not here to negotiate a cease-fire. I don’t think we have the necessary sway for that, not until the ships show up on the horizon.”
“So is this blockade happening one way or the other?” Fritz asks. “I’m confused.”
“There’s an army marching to the Stepdaughters,” Cleve says, speaking up now that there’s a tactical situation to discuss. “They know this. They’re going to react; that’s inevitable if stuff doesn’t change. You can’t send an army in one direction and not expect an army to come back from there.”
“The blockade has the potential to pull Morgan’s army back home,” I add. “But in order to defuse that army—to get people to agree that there doesn’t need to be an army at all—we need to have a plan in place that makes Morgan Industries not an enemy of the Stepdaughters of Chiron. And that involves Morgan not being the one to pull the strings.”
“On that, I agree,” Fritz says.
“So if Leyland can be made to see that it’s not profitable…”
“I think he can be made to understand, but it will take a little convincing. I think we have enough to do that, though. I can probably get us a meeting tomorrow morning.”
“Okay, that sounds good. Now, I know you said you’ve been working with Louisa… Have you sounded anybody else out?”
“Uh, one of her confidants—she calls him Snacker—I’ve worked directly with him. He’s a little more level-headed than Louisa, but maybe takes more risks than he needs to—but personal risks, I would say.” Fritz provides a description of the fellow, and I realize we’ve met him. Last time we saw him, he’d just enjoyed a bowl of shroomnuts and was asking me for my Stepdaugthers of Chiron code name. Black hair, taller than Fritz, shorter than me, light green eyes that stand out against his dark brown skin.
“The kid with the bowl of shroomnuts,” I tell Cleve.
“A healthy boy,” Fritz says, pantomiming some girth. “He’s called Snacker for a reason. So, yeah, Louisa and him, those are the only two people I’ve worked directly with. Lousia’s worked with some others, and I’ve seen her picture on wanted posters around town.”
¡Ay! That is not good. “All right,” I say, but I don’t really feel that way. I’m perched against the counter, ankles crossed and arms folded, and I rub my forehead now, as I sort through all the options. My turn to sigh. “I have various ideas, I just don’t know what order to try to enact them,” I admit. “Shu-Fen is a bit prickly, but I feel like it should be possible to convince her that working with the Stepdaughters is a better way to deal with resources on this planet.”
“I do have an address for her,” Fritz tells me. “I can point you to it. She knows who I am, although she won’t buy from my shop.”
“Why?” I ask. I know Bianca Horvath’s opinion on the matter, but Shu-Fen wouldn’t share that.
“Oh, it’s too fancy for her,” Fritz says. He’s talked with Shu-Fen, but only casually.
“Do you happen to know what’s become of Yushi?” I ask, continuing to work my way through the list of contacts I mentioned in my letter to Fritz.
“I visited him in the miasma treatment center, which surprised him. I’ve never seen someone in such high spirits for being in such a dire situation. But, uh…. that’s a tough sell,” Fritz says, uncomfortable with the idea of working with anyone from the repo squads. “I think that if you can give him something new to do that’s not being in a repo squad, that could be workable.”
“Is he still in the treatment center, do you know?” I ask, and Fritz confirms it. I shift my arms, rubbing my left forearm nervously, and my eyes drift out of focus. “That’s not a very safe place for me to go,” I murmur. I set off alarms before. What might happen now? Dr. Citali assured me that Dr. Gupta’s serum has worn off completely, but has it really? Am I able to do more things with more control now just through practice, or did she accelerate something? My anxiety isn’t just about painful fungicide spray. I have no idea what Dr. Khan would do with me if she knew what I am. I sigh, trying to squash all those concerns down. “There are so many career options out there other than repo squading through the wilderness,” I say, shaking my head and groaning at this whole situation.
“Yeah, he mentioned he missed being outdoors,” Fritz says.
“All right, what is the makeup of the board?”
“That I can tell you a little about. The chair of the board is currently Nwabudike Morgan, of course. He issues most controlling directives, and he’s the one who can actually call for new elections on the board. We had one a year or two ago, so his term is not up any time soon. Other members… There’s Leyland Campos, Bianca Horvath—”
I grimace. “Ugh, she’s on the board?!”
“She is,” Fritz confirms. “She’s a more junior member.” He rattles off a name I don’t recognize, then adds, “Oh, and recently Dr. Khan was appointed to the board for her medical success at treating miasma.”
I drop my head into my hands. “That’s a dream team,” Cleve says, knowing exactly why I’m miserable at this news. All the people I rubbed the wrong way last time I was here!
“Apparently her FungX has been shown to be very effective—although quite expensive.”
“Are there any non-planetfallers on that board?” I ask. “Everyone I know that you’ve named so far was born on Earth.”
“I do not think there are,” Fritz says after a moment of consideration.
I nod. “Okay, that’s another in with Shu-Fen.”
“Oh, she would love to be on the board, I’m sure,” Fritz says.
My lips twist into a wry grin. “You want me to get Shu-Fen on the board instead of you,” I observe, a little teasingly.
Fritz lets out a long breath, humming in consideration before finally declaring, “I don’t know. Would she make the best decisions? No, I don’t think so. But if I’m on the board, then that’s less time to run my shop. Although… if I don’t have to be running this Miasma Railroad, I suppose that’s a different thing I could take up.” He sounds on the fence still.
“Do you have ideas of people who might be better suited than somebody who makes poor decisions?” Cleve asks, and I can’t help but snort in amusement at how he cuts right to the heart of his concerns. “None of these sound great.”
“I don’t recommend Louisa for the board, given that criteria,” Fritz says, something we can all chuckle at. Of course, she has no business, so she wouldn’t really qualify, anyway. “She runs an organization,” Fritz allows, “she just doesn’t make any money.” That’s what’s important in Morgan Industries. “I do think that if you can get Leyland Campos on your side, he can probably rustle up enough generic support. He understands better the political maneuverings within the board itself, which you’ll need if you want to replace Morgan as chair. Especially if you want to do this within the next three days.”
He’s saying “you” again, not “we,” but I let it slide for now. He doesn’t need me pressuring him more right now. “Okay, so we can talk to Campos tomorrow, if that’s the soonest that can possibly be.” Fritz nods in confirmation, and I trust his judgment on that. “Then what we need to do today might be sounding out Shu-Fen… or maybe checking in with Louisa or Snacker…”
“I haven’t talked with Louisa in a little bit, not since my shop got bombed for trying to lay low.” He pauses for a moment, looking around at the disarray, but doesn’t slip back into depression. “But I expect to hear from her any day now.”
“Cleve, do you have any thoughts or opinions related to unseating Morgan from the board? Or are you simply going to loom behind me looking gruff all day?” I ask. He hasn’t said much since I first raised these topics on our cruise over here.
“Um, I have no ideas on that,” he says. Nodding towards the trunk, where his rifle is, he adds, “I think I’m more of a Plan B.”
I laugh at that, appreciating his level delivery. “What’s the weapon policy in this dome?” I ask Fritz. “Particularly given the current tensions?”
“Open carry is definitely discouraged. Most people don’t have access to large and dangerous weapons. It’s just hard to get your hands on them. So I wouldn’t go toting around that rifle of yours—but it’s not illegal, strictly speaking. Although, if one of the Planetary Security Force folks sees that, they might have some questions for you, questions you maybe don’t want to answer.”
Cleve nods in acceptance of that appraisal of the situation. “Well, I guess we just need to get somebody to open up a conversation with the Stepdaughters. That is what we need out of this mission,” he says, meaning Data Haven.
“Right. So! How would you like to go see Shu-Fen again?” I ask brightly.
“Ugh!” Cleve replies with an eloquent eye roll.