OZ 2231
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chapter 2 – second week
Tobias Beecher
There's something about orbital stations. About Oz. The noise. Most of the time you can forget where you are. Your mind finally accepts the fact that you're so far from home you can't even imagine the distance, that there's no real day, no real night, and that the place you're in is nothing but a small metallic box, barely the size of a single building in any city on Earth. You get used to it. But sometimes, suddenly, the noise breaks the layers of denial that keep you comfortable, and you remember. It's the soft rumbling of air conditioners, the continuous growl of generators, the sudden boost of powerful motors working to keep the station on the right orbit. You take your eyes off the screen, and watch out the window to make sure A4 is still there while a brief spasm of anguish tightens your stomach. So you jump to the floor and look out to make sure that the little purple ball's still in sight, and you notice how A4 shines in the dark, the purple clouds running endlessly around the orange mountains and you realize that there must be a sun somewhere, lightening this desolate place and making it even attractive in the dark infinite loneliness.
That's what happened when the noise woke me up, long after Keller was gone. I rushed out of the bedroom into the office and ran to the window. OK. I watched for a while, then stretched, sated. Mmmm. I felt good. I crossed the small room, opened the door to pick up the breakfast tray. A waiter brought it every morning from the cafeteria and I could nearly believe I was living in first class hotel. Well, the food wasn't really first class food, but… I checked my mail while drinking a bitter coffee. Gen had left me a video message. I sighed. I wasn't quite in the mood for that but I guessed I had to watch it. The whole thing was a bit blurry, and the sound faded sometimes. That's how far we were, unable even to have a real conversation with people on Earth.
"Good morning, Tobias." Her voice was calm, but I could see she was a bit tense; I knew she hated to record messages. I watched her serious face, listened to her telling me that the kids missed me and that she'd heard terrible things about the place I was in… "Oz." She uttered the word with palpable disgust. She hoped that I was doing well, that I would be back for Holly's 6 th birthday, and she'd pray for me. Then the kids climbed on her knees and talked to me. Oh god, how I missed them, I realized as I watched them wave enthusiastically at me. "Daddy! We miss you, Daddy! I hope you'll be back soon!"; "I'll show you the new toys mum bought for me"; "I can write, now… I love you…" Hot tears rolled down my cheeks as I ended the communication, and I had to wait several minutes before I was able to record my answer, and be as funny and witty as I used to be for the kids. I spoke words of comfort to Gen, assuring her that everything was all right. I told her I missed her, which was a lie, and that I missed the kids, which was true.
I felt no shame. I was cheating on Gen like I'd never done before, and I felt no shame. How weird was that? I was more worried by the way I was cheating on Keller than by the way I was cheating on my own wife. Gen… Something had been broken between us when our third child, Harry, was born. I didn't know what it was. Physical attraction, maybe or just the desire to care about each other. She was true to me from a physical point of view. I'd been bothered when she began to spend so much time in church meetings and I'd wondered, once, if she hadn't been Saïd's lover. The man was handsome and charismatic, and some religious leaders were known to abuse their own followers. But Saïd wasn't that kind. He was the most narrow-minded, stubborn leader I'd met, but he wasn't interested in sex. Anyway, I'd come to think that I didn't love Gen anymore and cheating on her didn't mean much to me now. Maybe I would even have felt relieved if she'd learned something about my night with a miner and asked for a divorce.
But Keller… I cheated on him, I did. I fucked him at night, screwed up his life during the day. I didn't know how I would face him when the truth came out. He would hate me, despise me. I didn't want him to hate me. I didn't want him to despise me, I wanted him to love me and make me feel good, but I'd gone too far, already, and the job was too important, I knew I couldn't give up. Somebody else would always work for the company, anyway, that's what I kept telling myself. Why did I feel so bad? Why did I feel that I should give it up, tell him the truth and try to make things right? But I couldn't. Later, maybe, but not now. After a while I decided I'd take things one day at the time, and try to help Keller the best I could: bring him back to Earth, find him a job… Keep him nearby… Christ, Beecher, you only fucked the guy once. You barely talked to him, you don't know him, how can you be so fucking irrational about this? He's a miner, for God's sake; you have nothing to do with him. So take what he can give you, pleasure, anything and when it's over, forget it. I managed to convince myself that it was the right thing to do, and finished my breakfast feeling much better. After that I showered, trying not to think about what could happen –what would happen- when Keller joined me there in the evening.
I worked hard until 5pm , had lunch in my room, then felt the need for some company and joined McManus in the gym. I liked the guy. He was the only one I could talk to. He didn't seem to agree much with Glynn's methods, and obviously didn't like the EMC. He'd gone to college on Earth, a minor one, but he had no regrets about leaving his world behind. From what I understood, he'd come here willingly, because he wanted to feel useful, help people, make things better. I think he'd lost most of his illusions at that point of his life, but he kept going on, because stopping would have forced him to face himself and realize he'd failed. But he knew a lot about Oz, more than anybody else there, and his bitter lucidity was useful.
As we were working out that day, talking about our jobs, I asked him, "When do they retire?"
"Who? The miners?" He laughed. "They never retire. They're unable to live a normal life! Sometimes it's like they are a completely different species. Very few manage to go home and get their lives back. Many of them die young. I read something about that, once, saying that a miner's life expectancy was about 60. They work hard, in awful conditions, and some of them get hurt, fall ill, sometimes die during on the job. That's why they're paid so much. That's why the company recruits in prison. Who would choose that sort of job? Who would chose to live his whole life here? With a break every 6 months… Let's face it, Beecher, those men live like animals."
I kept silent for a while. "You sound very compassionate towards them."
He shrugged. "Yes. No. I don't like them, I know them and I don't like them. They're tough and brutal, and they have no ethics, no respect for themselves or others. But on the other hand, how would we behave if we had to live that way? It's hard to say how I feel about them."
60. On Earth people currently lived past 100 in good shape. I tried to imagine dying at 60 and shivered.
"When the company shuts down Oz… What will those men do?" I asked.
"All the guys over 40?" He sighed "They won't find another job in any mine. Oz is an old structure, I'm don't know how they'd adjust to something new, new mining techniques, acquire new skills... They're like Oz… Profitless. And those who never worked anywhere else, they won't overcome that. So that leaves a very small number of them to be saved."
Great! McManus' optimism made me feel way better! I sighed, grabbed my towel, stood up and stretched. "I think my presence here upsets them. Don't you think they've guessed why I'm here?"
"How would they know? The company sends people here every month or so … They barely notice you."
He seemed confident; I supposed that he knew what he was talking about. Of course, there were things McManus didn't know but after all, Keller and I had never talked about anything serious. He didn't show any interest in my job, didn't ask any questions.
Keller sauntered in my office around 9pm. "You said something about the shower, yesterday," he purred. I nodded, watched him as he stripped, throwing his clothes across the room. I joined him under the water and he asked me to fuck him. I wasn't expecting that. I felt stunned, unable to move, terrified. "C'mon, I don't bite," he whispered hotly, and I kissed his nape, his shoulders, licking a path to his beautiful ass, preparing him with my tongue and my fingers, shivering in anticipation under the cascading water as he moaned, urging me to keep going. His left hand was pressed on the faucet to keep the water falling. "Fuck me, Beecher, fuck me." I couldn't wait any longer, I was so hard it hurt. I entered him cautiously, feeling his whole body stiffen, hearing his growl, and it was like taming a tiger, suddenly, some wild animal that could bare his teeth and pounce on me anytime. I was afraid that he didn't like it, I was afraid not to be able to make him like it. I kept him in the mood with gentle strokes, soothing words and soft kisses, avoiding any rough move, until he urged me to go deeper, faster, harder, and I did, my eyes closed, listening to his moans, wanting this to last and last and last, until finally I closed my fingers around his cock to jerk him off. I sunk his pleasure before he did, just when the water stopped. "Good timing, Beecher " he said, turning in my arms to kiss me. "Why did the water stop?" I asked stupidly. He watched me and smiled. "You're not on earth anymore, Beecher . Water's something precious here." I felt ashamed. "It's precious on Earth too."
"Yeah. Sure," he said with a chuckle "C'mon, let's get dry. We're gonna catch a cold."
Minutes later we were lying on my bed, still naked and I could tell it wouldn't be long before we went at it again. He was half hard, eyes shining and when he bent over me, caught my eyes, I couldn't help moaning in anticipation. Christ, I was a slut. And I loved it.
"So, Beecher…" his voice startled me. I hadn't talked much, and he hadn't talked at all.
"Tell me more about yourself," he asked softly, stroking my shoulder and my chest with his fingertips "What is it you've done? Why did they send you here?"
I watched him, stunned. "What do you mean?"
He smiled. "Look around you. Nobody comes here willingly. If you were the brilliant flawless lawyer you pretend to be, you'd be working on your wonderful planet, wouldn't you?" He opened his eyes and let his gaze roam over my face, whispering, "Tell me. Didja do something bad?" he kissed the corner of my lips. "You can talk to me. I won't tell." He kissed me again, parting my lips with his tongue.
I shivered, pushed him away. "Don't," I said. He shrugged and murmured:
"OK. So I'll talk first. Listen: I was in prison when they hired me, 18 years ago. A man died. A friend of mine. They said I'd killed him."
"Was it true?"
He sighed. "No. No, I'd just shaken him a bit, ya know… He borrowed some stuff off me, I wanted it back… I frightened him, and he died. Fucking judge sentenced me to 30 years."
He looked at me. I just nodded and he continued. "I didn't really have a choice. When they asked me if I'd rather work in the mine, I said yes."
"Better than prison, I suppose."
"Yep. So, what about you?"
"You don't give up easily!" I sighed. "I was drunk. I hit a little girl with my car. She died."
He said nothing first, just watched me. "Tough shit. You're still free, though."
I nodded. I'd never felt so ashamed before. "Yes. My family, my wife's family are important people. They pulled the right strings and I'm free."
I knew what he was thinking. Anyone else would be rotting in a cell now, any one of them would be. But that's not what he said.
"I'm glad you are. That way, I can be with you."
And fuck if that wasn't the nicest thing I'd ever been told.
"What was the little girl's name?" I didn't understand first, stared at him stupidly. He showed me the Christ tattoo. "I'll pray for her. Tell me her name. I'll ask her to forgive you."
I felt tears burning under my eyelids. Shit, how did he do that? "I don't believe in God." I said.
"I do. I'll take a chance. Tell me!"
"Kathy. Kathy Rockwell." Suddenly it was like I had nothing to hide anymore, and I told him about Gen and the kids, and my life, and he listened to me, his dark eyes not leaving mine, words flowing from my lips like an endless river of failure and pain. When I stopped, he simply nodded and said.
"That's why you came to Oz. You ran away."
"You know, you're too smart to be a miner. You should try something else."
He didn't answer, gave me his inscrutable smile and pushed me onto my back. "Tell me what you want me to do to you," he whispered. "Tell me, and I'll do it."
He'd caught me off guard, and I didn't know what to answer. "Anything you want." I whispered. Was this love? I wondered as he kept watching me, motionless, making up his mind, his hungry look on my face, my body, a knowing smile curving his lips. Was it love, this flutter inside me, this hunger? When he finally pounced on me, I lost track of time, lost track of reality, abandoned everything I was to him, and melted under his touch. That's what I wanted more than anything else. To disappear, forget, let oblivion swallow me, and he knew that, something in him knew what I needed. His mouth on mine, his fingers on me, inside me, his whole body playing with mine were powerful weapons he purposely used to defeat me, until I begged for release, whispering in his ear "please, please, please, end this!", my cock twitching against his stomach with each of his powerful thrusts. He kissed me and gently tormented me some more, before giving me what I needed and I choked on my own pleasure, tears rolling down my face, his body heavy on mine as he came.
Much later I fell asleep in his arms, securely held, his cheek against mine. Yes, this must be love.
It was dawn when he woke me up. I pulled his warm body tighter and sighed. "Mmm. Not yet. Too early."
I heard a soft laugh; felt a hand in my hair. "It's dawn, Beecher . I've gotta go."
"Can't be dawn already. I didn't hear the birds."
His hands roamed all over my body, his fingers grazing my cock, grasping my ass.
"Birds! Wake up, Toby. You're on Oz! No birds here."
I buried my face in his neck; I wanted to keep him there, just for a while. No birds on Oz. And a lightless dawn… Oz was hell.
"In the greenhouse… Do you have any birds?" I asked, yawning against his skin.
"Yes."
"Do they sing when the sun is rising somewhere?"
He swallowed hard. "I don't know, Toby."
"We could try that, couldn't we? I mean, fuck in the greenhouse? Sleep there? Make sure birds sing?"
He sighed. He thinks I'm crazy. I'm crazy. I'm crazy about him. He backed off, framed my face with his hands. I could hardly open my eyes.
"Yes. We could try. Look, I really gotta go now. You don't want Murphy to know, do you?"
No, I didn't. He rose, and I heard him laugh. "I'll try to get something together, OK? About the greenhouse."
I fell back on the bed, smiling. The screen on the walls told me it was 6.30 AM galactic time. I closed my eyes, listened to the soft hiss of the doors when he walked out and let sleep claim me again.
Christopher Keller
During our second night together, I did what I had too. Around 3am , Beecher fell asleep in my arms, and this time I knew it for sure: he wouldn't wake up soon. He slept peacefully. When I left the bed, he didn't move. I closed the bedroom door behind me and switched on his computer. Time for work, I thought, stretching. I may be uneducated and dumb, but I'm good at computers, and I know a lot about how the human mind works. Maybe Beecher was right. Maybe I was smart. Yeah, sure! That's why you work on Oz, Keller. Ok, then all I had to do was find the right password, and that should be relatively easy. Beecher had spoken a lot, during the evening, about himself, about his family: how much he loved and admired his father, and the wary tenderness he felt for his mother. How he'd ruined his couple, how much he loved his kids, everything I needed to know. I tried his own name, his wife's name, his kids' names, mixed them in all possible ways, and failed. Fine, I thought, closing my eyes to concentrate. I was sure he'd chosen a name. Somebody's name. Somebody he didn't want to forget about. He hadn't mentioned any close friend, any lover. He didn't seem to admire anyone, either. Maybe he didn't work that way, maybe I had to see things from a different point of view.
I recalled how submissive he'd been just moments ago, very different from the night before, as if tonight a part of him was looking for… punishment? He felt bad about that little girl he'd killed. Had he chosen his password out of guilt? Something that could hurt him every time he turned his computer on? It made me feel uncomfortable, but the idea was worth a try. Kathy? Cathy? Fuck, it didn't work. The whole name then? Cathy Rockwell… KathyRockwell… Bingo! "Welcome, Tobias Beecher." Then the date, the time, a list of messages. From his wife, from his kids. From his father. From the fucking company. My heart skipped a beat. Beecher , you're a twisted fuck, baby. I smiled, thinking he'd deserve to be a catholic, after all, building his own hell on earth. I kept thinking about it as I slid a disk in the system and made a copy of his business files, and shut the system down. The right thing to do now was to leave and ask to go down back to A4 as fast as possible, never see him again. That's what I'd planned to do.
But the man asleep in the bed next door was too attractive to be easily abandoned. His silent pleas for release, his muffled moans, the way he stifled them under his palm or in the pillow, or against my own skin, his sobs when he came… I wanted more. I walked back inside the room to lie beside him. He'd been so tender in the shower, that didn't happen to me very often. Women sometimes treated me tenderly. Men… Best not to think about that. But Beecher … Toby… The way he'd whispered my name while fucking me, the way he'd kissed my neck, stroked my back, worried about me, that had been sweet. I kissed him and wrapped my arms around him.
I left early in the morning, relieved. It was over. I didn't tell him, of course. We'd fucked once more before dawn –whatever dawn was supposed to be, here- and I didn't see the need to ruin the mood. I'd soon be gone, and I was sure I'd forget about him, and that the company would fire him soon enough. I wouldn't see him again. Crazy guy. He wanted to fuck in the greenhouse to make sure about some stupid bird thing… Sorry, Beecher , not going to happen. Now all I'd got to do was give Schillinger the disk and forget all about Beecher .
I met Schillinger at noon . He was in his office, sorting miners into working shifts for the week to come. Vern was something like a technical supervisor; trying to get the best out of the 1125 miners of the station, giving preference to the members of the Trade Union, of course, keeping the best shifts, the less dangerous places in the mine for them. It was a very efficient way to drag more people into the syndicate. I seemed to deserve such a treatment, too, because of an old friendship. Whatever his official post was, Vern didn't go down to A4 anymore. I knew he'd always been terrified by the mine. The story on Oz was that he'd stayed by my side when we were buried under a pile of fallen rocks, Vern and I and 4 other guys, 14 years ago, deep inside a pit on A4, two days before the company officially closed it. According to the legend he'd made up, he had held my trembling hand until the end, giving me the strength and confidence I lacked. I don't quite remembered that. I remembered a frightened man who looked much older than his age, and that we were both scared shitless. But if it's the way he wants the story to be told I don't give a damn, after all. If the MGTU believes they've found their hero with Vern, let it be! Above all, I remembered how dark and hot it had been in this hell hole, that we could barely breathe, and that we'd kept an eye on the oxygen level, trying to guess how many hours, minutes we had left to live. I remember that Vern passed out minutes before we were saved. Fuck, I hate this kind of memory. The only thing I could think about when I was there was Mars3, the huge cathedral where the women and the children prayed four times a week while most of the men stood outside, waiting. I remember the statues of the Virgin, the brightly coloured stained glass windows relating the story of Jesus Christ, and the big golden Bibles on the altars. The atmosphere inside the cathedral was as close as heaven as I could imagine. As a child, I'd tried to keep my eyes open as long as the ceremony lasted, sometimes for 3 or 4 hours, mesmerized. I remembered the paintings on the walls, and the stars shining on the high dark-blue ceiling 10 yards above. I remembered the pavement scattered with light, the clothes my mother and the other women used to wear, long multi-coloured skirts, embroidered shirts, lace scarves on their dark thick hair, and the way their hips and shoulders moved while they were singing, the voices rising to the sky and the comforting belief that Jesus was looking after us, even the worst of us, and at the time, I didn't know that I'd be one of them someday. The priest, Mother Pete-Marie, was a middle-aged woman, frail as a bird. She was always patient and understanding: she had come to see me when I was in prison, had taken my hands in hers, telling me that Jesus never forgot anyone, that he'd save me when the time came and that I had to keep faith. Yeah. At the time, I hadn't really listened but as I was agonizing in this dark and hot tomb on A4, trying so desperately to breathe, my lungs painful, my mouth dry, my nail scratching the rock restlessly, I'd remembered what she'd said. I'd prayed, not quite believing that I would be heard but hoping nonetheless. Maybe I'd been heard. Later, she had called me and asked me if I still believed… I guess I did. Strange how things I'd been through during childhood came back unexpected, and how the wonderful masses in the cathedral on Mars3 are still vivid memories. Like my mother, most of the women on Mars 3 came from that poor and overcrowded city on Earth called Mexico . Most people there were so poor and despaired that a huge festival was given every year on the oldest city square and men from outer space flew there to find a wife or a woman to fuck. Girls came from the surrounding areas, suburbs, villages, dressed in their best clothes, my mother explained me, and flirted with those rough men whose eyes had seen strange things, sometimes left Earth with them for an unknown place called Mars3. That's what had happened to her. And now Mars 3 looked a lot like their native lost town and they'd kept their own traditions alive on this unattractive planet, all red sky and red earth.
Get a grip, Keller! Vern was talking to me, telling me about the degenerate men from earth, kind of an inferior race that didn't deserve the comfort, the wealth and the cosy life our hard work provided them. He was talking about the under-class who had to take what Earth refused to give willingly. Power, dignity and money. Maybe the young miners or some members of the Trade Union were still under Vern's charm, but I'd heard his speech so many times that I didn't even listen, in the end. I nodded, talked with him, joked about the guy who'd asked me to fuck him in the greenhouse: Schillinger seemed to find it both unbelievable and funny. He laughed, patted my shoulder, and said, "You should join the Trade Union."
Yeah, count on that, old man. I smiled. "I'm more useful outside that inside."
He seemed to agree. "I'll get you something when it's over. What would you like?"
Strange. The only thing I really wanted at the time was to sit under the earth blue sky and stare into Beecher 's blue eyes… Like that would happen! That was just a job. I must have answered something, anything, before I left his room.
Late in the evening, I was having a drink in the crowded bar, trying not to think.
"You know, Keller, Schillinger used to be a man with ideas. Now he's a man with obsessions"
Ryan O'Reilly was sitting in front of me. I was about to go back down on A4, earlier than expected, and he'd offered me a drink in the smoky and noisy atmosphere of the only place where miners were kings. The bar, loud music, heat, virtual naked girls dancing inside metallic cages. Holograms, but so perfect you couldn't help try and touch them. Next were the cabins where you could watch any porn movie and fuck a virtual girl, smell her scent, touch her smooth skin, hear her moan like a cat in heat and tell you what a man wants to hear. Bullshit! All virtual bullshit. Real chicks wouldn't have lasted more than a week here. They'd tried. Too dangerous, too expensive. The EMC couldn't afford that, or they thought we didn't deserve such happiness. Yeah, just for that I hated the men from Earth nearly as much as Vern did. Because they thought we didn't even deserve to stroke a real soft skin, fuck a real body, hear real words, kiss a real mouth.
We were sitting in a corner of the bar where we could talk without shouting. "Obsessions!" O'Reilly insisted in his smooth voice, his eyes not leaving mine. "We have to stick together, you and I, and everybody who's not in the fucking MGTU. God, can you picture it, K'boy? Good ol' Vern running the place? He would be worse than the worst manager we ever had. Fucking crazy old tyrant… "
I sighed. O'Reilly hated Vern, there was bad blood between them, but he was right. The power of the syndicate was probably good, even if I didn't like that kind of things. I've always preferred to make it on my own. I knew that people in the MGTU tried to help, make our lives better, but Vern… Did he really believe in "the great cause, the necessary struggle against oppression", like he called it? Or did he use the Trade Union to satisfy his taste for power?
"You know," O'Reilly continued, "I don't like Glynn. And McManus is pathetic. They extended the working week on A4 from 7 to 8 days, raised the productivity standards by 10%, closed the greenhouse because so-called thieves stole fruits and flowers, decided we couldn't work out more than 4 times a week, and fired regular guys for no real reason… I don't like them. But Schillinger? No way. I'll support Vern's plan as long as I think it's good for us but when the time comes, I'll find a way to get him out of the way. I don't want the fucking Trade Union running my life, I wanna run it myself."
I nodded. O'Reilly was no real friend, he was cold and sly like a snake but we had one thing in common: we were resistant to any law. Resistant to the laws of the company, resistant to the laws of the Trade Union. And many guys there, even among those who'd joined the MGTU, felt like us.
We talked some more, I told him about Beecher in bed, and he rolled his eyes. Then we laughed, joked, drank a bit, and I left. I was supposed to fly to A4 in the morning. I needed some sleep. But that night, I had a dream about Beecher and his fucking birds. A nice dream. A fucking nice one.
Tobias Beecher
I waited for Keller the whole evening and part of the night. But he didn't come and I had no way to contact him. In the end I curled up on the bed, wrapped in the sheets, eyes closed. He'd promised he'd come. He'd looked so happy the night before, I couldn't understand what had happened. I began to remember every moment, every word and didn't find a single clue. Maybe he was sick. Maybe he had to go down to A4 earlier. Maybe… I sighed. Without him, Oz was empty and frightful again and I couldn't get any asleep before dawn. I hoped I'd dream of him at least but instead I dreamed of my mother.
I was a little boy, back in my parents' house and she was giving me her best stern look because I'd done something wrong. I couldn't find out what it was; I only knew I'd disappointed her, and that made me sad. She was telling me I'd never be the good boy she had expected me to be, that I had to remember that selfishness, anger and weakness were mortal sins and she looked so disappointed that I cried. That made no sense at all, but suddenly, she yelled, "And now you killed this little girl because you have no self-control, and you didn't respect what our faith teaches us…" I woke up shaking… Our faith? My mother's church was a sect called The Phenix, one of those dubious sects that had appeared in the last 20 years, something austere and dark. She'd become a member of it, a zealous one, when I was a kid. That's where she'd met Gen 7 years ago and decided that I'd marry her, telling me Gen was such a nice girl and an enthusiastic follower. I'd fallen in love with the girl because in the beginning, Gen had been so sweet and loving. But from the moment the kids were born, she'd lost interest in sex, and in me. She had begun to attend the church meetings more and more often, 2, 3, 4 times a week. When she had told me she'd take the children with her because they were old enough to learn about God, I'd said "no". I didn't want my kids to become fanatics; I wanted them to be free to choose by themselves. But my mother, and the charismatic leader of the sect, Kareem Saïd, had talked to me and in the end, I had given in. I didn't like this church, I thought the members were far more interested in my money than in anything else, and their obsession with forbidding all of life's pleasures and labelling it as "evil" infuriated me. But in the end, Kareem Saïd and his intense gaze, his soft voice, his warm smile had won. I had surrendered to his powers of persuasion because I needed a friend so badly. To keep his friendship, I'd given up my authority over my kids. I'd been weak.
I sat on my bed, wiped my wet skin with the sheets and sighed. It was late, nearly 8am and I had a staff meeting in less than half an hour. I walked into the shower, trying to recover. I missed Chris Keller and I longed for a drink. Maybe I could ask McManus for any alcohol he had hidden in his room after the meeting. He'd offered me before, but I didn't want to break the promise I'd made Gen about alcohol. Now it seemed to me that getting blind drunk was an acceptable substitute for sex. Of course, I'd say nothing to Saïd. I didn't want to hear another lecture from him. Fuck! I didn't want to hear any lecture at all. But now, I had to attend the staff meeting. I sighed. I didn't like my new job that much, after all.
I was a bit late, and everybody was already there when I entered the meeting room. I felt cold gazes on me and when I sat between McManus and Murphy, they looked away in disgust or anger. I became suddenly aware of the unusual silence filling the room. I looked around and couldn't catch a single eye. Something was wrong, and I didn't know what. I wondered if my nightmare had come true and I felt my stomach twitch in apprehension.
"You fucked up, Beecher !" Glynn's angry voice startled me. He threw a sheet of paper across the desk. "Read this," he ordered "and tell me how Schillinger can be so perfectly informed about the Company's plans!" He went on to explain that the leaflet had been delivered to every miner and indeed, every word I read I recognized as mine. Of course, I hadn't gotten very far yet, and some points were missing, but the general idea was clear enough: shut down Oz, fire most of the miners, and stop the growing influence of the Trade Union. Somebody had read my files and stolen them, chosen the most important passages, those that could exacerbate the miners' anger, and printed them. In the end, the MGTU called instant negotiations and threatened to take over the whole mine and let the miners run it themselves. I took a deep breath and looked up to Glynn. I was fucked. My throat tightened, I closed my eyes, trying to catch my breath. Keller. He had fooled me. Christ, I couldn't believe it.
"Explain me how that could happen," Glynn snapped, his face cold. I tried to pull myself together and keep the discussion on a rational level.
"I don't know. I didn't talk to anybody. I didn't meet anybody except the people in this room." I was lying. I saw Murphy and McManus exchange a glance and felt myself blush. Shit.
"You really think we'll believe that someone forced your door, guessed your personal password, made a copy of everything, and fed Schillinger such useful information? Where were you when that happened?"
"What else do you suggest?" I could fake indignation easily; I was a lawyer after all. "Do you suggest that I informed him? Told him about the company's plan? Ruined my own job? Do you think I'm crazy?"
Glynn frowned. "You were the one who said that it would be better to let them know, inform them."
"That was my personal opinion, Glynn, but I knew the company wouldn't do that."
"Well, Mr Beecher, then tell me how such a thing could happen."
I straightened in my seat. "Just like you said, I suppose. Someone forced my door when I was in the gym and found a way to read my files... I'm sure a lot of people working on Oz can do that. From what I heard, the men here aren't exactly choirboys."
There was a silence. They didn't believe me. I could feel the hostility grow in the room, people glaring at me and all I could think of was Keller. His kisses. His look. His smile. And the way he'd coaxed me into confidence, the way I'd believed he was truly interested. Pillow talk. Fucker. He was interested in finding out a password and stealing my files, that's why he'd asked for the Kathy Rockwell's name. He didn't give a damn about me being forgiven, he had never intended to pray for me! A man like Keller doesn't pray! I swallowed hard, pushed back a sudden twinge of sadness and shame, felt tears under my eyelids. Glynn's scornful look didn't leave me.
"You're fired, Beecher ." I barely reacted. "I talked to Devlin this morning." The whole world was falling down on me. I thought of my parents and Gen. I'd never dare go back home. I'd failed once more. Glynn's words reached me through a sickening haze.
"A shuttle will take you back on Earth this afternoon. Until then, you will stay in your room."
His voice was ice cold and he rose suddenly, informing me that the meeting was over. I managed to get up, the hostile silence following me as I stumbled to the door, shaking. But at the door stood Vern Schillinger surrounded by some of his friends, arms crossed, his mocking and deceptively nice smile firmly in place. He pushed me back into the room, his eyes cold, his voice hard and I heard him say, "Mr Beecher isn't going anywhere. Not him, not you, nobody will leave Oz today. We're going to have another kind of meeting here, Mr Glynn."
Tbc…