they do not enjoy taking our handouts, but they simply have no other choice in this world that has been created for us.'
'Fuckin aye,' Jeff cried, sitting up a little straighter. 'That bitch really knows how to tell it. And to think, I blew her off a couple months ago as just another scumbag politician.'
'I always told you she was different,' Matt said, sipping from his bottle. 'I'm starting to think that she just might pull this independence bid off. After all, she's beaten the corporations at every turn so far.'
'So far,' Jeff agreed. 'She's got a long haul ahead of her, but maybe she will.'
'And what if she does?' Belinda asked sourly, her words thick and slurred from the two bottles of Fruity that she'd swallowed while cooking. 'What if this bitch that everyone's talking about actually does manage to get us independent? Do you really think anything is going to change around here? We'll still be unemployed vermin living off of welfare money and drinking this crappy brew that they make out of apple piss.'
Jeff usually ignored his wife when she talked. If he was forced to acknowledge her it was usually in an argumentative tone. This time however, he spoke calmly to her. 'So what if nothing does change?' he asked her.
'What?' she asked, not grasping what he was talking about.
'What if Laura Whiting takes over and everyone's worst fear comes true and she turns out to be some Adolph Hitler fascist dictator who only wanted to rule the fuckin world? So what if that happens? Would we be any worse off than we are right now?'
'That's not the point,' Belinda said.
'It
Belinda shook her head in disgust. 'You're getting as bad as your friend there,' she told him. 'Talking about improvement and independence and shit like that. I guess three generations as vermin hasn't taught you much. Wait 'til you're five generations in like me.'
'Fuck off,' he told her. 'You don't understand shit. Why don't you go finish up that slop you're cooking?'
She did so, after only a minor argument to the contrary. In truth Jeff could see that even Belinda was feeling some hope despite her cynical blabbering to the contrary. Wasn't she always coming in and out of the room when Whiting was speaking, pretending not to be interested but keeping one ear tuned to the screen? Wasn't she always looking through MarsGroup articles regarding the latest Whiting exploits and then pushing them to the background if he happened to come in the room? Belinda's attitude was typical among many of the welfare class. They pretended to be disinterested because they wanted to be able to say 'I told you so' if Whiting ultimately failed.
Matt ate dinner with the Creeks, something he did several nights a week, and then, after fortifying themselves with another bottle of Fruity apiece, the two friends donned their darkest clothing and headed out of the building to perform what had become their favorite activity over the last month. They took with them a can apiece of industrial spray paint that they had shoplifted from the welfare mart and they walked through the darkened streets towards the downtown area. They moved beneath the glass roof, a canopy of billions of brightly burning stars visible in the gaps between high rises. Sticking to the sidewalks and walking as close to the buildings as they could get, it took them twenty minutes to reach their target area - a lower-end commercial district on the border between the Heights and downtown. The streets here were lined with shopping complexes and moderate rent office buildings. Since businesses and office buildings — intoxicant shops excepted - were all closed this time of night there were very few people out and about.
'How about there?' Jeff asked, pointing at the entrance to the FurnitureCorp building. This was a 114-story tower that housed the administration of much of the planet's rent-to-own furniture industry, an industry that preyed heavily upon the Martian welfare class and working poor. It was of course owned and operated by Earthlings.
'Nobody's tagged it yet,' Matt said with a smile. 'Fuckin amazing. Let's do it.'
They walked down the street, moving casually, as if they weren't the least bit interested in their surroundings. In reality they were using their peripheral vision to scan all around them, their street senses searching for cops, witnesses, or anyone else that they didn't want or expect to see. Except for a few bums sleeping in the street planters, there was no one. As they passed the entrance to the building they saw a guard sitting behind a desk inside but no one else. The guard was a Martian, as were all security guards on the planet, and probably nothing to worry about. Experience had already taught them that security guards — the closest working people to vermin in stature — would happily look the other way on this kind of mission. The security cameras at the front of the building were something else though. Matt got the first one. Though it was four meters up he was able to hit it with a blast of his spray can by jumping up and twisting around before firing. This was a well-practiced technique, garnered from basketball skills, designed to blind the camera without allowing it to get a digital shot of his face first.
'Good one,' Jeff said, impressed. 'You're getting better at that.' He then proceeded to do the second camera, walking towards it with his head hunched down until the last second. He jumped, twisted in mid-air, and gave a pinpoint blast of red paint right on the lens. A direct shot. Now that both cameras were out of action, it was time to go to work.
On the thick plexiglass of the building front, they each painted their epitaphs. Using broad strokes of the can, Matt wrote FREE MARS in red letters nearly a meter high. He double-underlined it for effect. Jeff's writing was a little more artistic. In calligraphic script he wrote: EARTHLINGS GO HOME. The guard inside of the building clearly saw them doing this but ignored their actions completely except for a slight grin and a quick thumbs up. He would pretend to discover the vandalism later on in his shift.
'Goddamn this is fun,' Jeff said as they headed down the street in search of another target. 'It's almost as fun as running dust over from the greenhouse supply yards.'
It took them awhile to find another target to hit. It was not that there were no corporate owned buildings to deface, it was that most of them had already been tagged several times. FREE MARS, EARTHLINGS GO HOME, FUCK ALL EARTHLINGS, AUTOMONY NOW, and FUCK THE CORPORATIONS were the dominant mottos seen, painted in varying heights and colors on the fronts of nearly every building. Persistence soon paid off however and they found the Caldwell Building, home of the fourth largest lawsuit insurance provider in WestHem. The front windows here were agreeably clean, just begging for a fresh coat of anti-Earthling epitaphs. They provided them and then went out in search of yet another building, a quest they were successful in six blocks over at the Logiburn and Meyers high rise, home to the sixth largest law firm on Mars.
After defacing the law firm's front windows they moved north along the street, searching for another target. They made it about three blocks before hearing the electric hum of police carts approaching from behind them. Veterans of police shakedowns, both knew instantly just by the speed they were traveling, that they were going to stop them. Both instinctively looked around for an escape route out of the area — an alley or a maintenance access road that they could run to and make their escape. There were none in easy reach. It seemed that the cops knew what they were doing, not making their approach until their quarry was well out in the open.
'Oh shit,' Matt said, resigned. He was very nervous. They had been defacing corporate buildings after all, an act that would have gained them prison time not too long before. Was it possible that the rumors that they had heard about the cops looking the other way about such things were wrong? It sure seemed so since they were about to stop them.
'Just be static,' Jeff said as the two carts pulled to a stop behind them. 'Maybe we can talk our way out of this shit.'
The four doors of the two carts clanked open and four helmeted, armored Eden police officers stepped out, all of them slipping their tanners into their belts. The cop closest to them — the name badge on his armor identified him as Broward — took two steps towards them. Like any ghetto inhabitants worth their salt, Jeff and Matt pretended not to notice them and kept walking.
'Hold up a second there, you two,' Broward said, taking a few more steps closer, his entire body braced to run after them if they tried to make a break for it.
They stopped and turned to face them, tough but neutral expressions upon their face. Both kept their hands at their sides, well clear of the holstered guns they carried under their shirts. Broward looked them up and down and then stepped even closer, his own hand resting on the butt of his tanner. His entourage followed behind him,
