The Siren Stone
DEMOLITION OUR SPECIALTY
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* * *
Colonel Matthew Chang sat aboard the spaceship Long Island and stared at the sensor map, which showed asteroid 20 521 Odette de Proust flying steadily towards Space Station Reagan—and the two hundred and ninety people he’d had to leave there.
A video transmission from General Boyd on Olympus appeared on a monitor.
“Colonel,” said Boyd, “all our fleet—what’s left after the Mars disaster—is still carrying refugees away from Olympus. The soonest any ship can get to Space Station Reagan is seven weeks.”
“Odette will hit Reagan in six,” said Chang plainly.
“Are you confident the demolition crew will blow up the asteroid well before that?” Boyd asked.
Chang shook his head. “They’re still behind schedule. Two days now. Something’s wrong.” In the asteroid demolition business, rock blasters did not linger on an asteroid by choice. If they were late, they had run into trouble. A failed bomb, a premature explosion, a crashed ship, a collision with another asteroid, an injured crew… there were endless possibilities on how the mission could fail.
But these problems occurred on asteroids that wobbled erratically in orbits crowded with other rocks. They seldom occurred on asteroids like Odette, rocks that rotated smoothly in orbits with few neighbours.
“Rock Blasters, Inc. are the best in the business,” said Boyd. “But if they’ve failed, you and the Long Island must be in position to blow up the asteroid.”
“I should be evacuating the station. It’s not worth risking anyone—” Chang protested. “We’re not the experts—”
“I’ll take full responsibility. I’ve put the order in writing,” said Boyd. “Remember, the Long Island holds only ten people. Time isn’t on your side—to save the personnel or the station itself. That’s why I’m sending you to make sure that asteroid is destroyed. It’s the only way to save all three hundred people.”
After Boyd’s transmission ended, Chang muttered, “We should’ve blown up Odette years ago. Those stupid civil servants don’t take anything seriously until it becomes a crisis.”
A lieutenant turned to Chang. “Sir,” said the lieutenant, “We’ve re-established contact with the Rocky Road.”
“Finally,” said Chang. “What’s going on now?”
“The crew is still acting crazy. They insist there are people living on the asteroid.”
“Impossible,” Chang growled. “How can anyone live on an airless rock?”
The lieutenant pointed at a monitor. “We’re getting a transmission from the blasters now, sir.”
On the monitor, the image of Andrew Lundman appeared, beamed from his ship the Rocky Road, now on Odette.
“Lundman, when are you going to blow up that rock?” said Chang.
“Not while there are people here,” said Andrew.
*
For Andrew Lundman, owner of Rock Blasters, Inc. and captain of the Rocky Road, the project had seemed clear and simple: land on Odette, bore a hole into its core, plant a couple nuclear bombs, leave, and detonate the bombs. Odette would break into pieces of varied trajectories instead of slamming into Space Station Reagan six weeks from now.
Scavengers would follow to pick up the chunks of iron ore and pay a commission of five million gold units to Rock Blasters, Inc. Along with the twenty million gold units for blowing up the asteroid, Rock Blasters, Inc. would make a good profit.
20 521 Odette de Proust, named after a character from the novel Swann’s Way and the novelist who created her, should have been a routine assignment. Odette was small and deemed safe enough that the United Nations Committee On Asteroid and Meteor Collisions had simply outsourced the job to Rock Blasters, Inc. On schedule, Andrew Lundman, George Hodding, and Ed Benton had landed on Odette without problems. Just another asteroid demolition. Or so they’d thought.
The first ghost had appeared when they were drilling into the asteroid. Andrew remembered the moment in every detail. They all did.
XY-Girls
“That’s a nice dress,” the new customer said to Susanna.
Susanna smiled and slid a glass of beer to him. She wore a long red gown with a slit up to her hip. The women working at Club Mandy had to look glamorous and sexy.
She flipped her blonde hair. “Thank you,” she said. “I wanted to look like a Hollywood actress. Let’s bring some glamour to this drab little planet.”
The customer wore a blue jumpsuit with the logo of the Columbian Off-World Company, a golden eagle holding a spade in its talons. The jumpsuit meant that he worked in the mines or the smelting plants, not in the company’s business offices. Susanna guessed that like most men here, he came to Southern Comfort for the high wages and would leave when his contract ended in two years. Southern Comfort offered nothing but a grey sky and an equally grey landscape. There was nothing to keep a man here forever.
The miner took a sip. “You look like a movie star,” he said.
He glanced around quickly, furtively checking out the other girls. Susanna thought, he’s such a shy kid. Probably doesn’t have much experience in bars like this.
Then he looked back at Susanna. “Uh, do you want to go upstairs?”
“Ah, no. I’m flattered that you would consider me, though.”
“Oh, I thought all the girls in this bar are working girls,” the miner said.
Susanna shook her head. “That’s a misconception back on Earth. We’re all working, but not all in the same business. But that’s okay; you’re new here. I’m in bar and restaurant management.”
She pointed at a woman who was eating alone at a table. “That’s Postie. She’s the postal manager of the mining camp, which means she’s Postmaster General of the entire planet.”
“Wow, she’s pretty,” said the miner. “Is she a Thai ladyboy?”
“She’s actually Filipina, and she prefers to be called a lady, not a boy.”
“Oh, okay,” the miner said. “I went to a bar like this in Vancouver once. Just once. The girls were beautiful.”
“It’s just the same here, only the chromosomes are different,” Susanna said, “and sometimes the anatomy, but some guys like that, some guys don’t, and some guys don’t care. It’s complicated.”
“I was reluctant to take a job here when I heard that all the girls are XY-girls,” the miner said, “but now that I’ve been here two weeks, I’m fine with it. Every girl here is like a girl back home.”
“Though you probably didn’t grow up next door to a girl like the one who’s coming at you now,” said Susanna.
Crystal, a brown-haired woman in a tight black minidress, approached them.
Susanna whispered to the miner, “If you’re looking for personal services, Crystal is the girl for you.”
Crystal had several skills, including hacking computer systems for fun and profit, but when she worked in the bar, she stayed honest. Crystal bought wristbands, thus helping Susanna increase her revenue. Despite her subversive hacker reputation, she never snuck guys upstairs without paying.
Crystal sat down beside the miner, leaned towards him, and rubbed his thigh. “My name is Crystal,” she purred. “I’m from Colombia. Where are you from?”
“Medicine Hat,” the miner replied. He gulped down some beer.
“That’s in Canada, right? I hear it’s really cold there. But I know how to make a man hot,” said Crystal.
She rubbed the miner’s thigh again. He squirmed and looked back at Susanna.
Crystal touched the miner’s chin and turned his face. “Don’t look at her. Look at me. I’m your girl 24/7.”
Susanna grinned. Crystal knew how to get her clients.
After more of Crystal’s flirting, the miner finally said, “Yes, let’s go upstairs.”
“Ah, great,” Susanna said. “Crystal, I’ve got your wristbands.”
Crystal handed some cash to Susanna. Susanna put wristbands on Crystal and the miner. Crystal laughed, grabbed the miner by the hand, and pulled him upstairs.
* * *
A little later, Susanna went upstairs to use the women’s washroom. She tapped her employee card on the door. The words “ACCESS DENIED” appeared on it.
“Oh, it’s broken again,” Susanna muttered. “Crystal?”
Susanna looked around. The private room’s door was closed. Crystal was still with her client.
Susanna wished she could get the money to renovate the washrooms and make them all single stalls. Until then, she had to make do with what the Company had built, separate washrooms for men and women. She also had to make do with Crystal repairing the IT systems in her spare time.
Susanna couldn’t wait until Crystal had finished with her client. She pushed open the door of the men’s washroom, which had no lock.
Several men stood at the urinals, and they ogled and whistled at her.
But one of the men said, “You guys think that’s a girl? He’s not.”
Salvo was a miner. He frequently took XY-girls to the private rooms, but that didn’t mean that he liked them.
“Hey, Salvo, leave her alone,” said John, one of the Company’s accountants. “She’s the one who gives us beer and chicken wings and rehydratable processed fish-based food.”
“I should never have come here,” Salvo ranted. “You’re turning me homo.”
“Hey, chill out,” John said. “Let’s go to Texas Chuckwagon. It’s pub crawl night, even if there are only two pubs on the whole planet.”
After the men left, Susanna went into a toilet stall. When she left the men’s washroom, some escort girls pointed and giggled at her. Susanna shrugged and walked downstairs.
Police Chief John Dunford entered the bar with a girl. Susanna had never seen her before. She looked about twenty years-old, blonde bob hairstyle, very pretty, wearing a short green dress.
“Who’s the new girl?” Susanna asked.
The girl held out her hand to Susanna. “My name is Helen,” she said. “It’s nice to meet you.”
As Susanna shook Helen’s hand, Dunford said, “She’s a Victor Robotics L-10, Military Recreation Model.”
Susanna gasped. Helen’s hand felt warm and soft, like a real human’s. She looked and moved so realistically. She had fooled Susanna.
“She’s also programmed for pleasure,” Dunford said. “I want to go upstairs.”
Susanna quickly tied a wristband around Dunford. Dunford slapped Helen on her butt and pulled her to the stairs.
He turned and said, “I don’t know why the Company allowed you freaks to come here. I would rather screw an android than a tranny.”
Susanna glared at him. The government couldn’t get decent police officers to work on Southern Comfort. That’s how they wound up with a police chief who insulted the girls and fondled his sex robot in public.
“The men want us,” Susanna replied. “Without us, they would have nothing better to do than get drunk and beat each other up. Or straight guys would be jumping each other like in prison. Either would be bad for Company shareholders.”
*
Susanna closed Club Mandy and walked home. As she passed the Roman Catholic chapel, she heard the Filipina girls sing. The priest did not care that the girls had been born with boys’ bodies. He liked them because they were his most loyal parishioners. He had trouble getting people to come to church on this God-forsaken planet named after a liqueur. Coincidentally, Southern Comfort was also the name of an annual conference for transgender persons in the late twentieth century.
There were no XX-women on Southern Comfort. The original two colonies, Pale Blue and Petit Rouge, fought each other in the Great Slaughter decades ago. Petit Rouge’s President MacLeod, infamous for his disdain of women, created a bacterium that killed people with XX chromosomes and launched it at Pale Blue. The bacterium killed all of the Pale Blue’s women, but it also spread everywhere and killed Petit Rouge’s women too. Society in both colonies collapsed, and MacLeod’s own guards overthrew him. The United Nations put Southern Comfort under United States trusteeship with a Governor appointed by Congress. While the Earth nations argued over how to govern the planet, the United States leased mining rights to the Columbian Off-World Company.
XX-women could live on Southern Comfort if they took antibiotics after getting infected, but none wanted to risk dying before the antibiotics took effect. The colonization restarted without women. Without women, many men quit their contracts early and went home. The Company tried entertaining the men with holograms of women, but that failed to stop them from returning to Earth. As a last resort, the Company recruited XY-women to the planet. The number of men who quit early fell by fifty percent.
The Company built Club Mandy, inspired by an XY-girl bar in New York. Susanna had worked there before going to Southern Comfort. She would work here for five years and return to Earth with ten times the money she would have earned there.
The Room Where We Hid
Times Square, New York, March 1, 2221
DeAndre Pompey stopped in the cool March air to look at the giant digital screens. All had the same news: ARMY RETAKES WASHINGTON FROM REBELS.
As the news lit up all over the block, people cheered and car horns sounded. A street musician played “The Stars and Stripes Forever” on his portable synthesizer. Pompey felt relieved; after a series of defeats, the Federal Government was finally winning the Fifth Civil War.
Pompey walked to Broadway. Before he entered the Shinbone Theater, he looked at its marquee. In bright lights shone the words:
PENCE: AN AMERICAN MUSICAL
Winner of 11 Tony Awards
Pompey had one of those Tony Awards, and he also won an African American Actors Alliance Achievement Award. Pence had made him the most famous Black actor on Broadway.
He went to his dressing room and put on a blue twenty-first century business suit and tie. He was in costume to play Mike Pence, Vice-President of the United States, for the two hundredth time.
On the way to the stage, he gave a high-five to Doniphon, the actor who played President Donald Trump. Doniphon was the only white actor in the cast.
* * *
From the script of Pence: An American Musical
Scene: The Senate Chamber
Enter Donald Trump, waving his cell phone. He approaches Pence. Insurrectionists lurk by moving menacingly across the stage.
TRUMP (to Pence):
You can either go down in history as a patriot or you can go down in history as a pussy.
PENCE:
My oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not. The Presidency belongs to the American people and to them alone. Biden has won the election.
TRUMP (to the Insurrectionists):
Grab the pussy!
The Insurrectionists stalk and block Pence as he nervously tries to exit the stage.
INSURRECTIONISTS (chanting):
Find Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence! Find Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence!
TRUMP (shouting at the audience):
Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done!
The Insurrectionists dance around Pence as they chant “Find Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence!” Secret Service officers rush on stage and push Pence off stage left. Trump laughs maniacally and exits stage right.
* * *
Scene: The Hideout
Pence, Karen, Senators, and Congressmen rush into the basement hideout. Sounds of banging and shouting.
INSURRECTIONISTS (chanting offstage):
Find Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence! Find Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence!
SECRET SERVICE OFFICER:
Mr. Vice-President, don’t leave! It’s unsafe out there! You’ve got to stay here!
PENCE (sings “The Room Where We Hid”):
Here I am, hiding underground
When I should be fighting tyranny all around!
I’ve got to leave the room where we hid
The room where we hid
The room where we hid…
Curtain falls. Intermission.
* * *
From the script of Pence: An American Musical
Act 2
Scene: The Hideout
PENCE (looking at cell phone):
Antifa have arrived at the Mall. But they don’t know what to do. They have no one to lead them.
KAREN:
Mike, you’ve got to do it. You know you’ve got to do it, dear.
NANCY PELOSI (holding map):
Mr. Vice-President, these are underground tunnels, secret escape routes from the Capitol. You can take them and emerge above ground at the Mall.
PENCE takes the map from Pelosi.
PENCE:
I might get caught, but I’ve got to do it. I’ve got to leave the room where we hid.
SENATORS (singing “The Room Where We Hid”):
He’s got to leave the room where we hid
The room where we hid
The room where we hid…
Pence kisses Karen and runs off stage.
* * *
Scene: The Mall
Antifa members loiter on the Mall. Pence emerges from a manhole cover.
FIRST ANTIFA:
Look, it’s Pence!
SECOND ANTIFA:
Damn, what’s he doing here?
PENCE:
Join me! We have to march on the Capitol and recapture it for the people!
The antifa crowd cheers and follows Pence as they march to the Capitol.
* * *
Scene: The Senate Chamber
Trump screams as he walks to the edge of the stage. He hisses at the Senators and Congressmen.
TRUMP:
You stole the election, but I will be back!
Trump dives into the orchestra pit. Note: make sure there is a large cushion or trampoline to break his fall.
The Senators and Congressmen cheer as Trump disappears into the orchestra pit.
PENCE:
Where are the Senate workers who rescued the ballots from the mob?
FIRST DREAMER:
Here I am!
SECOND DREAMER:
Me too!
PENCE:
America owes you her thanks. Because of what you have done, we can declare Biden as the President Elect after a fair election!
The two Dreamers give each other a high-five and say:
FIRST AND SECOND DREAMER (in unison):
Immigrants! We get the job done!
Antifa members enter the Senate Chamber, joining the Senators and Congressmen. They hold up U.S. and Pride flags as they sing the last song, a reprise of “The Room Where We Hid”:
ALL:
He had to leave the room where we hid
The room where we hid
The room where we hid
He had to leave the room where we hid
To save our city upon a hill.
Curtain falls.
* * *
The curtain lifted again, and the cast revelled in the applause of the audience. Alex Nevis, the playwright, came on stage and said, “Everyone! I have an announcement!”
What could it be? Pompey wondered.
“Great news!” Nevis shouted. “The Department of Education will stream Pence into classrooms so that our children can learn about the greatest American after Alexander Hamilton!”
As the audience cheered, Pompey said, “Great! We’ll get residuals from this.”
Doniphon nodded. “Maybe they’ll add us to the regular curriculum. If they do, we’re set for life.”
“America needs heroes, now more than ever in these troubled times,” Nevis said. “Just as Alexander Hamilton inspired a generation during the Crisis of the Twenty-First Century, Mike Pence will inspire today’s generation to defend democracy.”
A man in the audience shouted, “Beat the Rebels!” Someone chanted, “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” The people were still cheering as the cast left the stage.
*
As he changed out of costume, Pompey heard his phone buzz. A new text message appeared:
I’ve returned from 2021. Arrived in New York now. Need to see you soon. Tom.
It was his old college friend Tom Stoddard. The two of them had been oddballs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. MIT was hardly famous for arts programs, yet it did have them. Pompey had studied theatre arts at MIT, and Stoddard had studied history. After teaching at several universities, Stoddard returned to MIT as a lecturer.
I’ve returned from 2021. Pompey’s heart beat faster. The Fourth Dimension Project must have succeeded.
© 2025 Derwin Mak
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