Warning: Possible spoiler for The Cage Above, the prequel in the Antifan Girlfriend series. Or not.
Orlando, May 2052
As I lay there in the too-large hotel bed in Florida, the realization hit me: today is the day they send Tony to moon prison. The man I had married over 25 years ago, who rarely let an hour go without a laugh or a joke, had gotten serious. He could have plea bargained and stayed on Earth where Greg—our oldest son—and I could have visited him on rare occasions. “No, Ava,” Tony had said firmly. “People will always think I was guilty of something. I will wait for justice.”
It was a sign of how well matched we were that I completely understood his position and would probably have done the same if our fates were switched. But when I came to America from Sweden as a naïve 19-year old for my au pair job, it would never occurred to me that such a thing could happen to law-abiding citizens. At some point we had become non-law-abiding, but we could not identify exactly when that had happened, because it had less to do with what we had done and more to do with whom we were and our values that were no longer in accordance with those of the government.
My phone rang. I struggled to reach for it and somehow hit the correct button in my daze. “Mom? We need to leave in an hour. Eli and I are going downstairs to get some breakfast.”
“All right, I’m awake,” I said. “I’m not hungry.” But I knew Greg would save a breadchunk for me. I pulled myself heavily out of bed, and blinked unsteadily at the mirror. Tears began to fall down my cheeks again. I had let the gray grow out in the last few months in my distress, but with my blonde hair it wasn’t too jarring a contrast and it was the least of my concerns. Now I wished I had colored my hair so Tony’s last sight of me would give him something pleasant to remember.
The black jacket and slacks lay on the armchair. Last night that had looked acceptable, but in the bright sunshine of this May morning, I reminded myself, this isn’t a funeral, even if it seems like one. I decided to send a message with a brighter outfit. Red and white blouse, blue denim skirt. He always liked seeing me in red, what with my blonde hair and fair complexion. It was strange, almost like dressing for someone whose wake you were attending.
He’s not dying, I reproved myself, but really for all intents and purposes, unless a new government took over and pardoned the moon prisoners or returned them to earth, they would be dead men walking. Each moon prisoner stayed in isolation in his own cell. Food came through a slit in the door. Some provision was made for exercise, in solitude. The prisoners marched in their cells to an approved music track.
The solitary confinement was not total. Once a week they gathered to hear lectures about Our Democracy. Sometimes they watched news programming from Our Democracy, so they could see all the economic and social advances our government was making. They did not have the advantage of we Earthlings of comparing the propaganda with the reality around them. As a reward for good behavior, they would watch music videos and an occasional movie.
I was relieved, and a little surprised, that the authorities allowed Eli to use the third ticket that ordinarily would have gone to my second son, Liam.
Eli quickly accepted. He felt guilty, I knew, far more than did Liam, who had actually betrayed his father. Eli had stayed back here in Metropole when Tony had asked him to come to the Capitol and join the protests that had surged after the last needed state voted to abolish the Electoral College. He had known the protest would not succeed, and at that point he had three small children and a fourth on the way. Everyone remembered 2021.
Tony’s last words to Eli, on the phone, were, “Man, you gotta do something someday.” But later, he said to me, “if they’re listening, at least they won’t think Eli’s involved.”
So maybe by going to the launch Eli was trying to show Tony he was sorry. Or maybe he was just sorry I would be widowed in all but name. Or sorry for Tony, who was like a big brother to him and godfather to their two oldest children, going to moon prison. Eli and his wife Marjory did not believe in thwarting the government. Their church said unless the government forced you to do something that was morally wrong, you should obey.
I was ashamed because after Tony was arrested, I had briefly wondered whether they had betrayed him. “That’s not their way,” Greg chided me gently.
It was Liam who had called the “Save Democracy Hotline.”
“I don’t know why he didn’t turn me in too,” Greg had said. Liam had always been jealous of his older brother. I didn’t know why either. Maybe they didn’t want to take two people from the same family or maybe they were hoping Greg would begin taking on Tony’s leadership role and leading them into other seditious cases. For now he was lying low and finishing his business degree. He had not gone into the Capitol, maybe that’s why they had spared him, although that hadn’t mattered in hundreds of other cases. He had milled around on the Mall with thousands of other distressed and aimless patriots.
I sat in the back seat of the car, my eyes trained either on the back of Eli’s blond head or the flat Florida scenery that passed by. This was not how I had expected to travel to Florida. We approached the gate. Dogs sniffed around our car. A guard surveyed us with narrow eyes, checked our identification, and gave us directions to the visitors center. We would take a shuttle to the Launch House from the parking lot.
Inside the security processing lobby of the Launch House, we stared into high vaulted skylights, a juxtaposition of openness and the rebuke of cold clean metal. They directed us to the line for “Prisoner Families,” about fifty feet from the line for “General Spectators,” which was divided in turn into Social Credit Scores 100 and above and below. The 100+ visitors moved much more quickly through the line. Most of them wore paper masks to prove their loyalty to Our Democracy. We were wanded, our belongings passed through an X-ray machine, and we walked without our shoes through a tunnel to detect explosives.
Greg and Eli passed muster, but the matron at the other end of the tunnel pointed to my outfit. “That will not be permitted.”
“What’s wrong with it?” I was bewildered. It was very modest, unlike the short shorts and midriff-baring T-shirts worn by the Florida vacationers shuffling through the Social Credit lines in their flip-flops.
“That combination of colors is considered political messaging.” The matron traded my seditious blouse for a boxy black T-shirt that said “Property of PRS” and gave me a receipt to present afterwards. PRS stood for Prisoner Relocation Services. PRS sent prisoners to the moon. It was a very profitable business owned by a billionaire.
“Mom, let it go,” Greg said.
“I’m letting it go, what choice do I have?” I muttered. But now I was labeled as property of PRS, albeit indirectly, which was true enough. PRS occupied a large chunk of my brain these days.
We were directed to an open box and sat in the first row. Other prisoner families sat in neighboring boxes. We could tell we were kin because they also looked anxious and properly dressed for a serious occasion. We stared out at the giant launch platform, about 200 feet away, from which an extension with a podium came to about 150 feet away from us. The rocket ship waited on the main platform, technicians scurrying around it. A long walkway reached from the neighboring building to the main platform. We knew from our research that the prisoners were bussed to the space center, and then marched to the launch platform, where we were told we would get one last glimpse of our loved ones. Each name would be mentioned, with the crime and the sentence, and we would stand so our relative could see us one last time. We would be allowed to wave, but not to shout. Tony would not hear our voices again.
The seats behind us were occupied by masked high Social Credit. Was it coincidental, or were they emplaced there to listen to us? Or did they not even know we were family to a prisoner? Their jovial manner suggested not. Once upon a time, their forebears had attended bear baitings in Middle European city squares and gladiator fights to the death in the Roman arenas.
We waited half an hour in the increasingly sultry heat, sipping from water bottles, at the convenience of the officials. I suspected they were joshing with each other in a cool air-conditioned lounge in the launch building. Another day, another dollar.
Several officials strode out to a podium facing us. The first one introduced herself as the head of the Lunar Rehabilitation Program. She was wearing a blue suit and pumps, and a silver necklace glinted in the sun. Her blonde hair was wavy and shoulder length, in the way of middle aged female bureaucrats who still wish to convey youth and sexual attractiveness despite their responsibilities.
“Wak wak wak,” she said. “Wak.”
“Nobody returns home from that place! You’re the criminals!”
We stared over at the next box, where another prisoner’s family member was standing, cupping his hands around his mouth to yell louder. The crowd booed him. Two security officers hustled him out of the viewing area. On the platform, two other security men ran towards the prisoner whose turn it was and pulled him back into the interior of the launch building.
More speeches by functionaries. No clergy, even satanic ones. I didn’t bother listening, because it was drivel punctuated by insults. My blood pressure was already soaring, I could tell. Greg’s hand reached out for mine and held it gently. Eli stared straight ahead.
Finally, the ten transports were led onto the platform in leg shackles. They were considered so desperate, or needed to be portrayed as such, that even in this highly secure environment, one could not run the risk one might leap onto the ground one hundred feet below and run off, towards the concessionaire stands and the parking lots, grabbing a funnel cake on the way.
“I can’t tell which one is your father,” I said, desperately. All wore masks, for hygienic reasons, but also to cement their political humiliation and mute whatever final speech one might want to utter.
“Second from right,” said Greg. Then I made out Tony’s swarthy complexion above the mask, his short stature, and a narrow slice of recently cut hair underneath the required cap. But something still looked odd about him. Maybe he had lost weight.
“They sure don’t give you a lot to look at,” muttered Eli. Indeed, the message was “all the same.” All were men, and to the best of our discernment, white or Hispanic like Tony. Either women didn’t dare commit the thoughtcrimes that sent men to the moon, or the authorities knew the limits of public tolerance.
Then came the presentation of prisoners. Each name was announced, with the crime for which they had earned moon exile; the shackles were removed, and they were allowed to shuffle to the edge of the platform so the family members could wave one last time. Everyone behaved. Clank, shuffle, then escorted to the left where they entered the spacecraft. Next clank, shuffle….four minutes later, “Antonio James Wootton.”
With the shackles removed, Tony moved towards the platform. He was swaying slightly. Two guards pulled him back from the edge.
“They’ve drugged him!” I said, infuriated. We waved wildly at him. He did not respond, although it was indeed permitted to wave back.
“God bless you! We love you!” I shouted, against the rules, trying to get him to respond. What were they going to do, double his moon term? Two security officers started moving towards me, but before I could antagonize them further, the platform officers walked Tony towards the craft, which swallowed him, forever.
An intermission was announced during which the moon prisoners were secured in the craft. Vendors came down the aisles with snacks. Eli bought a giant pretzel and he divided it with Greg. I wasn’t hungry after the giant breadchunk filled with cheese that morning. I felt vaguely nauseous. My life was coming to an end, in all ways except biologically.
Now it was time for the launch. I didn’t want to see it, but we had come for it, bearing premier tickets, and we might as well see the whole thing through. I wept as the rocket took off. The exhaust of gas, smoke, and flames mirrored the dismay and anger that washed through me as my husband of 25 years was ejected from earth. We watched the rocket until it disappeared into the upper atmosphere. Greg and Eli watched impassively, which only fueled my fury. “How can you sit there like rocks? You might as well be on the moon yourself,” I challenged them.
Greg took my hand again. “Mom, it will be all right.”
“How can you say that?” I cried. Thrust into space, never to be seen again.
The functionaries then shooed us from our box and herded us out of the launch building in a giant crowd. One of them returned my clothes at the security booth. “You can keep the T-shirt,” she laughed at me. “We don’t have fumigation facilities here.”
We followed the crowd back to the parking lots. They weren’t watching us anymore. We were just more “citizens” and the civics lesson was over. Now they just wanted us gone, Social Credit and hoi polloi alike mixing together in strung-out clumps along the main driveway.
We had turned off the road and were walking down the long main row towards our car when I heard a familiar voice behind me. “Don’t turn around.” In shock, I half turned around, but the voice said, “don’t!”
My hands flushed cold and sweaty. My fingers and toes tingled.
Eli opened the SUV doors from a distance. As soon as we approached the vehicle, my husband overtook us and leaped into the back seat. I tried to control my face until I’d hopped in next to him. Greg and Eli in the front said nothing, and we drove out as if nothing had happened. They somehow had known this would happen. I was sorry I had accused them of being rocks.
We kissed deeply, not caring about our spectators.
“Dad, you gotta get down now,” warned Greg. Tony lay face down in the back seat while I moved into the middle seat. “We’re not out of here yet. Pull the blanket over him.” I turned around to do that. Our eyes met. All that anger that had flooded me a mere twenty minutes ago disappeared. Tony winked at me before the blanket covered his face.
We drove straight through to Ohio, with middle of the night stops where he would dart into the woods to relieve himself. Nobody seemed to be after us, but there was no point in taking the risk of entering the roadside rest stops. We did not dare go home, or to a hotel. So we arrived at a campground 50 miles away from our town, where Eli had rented a cabin in his name for us, and then they left us there. Tony took a shower (“this is the thing I missed most about home, other than you and Greg,”) and we made passionate love, even though we are well into middle age and beyond such silliness. But we had thought we would never make love again. Or at least I never thought we would. It is like dying and then being restored to eating, to drinking, to ordinary human experiences enriched by almost having lost them forever.
“That wasn’t me on the launch platform,” said Tony, finally willing to explain. “That was Jose Villegas Moreno from Venezuela. We traded places.”
“How could you possibly trade places?” I asked, incredulous, my hands running up and down his arm, my mouth covering his again with kisses.
“He was on death row for killing his wife. This was a good deal for him. There are guards who are sympathetic to our cause. They switched him out and they held me in the van until Jose was safely onto the launch platform. Nobody recognized him there, not with the masks. All the Spanish guys look alike to them. Once he’s on the moon, nobody will care. He will just respond when they bark out ‘Wootton!” I told him my social security number too, but I don’t think he’ll be able to hack into our bank accounts from there. The police will be on the lookout for the escaped wife murderer, but they will not find him.
“He said he was pleased to become an American citizen, but he hadn’t expected it to happen this way.”
“They all looked alike on the platform,” I said. “The authorities didn’t want anyone to look sympathetic. But that made your escape easier.”
“Exactly!”
We climbed out of the bed near midnight, the moonlight spilling over us. When I was a child, I had been told there was a man on the moon. I thought he must have been lonely, because they never mentioned a wife. Now I knew there were dozens of men on the moon. But they are all lonely.
I pulled on the red robe I had worn last night, in my despair, in the barren Florida hotel room, and went to the stove to heat water for tea. We found teabags in the cupboard and sat at the little table, savoring our love and our good fortune. “You look beautiful in that robe with your blonde hair, my Viking goddess,” he said. That was always my nickname, at least for him. I vowed to get my hair colored as soon as possible, wherever we landed.
We held hands, the mugs steaming between us. “It is like our honeymoon, all over again,” I said. We would lose a son, who could never be allowed to know his father had escaped from the moon, but it was worth it. We would figure out the logistics tomorrow, but tonight, we would lie in bed together, our skin meeting, like the shaded and the light sides of a moon.