Free Watching Yute by Joseph Picard Page A

super
close to him, but now it seemed more so. McKinney looked over to
Cassidy ready with a smile, but when they made eye contact,
McKinney’s smile... just sort of died. He looked at her silently
for a moment, as if he didn’t recognize her.
    “ Oh! Hi Stanton… how... how
are you?”
    “ I’m fine.” Cassidy said.
“How’s my replacement working out?”
    “ Fine… Stanton... you seem
really… relaxed, I guess. I guess your new post is suiting
you…?”
    Relaxed? What reason did she have to be
relaxed? Hell, a part of her… the part still thinking about the box
she was carrying… would be quite willing to go hide in a corner and
sob. Not that it was McKinney’s business. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess it
is. Well…I better get back.”
    “ Sure. Um. See you round,
Stanton.”
    She left him there, both feeling like
they had just talked to a stranger. She went to arrange a ride
home, and found she had an hour to wait. Not bad, all things
considered.
    But she didn’t have anything else to
do. She didn’t want to go talk to McKinney again. She sat with her
box of rejection, and felt the walls closing in. The box reminded
her of the telltale heart. It was an entity unto its own. It made
her feel sort of queasy.
    That damned letter inside. Why wasn’t
she reading it? The same reason she never returned her calls.
Because it never seemed to bring good news. As a form of pressure
relief, she pulled out her terminal, and dialed Brandy. Again, it
was blocked, but this time she was almost relieved. Not an
intelligent way to avoid the letter; if Brandy had answered, it
would have been far more difficult to talk to her than reading a
letter.
    The letter, and the “BLOCKED” notice
wrapped around Cassidy’s throat. It was hard to breathe. This
damned place wasn’t helping either. Damn it. Damn it, why won’t
that chopper come get her? If it crashed and killed her, at least
she wouldn’t be feeling this anymore.

    Open the letter.

    OPEN THE LETTER.

    Open the damned letter. How bad could
it be? How much more dumped can she be? Brandy could tell her what
a useless girlfriend she was, how much Brandy felt neglected.
Brandy could tell her she was worthless. No, worse. She felt that
something truly horrible was waiting in that letter. That Brandy
would have written something monumentally hurtful. Damaging. But if
she didn’t open it, it would just torture her in
suspense.
    “ Leftenent Stanton?” A deck
crewman called to her. “Deck eight, chopper leaving as soon as you
get on it.”
    She crammed the thoughts down under the
safe seal of distraction. The letter down, under the safe seal of
clothes, and packing tape.

    ~~~~~
    :::C /10
    ~~~~~

    “ What do you know about the
A.R.A.?” Kirison said loudly to the bartender at yet another scummy
bar, ale in hand.
    “ I dunno, Mack. They got
their reasons, I guess. I watch the news, and-”
    “ Oh the news.” Kirison
jumped in, now talking loudly to himself as the bartender went
about his business, mostly ignoring Kirison. “The news tells us
what they get fed! At best, you get half the story that way, but
everyone knows that. The news is good for sports and weather, and
half the time, they don’t even get that right.”
    Kirison turned around on his stool, now
kind of aiming his talk at the fellow beside him. He was paying
attention out of boredom. What Kirison really wanted was to get a
chance to look around to see if he was being heard by anyone
interesting. “The A.R.A. needs to get off their butts, get
organized, and do something that’s going to carve out some real
respect. Fucking government.”
    “ Oh yeah?” the guy beside
him asked, halfheartedly. “Like what? Another bomb
scare?”
    “ Pffft. Meaningless
attention getting. That’s all that is. It doesn’t make a point. It
doesn’t cut to the real problems. Some of the crap I saw working
for the feds just pisses all over any sovereignty they claim to
kindly allow the Aguei to have. That kinda stuff needs