Smoke Break

Matthias checked his watch. 11:48. He was going to make it. He put on his plastic jacket, and took a pull of oxygen from his pen before shoving it in his pocket. The door opened with a magnetic ‘pop’, and he slid out quickly, shutting it before any dust could get in the seal. He didn’t wear a hat — no need, this late at night. Of course, he wore a thermal cap, but besides that there was nothing but thin air between him and the stars above. He breathed deeply, through both mouth and nose — not much wind tonight, no need for a particle mask.

One thing Matthias learned early on was that you never go anywhere quickly by foot. It was no good to try and jog places, and running was right out of the question. Still gulping air, he settled into a casual stroll down the gravel path, limiting his motions, careful not to use any muscles he didn’t need. It wasn’t conscious, it was just something you got used to after a while. There was much more life here than when he first came. Scraggly sagebrush hugged the cold soil on his left, and to his right lichen grew over a pile of boulders. Nothing outside was quite properly green yet, but it was getting closer. Matthias cut through a hole in the brush before he reached the packed dirt road, striking out across the dusty hill. This was the hardest part — climbing up the slope. He had to take out his pen four times, inhaling a deep breath of oxygen to keep himself from passing out. He went slowly, testing each step first, making sure the dust wouldn’t slip out from under him. It was so smooth on this hill, smoother than chalk. Other places, the ground was easier to grip. Here the dust ran like water.

Matthias made it to the crest of the hill, and look down to the kale greenhouse below. It was a squat building, with LED floods illuminating the road up to its garage. He checked his watch again: 11:57. Almost. Going down was harder than going up — every step threatened to send him tumbling down the slope, and several times he started a mini-avalanche of dust and pebbles which almost undermined his footing. Fortunately it was also faster, and he only took 3 pulls of O2, which would leave him with almost two thirds left for getting back. That was important. He reached the bottom of the hill, and saw the time was at 11:59 and some odd seconds. He began leisurely strolling toward the main entrance of the greenhouse, carefully watching his timepiece.

The watch screen ticked to 12:00, and then went blank. Matthias smiled. It was the witching hour. He shifted course, confident that, without timestamps, his supervisor would never find the location data for where he was going now. Neither would his wife, for that matter. He moved toward the back of the greenhouse, away from the floodlights guarding the main entrance. It was chilly out, but his jacket had a new exothermic lining, and the heat filled his heart and flowed up to his head with his pumping blood. Only the tip of his nose felt chilly. It took him a couple minutes to round the corner of the building, where he found two other men leaning against the aluminum siding. Matthias approached them with a muted wave. One man was cupping his hand in front of his face, the other was staring idly at the sky. Both wore plastic jackets, the same as Matthias’s, and beanie hats made of the same material. All three men also wore cleated boots — living in adverse conditions limited the options for fashion.

The first man lower his hand to reveal a warm face — deep brown eyes, a lopsided grin, a tangle of grayed stubble arrayed over wrinkles and sunblemishes, a big nose. He reached with both hands toward Matthias, who accepted the gift. Carefully held in his grip was a cigarette, one hand holding the end and the other shielding the ember from outside view. Matthias grabbed the cig, covering the lit end in the same manner, and raised it to his lips. Out here, there was no tobacco, but they still had drugs.

The three men passed the cigarette in silence for a minute, until it was gone. The other member of their group was the youngest — a tall, thin man with flashing eyes and long black hair. He looked like a wild animal even in a conference room, clad in a gray suit. Out here, dressed for the elements, he appeared like a savage. Matthias didn’t know either man very well, even though they all worked in the same building during the day. The witching hour was different, though, a time when all the rules went out the window.

The young man exhaled deeply, head tilted back to the sky. He fished in his pocket, and pulled out another cigarette, rolled in brown paper. “Second round?” Without waiting for an answer, he held up the cigarette to the older man, who was the one with the lighter. “Here, Matthias, you got here late, you start us off,” he said, passing the now-lit cig to Matthias.

“Thanks,” said Matthias, and he took a deep drag. Almost immediately he started coughing — it was something he’d never tried before, and the smoke burned his lungs. Matthias stumbled, and almost dropped the cig. The other two men laughed, although the older man quickly stepped in to take the lit cigarette and hold it. Matthias choked and wheezed, his lungs desperately trying to draw in air. His vision swam. He fell to his knees, and felt a firm hand grasp the back of his neck, and felt something press against his face. Suddenly, he could breathe. He gulped oxygen, willing his brain to stabilize against the panic of suffocation.

The young man pulled the oxygen mask away from Matthias’s face. “Sorry, bud, forgot you’ve probably never tried sticky before. Good thing I brought my tank tonight.” Matthias felt he could have taken another few breaths from the mask, but the man turned and walked away, presumably deciding Matthias wasn’t about to go into shock. So instead he took a pull from his oxygen pen, checking after to make sure he still had more than half.

The older man looked down at him with concern. “You alright there?”

Matthias, not yet trusting himself to speak, nodded. His head swam — whether from the “sticky” cig or the coughing, he wasn’t sure. After a while he decided the high wasn’t so bad, and when the old man offered him a second drag he took it. By the end of the second cigarette, Matthias was on a pleasant buzz. He felt a little dizzy, but leaning against the wall made that go away. He checked his timer. There were 37 minutes in the witching hour, and they’d used up 17 of them. Matthias only had to go to the other side of the building before the clocks started again to maintain his alibi. Most technical systems didn’t handle the witching hour very well — datetime data was always messy even without it. Without a forensic tech on the case, it was unlikely anyone would discover what he actually spent his time doing at the greenhouse.

This all suited Matthias just fine, and he sighed blissfully, feeling the unique release of the witching hour — a few precious minutes free from prying eyes or inquisitive systems. It wasn’t illegal to smoke, but for some reason he could only really enjoy a cig if he knew nobody was watching him. The other two men, presumably, felt the same. Matthias fished out his own cigarette, and turned to offer it to the older man. But the graybeard wasn’t looking at him. Instead, he was eyeing the younger man.

“You visited Antonio?” the older man asked, cautiously.

The young man nodded, his long hair swishing slightly under the brim of his cap. “Yeah, everything went smoothly. I’ll take it to Don in the morning.”

“You keep it on you at all times, right?”

The young man looked irritated. “Yeah, of course,” he said.

“Even right now?”

Matthias saw suspicion flash across the young man’s face, followed immediately by something else — an emotion which isn’t quite fear and isn’t quite anger and isn’t quite excitement, something that can only be described as ‘adrenaline’, an animalistic fight-or-flight response. The young man turned half a second too late, and caught the older man’s fist right in his nose. Blood spurted — not down the younger man’s face, but in a long, casual arc, before splashing down amidst the quicksilver dust like water droplets in a bowl of flour. The young man crumpled, and the older man shook his fist, breathing heavily.

“Dammit,” the old man said, “I meant to get his throat.” Then he bent down on one knee and did just that, delivering a swift jab to the young man’s windpipe. Then he rifled through the young man’s jacket, searching for something. The young man jerked and gurgled, his face darkening even in the dim light of the stars. Matthias stumbled back, shocked. A wave of nausea hit him, and he felt his pulse quicken. Not good, on so little oxygen. He began to back away, but the old man turned toward him. There was no sparkle in his eyes now, no grin on his face. He didn’t look angry — but he had just killed a man. “Now, look, Matthias, let’s not be reckless. You weren’t involved in any of this.”

Matthias stumbled and ran, pulse racing now, lungs desperately sucking air. He took a hit from his oxygen pen, then another. The drugs still clouded his mind, making him unsure about his footing. He was running toward the hill — no, he should run toward the front of the greenhouse. His feet were sluggish to change their course. His vision swam.

He looked behind him to see the old man easily keeping pace about 6 meters back. He’d looted the oxygen tank off the younger man, and was breathing through it — he was barely winded. Matthias ripped another lungful of oxygen from his pen, and then it slipped from his cold fingers. He almost turned to pick it up, but forced himself to leave it. Maybe if he could reach the front door…

Matthias got about 20 meters — almost to the front face of the building — before stumbling to his hands and knees. He coughed. His lungs burned, his muscles were spasming uncontrollably. He could barely see. The rush of blood filled his ears. He looked up to see the older man standing over him, mouth and nose hidden inside the oxygen mask. He seemed to be deliberating.

“Now, look, Matthias-” the old man stopped. He deliberated some more.

Matthias felt another wave of drug-induced nausea hit him. If he hadn’t had the chemicals in his system, he might have been able to make it to the greenhouse door. He wasn’t getting enough air. He felt in his jacket pocket for his pen, before remembering that he’d dropped it. He couldn’t make out the old man’s face anymore. He could barely see at all. Matthias collapsed face-first to the ground, and inhaled a mouthful of fine dust. He coughed — the dust felt like it filled his entire body, coating his insides. It was all over his tongue, sterile and metallic. As Matthias faded from consciousness, the last sensation he was aware of was the taste of the Martian tundra — and then the world went blank.