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   RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist (sfwrtr@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Tuesday, 04-Mar-2025 01:09:14 JST RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist

   2503.01 — Women #Writever

   Mars needed women.

   May Ri bought into the hype and the spiel, not realizing it was the last gasp of a long dead oligarch's dream. When the money dried up, nobody would finance the supply missions. Who cared about the ten thousand up there when you could outrage the millions down here with something less expensive? Earthers returned to their petty games of slavery—that wasn't called as such—and empire that ate nations.

   On Mars, colonists were pushed to their limits: The terraforming mission, the domes, the spinlauncher and Deimosbase, the raising the first and second generation martians. Men died disproportionately. In the end, a few strongmen attempted to corner the growing "female resource" to their benefit and to the benefit their sons, working to crush the whisper of the half-forgotten promise of democracy that had followed May Ri to the planet of war.

   She and her daughters led the way, fighting. Together with "sisters" and with "aunts," they redefined which gender would be considered a "resource."

   They found that the blood of the ever-absent fathers spilled on the rusty regolith of Mars blended in nicely.

   Earthers were outraged. #RSMarsNeededWomen 01

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     RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist (sfwrtr@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Tuesday, 04-Mar-2025 01:25:31 JST RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist

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     2503.02 — Rights #Writever CW: Fictional Violence

     May Ri clanged the arm of the mining exoskeleton into the wall of the habitat, drawing sparks, blocking the onrushing man, cutting him off when he tried to dodge under—before flipping him backwards back down the corridor. Blood gushed from his nose to match what stained his hands.

     "I have the right!" he yelled, arm across his face to stem the flow. "She's my wife!"

     May Ri's footsteps clanged as she stomped forward. He slid himself back on the floor as the other women in the Vigilantes caught up. They'd used the ugly word, Vigilante, intentionally; women weren't allowed but needed to police their domes, or risk injury from stronger men who suddenly got ideas.

     She said, "Your wife is an import, like me? You left her to give birth alone, to raise her daughter, and now you want to take that daughter away? To sell to your boss? Really? Your right?"

     She looked at the harried women, some breathing hard, sweating. Faces gone pale in fear, others with wide eyes trying to process how cruel reality had once again smashed all sense of security. May Ri understood: if they kept the male returnees from the inner belt disaster locked out of the habitat long enough, they'd have to capitulate. However, if she failed to demonstrate now that the Vigilantes could hold firm when a man broke his wife's arm, beating her to have his way—

     He yelled back, "Marrying her off to a better life? Yes! Who are you to argue a man's God given right—?"

     "Really?" she interrupted. Women had never had reliable rights, if you trusted history hadn't been rewritten. She didn't. She'd read books made of paper, yellowed, that smelled of centuries past! Her five kilogram gauntleted hand already in motion, she screamed, "Mars is not Earth! It never will be!" #RSMarsNeededWomen

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     RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist (sfwrtr@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Tuesday, 04-Mar-2025 01:53:52 JST RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist

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     2503.03 — Housewife #Writever CW: Dystopian

     The day May Ri found an advert for the EM Mars Colonization effort wasn't a good one. During school prayer in history class, she moved her mouth with her head down, reading her book plate instead. She hadn't suspected the substitute teacher could read lips.

     "Miss Ri, continue alone."

     When she did an imitation of a gasping fish, the whole 9th grade history class watching, the teacher asked, "Were you even praying?"

     May Ri went from embarrassed to angry in a heart beat. "I'm an a-theist. What do you think?"

     That got her a meeting with the public school's Decath minister. Her father had told her to hide it, that the laws made pro forma good enough so long as she didn't hurt the feelings of her classmates—but it depended on the believer you mouthed off to.

     When she later told Reverend Peters, "I don't have an invisible friend like you do," the elderly man smiled, turned away, hands behind his back, to look out at Lake Le Salle from their vantage on the 95th floor of the Chicago Lakeshore arcology. After minutes being ignored, she stepped beside him, to examine the expanse of blue water, framed by storm clouds to the north, wondering what caught his gaze.

     He said, "Makes you feel small and insignificant, doesn't it? God knows you are. What are you planning on when you grow up?"

     "I—I like building things. I can do maths."

     "Not happening."

     Her face heated up as he added, "You lack the necessary blessings. Let me explain it in a way even a girl can understand—" His lips were pursed as his brown eyes caught her gaze.

     Only then did she realize she'd begun to sweat, that the temperature in the room was dropping quickly.

     "Learn to keep your mouth shut," he said, counting on his fingers, lifting his forefinger. "Some man will marry you not because you are passably pretty but because you look strong enough to bear healthy sons." Another finger. "Become a housewife, do as he tells you, keep quiet, and allow him to teach the blessing to his children." Another thin finger. "Do so and you may yet live a good life, if undeserving..."

     After school, she studied the advert posted outside the admin office, later saving it to her book plate. EM Colonizations paid a premium for women, provided schooling. It was understood in not so many words that she needed to bear children, but all hands male and female were precious so she didn't fear that. She understood also that she'd be able to build things, that she'd be able to put to use any engineering skill she acquired. If she couldn't prove Peters wrong, starting that day she had a plan.

     Becoming a revolutionary? That was something you don't plan for. #RSMarsNeededWomen 03

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     RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist (sfwrtr@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Wednesday, 05-Mar-2025 02:37:34 JST RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist

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     2503.04 — Glue #Writever #gender #fiction #SF

     The young woman—no, teenage Martian—leapt up from her frog squat, unstrapping her respirator mask and removing thick rust-stained gloves when May Ri entered the dome. The place smelled of chemicals. Filter fans whirled loudly as she said, "I read that you want to build things. Right?" Slightly taller than than the Earther, she reached out a hand, smiling.

     "Right." They shook. Warm, firm.

     "Didn't get to finish school before the emergency boarding call? I got you assigned to me. I'll be your teacher. Isn't that nice?"

     Emergency boarding, May Ri thought. A euphemism for kidnapping. Not this girls fault.

     The woman squatted, like a frog. Her thighs showed muscles, which in 1/3rd gravity spoke volumes. May Ri sat beside her. She saw no EM Mars tattoo anywhere on her body, easy enough since the Martian basically wore skimpy tight underwear despite the temperature being at most 12ºC. Some sort of synth silk that outlined too much, with rubber-soled powder blue knit socks. She displayed serious curves, but only needed the tight black tank top on Mars to contain it. On Earth, scandalous; Decath propriety police would arrest her on the spot.

     Pointing, the Martian said, "These cans are myco-expoxy. These bricks are shrooms grown with symbiotic proprietary algae and bacti." The cheerful egghead rambled on, thumping the rubber balloon outer dome membrane to show where the bricks would go.

     "What's your name?" May Ri asked.

     The girl stopped short, looking shocked as if static electricity had jumped between them. Redheaded, faintly freckled but with Asian eyelids, and very innocently sexy, her grey eyes blinked. "Um. S-sorry. I'm the first nisei—" First generation. "Reina Itō. Most people call me Onēsanue, which is kind of stupid." She continued her mycological construction techniques lecture.

     When May Ri held up a hand, Reina interjected, "No fears! I'm teaching you all about martian building techniques and engineering because you missed out. I'm tops in it! I've got all the books."

     She looked the age to be growing out of dolls and rebelling against her mother's clothing choices. It said something about Martian society, but May Ri wasn't sure what. "How old are you?"

     "Just turned 7." She grinned brightly, holding up a left hand with long fingers. She proved her age by one thing: a barely suppressed squeal as she rotated a rusted-and-waxed steel ring on her fourth finger. It had a pebble texture that might be interpreted as artsy.

     May Ri blinked, shook her head unable to not convert in her head: 13 years, 2 months? "The ring?"

     Now Reina smiled. "Roger paid for it. He's on the Belt Asteroid Assessment crew. I married him on vid downlink on my birthday. He's a very cute hardworking import, like you, though kind of quiet, your age, and he'll be returning on resupply in half a year for our honeymoon!"

     A Martian half-year. Reina bounced in her squatting position with tendons of elastic, but it was low gravity. May Ri thought it fortunate that no men were there to witness the spectacle. The movement caught her like a magnet to steel.

     "We are going to be the people-glue that makes Mars strong, my sansei children and I. Can't wait. Sooooo excited...!" #RSMarsNeededWomen 04

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