My mother used to say the air on Mars was no good for singers, but it’s the only air I’ve ever known, and I get by just fine. There’s something not right about the oxygen levels, she’d say. The air comes too easy. Weakens the lungs, and the feeling. Like that matters. I’ve got bills to pay.

        The stage lights are as irritating as ever. The brightness grates my eyes like sand stuck in my lashes and brings out my every blemish in living color. Doesn’t matter though. Nobody is looking at my face when I’m wearing this dress. That’s why they pay me the big bucks. Well, the just-enough-to-not-starve bucks anyway. I trail my neon blue-tipped nails along the mic stand as I lean in real slow with the long E flat. The piano plays me out and the audience is silent for just a sec, before applause fills the musty bar room. Gets them every time.

        I pull out my pin and let my hair fall in umber curls down my back. Might as well go all out.

        “Thank you, thank you. You are all too kind to a small town girl from the Acidalian Plains like me. I don’t know what I did to deserve you. Now...” I swing towards the band. “What do you boys say to a little Europa Serenade to end the night right?”

        The saxophone answers with a buttery B-flat. The piano glides in with a minor seven, and I slip away into the music, taking the audience along for the ride. It’s all a performance, emotions that I’m being paid to feel. But damn if it isn’t a beautiful lie.

        A few minutes pass and red dirt reality sets back in as the last lines pass through my lips.

        “And I’ll see you there, in crystal cliffs and sulfur skies, my platinum dragonfly...”

        I bow. As the applause fades, my eyes open and take in the room. Clouds of sweet-smelling vapor, half-filled bottles glimmering amber, violet and opalescent behind the bar, and dozens of people. Petty thieves and mobsters intermingle with waiters and law-abiding patrons. We’re all the same down here underneath Xanthe’s crumbling streets and thinning atmo. That is until someone new walks into the bar.

        She’s tall. Her short-cropped black hair is all business, and so is her crisp, unyielding gait. I blow one last kiss to the crowd and step off the stage.

        A boy with cheekbones so sharp they could cut glass appears by my side.“Great show tonight, Tess. You got the voice of an angel, you know that?”

        “I do, mostly because you tell me that every night, Galen.” I brush pass him but turn back with a smile. “But thank you. One day if you’re really, really lucky that line might just work for you.”

        “Way I see it luck is just another name for persistence.”

        “Whatever helps you sleep at night.” I reach the bar and settle into my usual stool. “Whiskey.”

        Merek the bartender is an android of few words. With a stiff nod he slides his index finger across the menu screen and the center cabinet swivels around. He reaches for a fancy bottle near the top.

        “Woah there fella. Do I look like an Optimite Baron to you? Think cheaper.” He bends down to the bottom shelf and offers me a bottle of plain, brown liquid. “Now we’re talking.” Merek slides over a glass and unscrews the cap.

        “For the love of all that is holy, don’t drink that. I’m getting a hangover just watching you, kid.” The tall woman sits beside me and nabs herself a glass. “Lagavulin neat for my friend with poor taste and me.”

        “Lagavulin? Scotch? Like from Earth? You have any idea what that costs?”

        “Life is short, kid. Best not to waste it on cheap whiskey.”

        Merek pours us each a dram and turns to help his other customers. The stranger, who is either incredibly rich or incredibly stupid, raises her glass. She stares at me with silver eyes. I notice little yellow sunbursts surrounding her pupils as her gaze flits to my hands. After a moment, I lift my glass of five-months-rent and clink it against hers.

        Apparently satisfied, she takes a sip as I do the same. Damn. A politician in a silk suit going down a water slide couldn’t be smoother.

        “Good?”

        “Best I’ve ever had.”

The burgundy corners of her mouth quirk, and a dimple winks at me from her left cheek. “I’ll bet.” She tugs at her jacket sleeves even though they already meet her gloves. She’s dressed in all black, some kind of athletic fabric. But it fits her skin as closely as any tailored suit.

        “Quite a set of pipes you got there, kid.”

        “So I’m told.” I take another unbelievable swallow. “I like to sing, that’s all.”

        She nods as if I said something interesting (which, by the way, I didn’t). “You lied up there though. And here I thought music was all about honesty.”

        I narrow my eyes. “What do you mean?”

        “Your accent is all wrong for ’a small town girl from the Acidalian plains’. You’re Xanthen, born and raised. Judging from the way you hold your vowels, I’d say southwest quartile, no more than five clicks from the city center. Give or take.”

        I trace my finger around the rim of my drink. “The small town girl act brings in the tips. You some kind of detective?”

        “No. I just listen.”

        I’m trying to think of what to say to that when the bar’s door swings open. Two men walk in, wearing the silver and blue uniforms that mark them as enforcers. Nothing out of the ordinary there. Not until they walk straight towards me.

        “Teresa Weaver?” The taller of the two stares at me from behind black lenses. My drinking partner slides her scotch to the side.

        I turn to the enforcers. “Yeah, why?”

        The enforcer nods to his partner. “Miss Weaver, you’re under arrest.”

        “What? For what?” I jump to my feet as the second enforcer pulls out a set of electrocuffs.

        “Your charges will be processed once you are in custody. Present your wrists, Miss Weaver. I’d hate to see this get ugly.”

        “Well...” My new friend stares at the bar’s reflective surface. “It was too late for that the second you two walked in here.” Her leg swings up and into Enforcer #1’s face before she’s even fully standing. His glasses crack and he hits the ground. Hard. Enforcer #2 goes for his gun, but somehow she already has one out, trained on #2’s right eye. “Don’t be stupid. You’re not paid enough for that.”

I remember to breathe as the rest of the bar reacts. Merek is blaring some kind of emergency evacuation message and everyone’s going for the door. No heroes here. #2 drops his gun.

        “Weaver, pick it up.”

        “You just assaulted an enforcer!”

        “Yes. Now, pick up the gun.”

        I scramble to do what I’m told. I’ve never held a gun before. It’s heavier than I would’ve thought, and colder. “What now?”

        Her silver and yellow eyes stare at the man whose life she holds in her hands, hard as steel.         “Give her your cuffs.” He obeys and I take them with my free hand. She nods to #2.

        “For the record, I am just an innocent bystander.” I fit the cuffs over the enforcer’s wrists and push the little red button. Blue beams of light shoot out and lock his hands together.

        “Good.” She glances at the time display. “Assuming we leave him alive, we’ve got about 47 seconds to get out of here before their reinforcements arrive, after he calls for help. Weaver, let’s move.”

        “What?”

        She turns back to the bar and downs her scotch, then mine. “Now, kid. Unless you want to go down for assault.”

        “I, er-” She grabs my arm and I’ve never felt anything so strong. She tows me along as she sprints to the stage and slips behind the curtain. I can’t see anything in the dark but she moves as if she can see perfectly. Next thing I know, we’re outside in the alley behind the stage door.

        “Okay stop!” I yell as I pull my arm out of her grasp. “What the hell is going on? Who are you? Why were those...” My words dissolve into painful heaves as my throat swells and lungs fight uselessly for air. I fall against the brick wall. The stranger who just took out two highly trained paramilitary enforcers reaches into my pocket and hands me my inhaler. I take a puff, then another.

Breath surges back into my chest. “How did you know?”

        “22 seconds.” She grabs me again and we swing around the corner. A beat-up old hopper greets us, and she must have started the engines remotely because it’s already whirring to life. She yanks open the passenger side door and pushes me in. Maybe I should be fighting the whole kidnapping thing harder, but based on how those enforcers fared, I don’t like my chances. She slides in beside me.

        “Buckle up, kid. It’s gonna be one hell of a ride.”