Don't Wear Red

“What’s it say, Jules?”

“It says that anyone wearing red to prom tonight will regret it,” I said, reading the flyer posted on one of the bathroom stalls.

“Well, that’s probably the dumbest shit I’ve heard today. Who cares what color dress we wear?” asked Charlie, washing her hands.

“Do you think corsages count? What if Tristan gives me a red flower?” I asked.

“Jules, it’s a prank. It’s not serious. Some joke some senior is playing,” Charlie said over the vrummm of the air dryer. My dress was champagne, but I’d been thinking of accenting it with a ruby red pendant and earrings.

“Ready?” I asked. Charlie answered by lighting up a cigarette, a real one, not one of the smokeless synthetics. I wasn’t sure where she’d gotten it. She definitely didn’t have money for it. Beau must have given it to her, the skimming sneak. As soon as Charlie huffed her first puff, the air recycler turned on and her bud extinguished. I looked on, stifling a laugh. Disgusted and disappointed, Charlie through the wasted stick into the trash recycler emphatically. We pushed through the door, waited in the recycler vestibule for a beat, and exited out into the hallway when the light turned green.

“But what do you think will happen to people wearing red.”

“Nothing’s gonna happen, Jules. It was probably posted by some student whose parent is in the Textile Guild who has a surplus of red fabs and is looking for a quick bump to the end of the quarter.”

“You really get people,” I said, turning left into the sterile cafeteria.

Charlie nodded in appreciation. “I think Henna’s mom is in Textile. Seems like something she’d do. The greedy bitch.” We grabbed our tubes of aminos and proteins. I waded through the crowd over to the viewing deck. Charlie went and found Beau.

“Beautiful,” a voice said next to me. I knew who it was, but wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.

“Go away,” I said.

“I meant you, you know. Not the stars,” Guilroy said. I rolled my eyes.

“Can you leave me alone, please? You had your chance last year.” And you blew it by being a selfish asshole.

“I know I blew it, Jules. And I’ve apologized many times. I’ve changed. I’m here,” he grabbed my shoulder and turned me so we were face to face, “to encourage you to not wear anything red tonight. No matter how much it might be your color.”

“I should have known you were a part of that stupid prank. I saw the flyers in the bathroom, dumbass. People know it’s just a joke. Henna probably put them up to get more sales for her mom,” I said, and turned again to look out the window. Space looked empty all of a sudden.

“Juliet, it’s serious. It’s a guild thing, but it’s not some Textile merchant garnering business. Colors are our voice out here in the blackness of space.” That sounded like a propaganda line that had been milling around the outskirts of the news cycles.

“Guilroy, what happened to you? You were such a nice boy before we came up the gravity well,” I said, adding in a fake smile to make the dig hurt a bit more. Give him something to think about.

“There’s a reason we aren’t in stasis, Jules. The trip isn’t going anywhere. They have us going to school. We are being turned into an army for them. And everyone just seems to be going along.”

I laughed in his concerned little face. “Now that is the dumbest thing I’ve heard today. Guilroy, your head is so far down a recycler well you can’t see smell your own shit. You can’t tell me you believe what Grossman and his little group of rebels are blasting out through the broadcast waves. They are like ten colony ships behind us, they aren’t close to us and they aren’t strong.”

“Why did we leave Earth, Juliet? Because of resource scarcity? No, it’s because of class. It’s because of politics. Our parents…,” Guilroy shifted his gaze away from her. He sighed.

“Our parents what? Ran away to space because of a class war?” I asked.

“Yes. And we, the children, the next generation are collateral in it. Don’t wear red. Grossman has more than his one ship and he’s not ten ships behind us, he’s two. And he’s gaining on us. He sent out a declaration this morning that said anyone wearing red at prom tonight will be ‘taken out’ as ‘recourse for the harm done planetside’. I promise you, it’s going to happen. Red is the Governor’s family base color. Use your head, Jules, this is real. It’s going to happen.”

“Guilroy, my parents would have told me about it. People would be freaking out, the defense comms would be activated, prom would be cancelled and a million other things would be in place if anyone with believed Grossman’s threat. Right now, it’s only you and whoever you got to put up those flyers.”

I sucked dry my meal and walked away from the window. I didn’t know why I even stayed as long as I did to listen to his shit. Guilroy, and Guilroy’s parents, were low-upper class. They weren’t connected like her or Charlie’s parents. Grossman and his envoy would be picked off by the defense team if they were within a thousand clicks of the ship. They’d be picked off easily. And how had Guilroy even heard any of this stuff? It just didn’t make any sense…one big prank. Guilroy was the one being taken advantage of. We were safe.

*****

“You look…amazing, Jules. I love your turquoise necklace. Is it new?” Tristan said. I did look amazing. He did too, in his Junior Cadet red’s. Dinner was a step above the normal tubes of atomized proteins; we got to eat real synthetic pasta. Charlie and Beau only had eyes for each other, both wearing new red clothes from the market, custom fitted. They weren’t the only ones, either. It looked like Henna’s mom was going to have a good quarterly bonus. Charlie and Beau left halfway through dinner to “go to the bathroom”. Yeah right. Tristan and I had agreed we’d wait until after the King and Queen were announced and then we’d find a quiet bay, preferably with a window. I had a blanket tucked away in my purse. It was going to be amazing, well worth the wait.

The dance itself was basic. Fun, but nothing otherworldy. The Brodieur twins and their dates, Chrissy and Missy, were probably the sluttiest couples on the dance floor. Admiral Venkman separated them multiple times, but they were like gyrating magnets. Tristan and I hung out with his friends by the drink bowls, stealing glances at each other and holding hands. A group of seniors got chucked out by the chaperones for alcohol.

Charlie and Beau arrived right before the announcement for King and Queen, her hair looking a mess and Beau’s red cummerbund askew. His trousers were probably missing a button. Charlie’s nails were damaged, but she looked like she was walking on air.

Guilroy wasn’t there.

The student body president, Johnothan Somebody, sauntered up to the register to announce who would get to wear the crowns. It would probably be the Governor’s son and his girlfriend, both seniors.

“Your king and queen this year are: Beau Charmont and Charlotte Kennett!” I started yelling my head off in shock, surprise, and joy as Charlie made her way up to the stage to get her sash and crown. Even with her lopsided hair she looked beautiful. Her dress shimmered like rubies from tales of old. Everyone seemed elated for the pair, there was lots of excited yelling.

I was trying to catch Charlie’s attention, waving frantically like a flag in a hailstorm, when I realized that Tristan wasn’t clapping next to me anymore. In fact, the happy yelling had turned into terrified screaming. My eyes, focused on my best friend, couldn’t look away as a red laser sheared through her chest in a moment, her new sash fluttered in two, and the crown clattered off her head down to the floor. It didn’t appear to make a sound as it  shattered into a thousand shards of glittering fake diamonds. It should have made a sound, something that heavy.

I looked at Tristan and grabbed his hand. He pushed me down to the floor.  He cupped my face and yelled through the din, “I’m gonna get us out of here.” He peeked over the table we were huddled under, no doubt looking for a safe exit. I looked up at him, but his head was no longer there. I tried finding it on the floor next to me, but it was gone from sight.

Eventually, screams and emergency claxons were the only sounds left. Someone, my mother by the snatch of perfume next to me, was pulling me up and away. I buried my face in her chest. I wanted to cry.

“We are going to the escape pods. The ship has been overrun. Your father is meeting us there. We are going to another ship.”

“Charlie won, Mom,” I muttered. She didn’t hear me.

Time became an illusion. I remember getting into a pod and seeing my dad, his face determined and serious. Fierce. He looked like the Deputy Chief of Security. He tried talking to me, but I couldn’t focus long enough to hear his words.

“Charlie won, Dad,” I muttered again.

“What’s wrong wither her, Scottie?” he asked my mom quietly.

“She’s in shock, dear. She just saw most of her friends vaporized.”

Dad grabbed my shoulders and looked with a deep care into my eyes. “Did you see anything tonight, Juliet. Anything out of the ordinary?” I shook my head. “Anyone look out of place?” I shook my head again.

“How did they do it?!” my dad said to no one.

“I don’t know,” mom said quietly.

“Guilroy wasn’t there,” I said. “Guilroy knows.”

“Guilroy? The governor’s third secretary’s kid? The one who…?” Dad’s eyes met my mother’s. He didn’t need to finish the sentence.

“The one who forced me into an airlock last year to prove to his buddies that he was tough? Yeah him. He’s been trying to get back in my good graces this whole year. Says he’s changed. He…he told me not to wear red tonight. There were flyers in the bathrooms this afternoon saying it too,” I finally started sobbing. “Thought it was a prank, thought it was Henna’s mom’s marketing…” I trailed off.

After not crying for so long, now I couldn’t stop. I wailed and wailed. Dad got on a comm to talk to someone. I heard him say Guilroy’s name. I heard mom whisper something about setting out a red necklace for me that afternoon.

I heard us dock at a new ship. It was quiet. Mom ushered me to our new quarters while dad went to the command deck. The gravity drum was on, we weren’t under thrust for some reason. Shouldn’t we be running like hell to the nearest star system? It didn’t matter. Tristan. Charlie. Mom helped me get out of my dress and into the shower; she didn’t tell me to get out after the normal ten minutes. Water recycler be damned. It was hot water too. Then she found me new sleepwear and tucked me into a soft, comfy bed.

I cried myself to sleep.