Space Hobos

By Justin Fulkerson

A galactic adventure rife with cultural relevance in today's political and social media driven climate, Space Hobos launches the reader into a plausible sci-fi drama and never drops out of orbit.

 

Trillions of dollars behind schedule, the government and sponsoring corporations scramble to find enough manpower to finish preparing Mars for imminent colonization. Current socio-economic challenges give them the perfect opportunity to capitalize upon. A potential workforce of 600,000 homeless is at their fingertips.They make themselves champions of the homeless, forcing upon them a permanent solution to their predicament.

 

For quite a while the future has been bleak for Holistic Henry and Cancer Carl and it isn't getting any better. As the government begins to round-up the homeless population for an involuntary mission to space, Henry and Carl attempt to evade capture, fleeing with acquaintances Junkie Julie, Castaway Connie and Bike Mike.  But their luck quickly runs out.

 

Exiled to Mars, thousands of hobos must stick together in their isolation.  What the rest of the world sees as opportunity for them, they see as a death sentence.  The people in charge have a deadline and don't care what they have to do to meet it.

 

When Henry learns that his estranged daughter, Lily, is terminally ill, he frantically searches for a way to return to home. Carl reveals an escape route but it will take a revolt by the hobos to make it happen. Henry and Connie orchestrate an uprising but the powers that be see the imminent threat and try to quash it before it can gain momentum.Will Henry and Carl survive not only the harsh living conditions of Mars but live long enough to see their revolution become a reality?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Justin Fulkerson
• Release date: Mar 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393112693

Justin Fulkerson

Author of An Hour for Magic, Justin Fulkerson’s literary tastes turned from science fiction (Isaac Asimov) to horror (Stephen king, of course) at the innocent age of twelve years old. His outlook on life was forever changed by the experience and his mind suffered the consequences. The creatures and scenarios running through his imagination forced him to begin his first novels while still in high school.  Twenty years later, An Hour for Magic arrived, consuming his every thought until the first 500 pages were transferred to paper. The next two in the series, Hollow be thy Name and An Hour for Maggie completed the tale. Finally, Hallowed Ground took Justin's mind into the realm of Zombie fiction. With several more novels in the works, Justin hopes that the world can survive long enough to enjoy the fruits of his imagination.

Book preview

PART 1

GAEA

In Greek mythology , Gaia is the personification of the Earth and one of the Greek primordial deities.

"Generations to come, it may be, will scarce

believe that such a one as this ever in

flesh and blood walked upon the earth."

-Albert Einstein

Chapter 1

Hail to the man who went through life always helping others, knowing no fear, and to whom aggressiveness and resentment are alien.

-Albert Einstein

1

HOLISTIC HENRY WAS a pretty chill guy until the weed ran out. Under the cloud of global warming, he watched as his livelihood dried up and blew away. Before he could recoup he found himself on the street, another faceless vagrant among thousands of homeless. Losing everything opened his eyes to this reality: he meant nothing to the war machine and had less to offer the industrial complex.

Then the world changed and every day that passed it became more dangerous to be a bum.

As they try to sleep beneath the overpass off of Interstate 27 and 50th Street, Cancer Carl fills his head with the usual conspiracy theories, the things keeping them both awake at night.

They want us to work and spend money and pay taxes or we’re nothing. If we don’t contribute, they don’t want us here. They want consumers. They want lambs that will eat up their propaganda and ask no questions, Carl raves, his breath billowing out in a vicious cloud around him.

Carl’s story differed from his own. Ten years ago Carl had been diagnosed with cancer and the doctors told him his life would end in a matter of months. Earning over three hundred grand a year before having the rug pulled out from under him, Carl dealt in investment banking. Knowing the end was barreling toward him with nothing standing in its way, he pursued the American Dream, funneling his money into prostitutes and cocaine. He planned to die in bliss, but that didn’t happen.

You’ve said that a hundred times, Henry says. He removes his gloves and studies his numb fingertips, wondering just how cold he can get before hypothermia kicks in. Winter is rearing its frigid head, and he needs a fresh pair of gloves before it gets into full swing.

Yeah, but that’s why they want to get rid of us, send us off this planet so this can be their refuse-free utopia. Don’t you get it? They’re sending us up there to do the jobs they don’t want to do. To force us to earn our keep, Carl is gibbering about the recent events unfolding around them. They are hiding because the homeless population is being round-up nationwide. It is part of the ‘Space-Force agenda,’ to make America great again.

The government has been scrambling to fill all the jobs they have created to colonize Mars. Normal ‘hardworking’ Americans don’t want to do the work required to set up the colony. On the other hand, the real estate and tickets for follow-up trips were sold out years ahead of time.

The project is well over six years behind schedule and trillions of dollars over budget. The solution was put forth and voted upon within months. Since the US had the highest homeless population of the world, it only made sense to ‘purge the filth’ as the president was reported to have said behind closed doors according to a former aide.

The media did their job to spin the events happening. They publicized it as ‘revitalizing the standby workforce’ and ‘bringing jobs back to the homeless.’

This colony thing will never happen. It’s a pipe-dream. They might as well just execute all of us and get it over with. That’s what they’re doing anyway. We will all be dead before the first family ever sets foot on Martian soil. Don’t you get it?

I get it.

All I’m saying is this is basically genocide. This is economic discrimination instead of ethnic cleansing. Instead of making jobs available here, giving people job training, they’re shipping us off to forget about us.

Henry was about to make a point of his own, that it might be nice to have a change of scenery. He knows the comment will get Carl riled up more, but just as he is about to speak, Bike Mike comes speeding into the underpass and skids to a stop, looking up at them.

Guys! It’s time to move. We have to get out of here!

He is panting and covered in sweat despite the cold weather. He keeps looking over his shoulder.

What’s going on? Carl asks, getting to his feet.

They’re here. Over a hundred, has to be. The convoy pulled out of the airport about fifteen minutes ago, splitting up as they entered the city.

Holy fuck.

Henry watches Carl’s face as he looks down at Mike. He sees the genuine fear on his face as everything he has predicted is being set in motion. Mike turns his bike around and prepares to pedal away again. Listen, Connie’s uncle has an old pickup stashed in his barn over on the east side, off thirty-third and Hickory Avenue. She’s got Julie with her. She said she will give us an hour before she hits the road.

Castaway Connie and Junkie Julie were both addicts, driven into their profession as sex workers to feed their habits. To Henry they were sweet girls who gave everything they had to chase the high. But being sweet only got them so far because they were also thieves that would rip off a John whenever the opportunity revealed itself.

In Connie’s past life, she had owned her own hair salon until the health department shut her down when a lice infestation broke out. She struggled to make ends meet for a while after her ex-boyfriend Ryan split town with the nest egg she had been sitting on for ten years. The nest egg was an old shoebox stashed in the corner of her closet, filled with over fifteen thousand dollars. Once Ryan discovered its existence, he and it disappeared without a trace.

Soon after, Julie (one of her former customers and maybe the one that had introduced the lice into her salon), introduced her to the mind-numbing qualities of heroin and things were never quite the same for her.

Henry talked to Connie often. In her forties, she was closer to Henry’s age than Julie. Julie might have been thirty, but her maturity level seemed even lower.

Julie had been an addict since high school, always claiming her addictive personality disorder made her more vulnerable to recreational and pharmaceutical drugs. Henry knew the first time that he met her she had some mental issues. To quiet the demons clouding her mind, even if only or a few minutes at a time, she clung to anything promising.

Last year Henry broke down and had sex with Julie twice. He tried to resist the temptation, fears of disease running through his head. But when she revealed she had condoms, it set his mind at ease for a bit. He wasn’t emotionally prepared to deal with her sobbing and tears afterwards. His shoulder was there to cry on, but he hadn’t offered it.

She poured out her heart as she prepared the needle to escape the words flowing from her mouth. She told him stories of her abusive father and neglectful mother, details that Henry would never have asked to hear. After the episode, he hadn’t approached her for sex ever again. They never talked about that day, and Julie never suggested they hook up again either. She was a sweet girl, but Henry was at least twice her age and not one to pursue drama if he might avoid it.  

Hits the road where? Henry asks.

Bike Mike looks up at them in confusion. Does it fucking matter? We just have to get the fuck out of here.

Carl slings his tattered pack over one shoulder. Henry watches him. Carl had a pack of cigarettes tucked up underneath the toboggan pulled down over his ears. He is wiry thin and all muscle, even with the lack of steady nourishment. As he looks east, the sun glints off the broken left lens of his round glasses.

If we take Emerson, it’ll be easier to stay out of sight and faster. We should make it there with time to spare, Carl says.

Henry’s feet hurt. He and Carl had decided to camp at the underpass because they were both tired of walking. Looking at Carl now and seeing the terror on Mike’s face tells him what he has to do. Carl, Mike, Connie and Julie are the closest thing he has to a family and they have to stick together. He double-checks the straps on his pack before standing.

Knoxville Avenue will be faster and less traffic. We don’t want to get spotted and ratted out when words spreads the feds are in town, Henry says. Carl nods the affirmative as he removes a cigarette and lights it. People are gonna be hunting us for a reward.

I’ll meet you guys there. I’ve gotta warn Little Ices, Mike says before pedaling back toward downtown.

Little Isis? Henry asks. The name seems new to him. She some kind of terrorist or something?

No man. Ices. I-C-E-S. She’s that young black chick hangs out over by the ice machine at the truck stop, by the interstate, Carl says. Mike’s had it bad for her since last year. She makes money off the truck drivers, doing God knows what, but Mike doesn’t care. He says he is in love even though she doesn’t give him the time of day.

Is she the one that bought him that steak dinner? Henry asks. He remembers now.

That’s the one, Carl laughs.

Henry has known love in the past. His tribe of hobos is not the first family he cared about. He avoids the memories of his failed marriage, using alcohol to help if they persist enough. Henry misses it sometimes, but doesn’t yearn for the heartache at all. He has known many women in his sixty years of life, and not one has loved him without condition. When he had money, they were there. When the money ran out, he was just as he is now, alone.

Well, he isn’t truly alone. He and Carl have been keeping each other company for the better part of the last six months.

As they walk toward Knoxville Avenue, Henry remembers when this entire thing started. He remembers sitting at The Breakfast House, having a rare feast and hot coffee courtesy of an old woman who gave him two twenty-dollar bills out of the kindness of her heart as he sat outside the local dollar store. He and Carl were eating and watching television in the far corner booth. The owner of the place was nice enough to them when they had moment to spend. He just told the staff to make sure they weren’t too close to other diners so as not to offend with their odor or appearance.

As they ate, the president came on the TV and gave a speech.

" . . .A final solution to a crisis plaguing our nation for decades. By removing this burden from our infrastructure, we are opening the door of opportunity for those oppressed of their potential, providing them a once in a lifetime opportunity to serve not only this great nation but the world. By colonizing Mars, they will become pioneers, architects of not only their future but our own as a species.

These men and women, rising above class, ranging in diversity, represent a new chapter for mankind. These heroes represent the American Dream realized. Rising from their lowest, weakest moment, to make a difference and become the best they can be . . ."

Henry felt himself frowning in confusion as he tried to figure out what the hell the fool was talking about. Carl looked at him, agog.

You have heard, right? Carl asked, shoveling the last piece of toast into his mouth with an avalanche of crumbs trailing down his chin.

They’ve been trying to get that Mars thing going for over a decade if I remember correctly. Henry said. But what is he going on about? I thought they had scrapped the whole thing after that ship crash-landed up there like five years ago.

It crashed; no one is sure how much damage was done. That supply ship, The Hubristic, cost like fifty trillion dollars itself, the supplies onboard alsmost two hundred trillion. Something like that, maybe more. That’s a lot of money to spend to just give up. All that money is just sitting on the surface of Mars waiting for a crew to put it all together.

That was the problem, wasn’t it? One of the crew went ape-shit and started killing everyone on board?

Yep, space sickness or some crap. That’s the reason it has taken so long for these missions to get off the ground, pun intended. That motherfucker killed eight crew members before offing himself. They left the ship to land by itself and it didn’t do an excellent job.

What happened to the rest of the crew?

They were dead within a few weeks. Reports say the storage bays for the food and water were damaged in the crash. Ain’t that a bitch?

Damn, Henry said, sipping his coffee.

Now, these last three years, they opened up applications for anyone interested to become a part of this, he did air-quotes with his fingers. ’historic venture’.

Right, I did hear about that.

Well, the word is, they only got maybe a tenth of the workforce they are going to need to make it happen. Start to finish. The research says over half a million people are needed to set up a fully functional colony. Do you realize what a monumental task it is gonna be just to organize? It’s impossible, especially when we can’t even get political parties here to cooperate. Can you imagine trying to supervise half a million people? It’s mind boggling.

Sounds like a nightmare.

Now they’re asking for, Carl air-quotes again.’volunteers’ to join the initiative. They’re looking at guys like us to fill the void.

Us?

I’m hoping it blows over or some of these human rights groups get their voices heard. With the election coming up, who knows? Carl took a sip of coffee and sighed. They can’t find enough people willing to give up their lives here to live and work up there. But there is a certain class of people that have no life and no work. Who else would be better to recruit?

Sounds like madness to me. We have everything we need right here. Why would anyone volunteer after the last ship crashed? It’s laughable.

They’re sending around recruiters, like the military ones that used to come to the high schools. They’re taking a census of the homeless and showing them all the benefits they are offering.

Benefits? It sounds like a one-way ticket. What good are pay and benefits if you’re stuck on another planet? Is Amazon going to deliver to Mars?

They both laughed. Then Carl frowned as he perused the no-smoking sign on the wall. It’s just a matter of time before saying ‘no’ won’t be a good enough answer.

Henry often thinks back on that day. Now here they were. Things had turned ugly after the election. The initiative resumed full force on a tight schedule. Sure enough, the feds stopped taking no for an answer. They arrived in cities carrying lists and mugshots, all the information gathered during their ‘census’ of the homeless, and began to systematically roundup everyone on their list. Carl always said if you stopped paying taxes, you were giving up your constitutional rights.

The last few weeks had been horrifying. Whenever they could, they would huddle somewhere to listen to the radio news reports or watch an available television if it was safe. It reminded Henry of old black and white films of World War 2. Watching hundreds of homeless loaded onto transport trains made his stomach turn. The newscaster’s chipper tone as she narrated the event shocked him. She spoke as if it was a gift to humankind to send them all into an uncertain future while everyone else watched from the safety of their homes.

There were protestors, of course. Thousands of them portrayed as radical and Un-American, leftist-trash, their arguments ignored, their voices silenced in the media by the corporate sponsors. Henry couldn’t believe what was happening. He was amazed people were so blind and docile to what was going on around them.

Last month the President issued an executive order. Not only would the homeless population lead the way to Mars, they would be the first colonists. Crunching the numbers, Carl figured the United States homeless population alone totaled approximately seven hundred thousand people.

Compared to the prison population, that number was minuscule. The backbone of production and manufacturing the hardware to construct the colony were prisoners picked from the three million inmates incarcerated across the nation. The way the government looked at it, the prisoners had given up their rights when they broke the law. They were another wasted work resource the government took advantage of.

The ‘prison workforce’, established and implemented during the last administration, established a commission to vet and recruit qualified workers from various prisons around the country to take part in the program with promises of early release. The prisoners were used to fabricate the parts needed to construct the essential components necessary to complete the colony and constructing the ships themselves.

Now they had an ocean instead of a pool of unwilling candidates being used in the biggest project ever conceived by mankind.

It sounded like a disaster waiting to happen.

They had constructed sixteen ships in all, over the last eight years. Production had halted a few times when the government shut down for whatever reason. The newspapers said twelve more were under construction somewhere in Arizona. Emblazoned with the ‘Made in the USA’ logo by hard-working Americans, the same ones that didn’t want to take the risk boarding those same ships to face the unknown.

The space race was on.

2

There it is, over there, Carl says, pointing ahead.

Henry squints in that direction and sees a large barn situated off the dirt road to their right.

No signs of movement, Henry says. You think it’s safe?

If not, we’re fucked. Come on.

The dirt road is quiet. As they walk, Henry searches for telltale signs of recent vehicles on the road. It is clean. He does spy bike tracks and footprints as they approach the barn door. That told him Mike was inside or had been. They would find out which soon.

Carl knocks on the door and stands back. There is silence for a while. Henry hears shuffling inside the barn.

Connie? Carl calls out. It’s Carl and Henry.

What’s the password? a female whispers from the inside of the barn. Henry frowns at Carl and shrugs.

Password?Carl rolls his eyes as he knocks again. We don’t know the password. Mike didn’t say anything about a password.

Mike was supposed to tell you the password, Connie whispers from the other side of the door.

Well, he didn’t.

Connie falls silent.

Just open the fucking door, Connie, Henry says, trying to subdue the aggravation in his voice.

Mike was supposed to tell you the password! I told him it was important! Connie insists.

He didn’t tell us, Connie.

I don’t know, Connie, Another female voice says. It was Julie. They sound suspicious. Stop talking to them.

Fuck off, Julie. Open the damn door.

Henry hears a few bolts drawn. Carl studies the street behind them, in search of movement. Two pairs of female eyes stare out of the crack of the door.

The password is: hot tamale, Julie whispers through the crack. Say it.

Really?

Just say it.

Hot tamale, Carl groans.

I like hot tamales, Connie grins