Mars Needs Men

by Edward McKeown

      “Mars needs men!” thundered Kestra Dominie, Governor of Mars.

      My partner, Regina Del Mar, raised an eyebrow. “Well Brian, you going to go?” 

      “An attractive offer to be sure,” I said, eyeing the Governor’s blond hair and impressive décolletage as both filled the screens of Madison Square Garden over our heads. “Though it didn’t work out so well for the last bunch.”

      Reg leaned against the glass, scanning the crowds of hopeful men in the stands below. “Hardly their fault that militant lesbians wiped out most of the male population of Mars with a bio-plague.”

      “Leaving a hard-working ten percent to take up the slack,” I replied.

      “Sounds like a typical male fantasy.” Reg had recently broken up with her Wall Street broker boyfriend and the stock of my gender was low with her.

      “Thinking of joining the Martian Sapphists?” I asked.

      “Could be,” she shot me a cool glance. “But I like you, McManus. For a big Irish mug, you’re OK. I’ll give you a head start.”

      I laughed. If I’d been an over-achieving high-schooler, Reg could have been my daughter. She ran multiple marathons a year; I always watched them on Tri-Vee. Whapping thugs on the chin keeps a Port Authority Cop in good shape, but I’m not built for speed.

      We’d drawn security detail for Her Excellency, Kestra Dominie. Reg and I had an established reputation for dealing with the weird of interstellar relations: Arcturian kitty-smugglers, alien vampire cops and Snorge assassins. We’d been so successful that the powers-that-be overlooked my habit of mouthing off at Captain Fabacio. I now held an enlisted rank invented just for me, Command Detective First. Anything, rather than promote my wise-ass out of the enlisted ranks. 

      “Any buzz?” Reg asked, brushing a lock of brown hair out of her oval Spanish face.

      I checked my command comp. “Nothing since the Japanese ambassador got locked in the can.”

      “Good,” she said. “Let’s hope it stays that way.”

      Of course, it didn’t....

      “You’re kidding,” I said to Captain Fabacio.

      Fabacio’s bulldog face glared at me out of the aircar’s screen. “Hardly, McManus. Governor Dominie’s daughter, Avalie, slipped out of the UN after seducing her chaperone. The Governor advised us that her daughter has issues with men. As in: can’t keep her hands off them.”

      “We’re not babysitters.”

      “Shut up, McManus. Avalie’s overdeveloped sex drive seems to have burst into full-blown nymphomania since the bio-plague. Now, she’s loose in the New York underground sex scene. Unfortunately, she’s familiar with the area, having graduated from NYU two years ago.”

      “Isn’t this a job for a psychologist?” Reg asked.

      “It will be, after you quietly and quickly get her back. If this gets out, the scandal could bring down the Martian government. Dominie was elected on a ‘family values’ platform after the plague. In Mars’ precarious condition, complete chaos and a UN takeover might be the result. Get the little minx back and keep it quiet. Fabacio out.” 

      Three hours later, we’d discreetly prowled through the better-known sex clubs and lowlife spots. We checked the hospitals and morgue as well. Big nothing. The trail was getting cold and we couldn’t enlist extra manpower without fear of our bimbo-hunt becoming front-screen news.

      “You know who we should call,” Reg said finally. 

      I sighed. “The little trollop was busted last week for possession of a controlled substance. I am not getting his butt out of the lockup this time. I told him that if he couldn’t drop the drugs and hooking I was through with him.”

      “No one knows the New York sex scene like Freddie.”

      “Problem is,” I grumbled, “he is the New York sex scene.”