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Saturday Night at the Mars Rodeo

Hugo waited at the barricade. It was crowded, but he was at the front. He had a pass, she'd given it to him the day before out of the blue, but this was his first time at the Mars Rodeo, and he didn't feel like he belonged inside the ring without her. The Rock-Jocks walked around the teams-only area on full strut as the cameras flashed all around. Hugo wasn't like any of them, not like her. He'd kill himself if he tried to hold on to one of those rockets, and he wouldn't even break clouds when he did. The air was thick with rotten egg smoke. He watched the spectacle of the daredevils and their devotees.. He leaned on the poured stone barricade; he had been waiting a while. The paint on the stone was covered in cracks, the blue and white tessagrams chipped here and there by passersby into a beautiful mosaic ruin. He could hear her laugh then, above the roar of the day, and stood up straight.

Pinna came around the trailers framed by two broad-shoulder jockeys in green launchsuits, unzipped to their waists in the red heat of the afternoon. They were all laughing, Pinna with her eyes in the sky as always, both of the goons with targets locked on her. Hugo stood watching them watching her and remembered about the blue pass that hung around his neck. He held it up to the grim security woman as he climbed over the barricade. Her gaze suddenly dropped from the sky and landed directly on him. Her laughing smile somehow warmed further, and so did Hugo.

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