The Alpha Lounge Catastrophe: Sol 825 on Mars
The “Gentleman’s Lounge” of Colony Delta-9 is a converted storage closet that still smells of industrial lubricant. Andrew paid three month’s water credits to “reserve” it as his private space, not realizing the colony AI would log this as “Frivolous Resource Expenditure - Public Record #447.” A salvaged metal shelf holds his empty whisky bottle, filled with yesterday’s recycled water. The same unlit cigar he’s been displaying for four months rests in a 3D-printed ashtray.
Three men sit on repurposed supply crates, each nursing their own delusions of dominance.
Andrew: (holding the cigar like a talisman) “Gentlemen, we need to discuss our situation. The females in this colony don’t understand hierarchy. Natural order. Mars has made them… unmanageable.”
Nico: (checking his reflection in his dead phone) “Unmanageable? Bro, they literally posted my dating course transcripts in the communal bathroom. All 312 colonists have seen my ‘Seven Steps to Sexual Supremacy.’ They laugh when I walk by.”
Max: (twitching from caffeine withdrawal) “At least you can walk. The colony AI put my hab on ‘Wellness Protocol.’ Ten hours of mandatory darkness. Ocean sounds. OCEAN SOUNDS. On Mars. It’s treating me like a broken appliance.”
Andrew attempts to look dignified while taking a sip from his “whisky.” The bottle’s label has started peeling, revealing the recycling batch number underneath: RW-2847-C.
Andrew: “This is exactly what I teach in my ‘Interplanetary Masculine Dominance’ course. Adversity creates alphas. We’re being tested.”
Nico: “Tested? I got assigned to teach ‘Consent 101’ to teenagers. Teenagers! They fact-check me in real-time using the colony database. One kid pulled up my Earth divorce records.”
Max: “Your divorce records are public?”
Nico: “Everything’s public here. My testosterone levels, my sleep patterns, my fucking bathroom schedule. The teen girls made a spreadsheet tracking how often I check my appearance in reflective surfaces.”
Andrew shifts on his crate, and the four-month-old cigar crumbles slightly at the end. A few flakes of tobacco drift onto his jumpsuit. He brushes them off with practiced nonchalance.
Andrew: “The key is maintaining frame. I still have twelve thousand Earth followers waiting for my next masterclass. ‘Conquering the Red Planet: A Man’s Guide to Mars.’ Premium pricing. $497.”
Max: (bitter laugh) “Frame? The colony AI announced my ‘Circadian Rhythm Non-Compliance’ during breakfast. In front of everyone. It said I was ‘attempting to hack biological limitations through stimulant abuse and sleep deprivation.’”
Nico: “At least you weren’t publicly matched with your ex-wife’s new husband on the colony compatibility algorithm. It suggested we should be ‘workout partners’ based on our ‘similar emotional development levels.’”
The cigar continues to deteriorate. Andrew carefully adjusts it to hide the crumbling end.
Andrew: “These are minor setbacks. My brand is about resilience. Stoicism. I’ve been reading Marcus Aurelius—”
Max: “You’ve been reading? The colony’s library AI logs everything. It shows you’ve opened ‘Meditations’ seventeen times but never scrolled past page three.”
Andrew: (defensive) “I’m absorbing it slowly. Deliberately. Like aging whisky.”
Nico: “Your whisky is piss water. We all know. The recycling plant added a tracer dye to track water hoarders. Your bottle glows under UV light.”
Andrew’s jaw tightens. He sets the bottle down with excessive care.
Andrew: “The bottle is a symbol. My followers understand symbols.”
Max: “Your followers? Didn’t Earth’s payment processors freeze your account after the ‘Life Support Contamination’ incident?”
Andrew: (flushing) “That was a misunderstanding. I was demonstrating cigar appreciation techniques—”
Nico: “You tried to light it. In a closed environment. The VOC sensors went insane. Twenty-minute lockdown. The incident report is posted in the main corridor.”
The Colony AI’s voice suddenly fills the small space:
COLONY AI: Attention Colonist Andrew Tate-Smith. Your water consumption exceeds allocation by 1,200%. Restricting access to personal hydration reserves. Manual refill required at Station 7. Public logging enabled.
Andrew: (standing abruptly) “This is harassment. Discrimination against masculine excellence.”
Max: “It’s math. You’ve been refilling your fake whisky three times a day. Everyone knows.”
The cigar, disturbed by Andrew’s sudden movement, breaks in half. Four months of carefully maintained facade crumbles into tobacco dust on the metal floor.
Andrew: (staring at the broken cigar) “That was… that was Cuban. Pre-war. Irreplaceable.”
Nico: “It was Dominican. The spectral analysis is public. Some dude in Engineering posted it for laughs.”
Andrew kneels to collect the pieces, his hands shaking slightly.
Max: “Give it up, man. There’s no alpha hierarchy on Mars. The colony AI assigns jobs based on competence. You’re scheduled for waste processing next week.”
Andrew: (still gathering tobacco) “Waste processing is a leadership opportunity. Managing essential resources—”
Nico: “You’ll be shoveling shit. Literally. While a livestream broadcasts it to the cafeteria.”
Max: “Why a livestream?”
Nico: “Educational transparency. To show that everyone contributes equally. They started it after Andrew claimed certain jobs were ‘beneath his station.’”
Andrew stands with handfuls of tobacco dust, looking for somewhere to put it. The whisky bottle—his only container—would contaminate his water supply.
Andrew: “In my course, I teach that true alphas transform any situation—”
Max: “Your course got deplatformed. Something about ‘fraudulent claims regarding Mars social dynamics.’ The colony sent Earth platforms our psychological profiles.”
Nico: “We all got deplatformed. My ‘OrbitAlpha’ brand is dead. Three hundred twelve people on this rock, and they all know I cried during my last dental cleaning.”
Andrew: (desperately) “That’s medical privacy—”
COLONY AI: Reminder: Colony Delta-9 operates on transparent health protocols. Emotional responses to routine procedures are logged for community wellness awareness.
Max starts laughing—a broken, exhausted sound.
Max: “We’re done. All of us. The alpha thing, the grindset, the optimization—Mars doesn’t give a fuck about our brands.”
Nico: “Know what’s worse? The women here are thriving. That engineer, Kofi’s team—all female leads now. They don’t need our ‘guidance.’ They never did.”
Andrew finally drops the tobacco into the recycling chute. It registers as “Organic Waste - Colonist #445 - Unnecessary Luxury Item - Final Disposal.”
Andrew: “I still have my frame. My mindset. My—”
The lights in the ‘Gentleman’s Lounge’ dim to emergency levels.
COLONY AI: Storage Closet C-7 has exceeded allocated power usage for non-essential gathering. Initiating conservation protocol. Space will be returned to storage function in 72 hours.
Max: “They’re taking your lounge?”
Andrew: (defeated) “It was never really mine.”
Nico: “None of it was. The dominance, the hierarchy, the alpha status—it only worked when people couldn’t see the real data.”
Andrew picks up his whisky bottle—his recycled water with delusions of grandeur. The UV tracer makes it glow faintly in the emergency lighting.
Andrew: “On Earth, I had a Bugatti.”
Max: “No, you didn’t.”
Andrew: “I had access to one.”
Nico: “You took photos next to one.”
Andrew: (very quietly) “The photos got eleven million views.”
The three men sit in the dying light of their pretend lounge, surrounded by the wreckage of their masculine mythology. The broken cigar, the fake whisky, the repurposed storage closet—all monuments to a delusion that couldn’t survive transparency.
Max: “Tomorrow I have to do my public apology. For trying to override the sleep protocols. They’re making me explain why rest is important. To adults.”
Nico: “Tomorrow I’m teaching teenagers about consent. Again. They’ve started calling me ‘Uncle Boundary Issues.’”
Andrew: “Tomorrow I start waste processing training.”
Silence.
Nico: “We could rebrand. ‘Humble Mars Living.’ ‘Beta Male Renaissance.’ Something honest.”
Andrew: “Nobody pays for honest.”
Max: “Nobody’s paying for this either.”
The emergency lights flicker one last time before the space returns to its true nature—a storage closet where three men stored their delusions until Mars inventory management cleared them out.
The Influencer Apocalypse Series¶
Next Episode: The Content Creator Commons - Where Lila discovers that fashion influence means nothing when everyone wears the same jumpsuit, and her attempt to accessorize with electrical components leaves her locked in a rigid safety suit for 48 hours.
Full Series:¶
- The Wellness Wing Meltdown
- The Alpha Lounge Catastrophe (Current Episode)
- The Content Creator Commons
- The Crypto Crater
- The Cafeteria Confessional
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