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“I need to get back to Earth,” Carter said, glancing at Sylvia.
Sylvia laughed. “Don’t we all?”
“I’m serious, Sylvia.”
She stopped walking. Her smile faded, and her brown eyes narrowed with concern when she stared into his. “Why? What’s wrong?”
“Everyone on Deimos is dead.”
“What?”
Carter placed a finger to his lips again and shushed her.
“You’re serious?” she whispered.
He nodded and looked away. Remorse weighted his face.
“How, Carter?” she asked, placing her hand gently on his arm. “What happened?”
“A deadly virus killed them all.”
“God, really?”
“Yes.”
Sylvia took his resistant hand into both of hers. She squeezed his and then caressed it. Nervously, he looked at her and she asked, “How’d you survive?”
“Good fortune, I suppose. For some reason I’m immune to the disease.”
The pain in his eyes brought tears to hers.
“I’m so sorry, Carter,” she said. “To see everyone around you die . . . God, I have no idea how I’d cope with that.”
Carter closed his eyes and shook his head. “To be honest, I don’t know that I will ever recover from it.”
“Come on,” she said softly. “My room’s down the next hallway.”
Carter and Sylvia began walking again. After they passed where Magnus hid in the dark unlit crevice, he crept from his hiding place and followed from a safe distance where he could still hear their conversation without them noticing him.
Sylvia asked, “Why do you want to return to Earth without anyone knowing?”
“I can’t leave Deimos for three more years,” he said.
“Why not?”
“My contract with Grayson Enterprises won’t expire until then.”
“Mine is much longer than that,” she replied.
“When Grayson first hired me, I was so excited,” Carter said. “To live so far from Earth and actually see our home planet in the night sky, that was something I had always fantasized about. And for a while, I loved my job. I truly did. But after losing everyone on Deimos, I hate it here. I plan to let them think that I died with all the others on Deimos.”
“Take me back to Earth with you.”
Carter shook his head. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I’ll have a hard enough time of escaping by myself.”
She smiled. “I know the landing bay pretty well. You’ll need me to get to an earthbound shuttle.”
“I don’t know,” Carter replied.
Sylvia stopped outside a frosted glass door. With an air of excitement, she said, “We’re here. This is my room. But before you say no to my idea of returning to Earth with you, please hear me out.”
She squeezed his hand and slowly released it. She looked into his dark eyes until he finally nodded.
“Okay.”
“Good,” she said.
Sylvia pressed her hand against an identification scanner and the door opened. “Come inside and let’s figure out a way for both of us to escape.”
Carter followed her inside. The door slid shut.
From the shadows, Magnus stepped outside Sylvia’s door and leaned closer to listen.
***
Sylvia’s chambers resembled a small studio apartment, except the walls were carved out of the drab volcano. Fewer MarQuebes were polished into her walls. She grabbed a pair of sweat pants and a sweatshirt from a drawer and walked across the room to change. Carter sat on the edge of Sylvia’s bunk with the silver brief case resting upon his lap.
She slipped out of her mechanic jumpsuit, stood in her underwear, and smiled over her shoulder at Carter to see if he was checking her out. He glanced at her but turned his gaze to the briefcase on his lap. She sighed with awkward disappointment.
On the three previous occasions she had seen Carter in the landing bay, she had been attracted to him. She liked his chiseled chin, his dark eyes, and his self-confidence. Although they had never exchanged more than cordial greetings, the occasional look of possible interest in knowing more about one another intensified each time he had visited Olympus Mons. She was drawn to him. She found his charisma pleasant, and his mannerism was more polite than any of her coworkers in the landing bay.
Seeing his evident pain, she wanted to help ease his mind and her loneliness. While she smiled at him, wearing only her bra and panties, the chemistry she had hoped to find didn’t present itself. Although he smiled back, his dark eyes didn’t reflect any interest in pursuing more than causal conversation about returning to Earth. His haunted eyes revealed that he had more important matters pressing upon his mind. With all he had suffered on Deimos, she understood.
Embarrassed at the awkwardness she had placed herself into, she quickly pulled up the sweat pants and put on the sweatshirt. She stepped closer to the bed. “Okay, let’s say that you decide not to take me along with you. How do you plan to escape from Mars and return to Earth without me?”
He shrugged. “I’m not certain. Do you have any suggestions?”
“Of course, but they all include me leaving with you.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. Getting aboard a shuttle without being seen or shot by the guards will be our biggest challenge,” she said, pulling her hair into a ponytail.
“I assumed as much.”
Sylvia smiled. “You don’t understand. Personnel shuttles from Mars to Earth leave once a month. The ore cargo ships leave for Earth twice a week.”
“Perhaps we should leave on one of the cargo ships instead of a shuttle.”
She shook her head and grinned. “Nope. That’s impossible. Cargo ships are computer operated. No pilot. No passengers.”
“So?”
“It’s a seven month trip. Cargo ships don’t have oxygen, food, or cabins.”
Carter sighed. “Okay, so when does the next shuttle leave?”
A sly smile crossed her face. Excitement grew in her voice. “You’re in luck! Tomorrow. Several of our top officials are set to return to Earth at Grayson’s request. But there’s no way to board that shuttle without a high clearance badge. You have one.”
“I can’t use mine without Grayson knowing that I’m still alive.”
“A simple solution.”
“What?”
“Why not inform Grayson about the viral outbreak? I’m sure he’d reassign you to another post, or quite possibly renegotiate your contract due to traumatic stress. Actually, I believe that qualifies as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.”
Carter shook his head. “No. He’d cover it up. He’s probably preparing more men and women to be flown to Deimos anyway. Besides, I don’t want him to know I’m coming.”
“Why not?”
“It’s personal. He must suffer the consequences for the deaths on Deimos.”
She frowned. “How do you plan to do that?”
“There are ways.”
“So you’re plotting revenge?”
A man’s shadow moved on the other side of her door.
Carter rose to his feet. “Someone’s outside your door.”
Concern furrowed her brow.
“You expecting anyone?”
She shook her head. “No.”
Her door hissed opened. Sylvia gasped. Magnus entered wearing the tight helmet with the visor down. Seeing the guard uniform, Carter shook his head in disbelief and looked at her with an astonished hurt expression.
“You set me up! How could you?”
“No,” she replied, moving to stand beside him. “Honestly, I don’t know why he’s here. I want to leave Mars, too. So—”
“As do I,” Magnus said in a deep voice. He struggled and finally pried the tight helmet off his head. “Perhaps I can assist you.”
Sylvia stared at Magnus with suspicion. “You’re a guard. Why would you want to help us?”
Magnus chuckled. “Actually, I’m a prisoner.”
“If you’re a prisoner,” Carter said, frowning. “How’d you get that uniform?”
Magnus unzipped the front of the jacket. Digger poked his head out and looked around. “It’s a long story, but to save little Digger here, I had to knock two guards unconscious. I took this uniform off one of them.”
Digger slinked from the pocket and stepped onto Magnus’ huge hands.
“Oh,” Sylvia said, “he’s so cute! May I?”
He nodded and handed Digger to her. “Take him to the shower and turn on the water. He loves that.”
“Really?”
Magnus nodded.
“Okay,” she said with a broad smile.
Carter eased back down to sit on the bed. “You’re wanting to return to Earth, too?”
“Yes.”
“If you leave,” Carter said, “you’ll forfeit your work release contract with Grayson Enterprises.”
Magnus chuckled, shook his head, and sighed. “The work release is bogus bullshit, man. None of the prisoners will live long enough to ever claim their freedom on Mars.”
“What do you mean?” Sylvia asked. “There are nearly a hundred prisoners in the mines. Our contracts grant us rights to freedom and property ownership once we fulfill our obligations.”
“It’ll never happen,” Magnus replied.
She frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Well, we’re all prisoners in more than one way. Whether or not we choose to accept it.”
“I don’t follow, either,” Carter said.
Magnus pointed at the base of his skull behind his right ear. “Look here. Right behind my ear.”
Carter rose and looked at the small lump. He inspected the bulge by rubbing two fingers across it. “What is that?”
“When we were prepped to board the ships to Mars, we were told that they were placing tracer chips into us, in case any of us chose to escape once we arrived. If anyone did, they said that they could find us easier.”
“So it’s a tracer chip?” Carter said.
“No,” Magnus replied. “That’s what they told us. It’s not what they are. It does far more than simply track our location.”
“I don’t understand.”
Magnus sighed and shook his head. “Apparently they do much more than that. I don’t know when I arrived on Mars, but I do know that I don’t remember anything after the surgeons in Texas prepped me for the implantation session. That is, until about two days ago when this chip malfunctioned. I awakened and found myself mining.”
“Malfunctioned?” Carter asked.
Sylvia frowned. “What do you mean by ‘awakened?’”
Magnus nodded. “From what I’ve gathered since mine malfunctioned, apparently these chips control what actions the miners do. The guards use some kind of handheld devices and type in different controls to give us orders. Perhaps they originally used the chips to ensure that none of us revolted, but I believe they’re abusing the miners to increase production by making us work extremely long shifts. Twelve hours or more, by my estimation, but none of us even knew what we’re doing. Since mine has stopped working, it’s been nearly impossible for me to keep up with the other miners.”
“Have you tried to talk to any of them?” Carter asked.
“The other prisoners? No. They don’t talk. They don’t interact. They work like they’re programmed to do. No complaints. No obvious aches or pains. The chips override the brain’s reasoning, which can enable them to work past total exhaustion.”
Carter rubbed the stubble on his chin while deep in thought.
“You left Deimos, right?” Magnus asked.
Carter nodded.
“What about the prisoners there? Did they have chips implanted in them?”
“I never really spent a lot of time around the miners. Well, that is, until they got sick from the virus.”
“Nothing unusual about them?” Magnus asked.
“Now that I think about it, yes. Even in the most painful stage of the disease, they never voiced a complaint. They succumbed to the fever and pneumonia but never complained. But you know what? They never talked. They withered away but seemed to do so peacefully.”
“And that didn’t strike you as odd?”
Carter shrugged. “At the time it didn’t because I knew they were hardened prisoners. I simply thought that they were that tougher than the rest of us.”
“No one is that tough.”
Carter ran a hand through his black hair. “I suppose not. But that does explain a lot about how the disease spread so quickly.”
“How’s that?”
“If they were controlled by the chips, the prisoners kept working even though they were infected. By the time guards noticed the prisoners’ infections and sent them to the infirmary, they were already contagious. Ordinarily they would have been quarantined, but we never received them in the infirmary until after we knew they had the virus.”
“The chips are apparently programmed to suppress pain and resistance to authority,” Magnus said.
“Their medical charts didn’t mention anything about these chips. Not that I’d think Grayson would allow even the medical personnel to know about them.”
“Another one malfunctioned earlier today. It didn’t end well for the man.”
“What happened?”
Magnus explained how the man had experienced such extreme pain that he hurled himself into the mining pit. “The only good thing was it stopped our mining for the remainder of the shift. Honestly, I don’t think I could have kept going much longer.”
“I don’t understand how you could for a few hours,” Carter said. “And you really don’t remember boarding the shuttle to Mars?”
“I don’t remember leaving the prison infirmary.”
“What’s the last thing you do remember before they implanted a chip into you? Did anything unusual happen?”
Magnus’ eyes searched as he thought. Finally, he nodded. “About a week before I was chosen for the Mars work/release program, a man came to the prison and requested to see me. I had never seen him before. He never even gave his name. He told the guards that he was my new attorney, which was a lie, but it got him inside to see me.”
“What did he want?”
“He offered me a warning.”
Carter frowned. “A warning? For what?”
“Somehow he knew about these programmer chips. He promised to help me not be controlled by them.”
“How?”
“He brought a briefcase that I thought had papers and files about my court case records, but instead, he opened it and showed me a syringe. He told me that if I allowed him to inject the fluid into my bloodstream that it would prevent the chip from exerting mind control over me.”
Carter took in the information. “Any idea what was in the fluid?”
“All he said was that it contained microchips that would short out the control chip.”
Carter looked at Magnus incredulously. “And you let him inject you?”
Magnus shrugged his massive shoulders. “At the time I didn’t figure that I had too much choice. Besides, what else did I have to lose? I was in prison serving a life sentence. If the injection killed me, it meant an early parole.”
Carter smiled. “I suppose that’s one way to look at it, but the man must have had some kind of credentials to convince the guards that he was your attorney, wouldn’t he?”
“You’d think so. The only things that he had were the expensive suit and the briefcase. I guess since he looked like an attorney, they really didn’t care to do any additional background checking.”
Carter chuckled softly. “So it’s easy for us to assume that the injection worked.”
“Yep. Next thing I know,” Magnus said. “I’m shoveling red Martian dirt and now I’m free of the chip’s control.”
“So you’ve not been controlled for two days?”
“That’s right.”
“How have the guards not noticed?” Carter asked.
“I’m good at playing dumb, I guess. I noticed how the miners closest to me behaved, so I kept doing what they were doing. The hardest part was trying to maintain their pace. Almost felt like I was going to die a couple of times.”
“I can’t imagine.”
“You’ll see. Once we’re close to where they’re digging, watch how they behave. The wear and tear of their demanding schedule is killing them, but they haven’t any idea. Most look twenty years older than they actually are. Hell, I already look five years older than when I left Earth, but I feel thirty years older. My muscles and joints ache so deeply that I wonder if I’ll ever gain full mobility again.”
“So you must have done one hell of a performance to keep the guards in the dark.”
Magnus gave a slight nod. “I did. But apparently after my chip malfunctioned, the main computer sent a report showing that it had lost my signal. That’s how the two guards ended up in my cell tonight. They were going to take me to have a new chip implanted. When one of them tried to kill Digger, I had to stop them.”
Sylvia’s laughter echoed in the shower. “He does love the water!”
“Told you he did,” Magnus replied in his deep, rich baritone.
“Why would they want to kill the ferret?” Carter asked.
“I’m not certain that they were actually going to kill him. One of the men tried to catch Digger, and Digger bit him. The other guard reached for his gun, so I stopped them before they overreacted. They seemed a bit trigger happy.”
“Can’t blame you for that.”
Magnus smiled and his eyes softened for a moment. “The little guy has been the only one I could talk to, until running into the two of you.”
Sylvia giggled.
Carter studied Magnus’ gentle eyes and demeanor. “Why you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why did this man choose you over all the other prisoners?”
Magnus replied, “Maybe because he knows I’m innocent? I’m not sure. By helping me, I suspect that he believes I’ll help him destroy Grayson Enterprises.”
“Is that what you plan to do?” Carter asked with interest in his eyes.
“Well, not exactly. I want justice. I want the people who framed me to pay for their crimes. The only way that will ever happen is if I get back to Earth.”
“I see.”
“And why do you want to go back?” Magnus asked. “I’ve heard bits and pieces of your conversation with Sylvia, but I’d like to hear it from you directly.”
“All my friends and colleagues died on Deimos.”
“From the virus?”
Carter nodded. “I’m the only one that survived.”
“And you hold Grayson responsible?”
“Yes.”
Magnus studied the coldness in Carter’s eyes for a moment. “Why? He didn’t cause the deaths.”
“He should’ve researched the environment better. The virus came from the mines. That’s why everyone died. And Wanda . . .” He choked back tears and looked away. “I lost her.”
“I understand your loss and how resentment can grow and fester from such tragic disasters. But how exactly do you plan to get revenge?”
Carter’s hand rested on the briefcase. “I’d rather not go into the specifics yet. First and foremost, we need to steal a shuttle. That’s the only way we can leave Mars.”
Magnus gave a nod of agreement. “Agreed. There’s another uniform in my room that should fit you.”
Sylvia returned with Digger wrapped in a wet towel. She grinned at Magnus.
Carter asked her, “Do you think we could pose as guards to get aboard the shuttle?”
“Guards seldom get on the shuttles. It’s rare. Being close to a shuttle would automatically draw scrutiny from the perimeter guards.”
“Maybe,” Magnus said. “But all we need is enough time to get aboard.”
“They’d stop you before you ever got inside,” Sylvia replied.
“Then who’s going to pilot the shuttle?” Magnus asked.
“Me,” she said. Her eyes brightened with excitement. “I know how to set the controls and the coordinates.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’m a mechanic, so I have access to all the manuals. When I’m not repairing something, I spend a lot of time reading those books.”
Her statement caught Magnus’ immediate attention. “Since you’re a mechanic, could you get Carter and myself some mechanic coveralls?”
“Sure. Why?”
“Guards might draw suspicion by being near a shuttle, but a group of mechanics wouldn’t.”
Her smile widened. “That’s true. But you’ll need the guard uniforms to get inside the storage room in the landing bay where they keep the jumpsuits. You’ll want to appear invisible, so that’s a good idea to disguise as mechanics.”
Carter rested his elbows on top of the briefcase. “Dressed like mechanics we won’t have a problem getting to the shuttle, but once we reach Earth, we’re going to need funds.”
“I have money that I can access through an ATM when we land,” Sylvia said.
“Using your earnings from here?” Carter asked.
She nodded.
“No. Any funds that we’ve earned through Grayson Enterprises will be frozen. We won’t have any access to whatever money Grayson has paid us.”
Magnus said, “He’s right.”
Sylvia frowned. “Why?”
Carter replied, “Once we leave the landing bay Grayson will know who took the ship, or at least he will check the surveillance cameras in the landing bay to discover who we are. We’ll be surrounded when we land in California. I can guarantee that.”
She smiled. “We won’t have to be aboard the shuttle when it lands.”
Carter frowned. “What?”
“Are you suggesting parachutes?” Magnus asked.
“There are emergency chutes, but they’re seldom ever used. I can set the shuttle for autopilot and slow down the velocity. When we reach the right altitude, we jump near a city where we can hide.”
“That might work,” Magnus said.
Carter nodded. “True. But it still leaves us stranded without money.”
Magnus clapped his hands together with such force that both Carter and Sylvia jumped. He smiled. “I know how we can get more money than all three of us could ever earn from Grayson during our contracts.”
“How?” they asked in unison.
“It’s why the miners are slaving in the pits. It’s what I was mining for. The MarQuebes. They’re the most desired gems on Earth.”
“Where do they keep them?” Carter asked.
“They’re locked in the storage corridors on the other side of the mines. I’ve watched other workers push carts full of the stones into that corridor. And now I have a security key to get inside.”
Carter frowned. “Are you certain that key will access the storage units?”
“I don’t see why it won’t,” Magnus replied.
“There’s always the chance that guards are only allowed access into certain areas based upon their security levels.”
“We won’t know unless we try.”
Carter sighed. “And if it doesn’t, we’re right back where we are now.”
Magnus shrugged. “If we can’t use the key, we’ll brainstorm some more. We’re bound to find a solution.”
Carter looked at Sylvia. “Are there cameras in the corridors?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a chance we have to take,” Magnus said to Carter. “But you’ll need the other guard’s uniform that’s in my cell.”
Carter stood and picked up the brief case. “Then let’s go get it.”
Magnus smiled at Sylvia. “Do you mind taking care of Digger while we go?”
“Not at all,” she said, scratching behind the ferret’s ears. “It’s nice to have a pet. We were supposed to get to place orders for cats and dogs, but our supervisors seem to have forgotten about that.”
Carter shook his head and frowned. “I doubt the animals would survive the trip from Earth to Mars.”
“That’s true, I suppose.”
“Thanks, Sylvia,” Magnus said. “Come on, Carter.”
Magnus opened the door, and he and Carter entered the hallway.