There’s this woman on Mars who lives a normal life in the city of Neo Port-au-Prince. She leaves early in the morning to go to work at her menial day job in the city and, in the evening, returns home to the outskirts. The commuter train is fast—it’s a hyper-rail, after all—but it takes her two hours each way. She doesn’t mind the ride. She spends most of it gazing out the window, admiring the vast expanse of red desert. The mountains are multiples taller than anything on Earth, the valleys exponentially deeper. It is all a wash of crimson sand and dust. The weather systems are violent. Sandstorms and lightning are never far off in the distance. It’s a landscape that is somehow at once both bleak and beautiful.
The woman lives alone, which is the way she’d prefer to live. Her apartment is small and on the edge of the sprawling suburban colony just outside Neo Port-au-Prince, but she likes the peace and quiet. At night, there’s hardly a sound. She makes dinner for one, and either reads a book or watches a little television before falling asleep. It may sound like a dull existence, but the woman is happy to be alone. But, of course, she is a woman. And women are never just left alone.
One day, on her way home from work, the woman catches a man staring at her. He is seated across from her on the hyper-rail. He is an average-looking person: middle-aged, dressed in business casual, most of his body hidden behind a copy of the Neo Intelligencer. They briefly make eye contact before the man looks back down at his newspaper, and the woman thinks nothing of it. The man gets off at the next stop, and she rides another hour and a half to get home.
The next day, she sees the man again—catches a glimpse of him out of the corner of her eye. Again she thinks nothing of it, but he gets off at the stop after the one from the previous day.
On the third day, the woman wonders what the likelihood is that she will see the same man on the same train again. It doesn’t seem unlikely, she concludes. Commuters are consistent. She takes the same train home every day; maybe this man does too. And on top of that, what is she even worried about? This man isn’t bothering her. He hasn’t even said a word to her. She wonders why she’s being so paranoid.
Still, she decides to indulge that feeling the following day. She stays an extra hour late at work—to the surprise of her boss, who remarks that he’s never seen her there that late. (She explains that she’s trying to show initiative, a little more work ethic, and her boss takes a strange, smug satisfaction in hearing this before telling her to keep up the good work.) When she leaves the office, the woman is surprised just how empty the streets are. Apparently no one stays around the financial district after hours—all the businesses are closed. The silence makes the walk to the hyper-rail feel longer than usual. She thinks about the sound of her footsteps as they echo off the skytowers that block out the sun.
She finally boards the train. It’s empty. She takes a seat. But just as the doors are closing, who should appear? The woman’s follower. He looks as innocuous as ever, like it was by design. He sits down on the opposite side of the hyper-rail car and opens his newspaper. The train starts moving, and the woman can’t take her eyes off him.
The hyper-rail crawls to its first stop. A handful of people board. The man turns the page of his newspaper. Next stop, some people get on, some people get off. The woman still has her eyes on the man, waiting for him to do something. He minds his own business. Several more stops go by until the woman can’t take it anymore. She approaches the man. He doesn’t seem to notice her. She tears the paper out of his hands and asks why the fuck he is following her. Now she is yelling, and everyone on the train is staring. The man says nothing, does nothing. He stares blankly, as if he doesn’t understand. The hyper-rail pulls into another station and the man scurries off.
In the decades following the Great War for the Red Planet, the governing bodies of Mars maintained peace through rigorous and constant surveillance of its citizens. Holo-cameras were installed in every corner of the planet’s major cities, allowing the government to record and monitor public spaces at all hours of the day. It is supposed to make everyone feel safe at all times. The woman does not feel safe.
There are many places you can buy a gun legally on Mars. There are just as many places you can buy one illegally, only you can get it faster. The woman asks a friend, who asks a friend, and that evening a dealer appears at her door offering a small arsenal of weapons. She asks for something discreet, something pocket-sized. She explains that it’s for self-defense and the dealer says he doesn’t care. A small ray gun will do. It’s a single shot. Once you fire it, it’s done. The woman asks what happens if her target doesn’t go down after a single shot. The dealer assures her that there’s no chance of that.
She takes it.
On her next commute home, she sees the man again, of course. The woman thinks about the gall this man has to follow her, even after their confrontation the day before. She had warned him. She told him that if he followed her again, she would make him sorry for it. And yet, here he was, as if nothing had ever happened.
The hyper-rail makes its usual stops. The car gets emptier and emptier. The man is still reading his newspaper. What a prick, the woman thinks.
Finally they reach the woman’s stop. She gets out of the car. The man follows. She can hear his footsteps behind her. She picks up her pace, and so does he. She can hear him getting closer. And closer. And closer until—
She spins around, withdraws the ray gun from her purse, and fires. It lets out an earsplitting blast, illuminating the dark corridor for a moment in a brilliant swirl of pink and green. The laser pierces a hole right through the center of the man’s chest. His final expression is one of surprise, of bewilderment. He doesn’t scream, just tumbles to the ground limp.
The woman calls the police, but it doesn’t matter. They are already on their way. The holo-cameras have captured everything. The authorities have been alerted.
The woman’s trial doesn’t last long. Most trials on Mars don’t, since they rely almost entirely on surveillance footage. Here’s what the holo-cameras show: a woman walking; a man behind her, probably minding his own business. The judge informs the defendant that there is nothing illegal about this behavior. It doesn’t matter that he followed her home. There is no proof that he ever intended to do her harm. Feeling unsafe is not a justifiable cause for obtaining a firearm and killing someone.
The woman is found guilty of murder. She will be sent away for a long time, to a prison fortified by impenetrable crystal walls.
But the woman knows that this was her only option, the only possible recourse. Because in the end, Mars is just like any other planet: a giant mass of garbage that orbits through space, barely able to sustain human life.