Chapter Nine

 

 

My family ran through the night.

The bulldozers had already been here. The lettuce plants lay crushed and shattered. Some of their leaves stuck to my shoes. I held my parents' hands. They had to run slower to let me keep up.

Other families fled, too. They were dark shadows in the night. More machines growled behind us. Loud cracking and snapping noises followed. I wanted to cover my ears, but it was no use. Horses whinnied in panic. We were leaving them behind. I thought of Ernest and Snowy and the others, waiting for the bulldozers to reach them.

I dared to look behind as I had so many times before. But instead of the bulldozers, tripods towered over our homes, shooting heat rays. Lines of fire erupted from rooftops. Smoke rose into the night sky. The flames cast a demonic glow over the landscape while people screamed.

"You are not Earthers," a man said.

My parents stopped, forcing me to do the same while the alien machines continued to ravage the land.

The black-robed Great Council member stood there, a man with white-blond hair with his arms folded across his chest. He gave us a single nod. He was very tall, almost skeletal as if something had sucked his life away. He looked like an emotionless Grim Reaper.

But this time, I knew that a Grounder stood before us.

"Yes, we are," my mother said. "What gives you the right to take away our home?" Even now, she spoke with confidence and grace.

"You are not Earthers," he repeated in a flat voice. He gazed at our burning houses. "You are pests."

"We are not!" I shouted. I pulled against Mom and Dad, but they wouldn't release my hands. I wanted to hit this guy.

The man walked up to me and leaned down. I stared right into his lifeless eyes.

He had never done that before.

"You are pests," he repeated. Then he stood and faced someone behind us. "Take this girl away."

I turned my head.

Scores of green people, all in black and gray uniforms, emerged from the semi-dark as the world burned. Choking smoke filled the air. I coughed, and I tried to pull away from Mom and Dad, but they held me in place.

"No!" I screamed.

I thrashed and opened my eyes. I tossed the black sleeping bag off me and sat up in the crate, bumping my head in the process. The plain gray wall of the warehouse stretched out in front of me.

I took a breath of the chilled air and let it out. I hated the memory of our eviction. It still visited when I slept, complete with that Great Council guy calling us pests to my face. He still taunted me even after all these years. I never even found out his name or which province he represented. By now, he might not even be alive.

His emotionless voice made me hate the Grounders more.

I lay back down and curled up into a ball.

They had kicked me from Earth like a pest. Right then, curled up in that crate on a dead planet, I felt like one.

Small.

Alone.

Nothing.

Something struck my crate. I jumped like a scared animal, hitting my head again. I was failing on every level.

"Hello?" a guy asked.

The tone of his voice warned that he was trouble. I didn't have to wait to see my harasser. He leaned down and peeked into my crate, green as the Wicked Witch of the West. He even had a pointed nose like her and messy black hair.

It was the guy from the glass dome. The one who had glared at me.

"What do you want?" I asked, putting on my strong face. It felt like a flimsy mask that could fall away at any moment. Outside my crate, people spoke in low voices, continuing their conversations. I had the sense that no one was going to come to my rescue.

"So we have an Earther," he said.

"Are you one of those Mars Identity people?" I asked. Mom and Dad had told me how to deal with bullies. Acting afraid was the worst thing I could do right now. Earthers didn't back down.

Except for that one time, we had. This guy reminded me of the hooded Great Council member, standing there and watching our homes burn. Anger pulsed through me.

The guy glowered at me. "We don't like Earthers here."

"Why?" I asked. "Because it's great on this rock?"

The guy backed away, not to leave me alone, but to let his friend join the party. The girl who had been sitting with him ducked her face into my private space. They were violating my area. Even though I had more muscle than either one of them, the guy was bigger, and I had the feeling that if a fight broke out, I'd get seriously hurt. I had never dealt with anything like this on Earth before.

"You're deluded," the girl said. She reached in and grabbed my arm. "People like you are the reason we can't build up our planet."

I wrenched my arm from her grasp. I still had my physical fitness on my side, even though my stomach cramped with hunger. I was already a pest to the Grounders, something to be swept aside. I wasn't about to be stupid and deluded, too.

"Personally, I think the Grounders are at fault," I said. "They should stop sending people when the colonies can't handle it." If anyone was deluded, it was these people.

Intelligence didn't rule here. The girl took my arm and pulled. She had a Mars Identity patch, all right, and so did the guy.

I got out of the crate and stood, mostly because I was ticked off. I held back from punching the girl. I didn't know if there was punishment for assault. Even though I tried not to, I stole a glance around the room to see if anyone was paying attention. Nope. A small group of young people played a game of cards on the floor. Two old women sat in folding chairs and ignored us. I was on my own.

The man caught me looking. "Are you looking for your boyfriend?" he asked.

"He's not my boyfriend," I said. "What do you want me for?"

"You're not an Earther," the guy said. "Take off that patch. Join reality."

"No." It was all I had left. He sounded so much like the Grounder who had taunted my family. I wanted to scream. It was as if my nightmares had blended with reality and I couldn't tell them apart anymore.

The guy fished in his pocket for a pair of scissors. He handed them to me, smiling. "Patch. Off."

"Does it offend you?" I asked, forcing a smile. "I'll keep it on, then. Or does it remind you that you gave up fighting and let the Grounders send you here?"

I hit a raw nerve. The young woman raised her arm. I didn't have time to brace for the blow. She swung, hitting me on the cheek with her bony knuckles. The world faded as pain exploded across my face. Even for someone with atrophied muscles, she hit hard, as if she made a career of harassing newcomers like me.

Holding in a cry, I dared to face her. Spots flared in my vision. I wanted to say something crushing, but I had the sense that I already had. What was wrong with these people? They were just like Dr. Komorowski.

"Listen," the guy said. "You're denying--"

"Leave her alone, Marv."

Matt stood on the side of the nearby crate. He glared at Marv and the young woman with more intensity than I thought he could manage. I was shocked. He hadn't even done this in the medical bay.

The woman backed away. These two were afraid of Matt.

"When are you going to stop defending Earthers?" Marv asked. "You, of all people."

I wanted to step away from these people. My face throbbed, but at least I could breathe now. The blow would leave a bruise and maybe a headache.

I would take the beating over removing my patch.

"She has a good cause," Matt said. "We deserve to be able to live on Earth. We've spent billions of years there, fitting in."

The guy shook his head. What were they arguing about, anyway? Why did they even have to argue?

"That's right," I said. "We're taking it back from the Grounders soon, and we don't care what you think."

"Come on," Matt said, grabbing my arm and tugging.

He gave me the excuse I needed to step away from these two. I followed Matt to the door, but the back of my neck prickled as the Mars Identity people watched me.

I had a target on me. Great.

"You have to watch what you say," Matt said.

"Sorry. And thanks." I felt almost embarrassed that he had to step in.

Matt led me out of the storage room and back into the hall. My knees trembled with hunger, or maybe it was the adrenaline. There was no telling anymore. It seemed like it was all blending. I felt like a rat getting kicked out of a house.

“Don't let them get to you,” Matt said. “Some people deal with the whole Grounders kicking us off Earth thing by giving it a big hug if you know what I mean.”

“No. I don't,” I said.

“What I mean is, some people feel, well, hopeless when it comes to getting back to Earth, so they try to make the best of it here.”

“By being a bunch of schoolyard bullies?” I asked, glad to leave the storeroom behind. I didn't dare call it my living quarters. That crate was my temporary shelter, nothing more. I would not be a pest, but it was getting harder to avoid feeling like one.

“Not all Mars Identity people are like that,” Matt said. “Being jerks makes the ones like Marv and his girlfriend feel special.”

“So they're radicals," I said.

“Exactly.”

We walked faster. I had to eat something again, and soon, but I wanted to get out of this particular colony even more and get to wherever Matt was taking me. He was my only lifeline in this place, and I still hadn't found Winnie and the others. They must be in another colony, maybe even the one where Matt lived. They had left only a few hours before I had. They couldn't be across the planet or anything.

"So, what now?" I asked.

"I'll show you how the invasion's going to work," Matt said. "I'll even show you the facility that's going to do the launches."

“I like that idea," I said.

"That's if the other scouts planted their tracking cylinders," Matt said. "I'm sure they did. The Grounders don't think the way we do. They're so...concrete. Everything's black and white to them.”

We stopped by the cafeteria again, where I ordered some nachos. I got a tiny bowl as I predicted, but I felt a little better after eating. “Is it morning?” I asked, facing the glass dome. A few people were already reading tablets there, bathing their green skin in the sun. I almost wanted to go back and take the injection. At least I wouldn't be such a big target, but I wasn't going to go home like this. Mom and Dad would freak.

Maybe they deserved it after sending me here.

“Yes,” Matt said. “I checked on you a few times, but you were sleeping. A Mars day is only about an hour longer than the one on Earth. Some people say they sleep better here than on Earth.”

“I can't imagine why,” I said, polishing off the nachos. I scraped every bit of cheese off my plastic plate before throwing it in the recycling machine.

Matt shrugged. “The tram leaves in ten minutes. I wanted to let you get as much sleep and conserve as much energy as you could.”

I followed Matt right through the dome, hurrying to get out of the toxic light before it messed with my skin. I caught a few more stares, and I crossed my arms to hide my Earth patch, something that would have caused my mother to look at me in shame. “What, exactly, is this plan?” I asked Matt once we were in the hallway. After three weeks crossing millions of miles of space, he hadn't opened up much. Of course, we hadn't been on speaking terms for much of that time.

“I'll show you,” he said. "This isn't something for the public."

Matt led me past a Mars Identity meeting hall. A sign of Mars and the three asteroids hung over some closed double doors. A man spoke inside over a microphone. He mentioned something about fairness and the future. I didn't linger. I had a deep fear that their philosophy would infect me if I stayed.

The tram station was tiny compared to the ones on Earth. It smelled dusty, giving away the fact that it was subterranean. We stood inside of the Grounders' original home. The thought made a shudder race down my spine.

Matt and I boarded one of five small cars, cramming in beside more people. I grabbed onto a hanging bar with everyone else, very aware that I was the only non-green person here. I forced myself to leave my Earth patch exposed, but it was beginning to make me feel stupid. It was like wearing the wrong team's colors at a sports game.

This place was already ruining me.

I didn't feel like Tess anymore.

If I couldn't get back home, who was I?

It only took a few minutes for the tram car to pull out of the station, and no one spoke over the speakers. We rose and rolled along a rail to the outside. Creepy pink light and a dead, rolling landscape spread out in front of us as we gained speed. A dust devil swirled in the distance and died.

“Uplifting, isn't it?” Matt asked.

I sighed. “How long?”

“About twenty minutes.”

Matt was right that our trip across the open landscape didn't take long. I tried not to think about whether the sunlight was damaging my skin, but it was too late to avoid that now. I watched the colony get smaller behind us, a collection of square structures with dingy glass domes. It was even more depressing from the outside. I thought I glimpsed a dark shape descending to the edge of the colony. More new residents. The Grounders were stepping up the draft.

I wondered if Mom and Dad were landing, or if they were still home.

It was too late for that now. We had no way to communicate, not without my contacts.

Colony N looked just like Colony M from the outdoors. I hoped that Winnie was there. At least I could tell her that I was sorry. She would be a wreck here, but thinking of her was better than thinking of what would happen if this tram car stalled or sprung an air leak. I didn't want to ask Matt if that had happened before.

At last, we descended into another underground tunnel. Orange lights shone above us, and a couple of airlocks opened, giving us entry. The tram car stopped in another station with an attendant in a booth and a sign above some double doors that said COLONY N. The colonists hadn't gotten creative at all with the names. All energy had gone to survival.

“Come on,” Matt said. “It's not as bad here as in M. Well, some parts are, but I'll take you to my place. My father got a better deal than most people. I think the Great Council gave him the place, to tell you the truth.”

“The Great Council works with people here?”

“It's complicated,” Matt said. “Come on. I don't think he's home. He's usually out, planning other colonies.”

I wondered if Matt's father had something to do with why Marv and that woman listened to Matt back in the colony. But they were kilometers away now, much to my relief. There could be more Marvs here, though. I had to keep my guard up.

As much as I hated to, I crossed my arms over my chest as I disembarked off the tram, able to breathe again. At least I didn't have claustrophobia, one of the most common fears of all time.

Colony N wasn't as bad as M. There were more sunning domes, and more people soaking up the rays (literally), and there were even a few more food stalls. With my arms crossed and my bandage still on my arm, I drew fewer stares. There were even families in the domes, sitting together on actual chairs with upholstery.

Even the children were green. I wondered if they had known anything else.

“This place has carpet,” I said.

“It was one of the first colonies,” Matt said. “They had the resources to build this one better than the others. The one they dropped you in is crap. I guess they had an oxygen leak a few months ago. Some people died in one of the storage rooms.”

“Thank you for telling me that.” Even though I knew I was a strain on resources, I stopped at another cafeteria and got another small bowl of nachos. Only one of the cooks here had avoided becoming a walking plant. I waited for Matt to tell me that I was making things harder for everyone else, but he didn't. I liked him more and more.

And I was hungry.

He led me to another corridor, and this one had a transport belt. We passed another Mars Identity meeting hall. In no time, we stepped off and faced a hallway lined with wooden doors, all labeled with brass numbers.

This place had apartments.

People were almost as well to do here as they were on Earth.

“Does your dad work for the Great Council?” I asked.

“The Great Council isn't here,” Matt said quickly.

I had stepped over a line. “Sorry,” I said. Something was going on here, and I didn't like the sounds of it.

Matt let me to a door and placed his finger on an identification pad. The lock clicked, and he pushed it open.

“I'm going to kill you,” I said.

I tried not to let hatred burn inside of me as I checked out the quarters Matt shared with his father. It looked like a regular apartment back on Earth. This place had a thick glass window that looked out on the Martian landscape. White carpet. A holo-screen. A faux leather couch, as clean as the rest of the place.

“I hope you don't mean that literally,” Matt said. “My father's not home. We need to hurry if I'm going to report to Fiona in time.”

“Fiona?” I asked.

“I need to tell her where I placed the tracker,” he said, sounding like he was in a hurry. “She might have her volunteers ready to board the first cylinder.”

“You keep talking about a cylinder,” I said. “What is it, exactly?”

“Our way back to Earth,” Matt said. “Well, sort of. Once we take it back from the Grounders, the rest of the colonists can return. If they want to, that is."

"And the cylinders can get past the Grounders' defenses."

Matt waved me into the apartment. I followed. “The cylinder is going to get fired with a laser. I started drawing the plans for it before we even landed on Mars. As soon as I saw this dead place out the window of the ship, I knew that I couldn't stay here. I don't care what the Grounders said.” He stared into space for a second, as if the memory were tormenting him.

“You...drew plans for getting back to Earth.”

We stepped down the hallway. In here, I could pretend that we were back on Earth. I was even getting used to the reduced gravity, even though I hadn't tried jumping yet. “I didn't know what I was doing at first, but there are a lot of scientists and smart people in this colony. The Grounders sent them here first as if they were trying to get rid of them. Fiona used to work on ion drives. She's moved on to other kinds of systems. Wait until she shows you the gun. I think I gave her the idea for it.”

“The gun?” I asked.

“You'll see.” Matt pulled open another door, this one leading to his bedroom.

I tried not to blush. Mom had forbidden me to be at a boy's house, alone, ever, until I was seventeen. I had one more year, but I didn't think this counted.

Matt had a neat bed and a bookshelf with actual books. I hadn't seen very many of them. They were like cars. Most people read on tablets or contact displays.

He was right that he drew on paper.

Matt reached under his bed and drew out an actual sketchbook. It was worn around the corners and smelled of musty paper, but it was the real deal. He managed a smile. “I have to keep this from my father,” he said.

“Why?” I asked, careful not to cross that line again.

“He never cared about my hobby,” Matt said. “He wouldn't want me getting involved in anything crazy like invasions. I had to tell him that I was going to visit Aunt Cecily in Colony B for a couple of months to keep him from wondering where I've been for the past several weeks. I set the network up ahead of time to send him some fake emails from my aunt's place. Dad wanted me to get out of this apartment, anyway. He said he wanted me to see the other colonies.”

“That's one heck of a lie,” I said. I had one burning question, but I didn't dare ask it.

“That's one good thing about the crappy networks here,” Matt said. “You can get away with anything. Dad's too busy to track down my lies.”

“Sounds like he has a lot of work,” I said. It didn't look like the man was ever home. Matt slept in this place, knowing that there was no air right on the other side of his walls, along with deadly cold and radiation. It was no wonder people became like Marv and that young woman. "So, show me these plans."

"Well, Fiona made them better than what I drew," Matt said. He sat down on his bed and opened the sketchbook. "Ever heard of laser-propelled spacecraft?"

"Maybe. A long time ago," I said. "Didn't scientists use to send little probes out into space using them?" I had read something about microwave beams blasting tiny probes to other stars centuries ago before the Great Council scrapped funding for the project.

Matt flipped through the pages. I caught glimpses of plants and trees. If I didn't know better, I would have guessed that he was a fellow Earther. If I even was one anymore.

I could tell where his Earth days ended in the sketchbook. He landed on a page where a ground laser blasted a ship off the surface of Mars and into the stars. The ship had sails, catching the laser's energy.

"That's amazing," I said. Matt had some incredible art skills, way beyond mine. "It looks like a cylinder with wings."

"The sails are to catch the laser power," Matt said. "Since Dad was off working on the terraforming stuff, I had time to walk around and ask people if there were any plans like this. One of Fiona's friends pointed me in her direction. I joined the team, to say the least."

"That's amazing," I said. The ship looked crude, but the colonists didn't have access to the technology that the Grounders did. "You guys built this?"

It had a good concept behind it. I thought of how angry Mom and Dad would be if I boarded one of these things with Winnie and the others--and whether these ships were even safe.

"Sort of," Matt said. "The real ships are housed in a crater facility that Fiona's team of scientists keep hidden. We'll have to drive there."

"Drive?" I asked.

"Well, we can't have the Identity finding out," Matt said. "The rovers usually have enough air."

"Usually?"

"Come on," Matt said with a grin. "I know how to get into the garage. Fiona gave me a pass card. The official story is that the facility is an old storage place that no one ever visits."

"So mouth shut?" I asked. My heart raced. I was on a top-secret mission.

But as I followed Matt through Colony N, through maintenance hallways, and down concrete steps, all I could dream about was home. Matt was giving me hope. He was the only one so far who had done so.

I might even have a chance to fight the Grounders and to be an Earther again.

"Down this way," Matt said, opening a dirty, steel door with a pass card.

"I still need to find my friends," I said.

"They're here, somewhere," Matt said. He shifted. "If they took their injections, they'll have an easier time surviving here than you would. It only takes a couple of weeks to turn green so that they won't starve. They might be better off here for now, and so might you."

I balked. "Excuse me? You were all like, check out this part of the plan, and now you're telling me to stay behind and be miserable? What is with you?"

Matt continued. "The first part of the plan is dangerous. Our mission's going to involve disabling the Earth defense system so that ships can bring people back."

"So I'm supposed to be impressed and then wait here?"

Matt pushed the metal door all the way open. He frowned. "Yes. So am I."

I told myself that I still didn't know everything, so I followed Matt into the next room. Off-road vehicles with large wheels filled the garage. More air locks lined the far wall.

I tried not to panic at the thought of staying here for a little while. What was I thinking? These scientists weren't going to let me on a dangerous mission without a whole bunch of training. That didn't make any sense.

Matt and I boarded one of the rovers.

A door squeaked somewhere.

I stopped my foot inside the vehicle. "What was that?" I asked.

"Probably nothing," Matt said. "These parts of the colonies make strange noises. As long as it isn't hissing, we're good."

"Are you sure?" I asked, hating that I sounded nervous.

Matt slid his pass card into the ignition of the vehicle. The dash lit up, and a motor hummed. A screen indicated that the oxygen supply in the rover was at eighty-nine percent.

I wasn't sure if that was good or bad.

Matt seemed to read my mind. "We should be able to make it."

"I hate Mars," I said.

"I know. I can see it on your face." He checked to make sure my door had shut before pressing another button on the dash. I watched as an airlock rose, exposing the outside world. Air hissed and roared outside of the vehicle. My heart raced with panic. Only a metal roof above me would shield us from the cosmic radiation. I could die a horrible death out here.

"If you have to, close your eyes," Matt said.

I did.

Matt gunned the vehicle out of the garage and onto the Martian surface.