Chapter Two

 

 

Matt and I didn't get very far before we saw the crater where one of the cylinders had landed.

I spotted it first because Matt was busy eyeing the terrain ahead, searching for any sign of Landin--or, I should say--the lake we'd have to cross to get there. Having encountered a couple of pulse cannons before, I kept my gaze on the ground, which was why I saw the crater right before we stepped into it.

"Stop!" I shouted.

Matt did, and the entire tripod lurched. We stood almost directly above the giant pit, and the cylinder that rested in the middle at an angle shone with the faint light of the evening. Movement caught my eye. I had to stand and press my face up to the glass to look down, but after my eyes adjusted and I managed to figure out how not to make my breath fog things up, I spotted one of the mining robots in the crater, busy crawling along the edges. It stopped every few seconds as if it were drilling.

This cylinder had been here for a while, and the occupants had already gotten their machines to work.

"Whoa," Matt said. "I'm glad you spotted that. It's a good thing there are two of us."

"I don't know if anyone's down there," I said. Four cylinders had landed. Well, four known to us. Ours first of all, and then Marv's and Celeste's. The one that Matt's father had arrived in still rested right outside the monorail station and the solar system museum.

This capsule might be either Marv's or Celeste's. I was willing to bet Celeste's as this was relatively close to the river where she had nearly burned and crushed us. In fact, I had seen the river in the distance several times today, when the smog wasn't quite as thick.

Matt stared down at the cylinder with longing. I knew what he was thinking.

"We might be able to talk to Fiona," I said. "I don't see anyone around here who's going to bother us. We know that Marv and Celeste are with your father." Even though it was getting dark, I could only see the red vegetation as it spread out and nothing else.

One of the scouts had made it out here with a tracking capsule and planted it away from civilization. It would take a brave person to risk getting lost in this expanse of weeds. I hoped that the scout hadn't died of starvation out here. There were no points of reference.

"We might," Matt said, scrambling out of his chair.

He undid the hatch, throwing all caution to the wind. Then again, no one was out here. The Grounders hadn't sent any helicopters to track us, probably because of 1.) the Grounders hated heights and avoided them at all costs and 2.) the Enforcers, who piloted them, now knew what the Great Council and the Task Force were. We were safe on that front, and the Grounders wouldn't even want to roll a pulse cannon through the thick weeds. These underground plants were doing us some good. Sure, they absorbed sound and made it hard to hear anyone who was approaching, but they provided a barrier.

I just hoped that any germs wouldn't make it out here. The Grounders could have released them already. They were supposed to kill in minutes, at least inside the enclosed space they had meant to execute Leader Kassam and me inside. Had Grandpa died within minutes? He must have taken longer if Mom had time to reach his bedside.

We'd have to take the chance.

Matt watched as the ladder descended with a metallic squeal and sank to the weeds below. The whole tripod shuddered. I grabbed onto the wall and steadied myself. Matt scrambled down the ladder. "Come on," he said. "We don't have to worry about Celeste this time or Calvin, for that matter."

Calvin was long dead, thanks to his arrogance. I climbed down after Matt and slipped the pollution mask back over my face, knowing that it looked stupid with a design of the galaxy on the front. But I could breathe without gagging, which was a relief. Earth's atmosphere still had enough oxygen to sustain us. I wondered how much longer that would last. The Grounders still needed bodies to function on the surface, so it must not be quite what they needed yet.

After we reached the ground, I straightened up inside the red weeds, trying not to panic. The last time Matt and I had done this we had nearly gotten burned to death. But there was no water out here, and the fire Celeste had started hadn't reached this area. I took two steps before sinking my feet into the dirt, and I realized that I stood at the edge of the crater where the cylinder had crash-landed.

"It looks like Celeste didn't start the farming nanobots," Matt said, looking down into the chasm. "I only see the mining one. I wonder how the ones back in the park are doing."

I thought of the nanobots marching back to the crater we had left in Woking Park, the ones that were supposed to help spread our plants again over the planet.

Or were they our weeds? The Grounders must view green plants the same way we looked at these red ones--as alien, displacing off the life that had evolved here first.

I shook my head, chasing the thought away. "You're right," I said. "Celeste wouldn't have started the farming bots. She's Mars Identity. She came here to help stop us."

"She's a radical," Matt reminded me. "You think my dad sided with the Grounders? He didn't. The radicals are so into the Mars origin story that they live and breathe it every day of their lives. It must be nice, being able to cope by doing that." I sensed some jealousy in Matt's voice.

"As you said, they like to feel special," I said. "Let's get down there and see if we can talk to Fiona on the radio. We'll get an idea of where our backup will land. Maybe. The Grounders would have caught all the scouts and sent them back to the colonies by now, so she must know."

"And start the farming bots," Matt said. "We can turn this forest back to what it once was."

Matt and I climbed down into the crater. More like, we slid down the dirt slope together, getting our clothes filthy and tearing our pants on the rocks that jutted out from the sides. This crater was worse than the others when it came to stone. This cylinder had landed in a more rugged area. The scout hadn't chosen a great place after all.

Once we reached the bottom, I checked to make sure that no one was stealing our walker. Check. The cylinder had long since cooled, and the only sound down here was the mining bot that skittered like a giant metal spider, drilling into stone every minute or so. Swarms of little nanobots scurried around as if they weren't sure what to do next. They must be waiting for the farming duties that Celeste had never activated.

Matt and I walked around the cylinder in silence. The hatch was open as if Celeste never expected to come back here. It was almost comforting, stepping inside this little shelter, even though I knew it had gotten built on Mars with illegal nanobots. Well, maybe.

We stepped into the compartment with the cots and the straps that would hold passengers in place during the trip through space. Unlike our cylinder, no black dust coated the floor and the beds. Celeste hadn't had to use the weapon to stay alive. The Grounders had left her alone. Matt climbed into the next compartment, right above our heads.

"There are still metal ingots here," he said. "All Celeste wanted was a tripod to crush us with and go check on Marv."

"We can make ourselves those...guns...while we're here," I said. "Are there metal ingots left?"

"Yes. I see two gold bars and a bunch of iron bars. It looks like the mining bot provided most of the materials Celeste needed to build her vehicle. And you mean heat rays."

"Um, hello?" I asked. Matt hung onto the ladder, feet close to my face. "I'd like to climb up as well."

"Sorry," Matt said, pulling himself up into the compartment. "You don't have to be rude again."

"You also didn't have to lie," I said.

"I never lied. I just didn't tell the whole story," Matt said. "Didn't you enjoy not knowing the truth? It would make this whole plan less complicated for you." At last, he ascended.

I climbed the ladder, hesitating on what I wanted to say next. Matt had a point. He had never told me that the Grounders weren't from Mars. Before the truth, things had been a lot less complicated: fight Grounders, take Earth back, save my parents and the rest of humanity. Now it was: fight Grounders, feel guilty while wondering if we were the real villains, hesitate, think about it, shudder, battle Grounders again--I could see Matt's point there. Now the waters had muddied, and I couldn't grasp the answer anymore.

Matt was right that Celeste had wasted several metal ingots. We checked the food stores to find that she had left most of the cans as well. Fiona meant these rations for five, so of course, there would be food left. Celeste hadn't intended to be here for any length of time. She probably meant to kill us, march to the spaceport, and return to Mars with a big smile on her face. She could have the whole planet. Matt and I wanted nothing to do with it.

"Hey," Matt said. "We can eat something besides gift shop peanuts. How does that sound?"

"You're changing the subject." I wanted to yell at Matt, and at the same time, I wanted to thank him for doing his best. I wasn't even sure how I felt about him anymore.

Matt put his hand in his pocket. "Don't let the Grounders tell you what you are," he said. "They're doing it to try to stop you. It's how the Mars Identity radicals were born. Up until now, they've helped the Grounders."

"You didn't tell me that what they said about our origin was false."

"It's not false." He opened one of the cans and the compartment filled with the smell of baked beans. "Human scientists have been suspecting the truth since the turn of the millennium, but people today mostly don't know about it. They don't want to know. It's uncomfortable."

"To say the least."

So Matt succeeded in changing the subject because my stomach growled and I sat down to eat. Baked beans had never tasted this good. I hadn't realized how starved I was until now. As I ate, energy flowed back into my body. Once we had finished, Matt got out the other black boxes that contained the nanobots, the ones labeled Third and Fourth. He opened both, along with the cylinder hatch, and I watched as the lids rose enough to let the living dust specks out. I had forgotten how cute they looked. Two streams of bots zipped past us, one to the metal bars and the other outside to begin the farming.

I shook my head.

We had to be doing the right thing--correct?

"Tess," Matt said.

"I have conflicting feelings again," I said. "Leave me alone. And I take it we need to wait."

"Well, yes. The nanobots are going to make us new heat rays. It's going to take a while. The farming bots might take longer to find seeds since this scout didn't get to plant the tracking capsule at a farm as I did."

Matt and I retreated to the bunks, which had radio communication. Matt pressed the button to the speaker next to the bed. "Fiona?" he asked. "It's me. Matt. Tess and I are alive, but my father might have told you that already. We think we found Celeste's cylinder. I take it he didn't shut you down. That's good. Tell me what the plan is, and we'll go from there." He released the button, but only silence reigned.

"She's not responding," I said.

"That's because my message is still heading to Mars," he said. His eyes shined with worry. "It's going to take about twenty minutes for us to hear back. That's if Fiona isn't asleep. Nevin might be awake, though. I can't imagine them both dozing off at this time."

"Makes sense," I said.

We both went silent, waiting for Fiona to respond. At last, she did. The radio crackled, and the scientist spoke, full of relief and probably tears. "Matt!" she said. "I've been sick, worrying about you. Colony O detected the explosion that Marv and Celeste set off at Base A. Word spread, and your father sent people out to investigate. By then, Marv and Celeste had already taken off, but they left some of their radical friends with us. Your father's people arrested them, and I had to tell him what happened. Your father came after you. He's there, somewhere. Have you seen him yet?"

It was clear that Matt and Fiona had to cram all the info they could into each message. A conversation would take forever if they didn't. Matt and Fiona went back and forth for the next hour and a half, during which I checked on our walker. They caught each other up on what had happened. I had just crawled back into the cylinder and closed the door when I heard something from Fiona that made my heart rise.

"I just took the advice of your friend Tess," Fiona said. "Most of my volunteers are no longer available to man the cylinders since the Identity has found us, but I found three volunteers who wanted to come back to Earth. Do you recall a Winnie, and Lin and a Blake?"

I pushed Matt out of the way to reach the button. "I gave you those names!" I said. I hadn't expected Fiona to take me up on it, but I had been desperate at the time to get Winnie and the others back. So it seemed that Fiona still wanted to take Earth back after all, and she was working under the noses of the Identity. The volunteers she had planned must have been found already, maybe jailed. Fiona didn't have a lot of options left. "Did you send them? Are they on their way?"

"They are on their way," Fiona said twenty minutes later. She lowered her voice as if someone might be listening. "They were all too willing to join the cause."

Matt smiled at me. He opened his arms for a hug. I dove into it, and he tried to pick me up and spin me around, but his muscles hadn't gone back to full strength yet. We did the best we could. "I forgot about that," I said. Winnie would come back after all. I could allow the guilt I still had about leaving her to fade. Already, I felt as if I could breathe better, even with this pollution mask over my face.

"We do not know where they will land," Fiona said. "Two of my scouts did not make it back, and the others are unable to speak with me. The Identity is keeping them under observation. I'm guessing they'll land within a few hours."

"Then we're going to have to watch for them," Matt said to me. He let go. "I guess you don't hate me that badly, then."

"Don't get too comfortable," I said.

"Fair enough." Matt headed outside and watched the sky. In the crater, streams of nanobots had formed, and many were climbed the walls and explored the red vegetation around us. I wished I could stay and see if any seeds had survived or would still grow in these conditions, but I wanted to see Winnie and the others even more. They were on their way.