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Mary walked from side to side in her cell, while she waited for James to arrive and get her out of there. Time passed and nobody said anything to her. She knew she was innocent but she also knew that she was being accused of something very serious, and she wasn’t even being given the chance to explain herself.
Suddenly, a door opened. Mary pressed herself against the railings. She heard some steps coming closer. Then she saw him:
“James, James, thank goodness, it’s you! These men took the wrong person and locked me in here...”
“Silence!” ordered an officer.
Mary went quiet. James spoke:
“Can you leave me alone with her? Just for a few minutes.”
The officer, knowing who he was, agreed with no problem.
“We’ll be at the door if you need us, Mr Stafford.”
“She’s not dangerous,” pointed out James. “Don’t worry.”
The bars moved slowly back and James went in. Behind him, the door to the cell closed again.
Mary, about to cry, hugged James. He – putting on a show – wasn’t quite so effusive.
“I knew you’d come, James. When will you get me out of here?”
“Mary,” confessed James. “I’m afraid it’s not going to be that easy.”
“What? Why? But I haven’t done anything.”
James accompanied her to her bed to sit down beside her.
“Mary, I know you haven’t done anything, but the proof says exactly the opposite.”
“Proof? Proof of what?”
“They’ve detected massive amounts of documents being sent to the competition.”
“What? That’s impossible. There’s no competition on Mars.”
“They’re not being sent to Mars... but to Earth.”
“But that doesn’t make sense. What good would doing all that do me?”
“There are Arab companies that are very interested in everything relating to exploring new energy resources. All those plans and reports are very valuable to them. They’d be capable of coming here and starting a war just to get a few hectares of Martian soil.”
“But James, you know that I’d never do anything like that. I’d never betray you.”
“They were sent from your mailbox...”
“My password could have been stolen.”
“But they were your reports!” he exclaimed in a whisper. “The ones you were doing up to show the areas for getting useful compounds or minerals for the Terraforming.”
“My work? Are you saying that the work I’ve been doing secretly all these months has been stolen and sent to the competition?”
“That’s your version of the facts. Theirs is very different.”
“Whose?”
“My family’s, the board of directors’, the witnesses’...”
“What witnesses?”
“Maids, servants, some miners, computer traces...”
“I see: ‘Mars against Mary Ackerson’,” she said with sad irony.
James tried to get her to relax.
“And you, James: do you think I’m guilty?”
“If you’re guilty of anything, Mary,” he said with a long pause, “It’s of having stolen my heart.”
Their lips met in a silent kiss.
“Don’t worry: I’ll get you out of here. But give me time.”
Mary smiled.
“I’ll try to put up with it. I’ll take it as a holiday,” she said resignedly. “Although the room is nothing like it was in the catalogue.”
James took her joke as a breath of hope and left the cell.
“I love you,” James whispered to her.
Mary copied the movement of his lips to declare her love too.
James’ footsteps disappeared, leaving the cell in silence and Mary alone with her uneasy thoughts.