15

“COME IN.”

When I enter, Banks is sitting at his desk, covering something with a piece of paper. My first thought is that he is sketching something, but then I notice the fountain pen in his hand. Is he writing an actual letter? On paper?

I don’t feel comfortable enough to ask him about it. Besides, there are more important things to address.

“Hi,” I say, trying not to seem nervous. “Do you have a minute? I’d like to talk to you.”

He nods and waves a hand at his bed. “Or did you want to go to the communal area?”

“This is fine,” I say, perching on the edge of it. “It’s too private for out there.”

He looks calmer than he did at the meeting, but far from relaxed. There are damp patches at his armpits. I wonder if there are at mine.

Desperate for something to break the ice, I gesture at the paper. “Are you a fellow artist?”

He frowns at it and shakes his head. Then, after visible deliberation, he moves the paper aside. “Calligraphy. This is copperplate. It helps me to relax.”

The script is beautiful and very accomplished. Suspicion briefly resurges as I wonder if he would be capable of faking my brush style, but using a pen like that is a totally different skill. I let the idea die again.

“Now that I’m not being a dick,” Banks says, “have you come with questions about the show? We can brainstorm some ideas if you like. It won’t take long.”

He’s nervous, trying to control the conversation, marking out the topic that he is comfortable with talking about even though I’ve made it clear this is a private matter. I do all I can to keep looking relaxed, nonthreatening. Not that I’ve ever appeared to be dangerous in my entire life. “I don’t have any questions. Given what’s going on, we may not have to worry about the show for a little while anyway.”

He takes a sip from a glass of water on his desk and I notice the tremor in his hand as he puts it back down again. “You must think I’m a terrible person. I’m not normally like that. I am really sorry I treated you so badly.”

“How about we start again? Draw a line under it all.” I extend my hand toward him. “I’m Anna Kubrin. I’m a big fan of the show.”

He puts on a smile that I know he’s learned for camerawork. It transforms his face, crinkling his eyes and making him so much more handsome with its warmth. “Why, thank you, Anna. We work very hard on it. I’m Kim Banks.”

We shake hands; his is hot and, thanks to the way he rested his palms on his legs when I held out my hand, recently dried on his trousers.

It feels better between us. I don’t want to go crashing into this with threats and ultimatums. The softer approach feels better. I have to be patient. Clever. The former was never my strong suit, but I’m capable of following a plan to a goal.

“I wanted to talk to you about the preliminary work I’ve been doing for the first painting.”

There’s a flicker of relief before his confusion takes hold of his face. “Okay. But you should know that I don’t have a clue about anything artistic.”

I lean in, closing the gap between us. “I want to talk to you without using a certain name. It’s the one who was present at the meeting but doesn’t have a real body.”

He nods slowly. Instead of the question I was expecting, he asks, “How about we refer to that as the tin man?”

“Okay. So, I sent out some cams to take pictures of an area I want to paint.”

“You went out with Petranek. Ze mentioned it.”

“Yeah. So the idea was that I get a massive area fully rendered in a mersive; then I can walk around it, find a good perspective to paint and use that as a reference.”

“Okay,” he says, leaning back in his chair now, relaxing. Good.

“When I reviewed the data, the images from one of the drones was missing and when I looked into it, the tin man denied it.”

“Where did that drone cover?”

“I can show you, if you like?”

I call up a generic map of the Elysium Planitia region and he gives me permission to throw it up on his wall. I talk him through how I discovered it, show him the region; and then I tell him about the mast.

“And the tin man denied editing the image?” When I nod, he looks back at the map. “This is definitely weird.”

“Have you ever been out that way?”

He shakes his head. “No, I haven’t. In the early days of the show, I did a lot of external shoots. But then when that first game came out the interest dropped right off. That’s when we changed the format, bringing the focus into the base and onto the crew.”

I point to the place where Petranek and I saw the footprint. “Not here? Recently?”

“No. Why?”

“We saw a footprint there.”

There’s no sign of anything but surprise on his face. He comes over to stand next to me, close to the map. “There? I thought the area between the base and that region was unstable.”

“That’s what the tin man said. He didn’t want us to go there, but I used Gabor’s orders for me to paint the surface of Mars against it.”

“What made you want to go to that crater in particular?”

I try to recall the decision. “I don’t know. It was pretty much random. Just a big crater I’d always wanted to see, I guess.”

“Petranek didn’t mention seeing a footprint.”

I try not to blush, fail and try a shy smile instead. “I asked hir not to mention it to anyone. The tin man said no one had ever been there, even though we were seeing physical proof that it was lying. Seems very dodgy to me.”

“Yeah, it does.”

I take a deeper breath, release it. “Of course, the tin man may have been telling the truth if someone sneaked there without him knowing about it. Do you know anyone who’d be able to do that?”

Shoving his hands in his pockets, eyes very firmly fixed on the map, Banks shakes his head. “No. It’s impossible. The tin man knows where everyone is at all times.”

“Everyone?” I watch him nod in profile. “Apart from you.”

He starts to refute it, then sees the look in my eye and falls silent. He walks away from the map to lean against the bathroom door. He presses his finger to his lips, attends to something in his visual field, and then some god-awful Gregorian chant starts playing through the speakers above his desk. He comes back to me, leaning close to my left ear and dropping his voice to a whisper. “You’re smarter than I thought. All this, just to make me confess something?”

“Not exactly. I want your help to figure this out. I know that you can go out there and make the tin man think you’re somewhere else.”

The sweat is back, making his forehead and upper lip shine. He draws in a ragged breath and swears to himself.

“Look, I don’t want to get you in trouble. I swear it. But I saw you crying out there and—”

“Didn’t the psych talk to you about privacy lines?” he hisses, the old antagonism flaring back into life. “You have to respect them on a base this small and isolated.”

I can feel the good work I’ve done to put him at ease unraveling by the second. “I’m sorry. I just hate seeing people upset and . . . Look, you don’t have to say anything. I can see this is stressing you out. I wouldn’t have raised this with you if it wasn’t important. The tin man is hiding something. I want to go and find it, and I can trick it once I’m outside, but with this fake dust storm I can’t even get out and—”

“Fake dust storm?”

“I sent out another cam to get the data from the missing area; that’s when I saw you where you weren’t supposed to be. Just as the drone got to the crater, the tin man says there’s a dust storm. Nothing was on the mid- to short-term forecasts before then. Dust storms don’t spring up with such short notice, not with all the hardware we have in orbit now.”

“You really think the tin man is making up storms just to keep you confined to base?”

I know that tone in his voice. We’re two sentences away from me being branded as too imaginative in the best-case scenario, or mentally ill in the worst case. “I know how this sounds. But look at the evidence. Something is on the other side of that crater, and if you can trick the tin man, I reckon you can help me to get out there and find out what it is.”

I can see he’s curious. He keeps looking back at the map, chewing his lip, wrestling with the temptation. But I’m not sure if he’s being tempted to help me or to report me to Arnolfi. His shoulders slump and he shakes his head. “Listen, I can’t take the risk. I’m sorry.”

“Can you get me out of the base?” When his frown deepens, I add, “Theoretically. Could you do it?”

He runs a hand over his face, clearly torn. “If I wanted to, yes. I know how to trick the tin man into thinking that the manual override hasn’t been activated. I could get you outside without it knowing. Once you’re out there . . . it gets harder but I could probably sort something out. Only if you gave me full user privileges on your chip though. I’m assuming you wouldn’t want that.”

“Well, it would be a good exercise in trust, I guess.”

“You can ring-fence off your stored files from me, and as soon as we’re done you can revoke those privileges again. But it’s all academic. I’m not going to do it. It’s not worth it.”

“We’re not doing anything illegal here. In fact, if it came to it and we were prosecuted by the corp internally, I’m sure that the tin man’s actions would be seen as an impediment to my primary mission here. And—”

“It’s not that simple.”

“No, really, it is! All Gabor cares about is me painting enough pictures to make him more rich. You said as much yourself. Getting out there is—”

“Have you heard a fucking word I’ve said?” His voice is loud enough to drown out the monks for a few seconds. He shuts his eyes, mouths an expletive. “The answer is no.”

With an angry wave of his hand, he swipes the map off the wall and returns to the desk to slump in his chair.

I rest my head against the wall and close my eyes, frustrated. What is he so afraid of?

Then I remember the meeting and the way he reacted to the news that we were cut off. The way he’d emphasized that we’d all be fine. Like he knew he wouldn’t be.

Slowly, telegraphing my movements so I don’t startle him, I go and crouch beside him, lining up my mouth with his ear. “Is there something in your contract that’s stopping you? What are you so afraid of?”

To my surprise, his eyes well with tears again, and I realize he hasn’t really found his strength since the meeting. “If you do something that merits a disciplinary, you might get a warning, right?”

I nod.

“And if it’s bad enough, but not illegal per se, what’s the worst that could happen to you?”

“I’d get kicked out. And if I didn’t find somewhere else to work within the notice period, I guess the very worst thing would be ending up as a nonperson. But that’s really rare once you get to . . .” It suddenly clicks into place. His panic before, his insistence that he won’t break the rules, even though he clearly does. He must have a different kind of contract from me, one with fewer protections. “That’s not the case for you, is it?”

He drops his gaze and stares at the floor.

“If GaborCorp is bought out of the Mars contract, are you not protected?”

He shakes his head. “I’m not protected by anything. I’m owned.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m classed as an asset, not an employee. I have no employment protection rights, or even human rights. GaborCorp owns me like it owns this base and everything in it. If I break the rules, it isn’t just a note in a file; it’s a black mark. Get three of those, and years can be added to my contract. As it is, I won’t be free until I’m seventy-six. I don’t know if they’ll ever let me go home. They have no obligation to send me back to Earth, just as they have no obligation to ship the lab equipment back at the end of its life.”

“JeeMuh . . . But surely . . .” The words peter out. I’d heard of people with this sort of contract but never actually met one. Charlie didn’t believe they actually existed. For him—and until now for me—the idea of indentured service in modern gov-corp life was like some urban myth, a societal cautionary tale. “Did you even want to come to Mars in the first place?”

He shrugs, and there is so much contained in such a small gesture. Years of leading a life in which he’s made no professional choices. How deep does this go? “Oh shit, that’s awful. It’s wrong! It’s slavery!”

“No one else knows,” he says, a sudden fear in his eyes. “I don’t want them to. It’s GaborCorp policy to keep indentured status confidential. Otherwise people abuse assets and it reduces productivity.”

Now tears are welling in my eyes. “I won’t tell a soul—I swear it. But there has to be something we can do! I mean, you’re famous! If people knew, they—”

“You think I haven’t been tempted? I reckon the debt held against me could be crowd funded and paid off in hours if the news broke online. But GaborCorp doesn’t want that debt to be paid off with other people’s cash. I’m more valuable to them as I am now. If I was a real person, I’d be earning millions a year. Now . . . now I get to pay off a fraction of the debt each year at rates they control. If I made this public, the penalties stipulated in the contract would mean I’d die before I was free.”

A tear slips free from my eye. Not of pity. Of anger. “I’m going to do something about it,” I say.

The fear in his eyes makes another tear fall. “No! I shouldn’t have told you. I don’t even know why I did. Shit! Swear to me you won’t.”

“I promise. Is this why you were crying? Outside, I mean.”

After a long pause, he nods. “I don’t know what’s been up with me lately. I just . . . I feel like I’m falling apart. I’ve never come close to telling anyone. Not even the woman I would have married if I could. I don’t even like this job. I hate having to do the show. Pretending to be enthusiastic about everything Mars when I fucking hate this place. I don’t give a shit about the world record either. Being on Mars the longest time doesn’t mean anything if you don’t have a choice. If I had a life to go back to, staying here would be something real. A sacrifice.” He wipes the back of his hand across his eyes. “I don’t know why I was taking it all out on you.”

“Maybe it was safer to let it leak out at me than the others,” I suggest, wiping my eyes too. “And maybe the thought of someone taking your place and being paid for it was part of it too. In fact, it makes a hell of a lot of sense. And for the record, you are a real person. Jesus fucking Christ, I want to burn all of this down to the ground and fly back to Earth and . . . and start burning all that too.”

“I shouldn’t have told you.”

I reach for his hands, expecting him to pull them away, but he doesn’t. I take hold of them, tight, wanting him to feel I am really here. “I won’t tell anyone else. I promise. But if I do think I can get you out of this, I’m going to try. I won’t make it public. But there’s someone on Earth, someone who will owe me once this mission is done. I’ll ask him to pay the debt off.”

“Yeah, but it’s millions.”

“He’s rich. And I’ll have one over on him. A secret he won’t want me to tell anyone else.”

Banks looks back at me now, incredulous. “Do you even live in the real world? If someone that rich doesn’t want people to know something, you’ll die before it gets out.”

“That has occurred to me,” I say with a sigh. “Ah, fuck. What a fucking mess.”

“You’re going to get yourself killed if you play those sorts of games. Believe me. I’ve seen it.”

“I’m already playing, whether I like it or not. Look, I’m not going to put any pressure on you to do anything that will make things worse for you. But if you can tell me how you trick the tin man, I’ll go out there by myself and you won’t be implicated at all.”

“Going out in a dust storm is really dumb. Going out in one alone is practically suicide.”

“Like I said, that storm isn’t real.” I give his hands one last squeeze and let go. “If I can prove it isn’t, then we know for certain that the tin man is hiding something. Right?”

He leans back in the chair again, looking like he’s listening to this awful music. I find his expressions fascinating. I’ve only ever seen one aspect of this man: the charming show presenter, so good at his job that I really believed that was the whole of him. It feels like I’ve been looking at only one portrait, thinking it was many when it was only changes in lighting. There is so much more to discover.

His eyes flick to me and I see something calculating in them. He comes back to whisper in my ear again. “If you’re right and if the tin man is hiding something, what do you think it could be?”

“I really have no idea. There’s a mast, about five kilometers on the other side of the Cerberus Palus crater, which means there might be a comms array there. Maybe data is being sent back to Earth without having to go through the base. I genuinely don’t know.” As soon as I say it, I worry I’ve said too much. I search his face for signs of any duplicity, but he looks thoughtful.

“That region has been controversial in the past. I was never allowed to film there. I was told it was because there was some sort of agreement with the international community to leave some areas as untouched wilderness. I didn’t have any fucks to give about it, for obvious reasons, so I never pressed for more. The mast makes that seem like bollocks.” He leans forward again, his eyes sparkling with the thrill of discovering a mystery. It feels like I’m finally meeting the man I hoped I would. “I wouldn’t put it past Gabor to have set something up there, though it would have had to be done before Principia was established, or concurrent with this place being built; otherwise, we would have seen payloads coming and going.”

“But think about it,” I whisper back. “How do we know about anything happening outside of these walls? Through the tin man. All sorts of stuff could be going on out there and we’d be none the wiser unless we were physically standing there, looking at it. We think we can see the entire surface of the planet in real time, but all of that is piped through the tin man first. It could be withholding all sorts of data. I mean . . . JeeMuh, there could be a whole fucking city there right now and we’d never know about it.”

He smirks. “It’s not a city. That would be insane.”

“I know that. And I know it’s not aliens or proof of life either—believe me.” I don’t want him to think I am stupid. I actually care far too much about his opinion of me. “But you get my point. Something is being hidden and if we can just go there and see it with our own eyes, then . . .”

“Then what? What’s your plan?”

“Then we use it to guarantee our safe return home. Both of us. And we use it to get you free from that contract.”

I can see the temptation, perhaps even a glimmer of hope. Then it disappears. “You’ve been playing in too many mersives. The real world doesn’t work like that.”

“Maybe not. But if we don’t find out what’s there, we won’t have anything to bargain with. And now I think something’s there, I need to know what it is.”

He laughs. “Yeah . . . this is the most interested I’ve been in Mars for years.” He scans my face, shaking his head. “I knew you were trouble.”

“Just get me out of the base, just for a minute. Hell, just out into the air lock. If there really is a storm, the shield doors will be down at the top of the ramp and we’ll hear it. If the tin man is telling the truth about it, I’ll come straight back inside and . . . and I’ll think of something else. I won’t bother you again.”

It feels like everything is hanging on his response. Not just my hope that we will discover the truth, but also the desire to be taken seriously, to have found an ally at last.

“All right. Fuck it. I’m going to die on this fucking rock anyway; what difference does another five years on my contract make?” He frowns. “But I’m going out there with you. I don’t want you sucked out of the air lock and killed. You do realize the risk, don’t you?”

I nod, trying to mask my inner exultation with the appearance of professionalism. “We’ll take some tethers with us.”

“I’ll need a few minutes. You ready to go when I’m done?”

“Yeah. I’ll go get changed.”

I head toward the door and he follows me, then rests a hand on my shoulder. “Anna. I shouldn’t have told you. You won’t—”

I turn around and hug him, feeling the way his body stiffens before he puts his arms around me too. I don’t think this man has been held for years. I turn my head to rest it flat against his chest, and I tighten my arms around him. “I won’t tell anyone,” I say again as he finally starts to relax. “I promise, Banks. I promise.”

He finally lets me go, turning away as quickly as he can to hide his face. “I’m sorry. I’ll see you soon.”

I go back to my room, all of my troubles with Charlie and Mia seeming inconsequential in comparison to what I’ve just learned about Banks. I want to sit down with him over a drink, spend the rest of the afternoon talking so we can get to the sort of conversation in the small hours when people really open up. How did he end up in this situation? How many others have this sort of contract? How can this even be happening now?

I think of all the arguments Charlie and I had about my coming here, and it always came back to the same thing: when it was all done and I was home again, we’d have money, actual money in an account, separate from our corporate allowances. We’d be wealthy enough not to have to climb the corporate ladder in order to improve our lifestyle. And that’s even before the paintings are sold. Even though I’ll get only a fraction of what Gabor will receive for them, he plans to charge such a huge amount that each one sold will bring in a windfall.

We’ll be able to rent a place outside of the corporate allocation scale. Somewhere with a garden. Depending on what happens once I’m back, we may even be able to buy something. That’s something we’d never even bother dreaming about without this opportunity.

“Is this what it comes down to, then?” Charlie said one night after we’d been bickering for hours. “Our daughter loses her mother for two years, but it doesn’t matter because she’ll get a garden to play in?”

“Do you really want me to tell Gabor that I won’t go? Do you think he’ll just shrug and say, ‘Oh, never mind’?”

“He’ll send someone else. You’re not the only fucking artist on the planet, Anna. There are millions of painters who’d do anything to go there.”

“Well, there may be millions of people who are better artists than me, but his husband thinks I’m the best.”

“I didn’t say they were better than you. I’m just saying you’re not unique.”

“And that’s supposed to make me feel better? Because making something unique is what I’m aiming for, as an artist.”

“You’re a geologist. The painting is just a hobby. Why are you so keen to break our family for a fucking hobby?”

“Maybe if you listened to yourself you’d realize you’re answering your own question!” I yelled and shut myself in the bathroom.

If it wasn’t for the guilt, I’d have laughed with joy when I left the flat for the last time before the flight. Oh, I cried when I held Mia, but by the time I reached the airport, I was all smiles. For days I told myself I was too busy, too nervous to really miss her. Then when I was strapping myself into the seat an hour before takeoff, the tears were because of my fear of dying rather than an aching for my child. I couldn’t tell anyone that I didn’t miss her or Charlie, not really. That the only misery I felt was the thought that I was such an awful person. How narcissistic is that?

And all this time, Banks has been here against his will. Not even being paid. Uncertain about whether he will ever be sent home. I can understand his fear. It costs millions per flight. If he really does have the same status as a nonhuman asset, they will leave him here.

I sit on the bed to take off my shoes. Surely they wouldn’t abandon him here? But then, with him unable to tell anyone without serious repercussions, the GaborCorp leaders are free to do anything they like. They are the ones controlling the narrative, not Banks. If he dies here, everyone will be told that he loved this place so much, he couldn’t bear to leave it. It sounds like he has no family back home, no one pressing for his return, anyway.

As I pull off my clothes and dress in my undersuit onesie, I think about what he said about the world record. He doesn’t want to be here any more than I do. No, that’s not true. I do want to be here, I think. But I know the date I’m leaving. I know it’s finite. JeeMuh . . . being trapped here, forever, knowing that I’d never be able to feel the sun on my face or feel the breeze in my air unless it was in a mersive . . . it’s the most horrendous thought. I’m not going to leave him behind. I’m not going to let Gabor get away with this. Whatever I find out there, past that crater, I’ll use it as leverage. I’ll work out some way to force them to let him go home.

And then we’ll both die on the way back in a terrible accident . . .

No! I must not think that way. I stretch out the tension in my shoulders, give Banks access to my chip and start putting on the rest of my clothes over the onesie to hide it in case I run into anyone else en route to the dust lock. I’m thinking too far ahead anyway. Right now, all I have to do is see if there is a storm outside or not. One step at a time, and there are many more to go before I need to work out how to blackmail one of the most powerful corporations in the world.

Before long, Banks and I are hurrying down the corridor to the dust lock in silence. He won’t tell me what he’s done to hide our movements, and I haven’t asked. I get the feeling he doesn’t want to lose that one bit of power he has, even if it’s only over Principia knowing where he is. I can understand how a man who has nothing—not even basic rights—wants to protect his own secrets.

Once we’re inside the dust lock I follow his lead, staying silent, grateful that this isn’t my first time outside. We hide our outer clothes in a locker, climb into the suits and head into the air lock without being disturbed.

There must be dozens of ways for Principia to be aware of what we’re doing—doors being opened, suits being filled, cameras in every corridor and in the locks—but somehow, we aren’t challenged. The only thing I notice is that Banks manually activates the air lock from an access panel, there as a fail-safe, and that he opens the door with a manual override.

When we step through into the last part of the locks, I note the silence. Banks looks at me as he listens too. Surely if there was a storm we’d hear it on the other side of the doors?

An unfamiliar dialog box opens, asking for permission to open voice comms with him. I don’t even recognize the software interface. What the hell is he using? I give permission nonetheless.

“If it’s a really bad one, we might hear it on the shield doors, but it depends on the wind direction,” he says.

“Even so, surely we’d still hear something,” I reply. “Are the microphones in the suits still working properly without the tin man knowing what we’re doing?”

He stamps his foot and I hear the clang. “They’re working normally. Let’s hook up the tethers, just in case.”

There are cables to attach to the suits in case there’s an emergency near the base and someone needs to go outside in a storm. They’ve been used only once, long before I arrived, when a rover malfunctioned and couldn’t get back into the base as a storm was coming in. The two crew members outside were helped in by two others tethered as we soon are. The cables are clipped to the back plates of the suits and don’t impede our movement as long as we’re simply heading to the doors and then up the ramp.

When I give the thumbs-up, Banks opens the last door of the air lock and we’re in the subterranean garage where the two rovers are kept. There is a little bit of dull light spilling down the ramp and the outer doors are open. The dust that covers the floor rests undisturbed.

Banks moves toward the ramp, the cable unspooling behind him. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he says, looking up. “It’s a beautiful day out there.”

I join him. “You know what?” I say, unclipping the cable from his back. “It looks like perfect weather for a drive.”