Leviticus James
Betrayed
Episode Three of the Sister Planets Series
First published by Team Awesome Press, LLC 2020
Copyright © 2020 by Leviticus James
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Like everything else in my life, this is for you, N.
Contents
Preface
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Leviticus James
Preface
STOP
If you haven’t read Episodes One and Two of this series yet, you’re about to be very confused. The events in Betrayed won’t make much sense to readers who haven’t read Numbered and Cornered.
Click here or visit Leviticus James’ author page to get caught up on the story.
If you’ve already read Numbered and Cornered, you’re all set. Happy reading!
Chapter 1
What the actual hell, Norah?”
Norah is sitting in one of the weird plastic chairs in my apartment, facing away from me and reading something on a sleek glass tablet. She stands as soon as I shout, shock and rage all over her awful, wrinkly face. A few weeks ago, I would have said she looked wise and dignified. Now, all I see is bitter and old.
“I beg your—”
“No. No, no, no, no, no! This is where you sit down, shut your mouth, and listen to me for once, you liar.”
She’s pissed, but I see actual fear in her eyes. Maybe not fear. Probably more like calculated concern.
She purses her lips and doesn’t say anything else. Her eyes are begging the question: What has you all worked up?
“Why are the Martian ships orbiting Earth right now?” I ask.
Three emotions flash across Norah’s face. Being a lawyer for so long, she’s a pro at masking her feelings. But begging for pocket change and living with Scarlet makes me better at discerning them. Hers aren’t hiding from me.
In quick succession, I see fear, resignation, and anger.
She raises her eyebrows at me, dips her head, and shows me her palms. The gesture conveys, Am I allowed to speak now?
I clench my teeth and nod.
“How did you—”
“Nope, I asked you a question,” I interrupt.
Norah closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. The fact that she’s following my orders speaks volumes. She knows she messed up. She knows she got caught. She knows she’s in trouble.
“Fine,” she sighs. “Sit down.”
I do, but I keep staring daggers. She presses out the wrinkles of her red pencil skirt and sits down, crossing her legs as she does.
“Do you want the long version of this story or the short version?” she asks with a bit of a sneer.
“Whatever version will convince me not to hand you over to Greenstreet.”
She sets her jaw. “Long version it is. As you know, roughly a dozen ships are parked on the other side of the moon, including the five American ships that transported our population to Mars all those years ago. Onboard is every citizen from Mars. They’re trying to return to Earth, but the various governments down here are keeping that from happening.”
I interrupt. “Why is every Martian citizen coming back to Earth?”
By the way Norah wilts in her chair and squeezes the bridge of her nose, I can tell what she’s about to say is physically painful for her.
She looks up. “Because Mars failed, Maverick. It’s over.”
Chapter 2
On a repressed level, I already knew that. What other reason could there be? But to hear someone say it … my insides feel like they’ve evaporated.
“Failed?” I ask, unable to think of anything else to say.
“Terribly.”
“But … how did we not know? How did they keep that from us?”
Norah shrugs. “With millions of miles between us, all they had to do is not talk. From what I can piece together, the main governments on Mars agreed not to share the real status of things soon after they arrived. I think they realized that the little bit of terraforming we’d done would have a hard time keeping up with the massive amount of people we sent over. They never stood much of a chance, and they didn’t want us back here on Earth pulling the plug.”
“But what about all the tech we send them?”
“Oh, they use it. It’s just too little, too late. And it’s not the tech that’s the problem. No one is worried about where they’ll sleep or what they’ll watch on their Net Mirrors. The problems are more nuanced then that. Things they thought would be minor inconveniences are bigger than they anticipated.”
“Such as?”
“The dust storms. We knew the fine Martian dust would be a nuisance, but it’s relentless. It clogs everything, breaks everything, and keeps everyone inside. The storms blot out the sun for days, sometimes weeks. It’s having a huge effect on the mental wellness of the citizens we sent over. The cabin fever they’re experiencing is terrible. And then there’s the gravity. Replicating it is still tricky, and those systems aren’t always running. So those on Mars operate in Martian gravity most of the time.”
“Why does that matter?”
Norah shakes her head. “Human bodies didn’t evolve on Mars. Joints and ligaments stretch in ways they shouldn’t. Digesting food is difficult. The thin atmosphere allows more radiation through. Mars is painful.”
I roll my eyes. “Everything I’ve
seen sent back from them says Mars is a luxurious space paradise for the wealthy and genetically superior.”
Norah tuts and shakes her head. “First, everything you see that is sent from Mars is footage taken in virtual reality. I know for a fact Don helped them create a virtual world from which to broadcast.”
I’m disappointed in myself that I didn’t think of that. Of course it was a fake Mars.
“Second, Martians are not genetically superior, Mav. Just not as genetically flawed. But that’s another problem. Martians are developing cancers from the intense radiation exposure. In so many ways, they’re worse off than we are on Earth. That’s what I meant when I said failed. Even the most basic premise—that the best parts of humanity could flourish if given a new template—is coming apart at the seams.”
I rub my eyes, trying to sort it all out in my head. “Didn’t I hear about something they did to the atmosphere that shields people from the radiation?”
“Scientists knew it was a problem that needed fixed. Special spacesuits are supposed to protect anyone who visits Mars’ surface, and engineers built huge sheets of specialized fabric and glass to protect the habitats. The ultimate goal was for the terraforming to thicken the atmosphere as time went on. Problems arose almost immediately. The storms shredded the fabric, and the terraforming never advanced to the stage where it would make significant contributions to creating an optimal atmosphere.”
“Why didn’t they just stay inside?”
Norah looks over her nose at me. “Is that something you’d like to do, Maverick? Stay inside your little cube all day and simply exist? Did you not listen when I was talking about cabin fever?”
I scoff. “The complex up there is huge. They have tons of space.”
Norah shakes her head. “Maverick, disregard everything you think you know about the Martian colonies. Primus is the only American base that could be considered extravagant. There’s been very little footage sent from the other colonies. That’s because it’s bleak. The spaces are cramped, the resources are few, and the people are downtrodden.”
Norah stands up and paces. She’s got her lawyer walk on, but her face doesn’t have the in-control look it usually does. It’s vacant, unblinking.
“Another unfortunate side effect of the radiation exposure is a decrease in neurological function.”
“So Mars is making people stupid?”
Norah shoots me a dangerous look and clenches her hands into fists. “In the most crass and unforgiving terms, yes. It’s more of a deterioration in their emotional faculties, though. They can’t keep their tempers. They can’t stop their depression, their anxiety, their lust.”
“They can’t do that down here very well, either.”
“The main point is that leaders on Mars aren’t making good decisions. Not China, not India, not the Europeans. They don’t have the mental faculties to do so anymore. When they realized things were going to be harder than anticipated, they decided only to send hopeful news back to Earth. They thought they were doing the right thing. Keeping Mars functioning has decimated Earth’s available resources. They had to inspire us down here and let us know all our sacrifices were worth the investment.”
I nod. “That’s the whole point of the Resource Card system, right? To make sure there was enough to send to Mars.”
“True. But the rosy news soon became outright lies. All the leaders and politicians on Mars knew there was no way they could survive on their own. They’d always need Earth to foot the bill. When things kept breaking and experiments kept failing, they made up a story they’d tell Earth so they wouldn’t have to admit defeat.”
She stops pacing. Her back is to me again, and I can’t see her face.
“They had Earth fooled, but there was no fooling the people living on Mars. They were suffering. They had been promised a wonderful new existence, and this wasn’t living up to the hype. A planetwide riot finally shook leaders out of their fog. It was clear everyone was done with the Martian experiment. So every man, woman, and child boarded their ships and set sail for Earth two years ago.”
I gasp. “Two years ago?”
Norah turns back to me with the saddest expression I’ve seen on her yet. “It takes eighteen months to travel that far. But yes, humanity hasn’t had a presence on Mars for two years. Each nation decided they would only inform Earth of what happened once they’d reached the moon. They thought their probability of being refused was lower the closer they were to home.”
“And they haven’t landed because …?”
“Not a nation on Earth will take them.”
“Damn. Are you serious?”
“Very. We’re all in the same boat. Each government is deadlocked on what to do.”
“Why?”
I asked the question before really thinking it through. I don’t need to be told it’s a stupid question, but Norah decides to scoff anyway.
“Maverick, you tell me. You just found out that all the suffering you’ve been through was for nothing. What did that make you want to do?”
“Storm the gates and demand what’s mine,” I mumble.
“Exactly. Now think about that reaction, but happening simultaneously across the planet. It all comes back to the outright chaos that would break out if the citizens of Earth heard about how utterly catastrophic things have gone on Mars.”
“Do you think that’s the reason people will be mad?”
Norah raises an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t it be?”
I let out a ring of mocking laughter. “Wow! I can’t believe how blind you people are.”
Norah clenches her jaw, hands on hips. “You people?”
“People with ‘status,’” I say with air quotes. “People who haven’t had to worry about if they’re going to get paid for work they’ve done. People who’ve always known where they were going to sleep at night. People with money and resources and comfort. You, Norah. You. People aren’t going to be mad that Mars failed. They’re going to be irate when they discover why the Martians fled.”
“I don’t follow,” Norah says with an accusatory bite.
I sneer at her. “It wasn’t because of war. It wasn’t because of famine. It wasn’t because of disease. It was because things were uncomfortable.”
Norah doesn’t respond, but I can see the realization on her face. She’d never considered that until now. She recovers quickly. “Maverick, that’s entirely unfair. Discomfort and suffering are two very different things.”
“I would say discomfort is the perfect word to use compared to what we’ve been through on Earth,” I say with gritted teeth. “They have doctors and money and spaceships to help them solve their problems. You know what we have? Nothing. We get a number handed to us at birth that tells us what kind of life we’re going to live. We live in a system that has never rewarded us. And not only that, we were told the suffering was our fault. And sometimes it was. But a lot of us lived hard lives filled with emotional and physical suffering for no other reason than because we were born on the wrong side of town to poor, crazy people.
“And now,” I continue, “the moment the utopia they built off our backs isn’t the shining city on a hill they were promised in the marketing brochure, they throw in the towel. They come crawling back, say they’re sorry, and expect to be given a comfortable life here on crummy old Earth. Because let’s face it, they will settle for nothing less than comfortable. And you know it.”
I turn away from her. “I’m sorry, Norah, but I can’t pretend like I’m okay with this. None of us on Earth got to change the hands we were dealt. They shouldn’t get to either.”
Something clicks in my head. I spin back to face her.
“Wait a minute. Jacob told me the night we blew up Scarlet’s house that the goal of this whole operation was to get in touch with Mars so they could set things straight here down on Earth. Purge the system.”
I pause to let Norah start defending the obvious lie I’m about to point out. But she doesn’t. She waits for me to keep
going.
“But if things are a mess up there,” I continue, “and the Martians aren’t even on Mars anymore …”
Pause again. Still nothing.
“Our open communication with them has nothing to do with setting things right on Earth. This was a rescue mission from the start. You want them back here on Earth, don’t you?”
Without any emotion, Norah says, “Yes.”
Chapter 3
I grab the sides of my head. “Norah, you want those selfish assholes back?”
“Maverick, they are people who want nothing more than to come back home.”
“Too bad! They’re the ones who have sucked us dry here on Earth so they could live up on that godforsaken planet. They made their choice, and they can live with it!”
Norah recoils, disgusted. “What a terrible thing to say.”
Realization hits me like a lightning bolt. “Oh my God. Greenstreet isn’t a traitor. He’s not seceding from the Mars States. The Mars States don’t even exist anymore!”
“That’s irrelevant.”
“Irrelevant?” I shout. “It’s the ace you played to keep me in this mission! That’s why I’m here. I was under the impression I was trying to preserve the unity of our country.”
“You are!” Norah shouts back. “The people on those ships are USEM citizens, just like you. If we don’t do something, we’ll be complicit in the murder of thousands of our own people.”
“Our own people,” I say in a mocking tone. I turn and point out the window. “Do you see all those wind turbines? Do you see all those solar panels? Do you see all those people who have sacrificed everything so those assholes could separate themselves from the rabble down here? Did you know that we’ve only just now begun to reverse the harm done to Earth’s environment by the generations before Mars?”
“Says who?”
“Shut up, Norah. You’ve seen the studies. It’s in the news constantly. And tell me, what wars are being fought here on Earth? Any major ones?”
Betrayed: Episode Three of the Sister Planets Series Page 1