Blue Hearts of Mars

by Grotepas, Nicole

  He was by my side in a heartbeat. I felt his arms scooping me close as he sat down on my bed. I almost pushed him away, but felt too weak and drained to even protest him holding me.

  “What happened?” Dad asked.

  “Hemingway,” I managed.

  “What? What did he do? Did he hurt you? If he hurt you—” he didn’t finish, but I knew what he’d say.

  “My heart,” I said, the words coming out between sobs.

  “What? He broke up with you?” He patted my back. “He’s an idiot. An idiot. He doesn’t deserve you if he could just cast you aside like that.”

  “Aren’t you glad?” I asked, barely able to form the question.

  I felt him shake his head. “Not at all. Not glad that he hurt you. I knew he would, I knew he would.”

  I thought about pushing him away and screaming that it was partly because of how he treated Hemingway that made him break up with me. But I was too drained. My body seemed shriveled in total exhaustion. I just wanted to cry and fall asleep, to forget, to sink into my dreams where maybe Hemingway and I were still together without the pressure of my disapproving father and a society that wouldn't accept us.

  Despite the fact I’d been upset over the argument with my dad, I was thankful he was comforting me. Sometimes I really wished my mom was alive. She isn’t. But at least I have my dad. As obtuse as he could be, he was still my dad and his embrace always felt a lot like home.

  10: Outburst

  What do you do when the man you love breaks up with you? You stalk him, of course.

  That’s a joke, obviously. This isn’t the holo-film “Fatal Attraction” or something. I’m not that unstable. I may be seventeen and slightly rash, but I’m no psycho in love.

  I wasn’t stalking Hemingway per se. Just looking for answers, really.

  The classic reason we’d been given that the androids were created was to help settle Mars. They were the precursors to humans on the red planet. They say when the first androids came to Mars, they were more robotic, machine-like, and less human. They looked like metallic skeletons. Their eyes were glass domes. Their muscles were hydraulic and pneumatic and other fancy terms. Those more robotic androids could survive in the small amounts of pressure on Mars without enormous, pressurized suits. They could deal with several months of quarantine to make sure there weren’t disease vectors in the dust of Mars clinging to them if they returned to Earth.

  Early androids established the first settlements on Mars. They erected the domes and put together the shelters that housed the initial human settlers. As soon as the settlements got going and mining operations could begin, the influx of rare metals and the necessity for people who could do more than just build domes pushed the advancement of the early androids and they became the extremely human-like androids we know now. Ridiculously, perfectly gorgeous androids like Hemingway.

  Or so we’d been told.

  I don’t know if I bought it.

  The problem was that I had nothing else to offer as an alternative to this story.

  So what was I doing? Looking for more.

  But so far, the best I could do was search the many databases connected to my Gate. New Helsinki was fairly limited in its capacity for storing information, like we didn’t have some kind of Library of Congress like they had back on Earth in America, or that big one, in the eternal city of London that combined the hundred largest libraries from all the countries. The library here was more a museum and less a repository for the volumes and volumes of human literature and knowledge. Maybe there was stuff in our library that I hadn’t tapped into and maybe there was stuff in the Vantaa—the capitol building of New Helsinki—and maybe there was something at the Synlife dome-scraper where Hemingway’s mother used to work.

  For the moment, I’d been plugging search terms into the many search engines on the Webs.

  Sunday afternoon. I didn’t feel like going out or doing anything. So I stayed in my room, studying and browsing my search results. I got several old articles from news-feeds that detailed some of the big breakthroughs. Like when the androids began to have a form of blood, for example, that ran nutrients and waste back and forth between various tissues and cells and their hearts. I read one about the first engineered heart. How it was blue. How it beat at a constant one-hundred and twenty beats per minute and that it would last the lifetime of the android, providing they were never exposed to large magnetic sources.

  All of these engineering strides took place several years after Mars had already been settled.

  I learned things I never knew about androids. Their skin imitates human skin perfectly. At first it took ten months to knit together an entire layer of skin—of which there are two. Nowadays it takes a month and a half per layer, so three months. I found out that at first there were big debates about whether or not to give androids reproductive organs. One faction claimed it would be inhumane to create an android with body parts like that. It would defile the godliness of humans. God would find it offensive and strike down humans who would do such a wicked thing. The other side claimed that it would be inhumane to not give them the capacity to procreate, as though they knew that the androids would grow souls. It was like one side saw androids as sinful and the other side saw them as a blessing—just a new way to house souls.

  And that’s the thing, I began to realize. Where does the soul begin?

  Sunday night, after doing all that reading, I couldn’t sleep. I lay there staring at the ceiling and watching the moons outside my window, falling through the sky in opposite directions like two star-crossed lovers, destined to never meet—I knew how those moons must feel. Curled up under the blankets, I tried to figure out where a soul begins.

  *****

  The worst part about school is that because it’s so enormous, I have somehow managed to never run into Hemingway beyond that single glimpse in the cafeteria. There’s a chance our paths crossed before I knew him, but since then, I go in hopeful and leave disappointed.

  Monday was no different. I made it to Dr. Craspo’s class just before lunch, and sat next to Mei. One reason Mei and I were friends was that we happened to have three classes together—somehow we’ve always had three classes together. It’s like some scheduling ghost intentionally designed it that way for us.

  Mei kept jabbing me in the ribs and whispering stuff at me about her weekend when Craspo wasn’t looking.

  “Really annoyed you didn’t come over Saturday night. What were you doing?” she hissed, leaning toward me. Just as quick, she straightened in her seat, whipping her long black hair over her shoulder and trying to look nonchalant. Craspo turned away from the slide show on the huge Gate at the front of the class and looked out at us.

  “I was busy,” I said, when Craspo turned sideways for a second.

  “With what?” Mei whispered fiercely. “What could be more important than a marathon session of reality holo-TV?”

  “Getting my heart broken, for one,” I muttered, bitterly.

  “By who? Stig? Did you guys get back together?”

  Craspo pulled up a panoramic view of Neuholland. The ice cap stretched all white across the top of the image—the edge of it a towering glacier with sheer edges full of crags and cliffs. Mid-image was the sliver of the enormous blue lake, all still and reflective, and then at the bottom, just the spindly tops of the dome-scrapers, showing up stark against that lake. Another image popped up of the vast fields of grain surrounding the lake and the city. The dome of Neuholland reached all the way to the ice-cap. It was sealed there. Somehow. Craspo was probably explaining it, but I was busy trying to conduct a choppy conversation with Mei.

  “Neuholland is the real breadbasket of Mars,” he said, circling the grain fields with his laser pointer.

  “No way,” I hissed at Mei. “I wouldn’t get back together with Stig if he was the last man on Mars.”

  “Then who? Someone else. That guy—” she cut off when Craspo turned suddenly, his eyes darting in our direction.

&n
bsp; “You ladies have something you want to share with the rest of the class?” Craspo asked, his voice dripping with disdain.

  I shook my head.

  “Machine! Machine!” Someone squeaked from nearby. Oh no. Craspo would think it came from me.

  I glanced around, searching for whoever did it. My eyes swept across the shocked faces of several of my classmates, looking as worried as I felt. There were one or two, however, that grinned smugly. Namely Hans and a couple of his cronies. I looked back at Craspo, hoping my eyes were as wide as they felt, telegraphing my innocence.

  “What was that, Retta?” he asked. His voice sounded steely, but I caught the slightest quaver running at the fringe of his tone.

  “It wasn’t me,” I protested, glaring at my classmates.

  “Yeah, and it wasn’t me, either,” Mei pitched in.

  Craspo’s cheeks flushed. I couldn’t tell if he was pissed or embarrassed.

  I turned in my seat to glare at Hans. He thought he was king. Royalty of New Helsinki or some crap like that. His dark blue eyes glittered as he returned my gaze steadily. His blond hair was done in a classic, hipster pompadour, his little ironic reference to the pre-space period on Earth. I hated him.

  “It was you,” I accused.

  “Enough,” Craspo said.

  Hans smirked. “Prove it.”

  I don’t know what got into me. I mean, I’m really a pacifist, if you ask me. Nonviolent. Non-confrontational. I have plenty of witnesses who’d testify as much. I hate conflict.

  But I was teeming with a thousand new emotions. I was raw from the weekend. I was frustrated with the division between androids and humans, especially since some of the most humane actions I’d seen from anyone came from androids like Hemingway. The most atrocious things I’d seen always came from humans.

  Suddenly I was standing up. “Who do you think you are, Hans?” I shouted. “God’s gift to Mars? Do you think you’re that great, sitting back there, saying snide things, using a term so offensive and vile to androids, throwing it about like it’s not horrendous? What next? Will you get a group of your buddies together and pin Craspo down while one of you etches machine onto his forehead? So what if he’s an android? And you don't even know! You know what, if he is, good! Because if being human means being like you, I’m sure no one in their right mind would wish for that!”

  Hans’ face had turned white. His blue eyes were bugging out of his head and he’d sunk deep into his seat. A hand on my shoulder startled me. I turned slowly, heaving, heart racing. Craspo was standing next to me. “Calm down, calm down, Retta. Come with me. Bring your things.”

  My eyes swept across the room. Sixty eyes were drilling holes into my head, their mouths turned down at the corners. “Blue-heart lover,” someone muttered as I gathered my things. I snapped up, looking over the room.

  “Better an android than a monstrosity like Hans. Or any one of you,” I said, trying my best to sneer as I said it.

  Mei was gaping up at me. “Sorry, Mei,” I said, feeling my cheeks go hot and red. I had nothing more to say. I put my bag over my shoulder and marched out of the classroom, following Craspo.

  *****

  “Dr. Craspo tells me you exploded at a classmate,” Dr. Anika said. She was the principal. Her nearly white hair flowed about her face in curly waves, her leathery, tanned face was crinkled in all the right places to convey kindness and wisdom. But right now I was on her bad side. She wore a dark blazer and a frilly white blouse beneath it with a collar that reached up around her neck and lacy sleeves that flopped out around her hands.

  “So?” I said, defiantly. “He deserved it. He called Dr. Craspo a bad name.”

  Dr. Anika had her arms up on her desk and her fingers were templed before her face. “That’s really not your place, Retta. Dr. Craspo is responsible for discipline. Not you.”

  I leaned forward. “The rumor is that Craspo’s an android . . . ” I began. She gave me a look and cleared her throat. “Dr. Craspo,” I corrected. “That Dr. Craspo’s an android. You know what? Who cares? But kids like Hans think they’re the kings of the colony. That they have the right to treat people like peons. And I’m sick of it.”

  “Hans’ father is the Prime Minister of New Helsinki, so we owe the family respect. If word gets back to his father that we’re, shall we say, not disciplining those who verbally accost his son, some of our funding will get cut. Would you like to be in classrooms with sixty of your peers, rather than thirty?”

  “Like I care. I’m leaving in a few months. Plus, if Dr. Craspo is an android, I want him to know that there are humans who don’t care, or at least, who care. Who think androids deserve equal rights.”

  Dr. Anika’s eyes narrowed. “You'd be wise to keep those sentiments to yourself, Retta. For your own safety.”

  I just stared at her. She shifted in her seat and I kept my face totally devoid of expression. She cleared her throat again and I relished the fact that she seemed to be squirming under my penetrating gaze. Sometimes silence is your best weapon. She was the one who said it, as though having empathy for androids were a crime. Far as I was concerned, the real crime was hiding behind the notion that androids were somehow inferior to humans.

  “Now, you won’t be returning to class today. Go have a seat in the office and wait until the period is over. After that, you’re free to go. You didn’t physically assault Hans, so there’s not much I can do.”

  She shooed me away. I went into the front office and sat on one of the hard benches near the door while the minutes ticked away. It was unfair, really. I stood up for the teacher and was being punished. But, at least it wasn’t a worse punishment. At least I wasn’t being tortured in a basement dungeon where they administered some kind of cruel whipping torture or whatnot.

  I stared at my fingernails and thought about what Dr. Anika said, how she warned me about keeping my sympathy for androids quiet. Why was it OK to act like that? I shook my head and looked up as someone came into the office.

  The blood froze in my veins. It was Hemingway.

  He approached the desk where a secretary was playing solitaire on her desk Gate. The woman looked up and blinked rapidly at him.

  “Yes?” she asked politely. Did she know he was an android? It was hard to tell. The problem was that Hemingway was so beautiful that prejudices were easy to forget. The main thing was just trying to not swoon when he looked at you with those mind-blowing eyes.

  “I’m here to finish a class transfer,” he said quietly.

  “Name?” she asked, punching the screen of her Gate.

  “Hemingway Koskinen,” he said.

  “Righto, Hemingway. You’re moving out of advanced calculus into . . .” She leaned toward her desktop Gate and squinted. “Basic algebra? Is that right? That can’t be right. Can it?” She blinked up at him, a baffled expression on her face.

  He nodded, his cheeks flushing.

  She shook her head, her huge brown curls bouncing around her face. “If you say so, but I can’t see how a lovely boy like you needs to change classes like that.” The secretary punched in the information. “You have permission from both teachers, I take it?”

  Hemingway nodded again, sighing and glancing around—the first time he noticed his surroundings. His eyes fell on me. He stiffened and looked away quickly. Fiery red embarrassment crept into the tips of his ears.

  “Ok, that’s done, Hemingway. You’re all set. Attend your new class on Wednesday. You know where it is, right?” She looked up. When he nodded, she went on, “Great, take care now.” She smiled, looking pleased with herself, Hemingway, and the entire universe.

  Hemingway thanked her, turned, and paused as he passed me, “Retta I—” he said, then coughed, his eyes darting from the floor to the doorway, to me. “I just—I want—” he stuttered. The bell rang to signal the end of the current period. He shook his head, said, “Never mind,” and pulled the door open and hurried out.

  I stood up and watched him go, wishing he’d finished sa
ying whatever it was he’d been about to tell me. He wore a pair of those FreeMars jeans and a white shirt that hugged his body sweetly. In that moment, I hated him for looking so good and yet not being with me.

  I left the office and headed for the cafeteria, numbly moving down the corridors, ignoring the throngs of students, letting them knock into me. I didn’t care. Let them move out of my way. They didn’t, so by the time I got to the cafeteria, my shoulders felt pretty bruised. Battle-wounds, I said to myself. As bruised as my heart. The tenterhooks were still dragging away the flesh of that organ. Maybe it would get so bruised it would turn blue.

  *****

  “You what?” Mei roared, standing up and punching me in the arm—on an already sore muscle—and then she slapped me. One thing I was used to about Mei, was that she had a bit of a temper. It flared, then died down quickly. She sat back down and flipped her hair over her shoulder. “That gorgeous guy, right? The one you said is an android?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Him.”

  “So that’s why you chewed out Hans? I know he can be an idiot, but really, Hans? He’s gorgeous. And rich.” Mei took a bite of veggie pizza.

  “Not just because of that, Mei. I mean, it’s just the culmination of a lot of things that I’ve been thinking about. And feeling. And I did learn a lot from Hemingway, even though we were only together, what? A week? A week and a half?” I stirred the bowl of bisque in front of me. My appetite left at the first bite. It tasted sour.

  “You just don’t lash out at the good-looking guys, Retta. There are only a few in the colony. The rest look like apes.”

  “That’s just because of the limited gene pool,” I muttered. I brightened at an idea that suddenly occurred to me. “But what if humans and androids crossbred? Don’t you think that would make everyone better looking?” I leaned forward so I could say it quietly to her. The noise in the cafeteria was as loud as a rocket engine, but still. I was cautious.