And it was funny how Baldwin outlawed archaeology after the first time he won. It not only dumbed down the public, but it also raised the prices of archaeological finds in order for Robert to hire rebel archaeologist idiots like Ozzy to search, dig, and retrieve artifacts for the High Judge. Robert would, in turn, sell them on the expensive black market, making himself as rich as rich could be.
In truth, the High Judge was a crook, nonetheless, but also a genius.
Jozi threw a dismissive hand across the air. “Next subject.”
“You’re the one who wanted to talk,” said Ozzy.
“I was just trying to take our minds off of the cold. But, forget it.” Her chattering teeth cut her words in half, making her hard to understand.
“Forgotten.” He tread onward, sinking his boots into the sand one after another. His legs began to feel heavy. His mind and body wanted food and sleep more than anything on this God-forsaken red planet.
For an hour, they moved like mechanical robots, continually checking their gauges, making sure their suits were correctly regulating what was essentially their life support.
Ozzy began to shiver as well, his teeth clattering against the com mic in front of his lips. The EVA’s were doing their job, but it wasn’t good enough. He could hear Jozi’s teeth clacking louder.
“I have to talk, Ozzy. It’s the only way I can keep going and get my mind off how unbelievably cold it is.”
Ozzy blinked away sleep. “We have another twenty minutes at most.” The city lights were extending toward them, the city growing bigger and more expansive.
Ozzy wanted to reach forward and touch it.
“I’m an only child,” said Jozi. Her words were slurring, her teeth chattering at an uncomfortable rate.
“Just keep walking. Pick up the pace.” He didn’t want her to walk faster because it could drain her oxygen, but it was the only way she would make it to Briault alive. She was beginning to slowly freeze to death.
“They say an only child is selfish. I’m not selfish though. I’ve always been a giving person. Even in the orphanage. But that’s probably why I don’t act like an only child because I had my non-biological brothers and sisters all around me while I was growing up.” She lowered her head. “But that’s not truly a family. The dynamics are different.”
“Aw.” Ozzy pressed forward. “Keep walking.”
“The Ministry accepted me after high school and took me in. They trained me to become an MMP agent. And, for a while, I belonged, and I was honored as a great agent. I wanted to do my best, so they could see that I deserved the Ministry’s Medal for the Highest Service. I was almost there.”
“You’ll still get there. You’re not going to die. Just keep walking.”
“I’m not giving up, Ozzy. What I’m saying is I think my family—“ she cut herself off. “I mean, the Mars Ministry Police and the High Judge gave up on me somewhere along the line. I don’t know when, but they did. Yet, I convinced them to put me on the dig with you. I thought it was my last chance. But Robert put me on this mission with you, and this could be my last chance to prove myself. I can’t fail this.” Her teeth clattered back and forth. “I can’t die for my sake and the sake of the entire Mars population dealing with the Martian Plague.”
“Neither can I,” groaned Ozzy. It wasn’t for the population’s sake. It wasn’t for the High Judge’s sake. It was for Lily-bug.
“Why didn’t you see much of your daughter?” Jozi asked, changing the subject.
Perfect. Exactly what he didn’t want to talk about, but if it was keeping Jozi alive and functional, so be it. “I was a professor of Linguistics and Archaeology at Gale Crater University.”
“Yeah? That doesn’t tell me anything.” Her body was shaking.
Ozzy looked at his hands. He was shaking badly as well, the icy chill getting to him. “I was asked by the Ministry to go on a dig, and so I did. Then they asked me to decipher hieroglyphic codes that were left by the Ancients. So I did that, too. Next, they asked me to find more artifacts, and I complied. They said this was in the name of museums and higher education.”
“It wasn’t, was it?”
“I found out that Robert was selling everything I was finding on the black market and everything that I was translating to the Martian Marine secret intelligence. Robert was getting rich off of my work and not telling me about it or giving me anything for my efforts, other than a few thousand auric here and there. He also gave nothing to the communities, museums, and schools he swore he would help. When I was tired of all the bullshit, and when I brought it up to him one day, you know what he said?”
Jozi shook her head, her voice cracking. “No.”
“That I was under arrest for violating this and that archaeological code. I said that I had everything recorded, and everything could be tracked back to him. He already knew and showed me a picture of my daughter and said that he could have her killed at any minute if I leaked any information to the media channels. He also said that if I took a hundred steps anywhere in her vicinity, he’d have her shot.” Ozzy paused, clenching down on his chattering teeth. “That was three years ago. Other than yesterday, I haven’t seen Lily since.”
He didn’t explain what Robert had done to Ozzy’s parents. They were now dead and buried somewhere under the Martian soil.
Maybe that’d come up another time. Or he’d keep it under wraps forever.
“Wait,” replied Jozi. “Why would he care about you seeing your daughter?”
“To squeeze my balls in a vice. If I leaked the information that I had on him, she would die. If I were near her, she would die as well. If I showed my face anywhere, she would die. That meant I had to drop off the face of the planet. If I continued teaching, my ex-wife would know where I was and drop her off in my custody here and there. If I were in another city, I’d be logged into that city, and once in a blue moon my ex-wife would find me and drop Lily on my lap. I was up Uranus’s crack, and I could do nothing about it.”
Jozi pumped her legs up and down, doing her best to get warmer. It didn’t work. She quivered when she spoke. “Then how the hell did you drop off the face of Mars?”
“I lived in Relic, mostly hopping from dig to dig, selling to the black market so I could someday buy a new ship. You know, the Eagle. I’d eventually steal my daughter from my ex-wife because Venessa would do everything she could to keep Lily on Mars. Then I would get off this world and find another place to live before the Dunrakee took over the planet.”
“Another place to live?”
Ozzy spoke too much. He didn’t want to tell her about Jupiter’s moon, Europa. That was his trade secret. “Yeah, just a figure of speech.”
Jozi stumbled and caught herself before falling. “Whoa.” She bent over, resting her palms on her knees. “I’m getting dizzy.”
Ozzy grabbed her underarm. “Steady. Just walk as straight as you can. I got you.”
“I was number one in my Mars Ministry Police class.”
Ozzy didn’t doubt that. “Keep talking.” He needed her aware and moving.
She continued, “My parents died when I was seven. You know that S-45 Prancer crash of 2779? The experimental Mars transport craft?”
How could he not? He was only ten years old, and it was all over the news feeds. Over three hundred people died on a flight from Gale Crater City to Knobel. “The pilots were idiots. It was less than half an hour’s flight. Were your parents on that craft?”
“They were the pilots.”
“Oh,” he grimaced. “Sorry.” But it didn’t take away the fact that they were idiots.
“I was placed in a Ministry orphanage where I learned Ministry self-defense. I was top in my class with that, too.”
“Okay, keep going.”
“I was also top in piloting,” she said.
Again, he didn’t doubt that. From watching her in action and getting to know her, she did everything as best she could, going above and beyond. Maybe she was looking for praise or
for someone to tell her how incredible she was. If that was true, then why the hell did she join a stoic branch in the Ministry—the Mars Ministry Police?
“So, if you ever need a pilot, I’m yours,” she stated, her teeth clattering.
“I won’t,” Ozzy replied.
Jozi fell to a knee, and Ozzy quickly bent down, pulling her back up.
“Keep a steady pace, Jozi.”
“I’m getting dizzier,” she said, her knees buckling.
He held her up, practically dragging her across the Mars dust. “Ten more minutes. That’s all you have to give me.”
She shook her head back and forth. “I can’t see very well.”
“Alright. Give me your backpack and the briefcase.”
She dropped to her knees and leaned forward, her hands on her thighs, the briefcase dropping on the ground. “Are you leaving me?”
He unstrapped her pack and put it around his shoulder. The rifle hung alongside it. “Lay on your back.”
She was shivering. “What? Don’t leave me.”
He set Indigo on the ground and positioned her on her back. “Trust me.” He picked up the rock and placed it on her midsection, along with the briefcase. “Can you hold these?”
She nodded her head. “I think so.”
“Know so, and do not close your eyes for one instant. Keep them open at all costs.” He knew the situation. Her body wanted to fall asleep and slowly die. He wasn’t going to let that happen. “Wiggle your toes and move your legs. Don’t stop, okay? Squeeze Indigo and the briefcase as much as you can.” He was getting beyond cold too.
“Okay.”
He bent down and picked her up, holding her like a bride on her wedding day. “Can you hear me?”
She nodded as he carried her. Briault was only nine minutes away if he hurried. It loomed ahead, but every muscle in his body was tight, cramping from cold and exhaustion.
“You with me, Jozi?”
“Yeah. I’m…with…”
“Hey!” He jostled her up and down, his biceps burning. “Stay with me.”
“I’m here,” she softly announced. She started kicking her legs, more or less moving them like she was swimming. “It’s freezing, you know that?”
“Yeah, I know. We’re almost there. Just seven more minutes.”
Right now, the ugly, pirate want-to-be, free-trading city of Briault was looking more and more like heaven.
“Six more minutes, Jozi.” He looked down and noticed her eyes were closed. “Jozi?” Her legs weren’t moving.
His body was shaking and beyond freezing. He cringed. Both his legs were cramping.
“Jozi? Wake up. Jozi?” He took a step onto a road that connected to a Briault entrance.
His body tensed up and spasmed. He dropped Jozi and fell on his side. A red light blared from somewhere nearby, and Indigo started to roll away from him.
His hands shook as he grabbed Indigo and unzipped Jozi’s backpack. “Jo…zi. Wake…up.” His eyelids were fluttering and trying to close. He wouldn’t, and couldn’t, let them.
He threw the Dunrakee helmets out of Jozi’s pack and shoved Indigo inside and zipped it back up.
“Hey, are you on this com line channel?” said a voice crackling into Ozzy’s helmet.
Ozzy nodded, his lips practically frozen and his vocal cords unwilling to work.
“Try another channel,” came a different voice. “Actually, it doesn’t matter. We’re almost to them.”
Ozzy swallowed, but nothing went down as the saliva stuck to the back of his throat. Who knew the cold was so dry?
A man in a Mars Ministry Police EVA uniform peered down at him, then another one stopped by his side. They looked at each other and picked up Ozzy.
Ozzy pointed, his hand quivering like he was in a Marsquake. “J…Jozi. Get…Jozi.”
His eyes closed, and he quickly forced them open. The MMP’s weren’t listening to him. They needed to get Jozi. He blinked, his eyes fluttering, doing their best to shut.
“No, stay open. Stay o—”
He let out a deep breath, his world fading around him. “Stay open. Stay—” His vision went black, and his head fell to the side as his body went limp.
17
Briault, Mars
Ozzy bolted upright, his arms supporting him while his butt was firmly planted on a bed. “Where in blue moons am I?”
The first thing he noticed was the stark white drape around his bed, separating him from someone, or something else. He saw the glow of the light that radiated from a window near his bed, but the drawn curtains obscured his view. He couldn’t tell if it was day or night.
He went to get up and felt a pull on his anterior forearm. He winced in pain. It was a needle and a plug connected to a clear tube and threaded into his skin. It poked into one of his veins.
He pinched his eyebrows closer together. This was an old-school hospital, which meant he was in Briault.
He patted his chest and glanced at his outfit: a blue hospital gown. It was made from rough material, much different from the soft gowns in other city hospitals.
Yep. Old school.
He looked around the room, hearing the beeps from the medical holovids surrounding him. “Jozi?”
No answer.
He slowly pulled the needle out, and a burning sensation in his arm accompanied the needle’s movement. He blinked his eyes rapidly, wincing from the pain, and held back the nausea and dizziness that wanted to overcome him. He exhaled, released the tubing, and let it fall to the floor. Ozzy grabbed the edge of the bedsheet and held it in the crook of his arm to stop the bloodflow. After a few minutes, he held his head in his hands, feeling the warmth from his palms—a huge difference from the outside night environment.
“Jozi?”
Again, no response.
Ozzy stood and grabbed onto the bed for support, his stomach roiling and bile rising in his throat. He grunted and then blinked his eyes and slapped his cheeks to try and wake himself up fully.
He pulled open the window curtain and squinted, his eyes not used to the stream of the sun’s rays. It was daytime.
He heard the door to his room open and then whoosh shut.
Footsteps.
He turned, gripping the window sill to keep himself steady. “Jozi?”
The footsteps halted in front of the drape. “No, sir.” The drape opened, and a woman with a holopad stood in front of him. “Are you okay?”
“I have to go. Where is Jozi?”
She tapped on her holopad, bringing up a list of names. She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t have that name on this floor. Shall I—”
Ozzy took a step forward and lost his balance, catching himself on the bed stand. “I have to leave.”
She put her hand up. “You can’t, sir. Because you were asleep for so long, you are on a protocol frost-bound evaluation.”
Ozzy furrowed his eyebrows. “Frost-bound? And being asleep for so long? How long was I out?”
“Two and a half days.”
“Two and a—” He dropped his arms to his sides and walked forward. “You have to be kidding me.” He shook his head, and his heart sank to his feet. That was two and a half more days that Lily had the plague. There was no doubt she had worsened.
He took a step toward the nurse. “I really don’t have time to argue with you. I’m on a Ministry assignment, and I have to get to my destination as soon as possible. I’ve already lost valuable time.”
“Sir,” she said and placed her hand on his chest. “I’m sorry, but you can’t.”
“Call the High Judge right now. Let him know where I am. My name is Ozzy Mack. He’ll let me go.”
“We can’t call the High Judge.”
“Why?”
The woman drew her eyes to the floor. “Gale Crater City is quarantined. It’s not going very well over there. The Martian Plague is almost at a one hundred percent citizen rate.”
Everything inside Ozzy weakened. He brought his hand to his mouth.
“How many have died?”
“Too many to count. It’s spreading fast and killing faster than it had in almost every city that’s fallen victim to it.”
“Call my daughter, Lily Mack. Her mother is Venessa Mack. They are in Gale Crater City.” His heart started beating faster. Lily couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t. He would have felt it. He was sure of it.
The woman shook her head. “Sir, I’m sorry. I can’t. No communication is getting through to them. We call, but no one answers.”
Ozzy pushed the woman out of the way and hurried to the door. He pulled it open and rushed out into a hallway lined with rooms. Nurses walked by him, staring at him like he was a lunatic. His eyes were wild trying to discern how to escape this mess. He didn’t care what he looked like, though. Lily was his main focus, and he had to get to her.
No communication meant that even the chemists and scientists in Gale Crater City were most likely sick, quarantined, and non-operational. Finding the cure now didn’t matter. Getting to Lily did.
“Please, stop, sir.”
He looked over his shoulder, seeing the woman he pushed out of the way. He shook his head.
She spoke into a wrist device. “Security.”
Security? This woman could fall down Hades’ pit for all he cared.
He moved faster, his arms and legs coming back to life and his dizziness fading. He spotted a registration counter.
He jogged to it and rapped on the counter. A young man looked up from a holocomputer. “Can I help you?”
“I’m checking myself out. Where are my things?” He glanced at the woman coming his way. This wasn’t going to be good. “My name is Ozzy Mack. I need my things, especially my auric credit wallet.” He had to purchase a ship to get to Lily. “Where are my things?”
The young man looked at Ozzy and then at the woman. He held up his index finger. “Just one moment.”
Ozzy leaned over the counter and grabbed the man by his collar. “This is life and death. Give me my clothes and wallet. Now.”
A forearm wrapped around his neck. He fell back, and the back of his head landed hard against a man’s chest.
Martian Quadrilogy Box Set Page 11