Before Mars

by Emma Newman

  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.”

  16

  BANKS UNCLIPS THE tether from the back of my suit and it’s slowly pulled back in automatically. I head for the nearest rover but he doesn’t move.

  “Listen,” he says when I reach the driver’s-side door. “I can’t go with you. It’s one thing to risk coming into the air lock, but if you do find something out there and I’m with you . . .”

  “It’s okay,” I say, pasting a smile over the crushing disappointment. “I understand.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No, really, it’s fine.” It’s not though. Going out there alone is stupid. But I daren’t embroil anyone else in this. I can’t hide them from Principia and I can’t tell them what Banks is capable of without betraying him. “Will you still be able to keep me hidden?”

  He nods. “Yes, but it’s going to lead to a serious disciplinary if this is found out. For you, I mean.”

  “Is there any risk to you?”

  He sighs. “If you die out there and they do a full inquiry, they’ll find what I’ve done. Otherwise, no. So don’t die, okay?”

  “Okay.” I open the rover. “And you’ll be able to hide the fact I’m driving in this thing?”

  “Yeah. Don’t worry about any of that. Just be really careful. Don’t call up anything that uses the satellites; it might alert the tin man.”

  No weather reports, then. Not that I’d trust anything now, but still, it’s yet another risk factor increased.

  “If you get into trouble, ping me on that secure line I just opened to you,” he says. My worry must be obvious. “But only in an emergency, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  I climb into the driver’s seat, hoping the onesie is as good at wicking away sweat as it’s supposed to be. I’ve never driven a real rover before. I’ve done hours of training in mersives of course, but somehow this feels different. It all looks exactly as it should, and I know what to do, but there isn’t proper muscle memory to draw upon. The gulf between mersive training and real-world adventure looms before me.