The Mars One Incident

by Kelly Curtis

  Alma left JC HQ and checked the time. She had just enough time to catch the magnetic train to Chicago. She quickly made the 15 minute walk to Atlanta’s Central Station and took an elevator up to the highest platform where the trains traveling north and west departed. She boarded a magnetic train that was bound for St. Paul, but was stopping in Chicago. She entered the first carriage and was lucky to find an empty seat. She buckled herself in and looked out the window. She didn’t want to talk to anyone, but she would lose SCs if someone spoke in casual conversation to her and she wasn’t polite in return.

  An old man sat across from her. Alma nodded to him and hoped he wasn’t a talker. It was a 20 minute ride to Chicago and she wanted to think about what Shana had said about the Dante and Terra Nova. She didn’t want to make small talk.

  “Aren’t you young to be a captain, Captain?” the old man asked.

  “What can I say? The Military Guild is as desperate as they say,” she said with some humor. “What’s your profession?”

  “I’m a train mechanic.”

  “Transportation Guild?”

  “Yes, 90 years now,” the man beamed.

  “Congratulations, you must be a part of the mentoring section now.”

  “Oh, they keep trying to woo me there, but I like working. I’ve never been one to do well with children. And ten years old seem so young these days.”

  “I know what you mean,” Alma agreed.

  “Why are you going to Chicago, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  Alma looked at this stranger dead in the face and for the first time had to say this out loud to someone who wasn’t Scott, “My partner and I are applying for procreation permission. He lives in Chicago.”

  “Oh,” said the old man. “I see, so you have low social standing too?” He winked at Alma.

  Alma was charmed, “Possibly.”

  “Well, I hope they allow more people like you to reproduce and less happy people. Everyone just seems too happy and content. It’s irritating. I find, I can’t be happy all time. Some days are just terrible and I think it’s my human right to be able to say so.”

  Alma had a moment where she wanted to ask if she were speaking to her future self but then realized she wouldn’t grow into an old man, “I know exactly how you feel.” She spoke softly because even talking about this would lose them both SCs as it could make others around them uncomfortable and Scott would flip out if she lost more SCs on the way to the procreation interview.

  “I hear people are more free in the colonies and on the space stations. I wonder if it’s true?”

  “I,” Alma hesitated, she wanted to talk about this, but she needed to be careful, she looked around them, no one was listening to them. The rest of the passengers in the carriage were all engrossed in their own conversations. “I do feel that it is different off planet, yes. Maybe you should take a holiday there sometime?”

  The old man laughed, “On a pirate ship?”

  Alma laughed too, “No, on a passenger cruiser.”

  “I don’t have the UCs for that. For me it would have to be on a pirate ship, but sometimes, I think I might like to meet some other people. People like me, who aren’t content with this,” he waved his hand at the other passengers.

  Alma wanted to grab his hand down and scold him for drawing attention to their conversation, but didn’t have the heart to do it.

  “So other people are allowed to be angry, complain and do what they want in the solar system?” the old man asked, wanting clarification from the horse’s mouth.

  Alma considered this for a minute, “Yes, for the most part.”

  “Thank you, young lady. I wish you all the best luck in procreation,” the old man said as Alma got up to exit the train in Chicago.

  Alma left the Chicago Central Station and took a tram to the nearest stop to the Regional JC Reproduction Agency. She walked into the large building and went into reception. As she was talking to the Receptionist, Scott came up behind her, “I’m so glad you made it.” And to the Receptionist, “She’s with me.”

  The Receptionist beamed at Scott as opposed to her frown at Alma.

  Scott lead her to some chairs where they sat and waited.

  “How did it go with Admiral Jackson?”

  “She wasn’t pleased.”

  “You made the right choice. There were children on that ship. You should be careful though, you don’t want to get involved in the Admiral’s personal vendettas.”

  “It wasn’t a personal vendetta,” admitted Alma softly. “There was more to it. Let me worry about my own work. You worry about the potatoes or carrots or something.”

  Scott was about to reply when their names were called and they were escorted into an interview room by a robust middle-aged man.

  “Please sit down,” he said politely as they entered the sparse office. “Scott you are from Chicago?”

  “No, I was born in Gary. But I moved here when I joined the Chicago Culinary Guild.”

  “I see. And you’ve lived her ever since?”

  “Yes. I’m a Sous-Chef at Basil.”

  “And Alma, you’re from Savannah and living in Atlanta?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let me ask the most obvious question, who is going to move? We don’t like our parents to live a part for the first ten years of any child’s life.”

  Alma and Scott looked at each other, they hadn’t even discussed it.

  “I’ll move,” answered Scott. “It’s easier,” he said looking at Alma.

  “Okay, as Basil is successful I’m sure you’ll have no problem getting approved for daily train privileges to travel to work,” said the interviewer not convinced and he wrote something on their application. “Next question, Alma, when is the last time you were checked for tech flu?”

  “We don’t get checked. We report ourselves if we start to feel any symptoms.”

  “Any symptoms lately?”

  “No,” she answered trying not to be defensive, but it was difficult. She couldn’t help but look at this man with disdain, not because of who he was but because of his job. Just like hers, she had to decide whether people were good enough to live or die. Even though, he was deciding on deaths that weren’t alive she still wondered fleetingly, What gave him the power? Or me the power to make these decisions? She closed her eyes and tried to center herself, to focus on the interview. She told herself, These are the sacrifices we make for humanity, it was a mantra from her childhood.

  “Have you ever suffered from tech flu that you are aware of?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let me get straight to the point, your SCs are low and I think it’s because of the technology you use daily.”

  “But if you combine our SCs we meet the criteria for application and Alma’s career far exceeds the requirements for reproduction,” Scott argued.

  “This is true, but my job is to make sure that innocent children are not born to unfit parents and if you are constantly suffering from tech flu, then you are unfit.”

  “As you can see in my records, I’ve never suffered from tech flu. I’m just reserved by nature.”

  “In my experience, people with reservations don’t become rising stars in the Military Guild and given command of hundreds of lives,” the interviewer commented condescendingly. “Alma, please tell me why you think I should grant you and Scott the privilege of children.”

  Alma looked dead into the interviewer’s eyes and said confidently, “We love each other and Scott would be a wonderful father to a child. I may not be the most social person, but even you cannot deny that I’m intelligent and dedicated to the JC.”

  The interviewer let this sink in for a minute, “And you would be prepared to give up your time to give birth to at least three children?”

  “Yes,” Alma said without hesitation.

  “I see here that your mother failed. You don’t think the same thing would happen to you?”

  Alma spoke with all the pain she carried surrounding
her mother’s failings and said most fervently, “I’m not my mother and if I commit to something. I’m committed until the task is completed. You can certainly see that in my record.”

  The interviewer nodded and then stamped their application and handed it to them, “I’m passing you both. Now, it’ll be up to the genetics department to decide if you are a good match. Good luck.”

  Alma and Scott thanked the man and then walked out. Scott was beaming. “I knew we’d pass. We are meant to be, Alma. Let’s go celebrate.”

  “We’ve not passed entirely yet. Our application still has to go through the genetics department,” she reminded him.

  “Oh look at us, we’ll pass,” he said confidently. “Come on, I want to go out and then you’ll stay the night with me here. I’ve missed you so much.”

  Alma smiled, “Have you?”

  He kissed her chastely, “You know I have.” Then he pushed her gently back and took in her uniform, “Do you have something else to wear?”

  She shook her head, “I came directly from Headquarters. Let’s just go back to your place or somewhere causal.”

  “Or you can rent something and then we really go out to celebrate.” He looked into her brown eyes and could see she needed some convincing, “Come on Alma, you need this. You need to relax a little. Let’s celebrate a victory in our personal lives.” He left off saying, ‘It can’t always be about your work,’ because he knew that would only upset her.

  “I’ll rent something, but only if you promise me there will be champagne later,” she was still dismayed that they had never opened the champagne he had brought to her dad’s house to celebrate her promotion.

  Scott took Alma’s hand and they began walking down the busy street, “I promise there will be champagne tonight. I’m coming up with a fabulous plan for our evening right now.”

  Alma smiled and tried to will herself to relax, but every time there was a break in their conversation, she would think about Shana’s words. She couldn’t help but wonder if her mercy had fueled Terra Nova further, and she felt guilty about it.

  June 17th 2635, Paris, France, Europe

  Alma took the Indy’s transport to Paris. She landed in transport parking not far from where her cousin lived. She took the crowded tram six stops and then walked ten minutes through a upmarket residential area to Grace’s art nouveau apartment building. Alma rang the ancient bell and was buzzed in. She pushed through the old wooden door and climbed the naked stone stairs quickly up six floors, rather than taking the slow, ancient elevator that shook every time it passed a floor. Even Alma had a limit to her bravery. There were pleasant green and yellow stained-glass windows with floral designs that shone on the stairs and walls as she climbed. Alma could not help but think about all the people that had climbed these same stairs before her for the last 700 years and how proud she was of humanity, even in its technological infancy, being able to build such lasting and beautiful architecture.

  Grace was waiting in the doorway. Her shoulder length blonde hair had been done immaculately in the latest style and her clothing gently complimented her feminine figure. “Alma, du bist mir wirklich eine Kapitänin, sieh dir diese schmutzige lila Uniform an. Komm schon,” Grace and Alma always spoke German together as Alma had spent her summers as a child with her mother and that is when she got to know Grace, as their mothers were sisters.

  “Great to see you too,” she wasn’t surprised that Grace had commented on her captain’s uniform in a backhanded way. And to be fair, Alma would not have known what to say if Grace had said something endearing, it wasn’t her way.

  Grace shrugged, “What good am I to you, if I only tell you what you already know?”

  Alma gave her cousin a half smile and walked into her small, but sophisticated apartment.

  “Wine?” Grace asked as she walked into her small kitchen adjacent to the drawing room.

  “Always,” replied Alma making herself at home on one of Grace’s beautiful upholstered sofas. She had freshly cut flowers on display, a sign of wealth. Alma stroked a soft petal of a peony absently while she waited.

  “Hands off the flowers you military savage,” Grace said smiling, while handing Alma a glass of white wine, “It’s your favorite pinot gris.”

  Alma smiled up at Grace, taking the glass and removing her hand from the flower, “Thanks.”

  They toasted to Alma’s being captain and then Grace saw her face expression, “Now let’s get right to it, our guild crier said there was something involving you saving some trafficked children, people not of the twelve?”

  “Yes,” Alma took a sip of the cool wine and tried to relax. This was Grace her confidant.

  “Why would you do such a thing?”

  “Because they are human.”

  “But they choose to live outside the JC. To procreate without permission. Why should we drain our resources on them? We cannot support everyone.”

  “The pirates have been sent to a MAC and questioned for information. The others, mostly women and children were left on Titan Station. They’re not here, draining our resources, if that’s what you are concerned about.”

  “But we still have to pay for them in the MAC, isn’t your job to protect only us? The twelve? Our parents worked hard for their right to have children. We all work hard for our confederacy. Why should those outside the twelve reap the benefits without putting in the work of generations?” Grace was getting worked up.

  Alma answered her evenly, “Because when you are in the moment and it’s your decision to kill or not to kill you don’t think about whether or not these people are a part of the twelve. You think about whether or not they deserve to die at your hand.”

  “But you were ordered to do it, right?”

  Alma nodded, “But that doesn’t change their deaths on my hands if I would’ve done it. I surveyed the situation and I decided to disobey my orders.” She took a sip of wine, “In retrospect, it may not have been the wisest choice. But when I was in the situation, I didn’t see any reason to kill them or destroy their ship. So, I arrested them instead and scrapped the ship on Titan taking the best parts for the Indy and selling the rest.”

  “And you’re still Captain?” Grace asked disbelievingly.

  “Yes. Admiral Jackson wanted to make an example of the Dante. And there is no doubt I have made a mistake in that, but it’s not as if I just let them go. They’re in a MAC and there ship was destroyed in a way.”

  “But you lost a man, one of the twelve,” Grace said solemnly. “And you’re not worried about repercussions? Maybe the Admiral wanted them gone because they are very dangerous and now they are going to come after you?”

  Alma shook her head, “It doesn’t happen like that. And they all know now I should have killed them so it doesn’t make sense they would have too much ill will towards me.”

  Grace just gave her a skeptical look, “I don’t know. What about the crewmember who died?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What about his family?”

  “I went to see them to report how he died personally. Of course, I feel badly about his death, but these things happen. He knew what he was signing up for. It could’ve been any of us.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “Yes?” Alma didn’t know where Grace was going with this.

  “And you’re not worried they will seek retribution? I’ve heard how the Military Guilds can be.”

  “It’s true there are a lot of personal issues inside the Military Guilds that is usually solved more violently than any other guild. However, his family wasn’t generational military and everyone knows when you sign up you could die before you reach your 50th birthday.”

  “You’re braver than I am. I’d be looking behind every corner,” Grace admitted.

  They were quiet for a few minutes, both lost in their own thoughts and then Grace asked, “Who comes up with these names anyway?”

  “You mean ship names?”

  Grace nodded, “Can you call a
ship anything you want?”

  “Yes, I guess so,” replied Alma not really having ever considered it.

  “Why would these people chose the Dante for their name then?”

  Alma shrugged, “Sounds fine to me.”

  “You’ve obviously never read anything by the man.”

  “I’m not an art historian like you.” Then Alma asked, “What does it mean to you?” She was curious. Maybe there was more to the Dante’s crew than she originally thought.

  “If I were to name my ship Dante,” she laughed a little imagining herself a pirate in an ancient pirate costume completely with hat and colorful feather. “I’d name my starship Dante because I’d feel, I was going through hell all the time. It can’t be a good life being a human pirate, just scraping by all the time.”

  “Oh you’d be surprised,” Alma smiled. “Some of the space stations and other planets in the galaxy are amazing. It can be quite a good life,” she said thinking about Johnathan.

  “But to spend so long cooped up on a small ship with the same few people for months or years? No thank you.”

  “And if you weren’t a pirate?” Alma was happy to entertain this conversation as it was a reprieve from the endless loop in her mind that maybe she had inadvertently helped Terra Nova.

  “If I was a cargo ship and chose the name, it would be because I’d be witness to all the injustices in the solar system. It’d be like going through purgatory, to live outside the JC, but be one of the twelve.”

  “Is that how you think of me? Living in this Dante’s purgatory?”

  “No, you aren’t gone quite so long as those cargo captains that work for me. Nor are you 100 percent innocent either. Oh, don’t look at me like that, you have your moments, like now when you have saved some trafficked children, not of the twelve, but I know you. Sometimes, you are just as capable of immoral acts as the rest of them.”

  “As the rest of them?”

  “Pirates, aliens and those humans outside the twelve. You know what I mean. I still love you though. I know you do it because you love the JC. And someone has to do it, I guess. I can’t imagine any of my legitimate cargo captains hurting anyone to defend the JC.”