Fear caused an icy lump in my throat. Why did the dome seem so empty? My voice croaked out a question. “Was everybody marched out of the dome?”
I pictured what it would be like for 200 scientists and techies to be forced outside the dome without space suits. The dome above protected us from a thin, frigid atmosphere of no oxygen and temperatures as low as minus 200 degrees Fahrenheit. People would crumple in seconds and die in minutes. And what if Mom and Dad had … ?
“Relax, kid,” the security guy said. “Jordan and Steven aren’t that stupid. If they killed everybody here, they’d have nothing left to bargain with against the World United.”
That made me feel a little better. But not much. Not if the only reason Jordan and Steven let people live was as bargaining tools. What if the bargain didn’t work? Would they start killing people then?
We passed through the open space where people usually relaxed in front of fake trees and a little park. Just beyond were the minidomes, clustered in the living area of the main dome.
“Were you in on this from the beginning?” I asked, still looking straight ahead. “When exactly was the beginning? Did Blaine Steven know from the first day he arrived on Mars that he might do this? Did you work for him from the first day? And—”
“You don’t listen, do you? I said, no questions.”
“Four people are trapped in a cave-in. My dad is hurt. I don’t know where my mom is. I need to ask questions. So do you. Like, why aren’t you helping?”
“Enough.” He said it so angrily that I winced, waiting for him to hit the back of my head.
He didn’t. Instead, he turned the wheelchair sharply into the first minidome of the living area.
Except for some decorations and photos from Earth, this minidome was no different from the one I lived in with Mom and Dad. It had two office-bedrooms with a common living space in the middle. In ours, we didn’t use the second room as an office because that had become my bedroom. Another door at the back of the living space led to a small bathroom. It wasn’t much. From what I’ve read about Earth homes, our minidome had less space in it than the size of two average bedrooms.
“This is the closest bathroom,” the guard growled as he stopped in front of the door. “And be grateful I’m taking you here.”
That told me plenty, that the takeover of the dome was so complete it didn’t matter whose minidome we entered.
“It won’t work,” I said. “It’s not big enough.”
“Huh?”
“The only bathroom I can use in the dome is my own. It was made bigger to fit my wheelchair.”
Without a word, he turned my wheelchair and pushed it back out of the minidome. It wasn’t difficult to tell he was grumpy about all of this.
Thirty seconds later we reached our minidome. I tried to block out my sadness and fear. It was so empty without Mom or Dad around. I had a plan and needed to follow it, no matter how little chance it would give Rawling and the others. Time was running out.
“You can close the door, but leave it unlocked,” the guard said, stopping in front of our bathroom. “You’ve got one minute. Anything longer, and I come busting in to make sure you’re not trying anything.”
“Anything like what?” I asked. “Like running away and leaving my wheelchair behind?”
“One minute,” he said. “Those are my orders.”
“It’s not enough time,” I said.
“Make it enough.”
“You try living in a wheelchair,” I said. “You’ll find out why it isn’t enough.”
He sighed. “Just go. If that’s what it takes to make you quiet. Go, go, go.”
“One other thing,” I said.
“What!”
I pointed at a box in the corner of the dome. It held Flip and Flop, the koala-like animals that Ashley and I had rescued. As usual, they were asleep.
“Can you change their water?” I asked the guard. “When they wake up, they like fresh water in their dish.”
“Only if it gets you in and out of here as fast as possible.”
I smiled at him. Sweetly.
He didn’t smile back.
I wheeled inside. The door shut. I rolled the wheelchair backward so the handles touched the door. I set the brake on my wheelchair. If he tried opening the door, at least I had it blocked.
Although the bathroom was bigger than the others in the dome, it still didn’t have much room. Limited resources made it necessary to use all space as efficiently as possible. There was a shower with a sitting bench, a sink with a cabinet under it, and most importantly, a toilet.
Much as I wanted to take the security guy’s advice and go, go, go, I reached inside the cabinet. It had shelves for toothpaste, shaving cream, and stuff like that. Beneath the shelves a few towels were stacked neatly.
I grabbed a few sleeping pills, hoping I’d have the chance to use them on the guards. Mom sometimes had migraine headaches and used them when she really needed to get to sleep. I leaned forward and slipped the pills into the top of my socks.
Then I took out the slip of paper and unrolled it. I’d been right. It was a note. But I never would have guessed the message.
Tyce,
The only place I could think of is your bathroom. Look under the towels. Midnight tonight. Don’t go anywhere. Just wait.
The note wasn’t signed. At least not with a name. The person who’d written it had drawn a tiny cross at the end of the message.
A cross like the one on the chain around my neck.
Ashley?
CHAPTER 11
Not enough time had passed before the storage room door opened again. It made me glad I had decided to wait until later in the night to use what I’d found in the bathroom.
There had been a robot pack under the towels. Like the one Ashley had used to control her robot. Dr. Jordan had ripped the plug out of my jumpsuit, but I didn’t need that anymore. I had the robot pack hidden between my back and the wheelchair. Now I just needed to find time to control the robot body, and maybe I could help the hostages.
Midnight tonight. Don’t go anywhere. Just wait.
“Take him,” Dr. Jordan said, standing outside. Light bounced from his glasses, so I couldn’t see his eyes. The rest of his expression was unreadable.
Take me? Where? Did he somehow know what I’d found under the towels in the bathroom of my minidome?
I tried to keep my own face unreadable as the security guy stepped into the storage room and behind my wheelchair.
I made sure I leaned back in the wheelchair, as if I were so tired I didn’t care. But that wasn’t true. I did care very much. And for the first time all day, I had something to hope for.
The security guy pushed me down the corridor outside the storage room.
The dome above was as dark as the Martian night. On most evenings by this time, I would have gone up to the telescope. Until I’d discovered freedom away from the wheelchair by controlling the robot, the best illusion of freedom I found was gazing into the outer reaches of the solar system and beyond.
“About seven hours have passed,” I said to Dr. Jordan’s back as the security guy pushed me. “It’s not too late to help those people in the cave-in.” I had to keep trying. Rawling would if he were in my place.
Dr. Jordan didn’t reply. He merely walked at a fast pace.
I could have kept up myself, just using my arms and pushing my wheels. But if I leaned forward, the security guy would have been able to see my lower back and what I had hidden there. So I remained sagged backward against the wheelchair and let them take me.
Soon enough I found out where we were headed.
To the dome entrance.
Where Mom and Dad stood, all alone, trapped in the air lock between the outer and inner doors of the dome.
“It’s simple,” Dr. Jordan told me, hands behind his back as he stared through the clear, hard, plastic window into the air-lock chamber. “Tell me what I want, and I open the inner door. If not, I open the outer do
or….”
I fully understood Dr. Jordan’s threat. The air lock stuck out of the dome like the tunnels that stuck out of igloos in photographs I’d seen of Earth’s far north. The outer door at the end of the tunnel led directly to the surface of Mars. The inner door of the air lock was right in front of us. If someone wanted to go outside, they first opened the inner door and stepped into the air lock in a space suit. With the outer door closed, no oxygen was lost when the inner door opened. Once the inner door was closed, the outer door could be opened. The small amount of air inside the air lock would disappear, turning instantly into a puff of white vapor as the warm, moist, oxygen-filled air made contact with the Martian atmosphere.
But neither Mom nor Dad wore space suits. The only thing keeping them from the brutal cold and lack of oxygen was the outer door. Once it opened, they would live only as long as they could hold their breath.
“You should know from your Hammerhead experience,” Dr. Jordan said, “that I’m not bluffing.”
As he spoke, Mom and Dad walked toward the clear plastic window where I sat on this side.
Tears blurred my vision of them. Mom, with her short brown hair and concerned smile. Dad, with his square face and dark blond hair.
Mom pressed her fingers hard against the window as if she wanted to touch me. Dad stood beside her, arm around her shoulder. They were both shivering. A large bruise darkened the side of Dad’s face.
I reached toward them, pressing the window with my fingers where Mom’s hand was.
“Give me what I want!” Dr. Jordan ordered me. “Or you can watch them die.”
I didn’t remove my eyes from Mom and Dad. “Do they know why you have them in there?” I asked.
“Of course. I gave them a chance first to tell me where you had it hidden. And they were as stubborn as you.”
“It’s because I don’t know what you want. Neither do they.” I wiped away a tear and tried to keep my voice from trembling. “Please don’t do this.”
Dr. Jordan answered by reaching past me to put his hand on the button for the outer air-lock door.
Mom and Dad saw his action. Dad took his hand off Mom’s shoulder and put his index finger of one hand across the index finger of his other hand to make the shape of a cross. I knew he was reminding me of all the things we’d talked about whenever I asked him questions about God. Like the conversation we’d had after Ashley died. When he’d told me that there are some things we’ll never understand until we can go to heaven and ask God face-to-face. That the important thing was to trust in God.
Dad put his arm around Mom’s shoulder again and held her tighter.
“I want your answer in five seconds,” Dr. Jordan said. He waited a beat and spoke a single word. “Five.”
Mom lifted a hand and pointed at her eye. Then she touched the left side of her chest. Then she pointed at me. Eye. Heart. Me.
“Four,” Dr. Jordan said calmly.
I love you. That’s what her sign language meant.
“Three.”
I quickly touched my eye and my chest above my heart and pointed back at them.
“Two.”
“Please don’t do this,” I said. “Please.”
“One.”
I grabbed at his hand, but it was like trying to pull away a bar of iron.
He hit the button.
At the far end of the air lock, the door slid open. And a white puff of vapor took away all the air that Mom and Dad could breathe.
CHAPTER 12
Dad pulled Mom toward him, as if he could shield her from the vicious cold vacuum of the Martian atmosphere. He buried his face in her hair.
They were so close that if I could have put my hand through the window, I would have been able to touch both of them. Yet I was helpless to do anything but watch.
I tried to keep my voice as calm as possible. “There is nothing I can tell you,” I said to Dr. Jordan. “If there were, I would tell you now.”
“I think you are lying to me.”
“Put me in the air lock instead of them. It’s not their fault I don’t know what you want.”
Dr. Jordan studied my face.
I lifted my eyes briefly to his, then watched Mom and Dad again. He clutched her, and her arms held him just as tight. How much longer could they hold their breath? I wondered if it would help to tell Dr. Jordan about the note and tonight’s meeting. But that wasn’t what he wanted. Still …
“What do you want?” I pleaded. “At least give me the chance to answer you.” I was ready to throw away the only hope I saw for any of this. The robot pack I’d found under the towels.
Mom and Dad fell to their knees.
Dr. Jordan continued to study my face. “Fine then.” He hit the button to close the outer door lock. When it was shut, he opened the inner door lock. Oxygen-filled air from inside the dome whooshed into the air lock.
“Mom!” I shouted. “Dad!”
“Tyce!” Dad croaked.
Dr. Jordan pushed my wheelchair away from the window as Mom and Dad struggled to their feet. “Bring them back in,” he told the security guy. “I don’t want to waste any hostages. If they die, it will be on video so that all of Earth can see what happens if they don’t do as we demand.” He began to wheel me away.
I twisted frantically, trying to look back.
“Are you all right?” I heard Dad yell.
“Yes!” I shouted.
“Silence,” Dr. Jordan said. “Or I’ll put them back in there.”
I bit my lower lip to keep from crying. They’d nearly died, yet Dad was concerned about how I was doing. It was that kind of sacrificial love that Mom and Dad had for me that had first convinced me there must be a God—and that he did care about me.
Seconds later, we were in the corridor leading back to the storage room. When we reached the storage room that was my prison, the other security guy stood from his chair in front.
Dr. Jordan shook his head and smiled sadly for my benefit. “I could almost admire your stubbornness. It’s a pity you aren’t one of ours.”
One of ours? What did that mean?
Then Dr. Jordan’s smile vanished as abruptly as the air had been sucked out of the air lock. “I’m wondering if you out-bluffed me. So tomorrow I’m going to put them in the air lock again. But this time I promise I won’t let them out alive unless I get what I want from you.” Back came the smile.
“Let him out once for a bathroom break,” Dr. Jordan said to the security guy. “Just once. That’s it until morning. He can brood in the darkness about how his silence is going to kill his parents.”
CHAPTER 13
Hours later I was thirsty.
They had left water with me, but I hadn’t touched any of it. With a meeting at midnight, I didn’t want to risk the possibility of filling my bladder.
Those hours of thirst gave me plenty of time to think and wonder in my wheelchair in the silent, dark isolation of the storage room.
Was Ashley somehow alive? Or was someone setting me up? If it was someone else, why?
One part of me desperately wanted to believe it was Ashley. I’d found the silver cross on my wheelchair, and only she could have left it there, right? Yet I’d seen her fly the Hammerhead into a moon. I’d seen the explosion, and later I’d used the dome telescope to see the crater the dome had named Ashley’s Crater. If Ashley was alive, why was she in hiding? And why hadn’t she secretly found a way to talk to me in the days since the explosion? Maybe someone else had stolen the silver cross from her before she died, and that someone just wanted me to believe Ashley was somewhere under the dome. But if that was the case, why?
All my hope hung on one single thing: the note. It had been signed with the shape of the cross of Ashley’s earring. As if she had really placed it in my hand while I was sleeping. But that would have been impossible. The security guards would have seen her go into the storage room. I would have woken up as the door was opened. So I couldn’t believe it was Ashley.
I
f not Ashley, then who?
It seemed that only Dr. Jordan or Blaine Steven had the authority to direct the security guards. But how could Jordan or Steven have done it without waking me up? Why would either one give me the note? And the robot pack? Was one betraying the other by giving me the robot pack? Or was it just another way to try to get me to tell them what I didn’t know?
What was it that Dr. Jordan wanted so badly?
Whatever was happening, I had a lot more to worry about than just myself. Rawling and the other three scientists were hours closer to running out of air. Mom and Dad were among the hostages and would face the air lock again tomorrow if I didn’t give Jordan what he wanted. Almost 200 hostages were being used as a bargaining tool in Dr. Jordan’s game of war. We were less than two days away from the shuttle launch that was necessary to supply the dome.
Far more important than all of our lives, however, was that the Mars Dome had to survive—for the future of millions and millions of people on Earth. Phase 1 had been to establish the dome, and we were now in Phase 2: growing plants outside the dome so more oxygen could be added to the atmosphere. Eventually people would be able to live on Mars.
That was long-term.
Now it seemed the short term was equally crucial. I knew enough about Earth politics to understand how easily wars started. World War I had begun because one person in a small European country was assassinated. Given the unrest of that time, it had been like a spark set among dry grass, and fighting had spread across Europe from there, dragging in the United States too. Now, with some of the World United countries ready to rebel, a hostage taking on Mars might be all it would take to start another world war. How many would die then?
I was too miserable in my thoughts to even bother juggling.
Mom once told me that it’s easier to hear God in quiet times. A nudge in your heart, maybe, or new thoughts that help you deal with your problem.
It was easy to be silent in the storage room.
I prayed, asking God to help. But more importantly I asked him to help me be as strong as possible, no matter what happened.
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