Drafted

by Holly Hook

  I wondered if Mom and Dad were landing, or if they were still home.

  It was too late for that now. We had no way to communicate, not without my contacts.

  Colony N looked just like Colony M from the outdoors. I hoped that Winnie was there. At least I could tell her that I was sorry. She would be a wreck here, but thinking of her was better than thinking of what would happen if this tram car stalled or sprung an air leak. I didn't want to ask Matt if that had happened before.

  At last, we descended into another underground tunnel. Orange lights shone above us, and a couple of airlocks opened, giving us entry. The tram car stopped in another station with an attendant in a booth and a sign above some double doors that said COLONY N. The colonists hadn't gotten creative at all with the names. All energy had gone to survival.

  “Come on,” Matt said. “It's not as bad here as in M. Well, some parts are, but I'll take you to my place. My father got a better deal than most people. I think the Great Council gave him the place, to tell you the truth.”

  “The Great Council works with people here?”

  “It's complicated,” Matt said. “Come on. I don't think he's home. He's usually out, planning other colonies.”

  I wondered if Matt's father had something to do with why Marv and that woman listened to Matt back in the colony. But they were kilometers away now, much to my relief. There could be more Marvs here, though. I had to keep my guard up.

  As much as I hated to, I crossed my arms over my chest as I disembarked off the tram, able to breathe again. At least I didn't have claustrophobia, one of the most common fears of all time.

  Colony N wasn't as bad as M. There were more sunning domes, and more people soaking up the rays (literally), and there were even a few more food stalls. With my arms crossed and my bandage still on my arm, I drew fewer stares. There were even families in the domes, sitting together on actual chairs with upholstery.

  Even the children were green. I wondered if they had known anything else.

  “This place has carpet,” I said.

  “It was one of the first colonies,” Matt said. “They had the resources to build this one better than the others. The one they dropped you in is crap. I guess they had an oxygen leak a few months ago. Some people died in one of the storage rooms.”

  “Thank you for telling me that.” Even though I knew I was a strain on resources, I stopped at another cafeteria and got another small bowl of nachos. Only one of the cooks here had avoided becoming a walking plant. I waited for Matt to tell me that I was making things harder for everyone else, but he didn't. I liked him more and more.

  And I was hungry.

  He led me to another corridor, and this one had a transport belt. We passed another Mars Identity meeting hall. In no time, we stepped off and faced a hallway lined with wooden doors, all labeled with brass numbers.

  This place had apartments.

  People were almost as well to do here as they were on Earth.

  “Does your dad work for the Great Council?” I asked.

  “The Great Council isn't here,” Matt said quickly.

  I had stepped over a line. “Sorry,” I said. Something was going on here, and I didn't like the sounds of it.

  Matt let me to a door and placed his finger on an identification pad. The lock clicked, and he pushed it open.

  “I'm going to kill you,” I said.

  I tried not to let hatred burn inside of me as I checked out the quarters Matt shared with his father. It looked like a regular apartment back on Earth. This place had a thick glass window that looked out on the Martian landscape. White carpet. A holo-screen. A faux leather couch, as clean as the rest of the place.

  “I hope you don't mean that literally,” Matt said. “My father's not home. We need to hurry if I'm going to report to Fiona in time.”

  “Fiona?” I asked.

  “I need to tell her where I placed the tracker,” he said, sounding like he was in a hurry. “She might have her volunteers ready to board the first cylinder.”

  “You keep talking about a cylinder,” I said. “What is it, exactly?”

  “Our way back to Earth,” Matt said. “Well, sort of. Once we take it back from the Grounders, the rest of the colonists can return. If they want to, that is."

  "And the cylinders can get past the Grounders' defenses."

  Matt waved me into the apartment. I followed. “The cylinder is going to get fired with a laser. I started drawing the plans for it before we even landed on Mars. As soon as I saw this dead place out the window of the ship, I knew that I couldn't stay here. I don't care what the Grounders said.” He stared into space for a second, as if the memory were tormenting him.

  “You...drew plans for getting back to Earth.”

  We stepped down the hallway. In here, I could pretend that we were back on Earth. I was even getting used to the reduced gravity, even though I hadn't tried jumping yet. “I didn't know what I was doing at first, but there are a lot of scientists and smart people in this colony. The Grounders sent them here first as if they were trying to get rid of them. Fiona used to work on ion drives. She's moved on to other kinds of systems. Wait until she shows you the gun. I think I gave her the idea for it.”

  “The gun?” I asked.

  “You'll see.” Matt pulled open another door, this one leading to his bedroom.

  I tried not to blush. Mom had forbidden me to be at a boy's house, alone, ever, until I was seventeen. I had one more year, but I didn't think this counted.

  Matt had a neat bed and a bookshelf with actual books. I hadn't seen very many of them. They were like cars. Most people read on tablets or contact displays.

  He was right that he drew on paper.

  Matt reached under his bed and drew out an actual sketchbook. It was worn around the corners and smelled of musty paper, but it was the real deal. He managed a smile. “I have to keep this from my father,” he said.

  “Why?” I asked, careful not to cross that line again.

  “He never cared about my hobby,” Matt said. “He wouldn't want me getting involved in anything crazy like invasions. I had to tell him that I was going to visit Aunt Cecily in Colony B for a couple of months to keep him from wondering where I've been for the past several weeks. I set the network up ahead of time to send him some fake emails from my aunt's place. Dad wanted me to get out of this apartment, anyway. He said he wanted me to see the other colonies.”

  “That's one heck of a lie,” I said. I had one burning question, but I didn't dare ask it.

  “That's one good thing about the crappy networks here,” Matt said. “You can get away with anything. Dad's too busy to track down my lies.”

  “Sounds like he has a lot of work,” I said. It didn't look like the man was ever home. Matt slept in this place, knowing that there was no air right on the other side of his walls, along with deadly cold and radiation. It was no wonder people became like Marv and that young woman. "So, show me these plans."

  "Well, Fiona made them better than what I drew," Matt said. He sat down on his bed and opened the sketchbook. "Ever heard of laser-propelled spacecraft?"

  "Maybe. A long time ago," I said. "Didn't scientists use to send little probes out into space using them?" I had read something about microwave beams blasting tiny probes to other stars centuries ago before the Great Council scrapped funding for the project.

  Matt flipped through the pages. I caught glimpses of plants and trees. If I didn't know better, I would have guessed that he was a fellow Earther. If I even was one anymore.

  I could tell where his Earth days ended in the sketchbook. He landed on a page where a ground laser blasted a ship off the surface of Mars and into the stars. The ship had sails, catching the laser's energy.

  "That's amazing," I said. Matt had some incredible art skills, way beyond mine. "It looks like a cylinder with wings."

  "The sails are to catch the laser power," Matt said. "Since Dad was off working on the terraforming stuff, I had time to walk arou
nd and ask people if there were any plans like this. One of Fiona's friends pointed me in her direction. I joined the team, to say the least."

  "That's amazing," I said. The ship looked crude, but the colonists didn't have access to the technology that the Grounders did. "You guys built this?"

  It had a good concept behind it. I thought of how angry Mom and Dad would be if I boarded one of these things with Winnie and the others--and whether these ships were even safe.

  "Sort of," Matt said. "The real ships are housed in a crater facility that Fiona's team of scientists keep hidden. We'll have to drive there."

  "Drive?" I asked.

  "Well, we can't have the Identity finding out," Matt said. "The rovers usually have enough air."

  "Usually?"

  "Come on," Matt said with a grin. "I know how to get into the garage. Fiona gave me a pass card. The official story is that the facility is an old storage place that no one ever visits."

  "So mouth shut?" I asked. My heart raced. I was on a top-secret mission.

  But as I followed Matt through Colony N, through maintenance hallways, and down concrete steps, all I could dream about was home. Matt was giving me hope. He was the only one so far who had done so.

  I might even have a chance to fight the Grounders and to be an Earther again.

  "Down this way," Matt said, opening a dirty, steel door with a pass card.

  "I still need to find my friends," I said.

  "They're here, somewhere," Matt said. He shifted. "If they took their injections, they'll have an easier time surviving here than you would. It only takes a couple of weeks to turn green so that they won't starve. They might be better off here for now, and so might you."

  I balked. "Excuse me? You were all like, check out this part of the plan, and now you're telling me to stay behind and be miserable? What is with you?"

  Matt continued. "The first part of the plan is dangerous. Our mission's going to involve disabling the Earth defense system so that ships can bring people back."

  "So I'm supposed to be impressed and then wait here?"

  Matt pushed the metal door all the way open. He frowned. "Yes. So am I."

  I told myself that I still didn't know everything, so I followed Matt into the next room. Off-road vehicles with large wheels filled the garage. More air locks lined the far wall.

  I tried not to panic at the thought of staying here for a little while. What was I thinking? These scientists weren't going to let me on a dangerous mission without a whole bunch of training. That didn't make any sense.

  Matt and I boarded one of the rovers.

  A door squeaked somewhere.

  I stopped my foot inside the vehicle. "What was that?" I asked.

  "Probably nothing," Matt said. "These parts of the colonies make strange noises. As long as it isn't hissing, we're good."

  "Are you sure?" I asked, hating that I sounded nervous.

  Matt slid his pass card into the ignition of the vehicle. The dash lit up, and a motor hummed. A screen indicated that the oxygen supply in the rover was at eighty-nine percent.

  I wasn't sure if that was good or bad.

  Matt seemed to read my mind. "We should be able to make it."

  "I hate Mars," I said.

  "I know. I can see it on your face." He checked to make sure my door had shut before pressing another button on the dash. I watched as an airlock rose, exposing the outside world. Air hissed and roared outside of the vehicle. My heart raced with panic. Only a metal roof above me would shield us from the cosmic radiation. I could die a horrible death out here.

  "If you have to, close your eyes," Matt said.

  I did.

  Matt gunned the vehicle out of the garage and onto the Martian surface.

  Chapter Ten

  At first, I kept my eyes shut. Back home, Mom and Dad would have told me to be brave and to put on a show. Earthers were always to be brave and willing to fight for the world. But I wasn't an Earther right now. This place had already sucked that right out of me. I was just Tess, nothing more. Bravery had abandoned me. Mars changed people, and not for the better.

  "These vehicles are pretty good," Matt explained as we rolled over bumps (possibly those fossilized microbe mats?) and through dips (probably ancient river beds where the Grounders evolved.) "We can go for kilometers. If we have to use them, there are oxygen tanks under our seats. That won't make up for the loss in pressure, but at least we'll be able to breathe."

  "Matt, you are not making me feel better."

  "I'm trying. Comfort's not my strong suit. You can't have that trait here. We have to be real."

  "I know that." At the same time, I appreciated his honesty. Mom and Dad couldn't even do that for me. Matt was the one who had introduced me to the real world.

  The longer I kept my eyes closed, the dumber I felt. I forced myself to open them. The metal ceiling remained overhead. There were no sunroofs in this world. The wheels crunched red rocks while rolling hills of the same color surrounded us. A distant dust devil swirled across the dead landscape. I felt like we were riding through the remains of a world after the worst nuclear apocalypse. Nothing formed on the horizon. Old tire tracks lay on the ground, leaving a hard-to-see trail through the death and despair. People had driven this way before.

  "Don't worry," Matt said. "This glass blocks most of the radiation."

  "Most," I said, pulling my sleeves down over my hands. I kept my breaths shallow. The air was down to eighty-five percent. We had already used four and been in the vehicle for less than five minutes. I turned in my seat and looked behind us. Colony N appeared as a distant collection of square buildings and domes, just like M had.

  Was that movement in front of the bunker we had just left?

  Matt drove us down a dip, punching the accelerator. I grabbed onto my seat and bit my lip. Pain followed, and a metallic taste filled my mouth. We were driving into a crater, but Matt didn't seem to mind.

  "Whoa!" I said.

  "I've done this a ton of times," Matt said. "The craters can be fun. Don't worry. These vehicles are very hard to tip over."

  "That's the first thing you've told me that does make me feel better," I said. At least I knew that I could believe that. Matt hadn't lied yet. "I thought I saw something behind us."

  Matt gripped the steering wheel harder and faced me. We rose on the other side of the crater. "You saw something?"

  "Well, I thought I did. It looked like a bit of movement."

  "Keep an eye on it," he said. "It was probably just a dust devil."

  I turned, watching the space behind us. So far, the hills were bare except for the dust settling around our fresh tire tracks. Otherwise, no movement except for another dust devil racing across the land.

  "I can't see too well," I said. "There are too many hills."

  "You might have seen the wind," Matt said. "Spend too much time out here, and you start imagining things. There's something about this world."

  "This world sucks."

  "I know it does. The Grounders could have had a bit more sympathy."

  "I thought they weren't capable of emotions?" I was glad that we were changing the subject. I sat back down, praying for something to appear on the horizon. So far, nothing. Fiona must have hidden her base well. Not only did she have to hide it from the Identity people, but she had to hide it from any Grounder observations from Earth. They might not be the brightest, but even dumb people had to know to watch your enemy.

  "They're not," Matt said. "As I said, they think in very black and white terms. There is no gray to them."

  I checked behind me every once in a while. It was better than watching our oxygen level sink one percent at a time. Matt and I fell into silence as our ride stretched out into what felt like an hour. I decided that I'd freak when our oxygen levels got down to twenty-five percent, and when it did, I grabbed Matt's arm.

  "You need to hurry up," I said.

  "We have ten more minutes. When we get to the base, we'll get a refill."<
br />
  "That's ten more percent."

  "I've gotten down to five before. It was a close shave."

  "Keep talking like that. It calms my nerves."

  Matt smiled. He enjoyed keeping me on my toes. "You have a sense of humor when you're scared."

  "That's a good thing?"

  "It's better than how most people react when they're afraid."

  I'd take that as a compliment. We rolled over yet another hill and followed some faint tracks. A distant colony appeared on the horizon, but not in our path. I still didn't see our destination.

  I checked behind us again, but the hills made it hard to see anything. At last, Matt accelerated down another crater, and I saw the end.

  An airlock waited, wedged into reddish stone. Underground. Matt was right that the scientists had hidden this place.

  We parked in front of the lock and waited as a camera poked out of the dust and looked us over. The lock opened, and we drove inside with sixteen percent to spare.

  "You were off by one," I said, relieved that we had found safety.

  The door closed behind us. We were in another garage, a much smaller one with only a dozen of these vehicles. Air hissed as precious oxygen flooded into the room.

  "Welcome to Base A," Matt said.

  "You guys sure have creative names for places here," I said.

  "When you're trying to survive, you don't expend more mental energy than you have to."

  I thought of Matt's drawings. They were the only creative thing I had seen since getting here. He'd left them open on his bed in our rush to get here.

  But I didn't bring it up. Text on the vehicle's screen told us that it was safe to exit. I did, breathing in sweet air. It wasn't as fresh as inside Woking Park, but it was better than inside the rover.

  A weapon cocked. "Who's in here?" a man asked.

  I tensed. Not only was creativity not a strong suit on this rock, neither was friendliness.