I grind my teeth together and stare at him.
"They know me. I might be able to get them to at least give us a chance." Zion's quiet voice makes a happy shiver go up my spine.
"Yes. They do know you, so let's go. We have no other choice than to keep going."
Zion looks at Derek.
"She says that a lot," says Derek as he opens the door completely. We step into quite a different looking corridor. This one isn't clean and white. It's obviously the back end of the greenhouse with water pipes and electrical tubes running along the walls. Overhead, condensation drips on us.
I smile because it reminds me of Delta station. I spent a lot of time inside the greenhouse and also underneath it in the hidden mechanical tunnels. I actually miss Delta station. While this truth hits me, the door closes behind us and we're left in absolute darkness.
I close my eyes and open them again. I can just about see shapes now, but I tap my implant to shine red light around us. Derek does the same, except his is yellow like most security personnel. Mine is usually green for medical, but for some reason since being down here on Mars it's been red. I chew on my lip as I realize that so far Mars has still recognized my biometrics with every scanner and computer we've tried so far. I assumed once you left Mars security would cut your access.
I look sideways at Zion as we pick our way down the crowded tunnel. Metal boxes and rolls of wire litter the pathway. He is a supervisor and he could've kept me in the system.
But why? His hope that I would return someday? Or was it another mandate from my mom?
An intersection causes us to pause. I take advantage of the time to swing my pack off and pull out the papers we brought from Zion's apartment. "Derek, can you light these up so I can read them, please?"
Derek swings his yellow light over the neat handwriting that is my mom's last few months of work.
"What are you looking for, Bren?" Derek asks.
"I'm not sure. I just have a feeling."
Derek looks at Zion and they both have the same expression on their face.
"What?"
Zion answer first. "We both know what that means. You're on the verge of something. Anything we can do to help?"
I look through a few more pages, before I look back up. "Yes. Zion you can tell me why you kept me in the Mars security system. Why didn't you let them delete me like most people moving off Mars?"
Zion's mouth hangs open.
I raise an eyebrow at him.
"I guess it wouldn't do any good to deny it?" He spreads his hands out.
"Nope." I return to the papers in my hands. "That just confirms you did it. Was it something else my mom told you to do?" I find the paper I'm looking for and stand up.
Zion stands in front of me, his expression sad.
"Don't worry, Z. I know now that she had her reasons."
I hold the paper in front of him so he can read it. His expression runs through sadness to confusion to excitement. There's a twinkle in his eye as he finally looks up at me.
I hand the paper to Derek. "Somehow she knew it would come down to all this." I open my arms wide. The tunnel is so narrow I accidentally smack one of my hands on a water tube. I bite my lip against the pain.
"Seriously, Bren? How on Titan's moons could she have seen all this happening? And that you'd need clearance to sneak into the most secure hiding spot on the planet of Mars?" Derek hands me back the paper and I shove it all back in my pack.
"I have no idea. But nothing surprises me anymore. Maybe she had a heads up before she died, or was killed. Right now her being murdered makes a lot more sense." I grit my teeth and walk past Zion whose face is a mask of anger.
I take the right tunnel and walk with purpose. A small diagram was in Mom’s notes, so I know exactly where we're going.
"I should've seen something, known something, B. She told me a lot of stuff, but nothing like this. I swear."
I look over my shoulder. "I know, Z. She only told us what she felt like we needed to know. Apparently, you needed to know a lot more than I did." My tone is bitter and I immediately regret it. "Sorry, Z. I didn't mean it to sound that way," I tell him quietly.
He shakes his head. "It's all right. None of this is normal or the way any of us thought our week would go."
Derek lets out a snort. "Around Bren you never know how your year will go."
I turn just far enough around to reach out and smack him in the chest and not lose my stride.
"Ow. She's hitting harder and harder each week, too." The two laugh behind me.
I listen to them trade stories about how stubborn I am as we make our way deep under the greenhouse. The greenhouse on Mars is the largest and most amazing one I've ever seen. Since it's the closest to Earth, it has the most animals and birds and other life forms native to Earth. Every day after school I would spend hours in there walking around and doing my homework underneath the three-story waterfall. I wish right now I could be there enjoying it, instead of dealing with pirate attacks, AI machines attached to dead miners, and politics.
Finally, I stop at a set of rusty double doors. There is an old circular crank handle, just like under the Delta station greenhouse. I grin and look at Derek.
"Great. More work."
"What do you mean? What is that?" asks Zion.
"These are probably the only kind of doors like this on Mars. But we happen, strangely enough, to have one on Delta station too. Watch." I point Derek to take one side of the wheel. We both grasp tight and turn.
The screeching of metal in the small corridor is deafening. My heart races as I urge Derek to keep going. The noise will definitely draw attention, so we need to hurry. I feel the wheel finally start to turn and we crank it all the way around until one of the two doors swings open.
I peek around the thick metal door to find an inner chamber. This one is pure white and has nozzles implanted into the walls and a bio scanner mounted on the far wall. I make a face at Derek. Sanitizer stations are not my favorite, but at least I know we're on the right path.
All three of us step into the small room and we pull the metal door closed behind us. We hear a series of clicks and know we now only can go forward. There's no handle or wheel on this side of the door.
I cover my face with my hands as the nozzles start spraying out a stinging chemical that will make sure we have no foreign contaminates or bugs on us. It smells sweet but one hundred percent chemical. On the long distance ships like the 2080 Carina Mission they use these types of showers as a normal everyday routine in order to save on water. My chest squeezes as I realize that I hadn't thought about my dream to join the Carina mission in such a long time. Right now I'm doubting I'll ever want to leave Delta again. I think I've experienced enough new stuff to last me a long time.
When the spray shuts off, all three of us end up coughing from the fumes. "It should go away in a few seconds," I tell Zion. It's probably hurting his head to cough. I bend over and lay an arm around his shoulder. His face is ashen. My heart races as I realize that he's not stopping. I slide my pack off and grab my med kit out. I fit an oxygen mask over his face. He takes a few deep breaths and the coughing subsides.
"Better?"
He nods but puts a hand to his wound and feels around the edges of the bandage. His fingers come back down red with blood.
"Scarp it all. Stupid sani-showers." I carefully take off the old bandage and spray his wound again with a healing spray and then re-bandage it.
The room we're in is the size of a closet, so I assume there's no recycler, so I place the dirty bandage in a plastic bag in the med kit.
I look between Derek and Zion. "Ready?"
"Not sure I can take anymore surprises," wheezes out Zion.
"Let's go," says Derek. Zion gives him a dirty look.
I shrug. "Again, it's not like we have any choice now. We have to go forward." I turn and take a deep breath before placing my hand on the bio scanner. I stare at the red light over the door. My heart feels like it's goin
g to burst out of my chest. I can see out of the corner of my eye that Derek is in his defensive stance, and Zion is leaning against the far wall, away from the door.
The light turns green. Silently, the white door slides open to reveal several hooded figures blocking the doorway. In their hands they're pointing energy pistols at us.
"Well, scarp it all to Hades," I say.
21
Councilman Jeffs
None of the hooded figures speaks or moves. Derek, Zion and I automatically put our hands up. I look over at Zion and nod to the men in front of us.
Zion pushes off the wall to stand up, making our new friends aim all their pistols at him.
"Hey, wait there. I'm Zion Tavet, one of the supervisors of the main mine. We're just here to talk to the council."
As he's talking I'm hoping that these men are with the council, not the pirates. I study their clothes and their body language. The outer garments with the hoods seem to be new, and their pants and boots aren't scuffed up like pirates would be.
Confident that these aren't our enemies, no matter what it looks like, I step forward. They move their guns toward me instead of Zion. "He's right. We have to talk to the council immediately. It's about these attacks. It's a matter of survival for Mars, and for the council themselves, that we talk to them."
The tallest one in the middle steps forward. "How did you get this far? How did you get that bio scanner to work?"
I lower my arms and hold them out toward them, my wrists upward. "I am Brenna Teves. My mother made sure I had access. I live on Delta station now." I make sure he sees the triangle implant under my skin.
"Teves?" asks one of the other men. "As in Aubrianna Teves, the medical examiner that was killed last year?"
"Yes." I grit my teeth together. I'm anxious to relay our message to the council before my friends can't hold the pirates off anymore. "And I'm serious when I say I need to talk to the council now."
The three of them look at one another. The tall one points his gun at me again. "So if you're Brenna Teves that means you have medical training as well?"
"Yes." I narrow my eyes at him, my patience just about gone.
"Good, let's go." The three of them step aside, guns still pointing at us.
I walk past them, a bit confused down the corridor. Derek and Zion follow me, with the gunmen at the rear.
"Why do you think they asked if you had medical training? Shouldn't they be more worried about security?" Derek whispers in my ear.
"I have no idea. Do you think they're security for the council?"
"The council does have its own security teams." Derek frowns as he looks over his shoulder. "I hope that's who we're dealing with, but they don't seem like professionals."
"I agree." I watch as the pipes and tubes and metallic boxes pass by. I try to look for and memorize numbers of each section or electrical box. By the time the three men stop us beside a nondescript door, I figure we've walked about three hundred meters in a direction toward the middle of the main dome.
One of the men places his hand on a bio scanner that's hidden beneath a rusted wall brace. New tech among old.
The door opens up into a section of the greenhouse. I'm not surprised that we're here, but I am surprised which section they've taken us into. Beneath our feet crunches dry straw and dirt. We walk along waist high fences. The light is dimmed here, simulating nighttime, so I can't tell what is in each enclosure, but I do know that we're in the breeding pens. The sounds and smells of horses, sheep, pigs, and the cackling of chickens follows us as we disturb their sleep.
Zion leans in next to me as we walk. "I love this place. I used to beg our teacher to bring us here every year."
"I know," I say dryly. "Everyone was so tired of coming to see the animals they made sure to delete your vote from the class group chat after middle school."
Zion grasps my shoulder. "What? Seriously? That's why we didn't come as a class after sixth grade?"
"Yep."
"Not nice."
"We wanted to see other parts of the domes, Z. Like the spaceport, or the fabrication center. We had all seen and smelled the animals enough those first few years." I elbow Zion and he just clamps his mouth shut as we continue through the large animal section.
The pungent smell of chlorine reaches my nose as we near the aquariums. When we did visit the animals in the greenhouse dome, the sharks and dolphins were my favorites. I could sit for hours watching them playing in the large tanks.
The men keep walking, taking us past all of the different animal sections. I try to think of what is past this area, but I draw a blank. None of our classes ever came this far.
A high pitched buzzing sound, barely audible, reaches my ears. As I stare at the back of one of the men holding a gun, I try to identify the sound. It makes me nervous not knowing where I am, especially on Mars.
A memory comes to me and I lean into Zion. "Is that the sound of an electric train?"
Zion walks without saying anything. I can't see him too well in this dim light, but I suspect he's listening. Derek walks quietly behind us, with the other two men behind him.
Zion leans back in. "Yes, I think so. I didn't think there was a branch this close to the main dome, though. I thought they only started at the space ports and went outward branching off to all the other mines."
I nod. "That's what I thought too. But it seems someone has built a section here. Why would they need a train underneath the main dome?"
"To get to the council chambers without being seen?"
I smile and nudge Zion. "That's it. I bet it goes between the spaceport and the public council chambers, and maybe even to these secret ones we're being taken to. That way they can come and go without too much fear of being seen by the public."
"Wait here." The man in front of us stops and turns and we have to come to a sudden halt. Derek wraps a protective arm around me and I lean into his sturdy chest.
Although the light here is still too dim to see much, I can see ribbon light shining a few feet away from us. But it's dimmed, as if tinted. I reach out a tentative hand and touch cool glass.
"Get your hand away from that," orders the man next to us.
"Where are we?" I demand.
"You're the one who wanted to see the council, so that's where we're taking you."
"Is this a new set of e-tracks?"
"No more questions. It'll only be another minute."
I bite my lip so I don't say something I'd regret. I turn to see Zion is leaning against the glass. "Are you all right, Z?"
He gives me a weak smile. "Yes. Just a lot of walking for someone with a head wound." His hand comes back down from his head with blood again.
I wince and look back through the glass to see lights approaching. "When we get to the council I'll need to put some more stitches in there."
"Payback, huh? Hope you get them as straight as I did yours." He pushes off the glass as a new train car pulls up.
I touch the stitches at the side of my head. It seems so long ago that we were running from space pirates below the docks. "I've been practicing stitches way longer than you. Mine will be perfect. Besides I didn't tell you I drilled a hole in your head yet." I grin wickedly in the dim light and smack him on the shoulder.
"What?" I have to grab his arm to pull him onboard the one-car train as his mouth gapes open in shock.
The men sit across from us, their energy weapons lightly across their laps.
Zion is blessedly quiet as he feels around his head wound. Probably still processing what I said.
I address the taller hooded figure. He seems to be the one making the decisions for the others. "The council at least knows we're under attack not only by space pirates this time right?"
The man twitches slightly before turning away from me.
"And that now they've turned their full forces on killing the council."
White knuckles wrapped around his gun betray the tall figure's emotions. I know I've gotten to him, but I
don't know if that means they do know or they don't know.
I sigh. "Anyway. I know I'm only Aubrie's daughter, but I know how to save the council and the rest of Mars. I wouldn't be going to the one place I know the bad guys are heading if I didn't, right?"
The three look at one another, but don't say anything. I still can't see underneath their hoods.
I turn my attention to the train. One car, no other crew on board. So it must be remotely controlled. The lights are still dimmed and we're going at a horrifying speed.
I turn to Zion. "Calculations?" He nods stiffly and I look back up front to watch the lights outside the train, now looking like one long line of light with the speed we're traveling.
Derek fidgets next to me. I interlace my hand with his and squeeze. He squeezes back.
I feel the train slow down before I see anything. It's a kind of twinge in the pit of my stomach. Like riding the mine lifts at free fall. Soon we're almost stopped and I can see that the walls here are rock, not metal.
I'm twisting a curl with my free hand when Zion pulls my hand down and leans in. "I think we've made it as far as the Artemis crater, B," he whispers, his eyes wide.
"Wow," is all I can think of to say. The Artemis crater is nearly halfway around the planet. No train can travel that fast.
I try to take a closer look at the train as the men usher us out. E-trains are the one transportation method I didn't study much of in school. I'm kicking myself now as the train looks like every other one I've seen.
"What was that about?" Derek whispers as he squeezes my hand again.
"Zion thinks we're at the Artemis crater," I whisper back. The men are all behind us now, but they're deep in conversation with one another.
"Seriously?" Derek says a bit too loud.
I look back and see the men are hurrying toward us. They point us down a tunnel and we walk.
"Sorry," Derek whispers lower this time. "But that does seem impossible."
I squeeze his hand.
The rock walls here are different. If this is Artemis crater, I'm not sure I would know. This one has been closed for decades.
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