Lakes of Mars

by Merritt Graves

“I don’t . . . I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Thunder clapped and the rain got harder, angrier. The sky was a smear.

  “But your box has holes in it so there’s nowhere to put things. I bet that gnaws. I bet it grinds.”

  “Shut up. Just shut up, you’re not supposed to be here!” I shouted.

  “Of course I’m supposed to be here. I’m you. Where else would I be?”

  I turned off the commline and flipped a few switches on the control panel, adjusting an algorithm. “You’re not me,” I murmured.

  A light flashed and red text appeared across my line of sight, reading: ‘Primary mission objective modification. Increase bombing radius by 45% as additional partisan activity suspected.’ I zoomed in and saw that the widened scope included much of the city center and three residential districts before reading the last line: ‘Area now thought to be unreclaimable.’

  “No,” I whispered. I was half-conscious that it was a dream and I started looking around the cockpit for a way out, a way to crawl back to my bed, but I was still disembodied.

  “Don’t be so surprised, Aaron. You had to know this was coming. Green, blue, black, and red, what’s a dragon without a head? When they mix they turn to brown, but when apart the ship goes down.”

  “Stop it! You’ve got to stop saying that!”

  “I’m only saying it because you’re thinking it. It’s your dream. I’ll stop when you stop.”

  “I’m not choosing any of this.”

  “Of course you are. Everything’s a choice with you. It’s both your greatest strength and weakness, because choices are heav—”

  I shut the commline off again and tried to control my breathing. The radar dot representing Mother One began flashing and then winked out for good as I pulled up the enemy’s wasp-like ships, our fighter formation, and Mother Two on the spec sheet, entering the expected time it would take us to complete the bombing. Using a formula that must’ve somehow diffused from Space Math, I calculated where Mother Two needed to be for us to dock before she was intercepted. Currently, she wouldn’t be able to hold all of the remaining fighters, but given the losses we were bound to incur completing the run, she would be. I transmitted the coordinates.

  “Making hard decisions on the fly like that isn’t easy.”

  I ignored him, toggling different display screens.

  “You’ve learned a lot in a brief period. It’s almost like the knowledge gleamed from your various classes has summed into something larger.”

  “That’s a leap,” I said.

  “It’s true. And I can’t help but think the reason is that you’re attending the most renowned tactical and command school in the—”

  “What do you want?”

  There was a laugh. A throaty, dismissive chortle. “It’s not about what I want. It’s your dream. Your fighters, your carriers. It’s all you. I’m you. You’re me. I don’t want to speak in riddles, but you’re the one making this complicated. You’re the one holding on to all this guilt like some flagellant. Just let it go. The colony has violated six different statutes of Confederate law. It serves as a base for raiders who’ve been warned and warned and warned and warned. The Diplomatic Corps has even taken the trouble of dropping leaflets telling the populace to leave. They’ve done all they can, and now you—you—need to do all you can. And yet you haven’t even opened your bomb bay doors.”

  “I’m not hitting that city.”

  “And you don’t have to, but open the doors so you can at least take out the original target. Strictly industrial. Strictly military. That’s only reasonable, right?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Right?” said the voice, louder this time.

  “I suppose.”

  “Open the doors.”

  I opened the doors.

  “See, that wasn’t so hard, was it? Just take a deep breath. In. Out. In. Out. You’re always overthinking things. If it hadn’t been for Corinth Station, you’d be on the Rim right now. Statistically dead. And I know what you’ve said. I’ve heard you mope and brood and mope and brood. To be or not to be. But I imagine you’re singing a different tune now that you’ve met a certain someone—am I right?”

  I looked at the commline, already flicked to off.

  “So don’t keep making the same mistake. Quit acting like the whole world hinges on your analysis. That you know everything. That somehow, by some turn of the universe, you, a kid, have more knowledge about a target than the collective Fleet intelligence community that carefully selected it. That’s arrogant. That’s narcissistic.”

  “Stop talking. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave me alone!”

  “Look around. The commline’s off. It’s just you . . . that is, unless you’re hearing things.” The voice snickered. “Which wouldn’t square with someone as gathered and centered as you’ve been thought to be. You’re just uptight, that’s all, with a tendency to overthink. That’s what Mr. Reeves wrote on your third-grade evaluation, and what Ms. Kris wrote on your seventh. But hey, what do those hacks know?”

  I didn’t reply.

  “So just let go. Let go. Think how nice it would be to let that weight just sss-li-i-ide off , just going with the flow for once. Just being. You’ve got the bay doors open; that was the hard part.”

  A light started flashing yellow, then orange as I approached the targets.

  “Now all you have to do is let go. Let go. Let go!”

  “Fuck you, you fucking bastard!”

  “Let go. Let go. Let go.”

  “Fuuuck you!”

  “Of course if you don’t, there’s almost certainly going to be an inquest as to why. They’ll see that you lost Mother One, a brand-new, state-of-the-art, R-class mini-carrier. And then, that you didn’t bomb the target. Unless you concoct some fantastic story, you’ll be court-martialed. So don’t let it come to that. People are counting on you. Time to be a team player and do your job.”

  The targeting light began to flash red.

  “Let go. Let go.”

  “No.”

  “This is not for you to decide—you made up your mind when you signed your name on that dotted line. This is the corollary of that decision. Let go. Let go.”

  “No!”

  “Let go! Let go! Let go!”

  I did everything I could to resist, but my thumb seemed to be moving of its own volition. It pressed down on the button and stayed down for the entire string of targets.

  I woke up in Medical, wheezing, trying not to scream. It felt like one second the bed was floating, ripping through the air in the grip of some kind of gravitational field, undulating like the sea. But the next second it was on the ground, normal.

  I took deep breaths and gathered as much of the white sheet into my hand as I could. I curled my toes around the metal bars at the end of the bed. I sank my head deep into the pillow.

  “It was just a dream, Aaron.”

  The voice scared me because I couldn’t see where it was coming from. There was only a shadow—slowly assembling itself into razor-sharp teeth that chewed through everything that made sense, rocking the bed even more as it bore down.

  “You’re making this a lot harder on yourself than you need to. Just breathe. Breathe.”

  The shadow clenched. My breaths got shallower until I could barely take in any air at all.

  “Just breathe.”

  And then she was in front of me. Nurse Elaine. And when I could see the voice was attached to someone, the shadow receded.

  “That’s it. See, that’s not so hard. In and out. In and out. It’s the easiest thing you’ll do all week.”

  “How long . . . how did I get here?” I mumbled, the rocking now getting gentler and gentler, like the bed was docking with the floor. Everything was turning right side up.

  It looked like she was going to answer, but then she angled away and started opening up drawers in a medical cabinet.

  “Because I . . . I think I remember falling asleep in my hammo
ck in C3.”

  I heard clanking, then the sounds of things being taken out and set onto a tray.

  “Did someone bring me here?”

  No answer.

  I swiveled to try to see her, but my neck felt swollen and stiff.

  “In my experience things tend to end up where they belong.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you’re sick, aren’t you?”

  A wave of dread went through me. Was I? I felt horrible about things, but I didn’t remember being physically sick. “I don’t know. I guess, but . . .”

  There was more rummaging. “You remind me of someone they brought in a couple weeks ago. A nice, well-mannered kid, kind of like you, but he couldn’t see things the way they were. It was as if his mind was hiding what it didn’t want him to understand. It started small but got to the point where so much of his perception was being censored that what remained became unintelligible. That’s how he described it, at least. But everything has a silver lining.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked again.

  “Oh,” she said offhandedly, “when parts of the mind burn down, it frees up real estate for new development. Some would say it’s a great way to remove slums, as it were. My patient didn’t see it that way at first, but before too long he was putting it into quite similar terms. He had a saying he was quite fond of.”

  “What was it?” I asked.

  “It was like a rhyme. About colors. Green, blue, black, and red.”

  “Do you know his name?”

  “It’s in my folder over there,” she said, behind me. “But I think you two have already met.”

  “Met?”

  “Yes. I saw you sneaking in here to ask him questions the other day.” She paused. “Outside of visiting hours.”

  The swaying started. The shadow came thrashing back. The nurse appeared again in front of me, holding something that was obscured by the bed. “The good news is that you’ll be able to see him anytime you want now, because you’re his new roommate in Psych.” She gestured toward the curtain across the room.

  I woke up in Medical, wheezing, trying not to scream. It felt like one second the bed was floating, ripping through the air in the grip of some kind of gravitational field, undulating like the sea. But the next second it was on the ground, normal.

  I took deep breaths and gathered as much of the white sheet into my hand as I could. I curled my toes around the metal bars at the end of the bed. I sank my head deep into the pillow.

  “It was just a dream, Aaron.”

  The voice scared me because I couldn’t see where it was coming from. There was only a shadow—slowly assembling itself into razor-sharp teeth that chewed through everything that made sense, rocking the bed even more as it bore down.

  “You’re making this a lot harder on yourself than you need to. Just breathe. Breathe.”

  The shadow clenched. My breaths got shallower until I could barely take in any air at all.

  “Just breathe.”

  And then she was in front of me. Nurse Elaine. And when I could see the voice was attached to someone, the shadow receded.

  “See, that’s not so hard. In and out. In and out. It’s the easiest thing you’ll do all week.”

  “How long . . . how did I get here?” I mumbled, the rocking now getting gentler and gentler, like the bed was docking with the floor. Everything was turning right side up.

  It looked like she was going to answer, but then she angled away and started opening up drawers in a medical cabinet.

  “Because I . . . I think I remember falling asleep in my hammock in C3.”

  I heard clanking, then the sounds of things being taken out and set onto a tray.

  “Did someone bring me here?”

  No answer.

  I swiveled to try to see her, but my neck felt swollen and stiff.

  “In my experience things tend to end up where they belong.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you’re sick, aren’t you?”

  A wave of dread went through me. Was I? I felt horrible about things, but I didn’t remember being physically sick. “I don’t know. I guess, but . . .”

  There was more rummaging. “You remind me of someone they brought in a couple weeks ago. A nice, well-mannered kid, kind of like you, but he couldn’t see things the way they were. It was as if his mind was hiding what it didn’t want him to understand. It started small but got to the point where so much of his perception was being censored that what remained became unintelligible. That’s how he described it, at least. But everything has a silver lining.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked again.

  “Oh,” she said offhandedly, “when parts of the mind burn down, it frees up real estate for new development. Some would say it’s a great way to remove slums, as it were. My patient didn’t see it that way at first, but before too long he was putting it into quite similar terms. He had a saying he was quite fond of.”

  “What was it?” I asked.

  “It was like a rhyme. About colors. Green, blue, black, and red.”

  “Do you know his name?”

  “It’s in my folder over there,” she said, behind me. “But I think you two have already met.”

  “Met?”

  “Yes. I saw you sneaking in here to question him the other day.” She paused. “Outside of visiting hours.”

  The swaying started. The shadow came thrashing back. The nurse appeared again in front of me, holding something that was obscured by the bed. “The good news is that you’ll be able to see him anytime you want now, because you’re his new roommate in Psych.” She gestured toward the curtain across the room.

  I awoke in my hammock in C3, swaying and screaming, and Pierre and Daries had to spend at least a couple minutes calming me down. It was embarrassing, but I was thankful. I needed their help, and that almost scared me even more.

  “Easy there, kid. Easy. Just a nightmare,” said Daries.

  Pierre squeezed my arm. “You’re going to be fine, man. I swear. Just take a big breath. Focus on your lungs.”

  I tried, but my ribs were still recovering from a fresh shot I’d taken in the Mat Room, making even shallow breaths hard.

  “That hammock doesn’t seem to be doing you any favors. Grab my bunk. We’ll trade. I haven’t had a nightmare in almost a week in that thing, so it’s got that going for it.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “Of course I’m sure,” said Daries earnestly, with none of his usual palling-around snark or sarcasm.

  Even though I was in on it now, I was still resentful of Fingers and Daries for pushing the plan so aggressively. But I felt warm then. The contrast of his and Pierre’s concern with the terror of the dream made me feel safer than I’d ever felt before—even on Mars before the accident. It was the strangest thing.

  Daries showed me my reflection in his shaving mirror and ruffled my hair. “See, still you.”

  I’d had my guard up for so long, but right then and there, I let it slide down. I let them tell me it was okay.

  Chapter 56

  I could barely concentrate the next morning in the lab, still unsteady from the dream. Analyzing the blood samples from the mice used to relax me—just knowing that I was helping Eve and that each day we were getting closer was enough to make everything fade into the background, but now I was hyper-aware of how slow and tedious everything was.

  Sterilizing the equipment took twenty minutes. Prepping the slides took another twenty. Running them through the diagnostic took twenty-five. And even though it was stolen time since I’d gotten up early and was skipping Military History like I’d been doing ever since the meeting in the Box Room, it was still time we didn’t have, considering there wasn’t a working model yet beyond proof-of-concept studies.

  I looked through the glass wall over at Eve passed out at her workstation, where she’d been ever since I’d gotten in a half hour ago. I’d probably be passed out, too, if it wasn’t f
or the stims I’d been taking. They were making my hands shake and probably had something to do with the nightmares getting worse, and that was on top of all the tie-ins’ usual side effects: Nausea. Diarrhea. Splitting headaches. They hadn’t been that bad when we were just doing two or three a week, but now that it was two or three a day, it was a different story.

  Turning back to the cages, I bent down and pricked the last of the control-group mice in its saphenous leg vein. A mild sedative had been pumped inside so they were pretty easy to handle, and the RXR needle was so thin and took so little blood that the mouse was back at its water bottle in a few moments, having barely felt a thing. I deposited the blood onto the slide marked 17C and then moved over to the mice in the experimental group. Every one of them was alive except for the last one in the row that had died of a brain hemorrhage. And if it was anything like yesterday or the day before, that was the only one whose Kamalgia would be gone, too.

  After I collected all the blood and analyzed the samples, I verified that there hadn’t been a change in the lower doses. Not even the mice at the 200 and 225 mg human equivalence levels showed much of difference in viral load. 250 mg was the magic number but it was just too toxic. Eve had been trying to mitigate this for the past couple weeks, but the problem was every time she manipulated or dialed back the active ingredients it stopped working altogether on the Kamalgia. We both thought she could figure it out, given enough time, but she was down to two weeks before her case became infectious, and maybe only half of that before we’d have to knock out the array.

  My gaze shifted over to Eve again and then at the dead mouse, before settling on the RXR needle sitting on the counter. The lab was silent. Classes didn’t start for another forty-five minutes, but students would start trickling in any moment now to work on final projects. It was surprising that there wasn’t anyone in already, especially considering how near we were to the end of the term.

  I grabbed the needle and walked down the row of cages and out through the glass door, trying to make each step land light enough so my boots didn’t clack against the tile. When I got to Eve I stopped, taking in how beautiful she was even with circles under her eyes, passed out from exhaustion. That was the only way she slept anymore, stims without Zeroes. Sprinting. Hurtling herself at the problem with abandon.