Lakes of Mars

by Merritt Graves

  “Fin.”

  She didn’t turn around.

  “Fin.”

  “Mr. Sheridan, I don’t recall having you in this period,” said Professor Richter from in front of the lightboard.

  “Oh, I’m not, sir,” I said. “I just came to get Fin. Commander Marquardt wants to see her.”

  “That’s highly irregular,” said Professor Richter. “Regarding what?”

  I shrugged. “That’s something you’d have to ask him.”

  Fin looked pale and nonplussed. The whole class was gazing at her and that scrutiny was slamming the door on any way she might be able to wriggle out of this.

  “Well, Fin . . . you better go, then,” Professor Richter advised.

  She turned back to me—anger showing through the embarrassment—then collected her U-dev and electronic papers and followed me out the door.

  “You bastard,” she said as soon as we got into the corridor. “This is exactly the kind of thing that’s going—”

  I grabbed her by the wrist. “I don’t know what’s going on inside your head, but you better get with it right now.” She tried to break away, but I held on. “There’s something happening outside; ships are arriving and orbiting the planet. It seems to have gotten everyone’s attention, so if ever there was a time to sneak it into C1, this is it.”

  “It’s not done yet,” she said icily, locking eyes with me.

  “You were almost finished a week ago.”

  She shook her head.

  “Then it’s good you work fast.”

  “Not this time.”

  “Fin!”

  “I’m not doing it.” Her jaw was set, her body rigid. She was dead serious. Part of me was just as unsure, and as recently as last week I would’ve been arguing the same exact thing as she was, but the combat ships out the window showed us that Fingers had been right—that we’d all been right. And now it was all coming down to this moment.

  “Don’t you know what’s at stake? This is bigger than us! We can’t let him get away with it!” I implored, continuing the masquerade that this was all about Caelus, but making it as open-ended as I could. “We’ll regret it for the rest of our lives if we don’t do something because we knew and we’ll know we knew. And when you know something like this, and you don’t . . . you don’t do anything . . . then what’s the point? What’s the point in even being alive?”

  Fin shook her head again. “It’s not that simple.”

  “Most things aren’t.”

  “Aaron, it’s just that . . . it’s just that . . .”

  I cast around for some way to connect with her. “You said yourself once that this was ‘the right thing to do.’ I know you’re scared—I’m scared too. But we have to remember what we thought the right thing to do was when we weren’t scared. You see that, right?”

  She didn’t answer, but when I pulled on her wrist again, she followed.

  Chapter 58

  Loud music was playing when we got to C3 and I knew Daries was behind the draped sheet, cutting the hole above his bunk. Most of the Blues had left to find a better view of the ships, but Pierre was arguing with the two still there.

  “Dude, I was sleeping,” one of them was saying. “This is my one time to catch up after drilling all night in my mat class and he goes and does that? What the hell’s going on, anyway?”

  “Daries has been through a lot, losing Rhys and Sebastian and everything. I think we should cut him a break just this once,” Pierre said calmly, in his element as the friendly, reasonable person people wanted to agree with. He might have been cautious to a fault, but contrary to Rhys’ belief, it wasn’t because he was scared.

  “I cut him breaks all the time,” the Blue, Stya Nolles argued.

  “Well, cut him another one. Let him do his thing and I’ll take your sentry duty tonight so you can catch up on z’s. You, too, Woodrow. I’ll take yours next week.”

  “Pierre, you don’t have to do that,” Woodrow said. “You’ve already got enough shit to deal with and—”

  “Just help me out here, okay?”

  “Sure, sure. Of course.”

  “Stya?”

  “You got it, boss. It is Sergeant now, isn’t it?” he said, glancing at Fin and me as he walked away, clearly not mollified.

  “I hope you guys know what the hell you’re doing,” Fin said, as she put her backpack down within the sheets tented around Daries’ bunk.

  “Me, too,” Pierre replied. “Aaron, care to join me for a Zero? Take the edge off before the shit hits?”

  I nodded.

  We went over and dipped our syringes into the jug, which had even less fluid in it than I’d remembered. One second I was in my hammock, the purple liquid shooting through me, and the next I was staring through Simon’s eyes, out the window on the promenade of the Great Room. I thought about just watching the line of ships with him for a second, but there wasn’t time. Looks like it’s starting, doesn’t it?

  He took a sharp breath—startled at my sudden emergence—but then relaxed. He was more resigned than I’d seen him and wasn’t trying to hide it, exuding a stunned kind of gloominess that would’ve made me feel sorry for him if there wasn’t so much at stake.

  I didn’t want to believe it, he started. Still don’t know how much of it I do . . . but . . . but they’re not supposed to have those ships here. The treaty says members should only have five of their own combat vessels and they should stay within a million kilometers of their planet. Well, Corinth is like a million times ten to the whatever power away from Mars.

  They can only mean one thing, Simon.

  He sighed, seeming to ignore me. I don’t know anymore . . . it’s like you’re given a menu and you place your order, but then you get something you’ve never heard of. It makes you feel powerless.

  I know.

  It just doesn’t seem real, he thought, referring to what we were seeing out the window. Neither that or what we’re about to do about it. I think I’m insane. I really do. Every day I wake up, battle for hours, and reach the same conclusion: I’m crazy. And this. Again he thought of the ships outside. This just makes it worse.

  Why?

  Because it means everyone might be crazy.

  When I opened my eyes, Fingers was talking to Daries and I knew it was go time.

  Chapter 59

  We all looked at each other and then Fin took the bag from Daries’ bunk and moved toward the door.

  “Pierre, do you think Eve and I could have a second before this all goes down?”

  “We gotta go, man.”

  “It’ll just be a second,” I said, reading off the script I’d been rehearsing for a few days now. We just needed a reason for Eve to be in Pierre’s bunk so she could lift the bag with the real bomb in it out of Daries’, one bunk underneath.

  He managed a hint of a smile. “I just did laundry, so don’t get carried away.”

  “It’s nothing like that.”

  “Sure.”

  Eve and I climbed up to the third-level bunk and then ducked under the sheet concealing us from the camera.

  “So this is it, huh?” I asked as we both slid around the hole Daries had cut.

  “This is it.”

  I looked into her eyes. “You guys were right about everything.”

  “So were you. It just took you a second to realize it,” she said, winking.

  “And I suppose you knew you wouldn’t be able to dial back the toxicity in time, too, didn’t you?”

  “I knew it’d be tight.”

  I shook my head. “I’m going to have to start keeping a closer eye on you once this is all over.”

  “I’d love to see how that goes,” she said. “But seriously, how are you feeling? Any trouble with balance? Numbness? Blurring vision?”

  “Still good, but in case the drug doesn’t work you—”

  “Then I’ll just have to wait”—she pointed at the sheet in the direction of the nebula, probably worried that I was about to say something t
hat didn’t have a corollary in the parallel narrative —“and finish afterward.”

  “And you’re sure you’ll be able to do it then?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “You’re just saying that.”

  “No, I’m not just saying that. There’s going to be some blowback, sure, but I think the Reds are going to let us get away with it. They haven’t stopped us yet anyway.”

  “There’s still time,” I said, reaching out and clasping her hand. “We can tell Fin to wait a few hours. We don’t know that they’re going to have the . . . that Caelus knows something’s up, and . . .”

  “Yeah, we do.”

  “But we—”

  She moved her hand to my mouth. I couldn’t believe how calm she was considering how terrifying what she was about to do would be. “You’re going to have to give it everything you’ve got, okay?”

  I couldn’t reply. The words felt like a defibrillator slamming into my chest. And even if I could keep arguing, I wouldn’t have known what to say.

  “Okay?”

  “Okay,” I echoed.

  “We’ve got to get going.”

  “Fingers set it up for two ways, so I’ll be with Fin the whole time,” I said.

  “I know.”

  “Whatever happens.”

  “I know.” She paused as I slid a syringe filled with CS-32 over to her. We wouldn’t know for a while yet, but the understanding was that she’d take it if it worked on me, and the side effects proved sufficiently mild. “The funny thing is, I’m not as scared as I thought I’d be. I am when there’s a decision to be made, but there isn’t one anymore.”

  I leaned in and kissed her, resigned, trying to stretch it as far out into the remaining moments as I could, but there were hardly any left. “I love you. I know it doesn’t help saying that now, but I have to.”

  “I love you, too.”

  We kissed again and she took Daries’ bag and left her own. And then she was gone, wishing us all good luck on her way out.

  The corridors were long. Eve was walking quickly but they seemed to extend out with her, the Blues thinning as she neared the Inner Ring, replaced by Reds. She was an invading molecule, looking like the rest, moving like the rest, closer and closer, until she was at the Membrane.

  My biggest fear was that her access permit wouldn’t work—that they’d shut them all down in light of what was happening outside. But before I could even think about what I’d do if it didn’t, the light blinked green, the door opened, and she was nodding at the Red security guards on her way through.

  Where is everybody? I asked.

  I don’t know. It’s not usually so quiet.

  Maybe they’re all on the shuttles.

  Maybe.

  Everyone that was still on the Inner Ring seemed anxious, though. They were older—thirties, forties, and fifties—yet all wore the same strained expressions I remembered from C Block.

  Look at them, I thought to her. They’re just as scared as we are.

  Yeah.

  The corridor in front of her shrank, then broadened as she wound from bulkhead to bulkhead, the air getting warmer the deeper into the Inner Ring she went. She passed by a Red who, lost in his electronic papers and a U-dev, didn’t notice her. And then another. And another. Maybe it was just me, but I thought I felt her heart rate climb each time, and took deep breaths and thought about clouds and lakes and the smell of the redwoods back home in an attempt to calm her.

  The lights brightened as she reached the research wing. Our original plan had been to plant the bomb when the scientists were at their weekly department meeting, sharing their findings and soliciting feedback, so no one would get hurt. We were clearly off that schedule now, but fortunately the lab was deserted just like everything else.

  I’m going to work for a minute and then feign like I forgot something and head back to the Outer Ring, Eve thought to me.

  She began prepping her workstation, spreading out her electronic papers and a notebook on a desk along the wall that Main Lab C shared with the array. However, after thirty or forty seconds, a handful of scientists streamed in and scrambled around a lightpanel, looking like there was something urgent they were trying to accomplish.

  Well, I can’t leave the bag here anymore. Not with these people.

  That, after all, was the entire reason we’d decided to use a manual wireless trigger instead of a timer. We’d figured that it wouldn’t matter who we tied in to at this point, Red or otherwise, since we’d be gone by the time they realized what was going on, and Fingers was convinced that if there wasn’t anyone to tie in to in the biolab it would mean it was empty. It also made the most sense in the other narrative, where we’d want to be absolutely sure Caelus was in his bunk before we detonated.

  It’s going to look suspicious as hell if you drop it anywhere else. And it’s going to take you at least four minutes to get back to C Block, I thought.

  What’s the other option?

  I knew what Rhys and Fingers and probably Daries would’ve said: Leave the bag anyway. But there was no way I could. I didn’t think Eve could either, although there was a split second while she was collecting her things when I wasn’t sure, since it was the last thing she grabbed before walking away.

  Think. Think. Think, she thought. Where could you drop a bag without anyone noticing?

  Maybe they’re not paying attention with all that’s going on.

  Maybe, she repeated, her eyes darting around as she looked for open doors.

  How about that janitor’s closet there? See if it’s open.

  Too conspicuous: if they’re watching we’ll lose our chance to make it to the Pulsar once they figure out what’s happening. Worse, they’ll get to it before I can get far enough away for you guys to detonate.

  Instead of panic, I felt determination—first small and intermittent, then larger when it fused with hers. The urgency was still there, but instead of miring her in confusion, it was pushing her on. It was fuel. I knew Fingers said I wasn’t supposed to feel much, but with her I could. And it all made so much sense: Why she was here now. Why she decided to help her brother. No matter what the odds were or what was in her way, this was just what she did.

  Maybe over there, I suggested silently as she looked down a corridor that ended in a T-junction. No, never mind. That’s too far away.

  Eve paced down to the end of an opposite corridor and then turned around. But instead of the tentative, searching steps she’d been taking before, she was trotting, looking like she knew exactly where she was going. A few seconds later she was back at Main Lab C, spreading out her things again at a table next to the scientists. After a minute of prepping slides and scribbling on papers, she walked over to the cold storage locker and stepped inside. She opened a wall drawer, closed it, then opened another, and another. I could feel her closing in on something, but I was one step behind her, because by the time I figured out what she was up to, she’d already tripped and broken the vial she’d taken out of one of the drawers, slamming it hard against the tile floor. Immediately, blue lights flashed inside the locker and an alarm sounded over the loudspeaker, interrupted every few seconds by a woman’s voice, announcing: “Airborne pathogen detected, immediate evacuation required. Automated sterilization procedure will begin in T-minus thirty seconds.”

  A moment later Eve had left her bag and was out of the locker, moving with the crowd filing out the biolab door.

  What was that? I asked.

  BSV-440. Mostly treatable. Did it look like an accident?

  Yeah, but won’t they quarantine you?

  Not with its seventy-day incubation period—it’s the really bad stuff in the other labs that they’d do an immediate auto-lockdown for.

  I felt a wave of vertigo as Eve slid down the first in a series of poles adjacent to the ladders, forgetting where she was. The accident with my parents had been over before I even knew it had happened, but this was so drawn out. Stop-motion one moment and liquid the next, the
last few seconds feeling like I was about to slip with her off the side.

  But she was pulling it off. She was actually pulling it off. Every step made my fear retreat further into the ambience and got her closer and closer to the Outer Ring. It had seemed like such an absurd long shot—even just a few days ago—but this might just work. Maybe we could really get out of here and tell the Fleet.

  Eve had been careful not to draw attention on the way in, but on the way back it was like she was falling through floors. Twelve, eleven, ten, nine, eight, and then she was across the main corridor from the Membrane.

  Brandon had told us that the Pulsar was on the opposite side of the Inner Ring from the labs, in Shuttle Bay 4, and since it would tip the Reds off if she deviated from the direct route her permit granted, she needed to come back to the Outer Ring first.I felt her mental prod. Don’t you think you’d better wake up?

  I travel light.

  Don’t forget your backpack. It has all the CS-32 stuff.

  I won’t.

  And you’ve got the ingredients from Medical, too, right?

  Yeah.

  She arrived at the Membrane and waved her card in front of the reader. It flashed red. She waved it again and the same thing happened. Then a third time even after moving it slower and holding it closer. Shit.

  Is it because of the biolab evac? I asked.

  No—I don’t know. I don’t think so. I was able to get out fine last week during the evac with Caelus.

  Either it’s because of what’s going on outside or they’re onto us.

  She tried the card a few more times, but then she saw some Reds approaching and took a few steps backward. What do you think I should do?

  Uh . . . uh, they don’t look like security.

  They’re coming right at me.