Blue Hearts of Mars

by Grotepas, Nicole

  I nodded. “I was dating an android. He broke up with me because he says it’s not safe for me.”

  Craspo gave me a sympathetic look. “It’s not. When humans find out things like that, it’s worse for the human than the android. Vile words on my classroom door are the least of my worries.”

  “It still sucks,” I said.

  He inclined his head in acknowledgment. “It does. But I can deal with it.”

  I didn’t say anything. If dealing with it meant getting spacey and drifting off instead of teaching his class, then I had my doubts about that.

  “Well, I better go to lunch. Mei is waiting for me.” I took a step toward the door before looking back at him.

  There was an appeal in his face. He almost said something, but seemed to think better of it.

  “I won’t give you away. Your secret is safe with me. I won’t be the one to spread any rumors or confirm them,” I said.

  His pressed his lips into a thin line and nodded, the loose, black swatch of hair hanging over his forehead bouncing. I was struck again with how attractive he was and felt my cheeks burning. “Thank you, Retta.”

  “No problem.”

  I hurried out, trying to cool my embarrassment.

  I’d managed to recover my composure by the time I got to the cafeteria. I stood at one end of the enormous room, searching, before I found Mei. She was sitting with a totally new crowd. Mei hated to be alone. She’d sit with her worst enemy if she had to, but she’d never tackle the gauntlet of lunch by herself.

  I strode up to her, smiling. “Hey,” I said.

  She hesitated before looking up at me, blinking a few times, pretending to be startled that someone was addressing her. “Oh, hello Retta.” She flicked her hair over her shoulder. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you were here.”

  My smile vanished. The other girls with her giggled. Some of them were girls Mei and I usually made fun of together. Agatha was actually one of them and it was Agatha who muttered, “Machine-lover,” to one of the girls sitting opposite of Mei. The words stung. I couldn’t believe Agatha—stupid as she was—would dare say something so atrocious. Not that I loved androids, but that word—machine. It hit me like a granite slab to my face. I blinked.

  The worst of it was the realization that Mei had been telling them about Hemingway.

  Honestly, it didn’t surprise me. Mei had the worst temper. If there was someone who could get riled up over being shafted, even for ten minutes, it was Mei.

  I stood there, feeling stupid, vulnerable, and very tall and exposed with all of them sitting down. I studied Mei. There was a wicked gleam in her black eyes as she glanced around at her new friends. Well. She could have them. I was better off alone anyway.

  I turned on my heel, hugging my bag tightly to my side. “Keep them,” I hissed and walked away.

  13: The Cotillion

  Things didn’t improve over the next three months.

  Mei had stayed away for a week after the cafeteria thing and then came running back to me, because of course Agatha was awful and she always knew it, but Mei wanted to teach me a lesson. “You don’t ditch your friends,” as she put it. I had tried to explain at the time. It didn’t help, so I just ignored it. Let Mei be Mei.

  I ran into Hemingway a few times and every time he stared at me with those swirling galaxies in his eyes, as though he could tell me what he was thinking with his gaze. We didn’t get back together or anything. So I went out with other guys, but none of them held my interest. There was something too mundane about dating guys you couldn’t be interested in.

  When things didn’t change for me with Hemingway, I began watching the news with my dad. The protest incidences got worse. I kept waiting for an announcement from the government about new colonization efforts, but none came. Was the requisition we’d seen at Synlife just a joke? I started to wonder if I’d ever actually broken into the facility. I had the proof saved in my Link. It was real, it just seemed like a dream.

  One night, Dad and I were watching the news together in the front room. We got along quite well when I wasn’t living in direct defiance to his will. The news was covering the problems with the demonstrations and other events surrounding the rights of androids.

  “‘An android who’s begun calling himself the Voice, has been causing waves of unrest in New Sydney. Crowds surrounding him at a demonstration in the city center broke into violence, causing several injuries and an influx of patients at emergency rooms,’” the newscaster said. They showed footage of the riot, the injured, and the police cleaning up the mess, before moving on to a new story.

  “What about the Voice?” I asked, gesturing at the Gram in the center of the room. “What’s he look like? What’s he saying?”

  Dad laughed. “They won’t cover that. Their point is making us feel like we want this Voice android shut up, so he doesn’t cause more riots and injuries.”

  “No way,” I said, feeling a surge of disbelief. “They’re the news. They tell us what we need and want to know.”

  “Hardly,” Dad said, sounding serious. “The only thing they tell you is what they want you to know and all that depends on what results they’re looking for. They want you to hate the Voice, so they show you how he’s ruining the relative peace of the city. If they wanted you to side with the Voice, they’d show you footage of him being accosted by police officers or someone else and they’d express how peaceful his message is, whatever it is.”

  I closed my gaping mouth. I couldn’t believe it. I mean, I’d been figuring out that things weren’t as they seemed, that we’d been lied to, but I wasn’t expecting to hear that even the news was spinning things to control my emotions. “So who do I trust?”

  Dad reached over and squeezed my arm, a look of pity on his face. “No one, honey. Mostly. Sometimes me, but really, everyone has ulterior motives. You’re best off if you learn to find out the truth on your own.”

  We finished watching the news program and then I got up and went to bed. Dad stayed awake to watch something else and eat a snack. He’d always been a night owl, only ever getting five or six hours of sleep a night, but it all got worse after mom died.

  Depressed since learning about the news being big liars, I plodded sulkily to my room, but paused at the door. It was late. I’d worked a shift at the coffee bar and when I got home, Marta was already in bed. I went to the door to her room which was just across from mine and cracked it open a sliver.

  A strip of light fell across her bed, dividing her face into lights and shadows. Her natural curls lay in a halo around her face and she looked as peaceful as a sleeping baby. I’d been so swept up in my own life lately with school and work and paying attention to the whole division between androids and humans that I sometimes forgot to notice Marta. Often she was engrossed in her own things, playing on the Gate, reading books on her personal Gate, and just being a kid in general. I stared at her, looking so fragile as she slept, and a pang of regret swept over me for how she lost her mom at such a young age. My dead mom was missing everything. And Marta was missing out, too. And I wasn’t even doing a good job of replacing that motherly influence for her.

  I felt my throat choking up and so I pulled the door shut. I didn’t want to cry right now. As I turned to go into my own room, my dad was standing in the entrance to the laundry room, watching me. Neither of us said anything, my dad just gave me a look that said, “I know.” He probably did.

  *****

  Mei and I planned to attend the end of year dance together. It was the senior cotillion, and neither of us wanted to go with a boy. Me, because since Hemingway, all my appetites had been blunted. Mei, because she’d been asked by four guys and to be fair, she chose to go alone and dance with all four at some point. I guess some guys aren’t scared by an aggressive, emotionally unstable girl like Mei.

  The dance was being held in the huge, front chamber of the Vantaa, on the Saturday night two weeks before graduation. I’d saved up enough markka to be able to afford an elegant
deep violet dress that I’d found out was popular during the early part of the twenty-first century back on Earth. The dance theme was “Back in Time” and so most everyone would be wearing an outfit from another era. I put the dress on and stared at my reflection. My hair was done up in a tower with three chopsticks holding it together down the middle and two crisscrossing in the middle.

  I went through the front room on my way out and dad smiled at me from the sofa. Marta came up and hugged me. She attached a flower arrangement to my wrist that dad had put together with some of the rare breeds from the deck greenhouse. “Dad wanted you to have this,” she said, smiling, her dimple appearing. “He said this is a breed he’s been working on. He named it the ritva.”

  I gasped. “After mom? It’s beautiful.” I fingered the purple, velvet petals. “Thanks, both of you.”

  “I know I don’t have to say it, but your mom would be proud,” Dad nodded, beaming at me, his eyes almost twinkling. Were those tears? “If all goes as planned, the ritva will be one of the first flowers ready for life outside the dome.”

  I could tell he was feeling satisfied with his efforts. “It’s amazing, Dad. I know mom would be pleased. All your hard work paying off and whatnot.”

  “You look really beautiful, Retta. Too beautiful, in fact, stay home.” He was lounging on the sofa with a small Gate propped on his lap.

  I could feel the red rushing into my cheeks. I shrugged. “Thanks, Dad.” At the front door I paused, then turned around. “Don’t wait up.”

  “We won’t! Well, I wish I could,” Marta said, glancing at Dad.

  “No chance, little one,” he said. “We’ll watch a couple holo-films and then it’s bed for you.”

  “Wake me up if you want to, Retta,” Marta tried to whisper behind her hand.

  I laughed and whispered OK in a conspiratorial voice as I went out.

  The roads were busy—summer was nearing, not that there was much variation in the seasons under the dome, but the degree of sunlight managed to change a bit. People could feel it. Silent scooters zipped past me and a few small autos. There was a good amount of foot traffic too. I saw a few others dressed up for the dance, heading in the same direction as me—a solemn, noble procession of kids my age acting mature and grown-up for once.

  Mei met me in front of the Vantaa. Her dad sent her in a car so she didn’t get mussed up. We went up the stairs to the building and paused before a pavilion that had been put up just for the dance. We could hear music within, and began laughing giddily.

  “Well, here goes,” Mei said as we stood next to each other, watching our classmates crowd through the grand entrance.

  “Yeah, our last high school dance,” I agreed.

  “After this it’ll just be the easy living of single, eligible ladies, right?” she laughed.

  I laughed too, somewhat skeptically. It would never be easy for me, not the way it was for her.

  “You look great,” I said, taking a deep breath. I wasn’t sure what to expect, especially without a date. But I reassured myself that it would be fine. I mean, how could it go wrong?

  “Thanks,” Mei said. Her long black hair was in a tower of its own, her eyelashes stretched all the way to Jupiter, and her lips were a pale red flower on her face. She wore a dress that looked traditional in some way I couldn’t name: sleek and pink, it glittered in the party-lights strewn across the pavilion before the entrance. “You look good, too.”

  I noticed that she said good, not great. But who cared? No one would ask me to dance anyway. I was there for the experience. For the send off.

  Lying to myself was pointless. The truth was that I really hoped Hemingway would be there and that he’d ask me to dance. And then he’d ask me to be his again, and we could pick up where we left off, just a bit older and more mature.

  My motives were stupid, I knew, but at least I knew what they were and could admit them, unlike the world at large.

  Mei and I stared at each other, joined hands for a second, took turns saying, “this is it,” and then set off, joining the throng of kids entering the Vantaa.

  The music nearly bowled me over. Silvery streamers hung from the tall ceiling. Strings of tiny lights dangled from the balconies surrounding the cavernous, open chamber. In the center of the room was a large Gram and above it, the hologram of a band played, surrounded by the senior class of my high school. It was kind of magical, I had to admit. It would have been better with Hemingway by my side, but he wasn’t, and I decided right then to have a good time despite that.

  Immediately Mei was swept away by someone—one of the boys who asked her to the cotillion in the first place—and they moved into the mob of pulsing dancers. I watched them skip away, the boy dressed in a costume reminiscent of some French renaissance period, with lacy cuffs dangling from the long sleeves of a gold-patterned jacket, and white trousers that gathered just below his knees. He was actually wearing black slippers and white socks that were more like tights. I shook my head in amazement. I didn’t know who he was, but he had gaudy taste. Mei would love that.

  I was alone in a humongous room of my peers, most of them dancing, while I hung at the fringes, feeling awkward and out of place, still not living up to my resolution to have a great time despite being completely by myself. I suddenly understood how my boss Matt always felt, being on the outskirts of what the trendy high schoolers were doing. I floated over to a long table around the perimeter of the room, found a drink, and began holding it so I appeared busy. I picked up another to pretend that I was holding it for my nonexistent date. No one would know. If anyone asked I’d say he hopped off to the bathroom for a minute.

  Standing there, I surveyed the room, studying the permanent parts of it. The ceiling was decorated with a fresco of the people-mover ships that brought the first colonists, and the early settlement of New Helsinki. The walls beneath the balconies were draped with the flags of the seven colonies and a few large paintings of the most recent parliamentary leaders.

  “Alone tonight, Retta?” A sneering voice at my side asked.

  I jumped slightly and turned. It was Hans, wearing a black tuxedo with tails that almost touched the floor and a white dress shirt with a bow tie. “Hardly,” I said, lifting the spare drink to demonstrate.

  “Your date’s a glass of punch?” he asked, raising a sarcastic eyebrow.

  “Ha ha,” I said. “He’s at the bathroom.” I did my best to sound believable.

  “Right,” Hans said. “I’ve never heard that one before.”

  “Where’s your date?” I returned, casting my eyes about in an exaggerated attempt to find her, going so far as to look under the table.

  He scoffed. “She’s in the bathroom. But she’s real, unlike your imaginary date.” Before I could protest, he grabbed two drinks and left, the drastic coattails of his hilarious tuxedo trailing behind him like a cape. Who did he think he was? Fred Astaire? That was probably who he was trying to be. Next thing I’d catch him doing a tap dance in the middle of the floor.

  I pretended to be fine with it, but I suddenly felt vulnerable and insecure. I was used to being on the outside a bit, but this was almost too much. It was like every eye in the room was on me. I was a blemish on the perfect atmosphere of everyone else’s last high school dance.

  I sipped my drink, both of them, placed them on an empty two-seater table nearby and marched into the throng of dancers. I would dance my way out of this, so help me.

  And I did. It actually worked for a few songs. I saw Mei switching dance partners, felt myself wondering what she did that made all these guys swoon for her, and chastised myself for being an ingrate, after all, I’d gone out with several guys since Hemingway and hadn’t cared for them.

  Finally, the song came on that I’d begun to think of as my Hemingway song. It played that day he appeared in the doorway to the coffee bar when I was dancing. A pang shot out from my heart into my limbs, and I felt the tenterhooks digging in. They were still there. After all this time. After everything.


  I turned to walk off the dance floor, feeling too hollowed out to dance, and there he was. I paused, feeling my heart leap, then sink, almost immediately, into a chasm as deep and black as the vents.

  There was a girl on his arm. And she was beautiful. I mean, so gorgeous, my breath caught. The two of them together looked like a dream. Like no one should look as a couple. They could have been sent into a garden called Eden, renamed Adam and Eve, and been told not to eat the fruit. I would have believed it.

  Hemingway was holding her hand. He had on a suit that cut his figure well. It was dark blue, and he wore a white shirt with one of those large, bold collars, and he’d colored his hair a metallic blue and spiked it. There was metallic blush on his cheekbones, and his shoes gleamed like they were composed of glass. He was breathtaking.

  I found myself with my arms crossed over my stomach like I might lose it. His eyes swept across the crowd—they must have just arrived—and then his gaze landed on me. Our eyes locked. He began to smile, then frowned, realizing he was holding another girl’s hand, I guess. How could I know what he felt? He was a total stranger these days.

  They started toward me, the girl noticing me at last, her eyes glittering in recognition, and that was when I did what I thought best.

  I bolted.

  14: The Vents

  I ran for a while. At first I didn’t know where I was going. But I had to get there. Wherever it was. And then I realized where my feet were taking me.

  The vents. The industrial part of town.

  This will make you feel good, my feet seemed to say. Remember this place? You walked here with Hemingway. Isn’t it lovely?

  Feet can be such smart-asses.

  The noise of the vents was suffocating. The place was warm, really warm, and I began to sweat as I meandered, wandering aimlessly between the wide, steaming vats and chasms. The hissing noise of air rushing upwards accompanied me as I plodded, dejectedly over the walkway. Above me, lights glowed on the catwalks, looking ominous through the clouds of steam.