Blue Hearts of Mars

by Grotepas, Nicole

  “I guess that’s true.” Hemingway nodded. He took my hand, which was hanging uselessly by my side, limp with apprehension. “Hey, you don’t have to do this. I can go alone.”

  “No, no, no,” I said, protesting firmly. “Unless, well, you don’t want me with you.”

  “There’s no one else in the world I want with me. But I’m the one who’s running from something. You’d be going to be with me. And you have your dad to think about. And your sister.”

  Now that he was making me think about it, I knew I did want to go. Scared or not. “Yeah, the thought of leaving my dad and sister behind is sickening. I mean, literally, it makes me want to vomit. But there’s something bigger going on. If we don’t go, if we don’t give this information to the Voice, if we don’t get you somewhere safe, nothing will ever change.” I ticked off the reasons on my fingers and it made my resolve to leave grow stronger. “If we don’t do something, no one will.”

  “Then you’re certain,” he asked, taking both of my hands in his, staring down into my face. I tilted my head to look up at him.

  “I am, yeah.”

  He walked with me back into the coffee bar to get my bag. At least I had a few things I kept with me always. Star looked up and smiled her loveliest smile at Hemingway. He returned the expression politely.

  “Hey there,” she drawled, leaning forward on the bar.

  “Hey,” he said, unaware of her attempts to show off her cleavage. The fact that he didn’t notice was endearing. I smiled triumphantly to myself as I grabbed my bag out of the back room. When I came out, Star was asking him what he liked to do for fun.

  I stopped and listened, surprised that I didn’t know the answer to that myself.

  He shrugged, as though it didn’t matter. “I read. History, mostly. I paint and make pottery. Sometimes I sculpt something, faces generally. My mother taught me to do that.”

  Star nodded, her eyes wide. I walked past her to get to Hemingway and saw the look of rapture on her face.

  “That is so interesting. And delicious, just like you,” her mouth hung open gazing up at him.

  Hemingway laughed and took my hand.

  “Wait, I thought you two weren’t together,” she said, waving her finger between us, her brow furrowed in confusion.

  “We weren’t,” I said.

  “Five minutes ago. We are now,” Hemingway explained, adding, “And in truth, when two people love each other, are they ever apart? That’s what matters.”

  “Well, where are you going, Retta? You have three more hours on your shift.”

  “I’m leaving,” I said, boldly. “And I’m not coming back. Tell Matt I’m sorry.”

  “What? Where are you going? What am I supposed to do? Work double time?” she was enraged. Anger didn’t look good on her, but there was nothing I could do about it.

  “Sorry. Call some people in?”

  “Yeah, all the millions of extra workers. We’ll just spread out and fill in for you,” she said sarcastically.

  I shook my head, feeling grim but resolved. “See you later.”

  We turned and walked out. I felt like crap about it. You think all the time you work somewhere that when you finally have your chance to show them, you’ll just drop everything and leave, flipping them the bird or cursing someone out, and then when it actually happens you crawl out with your tail between your legs because you’re doing something very crappy and irresponsible. Or maybe that’s just me. Because I’m so good at feeling guilty.

  *****

  The train raced across the empty valleys, over ridges and hills, and through wicked dust storms that I was sure would derail us somehow. I stared out the window, only able to see anything by the light of Phobos. Sometimes I forgot that I was on a lonely, dangerous planet, protected only by the dome that curved over my city like a giant, blue crystal ball. Being on the train in the middle of the night amplified the feeling that I was now unmoored and extremely vulnerable.

  Though the train-lines had a narrow, artificial tunnel to protect them from the weather and radiation, the dome-substance it was composed of was clear. So I could see a long way off into the darkness as we bolted through the night. We were on our way to New Tokyo. It wasn’t the closest settlement, but it was the largest, so it would be easier for us to get lost in the masses, and hide ourselves.

  Hemingway opened the sliding door of our little compartment, came in, and closed it behind him.

  “Well?” I asked, looking up at him.

  “The Voice is on the run again, after making an announcement about a possible rounding up of androids for future colonizing missions. I don’t know how many people heard it. Just the people at the rally, I guess. He disappeared shortly after and the Information Recovery Services came charging through the crowd to arrest him,” he said, sitting down across from me. He wore a fatalistic smile. His hair looked like he’d been running his hands through it over and over again.

  “The IRS?” I said. “Wow. The last time I heard they were involved with something was when I was eight or nine.”

  Hemingway sat back and glanced out the window. The light in our compartment from the overhead LED light was dim, and eerie shadows swept across his face as he turned. I stared at him, suddenly wondering if I really knew this man into whose hands I’d impulsively put my future.

  “If they catch him, the Voice, I worry that they’ll kill him.”

  I gasped. “No way. I mean, put him in prison, maybe, but kill? That makes humans sound like barbarians.”

  He closed his eyes and exhaled, a deep sigh from the center of his body. “Retta, you’ve been sheltered, I’m afraid. Not just you. Everyone.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I gave a short laugh and gathered my knees to my chest, resting my toes on the seat. I buried my chin between my knees.

  He opened his eyes again and they were suddenly augurs drilling into my brain. At that moment, he looked older than me. Older than my dad. “Who is the law in New Helsinki? On Mars?”

  “Well, the police for one. The IRS, but no one hears much about them or what they do. The parliament chair in each settlement, I suppose. And the unified government.” I listed the entities quietly, wondering if there was something I’d missed, wondering if I sounded as naive as I felt just from the way he inquired and continued to watch me with those old eyes.

  “The police,” he began, “they handle civil matters. Such as if someone breaks into your apartment. The Parliament chair. He or she is concerned with how the settlements run, same with parliament. Something new crops up, they make a law, like if suddenly we have flying cars on Mars. There have to be laws to govern that, right?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I guess.” Where was he taking this? I mean, I’m smart, sure, but maybe I’d overlooked something. Was he right about what Parliament did? I was sure we’d covered this stuff in my political theory class. I may have slept through it, though. Sometimes I fell asleep in class. I’m not perfect. It’s liable to happen.

  “The unified government. They make sure some tyrant or dictator doesn’t rise up in one of the settlements and begin oppressing the people and ruling with an iron fist. Right? They provide a checks-and-balances kind of situation overall. It helps to make sure there’s a sort of uniformity between each settlement, as well. So, when we get to New Tokyo, we don’t suddenly have to wear masks for some strange reason, just because they felt like imposing that sort of rule.”

  “Yeah, that sounds right,” I said, blinking, beginning to chew on a fingernail.

  He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and released the breath. “The IRS,” he said, pausing.

  “What? What’s bugging you about the IRS?” I prodded.

  “They’re the wild card,” he said at last. “Information Recovery Services. Do you know what that means?”

  “It means they recover information.”

  “But how do you recover information once it’s out there? Someone opens their mouth and speaks. Can you just gather up that sound
and destroy it? What if someone heard it? How do you recover that?”

  “You—” I said, blinking. “Um. I don’t know. Erase it from their brain? Remove it somehow?” I laughed at my stupid suggestion, thinking Hemingway would laugh too.

  He didn’t. “Exactly.”

  “So you’re saying the IRS goes around wiping people’s brains?”

  He shook his head. “Information is more valuable than oxygen. More dangerous than radiation. If you control the information, you control people, societies, entire civilizations. Entire worlds.”

  We stared at each other. I’d never seen his eyes looking so dark. He seemed sad, and that crushed me a little.

  “So, do they?” I asked.

  “It’s worse, Retta.” He sighed and sat forward. “If the IRS catches the Voice, they’ll kill him, just to shut him up. For a moment it was great for the movement to have a figurehead. But it also provided a focal point for those who want to stymie the flood of change. He’s said something that’s been deemed threatening. He’s unspooled a thread of knowledge that if followed, would lead people to a truth that could topple systems of power.” He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose before opening them. His gaze swiveled to the window. We both stared out at the barren plain over which our train zoomed. “They’ll kill him,” he repeated quietly. “Then, one by one, they will find a way to apply a memory-wipe to everyone who heard him. Androids are dangerous, according to them. For some unknown reason, we’re a threat. I haven’t figured it out yet.” He stared into the distance, his eyes looking inward more than anything else.

  “But, it’s just the IRS,” I said, unable to accept this shift in thinking. “It’s like, thirty people or something. How can they be so dangerous. So powerful?”

  He laughed, a bitter sounding chortle. “There’s more than thirty. There’s over a hundred thousand people working for them,” he smiled grimly at me. “Last my mother heard, they’d hired around sixteen thousand more.”

  “Why?” I asked, aghast.

  “She didn’t know. But when you told me about the requisition you’d seen at the Synlife building—” l looked around to make sure we were alone, suddenly feeling paranoid even though we had a private compartment, “—I knew that was why. Once they’ve rounded us up and sent us away, there will be a significant hole in society. Maybe they’re hoping to erase all traces that we’d ever lived in unison with humans. Maybe—I just, I don’t know, exactly. I’m trying to piece something together and I only have half the pieces.” He shook his head and frowned.

  I stared at him, watching his face as he puzzled it out. His brow was furrowed, the corners of his mouth were turned down, and he stared into the middle distance, absorbed in his thoughts.

  “Do you think they’ll catch him? The Voice, I mean,” I asked quietly, thinking of the short, charismatic man I met just before we hopped on the train. We had pushed our way into the crowd surrounding him. When he saw Hemingway, it was like he knew immediately that Hemingway was an android. He’d followed us into a narrow, nearby alley where a line of boulder-like men surrounded us to protect us while we conversed. I told the Voice what I knew and showed him the document stored on my Link. He politely asked that I send it to him, so I did. He thanked me for being so brave. He said it was humans—human! Not an android, human!—like himself and me who made the difference. We needed to work together. We needed to help others bridge the mental chasm that separated us. He whispered that what I had found out was true. He knew it, he said. He felt it burn inside him when he read it and that’s how you know something’s true, because it makes your heart burn.

  As I reflected, I knew that was why I couldn’t just give up on Hemingway. He was true. He made me burn. As though he could hear my thoughts, he looked up at me, his eyes suddenly focusing on me. The lights and galaxies were alive in his pupils, swirling and twinkling like pools of stars. “What was that?”

  “I didn’t say anything,” I answered, startled with the impression that he could hear my thoughts. “But, do you think they’ll catch the Voice?” I unfolded my legs and sat forward on my seat.

  He shook his head. “Who knows. I can’t say. I sincerely hope not.”

  “He’s human,” I whispered. “I didn’t expect that.”

  “Neither did I.”

  I thought of the IRS catching the man. Something about him was good. Not just good. Great. He had this innocuous aura, like I bet he’d never been the kind of guy who ever experimented with killing ants. Or other harmless, small creatures. In fact, I could imagine him on an elementary school playground coming to the defense of the weaker kids. He just seemed like that kind of person. And it frustrated me to think of him being captured and killed.

  Something in me—indignation and the certainty of being right, perhaps—fused together and I felt this strange power surging up in me. I pulled my eyes from the barren night outside and looked at Hemingway, wondering if he sensed it. It was like I knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that Hemingway was good and deserved to live his own life. The Voice was right about everything—the IRS was this enormous dragon of runaway power that should be stopped, and I couldn’t be afraid to do what I knew should be done.

  But then, what about the android who attacked me? What was that and where did it fit with this newfound conviction? I needed to sort it out. How could I believe in freedom for Hemingway, but not for the android that had clearly been crazy?

  “What’s wrong?” Hemingway asked, smiling at me as though to reassure me.

  I shook my head. “Nothing, nothing. Just thinking.”

  “About your dad?”

  I hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah. Worried about him and Marta.”

  “I don’t blame you. I feel this strange ache in my chest. Don’t know when I’ll see my mom again.”

  “It’s scary,” I said. I was worried about my dad and Marta even if that hadn’t been what I’d been preoccupied with when Hemingway asked. If I let myself think of them too much, I would begin to cry. Leaving them behind was a mess, but I couldn’t fix it. I had to do what I thought was right. I was eighteen already. Legal. An adult. I could leave home if I wanted. I could vote. I could have a job as a space-elevator pilot. I could be a pilot on one of the transport and trading vessels between Earth and Mars or Mars and one of the asteroids. “It’s really just that I didn’t say goodbye. And they don’t know where I’ve gone. It’s not like I think I should live at home for the rest of my life,” I explained, as much to myself as to Hemingway.

  “Of course,” he said, nodding. “Come here.” He beckoned me with one finger.

  I laughed, a bolt of desire shooting through my torso. I crossed the little space separating the seats and fell against him. He wrapped me up in his strong arms, switched off our compartment light, and we kissed for a while. It was still dark outside the compartment and I could see Phobos setting in the east and the hills outside became black creatures of some growing abyss. I closed my eyes and let the darkness of our compartment take me deeper into Hemingway’s embrace.

  19: New Tokyo

  New Tokyo was a desert flower. That’s what Hemingway said when he saw it for the first time. We came down from a low mountain pass and it unfolded before us under the largest dome I’d ever seen. Hemingway said there were desert cities on Earth that were this big, and they called them desert flowers. Everything was a desert on Mars, so it wasn’t hard to imagine more deserts.

  They didn’t need domes on Earth. I envied them that and I imagined that it would be interesting to go anywhere you wanted. We almost had that luxury. But there was this constant tension between feeling safe and knowing you were living on a dangerous planet. People called Earth, Mother Earth as though it was this nurturing place that embraced you and took care of you. No one called Mars, Mother Mars. Mars had always been a god of war and he’d be that way until the terraforming was finished. It was taking longer than expected.

  Our train slipped through the lock in the dome and soon we were zipp
ing into the fringes of the settlement, and down the terraced hills of the mountainside where the rice paddies were. The mountainside was really the slopes of the plain dipping down into the remnant of an ancient crater. I saw the conical hats of the paddy-workers as they waded through the ankle-deep water, bending to tend the green stalks of the plants. In no time, we passed through the farms, which were just past the paddies, and then we were in the city proper.

  I gasped. The buildings in New Tokyo were thin and narrow spires. It looked like an enormous cluster of spikes. Like a billion claws of some pre-Earth monster, that lived in the aether. They reached toward the dome, which was blue with a hint of orange during the day like all the domes, towering over the wide, scooter-filled streets. I watched people zipping here and there, some in the small, two-seater cars, others on standing scooters.

  There was this faction of colonists that hated everything that the Mars settlements had become. Sometimes they staged demonstrations in the public areas of each colony, chanting and shouting and rallying. We had the chance to make a clean start! What did we do? Imported all the worst parts of Earth!

  Like streets. Cities. Scooters. Cars. And classes.

  New Tokyo was the biggest of the seven colonies. I’d only ever been to Neuholland, by way of New Hyderabad. Those colonies had their quirks, and I’d gaped at them an appropriate amount. But so far, New Tokyo won for being the strangest of the settlements.

  There were brightly lit signs everywhere, flashing on the sides of the dome-scrapers, telling me what I needed to buy and how to live appropriately, like how much water to use and how much food to eat and how to conserve. Hemingway put his arm around me.

  “What a strange city,” he said.

  “Completely. Those signs are telling us to conserve resources while consuming resources to tell us that.”

  “The eternal quandary of government,” Hemingway said.