Before Mars

by Emma Newman

  With a faint smile she looks around, still proud, still drawing so much pleasure and satisfaction from what we all built together. For her, the magic of that time still surrounds her. The memories of that summer are preserved the old-fashioned way. I was too young to record a mersive, but I have footage from my bear, watched many times since then.

  That bear was one of those things that my parents would have preferred us not to have, but when pretty much every child had one and society viewed them as the cornerstone of modern childhood, they couldn’t bring themselves to deprive us. From the outside it looked like any teddy bear with big friendly eyes and fur. The more expensive models could be fully customized, so some kids had unicorns or hippos or hybrid creatures that appealed to them. Mine was an average brown bear, but like every single one, it was far from just a cuddly toy.

  The friendly eyes were also cameras and the rounded, fluffy ears hid microphones, giving the AI housed within a view of the world and the ability to record whatever it saw and heard. The bear was designed to be a constant companion in childhood, providing information and advice to supplement learning as well as the usual comfort any cuddly toy can provide. What set the bear apart from all of the other intelligent children’s toys was the fact that it was made using the same supporting technology as was used in neural chips. The bears were designed to record everything so that when their owners were old enough for their first neural chips, there was a wealth of data to feed them right from the start. Any learning difficulties could then be supported at the neural level; any traumatic experiences could be synced with MyPhys and used to notify health care providers where necessary. There were thousands of ways that gathered data was used to help the new neural chip better integrate with each teenager’s brain.

  And for the gov-corps to harvest all the data they could ever want.

  When I think back to that summer, I can’t tell what I remember because of what I saw through my own eyes and what I remember because I saw it later through the bear’s recordings, but I remember how it felt well enough.

  It did feel magical. At nine years old, I was too young to fully appreciate just how unusual my parents were. I didn’t understand enough about the world to see what they did, to predict what was coming. I couldn’t grasp the magnitude of the changes taking place, driving their decisions. For me, it was just an adventure. One day we were living in a perfectly normal block of flats in London’s sprawl; the next we were living in an old caravan in Scotland, huddled in a valley with other families, helping one another to build our houses. We were together then, the four of us, Mum, Dad, Geena and me. And we were happy.

  “I miss you, Sprout.” She blows her nose. “And Geena too. I haven’t heard from her, but I know where she is and . . .” Her voice breaks. “She’s safe,” she manages, fresh tears falling. I can’t tell if it’s her usual policy of not talking about anything sensitive on a digital medium, or her inability to talk about it without breaking down. I struggle to manage my frustration. Her behavior is perfectly understandable. “I think you need to put some art in your room,” she says after blowing her nose again. “Make yourself feel a bit more at home. I spoke to Charlie and he’s fine. I’m going to visit them soon. He might bring Mia up in the summer. I hope so. She needs to know what it’s like to be somewhere normal. We just have to wait for the weather to calm down a bit. We told them it’s getting worse here—those architects, I mean—but they didn’t listen. Averages aren’t good enough when it comes to critical data. As you well know, eh, Sprout? Well, I’d better go. The cats need feeding and I have some vases to fire. I’ll show them to you when they’re done. Don’t let anyone tell you how to paint Mars either. And don’t be too hard on yourself if you take a while to get started. Get a feel for the place. With all that expectation upon you, don’t be surprised if you feel a bit blocked at first. Talk to me if you have any problems, all right? Oh, Annabelly! I am so proud of you!”

  Her face crinkles up when she smiles, and I can’t help but smile back.

  “Oh, and when you get a minute . . . could you . . . would you record a message for your dad? I think he would like it, very much.”

  All the feelings of warmth and connection evaporate. She waves good-bye, blows kisses, and after another pink blur as she goes to the cam drone itself to stop the recording, the message ends. I watch it all with a scowl on my face, left with the weight of obligation. Why can’t she understand how I feel about him?

  Because I’ve never talked to her about it, comes the immediate reply. Not properly. And being on another planet, literally, is not conducive to deep and difficult conversations.

  The day stretches ahead. There’s time to record all the replies I need to, but I have no desire to smile and make out that all is brilliant here. At least I feel less dizzy, and stronger than I did yesterday. I’m tired, but that’s to be expected. Just moving around here is like a gentle workout compared to the trip over. It’s not as bad as I was told it could be though. Surely I’ll be able to go outside tomorrow?

  There are things to do: safety protocols to review for when I can go outside, a full tour of the base and a trip to the lab to test the paper that note was painted on. And another physical, but I’m less worried about that. Then the icon flashes to indicate an incoming call. It’s Arnolfi.

  Minutes later I am sitting in her office again. There’s a different view on the screen this time, and a different atmosphere. She still smiles and makes out that everything is fine, but there’s a tension here that I know too well to be fooled.

  “We need to talk about what happened at dinner last night.”

  At least she’s direct. “I made a mistake, a silly one. It won’t happen again.”

  “This isn’t a disciplinary review,” she says. That smile again. She’ll be telling me she’s not a therapist any moment now. “This isn’t anything other than a discussion about how we move forward over the next few days.”

  I have to keep positive and not let her see how irritated this is making me. “I’m feeling stronger today. And less dizzy. I’m confident I’ll pass the physical, and then tomorrow, when I can go outside, I’ll be busy again. More . . . connected. That’s all it was yesterday.”

  “I can’t approve a trip outside if I have any doubts about your mental well-being.”

  “Oh, come on. It was one lapse of concentration. In a totally harmless situation. There’s no need to talk about mental well-being here.” I sound annoyed. I am annoyed! I try to paste over it with a smile.

  “Isn’t there? I’m concerned you’ll have another lapse of concentration but not in a harmless situation. There’s no need to be defensive about this. I’m not attacking you. I’m just trying to help you understand how serious this is, so we can work together to ensure your integration here goes as smoothly as possible.”

  I’ve folded my arms again. Crossed my legs. Adopted the textbook pose of someone being so defensive she’s one step away from walking out.

  “I’m not your therapist,” she says and I suppress a laugh, “but I am one of the registered health care providers on this base and you are exhibiting the early signs of immersion psychosis and we need to address it, now. It’s perfectly understandable, given the circumstances, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of.” When I remain silent—playing her at her own game—she adds, “I need your understanding and your cooperation. We both want you to be fit enough to go outside and do the job you’ve been sent here to do.”

  I need to stop being an arsehole about this, or she’ll block me from leaving the base. But it’s so hard to just sit here and take this after the countless hours I’ve spent in offices like this, talking to people like her. Then it occurs to me that all that tedious experience gives me an advantage here. I fall back on old techniques refined years ago on Earth. “You’re right,” I say, softening my voice. “I’m sorry. I just . . . I just don’t want everyone to think I’m not good enough to be here.” I ad
d just enough of a quiver to my voice to make it sound like I’m confessing something genuine. “I don’t want to be any bother either.”

  Arnolfi leans across the gap between us, squeezes my arm in what I’m sure she believes is a reassuring gesture and leans back again. “I won’t discuss this with anyone else. We need to fully embed you in the present, and we need to wean you off your dependency on fully immersive personal recordings. My recommendation is that we limit your use of personally recorded mersives, and any featuring this base, to a total of one hour per day. I also recommend regular physical exercise throughout the day, along with time spent in the company of one or more of the crew here. There’s lots to bring you up to speed on, so that won’t be a problem. Do you agree with this plan?”

  I nod. I have to. “It sounds very sensible,” I say.

  “Good, just give me a moment to file the restriction request with Principia and—”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The restriction on your mersive consumption will be imposed by Principia’s AI. To take the pressure off you.”

  To take the control from me, more like. “To remove temptation,” I say with a nod. “Of course. I understand.” Fuck you, I think.

  “This is a form of addiction,” she says. “You can’t be expected to simply stop overconsuming. That would be unfair. And I do appreciate that you have a family you miss and totally cutting you off from those memories of home could be more harmful. We’ll see how you get on over the next twenty-four hours. Don’t be afraid to call on me, or Dr. Elvan, if you find yourself feeling disoriented or uncertain about anything. We’re here to help.”

  “Thanks,” I say. “Can I use the lab while we’re . . . doing this?”

  “Of course. Principia will supervise and may restrict access to anything that could be harmful, just because you haven’t been signed off as fully fit yet.”

  “Oh, I won’t need anything like that. I’m just . . . keen to find my feet in there, that’s all.” I stand. “I’ll go and check it out now. Keep busy, you know?”

  She nods as she stands too. “This is a really difficult time for all new arrivals, even without the isolation of a solo journey over. It will get better.” She’s gracefully walking the fine line between being professionally reassuring and being patronizing as hell, and yet I still want to yell at her to stay out of my business. This is within her remit. She’s not the one being unreasonable here.

  I leave before I say something stupid. It’s only when I’m out of that office, away from her, that I realize how hostile I was in there. She’s just trying to help and do her job. She’s not like the ones from before. I need to give her a chance.

  But why the note warning me about her? I go back to my room, find it and take it to the lab. I’m hoping it’s a fake as I prepare the sample for examination, that someone here somehow accessed my private data, found examples of my art, painted it in my style and thought it would be . . . funny?

  Feeling nauseous, I put the scrap of paper under the microscope and zoom in, double-checking what I saw with my own lens. The paper is definitely from one of my sketchbooks. I can see the fibers of the traditionally made paper, all the hallmarks that my grandparents taught me about. The deckle edge proves that it was crafted using a frame and not made here with a 3-D printer. The sketch pads I use come from old stock, left over from when they closed their art supplies shop, after even the wealthiest stopped wanting their products. They saw it as my inheritance; my grandmother said that seeing me use the sketch pads and canvases gave them more happiness than any money they could earn from them ever would.

  Chemical analysis of the paint only increases my certainty that the words were painted with the oils I have brought from Earth. It has the telltale high carbon content of the ivory black oil that I use for shadow detailing in the last stages of a painting. I love the intensity of the color. The proportion of calcium phosphate to synthetic carbon is exactly the same as used by the specialist oils manufacturer my grandparents stocked.

  There’s no way this could have been printed. And even if someone did steal the paper from the cargo crate between unloading it from the ship and taking it to my room, how could they have found an example of my art style to copy? Do any of them know how to hack into private data? But the biggest stumbling block for me is the motive. If it was a genuine warning, why hide it? The sort of people who do this kind of thing as a prank are not likely to make it through the selection process to come here. It simply doesn’t make any sense for anyone else to have done it.

  I clean the microscope plate and put the scrap in my pocket, shaking. Everything suggests I painted this myself, a warning against a person I hadn’t even met yet, an act of defiance that I have no recollection of. Did I paint this yesterday and then somehow forget?

  Sitting heavily on one of the lab stools, I rest my head in my hands. All this time I’ve been running away from it and it finally catches me up on Mars of all places. I am my father’s daughter, and if that’s true, then I could destroy everything here. Just like he did all those years ago.

  6

  IF I AM going to accept that the note is real (and I have to; otherwise, I have just spent several hours hallucinating a detailed lab analysis), then it looks like I must also accept that I painted it myself. I needed more data, now I have it, and as a good scientist I have to accept the conclusion it points me toward.

  The issue is with my recollection of painting it, not imagining a note hidden in my room. And considering I’ve spent literally weeks of the past few months immersed in memories recorded and played back by my chip, is it any wonder I have forgotten a few little things?

  But then if that’s the case, I have also forgotten why I was warning myself against trusting Arnolfi, and considering I only met her on arrival, I’m struggling to understand why I did that.

  The only thing I really know about her is that she is the resident therapist, even though she denies she is. That’s all the reason I need to be wary of her. Yes, that’s it. I was warning myself, that’s all. And I just forgot that I painted the . . .

  Shit. No matter how hard I try, I cannot make it seem plausible. But what are the alternative explanations? And there’s the fake wedding ring, now settled into place on my finger. No amount of calm thinking is going to change the fact that I am exhibiting the same behavior as my father in the early days. Being distracted, claiming that things had been moved without his knowledge or permission, answering questions none of us had asked and then accusing us of trying to trick him. JeeMuh. Was this what it was like for him?

  It’s terrifying, to think that there is some part of your mind not acting in concert with the rest. Was he afraid? Was that why he—

  No. Thinking about something that I have worked so hard to put away in a place where it can no longer haunt me is not going to help now. I have to stay strong. Be professional. Otherwise Arnolfi and Elvan will keep me cooped up and then I really will go mad.

  I laugh, then shut that down immediately, grateful that I’m alone in the lab. I make sure that all of the tests have been deleted and head back to my room.

  If there’s one thing I learned at an early age, it was the art of pretending that nothing is wrong. That was what made it so hard with Charlie. He always knew. He could see past the carefully constructed walls and detect a fake smile at a hundred paces. Strange how that quality I so admired in him at the start of our relationship became one of the things I hated the most. He wouldn’t let me retreat into my constructed social fort. He wanted nothing but my real self, all the time, even when I didn’t want to show him. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d accepted what I was really like at my worst moments.

  Here, no one knows me. I can build that wall brick by brick, held together with the mortar of determination. I need to get outside. I keep up the smiles, I follow Arnolfi’s advice, I exercise and socialize and I don’t let myself sink into a single mersive�
��neither a recorded memory nor a game—for the rest of the day. I sleep well (thanks to neurochemical assistance), I rise early, I keep all of the worries about the ring and the piece of paper trapped behind my lips. And I manage to keep it up for several days. I need to get outside. I need to see Mars. With every day of working so damn hard to seem normal—no, damn it, I am normal!—the need increases.

  And it works. Arnolfi and Elvan sign me off. He talks about writing a paper about my incredible recovery from the trip, enthusing about my blood test results and how the spinner seems to have kept me in pretty good shape. “I thought it would be at least a week before your results looked this good,” he said, staring into space as he examined the numbers displayed for his sight only and I tried not to think about how beautiful his eyes are.

  Less than half an hour after he’s confirmed I can go out in one of the rovers, I have filed a request to take a trip outside and Petranek has agreed to accompany me. My stomach flutters with anticipation as I head toward the dust lock, running through all my training as I walk down the dusky red corridors. The Martian concrete blocks, mixed, printed and constructed by Principia and its drones long before the first human came here, have already become commonplace. How quickly we adapt. I can never decide if that is a strength or a weakness of the species. No longer chafing against something new isn’t always a good thing.

  I’m wearing an undersuit onesie and it’s tighter than anything I’d normally wear. The fabric is breathable, warm and designed to wick sweat away from my skin. It also has a built-in nappy. The last time I wore one of these, for the takeoff, I couldn’t bring myself to test its water-absorbent properties. I’m hoping I won’t have to today either. At least the areas designed to absorb and contain are discreet.