Before Mars

by Emma Newman

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Elvan says. “You knew something was wrong so you distrusted Principia and pressed on with finding Segundus. I’m sorry if I gave the impression I didn’t trust you—before it all came out, I mean. About you finding the other base so quickly.”

  “It was perfectly understandable. It was far too much of a coincidence, because it wasn’t one at all. I guess some part of me wanted to prove it was real.”

  He nods. “I reviewed her research. The wiping technique is reliant on identifying synaptic structures created within a certain time frame. The further back you try to wipe, the more unreliable it gets. Our brains are like distributed processors, connections made all over the place, triggered by all sorts of things. I guess your drive to prove you were telling the truth held on to that memory somewhere else that she couldn’t reach.” Elvan shifts so that he’s facing me. “So, how do you want to handle this?”

  “Handle what?”

  “Us.”

  “Oh.”

  “I know we’re all still reeling,” he says, his hand moving closer until his fingertips brush mine. “And I know this is a terrible time, but . . . I can’t help but feel we were supposed to be together.”

  “What, like fate?”

  He takes in my wrinkled nose and smiles. “Not exactly. I mean, it just feels right. Well, it would if there wasn’t . . . Damn it. I’m sounding like a jerk.”

  “I don’t want to rush into anything,” I say. “I don’t want to be with you, wondering if I’m just clinging, you know? And I think we both need time to grieve.”

  “Of course, yes.” He stands, runs a hand through his hair. “Thanks for talking and . . .”

  “Elvan.” I stand too and reach out to take his hands. “You don’t need to be nervous around me. This is the weirdest, most awful foundation to any relationship, let alone an affair that was wiped from our memories. I’m here for you, and I want to help you get through this. Okay?”

  He nods and we embrace and it feels good. I watch him go and then I sit back down again. I wonder whether he’s right about the death messages helping. I’ve never received one before—at least, not that I can recall—and like him, I’ve never liked the idea of them. They cost a fortune—at least, the ones that are guaranteed to be confidential do—and they’re often horribly out of date. I doubt Charlie or my mum made one. It’s just not their style. I don’t know what would be worse: the standard notification of their death or a personalized message from them.

  “Principia, are there any death messages waiting for me?”

  “Yes, Dr. Kubrin. They were released to you once already and then ring-fenced, as I explained before. Would you like to view them now?”

  “How do you even have them? I thought we lost comms with Earth when it all . . . happened.”

  “Your death messages were uploaded to me upon your arrival, Dr. Kubrin, fully encrypted, only released upon confirmation of the death of the relevant party. Messages for an employee are stored in the GaborCorp server closest to that employee, to minimize the risk of losing messages should the deceased have been killed in a catastrophic incident.”

  “That is so bloody morbid.” Principia doesn’t seem to have an opinion about that. “All right, then, yes, release them to me now. I’ll view them on the wall.”

  A list of names appears, a devastatingly long one, all confirmed as dead. I swipe it away after seeing my mother’s name at the top, and I break down into tears that I’d thought were spent.

  It passes. I drink a glass of water and ready myself once more. “Principia, I can’t handle all those names right now. I’ll say a name; you tell me if there is confirmation of death. Charlie Kubrin.”

  “Yes.”

  “Mia Kubrin.”

  “Yes.”

  I already knew she was dead, but hearing the confirmation feels like some last remnant of hope being slaughtered within me. I grab my pillow and sob into it, my tears soaking into it as the loss gouges something out of me once more. It isn’t just the thought of her death, or even the way she must have died, that makes me howl with grief. It’s the fact I can never make it up to her. That chance to return home, filled with longing for her, ready to fall into that promised love and for us to knit ourselves together as we should have been has been stolen from me, and the injustice, the sheer cruelty of it, is too much to bear.

  All I can do is let it rampage through me until I am left depleted, like a blackened forest after a forest fire. Eventually, I can speak again. “Andrew Wilkinson.” It’s been a long time since I have said my father’s name out loud.

  “Yes.”

  “Geena Wilkinson.”

  “No.”

  I clamp a hand over my mouth in an effort to trap the sob. My sister survived. Oh God, how awful. “Did any of those who died leave me a death message?”

  “Yes. Claire Wilkinson and Charlie Kubrin recorded death messages for you.”

  Who do I destroy myself with first? “Play Charlie’s on the wall.”

  A much younger-looking Charlie appears on the screen, dressed in a shirt he loved two years ago. He smiles and then schools his face into a more serious expression. “I shouldn’t smile, should I? Because if you’re watching this, I’m dead and you’ll be crying.” He frowns for a moment. “At least, I hope you will be, because that means you loved me, and that you miss me. And that’s all I can hope for, right?

  “I love you, Anna. I know I annoy you sometimes. Annoyed you? Should I use the past tense? I don’t really know how to do this. I just wanted to say sorry for the stupid things I’ve done and probably will do between now and when I actually die. I hope I didn’t drown. I probably shouldn’t say that either, should I? I hope it was quick. And I hope I need to record lots more of these between now and when I do actually shuffle off.

  “Oh, and the file containing all our confidential household stuff is in a folder called ‘groceries.’ Just in case you need it. I think my APA tells your APA or something. I don’t know how this works. Is there anything else I’m supposed to say? Oh yeah, um, if you want to be with someone else—you know, if I die young—I want you to know that I’ll come back and haunt you.” He bursts out laughing. “That’s a joke. Kinda.” He laughs again and blows a kiss, and the recording ends.

  The tears have stopped. Now I appreciate, acutely, why so many people hate these messages. How can anyone who is in their prime, who cannot imagine their own mortality, possibly record anything of merit? That wasn’t the Charlie I left behind. That was pre-fatherhood Charlie. And I find myself being glad I am free of him.

  “Come and haunt me, then, you bastard,” I whisper and swipe the still of his face away, hating myself.

  I’m tempted never to watch the one from my mother, to avoid the risk of thinking less of her afterward. But then my mum is cut from a different cloth than Charlie. I ask Principia to play it.

  “Hello, Sprout! I’m recording this on the midwinter solstice because it feels right to face up to death at the darkest point, knowing that things will get better. They will get better, Sprout—trust me. It seems dark now, but you will smile again, you will laugh again and you’ll be able to think of me and smile instead of crying. I lost my mum when I was very young, so I know what I’m talking about.

  “I’ve only made two of these horrible things in my life, one for your dad and one for you and Geena, but then I realized that wasn’t right. There are things I want to say to you that I can’t say to your sister, important things, so here we are. Let me have a slurp—one sec, Pickle.” She leans sideways and comes back into shot with a large glass of wine. She takes a long draft and smiles. “That’s better. Now. Two things. First: your sister. I know you’ve never been close, and as a parent that’s such a hard thing to see. You always hope that siblings will be there for each other when you’re gone, and now I am gone I worry that you’re on your own. I want you to go and find Ge
ena, darling. I want you to patch things up if you haven’t already.

  “She won’t be easy to find, I’m afraid. I last heard from her about two years ago and she said she was joining the Circle. I looked them up online and I didn’t like what I saw, but there we are. She said she met that Alejandro Casales and he made so much sense, she joined there and then. I think she was always running away, to be honest, and she’ll run away from them one day, but if she has, she hasn’t told me yet. They do allow visitors in special circumstances, and I think my death would qualify. Please do try, Sprout. It means an awful lot to me.

  “And now the other thing. Your father. Now, don’t switch this off, because I know what you’re like and you need to listen. I know you’ve never believed me when I said he wasn’t mad. You must have thought I was some weak wife who couldn’t face up to the fact that her husband went insane. Well, you’re wrong. He didn’t go mad. He was a risk to the European gov-corp’s operations. They drove him mad. We’re both risks, but they thought they’d kill two birds with one stone. Anyway, my word isn’t enough; it never has been for you. That’s why I’ve included proof. And it’s cost me a small fortune to buy this security level, so make the most of it! I’d be in a lot of trouble if I was still alive, but what are they going to do? Bring me back from the dead to prosecute me? Ha!

  “You can access it at the end of this message. I don’t have the power to do anything to bring those responsible to justice. There is no justice for little people like me, especially little people who are on wanted lists. I don’t know if you’ll be able to do anything either, but if you can, do! If you can’t, don’t feel bad about it. I just want you to know the reason I have always stood by your father. I want you to know the truth about him. He is a good man who made a bad enemy, nothing more.

  “Well, that’s that, then. I hope you carry on with your art, Sprout. I know you love your rocks, but you have a talent, and it may bring you just as much joy. I love you, deeply. And I want you to be happy. And if you are on Mars when you get this, then draw something in the dust for me. I’d like that. Bye-bye, love. Bye.”

  I can do nothing but weep for what feels like hours in this dreadful elastic time. When it is done, I open the file that became available at the end of the message. And the tears start again.

  22

  THERE IS NOTHING better for plumbing the depths of regret than discovering—too late—that your parents really were far more than you thought they were. My mother was not the corporate bore I thought she was before we all moved to the commune, and neither was my father. Travis was telling the truth.

  There are dozens of documents contained within the file she sent me, with an overview handwritten by my mother and scanned in with her tablet. I skim through transcriptions of private messages sent between top figures in the European government, discussing the problems my parents were causing. How they were single-handedly responsible for the groundswell movement that forced the European gov-corp to enshrine more human rights in their citizen-employee contracts. Things like the right to appeal the results of any legal dispute that relies upon a human judge. The right to change jobs. The right to equal maternity and paternity leave. All of these ideas, lost during the tumultuous ’20s and ’30s in the seismic dying throes of democracy, preserved and then reintroduced into online communities via a clever network of bots that masqueraded as people. My mother wrote the code that powered them and my father wrote the comments and posts and micro-updates that they scattered online. My parents convinced entire online populations that there were thousands of people out there who thought these rights were important and worth fighting for. The power was in the illusion of the consistent minority, the type of group that has so successfully shifted the attitudes of society in the past. I have a flash memory of my father talking to me about it when I was too young to understand. “It’s the consistency that’s important. It helps to form a pattern and that pattern is more important than the detail when it comes to changing people’s minds.”

  The only mistake my parents made was settling down. And I can understand why they were sucked into the system they had always fought: to provide a safe home for me, their first baby. Geena wasn’t born yet. And while they were willing to take the risk of minimal health care and constant threat of imprisonment for themselves, it all changed when they had me to consider. But even in London, well within Norope’s physical and legal borders, those top figures in Europe still pursued them. After a “close call” that Mum doesn’t detail, they appealed to a friend, someone Mum only refers to as “Dr. B,” who helped them to set up the commune.

  But it wasn’t enough. I try to understand transcripts of code, pages and pages of the stuff, but it goes right over my head. Mum’s summary says it’s proof of an external party hacking Dad’s chip, finding a way around the settings that made everyone think it was shut down. It’s terrifying reading—I can’t help but wonder how many other people have been attacked this way—though Mum’s notes are very matter-of-fact, detailing times and dates of the first onset of symptoms, along with a very unemotional account of how she realized, in retrospect, how long it had been happening, even before she got hold of this data to prove it.

  Her love for Dad drove her to go back to that world they’d tried to leave, but she didn’t obtain proof of the hacking until three years after Dad’s incarceration. By then it was too late. She couldn’t risk exposing the crime without incriminating herself, and being the sole parent, she dared not take the risk of seeking a prosecution.

  There’s a document called “read this last.” As if predicting the anger that has bubbled up as all of this has sunk in, Mum left a scan of a handwritten note. It is dated a week before I left for Mars.

  Sprout, don’t be angry with me for not telling you about all this before. I know what you’re like. You wouldn’t have been able to let this go. Living with injustice is one of the hardest things in the world. Your dad and I should have had the rest of our lives together, but I know he would have wanted me to keep you both safe. Pretending not to know what they did to him was the only way to do that.

  Perhaps, when you get back from Mars, when those paintings make you some money, things can change. It will open doors for you, doors I could never even get close to. Pick your friends carefully. I know Stefan Gabor sent you to Mars. You should know that his husband, Travis Gabor, is a friend of Dr. B, but that is something he’ll never admit to. If you are desperate, he may be able to put you in touch. Be careful. I love you. Mum.

  She knew me too well. That same inability to let an injustice go drove me to find Segundus a second time. Some part of me, deep down, couldn’t let Arnolfi get away with what she did and steered me back to the secret she tried so hard to hide. I close my mother’s files down, making sure they’re all saved in my personal, most private folder, in my own chip, with no copy left on Principia’s database. Then I realize it doesn’t matter. The people who did that to my father are either dead or struggling in the aftermath of the war. My parents are dead. There is no justice to seek anymore.

  This is the only legacy of my mother that I have. I weep at the thought of her beautiful ceramics that she’d always planned to leave to me, that I in turn would have left to Mia. Geena was always more fond of Mum’s strange hats, handmade just like the pots, so there was always the understanding that they would be left for her.

  Mum wanted me to go and find Geena after her death, but the Circle is based in the States. As the first missiles were fired from there, there’s no doubt the retaliation will have been brutal. How did my sister survive? Perhaps the Circle is in such a remote area that it escaped any direct hits.

  “Principia, I have some questions. Come and talk to me.”

  The avatar walks out of the bathroom, but there’s not a flicker of amusement left in me. “How can I help, Dr. Kubrin?”

  “Did Travis Gabor die?”

  “No official statement has been made to that effect. A
s he is not a relative, I cannot disclose any more information.”

  I think about trying to locate where Geena would have been when the bombs started falling, but what’s the point without knowing what we’re all going to do next?

  “Can you send a message to everyone except Arnolfi, asking them to meet in the communal area this evening at eighteen hundred hours? Tell them I think we need to take stock and work out our next steps.”

  “Done. Is there anything else I can help you with, Dr. Kubrin?”

  I look at the sketch pad resting on the desk. “Something’s been niggling at me. If you edited the data from the cam drones before showing it to me, why was the mast in that last picture I worked from?”

  “Can I clarify that this is the image you are referring to?” It displays the one I had in mind, a view facing toward Segundus, only missing the mast.

  “Yes, that one. Why didn’t you remove the mast before you showed it to me?”

  “I did, Dr. Kubrin. This is the image I presented to you.”

  “But I saw the mast. I drew it! That’s why I knew it was there!”

  “I can only theorize that it was a remnant of memory that escaped Dr. Arnolfi’s treatment. You do seem to store visual memories in an atypical manner, with a great deal of activity in the associative cortex as well as the visual cortex and—”

  “Stop! I don’t want to know.” I can’t stand the thought of Principia rooting around in my brain. “And Arnolfi wiped the results stored on the ground scanner, didn’t she?”

  “Yes, Dr. Kubrin, with my assistance. Would you like a fully itemized list of the actions I took?”

  I lean back against the wall. “No. It doesn’t matter now. There is one last thing though. If I was here for a month before she did that to us, surely I got loads more messages than the ones you gave me access to since the wipe?”