Section Three was clear. I stopped chewing gum and listened to profound stillness. Inhaling deep, I let calmness wash through me and drown any anxiety threatening to form.
The fourth section was located behind a staircase that climbed to level three. Keeping the external wall at my back, I sidled down a brief, bizarre corridor. A sign reading Domestic Animals hung from the ceiling, and the walls on both sides revealed drawings and pictures of animals—dogs, cats, rabbits, fish, and others—all native to Earth.
These creatures had never existed on Mars.
Section Four held hiding places, but a quick examination told me no one lurked in the crevices. Cars, busses, and trains cluttered the floor, useless relics in a city without streets. Scale models of an airplane and a helicopter hung from the ceiling. I checked the room quickly, confident that Preston wasn’t hiding there. I glanced at my wristwatch. Only five minutes had elapsed since I entered the building.
Near Section Four’s last display, voices filtered from the staircase leading to floor three. In one motion I raised my firearm, slipped off the safety, and activated the magazine for rapid fire. Two youths stepped off the final tread, turned, and made their way towards the ground floor. They didn’t look in my direction and neither one was Preston. I climbed the staircase to a third level which opened onto a large hallway. It turned back on itself in both directions.
Warm air in the museum rose to the upper floor and brought with it the dusty smell of stale exhibits. Late afternoon sunlight filtered through slit windows high in the walls and reflected off floating dust particles that resembled an armada of invading alien microbes.
The fifth and final section of the museum resembled a head-hunter’s trophy cabinet. Raised five feet above the floor on cylindrical stone pillars were the statuette faces of famous or important people from Earth’s history: stars, musicians, sports personalities, presidents, leaders; all displayed in chronological order. Mumbled voices floated on the still air. Preston wasn’t alone, although I didn’t for one moment expect his companion to be either Hawkes or Pierce.
Flicking the magazine into single fire mode, I raised my semi-automatic and stepped away from the wall.
Preston didn’t look like a hardened criminal, nor did he resemble the kind of person who warranted having his name on a government extermination list. A short man, he dressed casual and always had his blond hair trimmed and combed. He didn’t smoke and refused to inhale or inject any of the drugs he so eagerly sold to his many unfortunate clients. He could have been mistaken for a law-abiding citizen, but his façade was only skin deep.
Narcotics had become his stepping stone from a life of poverty into one of corrupt money with more downs than ups. He always looked for that next step into something bigger, and Pierce offered him such an opportunity. In addition, Preston happened to be gullible; a quality Pierce liked his ‘business contacts’ to have.
Preston hadn’t made the list by being a threat to the government; he’d simply made a bad career choice.
Stepping into the room, I found myself disappointed by the company he kept. Long, unkempt hair hung on limp shoulders, and shaking fingers picked at a colorful skirt. For some reason known only to her, Charlotte had decided to pay Preston another visit. Possibly to warn him, I had no idea, but whatever the excuse it would be a brainless one.
Maybe our current generation was just as stupid as our predecessors.
Preston saw me and his eyes widened.
I smiled. “Hello, Preston. How’s things?”
When he had the need, Preston could be quite agile. In one fluid movement he grabbed Charlotte by both shoulders, spun her to face me, slipped a strong left arm across her upper chest, pulled a handgun from the inside of his thin jacket, and pushed its barrel against the girl’s head.
“Back off, Steele, or I’ll blow her fucking brains out.”
I smiled. Sometimes Preston’s smokescreen of smooth talking composure was entirely transparent. Charlotte’s face twisted in anguish, draining of color.
“Charlotte, I thought I told you to go home.”
“Please, Steele, I was just—”
Preston silenced her by pushing the barrel into her temple and pressing her head against one shoulder.
“What?” he said. “You know him? Oh man, did you tell him I was here?”
“No, Preston, I just—”
He shut her up again with another firm jab from the gun.
Preston held the firearm so tight his knuckles paled. The gun looked big in his small hand, but the weapon’s design gave it a significant and powerful appearance. Manufactured twenty years ago, the Weston handgun should have been on display along with the museum’s other archaic items.
In contrast, my limited edition Gibson and Marx semi-automatic had a two-hundred round magazine, could fire one-thousand rounds a minute with a lethal accuracy of up to nine hundred meters, and enough velocity to drive a bullet through Preston’s brain before he even knew I’d squeezed the trigger.
Well aware of the fact, Preston shook with fear.
I, however, had done this over a thousand times in the past. “We need to talk.”
“Fuck off. I’ve got nothing to say to you.”
“Oh yes you do. You will talk to me.”
He backed away and tried to edge himself towards the stairwell to his right. He scanned the room, nervous eyes darting in much the same way Charlotte’s had not so long ago in the Arrivals Hall. She swallowed often, riding waves of nausea.
“Stay back,” Preston ordered again. “I’m warning you; you take one step closer, and I’ll blow her fucking brains all over these walls.”
I stepped forward. “Go on then.”
Charlotte’s expression distorted further. Tears bubbled onto flushed cheeks, her lips moving in a wordless plea.
Preston cursed and grappled against Charlotte’s uncooperative weight.
Another stride brought me closer. “Come on then, do it.”
His finger hovered by the trigger, but he would never squeeze it. When faced with adversity, Preston was nothing more than a coward. Not me though, courage is something I have plenty of.
My finger squeezed once and the weapon kicked against my shoulder.
Charlotte gasped as warm blood spattered her face. As his shoulder exploded, Preston howled in agony. Tumbling backwards, he dislodged a statue from its column. It splintered, sending fragments cart-wheeling across the floor. The Weston handgun clattered harmlessly out of reach and Preston sucked in a gasp of air before issuing another excruciating scream.
Mouth open, Charlotte staggered away, eyes wide in a fearful stare. She froze when she gazed into the muzzle of my gun directed at her forehead. I liked Charlotte, but it wouldn’t stop me from putting a bullet in her brain if I’d exhausted all other options. I tried my best to abide by the law laid down by my employers that forbade the slaughtering of innocents. I spoke clearly and with authority.
“You so much as breathe my name, I’ll find you.”
Charlotte nodded.
“Now fuck off home.”
She turned and ran, staggered then caught herself before disappearing down the staircase. The stink of urine lingered after her departure. The flavor had drained from the chewing gum, so I wet my fingers and removed it before molding its pale mass into the nostril of a bust to my right. Preston kicked out, pushing his heels into the carpet in an effort to get away. I walked over and stood on his destroyed shoulder. He screamed louder.
I brought the barrel of my weapon to rest upon his brow.
“Like I said, we need to talk.”
Preston gulped the room’s stagnant air, his face red with suffering. He reached out and grabbed my leg behind the kneecap, fingers squeezing. Pain flashed through my limb, and I whipped the gun around, away from his head. This time I obliterated his hand with a shot to the wrist. The little bastard would talk even if I had to shoot a hole in every limb he had. Preston shrieked harder as the hot barrel of my gun pressed against
his temple.
“Where the fuck’s Pierce?” I asked.
He didn’t answer.
Repositioning the weapon and then squeezing the trigger, a bullet blasted through the floors below us. His skin split along the shell’s trajectory. The stench of singed hair assaulted my nostrils along with the sharp tang of blood.
“I said, where’s Pierce?”
He quit screaming long enough to say, “You should know that more than me.”
“Is that so?” My boot sank into traumatized flesh and Preston bellowed once more.
“Okay, okay,” he pleaded. “I don’t know, I swear, I’ve never seen him. I’ve only spoken to him on the phone.”
He could have been lying, but I didn’t have time to squander. Preston bled profusely, and his only way out was either immediate medical attention or death. The Martian Interstellar Correction Agency laws regulating my profession stated that the first alternative was not an option for fugitives.
“Okay then, where’s Hawkes?”
“F—, Fu—” Preston had to swallow twice before he told me to fuck off.
“I’ll help you, Preston,” I said, my voice layered with reassurance. “You tell me, and I’ll get you the help you need.”
He nodded but didn’t speak.
“Where’s Hawkes?”
“He’s not here... ” Preston’s anemic expression indicated a struggle to remain conscious. “Not yet.”
“When?” A little more pressure to his shoulder encouraged him to stay with me and keep talking.
Preston no longer screamed, his legs stopped kicking, his eyes started to roll.
“Later... ” The word came out weak and barely audible. He sucked air erratically, each breath more labored than the last. Finally, he managed to squeeze out, “He’s coming in on... the seven o’clock shuttle.”
“Seven o’clock this evening?”
Preston’s nod was feeble yet noticeable.
“And you’ve no idea where Pierce is?”
Preston shook his head.
“But you do work for him, don’t you?”
As if issuing a defeated confession, he nodded once.
I smiled, squeezed the trigger, and then crossed Preston’s name from my list.
THREE
By the time I’d left the museum and ridden the next available pod up to level four’s second district, it had started to rain. It rained on Mars every October with an almost boring inevitability. Storm water ran in thick rivulets down the external walls like blood from the dying city, and steam vapor rose as boiling rainwater churned and bubbled in a swarm of miniature geysers.
A little over three hundred years ago Mars had become active once again, its giant volcanoes rumbling to life as if the planet had woken from a long hibernation. Altering the landscape for the past few centuries, three massive shield volcanoes to the east of Olympia belched forth smoke and ash into an overcast atmosphere already rocked by hurricane-force winds. When it rained from storm clouds as black as a Martian night, heated droplets scorched the city.
Muffled by the pyramid, the downpour became a patter of disturbing background noise.
Olympia’s Centre for Education dominated the middle of the district, red bricks giving the building a degree of prominence. Deceptive lighting, provided at great expense to the education committee, gave the structure a constant, surreal glow. The apartment blocks and stores sharing the district, built with dark gray stone dug from deep in the mineshafts, looked nondescript in comparison to the education center, but they seemed to leer over me.
Forged of iron found in the mines, a ten-foot high barricade surrounded the school perimeter. Fitted to the left gatepost the security panel’s green active light glowed brightly on its scanner. Placing my hand on the tepid glass plate caused the LED to turn red.
“Access denied” the electronic voice said.
I nodded, satisfied. Only teachers and pupils gained admission to the complex. The safest school in Olympia, The Centre for Education was the only place I would consider sending my daughter.
Muffled by the school’s walls, the final bell rang, and three minutes later pupils spewed onto the concourse. There weren’t many of them now, but even in a sterile world an education was something worth harvesting. Shauna skipped towards the gates, brimming with confidence as she waved farewell to some of her classmates.
My little girl; so full of life.
She’d tied her hair back while in school, a different style than the one she wore when she left that morning. Instead of long, dark tresses framing her picture-perfect face, the new look displayed her full, unobstructed beauty. Waiting until she left the school grounds, I scooped her into my arms.
“How was your day?”
“It was the last one, so it was pretty cool.”
I laughed and set her on the ground. “The last one on Mars remember, not forever.”
She playfully slapped my arm. “Don’t spoil it.”
I hugged her again, and she flushed crimson.
“Let’s go home,” I said. The buildings seemed to press closer, as if they had uprooted from their foundations and taken a step towards us. Olympia’s dangers never go away.
Walking hand in hand to a transfer pod in the neighborhood’s eastern corner, we stepped into the vehicle and traveled down.
Shauna slipped off her rucksack and trapped it between her legs, hooking one foot through the arm strap. We weren’t alone in the transit. Two girls, one in the same class as Shauna, sat at the far end of the pod on either side of their mother. Their conversation sounded lively, but not loud. A man and a boy sat across from us, probably a father and his son. The child looked at cards in his hand and the man stared at the city through the pod’s window.
They didn’t speak; faces solemn like the world they lived in.
“Dad,” Shauna said.
“What is it, sweetheart?”
“What’s Titan like?”
I wanted to tell her it was home, but Mars had been the only place she’d known. Instead, I told her about the good things: the absence of unsightly cities such as Olympia spoiling the view; about my parent’s farm—the place of my birth—a prosperous homestead which remained the focal point of our hamlet. I wanted to tell her about the spectacle from my bedroom window; a rough terrain, a horizon dominated by the gas-giant Saturn, and dawn sunshine fractured by a multitude of rings.
I didn’t tell her about the negative things: long, cold nights due to the moon’s slow rotation speed and days of darkness as Titan’s orbit trapped it behind Saturn; about the monotony of living in a small community, housed inside a large dome erected on a moon with a choking atmosphere.
Our arrival at the second level station interrupted me. Shauna slung the rucksack over her shoulders, and we exited the pod. It pulled away to continue its route between the second and fourth levels, as the next pod whispered to a stop at the platform. Three youths sat onboard, one with his feet against a window, the other two dividing drugs between them. Loud music blared from within. Shauna stepped forward to board but I squeezed her arm.
“Let’s take the next one,” I said.
She nodded. A good girl, she did as she was told. Every day she gave me fresh hope. One day she would learn about the frailty of mankind, but I wouldn’t purposely introduce her to it. Olympia displayed its sickness to me daily, a growth of violence spreading through the city like a crippling disease. Each new dawn created a new murderer, a different virus with the same symptoms.
I pray sometimes that I can remain immune.
My victim’s ethereal figures floated into view and pinched at my conscience, reminding me of my infection. They visit my daydreams and nightmares from time to time as tortured phantoms. Ghosts created by my profession.
I no longer take pride in my work and have not done so since the moment of Shauna’s birth. I glanced at her face and realized how much she’d changed, how much she’d grown. It frightened me—the speed with which time passed us by.
&nb
sp; The wail of her first breath still lingered in my memory, along with the overwhelming sense of relief that she’d survived the trauma of birth. The human race might have reached its scientific limits and the boundaries of our solar system, but in a world devoid of viable resources childbirth had regressed into a perilous process. I consider myself the luckiest man in the world to have my daughter by my side, but it tears me apart that I have to lie to her every day.
I gave her life, and yet I take the lives of others—it’s a burden, and I carry it heavily on my shoulders.
We stepped together onto the next pod bound for level one. Slumping into a seat near the pod’s entrance, its walls folded around me like a tomb. Shauna sat beside me, set the bag between her legs, and studied me intensely.
“What are you thinking about, Dad?”
Scooping up her soft hand, my index finger traced the bridge of her perfect nose. “I was just thinking about how much I love you.”
She smiled. “I love you too.”
I would die for my little girl, without hesitation. In a blaze of glory, or with a whimper, it wouldn’t matter as long as Shauna stayed secure and protected for the rest of her days. I love her more than anything in my life.
Well, not quite true; I adore someone else with all of my being, but that’s a different kind of love.
FOUR
Kari will always be the most perfect woman I have ever met. We found each other at The Oyster Club up on level five less than a week after my arrival on Mars. She worked as a waitress then, back when the place had energy and life: when hope still had meaning in the lives of those who entered its walls.
She changed my life for the better.
When she came to my table the world seemed to stop, as though time itself defied the laws of physics. The club became a muted cauldron of blurred images where nothing really existed except the woman before me. She sat at my table when she’d finished her shift. We talked until the club closed its doors, and then at her place we made love. We’ve never been apart since. She stole my heart and refuses to give it back, but that’s fine with me.
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