Then I got an idea.
“Hey!” I shouted. “Help! Help!” My voice echoed in the cramped storage room.
Two seconds later the door opened. I blinked against the light that outlined two security guards.
“Shut your mouth, kid,” the first guard said. “You’re not going anywhere. And no one will be able to help you.”
I hadn’t really expected help. I’d just wanted to find out how close the guards were, if there were any.
He’d answered my question. Two of them sat right outside the door.
Why was it so important to keep two guards in front of me when I was so helpless to do anything?
I realized this small storage area was familiar. I had stood in front of it barely a week ago with a robot controlled by Ashley. I’d just learned that she, like I, had a spinal implant that allowed her to control a robot through the brain impulses that normally move a body’s muscles.
You see, as part of the long-term plan to develop Mars, scientists hoped to use robots, controlled by humans, to explore the planet. Humans need oxygen and water and heat to survive on the surface. Robots don’t. But robots can’t think or feel like humans.
But what if technology made it possible for your brain to be wired directly into the controls of a robot? Then wouldn’t you be able to see, hear, and do everything the robot could?
Well, that’s me. Through my spinal implant, I was the first human to be able to control a robot as if it were an extension of the brain.
But not the last.
Ashley had arrived on Mars equipped with the second-generation of human robotics, able to control an even more sophisticated robot. With the portable robot pack, which is a mini-transmitter, she didn’t have to be strapped to a medical bed in a computer lab.
The surgeon who had done her operation on Earth had learned from my operation. He didn’t make any mistakes that put her in a wheelchair. So she had the best of both worlds. A human body that worked the way it should. And the ability to control robot bodies.
If she was alive.
This room had held the Hammerhead, a prototype space torpedo capable of destroying targets as large as a small moon. The Hammerhead had been designed to be handled the same way I handled the robot. Except instead of handling it with remote X-ray beams, a person needed to be hooked up inside it. I’d only flown it in virtual reality, learning to control its moves in a simulated combat program on a computer.
Ashley had actually flown it once. When she’d headed straight for Phobos, accelerating to thousands of miles per hour before crashing directly into the moon.
The night in front of this storage area, I’d stopped Ashley’s robot from destroying the space torpedo because I hadn’t known Dr. Jordan’s true plans for it.
My heart twisted with sadness and regret as I thought about it. If I’d allowed Ashley to wreck the Hammerhead then, she wouldn’t have had to fly it. And if she hadn’t had to fly, it wouldn’t have taken her into the surface of a moon at a speed fast enough to fuse the moon’s rock into a gigantic crater.
But …
There was still some hope in my heart.
When I’d woken up yesterday, the fourth day after the crash, I’d been startled. On the seat of my wheelchair was an earring just like the one on a silver chain around my neck. As if someone had placed it there while I slept.
Only Ashley had the matching earring. Or so I thought.
But in the time since, I hadn’t seen her. I’d begun to wonder if the earring on my wheelchair was someone’s idea of a very mean joke. When the cave-in had occurred, all my thoughts had turned to Rawling and the three others still trapped.
And then …
This.
All of this.
In the dimness, I stared at nothing and tried to block out my fear and worry.
And I did the only thing I could do. I prayed again.
CHAPTER 8
“Why do I always have to deal with you?”
The door to the storage area had opened, and a large man filled the doorway. I couldn’t see the features of his face because of the shadows behind it, but I definitely knew who it was. In the time I’d had to think in the dark, I’d realized that Dr. Jordan had to be working with someone who used to be high up at the Mars Dome. And because I trusted Rawling, that could be only one person.
Ex-director Blaine Steven.
During the oxygen crisis, I’d disobeyed Steven’s direct orders. He’d lost his directorship over mishandling the crisis. Later, when Dad and I and Rawling left the dome for a three-day expedition, Blaine Steven had once again taken over the dome. Only our successful return had stopped him. But now it looked like, once again, he’d been released from his arrest. And that meant he and Dr. Jordan had to be working with some high-level people somewhere on Earth. It looked like those people wanted to use the Mars Project for their own means—to control the Earth—instead of helping to accomplish its original purpose.
Unlike with Dr. Jordan, I knew exactly what Steven meant by his question.
“Shouldn’t you be worrying about how to deal with the cave-in instead?” I asked as an answer. “And what about everything else happening in the dome?”
He stepped forward. The two security guys stood behind him. He switched on a light in the storage room.
The room was so small and Steven so close that I could only see his jumpsuit where it stretched over his belly. I tilted my head back to look upward. Mostly what I saw was chin and nose. His face seemed chipped out of a boulder, with thick, wavy gray hair and eyebrows to match.
Blaine Steven knelt down so we were at eye level, like he was a good guy trying to be helpful. But from past experience, I knew better.
“Listen,” he said, “it’s not good for Dr. Jordan to be this upset. Tell him what he wants, and everything else will go a lot easier.”
“Everything else?”
Blaine Steven sighed. “You have a bad habit of asking questions when you should be giving answers.” He ran his hands through his hair and stood again, then stepped out of the storage room and returned with a chair. He sat on it and stared hard at me with his icy blue eyes. If he was trying to scare me, it didn’t work.
“Everything else?” I repeated.
“Here it is in short,” he said. “Everyone under the dome has been taken hostage.”
“Hostage! But—”
“If you want me to explain, learn to listen.”
I snapped my mouth shut.
“You probably won’t be able to understand because you were born on Mars. You have no idea what it’s like on Earth.”
I had some idea. I knew our presence on Mars was a longterm plan—taking place over 100 years—to make the entire planet a place for humans to live outside the dome. I knew people on Earth desperately needed the room. Already the planet had too many people on it. If Mars could be made a new colony, then Earth could start shipping people here to live. If not, new wars might begin, and millions and millions of people would die from war or starvation or disease.
I didn’t tell Blaine Steven this. He knew it already, and I was determined to listen until he finished.
“Although Earth has been at peace for 20 years because of the World United Federation,” Steven continued, “a lot of political things have been happening beneath the surface of this calm. You don’t pull together a federation of hundreds of countries and expect it to be perfect. In fact, with some of the bigger countries trying to take more water and resources from the smaller countries, the entire planet has been on the verge of war for the last 10 years.”
I knew this. Rawling and I had spent time talking about it.
“Much of the prewar fighting has been done using a very ancient method: spies.”
My throat tightened. Rawling had talked about this too.
Blaine Steven smiled. “I’m proud to tell you that I am one of them. I put my country far above the Federation and have secretly served my own government for 20 years, assisted often by contacts
high in the military—”
I couldn’t help but interrupt. “Like Dr. Jordan.”
His smile thinned. “Like Dr. Jordan.”
“He’s your boss,” I said.
“He and I are working together for the same cause. And the time is right to take action. Taking 200 people hostage with only a handful of men is very simple when the only weapons on the planet are in your control.”
“But why?”
“We have a number of people on Earth in prison for political crimes against the World United Federation. Roughly 200. Once they are released, everyone here will be released. Rest assured, the media on Earth will give us so much coverage that the World United will have no choice but to give in.”
“Four men are dying in a cave-in,” I said. “Someone needs to save them.”
“But that just adds to the drama,” Steven answered with a sly smile. “As does the fact that the shuttle back to Earth has to leave in the next few days or lose the only chance to make the right orbit for another six months.”
My throat tightened again. Dad was the pilot. I knew very well how crucial the Mars-Earth shuttle was to our survival. The journey had to be carefully planned so it occurred when Earth and Mars were nearest each other—roughly 50 million miles apart. At any other time, their orbits placed the planets up to double or triple the distance apart.
I protested. “If the shuttle doesn’t leave, we’ll run short of supplies.”
“Exactly. Which just adds more pressure to the World United Federation.” He laughed. “Of course, what they don’t know is that a select group of the highest military men is planning a takeover anyway.” He tapped my shoulder. “And all of us can thank you for it.”
“Me?”
“You. The guinea pig. We’ve been planning this since before you were born. Once you proved how successful the spinal implant could be, we went ahead and perfected the operation on others. You, and what you can do, make for a perfect military weapon. Space torpedoes and remote-controlled robots! Unstoppable.”
I closed my eyes briefly. “Wrong. I have to choose to help. And I won’t.”
“Perhaps,” he said, his voice silky. “Or perhaps not. Remember we’re holding your parents hostage.”
I could think of nothing to say to this.
“There are, of course, the others.”
Others. Ashley had had the operation. On the night I’d caught her trying to destroy the Hammerhead, she’d whispered, “There are others. Like us. And we are their only hope.” So Ashley was right. But where were the others?
Blaine Steven frowned. I think at himself, not me. “Tyce, let me give you some advice. Tell Dr. Jordan what he wants.”
“I probably would,” I said, “but I don’t know what he’s looking for.”
He exhaled. “You’ve always been stubborn. Even as a kid. You’d been walking only a few months when you had the operation that cut into your spinal nerves. After the surgery you spent hours and hours trying to get to your feet again. You refused to accept the fact that your legs wouldn’t work for you. You never cried, just kept trying to push up. Again and again. I confess, I felt a lot of sympathy for you.”
Steven shook his head in disgust. “Now? Your stubbornness makes me so angry that I’m glad the operation took your legs away from you.” He turned and stopped at the doorway. “Whenever you are ready to tell us what we need, just shout. Until then, enjoy your solitude.”
The door closed, leaving me in darkness again. But this time it was a darkness of body and soul. What he didn’t know was how much his words about my walking and the surgery had hurt.
CHAPTER 9
Some people twiddle their thumbs or tap their fingers when they’re bored or nervous or impatient. Me? I juggle. And because I’ve done it so much, I don’t even have to concentrate anymore. Especially with the gravity on Mars being much lower than on Earth.
I always keep my three red juggling balls in a small pouch hanging from the armrest of my wheelchair. So in the darkness I took them out and began to juggle.
I hoped it would keep my mind away from all my fears.
It didn’t.
My thoughts kept bouncing around, just like the balls I kept in the air in the darkness.
First, I thought about Rawling and how horrible it must be for him if he was even still alive—trapped, with tons of rock on top, not knowing if he would ever be rescued. I thought about what it would be like for the oxygen in his suit to slowly run out or for him to begin to die of thirst. When I got to that point, I desperately tried to think about something else.
Which led me to worrying about Mom and Dad and the hostage situation. I began to wonder what might happen if the political prisoners on Earth were not released. And I began to fear for all of us even more.
But then I heard my mom’s voice in my mind, and I knew what she would say. She was famous for sharing thoughts from the Bible in tough times, and the one that now leaped to my mind was: “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need…. Then you will experience God’s peace.” It was a verse she’d hammered into my head all my life, even before I’d believed in God. I used to roll my eyes at her. But right now, remembering those words gave me the kind of peace I needed, especially when I felt so desperate.
I started to ask myself questions. Who were the “others” Blaine Steven had mentioned? Had Ashley been one of them? Where were they? And what did Dr. Jordan think I’d taken from him?
Then I remembered Blaine Steven saying he was glad the operation had taken away the use of my legs, and I began feeling sorry for myself. I wondered, for the umpteenth time, how my life would have been different without that operation.
After all, I’m the only person in the entire history of humankind who’s lived only on Mars. Everyone else here came from Earth eight Martian years ago—15 Earth years—as part of the first expedition to set up a colony. The trip took eight months. During this voyage Kristy Wallace, a scientist, and Chase Sanders, a space pilot, fell in love. I was born half a Mars year after their marriage, which now makes me 14 Earth years old. The dome’s leaders hadn’t planned on any marriages or babies until the colony was better established, so they were shocked when my mom announced she was having me. Because my birth on the planet made dome life so complicated, my mom was forced to make a decision: either send me back to Earth or allow me to undergo an experimental surgery.
Mom knew that a baby couldn’t take the g-forces of interplanetary travel and that a trip back to Earth would kill me. So she had no choice but to agree to the surgery.
But just as I was starting to feel the most sorry for myself, I remembered Rawling. At least I wasn’t under tons of rock and dying slowly. From there, my thoughts began a big circle all over again.
Finally I decided the best thing I could do was sleep. I let the balls drop one by one and caught them, then put them away.
It was awkward and slow, but I pushed myself out of my wheelchair and curled up on the floor.
Somehow I managed to fall asleep.
CHAPTER 10
I don’t know how much time passed until I woke. But when I did and yawned and stretched, something strange tickled my fingers.
My best guess was a slip of paper.
Which was very, very odd.
If someone had opened the door to put it there, I know I would have woken up. Besides, who would have been able to get past the two guards right out front?
The only two people who had already gotten past the guards were Dr. Jordan and Blaine Steven. I couldn’t imagine them putting a slip of paper in my hand instead of waking me up and yelling at me again.
Not only were the who and the how strange, but so was the why.
The only reason I could think of for anyone to do this was to deliver a message. Of course, if there was a message, maybe then I’d get my answers to all three questions.
Unfortunately reading in the dark is not a specialty of mine. I had learned to juggle a few years
ago, I could handle robots and space torpedoes in virtual-reality and real-life situations, and I could whistle Christmas carols very badly, but I couldn’t read in the dark.
I crawled forward and pushed my hand toward the crack of light that came under the door. Then I angled the slip of paper and leaned my head as close to it as I could.
I couldn’t even see my fingers clearly, let alone any handwriting on a piece of paper.
A solution, however, occurred to me. About the same time I also became aware of another, equally pressing need. I knew about an old Earth saying: “Kill two birds with one stone.”
I crawled back to my wheelchair and pulled myself slowly up into a sitting position. I folded the piece of paper and tucked it down the front of my jumpsuit. Then I took a deep breath and yelled, “Hey, out there! Can you open the door?”
Within seconds, the door opened.
“What is it, kid?” the first security guy asked. “Scared of the dark?”
The other security guy laughed.
“Please,” I answered them both, “can you put the bolts back on my wheels? I … um … need to go to the bathroom.”
I guessed I’d been held prisoner in the storage room for less than a couple of hours. Still, it felt so good to be out under the dome that I already dreaded being put back into the darkness.
As the security guard pushed me away from the equipment area and past the laboratories toward the minidome living area, I looked around. Up, sideways, forward.
The dome was strangely hushed.
Usually scientists and techies would be walking around in twos or threes, discussing their work or trading gossip. Usually, above me, on the second-story platform that ringed the inside of the dome, somebody would be jogging. And most always, there would be at least one person on the higher telescope platform.
Now, nothing.
“Where is everybody?” I asked, shifting in my wheelchair and trying to see past the legs of the guy pushing me.
He put a big hand on my head and twisted it so I was looking straight ahead again. “No questions,” he said. “Eyes forward.”
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