Drafted

by Holly Hook

  "Just what is going on?" Mom asked, eyeing Matt.

  "Ma'am," he said. "The colonists of Mars are planning to retake Earth from the Grounders. They sent me to request a place to begin the invasion."

  Chapter Four

  "A what?" I asked.

  I had landed in some invasion story, just like the ones that Henry had been discussing on tour. A green man was talking about invading Earth. I had led a scout here without even knowing it. It was no wonder Matt didn't want to speak about this on the way.

  "Excuse me?" Mom asked. The tears dried up to be replaced by shock.

  "We have respect for Earthers on Mars," Matt continued. "Well, those of us who want to take Earth back do. I'm not here to hurt you. Please, hear me out."

  I closed the door, shutting us in the house. I lowered my face mask. Matt did the same, revealing his full, green face.

  Mom gasped and grabbed my arm. It wasn't like her to show much weakness. Just the sight of it made the fear rise back up.

  "Look," I told her. "I don't know what's going on, either, or why Matt came here and fried some Task Force people."

  Matt glared at me for a bit. I had betrayed him, but I had only known this boy for twenty minutes. I didn't have any obligations. I had to blurt it out. A part of me wanted Mom to deal with it instead of me.

  "Can we talk somewhere more private?" Matt asked. "I want to include both of you in this conversation. Your daughter's right that she got drafted. If you want to help her, you'll listen to me."

  "Why are you green?" Mom asked. I had just told her that Matt had fried people, and she was asking about his color. Like me. Matt would tease me about this.

  "I'm not here to talk about that," Matt said. "Tess removed her contacts, so the Task Force can't track her right away, but they will probably come here eventually."

  "Are you truthful?" Mom asked, looking right at me. I could see the fear that she had for me. It was another thing she couldn't hide.

  "Yes," I said. "Can we sit down and listen to what he has to say?" I was as eager to hear him out as Matt was to tell us what the deal was. He had come from space to offer help to us Earthers and our impossible mission. It was better than nothing.

  In the end, Mom led us to her office. Monitors on the wall displayed different sections of the park. I spotted Dad working with the crew at the pond, replacing boards on the dock. He was oblivious. I was almost glad that Dad wasn't here. He brought too much paranoia to the table. Matt would think I was a freak if he saw it.

  Why was I worried about that? Matt was green, for crap's sake.

  Mom removed her contact lenses. The fear was spreading.

  "Break them," Matt said.

  "I cannot break my contacts," Mom said. "I need to manage my park at all times."

  "Stop being such a workaholic," I said. "Smash them!"

  Mom sat in her leather chair, motioning for me and Matt to sit in the chairs opposite her. She didn't crush her contacts. Instead, she slipped them into a drawer. Mom looked older than her forty-five years all of a sudden. "Do explain why you are here," she said to Matt. It was all business now. She had put her mask back up.

  He introduced himself. "I've lived on the colonies for two years," Matt said. "My father and I were among the first drafted by the government to go. He's a geologist, so he had plans to work with terraforming Mars. But I didn't want to go. I tried to escape, but I learned the truth about what's happening with the government."

  Mom's eyes burned with curiosity as much as I was sure mine did. Matt had known about the gas at the spaceport that I hadn't expected. He'd come prepared like he had dealt with it before. That gave me a reason to believe him.

  "Not many children know the truth," Mom said. "Nor do many adults. Many of us Earthers do. I understand why you came to us." She spoke to Matt, leaving me out of the conversation.

  I jumped in shock. "You know what's happening?" That was news.

  Mom leaned forward, resting her hands on her desk. Now she spoke to both of us. "The official story is that the government is sending people to Mars to save the human race from the worsening conditions here on Earth," she said. "They show us footage from the colonies, and of people living happy lives there. I know that it's a lie. We Earthers are determined to do what's right, and save Earth instead."

  "That's why they sent me to contact you," Matt said. "The footage is fake."

  "You kept this from me?" I asked.

  Mom nodded. "Your father and I were going to tell you the truth in a couple of years. We wanted you to enjoy a couple more years of fun."

  To say that I felt betrayed was an understatement. "Then what's wrong with the government, then?" I had always suspected, like everyone else, that something was off. I deserved to know about it, especially since I was eligible for the draft. Everyone was.

  "Listen to Matt and me," Mom said. She turned back to him.

  "What is your plan? I will likely be on board with it. As you can see, the Great Council is far stronger than all the Earthers in the world combined."

  It was strange, seeing my reserved mother about to get involved with something I didn't understand. Her eyes burned with hatred. The memory of Rockville seethed in them. She wanted revenge for the loss of our old home. I still burst with questions. Why couldn't Matt get on with it?

  "I know that," Matt said. "The Great Council and, well, pretty much everyone in power has been taken over by Grounders. It's the Grounders who are making us move to Mars. They want Earth for themselves." He spoke for my sake. At least someone was trying to include me in the conversation.

  "Grounders," Mom said, grabbing her letter opener and turning it over like she wanted to stab one. It wasn't like she ever used it. It was there for decoration, like all remaining cars in the world. "They're disgusting creatures."

  My mother knew about those blobs that latched onto peoples' necks, and she had let me go all my life in oblivion. I grabbed the arms of my chair. First, the government had forced us to flee our old home, and now this. I felt so...swept aside.

  "Most people here don't know about them," Matt said to me. "They're...they're bad. Those blobs you saw are called Grounders because they came from an environment deep underground. They can't survive on the surface unless they latch onto a host. When they do that, they control the host's mind."

  I thought of the burned blobs on the necks of the Task Force. The way that Henry spoke in a monotone.

  "Are you saying..." I said, "That these Grounders are, like, hostile aliens?"

  "Exactly," Matt said. He sounded angry. "No one knows the exact time they showed up here, but it was at the same time the first colonies started on Mars, and ships started going back and forth between the planets."

  Ice spread through me.

  I thought of the fossils in the Mars exhibit that Henry had spent some time discussing.

  The fact that scientists thought that the bacteria might have moved underground when the surface of the Red Planet died. When the first big colonies started eighty years ago, many of them went underground to avoid the radiation from space. The colonists had to dig into the planet.

  They dug into where that life might have evolved over the past four billion years.

  I stood up. "Okay. I'm out. My mind's just exploded."

  "Tess," Mom ordered. "Sit down and remember your dignity."

  I sighed and plopped back into my chair in a very non-Earther fashion. What was I supposed to do? I had just learned that we were being taken over by blobs from Mars, and I had to sit up with manners and dignity. This discovery wasn't something that I went through every day.

  And Mom and Dad knew about it all along. It was no wonder they had woken me up with such panic in our final night in Rockville.

  "Mom," I said. "Creatures from Mars have taken over the world, and you're worried about the way I'm acting?" I faced Matt. "Let me guess. They've taken over the Great Council, too." I thought about it. When Great President Coleman addressed the world, he spoke in the same monotone
that the Task Force did. The Great Council always looked so somber and dull when they broadcast their sessions. I had always thought that officials had a requirement to talk that way, the same way we Earthers were expected to act dignified. I had never seen any different.

  "Tess, you are right," Mom said. Her words carried weight. "The Grounders have taken over the Great Council, and have been controlling them for decades. It was the Grounders who burned down Rockville and destroyed our farms. It is them who control the spaceports and all transport between Earth and Mars. Matt is lucky to have come back here."

  "I stowed away in the cargo hold after a ship dropped off new colonists," Matt explained. "I had to bribe a few guards, but--never mind."

  "Tess," Mom said. She folded her hands on her desk. "Before Matt continues, tell me what happened to you and how you escaped."

  I had to explain all the horrifying details. I held my emotion back as I told Mom about how my friends and I had sneaked away from the Mars exhibit, gotten our summons, and tried to rescue Winnie. I told her about the gas, and how Matt had appeared and slapped the mask over my mouth.

  And then I told her about the burned blobs I had seen on the necks of the Task Force, fried from whatever weapon Matt still had in his pocket. As if on cue, Matt took the gun out and unscrewed the barrel from the handle. It came off with a click, and he set it on Mom's desk. The orange glow remained.

  Mom kept her expression stern. I wished that I could do the same. I was trembling, mostly at the thought of Winnie on that ship that I was supposed to board.

  And Mom's hand shook the tiniest bit. She reached for the letter opener with her pinky.

  "Tess, I am proud of you," she said. "You used your brain in that situation."

  I jumped again. "But I left Winnie."

  Mom sighed. "You had no choice. We don't always have them. Or good ones."

  "Now I want to hear about this plan," I said.

  "The Grounders," Matt said, "have taken over Earth. They're trying to turn this world into something comfortable for them. It's why the pollution keeps getting worse. They like it, and our plants and atmosphere bother them. On top of that, they're kicking us off the planet to make room."

  "They have been for the last decade," Mom said. "It's the final part of their plan."

  "This is common knowledge?" I asked, my anger returning.

  "To Earthers, it is," Mom said.

  "Adult Earthers," I corrected.

  She nodded. "Have you ever wondered why our party does not run for public office? Those who win get taken over by the Grounders. We have tried to get the word out to the rest of the world, but Grounders censor our communications. Earthers have gotten deported for attempting to spread the word."

  My head spun. My entire world had crashed and burned in the space of an hour.

  Matt spoke like he had rehearsed this. "My father knew some of the scientists who got taken over by Grounders. He didn't know how to break the news to me."

  I had the sense that he was trying to make me feel less alone in this. I appreciated it.

  "Tess," Mom said. "Leave the room."

  I stood up, not because I wanted to leave, but because I felt like I hadn't gotten all the answers I needed. "I led Matt here," I said. "I want to hear about this plan. Why are you making me leave?"

  "Because you are sixteen," Mom said. "Matt and I will be discussing how he and the other colonists want to fight back against the Grounders."

  "Matt looks like he's sixteen, too."

  "He is here on a mission," Mom said. "Tess, I want you to leave the house and hide in the forest. The Task Force will be searching for you. They must know that I own Woking Park."

  She had a point. I hated to leave the room. "Okay," I said. Arguing would be futile. Mom was the boss around here, and that included not only the employees but everyone else except for Dad.

  With a nod, she pointed to the door.

  There was fear in her eyes. She was afraid for me. After Matt told her whatever he was going to say, I'd drill him for details. Besides, Mom was scary when she was mad.

  That was if the Task Force didn't find me. I had already wasted too much time in the office. They could be outside the house by now, and I wouldn't know. Life without my contacts was already making things difficult.

  But there was no one outside the office. Mom's security camera pointed down at me. Eavesdropping would be impossible, so I did as I was told and walked down the hallway, listening to the boards creaking under my feet. The sound brought me a sense of security before. It reminded me of our quaint Rockville house.

  Factories and mines covered that area now.

  Factories, I had just learned, that pumped out smog that Grounders thought smelled good.

  I could still hear the other children crying as the Great Council drove their machines over our fields...our houses...our farms...

  I quickened my pace. Even after eight years, that memory roared back once in a while. It almost made me hate the sun. It had been out on that day that the Council decided that Rockville had to go as if it were a blight on the surface of the planet. Even now, I had nightmares about the Council arriving at the Park with orders to raze it to the ground. There was synthetic food available, after all. We didn't need fresh crops. The fake stuff was supposed to be good for you.

  I burst out of the house and ran across the grass. The artificial sun had sunk lower in the sky now. It was about four in the afternoon. I stopped on the hill, overlooking the park and the sprawling cluster of trees on the west side. Tiny people walked in and out of the distant greenhouses. The creek sparkled in the light, and the glass dome arched overhead, keeping out the Grounders' toxic influence.

  Sasha wouldn't be able to stop the Task Force from getting in. Even now, she might be fighting with them.

  I ran towards the trees.

  Green enveloped me as I panted. Even though I was an accomplished runner, there was no outracing the terror. The world had collapsed around me. Aliens had hitched rides on ships from the colonies, and now they were forcing us to trade places with them. They wanted the healthy planet. We were getting shipped off to the dead one, several at a time. These Grounders were seeking to empty the world of Earth life. We were being swept aside like ants at best and being used as arms and legs at worst.

  I thought of the blobs.

  Invasive species.

  Martians.

  It was just like all the horror stories people used to make up about the Red Planet. They were true, all of them. I wondered if Henry had discussed them as a sick joke. Did Grounders have a sense of humor?

  I jumped the creek, narrowly missing a woman who was sitting on the shore, an old-fashioned fishing pole in her hands. She waved at me. I caught a glimpse of her Earther patch. I didn't wave back.

  At last, I came to a clearing that I didn't visit too often. The fire pit was empty of campers, but the pit smoldered just enough to let out a tiny bit of smoke. Someone had used it yesterday. I sat down on one of the half logs, cut by my father only one month ago. The artificial sun shone through the trees, casting strange shadows on the ground. They looked like moving tentacles that reminded me of the ones poking into the Task Force's brains.

  The Grounders were body snatchers. I could see how they had hitched rides back to Earth on people.

  I put my face in my hands.

  Time passed. An hour. Maybe two.

  At the house, Mom and Matt were discussing whatever plan they had to take back the planet. I found it hard to believe that a fellow sixteen-year-old was scouting for some area to start the invasion. I breathed deeply, trying to calm myself. Matt had a weapon that could kill Grounders, but leave regular people unhurt. I'd seen it. Maybe the colonies had been working on it for a while.

  The colonists had some plan.

  "Tess?"

  I looked up to find Dad standing there with his orange safety vest around him. Wood splinters clung to him. I was so relieved to see him. Mom wouldn't speak to me right now.

&nb
sp; "Dad," I said. I stood up straight. "I have a lot to tell you."

  "Yes. Your mother told me about it," he said, sounding more serious than I'd ever heard him. "Come with me."

  "Are we going to have to hide?" I asked, trying to keep my voice level.

  Dad walked beside me. "That's not the Earther way," he said. "Times are changing. We have our opportunity to fight." He stared straight ahead as we crossed the bridge to the creek. The fishing woman had vanished. It was getting late and time for people to head home for dinner.

  Dinner wouldn't happen at my house anymore.

  "You've met Matt," I said. Matt must have been fuel for Dad's fire. He had prepared his entire life for this moment, whatever it was. "What did he say the colonists were going to do, exactly? How are we supposed to help them?" Maybe he would give me answers. Dad had never been as uptight as Mom, even with his paranoia.

  "I don't want you to take any part in it," Dad said. "Tess, you need to go far away from here until this conflict is over. It's going to be violent, and people are going to lose their lives."

  I'd never heard Dad get this serious. He hadn't smiled since we met in the clearing. "You mean...war?" I asked. The world hadn't seen a war for the past eighty years, since the Unifying War that brought all countries together.

  "Yes," Dad said. "War. It will be the only way to get rid of these Grounders and save the Earth. We Earthers just got a chance to fight back, and we need to take it. The Mars colonists have come up with a plan to save us. We may have no other chances."

  I felt dizzy. All I had done that morning was getting ready for an ordinary field trip. I hadn't expected to get drafted, at least not today. I hadn't banked on losing all of my friends in one horrible moment, or of getting wrapped up in the start of an interplanetary war. Matt had come to my house and altered the course of our lives. I wondered how a sixteen-year-old had convinced two die-hard Earthers to join a mystery fight. He must have shown them something.

  Or Mom and Dad were different people than I thought.

  And as soon as I got to the house, he'd tell me everything. I was going to demand it. I hated these Grounders more with each passing second.