by Holly Hook
Come to think of it, I had. Well, close. I must have weighed a lot less on Mars.
"Oh," Matt groaned, trying to stand. "This gravity."
"Here." I gave him my hand, and he held on as he stood. Matt was dealing with this harder than I. His skin hugged his thin muscles, muscles that had adapted to life in a smaller world. "That was a soft landing, huh?"
I wanted to sing.
We were home.
The Grounders couldn't keep me from it. I could call myself an Earther again.
Well, unless the Grounders figured out a way to get in here.
"I think I'm okay," Matt said. "I might get my physique back if I stay here long enough."
"You might." I managed a smile, even though the rest of the situation was hitting me. Our impact hadn't gone unnoticed. What if we'd harmed someone on the way down? Mom would have planted the tracking capsule somewhere where people didn't go often. Maybe she and Dad had even roped off the area. They would be on our side.
If we had landed in the park, that was.
"We can't leave yet," Matt said. "The capsule will take a while to cool down. Fiona designed it to stay hot on the outside so that no one can get in. That'll give the nanobots time to make our heat guns. Then we can surprise any Grounders that investigate."
"Weapons," I said, mostly to get used to the idea. I thought of the gun that Matt brought, the one that doubled as the tracking capsule. I could kill Grounders. I would have to, as soon as they figured out how to get this thing open.
"And don't step off your platform," Matt said. "We're in gravity again."
Now that the shock from the impact was over, I realized that I stood on the edge of the chair's platform. The cylinder dropped off below, with only the central ladder as a means of getting up and down. The entry point was still below us, probably wedged into the ground. We were at a steep angle. The cylinder hadn't landed straight. I hoped that there was an exit above, or we were going to have a hard time getting out of here.
"Um, Matt?" I asked.
He caught me looking down. "There's another door above us," he said. "Fiona knew the cylinder could land in either direction, so she installed two of them. We also have a side hatch. Come on. We need to get the bots ready."
Matt was in charge now. I was only here to follow along. I didn't mind. We were home, and we were about to fight back against the Grounders. I was about to do what no Earther had done before.
I followed Matt back up the ladder, trying to get used to full gravity again. The sinking sensation vanished by the second. Matt scaled the rungs through the sleeping area and arrived at a door that we hadn't opened yet. He unscrewed the latch and pulled it open.
On the other side was not only another door that led to the outside, but a room filled with metal ingots and plastic cabinets, all with bungee cords around them. "I hope the nanobots are in those cabinets," I said to Matt, stepping off the ladder and onto another platform. "Why couldn't we have built stuff on the way?"
"The impact would have damaged equipment," Matt said. He patted the first cabinet, one that hung right above a stack of metal ingots. I spotted different shades of metal, including a couple of gold bars. "The bots will take the metal and construct what we need. We'll get our guns first. I've never seen them build before."
"Nanobots are only supposed to get used for medical reasons," I said. "It's illegal to use them for anything else."
"The Grounders wanted it that way," Matt said.
I listened. Silence reigned now. The faint hissing outside had stopped. I was dying to know what was happening out there, while Matt was looking forward to watching the bots. He was more focused on the mission than me.
While he opened the cabinet, I climbed the ladder towards the second door.
It was like the first, on the bottom of the cylinder, in that it spun in place when I grabbed onto the latch and pulled. I drew my hand back at the heat. It was so hot on the outside that I could feel it in here.
"Careful!" Matt said. "Get back down here."
"Don't order me around," I said. Matt hadn't potentially landed on his house. I had to see.
"Hey. I helped to think of this mission. Doesn't that give me the right?"
"No one appointed you commander," I said. I had the sense that he was kidding, much to my relief. Matt, like me, had some sense of humor. How much, I didn't know. "So, when we can leave, do we jump out and start blasting Grounders?"
"Basically," Matt said. "When we leave, we hold them back. Our guns won't hurt anything but their form of life. Chances are, they won't expect this since they know how powerful the Mars Identity Movement is. While we're holding them back, we'll create the mining bots that will then gather the materials we need to make a walker. We didn't bring enough metal for one."
"Sounds good," I said, thinking of my dreams.
"After that, we need to start cutting off the Grounders' communication lines. Eventually, once there are enough of us here, we attack the Great Council."
"What?" I exploded, scrambling back down the ladder to stand next to Matt.
"What did you think we came here for?" Matt asked. "To work out some diplomacy with them? They're all Grounders. Grounders can't think in gray. You need to do that to make deals with people. It's not the best to wipe them out, but we don't have a choice."
"You mentioned that." A wave of dizziness swept over me at the thought of piloting a walker--whatever that was--to the Great Council. Their headquarters was about a hundred kilometers to the north, in the city of Landin.
What had I joined? The biggest war in all of history.
"We'll have more reinforcements by the time we do that," Matt said. "We need to take this area, get the farming going, and start cleaning up the atmosphere. Then, we march northward. If it all goes well, this will take only a few weeks."
Matt opened the cabinet.
He was shaking. He was just as nervous as I.
"You're not making me feel better," I said.
"I'm...not sure about this," he admitted. "This was supposed to be a crew of five volunteers who have studied the area and know what to hit. I don't know what I'm doing here." He peered into the dark cabinet and pulled out a simple black box. A single word in white read FIRST on the side. Fiona had made this as simple as possible.
I knew what I had to do. "I'm here," I said. "I know the area." A massive weight seemed to settle on my shoulders. It was up to me to make sure the first part of this battle went the way it should. "You said that we need to cut off the Grounders' communication? There are network towers in the middle of Woking that we can take out. I've walked through there a hundred times. I know where they are. If we do that, any Grounders in the area won't be able to call for help."
"Maybe we're not doomed," Matt said. "It's lucky that you're on this mission. You're perfect." He smiled at me, making me blush. He might be green, but we were getting along better and better. I found myself wishing that I knew more about Matt. I could sense a history, a tension that he wouldn't reveal.
Matt set the FIRST container down.
The small black box, only large enough to fit a pair of shoes, clicked. The lid rose and remained open.
"Here we go," Matt said.
I held back a scream. A strange black swarm emerged from the cracks between the lid and the box. It looked as if a million tiny dust particles had come to life. I heard the faintest rustling sound as the swarm spread across the floor at first, stopping just before my feet, before rushing at the nearest metal ingot, a blackish one with a coarse texture. The nanobot swarm covered the metal, and a high-pitched, whining sound followed.
"They're taking the metal apart to use for our guns," Matt said.
"This is major illegal," I said. When I thought of nanobots, I thought of tumor surgeries, not injections to make people green and swarms that put together guns.
"So is invading Earth," Matt said with a grin. "We don't have to stand in here. It's going to take them a few hours to make our guns. By then, we should be
able to open the cylinder and peek outside."
The dancing dust covered the ingot. Some of the swarm separated from the others and headed for the gold. They were following coordinated movements. Soon, Matt and I would have guns capable of roasting Grounders. A shudder raced through me at the thought. If they caught us again, I had the sense that they wouldn't just deport us. They would kill us, knowing that we could find ways to come back to Earth. That would happen even without a sense of revenge.
I followed Matt back down into the other chamber, where our cots waited. There would be no lying in them now unless we wanted to sleep almost vertical. Besides, there was no way I would be sleeping for quite a while.
And we waited.
I imagined crowds gathering around the cylinder, wondering what the heck was inside. I imagined brave people walking up to it and daring to touch the hot metal. Enforcers might have arrived, which was fine as most of them seemed to be human, but the Grounders would also come once word got to them.
They would figure out that we had come from Mars and meant bad news.
I wondered if they had enough creativity to spread lies. I thought of their broadcasts and the Great President, always talking about saving humanity from the pollution. Maybe it was true in a way because there wasn't any smog on Mars.
"Can Grounders lie?" I asked.
"I've never seen one do it," Matt said. "They can tell the truth in ways that leave out some details, which is just as bad as lying, but I don't think they can do it."
"That's what I thought," I said. "You've dealt with Grounders before, haven't you?"
"I met some in Space Port Nine when I tried to run from boarding the ship. They told me that they wouldn't hurt me, which turned out to be true," Matt said. "They just used the gas on me. I woke up on the ship." Then he hesitated like he wanted to tell me something. He sighed. "Do you want to know what sucks? When they caught me and I woke up, my father went along with us going to Mars. He didn't want to fight, as I did."
"That does suck," I said, thinking of my parents. Matt and I were having more and more in common.
In the next chamber, the nanobots continued to squeal as they worked, tearing apart the metal and rearranging atoms into deadly combinations.
Matt stared at the other side of the cylinder.
A thought hit me. I blurted it out before I could stop myself.
"Is your father in the Mars Identity movement?" I asked.
Matt flinched. "Yes."
"I'm sorry."
"He's not one of the radical people. My dad wouldn't go around trying to blow people up who don't agree with him. He is trying to make Mars a better place. That's why he's always gone, trying to change the land for us." Matt climbed the ladder to check on the nanobots. It was clear that he wanted away from this. My partner in crime poked his head up into the chamber.
"Almost done," Matt said. "I love nanobots."
I wanted to apologize for bringing up Matt's father, but I couldn't.
But even more, I was ready to look outside.
I needed to get back into the world. Grounders must be gathering by now. I wanted to kill them for ripping people out of their homes. For destroying Rockville. For scarring me as a child and for pushing humanity out of its rightful home.
Matt moved aside to let me climb into the next chamber. The squealing had stopped, to be replaced with a crunching sound as if a million ants were eating. Two swarms worked on metal blobs that had started to look like guns, identical to the one Matt had already used to roast Grounders.
Outside, someone pounded on the cylinder. It must be cooling off. My heart raced. "Can Grounders get in?" I asked Matt.
"I don't think so. I bet the Grounders are scratching their heads."
"Good," I said, returning to my seat. I wanted to fight, not just for me, but for Winnie. I wanted to bring my friends and everyone else home. The weird Identity people could stay if they wanted.
Matt did another check once the chewing sound stopped above us. "Our weapons are ready," he said. "Let's see if we can unscrew the top door. I want to get a high vantage point. We have to see if we can
"Sounds good," I said, but a sense of dread filled me. I followed Matt up the ladder. The last of the nanobots vanished into the first box. I watched as the lid snapped shut. I missed them already. They were kind of cute for black dust specks.
And our guns lay on the floor, ready. The barrels let out an orange glow. It wasn't the most official thing, but Fiona hadn't had time for any fluff. It had taken every resource back on Mars to make this work.
"Should we?" I asked.
"We should," Matt said, seizing one. "I'll show you how to use this. Remember, you can't hurt our type of life with it, but these can start fires if we're not careful."
"Okay," I said. I picked up the gun, unsure how to use it. I had never fired anything in my life. Sure, I had handled some of Dad's vintage guns, but by law, they had no bullets. This gun had the large barrel with the orange glow inside, waiting for use. I wondered what powered this thing, and if some of the metals used were radioactive. I stepped away from the stack of ingots next to me.
"There's a button on the handle," Matt said, placing his hand over mine. He moved my thumb until I felt it. A strange tingle raced over my skin. "There's another thing, too. You can only use this for about five seconds at a time before it needs to recharge. It takes about five minutes to do that."
"Good to know," I said. The gun felt heavy in my grasp, especially when Matt let go. Now I knew the reason why Matt hadn't fired at the second wave of Grounders in Space Port Nine, and why he had ordered me to run. I thought of the burned blobs on the backs of those Task Force people's necks. In a few minutes, I would be shooting Grounders, too.
Matt climbed the ladder. "Here, we go."
I watched as he grabbed onto the latch and unscrewed the top door to the cylinder. It took a long time for the ring to turn in place, but at last, a pop sounded, and the upper part of our ship opened.
Daylight poured down. I spotted the familiar blue of the park dome and the artificial sun, just meters from a massive hole that had shattered in the top of the dome. Outside the dome, the also-familiar yellowish-green smog drifted overhead. I squinted as the warmth of the fake sun poured down on me. The inside of the cylinder glinted.
And people gasped.
We had an audience.
I scrambled up the ladder behind Matt and waited for him to move, but he remained still. "I think we're okay," Matt said. "I only see regular people and some Enforcers. The Grounders aren't here yet. There's no one in the crater. Someone must have been throwing rocks at us."
He climbed over the edge and slid out of sight.
"Matt!" I yelled, concern exploding through me. The sun beat down on me now, unabated. I couldn't see anything other than the dome. Were we--
I heard Matt slide down the side of the cylinder. More people gasped, probably at the sight of a green man getting out of a ship from Mars.
I had to look. I poked my head out of the top of the cylinder and gripped the edge, which was almost too hot to touch. I seethed, but held on with one hand and held my weapon in the other.
We sat in a crater and surrounded by a crowd.
It was the best way to describe it. Brown earth and crumbled stone surrounded us. Our cylinder had crashed through the dome of Woking Park, shattering it in the process, and blasted this giant hole in the ground.
And we were so deep inside that I could only see the top halves of the people surrounding us. Men, women, and children stood as if this were a concert. Trees rose behind them. Matt and I had landed in the forest. I thought about waving but held back. I pulled my shirt over my face. I didn't want Mom and Dad to see me. I wouldn't live much longer if they did. So far, I couldn't spot them, but the crowd was thick. Hundreds had come to gawk.
"Matt?" I asked.
The hole we had blasted out must be as wide as several houses. Twice as high. I hung on a mountain in the middle of the crater.
I leaned over and looked down.
The cylinder had landed at a steep angle, leaving a surface to slide down. Matt lay on the ground, between a couple of jagged rocks, and he wasn't moving.
Chapter Fourteen
"Matt!" I shouted.
Then he lifted his head from ten or fifteen meters below. "I'm okay," he said. "I wasn't expecting the angle to be that steep."
"He's alive!" a man shouted from the crater rim. A few people clapped.
I pulled my shirt up to my eyes, glad that my black hair was messy and probably unrecognizable. "Are you hurt?" I asked.
"No," he said. "I'm just humiliated."
I laughed. Even now, Matt had a sense of humor.
I looked up at the rim of the crater again. I couldn't see how Matt and I were supposed to climb out of this. We had our guns, but even on this cylinder, we were so far below the rim that I couldn't see if anyone was standing there.
At least I had this weapon. "I'm going to drop this to you," I said. "Watch out."
"A weapon!" a woman shouted.
I ignored her. None of these people had dared to come into the crater. Now that they knew we had guns, even the Enforcers wouldn't. I had ruined the element of surprise. I scanned the crowd again. Three Enforcers stood together with batons ready. They were useless. The Grounders had made sure that humanity could not defend itself.
Matt stood up, brushed himself off, and got ready. I dropped the heat gun, or the heat ray, to him and he reached out to catch it, missing.
"Sorry," he said. "This gravity--I don't like it anymore."
It was my turn to slide down the outside of the cylinder. I did better than Matt did because I managed to land on my feet once down. I still had some of my physical fitness. I picked up the heat gun and tucked the barrel into my pocket. I hoped that Matt was right that it couldn't hurt Earth life. I didn't want to fire it by mistake.
