«Tumultuous Apathy»

11-20-2309

From a distance the cosmos stands still. Days and weeks pass at a time while little or nothing appears to change. But the Solar system rages on, and underneath a seemingly static surface, it thrashes and spasms violently. Economic turmoil and inconvenient plagues. Wildfire and meteor showers. Death and regeneration.

When I woke up, I immediately flipped open my antiquated  workstation from where I lay in bed. It sprang to life with renewed vigor, a needlessly complex reformatting was still treating the Z-140x as well as one would expect within the first week. All that mattered was that I could access a network again, and within seconds I was connecting to the Magnate family’s portal. Though Allan and Rikka’s terminals were silent, and Ploki was still asleep, his porti was downloading a large file, so there was a little latency in the sphere.

After sliding through the various social webs I keep a profile in, checking my multiple inboxes and even the dashboard control panel for this tlog, finding no new messages in each, I hovered purposelessly in the internet for a few moments, idly rapping my fingertips on the case of the computer. I’d hoped by then I would have at least received word back from Olympus Coast College about my application or student financial aid. Not knowing what else to do, I brought up a window from an interplanetary newsource, probably based on Earth. The stark headlines it launched at me in grim menacing boldface startled me at first.

– [FLU DEATH TOLLS IN THE UNITED TERRITORIES ESTIMATED AT 3,900] –

– [NEPTUNIAN PIRATES FAIL TO CAPTURE IONIAN CARGOSHIP SECOND TIME] –

– [TIPS TO SURVIVE BLACK FRIDAY AND SHOPPING BATTLEGROUNDS THIS HOLIDAY SEASON] –

Suddenly concerned for my health, and worried that all those months of not worrying weren’t going to pay off, I thumbed over the article. I truly detest the tricks these fear mongering, ad-savvy newsources use to optimize search results to generate some more hits each day. The report is contrary to the one just a couple of days ago which calculated deaths to be closer to 130, so I just figured they wanted to claim that all of the regular annual flu deaths had been attributed to the H1N1 virus. I closed the window before I could see how many of those confirmed deaths were on Mars, lest I become a victim of the pharmaceutical industry’s scare tactics.

The next window informed me pirates had been thwarted in their attempt to gain control of a ship leaving the orbit of Galatea. Either by coincidence or the attractiveness of the damn thing, it was the same ship hijacked last spring near those same waters. These marauders from the sixth moon of Neptune have reportedly captured over 50 vessels, and seemed to have a pretty good reputation until the Euxine Carolina was rescued by UT marines earlier this year. This time, the enhanced security placed onboard the hundred-ton spacefreighter was able to resolve any issue before it even developed into one.

I didn’t care about holiday bloodbaths or a house with a bunch of dead people in it. I couldn’t be compelled to look too deep into the stories reported by the Ganymedean newsource or an associated feed I’d brought up in the background while I digested these either. I really didn’t care about Earth’s prison camp or the election being gorked up on Ceres, or any of the other news they don‘t often openly address in Earth media. I’m usually enthralled with that sort of stuff.

I brought SpaceBook, my main social network, back into focus and updated my status to something disparaging to human nature for letting the media get so commercial, and closed my clunky old porti.

As if stirred by a ripple in a pond, Ploki Magnate rolled over in his bed. As he rested, he’d probably been able to sense so many similar, relatively tiny waves just and slept right through it. But a rock being thrown into the pond from so close may have felt like a surge against the barriers of his constant digital stream. He sat up, rubbing the side of is head.

“Oh, good morning, Ploki,” I said, realizing I hadn’t actually spoken a word to anyone when my voice cracked. The name already sounded a little strange to the tongue since it was a throwback to old hacker slang from days when a keyboard similar mine would still have been used. It was the handle that he chose to go by in all of his social avenues, virtual or not.

“Morning,” he said, not looking up from the glow of the button already alight in his hands. It illuminated his sharp face and the accentuated Ganymedean features. If he had antennae or pointy ears I would have seen them in the wash of blue light, but his head was framed only by a short haircut and a little scruff of beard.  “What’s this about the news?” he asked me, responding to the notification that woke him.

“Huh? Oh, well ther-” I began before he cut me off, he’d obviously brought up the headlines.

“Pirates…prison camp…experiment demonstrates possibility of life in Centauri?” he read aloud, a questioning tone as he wondered if he’d already heard that somewhere.

I was rising off my futon bed and walking as I replied. “I think that whole thing’s a ruse to get more scientific funding for exploration,” I grumbled as I stepped into the kitchen to scrounge up something.

“So it’s better we don’t find life outside the Solar system? You’re so cynical, Klay.” He was beginning to wake and warm up, getting out of bed only to settle into his computer chair.

I spoke to him over the kitchen counter, his workstation setup just on the other side. Anyone who used this kitchen couldn’t help but feel watched if he was seated there, though his eyes hardly rose from his screen. “No, I just think it’s going to be a huge bust if it turns out we went all the way there again and didn’t find anything … again,” there was little I came across in the fridge that screamed edible to me.

“Well it won’t be any bigger of a waste than if that money went to the defense budget,” his sleek porti connected to the portal the second he touched it, and in moments he was tangled in his various webs. “They got something like 700 bil for the military, just for a single year. That calculates to almost 2 billion a day.”

“Gork,” I exclaimed, slamming an unyielding cupboard. “Nothing’s looking appealing to me in here, wanna start the vaporizer?”

He glanced at the time and yelled “Fire it up!”

«←→»

Hunger was of the few things that could involuntarily force someone out into the big, scary world; and even then there are the options of fast food, take-out and delivery services to minimize a given human’s exposure to the outside as much as possible.

Ploki and I trod along the broad walkways of Newport’s Style Isle. Fashioned by The Caspian Company after a cookie-cutter Ionian Mission, it was a way to disguise their corporate headquarters as an outdoor shopping mall and gain a little extra revenue. It’s not actually an island, just a small mesa overlooking the Amazonian Ocean, and was used by natives in the past for their jamborees. Glancing back over my shoulder, I could see it twinkling like a thousand diamonds in the midday light, beyond the rows of fancy crawlers, oily parking spaces and pristine, artificial palm trees.

I used to work here. Tucked away in the digital media section of Style Isle’s outdated bookstore, I toiled the first year I lived on Mars. The commute to Newport from Fender was treacherous at the least, a whole 30 minutes. It was enough to make the job feel not worth it to me, spending the entirety of my only raise on the fuel it took just to get to work late every day.

We wove amongst the flow of shoppers, consisting mostly of wealthy women who didn’t need to be making any more money. It always felt a little strange, walking amongst the same people I used to serve, calmly passing them decked out in their most splendid weekday attire. From the hottest trends off the runways in Mihr Patera to soft velour sweat suits encrusted in rhinestones. Large embellished sunglasses, gaudy jewelry and any number of insanely eye-catching accessories glinted and dangled in the red sun.

Anything they could afford to distract or cover up the seams between cosmetic surgery and plastic treatments. Neck-tucks and antenna-removal scars can still be tricky to hide, and that’s where expensive bronze and ivory make-up assisted. They perfectly mimicked the exemplary mannequins, stiff in the windows beside them but so posh. I cringed to think what these reptiles would look like without any mods.

Just a few minutes there and I’d already seen  too many aged women showing off their new breasts and arms, many of which still needed some tightening and laser treatments to erase the damage of decades of sun exposure. Gray roots hid under platinum blonde, deep crows feet under cakes of eye shadow, and I’m sure I would have noticed the stench of death if it weren’t for the aroma of nail polish and hair products. I just wanted to find the cheapest place to grab a bite, then get the hell out of this commercial trap.

“I’m so excited for my appointment next week!” Ploki said, grinning ear to ear. “I’m going to get my license, and then my new toy will be completely legitimate,” there was so much glee behind his eyes as he said this.

“I just hopes it work’s out for you, it would suck if you were denied cause you didn’t qualify,” I pointed out, though that would be just as upsetting to all of us.

“Seriously,” he replied and winced with his blue eyes, tryinag not to imagine that possibility.

I turned to my Martian friend as we rounded a corner near the geyser fountain. “Hey, Ploki, can you look something up for me real quick?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said, slid his button out of his pocket and unlocked the palm-held device. The flat, blue screen lit up in broad daylight, appearing a few inches above his hand.  It rested on a faint laser cone, projected from the solitary LED eye; simplicity was the only identifying feature of an AM-3Gi button. He called up a search application, and looked at me, asking “What do you need?”

“Gork, that was fast. Don’t you still have to connect to a network with that thing?”

“No, I canceled that basic service that came with it.” He pointed to his temple with his free hand, saying “I’ve been auged.”

“Ahh, now it makes sense, you are your own sphere,” I looked at him again as if I’d be able to see it’s sheen around him now. “That’s astro, I’d love to get a chip one day,” I said quietly.

The cyborg’s eyes locked on me in disbelief. “What? You haven’t been auged?” the question rang loud here, even outside. Any sort of alterations, whether internal or external, are regarded highly by those of status, and I’m sure any of the women who could afford a boost in confidence could pay an extra few thousand to have a little silicon implanted in their heads, too.

I looked around at no scowling faces or judging eyes, surprisingly. “No, what makes you think I have?”

“I totally thought you were. You don’t have extra memory in there?” he asked, genuinely amazed I hadn’t undergone any sort of capacity upgrade.

“No, not at all,” I said with as little pride as I could show these technophilic Newpsies.

“Huh, I could have sworn. Hmm…well I guess you just have a good memory then,” he said, adjusting to the idea of my head being emptier than his.

“Thanks, I’ll take that as a compliment…especially coming from a machine,” I said facetiously.

He protested “Hey, I’m still mostly human!”

“Whatevs, Robot. Find me the cheapest food around,” I commanded.

He grumbled, and returned his gaze to the screen, manipulating the flattened beam that the browser was illustrated upon with the swish of his fingertips. He looked up, over to the other side of the food court we had just meandered into. “There. The pizza place has the lowest cost here,” he said at once.

“Wow, you found it that quick?” I said, astounded by his technology again.

“No, I just remembered,” he said with a grin, adding “Gorker.”

After we finished our two-dollar slices of pizza pie, and made our way back through the mess of grotesque human facsimiles, we found ourselves at his little, cerulean crawler. The two-door hatchback always reminded me of my elusive vehicle, though his wasn’t built on Ganymede.

His Saturnian-made Polaris was probably of a finer construction than my rodent. The interior had been optimized for comfort and visibility, so much so that even the HUD cowling had been displaced to the center of the dashboard, creating more storage areas.

At the press of the ignition switch, the engine whined and instruments illuminated with bright blue light, similar to the glow of the Ploki’s button, which now rested in a crèche on the center console. It supplied music from it’s harddrive to the entertainment system, and the driver or passenger could easily control media with the interface on either end.

We hurried home, where Allan waited for our return. He’d sequestered himself into his room, determined to make full use of his burgeoning class-load by doing everything he could to pass them all. Little had been seen of him, except when he needed transit to and from campus, or when there was a bi-weekly jam, or if Nymh had come over to lure him out, though she just as often did nothing to make him want to leave the room.

Similar could be said of the youngest of the Magnate siblings. Rikka was often out of the house since she was usually working one of her two jobs, and only appeared in sharp, semi-formal outfits when she was home from either, or on her way to an interview for a third. Attention seeking and a hypochondriac, she was currently fighting a bout with the deadly flu upstairs in her quarters, and no one could tell if she were actually sick or not.

I’d become good friends with Ploki over the previous weeks, finding similar interests was easy for us; or something like that. It could have been something to do with being the same age as me, or that he was easier to tolerate for an entire day than his often boisterous older brother. Perhaps it was because we had planned to move to that ski resort in Cyane this winter and had begun pre-roommate rituals of bonding. But it’s probably just because we both share the ground level of the house, he and I sleeping in the living room and family room, respectively.

We arrived back at his house in the mid-afternoon and immediately return to our positions in front of our workstations. Using some sort of control on his terminal, he remotely activated his brand new vaporizer, allowing it to warm up the 600 seconds so it will work properly. He then sent a message through the sphere to let Allan know he’d have about ten minutes to find a stopping point.

By force of habit, I brought up the newsources again with my renewed net connection, feeling warm with this novelty: the privilege of fresh information afforded only to those who have the technological means. By the look of the new banners, it seems healthcare reforms were stagnated by both sides of UT government, Earth’s new president visited Titan, and strife continued between warring factions on little Davidia.

A terrorist plot on another Earth skyscraper was foiled, a fusion plant in New Ganymede almost meltdown again and AM would probably release a new model of the button over the holidays. Students protested an increase in tuition rates at University of Mars campuses, a ferry crash in The Rings left 26 dead and the sequel to that stupid teenage-heartthrob-vampire movie broke box office records this weekend.

I closed all the windows at once and brought up one of my bookmarked links: a streaming, real-time image of the star Sol. I zoomed in partway, only until I spotted the well recognizable shapes of the gas giants, the thin haze of asteroid belts and the glint off the terrestrial worlds orbiting close the yellow main-sequence star. If it weren’t for a ticker running the time at the bottom you would have sworn it was just a still image, captured by a traveler from some rocket’s window.

I attempted to imagine for a moment that I was peering out of that porthole at the static but majestic view. I tried to picture myself away from any apprehensions of holidays, pirates, finances or vaccinations. It wasn’t working.

I collapsed the screen of the outdated porti. “Hey Ploki,” I called as I stood up, “I’m getting Allan whether that machine of yours is ready or not.”

«The Road Trip – Day 5»

06-09-2309

Ahhhh, waking up in a real bed. What simple pleasures you bastards take for granted each day. Not only did I wake to a real bed in my own quarters, but to eggs and bacon sizzling and popping at me through the vents. It was heavenly, but you’d never be able to appreciate it. Just being in a house that has food in the kitchen is a gift, people.

The Auroran side of Bricks family were full of honest, hard working, hugging folk. His mother’s uncle, Arturius, was slouched over the frying pan in an apron and shorts, white socks pulled up over his calves, when his son, Mic came in. Brick’s first cousin, once removed was dropping off his second cousins to play with their grandparents for the day. I know, it all seems very confusing, I had to do some research to figure it all out.

After a hearty breakfast we were on the road again. The view was worthy of nostalgia, the notes of rural Dominia were hard to ignore. It wasn’t long at all before it was time to ignite the day’s first J, waiting until we were just past the city limits. I exhaled a cloud of relief to not have to worry about covering my act around his family. Well, at least for a few hours.

The only sign for a scenic overlook I’d seen in two days passed by outside.

“Huh, do you think we should?” Brick was entertaining the notion already.

“Uh…well..” I couldn’t answer quick enough, another blue sign and a small turn out whooshed by. “I guess not…It probably wasn’t all that interesting, anyway,” I justified.

“You’re probably right, it must hav–Holy shit!” he pointed across me out the window. The slope to our right, covered by a thicket of trees, dropped away to reveal the vantage from the point.

“Oh gork.. We have to turn around, Brick,” not taking my eyes off the view.

“I know, I know. I’m trying,” he said, searching for convenient place to make a quick u-ey.

“This is not an option! It’s the most interesting thing I’ve seen for miles.” I probably wasn’t helping him find a turn an easier, but still I added “I don’t have any good pictures on Earth, yet. You really have to.”

“Hush, or I won’t pull off for the next one either,” he threatened as he signaled to make a right at an abrupt intersection.

The river bends meandered for miles and miles on end. Grey bridges and trees cut in front of the silver body shining in the cool morning sun. A nice breeze welled up beneath us as we looked over what must have been Lake Warioto. I can only assume, reviewing at the map afterwards. I didn’t actually bother to take a look at the commemorative signage or any other nomenclature about.

We descended the mount after documenting everything, down to the mason work, in which each piece of local slate that was used contained fossils of ancient life. The rocky passage down brought us to the lapping edge of the rivers for a peek before plunging us into a thick, valley forest. The route and all the buildings along the way, were worn in ways that made you know this path was ancient, used for time immemorial.

We passed more decaying mortar and concrete, rubber wheels spinning on crumbling cement, until we came upon Warioto Gap. The little town bloomed with antiquated architecture, reaching far back to the days of the original Ganymedean settlement and the colonial wars. It  had sprouted at the head of a natural pass through the mountain, and was popularized when Earthling frontiersman and hero, Dane Bane, expanded the way, making the settlement of Pennsyltucky beyond much easier.

A recreational trail branched off from the back of the town into the mountains. Apparently, before Jovians took over this world, natives called these tracks the Warrior’s Path, linking the way between the warring tribes of the north and south. Colorful signage littered the sides of the walkway, with dramatized scenes depicted which would have otherwise predated modern photography.

It was humid out with no breeze, but the moderate canopy above helped to keep us cool as we climbed the slow, gravelly grade. Small black land mines peppered the larger rocks and stones, their eight legs sprawled as they basked in the midday sun. I kept my eyes down to avoid accidentally triggering any of them.

“How far do you think it is still?” Brick panted, looking up ahead as his flip flops flapped against the sifting tide or stones. “I’m dying already.”

“Well, the sign in the parking lot said it was a good 5 miles to the closest lookout point,” I recalled as I removed his PDA from my pocket, “and so far we have walked…0.6 miles.”

“And we still have to walk all the way back after getting there? Gork that! Lets turn around after we reach the first vantage.”

“Sounds great to me, let me just see here.” As I fiddled with the touch screen, to plot a new course, an alert flashed across it.

((– Now Leaving Pennsyltucky — Welcome to Dominia –))

“Ever cross a border on foot, before?” I asked Brick slyly.

“Heh. No I can’t say I have…until now, apparently.”

“That’s kind of exciting. Well, anyway, we can just make a left at the next fork, it looks like there’s a side path to another mount just ahead.” I pocketed the gadget and released the canteen I had clipped to my waist. Ahhh, still cold from being inside the crawler. Refreshing.

“Hook me up!” Brick said as he herd the wet clink of the stainless steel bottle. I tossed it to him when I’d replaced the lid.

“You get to carry it for a while, now.” I smirked as I passed him, taking the lead up a steep hill.

The top didn’t yield as impressive a view as we could have hopped. I could see a slope on one side, and a mountain sliding to meet it on the other side, but in between there were just a bunch of trees. I angled about as best I could to get at least one good view of something, but nothing came to sight.

You have to be pretty high up to find any view worth seeing on Earth, there’s always something getting in the way. This was a charming little hill though, and a perfect place for the sunbathing ticks. While I was taking a few pictures of trees, one of the clever little arachnids began to make a break for my legs. I spotted him at the last second before it made to leap on me, letting out a shriek of terror as I hopped off the boulder and ran to Brick.

“Uhm…what?” He looked up at me from the rock he was perched on, interrupted from taking a breather.

“I’m not a fan of the wildlife around here…and I think we kinda have to keep moving if we don’t want to be eaten alive,” I indicated to the stealthy black agent of doom behind me.

“I guess.. I feel really exposed up here too, lets get back under the shade,” as he rose to his feet he dusted off his knees and handed the water bottle back to me. “Where to know, do you think?”

“Hmm,” I glanced about a few seconds. “I’d say back down and over there to left, there’s some sort of landmark or memorial by the looks of it.”

“It looks less sunny too, so I’m for it,” and he lead the way down the hill, side stepping to find better footing on the slippery gray stones.

A crater was etched out of a rock wall just a few minutes up our turn. Dead leaves and dry branches flooded it most of the way, making its depth indeterminable. Another floating sign informed us it had been a Union storehouse during Earth’s Civil war, self destructed so it wouldn’t fall into the hands of separatists. Bits of history dating this far back would receive much acclaim and respect on Mars, but here they’re scattered like weeds, another everywhere you turn.

“This is neat, do you want to chill here while we spark it?” Brick asked me with hope, trying anything he could to make this little excursion more worth it.

“Ehh…not particularly. I kinda want to save it for the road, we’ve still got a good ways to drive today. And we won’t still be high by the time we get out of this sweaty park.” My logic was sound enough, I thought, but I added “and I’d like to be sitting down to enjoy it, we’d be tick food before we even got close to roaching it.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re right. Let’s head back then, ok,” he rifled in his pocket for a menthol cigarette and offered one to me as we turned about, now walking downhill.

An Earthling girl in shades and athletic tights jogged briskly by us on the path. Between deep panting breathes, she shouted a warning as she passed.

“Snake up ahead. Big black one. Middle of the trail. Watch out!” and she was gone, headed up the way we just came down.

“Hmm..” Brick moaned.

“Wow…thanks for the warning, I guess,” I muttered, not sure what to make of it until we saw it for ourselves.

Long enough to stretch the entire span of the walkway, we gingerly tiptoed around the smooth reptile as it slithered on into the foliage. Rounded diamond-shape scales cased it‘s hide, uniform and black. I couldn’t see the head or any markings indicating what type it was, but it was intimidating enough to treat it with utmost caution. Looking back again, I saw the end of it’s plain tail vanished amongst the ferns.

“I think I need to phone my dad real quick,” I was already removing my texti from my pocket.

“Do you update him every time you see a snake?”

“Only when I don’t know what it is…and when I’m in the same territory as him..and when–” my signal connected to the network and it began to ring. He answered after only a couple tones.

“Hey kid, what’s goin on?” the muted voice squeaked through my tiny speaker.

“Not much, dad. I just had a quick question for you.”

“Alright, shoot.”

“Well we’re in Warioto Gap right now, just walked across the border into Dominia.”

“Oh, cool. Coming home soon then?”

“Well kinda, we’ve still got to head through Appalachia and Carolina, and back to Appalachia for the festival this weekend. But I had a question about poisonous snakes.”

“Uh..ok, I think there are emergency services that specialize in snakebites better than I could. And a lot quicker at that.”

“You’re funny. No I didn’t get bitten, I just saw a snake and couldn’t remember which poisonous species we had in our territory. Cottonmouths and…?”

“Rattlers. Timber Rattlers,” he answered quickly, in an obvious tone.

“Huh, really? I always think of them as more of a Luna-Mars thing. Copperheads and Water Moccasins are what I think of when it comes to Earth. And Coral Snakes.”

“Why not, they’re all Pit Vipers. Well, the Cottonmouth species and the Rattlers are anyway; Coral are actually a type of Cobra.” I kinda miss him going on like this, you always learn something.

“No way..wow I guess that makes sense, why they’d be so lethal.” This was a new one on me, but I hardly had the minutes to waste. “Uh, anyway, are any of those about an inch thick and pitch black? Maybe about 2 feet long?”

“No, that’s nothing to worry about at all,” he paused a second to consider it. “Probably a regular old rat snake. If it has no markings at all you‘re safe, and half of the time, even if it does, it‘s just pretending to be dangerous. Toxin filled creatures always come with clearly visible markings, just part of how they evolved.” I could tell he was gearing up for a long one.

“That’s cool, I’ve never really thought about it like that,” it was slightly fascinating, you have to admit. “Well, thanks for helping me ID it, dad. I gotta run though. See you in about a week?”

“Yeah, sure thing, kid. Take care of yourself out there. Love you much.”

“Love you too,” I slid the texti closed to end the call.

“Is it safe?” Brick asked sarcastically.

“Yeah, that one was,” I was adjusting to speaking at normal volume again, “but let’s not hang around to find any that aren’t.”

Back on the road we continued through to Appalachia. Lush, well nourished greenery aligned us, strangled up to the limbs in the river-lakes that ran beside road. It was obvious excessive rains had raised the line several feet, but people here were smart enough to keep their houses far up hill from the new boundaries of their yards. As we crossed the swollen Holstein River I was reminded how insignificant water seemed to the citizens of this world.

We changed our course in Morris, a little crossroads town in the middle of the mountains, and were about to head north when hunger struck us.

“They have White Castles around here, right?” The Martian asked as if I knew intimate details of this part of the planet.

“I can only assume they do…although I can’t remember the last time I saw one this far south. We might as well take a look,” I answered, half optimistic and half unwilling to admit I didn’t know something.

“Right, then we’re exiting here,” he informed me as we entered the ramp leaving the highway.

It looked like any town near the eastern seaboard, the same earth-red bricks wrapped houses with pale columned porticos and black window shudders. Granted, the upkeep hadn’t been attended as closely as some of the nicer neighborhoods I’ve known, but combined with the rusted wrought iron and creeping vines it was all kind of homey.

We continued on the main avenue, scouring both sides of the street for fresh, bite sized burgers, but found none. An alarming number of seafood places were present, especially a good amount of sushi restaurants. Brick and I glanced at each other and shuddered to think about the quality of raw fish up here in the mountains, or anywhere besides Mars or Saturn for that matter. After half an hour of cringing, we turned about.

“Well that was a bust, what did we pass along the way that looked good?” I had given up on finding sliders anytime this trip long ago.

“I dunno…regular sized burgers?” Suggested the Brick.

“Fine, how about the BK Lounge over here?” I pointed to the drive-thru, right by the old rusted rails that used to pump the blood of life into this town.

“Sounds good to me, I think we’ve been avoiding eating there long enough…and salmon rolls aren’t even that appealing to me when they aren’t hundreds of miles from the closest shore,” the picky eater responded.

As we sat in the glassed dining area of the restaurant, an act I’d developed a new appreciation for after being confined to a crawler for majority of the past week, we observed the local color. Mostly pastey white, probably all from Ganymedean families that traded their afternoon tea and suit ties for rabbit meat and coonskin caps when they relocated to Earthly log cabins. Everyone also seemed to have poor skin and obesity issues, obviously loyal customers of this and similar fastfood chains, frequenting them for all four of their meals throughout a given day. The staff even seemed slow and sluggish, weighed down by pounds of grease and fat sloshing around inside of them. Mixed with the unhealthy burger I was hastily shoving down my throat, it was a thoroughly unpleasant experience.

“Just think, tomorrow night we’ll be here again,” Brick said between bites. He wiped his mouth and corrected himself, “Sorry, not here at BK, I mean in Morris.”

“Oh, right…wait this is where Leona’s aunt lives?” I asked, slightly surprised.

“Yeah, well somewhere around here anyway. I just remember seeing Morris on the map when I looked it up.”

I took a second to look around at the overweight diners accompanying us. “Her family’s not from around here, is it?”

“No. Heavens, no. She’s from upstate New Tros, I think her aunt just moved down here. Why to the south, I haven‘t a clue,” he pondered just a minute longer before shrugging and eating a handful of fries.

“Ah, well that’s cool then. There’s no way her aunt could be as gross as the Earthlings around here,” I was relieved, but in the back of my head I was aware that some places just end up changing you. “Lets get out of here before we become like them.

“One step ahead of you, sir,” he said, already rising to his feet and dusting the crumbs off his shirt.

We returned to the highway and resumed our drive. The road we just switched to was narrower and more winding than the previous major route. We had deviated from the suggested path to stop by a landmark that looked appealing, and after an awkward uphill climb finally reached it.

Blowing Rock was apparently the most exciting thing to see for miles, an exposed outcropping looming over a valley created at a continental divide between the ancient sedimentary mountains and the fresh, young chrystallines. For 6 bucks each, we could stand on an observation platform and look at all the trees hiding the beautiful mountain faces and slopes.

There wasn’t a series of little landmarks one could conceivably hike too, there weren’t impressive features you could spot from the deck, it was just a bunch of trees. The most astounding thing was the size of the giftshop, immense compared to the magnitude of the site. A large wall sized panorama picture was all the view we needed to take in before we turned and left.

“Well that certainly blew. This is one of those places you decided to visit cause it looked like a funny name when you saw it on the map, right?” I harped at Brick.”

“Yeah,” he answered sheepishly.

“Are you sorely disappointed?”

“Yes..”

“And have you learned your lesson?”

“Nope, onward to Troutman!” He shouted, breaking into a run for the silver vehicle, still warm and as anxious to get back on the road as we were.

«Sleeping on the Floor»

02-10-2309

     I can’t tell you how much it thrills me to be able to sleep in a comfortable bed tonight. For the past 7 weeks I’ve been making nests of various piles of blankets and sleeping bags, ever since I got kicked out of my last apartment. In almost two months I’ve jumped at every chance I’ve gotten just to lay down on someone’s bed and prayed I could get a couch wherever I crashed. Even when I went home to Earth, I had to sleep on the floor of my old room cause my brother commandeered my bed after my cat pissed on his. I was too amused by the situation to care at the time.

     All that time tossing on unsporting floorboards and thin carpet just reminded me of when I first moved to Mars and had no where to stay but Linda’s house. Hell, even after I moved into my first apartment with Pashan, where I just had that broken futon, I still spent almost every night sleeping on the ground in my girlfriend’s bedroom. Even this past summer I spent a lot of time on Allan‘s floor because I still lived half an hour away from my life. But now that’s all over.

     Yes, now I am coming to you from my new apartment on the other side of Costa Mensa. I may have mentioned a complex I looked up, last year while I was first trying to move, called Villa Venusia. If not, it’s a beautifully spacious gated community with an artificial lake that runs through the entire complex. Even in between the rows of buildings where walkways and driveways would belong, deceptively shallow streams and tributaries meander about, trickling over boulders or spewing with fountains. The fortunate residents that live within the inner units even have balconies that rest on the water where one could sit on the edge and dangle your toes if you so chose.

     I may not be that fortunate, but I’m still lucky I got the place I did. It’s a small 2-Bedroom on the second story of one of the units in the back, but far from a shabby residence. I found the room online through one of those sketchy classified services, so I was expecting the worst when it came to the roommate I picked. It turned out for the best, thankfully.

     Witt is a nice Ganymedean woman and we share a few things in common, including a birth sign and roots in Keret, where she grew up and where my father‘s family is from. Although, there is definitely a generation gap pervading our conversations, though deep and insightful, what with her being my own mother’s age. She does like to drag me into these long talks as I’m trying to get back to my room or out the front door, but I don’t mind cause sometimes I do actually want to respond, and any other time her busy schedule keeps her out of the house.

     It only took me a couple days to get all my stuff from Manna and Justene’s garage up to my room and unpacked, and now I’m surrounded by the familiar knickknacks and images from parts of the Solar system I’ve never even been. My portable workstation seems relieved to be unpacked and has been successfully integrated into it’s new homesphere–no need to buccaneer my way into a random unsecured network. I remain seated at it most of the day and night since I don’t have a teli to keep me inebriated, but sometimes when my back is hurting from being hunched over a keyboard and computer screen, I take a few minutes to thumb through one of my books or pluck a few chords on my guitar.

     Actually, now that I mention it, I’ve been on the nets all day researching tourism on Jupiter and Saturn, instead of looking for a job to pay for such a holiday. My back is murdering me and I feel like I’m starting to get sick, so I’m gonna go turn in for the night and lay down on a fluffy, inviting mattress.

«Interplanetary Cuisine» Δ «Here on Mars»

     A dead calm came over the early afternoon. The wind dropped suddenly and the mixed feelings over our second day of fishing had just been stirred a little more. The sun was hot and Earth’s humidity made it so much worse, all 9 of us on this little charter boat huddled under the canopy in the middle of The Taurus. My father, brother and self along with 6 strangers, including the cross-eyed captain, his part-time first-mate, my dad’s friend Edd and 3 other Earthmen. I got dragged along on this little weekend excursion my first day back on Earth. And trust me, yesterday had been much better; chasing Chesapeake Spadefish and Saturnian Sea bass and catching them by the handful, little bastards putting up a fun fight. No such haul now though, today had only seen skates, rays and an occasional shark; one a little bay Hammerhead my dad reeled up, but she bit through the line when she caught a glimpse of the boat and eager, net-handed faces.

     With our quarry of Kobia successfully eluding us and distaste for the turn the weather took, we needed something to lift our spirits. My father turned to Edd, the large grey-rooted Ionian, seated on the cooler closest to him. The two had been friends and business partners for ages, and after meeting him for the first time on this trip, I realized why they stayed such good friends. Edd is an jolly old fellow who never runs out of stories and is always an absolute riot, the perfect kinda guy to have stuck with you on a dull day at sea. All morning he had resorted to jokes and riddles to keep us awake while nothing took our bait, and now my father knew of a perfect weapon to unsheathe for this moment.

     “Hey Edd,” he said with anxious grin, “Why don’t you tell everyone the Tortuga story?” This lit Edd’s face up like a Christmas tree, and he slapped his hands together licking his lips.

     “What a splendid idea, my good man!” Edd turned to his already captive crowd. “I’d like to treat you gentlemen to an enchanted tale about Venusian dining, but first I’m afraid you must hear of the horrors of Saturnian Cuisine,” he said, meanwhile motioning for my father to supply him with a beer, at no time taking his attention off his audience.

     “If ya don’t know of my past,” he begun, “I was an immigrant truck driver in New Tros, delivering pies all over Nuwerk. Oh it was the pits. One day I found a matchbook with a number for computer school on the back and I thought to myself ‘I’d do anything to get out of this hell’ for the second time in my life. By the next year I was working for HAL, designing reservation systems for interplanetary and eventually inter stellar travel companies, engineering credit mainframes and installing interplanetary intranets across the Solar system. It paid well, and they put me up in some of the nicest places in the system while I was on the job, sometimes staying for a month at a time. Well, lets just say I got a taste of culture.

     “This one time I stayed on Mimas for a week, I asked my host to take me out to enjoy a traditional meal of his people. I didn’t want to see a single familiar word on the menu, just point to something and be pleasantly surprised. He knew just the place and, after he watered his plants for the evening, took me there with haste.

     “Now you gotta understand my mood going into this: I sat down at a round table elbow to elbow with a dozen smelly Mimasians, all grabbing at the food in communal bowls with their bare hands. I didn’t see a single utensil or napkin, so instead I looked for a dish that everyone wasn’t knuckle deep and double dipping into. I spotted it, right next to me was a small plate piled with white objects about the size of golf balls that looked like they were covered in something like coconut. I grabbed it, noticed it was crunchy, but once I bit through the crispy exterior I was treated to the most amazing explosion of flavor. I smiled and grabbed two more, and had the third to my lips when my host came up and patted me on the shoulder. “Edd! You like the deep-fried pigeon heads!!” And sure enough, there was a little crispy beak and two little squinty eyes. Well what was I supposed to do, I popped it in my mouth, finished chewing and smiled.

     “A couple of years later the company let me bring a friend to Rhea, while I was there to help program the computer at the then new Gaia spaceport. So I took Jon, who as Keret knows,” Edd said motioning to my smirking and nodding father, “is a most timid little man from Amalthea. He’s come fishing a few times–I’ll bring him next year, we’ll all have a real laugher. Anyway, Jon and I are sitting in a the most popular restaurant in this fledgling port’s boom-town. The first half of the evening he hardly moved a muscle, staring at his plate in contempt, trying to occupy his lips with a glass of beer for as much of the evening as he could.

     “‘Psst! Edd,’ Jon whispered, leaning in to me, ‘We’re eating bait!’ I told him its not bait, it was Pingafish caught fresh that morning in this very port, and was renowned enough to bring us halfway around the moon in the middle of my vacation. ‘There’s no dish without fish!’ Jon said to me moments later after having his terrible epiphany. It was true, it was all seafood in front of us, but until this moment I had thought he was a real fisherman. I pointed to a plate next to him “You like fried calamari, right?” I said indicating a tray of sautéed squid-like things beside him. He shrugged and picked up one of the whole squid-things with a pair of chopsticks and stuck it in his mouth headfirst. Upon biting into it, its tendrils began to move and wriggle, and in shock and disgust John spit out the living creature. He then received similar looks of shock and disgust from around the table, but at the taste he left in everyone’s mouths. ‘I-I’ve got bad teeth,’ he came up with quickly, but no one bought it.

     “Afterwards, I took John aside and scolded him about rejecting their food. Told him no matter how vile or disgusting of a spread he had to treat it like it was the most tender delicacy he had ever put to his pallet. ‘We gotta prove to these guys that Earthlings aren’t tasteless, uncultured insects,’ I recall saying.

     “Well, I also I recall making the mistake of inviting Jon to come with me to Venus. We were heading near Ishtar just to visit a friend of mine who owned a brewery. We arrived at the gates of the Sol Beer Brewery and were greeted with cigars and given the grand tour by the short Europan owner. After meeting the factory floor girls, and finishing our cigars in his glass office overlooking the assembly line at full steam, he brought up the topic of nourishment. ‘I don’t know how you guys are feeling, you must be hungry after your flight, I know I’m famished just looking at you. Let us get ourselves some food and drinks, yes?’ he offered. I was eager and glanced at John who looked a little uneasy and asked ‘What about the factory, can you just leave it unsupervised?’ I could have shot him an icy glance, knowing he was doing, but the Europan responded ‘Oh, not a worry at all’ he said , thumbing for a button on the handle of his chair, and suddenly the break whistle blew on the floor, “The girls will come with us,” he said with a grin.

     “At the most popular restaurant in town we sat a dozen deep at the nicest table they could offer, with a giant bay window over looking the harbor and a saffron, early afternoon sea. By no coincidence, this establishment was sponsored by Sol Beer, and it was free as long as we kept refilling our glasses and posing for photos. After two hours of that punishment the food arrived, carried upon three giant wooden platters and set before us the table by shirtless waiters, and all the Venusian girls cheered. A smaller fourth plate was brought and placed on our end of the table before of Jon and I. The small white golf ball shaped objects it contained made my heart jump up my throat, but I swallowed it back down. ‘What’s that?’ I dared to ask the Europan. ‘Oh, Edd! That is Tortuga, of course!’ he said with a smirking slur. A moment later a realized he meant sea turtle, sea turtle eggs, a species extinct on Earth and endangered on Venus. ‘You mean like ENDANGERED Tortuga?’ I spat out in dismay. ‘Yeah, they’re great, you gotta try them, here!’ He said picking one up.

     “He squeezed it in his finger tips and it warped like a water balloon. ‘It’s leathery like any other reptile egg, no? So you take a knife,’ he said lifting a small bladed scalpel with a carved wooden handle and demonstrating how to make a proper slice. Then, taking one of a half dozen multicolored sauces in front of him, he poured a bit into the slit. ‘Once you choose a sauce you just put it to your lips, and,’ he said before following his instructions, then squeezing the contents of it into his mouth and swallowing it down. He smiled and said ‘That’s all there is. Go ahead, Edd!’

     “I picked one up and held it in my fingertips, squeezing it a little to test its elasticity. I took the knife, cut my slit then inspected the sauces, picking my poison as it were. I picked a dark red sauce, figuring it would be spicy, I’d just burn out the flavor if it was gonna be as bad as I was expecting. I poured some in and held the prepared egg to my lips. When I squeezed that lump into my mouth I swear I almost lost my stomach, it had the taste and texture of a ripe ball of snot. And I don’t mean the pleasant, drippy snot, I’m talking about your lumpy, black-spotted-smoker’s phlegm. I smiled and looked down at Jon. It was his turn and his face was as red as his hair, he was shitting bricks and sweating bullets when I nudged him, almost jarring him from a trance. ‘It’s not bad,’ I lied to his face, ‘go ahead, Jon.’

     “With a shaking hand he picked up the closest squishy egg, made a carefully though jittery incision, and without hesitation picked up the red sauce, having the same idea that I had: to scorch his taste buds off. With a final nervous gesture he put the egg to his lips and squeezed. The expression on his face that followed was one of sheer terror. His eyes wide and searching for something to help him, he finally sighed and pulled the egg away from his mouth. Clenched between his teeth was poor half-developed turtle–little legs, little head, with a little see-through shell. Just when I was just fearing the worst, John sighed again remembering Rhea, and popped the little thing into his mouth. With a couple awkward crunches, he swallowed it down and smiled.

     “Our little Europan host had been flirting with a new employee this whole time, only tuning in halfway through, and also choosing a poor time to finish his glass. When he at last sipped it all and set it down, he exclaimed down the table ‘Oh no, Jon! You got a bad egg!’”

07-20-2308

     A dead calm came over the early afternoon. The wind dropped suddenly and the mixed feelings over our second day of fishing had just been stirred a little more. The sun was hot and Earth’s humidity made it so much worse, all 9 of us on this little charter boat huddled under the canopy in the middle of The Taurus. My father, brother and self along with 6 strangers, including the cross-eyed captain, his part-time first-mate, my dad’s friend Edd and 3 other Earthmen. I got dragged along on this little weekend excursion my first day back on Earth. And trust me, yesterday had been much better; chasing Chesapeake Spadefish and Saturnian Sea bass and catching them by the handful, little bastards putting up a fun fight. No such haul now though, today had only seen skates, rays and an occasional shark; one a little bay Hammerhead my dad reeled up, but she bit through the line when she caught a glimpse of the boat and eager, net-handed faces.

     With our quarry of Kobia successfully eluding us and distaste for the turn the weather took, we needed something to lift our spirits. My father turned to Edd, the large grey-rooted Ionian, seated on the cooler closest to him. The two had been friends and business partners for ages, and after meeting him for the first time on this trip, I realized why they stayed such good friends. Edd is an jolly old fellow who never runs out of stories and is always an absolute riot, the perfect kinda guy to have stuck with you on a dull day at sea. All morning he had resorted to jokes and riddles to keep us awake while nothing took our bait, and now my father knew of a perfect weapon to unsheathe for this moment.

     “Hey Edd,” he said with anxious grin, “Why don’t you tell everyone the Tortuga story?” This lit Edd’s face up like a Christmas tree, and he slapped his hands together licking his lips.

     “What a splendid idea, my good man!” Edd turned to his already captive crowd. “I’d like to treat you gentlemen to an enchanted tale about Venusian dining, but first I’m afraid you must hear of the horrors of Saturnian Cuisine,” he said, meanwhile motioning for my father to supply him with a beer, at no time taking his attention off his audience.

     “If ya don’t know of my past,” he begun, “I was an immigrant truck driver in New Tros, delivering pies all over Nuwerk. Oh it was the pits. One day I found a matchbook with a number for computer school on the back and I thought to myself ‘I’d do anything to get out of this hell’ for the second time in my life. By the next year I was working for HAL, designing reservation systems for interplanetary and eventually inter stellar travel companies, engineering credit mainframes and installing interplanetary intranets across the Solar system. It paid well, and they put me up in some of the nicest places in the system while I was on the job, sometimes staying for a month at a time. Well, lets just say I got a taste of culture.

     “This one time I stayed on Mimas for a week, I asked my host to take me out to enjoy a traditional meal of his people. I didn’t want to see a single familiar word on the menu, just point to something and be pleasantly surprised. He knew just the place and, after he watered his plants for the evening, took me there with haste.

     “Now you gotta understand my mood going into this: I sat down at a round table elbow to elbow with a dozen smelly Mimasians, all grabbing at the food in communal bowls with their bare hands. I didn’t see a single utensil or napkin, so instead I looked for a dish that everyone wasn’t knuckle deep and double dipping into. I spotted it, right next to me was a small plate piled with white objects about the size of golf balls that looked like they were covered in something like coconut. I grabbed it, noticed it was crunchy, but once I bit through the crispy exterior I was treated to the most amazing explosion of flavor. I smiled and grabbed two more, and had the third to my lips when my host came up and patted me on the shoulder. “Edd! You like the deep-fried pigeon heads!!” And sure enough, there was a little crispy beak and two little squinty eyes. Well what was I supposed to do, I popped it in my mouth, finished chewing and smiled.

     “A couple of years later the company let me bring a friend to Rhea, while I was there to help program the computer at the then new Gaia spaceport. So I took Jon, who as Keret knows,” Edd said motioning to my smirking and nodding father, “is a most timid little man from Amalthea. He’s come fishing a few times–I’ll bring him next year, we’ll all have a real laugher. Anyway, Jon and I are sitting in a the most popular restaurant in this fledgling port’s boom-town. The first half of the evening he hardly moved a muscle, staring at his plate in contempt, trying to occupy his lips with a glass of beer for as much of the evening as he could.

     “‘Psst! Edd,’ Jon whispered, leaning in to me, ‘We’re eating bait!’ I told him its not bait, it was Pingafish caught fresh that morning in this very port, and was renowned enough to bring us halfway around the moon in the middle of my vacation. ‘There’s no dish without fish!’ Jon said to me moments later after having his terrible epiphany. It was true, it was all seafood in front of us, but until this moment I had thought he was a real fisherman. I pointed to a plate next to him “You like fried calamari, right?” I said indicating a tray of sautéed squid-like things beside him. He shrugged and picked up one of the whole squid-things with a pair of chopsticks and stuck it in his mouth headfirst. Upon biting into it, its tendrils began to move and wriggle, and in shock and disgust John spit out the living creature. He then received similar looks of shock and disgust from around the table, but at the taste he left in everyone’s mouths. ‘I-I’ve got bad teeth,’ he came up with quickly, but no one bought it.

     “Afterwards, I took John aside and scolded him about rejecting their food. Told him no matter how vile or disgusting of a spread he had to treat it like it was the most tender delicacy he had ever put to his pallet. ‘We gotta prove to these guys that Earthlings aren’t tasteless, uncultured insects,’ I recall saying.

     “Well, I also I recall making the mistake of inviting Jon to come with me to Venus. We were heading near Ishtar just to visit a friend of mine who owned a brewery. We arrived at the gates of the Sol Beer Brewery and were greeted with cigars and given the grand tour by the short Europan owner. After meeting the factory floor girls, and finishing our cigars in his glass office overlooking the assembly line at full steam, he brought up the topic of nourishment. ‘I don’t know how you guys are feeling, you must be hungry after your flight, I know I’m famished just looking at you. Let us get ourselves some food and drinks, yes?’ he offered. I was eager and glanced at John who looked a little uneasy and asked ‘What about the factory, can you just leave it unsupervised?’ I could have shot him an icy glance, knowing he was doing, but the Europan responded ‘Oh, not a worry at all’ he said , thumbing for a button on the handle of his chair, and suddenly the break whistle blew on the floor, “The girls will come with us,” he said with a grin.

     “At the most popular restaurant in town we sat a dozen deep at the nicest table they could offer, with a giant bay window over looking the harbor and a saffron, early afternoon sea. By no coincidence, this establishment was sponsored by Sol Beer, and it was free as long as we kept refilling our glasses and posing for photos. After two hours of that punishment the food arrived, carried upon three giant wooden platters and set before us the table by shirtless waiters, and all the Venusian girls cheered. A smaller fourth plate was brought and placed on our end of the table before of Jon and I. The small white golf ball shaped objects it contained made my heart jump up my throat, but I swallowed it back down. ‘What’s that?’ I dared to ask the Europan. ‘Oh, Edd! That is Tortuga, of course!’ he said with a smirking slur. A moment later a realized he meant sea turtle, sea turtle eggs, a species extinct on Earth and endangered on Venus. ‘You mean like ENDANGERED Tortuga?’ I spat out in dismay. ‘Yeah, they’re great, you gotta try them, here!’ He said picking one up.

     “He squeezed it in his finger tips and it warped like a water balloon. ‘It’s leathery like any other reptile egg, no? So you take a knife,’ he said lifting a small bladed scalpel with a carved wooden handle and demonstrating how to make a proper slice. Then, taking one of a half dozen multicolored sauces in front of him, he poured a bit into the slit. ‘Once you choose a sauce you just put it to your lips, and,’ he said before following his instructions, then squeezing the contents of it into his mouth and swallowing it down. He smiled and said ‘That’s all there is. Go ahead, Edd!’

     “I picked one up and held it in my fingertips, squeezing it a little to test its elasticity. I took the knife, cut my slit then inspected the sauces, picking my poison as it were. I picked a dark red sauce, figuring it would be spicy, I’d just burn out the flavor if it was gonna be as bad as I was expecting. I poured some in and held the prepared egg to my lips. When I squeezed that lump into my mouth I swear I almost lost my stomach, it had the taste and texture of a ripe ball of snot. And I don’t mean the pleasant, drippy snot, I’m talking about your lumpy, black-spotted-smoker’s phlegm. I smiled and looked down at Jon. It was his turn and his face was as red as his hair, he was shitting bricks and sweating bullets when I nudged him, almost jarring him from a trance. ‘It’s not bad,’ I lied to his face, ‘go ahead, Jon.’

     “With a shaking hand he picked up the closest squishy egg, made a carefully though jittery incision, and without hesitation picked up the red sauce, having the same idea that I had: to scorch his taste buds off. With a final nervous gesture he put the egg to his lips and squeezed. The expression on his face that followed was one of sheer terror. His eyes wide and searching for something to help him, he finally sighed and pulled the egg away from his mouth. Clenched between his teeth was poor half-developed turtle–little legs, little head, with a little see-through shell. Just when I was just fearing the worst, John sighed again remembering Rhea, and popped the little thing into his mouth. With a couple awkward crunches, he swallowed it down and smiled.

     “Our little Europan host had been flirting with a new employee this whole time, only tuning in halfway through, and also choosing a poor time to finish his glass. When he at last sipped it all and set it down, he exclaimed down the table ‘Oh no, Jon! You got a bad egg!’”

«←→»

07-27-2308

     Here on Mars, I sat on top of Fender’s tallest hill, looking down at my home below over a questionable fast food hamburger. I had to sigh before taking another bite, but it wasn’t even the greasy meat patty that had made me lose my appetite. I was looking down all at the activity to and from Fender Municipal Spaceport and longing to be on the move again. I only got home two weeks ago but already I’m sick of life again. I want to stay fluid.

     The same thing happened about 2 weeks into my stay on Earth. It had been great and exciting to be home up until then, but the last seven days there had been dull and spent longing of my life back here on Mars. Now that I’ve got that in my grasp again, I remember how unhappy I was with it a month ago. Is there something tangible compelling me to feel this way or am I just insatiable?

     They’re small ships, the largest an interplanetary at the best, though. I’m pretty sure thats an Helen-class down there, that probably means some dignitary came down last night. I passively ponder high-jacking a rocket and seeing how far I can get. I’m sure if I could get to Callisto I’d find a way out of the Sol System all together, the trick would just be getting myself through the asteroid belt. Or even just out of Mars orbit for that matter, I’ve never piloted anything larger than a surface skimmer or a work-skiff, and never flawlessly. If I’m sure of anything though, they give me a leg up on maneuvering a bulky rocket, but theres still too many things I’d have to know how to do, things I should bother to learn about before taking off. Like landing.

     I could always snag myself a shuttle and just hop over to ISP Olympus, stow myself away on a freighter or transport heading to Saturn, find away to the old routes and hitchhike my way off Pluto. Always? Thats hardly plausible at all. I sighed and threw my half eaten burger into my bag, took a dissatisfied swig of soda from a straw and started my crawler. I lit a Martian Spirit and put the Fender Municipal behind me.

«Never Terraformed»

03-29-2308

     After loss of the Ionian-Terran War, the Jovian world was forced to give up its colonies, including those on Venus and Mars. The former had a clean atmosphere and a bustling population, a widespread civilization with no room for expansion. The latter on the other hand had poor air and was too windy and sun beaten, the small civilization of Ionian descendants that lived there rarely tread planet side. Instead they had intermingled with, and taken over, most of the ancient Martian civilization and their complex tunnel systems.

     Mars was seen as a financial opportunity for Earth, who’s population was brimming and sought expansion, so steps were taken to terraform him into a living planet again. The Ionian Crater Missions were only successful because they used the subterranean features of the indigenous architecture, but for a healthy civilization to prosper, large portions of the surface would have to be made more tolerable.

     In the mid twenty-second century, sorties of mechanisms unmanned began to launch from Earth regularly, headed for new promising territory on Mars, only to land 720 days later in a windy red desert, all but barren if not for one more robot. They laid the infrastructures that allowed a new, slowly growing culture of Earthling immigrants to thrive. After a comically tame war with the new Martian government, Earth rightfully acquired the more hospitable portion of the planet, as well as the remainder of land on Luna still possessed by Mars. From there it was only a matter of time before a mass migration, initiated by the gold rush, would make sure life flourished on it’s surface.

     Sorry, you probably know all of this already, I don’t know why I didn’t before but I just looked it up on the nets. I don’t remember them ever teaching us any of this Martian history in school, but maybe I wasn’t paying attention that day. Incase that’s not so and it just wasn’t part of the curriculum back on Earth, you’ll appreciate the lesson soon enough.

    For the record, I never believed Mars ever completed terraforming before it was opened to the Outward Expansion; I still maintain this desolate rock is as dead as our Earth will soon be. No matter how much we tried to make this planet into her, Mars never fully gave into his mother. And for good reason I think, Mars should not support life, let alone set a par for Solatarian society. The green patches that Martians call lawns wouldn’t last without a constantly irrigating sprinkler and/or chemical enhancement. All the palm trees, coastal scrub and xeriscaping just make up the meager façade this place puts on in visage of fertility. In some of the better watered neighborhoods, where every house on the row runs on a timer, I will attest a mild array of flora, still mostly succulent and desert flowers, but lush and surprisingly colorful.

     I’ve lived a year and a half here on a street just across from the abandoned sector, a windswept borough encroached upon by rusty desert a foot deep. The fact that there is even an abandoned sector or that we’re remotely near the desert in the first place should be a sign. There are also, of course, creatures that appear in the night, or rather make their presence known invisibly. The Martians tell horror stories about the Squamata and blame for terrible things they find done when they wake up, which actually does happen more frequently then you’d like to imagine. The Martians also blamed the Old Martians for not showing any concern in their mere existence of the reptilian pest, or not teaching us how to defeat them. Instead the natives worship them in part of their rituals, incorporating the terrible sandy scratching they make in the background of their dance.

     I think it goes with out saying that the uninhibited rays of the sun, the dust devils or outright dust storms, the unsettlingly frequent tectonic and meteoric activity, and abundantly apparent scarcity of any real natural resource or nutrient rich soil in which one could find foothold upon only support my case. Mars is upset we’re squeezing the remaining soul from his skin like a pimple and won’t give into our will without a fight, in all of his stubborn divinity.

     After loss of the Ionian-Terran War, the Jovian world was forced to give up its colonies, including those on Venus and Mars. The former had a clean atmosphere and a bustling population, a widespread civilization with no room for expansion. The latter on the other hand had poor air and was too windy and sun beaten, the small civilization of Ionian descendants that lived there rarely tread planet side. Instead they had intermingled with, and taken over, most of the ancient Martian civilization and their complex tunnel systems.

     Mars was seen as a financial opportunity for Earth, who’s population was brimming and sought expansion, so steps were taken to terraform him into a living planet again. The Ionian Crater Missions were only successful because they used the subterranean features of the indigenous architecture, but for a healthy civilization to prosper, large portions of the surface would have to be made more tolerable.

     In the mid twenty-second century, sorties of mechanisms unmanned began to launch from Earth regularly, headed for new promising territory on Mars, only to land 720 days later in a windy red desert, all but barren if not for one more robot. They laid the infrastructures that allowed a new, slowly growing culture of Earthling immigrants to thrive. After a comically tame war with the new Martian government, Earth rightfully acquired the more hospitable portion of the planet, as well as the remainder of land on Luna still possessed by Mars. From there it was only a matter of time before a mass migration, initiated by the gold rush, would make sure life flourished on it’s surface.

     Sorry, you probably know all of this already, I don’t know why I didn’t before but I just looked it up on the nets. I don’t remember them ever teaching us any of this Martian history in school, but maybe I wasn’t paying attention that day. Incase that’s not so and it just wasn’t part of the curriculum back on Earth, you’ll appreciate the lesson soon enough.

    For the record, I never believed Mars ever completed terraforming before it was opened to the Outward Expansion; I still maintain this desolate rock is as dead as our Earth will soon be. No matter how much we tried to make this planet into her, Mars never fully gave into his mother. And for good reason I think, Mars should not support life, let alone set a par for Solatarian society. The green patches that Martians call lawns wouldn’t last without a constantly irrigating sprinkler and/or chemical enhancement. All the palm trees, coastal scrub and xeriscaping just make up the meager façade this place puts on in visage of fertility. In some of the better watered neighborhoods, where every house on the row runs on a timer, I will attest a mild array of flora, still mostly succulent and desert flowers, but lush and surprisingly colorful.

     I’ve lived a year and a half here on a street just across from the abandoned sector, a windswept borough encroached upon by rusty desert a foot deep. The fact that there is even an abandoned sector or that we’re remotely near the desert in the first place should be a sign. There are also, of course, creatures that appear in the night, or rather make their presence known invisibly. The Martians tell horror stories about the Squamata and blame for terrible things they find done when they wake up, which actually does happen more frequently then you’d like to imagine. The Martians also blamed the Old Martians for not showing any concern in their mere existence of the reptilian pest, or not teaching us how to defeat them. Instead the natives worship them in part of their rituals, incorporating the terrible sandy scratching they make in the background of their dance.

     I think it goes with out saying that the uninhibited rays of the sun, the dust devils or outright dust storms, the unsettlingly frequent tectonic and meteoric activity, and abundantly apparent scarcity of any real natural resource or nutrient rich soil in which one could find foothold upon only support my case. Mars is upset we’re squeezing the remaining soul from his skin like a pimple and won’t give into our will without a fight, in all of his stubborn divinity.