The Malcontent of Mars — Chapter II: London Calling
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INT
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EPI
This chapter contains drug references, some bloody violence and a mention of suicide.
The surface of Terra was a greyish-blue patchwork. Entire landmasses were swallowed up by enormous structures known as “stilted cities”, bustling hives of people suspended miles above Terra’s surface by enormous stilts made out of metal that had been mined from asteroids – Terra’s own resources had by now been almost entirely used up in the pursuit of relentless human consumption. The stilted cities had been a necessary undertaking: A few centuries ago, a great number of terrible catastrophes had befallen Terra, in a series of events which had, over time, come to be referred to as a single event known as the Great Catastrophe.
It had been during this time of calamity that many of the old nation-states and governments had collapsed, signed emergency agreements, and all but disappeared, so that much of what remained of Terra’s nations were the stilted cities, and those unfortunate enough to live under them, with the choking smog and sewage pipes.
After the dust had settled, Terra’s once-arable land had been transformed into scorched, irradiated dustbowls, and her oceans, once vibrant with animal life and coral reefs, were now radioactive and toxic, filled with the plastic sewershit of a dead planet, her biosphere only kept alive artificially by continual human endeavour. Terra was on life support, trapped in limbo, never allowed to die.
In fact, the only reason the planet remained inhabited was simply because Terra was the capital world of the Terran Federal Republic. It was a commonly-held superstition in the Federal Diet, even after a recent election cycle that had resulted in a surprise swing leftward, that abandoning Terra would bring about an era of anarchy, and so Terra was considered to be the thin blue line, or rather, the pale blue dot, between order and chaos. Thus, Terra remained inhabited, connected to her territories by the many spaceports that dotted her surface like cloves in an orange pomander.
The busiest spaceport on Terra was named Rapture. It had started as a humble transport hub, but over time it had become a somewhat notorious colony, occupied at both ends by a few million people. Until recently, Rapture had been considered to be beholden to the byelaws of Kinshasa-β, but had ultimately been formally granted devolved status as its own independent city-state.
Kowalski looked out of the porthole at the module, which had rows of lights blinking inwards at a steady rhythm, one-two-three-four, to direct pilots as to where to land. An electronic sign showed a stylised animation of a woman’s feet dancing in high-heeled shoes before panning upward to her face, where she mouthed “Welcome to Rapture, baby!” and winked, as a speech bubble emerged as ectoplasm from her mouth and filled with stylised text reading much the same. The animation looped a couple of times before an advertisement for a better AnsiNet service provider came on screen.
“Holy shit,” Callie said. “What a dump.”
“Yeah, Rapture’s not exactly what you’d call wholesome,” Kowalski said.
“I wasn’t talking about Rapture,” Callie huffed. “Just look at the place a few clicks beneath it. Yuck.”
“You sure you’re gonna be alright parked up here?”
“Would these railguns happen to be operational?”
Kowalski turned away from the porthole. “Yes,” he said, uncertainly.
“Then I think I’ll be just swell.”
“Callie, please don’t fire railguns in a spaceport.”
“Aw,” Callie whined, impressively nasally for someone who had no nose. “You’re no fun. Electroshock security measures it is, then.”
“I don’t have those installed,” Kowalski said.
“I’ll improvise.”
Kowalski shook his head, then walked over to the ship’s galley and started to prepare himself a lunch, slash late breakfast. He pulled out a can and opened it over the sink, and pulled out a loaf of bread and a jar of mayonnaise.
“Ooh, what’s that you’re making?”
“It’s a tuna sandwich. They introduced bluefin tuna to the oceans on Mars, since nothing lives in the seas down there on Terra. It’s good. Expensive, though, unless you know where to look.”
“Oh, I see. You stole it.”
“I wouldn’t say stole,” Kowalski said, smiling. “Let’s say I found it. Got a tip-off from the Spacers’ Network about a crashed freighter. Anti-Kessler laws mean that if a freighter has an accident, the load has to go somewhere, so spacers get a few hours to grab as much free stuff as they can before the cleaners come and destroy it. We’re not supposed to, but there’s no point in letting it go to waste.”
Kowalski mixed the tuna and the mayonnaise with a fork in a small plastic container, buttered the bread, and placed the tuna and sliced lettuce on top before closing the sandwich and cutting it in two. He put it on a plate and walked over to a strange-looking device in the corner of the compartment. He opened a cabinet underneath it, which contained what appeared to Callie’s all-seeing eyes to be some pieces of card. Kowalski slid one of the pieces of card out, and from it he pulled a curious plastic black disc, which he dutifully placed on a platter on top of the strange device.
“Whoa,” Callie said, fascinated. “What’s that?”
“Hmm? Oh, it’s a vinyl record,” Kowalski said. “It has sounds cut into its surface. You spin it and place a needle on it and it plays music.”
“That’s weird,” Callie said. “How come you don’t just stream music over the AnsiNet?”
“I could,” Kowalski said. “But this is special. I’ve had it a long time.”
“I see. Hey, let me get a look at the cover,” Callie said. Kowalski flipped it over and placed it on the table. “The Mama’s and the Papa’s,” Callie said, reading out loud. The album cover had a picture of a few people in very strange-looking clothing, sitting in a bathtub next to a lavatory, smiling at the camera. The lavatory was partially obscured by an ugly yellow sticker reading “REPLICA” in black text. Kowalski started the record spinning, set the needle down and then sat down to eat.
A song started to play. It was sung by a man, and it had women on backing vocals. It was about winter in an old Terran city. The man, so the song went, wanted to leave the city and go to a different, warmer city. This song was from before vactrains, so that would have been expensive in those days.
“I like this song,” Callie said. “What’s it called?”
“It’s called ‘California Dreamin’’,” Kowalski replied. “It’s my favorite song. Named the ship after it.”
Callie was quiet for a moment as she checked. “Oh, so you have. That’s cute.”
“Mhm.”
Callie started to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Kowalski asked.
“Oh, it’s nothing.”
“Come on, tell me.”
“Oh, you’re gonna hate me.”
“Just spit it out, would you?”
Callie giggled. “It’s just that you called me Callie, and the ship is called California Dreamin’, so…”
“Callie-fornia Dreamin’?” Kowalski asked, deadpan.
“Oh God, that’s such a bad pun, I’m sorry,” Callie said.
“I’ve heard worse,” Kowalski said, eating his sandwich. “Happy coincidence, though.”
“So,” Callie said. “What are you doing on this trash-heap?”
“It’s a secret,” Kowalski said, through a mouthful of tuna. He swallowed. “I’ll let you know how it goes.”
“Okay,” Callie said, uncertainly. “Can you give me a hint?”
“I’ve got a thing in London. That’s all you’re getting out of me.”
“Something tells me you’re not there for the sake of tourism,” Callie sighed.
*
Rapture was nothing if not sleazy. Plenty of Terrans had escaped to Rapture during the Great Catastrophe. With them they brought all the joys and tragedies of human existence: Love, laughter and music everywhere, but also violence, misery and filth. Rapture felt almost like an endless nightclub – pounding sound systems on just about every mezzanine and balcony, each playing its own music, as strobe lighting, dry ice and lasers assaulted each other in a nebula of permanent ecstasy.
The whole place stank of sweat and disappointment.
A clap of laughter and a thump hit Kowalski on the shoulder. He turned to see a girl who couldn’t have been older than twenty, hair cropped into a short blonde bob. She was covered in sweat and her makeup had started to run. She was wearing a sequinned blue party dress.
“Oi, mate,” she said, latching on to Kowalski’s shoulder, “Got any euph?” Her face was the twisted gargoyle-grimace of someone clearly in over their head on party drugs.
Kowalski shook his head. “Sorry.”
The girl’s manic smile faltered almost imperceptibly. “Fuck off, then!” she said, in a shrieking cackle, staggering off into the thrum of the never-ending party on six-inch heels.
I hate this place, Kowalski thought. The transport down to Terra’s surface wasn’t due for another hour or so. He could barely stand to be here another five minutes. He decided, knowing full well it was futile, that he would try to find somewhere quiet, and set about wandering Rapture’s many floors and mezzanines, not helped by the low, reddish lighting and artificial gravity messing with his senses. People were dancing on the floors, walls and ceilings, all at different rhythms to different tunes. The shops were open twenty-four-hours in all directions. If Hell were a shopping mall, Rapture would be it – this psychedelic Bosch painting, this mad city.
Kowalski walked past a video arcade. A kid no older than fifteen was wearing a squidcap while attached to a machine on which was emblazoned a logo: “TERRA WAR HERO”. It didn’t use a controller, only mental commands and thought impulses, with the game itself being projected directly into the brain’s sensory cortices using electromagnetism, reacting directly to the player’s emotional responses and giving real-time feedback in the form of greater or lesser challenge.
The gameplay appeared on a screen to attract spectators who might want to try it out for themselves. Kowalski watched as the kid assumed the virtual role of a Terran Republican soldier, fighting against the Martian Insurrectionist forces. The kid’s player character was standing in some crop-field with a rifle. The wind blew through the grasses as the kid stalked, constantly checking his six, looking for shadows, listening for a snapping twig.
Suddenly, a Martian jumped out of the wheat. He looked cartoonishly inhuman, with gnarled, misshapen yellow teeth, a grotesque underbite and pointed nose. “Die, Terran bastard, die!” yelled the Martian, before the boy blew a hole in him.
Kowalski shook his head. Anti-Martian propaganda was pretty common in Terran space. It wasn’t officially endorsed by the federal government, but it wasn’t censored either. The Terran Federal Republic wanted to ensure that Terrans remained suspicious and even hateful of Martians. Of course they did – lest the drums of war begin to beat again.
“Wasn’t like that at all,” Kowalski said.
The boy didn’t hear him.
~
Christine took off her gas mask for the first time in a week and stepped in to the lift. There were already some people in there, and being an English girl, the first thing she did was apologise to them. They didn’t reply.
There were three of them, she would later recall – a very nervous, twitching man wearing glasses, with a stubbly beard on his chin and on his upper lip, a very beautiful woman with olive skin, and a very handsome man with long grey hair and salt-and-pepper stubble, and a knowing smirk on his face.
“Would you calm down, Jefrey?” the handsome man said.
“S-sorry,” Jefrey, the twitchy fellow, said. “I’m k-kind of n-nervous.”
“Yeah, well, the amount of Blitz you took won’t fuckin’ help,” said the woman, who had an accent Christine recognised as native to New York-Δ – distinctive in that it was one of the few regional Terran English accents to have survived the succession of major vowel shifts in Terran English over the past few centuries, owing to its natural non-rhoticity.
The woman was checking her hair – long curls of mahogany – in a mirrored wall on the side of the lift. “He’s gonna blow it for us. I say he’s a liability.”
“Sh-shut up,” Jefrey said, rubbing his sweaty palms on his trousers. “I-I’m fine. I j-just need s-some m-mez.”
“Well, did you bring any?” the handsome man said.
“N-no,” Jefrey stammered, grinding his teeth.
“Man, this is already shaping up to be a real shitshow,” the woman said, re-applying lipstick.
“Don’t talk like that,” the handsome man said. “I’ll get some mez, Jefrey can calm down, and then we can get on with it.”
“Do you really think that’s wise, Maxwell? Considering all the police presence…”
“Just relax, Aeterna,” said Maxwell, the handsome man. “I wouldn’t have this much notoriety if I didn’t have a few contacts. We’re fine.”
Christine tried her best to ignore them, turning away from them. They were up to something – people often were in Lower London – and to nose around in their affairs would probably invite them to try and “keep her quiet”.
“Pardon me, little girl,” said Maxwell. Christine turned around. All three of them were staring at her. “You didn’t hear anything, right?”
Christine shook her head. “No,” she said, softly.
Maxwell pointed at her and smiled. He looked at the other two. “Good kid,” he said.
The lift stopped and they all disembarked.
London had been one of the first cities to “go stilted”. It had started as a few engineering and regeneration projects – a garden here, a skyscraper there, the odd superhighway – and over time, the city centre had played host to a series of suspended settlements built around the necks of tall skyscrapers. As the city’s population and pollution level had grown, so too had the demand for the stilts. Soon, instead of repurposing old skyscrapers as stilts, the stilts were being purpose-built using ore found in asteroids. The centre of London was soon entirely covered by the newer, stilted city on top. And over the next century, the stilts had spread outwards, despite protest and outrage, to cover what had once been Greater London and its environs with that bleak grey patchwork.
As such, only the very rich could actually afford to live in Upper London, as it was now called. Christine was one of the unlucky many who had to live beneath the stilts, hidden away from sunlight in the choking smog. Most people were desperate to get a job in Upper London so they could see the sun every day. Being seventeen years of age, Christine was permitted free use of the lifts, though after her birthday in a few months’ time, she would be expected to pay an adult fare for use – something she was dreading, as it would mean she would have to secure employment if she wished to see the Sun and breathe fresh air.
But that was a few months away, and she was trying to make the most of today. She hitched up her bag and started to walk in the direction of the New British Library, which was an enormous building of white limestone, built in a neo-Baroque style, as with many of the buildings in Upper London. Its aesthetics had been designed with the old St. Paul’s Cathedral of Lower London in mind. Meanwhile, the old cathedral had been left to wither, and had long since turned greenish-brown with moss, algae and pollution.
She entered the library, which was air-conditioned. The building was filled with the soft hum of thousands of storage computers. She pulled out her own electronic book reader from her messenger bag, approached the counter and handed it to the librarian, a kindly middle-aged woman whose name Christine had never actually learned.
“Did you enjoy the book?” the librarian asked, smiling.
“Yes,” Christine replied, succinctly. She didn’t mean to be rude or terse. She struggled to meet the librarian’s gaze. The librarian was used to this. In fact, she knew Christine quite well.
“Well, that’s good to hear,” the librarian replied. “I see you’ve been reading about Terran history.”
“Yes,” Christine said again. “I think it’s very interesting. I wish I could have lived in those days. Did you know that the first manned space flight was in 1961? I thought it was much later than that, for a long time. I would have guessed 2100.”
“Really?” the librarian said. She seemed genuinely interested, though Christine found it hard to know for sure whether she was pretending or not.
“Y-yes,” Christine stammered. “Erm, and the first flight to Luna – well, they called it the Moon in those days but – er – that was in 1969. 1969,” she emphasised. “They didn’t even have mobile computers in 1969. And – and the – what do you call them – the astronauts had to wear protective suits, you couldn’t just walk around up there, and—” She stopped herself. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologise,” the librarian said. “It’s nice to see a young lady with such passion.”
Christine hung her head. “Mm,” she said. “I’ve already selected the books I’d like to borrow from your catalogue. If you could please download those for me?”
“Absolutely,” the librarian said, placing the reader on a small raised white platform with a black plastic trim. She took it off a couple of seconds later. “That’s all done for you.”
“Thank you,” Christine said. “I’ll see you next week.”
As Christine turned to leave, a man entered the library. His skin was tanned and he wore a brown leather jacket. His hand dived into his pocket as he approached the counter. He sounded out of breath. “Hey,” the man said to the librarian, pulling out a crumpled piece of paper. “You seen this man?” He had a Martian accent.
The librarian shook her head. “Shit,” the man said. “Thanks, anyway.”
The librarian shot him a disapproving look for swearing and then said “You’re welcome.”
Christine continued on the way to the door. “Hey, kid,” she heard behind her. She started to quicken her pace. She felt a twinge of anxiety. She hated being approached by strangers.
“Hey,” the man said. Christine found most Terran men scary, to say nothing of Martians. She kept walking quickly. Please leave me alone.
“Hey,” the man said, a third time, trying to catch up to her. “Listen, this is important. I’m – hey!”
“I’m sorry,” Christine said, trying to find ways to get away from him, she turned, met his gaze for a moment and then looked away at a nearby building.
“What for?” the man said, bewildered. “It doesn’t matter. Have you seen this man?”
He held up the piece of paper. It was a black-and-white picture of a man with long hair, a stubbly beard, and a knowing smirk on his face.
Immediately Christine’s mind was filled with images – they knew she’d overheard them planning something. Maybe it was something illegal. They were talking about drugs. Maybe they were drug smugglers. They knew she’d heard them. So they sent someone after her. They sent a Martian after her. Oh God, please, no.
“Kid?” the man said. “You alright?”
“No I don’t know him please stay away from me,” Christine said, without punctuation.
“Okay,” the man said, holding his palms out in a non-threatening gesture. “Sorry.”
He continued on his way up the street. Damn it, Christine thought. Overthinking again.
She ran after the man. “I lied,” she said. “I do know him – I saw him—”
Then there was the loudest sound Christine had ever heard in her seventeen years of life, followed by nothing.
*
Kowalski sat up. The kid was laying on the ground like a ragdoll. “Oh, Jesus,” he said. “Please, God, have mercy.” He rolled her over and checked her pulse. Still beating. “Oh, thank God,” he said, picking her up in his arms. “Stay with me, baby,” he said. “Come on, don’t die on me.”
The girl moaned weakly.
“Fuck,” he said, carrying her away from the site of the blast, on to the steps of the library. She was wearing a white dress and white closed-toe sandals, soiled both by the blast and by her blood. “Hey,” he said, lightly tapping her cheeks. “Stay with me, now, you hear me?” he reached into his satchel and pulled out a small vial of alcohol and some cotton wool, and dabbed it on her arm. “This might sting a bit,” he said, pulling out a small sealed plastic bag which he tore open with his teeth, releasing a syringe. He took the cap off the syringe and squeezed some of the liquid out to ensure no trapped air bubbles, then found a vein on the kid’s arm and injected it. “This should help you,” he said, covering the puncture wound with a small circular plaster.
Kowalski noticed one of his ears was ringing. He put a finger in there and noticed it was bleeding. “Ah, shit,” he said, rooting around in the bag for a microderm patch. He pulled it out and removed the backing, revealing the ‘derm’s underside, which had thousands of microscopic needles on it. He took his jacket off and placed it on his arm. It stung a little – a bit like an ant bite – but it would, almost certainly, heal his ear. He looked down the road, or rather, where the road had been. “Jesus, kid,” he said. “You saved my life. I owe you one.”
The girl did not respond.
There was a rumble and clatter of collapsing concrete, a groan of collapsing metal. “Oh, Christ,” he said. “One of the stilts. They’ve blown up – one of the stilts…oh God…”
He tapped the screen of his watch and tapped on the icon for the ansible. It rang for a few moments.
“Hello?” Callie answered. “Everything okay?”
“No,” Kowalski answered, putting his jacket back on. “I’m in London and – oh Christ,” he said, the weight of what had just happened starting to sink in. “They’ve blown up one of the stilts. Part of the city has collapsed.”
“Oh my God,” Callie responded, in disbelief. “What are you going to do?”
“I’ve gotta finish this thing. Listen, if I haven’t contacted you in two hours, I want you to destroy the ship. Fly it somewhere unpopulated. Overload the engines, cause the cannons to backfire. Just ensure it’s gone.”
Callie paused. “And what about me?”
“Uh,” Kowalski said. “Well, I expected you to self-destruct with the ship.”
“I…see.”
“You got a problem?”
“Yeah, I have, actually,” Callie said. “I don’t want to do that. That’s – that’s suicide.”
“Well, it’s my ship,” Kowalski said. “I want it destroyed. If that means you have to be destroyed too, then that’s what you’ve gotta do. You’re an AI. We can just make another copy of you.”
“Excuse me?” Callie said, exasperated. “You can make copies of a weak AI, maybe. Not me, asshole. I’m one-of-a-kind.”
“Well, what do you expect me to do, huh?”
“Literally anything else, you piece of shit!”
“This is Mehmet’s fault!” Kowalski yelled. “I don’t know. You figure it out.”
“Wow,” Callie replied. “Okay.”
The ansible cut off.
“Fuck,” Kowalski said, again, looking out at the smouldering mess that had five minutes ago been a row of shops and cafés.
When he turned around, the girl was sitting up. She had long blonde hair and blue eyes.
“You okay?” he asked.
“What happened?” asked the girl.
“I’ll tell you later,” Kowalski said. “Look, get on my back. I’ll get you to safety.”
“Okay,” she said, weakly crawling on his back. She slipped back under.
Kowalski carried the girl up the steps, back into the library.
“Who’s that?” said a voice from behind the desk. It was the librarian Kowalski had spoken to before. “I’m armed, I tell you!” Her voice was high and panicked.
“My name is Ralph Kowalski,” Kowalski said, placing the girl down and holding his hands up non-threateningly. “I was here five minutes ago. I’ve got an injured child here.”
The librarian crawled out from under the desk. Kowalski noticed she really was holding a weapon.
The librarian took one look at the girl and started to sob. “Christine! Oh, God!”
“She’ll be okay,” Kowalski said. “I’ve injected her with Nanocea.”
“Nanocea…?” the librarian said, through sobs.
“It’s a liquid concentrate filled with noocytes,” Kowalski said. “Nanomachines,” he clarified.
“I know what a noocyte is,” the librarian said. “I’m concerned for the child’s health.”
“Well, it’s better than nothing,” Kowalski said. “We need to get her to a hospital.”
“After that?” the librarian asked, incredulous. “You’ll be fortunate to see a single doctor. The number of casualties must be…must be…” She burst into tears again, the gravity of what had happened starting to hit her.
“Listen,” Kowalski said. “I’m pretty sure I know the guy who did this. I don’t know why he did this. But I’ll find him. I’ll find him and I’ll stop him. That’s a promise.”
The librarian looked at him angrily and did not respond.
“Damn Martian!” she shouted.
She ran from the building.
Kowalski felt his hands start to shake.
~
Christine looked up at the ceiling of the library and thought, for a moment, that she might have dreamed the explosion and the Martian, and for a few seconds, she found herself worrying that she had been struck by some sort of seizure or apoplexy. It was almost a relief to sit up and see that the Martian had, in fact, been real, but then she realised that the explosion, too, must have been real. She subsequently vomited on the carpet.
“Kid?” the Martian said, looking at her. He was trembling. “Jesus.”
“What’s going on?” Christine rasped. Her limbs were tingling.
“I don’t know just yet,” the Martian said. “I’m trying to find out.”
Christine’s head was spinning. “God,” she said, half-sobbing. “I just wanted a book to read.”
“I’ll get you to a hospital as soon as possible,” the Martian said. “You got parents? Guardians? Grandparents?”
“No,” Christine said. “I’ve been living on my own for a while now.”
The Martian nodded, sadly. “Listen, I’m sorry…”
“It’s okay,” Christine said, quietly. “What now?”
“We wait until the coast is clear and I can get you checked out.”
Christine was about to respond when some people burst into the library. They were holding weapons. It was Jefrey, Aeterna and Maxwell.
“Hello,” Maxwell said. “We’d like access to the library’s database. Know anyone who can help?”
There was a long pause, as the Martian stood up.
He took a couple of steps forward. His hands were clenched into fists, and they were shaking.
“Well, there was a librarian here,” the Martian said, “But she left a few minutes ago.” Christine noted that he seemed to be speaking slightly forcefully, that made her think there was something, bile, perhaps, or something else, caught in his throat, that he kept having to swallow back down.
“Hmm,” Maxwell said. “You wouldn’t happen to be a Martian?” he asked, affably. He flashed the Martian a wolf-like grin.
“What are you doing?” Aeterna asked Maxwell, rolling her eyes.
“Yeah,” the Martian said. “Yeah, I am.”
“How interesting,” Maxwell said. “So, I suppose you also fought in the Insurrection?”
“I sure did.”
“Maxwell,” Aeterna said, insistently. Jefrey was still shaking a bit.
“Well, I’m very sorry,” Maxwell laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh. “I worked as a mercenary, you see.”
“Yeah,” the Martian replied, and Christine could swear it was through gritted teeth. “I know.”
“Maxwell…” Aeterna said, tugging at Maxwell’s arm.
“Hmm?” Maxwell grunted inquisitively, ignoring her. “Do you know me in some way?”
“Maxwell…” Aeterna said, urgently.
Christine watched as if in slow motion as the Martian reached into his satchel and pulled out a metallic object. It had a wooden grip, a long, metallic cylinder, and a chamber.
It was a pistol revolver.
He pointed it at Maxwell.
“You could say that,” the Martian said, and his finger slipped on to the trigger.
“NO!” Christine screamed, leaping over as the Martian pulled the trigger, taking his legs out from under him.
A very loud sound rang out, echoing around the otherwise-quiet library.
Maxwell fell, making choking noises and grasping at his throat.
“Fuck!” Aeterna yelled.
Blood was raining over Maxwell’s fingers as he attempted to form words.
“Call in the transport,” Aeterna said to Jefrey. “We’ll do plan B.”
“Wh-what about the g-girl and the M-Martian?”
Aeterna made eye contact with Christine. For a moment, there was something resembling pity in her eyes, and then she looked away.
“Fuck ‘em.”
They left the building then.
“Hey,” she said to the Martian, “Wake up.”
The Martian groaned.
“Wake up. Please wake up.”
The Martian rolled over and looked at her. She avoided his gaze.
“What the f—” he spluttered, before deciding to censor himself. “What the hell did you do that for?”
“You – you were going to kill him,” Christine said, resignedly.
“You didn’t think I might have a very fuckin’ good reason to wanna kill him?”
Christine paused for a moment. “He…he was nice to me.”
“Oh, he was nice to you. Christ.”
“There’s something very bad about to happen,” Christine said. “I can tell.”
“Oh, really?” the Martian said, sarcastically. “And how do you know this?”
“Because—” Christine said, about to explain, when a large shadow appeared over the building’s skylight.
The Martian looked up and appeared to recognise the shape looming overhead. “Oh God,” he said, quietly. He turned to her, all indignation now fading from his countenance. “We have to get to the basement, now.”
He grabbed her hand forcefully and led her over the librarian’s desk, into the office, through a wooden door and down a set of stone steps.
“Why do I get the feeling I’ve been here before?” Christine asked, feeling the stone wall.
“Just shut up,” the Martian said. He pressed a few buttons on his watch. Christine recognised it as a mobile ansible, though she had never owned one. It rang for around half a minute, and then switched itself off when there was no answer.
The Martian shook his head. “Okay,” he said. “Plan B.”
He took her hand and brought her down the steps to a small metal hatch, which had rusted shut. He reached into his satchel and pulled out a vial of liquid and dropped it around the edges of the hatch, which fizzed and bubbled and produced a smell of rotten apples, before falling out. Through the hatch was an emergency escape ladder, which had been left behind from the days when Upper London was still being constructed, and beneath it, a three-hundred-metre drop into the abyss.
“Where are we supposed to go now?” Christine asked.
“I don’t know,” the Martian said. “Jump and hope we land somewhere soft.”
“Are you insane?”
“Probably,” the Martian said. “Let’s go.”
She followed him down on to the ladder, to certain death. The ladder creaked and wobbled. As the two climbed on to it, part of it slid down, and the Martian yelled out. “Aw, shit.”
One of Christine’s sandals fell off. There was an awful screech of degraded metal slowly coming apart.
“I’m sorry about this, kid,” the Martian said.
Christine didn’t respond to him.
There was an almighty crash and Christine could feel heat above her head. The ladder creaked.
And suddenly, without warning, Christine was pirouetting, spinning, falling, feeling the wind blow her hair and her clothes. Her other sandal went sailing into the void, and for a moment it seemed to Christine to be weightless. And though she fell for only ten seconds, to her it felt like a century.
When she finally landed, everything went black.
The Malcontent of Mars — Chapter I: California Dreamin’ – C R E Mullins
6 July 2019 @ 10:18 am
[…] To be continued… […]