“So, if we’re teenagers again, then your memory has us getting shot at all the time? I don’t ever recall that.”
“It was every other Tuesday.”
“Uhuh. And were we crammed in tubes, forced to suck on recycled air?”
“I believe that was Saturdays.”
“Well, then were we constantly under threat of decompression and a quick, painful death?”
“Every second of every day. And don’t forget dust storms.”
I rubbed my chin and peered at the endless white washed vista filling every nanometer of false reality around us. “Well then, maybe it is about the same. I certainly get in trouble near as much as when we were teenagers, however, there’s less drinking now. Far less.”
She rolled her eyes. “Man, don’t I know it. Sucks to be in a dry county without a ride.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“Want some more interesting surroundings than this white washed decor?”
I tipped my head back over the arm of the chair, blood rushing into my forehead. “What did you have in mind?”
“Presto changeo!” She clapped twice, hurling us into a rolling meadow of brilliant wildflowers nestled beside a blue lake at the foot of mammoth snowcapped mountains. I sucked in a breath and tumbled out of the chair, cool grass cushioning my fall.
“You okay?” she asked, half laughing.
My forehead tingled. The sky above reached out for ages, clear as azure crystal and sobering in its awesome scale. After being in such a confined space for so long, the expanse was dizzying. “Hey, where are we? I know Earth, but—”
“Some place in the Swiss Alps, like a scene from that movie, what was it called? The Sound of Music? Bunch of whitewashed Eastern European nonsense. Glad it’s not like that out here.” She shivered as if a swift breeze had given her a chill. “Hot damn, it feels nice to change the world—using your words.”
“Hot damn indeed. But, by the way, you’re thinking of Austria. The Sound of Music took place in Austria. Maybe you didn’t pay as much attention in class as I thought.”
“Whatever.” She shook her head.
“You know, I have to say,” I raised a finger, “Mars is beautiful and all, breathtaking even, but this, I mean… Why aren’t we back in the cradle with the rest of mankind? We’re hurtling towards a near dead, red rock in a silver bullet. Terraforming is a long way off, a hundred years at least if they can solve the dynamo issue, and this place, well, it looks far more agreeable.”
She came over, extending a hand to help me on my feet. When I was standing once again she didn’t let go. “We spent our time looking up and out, dreaming of what infinity holds, but once we found ourselves there, among the stars, so many of us looked wistfully back, wishing to set our feet upon a tiny globe of blue and green suspended among the oceans of black.” Her fingers tightened around mine.
“That was beautiful.”
She smiled. “Look, Mars is our home, it always will be. Let’s go to Elysium Planitia, wouldn’t that be more fitting?”
“No, that’s okay. Let’s stay here. I like it. Besides, it’s nice to get a respite from red dirt and dust. And you know what else? These things, these VR simulations, they usually make me nauseous. I think I’m alright for once. I’m not sure why, but let’s not rock the boat.”
“Suit yourself.” She let go of my hand and sighed, turning to face the distant silver spires of a mega city shooting out of untouched mountains. That was where Mars’s exports went, and for what purpose; to build bigger, better cities without destroying the natural resources of Earth in the process. They could go on like this for a while yet, but one day they would have to stop. The foreign mass of extra-planetary materials would slow the rotation of Earth and change too much.
I felt empty with the absence of her hand, and so I filled the void with words. “How are we not being watched? Cap can find us, right? All he has to do is check and see where the crew are logged in.”
“But lo!” Liberty wagged a finger an inch from my nose. “Griffin showed me a way to fool the system into thinking we’re inside separate simulations. Something about running two instances while projecting one of us, you in this case, into the other, keeps the system from seeing them linked. She’s about the smartest person I’ve ever met when it comes to programing in Sage computer language. All I can do is fumble around in the dark.”
My mouth fell open. “Hot damn, that’s smart. I’ve never done well with Sage. I can read a little of it, but not write much. You start getting into code compilers for chemical computing assembly language and it’s like…” I ran an open palm over my head.
“Riiggghht,” Liberty drew out the word five times its normal length. “You definitely know more than me, well, about that at least. Too bad not much else. So thick headed.”
“Is that so?” I bowed up my chest. “Well, lookie here, milk dud, I’ll lay some knowledge on you for real!”
She took off down the hill, heels kicking up grass. “Whatever, Davie, I’m soooo scared. But you have to catch me first!”
I shot off after her, field flowing beneath my feet. Just as I was about to close the gap, she shoved me back onto the ground and took off double time.
She was faster than she looked. Before my butt had hardly hit the turf I was after her. “You know what? All I do is run in my free time. I’m fast as lightening, Liberty!”
“You know what else? This shit isn’t real!” She threw up her hands, dashing for a cluster of evergreen trees.
“Crap,” I growled, and ordered my legs to pump faster. She was right. What did my physical body matter in this virtual space?
As my heart rate increased, my stomach began to swirl. I forced down the sensation and pushed ahead. Liberty might have been faster per step, but she lacked my crazy long stride. I flew forward, quick as a bird, and caught her around the middle.
“Gotcha, rabbit!” I said, goosing her in the side.
“David! Damn you!” She was laughing so hard she snorted. “That’s not fair, ganging up on someone smaller than you.”
“Smaller? Are you kidding me? Your personality more than makes up for the difference in size.”
The two of us tangled and fell over, rolling down the hill end over end. If I could have stopped laughing for an instant it might have hurt when I hit the ground. As it was, I didn’t hardly feel a thing. The hill became steeper as it went, spurring us on all the more.
“Shit! David!” Liberty yelled, sounding panicked.
“We… are…” I shouted in reply, the words only audible when facing the sky, “almost… at… the… bottom.”
The ground leveled off beside the lake. We skidded to a halt in the grass. Liberty came to rest beside me, lying flat on her back, panting as if she’d run a marathon. Sprigs of green grass were sticking out of her hair at a variety of angles like confetti.
“Holy shit,” she hissed.
“Holy shit is right.” I could only smile. “Hot damn, that was fun!” I rolled over and met her eyes, crawling across the grass to take her face gently in my palms. Caught in a pregnant, uncertain moment, she paused and calculated her next move.
She leaned in and our lips met, forming a soft, wonderful kiss. Our tongues exchanged affections as our bodies gravitated closer, putting us into a press of tangled limbs. Liberty found her way on top of me, sweet lips trailing down my neck and upper chest. She began unzipping my jumpsuit and lowered her hands, but I stopped her, drawing her chin back up. I looked into her eyes and felt so very small, my soul crushed by a beautiful, crystalline moment.