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The biting chill of the spring morning air whips around Gardner, a stark contrast to the climate-controlled serenity of the Ares I. Seven months. Seven long, agonizing months crammed into the claustrophobic confines of a supply vessel, every creak and groan of the ship a constant reminder of the impossible distance he's traversed. Now, the cool, damp breath of Earth fills his lungs, tasting of something primal and new. He shoves open the heavy hatch of the docking bay, the metallic screech echoing in the cavernous space. His muscles, accustomed to the gentle pull of Martian gravity, protest with every strained movement.
He stumbles out, his knees buckling slightly. The fluorescent lights of the bay assault his eyes, brighter, harsher than anything he’s known. He’s free. Truly, undeniably free. His heart pounds a frantic rhythm against his ribs, a drumbeat of exhilaration and terror. The vastness of the spaceport feels overwhelming, a chaotic symphony of whirring machinery and distant voices. He spots a forgotten delivery uniform, a drab grey jumpsuit, slung over a discarded crate. He tears off the too-tight Martian-issue clothing, the fabric feeling alien against his skin, and pulls on the oversized jumpsuit. It smells faintly of sweat and industrial cleaner, an odd comfort in its realness. He snatches a pair of dark sunglasses from a display stand in a gift shop, he sprints past, the lenses instantly dimming the assaulting brightness.
He pays for nothing. Every fiber of his being screams urgency.
He finds the bus depot, a dizzying maze of numbered bays and flickering destination signs. He knows the route from memory, etched into his mind from countless hours poring over Tulsa's digital world. He swipes a transit card he’d lifted from a wallet left in the uniform’s pocket, the action feeling strangely illicit and exhilarating. Bus after bus, the landscape outside the window shifts from the grey concrete of the spaceport to sprawling suburbs, then to more densely packed urban areas. Buildings taller than anything he’s ever seen scrape the sky, jagged teeth against the pale blue. Trees, impossibly green, blur into streaks as the bus hurtles forward. The sheer volume of people, a swirling river of faces, overwhelms his senses.
Each face tells a story he can’t read, each movement a mystery.
Finally, the bus slows, the destination sign matching the address he’s committed to memory. He disembarks, his legs feeling strangely heavy. The school. It’s a sprawling complex of red brick and glass, surrounded by a vibrant courtyard teeming with students. He scans the faces, a frantic search for the one he knows only from pixels and whispered conversations.
Then he sees her.
Tulsa.
She’s standing by a locker, her back to him, her blonde hair a familiar wave. He recognizes the way her shoulders slump slightly, the casual lean against the metal. A surge of pure, unadulterated elation floods him, so potent it almost knocks the breath from his lungs. He pushes through the laughing, chattering throngs, a singular focus in his gaze. He reaches her, a triumphant smile already forming on his lips, the words of greeting already forming on his tongue.
Before he can speak, she whirls around, her eyes, usually soft and understanding in their digital form, are blazing with an intensity that chills him to the bone. Her hand flashes out, a lightning-quick blur, and then a stinging heat explodes across his cheek. The sound of the slap cracks in the air, sharp and shocking.
He recoils, his hand instinctively flying to his smarting face. The smile vanishes, replaced by a bewildered frown. What just happened?
"You!" she snarls, her voice a low, furious hiss. "You ghosted me! What the hell, Gardner? After everything, you just disappear? No message, no nothing?"
He stares at her, the word "ghosted" an alien concept, a string of sounds without meaning. He shakes his head, still reeling from the unexpected assault. "I... I don't understand."
"Don't understand?" Her voice rises, drawing curious glances from nearby students. She doesn't seem to notice. "You just vanished! Poof! Like you never existed! You ignored every message, every email, every ping! I thought something happened to you! I thought—" She cuts herself off, her breath coming in ragged gasps.
"I told you," he manages, his voice a low thrum of confusion. "I told you I was going on a trip."
"A trip?" She throws her hands up in exasperation, then slams them back down against her sides. "A trip? What kind of trip takes you off the grid for seven months? You have a communicator, Gardner! You have an email! You have a datapad! You could have sent a drone message! You could have—”
He cuts her off, his voice tinged with a quiet desperation. "It was impossible. It was a very specific type of travel."
She stares at him, her eyes narrowing. "A very specific type of travel?" She mocks his words, mimicking his precise, almost clinical enunciation. "What, did you take a trip to the moon? A grand tour of the solar system?" Her voice is laced with sarcasm, each word a venomous jab.
He shifts his weight, the unfamiliar heaviness of Earth's gravity pressing down on him. His legs feel like lead, his bones aching with an unfamiliar pressure. The strain is constant, a dull ache behind his eyes. He misses the buoyant lightness of home, the effortless grace of movement.
"The gravity," he mutters, more to himself than to her. "It's… heavy."
She just stares, her anger still simmering beneath the surface. He can see the tremor in her hands, the tension in her jaw. A sudden, angry burst of energy courses through him, fueled by the sting on his cheek, the confusion, the sheer effort of simply existing in this new, overwhelming world.
"I did a lot," he practically growls, his voice uncharacteristically rough, "to get here! More than you can possibly imagine!"
The anger seems to drain from her, replaced by a weary resignation. She lets out a long, slow breath. "You know what, Gardner?" she says, her voice softer now, almost a whisper. "You're the only person I don't hate."
A faint smile touches his lips, a small victory in the face of her fury. Tulsa tilts her head, her gaze sweeping over him, taking in his suddenly taller frame. He’s grown, certainly, in the time they’ve been apart, the last vestiges of Martian youth stretching into something more angular, more defined.
"You're a lot taller than I thought you'd be," she murmurs, her tone devoid of its earlier aggression.
He meets her gaze, a small, defiant flicker in his eyes. "You're a lot meaner than I thought you'd be."
A ghost of a smile, a fleeting, almost imperceptible curve of her lips, appears on her face. Then, the bell shrieks, a jarring, metallic sound that makes him flinch. Tulsa sighs, shaking her head.
"Stay here," she commands, her voice firm. "Don't move. I have class. I'll be back."
She turns and walks away, disappearing into the stream of students flowing upstairs. He watches her go, his gaze fixed on her retreating form. He feels like a child, small and helpless, abandoned in a chaotic sea of giants. An old video flashes in his mind, one he's watched countless times on his datapad back home. A black and white film, grainy and flickering, of a young German child during World War II. The child is lost in a surging crowd, jostled and pushed, her face a mask of bewildered sorrow. Then, she looks up, her small hand raising in a sad, almost imperceptible wave to the videographer, a silent plea for connection in a world gone mad. He feels that same profound sense of isolation, that same helpless plea.
"Stay put," she'd said. "Don't move." A defiant spark ignites within him. He's waited long enough. He's traveled unimaginable distances. He's endured impossible hardships. He's not waiting another second. He accesses the memory, the digital blueprint of her life, the one he’d painstakingly pieced together with satellite pings and data streams from the comfort of his Martian habitat. He hacked her computer via satellites on a bored day a about a year ago, a harmless diversion that now proves to be an invaluable asset. He knows her schedule. History class. Room 207.
He navigates the crowded halls, a Martian among Earthlings, a silent observer in a vibrant, noisy world. He finds the classroom, a door ajar, the muffled drone of a lecture seeping out. He pushes it open, the sound echoing in the suddenly silent room. Every head turns. A woman with kind but firm eyes stands at the front of the classroom, a projector casting an image of a steam engine onto the whiteboard behind her. She looks at him, her eyebrows raised in polite inquiry.
"And you are?" she asks, her voice calm and even.
"Gardner," he replies, his voice steady, though his heart hammers against his ribs.
"Are you a transfer student?" she asks with a small, polite smile playing on her lips.
He considers the question, the complexities of his arrival, and the impossibility of explaining. "Okay," he says simply, the word a vague acknowledgment of his presence.
A ripple of laughter, light and amused, spreads through the classroom. Tulsa, sitting in the third row, buries her face in her hands.
The teacher's smile widens slightly. "Where are you from, Gardner?"
He pauses, weighing his options. The truth, or something closer to it? The truth is too vast, too unbelievable. "East Texas," he says, picking a random, geographically plausible location.
"I don't think I have you on my roster," she muses, scanning a tablet.
"Okay," he says again, the word a versatile tool, a shield against further interrogation.
The laughter grows louder, a genuine, unforced sound. The teacher gestures to an empty desk in the back.
"Please, have a seat."
He walks to the back, his movements still a little stiff under the oppressive gravity. As he passes Tulsa, she leans in, her voice a furious whisper. "I told you to wait for me!"
He leans in closer, his whisper fierce. "I've waited long enough."
He sinks into the desk, the hard plastic unforgiving against his back. The teacher resumes her lecture, her voice a comforting drone about the Industrial Revolution, a time of profound change and rapid innovation. A time not unlike his own, in a way.
Then, a student, a boy with unruly brown hair and a confident smirk, pipes up. "Edison was badass, though."
Gardner’s head snaps up. The words are out of his mouth before he can filter them, a pure, unfiltered surge of knowledge he’s accumulated from countless hours of reading. "Edison," he begins, his voice surprisingly clear and strong, "invented direct current, or DC. But Nikola Tesla invented alternating current, AC. Edison knew AC was superior, but he wanted his DC to be the standard. So, he went around electrocuting animals, trying to prove how dangerous AC was. He even electrocuted an elephant, an innocent elephant named Topsy, just to scare people." His voice rises with indignation. "Edison wasn't badass. He was just a bad person."
The classroom falls silent. Every eye, including the teacher's, is fixed on him. Tulsa, who had been slumping in her seat, is now sitting upright, her mouth slightly agape. A collective gasp of impressed silence fills the room.
After class, the halls are a swirling eddy of students, their voices a cacophony of adolescent chatter. Gardner and Tulsa walk side by side, a curious island of quiet in the storm. He pulls out a worn, slightly crumpled photograph from his pocket, the edges frayed. It's a picture of a man and a woman, their faces illuminated by the faint, ethereal glow of a Martian sunset. His mother, her hair a wild cascade of dark curls, smiles brightly, her arm looped through the man's. The man, tall and lean, a kind of fierce intensity in his eyes, stares directly at the camera, a faint smile playing on his lips.
"This is my mother," he says, his voice flat. "She died."
Tulsa shifts uncomfortably. "I'm sorry," she says, her voice soft, empathetic.
He shrugs, a gesture he’s learned from watching her. "What for? It wasn't your fault." He pauses, then adds, "It was mine. I killed her."
They're standing by her locker, the dull thud of slamming metal doors punctuating the heavy silence between them.
"Killed?" She repeats in a whisper, her eyes wide with a mixture of horror and fascination.
He nods, his gaze distant, lost in a memory only he can see. "She died during childbirth. Giving birth to me." He looks at her then, his eyes stark and honest. "So, yes. I killed her."
Tulsa takes the photo, her fingers tracing the faded image of the woman's face. "She's beautiful."
"She was," he agrees. He points to the man in the picture. "And this is my father. I want to find him. I need your help."
Tulsa looks up, her eyes wide. "My help? Gardner, I don't even know where to begin!"
He tries, for the nth time, to explain that he's a Martian, but she isn't buying it. He pulls out a small, metallic object from his pocket, a smooth, dark stone, no bigger than his thumb. She takes it, her fingers tracing the cool, smooth surface. It feels strangely heavy, dense. She turns it over in her palm, her brow furrowed in thought. A flicker of something, a spark of belief, ignites in her eyes.
"Okay," she says, a sigh escaping her lips. "Okay, fine. I'll help you. But if this is some elaborate prank, Gardner, I swear I'm going to—"
"It's not a prank," he interrupts, a hint of desperation in his voice. "This is real."
She nods slowly, her gaze still fixed on the Martian rock. "Alright. But we're skipping school. I need to get some cash."
They walk out of the school, the bright sunlight a sudden, almost painful glare. He follows her, his steps still a little clumsy, his senses overwhelmed by the sheer sensory input of Earth. The smell of exhaust fumes, the distant blare of car horns, the murmur of distant conversations; it all blends into a chaotic symphony he struggles to process. She leads him to a beat-up motorcycle, a sleek black machine that gleams dully in the sun.
"Ever ridden one of these?" she asks, a mischievous glint in her eyes.
He shakes his head, a faint smile touching his lips. "No."
"Hold on tight," she says, swinging her leg over the seat.
He climbs on behind her, his arms wrapping around her waist. Her body feels solid, warm, utterly real. She kicks the stand up, and the engine rumbles to life, a deep, throaty roar that vibrates through him. She revs the engine, and then they're off, hurtling down the street. The wind whips through his hair, tearing at his clothes. The buildings blur, the trees become streaks of green. He closes his eyes, letting the sensation wash over him. It's exhilarating, terrifying, and profoundly familiar. The feeling of weightlessness, the almost dizzying sensation of being suspended in air, it’s a faint echo of the zero-g environment he knows so well. This, he thinks, is the closest he'll get to home.
The ride is a blur of speed and wind. He clings to her, the rhythmic rumble of the engine a comforting thrum against his chest. They pull up to a modest house, nestled behind a weathered, barbed-wire fence. Tulsa kills the engine, and the sudden silence is deafening. She dismounts, then turns to him.
"Wait here," she says, her voice a little breathless from the ride. "I'll be right back. Just need to grab some money."
She disappears inside the house. He stands by the fence, still feeling the phantom vibration of the motorcycle beneath him. The air is thick with the scent of freshly cut grass and something else, something sweet and floral. He closes his eyes, trying to commit every sensation to memory.
Then, a sleek black car pulls up to the fence, its engine idling silently. Two figures emerge. Kendra. And Nathaniel.
His blood runs cold. He recognizes them instantly, even from this distance. Kendra, his mother figure, her face etched with a familiar mixture of concern and exasperation. Nathaniel, the CEO of Genesis, the program that sent his mother to Mars seventeen years ago, his expression unreadable, but radiating an undeniable authority. They stand by the barbed gate, their gazes fixed on him.
"Gardner!" Kendra's voice, though distant, carries clearly in the quiet afternoon. "Gardner, please! We just want to talk!"
He shakes his head, a primal surge of fear and defiance coursing through him. "Leave me alone!" he screams, his voice cracking with emotion. "Just leave me alone!"
He turns to run, his legs suddenly heavy, his balance off. The Earth's gravity, his constant companion since his arrival, suddenly feels like an unbearable weight. He stumbles, his knees buckling. Then, he hears it. The unmistakable whirring of rotors, the flashing blue lights of police cars pulling up behind Kendra and Nathaniel. They brought the authorities. They’re not just here to talk. They’re here to take him back. Back to the sterile confines of Genesis, back to the endless tests and observations, back to a life that isn't his own.
He panics, a cold dread seizing him. He pushes himself up, his legs pumping, running in the opposite direction, away from the barbed gate, away from Kendra's pleading voice, away from Nathaniel's silent, watchful gaze. Tulsa emerges from the house, a handful of bills clutched in her hand, just in time to hear the commotion. She sees the police, sees Gardner stumbling away, his face a mask of terror. Without a second thought, she drops the money and runs after him. Her German Shepherd, a massive, muscular dog named Zeus, who had been lounging calmly in the yard, suddenly lunges at the fence, a low growl rumbling in his chest. His jowls snap, a guttural warning, as Kendra and Nathaniel approach. The dog's sudden aggression buys the teenagers precious seconds, a brief window of opportunity to escape.
Tulsa catches up to Gardner, grabbing his arm. "This way!" she yells, pulling him towards a small, rusty hangar at the edge of the property. Inside, a two-seater crop duster sits, its yellow wings dull with dust.
"You can fly this?" he asks, his voice breathless, his eyes wide with disbelief.
She throws open the cockpit door, a mischievous grin spreading across her face. "No idea!"
She clambers into the pilot's seat, gesturing for him to get into the co-pilot's seat. He scrambles in, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs. She fumbles with the controls, her fingers flying over the unfamiliar switches and dials. The engine sputters, then catches, a roar that vibrates through the entire plane. Outside, the police cars are closer now, their sirens wailing, a chorus of rising and falling despair. Kendra and Nathaniel are running towards the hangar, their faces a mixture of concern and frantic determination. Zeus continues to snarl and snap, a loyal guardian buying them time.
Tulsa pushes the throttle forward. The crop duster shudders, then begins to roll, picking up speed, rumbling down the makeshift runway. The fence shrinks behind them, the police cars mere specks in the distance. The plane lifts off, clumsily at first, then with a surprising surge of power-