Blue Hearts of Mars (13 page)

I kneeled down next to her so I could study the screen. She navigated through a bunch of folders and subfolders, her fingers confidently tapping the thick glass, opening the things that sounded the most promising. “New Projects.” “In Development.” “Research.” “History.”

In “New Projects” there were several documents specifying new units and clients. Some of the clients were private contractors who used the simpler androids for opening new mines out on the unprotected surface. But the biggest client was the Martian government. We found a requisition for one hundred thousand units for the Unified Martian Government. “New or existing units,” it read.

“What’s that mean, you think?” Mei asked as we both finished reading. She held up her Link and snapped an image of the requisition. I raised an eyebrow, thinking she was better at playing detective than me.

“Not certain. Units must mean androids. One hundred thousand, though. That’s a huge number. Maybe it means they’ve commissioned that many and they’ll take both new and old units.” I paused. “Old units,” I said, feeling a sickening realization.

“Like Hemingway,” Mei whispered.

She searched around a bit more and found a saved memo, an email from someone at the Vantaa. “For new colonization!” We whispered in unison as we read it.

“Holy crap,” Mei said, sliding her chair away in surprise. She rolled back to the desk and saved an image of it on her Link.

“New colonization,” I said. “They must be preparing to settle a new world. But where?”

“They’ll send the androids. New ones and old ones.”

“Like Hemingway,” I said, my heart pausing in fear. “They can’t. They can’t just send them away like they’re someone’s property.”

Mei had left the New Projects folder. She was filing through the History folder.

I turned to leave. “Let’s go. There’s nothing in there. I think we found what we came for. Or something like it.” I began to walk away, suddenly feeling anxious and fearful that we’d be caught. I actually hated being in there. Hated breaking rules. Well, except rules I didn’t agree with, like not letting me be with the man I wanted to be with, even if he was an android.

“Hang on,” Mei said, her voice tinged with excitement. “Look at this, Retta, hurry. Wow, this is fricking hilarious.”

“Hey,” I said. “Come on.” I went back to her side. There was a document open on the Gate. My eyes scanned it quickly. “That’s totally stupid.” I said, immediately disregarding it. We were on to something with the information about the new colonization and my mind was busy with that knowledge.

“I’m taking it with me,” Mei said, holding her hand up so the camera on her Link could snap an image of it.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said, feeling anxious all over.

“I’m sending you a copy.”

“Why? It’s pointless. Send me copies of the other stuff.”

“I’ll send it all to you,” Mei answered, punching buttons on her Link.

We ran down the stairs, backtracking, our hearts racing. My Link bleeped when it received the message with the photos, which caused me to jump slightly as I ran.

I was breathing heavily when Mei stopped suddenly.

“Wait,” she said. “What’s in there? I didn’t notice this door on the way up.” She was pointing at the door next to her. There was a biohazard sign on it and a lock, the kind that requires a retina scan, a brain scan, and every other kind of scan possible.

“I didn’t either, but there’s no time.”

There was a tiny window in the door. Mei crept up and pushed her face against it. Her hand rested on the door-latch as she looked through.

I don’t know if the gods of the universe were on our side at that moment, or if it was all the devils in hell conspiring, I mean, it could have been Buddha for all I knew. I’d have bought that. Somehow, some way the door-latch shifted under Mei’s weight and the door opened. She swore, the motion startling her, and then she just stood there staring at me, her long hair moving in a breeze coming through the door, her dark eyes glittering like an angel had just appeared to her.

“We have to go in,” she said softly.

“No, no we don’t,” I protested. My heart was racing at about a thousand miles an hour. I would have sworn it was a trap. I felt sure someone was watching us, guiding us along, leading us into a rabbit hole. “We already know enough. This place is scaring the ghost out of me.”

“Look,” she said, pointing beyond the threshold. The sleeve of the blue janitor coat hung on her arm like the cloak of Death dangling on a skeletal wrist.

From where I stood, I could see a room full of creepy bioengineering equipment. I would have promised that I could see giant vats of blood. But I wouldn’t be able to say for sure without going in.

I sighed heavily, my shoulders shrinking slightly, and motioned for her to go in first.

She squealed a tiny bit, pumping her fist triumphantly, and hurried in. I followed.

*****

I’ve seen the old Frankenstein holo-films, but I mean, who could think, “Yeah that might happen”?

I mean, there’s something way disturbing about that show and I’ve personally never thought it’d be a good idea to dig up dead bodies to fit them together to create life. But if you’re trying to figure out where the soul begins, I guess that’s one method of determining it.

I wasn’t quite sure what I was seeing. Well, beyond the obvious, which was that there were actual giant, clear-glass vats of blood in there, with a million tubes leaving them and going elsewhere. For all I knew, it was synthetic blood. We were, after all, in the Synlife building.

I prayed, yes prayed, to myself, or Buddha or whoever, that it was synthetic blood. If it was real? Well, that would just be disturbing. Nightmarish. Blood belongs in veins and arteries and hearts. Not in an enormous pool, as though waiting for someone to take a dip in it.

Along one wall there were cold-storage capsules where they kept the androids they were currently building. To some of these capsules ran the tubes of blood. Mei and I crept slowly toward them, the space lit by the soft, blue glow of machinery. The android faces beneath the glass of the capsules were half-finished, macabre grimacing masks, lined with thousands of cables of red muscle and white eyeballs with no eyelids or skin. And then I saw a face that was complete. It was in a capsule at the end of the row. It was a man’s face. The eyes were closed in repose. The nose was sharp. It was balanced by two deep-set eyes and a small, thin mouth. The whole thing was handsome, though not nearly as perfect as Hemingway’s face. Whoever had constructed this face, I could imagine them fashioning each feature slowly, lovingly, like a mother, or a lover.

Suddenly the mouth moved as though he was speaking in a dream. I jumped. My heart responded in kind, ready to bolt. I spun around, looking for Mei. I couldn’t help but imagine the android reaching a hand out and grabbing my shoulder with an iron grip. But no. Of course that wouldn’t happen. He was trapped in the capsule. It was all so irrational, but I was ready to run.

I looked for Mei. She had been right by my side, or so I thought. We’d been silently exploring the floor together. The machinery was loud. Talking in normal voices was difficult, so we’d been investigating quietly.

My eyes scanned the room, but she was nowhere in sight.

I returned the way I’d come. Past the other cold-storage capsules. To the blood-vats.

There. She was bent over a glass chamber, the kind for robotic arms to do extremely precise work. The robotic arms were still, balanced over a lump of something. I couldn’t tell what it was from so far away. I hurried to her side to urge her to leave with me.

That’s when I saw what she was staring at.

It was a heart. A kind of ugly, but perfect, heart. There were tubes of blood running to it from the giant vats.

And it was red.

You think you know something, and then you see a red heart where you should see a blue one.

That’s when you wonder, well, how different are we, then?

My mind was blown as we ran from the Synlife building, toward home. Mei came with. She slept over, on the floor of my bedroom on a colonists’ bedroll. Neither of us said anything for a long time. We’d gotten ready for bed in relative, mutual silence, contemplating what we’d just done. And seen.

Staring up at the dark ceiling, catching the moons out my window from the corner of my eye, those two celestial bodies locked in that eternal dance, everything became clear. I cleared my throat and spoke quietly, “So.”

“Yeah,” Mei answered.

“Do you think they
all
have red hearts?”

“Hard to say, cowgirl. It’s—you know, gross.”

I sat up. “Why?” I could feel indignation rising in the space between my ribs.

“Just, you know, if they have hearts that look like ours, what does that say about us? About them? So what separates us from them? They’re like, animals, you know?”

“Mei, if they have hearts that look like ours, how does that change us? It doesn’t. It just means that we’ve been treating them as less than human for too long.” I plopped back down on my bed. It was frustrating trying to get someone to look at something differently from how they’d always viewed it. And Mei was my best friend. I hated to think of trying to change an entire society.

“What about the other stuff?” I asked quietly. I heard her shift on the bedroll. It was soft, but the material rubbed together and made shuffling noises.

“Which stuff? There was a lot.”

“The new colony part.”

“Yeah, that. Sucks. But at least they’re sending androids first and not us, right?”

Mei was frustrating in her coolness. She was sweet in some ways, although more often than not, she wore her rough edges like a hip new jacket. And sometimes she aggravated the living daylights out me. Like right then. “So you’ll be glad if they send Hemingway off?”

“Well, he’s gorgeous. So in that way, I’ll miss him. But he’s an android. So it’s fake, you know? It’s like those girls in the rough, saloon section of the city. They might as well be androids with how altered their bodies are. Right? Men go stare at them all day and who knows what else, but everyone knows deep down that they’re not real. At least, not real like you and me.”

I could seriously have punched her right then. Mei always reacted that way, slapping you or punching you, or pinching your earlobe real hard when you bothered her or surprised her. For once I wanted to react that way to her.

I lay there in silence, too pissed to say another word, wishing that she’d just gone home, since her commentary and opinions weren’t helping me sort out the complicated things I was feeling. She was only solidifying my ideas. I could feel them turning hard against the wind of her cruel opinions.

Soon the grating buzz of snores rose from the dark lump on the floor of my room. I lay awake for a long time, examining the multiple, strange aches in my chest, knowing more than I wanted to about what the future might hold and uncertain of how to proceed.

*****

“What's going on?” I asked, running the rest of the way through the hallway at school the following Monday to stop at the door of Dr. Craspo’s classroom. In black-marker letters across the metal of the door, beneath the small window, were the words “Machine! Machine! How many women have you raped to get this classroom, Machine?” I ripped off my RedSand jacket and tried rubbing the marker away.

Mei came up behind me. “What’re you doing?”

I paused, pulling my jacket away so she could read it. I watched her smooth, olive-skinned brow go from complacent to furrowed. Her chin jutted forward. “Who did this? Who did this?” she screamed, turning back to the streaming hallway of bodies. Several of our classmates were approaching. They jumped back in shock at Mei’s fury.

Honestly, I was surprised it got such a reaction from her, especially after our unsatisfying conversation on Friday night. She had left quickly Saturday morning, saying she had to go do something at the Buddhist temple—mass or something. I didn’t listen very well. I’d been half asleep still, exhausted, having only slept an hour or two, and I went back to sleep. When I woke up fully, she was gone. I’d spent Saturday and Sunday compiling everything I’d learned so far and tried to figure out how soon they’d send the androids away for the new colony. I still had no answers.

A crowd had gathered around the doorway, leaving a half-circle of space around Mei and myself. The entire hallway began to rumble as a bottleneck of students formed.

Soon, Dr. Craspo appeared on the other side of the door. He stepped out. My scrubbing had proved futile, and I let my jacket hang from my hand dejectedly.

Craspo came through into the hallway. “What’s going on here?” he demanded sternly.

I motioned weakly toward the door. Craspo turned back, then, realizing I meant something other than “look, it’s your classroom” he closed the door. His face went from pure white to red, to a stormy black, like a thunderhead. Although, I’d only ever seen thunderheads on the holos from Earth—his face looked like a weather system, the kind that spawned tornadoes and hurricanes.