Blue Hearts of Mars (20 page)

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, everything clicking. He knew. He had always known.

“I couldn’t. There’s a law. A pact. Androids are sworn to it when they become first aware—we can’t talk about our hearts or our
tells
. And anyway, you wouldn’t have believed me till you saw it with your own eyes.”

“Do all androids know their hearts are red?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I doubt it. But we know our
tells
.”

“Anyway, it never mattered to me what color your heart is.”

“So, we’ll leave at dawn,” he said, standing up.

“No, we leave now. I’m not letting you out of my sight till we’re gone.”

He laughed. “Fair enough.”

How do you just run away? It sounds like a funny question. But really, how?

I’d never done it. Never even thought of it except in passing, like, “My life sucks. I’ll just run away and leave it all behind.”

Is that what you do? You leave it all behind?

Because, I mean, what about clothes? And food? And a place to sleep? And saying goodbye to everyone that matters to you?

Until the two of us stood up and lingered there next to the fountain, the sound of running water penetrating the weighty silence between us, we’d merely been talking about an idea that didn’t touch us.

Once we looked around and realized it was time to run away, we didn’t know what to do.

“So, uh, well, what now?” Hemingway asked, turning around in place, looking back into the coffee bar. Star was pacing back and forth behind the counter. She was always so useless unless someone told her what to do. I
found
things to do when it was slow.

I shrugged. “I guess we leave.”

“Are you going to finish your shift?”

“What’s the point? That just puts off the inevitable.” I thought I’d feel giddier about running away. Instead I felt sick with dread. And now that we were looking the prospect square in the face, it seemed like a terrible idea. Besides, it made me want to throw up with fear.

“I guess that’s true.” Hemingway nodded. He took my hand, which was hanging uselessly by my side, limp with apprehension. “Hey, you don’t have to do this. I can go alone.”

“No, no, no,” I said, protesting firmly. “Unless, well, you don’t want me with you.”

“There’s no one else in the world I want with me. But I’m the one who’s running from something. You’d be going to be with me. And you have your dad to think about. And your sister.”

Now that he was making me think about it, I knew I
did
want to go. Scared or not. “Yeah, the thought of leaving my dad and sister behind is sickening. I mean, literally, it makes me want to vomit. But there’s something bigger going on. If we don’t go, if we don’t give this information to the Voice, if we don’t get you somewhere safe, nothing will ever change.” I ticked off the reasons on my fingers and it made my resolve to leave grow stronger. “If
we
don’t do something, no one will.”

“Then you’re certain,” he asked, taking both of my hands in his, staring down into my face. I tilted my head to look up at him.

“I am, yeah.”

He walked with me back into the coffee bar to get my bag. At least I had a few things I kept with me always. Star looked up and smiled her loveliest smile at Hemingway. He returned the expression politely.

“Hey there,” she drawled, leaning forward on the bar.

“Hey,” he said, unaware of her attempts to show off her cleavage. The fact that he didn’t notice was endearing. I smiled triumphantly to myself as I grabbed my bag out of the back room. When I came out, Star was asking him what he liked to do for fun.

I stopped and listened, surprised that I didn’t know the answer to that myself.

He shrugged, as though it didn’t matter. “I read. History, mostly. I paint and make pottery. Sometimes I sculpt something, faces generally. My mother taught me to do that.”

Star nodded, her eyes wide. I walked past her to get to Hemingway and saw the look of rapture on her face.

“That is so
interesting
. And delicious, just like you,” her mouth hung open gazing up at him.

Hemingway laughed and took my hand.

“Wait, I thought you two
weren’t
together,” she said, waving her finger between us, her brow furrowed in confusion.

“We weren’t,” I said.

“Five minutes ago. We are
now
,” Hemingway explained, adding, “And in truth, when two people love each other, are they ever apart? That’s what matters.”

“Well, where are you going, Retta? You have three more hours on your shift.”

“I’m leaving,” I said, boldly. “And I’m not coming back. Tell Matt I’m sorry.”

“What? Where are you going? What am I supposed to do? Work double time?” she was enraged. Anger didn’t look good on her, but there was nothing I could do about it.

“Sorry. Call some people in?”

“Yeah, all the millions of extra workers. We’ll just spread out and fill in for you,” she said sarcastically.

I shook my head, feeling grim but resolved. “See you later.”

We turned and walked out. I felt like crap about it. You think all the time you work somewhere that when you finally have your chance to show them, you’ll just drop everything and leave, flipping them the bird or cursing someone out, and then when it actually happens you crawl out with your tail between your legs because you’re doing something very crappy and irresponsible. Or maybe that’s just me. Because I’m so good at feeling guilty.

*****

The train raced across the empty valleys, over ridges and hills, and through wicked dust storms that I was sure would derail us somehow. I stared out the window, only able to see anything by the light of Phobos. Sometimes I forgot that I was on a lonely, dangerous planet, protected only by the dome that curved over my city like a giant, blue crystal ball. Being on the train in the middle of the night amplified the feeling that I was now unmoored and extremely vulnerable.

Though the train-lines had a narrow, artificial tunnel to protect them from the weather and radiation, the dome-substance it was composed of was clear. So I could see a long way off into the darkness as we bolted through the night. We were on our way to New Tokyo. It wasn’t the closest settlement, but it was the largest, so it would be easier for us to get lost in the masses, and hide ourselves.

Hemingway opened the sliding door of our little compartment, came in, and closed it behind him.

“Well?” I asked, looking up at him.

“The Voice is on the run again, after making an announcement about a possible rounding up of androids for future colonizing missions. I don’t know how many people heard it. Just the people at the rally, I guess. He disappeared shortly after and the Information Recovery Services came charging through the crowd to arrest him,” he said, sitting down across from me. He wore a fatalistic smile. His hair looked like he’d been running his hands through it over and over again.

“The IRS?” I said. “Wow. The last time I heard they were involved with something was when I was eight or nine.”

Hemingway sat back and glanced out the window. The light in our compartment from the overhead LED light was dim, and eerie shadows swept across his face as he turned. I stared at him, suddenly wondering if I really knew this man into whose hands I’d impulsively put my future.

“If they catch him, the Voice, I worry that they’ll kill him.”

I gasped. “No way. I mean, put him in prison, maybe, but kill? That makes humans sound like barbarians.”

He closed his eyes and exhaled, a deep sigh from the center of his body. “Retta, you’ve been sheltered, I’m afraid. Not just you. Everyone.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I gave a short laugh and gathered my knees to my chest, resting my toes on the seat. I buried my chin between my knees.

He opened his eyes again and they were suddenly augurs drilling into my brain. At that moment, he looked older than me. Older than my dad. “Who is the law in New Helsinki? On Mars?” 

“Well, the police for one. The IRS, but no one hears much about them or what they do. The parliament chair in each settlement, I suppose. And the unified government.” I listed the entities quietly, wondering if there was something I’d missed, wondering if I sounded as naive as I felt just from the way he inquired and continued to watch me with those old eyes.

“The police,” he began, “they handle civil matters. Such as if someone breaks into your apartment. The Parliament chair. He or she is concerned with how the settlements run, same with parliament. Something new crops up, they make a law, like if suddenly we have flying cars on Mars. There have to be laws to govern that, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I guess.” Where was he taking this? I mean, I’m smart, sure, but maybe I’d overlooked something. Was he right about what Parliament did? I was sure we’d covered this stuff in my political theory class. I may have slept through it, though. Sometimes I fell asleep in class. I’m not perfect. It’s liable to happen.

“The unified government. They make sure some tyrant or dictator doesn’t rise up in one of the settlements and begin oppressing the people and ruling with an iron fist. Right? They provide a checks-and-balances kind of situation overall. It helps to make sure there’s a sort of uniformity between each settlement, as well. So, when we get to New Tokyo, we don’t suddenly have to wear masks for some strange reason, just because they felt like imposing that sort of rule.”

“Yeah, that sounds right,” I said, blinking, beginning to chew on a fingernail.

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and released the breath. “The IRS,” he said, pausing.

“What? What’s bugging you about the IRS?” I prodded.

“They’re the wild card,” he said at last. “Information Recovery Services. Do you know what that means?”

“It means they recover information.”

“But how do you recover information once it’s out there? Someone opens their mouth and speaks. Can you just gather up that sound and destroy it? What if someone heard it? How do you recover that?”

“You—” I said, blinking. “Um. I don’t know. Erase it from their brain? Remove it somehow?” I laughed at my stupid suggestion, thinking Hemingway would laugh too.

He didn’t. “Exactly.”

“So you’re saying the IRS goes around wiping people’s brains?”

He shook his head. “Information is more valuable than oxygen. More dangerous than radiation. If you control the information, you control people, societies, entire civilizations. Entire worlds.”

We stared at each other. I’d never seen his eyes looking so dark. He seemed sad, and that crushed me a little.

“So, do they?” I asked.

“It’s worse, Retta.” He sighed and sat forward. “If the IRS catches the Voice, they’ll kill him, just to shut him up. For a moment it was great for the movement to have a figurehead. But it also provided a focal point for those who want to stymie the flood of change. He’s said something that’s been deemed threatening. He’s unspooled a thread of knowledge that if followed, would lead people to a truth that could topple systems of power.” He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose before opening them. His gaze swiveled to the window. We both stared out at the barren plain over which our train zoomed. “They’ll kill him,” he repeated quietly. “Then, one by one, they will find a way to apply a memory-wipe to everyone who heard him. Androids are dangerous, according to them. For some unknown reason, we’re a threat. I haven’t figured it out yet.” He stared into the distance, his eyes looking inward more than anything else.

“But, it’s just the IRS,” I said, unable to accept this shift in thinking. “It’s like, thirty people or something. How can they be so dangerous. So powerful?”

He laughed, a bitter sounding chortle. “There’s more than thirty. There’s over a hundred thousand people working for them,” he smiled grimly at me. “Last my mother heard, they’d hired around sixteen thousand more.”

“Why?” I asked, aghast.

“She didn’t know. But when you told me about the requisition you’d seen at the Synlife building—” l looked around to make sure we were alone, suddenly feeling paranoid even though we had a private compartment, “—I knew that was why. Once they’ve rounded us up and sent us away, there will be a significant hole in society. Maybe they’re hoping to erase all traces that we’d ever lived in unison with humans. Maybe—I just, I don’t know, exactly. I’m trying to piece something together and I only have half the pieces.” He shook his head and frowned.

I stared at him, watching his face as he puzzled it out. His brow was furrowed, the corners of his mouth were turned down, and he stared into the middle distance, absorbed in his thoughts.

“Do you think they’ll catch him? The Voice, I mean,” I asked quietly, thinking of the short, charismatic man I met just before we hopped on the train. We had pushed our way into the crowd surrounding him. When he saw Hemingway, it was like he knew immediately that Hemingway was an android. He’d followed us into a narrow, nearby alley where a line of boulder-like men surrounded us to protect us while we conversed. I told the Voice what I knew and showed him the document stored on my Link. He politely asked that I send it to him, so I did. He thanked me for being so brave. He said it was humans—human! Not an android, human!—like himself and me who made the difference. We needed to work together. We needed to help others bridge the mental chasm that separated us. He whispered that what I had found out was true. He knew it, he said. He felt it burn inside him when he read it and that’s how you know something’s true, because it makes your heart burn.