Blue Hearts of Mars (27 page)

If you miss you crash back to the ground, beaten, defeated, crushed. That’s how it always happened for me anyway.

Our curries came—Hemingway boastfully got the hotter curry—and we began eating. We exchanged some sparkling, intelligent banter, which I always loved because it was like sparring, only in a loving way, like . . . well, like lovers.

And then of course, something came on the news, because we were sitting there, near the Gram. It was like it knew we were there and it knew it could spoil our dinner . . . our lives, by broadcasting something neither of us wanted to know right then.

But I’m supposed to look at it like it was fortuitous. It saved us, in a way.

“Retta, that’s a picture of you,” Hemingway said.

Sure enough. It was. Right there on the Gram. The worst was that I looked fatter. The Gram adds like twenty pounds, they say. “Oh. Oh no—” I stopped, a bite of curry almost lodging in my throat. I could hardly swallow. My throat felt too thick with fear and revulsion.

The program was talking about the stuff I’d posted on my website. They had a representative from Synlife talking about how everything I said was just a pack of lies. How could anyone trust a criminal like me, and oh yeah, they were going to press charges against me for breaking into their facility, and they had security footage of me in their building and it would be easy enough for Synlife to win.

So, if anyone saw me, it would be great if they could call the police to have me arrested.

They had it on good authority, the Synlife rep said, that I was traveling with a man by train. They kept flashing my picture, which was very unflattering. It must be from when I first saw the heart, or something, at the Synlife building because my mouth was curled down in disgust and my eyes were squinty and looked really small. I looked beady-eyed.

My only hope was that I didn’t normally look like that. Maybe no one would recognize me.

I scanned the room. Groaning, I saw that my hope was in vain. People were already pointing at me and whispering among themselves.

“Please don’t offer a reward,” I whispered to myself.

No sooner had the words left my mouth than the stupid Synlife rep was explaining that there would be a considerable reward for leads on my whereabouts.

“Hemingway,” I said, turning to him. He was clenching his jaw and there was a let’s-do-it air to his expression. It was like he knew what I was going to say: what’s one unpaid bill on a laundry list of criminal offenses?

We bolted for the door as twenty Links were raised at once to their owner’s lips and messages beamed across the planet to Synlife. A hand reached out for my arm, I dodged it; a stray foot was suddenly in my path, I leapt over it.

Bursting out onto the street, I glanced to my left.

“Bollocks,” I said. Why oh why were there two IRS agents coming toward us? “Go! Go!” I shouted at Hemingway who was on the other side of me and hadn’t yet seen the stupid agents. He fell into a sprint and I found my own legs pumping as fast as they’d ever gone. Did they follow? I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to slow down to find out.

I took the stairs two at a time up to the train platform where the train we’d be taking back to New Helsinki was unloading. Crowds of people spilled off the cars. I only noticed their heads, bobbing like dandelion heads in the wind as they strode away from the train, toward the stairs. I fought against the current.

“The other train!” Hemingway said loudly over the noise of the crowd and the train.

“Where is it?” I asked.

“The far platform,” he said.

We both turned around, looking for the way back to the far platform, which was across the tracks from where we stood. Was it clear?

No. It wasn’t clear. The agents were cresting the stairs, searching the crowd for us.

“Hemingway!” I said.

“Get on the train. We’ll lead them through the cars, get out the other side, and jump on the other train just as this one leaves. They’ll be stuck on this train,” Hemingway said, pulling me through the stream of people. We bumped into people who hissed at us, some who didn’t notice, and others who were too busy talking into their Links.

We jumped up the stairs into the nearest train car, and began heading up its corridor toward the engine car and the observation deck.

The dining car was a blur. The sleeper cars were a haze. I glanced back a few times. The agents were a car-length behind us. I’d see them just as we were hopping into the next car.

Out the window facing the other platform, I could see the train bound for New Hyderabad. It beckoned. I wanted to bolt, but I knew our timing had to be perfect.

I wasn’t sure how many more cars we had to go before we reached the end of the train and became trapped behind the engine car.

“They don’t even know why they’re chasing us,” I said, breathlessly to Hemingway.

“Just that we ran, that’s enough for their sort,” he answered. “Get ready to jump.”

The train jolted forward beneath our feet, sending me flying into Hemingway, as it prepared for departure. “It's leaving!”

“Now!”

We were about five feet from the nearest exit. The doors were closing as Hemingway leapt toward them, pulling me through the air. We weren’t going to make it. I could tell at once.

The doors slammed and hissed as Hemingway crashed into them, sliding down into a stunned heap.

“No, no, no,” I muttered, righting myself and glancing back at the agents who had slowed to a casual pace. They had us. They knew it. “Hemingway, get up. Get up,” I muttered, kneeling down beside him. The train hummed and vibrated around me as it flew across the tracks.

This was it. We were in for it. They would wipe our memories. I would forget everything that mattered to me. Hemingway would just be a face in a desert sea of faces. My dad and Marta would only be faint memories to me. The pitifully vacant expression of Mr. Masumi floated before my eyes as I turned to confront the agents. That poor man. I was about to join him in his oblivion.

I glanced back at Hemingway. He was still stunned. Still! He was an android! A blue heart! I’d seen him clash with men as strong as him and he couldn’t take a doubly reinforced steel door with a tiny jolt of electricity?

“Come on, Hemingway,” I said, “if you’re in there somewhere, now would be a good time to come to my assistance.”

The agents smiled casually at me. Somehow we’d chosen a completely empty car to have our confrontation. Our duel. Who was I kidding? It wouldn’t be a duel. It was going to be a bloodbath, and I’d be the loser. And I would lose everything. I’d rather be dead than not remember Hemingway. Dad. Marta. I’d rather go down in flames.

I watched their stupid glossy black goggles come closer. Red emblems on their shirts the color of blood. Three vertical lines. The center line longer than the two surrounding it. What did that even mean? I wanted to spit on them. I was that mad. Spitting mad.

“Why’d you run?” one of the agents asked in a raspy voice. They were coming toward us, two abreast. The train cars were wide and the seats ran along it with their backs against the outer walls.

“Why’d you chase us?” I retorted. I felt myself sinking into a crouch, my hands raising into a fighting position. What was I doing? I wasn’t a fighter. I’d had a few self-defense lessons in school just for the fun of it. I sucked at it.

“Because you ran. And then we did a scan. You’re wanted by Synlife.” The other agent smiled. His white teeth were as reflective as his sunglasses.

Hemingway stirred. I felt a glimmer of hope erupt in my chest like a burst of sunshine through a dome-covering sandstorm.

I swallowed. Maybe I could stall them. “You going to wipe my memory?”

This halted them both in their tracks. Only half the train car separated us.

“Why would it be in need of wiping?” one of them asked.

“And how did you know about that?” asked the other.

“Everyone knows it. Everyone knows how evil the IRS is.” Were they evil? They seemed evil. I wanted the words to sting.

They laughed.

“You don’t know the half of it.”

Well. That was an unexpected response.

Hemingway groaned and climbed to his hands and knees. He shook his head as though to clear his mind. “The door,” he said, gasping, “electrified.”

“I know. I’m sorry, really, that sucks bad, but can you just get up, like right now?” I pled, trying to sound sympathetic and urgent all at once.

The agents were studying him, their expressions thoughtful. Somehow that made them seem even more monstrous.

“He’s an android,” one of them said. I couldn’t help but shoot him a worried glance. If it had been a guess, my look told him it was true.

Would it change things? Probably.

“Lucky us. We're in need of a few androids. ”

Hemingway hopped to his feet, his lips peeling back, baring his teeth like a rabid animal. Oh thank goodness I didn’t have to try to fight these two. I would have been cremated in no time.

A flicker of worry flitted across the face of one of the agents and a certain smugness swept through me.
Now it’s your turn to be scared,
I thought to myself. I remained in my defensive position just so they didn’t think I was easy prey. The two agents dipped into crouches of their own. One of them pulled out a two-pronged metal object—it looked like a vicious fork with only two tines, if forks had tines that were jagged and serrated like white-hot bolts of lightning.

Hemingway sprang forward, colliding with both agents, the tails of his suit coat flaring behind him. They fell backwards and he rolled over the top of them. I heard their heads smash into the floor with a sickening crunch. Somehow this didn’t stop them. They clambered to their feet even as Hemingway turned to face them. I watched, from the corner of the car, which I’d backed into when the fight began. Beyond Hemingway through the clear glass door, I saw a blonde-haired woman wearing a long white coat approaching. She came through the door before noticing the standoff. A look of dismay rumpled her pale features once she saw the posture of Hemingway and the agents, and she turned quickly and ran back the way she’d come, her hair flowing behind her like bird wings.

I expelled a breath of relief, but it was short lived. Hemingway let the agents regain their footing before charging them again, his head dipping like a bull as he sped toward them. Out of nowhere, the agent holding the wicked fork jumped away, leaving the barehanded agent to face Hemingway alone. That was when both Hemingway and I figured it out: the empty-handed agent was an android. This fight would be evenly matched.

“Oh no,” I gasped, wondering where I could hide, understanding immediately that the agent with the fork thing was coming for me. Why didn’t I have a weapon? How would I defend myself? Hemingway exchanged a concerned look with me right before he smashed into the blue heart agent.

I searched the room for a weapon, something loose, something I could defend myself with. The agent with the fork turned to look at me, a smirk on his face. He held up his fork and I found myself laughing at him, a bit maniacally.

“Nice fork,” I said sarcastically. “Let me just get my spoon and we’ll be even.”

He laughed, “Ha ha ha. This is no fork.”

“Oh really?” I said, feigning surprise. Hemingway grunted as the blue heart agent punched him repeatedly in the face. I cringed. “Yeah, see, I thought it was a fork.”

He approached me nonchalantly, even confidently, knowing that Hemingway was currently engaged and I was just a weak little girl. I hated him for being so cocky about it.

“You were right about the memory-wiping thing. Smart. We generally only use it on extreme cases, people with a history of making trouble. Like, the Voice, say. He’s on our list. And you. You’ve been a busy girl. Rather naughty
. We’ll just wipe your memory and then you’ll accompany us back to Synlife—not that I care too much. We just want the android. You're disposable.”

I listened, feeling sick, aware of Hemingway and the other agent crashing around the car, but unable to focus on them.

The agent with the fork stood in front of me. My feet were rooted to the ground in horror. I knew this would happen. I knew I would be wiped and everything that mattered to me would just slip away into a fog. My eyes were focused on the vicious two-pronged rod in his hand. He held it up in front of my face, smiling sickly like he enjoyed the power to erase people’s lives with the twitch of his hand. Electricity crackled between the two prongs.

It was such an obvious thing. I mean, how had I not thought of it when I was wondering how they wiped people’s minds?

“It won’t hurt much. Well, that much, I’m told. It is a serious jolt of electricity, slipping into your brain through your eyes, finding your short-term memory, frying it, searing it with a few sizzles. Your brain doesn’t have pain receptors, though, so you won’t feel it. You’ll just feel the zap in your eyes. And then you won’t remember a bit of this.”

My eyes must have been huge with fright as I stood there, frozen, my back against the wall opposite the door.

“Retta!” I heard Hemingway roar. His voice shook me. I jumped and my gaze slithered almost unwillingly away from the fork in the agent’s hand to the exit door, where Hemingway had crashed and fallen.
Electrified
. I heard his voice in my head again, as I replayed the moment.