“Ha! Like that’s going to happen,” Tory insisted, and then out of old habit, New Angels habit, worried over something else. Since he’s had a hold on her for at least a minute, she checked her outfits pockets to ensure everything was still there. You never knew. But then pretended she hadn’t. “I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to this fake air. It’s just not right. It’s too thin and smells like it’s something from a can. A can of stink.”

The old man laughed, almost sounding like he was about to have an attack as well. For another moment Tory tensed to see if she was going to have to rescue him. But he survived the wheezing.

“Well, it’s going to be a long time before it’s going to be OK to breathe on the outside,” he told her. “Just ask to spend more time in the hydroponics section, or the park. That will help your lungs adjust. You’ll be fine in a few months, most are, the trick is to stop fighting it, and just be a Martian.”

He finished the lecture with a hand gesture like he was trying to squeeze to ball in his hands. By now the old guy had moved around the bench, looping up the oxygen tube and mask back over his shoulder.

She eyed his shoulder air tank jealously. One of those and she’d be set. All she’d been provided on arrival was that dumb totally trackable oxyinjector pen. and she’d had to leave that behind as well as a whole lot of things that might have made her escape from Mars a lot easier. Damn firmware. Tory could work her away around all sorts of computer code, but those chips were all hard programmed hardened OS. They weren’t writable, and therefore uncrackable, at least from what she tried so far.

Still, she couldn’t resist offering the old man some snark, given it seemed like they were in the same boat, with regards to the complex’s atmosphere anyway. Tory would never ‘be’ a Martian if she could help it.

“Oh,” she replied, “So ,how long did it take you to get used to it?”

The old man laughed again, this time a high pitched keening, like he’d suddenly sucked up helium or something. It was funny haha and funny strange at the same time, but not in any kind of threatening way but certainly a bit cray.

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“No time at all,” he finally said with a smile hanging his loop of line and mask at his belt. “But it’s easier when you’re born to it and not used to the thicker mush you are.”

Born to it? Confirmation. But how could he be so old? There was maybe only one bornhere who she’d heard about who could be as old as this guy was. But she thought he was-

“What’s your name?” Tory asked, trying to see if he was who she thought he was.

“Valentine,” he said. “What’s yours?”

Valentine… Thorn Valentine? Could he really be-?

“Tory,” she said. “Are you the Thorn Valentine?”

“Yep,” he said, with a sharp nod, tap on his chest. “In the flesh.”

“The first human being born on Mars?” she breathed. “Aren’t you kind of famous?”

He opened his mouth, paused before speaking.

“That’s probably true,” he told her. “I was...”

“And you’re still alive?” she asked. “I mean, that’s not how it sounded in the...”

“Uh... yeah,” he told her. “Someone run that obituary again? I mean it was funny the first few times, and it is full of nice things to day, but those sort of things get old fast when you aren’t actually dead and gone.”

“Well, in the intro to Mars it’s all was, was, was,” she told him. “I mean, they never said you were dead... I just thought...”

He reached out and patted her shoulder. Tory didn’t exactly want him to, but he had such a long reach with those spider arms of his that the only way he could avoid it was if she got up off the bench. And she didn’t feel quite ready to do that yet.

“You weren’t the first and you won’t be the last,” he said smiling again. “You didn’t tell me your name did you?”

“Yeah I did, it’s Tory,” she said, then immediately regretted reminding him.

She should have invented a name so that he wouldn’t turn her in. But it was too late and she’d said it twice. How many Tory’s could be in the CU? His reaction was a bit odd though, squinting his eyes at her as if he was trying to figure out himself if she was who she said she was. But that was crazy. Tory was sure they’d never met, and it wasn’t like she mattered or anything here. Why should any old Martian care about a newlander?

“Huh,” he finally said. “Cute. Not a name I’ve heard in a while. You aren’t named after anyone are you?”

That was a weird thing to say. But then, Tory had met enough old people in her life, and they often behaved pretty strange, like they were from another planet, even back on Earth, especially if they were old. So, she just shook her head.

“I don’t think so,” she told him. “What about you?”

“Born February 14th,” he told her, smiling again. “So after St. Valentine, I guess. But enough about me, what about you, Tory. What’s a newer kid like you doing in a place like this?”