Z turned around in front of the mirror in a final check of her outfit. It was a travel day and she wanted to be comfortable but, as NASA's top ambassador, there was always a dress code even for casual days. She decided on a brightly-colored print dress and yellow top. Colorful clothes were another aspect of Earth life she had missed.
The intercom buzzed. It was Patrick with the limousine and she told him she would be right down. She picked up her purse and a small shoulder bag containing her make-up and tooth brush. It was an unsettling feeling to be going on a trip with only a make-up kit for baggage, but her hosts at the New Mars Conference had insisted on providing a complete wardrobe for her. Two weeks earlier, a tailor had been sent by them to scan her measurements. A complete, custom-tailored wardrobe for the three-day event would be hanging in her hotel room by the time she arrived. She had seen the clothes on screen; there were enough outfits for two weeks of appearances, all very fashionable. On her way out the door, she attached a mission pin to her blouse—she wouldn't count on them to provide that.
When the elevator door opened, Patrick briefly reared back, and then smiled. He would have sent her back upstairs if she had missed the mark. She hadn’t. Z knew without asking that she had met the NASA dress standard—and possibly more than that.
The limousine drove onto the tarmac and stopped at the boarding ramp to a private jet. Patrick handed his suitcase to the attendant and he and Z climbed the stairs. Inside was a compact and luxurious living room, at the far end of which sat their unexpected host, Triche, in an elegantly modern chair.
“Nice to see you Elizabeth, Patrick. Come in. Sit down. Have a glass with me.” Z and Patrick returned her greeting and sat across from her. “I hope this isn't too much of an interference. I need to get to San Francisco and thought I'd catch a ride with you.”
“Of course,” Patrick replied. “It is your plane.”
“And my conference. Unfortunately, I won't have time to attend. I have other business there. So I've stolen this opportunity to spend a little time with you, Elizabeth. I've wanted to meet you for so long.”
Of course you did, thought Patrick. You wanted to size her up.
Z smiled graciously, “Thank you. I'm glad to meet you too. Some call you the Godmother of the mission.”
“Do they…” she replied without a bit of inflection in her voice.
“You've connected the world to our discoveries and I'm appreciative of that, even though you've also stretched some truths.”
Triche smiled, slyly. “There are those of us who know how to catch lightning in a bottle. While the other media types consulted their balance sheets and, frankly, bet on your discovery being a colossal mistake, I acted. I took the candy from right in front of their greedy little faces, and gave it to the world.” She paused and a thin smile crossed her face. The champagne was poured, a table set-up between them and a delicate breakfast served. Triche queried Z about her discoveries while Patrick observed how deftly Triche probed Z’s feelings about her role in shaping the events on Mars. Then, as the plane descended to San Francisco, Triche asked Elizabeth what her childhood self would think of the woman she had become.
“She would have expected the astronaut part, but I'm not only an astronaut anymore; I discovered intelligent life on another planet.” She chuckled to herself, “The little girl never saw that coming.”
Triche studied Z’s face—eyes so dark her pupils were difficult to read, and eyebrows that ever-so-slightly punctuated her statements—then she looked out the window. “A word of advice. People may think the New Mars Conference is about the Martians, or the mission, or the underground city. They'll learn.” She turned back to meet eyes with Z. “Elizabeth, the conference is about You. Through Your story, the average person can experience the lightning flash of history. Tell it. That is what they will remember.”
When the plane taxied to a stop outside the private terminal at SFO, Triche stood, shook their hands, and excused herself. She was out the door and speeding away in a limousine before Patrick and Z had left their seats. She had never touched her champagne.
The hotel room was a luxury apartment on the fortieth floor. Her personal valet showed Z through the sitting room, explained how the media wall worked, showed her the bar and kitchen if she cared to entertain, then touched a button so motors could draw back the floor-to-ceiling drapes revealing a panoramic view of the Embarcadero and San Francisco Bay. He politely refused the tip and left quietly.
Z sat in a chair facing the windows and thought through Triche’s advice. What was her story? She had spent the last three years so engaged with the mission that it had not occurred to her that she was part of the story people wanted to hear. She was embarrassed that she hadn't yet processed what she'd been through; that she was the only crew member who could use the headpiece; that it was literally through her eyes that the world had learned anything about the Martians; that she had teared-up when she saw the body of the Martian, and the camera had captured it and Triche had stolen the video and the world had seen her reacting in a way even she could barely explain.
Looking through the window at the boulevard below, the people strolling the shoreline, the restaurants and shops teeming with activity, she understood why the name City of Ghosts had come to her during their explorations. The headpieces had given her a glimpse of a living city; a city that once had cafés and restaurants and people bustling through their day. But that city, empty. An entire civilization, gone. A planet that once held life, quiet and devoid of it. What she had seen was an extinction.
It was sunset when the valet called to tell Z a stylist would be coming up to dress her for the Governor's Reception. When Z opened the door, the stylist introduced herself, placed her makeup case at the vanity and walked to the dresser. There, she produced a crimson lace bra and thong. “The theme is Red Gold,” she pronounced.
Z looked at her, askance. “And my underwear needs to match the theme?”
“You'll see,” the stylist grinned, flipping open her case. First came the hair—a bit of oil to bring out the shine and tame some waves in Z's thick, black locks. Then the makeup—dark crimson lips, blush, and a touch of golden mascara to highlight her coal black eyes.
“Now, into your lingerie. While you do that, I'll get the dress.”
Z pulled on the lingerie, suddenly feeling very sexy and pampered. Space clothing was nothing like this, she thought. The stylist returned with the dress, pulled it down over Z’s arms and shoulders, and helped zip the snug bodice. Z regarded herself in the full-length mirror, turned left and right, and grinned. She could not remember when she had felt so glamorous. There she stood in an iridescent blood red and gold dress, clinging down to her waist, then flowing to her ankles. Then the stylist reached in front of Z and pressed a micro-switch at her cleavage. Sparkles danced like fireflies across the crimson fabric and waves of transparency revealed transient glimpses of Z's brown skin. Now Z knew the reason for the special underwear.
The stylist framed a picture with her thumbs and forefingers. “There. You're ready for your close-up.”
It was a gorgeous dress, but one that Z might wear on a special date, not to a public reception. “I can't be too risqué,” she said. “Just how much skin will this show?”
“Not as much as you fear, and just enough to make you memorable.”
...
The Governor’s Reception took place at the Palace of Fine Arts, a romantic, early 20th century dreamlike recreation of a Grecian temple. Its centerpiece was a ten-storey-high open air rotunda flanked by colonnades encircling a serene, tree-lined lagoon. It had been chosen by the Governor, himself, because its architecture evoked the feel of the City of Spirits.
In the evening light, brilliant hues bathed the columns and statuary, music played, and people chatted gayly while servers offered champagne and hors d’oeuvres. The party was in full swing when the roto-copter appeared over the treetops and landed on a platform beside the lagoon. Patrick, who had arrived in advance, watched it land. Surely, Triche hadn't decided to make an appearance. Then he saw Z exit and be escorted directly to the Governor.
Shit. I blew it, he thought. I should have been there to make the introduction. Then he realized that she needed no introduction. As Z had exited the copter, heads turned, people pointed, and the crowd moved like the flow of the sea in her direction. Z shook the Governor's hand, then the first lady's, and smiled cheerfully at them. Patrick could tell that niceties were being expressed. He had a fair distance to cross before he reached them and that gave him time to register Z's transformation. Z, on a normal day, was beautiful and engaging—assets that made her that much more interesting to work with. But tonight she had gone off the charts—not by her own intention, but by the deft brushstrokes of World Media. Triche and her people had seen Z's potential and magnified it and it shook him a bit to see how they had completely outclassed his management of the brightest star in the galaxy.
That night, after he had taken Z back to her hotel suite, Patrick took the elevator to the top floor bar. The room was a jewel box looking out in every direction on the shimmering lights of San Francisco, the bay, and the surrounding cities. He was offered a table, but chose to sit at the elevated bar in the center of the room where he could look out at the panorama.
His charge had dazzled everyone. She had been the perfect ambassador for the space program—charming, intelligent, personable… and alluring. She made press, she endeared herself to politicians, and she was gracious to every one of the hundreds of people who wanted to get near her. She stood for photos, even signed autographs, one after another. She was so poised and unfazed by the attention that, as he sipped his whiskey, neat, he wondered why he had never thought to place her squarely in the spotlight.
Sure, he’d noticed the attention people paid to her. She was one of those people who stood out when she entered the room. He both enjoyed it and took it for granted; turn her on and cut her loose. He didn’t have to babysit her, interrupt her before she said something awkward, remind her not to drink too much at a reception. So he had become lax. Now, World Media had stepped in and made her a star while he stood by and held her clutch.
He was a lazy ass, he told himself. He was happy to see behind the scenes, make big announcements to the press, and be the gatekeeper to the astronauts while still keeping his gym schedule and counting the days until he could retire and write a book. He was glad he didn’t play golf, because that surely would have become more important to him than his career.
He ordered a snack and another whiskey. He hadn’t eaten a thing at the reception—he never could when he was under the magnifier. Finally he admitted to himself that Elizabeth had charmed him, like she had charmed everyone else. He had thought it was a special chemistry between them; that she was exceptional around others because she felt so supported by him. And tonight he had stood on the sidelines and watched her radiate that Nasri charm at the behest of World Media. The lights of the city twinkled around him and he closed his eyes.
...
The next day, when Celeste arrived at her second New Mars Conference, she arrived with others just like her; the cost of the VIP pass guaranteed that. Celeste was glad for it, too. Rising up the escalator from the VIP entrance overlooking the sea of people in the pre-conference staging area, she could not imagine rubbing her nicely-tailored Martian couture against the fanboys below, dressed like it was a costume party.
Celeste was led into the main session room, down a long, cordoned-off aisle in front of the stage. The hoards were noisily flowing in from the back entrances, some rushing to get the best seat available to them. Meanwhile, she was politely directed to her cushioned executive chair in the front ten rows and asked if she would prefer coffee or champagne. The room lights went to black. Music rose. The expansive, panoramic screen filled with a view of Arsia Mons from orbit—a stitched image, compiled from tens of thousands of satellite passes and computer-enhanced to show pebble-sized detail. A center window appeared showing the drone video image from the first exploration.
Colin’s voice came over the audio. “Battery at 45%. You have about 5 minutes, Commander.”
Celeste saw the doorway appear to the right on the panoramic screen and the drone turned to fly through it. A flourish of music panned the arena as the drone looked over the balcony at the Chandelier Room. The image, a composite of the visual and scan, was enhanced to hyper-realistic clarity. Celeste felt like she was in a dream and she could walk into the image.
Then she heard Z’s voice: “This is remarkable. Who could have expected this?” The drone floated down the stairs. “I'm going to position in the center of the room and do a 360 scan and a 360 optical. Then I'm leaving.”
Then the center screen went black and waves of a scanner panned around the entire circumference of the arena, resolving to a 3-D image of the Chandelier Room, as giant replicas of the chandeliers lowered from the lighting truss above.
Celeste felt joy. I'm there, she thought. She knew she was smiling; it must have looked silly. She couldn't help it. She whispered aloud, "This must've been how it felt for the astronauts."
The lights came up on center stage and World Media’s host of Explorations: Red Planet, Tyson Babatundé, welcomed the faithful. “We've all been here. We've all been in this room, haven't we?”
He paused to tease the audience, then continued. “Well, maybe only in our imaginations. But later this morning, you're going to hear from the most important Earthling ever to stand in the Chandelier Room, for real. Commander Elizabeth Nasri!”
At the sound of her name, the room erupted in cheers. Tyson paused for the cheering to subside. “And she's going to take us all on a very special Path of Discovery.”
Standing in the wings, Patrick was happy. The New Mars Conference had just promoted a NASA video show.
Tyson continued, “But the morning has just started and I know you came here with questions. ‘What was it like to live in the underground city? Why did the Martians leave? And what finally killed those who stayed?’ Oh yeah. And a few more questions... Right? Like, ‘When are we going to meet Armon? What happens in next season's Red Planet?’”
He took out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead, as if overcome by the moment. “So much to learn.” He took a breath. “Relax. Lean back in your chairs. We're going to take you on a journey, and at the end of it, you're going to be hearing from the lady in red, herself.
The lady in red? Patrick, who had been watching the audience, turned to face the main screen. There she was, bigger than life, wearing that incredible dress.
“But before we all meet Commander Nasri, let’s revisit the wondrous events of eighteen months ago.”
Over the next hour, the conference producers tried their best to satisfy the immense, genuine curiosity people had about Mars and the entire Mars Habitat mission. First came an entertaining overview of why Mars Habitat was sent to Arsia Mons in the first place, followed by a countdown of the mission’s top 10 discoveries, followed by a humorous short video compilation of the earliest reports from World Media entitled What We Got Wrong. Then one of the aerospace companies (who happened to be a major conference sponsor) revealed some of the new devices they had developed for the Mars Colony mission. That presentation was followed by another short video of interviews with the crew during their flight home. Entitled Hopes For Humanity, it was a heartwarming piece that Patrick had conceived, catching the crew members in thoughtful moments, reflecting on how their discovery of life on Mars affected the way they felt about life on Earth. The final segment froze on Z, suited-up, an array of ship’s instrumentation in the background.
With that image as the backdrop, Tyson walked onto the stage. “This is it, folks. The moment has arrived. Are you ready?”
The audience roared, but that wasn't enough for Tyson. Like a cheerleader, like a revival tent minister, he had to wring the emotion out of the assembled. “No. I mean are you REALLY ready?” He cocked his ear as the audience again roared. “Are you really, REALLY ready?”
Celeste was REALLY REALLY ready; standing, yelling, hands in the air. To hell with the fancy seats, she was going to stomp and shout like a drunk bleacher bum. She was bringing it all for the lady in red.
“Welcome, please, Commander! Elizabeth! Nasri!”
Follow spots shot to the side of the stage and out came Z in an elegant white and grey tailored pantsuit, mission pin glinting next to her Nehru collar. The audience of 8,000 burst out with a roar and shot to their feet like a wave rising to crash on the beach.
Patrick looked out from the wings at a woman he knew well, had joked with, had been grumpy and tired with. But seeing her in this context he realized that the woman he saw as a friend and a client was looked upon by others as an icon. And she wore it well.
Z smiled and waited for the cheering to subside. “Thank you,” she said, dipping her head, then shooting a side glance to her host. “I know Tyson wants to ask me a few questions. But before we do that, how would you like to go to Mars with me?”
The response was deafening, and when it too had subsided, Z continued, “We're going on a Path of Discovery together, back to the underground city.” With that, she gestured with her hand and the panorama changed from the Chandelier Room to the endless, expansive surface of Arsia Mons.
“Here we are. Look around. You're on the slope of one of Mars' most significant volcanos. The summit caldera is twelve miles above the surface. This image was taken halfway up the slope. Think for a second. What do you see?” The audience murmured. Was there a clue they were supposed to notice?
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“I'll tell you what you don't see. You don't see any sign that the entrance to the city is just over here.” The camera tracked forward to the hole they had broken into the lava tube. “That's why we flew over this spot for decades without knowing a city lay only 30 feet below. Pretty crazy to think of, isn’t it?”
Navigating through ultra-high-definition, 360-degree images like she was piloting a drone, Z took the audience on a guided tour of what she romantically called the City of Spirits—the grandness of the Terminal; the caverns that held living spaces and the street cafés; the goofy thrill of travelling on the Conveyor. The experience was immersive; the images sparkled with detail and NASA had been able to augment them with overlay renderings of Martians populating the scenes. Z described the rendered Martians as if describing the townsfolk of her home town—the family that made shoes in the shop at the corner, the woman hanging a weaving from a balcony, a man and his son carrying a basket of vegetables home for dinner. Finally, Z took a hushed audience back to the Chandelier Room. They all stood on the balcony overlooking the room. Then the 360-degree view quickly reduced to the main screen and the camera tilted down. There, worked a ghostly rendering of the Elder.
“This is what I saw, while wearing the headpiece. This was how I came upon the Elder.”
It was a coup. For the first time since the discovery, people were seeing a NASA-produced recreation of one of the most famous moments of the expedition. It had been Z's idea, and a condition of her agreeing to keynote the conference, to take control of the Mars story and tell it the way it happened.
“What did I feel, right about this time?” she asked, then shook her head and then looked up at the ceiling. “There are so many thoughts that rushed through my head. Is he a being? Is he a ghost? Can he see me?” She paused and looked straight into the audience, “Can he harm me?” Z took a long, slow breath and looked at the floor, hands on her hips. Then she lifted her gaze.
“I had chosen this path. It was my decision to wear the headpiece and explore the city. To be honest, I disobeyed orders to wear the headpiece again.” A collective gasp skimmed across the room. “After the shock I went through in the first trial, NASA wouldn't let me wear it again. It was not a comforting sight, what I went through the first time I wore the headpiece. They were worried, justifiably so, that I'd suffer some debilitation, get cancer, go crazy. And even though I knew they were acting to save my life, at that point, I knew I was already expendable.”
Expendable! The word slapped Celeste. How could that have been? she wondered.
“Being mission commander, my first responsibility was to the crew. I knew they'd be in good hands with my backup commander. And sometimes, being commander means you take a risk because the mission is worth nothing without it.”
Patrick rubbed his forehead. This is an ad lib. Z, what are you thinking?
“So I got closer. I followed him across the room, where he placed the headpieces in a box…” The image changed to a close-up of the Elder's ghostly face. “That's when he turned to me and, I think, gave me instructions how to open his antechamber.” She took a few steps. “Was he real?” Then she slowly shook her head in a confessional to the crowd. “I don't know. Maybe he was a recording. Maybe he was a spirit come back to direct me. I know that sounds crazy, but even though they look like us, who knows what type of being they really are?”
She gestured and the screen changed to the final shot, taken by the drone, looking into the antechamber where the Elder lay hunched over the desk. “And this is how I saw him, a week later.” Z looked up at the giant screen image of the Elder, sitting with his head resting on his desk. A long second passed where Celeste, and the others with her, was unsure what the Commander would do next.
She signed, and her eyes searched the darkness of the conference hall. “I shed a tear for him on that day. For his loss. For our loss in not being able to know their civilization. But it appears that this kind, harmonious culture came to Earth and may live on, among us; that the variant in their genes is in many of you, here. It’s in me, too.” Z beamed, then bowed to the audience. “Thank you for listening to my story. I think Tyson is ready to ask me those questions.”
Celeste was suddenly close to tears. It was like they were sisters, she and Z.
Tyson returned to center stage. “Elizabeth Nasri, good to have you here at the New Mars Conference.”
“Thanks for having me. Please, call me Z.”
“Alright, Z. There are rumors that you're going to revive your show, Path of Discovery. Why is it important for this show to come back now?”
“There have always been plans to revive the program, but we needed a little time to let researchers get their hands on the data and artifacts. For the mission, we hadn’t been trained to do archaeology, so we concentrated on collecting artifacts for experts to study. I think NASA was afraid the children would break the fine china.”
He laughed, “Don’t be silly.”
Patrick laughed too. There’s some truth to that, he thought. After all, the first thing Z had done was touch the headpieces.
“Anyway, now that the experts are having their look, I'll report their conclusions. And I now have a sponsor, World Media. So now we have a larger budget to work with.”
“I’m assuming you will host it?”
“Yes. I plan to. It's a wonderful opportunity to share an amazing story.”
“Give us a peek at what lies ahead.”
“Okay. For one, we'll be exploring theories about the culture. We'll look into the way the city was built and how the different areas of the city functioned.” Then, raising her eyebrow, “We'll also get into the plans for the next mission! I'm very excited.”
“Well, we at World Media are, too,” he gestured to her. “You're the newest star in our constellation—and creating quite a stir.”
“Well, I’m also still the spokesperson for the mission.”
“Oh, don't be so coy.” Looking over at the director, “Put up the photo, James.” On the screen behind them was a particularly revealing photo of Z in the red and gold dress. “Don't tell me. Is that NASA issued? It's quite breathable.”
“Well, everyone has a right to dress up for an occasion. Try living in a spacesuit for three years.”
“Do you miss Mars?”
“I do,” she replied, and touched her hand to her chest. “But I always carry a small piece of Mars with me.”
“You do? Can I see it? Is it from the city?”
“It's not like that.”
“Oh, you carry Mars in your heart. That's sweet.”
“No, kind of acidic. The night before I left Mars, I took a small bit of Martian soil, put it in my mouth and swallowed it.”
From the wings, Patrick looked up from his tablet. “What?”
Tyson reacted with surprise. “You ate Martian soil? Was there a reason? Was it an experiment?”
“It was longing. I didn't know if I'd ever return. Without wanting it, I've become a person of two planets. I was returning to Earth, but I wanted a bit of Mars to always be with me.”
“Won't it kill you? Isn't it radioactive?”
“It will certainly kill my career, now that this is out,” said Patrick.
Z answered, “Regolith contains perchlorate. It's a Thyroid toxin, but we neutralize that by taking iodine pills.”
The host smiled as he tried to capitalize on the sparkling object Z had just revealed to him. “The woman who loved Mars. That would make you Venus.”
“Or Neriene.”
“Well Neriene, will your show have anything about the Martians who landed on Earth? The whole planet is excited about that. I hear the test kits have sold out.”
“Actually, that will be a big part of this next series. There are many mysteries to this civilization; one of the biggest is: what happened to them on Earth.”
...
In her office, Triche viewed the conference stream with interest. Once again, she was betting big. Although Nasri wasn’t aware of it, the New Mars Conference had been her audition. Could she radiate celebrity instead of bureaucratic obeisance? Could she make her story as riveting as the discoveries she had made? The answer had been yes. Of course, she had had help from the best stylists and clothing designers World Media could assemble, but Nasri didn’t let anyone down. She had too much of the entrepreneur in her. That was what NASA misunderstood: what they saw as ability to improvise, Triche knew was the ability to capitalize on the situation. The story of her disobeying orders had been as powerful in purpose as planting a flag and declaring territory. It was more than Triche had expected. And now—the Woman Who Loved Mars, who took the poisonous soil of the red planet into her body to become one with it. People would remember that, and World Media would see to it that people buzzed about it. Triche called-out a note to her platinum assistant, who sat primly on the couch. “Season Three, when the first ship leaves to colonize Earth, the queen swallows a spoon of Mars dust.” Nasri’s potential was phenomenal.
...
At the close of the keynote, people filed out of the arena, some to breakout sessions others to lunch. Backstage, Patrick's earpiece buzzed. It was the NASA Administrator.
“I just received a message that Nasri told the crowd she swallowed regolith—and disobeyed orders. The fuck?!”
Patrick was alone in the green room, but he knew the walls were thin and lowered his voice. “She went off script.”
“It was about the headpiece, wasn't it? That fucks everything up. She can't follow a script? She's at a PR event, not a therapy session. From now on, she's on a short leash, Pat. She's not talking to anyone.”
Patrick peeked out the door to see Z and Tyson, conversing as they walked off stage. “I know the whole thing looks bad when you read it in a text. But if you'd seen her charm the California Governor last night and hold the audience in the palm of her hand, today, you would be far from angry. She's the most effective PR asset we have. And besides, she made it clear that NASA had her safety in mind when we ordered her not to wear the headpiece.”
“And then she disobeyed us anyway. Shit.”
A makeup person had taken Z to a chair in the green room and was carefully removing the powder from her face. Patrick ducked out. “She took responsibility for making a command decision. She justified it. And the audience thinks she's a hero. Fuck, she is a hero. If we come down hard on her, we're going to lose. The public will side with her. On the other hand, if we come out strong in support of a commander who did what she was trained to do, be a leader, then we end up looking strong, even visionary. That's what I plan to do, and if it doesn't work, you can pull me from communications.”
There was a pause on the other end.
“You made your case. Do it. Did we train you to be a leader too? Don't fuck up.”
Z had stepped out of the green room and was signing autographs and posing for pictures when Patrick excused her and led her toward the utility corridor.
“Good talk. But what made you ad-lib?”
Z smiled and raised her eyebrow. “So, did you get a raft of shit yet?”
“Oh yeah,” he smiled back.
“Are they calling me out?”
“No. Keep following your instinct. You're doing fine.”
Patrick dropped Z off at the limo so she could take Triche’s private jet back to Los Angeles, that afternoon. In order to get Z back to work as soon as possible, he had agreed to sub for her on a panel. At the time, it seemed a fair enough substitution, but after her popularity in the keynote, he was sure there would be some disappointed audience members. It would give him a chance to save NASA from itself—to lend support and commend her for her leadership. Then he planned to take advantage of her sequestration at the office to stay another day and observe the public reaction to the mission.
He found a spot on a landing overlooking the main foyer. Currents and eddies of attendees skirted the islands of people in discussions. Whether they were all talking about Z or the mission or Mars he couldn't tell at that distance, but he could read the room as a whole and, off-hand, it looked like New Mars 2 was a smashing success.
He rode the escalator down and walked through the crowd. Some of the carnival atmosphere of the morning check-in had dissipated and most people were earnestly discussing, of all things, Mars colonization. Three years earlier, you would never have heard a crowd of non-scientist-types so actively discussing our future on the planet Mars.
As he walked outside toward the prefabricated building the organizers had set-up as a store, Patrick listened and noted bites of conversations. Z’s name pinged over and over. She had been a hit. He noticed on some tablets that her appearance at the Governor's Reception had had an impact as well. It was a good thing he had scheduled no more appearances for her; she would have been mobbed. Best for her to get in, steal the show, and get out before fanmania set in, he thought. And, at this point in Z's public exposure, he wanted to counterbalance the ebullience of her celebrity with the grounding influence of her debrief.
The store was packed. Sales were brisk. Logoed jewelry, paintings of characters from Red Planet, even old books by Mars pioneers like Zubrin were selling. But the item everyone seemed to be grabbing was a t-shirt emblazoned with NASRI written to look like the NASA logo. He bought one for Z and another larger one for the Administrator.
Patrick left the store and stood on a walkway overlooking the park that served as an outdoor communal lounge for the Conference. At the far reach of the park, crowds of people marched down the street, chanting. He looked around and, noticing a young man also watching, asked if he knew what the march was about.
A woman overheard him and answered, “It's Marked people.”
“What are they marching about?”
“They're marching for us to be recognized as separate from Earthlings.”
Patrick noticed the red dot on her bag and made the connection. “So, are you going to join them?”
“Someday. These marches are going on all over the place, these days. Today, I'm here to learn. Next week, I'll march.”
“Do you believe you're different because you're Marked?”
“I've believed it all my life. I never fit in. Now I know why. How about you? You're not wearing a pin. Are you Marked?”
“I don't know.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I guess I'm interested in space.”
The woman turned to walk away, “This conference isn't about space. It's about us.”
...
Chaz Woodley walked excitedly down the long, narrow financial district street. He was quite a few blocks away from where he knew the march would begin, but he could feel the energy of the gathering, pulling at him from the distance. With every person he saw on the street —looking at phones, waiting at a crosswalk, exiting a coffee shop—he asked himself, “Is that person one of us? Are they going to the march too?”
The sky was grey with morning fog and he was glad to have a pullover. But he knew the sun would come out, later that day, probably during the speeches. On the corner of Montgomery and California streets, he saw his friends from school. Here we go, he thought with anticipation as he approached them. They were laughing and feeling the euphoria too; together they were taking action and joining a movement. They were asking, no, demanding to be recognized by government as a separate peoples. It was funny, thought Chaz, race was always used to divide people of common desires, but Marked people, by contrast, were of every color, attribute and geographic origin on Earth and they formed an entirely new group defined by Planet of Origin. Yes, they wanted to be categorized as different but at the same time they were the representation of everything the world aspired to: all the races and nationalities of the world, living and working together for a better existence.
"We want the recognition. We have the right," his friends chanted and postured when Chaz joined them, then broke into laughter. Then they took off as a pack down the street toward the march. A couple of the kids carried posters they'd made, one that read:
We've Come From Mars To Clean-up Your Mess
As they hurried down the street, Chaz jumped to the front of the pack to be side-by-side with a girl who fascinated him. Julianne had fire. He could see it in her walk—long, determined strides as if she couldn’t move fast enough over the ground to her destination. She had a bright smile that projected her personality out at the world, and flashes in her dark eyes. She was confident of her abilities, a student leader and an athlete. In the past, he might never have spent time with her, like this. He usually withdrew to the periphery where he could shoot-out quiet sarcasm like spit wads. Chances are, he would have lobbed them at someone like Julianne because, in addition to being smart and driven, she was poor and descended from Vietnam refugees. Yet here they were, walking together and laughing with the excitement of dawning purpose. Together, their group of friends would take part in rewriting the story of Earth.
As they approached a tree-lined plaza they began to join-up with other small groups. On shirt, after blouse, after jacket were pins with a blood red dot. It seemed funny to Chaz that a group intent on demanding something would be so festive about it. Then he felt it, himself, the joy of being with others just like him, sharing a common viewpoint, wanting the same thing: recognition. He had come to the march to make a statement, but as he waited for the march to begin, found himself bemusedly people-watching.
It was like a giant party of people laughing and taking pictures. As they entered the plaza, groups began to congregate, people talked to each other about programs their communities had put in place, about groups they were organizing, about policies they would try to change. A lot of the talk was about gaining representation; a lot was about deciding their societal identity; and part of the talk was about political influence.
While he had been thinking of being Marked as something to get him noticed at school or get him into a better college and eventually into a better job, others wanted to wield it for even greater leverage. If these people believed, as he was being told at school, that being Marked gave you a special perspective, then what he was seeing was desire to exert a new public will over policies that had been left in the other peoples’ hands for too long. But whose viewpoint was better? In this crowd, marching through the streets of San Francisco, their viewpoint was the better. A sign read:
4,000 Years WISER. You Should Listen.
The projectiles fell from the sky, leaving smoke trails that led up to the windows and roofs of buildings. When they hit the ground and bounced through the crowd they spewed a cloud of noxious irritant at the marchers. Chaz had two seconds to observe the chaotic scene before a canister skittered across the pavement in front of him. Almost instantaneously, his neck and face began to itch, then burn. He crumpled to the ground.
Julianne quickly drew her sweatshirt hood tight around her face and grabbed at where she thought Chaz had fallen. Feeling his sweater clenched in her fist, she pulled hard and threw her entire body in the direction the crowd was running. All around her were screams. She was being pushed and knocked by fleeing marchers and realized that if she didn’t move herself and Chaz immediately, they might be trampled.
She opened her hood just enough for a peep hole to orient herself. “Chaz, can you help? Can you stand? If you can stand, I can guide you.” Chaz said nothing, but he struggled to his feet and Julianne led him by the arm past a trolley stop and across the tracks to the far side of the street. Chaz grunted with pain. By the time they had reached the sidewalk across the street, the gas was dispersing. Julianne opened her hood and for the first time saw the rash on Chaz’s face, neck, and hands. They leaned against a bike rack while Julianne surveyed the chaos. Out of nowhere, came a young man in a gas mask and overcoat carrying a giant water bottle.
He lifted his mask slightly and yelled, “Here, he’s got to get the powder off!” Then he squeezed the nozzle in his hand and shot a stream of water, dousing Chaz and Julianne. “Now, pat him dry with the inside of your sweatshirt.” She did, and he doused Chaz again. “You want to get him to clean air, quick.” Then he ran away, down the street.
Julianne looked for the clean air. Plumes of gas rose like giant ghosts gliding down the street. Just then, a baseball-sized rock ricocheted off Chaz’s head—a glancing blow, but drawing blood nonetheless. More rocks began raining from above. Screaming marchers ran in blind panic, trying to cover their heads as the stones smashed on and around them. Julianne threw her body against Chaz’ and pushed him against a building wall under an eave. Within fifteen seconds, the rain of stones was over. A group was clustered around a woman across the street who was unconscious and bleeding from a large gash in her skull.
“Come on Chaz.” She said, pulling him toward an alley, away from the ambush. Then Julianne noticed a piece of paper that had been tied onto a rock. She picked it up; it read: Our Earth. Not Yours.
Celeste was on her way to the exhibit hall when she heard someone say the word ‘riot.’ She didn’t give it much thought and kept going.