Chapter 11 CLEO
CLEO
The students were mid-class when the evacuation signal came in, and before we could get to work we had to clear away an in-progress science experiment that should not have been left unattended. These kids need better hazard training.
Now the room is gradually filling with water; the taps are running as fast as they can, and the sinks are all plugged.
They overflowed as planned, and the water’s rippling across the floor every time I move.
We weren’t sure if the door seals would stand up to this, but almost every room on the base is designed to become an airlock if required, and so far the good ship Science Class has remained watertight.
‘Where did you get this idea?’ Hunter asks as he climbs up onto a desk.
‘An ex of mine,’ I say, checking the taps can’t run any faster. ‘She came up with it to humble a bunch of jocks at school, and my dad taught us how to execute it.’
‘Electrical engineer?’ Hunter guesses.
Mechanic and fix-it guy. ‘Something like that. He probably should have asked more questions about what we were planning to do with the information.’
Hunter snickers. ‘What happened to the jocks?’
‘Flooded their locker room, left them stranded in the showers. Naked.’
He laughs properly, a warm, easy sound. Then carefully – soooooo carefully – he hoists himself into the ventilation pipe above us.
He’s not moving slowly because it’s difficult.
The much lighter Martian gravity means that his problem is too much strength, not too little.
Pull himself up too fast, and he’ll smash his head into the ceiling.
I thought I was keeping up my exercise while I was here, but watching him now, I’m not so sure.
The way he moves does something to my insides that I’d rather wasn’t happening, and the way his shirt rides up to give me a look at his abs is frankly just gratuitous and unnecessary. He probably practices that in the mirror.
He disappears headfirst into the ventilation pipe with a quick kick of his feet. The ventilation system is like a big tube clamped onto the ceiling, and he only just fits.
Once I’m sure he’s not going to ruin my beautiful smile with another kick, I climb onto the table and reach up to grab the edge of the square hole in the vent with both hands.
I’m smaller than Hunter, but it’s still not much wider than my shoulders in there. As I heave myself up and in, and the light immediately dims, I shiver.
I shuffle back and forth across the opening until I’m settled with my head toward the hole I came up through, and my feet toward Hunter. A soft oof tells me my feet have connected with some part of my partner in crime, so I stop there, and reach down through the opening to pull the duct cover up.
Wondering what I’m doing? I bet you are. Keep watching.
‘Pass me the wires?’ I say softly.
‘Coming through. Careful.’
I reach my hand back as far as I can, and Hunter strains forward to press the coil of insulated wires against my palm.
I ease them forward very carefully, past my body, until I can set the loop of wires on top of the duct cover, making sure the live end doesn’t touch the grate.
The pipe we’re in shouldn’t conduct electricity, but I’d rather not test that theory.
‘Screwdriver?’
‘Screwdriver,’ he says, like some kind of surgeon’s assistant, passing it forward. Our hands brush as I reach back for it, and he presses his fingertips against mine. On purpose? Maybe.
Slowly, carefully, I start to unfasten the screws that keep the duct’s hinges in place. My chest feels tight, and I try a deeper, slow breath, but it’s as if my lungs refuse to expand. I never used to have a problem with small spaces, until I launched from Earth crammed into a packing box.
The crew member who smuggled me on sprayed foam all around me to help counter the gravity of takeoff, and its spongy texture locked my limbs into place, my face turned up to breathe as he hammered the lid down hard.
I still dream, sometimes, about the roar and the vibrations of that moment. About the fear that he might just not come back, and I’d be stuck there, trapped like a fly in a web. I do not like to rely on others.
‘All right?’ Hunter asks, catching me by surprise.
‘Tight fit,’ I mutter. ‘It’s fine.’
‘Well, let me know if you want a foot massage while you work,’ he jokes, and though I give a little kick to warn him, I’m also glad the dark hides the smile he draws out of me.
He pays more attention than I expect him to, this boy. The world parts around him when he moves, and I’d expect him to just stride ahead without even noticing. But he sees things, Hunter Graves.
‘So,’ I say, reaching for distraction, and remembering I’m supposed to be bonding with Hunter – I can multitask – ‘your mom’s at the GravesUP compound? Has it been a long time since you saw her?’
‘About five years,’ Hunter replies, quiet in the dim light. ‘Earth years, not Martian. Only about’ – he pauses to calculate – ‘two point seven years, Martian. That sounds better.’
‘She’s been on Mars for five years?’ There’s no way that woman has enough strength left in her body to ever return to Earth, not after five Earth years in light Martian gravity. I’m surprised a CEO at her level would close off that avenue.
‘No, she’s only been here for one,’ he says. ‘She’s just had a lot going on.’
There’s a pause as I search for the right response to his mom’s calendar having been too full to see her son for five freaking years. I mean, I know about shitty moms, but his sounds like a real prize. Luckily for me, Hunter fills the silence.
‘I was with my dad most of that time.’
‘I guess you’re going to miss him, coming here,’ I offer as the first screw comes out of the vent cover.
Now it’s Hunter’s turn to pause. I wait it out. ‘No,’ he says eventually. ‘We kept it out of the news, but he died. Mom doesn’t like public displays of vulnerability, so she didn’t really want people to know.’
‘Oh, shit. Sorry.’ And I am. Graves or not, I know exactly what it’s like to lose your dad. And to have a mom who cuts you loose.
I can’t help wondering how a member of the Graves family could possibly get so sick that they couldn’t pay their way out of it, though.
‘He was killed,’ Hunter says, as if reading my mind. Or perhaps people always wonder. Always? How many people has he told? ‘It was protesters,’ he continues. ‘Mars For All.’
‘What did—’ I catch myself mid-sentence. ‘Why did they target him?’ Not what did he do?, though he probably did.
‘No reason in particular, apart from marrying into the Graves family,’ Hunter whispers. ‘They wanted my mother’s attention. My father was an artist.’ His voice cracks on that husky whisper with something fierce – a sharp grief, an anger that’s still burning bright.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I say again, which is such a useless response. But there’s a reason everyone always says it – there’s nothing better you can replace it with. Because nothing really helps.
‘I saw it,’ Hunter says softly. ‘He was coming back from some charity thing, and I was out on the front steps of our house to meet him. His motorcade blew up just as it came through our gates. There was this fireball, and his car flew into the air. It kept turning over and over … By the time I got to the car, I could hear him screaming inside, and then he stopped.’
And his mother stayed on Mars, leaving her son to get through that alone. I don’t let myself say that out loud. If Hunter doesn’t want to see that choice for what it is, now isn’t the time to rub his nose in it.
I wish I could take his hand, but all I can do is stretch my arm back, silent. I can’t even turn my head.
After a moment, his fingers brush against mine. ‘It was about six months ago,’ he says, his whisper still rough. ‘I’m not good at telling the story yet.’
I do not want to feel sorry for the sad billionaire in the ventilation tunnel behind me, but honestly, this is a lot.
‘I can’t imagine how they ever thought killing him would get your mother to cooperate,’ I murmur. ‘If I were her, I’d want to retaliate.’
‘I think she does,’ he agrees. ‘Mars For All says Mars should be open to more people. They think corporations and countries should have to sponsor more people who can’t self-fund.
And they want forgiveness for any hitchers who make it here.
But it turns out one of the people responsible for the blast was a hitcher who’d been deported from Mars.
It came out in the hearings.’ He draws in a slow, shuddering breath, and steadies himself.
‘The irony is, until then, I’d actually been wondering if they had a point, the Mars For All crew.
If maybe we should look for ways to broaden the criteria for getting a seat on a ship.
That maybe there was talent we were missing.
Ways that everyday people help create the culture of a place – I mean, I’ve met executives.
Then Mars For All showed me what kind of people they really are.
Who they speak for. I hope we hunt down every last one of them and send them home. ’
The air goes out of my lungs as a cocktail of sympathy and despair swirls inside me, and I close my eyes.
Those people who don’t deserve to be here, the ones who didn’t earn or pay for a place, the hitchers who should all be deported? I’m one of them. And clearly all hitchers are the same to him.
People like me killed his father, who he loved.
And I want to say, Do you think there’s a reason they were so desperate?
Or maybe, Are you going to punish the ones who were never violent, just because a few were?
He’s never going to help me, once he figures out who I am.
He watched his father die just months ago.
I try to steady myself. I have to say something, to break the tension singing in the air after his last words. ‘Your mom must be looking forward to having you here,’ I try. ‘To being together after everything.’