Chapter Three
“Y’all gotta come see this!” Camille’s high-pitched voice pierced the walls of Vivian and Delilah’s room.
Still in bed, her sister sat up. “What is it?”
Vivian put down the brittle paperback she’d brought with her from Sumter and stood from her position on the floor. “Probably nothing. You know how dramatic Camille can be.”
In the dining room, the other women were gathered around a built-in console displaying a video.
Against clips of yesterday’s luncheon, an eager voice-over said, “The Founding Families came out in force to welcome the first Red Mothers to Mars. Secretary Yarrow opened the event wearing her signature Cartier diamonds and an exquisite gown of imported French silk designed by local rising star Po Quincy.” Yarrow’s brief speech to the luncheon crowd replayed on screen.
Vivian’s stomach clenched all over again when she heard Yarrow mention the sixty-day window.
“This reporter was shocked to see outspoken opponent of the Red Mothers initiative Counselor Xavier Dorsey in attendance, sporting a scandalous pin on his lapel.”
The video turned to Xavier standing on the pathway outside the banquet hall with a Martian reporter.
“You’re looking especially dashing this afternoon, Counselor.
The vest is quite becoming.” She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and gave him a coy look.
“Tell me, Mr. Dorsey, about the pin you’re wearing. ”
First the bartender, now the reporter, Vivian thought. What could they possibly see in him?
Not that she cared.
“I wear a feather quill to symbolize my desire to write a new chapter in Arcadia’s history, free from the influence of AI.
” His dark brows drew together. “The Intelligence may have conceived of the breakthrough in reproductive technology, but it’s not equipped to make decisions of ethics.
I call upon my aunt, Secretary Yarrow, and the Council to halt the Red Mothers initiative immediately before further harm is done to these vulnerable women. ”
Over more footage of the luncheon, the voiceover continued, “The Red Mothers hardly seemed vulnerable yesterday as they enjoyed their status as the guests of honor. The beautiful Earther women made their first appearance in Martian society dressed in a fashionable assortment of colorful gowns.”
The women on screen were unfamiliar, elegant socialites.
Luz’s ruby-red lips made her normally closed expression seem mysterious.
Delilah’s blond curls bounced as she laughed, dwarfed by the surrounding Martians who stood several heads taller.
Camille’s smooth dark brown skin contrasted with her bright blue gown as she turned to reveal the dress’s low back.
Vivian spotted her own pale face among the flashes of the women mingling in the crowd, delicate and ethereal.
The Red Mothers on display were pampered, well-dressed, and desired, showing no trace of the desperate Earther refugees in jumpsuits who’d arrived on Mars only the day before.
“All eyes are now on the Red Mothers as the richest and most powerful descendants of the Founding Families vie for their hands in marriage. In the next sixty days, they will pick their spouses and prepare to bear the future hope of Mars. And as they do, you know you can count on Arcadia Life to keep you informed.”
“We’re famous,” Camille’s cousin Felicia exclaimed. “Imagine that!”
Leaning against the back wall, Luz drawled, “Can you be famous in a population of only fifty thousand people?”
“They have their own news here, don’t they?” Camille retorted. “Why do you always shit over everything, Luz?”
“That outlet—” Luz pointed one finger at the now-black screen. “Is a gossip rag if I ever saw one.”
“Girls.” Delilah spun around the room, her white nightgown swirling around her. “We did enough bickering on the ship. Play nice. We’re all in this together.”
“If you insist.” Camille gave her an indulgent smile. All the women doted on Delilah—the baby among them. And how could they not? Her optimism had made the tedious and claustrophobic nine-month voyage toward an unknown future bearable.
“I can’t wait to be courted.” Delilah giggled.
Vivian made a face of distaste. If yesterday was anything to go by, she wasn’t going to enjoy anything about this experience.
“Come on, Viv.” Delilah smirked. “You must have loved all those tall men dressed like they stepped off the cover of a Regency romance novel.”
Vivian snorted. “Tall and well-dressed? Is that all it takes to impress you? You really haven’t met any decent men.” Not that Vivian had either. Except in her books.
“I’ve met Dad.”
Vivian’s chest tightened. Surely by now her parents had received their message that they’d safely landed on Mars. Why hadn’t they sent their daughters a response? Vivian tried to push away her unease. She’d left. The Rinaldi brothers would have no cause to harass her family now that she was gone.
“None of us have met any decent men,” Felicia said. “I think they make them especially mean in Louisiana.”
“Preach,” Camille murmured.
Another woman, Shiloh, barked a humorless laugh. “Then you’ve never been to California.”
Delilah rested her head on Shiloh’s shoulder. “We’re on Mars, now. All the men are perfect gentlemen.”
The outer door opened of its own accord, and a two-foot-tall metal box creeped in on skinny legs.
“What the hell is that?” Camille shrieked.
The box opened and an inner shelf raised with a whirring sound to place a collection of envelopes on the dining room table. With a final beep, it turned around and departed, closing the front door behind it with a spindly metal claw.
The women stared after the robot for a moment. Then Shiloh moved to pick up one of the envelopes. “Real paper. Can you believe it? This one’s for you, Delilah.”
Delilah eagerly ripped it open and scanned the contents. “Caspian Hayes wants to … What does ‘promenade’ mean?”
“Walk,” Luz said. “Pretentiously.”
“Caspian?” Vivian frowned. “He wants you for your looks. Yesterday, I heard him call you the most beautiful girl he ever saw.”
“Did he? Well, I am the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen.
I think he’s good-looking, too, in the strange Martian style.
I guess we’ll get used to it.” She grasped Vivian’s hand to pull her from the wall and spun her in a circle.
“Who did you find yesterday, Viv? Xavier Dorsey was staring at you the whole lunch.”
“With disgust.”
“No, more like—” Delilah took on an exaggerated deep voice. “Vivian Bowen, I despise you, but I can’t help myself! I want you. I need you.” The women around them giggled, and Luz raised her eyebrows at Vivian.
Vivian snorted. “Absolutely not!”
“We’ll see.”
Vivian thought about how he’d toyed with her. Flirtatious one moment and rude the next. “I wouldn’t pick him if he were the last person on this planet. He’s an obnoxious, horrible man.”
The other women were snatching up their own letters and passing them out. Shiloh shoved one into Vivian’s hands.
“Caspian’s coming!” Delilah exclaimed, brandishing a letter. “Here! In one hour. I have to get ready.” She scampered from the room.
Vivian put her letter to the side unopened and went to the now-blank console. She toggled through options on the screen until she located her electronic mailbox.
Empty.
Her parents possessed no tech. They would need to pay for access or rely on the kindness of an aid worker. But her friend Evie owned a hard-won solar-powered comm. Sure, it was glitchy, but she should have gotten it to work by now.
The women around her were reading aloud their letters and laughing. Vivian picked hers up and tore it open. Ren. He’d written her a poem. Vivian refreshed her mailbox again.
When Delilah returned, clad in a lavender dress that sparkled against her alabaster skin, Vivian was still sitting at the console. “What’s wrong?” her sister asked.
“Nothing.”
Delilah leaned over Vivian’s shoulder to check her own mailbox.
Also empty. “They’re fine, Viv. Dad’s probably making a scrap metal trade right now.
And you know Mom has an extra-large pot of brown stew bubbling away, ready to sell.
They got on okay for thirty years before they met you—they don’t need you mothering them. ”
“I don’t mother them.”
“You do. You have ever since we got to the camp.”
“Well, somebody had to take care of them. And you.”
When they’d first arrived at Sumter, her father had moved like a walking corpse. In all the time she’d grown up in their comfortable home by the ocean, he’d never let on how much debt he’d taken on to keep their lifestyle afloat, even as the rising sea level made it impossible to sell their house.
And then the storm hit.
Vivian cast around for a change of subject. “Did you get many letters?”
“So many. I’m very popular.”
“I don’t understand this place. Our role here is confusing.”
Delilah playfully shoved Vivian’s arm. “You’re here to find a husband and have his tall Martian babies. And you know what I believe? We’re going to both marry for love.”
Vivian snorted. “In sixty days?”
“Yes! Is that so hard to believe?”
I’m not falling in love, Vivian thought. But to her sister, she only said, “Sweet baby sister, if any of us falls in love, it will be you.”
“He’s here, Delilah!” Shiloh shouted from the window.
Delilah fluffed her blond ringlets and moved to open the outer door. “Mr. Hayes.” She wobbled an exaggerated curtsey.
“Ah, Miss Bowen,” Caspian said from the doorway. “I trust you received my invitation?”
“I did. And I would love to promenade with you.” She opened her eyes very wide and blinked up at him.
“Has anyone ever told you, Miss Bowen, that your eyes are the exact shade of blue of a Martian sunset?”
Delilah ducked her head. “No.” And then she smiled. “But I’ve only been on Mars for two days. I haven’t seen a sunset yet.”
“We must remedy this. I shall take you to my terraforming facility outside the domes. There, the view is unobstructed.”
“What’s it like?”
“Like a miracle,” Caspian whispered. “When the stars come out, they blanket the navy sky by the thousands, and the horizon is lit with glowing violet light.”
“Wow,” Delilah breathed.
Caspian’s lips were parted as he gazed down upon her. Someone giggled, breaking the spell.
“Excellent,” he said briskly. Touching a hand to his top hat, he murmured, “Ladies,” and held open the door for Delilah.
Luz came to stand beside Vivian against the wall. “Everyone is acting so fucking stupid—like we don’t know what can happen when one side has all the control. You’d think the girls would have learned something in the camps instead of falling happily into this fake-ass fairy tale.”
Vivian couldn’t help but feel a bit proud that Luz put her in a different category from her sister and the other younger women.
She wanted the sophisticated, worldly Luz to see her as a peer, despite their age gap.
“Delilah told me she wants to fall in love.” She stepped into the kitchen and looked through the window above the sink where she could see Delilah and Caspian beginning their walk.
Luz followed her and leaned against the counter. “A lot of the girls do. I guess it makes sense to dream of a Cinderella story after escaping our shit lives on Earth. But I don’t think real love is possible with such a power imbalance.”
“Have you ever been in love?” Vivian asked. There was so much about Luz’s past that she didn’t know, even after nine months of friendship.
“No,” Luz said bluntly. “I was once in love with the idea of a man, not the asshole he turned out to be. You can’t know what someone’s like until you’re behind closed doors.”
In the distance, Vivian could see Delilah’s shining face upturned to Caspian’s. His head bent attentively toward hers. “He seems kind. Or he puts on a good act.”
To Vivian’s surprise, Luz shivered. “Do you believe what Wim told us about the Intelligence? Could an AI be aware enough to know if a man was safe to be alone with?”
Vivian shrugged. “I have no idea.”
“Wim told me the Intelligence tracks everyone on the dome.”
Vivian looked up at the ceiling uneasily. “Is it watching us? Right now?”
“Yeah, I think so.” Luz rubbed her arms. “I was doing okay, on the ship. But now that we’re here … Viv, I’m fucking terrified to pick someone. I’ve never—I’ve never known a man who was kind. Not their true face.” She touched her flawless, glowing skin, right below her left eye, and winced.
“I know.” Vivian leaned her head against Luz’s shoulder. “It’ll be different here. You’ll see.”
Perhaps if she said it often enough, she would start to believe it.