FREE SAMPLE (Ch.2)

Dear Philli,

I wish you were here.

Classic, I know. Unfortunately I can’t say that being on Mars has improved my sense of humor—Nic isn’t one for jokes, although he can be mortally sarcastic on a good day.

But I do wish you were here. Not just because I miss you, but because I’ve come to realize that things truly are better up here on the “red frontier.”

You’d be surprised—Dr. Nic isn’t anything like Commander Ambrose. He doesn’t enforce all the stupid United regulations, and we can pretty much do whatever we want on base. In fact, I rather think Nic hates the United officials as much as we do. You should see him when United inspectors come to visit.

He hates all their regulations, including the religious ones. He goes on and on about political freedom. The other day he ranted for an hour during a lab test about the regulations on religious texts. Of course, he dislikes it because of “free education” and “preserving historical artifacts,” but it’s nice to know that someone besides us Christians is against the no-transmitting law. He actually said he was sorry about Mom, Phil, and I think he meant it. He made it quite clear I could have as many Bibles on his cloud as I want. He has somehow managed to maintain a private server completely disconnected from the United’s internet surveillance—

Ephesus stopped typing and leaned back in his chair. “Well, it won’t be a ‘private’ server anymore if you tell the whole world, will it?”

With a sigh, he jammed the backspace key. There was still a lot he didn’t understand about Dr. Nic, but he wasn’t about to endanger his newfound freedom by blabbering about it in an email that would be censored by Commander Ambrose.

Ephesus stared at his blinking cursor for a moment, then gave up and switched windows. If he was going to stare at a blank screen, he might as well do it on company time.

For what felt like the tenth time that day, Ephesus flipped through his lab notes and tried to decipher what in the world he was supposed to be doing. He had been personally called up to Mars to work for Dr. Nic, but his assignments were almost as cryptic and confusing as the man himself.

During his first few weeks on base, Ephesus felt like he had been sent back to college. Every day, Dr. Nic had given him random assignments: “Fix this chemical equation for me, run this report for me, balance these numbers for me.” It had been almost insulting; Dr. Nic claimed he had personally requested Ephesus because of his intelligence and success in the lab back on Earth, and yet he was giving Ephesus equations a high school chemistry student could complete. Dr. Nic wouldn’t even tell him what kind of projects they were working on at the base, only that they were getting ready to launch something he codenamed “Project 74,” and he couldn’t wait to get Ephesus started on it.

And then came the day when Dr. Nic finally said it was time. He escorted Ephesus down to a new addition he was building on the north end of the base—Wing 74, aptly named. Dr. Nic crooned about the glorious new facilities he was building in Wing 74, and how Ephesus was one of the few scientists who would have access to it, since he would be working on the project. Dr. Nic strictly warned Ephesus not to share this secret with another soul, especially anyone from the United.

Ephesus tried to be polite, since he could tell Dr. Nic was quite proud, but he found it hard to get excited over an unfinished wing. Of all the doors in Wing 74, only two were complete. One was a supply closet, and the other he didn’t have access to. It beeped at him when he waved his hand over the security panel.

“All in good time, all in good time,” Dr. Nic had promised.

A few months had passed. Ephesus received constant updates on the building progress and a continual stream of mundane assignments, but still Dr. Nic gave him no word on what Project 74 would involve. Ephesus wasn’t sure whether to be curious or bored by the prospect. Between all the secrecy and Dr. Nic’s odd behavior towards the United, it could be something big.

Or Dr. Nic could simply be eccentric. Both seemed equally plausible.

Then, finally, Dr. Nic gave him his first real assignment. At first, it looked exciting, and it was definitely a challenge. But the more Ephesus reviewed the details, the more he leaned towards the theory that Dr. Nic was simply an idiosyncratic dreamer with too much time, money, and potentially dangerous chemicals on his hands.

Ephesus’s assignment was to create a mixture of chemicals that would meet a very specific set of demands laid out by Dr. Nic. Although Ephesus had fulfilled many such orders during his time in the lab, this assignment stood out because of the bizarre and conflicting properties Dr. Nic wanted the compound to have.

He wanted a mixture of chemicals that, when combined with regular water, would condense into a strong acid. That was odd enough—acid had its uses, but who needed a new recipe for acid when there were plenty of chemicals on the market for nearly every conceivable purpose?

Furthermore, why water? If a strong acid was your goal, there were plenty of other more caustic bases that could be employed.

To make the order even more complicated, Dr. Nic wanted the chemicals to be distributed as gases. Under what circumstances would you want to make acid out of gas? Gases were harder to ship and harder to contain. It would be very impractical—and potentially extremely dangerous—to use a caustic chemical in gaseous form.

As if that wasn’t enough, Dr. Nic wanted to make sure the final gaseous mixture would be viable in a variety of atmospheric conditions. Intriguingly, all of the possible environments Dr. Nic listed were based on Earth’s atmosphere, not Mars’s.

Why would Dr. Nic want a very impractical, yet potentially lethal, gaseous compound that wouldn’t even function in Mars’s atmosphere?

Dr. Nic wouldn’t say. Ephesus had pressed him for details on the project. What was the compound going to be used for? Under what situations and conditions would it be employed? If he understood the purpose of this bizarre concoction, perhaps he would have a better chance of figuring out how to create it.

But Dr. Nic had only said that it was one of many components that were required for Project 74, and he would give Ephesus more details when the project was closer to completion.

That answer wasn’t even remotely satisfactory for Ephesus. Not only was all the secrecy making his job twice as hard, but he could come up with no reasonable explanation as to why Dr. Nic would need this compound in the first place.

Unless Dr. Nic truly was a mad scientist creating random concoctions in the lab. In which case, he was the last person Ephesus wanted to give the equation to.

Ephesus pushed his chair back. He couldn’t work like this. It had been almost a week since he’d received his assignment, and he was getting nowhere. If Dr. Nic wanted to see progress, he would have to start giving some answers.

Ephesus ventured out into the hall and searched for signs of life, someone who could tell him where Dr. Nic was. Carnegie, the governor’s assistant, would know, but Ephesus wasn’t fond of the man’s brusque demeanor. He always acted like Ephesus was just another line item, more paperwork to push around. Ephesus knew he was essentially a borrowed slave, but he didn’t like being reminded of that fact with every condescending stare.

Ephesus peeked into the cafeteria, hoping to find a lab tech or another scientist. Before he even got all the way in the door, a friendly voice called out his name. “Ephesus!”

Ephesus couldn’t help but smile. He liked Dr. Nic’s sister Cea. She was about Ephesus’s age, and he hadn’t hung out with another twenty-something in a long time. There weren’t many young people left in the unassimilated containment camps these days.

Cea was nice, too, and much less cryptic than her brother. Unlike Dr. Nic, she openly told Ephesus why she hated the United—her parents had been Christians. Ephesus never asked where her parents were now; the fact that Cea always referred to them in past tense told him all he needed to know.

“Taking a break from work? Want me to order you something?” Cea asked with a sweet smile that made her soft gray eyes twinkle. She was a pretty girl, which was just the icing on the cake for Ephesus.

“I wish, but I need to find your brother. Do you know where he is?”

“Working on his ‘pet project,’” Cea quipped with an eyeroll. Ephesus knew exactly what she meant: Wing 74.

“Thanks. And hey—I’ll take you up on that snack after dinner, okay?” He winked at her.

“Okay.” Cea beamed and pushed her blond curls behind her ear, which Ephesus took as a secret gesture of invitation.

Grinning to himself, Ephesus hurried down the maze of halls to Wing 74. It had taken him several attempts—most of which ended with him calling Cea on his cell and getting her to bail him out—to memorize the way without getting lost.

He found Dr. Nic in the empty corridor just outside the main door to Wing 74. The governor was supervising construction workers who were bolting the remaining ceiling tiles into place.

“We get closer every day, Ephesus!” Dr. Nic greeted him grandly. He turned and offered him a handshake.

Ephesus reached out to accept the gesture, but hesitated when he saw something black smeared on Dr. Nic’s palm. He squinted at it and realized it was writing.

Dr. Nic caught his gaze, then laughed. “Just taking notes.” He flipped his hand over just long enough for Ephesus to catch most of the letters—L-a-o-d-i. At least he thought that’s what it read; Dr. Nic’s writing wasn’t the tidiest, and the ink had already started to smudge.

“So, any progress to report?” Dr. Nic asked eagerly.

Ephesus blinked to bring his mind back to more important matters. “Not yet—but that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Doctor, the techs are waiting for you in the lab.” Carnegie materialized in the doorway behind Ephesus. Ephesus shivered slightly; how long had the old man been following him down the halls?

“Excellent! Walk and talk, Ephesus—I need to make this meeting.” Dr. Nic started walking briskly, and Ephesus had to spin on his heel to catch up.

“I wanted to talk to you about my assignment.”

“Naturally.” Dr. Nic had accepted a tablet from Carnegie and was swiping through notifications.

“It’s important,” Ephesus stressed, hoping he didn’t sound like a whiny child.

“The whole project is important, Ephesus.” Dr. Nic handed the tablet back to Carnegie. “What seems to be the problem?”

“I need to know what this compound will be used for,” Ephesus stated as firmly and authoritatively as he could.

“And you will, once everything is ready. Which it will be very soon, if this test goes as planned!” Giddy excitement consumed Dr. Nic’s face as they approached an open lab door.

“But it will never be ready if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”

“Ephesus, we’ve been over this—”

“And I told you I can’t create a chemical when I don’t know what it will be used for. I don’t even have all the information—how do you expect me to complete an equation when I don’t know all the factors?”

Dr. Nic sighed. He paused in the doorway to the lab but didn’t bother turning around. “Ephesus, I promise I will tell you everything when it’s time. Until then, you would do well to remember that you were brought up here for the specific purpose of completing this project. So if you want to stay, you should earn your keep by doing your job.”

There it was—that demeaning attitude Ephesus hated so much. Especially when it was spiced with vague threats.

Dr. Nic didn’t say anything more to him. He breezed into the lab and began talking eagerly with the techs. Curious, Ephesus eased up to the door—after all, they hadn’t bothered to shut it.

“Hang on, let me bring up my notes…” Dr. Nic scurried over to the computer station at the back of the lab. He typed a password into the login screen, glancing at his inky palm as he did so.

That must have been his password. Laodi… Cea. Laodicea. He used his sister’s full name as his password.

Ephesus had to check himself to make sure he didn’t roll his eyes out loud. For something that was supposed to be top-secret, that was an absurdly insecure password—not to mention an uncharacteristically sappy move for Dr. Nic.

Apparently mad scientists didn’t have to be geniuses. Still, it was comforting to know that, under his crusty and politically correct exterior, Nic actually cared about his sister. Sometimes it was hard to tell.

“Is he part of this test?” One of the techs cleared his throat.

Ephesus stiffened as the entire room turned to look at him. “I am part of this project,” he mustered.

“You have your own work to do, Ephesus,” Dr. Nic said over his shoulder. He didn’t look up from the computer screen as he typed rapidly.

Ephesus opened his mouth, but his arguments were overwhelmed by a more productive line of thinking.

Carnegie took a step towards him, but Ephesus deferred with a wave of his hand. He backed out of the room and flicked his hand over the security panel next to the door.

As he hoped, the panel responded to his touch and flashed green, closing the door without protest.

Ephesus took a step back and looked at the number above the door: 23D.9. He stashed that number and Dr. Nic’s password in his memory and hurried away before someone caught him loitering.

As he walked back to his room, Ephesus sorted through his plan, trying to ward off anxiety with resolve.

If Dr. Nic wouldn’t tell him what the compound was for, he was going to have to find out for himself.