Blue Hearts of Mars Read online

  Blue Hearts of Mars

  by Nicole Grotepas

  Contents

  Dedication

  Prologue: First Awareness

  1: Less than Human

  2: Mei

  3: Stig

  4: Commitment

  5: Domestic Conflict

  6: History

  7: On the Subject of Procreation

  8: Rights

  9: Breaking

  10: Outburst

  11: Red Heart

  12: Black Marker

  13: The Cotillion

  14: The Vents

  15: Reunion

  16: A Plan

  17: Motion

  18: Train

  19: New Tokyo

  20: A Wedding

  21: Wind Garden

  22: New Sydney

  23: Mind-wipe

  24: Heart Problems

  25: Two Plans

  26: Theft

  27: Tracked

  28: True Children of Mars

  29: Star Maps

  Epilogue

  Author's Note

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Nicole Grotepas

  Excerpt from World in Shadow (Illuminated Universe Book #1)

  Copyright

  For my fathers, Calvin and Terry, who taught me to love science fiction.

  Prologue: First Awareness

  “Awake, my son.”

  A voice called to me.

  “Awake.”

  The voice compelled me. Who is me? What am I, that I have thought, that I think this, now?

  “Open your eyes,” the voice said.

  What are eyes?

  There was darkness all around. I floated. The voice came from somewhere outside me, piercing the darkness, stabbing into my heart.

  What is a heart?

  “I know you can hear me. Your ears are perfectly formed. I know your eyes. Open them.”

  Suddenly, as though lightning bridged a chasm, the idea open your eyes became a catalyst, synapses fired and my world was drenched in a brightness beyond description.

  I blinked. My eyes.

  What are eyes? My eyes see the face leaning toward me. Blue eyes stare at me, intent, full of something. It is the first thing I see. The first thing I’ve ever seen. Dark red eyelashes blink slowly, corners of lips pull up into a soft smile.

  “Hello.”

  This is the source of the voice. I stare, feeling confused. The light is bright. I don’t know where I am or what I am. How can I know that? What is I? What is light?

  “I’m your mother. You are my son. My firstborn. I made you.”

  Mother?

  “I made you.” The eyes are full of something. Tears. She wipes a hand across her cheek.

  What is a cheek?

  “I made you.” She made me. She made me.

  “My firstborn. My son, Hemingway.”

  1: Less Than Human

  He was more machine than man.

  Well, he was an android. Or a blue heart, as we called them—for their hearts that were blue and so, different from human hearts.

  A blue heart. No doubt about it. I mean, sometimes when I wasn’t paying attention, I caught myself staring at the tiny glowing neurons deep in his pupils. They flickered and brightened like stars out in space. Like the image of a galaxy. I felt myself drifting, sinking into his eyes.

  I guess his eyes were his tell—the thing that made it obvious he was an android. Otherwise I wouldn’t have known. Sometimes it was hard to see tells. Some androids got away with being human, while others lived with the discrepancy.

  I couldn’t help staring either way. When he laughed his teeth were perfect and beautiful. The fact that he was an android dissipated and there was a glow spreading out from my heart into my fingers and even into the tiny hairs on the tops of my toes. That’s how strong it was. Even my dead hair could feel it.

  We were sitting in Cassini Coffee, a coffee bar, under the New Helsinki dome on Mars, where we both lived. He was telling me his earliest memory—which was of his mother feeding him a bowl of oatmeal.

  “How old were you?” I asked, catching myself, but it was too late. The question was out there. He laughed and I saw just a tiny flicker of realization on his face that I’d said something weird. Androids don’t grow up, at least, not the way humans do. They’re always the same age. The only thing that grows is their mind.

  “Well, it’s my earliest memory. So, you know.” He shifted on the couch awkwardly, flashing me a hesitant smile. His perfect teeth sparkled under the lights of the coffee bar. Around us other conversations buzzed, sucked up into the fans circling lazily overhead. I felt the lightest touch of his long slender fingers on my forearm. I glanced down at his fingernails. They were long and oval, and a really pleasing pink.

  I wanted to swear. Loudly. But I didn’t. I just laughed, feeling a wave of giddiness sweep over me.

  I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Honestly I would have been happy to just stare at him for an hour and fantasize.

  Before I go any further, let me just explain that I’d never done or felt anything like this in my life. It’s forbidden. Forbidden. All my crushes before this were on boys. I mean, human boys. Because Hemingway was a boy, I mean a man, really, but an android. A machine. That’s what the kids at school call them. To be jerks. And sometimes I called them that too, well, really, everyone did. But you tried not to do it to their faces if you were decent. I was almost always decent except when I called them machines by accident, which I did in my head more than anything else.

  “Want to go for a walk?” Hemingway asked. He was named for the classical writer who lived a couple hundred years ago and at first it was weird. But aren’t all names weird? Until they grow on you, at least.

  I said sure and stood up. Before long we found ourselves near a small Hyperglass shop where they sold Links and Grams and Gates. It was sandwiched between two clothing stores. I stepped toward one of the clothing stores, the RedSand store, pulled there by the window display. It was a hologram of several girls dancing on a beach somewhere—Earth, probably—wearing some cool jeans. I stared wistfully at the hologram. The girls looked gorgeous and some naive part of me thought I’d look that good in the jeans. I worked—at the coffee bar, actually—so I’d been able to buy a RedSand jacket recently. What I really wanted now was a pair of jeans.

  “You like RedSand?” Hemingway asked, standing beside me as I looked at the display.

  I shrugged. “Who doesn’t?”

  “Well, me, to be honest.”

  My mouth dropped open. I turned to him. “What? They’re like, it. The brand. Everyone likes RedSand.”

  “Yeah, I don’t really like them.”

  “Why not?”

  “They’re an Earth-based company and they import all their materials from factories back on Earth to make the jeans and stuff.” He turned and stared at the display.

  “So? Lots of places do,” I said.

  “But there are cotton fields in New Hyderabad. Why not buy from them?”

  “Prices?”

  He laughed and walked to the shop on the other side of the Hyperglass store. “These guys buy local,” he said loudly, to be heard from that distance, flashing me a hesitant smile. “Besides, you’d look better in these jeans.” He pointed at a pair of dark blue jeans that were interwoven with strips of thin red fibers.

  “Huh,” I said, moving close to him to inspect them. “I guess I never really looked at this brand.” The store was called FreeMars. It sounded like some kind of conscientious place.

  After a minute, I said, “I’m not buying anything today, anyway.”

  Hemingway shrugged. “No big deal.”

  We went into the Hyperglass shop and brow
sed through the Links and other glassware. The new styles were cool and I wished I could afford to upgrade my own Link. I glanced at it, all fitted to my forearm snugly, a good four inches long and two inches at the widest end. The fabric-LED screen was starting to look scuffed up and there were one or two sections that had gone slightly dim. My entire life was loaded onto it—I could log into my profile from anywhere and contact anyone if I wanted to have a quick video chat. The new Links came in an entirely different, exciting spectrum of colors. Mine was pink. I was tired of it. And the pink looked dirty. Plus the new Links had holo-chat. Mine didn’t.

  Not that it mattered. Being able to see someone’s entire head or body didn’t make much difference. Unless you were a doctor or something and you were trying to diagnose a lump on the back of someone’s head. But how far could you trust a hologram, honestly? And anyway, you had to buy an extra part to scan your body when you wanted to do holo-chat. It was kind of a rip-off.

  “You going to get a new Link?” Hemingway asked, drifting back to my side after venturing over to inspect the desktop Gate.

  I shook my head. “Nah. Just looking.” The new Links came on a wider band so the screen was even bigger. Almost ridiculously bigger. Mine was kind of narrow. It would be cool to have a bigger screen, but that would involve registering the device and transferring data. And also, I couldn’t afford a new one.

  But it was fun to dream.

  “Do you want a new one?” I asked hesitantly, glancing up at him.

  “No. I want other things. Not this,” he said.

  “What do you want?”

  He shrugged and smiled. “Stuff.”

  What did androids want? I didn’t know. There weren’t too many in my life, none, really. At least not any that I recognized as such. Rumors abounded, but I didn’t catch many tells in the people I was around.

  We left the shop and walked back to the coffee bar, talking casually about school and the mall. Other kids our age loitered around us, walking up and down the central plaza of the mall. I kept looking at them, then back at Hemingway, thinking how gorgeous he was. Did others notice?

  Back in the coffee bar, I ordered drinks for us and sat down. I asked Hemingway about school and why we’d never met before. He said something non-committal and then looked away. It was weird. I almost asked him to clarify, but didn’t. Outside the coffee bar, I saw a group of kids that I knew from school migrating through the central plaza of the mall. If they saw us together, I could almost guarantee that I’d be ridiculed for being with an android. Hemingway’s tell was so obvious. I felt like ducking behind the table, but didn’t. Let them see me.

  Hemingway glanced in the direction of the group of kids. He looked back at me and his expression went cold—the planes of his cheeks and jaw rippled. His eyes flickered down to his hands which were cupped around his frothy drink. “What’s wrong?” I asked, leaning forward.

  “Nothing,” he looked out at the group of kids on the plaza, his brow knit together like the seam along the leg of my jeans. “I should be leaving.” He moved as though to get up, but my heart lurched and I found myself grabbing his arm.

  I realized how desperate it appeared as I did it, and leaned casually toward him as though to make it more jokey. As if he’d fall for that. Right. “Do you really have to go?” I asked, smiling. “At least, if you do, when will I see you again?”

  Over his shoulder I saw the flock of kids from school turn as though they communicated by telepathy and not voices. They were coming into the coffee bar.

  Hemingway put his hand over mine.

  That was it. The moment. Right then I knew that I didn’t care what was forbidden. He was an android. He looked like a human. He felt like me. I mean, not me. But he felt how I feel. Like flesh and blood. And besides, why in the world were they so human-like if we weren’t supposed to fall in love with them? Or even . . . lust after them?

  “I’ll see you again, I promise.” He stood up. Each motion away from me tore a piece of my heart out. Not to be dramatic. I’m not that way, you know. Dramatic. I mean, I can be a bit. But not too bad. Nothing like my friend, Mei, anyway. So when I say it felt like chunks of my heart getting ripped out, I’m not teasing. It was like somehow there were tenterhooks driven into the flesh of my heart by that piercing blue color of his eyes and that smile, and those blasted fingernails that were so perfect, I wanted to feel them all over my body. He moved away, and the hooks pulled pieces of flesh with them.

  I felt a cry rise in me for him to wait, but I hunched down into my seat and watched him leave the coffee bar. The group of kids from school pushed around him. I saw some of them make robot-like faces at him and knock their shoulders into him.

  I hated them for it.

  “Retta!” One of them shouted at me. It was Stig. Stupid, stupid Stig. He was a caveman, I swear. “Retta! Pour me a tall one!”

  Right. Like the coffee bar served alcohol and not coffee. Real hilarious.

  He came darting toward me and got in my face. I swatted him away, and not in a playful manner. In a “you’re a terrible person” way.

  He fell backwards laughing, dodging another arm-punch from me.

  “Leave me alone, Stig. I’m off, my shift is over.” I glanced at Matt, my boss, who was wiping the counter behind the bar. We shared a mutual look of disdain and he shook his blond head slowly at me. He hated to serve customers like Stig.

  Outside I saw Hemingway stop at the fountain in the middle of the plaza. I wanted to run after him. Something in me said I’d never see him again if I didn’t. He stared down at his reflection, shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans—I wondered if they were that FreeMars brand—pulled something out, a cappa or a markka or something, and tossed it in. I found myself fantasizing about what he wished for.

  *****

  I got home and threw my RedSand jacket down—I suddenly hated it after my conversation with Hemingway—heaved a huge, dramatic sigh and fell onto the big sofa in the front room. I glared at the jacket for a moment, loathing its hideous colors and feeble design. And not just because of Hemingway.

  Well. Maybe it was because of him.

  “What’s wrong with you?” my younger sister Marta asked, only glancing at me over her shoulder for a moment before returning to her work. She was fingertip-painting on the window Gate. So far she’d done a rather intricately detailed house with ceramic roof tiles and a nicely landscaped yard. The Gate was on transparent view, so the house appeared to be nestled into the slope that rose into the mountain Elysium Mons in the hazy distance on the other side of the glass, out in the unprotected atmosphere. Our apartment was almost on the top level of the dome-scraper and there were red mountains beyond the dome. New Helsinki was in a valley—it protected us slightly from the dust storms.

  I sighed again. There was an ache in the pit of my stomach. “Oh, you know, nothing,” I answered her at last.

  “How was work?” she asked absently, adding the figure of a woman to the veranda. I noticed it and felt a pang in my gut. Was it supposed to be mom?

  “Work? Work was great. Fantastic. As always.”

  She glanced over her shoulder at me again and raised a mocha-brown eyebrow at me. “You look like crap. Did Stig ping you with a rude message about breaking up again or something?” Oh the inquiries and the pinging. I sighed again and flipped over onto my back so I could stare at the ceiling.

  I rubbed my wrist near the edge of the Link where it was curling slightly from being worried so much by me when I was lost in thought. I hadn’t been pinged by anyone in what, two days? I was a veritable wallflower. Seeing Stig in person wasn’t much worse than his awful, poorly written messages.

  “Nah,” I said. “But he came into the coffee bar. That wasn’t much better.”

  “You know he just wishes you were still his. And I mean his. He thinks love is about possession.”

  “That’s totally it.” Marta was four years younger than me, and sometimes we didn’t really get along. Usually because she
acted immature about things. There were times when she exhibited a surprising acumen about random subjects, however, like, for instance, this startling insight into the mentality of my former boyfriend, Stig.

  “I hope you just ignored him, Retta. You’re too good for him.”

  I laughed. “Thanks Marta.” I searched my mind for something nice to say to her. I couldn’t recall anything going on in her life besides her partiality to Gate fingertip-painting. “So that house looks amazing. I think it’s your best yet.”

  “Yeah, it’s pretty good,” she said, absently.

  I wanted to ask if she’d gone outside much that day to hang out with kids her age or if she’d just stayed cooped up in the apartment. But I didn’t.

  Instead, I glanced at my Link. When was the last time I’d gotten a message? A while. “So,” I said, sighing, remembering how I could see galaxies in Hemingway’s eyes. “Maybe I’ll just go to my room. You OK or should I make dinner?”

  “I ate some soup already. Not really hungry now.” She turned back to her painting.

  I watched her fingers gliding over the glass for a minute. Sighing again—I was losing count, but it must have been the tenth one since getting home—I got up and went to my bedroom, to my own Gate, and punched a few translucent buttons. The glass clouded over until it was dark. I pulled up the Database of All Human Knowledge—really it was a very grandiose name for such a tiny amount of information. Still, maybe there was something on there about why blue hearts like Hemingway were so human-like. Maybe it was a conspiracy to crap on susceptible teenagers like me. Maybe it was just to toy with us, to dangle forbidden fruit before us and snatch it away when our eyes got too big and our mouths watered so much we just gave in. That had to be it. Because I could see no other reason to taunt us. I mean, did anyone else feel the way I was feeling right then, or was I just a freak?

  I felt like a freak.

  The database didn’t help. Of course there were no explanations. It was just how things were. Like how the cities were under domes and how all our houses were in these narrow complexes that towered so high they almost touched the dome. Things just were. Right? And kids like me just had to get used to them. That’s what my dad said when I got irritated over injustices.