Blue Hearts of Mars (37 page)

She knew what I was thinking: what should we do? What
could
we do?

I had to do something!

Suddenly, without even thinking of it, I found myself running to a bench in the middle of the train platform and jumping onto it. I balanced there with one foot on the seat and one on the back. “People of Mars!” I shouted. “People of Mars!”

I yelled it several more times as the conversations in the station began to die, people hushing each other to watch the crazy chick on the bench in the middle of the station.

“Shut up,” I heard someone yell. Were they talking to me or their neighbors who continued to converse? I didn’t know or care.

“You’ve just witnessed a truth that’s been kept from you for decades. The blue hearts are the true children of Mars. Their kind were here before us. Synlife learned to perfect androids through the one they found in the casket.”

From my peripheral vision, I caught a guy rolling his eyes. He was about my age and wearing a revolutionary-era European outfit. I hurried on before he could say anything or leave, “What you don’t know, now,” I said, addressing him specifically, to engage him, “is that the Unified Martian Government has just ripped thousands of androids from their homes to send them to a new colony. When you weren’t looking, IRS agents found every last android and abducted them. Are you going to let that happen now that you know the truth? Androids are
alive
! They have souls! Some of them have families. Our lives here on Mars wouldn’t be possible without the androids. We owe them our very existence! If the IRS agents will abduct androids, who will be next? What if the colony ship doesn’t make it to the new colony? Who will they steal next to send away? I only ask: shouldn’t we offer them the same freedoms we ourselves enjoy? Nothing more, nothing less.”

People were beginning to whisper among themselves. Muttering about what I was saying. I pressed on. “I’m not saying we shouldn’t colonize new worlds. But shouldn’t the colonists have a choice? Don’t you want a choice? Or should we enslave people and force them to do what we want?”

I heard a smattering of shouts as the people in the station began to gather closer to me.

“How do you know this?” The rude man with the glasses and curly hair demanded.

“I saw the requisition from the Unified Martian Government. It was for new androids and all existing androids on behalf of the colonizing effort.”

“Sounds like a bunch of crap to me!” he shouted, glowering at me. “I’ve seen you before, on the news. Aren’t you wanted or something? Look, just leave us alone! Some of us were on their way to their first vacation in ten years and you—all this,” he gestured to indicate his Link and the surrounding group, “is spoiling it.”

I clenched my jaw. Was he serious? “You don’t want your vacation ruined?” I asked, leaning forward, my body a spring of coiled up energy. I was on fire. “Think about this on your vacation: the androids are being held against their will in that warehouse over there.” I pointed toward the large holding warehouse beyond the glass front of the train station.

“Right. I’m supposed to believe this along with the lies that the androids have red hearts,” he said. He shook his head. “You’re full of crap.”

“It’s true!” Mei shouted, jumping up beside me. We exchanged a look. I couldn’t help but flash her a thankful smile. “My father is in Parliament. He’s the one who told us.”

“What’s your father’s name?” asked a very tall blonde woman. She had her arms over the shoulders of two adolescent kids standing on either side of her; she clutched them to her protectively.

“Michio Tanaka,” Mei said.

“I know that name! He
is
in Parliament, and the girl even looks like him,” a man from the back of the group offered. Mei bowed in acknowledgment.

“Please,” I interrupted. “We need to stop them before they send the androids away.”

“Why do you even care?” a nearby voice asked. It was familiar. I turned, holding my breath as though I knew everything was about to fall apart.

It was Hans.

He stood there, a smirk on his face, dressed in black with spikes sticking out the shoulders of his shirt and there were strange tattoos curling around his eyes. What was this new look? Couldn’t the guy keep even one face for a day?

“You really want to know?” I asked, recovering, refusing to lose my steam. I couldn’t let him derail my efforts.

Hans nodded, “Yeah, I think we all deserve to know why some ridiculous
human
cares so much about machines.”

A few people gasped and someone shouted that language like that wasn’t called for.

I held back my own outrage. I could use this to my advantage. I needed to be honest. The world, the people of Mars, had been fed enough lies. It was time for truth. “I care,” I began, staring out at the warehouse for a moment before looking back at Hans, “because I love a blue heart. I married one. And he’s in that warehouse, about to be sent off like cargo, like a witless object that is loved by no one.”

The crowd around me erupted into a thousand conversations. I waited, letting them settle. Hans merely stood there amidst the commotion, staring at me with an evil grin on his changeable face. What was he doing? Where was he going?

When everyone calmed down, I began again, “I’m not the only one who loves a blue heart. His mother loves him. She created him. And every android in that warehouse is connected to someone. Do we draw a line in the sand and say that only humans can love other humans? Or do we show the Martian Government that we won’t tolerate a complete refusal to acknowledge the rights and humanity of this segment of our society?”

I waited. No one said anything. Maybe they were thinking. My eyes flicked over Hans who continued to stand amidst the crowd, that smug look on his face growing more self-satisfied by the minute, his arms crossed over his black shirt and his eyes glittering darkly at me.

Finally, I spoke in a soft voice, in tones barely loud enough to hear in the still, sepulchral silence of the vast train station. “I need your help. I can’t stop them by myself.”

“I’ll help you,” the man with the potbelly said, stepping closer. A hundred eyes swiveled in his direction. A woman tugged on his arm, hissing at him that they needed to board the next container. He rubbed a hand across his face, and blinked at her. “This is important Mathilda. For freedom. For choice.”

“They’re androids, Fredrik, it doesn’t matter. The container,” she said, peering worriedly over his shoulder, in the direction of the space elevator cords outside the dome. The container was almost to the surface.

I glanced at Hans, who now looked worried. He blinked a few times, surprised, his mouth hanging open, staring at Fredrik and Mathilda.

Fredrik took Mathilda’s hand off his arm, squeezed her fingers and gazed at her sympathetically, patiently. “You know I’ve always felt the blue hearts were treated unjustly. We can do something now. We must.”

Everyone watched as though the two would decide the fate of the entire android race.

Something about Mathilda screamed cold-hearted reptile to me. The angle of her too green eyes; the planes of her jaw and cheekbones; the tilt of her flat nose. I watched, half-expecting her to hiss some more and demand that he either leave with her now, or forfeit their relationship.

“Come on, Mathilda,” Mei interjected, suddenly. Someone laughed. A door slammed shut somewhere, the echo sounding final.

To my surprise, Mathilda relented. “Fine, we’ll get the next container.” She bit her lip as her green eyes flashed over me quickly, a glint of defensiveness in them, as though to protest that I didn’t understand. Even though I did.

As Fredrik and Mathilda offered their support, more people rushed forward, pledging their assistance, asking what they needed to do to help, raising their arms to volunteer and shout their rallying cries against the IRS agents and the slavery of the androids.

I caught a glimpse of Hans looking stunned, shaking his head. He turned and fought his way through the seething crowd, moving in the direction of the space elevator platform. I swallowed hard. Good riddance, I thought. Mars would be better off without him.

I couldn’t believe the response of the people. I exchanged a relieved look with Mei and then scanned the crowd. Distantly, I heard a deep feminine voice announce a train departure over the loudspeaker. Then another voice, announcing the touchdown of the space elevator container, calling the impending departure of the next one from surface to space-side platform.

The group surrounding me swelled until the entire station was filled with people chanting, “Free the androids, free the androids.”

A train departed, empty, and another swept into the station. The passengers filed off and joined the mob surrounding me. I raised my arms in triumph, and Mei mimicked my movements.

“To the warehouse!” I shouted, and a thunderous roar nearly blew the roof off the station.

How it grew, I don’t know. Maybe it was the electricity of being in a mob. Maybe it was simply the fun of rebellion. Or maybe it was all that righteous indignation at the injustice of robbing an entire population of its voice and rights. I hoped. It could have been anything and all of those things at once. Whatever it was, it united us.

Soon a sea of chanting people followed Mei and me out of the station, down the cement stairs, past the space elevator tunnel, and fifty yards across the plaza to the warehouse. We had no weapons. We had nothing but our voices and our bare hands. I hoped it was enough to overcome the IRS agents. They couldn’t be prepared for a riot. They were arrogant in their absolute power and their belief that most humans didn’t care for the androids.

At least, that’s what I hoped.

Taking a deep breath, I marched us the rest of the way across the plaza to the warehouse. There were no windows. The building was long and wide, with doors as tall as the building—big enough to hold a small cargo ship.

At the doors, the mob surged forward and began banging on them. We pounded and pounded until they rolled open.

Beyond the doors, dim, blue light fell upon thousands of android bodies, packed into the warehouse, pressed up against each other like canned fish from Earth. Overhead, on scaffolding and catwalks, IRS agents looked down on the prisoners, patrolling in an indifferent manner like the cold, heartless beasts they were.

As we stood there, staring as one into the warehouse, silence descended. We watched, aghast at the sheer number of androids stuffed into the warehouse. I thought I heard someone cough and begin crying in shocked sympathy. The opening of the warehouse doors was like a dam breaking. Androids fell out, bursting into our arms, blinking their eyes against the light of the dwindling day, confused and disoriented. Their faces were masks of fear, uncertain whether we were there to save them, or inflict harsher sentences on them.

We scrambled to pick them up, dusting them off, pulling them into our ranks, saving them, clapping them on the backs, whispering, “You’re safe now, come with us.” Expressions went from horrified to relieved, to thankful.

The chant went up again, “Free the androids, free the androids. The children of Mars!”

We pointed at the IRS agents up on the catwalks and scaffolding. They clutched their weapons to their chests, and their two-pronged mind-wipe instruments, calling out orders to each other, but none of them moved to stop us. When two of them charged at us, we surged over them and stole their weapons. We threatened them that we would fry their minds. We subdued them into frightened, blubbering heaps. After that no agents moved against us. We let them surrender or run away.

A continual stream of androids bled into our ranks from the gash made by the warehouse doors.

“Mei!” I shouted, across the current of escaping androids, “Mei!”

She jumped to see me through the confusion, her dark hair surging around her face. “Retta! Retta!”

“Have you seen Hemingway?” I shouted.

Mei looked around, searching through the commotion for him, “Not yet!”

Where was he?

The hole in my chest grew. Was he gone already? Chills coursed over me.

I couldn’t wait. I pushed into the warehouse against the tide of bodies, rushing between them, dodging men and women, my eyes scanning each face, looking for the one that I knew best, the one that would fill the chasm in my chest. As I searched the faces, I began to notice something strange. Beneath the blue lights, pupils glittered and winked at me. An occasional mark on a cheek or a chin, or a swirled dimple on an earlobe caught my gaze. Wide grins exposed a starry-tattooed tooth, a galaxy-embedded fingernail swept past my eyes as I searched and searched for my love. What was it all about? Did it amount to anything?

I neared the middle of the warehouse, the hole where my heart belonged stretching to its limits, I clutched at my breast, my breath coming in sharp, panicked gusts. “Hemingway!” I shouted, “Hemingway!”

A gap between two bodies. There! I thought I saw his face. I rushed toward it, “Hemingway!” Please let it be him.

A curtain of figures parted. It was him. The crush of bodies loosened around him, he stretched his arms up, finally freed of the press of androids. His face seemed to glow, his eyes lit up and shone with all the luminosity of stars and galaxies that I ever remembered. My heart began to pump like a rushing wind.