Levi bit his lip. “That is the thing, Shane. There would only be one reason that an Earthite would join the ASA, the reason several did back when it first started: to destroy it from the inside out. But we’re not even certain he is an Earthite.”
“No, not certain,” Shane said grimly, “there is no evidence.”
After the running and combat training and Shane getting in trouble for being: ‘too reckless, you don’t think about what you are doing before you do it, soldier!’ Shane and Levi went to morning lectures. Shane listened absent-mindedly to a discussion on how Nesside Carbonate Oxide was highly explosive, especially when combined with Jerrium (both Jerrium and Nesside were foreign elements recently discovered on other planets and had greatly aided space travel). Shane didn’t understand how this information was supposed to help him unless, by some coincidence, he ended up needing to know how to stop a Jerrium Nesside bomb.
Levi and Shane met up in the Library that afternoon, where they attempted to memorize facts about Nesside and Jerrium. There was much less of an attempt on Shane’s part, who kept getting distracted by thoughts of Earthites, assistants, and the ASA.
Levi tapped Shane on the arm. “Look over there.”
Shane’s eyes followed the invisible line indicated by Levi’s finger. “What?”
“That camera is off,” Levi said.
“So, it is probably broken!” Shane said, annoyed.
“Maybe, but why was it swiveling around before turning off? And why, when I reported the issue,” here Levi held up a small hexapad on the report an issue page, “did they say that they can see perfectly fine from the control room?”
Shane started in surprise, “What? What does that mean?”
“Simple,” Levi said, “someone just prerecorded footage of the library and is playing it on top of what the camera should be seeing.”
“Why?” Shane asked, trying to get back to studying and not caring about broken cameras.
Levi tapped him again, “The main issue is the fact that to do that, someone would have to hack into the ASA security system, one of the most sophisticated systems in the known galaxy! And why would they want to deactivate that camera of all cameras?”
Shane held his breath, waiting for the answer. Levi stared at him, and finally, Shane said, “Well, why?”
Levi snorted, “I don’t have a clue!”
He brushed his light hair away from his face and went back to studying. Someone left the area, but Shane couldn’t see who, then someone else left the bookshelves in a different direction. The camera turned to point towards the usual direction and turned on. Shane tapped his lips, “What about, I dunno, a place… to hide or to meet in secret? to plan?”
Levi looked up again, “Maybe.”
And that was the end of it, for then. Shane was nearly done for the day and was preparing to be done and go on to dinner. Levi got up and left. Lira came up to his table, “Hi, it’s me.”
Shane looked up at her, feeling yet again in the same situation as before, “Yes…” he brought his mouth together, thinking hard, “…Lisa?”
“Lira.” she corrected. Lucas came up behind her, “This is Lucas.”
“I know that,” Shane said bemused, “I told you who he was.”
Her expression flickered for a moment, then she resumed her previous, “Yeah, right.”
Lucas stepped forward, “do you believe in Mars?”
Shane straightened up, “like the Greek god?”
“No, do you believe in the planet, that it can succeed, that it has every right to succeed?”
Shane nodded, “yeah… but…”
“Do you believe that all obstructions to its success it has a right to remove?”
“It depends…”
“Do you want to see Mars free?”
“Free from what?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t see its subjugation! Do you believe?”
Shane cleared his throat, “Well, you…”
“Do you believe in the right of all men to have freedom?”
“Yes, but I don’t see how that has a bearing on what we are discussing.”
Lucas frowned. “You don’t truly love Mars.”
Shane threw his hands into the air, “Well, you can believe that, but it is my home. I am a Martian!”
“Just keep on telling yourself that turncoat,” Lucas growled, marching away.
Shane looked at Lira, “Why do I get the feeling that he is going to do something drastic?”
She looked just as surprised, “I don’t know what he is so upset about. He is a little intense.”
“A little?”
“But he has a point. Don’t you want to do something to help Mars?
Shane got up and shook his head, gathering his books, “No, I want to help Martians, not Mars.”
He left and met up with Levi again, “Thanks a lot,” he said, “I was stuck there with Lucas, the Martian advocate.”
Levi glanced at him, “The what?”
Shane shrugged rather dramatically and then, noticing Daniel heading in their direction, hid his face, pulling down his cap and looking at his shoes. Levi discreetly stepped in front of Shane to block him out of view. Shane crossed the hall as Daniel seemingly veered towards him, carrying something in a bag.
Just when he thought he was in the clear, someone ahead of him in the mess of students walking to class must have halted because the group had a bottleneck moment, and then someone bumped into Shane, and of course, he fell forward, losing his balance and landing in front of Daniel. This situation was no longer amusing, even though it had never been amusing to begin with. Daniel came to a stop in front of Shane, thankfully not tripping over him; instead, the bag fell to the ground, and a… well, Shane didn’t know what it was, but it sure came rolling out. It looked like a spider and an octopus combined, having shed its metal skin, and someone had stuffed the inside with wires.
Shane looked at it and then at Daniel, repeating the action as there was more silence. Finally, Shane got up to his feet, and Daniel, who still hadn’t said anything, put the machine in his bag and shook his head in a long-suffering way before moving on.
Shane breathed out a sigh of relief and continued to his next class before suddenly realizing that Daniel had missed an opportunity to berate him. Why?
He asked Levi that evening. Levi shrugged, “Why do you think I have all the answers?”
“Because you usually do, and if you don’t, you find them within 24 hours.”
Levi smiled slightly, “Well if I had to guess, I’d say it was probably because he had a deadline to get that thing to some teacher somewhere and was cutting it close. That or it was valuable enough he didn’t want any of the teachers to know he had dropped it and decided not to get you in trouble to try and not make a big deal of it so no one would know.”
“There is something to that, I guess, but he is acting weird, in my opinion. I dunno, maybe I’m imagining it because I think he is an Earthite.”
“Probably,” Levi agreed.
But that wasn’t the end of that. Shane couldn’t help but notice as Daniel stopped worrying about him or any other student (which would have been fine with Shane typically) and started disappearing more often. More likely to be found skulking around corners than at a filing cabinet. It was beginning to spook Shane out when he would look over his shoulder and notice Daniel hiding around the edge of a corner with a walkie and a weird device in his hand.
In fact, it was while he was following Daniel, determined to discover what the older boy was up to no matter what, that he ran into Lira for the third and most fateful time, again in the library.
Shane, who was being clumsy as usual, wasn’t looking where he was going, choosing to follow Daniel’s rapidly disappearing cap with his eyes instead. Thus, he ran headlong into Lira. They rebounded, Shane into the wall and Lira into a desk covered in papers that spilled across the floor. Shane vaguely heard something over the loudspeakers and then the sound of people moving up and down the halls in a rush. However, he was mainly focused on the fact that Daniel might turn around any second and see that, once again, he’d knocked someone over for the third time that month. He was sure to get in trouble not just with Daniel but with the Sargents, which was worse.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, grabbing papers and then noticing they looked like they were hers, “Oh, really sorry.”
Lira smiled absently, rubbing her head. “It’s fine. What were you up to?”
“I was following someone, but that doesn’t matter. Here, let me help you with these.”
Lira and Shane began to pick up the sheets. Lira frowned in surprise, “I don’t think all of these are mine…”
Shane glanced at a few, “whose?”
Lira bit her lip, wincing, “Daniel, Daniel Georges, he isn’t going to be happy.”
Shane grabbed one piece of paper. “Is this his? It is an order form for some mechanical parts; the name of the recipient is missing, but everything else is here.”
Lira looked at it for a moment, “Yeah, it is an order form for a digital clock display, weird.”
Shane tried to figure out which papers were Daniel’s and found another one, “Look here, it is wire, and this one says fuse, and this one says blasting caps…”
Lira looked at him expectantly. She seemed to do that a lot. Shane waited a moment, then shoved the papers back into Daniel’s folder. Getting to his feet, he strode towards the exit, and the sounds of running and doors opening and shutting grew faint and disappeared by the time he got to the door.
“Wait!” Lira said, “What does this mean? Should we tell someone he’s been buying bomb parts?”
“He is an assistant, Lira. He can do as he likes! He probably was supposed to buy those for the school or something. Assuming he is building a bomb seems rather dramatic.” Shane growled, “What am I supposed to tell them that I think he is planning on blowing the place sky high? ‘Cause I don’t. The very idea is an overwrought sci-fi drama!”
An alarm sounded, making both of them jump. Lira smiled briefly and then glanced worriedly at the buzzing, blinking lights. “Attention, all students! Remain calm, the…”
The signal cut out, leaving only the blinking red lights flooding the otherwise dark halls. A new voice, deep and mechanical, probably spoken through a filter, spoke out through the red flashing and darkness, “Attention, students! Begin to panic at once, for your doom awaits you! The time has drawn near for the end of the ASA, and we will reign victorious. Your instructors and protectors are trapped outside; we ensured it. Soon, this whole facility will be destroyed. We are the immortal, we are the great, we are the gods of war! Long live Mars!”
Shane shuddered briefly, then rounded on Lira. “Where is Lucas?”
“What do you mean?” she asked, blinking in surprise.
“This sounds like the stupid stunt he would pull! Where is he?”
“Lucas?” Lira said in surprise, “he is a patriot! He wouldn’t say something like that. It must be Daniel!”
“Oh really?” Shane said sarcastically, “The Martian-hater Eathite is standing up for Martian rights! Can we get any more contrary?”
“No, no, no,” Lira said, “look, if he is an Earthite (which I can’t imagine how you managed to find out) and he does hate Mars, what would be more natural for him than to try to blow up an ASA facility and blame it on a Martian! And I know Lucas would never say that rubbish; I mean, what does it even mean? What kind of Martian would call himself a ‘god of war’? That is ridiculous; it probably is just Daniel trying to sound like a Martian and epically failing!”
Shane rubbed his chin. “It just doesn’t make sense.”
Just then, the hall filled with students; in fear and panic, they created quite a cacophony, asking and answering questions and lamenting the situation. Shane was nearly barreled over by the tide of humanity, forcing him to the exit, which was blocked off by a descending metal door. The ASA academy, it seemed, was a little bit too much of a fortress.
“We’re trapped!” was the general cry. Shane tried to quiet the crowd and establish some organization, but to no avail. Lira was suddenly next to him. “How do we get to the reactor storage room?”
Shane turned to her, “What?”
“We need to stop Daniel. We need to get to the Nesside before him!”
Shane shoved his way out of the crowd towards her. She still had to yell over the chaos, “We need to get to the reactor storage room to get at the Nesside before Daniel can use it for his bomb!”
“What does that mean?” Shane asked, “What Nesside? And why would he give a threat before he was ready to fire off the bomb? And aren’t all the assistants outside with the rest of the instructors?”
“Some of the assistants stayed behind, and normally, it is impossible to get Nesside out of the reactor storage, but during an emergency, the rules change, and it is easier to get in certain doorways. How do we get in? I don’t know that part!”
Shane thought briefly, “Why would he want Nesside?”
“It is for the bomb. Trust me, I know a Nesside Jerium bomb when I see one.”
Shane slapped his forehead, “Of course, we were just looking at that a few lectures ago. he probably announced his intention just to draw people away from the storage, and now the alarm is up: some of the locked areas, like the armory, are easier to access now. I think it is because if aliens ever invade the campus, the cadets are supposed to defend it. Someone gave a notice about it a few weeks ago.”
“Yes,” Lira said, annoyed, “but how do we get in?”
“The doors now only run on a basic single keypad access. An assistant code will open it, or I can try jerry-rigging the wires since there are no precautions against that running on the system anymore. Also, because it is a single verification, it should be easy to get in and remove the Nesside.”
Lira motioned with her hand, “Let’s go!”
“Shouldn’t we tell…”
“They aren’t listening to anyone, and pretty much everyone in charge is outside attempting to negotiate a peaceful solution that is going to happen.”
“How do you know all that? Shane asked, but she ran down the corridor, presumably out of earshot. Shane followed. In a few minutes, they raced across the main academy building in which they were trapped. The elevators weren’t working, so they had to take the stairs. Shane ran into Levi on the stairs, “Ah, there you are!” he said, grabbing his friend by the shoulders.
Levi raised his eyebrows, “What? Are either of you planning on confessing?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m kidding,” Levi said, “but what did you need me for? We’re all stuck. We can’t do anything.”
“The armory,” Shane said. Lira flinched briefly behind him.
Levi raised his eyebrows that he’d only just put down, “How do I get in there?”
“It is an emergency. The safety precautions are lower for important rooms. You can open them with just a keypad code that the assistants have. We’re going to go down and hardwire the reactor storage door. You take the armory, find an assistant, if possible, and distribute the weapons. We have to stop this guy.”
Levi nodded, “Got it!” and sprinted off.
“Maybe Levi should come with us,” Lira suggested, “we don’t even know what we are fighting; why would we hand out weapons to the students?”
Shane thought briefly and turned to Levi, “Meet up with us if we aren’t back when you’re done.”
On the floor before the basement, they came to a halt. Shane motioned with his head toward a door. Lira reached for something under her coat as Shane pulled out a set of pins he’d gotten from Levi and easily broke through the system. Daniel stood in the room, a shocked expression on his face, as he attempted to shove the lid on a large metal box and seal it shut with vacuum clips.
“The jig is up, Daniel,” Shane said, “we know what you’ve been doing and what you’re planning!”
Daniel, still shocked, stuttered at first but gained confidence, “No, no, Shane, this isn’t what it looks like. I’m trying to move the Nesside so the criminal can’t get their hands on it!”
Shane sneered, “Yeah, sure, and why were you one of the only assistants left in the building?”
Daniel, now completely over his shock, took up his lofty attitude and voice, “Because they suspected something like this soldier, now clear out, I have to move this.”
“Sure, sure, I’ll let you just walk out of here,” Shane lunged forward. Daniel dropped the Nesside container onto the floor and swung to block. There was an ominously loud cocking noise just before they engaged. Both turned to see Lira holding the Nesside in one hand against her side, leaning because of its great weight. The other hand had a small projectile pistol.
Projectile weapons, guns that used regular bullets, were uncommon but still just as deadly. Both boys froze.
“Thanks, Lira,” Shane said, standing up and dusting himself off.
“Shut up, Shane! I’m not on your side. Seriously, you are gullible.”
In shock, Shane looked at Daniel and then at Lira, “Wait, you are with him!?”
“No!” both Daniel and Lira said at the same time as if horrified that Shane might think that for an instant.
“He is some stupid ASA assistant trying to save the school,” Lira said, waving her pistol vaguely in his direction. Daniel scoffed, but Lira continued despite that, “I, on the other hand, am a Martian rebel, sent here to destroy this school as many others destroy other ASA facilities in tandem. We’ve all been under deep cover, so deep that no one even could tell me who my partner would be, the master hacker that was supposed to get me into all the systems. I thought it might be you, Shane. So I made the sign of the Martian rebellion to you, and you didn’t respond. Later, I learned Lucas was my counterpart, but after we discussed it, we gave you a chance to join us.”
Shane hit his forehead, thinking of the weird interlocking of the thumbs and her expectant expression and of Lucas’s strange questions.
“…but as it turned out, you cared nothing for our home!” Lira spat.
“I do care about Mars!” Shane said, “About the people there!”
“Not enough to do what is necessary!”
Shane ground his teeth, “how is any of this necessary? All you are going to do here is destroy Mars!”
“It is very necessary! Earth has subjugated Mars! How do you not see that!”
“Then protest that legally have the governors and representatives on Earth say something, don’t blow up schools!”
Lira laughed, “Governors? Representatives? They are all Earth’s men.”
“Maybe they just don’t agree with your radical ideals,” Shane said.
Lira glared at him, “Shut up! I don’t have to listen to you talk! I’m holding a weapon, after all!” Then, addressing the ceiling, she continued, “Lucas, have you managed to hack into the assistant’s code database?”
“It was harder than I expected, especially since he did it so easily manually, but I think I’ve got it!”
Lira nodded. “Good, seal this door and the armory. Don’t let anyone in or out!”
“No!” Shane shouted.
Lira smiled sweetly, “Oh yes.”
“No, Lira, you don’t understand. Call off the bombs, for Mars’ sake!” Shane continued.
“Is that a new swear word, or am I to assume that I will injure the immortal world by setting off this explosion?”
Shane thought briefly, “I’m not sure what that means… but! Listen! When these explosions go off, and someone finds out Mars was behind it, they aren’t going to wave the white flag; they are going to bombard Mars from space, wipe out its artificial magnetic field, desolate it, and bring its structures to the ground. It will be the end of Mars!”
Lira shook her head, “You doubt the strength of Mars! Mars will endure somehow. We are the gods of war. We are the immortal in spirit! Since I probably won’t be seeing you again (and you’ll be dead soon), I guess this is farewell.”
The door shut, leaving Shane standing in horror in a small pool of yellowish light.
TO BE CONTINUED