1.
HUNTER
8 HOURS REMAINING
THE GUY FROMMARSdidn’t know I was coming.
‘Hi?’ he says, with an upward inflection that asks who I am, what I want, and why I’m standing here when he’s already checked everybody off his list. I can tell he doesn’t like loose ends. Messes up his filing system, probably.
He’s guarding the airlock with a tablet in one hand, wearing a United Nations jumpsuit and a confused expression. I’m not sure what kind of formal processing I expected, but this is an underwhelming way to arrive on a new planet.
This guy is here to welcome diplomats and corporate officers from all over Earth and the orbital colonies before they shuttle down to the surface. You’d think the UN would have laid on whatever flourishes they could manage for our arrival, but instead it’s me and one nervous bureaucrat called … I squint at his badge.NATHAN, apparently.
‘This is the shuttle, right?’ I prompt. ‘All aboard for Mars?’
‘I thought I had everyone already,’ Nathan says, frowning at his tablet, then looking up at me with a narrowed gaze, as if I might be a hitcher. ‘What’s your destination?’
I unleash a smile on him. Never hurts, right? ‘I’m here to transfer to the GravesUP compound.’
‘Then nobody at GravesUP knows you’re coming. I’ve logged in everyone expected for this shuttle.’
True, Nathan.My mother and sister have no idea I’m on the way. Warning them would have meant giving up my advantage, and I didn’t spend four months lying about my location, crammed into a tin can of a freighter and eating meals out of foil pouches for nothing.
‘It’s a change of plan,’ I explain, which has the benefit of being true. ‘The captain was saying there’s no rides from Orbital down to the Graves compound today because of a dust storm. She thought I could get a lift to the UN base – to Pax – and then have my guys send a rover over to pick me up.’
‘We’ll figure it out.’ Nathan sighs, like a man used to nobody respecting paperwork the way he does. ‘Got a name?’
I actually look down at myself, as if my body might have somehow transformed while I wasn’t looking. I literally can’t remember the last time this happened.
Our parents always kept our faces out of the newscasts – the best way to keep safe is to be unrecognizable. But I don’t spend much time with the general public, so occasionally I forget that most people don’t know me on sight. Everyone I encounter in my daily life sure does.
I’ve never been a fan ofdon’t you know who I am?, but it’s going to be hard to avoid it this time.
‘My name’s Hunter Graves.’
‘All right, let’s see if there’s a free seat. I gotta tell you, that dust storm’s messed up a lot of people’s plans,’ he says, tapping at his screen as I mentally count down.
Ten, nine, eight …
‘Actually, the dust has nearly reached Pax too, but we should be able to—’
… seven, six, five …
He looks up. He blinks. ‘I’m sorry, did you sayHunter Graves?’
There it is.
‘At your service,’ I reply.
‘As in … as inGraves?’
As in, this is basically my family’s planet, is what he means. We were fastest. We were first. And everything here, including the orbital platform we’re standing on, runs on GravesUP systems.
‘That’s me,’ I tell him, hefting my bag on my shoulder in a subtle show of impatience. ‘Pleased to meet you, Nathan.’
The bag isn’t uncomfortable. It weighs exactly ten kilos – or at least it did on Earth. It’ll be three-point-something on Mars. I took the standard personal effects allotment, in some kind of misguided attempt to show Mom that I was all business, and then regretted it every day of the four-month trip from Earth. I should have brought a stack of luggage taller than me – at a minimum, some decent bedding, some media gear worth using, and rations that actually qualified as food.
Seriously, I skipped breakfast this morning on the freighter. The calories just weren’t worth the suffering. I’ll be at the GravesUP compound in a few hours, diving face-first into the brunch of my dreams.
