The Expatriate-the story of a Prodigy

31. The Martian Rocket, Polarick, and Laser Guns

The days went, in the same way, the day I last told you went by-Alex Mars Raided, collected steel and cars(yes, he decided to get cars for himself and Lyra, then a whole new car collection just for fun), and made pigeon planes and, sometimes, talked with Lyra Cannes till it was 1 a.m. or something. Thomas had noticeably got grumpier and, delighted that now his Chiron would be free only for his use since Mars had provided every other Raider cars each, he started to not Raid and go to Lewis a lot or just stay home, making strange electronic stuff in his room as much as Miles and Alx hung out together and finished another plane. Miles and Alex started to look for electronic parts like him from then, however, not to make random stuff, but to rather find chips to program the plane to make them fly in the way they instructed it to go. Melanie was now all about listening to every music made from 2000 to the current times(though new music was rarely being made these days, in 2070). And Lyra... she was always the same, so I have no need to repeat.
Nothing special happened, then-well, to be specific, until a whole two weeks after the Cooperation-With-the-Martians-Day(this event was major enough for both the Rebels and the Martians to be honored, so Alex had decided to make it a special day-at least for himself and Lyra).
-And the special thing was this: the Martian supplies had come.
Alex Mars, Lyra Cannes, Miles, Melanie, and Thomas were all asked to witness the great 'revival' of the Martians on Earth(as Marvick termed it himself on the phone), but obviously, Thomas refused.
Miles planned to make the four of them go to the headquarters each in their own cars, but Alex Mars and Lyra Cannes somehow both strongly refuted it with the same reason that it was a tremendous energy waste, even if all the cars used electricity and hydrogen to run, and with their double-counterattack, the rest of the Raiders gave in easily.
In the end, they piled into Melanie's Rexton G4 in honor of her getting the car finally after her Lotus was sacrificed generously to save other minor people. Miles pulled out the chip with the most potential for his planes from his pocket and started rapping out a few codes to Alex and all the others to hear how much they had progressed on how it would all work with his planes next to Melanie, who was driving of course, while Lyra had pushed herself into the furthest corners of the car, part of her chin pressed against the glass of the G4, sleeping with no sound at all, for she had woken up last night one more, Alex knew because he had been listening. This drive actually took less, or at least felt like it for him, somehow, and soon enough, they stood in front of the building once more. There, a completely white(alright, you know I mean white-except the tires)truck,-those ones which must have carried dairy products once in the past-stood with its engines full-on and door open-and Ryan Marivck was on the driver's seat, not looking like Eichman but rather himself, steel glasses gone, the pretense over. He looked completely 'Marvick' as he turned to them and raised a single hand solemnly and nodded and ushered them onto the truck. No one had any problem piling onto the truck's seats, though they were, just as all truck seats are, elevated "4 and a half foot" (according to Lyra) from the ground(they all simply stepped on the tires and leaped in). The roar of the engine, as soon as Miles shut the door, was still loud inside, and consequently rang every nerve in Alex Mars, though the only way to endure it. After Miles and Melanie shouted back greetings with the Martian, he Muted his ears and watched as Marvick's hands and feet twitched on the wheel, and made the truck slide, surprisingly, easily and quickly forward on the pavement. How amazing and ironic human abilities are, he mused. They were tiny and single-but they are able to do so big things, good or bad.
He was still thinking about humans and how cruel and strange animals they were and what separated them from animals when he noticed that Marvick had driven the truck to the edges of the Rebels' city, nearing a steel fence that stretched in for miles around the border feebly, no guard at all standing there, all but open.
But it wasn't the fact that the man had driven here that surprised Alex Mars-it was actually the fact that beyond the simple, wire fence stretched the...
Desert.
From that second his eyes met the shimmering, yellow sand stretching out right beyond the fence, he went as stiff as an old tree branch, eyes stuck in the same position in their sockets and limbs so rigid and breathe suddenly as fast as a criminal escaping the hands of a police officer that everyone else inside the car had to notice his strange posture.
"Shit, calm down, Alex," Miles finally said, while Melanie wildly nodded. Marvick aided by saying: "Look here, boy-I'm not gonna push you out of the country like you were before, probably-we're here to just watch a rocket land, gather its contents, and race right back." Of course he knew that-but that's exactly how trauma worked-you knew that it was silly, that all was going to be fine in reality-but right then, you just still couldn't do it.
"Come on, get out of it. Now, we have to walk out there on foot-just endure the heat for as long as you can, lads," Ryan Marivck shouted over the monstrous sound before turning it entirely off, and before the sudden silence could lead to sudden awkwardness, Miles pushed the door open with a single prod and hopped off, spinning lightly on his legs.
Jesus. He hated it, he hated the sun, the memories, the desert, so much... but, this was the only way to go on, Alex Mars knew.
So he jumped off, landing perfectly on his legs after flying down through the 4 and a half foot onto the soft sand-the sand before the fence was mixed with feeble grass, he stared at the brownish-green plants as if it was his last time before walking to the fence.
A tiny hole was cut through the thin wired thing, so he squeezed through it, and in one brief second, he was out. 
During the first few seconds, as he had feared, and as all traumas entailed, it felt terrible-as if he was back to phase one, just before beginning his second, new life, when his mind had always been full of Andrew, his sins, his Muted ears, et cetera, et cetera. Though the memories were less painful, they still existed...
But after those seconds, he felt a tiny bit better, as if a weight on his shoulders had, generally, decided to float a few feet over his head instead of directly being on him. 
So he kept walking and walking, the familiar and nightmarish-but-now-easy-to-bear feeling coming to him: the smell, the heat, the feeling of the desert, all the heat concentrated on his head and soles of his shoes...
"Stop. I asked the Martians to send it here-a few meters away from the border of Canada," Marvick called to him, and he stopped, trying so hard not to remember the time when he had stopped just like this, under the dark sky, watching the stars and pleading to them, but his eyes still went to the sky, searching it, as if searching for stars in daylight...
Yeah, it seemed pretty ridiculous, even to him, but he couldn't stop looking-
-but right now, not because of the memory of looking up at the stars.
-because something like a star was shooting towards him.
Shooting star? Impossible. Martian rocket? Imposs-wait. That last theory is, at least for now, completely reasonable and makes sense, he thought as the single, tiny beam of light in the clear, ruthless desert-sky kept staring straight at him.
"Don't worry of it hitting you on the chest-it is programmed to self-erect and land perfectly, I developed the tech myself decades ago," Just as Ryan said those words, the thing suddenly flipped, and Alex Mars, for a second, imagined that it might be actually wrongly programmed and heading back towards space when it turned once more, just one last time, before slowly, very slowly, descending to the desert floor, not making much of a noise, even when Alex Mars Unmuted his Muters to hear it well.
And as it came down, the details of the craft became clearer and clearer.
The thing was quite slim, with a sharp head on the top, and "Jesus, it's 15 feet long"(of course, Lyra said this). Plus, it was completely white except the black letter which ran on the side proudly, reading "Martian Arctic Tern". A fast stream of orange and red and, mostly, blue, was shooting out of its end facing the earth and they were already hovering over the earth by a feet when Alex Mars noticed it clearly, made an odd but futuristic hiss before dropping down softly, managing to land well, its side making a 90˚ with the sand around it.
A grateful and awed silenced swept through the crowd, before, just like that first day that they had met, Ryan Marvick burst out laughing. But the strange this was, right after a quick, huge chortle, he was crying, crying like hell, like a baby-alright, like a hell of a baby. He raced over to the slim thing as if it was his mother or something and threw his hands onto the slick surface.
"Holy cow, Martian, isn't it even boiling hot?" Miles shouted, running after the guy. "It's not-there's a constantly flowing stream of water right beneath the steel cover-it just casn't be hot, my friend," The man now wiped some fat tears away with the back of his hand, which shone brightly from the liquid, reflected(Jesus, if Thomas or Lewis had been there, they would have laughed at the silly-and-understandable-at-the-same-time-situation) by the hot sunlight of the desert.
As much as he had suddenly collapsed under his gratefulness at seeing the only sign that his Martian civilization was still existing just a few seconds ago, though, Ryan Marvick pushed himself out of it, then checking that all the Raiders had assembled beside him, raised a hand solemnly. "You have to watch this," The guy coughed and yanked open a tiny steel compartment on the side of the rocket, revealing a black, glass panel, the kind which always managed to appear in science-fiction and action movies. Just like inside those movies, Marvick now pressed his hand to the thing and it gave him a satisfying long beep and flashed green.
Then, exactly 3 seconds later, the metal panel which the fingerprint-recognition technology had been on, detached itself from the frame of the entire rocket and fell limply into the sand.
As the Raiders all gaped, Ryan Marvick, this time, (instead of hugging the rocket) flashed a grin that showed his teeth and made the skin below his eyes wrinkly before hopping inside the rocket.
Inside the rocket. Jesus.
As the man went in, white lights flashed on inside the rocket's narrow interior and as they looked from outside, the Raiders all felt as if they were seeing into a whole new world or part of it, though they had never moved one inch from the sand, the desert. And too curious and deeming it unfair for only the Martian to check the rocket first, they all hopped inside after the guy.
The inside, was surprisingly, huge and roomy, much more than they had expected. An unfamiliar smell that wasn't unpleasant nor the best smell in the world(alright, to rephrase-nor the best smell in the solar system) hit their noses and they took deep breathes, making it a funny situation where everyone was breathing unnecessarily huge breathes inside the Martian rocket. A simple panel of white light illuminated the dark inside of the thing, and revealed what the dear Martian fellas, the subordinates of Ryan marvick, had managed to send them.
Alex Mars felt, this time, that he was completely encased and inside the whole new world-neat boxes made od some unprecented material that was white and didn't shine, were stacked up and up and up to the ceiling, everything the same, and this peculiar and impressive pile of strange boxes stretched on all around the room, only leaving the space for them to enter and watch the entire scene. And in the center-yes, exactly in the center, were 2 boxes that were made of the same material with all the other ones, but much more bigger, only enough for a person like Miles to heave-ho into the truck they had brought.
They were all still gaping until Marvick slid a single finger on one of those bigger boxes, held it under his nose, and sniffed, resembling a keen dog.
"Polarick. Ah, of course. The only mineral on Mars to endure extreme temperatures, stay hard, and stay preserved for a long time," "Polarick?" Lyra Cannes frowned, for like all the others, she never accepted things that didn't have logic or hadn't been heard by herself in the past even at least once easily. "Uh-huh. The U.S. government officials are the only humans on Earth to know of this-Polarick is one of the reasons why they wanted to start using my Martian Base with an experimental purpose. It is obvious that you don't know. I and an accomplice discovered it a month after getting on Mars for the first time. It was found in various craters including Barnacle Bill and Home Plate, so it's one of the most abundant kinds. Come on, feel its rich touch," The scene became of the utmost strangest situation as all the others came forward to put a finger to the boxes and sniffed them, just like Marvick had done(thus, the situation, from afar, looked as if Marvick was a professor who had a degree in astronomy instructing a small group of prodigious teens). Alex Mars inhaled in the scent of the rock-and the smell of the entire rocket's interior came blowing into him in a stronger degree. And somehow, it smelled good-it was like a cool scent of soft lotion or something.
"Anyway. Just let me check on something before we start carrying all the boxes to the truck," Marivck cut into their observation all of a sudden, and they all wiped off their fingers on their pants as the guy knelt down in front of one of the bigger boxes and pulled open the lid by clicking away the metal clips. Some Polarick dust slid off the lid as he pushed it aside and dived into the box's deep interior while all the while, breathing in more Polarick as if enjoying it.
Inside the boxes, Alex saw a neat, organized pile of Martian stuff-however, even though he knew that Martians would have very different ways of life and might eat foods that were frozen or in the state of half-liquid-and-half-vapor, he just knew that the stuff inside the big box weren't food.
Well, to be exact and to the point, they were...
"Shit. Weapons?" Melanie inquired for the first time, the skin between her eyes scrunched up. And yes, she was right. tens of long steel 'cylinders' lay inside the case of the white Polarick, not to mention guns that were very slender and long and somewhat, just felt... 'futuristic'.
"Hell, yes. The most important part of the cooperation was that you guys would bring a fast end to the current tyranny and help us Martians have a firm and trustworthy resources-provider. We are trying to help you do just that with a few of our own weapons. Laser guns. Tasers. Paralyzers. Uh-huh," That was when Miles jumped up, eyes wide. "Laser guns?! Fuck, I tried to develop those for years, and you Martians already had it?" "Yeah. Obviously, like you may also have, I got the inspiration from Star Wars. But the most unrealistic point in the Lightsabers is that, lasers shot from a laser point would never ever stop going unless it hits a definite and solid barrier-and in the insane movie, the laser lights just stop once they have shot out away from the handle, a set distance away from it. So I decided to add a few more features to make it realistic," he now pulled out a simple, metal stick from the Polarick chest and pressed something on the side, making Miles yelp and jump back in surprise-yes, and there, right from the handle, a red stream of light had shot out as fast as a train from a dark tunnel. And the best part of it was that it had stopped exactly 2 feet away from the handle in midair.
"Explain!" Miles yelled, voice echoing around inside the tight space. "And Jesus, I will. Look. This isn't a single beam of light actually. It's a series of lights that shot out of 8, tiny laser points on top of the handle. And in the center of the circle created by those 8 laser holes, I made a tiny steel thread that has a firm stopper at the end of it-exactly 2 feet away from the handle. So, once you press the button which activates all the 8 beams of strong laser to shoot out of their individual holes, the stopped attached to the steel thread stops the progress of the thing and... BAM, comes a laser gun. I didn't want to use the name 'Lightsaber', for this is quite different from that, obviously,"
As the man quickly put the thing away back into its place, Alex just had to be, once more, amazed with the intelligence of the fella who had managed to found a civilization on another planet, escaped the strict supervision of the Rebels and had created and unearthed such many inventions and resources.
"I also asked'em to pack me an air flavoring agent that would smell exactly like Mars, so where is it... ah, here it is," Ryan Marivck lastly pulled out a small jar that was packed with some dark liquid and smelled it directly through his nose, ignoring the possibility of getting dizzy. The smell was so great that it flew past his intended nose and also into the nostrils of the Raiders, who smelled in a combined odor of Polarick, the laser(at least, the burning smell of the laser) of the laser guns, and a few more other peculiar smells. "Ah, that's my Mars," Marvick finally rose, the tiny jar gripped in his hand as if it was his dearly precious thing. "How ironic and funny that your name is similar to the planet I'm so obsessed on," he added, eyes on Alex Mars, before breaking into one last smile and rubbing his hands together.
"Alright. Let the moving of the honorous Martian supplies to the truck begin," before Alex Mars could comment on that, the man had already moved on.
Since they had all been easily confirmed that the guy was something unusual and trustworthy somehow in a matter of mere minutes, they all set to work, taking out the Polarick boxes one by one with dignity and thankfulness to the Martians that from that day on, they wouldn't have to eat pills for every meal.
However, along with that thought, another realization filled Alex Mars' mind, and it was the remembrance of how his name had been born: yes, its origins were attributed to the second launch of the rocket headed to Mars, which had been found by Ryan Marvick.
Thus, he had been named Mars because of Marvick.
And along with that realization came the thought once more: how lucky and coincidental he had been to be working with the person he had gotten the origins of his name from that moment, 17 years after his birth.
-And he felt proud for it, for his name, for what he had accomplished, for his own self.