"Get up." One of the men barks at us. I open my eyes slowly, confused. Why haven't they shot us?
"Get up." He says again, hitting Neil with the butt of his gun. We stand up slowly. Neil nudges me behind him, putting distance between me and the men.
"What do you want with us?" Neil asks cautiously.
"You know full well why we're here." Another one says. "You have committed treason, and for that, you will pay the price."
"So shoot us." I say. "Get it over with already."
"No, no. You see, the officers back on Mars want us to bring you directly to them. If killing you was all they wanted us to do, we would have done it ages ago."
"Follow us." The first man says.
"And if we don't?" Neil asks.
"See this little button?" He asks, gesturing to the button of a small device he's holding. "That's the signal that blows up Jupiter. We could have done it months ago, but where would be the fun in that?"
"You're sick." I say, my idea confirmed. They really had been just toying with us. Seeing how long we would last, before they pulled the plug for good.
"Follow us, or we blow up your planet and make you follow us."
Neil takes my hand and we take a step forward together. The circle of men closes behind us until we're completely surrounded by them. "Hands behind your backs at all times." Reluctantly I let go of Neil's hand and do as I'm told. The entire circle moves as one, out of the Metal Head, past everyone else on Jupiter.
They're dead silent. Confused, angry, at a loss for words because they don't understand why we're being taken. It almost makes me mad that they aren't trying to fight the Mars men and save us, but I know they wouldn't stand a chance. And if I know it, they must know it too.
Neil gives me a look, as if to say, What if we never get back? I can't leave Tally...
We reach a group of three pods, each big enough to fit 100 people. They lead us to the center pod. The other two are filled with more Mars men, to escort us through space.
We board the pod and the door immediately seals behind us. It's much fancier than the pod we came to Jupiter in. With control panels everywhere, all kinds of machinery, and more screens than I can count, it's definitely a step up.
The men push us to the back of the pod, where there's a white, metal door that appears to have no doorknob. One of the men enters a code and the door slides open vertically, disappearing into the ceiling. They push us inside and shut the door before I can get my bearings. The door gives a "click" as it locks in place, trapping us here.
I look around and see that we're in an entirely white room, that's shaped in a perfect cube. There aren't any panels, or any breaks in the walls. There's nothing to break up the pure, never ending white that goes in every direction. It's enough to blind a person.
Enough to make you go insane.
I sit down on the floor, seeing nowhere else to sit and no hope of getting out. Neil paces the room for a bit and finally comes to sit beside me.
We sit in silence, each left to our own thoughts. I look around the blank, empty room and wonder what we'll do. I hear the roar of the engine starting up, and feel the pod rise from the ground. Soon the sound of the engine steadies, and I know we've made it out of the atmosphere.
We fly for hours and hours without any change. Finally I just lie down and try to sleep. There's nothing else I can do.
..........................
I wake up after quite some time. Neil is laying beside me with his hands behind his head, staring up at the ceiling in thought. He notices I'm awake. "Hey." He says.
"Hey." My stomach growls and my throat is dry from lack of water. "How long do you think it's been?"
"Maybe twelve hours. But when we came from Earth it took at least 24. This trip will probably be longer." He says to me.
"Well they can't starve us to death before we get there. If they're going through all this trouble to take us, they probably want us alive."
"Why wouldn't they just shoot us?" Neil asks. "What could the officials want with us back on Mars?"
"I don't know."
We wait in silence for a while longer. A noise startles me. I realize it's the "click" of the door. I man appears. "We're halfway through the trip, which means food and bathroom breaks for you. Don't try anything though; remember the button."
So I make my way to the bathroom, noticing that it's much nicer than any bathroom on Jupiter, or even back on Earth. It has running water and a full size bathtub and a shower that's probably ten feet tall.
When I'm done, Neil goes in, and I browse through the cabinets for some food. Mars men are everywhere; around every corner, down every hall. There's no hope of escape.
Not that there's anywhere we could go, what with being millions of miles away from Jupiter, and surrounded by two other giant pods.
I grab a stock load of food and water, enough to last the rest of the journey, and bring it back to the white room. But as soon as I dump it inside, I walk back out, hoping to spend as little time in there as possible.
When Neil comes out of the bathroom to join me, the men push us back inside and the door slides back down. I sink to the ground, my back to the door. I sigh. How did any of this happen?
I drink an entire bottle of water at once and then start on the food. We each eat more than I thought was possible, until the pile of food is almost gone. I feel better after eating, but still not very good.
I lay back down, already bored.
I try to sleep again, but I can't. I slept for around twelve hours already, so I'm not tired in the least.
Neil puts an arm around me and I rest my head on his shoulder. He's tense, obviously worried about what they'll do to us on Mars.
"It'll be alright." I tell him. "It'll be okay."
"Such flimsy words, and yet they keep people hanging on even when everything's gone to hell."
........................
I wake up to silence. I must have managed to doze off. I sit up slowly. I look around and realize something.
Silence means we've stopped. The whir of the engine is gone. We must have landed.
I look at Neil beside me. His brow is furrowed and he seems worried, even in sleep. His brown hair is messy and disheveled and the circles under his eyes have grown dark. I reach over and brush his hair out of his face, letting my hand linger for a moment.
I lay back down, for lack of anything better to do.
After some time Neil wakes up. "Cecy?" He asks groggily.
"Hey." I respond. "I think we've landed."
He pauses, listening for the engine and noticing its absence. "Yeah." For better or for worse, we were here. We've made it to Mars.
A sharp bang on the door startles me. It gives a click and slides open. Two Mars men with guns are waiting behind it. "Follow us." One of them says gruffly. Without much choice, we do as we're told.
We follow them out of the pod, where more men wait to escort us to wherever we're going. Mars is bustling with life, more than Jupiter, and even more than Earth once was. People dart everywhere, this way and that, rushing to get somewhere or meet someone or get something done.
The strange thing is that none of them seem like killers. They don't seem like the kind of people that would bomb Jupiter. The kind of people that would destroy Saturn all together just because they thought we were there.
The seem unnervingly normal. I'm not sure what I expected them to be like, but not like this. I wonder how we possibly could have built a plan to blow up Mars. These people couldn't all deserve to die... But then I remind myself that they did it to Saturn. At this point we're no better than them. And they're no better than us.
We walk past a group of homes. Children play in the streets. Families laugh together. The atmosphere is friendly, although at the same time very measured and controlled. Everything is organized just how the officials want it. An officer or official of some kind is stationed at every corner, monitoring the daily life of citizens. The homes all look exactly the same, gray and square shaped.
People whisper as we walk by. Rebels. Convicts. Why so many men escorting them? What did they do? Were they planning to kill us?
The men lead us through endless streets and around countless corners until we reach the largest building yet. It must be the capitol. Where all the officials report to.
It's almost as tall as a Metal Head, and it's wider than any building I've ever seen. I wonder just how many people could fit inside it.
"Let's get a move on!" One of the men shouts. We walk faster, up the steps that lead to the main doors. They swing open automatically, and we walk inside. The first room is huge, with white walls, some white plastic chairs scattered about, and gray tables all around. It all has an heir of formality, almost hospital-like, at least in decoration.
We walk through a few more similar rooms, some of which seem to be conference rooms, and others which seem to be databases, filled with technology.
Eventually we reach a hallway longer than any other. The lights flicker as we walk, casting an eerie glow on everything. We walk for ages, and after a while I notice that the floor is at a slight downward angle. By the time we reach the end of the hall, we must be underground. There are no windows anymore.
The men stop at a door on the right. They open it and gesture for us to follow them in. The door closes behind us. Inside is another hallway of sorts, but every few feet is a clear door. Behind them, I see small, white rooms, with nothing inside them except a person or two. They must be holding cells of sorts. A prison, maybe.
We pass ten or fifteen doors until the men open one and push us inside. "Wait here." One says, and closes the door behind him. The room becomes silent. The walls must be sound proof. There's white on all sides, like the room in the pod. I sigh and sit down on the floor again.
"What do we do?" Neil asks.
"I don't know."
"Why are they keeping us here? Why did they bring us to Mars in the first place? What could the officials possibly want with us, other than our lives?" He asks. "They've had plenty of opportunities to kill us."
"Yeah." I say. "I just hope we aren't in here too long. Twenty four hours in the pod was long enough to make someone go crazy. Would it kill them to have something in the room besides white?"
"Apparently it would." Neil says, looking around the cold, empty room before joining me on the ground.
In the very top corner of the room, something catches my eye. Small and white, it blends in with the wall. But upon closer inspection I realize it's a camera. It's so discreet that I'm surprised I noticed it at all.
I dismiss the camera, and we wait in the room for a long time.
Finally, the door creaks open and two people step inside. They close the door behind them and come closer to us.
The four of us hold our breath, waiting for another to break the silence.
Nothing. You could have heard a pin drop.
Finally I ask them a question. "What do you want with us?"