My name is Innocence Smith. I am nineteen years old, and I am about to die. This here is the story of my life.
ooo
I was born in Shadowlair, in the tangling mess of corrugated steel buildings and red dirt tracks that makes up the capital of Aurora. My parents were good people, engaged in the community and working hard for a better life. My dad ran a small shop at the first floor in our house and my mom was an electrician, she was good with everything that ran a current, instantly feeling when something was wrong and how to fix it. I guess they met around town at one point in their youth but I don't really know, anyhow, they loved each other very much.
I was born at dawn, in the minutes before the sunrise, not that we see much of it here. The sky in Shadowlair is almost entirely covered with sheets of metal, protecting us against the corrosive radiation of the sun. Below we carry out our lives in the half dusk, stepping carefully around the few patches of light when sun is at zenith. Even like that, most wear dark tinted goggles and protective clothing all their lives.
I love Mars, don't get me wrong, it's just that sometimes the planet is a bitch to live on. Yet, even if you cannot see the dawn it still holds a special place in people's minds, like a promise of better things to come.
Anyway, my dad had held me and apparently I had smiled, only seconds old and it had melted my old man's heart. They named me Innocent after that, hoping I suppose I would stay that way. They were wrong of course.
The first fifteen years of my life is not much to tell you about. I was a regular kid, not much going on in my life, something I realize now was a good thing. I lived and it was fine most of the time, school and helping my parents with the tiny vegetable garden at the back of the house.
When I look back now I feel a calm sense of happiness remembering those days. When I close my eyes I can still smell the dry earth and remember how carefully I would tilt the pot to let a few drops of water fall down, glittering as they rained down over the plants.
Water, the ultimate luxury here on Mars. There are old stories told in hushed whispers on dark evenings about Earth. That there used to be gatherings of free water so big a person could walk in them. I'm sure they are just stories though. No one would leave that much water just lying around getting stepped in. With all the sun we get here energy is not really a problem, it is water that is rare.
When you think about it like this I suppose everyone always knew that it would be water that caused the war.
I'm still not exactly sure how it started, perhaps nobody is. I think it was Abundance, but it might as well have been us—Aurora—who tried to claim a hydroponic farm of the opposite side. Then all hell broke loose, likely it had been a long time coming. The war, I suppose that's where my story really begins.
ooo
The war began when I was thirteen, about to turn fourteen. I was laying on the floor at home, head bent over homework. It was a hot afternoon and the metal sheets cooled me. The radio was on and the news was broadcasted into every single home and even in speakers out on the streets.
Someone named Wisdom was shouting about courage and union but I didn't listen much. I was putting all my attention on the little stick figures I was drawing all over my homework. They were small, small astronauts riding rockets going off to explore the universe. In short, I missed much of the things the general was saying.
My parents were talking in slow cut off statements behind me,
"This could change everything," my mother said.
"Hopefully," my dad added, "Something better could come from this."
They had clasped hands below the table; I saw it from my position on the floor. I remember wondering briefly why they would do that before my interest lapsed and I started to draw something else.
The war started slow, so that you had time to get used to the idea of it. At first it was only apparent in the news and in the conversations people had on the streets. At this point it was something that happened somewhere else and likewise concerned someone else.
Then half a year or so in the randomised drafting by lottery started. I guess they had realised that the tiny army we kept was not going to cut it.
Dad name got pulled straight away and he went gladly, he was so proud of his uniform. Mom was too, although a bit miffed that her work on the water plant was considered too important to be part of the lottery, she was not even allowed to sign up voluntarily. I remember dad stroking the rough fabric of the jacket, his fingers equally rough from a life of hard work. It seemed so exciting and good. He was going off to make our world a better one, we would defeat the enemy and we would do it together; like one united nation.
We waved him of, him and the other first recruits, thinking they be back within the month, shining from glorious victory. I can't believe I was ever that Innocent. Yeah the old pun about virtue names, I know, cheap. In Aurora, everyone got virtue names; it is just the way things are. My mother's name was Moderation and my dad was called Consideration, so there you go.
We didn't see him for seven months.
By then the realisation that the war might last for a while had begun to sink in along with the brute realities of it. Life on Mars is not simple, death rates are high and injuries common, people starve, thirst, and are the victims of crime. There are also many sicknesses without cures, like the poor fuckers who are sensitive and suffer from the high levels of radiation from the sun and turn mutant; shunned by everyone and forced to live as pariahs. Yet, none of this had prepared us for war.
Anyway dad came back one day. The uniform he had been so proud of now crusty with dirt and dried blood. It was torn and badly mended. It didn't hide his leg either, mangled to shreds below the knee by a grenade. One of ours gone astray I learned later.
He came back missing more than the function in his right leg my dad, he came back without hope.
I didn't notice at the time though, I was fifteen and dead to anything but my own life. Dad was alive and back, that was all I cared about. He and mom stayed up late at nights, I could hear them talking through the cracks in-between the steel sheets that made up our house. It felt good, to have them both back and I paid no more attention.
By the time strange people started coming round the house at all hours having meetings in the back of the shop I had other things on my mind.
ooo
My best friends name was Caution, and despite her name she was anything but. She was the one who always got me in trouble and the one who convinced me that her absolutely mad schemes were actually very sensible and the right thing to do.
Since the war started we had begun hanging out on a small rise overlooking the train station. For some reason many of the more important events of my life has taken place in or in close proximity to trains and train stations. Occasionally it makes me want to believe in faith.
Today was no different from any other day, except that it was the day before Caution was turning sixteen. She was four months and 26 days older than me, through our childhood she never failed to remind me that she was the oldest. Sixteen might not sound like such a big deal, but it was the age at which you could sign up.
I was lying on my stomach, head resting on my hands. My hair was not yet sheered short and a lock of blond hair kept falling down into my eyes where I made futile efforts of blowing it away, too lazy to bother lifting my arm.
"I'm signing up, tomorrow" Caution said.
I wasn't thinking of anything in particular so it took me a while to realize she had spoken. It was however clear what she meant.
I rolled over and looked at her; I could practically feel my blue eyes go wide in wonder.
"Really?" I asked.
She looked at me, seriousness and what I at that point mistook for adultness on her features. She nodded gravely.
"Yep, I listened to General Wisdom speaking yesterday on the radio. He said we should all do our bit for Aurora and that this will lead to increased equality for all." She went on for a bit but she had already lost me, politics were not my strong side.
I looked at her, she looked so convinced, so strong. She wanted something, she believed in something and it fascinated me. I had never really believed in anything or cared much about stuff like this. Not the way I could see she cared. Her brown eyes blazed as she talked, her hands gesticulated wildly in the air. For a second I thought that maybe I was a bit in love with her.
When we turned seven we had sworn an oath that once we grew up we would marry and then explore the world. That clause about exploring the world had been mostly her, I just agreed. If she wanted to explore the world, then I probably wanted it to. But since then I had always assumed that was how it was gonna go; love had not really been a part of it. Like so much else I seemed beyond caring about it.
"Innocence, are you even listening?" She looked angry, hands at her sides, staring at me.
I tried smiling, it usually helped with her. She always told me I had a beautiful smile.
"But are you really going to sign up?" I asked again when my smile proved ineffectual, and because I really wanted to know.
"Yes, of course." She said and I saw her become serious again.
"Does that mean I won't get to see you anymore?" I asked. I want to think I was sad at this prospect at the time but I can't seem to remember much beyond a certain sense of curiousness and misplaced envy.
That made her smile at me, "Course not, once you turn sixteen you can come after me and we will fight side by side."
I nodded; clearly that's what was going to happen.
She didn't really wait for acquiesce, she knew I was going to do what she said, I always did. She edged closer instead, suddenly looking uncertain.
She raised a hand tentatively and placed it on my bare arm, it was feather light and made me swallow in a way her hand never had before.
"So I'm leaving tomorrow, and it might be a while until we see each other again. Besides, I'm almost sixteen today." She moved closer still and I suppose my name must have really clogged my brain because I had no idea what she was doing.
Then she bent down and kissed me and I started to get the drift. I think she had been waiting for me, as the boy, to make the first move, sometimes Aurora is still a bit stuck on old ideas like that. Her lips were warm and very soft on mine, it felt curious but also exiting, I had been kissed before, but never with any real intent of anything more. This though, I could feel had more behind it.
In the end we made love there on that little hill. It was a lot of fumbling and embarrassment but we did it. Afterwards as we held each other while the noises of the busy railway station surrounded us, I felt grown up for the first time.
The next day Caution signed up, she was shipped off for a few weeks of training almost instantly. The front needed recruits and needed them yesterday. I never saw her again.
A long time after this day I met a guy who had fought with her. She had been a young sergeant by then, respected by the soldiers under her command. He told me she had died at Green Hope, that last gruesome battle at the very end of the war that claimed so many, many lives. I remember feeling sad then, both for her and for the fact that in all those years I had not thought of her more.