Chapter 7: Galilaei

So Roy was a Technomancer. It sort of made sense. It explained his manners, how he managed to seem so aloft and why he was so well educated for someone born in the slums. The Technomancers found their recruits early.

They were like a government organisation outside the government. They kept to themselves but everyone knew they had a lot of power on Mars. It was only thanks to scientists back on Earth that pushed that particular mutation among those who were susceptible that we were able to colonize Mars. Without the mancers wilding electricity it would have gone a lot worse. The artificial atmosphere we built before people came to Mars, it kept the oxygen in and heat up, but it did not stop the sun; besides we need the sun. It is where all our electricity comes from.

They were not liked even so, most people were afraid of them and looked at them like they were wizards and witches, rather than people with a special mutation. Some people were born with a knack for it, it only needed to be brought out. Exactly how was a well-guarded secret. Only the Source, that is what the Technomancers organisation is called, knew and they were known for keeping their secrets.

Above all it explained why Roy did not want to be in the camp once our people showed up. Being a Technomancer was for life, whether you wanted to or not. One did not just pack a bag and leave. Except, Roy had apparently done just that. He made sense in a way to me now, like I had found a piece of the puzzle and was starting to see what the picture was supposed to show.

ooo

We gave up the train after half a day. By then we had traversed a great deal of the distance back towards Auroran guild territory.

It felt rubbish leaving the train and setting of on foot. But going all the way in the train had never been the plan, to fucking obvious to start with. Secondly, the train could only go on the tracks as they lay, no chance we could convince someone we were using the train for legit reasons. Walking was the option left to us.

Mars is full of train tracks and tunnels that go everywhere. The surface is so full of craters that it takes a lot of effort traveling over the surface once you are outside of the big plains. It was these tunnels that the Technomancers built in the beginning. Before we built the cities people lived here, protected from the sun. The first mushroom farms and mines had been established under ground.

We had moved out as soon as we could, but it had taken many, many years to build stable enough colonies to manage that. It was all many years before my time anyway.

We jumped the train just before a crossroads, main track going forward and we took one of the many side track connected to it, they all looked alike to me but Roy said he knew where we were going. I followed, still a bit too awed to even argue. We picked up our big packs with water and set off.

We set a steep pace on the first day, half jog, half run to place as many intersections and miles between us and the abandoned train as we could. We only stopped briefly, hours later and I fell to sleep the moment my head hit the ground and it only felt like a minute before Roy shook me awake, put a processed bar of food in my hand and we were off again.

We did this for five more days, running and sleeping, sleeping and running. We hid sometimes, crouched in tiny alcoves while train passed us by. The dust in the air making us both cough and wheeze. Other times we laid low for hours, waiting for a crossing to clear. I slept when I could, but most of the time I was too strung out to manage more than close my eyes before my own skittish nerves woke me up again.

I felt like giving up many times. I was so tired that it felt like it would be ok to be caught, if only I could lie down and sleep. The fact that they would shoot us on sight as enemy soldiers trying to run seemed to slip my mind at times like these. Roy pulled me up every time. When I stumbled he put a hand to my back and pushed me on. When I was cold at night we slept back to back to share heat. I would never have made it had he not been there.

One week after we had made our escape we passed the border into our own territory. I still have no idea how Roy found out about this place. It was an underground village, no more than maybe twenty sheds or lean-tos huddled together in a dead end tunnel. It was populated by the filthiest people I have ever met.

Roy led me straight to one of the sheds, a flickering bluish light coming from inside. A guy with a cap drawn down across his eyes was looking at us, but apparently we passed some hidden test because he let us pass.

Roy nodded at him and led us in. Inside was a bar, of sorts. The light was coming from a sun-light fixed in the roof and I guessed that light was the vitamin D supplier to this little community. The room had some tables and upturned barrels. At the far side was a barrier with some bottles behind and a skinny guy hidden inside a huge parka adorned with metal rings of all sorts and sizes.

"Howdy Roy," he said and nodded at us.

"Leg, nice to see you again," Roy answered while managing to sound anything but.

"Nobody said anything 'bout one plus," Leg fixed his eyes on me, head doing a little shake from side to side.

I had no idea what was going on and frankly I was too tired to care. Whenever I had asked about our plans Roy had only said something about him having one. I looked at the man named Leg and thought that this was a man I would not trust farther than could throw him, if that.

"Problem?" Roy said.

"It's gonna cost you but it can be done," Leg said after a while, mouth in a twisted sneer.

"Roy?" I asked, deciding to actually take part in deciding my own fate. He half turned towards me, head angled away from the bar.

"I'll be fine Innocent, Leg here owns me big time, just let me deal with this."

I raked a hand across my scalp, my hair was slowly growing out of the close military cut and it was so dirty by now it itched, eventually I nodded.

I leaned against a beam, thinking about nothing and mostly trying not to fall asleep while Leg and Roy came to some sort of arrangement. Then we were shown to one of the back tables, hidden behind a partial wall and told to wait.

I rested by head in my hand, looking sideways at the world. I had a glass of brownish liquor in front of me. It tasted like gut rot but I guess beggars can't be choosers.

"The war is over by the way, a month ago, Leg told me," Roy said.

"Huh," I said. I had known it was coming to an end for a long while. It was still strange though, it had been on-going for years, since I was twelve and I had a hard time remembering a world without war.

"We won?" I asked.

"Yeah, apparently," Roy nodded and I felt strangely nonplussed about it. That had been the way the war had been going so I was not surprised.

"There was some battle at a place called Green Hope and that ended it."

I nodded and feel silent thinking I would learn more once we got home.

We waited for a long while, someone brought us food that we ate in silence and after we waited some more.

"What is this place?" I asked after I had finished a second glass, a pleasant warmth spreading in my stomach.

"Border town, trade in illegal goods across the border, there are a couple like this around. If you know where to find them," Roy said, voice kept low.

"And you do?" I asked.

"Some of them yeah"

I didn't say anything else, just waited.

He reached over and refilled my glass.

"I," he started, "I have spent a long time on the run, you pick these things up or you die," he shook his shoulders and I had the feeling he was embarrassed over something. It was now or never, I thought.

"From the Source?" The source is what the Technomancers call themselves, no one outside knows much about it except that once a kid goes in, the only way out is as a Technomancer loyal to the source.

He rolled his glass between his fingers, faraway look in his eyes.

"Yeah, ran away when I was fifteen. I suppose I have been running since."

"What happened?" I asked and wasn't sure if I meant why he left or what happened after.

He sighed, "Let's just say I didn't like it there," he took a drink, slamming the glass down hard and whipping his mouth on his sleeve.

"The training is brutal and the young treated no better than slaves, asked to do the biddings of their chosen trainer, or master."

He looked away, out in the dark behind me and I waited, sensing something more was coming.

"My master, she was, older and traditional. Believed in obedience body and soul." He didn't explain further.

"Anyway, didn't like the hierarchy, the hours, the beatings, the anything. So I left, just took up and walked out one day. They didn't expect that I guess."

Without thinking I reached out and placed my hand over his. I let my fingers curl around; his hand was warm and rough, the tiny scars from a hard life covering the back. I fixed my gaze on my hand on his, I felt him look at me but I didn't raise my head, afraid he see something in my eyes. Something I had just myself started grasping.

We were interrupted at that moment, Leg shouting at us from the door that our window was now. We were catching a train to Shadowlair.

ooo

We travelled in the back of a goods train for the better part of two days, the train personnel must have been used to this kind of things because they did not search the carriage we were in. Leg had thrown in some processed food, water, and a jacket and scarf for me to try and hide the prison look of my gear. I slept most of the time, trying to regain some strength.

Whenever I woke I could see Roy's back, sitting cross legged leaning against the side wall and looking out at the landscape rolling past. He had pushed the door open just enough that I could see Mars. Red, red dirt with nothing in-between.