Martians Abroad

“Can we take that chance?”

Charles went to his room, which he was sharing with Ethan, and I followed him.

“What’s going on?” Ethan asked. “I heard something happened to George—”

“Something weird’s going on,” I said. “We just have to figure out what.”

“Shouldn’t city security be able to do that?” he said.

“Yeah, but did we mention the weird part?”

“Most of the city has vid coverage. We ought to be able to find something,” Charles explained, pulling his handheld out of his luggage. He sat on the bed and hunched over it, punching in commands. With his hacking skills he’d figure this out in no time.

And we waited. If I tried to ask him what he was doing or how long it was going to take, he’d only get more inscrutable, so instead I asked, “How was the play?”

“What?” He looked up, blinking.

“The play that I didn’t get to see. How was it?”

“It was okay,” Ethan said.

Charles surprised me by looking thoughtful—pleased, even. “Not bad. It was vintage, first performed in the early days of the original theater district. About gangsters and a floating craps game. Everybody sang songs when they got emotional.”

Had Charles actually enjoyed it? I thought theater would have been beneath him. “And what is a floating craps game?”

“I think it’s a metaphor. Can we talk about that later?” He keyed in more commands and studied the handheld’s screen intently.

I started thinking I should have just run after the bad guys rather than messed with the security nonsense. I bet I could have stopped them, or at least slowed them down. For whatever reason he’d been taken, George was probably long gone by now.

A knock pounded on the door, and when Charles didn’t look up, Ethan went to answer. Ladhi, Angelyn, and Elzabeth pushed inside. Ladhi and Angelyn came to me, while Elzabeth stood apart; her eyes were red, like she’d been crying.

“What happened?” Ladhi begged. “What did you do?”

Elzabeth burst, “What happened to George? Is he okay?”

I slumped over and sprawled on the bed next to Charles, staring up at the ceiling. I didn’t want to have to explain it. It seemed so stupid now, and I just got more angry that I couldn’t do anything.

“Polly—” Ladhi said again. They sat on either side of me and obviously wouldn’t leave me alone until I answered.

“George got kidnapped. I tried to help. It went badly,” I said.

“So you’re the one who triggered the fire alarm?” Angelyn asked. “Couldn’t you just call security?”

“I tried,” I grumbled. “But the computer at the front desk wouldn’t let me talk to a real person and didn’t have a selection for ‘kidnapping’!” The room had suddenly gotten crowded. Elzabeth, pacing at a good fast clip, started crying again, and Angelyn tried to comfort her. I repeated, “And there’s something weird going on.”

“Yeah, obviously,” Elzabeth said. “I honestly didn’t know one person could

cause so much trouble.”

I shrugged, but the gesture didn’t mean much with me lying down. “One person with a drill can do enough damage to the hull of a space station.” That was me, it was like I had a diamond-tipped drill bit and didn’t even know it.

“So what’s going to happen to George?” Ladhi said.

“I’m almost certain the kidnapping was staged,” Charles said.

“What?” everybody said. Everybody except me. Nothing Charles said surprised me, ever.

Charles explained, never looking up from his handheld. “Let’s say, for the sake of argument, George really was going to get kidnapped. I’m sure plenty of people could come up with reasons for it, not the least of which is that generating ransom money is probably his only real talent.”