Reservation

I guess I don't have a lot of reasons not to go to Mars...

Hector sat on his couch in his discomfited bachelor's home, in his shabby clothes, ruminating in a thunderhead of aggravation and embarrassment. He was no longer feeling all that stoned and the wrinkled pamphlet limp between his fingertips suggested he could be paid a fair amount of money–$20,000–to leave this planet behind. Mars wasn't like the place he read about in science fiction stories as a kid. Mars had a Paris right next to a London right next to a New York, all dressed in their Sunday best. Mars had suburbs out of the fifties or, if you preferred, out of the nineties. There was no crime on Mars. There was no war on Mars. Why wouldn't a person want to go to Mars? Why would a person need to be paid to go?

The doorbell rang and Hector almost swallowed his heart and quickly stuffed the pamphlet into the back pocket of his jeans. It’s illegal to possess foreign propaganda.

“Comin'! One sec!” he knocked his shin against the edge of his battered coffee table, something someone else found on the side of the road. “Oh for fuck's...” he grumbled and righted a fallen can of Mountain Dew that was empty enough already, thankfully. Wouldn't want to make a mess.

“Yeah hello.” Hector opened the door a crack and saw a smug looking black woman holding an enormous folding smartphone. She was pretty and somewhat short and somewhat husky and had large breasts under her gray polo shirt, which was tucked into black slacks. Work clothes.

“Excuse me but can I ask you some questions for a short survey our company is conducting?” she rattled off. She was not all that invested in whatever it was she was doing.

“Nothankyou.” Hector closed the door. He could hear the girl suck her teeth and he imagined her rolling her eyes. When he was sure she was gone he opened the door again and saw no one. Heard no one. His neighborhood was peaceful, the day was fine. All the snow had melted but it wasn't too warm yet. Hard to believe the wider world was in such turmoil when you look out your front door and see such a placid place. Hector was wound up and he needed to get ready for his shift.

===

Hector pulled back into his driveway at 10:42 PM. His feet hurt a little and he wanted to get a little stoned and kick back with a dumb game. The sugar and caffeine let him down a little over an hour ago and Hector had no intention of getting onto a real rocket to Mars this evening.

Walking along the cracked cement path from his driveway to his porch, Hector noticed a package he didn’t remember ordering. Walking up the steps of his porch, Hector saw that the package was actually just a small notebook. It was black and smooth, about the size of a paperback novel. The black book sat dead center on his ratty welcome mat, just in front of his front door, as if deliberately placed. Probably deliberately placed. Certainly deliberately placed. Hector had not ordered a notebook, Hector didn’t write or draw or take notes or plan much. I should have never taken that fucking pamphlet from that fucking weirdo, everything is fucked. Hector stood looking stupidly at the book with his guts full of ice water. I should have called the cops or somebody. His phone suddenly vibrated in his hand and he gasped and nearly dropped it, which would have been expensive. Ok ok ok ok... Hector picked up the black notebook and opened it, right there in the middle of everything for anyone to see.

Nothing. Just a blank notebook.

Hector flipped through all of the pages, checking for contact info or a business card and he decided it was a thoroughly empty notebook. Pretty eerie to an anxious guy, but apparently harmless. Maybe some campaign or promotion? Hector shrugged and walked inside and did everything he set out to do that night and went to bed around 2 AM. He didn’t think about Mars at all.

===

When Hector woke up it was a little after 10:30. He felt groggy and disoriented, but mostly he felt relieved because he didn’t have to work today. Maybe he would work on the app he was developing.

Hector lay in bed awhile. He checked into a couple games on his phone that he liked that accumulated energy overnight. He was extremely good at time and resource management when it came down to things that didn’t matter at all. Once Hector decided he’d held his pee for long enough, he got up and peed and brushed his teeth and put on the jeans that were on the bathroom floor. I gotta lose weight. I want Lucky Charms. Hector went to the kitchen and poured a bowl of Lucky Charms.

The notebook sat on his kitchen counter and Hector remembered how he found it last night. What am I going to do with this Mars thing?

Hector got up and grabbed the notebook and brought it back to the kitchen table, where he was eating the Lucky Charms. He forgot that he needed a pen, so he got back up and rummaged through his junk drawer for a pen and brought the pen back to the kitchen table. When Hector opened the book he noticed the first page was no longer blank:

feds are coming

you dont have a

choice any more

His eyes felt wide and heavy. He stopped breathing. His mouth gaped and his ears felt like they were full of fresh asphalt and his head felt like it would pop. The room spun and Hector grabbed the table to steady himself. There was an address and a time written beneath the message. They broke in! What the fuck! What the fuck! Hector didn’t recognize the address but he immediately understood that he only had a few hours to figure out what he was going to do next. Impossible to procrastinate now. Hector started to text a friend but stopped short of hitting send. I can’t use this thing, they’ll know. Hector turned his phone off like that would matter. Phones don’t shut off even when you shut them off, not until the battery is dead. Who could have written...

Hector decided suddenly that he needed to search the entire house. He looked for anything out of place among the recklessly strewn detritus and carefully organized toys and collectibles. He checked the basement. He checked the garage. He went outside and looked underneath his car. He wasted a little over an hour and when he came back inside he felt tired and frazzled. Hector went to the refrigerator and opened a can of Monster energy drink and took a few deep, gasping gulps of the awful thing.

I guess I’m going to Mars.

Hector turned his phone back on and checked a couple social media apps he rarely used lately. Everyone seemed normal, which was a lie. Heavily filtered selfies, an ad for crowdfunded backpacks, some people had kids, an ad for hiking shoes featuring a golden retriever and a handsome man looking satisfied, inane political opinions from people who only a few short years ago held completely opposite opinions, an ad recruiting for the Space Force. Yeah I can do without this. Hector turned his phone back off and dug his duffel bag out of his closet.

===

The parking garage seemed a little on the nose. Hector pulled into the brutal structure and ascended carefully through the color-coded levels. This is a honeypot. He didn’t really know what he was looking for, he just knew this was the correct address and he was about fifteen minutes early. Either the feds show up at my house or they already showed up at my house and wrote that note, and this is a honeypot. Hector climbed to the 4th level of the parking garage and saw a red conversion van parked in an area with no other vehicles nearby. There was a short, stocky man standing in front of the sliding door at the passenger side of the van. He wore a navy peacoat and a black bowler hat and black pants. The buzzing orange lights overhead cast a dark shadow over most of his face. He seemed to be smiling at nothing in particular and the palms of his hands were limp at his sides and were turned to face forward. Going through with this is my best chance, no matter how you look at it. The man reminded Hector of a Venus flytrap.

Hector parked his rattling Chevy six spots away from the red van. He stepped out of the car and pulled his duffel bag out of his back seat. It felt like he was in the 9th grade again and he was going on an overnight field trip. He felt like he’d miss his bed. I should have stopped for food. Hector gave a meek wave to the smiling man in the navy peacoat as he approached. He’d never see his family again. The cops would have killed me, the news would say I was a communist or a pedophile.

“Hello...” Hector approached the man and could see his eyes were closed. The man was elderly and East Asian, and might be asleep. “Hello?”

Just then Hector could no longer see. Something was over his head and there were at least two sets of hands working quickly to restrain him. Before Hector could scream he was unconscious.

===

When Hector came to he was on a shuttle. Not a space shuttle, a regular shuttle. Am I in the red van? His whole body ached and he was starving. A thin blue blanket was folded onto his lap, and on the blanket sat the black notebook and a padded envelope. Hector looked around and saw six other young men, at least five were white and one had a slightly darker complexion. The man sitting across from him wore an oversized gray pullover with “YALE” written across the chest in dark blue letters. He had on light colored bluejeans and red Converse sneakers. Everyone looked to be in their late twenties or early thirties, everyone was asleep. Everyone had blankets, notebooks, and envelopes. A heavy man towards the back of the shuttle wore a Detroit Tigers ballcap. His envelope had fallen between his feet.

Hector rubbed his face and stretched quietly. Hector opened the envelope and looked inside: a lot of money. It didn’t look like any money he had ever seen, but he could tell it was money and assumed it must be worth $20,000. Next, Hector opened the black notebook. The first page was torn out. The new first page read:

enjoy huoxing

今日事今日毕

Hector raised both eyebrows. He instinctively reached for his right pants pocket and there was no phone there. Next to the man in the Yale sweater was a large rack full of assorted luggage, including his duffel bag. They each had highlighter green tags on the straps now. Hector turned and looked past the back of the driver in the bowler cap and saw it was nearly dark and they were driving on what must be a private airfield nestled in thick woods. What wouldn’t Uncle Sam give to find this place? They were approaching a tall, sleek rocket which was lit with dramatic spotlights. Something you’d see in a cartoon or read about in an old novel. The launch pad was partially obscured by billowing white smoke and a long, chrome ramp extended from a portal about halfway up the fuselage to the surface below. You don’t have a choice anymore.

In 245 days, Hector would have plenty of time and all the necessary encouragement to work on his app.