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PART ONE
LIES
Chapter 1
Zach Croft: 2029
“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” Ryker said as he peered over the edge of the jagged cliff.
Surrounded by tall pines on all sides, the glistening lake seemed to be cut right out of the middle of the forest.
Zach pushed his wet hair out of his eyes and scraped his foot across the loose sediment. “Come on, man. It’ll be fine!”
They had gone to the waterpark for Ryker’s ninth birthday only a few months ago. How was this any different? Did Ryker think his skinny frame would shatter when it hit the water? Zach was skinny too, and he was going to do it.
Still, Ryker trembled, brushing his shaggy blonde hair out of his eyes. “It’s a really far drop.”
“Maybe Ryker’s right,” said Cora, pushing her black hair over her shoulder. She squinted against the sunlight as she looked at Zach with concern. “I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”
“You really think we’ll get hurt?” Zach motioned over the cliff. “It’s water, not concrete.” He picked up a pebble and tossed it over the edge. It plunked into the water, sending a series of perfect rings rippling across the sparkling surface.
“What if we get caught?” Jason Greene asked while looking down at the rest of the children. He was at least half a foot taller than any of them, so tall that his proportions seemed off. His joints were like the knobs in tree branches, and his legs looked like pool noodles. As his dark skin glistened with drops of water, he shivered.
“What they don’t know won’t hurt them!” With that, Zach turned and leaped off the stone ledge.
“Zach!” Ryker and Cora called after him.
As Zach fell, he swung his arms in circles and pulled his legs close to his chest. “Woooohhh!” He crashed into the water with a giant splash. A few seconds later, he popped back up and gasped for air. “I’m fine! You guys can come down now!” He didn’t know why they were so afraid in the first place. It was just a little water.
Jason barreled off the cliff next, pinching his nostrils tight. He plummeted into the lake and swam over to Zach, who was crawling onto the sandy shore.
Cora jumped third. Although Zach applauded her for it, he could tell she just wanted to warm herself up. At this altitude, even the sunniest of days would be considered winter in Pasadena. Zach didn’t mind. The pine trees. The clean air. The lack of towering skyscrapers. It was a nice change of scenery.
Once Cora climbed out of the water, Zach high-fived her and mentioned that he should have brought towels. Whatever. It was only a ten-minute walk back to camp. They would live.
“You coming, Ryker?” Zach shielded his eyes from the bright summer sun.
Ryker shivered as a gust of wind blew past him. “I— I think I’m okay.”
“We all did it, man. It’s fine!” Zach started toward the forest, where a path led up to the cliff. “Hang on. I’ll come up there with you!”
“No, no. It’s okay. I can do it.”
“All right. Then you leave me no choice.” Zach stopped and went back to the small shore, shooting a look at the others. He began to chant. “Ry-ker! Ry-ker!”
Jason joined in. “Ry-ker! Ry-ker!”
Cora followed soon after. “Ry-ker! Ry-ker!”
“Okay, I’m going!” Ryker bounced up and down a few times.
Then, he shut his eyes and jumped.
Nicolas Carver: 2029
“Boom.”
Carver thrust his pool cue into the white billiard ball and watched as it collided with the rest. He slicked back his uniform charcoal hair, ensuring not a single strand was out of line. Everything about him was like that: his hair, his pointed nose, his piercing emerald eyes. All were symmetrical and perfect in every way. Even though he was a few years into his thirties, he still got carded at bars.
“I see you’ve been practicing…” Victor Keaton took a sip of golden beer, then wiped the foam off his lip with the back of his hand. The light above him cast shadows beneath his prominent cheekbones and made his salt-and-pepper hair look even grayer than it already was. He bowed his tall frame in Carver’s direction, flashing a pearly white smile with one tooth that was sharper than the rest.
“Well, I’ve had a lot of free time,” Carver replied. That wasn’t really true. The game had always come easy to him. What could he say? He was a natural. As he circled around the table to get a vantage point for his next move, he glanced at Victor. “How’s your kid doing?”
“Cora’s good. I think she might be OSE material someday.”
“Oh yeah?” Carver asked with a smile. Suddenly, the door opened, and light flooded in. Tightening his jaw and suppressing a groan, Carver turned to see Quinton Croft enter the lounge. He was probably there to give another lecture on why he was right and Carver was wrong. What a prick. Carver plastered on a smile. “Quinton! Glad you could make it.”
“Hey, guys.” Quinton sat down in a leather chair in the corner of the room. Compared to the other two men, he seemed much more excited, much more eager, bouncing his foot and pressing his thin lips tightly together. “Ready for your speech?” he asked Victor.
Quinton always had this nervous energy, as if he were analyzing every detail in his daily life and sorting it all by importance. His hair, his face, his posture, it all annoyed Carver. And his eyebrows—Carver could go on about them for hours—were permanently furrowed in concentration, making him look like a Neanderthal.
“Yeah. Big night,” Victor replied. The comment hung heavy in the air.
Carver’s eyes shot between Quinton and Victor. “If no one else is gonna say it, I will. It’s not too late to call this off.”
“The board has already voted.” Quinton glanced at Victor, seeking confirmation. Victor nodded.
Yes. The board voted to ignore Carver’s advice, despite him being the Director of Theoretical Physics. Apparently, they felt that theoretical physicists shouldn’t get a say in anything that wasn’t theoretical.
Carver pressed on. “MagRes needs full funding. Half’s not going to cut it.” Why was it even up for debate? It seemed so obvious to Carver that saving their home, the one planet they knew was survivable, was the rational thing to do. Anyone who thought otherwise was an idiot.
“We need a backup plan,” Quinton replied. “If restoring the magnetosphere goes as well as you think it will, then we won’t need Exodus. But we’ve gotta have a Plan B.”
Carver didn’t mind having a Plan B. But he had a problem with devoting half of the agency’s money and manpower to it instead of doing everything possible to make Plan A work. “And how many people will that Plan B save?” Carver asked.
Quinton shot a glance in Victor’s direction before replying. “Enough.”
“A hundred thousand,” Carver said, answering his own question. “Out of seven billion.” Carver gripped his pool cue like a sword. The words felt unreal as they rolled off his tongue. OSE was spending hundreds of billions of dollars to save, what? A few thousandths of one percent of the population? What would happen to those who didn’t make the cut? They’d be abandoned. Incinerated. Left to die. It made Carver sick.
“Like I said, it’s a backup plan.”
Carver could feel his frustration building. It didn’t make sense. Why waste money fleeing Earth for an unknown planet when they could put that money toward restoring the magnetosphere—the root of their environmental troubles? MagRes would mitigate the effects of the solar flares to the point where life on Earth could continue indefinitely. Spending money on anything else was suicide.
“We don’t even know if Alpha Cen is habitable,” Carver reminded Quinton.
“We know enough to try,” Quinton countered. “If your Plan A fails, Earth won’t be habitable either.”
“That’s not—”
“Can we just finish this game in peace?” Victor interjected with an exhale.
“Fine.” Carver waited for Victor to take his turn, then lined up for a shot. The cue rested between his thumb and forefinger.
Victor threw back the last gulp of his ale and wagged a finger at Quinton. “Are you sure you’re up for this? You’re gonna be gone a long time.”
Quinton nodded thoughtfully. “As long as Zach is with me, I’ll be okay.”
Victor smiled. “That’s why I picked you.” He walked over and placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder.
With Victor distracted with Quinton, Carver reached his hand down and discretely flicked one of his own pool balls into the corner pouch.
Zach Croft: 2029
The smoky aroma of the barbecue filled Zach’s nostrils. The wood of the long picnic bench dug into the underside of his thighs.
But that didn’t matter. All that mattered was the plate of perfectly roasted corn-on-the-cob and grilled vegetables that sat before him. He jabbed a plastic fork into a potato slice and brought it to his mouth.
“Apple juice?” Quinton asked from beside him, holding up a bottle to pour.
Zach nodded eagerly and watched his father pour the amber liquid into his cup. Before taking a sip, Zach peeled the back of his shirt off his damp skin and pushed his hair out of his eyes. Mosquitoes buzzed all around.
“How was the lake?” Quinton nudged Zach’s arm.
Zach swallowed his food. “Fun. It was fun.” He looked around. “So, what’s going on?”
Quinton nodded toward the stage, where colossal speakers stood like pylons. “Just wait and see.”
The possibilities sparked Zach’s imagination. Could they be planning another trip to the moon? Were they deorbiting some important satellite? Could they be building a new rocket? Or a space station, maybe?
Whatever the event was about, it was big. Really big. Zach couldn’t remember ever going to something like it before. The whole trip was completely paid for by the agency; five-star cabins, unlimited food, video games, a gym, everything.
Carver approached the table from behind, accompanied by another man wearing an OSE t-shirt: Wilford Owen, whose bronze-brown skin contrasted with his shirt’s light gray fabric. “Hey, Quinton. Have you met Wilford?” Carver said.
Quinton glanced back and recalled the man’s face. “Oh, yeah. From Comms, right?”
“That’s correct,” said Wilford, hands in pockets.
Quinton slid along the bench closer to Zach, making room for Wilford. “Well, have a seat. Victor will start in a few.”
“Thanks.” Wilford smiled, sat, then reached for a handful of pretzels.
Zach’s curiosity got the better of him, and he looked at Cora across the table. “Did your dad tell you anything about tonight?”
Cora turned away from Jason, who was laughing at a joke made by Ryker, and shrugged. “He said it’s a surprise.”
“I don’t like surprises,” Zach replied.
Nearby, a man strode toward their table with his hands planted on a little girl’s shoulders. “See? Here are some kids.” He lifted one hand to fix his dark, side-parted hair, which had a slight gloss, then itched his short beard. “Do you mind if I leave Sophia with you guys for a bit?” he asked Quinton. “I’ve got to handle something real quick.”
Quinton wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Mm. No problem.”
“Come on, Erik!” someone else called from several tables away.
The man patted his daughter’s back. “Stay with them.”
Sophia nodded shyly and took a seat beside Jason. From the looks of her, she was much younger than them, no more than six or seven years old.
Zach reached over and offered her an apple slice, giving her a friendly nod. “Want one?” Sophia nodded and smiled, then took a slice.
At the sound of a microphone, all eyes fell on the stage. Victor stood patiently as an assistant attached a lav mic to the collar of his cream-colored dress shirt. Then, he walked to the very front of the podium. A white screen hung behind him with a projected letter P surrounded by stars and planets.
“Hello, friends, family, and colleagues. For those who don’t know me, my name is Victor Keaton, the head of the Organization of Space Exploration.” He strode a bit to the right. “We’re here today to mark an important day in OSE’s history.”
Nicolas Carver watched his boss with a stony expression.
“Thirty-two years ago, we saw the first traces of the solar flares. At first, they seemed insignificant. But it wasn’t long before we realized they would get worse. Much worse. And they have.” Victor changed the projection to a view of Earth from space. “Earth has been a great home for millions of years, allowing our species to evolve to the point where we can venture out to find a new home, one that will continue to support us for the next chapter of human history. But where might we go?”
The screen faded into an image of a blurry orb.
“This is Alpha Centauri, in the closest star system to our own. Of all the planets we have discovered, Alpha Cen is the most Earth-like. Our readings tell us it has water. Oxygen. And with Gateway station, we will get there.”
Zach’s eyes opened a little wider.
“Of course, it won’t be a straight shot. We can’t just pick up and go there now. After all, how do we get to a planet that’s four light-years away? The answer, my friends, is irogen, a fuel one hundred times stronger than anything readily available in our neck of the woods.”
An image of a massive desert crater popped up on the screen. In the corner was a small watermark reading, “Saudi Arabia, 1996.”
“This meteorite impact led us to this conclusion,” said Victor. “Within it, we discovered small amounts of irogen, as well as minerals found in only one other place in the solar system: Mars.” He made a knowing gesture. “It seemed we had our answer then. If we wanted irogen to get to our new world, Mars would be a necessary pitstop. And let me tell you: With the amount of irogen we’ve found on Mars, we’ll have more than enough fuel for decades of travel to Alpha Cen and back.”
Victor began to smile. He clicked a button on his controller, and a detailed rendering of a domed-in city dissolved into view. “So, with great pride, I introduce you to the Prescott Mining Colony.”
The crowd erupted with applause as OSE employees rose from their seats to give Victor a standing ovation. Meanwhile, Zach glanced at Ryker with a confused expression. Ryker returned the look with a shrug.
“What’s he talking about?” Zach asked Quinton.
Quinton leaned into Zach’s ear. “You’ll see.”
“The Gateway will orbit Mars, acting as a relay station for the colonists to transport irogen back to Earth, where it will be refined and stored. After enough has been collected, the Prescott mission team will comprise the first generation of colonists to travel to Alpha Centauri. The first people in history to venture outside our star system. Pioneers. Revolutionaries. Heroes.” Victor looked at the starry sky. “So… who should lead this mission? Someone who’s been with OSE a long time. Someone brave, brilliant, and kind. A born leader.” Victor looked directly at Zach’s table. “That man is Quinton Croft.”
The crowd exploded again as Quinton headed to the stage, waving and smiling. An OSE assistant passed him a handheld mic.
Zach’s mind raced. What was Victor talking about? His dad was leading the mission? He couldn’t. Where would Zach live while Quinton was gone?
It took a moment before Zach realized the answer.
He was going to Mars too.
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