Preparations for Earth Rise Day continued, as did Zed’s racing practice with Janice.

  “Have you walked the course yet?” she asked.

  The race was just weeks away. Zed knew he should be focusing more on it if he wanted any shot at winning, but he’d been more than a little distracted by all the preparations and planning for the first crater cave expedition.

  “No, I haven’t. Should I?” Zed asked as he stepped down from the Chariot.

  They had been practicing the tricky stepping motions that the Chariot could perform. Zed was getting pretty good at hopping boulders.

  Before Janice could answer, Zed saw her body stiffen, her eyes fixed on the hangar entrance. Zed turned to see Andy Foster enter. It was late in the day. Aside from Jonah, who had been coming and going as he worked on and swore at one of the Monstros, Janice and Zed were the only others in the hangar.

  Andy noticed the two of them. Zed wasn’t sure how a smile so big could be so joyless, but that’s exactly what Andy gave them. Janice seemed to wilt in Andy’s presence. It had been a while since the breakup, but during the time he’d known Janice, this kind of reaction to her ex had yet to diminish.

  “Hey,” Jonah said. Zed hadn’t even heard him approach.

  Janice turned slightly toward him without taking her eyes off Andy.

  “You’re awesome, Janice. I’m glad I know you.”

  Janice blinked, and with effort, she pulled her gaze from Andy. For half a second, Zed thought she might cry, but she quickly wrestled control back from whatever had momentarily cut her loose.

  “Thanks, Jonah. I really appreciate that. Sorry, I don’t…” she trailed off.

  “Hey, you don’t have to apologize to me. I may not have dated the guy, but if anyone here understands, it’s me. No one should get to live in your head rent-free, right?” Jonah said, tapping the side of his own head.

  Janice’s face relaxed into a smile at this, and she tapped her own head. “Right. Where did you even hear that? You sound like an old man sometimes.”

  Jonah shrugged. “I think I heard Chaplain Baat say it.”

  “That checks out,” Zed said.

  Jonah made his way back to the Monstro. Presumably, he wasn’t done cursing at it.

  Zed raised an eyebrow at Janice, who promptly waved him off.

  “Don’t even.”

  “Hey, you give me crap about Miranda when you know we’re just friends. You think I’m going to miss a chance to do the same?”

  “Aaaanyway…”

  Janice gestured toward the outer hangar door.

  “So, Beggar’s Canyon. You should take a look. I’ll send the full course coordinates to your CIG.”

  Zed cocked his head.

  “Wait, Beggar’s Canyon? Seriously?”

  “Well, I don’t know what its name is on a map, but that’s what everyone calls it. I’m pretty sure Commander Jones started that. She’s a massive Star Wars nerd.”

  “Noted,” Zed said. “If I’d known that, I’d have spiced up the crater cave 3D scans with some Jawas in that side chamber. She probably would have given instant approval.”

  Janice let out a loud snorting laugh. Zed could always tell he had gotten a genuine laugh when she did that. Andy Foster glanced their way for a moment and then returned his attention to the drone he appeared to be working on.

  “Alright, Zed, go walk the track and visualize your win or whatever it is athletes do.”

  “Like I would know.” Zed grimaced. “I can’t even keep straight which sports use the round balls and which ones use the oblong ones.”

  Zed messaged Miranda and George to meet him at the hangar side turtle suit airlock.

  When he arrived, Zed was surprised to find that George had invited someone else to join them.

  “Hey, you mind if Alina joins us? She’s in the race too!”

  Miranda and Zed stole a glance at each other.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “The competition,” Miranda silently mouthed.

  “Sure thing! The more, the merrier,” Zed said.

  “Thanks, koshenya,” Alina said, blowing Zed a kiss. “I promise I’ll let you come in second place.”

  George snorted. “I think second might be a little optimistic,” then, remembering himself, “No offense, Zed. First time racing and all that.”

  “None taken. At Alina’s advanced age, she’ll need every advantage she can get,” Zed said without missing a beat.

  Miranda piled on. “Reflexes do diminish significantly with age.” Miranda walked toward Alina with her hands clasped behind her back, nodding like an experienced physician delivering bad news.

  Alina gave the two of them a half grin but was more than happy to use both hands to flip them off. “Enough of that talk, you crazy kids. I’ll remind you that I was the baby of Naug before you three troublemakers showed up.”

  The four of them climbed into the available turtle suits. Alina was considerably taller than any of them. As Zed watched her climb into the suit beside him, he wondered if she’d be able to stand up all the way. He needn’t have worried. The suits formed to her lanky figure as easily as they had to John’s boulder-like frame.

  They started the fifteen-minute walk to what would be the starting line. Alina stopped and made a few gestures in the air.

  “Here you go, Zed. Maybe this will help you visualize your fourth-place finish.”

  An overlay of the race course appeared in Zed’s vision. He could see the starting line and the path he would race along as it wound its way over the far hill.

  “Thanks, Alina. Hey, wait a second,” Zed said, realizing what she’d just done. “How in the world do you just force that onto my overlay without my permission?”

  Zed heard George’s voice once more, snorting, though this time over the public channel. “Dude, she’s from IT. That’s like their whole thing. You can’t fix stuff unless you know how to crack it, right?”

  “A very astute observation,” Alina said, giving George a nod, which in the turtle suit turned into more of a bow.

  Somehow, even under all that protection, Zed could still see George’s chest swell. Boy, did he have a massive crush on Alina.

  “Have any of you been using some kind of backdoor into Naug’s systems?” Alina asked as if she was commenting on the weather.

  The three teens stopped in their tracks and turned toward Alina. They were nearing the end of the course, where the path entered the rather claustrophobic Beggar’s Canyon.

  “Us? Are you kidding?” George said, assuming, or more likely hoping, that Alina was just joking.

  “Hey, you’re the one who taught us how to swap out Gin for our own AGIs. I don’t think any of us have messed with anything beyond that. I, for one, certainly haven’t had time," Miranda said.

  Alina walked up to Zed. “What you say makes sense. Maybe too much sense…”

  “What—” Zed stammered.

  Alina’s stern face cracked a smile. “Ah, I’m just playing with you, little koshenya. I just had to ask because I’m out of logical options. You sure you haven’t messed with any systems? Set up a backdoor of some kind maybe?”

  All three of the young Martians held up their hands in surrender.

  “Alright, alright. I just can’t figure this out, and it eats at my brain, you know?”

  They continued down the canyon. The walls closed in on either side. It was clear, even on foot, that there would be no passing here. If you got your Chariot here first, that was as good as a win.

  “What’s been going on exactly?” Miranda asked, coming alongside Alina. There wasn’t actually any need to be closer with the suit radios, but old habits die hard.

  “It’s not so much any one thing or any big thing. It’s more like smudges.”

  “Smudges?” Miranda asked, coming to a stop beside Alina.

  George and Zed stopped as well. They were standing more or less at the canyon’s exit now—the finish line.

  “Maybe this is the wrong way to say it. It’s like if you cleaned a glass and put it on your desk and walked away, only to come back and find that the glass hadn’t moved but there were oily smudges as if someone had touched it but they weren’t fingerprints and nothing had actually moved, so all you have is a suspicion.”

  Alina made an exaggerated suit gesture, raising her palms and shoulders as if to ask if any of that made sense.

  “I think I get it,” George said, jumping in a little too quickly.

  “So you can tell someone’s been through a place in Naug’s systems that they shouldn’t have, but they haven’t actually appeared to do anything, so you don’t know why or who. Is that about it?”

  “Yes, pretty much. I guess I should have just said that,” Alina said.

  “Well, I’ve always had a way with the spoken word,” George said.

  “O brother,” Miranda said under her breath, but just loud enough for the mic to pick up. “Yeah, you’ve always had a way of failing language classes.”

  Zed started to laugh, but it caught in his throat. He had just heard another voice in his helmet laughing. It wasn’t his. It wasn’t one of the other three either.

  “Did anyone…” Miranda started to say, but Alina held up a hand.

  “All right, who’s lurking?” Alina said without raising her voice. Unlike the kids, she understood that proximity and volume had nothing to do with each other in a space suit.

  “Well, I’d hardly call it lurking,” said a familiar voice.

  While the voices in the turtle suits may only have been coming from the radio speakers, the system did its best to approximate the direction from which the signal came. The surround sound effect in Zed’s helmet told him the speaker was Andy Foster and that he was above them.

  The four of them turned and looked up—or tried to. The turtle suit mobility was considerably better than the space suits of old, but it still had its limits.

  “It’s more that I happened to be here, and you happened to walk by.”

  Andy was perched on a shelf on the cliff face. He was leaning against a rather phallic boulder that had slid down and come to a precarious rest some time in the distant past. Most likely, it was the same boulder that had hidden him from view as they approached.

  That boulder looks like a dick, Zed thought. And so does the guy leaning against it.

  “What are you doing here, Foster?” Alina asked. “Are you out scouting for the race?”

  “Oh no,” Andy said, laughing at a joke that apparently only he got. “No, I think I’ll sit things out this year. Besides, it looks like they’ve really lowered the entry standards.”

  From anyone else, it could have just been a good-natured jab, but Zed didn’t think it was a stretch to assume Andy was referring specifically to him. He wasn’t the only one.

  “Well, don’t worry, Andy. I’m sure eventually they’ll lower that standard far enough that you actually have a shot at winning,” Alina said as she turned away and continued toward the canyon exit.

  Zed couldn’t see Andy’s expression, but even as his tone remained flat, he couldn’t help but feel that he was smiling.

  “Well, good luck to you. And be sure to stay safe now,” Andy said as he disappeared from view.