The ship landed. If one didn't know one was landing on Mars, one could think one was landing at Chicago's O'Hare airport. But this wasn't Chicago. Life on Earth is changed forever. We were chosen by government officials to be the first colony on Mars. There were only one hundred and fifty of us, fifty men, fifty women, and fifty children.
You would think it would be one child per every man and woman but it was more like two children per every man and woman, except for the twenty-five men and twenty-five women that were single.
Twenty-five families of four were chosen, hoping that the children would find someone else's child to be the one for him or her. They would marry and have children, if the closed-in atmosphere would allow it.
That's why there are fifty single people. The government paired us up before we left and we have to get married when we get to Mars. They want to test us to see if children would be able to be born on Mars and yet grow up with no birth defects and healthy.
They paired us up by giving us psychological evaluations and matched the people that were complete opposites because it's said that opposites do attract.
Now they paired me up with my complete opposite--a brilliant scientist who is a total nerd. I talked to Dr. Roger Jenkins a few times and all he talks about is science and his studies and I'm sick of it!
Until we get married on Mars, he wants me to call him Dr. Jenkins. He insists on calling me Miss Lawrence even though I tell him time after time to call me Annie.
Whenever he starts talking about science, I immediately sit back, relax, and think of how good it was on Earth.
Like I said before: life on Earth is changed forever. No one is allowed to drive cars anymore except government officials. We ride horses, bikes, or even walk.
The ozone layer is so diminished that hair spray, air conditioners and other products like that are banned.
The North Pole and Antarctica have no ozone layer. What's worse is that the polar ice caps are going to melt and so the U.S. sent us to the new colony on Mars.
China has completely outlawed reproduction until some of the population dies off. The way I think, all of China is going to die off because of it.
Russia had a nuclear war with Japan and both countries suffered because of it. Any Russians and Japanese still alive are probably going to die of starvation and radiation.
Europe also got involved in the nuclear war and they shouldn't have because now they're suffering. After the Peace Treaty of 2010, all the European countries became one huge country: Europe.
Africa is at war with South America. Australia is now the fifty first state of the U.S. The U.S. bought Mexico and Canada as territories. The national debt is now diminished to a few million dollars. The first female president was Melissa Finch. She was the first honest president and all the women voters voted for her in the year 2015. Even some men voted for her. After her two terms were up, some more women got the courage to run and for the next twenty eight years there were women presidents. The first black president was a woman. Now the president is a black man.
Last year the "Big One" hit California. California was broken apart from the U.S. but it was devastated. No one survived the earthquake but a cat and her kittens. The earthquake registered off the seismic charts. It probably would have reached a twenty on the Richter scale, had there been a twenty on the scale.
It was so bad that it shook houses in Europe and in my home state of Wisconsin.
Now enough talk of what's happened to cause us to come to Mars. Let's get back to our landing.
We landed safely but we had to sit in sterilization for three hours to take off any bacteria that may have joined us on our journey to Mars.
When the three hour sterilization process was over, we all gathered in the town square and the captain had some of the crew pass out papers.
The papers told us which houses were whose. The captain then dismissed the families of four. When things quieted down the captain began the wedding for all twenty-five couples at once since he and the crew would have to go back to the United States soon.
Now before I start talking about how the wedding was arranged I should really tell you what Dr. Jenkins looks like. He has glasses and he always wears his long, white lab coat. He has blue eyes, like mine. He is about six foot two and has short, brown hair, like mine.
Anyway to get back to the wedding, it was done just like a normal wedding is done in a church but without all the religious stuff since the people there were of different religions. There was no church there because there was no preachers but we were to make our own churches if we wanted a place to pray and go to on Sundays. The government would send preachers to the Mars colony when we had established a comfortable way of life. Finally, after ten minutes we all departed for our homes.
Now that we were married, Dr. Jenkins let me call him Roger and he finally began to call me Annie.
As we were walking to our house, he started to say something, but then suddenly he stopped. He was speechless. I couldn't believe that I was hearing nothing from him about science or anything at all.
He has an opinion about everything, but now he was speechless.
After about five minutes, I couldn't stand it anymore, I had to say something.
"So," I said breaking the silence, "what do you think of all this?"
Again silence. He was thinking.
"Roger? Earth to Roger!" I said.
"Huh?" he asked, startled.
"I just asked you a question. I mean hello, wake up. Geez," I said.
"I'm sorry. I was thinking about my baby sister. She has cancer," he explained. "Now what did you say?"
"I asked you what you thought of all this," I replied.
At that point we reached our house and went inside to the living room and sat down.
"Uh, I think it is a great scientific breakthrough. Did you know I was on the planning committee for the defense of the colony? I got to come up here because they wanted me to make sure it works in case of attack. The government did not just choose people off of the street. They chose people who know what they're doing. Each person in this colony, other than the children, can contribute something important to the colony. Let's take you, for example. You are pretty, intelligent, and a martial arts master. You would be perfect as a sheriff or something," he replied.
"Really, Roger, you flatter me," I said, laughing. I fluttered my eyelashes at him.
He laughed. "I really didn't mean to."
"Ah, okay. Well, I'm kinda tired so goodnight," I replied, smiling.
I went up the stairs to the bedroom and found some clothes in the dresser and closet, clothes that the government gave to us.
When I woke up the next morning, I quickly dressed because I smelled bacon and eggs. I went downstairs to the kitchen and I found Roger cooking bacon and eggs.
"Morning," I said, yawning. "What time is it?"
"It's only 10:00 A.M. I was going to bring you breakfast in bed or brunch if you want to call it that," Roger said.
Anyway enough with this idle talk of my home life. Here is the important stuff.
We had been living there at least a year and life was good. Then one day we got a distress call from the moon colony, the Saturn colony, and the Jupiter colony. They were all under attack but the question was: by who?
After a few minutes, I figured it out. We had designated "X" as the party attacking the moon, "Y" as the party attacking Saturn, and "Z" as the party attacking Jupiter. I soon figured out that "X", "Y", and "Z" were all one party and that it was not someone from our galaxy. But I soon found out that I was wrong, seriously wrong.
All of a sudden, on the screen that showed the people from earth or one of the colonies that were talking this ugly, green thing came on the screen.
"Greetings, Earthlings. I am Commander Galquin [at this point we set up a recorder] I am from the planet Utopia, Pluto as you call it. My fellow Utopians and I only attacked your primitive settlements because of the large weapons that they have. We saw them as a threat. If we had attempted talking they probably would have destroyed us. I am entirely sorry that those three colonies and the earth itself had to be destroyed."
After he finished talking, there was a moment of silence and then Roger spoke, "What do you mean ‘the earth itself'?"
"Here is a replay of what happened. We were only defending ourselves from the missiles that Earth sent out after us," Commander Galquin said.
Then on the screen we saw the destruction of nuclear missiles and the earth blowing up soon after. Then we saw the moon colony's destruction and then Saturn and Jupiter's colonies destroyed and then the tape ended.
When Commander Galquin's face showed up on the screen, I said, "Commander, I assure you that our settlement is not hostile and that we were put on Mars to help keep Earth alive and as a test. We don't have a very complex weaponry or defensive system as opposed to you." That of course was a lie.
"Young lady, I do not believe you very much but I will spare your lives. If you are intelligent enough to build nuclear weapons and colonies on Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and your moon, then at least some of you should be spared," Commander Galquin replied. "Goodbye, for now."
His face was gone and the screen of the galaxy was on. We watched them turn around.
I sat at a computer and typed in the commands for the nuclear powered laser gun which was nuclear power and a laser gun combined.
Roger switched half of the screen to show the nuclear powered laser gun coming out and I turned it on. It hit the Utopian's ship and blew it up.
