“And we’re all so glad to have you back,” Bethany says with fake sweetness.
Bobby rolls her eyes. “Without me around, how would the four of you ever stay objective?”
“You are the least objective person I know,” Madeline says. “What you really are is a dyed-in-the-wool pessimist. Which, honestly, isn’t helping any of us.”
“I’m a pessimist? You’re the one who’s sitting there blubbering about your sister.”
Madeline’s mouth drops, and she stares at Bobby. I know this conversation is going downhill fast, but I’m so distracted by my own problems that I don’t know how to dial it back.
I stand and go to the replicator to ask it for another glass of wine. It seems like the only rational option at this point.
The sound of Bobby and Madeline bickering behind me fades into the background. I sip my wine and stare at the screen of the painting on the far side of the wall. It’s of a Martian landscape. Tall red cliffs plunge into a raging dark sea. The tiny dot of the moon hangs above in a black sky.
It still astonishes me every time I stop to think about it that I’m on Mars. In the future. And that somehow, over the last thousand years, humans have turned a dead rock into a lush paradise.
All of this seems to be lost on Bobby, who only wants to antagonize the Martians. To what end, I don’t know. Maybe it’s her default setting. I’ve chatted with the young janitor many times at the end of the night in the library. And she’s always been surly and cynical, but I never realized the depths of her attitude.
The conversation between Bobby, Madeline, and now Sophia is ramping up to a fever pitch. Madeline, who I know to be rational, studious, and hardworking, is standing with her hands on her hips and her voice raised. Her face is red, and her eyes flash with anger. She’s calling Bobby every bad name in the book. I want to step in, but I feel stuck in place.
Bethany, who was a nurse and a natural peacekeeper, steps between the two and asks Bobby to please stop antagonizing Madeline. Bobby rolls her eyes, crosses her arms and legs, and stares at the window into the night, a defiant smirk on her face.
Bethany puts her arm around Madeline and walks away with her. Madeline is speaking in rushed, frantic tones. She has a right to be upset. She and her sister were very close, even if they were polar opposites. I’ve met Abigail several times. She had come into the library with Madeline to check out books on archaeology. From what I know about Abigail, she hosts a very popular podcast about UFOs, the irony of which is not lost on me.
Bethany leads Madeline and Sophia into one of the bedrooms, and I’m left alone in the living room with Bobby. I take my wine and sit down across from her, staring at the painting on the wall that slowly shifts from one image to another.
“Why do you do that?” I ask her, nursing my pinot noir.
“Do what?” she snaps. Maybe the argument has gotten to her more than I suspected.
“Why do you antagonize Madeline about her sister?”
“Just bored, I guess.”
“This is challenging for all of us. I think you take that for granted.” I kick off my shoes and pull my legs up under me on the couch.
“It doesn’t seem that challenging for you. Now that you’ve got your Martian captain. You are all too happy to submit to the will of our captors.”
“It’s not like that…”
“What is it like, then? What did they implant in your arm? Does it make you more compliant?”
I rub the spot on my arm where I was injected aboard the ship. I know that it’s doing something to me, causing me to feel uncontrollably aroused when I’m around Jaxxo. The feeling slowly fades when he leaves my presence. The contrast is so startling that it is impossible to ignore.
But unlike Bobby, I don’t hate the Martians. I understand them.
We saw for ourselves what the Mantises were doing to Earth. What they planned to do with us. We could all be there still, abducted or eaten, neither of which is a pleasant alternative to the hunky Martians. So, if my fate is to be here in the future with Jaxxo and to make babies with him, so be it.
Just because I’ve accepted my fate doesn’t mean that I am any less confused than anyone else. And maybe, in some degree, Bobby’s antagonism is helping me sort out my own feelings about the whole situation. The less she accepts it, it seems the more that I do, on an intellectual level, because she displays the ridiculousness of her objections in minute detail.
Bethany returns from Madeline’s room and glares at Bobby. Bobby smirks back and raises an eyebrow. Bethany heaves a sigh and collapses on the couch across from me.
“Can you just give it a rest?” Bethany asks. “Madeline is really upset. She just keeps imagining Abigail getting eaten like Mrs. Henderson. And your remarks are just making it worse for her.”
“In my opinion, it’s better to be eaten than to become a Martian sex slave.”
“We aren’t sex slaves,” Bethany says. “I don’t see you wearing a slave Leia costume. There aren’t any chains. And no one’s been raped.”
They both stare at me, and Bobby raises an eyebrow. I roll my eyes and set down my wineglass.
“I told you already. Jaxxo has been nothing but a gentleman.”
“I don’t think you’re telling us the whole story,” Bobby says. “I know they injected you with something. What is it doing to you? Why aren’t you more suspicious? I don’t think you’re acting normal.”
“You don’t know me well enough to know what’s normal for me and what isn’t.”
“I know you just dumped your boyfriend like two days ago. And now you’re ready to jump into another man’s arms? I know you well enough to understand that that’s not normal.”
“She has a point,” Bethany says. “I don’t think you’ve really dealt with the breakup yet.”
“How am I supposed to feel? We were abducted by cannibalistic aliens! As far as I’m concerned, the Martians rescued us. And Jaxxo has been pleasant. He is a good man as far as I can tell. I really don’t know him that well yet. And if you really must know, he’s been extremely reserved.” I say the last few words with a thread of anger that reveals more than I had wanted to.
“Is there something wrong with him being reserved?” Bobby asks.
I feel cornered, as if I’m going to have to tell them what’s going on. It’s too embarrassing to say out loud. But maybe if I talk about it, it will be easier for me to organize my thoughts. I wouldn’t mind discussing it with Bethany, but Bobby is the last person in the world I want to talk about it with.
“Of course not. We barely know each other. I only mentioned it because you think we were brought here to be sex slaves. When the truth is that the Martians haven’t and will not do anything even remotely against our will.”
“They’re keeping me here. That’s against my will,” Bobby snipes.
“Do you want to go back to Earth? Or would you rather have been eaten by the Mantises?”
“You know they couldn’t take you back to Earth, Bobby. They explained all of this aboard the ship,” Bethany reasons.
“Whatever. You two are sheep. I’m done with this conversation,” she says, standing. She strides out of the room, and her bedroom door slides closed behind her.