The Chronicle never written (before the war the silence came)

The Maglev train sped above the flat red metal rail, causing the suspensor field, to resonate with a gentle hum. Its four sleek cars were glowing underneath, with a visible line of electro-fire energy. Sending in its flaming wake, violet spirals and sparks of pink spiked fingers of light; that stretched out along the rail behind it. The sound of the train was accompanied by two other sounds. The gently falling whispering rain, that hissed in the rising wind; together with the slow rhythmic tapping scratch made by ancient desert spider’s legs, upon the old dry bones; that came up, out of the long gone sea, on this pale October morning, of the ghost planet, known to the earth men as Mars.

From inside the pleasantly fragrant, air conditioned train; Shev Bland looked at the rain that touched the window. Her oval shaped, pale blue eyes were twinkling with wonder. Her elfin shaped face was so close that the double panes of glass became misted by her minty breath. As she watched the rain twist and curl along the glass and away from her in long spirals, she had one word running through her mind. For to her, the movement of the water seemed almost alive, to the point where she had begun to consider that there was something invisible, magical and exiting going on and she felt privileged to be witnessing it. But, as the rain slowly slid and curled away from her. The one thing she feared to happen actually happened; and it all took place in the blink of a thought, with that fateful word she used to describe what she believed that she was looking at…Water-snakes.

In the instant the thought was conceived, it moved from the Cerebrum and into the dream centre of her brain, the idea then became processed. To then turn into an inner visual image, that then became a more concentrated and, for her, a politically dangerous form; a form that the Northern Block federation would regard as a “creativity crime”.
She felt the recognisable twinge in her head just above her right eye. It lasted a part of a second, but that was all it took. At first she felt frustrated with herself for letting it happen, then at the system she had come to despise. After all, she admitted to herself, we have been off the grid for almost a year, that’s led to ill-discipline on my part.
On reflection she had to admit that it was easier being a part of the grid; as this meant she would be in contact with certain people, who could help her to have a compartmental mind. For a fee, biological Nano-machines could be inserted in the brain, via the blood stream, and thus she would be enabled to prevent dangerously imaginative and creative thoughts to be read by the grid. But this came at a cost of three hundred and fifty Renminbi a throw. Also they needed updating every six months. This was a necessity when living in New London or the mega-polis known as Central. But, when you lived on the outer most part of the colony on Mars, then what need was there? After all, the Grid did not exist this far south... Or so she thought… But it had grown, to stretch its invisible suffocating tentacles out, to the railway lines seventy miles from New Vegas, the Martian capital and the only space port back to Earth.
With nervous agitation, she looked down into the palm of her right hand, and the tiny crystal that she had been born with. The crystal in the palm of her hand changed colour, from a glistening silver to flash of red then black and back to red again. Blinking, off… on… off…on… letting her know that the illegal thought had been recorded on her bio-server and that a message was being sent to central command.
Not long now, she thought grimly.
‘FFFuck.’ she said tensly. Her voice, barely a whispered hiss.
She looked at her chronograph. The seconds began to take what she felt to be an eon. With painful desperation she fought against her mind. She told herself that the idea she had just had was rubbish. That it was the wind, which wrapped about the train. It was the wind that pushed the rain, along in thin lines. That’s all the wind. The wind created the illusion of a mystical experience that there was nothing mysterious, or mystical about it. To finally admit that she just wanted there to be something mystical about it. She repeated the phrases over and over and over again. Like a Buddhist mantra. Until the little crystal dot upon her palm returned to glowing silver once more.
She sighed and slumped a little. Allowing herself to rest; she sighed deeply with satisfaction, as she looked at her chronograph to allow herself a little contented smile. For only one minute had passed. If she had not been that convincing, then the fireman would be on at the next stop, and that would have meant internment.

‘Shev Bland…’ the cold hard voice inside her mind retorted coldly. ‘…U8363824, you have been sanctioned for a minor creativity crime. You have been cautioned, one more offence and you will be-‘the automatic response continued with its cause and affect threats, words that she had grown up with for so long that she never listened to the end anymore.
With a dismissive shrug of her shoulders, that concealed her deep feelings of anxiety, she ignored the rest of the inner mechanical conversation.
She shook her head and shrugged her narrow shoulders, then ruffled her dyed burgundy hair away from her face. Then she rubbed the sleeves of the heavy looking purple jumper she wore. In themselves they were actions any ordinary observer would consider having no real import. Yet for her, and those like her, they were vital; for they controlled the thought process and gave her a chance to get some control once more.
She rubbed her eyes again and looked towards Jacob. She thought about telling her soon to be ex-husband about the incident. To send him a little note and that they should be a little more careful now. But she saw how intently he was tapping into the A.I sheet that he had on his lap, His bald head gleaming with beads of sweat. So with another shrug she decided against it. They: Shev and Jacob, sat at forty five degree angles away from each other. The white and grey moulded table between them now acted as a no-man's land which she had decided she never really wanted to cross any more. So she returned to the view from the window and the ever constant twilight, of the Martian day.

* * *
Shev and Jacob had left their home at a little after four in the morning E.S.T. and in some ways she was glad to do so. As far as she was concerned she was leaving behind a hideous, grey and white thin corrugated metal box. That was ugly masculine and conventional. Its only benefit was the view from its porch; for it stood on the edge of the raised plateaux, just outside of the first expedition marker point, known to all the settlers, as York’s rest.
As she stared up at her home, she still felt that, despite the fact that it came from earth, there was something very alien about it. She found it hard to define why, until she thought about all the other earth made structures here on Mars.
Then a connection was made. Even the most conventional of earth like structures would look out of place on a world like Mars. A planet, she thought, that we desperately wanted to run to, yet longed to secretly shape into the very world that had we had been so eager to leave behind.
She smiled ironically and shook her head as she turned away from the house. Her breath was bellowing in heavy clouds, as she zipped up her thick heavy winter coat. Then beamed a huge grin; as slowly the warming comfort of its many layers begin to heat up as the heating system turned itself on.

She turned and then stared out towards the Martian foothills, and the ancient Martian homes that began to glow in the middle distance. As the dim sun very slowly rose, the ancient houses’ on the hills began to shine with a dry rusted light; their ancient brittle bone structure blending into the land that they were grown from. Their solar panels absorbing all the energy they needed to run their empty ghost houses. For their ghost masters, who forever haunted their ghost planet.
‘Do you think that they’ll ever come back?’ She asked absently.
Jacob stared at her, with bunch fists for eyes; his teeth yellow and pasty.
‘What makes you ask that?’ he said coldly.
She could hear his laboured breathing, as he started shifting the long green heavy metal box and knew the chill of the morning air was getting to him. She smiled. Her eye’s not concealing the enjoyment she felt at watching him toil.
‘Christ…’ he began shaking his head. ‘…Its always the same with you isn’t it? There are no Martians! They all died out after the second expedition… they found thousands of bodies… all dried up into blackened crispy paper from the pox.’
He coughed hard. A green lump of phlegm hit the cracked frosted ground by his feet. Making Shev feel nothing but loathing for him.
‘You going to help me with this fucking thing or not?’ he said aggressively.
She shrugged her shoulders and helped him place the heavy trunk in the back of the buggy.
‘There’s no going back after this, you know that don’t you?’ he said.
But his voice contained a thick edge of nervous trepidation. Yet it was not his own.
She nodded, but she wasn’t sad. The house she would gladly leave… but Mars… Mars had become to mean more than just a place to live. It had become a refuge from a world run by the Neo realist Movement. A world Of firemen, who stopped people from reading, and from bringing contaminated thoughts from outside the web. A world of medivec, a sedative to maintain an ordered mind, a world of wall screens that dully allowed nothing but neo-realism. Now they were going back. Back to the world she loathed and feared. Back to a world that teetered on the brink of one final war to end all wars.
She looked down at the long green box and smiled.
‘Better get goin’’ he said almost silently. And she nodded.
They set out in the black six wheeled land buggy. Jacob’s face a mask of grim determination that hid his real feelings. While she allowed herself the luxury of imagining what one of the old ones might have looked like, as they bounced along the ancient track that passed by one of the huge crystal and stone cities made so many centuries before. And then she thought of Gem and the flowers began to bloom.
In the back of the land buggy the box rested. They climbed a steep hill and the box suddenly slid to the back of the van and hit the rear panel with a heavy slam. Shev span a sharp stare at Jacob.
‘Ill be careful.’ He viscously growled, over the grinding of the wheels on the ancient stone. Within an hour they made the station at New-London; only managing a passing glance by the armed guard. And that was fine… Gem smiled at her, and that made everything fine.
*
Gem was one of the first born on Mars. It had brought Captain Wilder, the Colony’s commander to the hospital with a bunch of hydroponically grown roses; and a smile upon his face; just before he had been recalled to Earth.
Gem was special. She was special not only because she was the first free born from Earth. Which meant was also free from the implant procedure. But she also held a secret as old as Mars itself.
The memories she allowed to come to the surface were safe ones.
They were the faces of her long dead mother and father, of Jacob in better times even of Captain Wilder and the flowers he brought on the day Gem was born.
Jacob looked up and for the first time in two years he smiled gently.
‘Are you having a hard time?’ He asked. She nodded. But then he smirked cruelly. The rage and the pain he was in smeared over his face. The green box, kept floating onto the surface of her mind. Its contents wrapped in shadow. She fought against it and sensed Gem’s smile.
*
Gem grew fast in the thin atmosphere of Mars. At the age of four she stood as tall as a six year old. Her body slender and wisplike than the bulkier kids, who had come from Earth; which caused some mockery at the school.
When Gem came home with a bruise on her cheek, Shev went to the school. The teachers smiled but said that there was little they could do. Shev recalled the first time Gem said something out of place. She was five and bright eyed. Her hair was a rich red rust colour and flowed about her. At the time they lived in New Vegas, next door to Peter Giddings. Peter had just been around and asked if Jacob would be free for a game of cards that evening. She had said she wasn’t sure, but she would tell him when he came in. Peter just nodded and walked back to his buggy, ready for his shift at the mine. It was a normal event. Nothing strange. Yet Gem looked at Peter with a strange look. A stare that made Shev ask what was wrong.
‘what’s a fuck mummy?’
Shev’s face turned a dark, a mixture of anger, embarrassment and shame came to the surface of her mind.
‘A what?’
‘A fuck.’ There was the child like curiosity in her matter of fact voice. It was obvious that she had never heard the word before.
‘Did you hear Daddy-‘
Gem shook her head, ‘-No, it was Peter, he said he wanted to fuck you so hard. And the pictures he had in his mind were-‘
‘-oh, I don’t want to know.’
‘I don’t know what it means?’ came the whining reply.
Shev looked at the car as it drove away.
‘Did he say it when he came over the other day?’ and with that thought came a fury. She would have it out with him as soon as he came home.
‘No…’ Gem started ‘…he said it in his secret place.’
‘where?’
‘His secret place.’ She gasped as if she was talking to an idiot the thing an eight year old would do. ‘… You know mummy. The secret place where we all think things.’ Then she said something that chilled her to her core.
‘Mummy… do you want to fuck him too?’
Shev stared at Gem. Then she said coolly. ‘Just stop this! Now!’ She began. ‘And if you do use words like that again, then I will be very angry with you. Do you understand?’ And in her mind Shev had an image of her spanking Gem. Gem took a step back and began to cry.
‘Don’t spank me mum, please?’
Shev hugged her. ‘No darling, I promise, just remember…please try not to go into… peoples have secret places… and these secret places are for us alone.
Six years passed and Gem grew at twice the rate of the other children. Her heavy golden hair was tinged with lines of rust. It blew about her narrow face, her once blue eyes has a glimmer of gold in them. Her voice too had deepened, she was supposed to be ten, but in her actions and her talk she was that of a teenager; with all the joys and sorrows that a growing adolescence brings. Moreover her and Peter had become very regular, regular enough to consider getting away from Jacob. She was considering this when she stumbled into Gem’s bedroom three weeks ago.
Shev caught her balancing a ball in her bedroom, two inches from the palm of her left hand.
‘You don’t love Daddy any more do you.’ Gem said coolly.
‘That is none of your business.’
‘It is my business.’
‘Now you listen here young lady.’
Gem laughed as Shev felt herself being picked up and thrown bodily across the room. Then she felt an intense weight slam into her. Making it hard to breathe.
Gem giggled, there was a little of the old Gem there, but not much. Something had her now.
‘You can’t leave me, not with him.’
‘I wasn’t… I’
‘Don’t lie mother!’ Gem Howled.
‘Gem, sweetheart.’ Shev wheezed.
‘He’s touched me mum!’ Gem screamed and threw Shev down on the bed.’And I am changing every day I hear them calling me calling me getting stronger telling me to go to them but I can’t and I won’t you hear me! YOU HEAR ME!’
‘My darling, what’s wrong?’
‘This is wrong you him me this… everything here is wrong MAN DOES NOT BELONG HERE! ON MARS! They tell me the ghosts tell me they come into my room after he’s been and they tell me that they have a plan a plan to stop it all to-‘
The door burst open and Jacob stood there. Blood was pouring from his eyes and he screamed and screamed. The floor burst open and two faceless ones arrived.
*
The train began its final turn into new frisco. It came to a halt. Shev and Jacob made their way with their package, to the gate that led back to the rocket ship to earth. Then People began to cram in bustling past. Fighting for a place. Shev looked down and looked at the metal box that they carried between them. Then she smiled. She stared at Jacob. He smiled back with cold hate filled rage. They knew what they had to do. And they would do it. The box would open on the way home, and the final message sent from Mars would reach Earth a year later. The message would be a final one, that would tip the balance and bring the war.

From the Martian foothills, Mr.Aaa looked at Mr. Zzzx. Their golden eyes met, yet not a word came from their mouths. The package is being delivered. Thought Mr.Aaa. Mr. Zzzx cried a single golden tear.