I check the bed before sitting down. Ashley announces that she will keep an eye out for me while I work, I warn her that this could take a while. She reluctantly settles down for the long haul.

Smith’s current game of choice is an historical simulation of the Martian war of independence. The senator’s game records say that he likes to play aggressively, which is odd for a Pee Bee. He will be using a random name, so that he doesn’t get swamped by people.

I log into a match. It assigns me to a team, I start seeing images of my teammates running around, shooting at the enemy. If this was one of those games that focused more on fun than realism, players would be spraying wildly, as much at their own teammates as their opponents. But this is meant to be something closer to a historical reenactment.

Everything is red orange. Rocks are struin across the sand, the ground looks like it is impossible to walk on. I see a crater, a reminder that we aren’t in some North African desert, we are on the surface of Mars.

You can easily tell which ones are the Earthlings; their spacesuits are armored, militarized. The Martians like to stay quick; their suits are only lightly modified for combat.

My team has divided into several groups. A bunch of guys are crowded around an outpost that we must defend. A few guys are milling around near the center of the map. But what sticks out immediately are the four players that are making a push against the enemy’s dropship, which is our main objective. I tell the game that I want to spawn in next to them.

An icon on my visor’s Heads Up Display tells me that I am currently one of the Martian rebels, I will automatically switch teams if I stick around for the next match. Other than navigational data, the HUD doesn’t give much information. This is definitely one of the realistic games. Another indicator of this fact is that there aren’t any sound effects; it is just you in your helmet, breathing loudly when something happens.

In the surprisingly blue sky, I see a formation of VTOL gunships; fortunately, they are heading away from the battle. I start moving forward, sticking to a path that is mostly free of rocks. Upon rounding a bend, I spot the target.

The design is based on a regular personnel shuttle, the kind that is very common on Mars, as well as its moons and assorted space stations. The manufacture had added a layer of armor, a few gun and missile pods, and a beefier power plant. The Earthlings loaded them by the dozens onto troop ships that they stuck in low orbit, where they waited to deploy soldiers to the surface.

The dropship has landed next to an apparatus that is imbedded in the ground. I believe that it is a water extractor. A group of rebels are crowded around the structure, which towers above them. Incoming laser fire is eating away at the base of the device, which is glowing white hot in some places.

Now I am faced with a dilemma. I need to get over there and see if any of them is Smith. But that move is about the dumbest one I could make; it would be much better if I stayed where I am and shot at the enemy from a different angle.

I elect to take my time, help out my team. Maybe they will be more tolerant of me running around looking through visors at faces that might not even accurately represent the player’s real appearance. A few well aimed shots drops the hostile troopers. I run over to the others. After reaching them I take a knee, give them a once over as I catch my breath.

Each of them has at least one spot where silver duct tape has been used to patch a hole or hold some piece of gear into place. Unit patches and insignia have been painted on their space suits. I see everything from armored unicorns to eagles with banners and medieval weapons clutched in their talons.

A man with a lamp stuck on his suit’s shoulder pad and enough spare batteries to power a dozen rifles greets me, “My good dustboy, you have come just in time! The red is smarter than the blue, this they will learn post haste!”

That slang, the arrogance of a society that is descended from scientists, these guys are deep into the role-playing side of things. I scan the faces of my comrades in arms, none of them look any thing like Smith.

The area is free of enemies, for now. We need to capture the objective before more of them spawn in. I switch over to the frequency that the group is using, “We shouldn’t just stand here. Let’s go capture that ship. Then we will beat those,” I search the internet for a suitable derogatory term for Earthlings, the resulting word is said with absolute confusion, “Pugmurks.”

One of them looks at me with furious eyes and bared teeth, “Are you kidding me? We need to wait for reinforcements!” Some kind of range finder has been spot-welded to the side of his helmet. A black line of electrical tape covers the wires that run from the device to the rebel’s backpack.

“Hey, I hear that Senator Smi…”

I am cut off when a blast hits my helmet, which explodes in a shower of flaming plastic. Boiling flesh and brains fly through the air, before landing on the red sand, as my head bursts apart from the intense heat, like it had been left in the microwave for too long. The only saving grace is that this server doesn’t have pain settings on. But considering the nature of my death, I probably wouldn’t have felt it.

***

I wake up in a place that is becoming increasingly familiar. I had been dreaming about playing. A groggy haze dominates my awareness. Getting any good sleep is difficult when you just dream about what you did all day, what you know you will have to spend the next day doing. The little room’s single light is out, Ashley is fast asleep, she looks so peaceful. A dull glow seeps in under and above the curtain, most of the others have turned in for the night.

I check the time, 4:00 AM appears in my vision for a few seconds. It has been three days. And it had been a long three days. I had fought in hellish dust storms. I had struggled with jerry rigged equipment. I had faced opponents that had years of experience waging war on the surface of the red planet. And I had died countless times.

Early in one match I tripped on a rock and fell into a particularly deep crater. I used up my supplies performing emergency repairs on my suit. Then I spent the rest of the round trying to scale the annoyingly steep sides of the hole.

My comrades and I had freed occupied settlements and ambushed the invaders at every turn. That was when I was a rebel. As a brave Earth trooper, I had helped bring order and sanity to a rough colony. I had fought alongside death commandos from the Magellan settlement; I invaded the plains of Acidalia with the 665th Armored division. But I had never even seen my real objective.

Three days and no luck, countless games, countless imitation battlefields, and no sign of him. Maybe this was a bad plan. Hell, for all I know I had seen him and not even known it.

I get up to go use the restroom, my movements wake up Ashley, “What’s happening?” she asks.

“Nothing. Just going to take a leak.”

She sits up, taking a few seconds to straighten her hair, “You want to go get some food?”

“Sure.”

We visit the base’s restrooms, which are surprisingly nice. Then we head out onto the street. I bring up a map on my IC. Through the groggy haze a picture is projected into my mind, the area’s restaurants and fast food joints are displayed.

I start listing off places that sound like they might be good, Ashley interrupts me, “You can’t, remember.”

“Oh, ya,” I say, slowly and painfully remembering the fact that I am no longer a free man. I reluctantly will my IC to only show me Alpha Prime owned places.

I suggest that we eat at UltraBurger, as they have some good breakfast sandwiches, but then Ashley reminds me that there is another complication. She is with Charles Fauré, she can’t eat at Alpha establishments, not without a fine and a hit to her CSCS.

“Well, shit. Okay, lets just go where we want and meet back up here,” She agrees.

A half hour later we are sitting around the coffee table in the center of the base. The place is quiet, most of the Untouchables are still asleep. Except for Toni, who made a show out of following me to UltraBurger and back.

I unwrap my sandwich, she starts digging into her salad. “You shouldn’t eat that kind of stuff,” she chides, “It is bad for your health and will make you fat.”

“If that happens, I’ll just get a new body,” I grin at her wickedly, “Maybe a better one. Maybe one with a fourteen-inch cock!”

She frowns and focuses on her meal, “That isn’t necessary.”

“I was only kidding.”

“I guess that I’m not in the mood.”

“You are normally so hyperactive.”

“John…I’m worried.”

“You shouldn’t be, it is my ass on the line.”

“You know what I mean. I’m worried about you.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“That isn’t true. You are too confident, acting too much like a young man,” the irony of her statement about youth seems to be lost on her.

“I am just trying to stay focused, not fall into despair. I am being cautious.”

“You haven’t been cautious a day in your life.”

“You’re wrong. I know when to act and when to stay back. I like to do crazy things, but I stopped being totally reckless the first time I got shot.”

“The first time,” she says with contempt.

“Hey, the second time wasn’t my fault.”

“It’s never your fault.”

“Wrong again. I freely admit that it was my fault the first time.”

“What about the third time?”

“Trust me, I will do everything in my power to avoid a third time.”

She smiles playfully, “If you do get a new body, just remember to keep the boy parts to a reasonable size, okay.”

I let out a good laugh, surprised at how much I needed it. Then I say, “Well, it is still a bit early, but he might be active. I’d better get back to it.”

I am starting to wonder if this was a mistake. The game isn’t that popular, but it still enjoys a healthy player base. How likely am I to find him?

I enter another game. It is already several minutes in. The first thing that I do is check the map, a friendly player is moving around to flank the enemy. This could be him, fits his style. It will let me spawn in near the player in question, which I do.

The rocks in this spot are darker than the sand, most are grey or black. It is a nice sight after all of the red and orange. I find his location on my HUD, start jogging in that direction.

I check the HUD again, the red blips of several enemy contacts appear near my target. I pick up the pace, days of experience running across the sand and rocks are the only thing keeping me from falling. I top a crest, take a second to survey the valley where the skirmish is taking place.

The lone rebel is posted up behind a formation of rocks. He is engaged in a firefight with a group of troopers. Laser bolts strike the boulders, cascades of liquefied rock and smoldering stone chips explode into the air. He returns fire, scoring a lethal hit on an Earthling.

One of them is picking his way around the side of the boulders. I line up a shot, the bolt will go completely straight, this should be easy. I manage to fire just as he darts out from behind a rock, it is a near miss. The bastard dives into a small crater, pops his head up over the lip and starts trying to find where the shot came from.

The lone wolf drains the last of his rifle’s battery. Without missing a beat, he pulls one of his handguns and starts blasting. I work my way down the slope, stopping every few feet to take cover and send a few rounds in the direction of the coward hiding like a little bitch in the crater.

I reach a spot that is free of boulders. An incoming blast sends me rolling behind the only thing that provides any kind of cover, a slight rise in the ground. The motherfucker in the crater fires a few bursts. The bolts hit my cover, turning sand to glass. I pop up, firing a quick shot. The blast hits a rock that is sitting near the rim of the crater. The superheated stone explodes, spraying the invader with shrapnel. I take advantage of the distraction to perform a headshot.

The last remaining enemy charges the wolf, he empties the pistol into the asshole’s chest as he rounds the boulders. The dipshit stumbles away as his suit’s armored plate melts, the molten metal running down his pants and onto the red sand.

My teammate is reloading his weapons. I walk over to him, praying that this isn’t another waste of time. He finishes popping a fresh energy mag into his rifle, turns to face me as I close in. Our suits have those big old visors, I can see his smile as he puts a hand up in greeting.

There he is. That is his face under the helmet, that warm, friendly face, a face that a politician shouldn’t have. Maybe it isn’t his real face. Maybe his real face is a caricature of a used car salesman. A lot of leaders wear a false face, many choosing to look like movie stars or models. But not him, he’s just some guy.

I tune into his frequency, “Senator Smith?”

Instead of looking annoyed, his face brightens, “Yes.”

I force the words out of my mouth, “I have an offer for you. Someone wants to trade the girl for access to the Grotto.”

There is a long pause as it sinks in. Maybe he had forgotten about it; maybe he thought that the problem had worked itself out. Either way, I stand there for a while watching him slowly come out of the fantasy.

He speaks at last, “So, this is the price that I pay for my indiscretion,” his words aren’t angry, more like, resigned.

“No one will even know that it was you.”

“It isn’t that. Yes, earning the ire of that place’s members is very bad, maybe even dangerous. But it is more about the failure, I should be better than this.”

“You are better than most. You are a human being, everyone makes mistakes,” these reassuring words come out of my mouth automatically.

We get a message from one of our teammates, a sniper that is camped out in a group of hills that over look the battlefield, “Hey, the two dumbasses that are standing around need…” he is cut off when the two of us simultaneously mute him.

The senator walks to the other side of the boulders. He looks around at the dead, “What is the sum of human history? It is rivers of blood. No matter how far we go, no matter where we end up, we can’t seem to escape it,” I feel bad for him. Charismatic populists are a long dead breed, they made sure of that. He could have gone so far, “There are two different versions of how the war went. There is the Martian version, in which we committed countless war crimes and they were completely justified in declaring independence. Then there is our version, in which they committed countless war crimes and we were in the right to punish a wayward colony. And there is a theoretical third version that non-biased historians could make. That version would probably lie somewhere in the middle and actually resemble the truth. But there will never be such a history, because it would please no one and only cause problems.”

I can feel it again, that agonizing regret, “I’m sorry. I don’t want to do this.”

“Then don’t.”

“It isn’t as simple as that and you know it.”

“I guess that you are right,” I get a message from my IC, he has sent me the access codes, “You won’t find what you are looking for. That place isn’t anything like what the rumors say.”

“Nothing ever lives up to the rumors.”

My IC gives me a notification, “You have left the game.”