Make You See Stars (2 page)

He
shook his head disbelievingly. “Again
with the money. You really think that’s the answer to everything,
don’t you?”

She took a step forward. “Well,
if this thing doesn’t go up anytime soon, I’ll just call a taxi to
take me to my quarters. I’ve got enough money to burn, right?” From
the corner of her eye, she suddenly spotted his finger still
pressing down the switch in the wall, which was most likely keeping
the elevator where it was. “What the…” she exploded. “Let go of
that switch! Right
now
!”

He raised an eyebrow. “Or
else?”

Tori clenched her fists. “Or
else I’ll take off these ridiculously
high heels that I can’t even properly
walk on, and I’ll use them as weapons to give you beautiful
black
eyes instead of
blue ones. How about that?”

She matched her words with
deeds, bending down to remove her tight shoes while she was at it.
When Tori stood up straight again, she realized how bad of an idea
that had been. The obnoxious guy was now really towering over her.
Her heart sped up when he slowly took a step forward.

Her breath faltered when
h
e leaned
down and mumbled close to her face: “You think I have beautiful
eyes?”

Slowly,
red heat crept up her cheeks.
Before she even had time to come up with a retort, the elevator
doors closed. Apparently, he’d had enough of his little game… or
felt as if he’d won.

2.

“
Come in, please!” Tori shouted
when the doorbell rang. It had to be Anna and Shirley – she’d sent
the two of them anot
her message, telling them she’d made it to her quarters
safe and sound, without encountering a single reporter.

The doors swished open,
spilling two beaming girls into her new living room. “Weiss Woman!”
Anna yelled ebulliently before giving her friend a
hug
, her
brown curls bouncing up and down. Shirley hugged the two of them in
turn. “How are you?”

“
Happy to be away from Mars,”
Tori replied with a grin. “
I can’t believe I’m really here! This is awesome.”
She gestured around the room. She’d already unpacked some of her
clothes and put up a few posters from her twentieth-century music
collection – Jim Morrison, Alice Cooper and Nirvana graced the
walls of the living area. She was wearing her favorite velvet
burgundy pants, sneakers and a tight-fitting olive tie-dye T-shirt
which brought out the green in her eyes, her hair spilling over her
shoulders like a waterfall of red.

“
You look rebellious,” Shirley
commented with a spark in her
kind, gray eyes. “If only your mother could see
you now.”

“
Yeah, well, she can’t. I
thought I’d keep my neat blouses somewhere close in case my parents
request a video call, but maybe I shouldn’t. What are they gonna
do, fly out here to make me change into ex
pensive clothes?” She
shrugged.

Anna cracked a wicked smile.
“You never know. The
Great German ambassador has spies
everywhere.”

Tori sighed. “Anna, why do you
even like me?” she asked, only half-joking. She didn’t want to
admit it, but she was still reeling from the encounter in the cargo
hold. It had truly upset her. The tall commander guy had taken one
look at her and apparently concluded she was some kind of spoilt,
rich kid. Was she? She didn’t even particularly like her meddling
parents, but maybe she was more stuck-up than she
realized.

Anna snorted. “Why? Because
you’re cool. You are a sweet and reliable friend, you have a great
sense of humor,
and you stand up for what you believe in. You’re my kind of
person.” She playfully punched Tori on the shoulder.

“
Amen to that,” Shirley
chimed in. “Why are you asking?”

Tori bit her lip. “It’s
nothing. I just... I guess I was raised in an ivory tower and I
don’t know a lot about the world outside. Maybe I’m
weird.”

“
That’s why you’ve got us!”
Anna exclaimed. “Before we moved to Mars, we were living in
war-torn Florida, right? We told you all about it.”

“
It’s still not the same as
experiencing it.”

“
No, it isn’t,” Shirley agreed.
“But you haven’t missed anything, trust me. You should be grateful
for moving to Mars when you were five years old. You didn’t have to
live through all the wars on Earth.” She absently raked a hand
through her blonde pixie cut, her eyes thoughtful.

Tori just
silently nodded in agreement.
Shirley had been through a lot. She hadn’t told her friends
everything she’d lived through, but it was obvious she’d seen and
suffered too much in Texas, before moving to Florida.

The three of them decided to
unpack the rest of Tori’s stuff
as they chatted about everything and
nothing.

“
You travel light,” Shirley
observed as she put the last shirt on the pile of clothes on the
top shelf. “Why didn’t you bring more?”

“
Because I wanted to start all
over again,” Tori replied. “I actually brought just the clothes
that I like – not the clothes I’m
supposed
to wear. It’s unbelievable, but my mom
didn’t even check my bags.”

“
Well, the only clothes you’re
supposed to wear during missions are cryo-suits,” Anna commented
dryly. “And the Astrobiology department will provide you with
those.”

Tori giggled. “You have a
point. Hey, could you two show me the rest of the station? I
haven’t seen anything yet – I practically ran here to avoid those
guys from the Martian Herald.”

“
Oh, the probe people?” Shirley
smirked. “I don’t know who told them what the Space Exploration
team is planning, but Commander Kelso isn’t exactly happy. It
wasn’t supposed to be made public just yet.”

When they left Tori’s quarters,
Anna turned right. “Let’s take you to the lower decks first,” she
said. “That’s where all the fun is. The upper decks are for the
various scientific departments, and the middle two are what we call
the Habitat Deck.
They’re Levels Ten and Eleven.”

“
Where do you
live?”

“
Same level as you –
L
evel
Eleven, Section Four,” Shirley replied. “You’re in Section
Two.”

The
elevator brought them down to Level
Eight, where Saturn Boulevard was situated. Tori carried a floor
plan to keep track of where they were going, feeling like a tourist
visiting an old Earth city for the first time. All the cities on
Mars were built according to the same grid layout – if you knew
one, you knew them all. Desida Two was different: it was shaped
like an enormous flying saucer with a protruding top crammed full
of antennae and satellite dishes to service the Observatory on the
upper deck. The wide hallways interconnecting the different areas
on each deck looked like spokes on a wheel on her map, the smaller
corridors between the spokes turning the floor plan into a giant
spider web. They didn’t have numbers, but names – on Deck Eight,
they were each named after Earth presidents from different
countries.

“
Who the heck was Barack
Obama?” Tori mumbled, as they turned the corner into one of the
larger hallways.

“
I don’t know exactly,” Anna
said absently. “I think he was American, but I’m not sure. I should
have brushed up on my history
years
ago. By now, my knowledge
is
history.”

When they reached Saturn
Boulevard, Tori slowed down and gaped at all the stores,
restaurants, gyms and bars on the main street. In the middle of the
gigantic walkway was a fountain illuminated by multi-colored lights
and surrounded by Martian cactus trees. It almost felt like home,
if not for the inexcusable squander of water. Mars was such a dry
planet that water supplies had to be preserved and used
wisely.

“
Pretty cool, huh?” Anna beamed
at her.
“Would you like to see our favorite bar and entertainment
center?”

“
Yes, let’s have a drink
at
The
Spark
,”
Shirley insisted. “You’re gonna love it.”

“
Sure, why not?” Tori
partially hid
behind Anna when a group of journalists approached from the other
side of the fountain. “I could do with a soda.”

They climbed the stairs running
alongside one cluster of shops and ended up on a
circular balcony
overlooking the boulevard on all sides.

“
Here it is.” Anna pulled Tori
along to a bar decorated with stars and moons on the outside. A
comet-shaped sign dangling above the entrance
read
The Spark
in glow-in-the-dark letters. It
looked old-school and cozy; just what she usually liked.

“
This
seems like a great place,” Tori said
with a smile. “If you tell me they play music from the late
twentieth century in this bar, I’m going to pitch a tent here and
never leave.”

“
They do!” Anne squealed.
“Isn’t it just great?”

The three of them picked a spot
in the corner next to
the entrance, after which Shirley made a beeline
for the counter to order drinks. Tori and Anna settled onto the
old, blue sofa facing the rest of the bar.

“
So… how did your parents take
it?” Anna said with a sympathetic smile.
“You coming to DSD 2?”

Tori picked at the hem of her
bell-bottomed pants. “They weren’t amused,” she replied curtly.
“But they did admit that this was a golden opportunity to build up
an ‘impressive resume’.” She air-quoted the last two words, making
her friend giggle. “Let’s forget about that for now.”

They steered away from the
subject of Mr
. and Mrs. Weiss and were chit-chatting about all the
different assignments coming up in the next few weeks by the time
Shirley came back with their drinks.

As Shirley started to gossip
about a mutual colleague of her and Anna’s, Tori tuned out for a
little bit. Her eyes scanned the room, stopping when they suddenly
caught sight of a group of five men having drinks at a table not
too far away. One of them was the guy from the cargo bay – the man
who’d judged her for wearing Elite clothes. He was staring at her
with a pondering look in his eyes, probably puzzled by her sudden
transformation. Well, she hoped he felt guilty for looking at her
with so much contempt before.

Tori quickly averted her gaze,
hoping he hadn’t
seen her look. “Shall I go get the next round?” she
interrupted Shirley, who had launched into a saga about two people
working in Hydroponics going on a disastrous date last
week.

“
No, just stay put,”
Shirley waved away her offer. “This is on us. We’ll get more in a
minute.”

Anna inconspicuously nudged
Tori. “By the way, babe, I’d like to take a moment to point out
that you’ve been checked out by Alen Novak ever since we came
in.”

“
What
?!” Shirley hissed.

Tori swallowed. “Who do you
mean?” she whispered a bit nervously, already able to guess what
the answer would be.

Anna cleared her throat. “It’s
a Croatian guy of about thirty years old, six foot three, shaggy
blond hair, dark eyebrows, brooding look – you see him?” she
mumbled.

Tori didn’t even have to
look. “Yeah, I see him.”

“
Not the best guy to be around,”
Shirley said. “He was in jail for six years before getting a job
here. Smuggling, theft, fraud, you name it.”

Tori gaped at
her
. “How on
Mars did he end up here, then? Is Desida Two running an outreach
program for ex-cons?”

“
I’ve been told he took up
several studies in prison to educate himself
so he’d have a future by the
time he got out. He’s a genius – he speaks, like, ten languages,
he’s crazy good at mathematics…”

“
I think he knew people who knew
people on this station,” Anna added. “That’s how he got a job
and
a
promotion in no time. He’s our Chief of Security.”

Tori
bit her lip. “Right. And this
criminal mastermind by the name of Alen Novak is interested in
me?”

Shirley and Anna nodded
simultaneously. “He’s still checking you out,” Shirley whispered.
“Big time.”

“
Well, I don’t care,”
Tori snapped
belligerently. “He’s disrespectful and mean. He was making fun of
me in the cargo bay before, and – he thinks he’s cool or
something.”

“
What, you already talked
to him?” Anna whispered.

Tori nodded. Stupidly enough,
he’d still managed to make an indelible impression on her despite
his rude behavior. He’d been
flirting
with her, for God’s sake – or had
she
started it?
She
had made that silly
remark about him having beautiful blue eyes, after all.

Jumping up from the couch, she
continued: “You know what, why don’t we go someplace else? I
haven’t seen the upper decks yet. Are you
girls coming?”