From Mars With Love

1 Depression

Some people say that your lover becomes the center of your world. I wonder if they ever realized how apt a metaphor that is? The center of any habitable world’s rotation provides the magnetosphere which prevents cosmic radiation from killing you, provides the bulk of the gravitational pull keeping you on the face of the planet, and if they leave you your entire world collapses before flying apart.

Mine did, that is my lover left; my world flew apart as well but that’s mostly because of my own inability to ever admit my feelings for her. Perhaps I shouldn’t call Charlotte my lover, as far as she was concerned we were only friends. I like to think this is because I was too shy to say anything, though sometimes the back of my mind a little voice tells me it’s because she wasn't interested. I call that voice Meg, as in ‘Shut up Meg.’

Without Charlotte work was absolutely unbearable. I only took that dead end quickie mart job to spend time with her. I didn’t need it, this is New York, there are plenty of ways to make money for a person of my talents. But I needed her, and that is where her skill set landed her. This stupid society doesn't believe it’s youth can possess any talents. Charlotte could have been an electrical engineer a whole year ago.

These are the kind of things I have thought about for the last three weeks. Ever since Charlotte had shown me those feathers, and I accidentally opened a portal… Most people wouldn’t have understood my reaction, the way I avoided her entirely for, well, the entire time she was still in this dimension. It was that portal. It’s not somthing I expect anyone to understand, but that circle of light blazed in my eyes like the fires of hell had swallowed a thousand suns. I have never seen a more horrifying flame in my life. It may not have been fire, but it was enough to send me into a panic. I saw a whole world on fire with flames which do not consume so they may blaze eternally. I saw my personal hell.

“Hina! Stop daydreaming and get back to work!” my manager Jessica’s voice shook me out of my thoughts. That was pretty strange, I usually was fairly adept at tuning her out.

“What am I supposed to be doing right now?” I asked, giving her a board look.

“I asked you to stock the shelves twenty minutes ago! You keep standing at that counter staring into space. Get the lead out, and stock these shelves or you are fired!”

There are times when she made me wish I could disappear, without causing a panic I mean. I considered all the ways I could take my frustrations out on the woman. She knew full well I had liked Charlotte, and she like most people believed she had committed suicide. Did she even feel a grain of sympathy for me? Nope, not even a single electron’s worth of pity. I know, I checked.

“You know what? No.” I informed her in a decisive tone.

She gave me a look both angry and indignant, “Excuze me?”

“You heard me, no. I don’t need this job. I don’t need to work for a woman who has no empathy because her mom took painstaking care to sculpt her into a successful businesswoman by scooping out all of her humanity while her father drank himself to death because he couldn’t stand the cow her married.”

The look of rage that built up on her face was something I will treasure for a lifetime. Sometimes you just need a little revenge, “I quit. No two weeks notice.”

I hopped over the counter as Jessica sputtered, “Who told you that?”

“You did. You should really stop thinking about personal stuff at work. Bye.” I wish I could have seen the look on her face at that, but I wasn’t about to turn around and give her the satisfaction of a second thought.

Ditching that dead end dull fest felt great, but it would have been far better if Charlotte had been there to do it with me. I turned to head south, my apartment was nowhere near hers. I only told her it was to have an excuse to go on a walk with her, talk freely without that bitch of a manager interrupting our conversations. It was also a lot crappier than her nice place, but who cares, it was cheap.

It was also a bit of a dangerous neighborhood. I had trouble a few times before but it was nothing I couldn't handle. Infact I usually walked home on a sort of autopilot, I imagine most people do. There was never anything new to look at, something very rarely happened, my entire life was pretty much one giant routine. The only thing which seemed appealing was that short blond haired girl… also Doctor Who, but that just invoked feelings of nostalgia.

“Hey girl, no one here to walk you home?” I looked over my shoulder to see who had spoken to me. Great, three guys in raggy hoodies. Surely these were fine upstanding gentleman.

I kept walking, the street was fairly empty. Of people at least, there were plenty of cabs and cars moving around. not that they would help.

“Didja hear me?”

I ignored him, or at least I was going to until his conscious thoughts turned to ‘punishing’ me for ignoring him. Oh well, three months since the last time something happened. I turned off into the next allyway and looked over my shoulder, yep they followed me. “I’m broke, and if you want sex you can forget it.” Might as well warn them.

One of them, a guy in a green hoodie shook his head, “Guys, I’m out.”

“You are a god damn pussy Frank!” The first guy spat as he turned to his friend.

‘Frank’ flipped his friend off and walked out of the alleyway. I figured I was clear to start solving this particular problem.

There were plenty of ways I could have dealt with the situation, but I felt like being cruel today. The two punks began to walk towards me, I closed my eyes for a second in concentration, reaching out in an instant to explore their minds surface thoughts. I wished I could have gone deeper, but I was never taught how.

“You in the grey hoodie, your name is Jake. You are planning to get behind me and hold me for your friend Richard. You have a knife and plan to hold it to my throat. It is a black folder, and is in your front left jeans pocket.”

Jake froze, “How did you-”

“Richard, you plan to rape me to prove your masculinity to your ‘friend’ here. DId you know he’s planning to rob your dad’s place? He apparently thinks he can sell his TV for a good sum.”

“What? Dude fuck this bitch.” Richard took a few steps towards me. Too bad, I liked picking people out best.

“Sure I would be happy to do this physically. Just give me a second to…” I trailed off, focusing on the techniques my old psionic arts teacher had taught me, within a second my skin morphed, pigmentation changing to a meta material to warp light around me, vanishing from sight. Fortunately my clothes were the same smart-material ones I had when I got here and changed with me.

“What the fuck?” Jake gasped.

“The hell did she-”

I quickly ran behind the two punks, maybe they saw the blur and warped light, I don’t know. I do know that the second I decloaked and smugly said, “Right behind you.” a half inch from Jake’s ear he screamed like a little girl and ran off.

Richard however, seemed a bit stupider. He pulled a small folder knife from a pocket, “You stay back!” he backed up into the alley wall, knocking over a trash can.

“What’s the matter? You were so confident you could handle a girl a second ago. Your exact thought was ‘I can take this skinny bitch as long as I wasn't because she has like no muscles.’,” I grinned as his eyes widened, “You know what, you are right. I don’t have visible muscles. Do I look better with some?”

Changing my basic shape has always been a piece of cake for me, a quick flex of my left arm and I added in a dozen or so pounds of sculpted muscles… I wasn’t too sure if they looked how a human females were supposed to but that punk’s terafied eyes were all I really wanted. “Oh shit! Please dont kill me!” he shrieked.

“Yeah that’s why I don’t usually do the whole ‘buff’ thing.” I returned to my usual shape before continuing, “Hey maybe I should just ditch this one for my original shape huh?”

My skin turned bone white, I grew a few feet taller, bone stopped and clicked as they rearranged, arms and legs elongating, waist shrinking until I had a mostly skeletal appearance, my skull stretched, mouth widened, filling with jagged teeth. I honestly couldnt remember how the rest of me was supposed to look, I hadn’t let my Martian heritage out like that in years. It didn’t matter too much though, Richard fained.

Hopefully too many people hadnt picked up that thought. I was so used to speaking out loud I ah completely forgotten my true form used telepathy to communicate. Funnily enough, I knew my chosen human body by heart. Returning to it was a piece of cake, only took me a few seconds as well, not the nearly thirty seconds my birth form had.

I resumed walking home, giving Richard a kick as I started moving. This had to be the most boring version of Earth in the multiverse. If I had gotten to the Earth I had been trying for, Earth-1, the normal, awesome blue marble, just a few million kilometers away from home, life would have been awesome. I could have popped into the JLA’s headquarters and in just a few hours been an awesome Superhero with my fellow Martians John and Megan. I could have just fought two guys with pyrokinesis and cryokinesis in this ally and saved some little old lady or something.

But no, one goddamn space pirate fires a singularity torpedo into the transport I stowed away on and boom! I’m stuck on a version of Earth entirely devoid of metahumans, magic, and generally anything realy cool. Even the science is humdrum, no teleporters, FTL spacecraft, or even interplanetary communications. I had no idea if my people even existed in this dimension. But I remembered my multiverse facts from school correctly, this was Earth-Prime. So probably not.

“I could just go find a news crew, demorph on camera, and see how long it takes for the government to stick me in a lab.” I mused out loud as I approached my run down apartment building. Nah that would never work, I’d chicken out at the last moment and just make up another human identity. There were far better ways to commit suicide.

Something caught my eye as I entered the lobby, my post box’s light was blinking. Looks like I had a package, probably more bills. Humans loved giving each other bills it seemed. Opening the box I was surprised to find a small package, apparently from an Elizabeth Brooks who lived at… “Charlotte’s place…” Was Elizabeth her mother?

I took the package up to my apartment, no sense pouring through what was, well a letter or whatever, in a public space right? I pulled a kitchen knife over to me on the couch as I sat down, my telekinesis would have made that stupid job a piece of cake, if only I didn’t have to entirely hide who I was to these versions of humans.

I slit the tape on the box expertly, the lid popping open  thanks to a rolled up letter sitting at the top of the package.

Hina Maki,

My name is Elizabeth Brooks. I am Charlotte’s mother. I knew she had a friend who worked with her and pulled some strings to get your name and address from your work so I could send you some of Charlotte’s things. Your manager informed me you were Charlotte’s girlfriend, I wish she had told me her preferences. Perhaps she wouldn’t have done it if our relationship had been better. I certainly would have had no problems with the two of you.

I remembered my daughter was incredibly attached to the two colored feathers which are enclosed. I assumed they were a gift you gave to her and since I was unaware of you and therefore did not invite you to the funeral, please take them as a way to remember her by. Also enclosed is a photo of Charlotte and her class ring. I know it’s not much but those are some of the most personal belongings she possessed.

If you are in any way depressed, please seek a therapist. Or come and see me. We can work over our loss together.

Elizibeth Brooks

P.S.

I am sorry about the nut jobs claiming Charlotte went to an alternate dimension. My apartment has been swarming with those tinfoil hat types for days now and I can only hope you have gotten some peace and quiet. If you need help getting rid of them let me know and I will send you a copy of the official police report. It clearly states that her body was found too damaged for an open casket funeral in language even these nutballs can understand.

Well, one former mystery of mine had been solved. Her parents totally would have been ok with us. Or well parent. Poor woman, first her husband died and now the government had apparently tricked her into thinking her daughter killed herself. It was a good story, hell I would have believed it if I hadn’t opened a portal mysel-

“The feathers didn't go with her!” I dug through the box, tossing the photo aside to pick up those two vibrantly colored feathers. I turned them over in my hands, searching my own mind to make sure these were the ones. One cyan, and magenta, each one slender, lengthy, and impossibly soft. Yep, these were them. But did they have any juice left in them?

I gave the feathers a little wave through the air. The cyan one trailed a faint rainbow, and the cyan one trailed a little line of white sparkles. They still had some charge. In fact it took less movement to get them to trial then it had before. Perhaps opening the portal had let through some of that universe's magic for a few seconds allowing these otherworldly relics to gain a little bit of charge.

I stared at the feathers in my hands for a long time, wondering if I should try to use them or not. I had the power to go to the world where Charlotte had sent herself, but that world was connected to this one by a maelstrom of energy which was too close to fire for my taste. If it burned like fire and didn’t just look like it simply crossing over could vaporize me. What about the world which lay beyond? Through the portal everything had a flame like aura around it. That could just be how things look when viewed through that brand of space/time rip but what if it wasn’t?

Then again, it apparently was a land of magical talking ponies who did battle with spirits of chaos with spell and magical relics. Also the woman I had been crushing on for ages was there and if she wasn’t into girls like I thought I could always just take a male shape. Ah screw the consequences. “Charlotte, here I come.”

Closing my eyes in dread of the hellish fiery energy I smashed the feathers together, there was a blinding flash of light which I could see even with my eyes shut. Then everything went black.