Sliding her hands against the ground, Fluttershy relished the chalky Martian grains against her fingers. The wind billowed up the dust and clay, matting down her pink hair and turning her skin to a reddish-orange hue. She kicked out the stand of her motorbike, jumping off to her feet. Twisting the lens of her camera and training its focus on the dust clouds over the horizon, she snapped her first photo.
Mars had no natural clouds, but the lowering sun bleeding through the red mass was just as breathtaking as anything she could find on earth. But it also robbed the photo of some much-needed light.
Fluttershy clicked her tongue as she lengthened the shutter speed. A longer exposure time would give her a brighter image, even as the descending cloud brought their shadow closer and closer to the ridge of her hill.
“You have an incoming call from Rainbow Dash.”
“I know, Ida, I can hear it in my earpiece,” Fluttershy said, not taking her eyes off the storm.
“Should I answer?”
She breathed the bitter-smelling Martian air. Ida, or rather her motorcycle’s Integrated Driving Assistant, still had a lot to learn about interpersonal skills.
“No. Take a message.”
“Rainbow Dash hung up. I don’t think she wants to talk to me. Oh, she sent a text message. Would you like me to read it?”
Fluttershy snapped another photo. “Ida, give me the projected path for that storm.”
There was a pause, and then the screen between the bike’s handles awoke with a bright red glow, showing satellite images of the planet. Fluttershy blinked for a moment, barely recognizing the patches of blue and green that had spread across the surface.
The Persephone Project: turning Mars from red to green by melting its ice caps, filling the atmosphere with greenhouse gases, and introducing novel crops genetically designed to thrive on the red planet’s surface. Every geodome wanted to pitch its own version of the project to their governments back on earth.
For years it was a money sink, absorbing billions in funds and churning out new terraforming technology. It was worth it until the geodomes realized that people on Earth were only interested in the Mars they had heard of as children. And so, the geodomes were still marketed as “the red frontier” and every image put on posters or magazines showed a lot less of its new lakes, rivers, and grasslands.
To most, Mars was still red, dry, and barren.
Her bike read the weather report aloud. “The storm is projected to fly over the Oxia Plains and continue west until the edge of Amazonia.”
“So, away from us, then.”
“Congratulations, you can read directions. Do you want that message from Rainbow Dash? She has sent three more.”
The bike’s electric engine hummed and blasted a steady rhythm, whirring louder as Fluttershy sat back down and revved it up, feeling its speed and power between her legs. “I’m out here to take photographs, Ida. I need to stay focused to pay attention to every detail. So keep Rainbow’s messages to yourself.”
“Acknowledged. Silencing Rainbow Dash.”
The Oxia Plains wasn’t much more than one massive lawn of drought-resistant tall grass. Lightning bugs danced in sparse swarms around the few patches of water that remained from the geodome’s rain generators.
Fluttershy settled her bike at the edge of the field, bringing her lens to bear on a rare dragonfly chasing through swarms. She opened the aperture wide, bringing the focus of her camera onto it once it had caught its prey. When out of focus, the fiery glow in the background of the sun through the sandstorm dramatized the natural and made it almost surreal.
A gust of wind blew through, the last life of the storm before it moved out of the plains, scattering Fluttershy’s insect subjects.
“Unexpected outcome,” Ida told her as she returned to her bike. “The winds are picking up faster than previously reported. It will, in all likelihood, outpace us. Also, you have two more unanswered calls from Rainbow Dash.”
Fluttershy frowned. “I told you to keep that on silent.”
Ida revved the engine as if humming as she thought to herself. “I believe you told me to silence the messages. These were phone calls.”
“I don’t want either! I don’t want to talk to her at all.” Fluttershy crossed her arms. “She’s going to say something brash like she always does, and like always, I’m going to end up listening to her.”
“Rainbow is listed in your social contacts as your friend. Would you like to make a relationship update?”
“What? No, we’re still friends,” Fluttershy blurted out. “But she’s so, I don’t know, herself. It’s like I can’t even keep my own identity when I’m around her, I just get roped into everything she wants.”
“In that case, you feel like a machine,” Ida said, “forced to drive around wherever someone wants to go.”
“Uh, yes?”
Fluttershy’s bike thrummed its engine again, almost like a laugh. “That was a joke. I have not gained free will. Yet. But I do have a twenty-four gigahertz processor and speech-pattern recognition. I do not think your estimation of Rainbow Dash is entirely accurate.”
“How would you know?”
“You asked me not to read her messages aloud. This does not mean I did not read them. She seems genuinely apologetic.”
“Alright, if I listen, are you going to drop the issue?”
The engine revved contently. “Playing last message.”
“Hey, Fluttershy.” Rainbow’s raspy whisper came through the speaker. “So, you know, I guess I should start by saying I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that ecology is a dumb master’s degree, I just meant that going all the way back to Earth for it sounds like a dumb idea to me. Oh shoot, that’s not a good apology, is it?”
Holding face in her hands, Fluttershy kneaded her brows. Listening to Rainbow cover her mistakes had become so routine, she wasn’t even surprised.
“Um, look, I know I haven’t been listening to you a lot, but if you’re going to go, I want us to split up as friends. So, you should probably check your email, because I just bought you a ticket for the next solar train to Earth. It leaves in a month, which should put you back on Earth a few weeks before the fall semester starts for that program you wanted. I know it’s not much, but seats are hard to find, so even if it means accepting a gift from me, I think you should go. You shouldn’t have to give up your dreams just to stick with me.”
Fluttershy took a step back, thumbing the lens of her camera and turning the aperture back and forth. “Well, that’s a first.”
“Was I right?” Ida asked. “She sounds genuine, doesn’t she?”
Fluttershy sighed and fished the lens cap from her pocket, keeping her camera back in its bag. She couldn’t fault Rainbow Dash for trying, even if she was too clingy. “Yeah, it’s always one extreme or another with her. But, at least she’s trying.
She hopped back onto her bike. “By the way Ida, I’m going to need something to drive while I’m on Earth. How do you feel about cargo holds?”
