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In the mornings, she talks over Paul’s ideas with Maddie. After supper, the three talk of them together. Maddie seems to be the most enthusiastic, her reasons unclear, but her excitement is unmistakable. Together, Paul and Maddie convince Laura that maybe living a life dedicated to a corporation is not the best way to live a life. Perhaps, it is the nature of humanity to live for one’s self. Perhaps.

—

Laura’s face, sleeping peacefully in a dimly lit room. She wakes, with a start. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. She looks to her side, and raises a baby, covered in liquid. Lifeless. Did she drown it to escape being farmed for the colony? To be another of their property, like she was? Like everyone here was? No, it’s coated in embryonic fluid, freshly born. A medic droid slowly takes it from her grasp, as she remains in the pool of fluid. The bio-genetic birthing tentacles still wrap her stomach and legs. She falls back to sleep.

She calmly walks alone down a huge corridor, dressed in white, segments of her soft skin showing through the fashion. There are thousands of hexagonal windows revealing babies, children of all ages floating in a green pool. They are attached to wires and tubes of all sorts. She looks at them, feeling nothing, knowing this is how they must be raised until they are of useful age, heads filled with facts of life, hormones and brain chemistry controlled and regulated. The doors she is walking towards slides vertically open. Maddie walks in.
“How are you doing, Laura?” She jogs up to her position, before walking alongside her.
“I’m fine, the birthing process is so easy, almost feels like a day at the spa.”
“Oh, that’s simply lovely, I can’t wait until I can do my part.”
“Soon you will… Maddie, I had a very odd dream while.”
“Ooh, you must tell me of it.” They walk out the door together into the brightly lit hallway.

—

A flash. A child, five years old, happy, playing soccer in the red dirt inside a cave with friends. Lights strung up, adults looking on, smiling.

—

Laura’s face, sleeping peacefully in a dimly lit room. She wakes, with a start. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. She looks to her side, and raises a baby, covered in liquid. Lifeless. Did she drown it to escape being farmed for the colony? To be another of their property, like she was? Like everyone here was? No, it’s coated in embryonic fluid, freshly born. She’s in the birthing pool. She feels to her side, a pistol, Paul had given it to her. She lifts the newborn with the weapon under its chin, and fires. Brains splatter the medic droid’s faceplate as the blast carries on through it. It falls. The technorganic tentacles, startled, grasp her legs firmly. She fires at those as well, and they loosen, falling dead and limp. She hops off the table, and slides, attempting to stand weakly. She steadies herself on the rim of the birthing pool, with gun in hand. She runs out the door, into the hallway. The white light is blinding, filling the view.

In their nights together before the birth, he speaks in whispers of things he had heard: the independent colonies, a different kind of life, where the child would be able to live free, as if on the former Earth, growing outside a chamber. She does not know why anyone would prefer that to the implantations and career assessment based on bio-rhythmic and measured neuron synapse response. A life without purpose, forced to find one on ones own. It simply made no sense. He speaks of natural, when she sees nothing wrong with normal. Why not become enhanced? Pure organics have been evolved, surpassed. Obsolescence.

—

It’s nighttime, calm; an open-air field of residential crafts. They all look similar. Slowly, the hangar door opens, spilling a bright white light into the dark field. The three figures burst out, and run frantically across the partially oxygenized open field of crafts, they know in their minds that what they are doing is wrong, insane; but their hearts tell them otherwise. Each in their orange suit, they wildly tear open each craft, hoping for one that will work, to carry them to safety, away from their pursuers. Will they be chased to the ends of Mars? It doesn’t matter; they’re being chased now. Finally, Maddie finds one that works, and they all pile in. Paul takes the control. The hatch closes, and the craft begins to lift shakily into the air, hovering with bursts fresh white exhaust firing out, steadying it. Armor-clad security run out onto the field, but it’s too little too late, they get close to the craft, red dust swirling about them. Their digitized voices call out into the night.
“Halt. Please land the craft and return the stolen property. It is pointless to attempt escape.”
The craft does not listen, and positions its course.
“Halt, or we will be forced to fire.”
As the craft begins to take flight, they fire their weapons at it. The laser-blasts fly past the ship as it departs, but one connects, the wing.
“Nice shot, soldier.” They return to the hangar.

Inside the craft, Laura begins to give birth in the midst of warning sirens and flashing red lights.
“It’s okay, I’ve read about this,” Maddie calmly states.
“Well that’s just great,” Paul says, looking backwards, “but do we even know where we’re going?”
“Yes, I’m sure of it, it has to be there, it can’t-” Laura stops mid-sentence to scream in pain.

Sunrise. The craft has crashed by a roadside, under a large overpass. They’re out of fuel, the wing is badly damaged, blackened, still partially smoking. Two figures walk in the distance towards to sunrise, at an angle veering away from the road. One of them did not survive the crash, but the child did. You can hear distorted voices, echoing in some future time.
“So, what is this place?”
“A rogue underground colony, apart from the Earth Corp. It’s a place where you are free to raise your own child, to be a family.”
“A family?”
“Freedom, you’ll see, it’s a good thing.”

A Mars in the midst of a terra-formation. For years now they have been creating colonies, the Earth Corporation. It began with a small four person team. Always relegated to groups of two, scheduled. Required to leave and explore in twos and return in twos. A small outpost filled with plant life. It soon grew.

Now, there are hundreds of vast colonies, vast roadways that span the surface of the freshly re-developing red planet. Rumors circulate of off-worlders, creating settlements that are not company-owned. Independent. Rumors, only.

Two women walk with one another, casually talking.
“You’re so lucky, I can’t believe that your first chosen mate from another colony has been genetically approved!”
“I know, Maddie, it’s like I’m floating on clouds, but, don’t forget, we’ve both been genetically approved for the other.”
“Right. Can’t have one without the other, it’s a mutual pairing.”
“But, Paul really is amazing. Did you know that he’s from the Deimos colony?”
“Wow, from a satellite, quite the catch, Laura!”
“And, he’s been trying to get stationed planet-side for years now. Because of this union, he’s finally able to.”
“Why would anyone from a satellite want to be here? I thought they were smart?”
“I’m sure he has his reasons.”

—

Paul is indisputably average looking; average height, average build, unmemorable face. However, it’s not a boring average, there’s a kindness about him, something almost wholesome. His intellect is decidedly well above average. People cannot tell whether it is his facial structure, or his well-maintained beard that gives him his approachable appearance. Perhaps it is both, and that’s why and how he wears it so well. His groomed beard is what brings memories of warmth towards him, his inviting and accepting personality notwithstanding.

He’s been planet-side for months now, Laura well-impregnated, and he’s getting along well with all of the crew-members, especially the scientists, with whom he’s been stationed, although he’s a fully-trained pilot. His explorations in C02 developments have put this colony leaps and bound ahead of the rest. It’s even possible to journey well outside the compound unsheathed by fully contained and helmeted space-suit system. This has been long-believed possible, but never been fully tested, for fear of exploration death.

The new-couple have provided a wealth of data together. Their combination is proving a strong and intelligent survivor within the womb. A commonplace acceptance is to allow the full 9-month gestation, before withdrawal and re-placement in a think-tank, for full gestation to occur, and the offspring can take full-care of itself.