Brittany soared across the late-afternoon sky on her way home from work, singing and dancing a bit behind the wheel, unable to contain her excitement. On the passenger seat beside her was a small, sleek phone and a bag of groceries – delicacies from the black market grocery store. Artie had given her some cash as well as the phone. He also said he would ask for her specifically the next time he called for a repair job.

She ignored the rubbish-littered, lifeless roof and hurried down the stairs, one more flight than usual. She knocked on briskly on Carson's door.

“Who's there?” His voice was muffled by the door.

“This is Brittany S. Pierce speaking,” she said, adopting the new authority she had acquired through first the video call at work and then through earning the phone and other delicacies. “I have a few desirable items here and I think we can put together a more than reasonable dinner.”

The door, to a limited extent, opened. Carson, no lights on in the room behind him, peered out into the dim hall. “You sound different,” he said. “You might even pass for mature.”

“I had a few routine matters to deal with during business hours today,” Brittany said in a deep and pompous tone. “The usual. If you could let me in – ”

“You'd talk about them,” he said dryly. However, he held the door open wide enough for her to enter. And then, seeing what she carried, he exclaimed, his face igniting with elfin, exuberant glee. He snatched the phone from the top of the grocery bag and began furiously pressing the buttons. “Does this work?” he practically shouted.

“Yes, I can show you – ” Brittany started, but Carson had already brought the phone to life and was dialing. He turned his back to her and started to walk further into the dark apartment.

Brittany hurried about the room, switching on lights and unpacking the food – peaches, cheese, bean curd – all authentic. All rarities.

Carson kept his voice to a murmur, but it sounded like he was giving directions to the building. “Yes, come as soon as you can,” he said. “And be careful. Make sure no one is following you.”

After ending the call, Carson rushed toward Brittany, lips upturned in a pleased smile, holding the phone triumphantly in a hand above his head. She opened her arms, smiling, expecting him to collide into her with a forceful hug at any moment. But just before he reached her he stopped jerkily, and stepped back to widen the distance between them. “Ahem. Thank you, Brittany,” he said, handing the phone over to her.

“Your friends are coming?”

“Yes, they should be here soon,” he said. “It turns out they were hiding out just a few towns over.”

“But why do they have to be careful? What makes you think someone would follow them?” she asked, furrowing her brow.

“Because the bounty hunters have had time to get to work.” He wandered toward the window, gazed out at the blackness and the few lights here and there. “Those are two of my friends that I just spoke with, but I haven't heard from some of the others in weeks. Some of them could be dead.”

“What's a bounty hunter?”

“That's right,” he sighed. “You people aren't supposed to know. A bounty hunter is a professional murderer who's given a list of those he's supposed to kill. He's paid a sum – a thousand dollars is the going rate, I understand – for each he gets. Usually he has a contract with a city so he draws a salary as well. But they keep that low so he'll have incentive.”

“Are you sure?” Brittany asked. “I think you must be mistaken. It's not in accord with present-day Mercerian ethics. All life is one, no islands are people – as Shakespeare said in olden times.”

Carson rolled his eyes and said very loudly and slowly, “John Donne is the one who it and what he said was ‘no man is an island'”. Brittany nodded happily in agreement. “And yes, I'm sure.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I'm – ” he paused for a moment as if thinking. “I'm a journalist. An investigative reporter. It's my job to find out about these things.”

“And now they're after you? You and your friends? They're going to come here and kill you?” She understood now, why Carson acted in so secretive a manner. “Can't you call the police?”

“No,” Carson said flatly.

“Why not?”

“They're in on it, too. The police are the ones that hire bounty hunters in the first place.”

Brittany thought it must be a delusion. Carson must be psychotic. With delusions of persecution. Maybe from brain damage from the dust. Maybe he's really a special too, like her. “I'll protect you,” she said solemnly.

Carson choked out a pained laugh. “With what?”

“I'll get a license to carry a laser beam. It's easy to get, out here where there's hardly anybody. The police don't patrol out here. You're expected to watch out for yourself.”

“That's very nice of you, Brittany,” he says, in a tone that one would use with a small child. “But I really don't think it's going to make any difference. Let's just wait for my friends to get here and they can help me figure out what to do next.”

“Okay,” she said, a bit defeated. She turned and started searching fruitlessly through the long disused kitchen for suitable cookware. Carson held himself stiffly, back to her, staring vigilantly out the window.

She walked over to him and said gently and earnestly, “It won't make them get here any faster. Seriously. I've tried that before when I was waiting for someone and it really doesn't work.”

He huffed out an exasperated breath, but said nothing.

Brittany hovered close to him for a few long moments, shuffling forward ever so slowly, as if being careful not to spook him. She ran two fingers up and down his arm, leaning forward until her breasts pressed into his back and her breath tickled his ear. “You did say you would come stay with me if I got you the phone.” She pressed closer behind him and wrapped her other arm around his waist, still walking her fingers up and down his arm. “And I did.” She pressed a small kiss to his ear as he stood stiff and silent in her arms. “And I don't think I'll be able to cook dinner here. I can't find all the pans I need.”

He peeled her arm off of him, stepping forward and turning to face her. “Okay. We should make dinner. I'm sure they'll want to eat when they get here.”

They hastily packed up the food into the bag and headed up the stairs.

“What is that monstrosity?” Carson asked as soon as Brittany flicked on the lights in her apartment.

“This is Lord Tubbington, my cat.” Brittany danced over to the giant animal and scratched behind his ears. “Lord Tubbington, this is my new friend Carson.” The three foot tall, rotund cat blinked his eyes lazily and turned his back, as if indicating that Carson was hardly worth the effort of being civil.

“Was that some kind of experiment from your place of employment? I mean, I know people can be pretty crazy but I thought the imitation animals were supposed to fool people by looking like the real thing. I mean, nobody wants something like that do they?” Carson said incredulously.

“Hey, don't say things like that in front of him. Lord Tubbington can be very sensitive,” Brittany admonished.

“Just keep that thing away from me,” Carson muttered. “And people think androids are creepy.”

“Have you ever seen an android?” Brittany asked curiously. “I thought androids were only on Mars. Though Puck was saying something about androids on Earth today – and a big police cover-up about it. Oh – is that what your reporting is about?”

“Yes,” Carson said. “I've seen androids. On Mars.”

“You came here from Mars?” Brittany asked, bouncing up and down on her toes with excitement, as though Carson were a genuine celebrity. “Tell me all about it!”

“We should get dinner ready.”

“I can start cooking while you talk,” Brittany said, moving about the kitchen to gather pots and pans.

“We lived on Mars – my friends and I. That's how I know about androids.”

“And the only people on Earth that you know,” Brittany said, “are your fellow ex-emigrants.”

“Yes. We knew each other before the trip. A settlement near New New York. Dave and Santana ran a drugstore. He was a pharmacist and she handled the beauty aids, the creams and ointments. On Mars they use a lot of skin conditioners. And I – ”

“You were a journalist,” Brittany said.

Carson looked startled for a moment, but soon recovered. “Yes, right. A journalist. I got medications from their pharmacy – that's how I met them. I needed them to get through life there on Mars. It's a lonely place. Much worse than this,” he said, waving at the apartment and vaguely at the window, encompassing the whole town with his gesture.

“Don't the androids keep you company? I heard a commercial on – “ She banged a pan on the stove, stirred the other pot with a wooden spoon, turning the heat down. “I heard that the androids helped.”

“The androids,” he said, “are lonely, too.” Absently, he took a sip of wine that Brittany had poured out for him.

“Do you like the wine?” she asked eagerly.

“It's fine,” he said absently.

“It's the only bottle of wine I've seen in three years.”

“We came back,” Carson continued, “because nobody should have to live there. It's just so boring. And no one is interested in intelligent writing there. I took the painkillers Dave concocted at the drug store and then Santana got me interested in pre-colonial fiction.”

“You mean old books?”

“Stories written before space travel but about space travel,” he explained patiently.

“How could there have been stories about space travel before – ”

“The writers,” Carson said, “made it up.”

“Based on what?”

“On imagination. A lot of times they turned out wrong. For example they wrote about Venus being a jungle paradise with huge monsters and women in glistening breast plates. A lot of it is pretty misogynistic, come to think of it,” he muttered, staring into the distance. “But it's still pretty exciting. To read about cities and huge industrial enterprises, and really successful colonization. Canals.”

“Canals?” Dimly, she remembered hearing about that. In the olden days they had believed in canals on Mars.

“Crisscrossing the planet,” Carson said. “And beings from other stars. With infinite wisdom,” he sighed longingly. “And stories about Earth, set in our time and even later. Where there's no radioactive dust.”

“I would think it would make you feel worse,” Brittany said.

“It doesn't,” Carson said curtly.

“Did you bring any of those stories with you?” It occurred to her that she ought to try reading some.

“It's worthless here because here on Earth the craze never caught on. Anyhow, there's plenty of it here. In the libraries. That's where we get all of ours – stolen from libraries here on Earth and shot by autorocket to Mars. You're out at night bumbling across the open space and all of a sudden you see a flare, and there's a rocket, cracked open, with old pre-colonial fiction magazines spilling out everywhere. A fortune. But of course you read them before you sell them.”

A knock sounded on the door.

Carson froze and stared, wild-eyed, at Brittany. Ashen, he whispered, “I can't go. Don't make any noise, just sit.” He strained, listening. “Did you lock the door?” Brittany nodded and Carson's eyes, wild and powerful, fixed themselves beseechingly on her, as if praying to her to make it true.

A far off voice from the hall called, “Carson, are you in there? You didn't tell us which apartment you would be in, but we saw the lights from outside and thought this might be the right one. Come on, it's us. Open up.”

Carson mimed holding a pen and scribbling a note. Brittany rose and went into the bedroom, reappearing with a pen and scrap of paper. She handed it to Carson and he scratched out a hasty message.

YOU GO TO THE DOOR.

Brittany, nervously, took the pen from him and wrote:

AND SAY WHAT?

With anger, Carson scratched out:

SEE IF IT'S REALLY THEM.

Getting up, she walked glumly to the living room. How would I know if it was them? she asked herself. She opened the door.

Two people stood in the hall. A tall, bulky man with short dark hair and pudgy cheeks shuffled his weight from foot to foot nervously, looking searchingly and uncomprehending into Brittany's face. Beside him was a woman with long, thick black hair, an hourglass figure, olive skin and supple lips. Brittany's eyes were drawn to the woman and she let her gaze drop, drinking in the short, tight blue dress and black leather boots with spike heels.

“Well, I thought I was looking for my friend Carson, but I stand corrected, beautiful,” the woman said in a silky voice, eyeing Brittany up and down appreciatively.

“Shut up, Santana,” grumbled the man beside her, who was looking searchingly past Brittany and into the room behind her. Suddenly, his eyes lit up and he called out, “Carson!”

“Dave!” Carson shouted. The man in the hallway pushed past Brittany roughly and she spun in the doorway in time to catch the two men in a tight hug, as the woman sauntered past her, brushing deliberately against Brittany as she pressed herself against the doorframe, eyes fluttering shut as she breathed in the scent of the woman's perfumed hair.