Lilly stood motionless outside the hub. It was well past curfew and too dark for anyone to see her hiding in the shadows. If Max realized she was gone, he'd catch her in seconds. He and Presley could both run faster than a cheetah. Flying to the digsite was her only option. She'd never flown that far before, but if she made it, her abilities would outsmart his. How had it come to this?

  They'd been on Mars for almost a year now, and Edward was the only one she still trusted. Whatever senior crew was looking for at the dig site was the reason she refused to go home. In 30 days, Red Rock expected them to climb the ladder back into the spaceship and return to Earth as if nothing had happened. She wouldn't do it. If running away was the only way to delay the trip, she'd do it. Edward agreed they should stay. If she could find some evidence, the others might change their minds.

  "What are you hiding?" Lilly whispered as she began to jog across the vast expanse of Mars.

  Clouds of dust billowed up as her space boots pushed hard against the sand and rocks. And then she spread her arms, as Lizzak had done eons ago, her body lifting through the non-existent atmosphere. Flying always amazed her, which was another reason not to leave Mars. Leaving meant losing the ability to soar. It was part of her identity now—the sensation of wind moving over her body, almost blocking out the sound of Max's voice.

  "There you are, Lilly! Shit, they'll quarantine us if we're caught out here after curfew."

  Lilly looked down at Max, who matched her pace on the ground. His legs moved effortlessly underneath him. She wouldn't be going to the dig site alone. It wasn't what she wanted, but the trip couldn't wait.

  "Don't make this about you, Max," she said, making a hard right, causing Max to stumble.

  "Oh, there's no chance of my grabbing any attention considering the back-to-back dramas you and Sloan create daily."

  Lilly glanced down at Max without comment. It was true that Sloan had become problematic, but if she could really see the future, that might be helpful. General Stone chose the dig site based on one of Sloan's visions. But why did they need a digsite? What was buried there? Fossilized DNA was the story General Stone liked to sell.

  "It's Red Rock's civic duty to unearth the planet's living history," he'd said.

  But what did it matter if other lifeforms had existed? Humans mysteriously developed superpowers here, which wasn't ideal, since a second Earth wasn't ready for that. Plus, the powers apparently faded and morphed into cancer once you left Mars? No one should come here. Ever. What fresh hell did the digsite offer? She might find out tonight.

  Rovers sat parked around the dig site like soldiers guarding a tomb. Max waited beside one of them as she circled above, thinking of how best to deal with him. Each superpower offered distinct advantages. Right now, Lilly could buy herself time. No one could reach her.

  On the other hand, if Max wanted, he could be back at the hub in under two minutes, alerting everyone she was out after hours and alone. She needed to think quickly. Whatever secrets the dig site held, she wanted to uncover them alone. Lilly knew Max thought the mission was shady, but he was a pacifist. Lilly intended to torpedo any system that kept them in the dark, with or without his help.

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  "You must be tired, having run all that way," she said, landing feet from where Max stood leaning on a rover.

  "Not really. I used to think you got the best superpower, but then I realized no one can catch me. You, on the other hand, have to come down at some point."

  "Presley can catch you, and I can escape you. All I have to do is prevent you from seeing me take off."

  "Too bad you're so slow. That will never happen."

  Lilly said nothing, knowing she'd already done it and would do it again. No need to brag, although bragging was one of her favorite things to do. She scanned the ground around the dig site, broken and clumped.

  "How deep does this go down?" Max asked.

  "I'm not sure," Lilly replied, pulling out a flashlight and sweeping back and forth over the gaping hole.

  The flashlight provided little more illumination than the two moons overhead.

  "I wonder why they're digging here and not another spot?"

  "Well, Sloan had that nervous breakdown when they suggested digging by the crater."

  Lilly thought about Sloan the first time she'd had a vision, lying on the floor, vomiting. Mia had tried to calm her, which typically worked, but not that day. The topic of dig sites had apparently evoked a violent movie in Sloan's mind, causing her to go crazy. Stone taking Sloan's visions seriously seemed dumb to Lilly, who wasn't sure that her "visions" were real or even noteworthy.

  "What are these?" Max asked, holding out small tubes.

  Lilly wandered over to Max and peered at what looked like empty plastic vials. She took one and held it close to her face. She flipped the flashlight's switch and read the word CESIUM handwritten on the outside.

  "Let me have that," Lilly said.

  "Find your own," Max said, swiping back the tube, unimpressed with Lilly.

  There were dozens of empty, labeled tubes scattered around the rover's base. Lilly grabbed a handful and sat down hard to examine them. The tubes were labeled SILICON, NITROGEN, and MANGANESE. She recognized the words as elements from the periodic table, turning them over in her hand.

  "I thought we left this shit behind in 8th grade," Max said, chucking an empty vial into the giant chasm of the dig site.

  "Why would they be labeled ahead of time if they're filling them with dirt?"

  "Maybe they were pre-filled and then emptied into the hole," Max said.

  "If they're dumping stuff into the ground, it wouldn't be a hole, dumb ass."

  Max stared at Lilly like he wanted to say something, but didn't.

  "Do you ever just want to dick punch General Stone?" she said, disgusted. "He knows everything and still brought us here to die."

  "We're not going to die," Max said.

  "We're 100 percent going to get cancer when we leave here and possibly die. Why do you try so hard to pretend everything is ok?"

  "Because you don't get cancer from being here. That's a separate mission, remember?"

  "Keep telling yourself that. Do you honestly think General Stone and Commander Mitchell are both cancer survivors and Martian explorers? Come on, Max. A five-year-old would question that."

  "Ms. Lawrence said there are two separate missions. Why do you need things to be worse than they are?"

  "Because they're lying to us, Max. The whole mission is a lie. We're literally human guinea pigs up here. No one is surprised we have superpowers because they knew we'd develop them. This is their 6th mission. The only people not in the know are us. These are Red Rockers you're putting your faith in. What do you think the average person back on Earth would think about what's happening here?"

  "I don't know, and it's impossible to know because our communication is censored," said Max.

  "Exactly. This is a gigantic shit show, and now they're digging for something, and I believe we have a right to know what the something is."

  Max bit his lip and nodded slowly, then walked to the edge of the dig site and jumped in.