Peyton parked the rover as close to the hub as she could without leaving the cover of shadows. They couldn’t afford to sit there much longer, but it was dangerous to part ways without agreeing on how to handle tonight.

  “Tell me more about this Orb, Max," Peyton said. "I'm having a hard time imagining a ball of fire the size of a water tower."

  “I've told you twenty times. It was the size of a swimming pool, but fire.”

  “A swimming pool is way smaller than a water tower,” Lilly said.

  “Whatever. I've seen like two water towers in my entire life,” Max said.

  “Was it taller than your house?” Peyton asked, this time turning to face him.

  Max and Lilly were seated side by side in the back of the rover. Neither had wanted to ride back with Peyton, but she'd insisted, promising to take the blame if they got caught. Max was staring out the window.

  “The thing was about the height of my house, but not as wide. It's a huge oval. I walked around it.”

  “Was there anything inside it?” Peyton asked.

  “No. Just light. Moving waves of light. It synced with my heartbeat.”

  “That’s dumb,” Lilly said, looking at Max.

  “Do you ever consider that no one cares what you think?” Max replied.

  Peyton twisted back to face the windshield. She tried to imagine a fire Orb and align it with anything man-made. Why would Red Rock dig a hole and place a light source inside? Was the Orb a source of natural gas? Mars probably had geothermal energy. Or did Max hit his head in the fall and think he saw these things?

  “It's alive,” Max said.

  “That’s it, I’m out,” Lilly announced, opening the door to exit.

  “Lilly, wait. We’re not ready,” Peyton said. "Close the door."

  “Why do you think it's alive, Max?”

  "Never mind, I'm done," he said.

  "Max, please, I can't help if I don't fully understand what you're telling me. I want to help," Peyton said.

  “Well, I touched it, and it didn’t burn me, but it didn't let my hand pass through either. There was resistance. It wrapped around me and held on.

  Lilly slumped against the door of the rover, crossing her arms against her chest.

  “And it showed you a movie of us landing?” Peyton asked.

  “Yeah, it was a video of us the day we landed, waiting for the medic rover to come pick up Camden.”

  “Maybe it’s a camera Nigel designed to look like fire,” Lilly snapped.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Peyton winced every time Lilly said the Nigels' name. She doubted the Orb was anything as simple as a camera. And it was underground. It was hard enough to transmit data from the surface of Mars.

  “Alright, I have no idea what you saw or why it’s there,” Peyton said. “But it does no good to tell anyone until there's something to tell. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Yes, General Stone Junior. You’re telling us to lie about everything until it’s time to go home.”

  Lilly’s sharp words caught Peyton off guard. Was she acting like Stone? The idea was repulsive.

  “If we tell people what Max saw, not only will it cause panic, but you’ll have to admit you were out after curfew, and that comes with consequences. They'll seriously limit your freedom the rest of the time we're here.”

  “Fine,” Lilly said, exiting the rover and slamming the door hard.

  Max stayed put. Peyton watched him in the rearview mirror, glad for the time alone.

  “It was alive, whatever it was. I don't care if anyone believes me. That kind of fire doesn't exist on Earth. Why is this planet haunted?”

  Peyton paused, mulling over the word haunted. He wasn't wrong.

  “I believe you saw something unexplainable, possibly supernatural. The voice in my head has been quiet for months, but I hear a low buzzing anytime I'm around Stone. I think he's blocking me from reading his mind. I bet he knows about this. He knows everything about this God forsaken place. ”

  “Why doesn't he save us? He knows it's wrong to be here.”

  "Life doesn't always make sense, Max. It's certainly unfair. When given a choice, even good people make wrong decisions sometimes."

  "Like Nigel creating Red Rock?"

  “Yeah, like that,” Peyton responded coolly. “We should get inside before someone realizes you’re gone.”

  “We’re going home, right?. I'll see my family again?"

  “There's no reason for them to keep us here. We're going home. But you guys have to stay in after curfew. No sneaking out.”

  Max nodded and stepped out of the rover. Peyton knew she'd lose it if she sat much longer. She began towards the hub, its clunky dome framed in the moonlight. Whatever the Orb was, it wasn’t a priority tonight. She glanced up at Deomis, the smaller of Mar’s two moons. Why didn't Earth have more than one moon? There was nothing special about this place. The universe had chosen Earth as the most suitable place for intelligent life? But how intelligent were we? How many missions ago had they discovered a flaming ball of light, and what did it mean?

  A living Orb? The idea was delusional. But Peyton had sensed that Mars itself was alive. It had communicated with her hundreds of times during the journey here. Was the Orb a portal into a living Mars?

  "What is the Orb?" she asked the voice in her head, afraid of the chaos her question might elicit.

  But no one responded. There was nothing to hear but the whistle of wind across loose sand repositioning in the dark.

  She’d go to the dig site and see for herself. In truth, it was only a matter of time before Lilly and Max decided to do the same. Maybe if she promised to return with them, they would wait. Max wasn't the first human to find the Orb. The digsite was nothing more than a diversion. Prior mission files might reveal something. As many hours as she'd spent poring over them during the trip from Earth to Mars, Peyton had focused solely on the specifics of landing and the transition to life on a new planet. The files were loaded on her laptop. Peyton began walking faster toward the hub.

  Once inside, the hub was quiet and dark. More than likely, everyone was in their respective pods at this point in the evening. The other adults lived in separate housing away from her and the kids, a small walkway connecting both pods to the hub. She glanced over at pod A as she exited the hub. Several windows revealed the blue light of a computer screen. Peyton wondered what General Stone was up to. Was he out looking for her because he could read her mind? She punched in the code to pod A. No one noticed her come in and remove her space suit and boots. Peyton scanned the rec room, counting eleven heads, and then turned down the tunnel toward her bedroom. Obviously, Max and Lilly had figured out a way to explain their absence. Peyton closed her door and sat down, exhausted, reflecting on the past few hours. Her laptop would help make sense of it. Reaching across the bed, she felt for and found her computer lying securely between the bedside dresser and her mattress. Opening the screen filled her bedroom with blue light as well. Her eyes searched the desktop for a folder named prior missions. It was gone.