CH. 40 «The Road Trip – Day 1» | Is There Life on Mars?

CH. 40 «The Road Trip – Day 1»

06-05-2309

The first day started early. 8 am is never been an acceptable hour to wake me up–unless it’s Eridian time. 7:45 is even less appropriate. The knock came at 7.

“Wakey, wakey, sir. Our journey begins,” Brick said excitedly, sticking his head into the room where I slept.

“Alright, alright,” I muttered, rolling over. I yawned and sat up as I tried to remember what chords I was playing in my dream, though it was futile. I gave up trying when I realized they probably wouldn’t sound as good in real life anyway; if those notes even existed. I stretched and began to move my blood around, finding I was better rested than I expected to be, I surely thought my anticipation would cut into my sleep. I felt fortunate for the weeks of preparation that went into this day. My bags were ready, the crawler was packed, the drugs were waiting. All that was left was for us to pile in and take off.

We weren’t taking the Fondgrid company vehicle, couldn’t get the clearance. Instead wed just be taking Brick’s crawler, which he would then drive back to school to have there, and then bring back home when he graduated next summer. We could take the same route we planned from Mars to Luna: drive a few hours to get to the UA Ferry, which departs just north of Valles Marineris–the middle of the gorking desert–and land on what Earthlings commonly refer to as the far side of the moon.

Then tomorrow, after a 12 hour haul that will be hard to sleep through while still sitting in the crawler, we’ll drive east! Through the mountains and valleys and more gorking mountains, until it starts to flatten out, much like a wave function, into the smooth flat plains on the near side of the moon. Then we could take a more direct route to the southern hemisphere of Earth, since we wouldn’t be restricted to a ferry large enough to carry a broadside. We could use the Old Gammatheon ferry, which follows as close to ancient Rte. 66 as you can get these days. It would make our overall trip less lengthy and a lot more historic all at once.

“Hey, looks like we get to go through Dominia on this route,” I realized, inspecting the new course. “The complete other side of the territory from where I was born, but that’s cosmo none the less.”

“Bring it back to today’s map,” he requested, looking over at the PDA in my hand while we were stopped at a signal. “I just want to see which freeway it says to take out of here.”

“Looks like…the 60 to Berdu, and the 15 on,” I responded, finding the information quickly, “we’re heading the right way.”

“Excellent, excellent. When do we want to start?” Brick asked, motioning to the closed ashtray resting between us.
“Let’s get out of this sprawl first, I’ll feel much safer about it if we just reach the desert first. And we’ve only got one pre-roll for today, anyway.”

“You’ve got a point, how long do we have?”

“As your navigator, I advise you to drive at top speed…”

“Don’t you start with that yet,” he shot me a preemptive glare.

I giggled to myself as soon as he turned back to the road, merging onto the freeway. I could see it stretch out impossibly far before me, disappearing into the far mountains. I had no idea what lay on the other side, but couldn’t wait to find out.