Pokémon Mars

Chapter 23: Disappointment

On every sol spent in Ironville, usually multiple times, Eden was one of the 16,733 engineers alerted to a puncture in the bubble. He was already sick of it. The beeping was grating. When passersby heard it, they asked what it was. He said the same thing every time: 'nothing to worry about!' Once they compared his voice to his face, they realised he was Zhenya Yi's son and asked for his autograph. He was playing chess with Jin, at one of the tables in the park with the lake, when his radio beeped for the third time that day.

'Oh, fuck off.'

'Whatever... I'm only gonna lose again, anyway...'

'I'm not going. Someone else can do it.'

'Uh... you sure?'

'Even if 10,000 engineers have somehow died, 200 are Courtney's minions and a hundred more are crying in the cemetery, there are still 432 left who aren't me. Let them deal with it.'

'Heh! I'll get you while you're distracted!'

Jin did only lose again. Back on the ship, he proclaimed that no-one could beat him at chess, but he was yet to beat Eden; even when he kept glancing at the map to check that someone did take the request. They did. He deleted the notification.

At least their Pokémon kept some people away. They supervised the ones they brought from the lab to enjoy the park. The afternoon was pleasant, with refreshing rain provided by a Politoed with the Drizzle Ability, but Eden couldn't shake the feeling that this was all underwhelming. He didn't expect to see a huge change in his lifetime. Even if they kicked off the terraforming process, he knew it would be hundreds of years until Mars looked anything like Earth. Being part of it was good enough for him, but... when his mother, a fellow aerospace engineer, asked what he did today, she would only get the same answer she always got: 'I repaired the bubble.'

Like most of his friends, he didn't want to share his concerns about the morality of the Ares program with his parents. He didn't want to worry them, but he was worried, not only about himself but whether he was enabling a questionable regime by being there. He worried about the Pokémon out in the wilderness. He was no expert on habitats or biology, but he wondered if some weirdo would kill the Pokémon if the hostile planet didn't. He wished his recurring nightmares, in which Ironville went down in flames, would stop. They only fueled his nerves. Then he wondered what would become of the Pokémon if his nightmares came true.

'Checkmate.'

'OK, OK... you got me. I give up.'

Jin swept his astronaut-themed pieces back in to the drawer under the table. They walked the Pokémon back to the lab. Nyx's Zoroark let Jin's Decidueye borrow its skateboard. All the young Pokémon wanted to try it, but it was impossible to pry it from Decidueye's claws.

'Maybe we should try skating. Nyx is always on about it.'

'No thanks. I'll just end up in hospital. But we should definitely get more for the Pokémon.'

They passed Altair and a colleague raiding Courtney's studio. Their Pokémon prepared sterile bags for her remaining possessions.

'You. Oak.'

Jin wanted to roll his eyes. Couldn't Altair even remember his first name?

'One of your friends is a photographer, isn't he? I assume he has a proper camera?'

'Yeah...? And?'

'Could he help us? Our office was broken in to last night...'

'Oh... and your cameras went?'

Altair's attitude annoyed Jin so much that he couldn't resist being rude in response.

'You lot are paid a fortune to come up here, aren't you? Can't you afford a new camera? I've got a DSLR.'