From Earth

The Meeting

We take the familiar route down the twisting alleyways to get to the guys' apartment. We walk mainly in silence trying not to attract attention to ourselves.

I knock on the door and it opens half a second later by Nicola. Everybody's there already looking eager to meet my mom. My mom surveys the room and my friends. I think she will like them all. They all put across a good first impression and are really basically the best things that Earth had to offer at the moment.

"Hello everyone, I'm Catherine." my mom says conversationally with a welcoming smile on her face.

"Uh... mom, this is Nicola, Caitlin, Gale, Tristan and Andrew."

"Is great to meet the people my daughter was fighting alongside to achieve equality." my mom says jokily.

Everyone looks kind of astonished that I have already told my mom about the Fighters.

"To bad we never got to do anything." huffs Andrew.

"I think that it is still a pretty good achievement that six eighteen year olds were able to see through propaganda and corruption." says mom.
"Mum, I was wondering if you wanted to come in a capsule with the six of us?" I ask.

"I really would love to but the Explorers need to go in the first capsule in a couple of days to welcome the new comers." she says sadly.

"Oh, alright. Who are we going to bring in our capsule then, guys?" I ask.

"Can my sister come with us? She really wants to spend more time with me instead of at the orphanage." asks Tristan. All of the other Fighter's patents have died because of global warming or skin cancer. All orphans have to live at an orphanage until their eighteenth birthday but Tristan can't afford the fees to be the guardian of his fourteen year old sister.

"We should book a capsule, then." suggests Nicola.

"I'll go out and book one now then, it's only four o'clock." says Andrew.
We all mutter varying responses of agreement.

We are really all going to Mars.