Previuosly 'Alex' and 'Gangster'.
Chapter 1
“Rebecca! Dad's waiting, Let's go!” said Mom, trying to juggle all of her bags at once. I glanced at her but then my eye caught someone else in the background. I put on a quick smile as I saw a boy looking over at me, twirling my hair on my finger. He turned and elbowed his friend in the stomach, nodding over to me. Their eyes glanced at something beside me, and then landed on me again, and they laughed. My smile fell.
“I'm coming!” I said, still keeping an eye on the boys.
“Oops! Sorry about that!” my mom said, backing into me. Her auburn hair was falling out of its bun and onto her wrinkled purple dress, showing the amount of stress and worry she'd suffered. I glanced back to the two boys, who were still staring at my mother, and groaned. Putting my hand up to cover my face, I grabbed one of my moms bags.
We were in the Mars Spaceport, where we had just gotten off the spaceship that brought us here. I ran to the other side of the spaceport with my bag as my dad put moms' bags into the luggage chute. My dad came here for a business trip because he worked with a very important company dealer. After he got enough money, he brought my mom, my two brothers and me here for a little family support. We've never been on Mars before, and my dad said that it would be a cool experience for us. Yeah, right.
I sighed. "This is going to be the stupidest trip ever! None of my friends are here," I complained. I rolled my arm around in circles, relieving it from the heavy weight of the bag. "Dad, didn't you say this was going to be a business trip?"
"Yes I did, sweetie," he said, taking a hold of my bag. "I thought that it would be fun if it could be kind of a family vacation, too."
"Yippee," I said, in a monotone voice. “So, where's the car?” I asked as dad put my bag in the chute.
“What car? There are no cars here on Mars,” Dad said. “The only transportation here are the underground subways and the trams.” He wore a blue business suit and stood erect, like he was the most important person here.
"Fun. Isn't that where creepy old men spend the night?”
“Yeah,” said Joe, the oldest of my other brother and I, “Creepy old men that like to kill people and do drugs and stuff.”
“Are you serious?” asked Billy, looking up at Joe with trusting eyes.
Joe laughed. “Yeah, Billy, just like that giant scorpion in the microwave.” Billy’s eyes widened in terror.
I leaned over to whisper in Joe's ear. “Joe! Stop teasing Billy – you know he believes anything you say. You aren't serious--are you, Joe?” I said through gritted teeth. I elbowed him hard in the side.
"Hey, quit treating me like a baby! I'm not two, ya know!" yelled Billy.
Joe rubbed the spot where I elbowed him. “I'm just kidding, Billy.” He ruffled Billys' golden brown hair while Billy tried to grab Joe's.
“Joe! Becca! Knock it off! We have to catch the subway to our hotel!” yelled Mom, who was at the entrance to the Spaceport. Joe and Billy ran to catch up while I lagged behind to fix my hair. “Stay close, Billy,” she said after we walked outside into the crowd. Outside it smelled like a tinge of metal along with oxygen. The air seemed kind of moist, like what happens right after it rains. There was a little road for trams to come through, kind of like what they had at regular airports. I looked down at the ground, puzzled.
"Hey dad!" I called over the noise of the people. I could see him talking to some other men in business suits. When I called for him, he shook their hands and they went their seperate ways.
"What is this?" I asked. "It doesn't look like cement." I bent down and touched the red, hard rock. I tried to find a pebble to pick out, but it was completely smooth. The entire ground was covered with it.
"No one knows what it is," he said, coming over to stand by me. "The people who built this city tried using cement, but it wouldn't harden. Then they found this stuff in a crater, added water, and used it to replace cement. Come on, we have to get on the subway." He walked back towards my mom, with me right behind him. I looked around and saw that everyone wore the exact same clothing as they would on Earth.
Once I was out from underneath the cover of the spaceport, I looked up. The sky was pitch black except for the faint twinkling of millions of stars. While I was still looking in the sky, I looked to the left and saw a large planet looming over us. It was tan that had brown, swirly rings around it.
"Hey, Dad, which planet is that?" I asked him, looking all around me.
"Jupiter. In another part of town, you can also see the Earth behind the Moon too, but just barely."
"Wow. This place isn't that bad after all." I said, shocked at myself. I thought I was going to hate it, but the view was just too incredible. Then another question hit me as we waited at a cross-walk for the light to turn green. "Hey, how can we see if there isn't a Sun?"
"Well, the stars help out a lot, for one. And we do get some sunlight, but other than that, I'm not quite sure," said dad.
I nodded and noticed that there were some buildings that almost looked like the ones on Earth that were made of brick, but there was also some that were made completely of metal. I also noticed that besides the sky, the ground, and some of the buildings, it mostly looked like Earth. After we crossed the street, I saw a big sign that said 'Subway', and we all squeezed in down a flight of steps to a subway booth. I plugged my nose against the disgustingly strong smell of sweat and urine.
“Stay in my sight, Billy," Mom said. "Or so help me, you will stay in the hotel room this whole trip.”
“Hey!” whined Billy, “What about Joe?”
“Joe's a big boy.” I explained, unplugging my nose as the smell became a tad better. “He can take care of himself.”
After Dad talked to the man behind the booth, he paid for the subway tickets, gave us each one and smiled. “Okay, let's go.”
There were a number of turnstiles lined up by the booth, and we took turns putting our tickets into the slots so they would let us pass. Once we found our subway train, we waited for it to arrive, along with some of the crowd. I had picked up a brochure of the city on the way, so I sat on a bench and started to look through it.
“It says that there's an Uptown and a Downtown of Zyon. So what, it's like a fancy part of town and a shitty part of town or something?” I asked myself.
“Excuse me? Watch your language, young lady,” said Mom. I was surprised that she could even hear me through all of the noise between the different subways coming through and giant crowds of people. "It's bad enough that this planet could blow up any minute, but if you start running that foul little mouth of yours..."
"Sorry," I said.
“Ooh, you got told,” sang Joe.
“Oh, shut up.”
“Yes, that's exactly what it is, Rebecca.” said Dad, answering my question a little too late. He stood with his hands in his pockets, looking for the subway.
“Get ready. I hear it coming. Billy, hold my hand,” said Mom. Billy did as he was told. I stood right behind the yellow warning line and looked down the tunnel.
“Gotcha!” yelled Joe, and he quickly grabbed me and yanked me back.
“Joe!” I screamed. “Don't do that!”
Mom gave Billy to dad and stalked over to us. She grabbed us by the arms, holding on tight, glaring at each of us in turn. “Rebecca Elizabeth! Joseph Johnson! Knock that off!" she hissed through gritted teeth, loud enough for us to hear. She was practically blowing our eardrums out. "I swear, Joseph, you don't even act your age, and Rebecca; you are one step away from staying in your room the entire time we are here, young lady! There are people around, and you’d better start acting like you're out in public! Do you understand?” Mom scolded. Joe and I nodded our heads stiffly. I wasn't surprised that Joe was scared of her sometimes, too; she can get really mean, in the bossy-mom kind of way. She then left to go stand back by dad.
Just then, the subway came flying by and my brunette hair flew right in my face. I moved it out of the way, waiting for the train to slow down. When the door opened, I walked inside. The rest of the family followed.
Even though the subway smelled considerably better, it was crowded, so Billy and I were the only ones who were able to sit down. Mom, Dad, and Joe all had to stand up and hang on to the rings on the ceiling. Billy was on my left, and out of the corner of my eye I could see a man on my right. Well, not exactly a man, he looked about my age, seventeen. I could just barely see a hood over his face and a black bandanna with white designs around his forehead.
“We're the fourth stop,” said Dad.
I looked out the window at the wall and the subway lights. At every stop, I saw all of the people waiting for their train.
“This is it,” Dad declared.
As soon as the train slowed down, we all got up and waited for the doors to open. I looked back at the guy who sat next to me and he glared back. I smiled, but he just scowled and looked away, getting up to wait by the doors.
"Jeez, for someone who's so cute, he isn't very friendly," I muttered.
As soon as we got out of the station, we entered some more of the city. I looked up to see clothes-lines hanging in between buildings. I looked around and noticed that it looked just like Earth, except for that there weren't any blue skies or clouds, but it was quite bright from all of the street lights and stars. Ahead of me, I saw a Tram Stop where Mom, Dad, Joe and Billy were waiting. As I came over to them, the tramcar came to a stop next to us. Dad got on the train, and we all followed suit.
As soon as we all sat down, I asked, “Dad, do you have a camera?”
“Sorry, sweetie, it's at the hotel. You can take pictures when we get there.”
"Okay." As I looked around, I noticed that it resembled the picture of downtown from the brochure. I relaxed on the seat I was sitting on, and suddenly felt tired. I guess the trip here took a lot out of me. My eyes drooped a little more and a little more, until I finally fell asleep.
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