I am a liar.

While still holding my forearms firmly, the stranger bizarrely hugged me. And shoved their head bubble onto mine. At first I was scared and weirded out, until I hazily heard their voice, or rather her voice.

‘Who are you, and what do you want?’ said the woman, with a stern voice. It immediately clicked that the strange ritual, mainly hugging, was only to directly connect our suits by touching with a great area, to be able to talk. Albeit even with forcibly pushing into each other, I still could barely hear her, and she was kind of shouting. She probably was holding my arms with plenty of strength, so I wouldn’t be able to use any hidden weapon, as the moment I tried, she would feel it, alert her teammate, and have time to react.

‘I have lost my memory, so I don’t know who I am. But I want help.’ I shouted as calmly as I could.

‘What the hell do you want from us?’

‘Please, show me the way to any settlement, it would be even better if I could go there with you. I know so little because I lost my memory, that you were the first people I met in a week of trying. And I probably did something wrong with the suit, and was risking my life.’

‘You got any other weapons?’ that question was what I feared the most. If I lied I would need to do it fast. No time to weigh the consequences.

‘Besides the crow’s beak, no. But I had left some javelins at the dome I woke up in.’ at the very least, as our suits were puffed up due to the atmosphere, our skin was not nearly in contact, so she couldn’t conceivably notice that I trembled, nor that my heart raced. She thought for a moment, then pushed into me again to be sure that I would hear her.

‘Do you not know any sign language?’

‘Sadly, no. But I do feel like I did.’

‘Then… Follow us. We’ll talk more when we arrive at our destination. But I will take your weapon for the time being.’ with that she slowly made some distance between us, before letting my arms go. I let out a breath of relief. I started turning around and saw that the spear of her companion was almost touching my suit. Now I needed to know, how easily would it pop. But that was a question for when we arrived to a settlement. I was fine with her taking my polearm, mostly because I still had my gun. For several minutes she talked with the weapon-bearing stranger in sign language, until, finally, she signalled me to follow her, and I guessed that the other one would walk behind me. I was indeed correct. Understandably so, as that was the safest way of going about it for them.

Even though the main reason for my anxiety was temporarily removed, and that was absolute loneliness, I still was afraid of the fact that my air supply would run out before we arrived. Or I could overheat, or get extremely thirsty or… I took a deep breath, and tried to break the anxious thoughts cycle. For now, there was nothing more important than just slowly, carefully following them.

This was the first time in my travels, that my mind felt at ease enough, to just appreciate the view. As hostile this environment was to us, delicate humans, it still had a divine air to it. A feeling of agelessness, and stability. The focus shift worked well to distract me from worrying too much about what I would have to say, or do when we finally talked without the suits. But as time went on I did remember that I lied. That alone could be my undoing. Of course, I do know that gunpowder is a rarity here, so they could have a taboo on it, or just be greatly afraid of it. Or even see it as treasure, that they could get by killing me. The longer I kept this lie up, the worse would the eventual outcome be. Or so I concluded. For now, I had no reason, whatsoever, to harm my relations with them. Quite the contrary, agreeing to take me with them, was quite nice of them. Although I could barely even see the woman’s face, when the sack-helmets were squished against each other. So I had no chance to read any non-verbal cues. They could have done this out of exclusively mercantile and maybe even sinister reasons. After all, slavery could be a thing in this world. I still had that to find out. And that slowly ate away at me for some of the later hours of our travel.

***

After passing on the rim of a big crater, we turned and started going down into it. Almost without delay I noticed a few domes. After counting them, this settlement was probably at least a couple dozen times bigger than the dome that I woke up in. As we approached the doors of the dome complex, the woman in front of me raised the blunt side of my polearm, and hit the side of the dome in a certain rhythm. Then, after a small delay, she initiated the depressurization process from the outside, and we had to wait for a bit. I did the same thing when I entered my dome after my first trip, after all, wasting air would be an extremely destructive habit. A while later, the doors unlocked themselves, and she opened them. We went in.

In my head, I was reciting what I would say, and how I would address the fat lie I gave them. I was scared again. If things went wrong I would have to kill them to survive, and maybe others, after all, surely there was someone living here. During the entire trip here, I was careful with how I moved and what not, so that the bag wouldn’t come off the holster, and the person walking behind me, wouldn’t see the revolver. The woman initiated the pressurization. This was quicker, but also uncomfortable for the ears.

I was eager to explain myself, but wasn’t sure whether they would want to talk in here, so I waited for them to go first, as with everything else, after I met them. We didn’t take off our sack-helmets until we left the exit chamber and stood inside the dome. Three people greeted us. An old man, a young man, and a child. The child was just looking curiously from a distance. Their legs and arms looked very thin. Was this normal or not, I didn’t know. But the very fact that it stood out to me had to say something. Right? The presence of other people, however, so early into our arrival, while a likely thing to happen, foiled the best-case scenario for me to bring up the topic of weapons again.

As we all removed the sacks from our heads, and finally could breathe air with much less odour, at least that’s how it was for me. I placed mine on the revolver holster, this way I could hide it better. The stranger that accompanied the woman turned out to be a man. The elder spoke. And… I didn’t understand a thing. It sounded familiar. It was probably a language that I had heard in the past, but had no chance of recognizing now. The woman answered in the same language and I was left standing excluded. But I waited for an appropriate moment to bring up that I couldn’t understand them. Finally, the elder turned to me and coldly said something to me. To which I replied:

‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand a word.’ that wasn’t met with much surprise. I assumed they were testing me, whether I was of their own, or maybe among exiles. If there were any.

‘Do you really not remember anything? That is a hard tale to believe.’ said the elder. I felt a shiver run through my body.

‘Yes, I do not. I woke up in a small settlement to the-’ at this point, I realized that I had completely forgotten to keep track of the landmarks and direction during our travel here, and that completely stopped me in my tracks.

‘To the what?’

‘I’m terribly sorry, I forgot to remember the way here from where I found you two. But I did that by following a footprint trail I saw as I was on my way to Ugden Dome Complex, which I had found on a map.’ all people present looked at each other.

‘Ugden Dome Complex is somewhat close to the path to Nurin settlement.’ said the young man beside the elder. And remembering the name I understood where that footprint trail led. It was many hours further, to a different settlement, which was dangerously far from mine. Then the elder spoke in that other language to that man, and so I realized that he had intentionally spoken so that I could understand. When the elder finished, I took a small opening to say something:

‘If you give me a map, I can approximately point where the small dome that I woke up in is located.’ they talked a bit more. The young man went off to somewhere.

‘That would be best, and so, we will do that right now.’ said the elder and then added ‘In the meantime, while Gareth is bringing the map, why don’t you tell us what you did after you woke up.’

I concluded that it was too early to be truthful, even if I had no reason to dislike these people, I didn’t feel ready to put as much trust into them, as to tell them that woke up among corpses, which were definitely done in by me. Also, I was surrounded, so would they react aggressively, I wouldn’t survive. Or, at best, I would be imprisoned. But whether anyone bothers imprisoning anyone with such scarcity of resources is too difficult to guess. So I lied again. I told everything as it was, but avoided anything about the corpses, and unnecessary detail, such as what I found on the computer. I insinuated that I deduced that I got amnesia because I fell really hard. I also stated that from the computer user name I concluded that my name was Indra. As stupid as that entire story was, I couldn’t think of anything better fast enough. As one might expect, it didn’t look as though they believed me. I might had just sowed mistrust between us. But that was the best option. Soon Gareth came with the map. It didn’t take me long to recognize everything on it. I pointed to the place where my dome was located. Of course, because of the difference of scale of the maps, I could be slightly off, but that didn’t matter, as either way they would have to believe me, because unlike on the one I found on the computer back there, there was no settlement mark there. Also I finally knew at what settlement we were. Compor.

‘This map is relatively old, it is dated 2043, so the newer settlements would be missing from it. But what I find strange about your story, is that why would there be a single dome so far away from anything else? It doesn’t make any sense.’ said Gareth.

‘I looked around inside, but apart from various study files on the computer, I’m sorry, but I didn’t find anything that would explain such weird placement. The map there does seem to be newer, as there are several more settlement marks on it.’ Gareth let out a disappointed breath and turned to the woman. He asked her something, and she answered, but all in their language. I was able to make out what was her name from it. Hiro. Then all four spoke between themselves for a while, until the elder faced me.

‘We have decided to trust you for now. But to deepen that trust, tomorrow evening, you will have to bring those two you came with, to the dome where you woke up. As for today, go eat, drink, take a shower, and get some sleep. After a long journey, surely you need to do all of that.’ that was the best conclusion that I could have hoped for. But it all could shatter in a moment if someone noticed that I had a holster on my belt. I did conceal it best as I could, but that they had not made a closer inspection, didn’t mean they wouldn’t do it now. Although, if I were to leave my things anywhere, they could go through them. Gareth spoke:

‘Take off your suits here, then we’ll show you around.’

The elder left, and took the child with him. Gareth went around doing something, oblivious, that this was the most fateful moment. I had to take my belt off, without anyone noticing, before I would be crawling out of the suit. As Hiro and the man, were preoccupied with dragging their suits down, I quickly hid the entire belt into the sack-helmet I had already taken off. Now I would have to pray they wouldn’t be as careful as to inspect the suit that I came in. I took the bag with scraps with me, praying, that it would distract them from the actual contraband I brought.

Maybe they thought I was so nervous because I had social anxiety or something, but despite my fears, they were quite friendly. At least for now. Gareth showed me all the necessary facilities, and lent me a room. The air was somewhat stale, but I would have to make do. As we went around I caught the name of the man that I came with to this settlement, it was Kevin. His entire left leg was mechanical. Why so many of us have lost limbs? Hiro, however, didn’t seem to have any prostheses. At least visible ones. I also saw several more people here, which was so weird, after the week of complete solitude. The day went smooth. We arrived a few hours before noon, so it was getting warm outside, but the remainder of this day, and most of the next one I was given to rest up.

Their food was better. The vegetables were much more diverse than those that I ate after I woke up. What surprised me though, was that in the bag that I brought, until now I didn’t see an inner pocket, which had a thick piece of jerky. So there had to be some animals on Mars, but this place didn’t serve any meat. So either they had none, or it was a luxury. I tried some. The taste of salt was stronger than that of the meat. They probably used the limited amount of salt that was left from the last Earth’s supplying half a century ago. Or maybe the jerky itself came from Earth, then it would truly be a luxury. I didn’t eat much of it, because extravagant or not, my palette couldn’t handle that much salt. I got to take a shower and use other hygiene facilities. And I finally could fall asleep. It didn’t take long for me to.

***

I got woken up by loud knocking on my door. I got up and opened it. It was Hiro.

‘Kevin, the guy who we got here with, and I wanted to speak with you more. It would make it easier to trust you, and trust is important in trips between settlements, after all, communicating is difficult. If someone gets side-tracked, even if they know sign language, but don’t look your way, you’ll have no chance of reaching them. Also we want to teach you the simplest and most useful signs for the trip. Sounds good?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Then go to the cafeteria when you’re ready, and please don’t make us wait. Oh, and also, my name is Hiro.’ she said right before closing the door. I didn’t call her by name yet, so she didn’t realized I picked up on it from their conversation with the elder.

I was more or less ready to go, but since she insisted on me getting ready, I made the bed and tried to comb my hair a bit with my hands. Although I did hurry, as she asked to not take a while. God, I still was nervous. Maybe I did, in fact, have social anxiety. I sat down for a second, and then went out to the cafeteria. When I entered the room, they didn’t look too annoyed, so I assumed I was fast enough.

‘Greetings, Indra.’ said Kevin.

‘Hello Kevin, Hiro. What do you want to talk about?’ I was afraid that I would seem suspicious.

‘Relax, this is no interrogation, at least yet.’ said Hiro, and smirked.

‘We are just interested in how you understood where you were when you woke up, and why you travelled out solo. That’s about it. Also we can tell you a bit about ourselves, but that’s after we teach you some signs.’

The atmosphere of this conversation felt friendly, though that was mostly driven by Hiro, as Kevin had a stone cold face, and hasn’t said a word after greeting me. I told them how I figured out how everything worked, and how I recalled some crucial information about Mars from time to time. How easy it felt for me on my first trip, which ended in me reaching settlement Pollo, which was abandoned. Kevin finally spoke:

‘Pollo has been taken out decades ago. The whole point of that place were the terraformation engines. Or so they were called. It is said that they raised the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere of Mars. It was a project that would have some sense if there were hundreds more, but as things stood, that thing just ate up a lot of energy, with was generated with many solar panels. Which in the end were the objective of the raiders who attacked the settlement.’

‘Are there any big factions, or just humanity is now divided into small settlements, some of which go rogue from time to time?’

‘At that point there weren’t any big ones, if my memory serves me right, but in the end, the ones who raided the place later became some of the founders of the Crimson Vanguard, who now hunt for careless travellers. They’re a big assortment of bastards.’

‘And how big exactly?’

‘Sadly, probably the biggest faction there is now. Unless there are any far beyond our reach. They number in thousands.’ I was greatly surprised there could be such a huge union of bandits. Hiro decided to add something:

‘The point you showed on the map, your dome, is really close to their territory. Of course there are no borders on Mars, but the closer a place is to their settlements, the more likely you are to stumble upon their hunters.’ as she said that, one thing resonated in my mind – no borders, but you could consider a point belonging to a faction if one of that faction’s settlements was the closest settlement to the point. Voronuy diagram. Why did I have such ridiculously specific knowledge? Did my parents have nothing better to do, but teach me weird math concepts? Who the hell was I? Why would the Crimson Vanguard know me personally? Was I one of them?

‘You good?’ said Hiro.

‘Oh sorry, its just… I started questioning who I was. What I forgot to mention was when I told about how I rummaged the computer there, was how easy and right it felt. For a moment I thought I could be a hacker.’ Kevin frowned and looked at Hiro as I said that. Then he said:

‘There are hackers in this world. But there are very few. And they almost entirely aren’t good guys. For example, Pollo was defeated without any fighting. The Crimson Vanguard had a hacker all the way back then. They just forced the ventilation system to malfunction so bad, that it released the air outside, and everyone who was inside died from their blood boiling, and asphyxiation.’

‘I hope you weren’t a hacker. And that the last generation just taught you well.’

After Hiro said that, the conversation went quiet. Awkwardly quiet. I regretted that I told them the truth that got them so uncomfortable with me.