Dead on Mars

No one knew if they could arrive at the coordinates within eight hours. Under normal circumstances, the working hours of the Wanderer didn’t exceed two hours daily. Tomcat had an optimistic attitude towards this. After two hours on the Wanderer, it believed that the remaining six hours were enough for them to reach their destination.

Tang Yue monitored the time and power, but the Radiant Armor wasn’t the only thing that consumed power. Tomcat consumed power as well. To them, the amount of charge left in the batteries was like a health bar in games. Reducing it to zero meant “Game Over.”

If this were a game, it was undoubtedly “hell” mode.

“Our present speed is 27 km/h. On average, we cover seven meters a second. Every beat of your heart means an of advancement of six meters.” Tomcat’s voice sounded over the earpiece. Even though it was sitting beside him, Tang Yue couldn’t see its face. The massive amounts of dust in the air had screened out all light.

“Then will increasing my heart rate make the vehicle run faster?”

“Clearly not. Although the heart is a powerful driving force, it’s, unfortunately, unable to drive the Wanderer’s engine.” Tomcat’s eyes glowed in the dark. “Six kilometers! We have just passed the last millimeter of the six-kilometer mark! We are only twenty-four kilometers from our target!”

Tang Yue was gripping the vehicle’s frame tightly as the digital watch on his wrist was counting away the seconds. There was a low-frequency ventilation noise inside his helmet.

He was counting silently. The Mars Wanderer covered seven meters every second. Tomcat’s driving style was brutal, clearly squeezing every bit of performance out of the Wanderer. It slammed straight into a sandpit with them aboard before charging out of it at extremely high speeds. The flying sand and gravel smacked Tang Yue’s visor noisily.

“Seven kilometers!”

“Seven kilometers.” Tomcat’s voice followed almost immediately. “There’s another twenty-three kilometers left.”

“Power?”

“There’s plenty of power left,” Tomcat replied as it slightly adjusted the headlights’ brightness.

“I’m asking about yours!” Tang Yue said loudly.

Tomcat was taken aback.

“I have plenty of power as well. I can definitely last longer than the Radiant Armor. Don’t worry about that.”

“Since you can last longer than me, I’ll entrust you with something! Listen!” Tang Yue turned his body and leaned into Tomcat’s ear, shouting in an attempt to suppress the noise with his voice. “If I fail to make it to the end, either because the Radiant Armor is out of power or our failure to find the target, I’ll have to trouble you with the rest.”

“Cut the nonsense! You are the plaintiff! I’m just the driver! Have you seen a driver replace the plaintiff in a lawsuit?” Tomcat rejected the notion. “This is your responsibility. Don’t you push that responsibility on me! My responsibility is to take you to the destination safely! Your responsibility is to complete what you need to do!”

“But the plaintiff is about to die midway!” Tang Yue said. “If the plaintiff dies, the driver needs to take his place. Also, how are you a driver? You are a lawyer! You just happen to be a lawyer who drives. Your work just happens to be driving. It just happens that you are a lawyer who has been driving your entire life!”

“I’m telling you. If an animal quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, and looks like a duck, it is a duck!” Tomcat yelled. “My job is to drive. Since I’ve been driving all my life, I’m just a driver!”

“No, don’t avoid reality. Tomcat. Look me in the eye. You are a lawyer!”

“You are the one who needs to face reality. Tang Yue, I’m only a driver! I don’t even remember the law…”

“Slope! Sloppppeee—!”

Tomcat slammed the brakes, but it was too late. Tomcat drove up a slope, rushing up to its peak as all four wheels flew into midair.

“Watch where you’re going when driving!”

“You were the one who wanted me to look you in the eye!” Tomcat flared in rage. The Wanderer followed a parabolic trajectory before hitting the ground heavily. It nearly overturned and due to the lack of any suspension system, its entire body groaned sharply from the impact. Tang Yue’s innards were in turmoil from the vibrations.

“You can draw Mickey Mouse and Mario. As long as you draw it, you are a good lawyer,” Tang Yue said. “Listen, the letter said that I have to be there in person. None of us knows if they will admit to it if a cat like you goes. We don’t know the exact process either. Therefore, you can take my corpse along… If you find me heavy, you can remove the Radiant Armor. If they refuse to acknowledge my corpse, leave my corpse at their door to bring them bad luck!”

“Where did you learn this from?”

“I’ve even thought of the slogan: Ruthless aliens exploit the innocent. I live and die with Earth. Return me my life! I want it in both English and Chinese.”

“If the Radiant Armor’s power is depleted, the amount of power I have left will only be enough to dig a pit for you to prevent your corpse from being left exposed to the wilderness. I’ll probably be unable to complete such a complicated procedure.” Tomcat shook its head. “Don’t imagine things. There aren’t so many what-ifs. We will definitely arrive at those darn coordinates… Eight kilometers! We are twenty-two kilometers from our destination!”

The weather was worsening. The air seemed to turn into a miasma as Tang Yue held the tiny emergency lamp in his hand. He looked around, only to see a pitch-black world. He couldn’t see the sky or the ground. It was as though they were running inside an impressionist oil painting. The artist had given up all precise forms and distilled the majesty. He had used black ink to scatter it freely, producing sharp, crude, and crazy lines. That was the hurricane.

If there really was such a picture, Tang Yue and Tomcat probably couldn’t see it. The only thing the audience could see was the wind that had been frozen upon the piece of paper, the sharpness of the sand, as well as the faint pale yellow lights of the darkness. In the tiny palm-sized region in which the lights illuminated, there was the silhouette of a shadow raising one hand high.

“Nine kilometers! There are twenty-one kilometers left!”

“Ten kilometers! Twenty kilometers!”

“Eleven kilometers, nineteen kilometers left!” Tang Yue yelled loudly the lyrics to Wild Child. “However cruel the wind is, the more my heart quivers! Just like a speck of dust, dancing freely in the wind!”

“I need to tighten my grip on determination, and my wavering courage! I will turn into a giant! Standing on my strength, on my dreams!”

“Twelve kilometers! Eighteen kilometers left!”

“Thirteen kilometers, seventeen kilometers left.”

“Keep blowing, my feet are bare and unafraid! Keep blowing, for I care not for the disturbance!” Tomcat hummed along. “Look at me smiling bravely. Look at me bravely waving my hands!”

“Fourteen kilometers!”

“Fifteen kilometers!”

“Sixteen kilometers!”

“Seventeen kilometers!”

“All the insolent lives in this world shall be released in this hurricane,” Tomcat said. “Eighteen kilometers!”

“Nineteen kilometers!”

“Twenty kilometers!”

“Twenty-one kilometers!”

“Twenty-two kilometers!”

“Twenty-three kilometers!”

The Mars Wanderer advanced through the hurricane as the remaining charge rapidly declined. At that moment, the temperature had dropped to –60°C. Ultra-low temperatures were obviously not good for batteries. The battery indicator went from green to yellow and finally to red. The dashboard was beginning to send warnings, but Tomcat continued having the accelerator pedal depressed. It was obvious that Tomcat was squeezing the last bit of performance out of the Wanderer. It kept lowering the headlight’s brightness, but it wasn’t willing to reduce its speed.

It wanted to be as close to their destination before the Wanderer died.

“Twenty-four kilometers!”

“Twenty-five kilometers!”

“Twenty-six kilometers!” Tomcat gritted its teeth. “A hundred meters! Two hundred meters! Three hundred meters! Two hundred and fifty meters!”

The Mars Wanderer was on its last legs. It had been operating for too long under cold, harsh environments while bearing excessive loads. The battery’s charge indicator was almost bottoming out. Even the axles and engines were emitting strange sounds. It was crawling forward in steps of hundred meters.

This old dog, that had done plenty, had reached the end of its lifespan. Unfortunately, it didn’t return to a perfect home or receive a perfect ending. It could only be abandoned in an endless pitch-black storm, to be eventually buried by the sandstorm.

It slowly stopped in the dark as the bright headlights gradually extinguished.

Tomcat undid its seatbelt and patted Tang Yue on the shoulder. “We’re here. Get off!”

“We’ve arrived at the coordinates?”

“No, the Mars Wanderer has reached its terminal station. We need to make a transfer.”

Tang Yue was surprised. Transfer? To what?

“Transfer to human-powered transportation!”