Double Cross Read Free Page A

too,” I said. “At least with my schoolwork. We’ve done enough this week that we’re ahead, right?”
    Ashley nodded again. “Right. Let’s go see how Flip and Flop are doing.”
    Flip and Flop are the little koala-like animals that she and I had rescued from a genetics experiment gone wrong. And just in the nick of time too. It hadn’t taken long for the techies at the dome to adopt the friendly creatures as mascots.
    â€œWish I could,” I said, “but I need to ask my parents something.”
    Ashley shrugged. “See you tonight, then? At the telescope?”
    â€œSure,” I said.
    I just hoped—after everything else Rawling had told me—that tonight wouldn’t be my last time to see Ashley … or anyone else, for that matter.

CHAPTER 5
    An hour later, I sat at the computer in my room in the minidome I shared with my parents. Aside from my desk, there was a bed. Not much else. Under the dome, everybody wore the standard uniform—a navy blue jumpsuit—so I didn’t need a big closet. And because I was always in a wheelchair, I didn’t need a chair.
    My computer was what made the room alive for me. Through it I learned about Earth, played games, and listened to music, even if most of the songs were 10 years old because the adults picked the playlists. And when the solar system was clear of the electromagnetic particles from solar flares, I could even pick up some Internet transmissions. Although my body was in the prison of a wheelchair, my mind could go almost anywhere.
    Tonight, though, I wasn’t going to listen to music or read DVD-gigarom books. It had been a week or two since I’d written anything in my journal.
    I flicked on the power, and my computer booted up faster than I could count to five. I clicked the right spots, and my writing program opened up.
    I began to keyboard my thoughts into my computer journal.
    A short while ago, it looked like the entire Mars colony wasn’t going to survive because the dome’s oxygen level was dropping. At the time, I agreed to write a journal so people on Earth would know about those last days from the viewpoint of a kid instead of a scientist.
    We all survived, of course, and I decided to keep a journal about things that happen under the dome. Sometimes I’m too tired to get on my computer to write like this. Other times there doesn’t seem to be much to write about, so I spend time up at the telescope.
    But with what I’ve just learned from Rawling, it looks like I’d better not be lazy with my journal. Sometimes I pretend I’m writing a letter to myself, so that when I’m an old man, I can read these letters and remember what it was like to be the first person born on Mars. After all, everybody was surprised when my mother and father fell in love with each other on their eight-month journey to Mars 15 years ago. Once on the planet, they exchanged vows over a radio phone with a preacher on Earth. Then, an Earth year later, the director of the Mars Project, Blaine Steven, was even more shocked when my mom announced she was going to have a baby. It made things really complicated since ships arrive here only every three years, and cargo space is very, very expensive. There was no room for baby items—or a motorized wheelchair.
    But you don’t have to feel sorry for me. Because of the operation on my spine that went wrong, I’m able to explore Mars and the universe in a way no human in history has ever been able to do—by controlling a robot body. The way it works is …
    I stopped my keyboarding and let my mind wander to all I was able to do as I controlled the robot body. As I thought about the robot body I named Bruce, I reached down to the small pouch hanging from the armrest of my wheelchair. Pulling out three red balls, I began to juggle, keeping all three in the air. Juggling didn’t take much concentration for me. Especially since