I awoke.

With a jump. Under the vise of purple contacts. They had ejected from the shock. Immediately, my reflex was to shake my face back and forth, and then dunk it down—two things happened:

The contacts fell off, and I saw the dark cold floor under me. I was lying against the wall in a supply closet—a bright stream of light came in from the open door... a trail of blood followed out the door through the archway.

The second thing that happened was my esophagus and stomach convulsed from the plastic tubing I had not realized was clogged down my throat. My wrists were tied in my lap, but I was able to lift them both and use my fingers to grip the incubator and in one-two-three, like I've seen in the hospital shows, I ripped out the tubing and gasped from the horrible sting.

I coughed wildly, but then went to business to check what that pain was in my arms—multiple needles penetrated my veins, connected to what appeared to be blood and feeding tubes. Pursing my lips to prepare for the pain, I pulled one out slowly, felt the pain increase, and went on to yank the other one out much faster. I cursed, but quickly got the hell to my feet.

Someone would come for me soon. I had to get out of here now.

But once I was standing at my feet, I stopped and saw the other bodies on the floor. Squinting in the darkness, I saw an older teenager, smiling under the vise, probably enjoying that virtual world. Then I saw beside him, the beautiful Holly, lying peacefully on her back. Her hair sprawled in a voluminous swirl around her. Then a man in a powerful three-piece suit on the other side. His hand was clenched in a strong fist on the floor. Probably hating the subconscious experience.

I looked at the the door, thinking how much time I still had to run to the escape pods, and make it to Earth. I then looked back again at the trail of blood leading out the door, and realized it belonged to my father.

Time running out, I then remembered Ventura, Valencia, our child, and the nurse back on Mars—how I had left them there to rot. I felt an agonizing wave of guilt in that tender moment. The clock was racing, but to set everything straight, I had to be quick. I turned my back to the door, and ran over to the machines, I found the Wi-Fi box for the iConnect system, and with a cautious wonder as to what could go wrong if I turned it off, I pulled the plug on it anyway, and suddenly the purple hue coming from the three body's contacts turned off. There was silence as the fan coming from the system turned off.

There was silence until the man (Francisco) convulsed awake, and gasped. I ran to him and in one-two-three ripped the incubator out of him. He grabbed at my arm and dropped his head to make the contact lenses fall out. Drooling, he looked up at me, and did not recognize me at all. I could not say I knew him either.

"Who are you!" He said.

"My name is John Clow. I was stranded on Mars for seven years after the 500-passenger ship failed. My father is Al Zander. I need to get the hell out of here and get to a space pod if there are any left. I need to return to Earth. It's all I wish." I thought he was in cahoots with my father, and I was hoping he would find the goodness in his heart to let me get the hell out of there and never speak of me again.

But his eyes went wide with the most recognizable understanding imaginable. "You're his son. You're his first wife's child? We thought you and your mother died!"

I shook my head. "No now you know. Excuse me." I shook Francisco's arm off me and ran over to my wife. She had not awoken yet and I was about to rip the incubator out of her throat when Francisco said:

"Wait—I'll do it. Don't worry about them. I'll wake up Holly, and that's my son beside her. I'll help him awake as well."

I looked at him with a mixture of surprise and distrust. I wanted to believe that he would take care of them because I needed to escape as soon as possible, but I didn't know this man.

Francisco spotted the blood trailing out the door. "Your father, Zander, he's gone and he's probably about to try and escape the space station on a pod toward Earth, if he hasn't already. Go now to the pods, if you see him, stop him. He's responsible for the confinement of millions of people in virtual reality who have no voice to escape it. I only know that now that I've experienced iConnect myself. I'll run to the authorities aboard the ship and tell them what I know now and warn them that he's making a run for it. I'll also tell them goons from the Andromeda company also kidnapped us and put us under."

I looked at him with complete bewilderment. I nodded and said, "Okay."

"Go!" He shouted. "Catch him and get out of here."

I turned to Holly, her beauty splayed on the floor, knelt down, and kissed her forehead with all the lasting passion in my heart. I stood to my feet looked to Francisco, nodded and ran to the door. But before I exited, I stopped and turned.

"What is it?!" He said frantically, ripping the needles out his arms, standing to his feet and running over to Holly and his son to pull out their incubators.

"While I was on Mars, an entire city of humans burned to the ground."

Francisco twisted his eyes at me in horror. "What did you say?"

"Two robots flew down and set the whole city on fire. No one survived except a doctor, a nurse, two engineers, the humanoid girl named Valencia who had come to live with me, and the hybrid child I had with her."

He stood to his feet, astonished. "What?"

"She reared a child, and I left them on Mars," I said, and the tears filled my eyes and poured down. My confession lit fire to my guilt, and a rushing calm was surfacing. "But now the doctor and two engineers are dead as well. They fell off a cliff as we raced to a shuttle that had arrived shortly after the city burned down. A humanoid called Ventura who served as an escort at the Martian space hotel was the one who brought that shuttle. When I reached it, she spilled out, completely unconscious... and I..." I brought my palms to my face and turned my head down. "I pulled her out to make room for myself in the shuttle, and deserted everyone so I could get home to Mars. I was selfish. Seven years on Mars... The monster in me had to get home..." I burst into sobs. And after a moment, Francisco came over to me, time being of the essence and pulled my hands off my face. He stared me in the eyes.

"Do you realize what you've just done?"

My eyes grew huge with apology, and I nodded. "I left those people to die."

I was about to break into harder sobs then, before Francisco shook his head. And he even smiled.

"No."

"No?"

"No. What you've done, John Clow, was confirm a terrible tragedy that has been an unconfirmed mystery for a decade."

"What's that?"

"Martian genocide. Cyborg supremacists on Earth have been thought to be murdering the entire population of outcast human luddites for a long time, but the newspapers have been flooded with journalists deeming that the whole idea of a Martian genocide has been investigated regularly and thoroughly and has been proven false. But now, thanks to you, I, the most powerful man in the most powerful company on the face of planet Earth, know that all of that is bogus. Those journalists were tipped off to write those fake assertions that everything was okay on Mars. Thanks to you, I'm going to go to the public and tell them Martian genocide is real."

I blinked, completely taken aback. I hadn't realized there was a mass genocide. I thought the city had been targeted because I had done something wrong.

Francisco grabbed my hand and shook it fiercely, with gratitude, and huge smile the entire time.

"Can you also send a search party to find Ventura, Valencia, her baby and the nurse? Find them? Help them if they're still alive."

He nodded. "I'll do far more than that. Now go. Don't even worry about your father. You've done enough for mankind in this single moment. Get to a shuttle. It's late. The party's likely over. There might only be pod or two left, if any at all. Get to Earth, go home."

A warm explosion filled my chest and I shook Francisco's hand back with my fullest friendship. I then leaned in for a hug, and the embrace was mutual.

"Go," he said, laughing.

"Okay."

Everything seemed to be okay now. I looked at Holly one last time, seeing her come awake, and I turned my back and ran out the door. Following the trail of blood.

Turning around a bend, I pulled a door, and entered a main hall of the space station. Following a regal red carpet, I ran and ran in my tux, black tie flapping in the wind, a few men and women spotting me with surprise as I shot past them. Ten chandeliers passed over me as I darted with a pumping heart under my chest. I did another corner, spotted a sign that said Earthbound pod pad, and I darted that way. Entering an unlit hallway, I was all of a sudden on the very perimeter of the company space station. And down the very long hallway, where one side was completely made of glass and showed the galaxy of stars and constellations, I spotted blue light. All the way on the other side, was another perpendicular hallway, and as I stepped closer, my eyes opened wide, and I saw, for the very first time, as I reached where the hallway came into an open pod pad as big as a large airport terminal, the very blue, and magnificently beautiful, shimmering hue of a watery, blueberry planet.

Earth.

I dropped to my knees. And smiled the way I did, when I was a little boy.