Chapter 2
The school elevator was crowded with children.
They all had pale faces and carried the standard-issue white backpacks.
We had no sunlight and rarely ate real protein.
The intelligent system said none of that affected basic living.
“Basic living” was a phrase we heard all the time.
Our homes met basic housing needs.
Our food met basic nutritional needs.
The elevator descended to Level Thirty, and the doors opened.
The school was even deeper underground, because the children’s zone had to be kept away from surface radiation.
Slogans lined both sides of the corridor:
“Study hard. Become irreplaceable.”
“Skills change destinies. Don’t become an unskilled person.”
I saw those words every day.
Our homeroom teacher said we were Mars’s second generation and had to be more useful than our parents.
Otherwise, once we reached adulthood, we wouldn’t even qualify for basic subsidies.
I sat down and took out my nutrition bar.
My deskmate, Ah Zhi, leaned over for a look.
“Xiaoba, seaweed flavor again? Don’t you ever get sick of it?”
I shook my head. “No.”
I had my own secret.
Whenever I ate a nutrition bar, I imagined the flavors of food from Earth television dramas.
Sweet cakes, fragrant butter rice cakes, silky crab-roe tofu…
Ah Zhi gave me a sympathetic pat.
“It’s okay, it’s okay. I brought strawberry flavor. We can swap later!”
Ah Zhi’s family was better off than mine. She often brought rare flavors of nutrition bars and secretly shared them with me.
We couldn’t let the teacher see, because that counted as unequal distribution.
I smiled and nodded.
Then I tossed half of my nutrition bar into my mouth.
It stuck to my teeth a little.
As I swallowed, I concentrated on imagining the savory flatbread from those Earth dramas.
Hot, crisp and golden, cut into little pieces.
People carried it along the streets in the morning as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.
On Mars, it was an unimaginable luxury.
After that day, I never mentioned savory flatbread in front of anyone again.
But I began researching it in secret.
All the food information in the school database had been abridged.
When I searched for “savory flatbread,” a notice appeared on the screen:
“This query concerns entertainment or nonessential material supplies. Access restricted.”
I stared at those words for a long time.
So wanting savory flatbread was wrong.
In sixth grade, I found a way around the restriction system.
It really wasn’t that difficult.
The network in Mars’s District Nine was old.
People on Earth believed the best computing power shouldn’t be wasted on Mars.
At last, I found a fragmentary recipe from ancient Earth.
“Add warm water to flour. Knead until smooth, then rest the dough for half an hour.”
“Add oil to a hot pan. Sauté minced onion and garlic until fragrant…”
I committed every word to memory.
Ah Zhi was horrified when she found out.
“Are you crazy? You could spend your whole life trying and still never get all those ingredients.”
“Just a hundred grams of flour costs eighteen thousand credits.”
“I know,” I said.
“Then why memorize it?”
“For fun.”
Ah Zhi stroked my head and sighed softly.
“Why think about something you’ll never be able to reach?”
I knew she meant well.
When I was sixteen, the school streamed us into vocational tracks.
Every second-generation Mars resident had to undergo a skills assessment.
The results would determine our fate as adults.
Class A entered surface engineering.
Class B entered base maintenance.
Class C received basic-service training.
Class D was deemed unworthy of further educational investment.
I tested into Class B.
Ah Zhi did poorly and ended up in Class D.
Luckily, her parents were considered wealthy on Mars and could afford another two years of schooling for her.
Before they took her home to repeat the program, she whispered to me,
“Xiaoba, do what you want to do.”
“I believe in you. Whatever you do, you’ll make it!”
We promised that in ten years, once we’d saved enough for tickets to Earth, we would travel there together.
When Mom learned my assessment result, she was as happy as if it were a holiday.
She even bought a cantaloupe-flavored nutrition bar—a limited holiday edition.
She placed it in front of me and said solemnly,
“Daughter, you have to make something of yourself.”
“You can’t end up like me.”
Mom hadn’t had steady work for three months.
After the Mars system was upgraded, even jobs like cleaning pipes no longer required humans.
People like her were sent out temporarily only when using machines would cost too much.
That kind of work, however, made Mom age faster and her moods more unstable.
I thought of her favorite line—
“Xiaoba, you’re the reason I moved to Mars.”
By then, I knew she was wrong.
I hadn’t made them come to Mars.
They had chosen Mars themselves.
After streaming, I studied even harder.
I attended classes during the day and interned at a repair station at night.
While other people rested, I memorized pipeline schematics.
I learned to dismantle a water-purification valve and repair an airlock in five seconds.
I had only one thought—
I would become a skilled person.
I would leave Mars and go to Earth to eat savory flatbread!