Made On Mars
by Kieran Judge
‘Martians
can’t build nothin’, I tell ya’,
they can’t build nothin’.’
The old man in
the ripped coat and shabby trousers was showing
me the knock-off phone he’d bought an hour
ago. It was scratched and dented, flashing
warnings lights. I had been eating noodles at a
highway stall because the food was warm and the
rain was freezing. The man slid next to me,
ordered chow mien. After a few expletives, he
began his rant against our colonial brethren.
‘Maybe it’s
flashing Martian-red, not warning-red,’ I
suggested.
‘They’re
still Earth people.’ Sauce dripped into his
beard. ‘Start complainin’ about Terran
interference, too controllin’, then they
start peddlin’ stuff like this.’
‘I’ve
never had a problem with Martian tech,’ I
said. People I knew hated it, but what can you
expect from a colony a few decades old? Got to
start somewhere.
‘Look,
there it goes again,’ he exclaimed.
The phone was
making strange bleeps and noises. The highway was
full but we could hear the phone over the traffic.
A board across the road advertised prospects for
the new mission to the new planet, Thanos. I
wondered if Thanos’ phones would work in ten
years time.
‘You
heard about Martian electronics damaging people?’
I had of
course heard the rumours, though they were no
more than Terran propaganda to stop their colony
getting too up themselves. Again, I’d never
had issues with the phone I’d had several
years back.
‘Yes,’
he said, ‘they’ve been malfunctioning.
Just like this one, but worse. Cuttin’
people’s arms off, electrocution, burstin’
into flames...’
‘Then why
the hell did you buy it?’ I asked.
‘It was
cheap.’
Of course.
‘Does it
even work?’ I asked.
He frowned. He
swiped through a few screens, ignoring the red
and green flashing. ‘I’ll try. Number?’
‘I’ll
go over there and call you,’ he said. He
ducked out from under the cover of the highway.
He avoided getting knocked flat by the crowds and
stood twenty feet away. A security drone drifted
past, eyed him up, moved on. His filthy clothes
kept people a good foot away from him.
My reliable
Terran phone vibrated. I pulled up the video
screen as it began to flash red.
‘What
have you done?’ I mumbled.
‘Is it
workin’?!’ he shouted.
I waved my
hand through the projection, pixels dancing like
confetti. It wasn’t co-operating.
The screen
suddenly flashed and a message appeared.
THANK YOU.
I tried to
clear the message. Nothing. ‘What the hell
does that mean, ‘thank you’?’ I
looked to the old man. He was staring at his
phone in horror. It was like strobe-lighting, the
grating and grinding audible from the stand. The
thing was epileptic.
He looked up
at me, whimpered, and his limbs left their
sockets.
Spine and
shrapnel rained. People screamed and scurried off
on their way. After a few seconds I peered out
from behind my fingers to find half a man there,
blood being washed into the gutters.
A drone came
along and hovered by the remains. It shook its
camera disapprovingly and drifted on again.
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