Seventeen Crimes

Seventeen

he driver came for Brie promptly at the appointed time. She was a suit wearing woman with a warm smile and a keen eye. Her attention to detail rivaled some of the individuals Brie met through the Secret Service.

And like most car services, there were very little conversation between them. Uber and Lyft drivers were often just as silent as other companies, especially when Brie put up a wall of electronics.

Brie didn't mind. She had her files to research and oodles of pages to read as she prepped for her meeting with the founder of the enterprise that put Humanity on Mars. So wrapped up in her work, she was surprised when the driver requested her identification, and although had it ready to begin with, had to scramble to find it.

She tried to be apologetic as she handed it over; it felt like her apologies fell on deaf ears.

Then she looked to her right.

To her right was a wall, and rising above that wall was a freaking miniature town.

"What the hell?" Brie asked.

"The only embassy on Earth that has Martian owned space for its employees as every level," the driver said, continuing through the gate. "Everyone that lives here, even if they have never been to Mars, chooses to be Martian."

"Why?" Brie asked.

The driver shrugged. "There are lots of reasons."

Brie looked at her. "Are you Martian?" Brie asked.

"Yes, Ma'am," the driver said. "I have even applied for transfer."

"Why?" Brie asked.

"My brother and his family were one of the last families that went. One of the very last; when Mar Expedition had their accident and the crew of 20 with four passengers were killed on the launch pad, his ship refused to turn around, even though they would have made it back to Earth with plenty of fuel to spare."

"That's insanity."

"He and his wife own their own businesses, employ about thirty people between them, and have five kids in, by Martian standards, a lavish house. What I make here, on Earth, is a pittance compared to what they make."

Brie paused; she thought about some of the stories she had found about her father and the other settlers. Articles that said that when the colonists bought out their respective firms that they ended up several million times richer.

One analyst she read even suggested that when the companies split off, the financial gain was thirty times greater than what an average individual made in their lifetime here on Earth.

"Is wealth the only reason?" Brie asked.

"No," the driver said, pulling into a cobblestone driveway, before a beautifully renovated Spanish colonial. "I will take the freedom, too."

"We are plenty free," Brie said, as the driver opened her door.

"We have the illusion of freedom."

Brie watched the driver walk around the nose of the car, and opened her door to let her out.

"What do you mean by the illusion of freedom?" Brie asked.

"I mean there are things being whispered and bantered about that spell danger, ma'am."

Brie hesitated, looking from the woman to the house.

"He doesn't bite."

That hadn't been Brie's thought, but she found the woman's words encouraging.

The door to the house opened before Brie could knock or ring the bell and the butler/maid – what was the correct term for help now? She showed Brie to a beautiful study.