Episode 9: First Reunion on Mars

New Homes

24 February 2301 — XE-1 Central Station

The crowds inside XE-1 Central Station have not stopped even deep into the night. Migrants arriving from Earth drag luggage through the enormous underground transit sectors. Train rails produce low mechanical vibrations. Mira’s hologram guide floats calmly through the station. Evie stands among the crowds and feels the unreality of it. She has truly left Earth behind. She has truly arrived on Mars.

Anaïs gently touches her hand. “You’re spacing out again.” Evie smiles. “I’m still not used to this yet.” They make their way through the Villa Dome transport corridor — warmer lighting, fewer people, even the air feels quieter. The Villa Dome is the elite residential district: large apartments with high ceilings, climate-controlled environments, artificial natural light. It does not feel like a colony. It feels like a carefully engineered comfort zone set inside the red wasteland of Mars.

Vera’s apartment is in the regular residential sector. Within three weeks she has transformed her living room into a miniature DJ studio. Seb’s UN apartment still resembles an engineering workstation, filled with hologram data and Mars infrastructure blueprints. He has begun studying the resonance effects they encountered during the debris field incident — how higher-dimensional frequencies from the Sagittarius signal might interact with human brainwaves and AI systems simultaneously.

Firo does not return to his apartment until morning. After reporting to Johnny the previous evening about the military cargo and the ARES convoys, he spent the night confirming details quietly, alone. The Martian city continues humming around everyone — massive, new, strange, and not yet anything like home. But it is where they are now. XE-1 has officially entered its new morning.