Sorry. I’m getting ahead of myself. First: the situation on Mars. Without knowing what’s up on the Red Planet, my acceptance to Mail Call Mates won’t mean anything to you.
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I think we always believed it would be aliens who brought us to war among the stars. Little green men with big, deadly guns that would end us in an Earth-shattering kaboom. Or creatures with tentacles and appetites as vast as space itself. That’s what we expected, I guess, and on some level, that’s what we prepared for.
Turns out, we didn’t need the aliens. Humans have always been our own worst enemies. We did just fine creating war on our own.
We had plenty of warning, too, when we colonized the moon. The United States would negotiate a lunar claim with the Interplanetary Nations Exploration and Colonization Council (or INECC), receive approval to prepare the proposed territory for habitation, put together a mission, and head up to Luna, only to find the spot mysteriously taken.
Usually by the Russians. Sometimes by the Chinese. They had put aside their differences about the time America fielded a President with a grudge against most of the Eurasian landmass. This is what hate and racism get you, folks. Lost lunar territory and trouble for the next President who wants to mend fences.
Once, the North Koreans stole our turf. Their space program burst onto the extraplanetary scene like a rocket-powered middle finger. Surprise! We’ve got space vehicles.
Then would come the sanctions and disputes and calls for judgement, the scolding from INECC, and at first? Those worked. The Russians or Chinese would exchange us a claim, or give back what they took, and no one was happy but everyone was willing to go forward. What was the alternative? Start a war on the moon? No one wanted war on the moon.
They wanted war on Mars instead. Maybe it was the longer travel time, about four months then and around two-and-a-half now. Extra months offered more lead-up to get ready for forces sent in retaliation. Maybe they hoped someone wouldn’t notice a big parcel of red soil stolen. Or maybe they just liked irony, since Mars is the Roman God of War. What better place to exchange ammunition than the War God’s realm?
History will always dispute who started it. Russia and China (even after the first US-China peace treaty, which came years later) put the blame on America. No historian can rule that out for certain, either. By the start of the conflict, we had traded a pair of diplomatic statespersons in the Oval Office for a firebrand whipping up hellfire on enemies of the good old US of A. He had a broad definition of “enemy”.
When convenient, the Russo-Chinese alliance of the time would point at North Korea and sneer. The US President blamed everyone but himself, called people a bunch of names, and then? We got a Mars-shattering kaboom instead.
Of course the war bled back to home soil in the form of Earth-bound skirmishes. Remember Mister No Space Stuff and his desire to hear about the problems on Earth? He meant this slow bleed of war from Mars back to Earth’s surface. But the worst of it stayed on Mars. It had to.
All governments wanted to grab land out there, which meant forces to take it over and forces to guard what was taken. Earth’s most warlike governments had devoted all their resources to the Red Planet Conflict. (No one could agree about if we should call it World War III, either – did the count start over on a new world? Mars War I? Academia went to war in a far quieter way.) They would rot in Hell before they surrendered an inch of ruddy dirt.
Earth’s going to die sooner than we’re ready for it to. The planet will take humanity with it if we can’t carve out a place among the stars. Right now, it’s Mars or bust.
Back on Earth, the war unfolded for us in carefully edited and sanitized clips shipped home from that shining red dot in the sky. We watched it on our televisions, our laptops and tablets and phones as fast the media could shove it onto our screens. War footage from another world, prettied up for prime time, looked like a science fiction program with a sadistic special effects team.
We watched clips of Derlega’s War Dogs taking an emplacement at the foot of Olympus Mons and cheered. We cried at the ever-rising death toll. An entire country called for executive blood when a military supplier cut too many corners and killed four hundred troops with a mass suit failure. An industrious pharmaceutical company developed Regeneris, a biologic drug designed to combat the deadly effects of Martian radiation and toxic dust. Their shares shot sky high as they touted their service to American soldiers.
The media spun a brilliant story of the heroes wearing red, white, and blue, out in space and fighting for our futures. Recruitment offices reported record numbers. Their staff grinned for the cameras as they talked about men and women signing up to do their duty for their country and planet.
Men and women – but mostly women. A US defense contractor created a line of scary-effective exosuits, battle armor with a hell of a bite, that acted as a terrifying force multiplier. We established an early dominance on Mars with those suits, because they were tough as hell and could carry a lot of guns, ammo, and supplies.
But they were heavy. We cut down their size and weight by putting women in them. Without those brave ladies, we would not have the territory we do up on Martian soil. The ratio of women to men in the Mars forces for all countries remains three women to one man.
Maybe you already see the problem here. We had media spinning this war into a desperate, patriotic fight for human advancements and survival. Many of our women up and headed to Mars, to die or to remain in the service until we achieved victory. They would have a few weeks, maybe a couple months between deployments.
No time to meet potential spouses, date, and form family units. Perhaps just as importantly, no one for troops to look forward to seeing again when they came home. No conceptions for surrogates or incubators to nurture, either, and no replacements for the people dying on another planet.
Troop morale plummeted in the same nose dive as the population. The United States needed a solution that married traditional family to modern reproductive challenges. And with a flash of microprocessors and the ingenuity of a scrappy tech startup, Mail Call Mates rode to the rescue.
3THE RABBIT HOLE
Back to howI became the guy on the tarmac. Three months out from the Worst Breakup, a new recruit in service to Mail Call Mates. My mission: Serve as husband in a marriage arranged by algorithm. Pick up my soldier, haul them off to the pre-decorated chapel for a romantic marriage performed by the High Priest of Awkward, then give them three months of marital merriment before they return to martial Martian mastery.
Whew. Sorry. Got carried away, there.
Still, that’s literally what Mail Call Mates does. When you sign up, you fill out an exhaustive series of forms that ask for every conceivable piece of information about you. The form itself reminds you to be as honest as you can, since the information remains anonymous and no one will judge you. Honesty is important to find a match that will lead to happiness, contentment, and a fulfilling marital union.
I filled in all the boxes. Name (Sebastian Galen Hendrick, since I’d legally changed my name years before). Age (thirty-two). Height (six feet). Weight (none of your business, but I work out). Hair color (black, with some grey sneaking in). Eye color (blue). Ethnicity (white, Dutch heritage). Easy stuff.
Harder stuff: Medical conditions? (Lingering damage from a serious vehicle incident.) Religious identification? (Spiritual, not religious.) Allergies? (Bananas.) Do you have or want pets? (No pets, but I wouldn’t mind some.) Are you willing to move to fulfill your potential marriage? (Yes, but I enjoy Colorado and the West, so it would be nice to stay here.) Do we have permission to utilize the contents of your personal correspondences to find you a better match? (I guess.) Do we have permission to utilize the contents of your web browser history to find you a better match? (Look, I have to draw a line somewhere. No.)
Philosophical stuff: What do you want out of your assignment with Mail Call Mates? (Happiness. Purpose. To give a soldier a home worth coming back to.) Do you want children? (Yes.) Never would I marry ___. (A cruel person without empathy. A person with no respect for life.)
And then, there was the stuff I lied about.