The whispers started small, like cracks in the ice. A new discovery. A hidden chamber beneath the Martian surface. And inside it? A machine.

  At first, Adam ignored the gossip. Colonists loved to exaggerate. Today it was a machine. Tomorrow it’d be an alien spaceship or some ancient Martian god’s private hot tub.

  But then he started piecing together the details. And the mosaic it presented was incredible.

  The chamber was old -ancient. The machine? Still functional. And not just functional -advanced. Too advanced for even Earth’s bleeding-edge tech.

  The words Martian computer made his heart skip a beat. He told himself it was just a coincidence. A curiosity. Nothing to do with him.

  But deep down, he knew better. Things like this didn’t just happen.

  Adam tried hard to focus on his work. Tried to remind himself that staying invisible was the only thing keeping him alive. But the curiosity gnawed at him, relentless and insistent. The same part of his mind that couldn’t leave a Rubik’s Cube unsolved was screaming at him to look closer.

  What if the machine really was a computer? The thought came unbidden, and he couldn’t shake it.

  He’d already used the equation to develop some basic tools for his kit. And they had been game changers. Yet, he still didn’t have access to the best tech, what he really needed -stuff that was able to take full advantage of what he had. But what if… what if the device they discovered in the hidden chamber was exactly what he needed to take his kit to the next level?

  If it really was some ancient Martian technology- he let the thought hang as the potential implications hit him.

  He wiped sweat from his brow, the cleaning drone buzzing quietly beside him. He could feel the weight of the smartwatch in his pocket, its presence both comforting and suffocating. The key to everything -and the reason he’d lost it all.

  “Just stay out of it,” he muttered to himself, running the mop across the pristine floor. “You’re a janitor. Nothing more.”

  But the whispers didn’t stop. And neither did the questions.

  The thing about genius is that it doesn’t switch off. You can try to ignore it, drown it in routine, bury it under menial tasks. But it doesn’t go away. It festers. It whispers. And eventually, it demands to be heard.

  As Adam sat alone in his quarters that night, staring at the simulation of an Earth sunset on his wall, he knew he couldn’t let it go. The chamber, the machine, the mystery of it -it all felt connected, like pieces of a puzzle he’d been assembling his entire life.

  And maybe that was the worst part. Because if he looked too closely, if he followed the threads and unlocked whatever secrets the Martian machine held, there was no coming back -again. He knew that.

  Not to Mars. Not to Earth. Not to the life he’d lost.

  But then again… what else was new?

  He glanced down at the watch on his wrist, his constant companion. On the outside, it was nothing special. Just another piece of tech, the kind you’d toss on your nightstand and forget about. But inside? Inside, it held the secret to everything. His experiments, his trials, his simulations -every scrap of data meticulously preserved, like a digital Pandora’s box, waiting for the wrong hands to open it.

  He’d modified the device obsessively, turning it into something so secure that even the best minds on Earth couldn’t crack it. He told himself it was safe. But the paranoia gnawed at him anyway.

  ∞The Hunt∞

  When they’d come for him, it wasn’t subtle. He’d expected shadows and whispers, men in black suits slipping through the night. Instead, it was a tsunami -a tidal wave of surveillance drones, armored vehicles, and covert operatives that made it clear he was no longer just a man. He was a target.

  Every agency in the world wanted him. The ones you knew about -the CIA, MI6, Mossad, the alphabet soup of intelligence. And then there were the others, the ones that didn’t have names. Shadowy organizations that operated with budgets so large they made nations look like kids with lemonade stands. The Thirteen, the cabal whispered about in conspiracy circles, were on him too. They were the kind of people who didn’t bother with courts or lawyers. They didn’t need to. Power like theirs didn’t ask for permission; it simply took.

  He’d dodged them for weeks, using his new tech to fade into the forgotten corners of the world. Each day was a balancing act between survival and despair.

  And then he found his escape.

  A billionaire tycoon -one of the big ones, the kind with private islands and rocket ships- was funding a colony on Mars. It wasn’t philanthropy; it was legacy. The space race had long gone private, and the governments of the world, strapped for cash and choked by red tape, had handed the baton to the men who could get things done. There was plenty of debate about whether it was altruism or ego, but Adam didn’t care.

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  What mattered was that it was his way out. A one-way ticket to a place so far from Earth that even the most determined Black Ops team would think twice before chasing him there.

  The last time he’d truly felt safe was in the woods, camped by the edge of a serene lake surrounded by towering redwoods. It was the kind of place where time seemed to slow, where the air tasted cleaner, and the world’s problems felt smaller. They’d joked about building a cabin there someday, raising their kids among the trees. She’d loved the idea -or at least, she said she did. Sometimes he wondered if she meant it, or if she was just trying to make him happy. It didn’t matter. They were in it together. Or so he’d thought.

  Claire had given up everything to be with him. Left her life behind to vanish into the wilderness with a man carrying the weight of the world’s most dangerous secret. He felt the guilt like a knife twisting in his chest every time he looked at her. She deserved better. Better than this, better than him.

  It had been three weeks since they’d gone dark, cutting all ties, burning all bridges. No phones. No electronics. No contact with the outside world. Just them, their tent, and the quiet rustle of the woods. It wasn’t much of a life, but it was theirs. Until it wasn’t.

  They’d gone into town for supplies -just the basics. Toilet paper, canned food, a fresh box of matches. Mundane necessities that reminded them how far they’d fallen. He hated it. The risk, the vulnerability. But you couldn’t live off berries and good intentions forever.

  The town was small, the kind of place where everyone knew everyone else’s business. That worked in their favor. Locals kept their mouths shut when strangers came sniffing around. It was an unspoken code.

  But unspoken codes didn’t stop government agents. Or whoever these people were.

  They were in the store when he noticed them -two men in plain clothes, standing near the register but scanning the room with a sharpness that set his nerves on edge. His gut tightened. It wasn’t paranoia; it was survival instinct. They didn’t belong here. He grabbed her arm, murmured something about forgetting the milk, and pulled her toward the back exit.

  They ran. Dropped everything -including their half-formed plan to make it through another week- and bolted into the woods. He didn’t stop to look back. He didn’t need to. He could feel the weight of the chase, the invisible rope pulling tighter with every step.

  Maybe that’s what tipped them off.

  By the time they reached the campsite, he already knew it was over.

  Back in the store he’d turned on his scanning app and had been shocked to see the amount of traffic that sprang to life on his watch. The sheer volume of communications being sent in real-time between the dozens of operatives that had infiltrated the small town had confirmed his fears. They were cooked.

  He turned to her, his chest heaving, his mind racing through the options. None of them were good.

  “Babe, I have to go,” he said.

  Her face fell. “Adam, no-”

  “They’ll find me. They’ll find us. If I leave, you’ll be safe.”

  “You don’t know that!”

  He didn’t. But he couldn’t think of another way. The thought of her being dragged into the nightmare that had become his life was unbearable. He’d already taken too much from her. This was the one thing he could give back.

  That’s why he’d left her. He could still see her standing at the edge of the lake, tears streaming down her face, her voice hoarse from begging him to stay -or to let her come with him. But he couldn’t. He wouldn’t.

  “You don’t ask someone you love to follow you into hell,” he muttered under his breath, the memory cutting like glass. Not if you cared about them. Not if you wanted them to have a chance at a life that didn’t end in bullets or fire or both.

  He’d given her everything he could. Secured in a hidden location only they could know about, he’d left a memory stick loaded with access to his crypto wallets -worth millions, thanks to Bitcoin’s meteoric rise and a few joke meme coins he’d invested in just for laughs. Enough to buy a new life. And not just the money. He’d set it all up for her: a new identity, clean and untraceable, ready to be activated with nothing more than a trip to a library.

  It was a time capsule that he’d hoped she’d never have to open.

  He remembered her tears when he pressed the note into her hand. The way she’d clutched it like it was both a lifeline and a betrayal. The way she’d begged, over and over, for him to let her come.

  “You can’t,” he’d said, his voice breaking despite himself. “You don’t deserve this life, Claire. Not my life.”

  “But I chose you,” she’d whispered. “I chose this. I love you.”

  “I know.” He kissed her forehead, the kind of kiss that said everything he couldn’t. “And that’s why I can’t let you do it anymore.” He wiped a tear from her cheek and smiled with the pain of a mortal wound.

  And then he kissed her -one last time, with the desperation of a man knowing it would have to last him a lifetime- and walked away. The sound of the lake, its gentle ripples breaking against the shore, followed him into the forest.

  When she looked down at the note in her hands, she broke down, collapsing to her knees as the note came to rest beside her.

  “I love you too,” it read.

  ∞

  He replayed that day in his mind constantly, searching for the flaw in their plan. She swore she hadn’t brought her phone. He believed her. He checked. So how had they found them? How had their bubble of safety burst so suddenly, so violently?

  He knew the answer, even if he hated to admit it. Someone had sold them out.

  Here’s the thing about numbers -they don’t lie. People, sure. People lie all the time. They bend the truth, embellish, twist it until it’s barely recognizable. But numbers? Numbers are honest. Brutally so.

  Adam had always loved numbers. Statistics, probabilities, the art of finding patterns in chaos. “By knowing the past, you can predict the future,” he used to say, a line he’d stolen from some old professor but adopted like it was his own. He used to run statistics for fun, digging into the raw data of humanity like a miner searching for gold. What he found was equal parts fascinating and horrifying.

  On average, he’d determined, one to two people out of every hundred were what he liked to call “bad actors.” Not necessarily evil -most people weren’t- deep down. But these weren’t the kind of folks you wanted watching your back. They were opportunists, the sort who’d sell out their own grandmother if the price was right. And in a town of a few thousand? That meant there’d always be a handful of snakes lurking in the shadows, waiting for their moment to strike.

  He hadn’t forgotten that. Not when he was running from shadowy agencies with deep pockets and even deeper grudges. Not when he’d erased his existence from every database that mattered. And certainly not when he and Claire had hidden themselves in the woods, far from prying eyes.

  But numbers don’t care how careful you are. All it takes is one rat. One person who saw an opportunity and decided to take it.

  And now, thanks to them, she was alone, and he was on Mars.

  The pang of regret hit him for the hundredth time that day as he stared at the barren Martian landscape outside the dome. Red sands stretched endlessly, the horizon jagged with rocks and craters. It was beautiful in a desolate, alien way. A clean slate. A blank page.

  But there were no lakes here. No trees. No Claire.

  He told himself he’d done the right thing. He’d given her a way back to society, a fresh start. She could build a life without him. A better life. That was what love was, wasn’t it? Wanting what was best for someone else, even if it wasn’t you.

  He told himself that over and over. Sometimes it even helped.