Page 39 of The Love Simulation

“Brianna? Can you hear me? I need you to check your mic,” Jordan says, snapping me out of my daze from looking at Roman’s smile.

I clear my throat. “Testing, one-two-three.”

“There we go. Remember, y’all are taking the rovers tothe south to extract twelve pounds of rocks each. The location is already programmed into the navigation. We should be able to communicate the whole time y’all are out,” Jordan explains, his voice growing more and more excited as he goes on. I’m fairly certain he gets just as much excitement out of watching us do the task as he would doing it himself. He’s content to simply be here.

“Ready?” Roman asks.

“Let’s do it,” I respond.

“Stand clear. Opening the hatch,” Roman says, sounding so official.

We step out of the Hab and make our way to the two rovers. They’re able to fit two people apiece, but we’ll each take one so the extra weight of the rocks, combined with our own weight, doesn’t slow them down.

After removing the heavy tarp placed over each, I’m reminded of the rideable lawnmowers they use to maintain the school grounds. The engines start up easily and smoothly, and map displays show where we’ll be heading.

“Nice,” Roman comments. He twists half his body to look over at me. “Think you can keep up?”

“Pshh, I’ve been riding four-wheelers since I was a kid. Let’s see ifyoucan keep up.” I don’t wait for his response. I step hard on the gas and take off. And barely move.

My rover doesn’t move very fast. In fact, I’m certain we could run at a quicker pace.

“What in the world is this?” I ask.

Roman’s answering chuckle in my ear makes me feel like a pet getting the best scratches.

“If we really were on Mars, we’d be traveling a lot farther than the length of a field,” he says. “The speed of our rovers are made to account for that.”

“Let me guess, you read it in the manual.” Ugh.

“God, isn’t that cool?” Jordan pipes up. “They thought of everything here.”

I huff and relax into my seat, knowing it’s going to take a while to get to the expedition spot.

“Should have brought a book to enjoy the downtime,” Roman says, and judging by the teasing in his voice, he’s not done. “Maybe something adventurous. I think something set in this world, but unlikely soulmates.”

I shake my head. I must have left my book out and Roman got to it. “Who knew under all that quiet machismo was the heart of a romantic,” I say. “I’ve figured you out. You may be a science teacher, but you missed your real calling as a literary scholar.”

His chuckle is low, but it sends butterflies through my stomach all the same.

“You should be arriving within the next two minutes,” Jordan says.

As predicted, we soon arrive at the site. It’s on the edge of the large dome, but we can still see the Hab.

As we get off the rovers, Jordan sounds in our ears. “In the toolbox on the back of each of your rovers, you’ll find a shovel, which you’ll use to fill the box labeled ‘specimen’ with the rocks. As you fill up the box, the weight will be displayed.”

Our race didn’t end just because our vehicles are slow. Now that we’re stopped, we both rush to get to the field with our boxes and shovels. The ground is tougher, so we have to use the shovels to loosen it and dislodge the rocks we find. We set to work side by side. We’re grunting. We’re stealing small glances at each other to check the other’s progress, looking all the sillier, I’m sure, since we have to move our whole upper bodies. But the work is simple enough that we don’t have to put too much thought into it, and it’s fun.

By some miracle, I load up my rocks before Roman does and do a victory dance beside my vehicle. “Yes! Take that.”

Roman isn’t far behind. He sets his materials in the back of his vehicle and shakes his head. “I got way more rocks than you did.”

“Excuses, excuses,” I say as we get back into our seats. I’m not going to let a technicality taint this win.

“Hey, guys,” Jordan says. “Good news. Y’all got the specimens that we need, and once we inspect them, the task is complete.”

“If that’s the good news, I’m guessing there’s something we’re not going to like,” Roman says.

“Yeah…” I can hear Jordan’s grimace through the comms unit. “We just received a delayed message from Mission Control. An unexpected dust storm has developed and is heading our way.”

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