EARTH TO DAD BY KRISTA VAN DOLZER CAPSTONE EDITIONS a capstone imprint
in whose footsteps I so often find myself walking For Dad
1 I’M AWAITING A TRANSMISSION when the moving van pulls up I can see it through my window The retrofitted tank used to fire mortar rounds but now that we Earthlings no longer fight wars with ourselves the Destination Mars program uses them to move our stuff But I’m not interested in moving I dive out of my desk chair and pull out the custom trunk I built to transport the JICC short for Jameson’s Interplanetary Communication Console I should have guessed that Mom was going to try to sneak-attack me She probably asked for a transfer so that I would have no choice but to leave the JICC behind Secretly I think she’s jealous that I spend more time messaging Dad than I do talking to her but I can’t say for sure Luckily I’ve planned for these kinds of contingencies I pop the trunk’s latches with one hand and initiate the shutdown with the other There’s the emitter to cool down and the high-voltage relay to switch off assuming I don’t want to start an electrical fire and if I don’t ground the antenna the whole thing might not restart I’m halfway through the shutdown protocol when my gaze drifts back over to the window The tank is just sitting there hulking an olive-green monstrosity that’s trying and failing to look friendly I can’t help but scowl until I notice that the men scurrying around like worker ants are lugging boxes out not in I reach blindly for the field glasses on the nightstand Dad used them in Panama before I was even born which means they’re practically antiques but he took such good care of them that they still work almost like new I zoom in on the tank’s ID which starts with KNX I’m not sure which base uses that specific
