“I’m only in the principal’s office every other day because he”—Henry gestured toward Mr. Johnson—“has it in for me.”

“Right.” Tamara’s reply was more of a laugh than a word. “I’m sure it has nothing to do with your conscientious homework objections, or your habit of leaving class early, or the anti-government graffiti in the boy’s bathroom that I heard about last week.”

As she spoke, she glanced knowingly over at me, a smirk tugging at the corner of her lips. My heart lurched momentarily, and I—discreetly, I hoped—urged it to settle back into its regular pattern. For the amount of time I spent with Tamara on almost a daily basis, you’d think I’d manage to not go into full spaz-mode every time I saw her.

Yeah. You’d think.

Fortunately, she hadn’t seemed to notice my suddenly red face. Henry certainly hadn’t. He was too busy complaining.

“Tamara,” he said solemnly, “as conscientious citizens of Mars, we have an obligation to future generations to prevent this world from falling into the cycle of imperialism that destroyed so many lives on Earth. I’m simply providing an alternative to the narrative being forwarded by the administration, to prevent the further spread of misinformation. Graffiti is the people’s tool, you know.”

He was off again. Tamara shot me a pained expression and I shrugged. She should have known better than to get him started on one of his rants.

I moved a few paces away, craning my neck to get a better look at the red hills around us. From up here, Tierra Nueva seemed to spread out before me: a small valley crammed with a rambling mishmash of tightly clustered buildings and, in the center of town where the rivers converged, the clump of high rises that made up the AresTec complex on Sparta Island. The valley was blanketed in a filmy gray haze from the factory district on the edge of town, blurring the details, but in the distance I could just see the sun glinting off the waters of Escalante Bay.

I jammed my hands in my pockets and breathed in deeply through my nose. It was nice out here, where the air smelled fresh and the acrid scent of the factory exhaust was only a wispy memory. Maybe today wouldn’t be so bad after all.

“Okay, everyone, eyes and ears up here!” The chattering voices around me tapered off at Mr. Johnson’s shout. “We’ve got a lot to get through today, so I’m going to go ahead and turn this show over to Professor Luna here, if everyone would please”—he narrowed his eyes at the lot of us—“give her your attention.”