As Zed approached the mess hall, he could hear that at least some of the excitement from earlier had died down, and conversations had resumed around the tables.

  There was no doubt in his mind about what he was about to do. He didn’t care if it was reckless or made any sense. It was the one thing he could take control of in this moment, and that felt like all that mattered.

  Zed stepped up to the table and stood across from his parents. It took them a moment to realize it was him.

  “Zed?” Ed Marsh said, squinting at his son in confusion. “I thought your mother said…”

  Zed didn’t respond or even look up. He set the vial-sized sample container on the table with a confident "thwack" that drew the attention of some nearby tables. He didn’t look at his mother but could imagine her jaw working as her anger kept her from immediately launching into a tirade. He wasn’t planning on giving her the chance. Not this time.

  “Can I have your attention, please?” Zed called out in a voice that carried more volume and confidence than he would have thought himself capable of. “I hold in my hand one of the samples of Martian life I collected in the crater cave.”

  People looked at each other and then back at Zed, confused.

  Zed shrugged. “No one checked my pockets.”

  Murmurs and nervous laughter bubbled across the room. No one tackled him, so Zed continued.

  “Since I’m apparently going to be grounded for the rest of my life, and I don’t like the idea of having nothing more to do with a discovery that, even if it was stupid, I did risk my life to find,” Zed paused for dramatic effect, “let this be my one last contribution to the science of Martian life.”

  Before anyone could react, Zed unsealed the container, popped the alien plant into his mouth, and swallowed. A heavy silence fell as the room held its collective breath in anticipation.

  That was when Ana finally came to life.

  “Zed!” she screeched, with, Zed thought, a bit more drama than the situation required. “We’ve got to get him to the med bay and pump his stomach now! My baby could be killed by that thing!”

  Zed turned to see his mother moving toward him. His father sat in slack-jawed awe, as if nothing that had just happened made any sense to him. At the sound of Ana’s wail, Ed Marsh sprang to life, jumping up from his seat and making his way around the opposite side of the table. In a few seconds, they would converge on Zed and doubtless carry him bodily to the med bay.

  At that instant, a number of things occurred. Zed hadn’t really given any thought to what might happen when he ate the sample. For him, it seemed like it would be a binary outcome. Either he’d live or he’d get sick. He hadn’t even thought of it in terms of living or dying, although now that seemed like a bit of a gap in his impulsive planning.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Zed didn’t feel sick, and he didn’t feel like he was going to die, at least not yet. What he felt was—he wasn’t even sure what words to use—a tearing. Yes, a tearing. It was as if someone had cut a little hole into a thin sheet and told him to press his forehead through it until the cloth ripped past his face and he could see again. Zed felt this, not physically but internally. In his mind, perhaps, but that didn’t feel like it quite covered it. As he experienced this tearing away, it wasn’t that he felt he could see again; it was more that he could see for the first time.

  As this was happening, he felt ice spreading from his core, around his ribs, and up his spine until it tapped the back of his skull. It felt just this side of painful, without quite reaching that threshold.

  Zed looked down at the sample container that he still held in his hand. He felt like he was seeing it for the first time. The colors on the label seemed to grow brighter and more vibrant with every passing moment. The tiny company name etched in the metal was completely legible now. He wasn’t even sure he’d noticed it before.

  Ana was nearly within reach. There was a faint glow about her. There was a glow to everyone, now that he looked.

  Zed looked back at his mother’s face and felt a dozen threads of emotion, ideas, and pieces of information pulled from his own memories suddenly congeal into a meaningful whole. As he stared, he realized truths about her that seemed obvious now but had never occurred to him before. Tiny memories were brought to new light and understanding. Connections between thoughts and moments that had never been made now seemed clear.

  He felt like he’d never truly seen her before. Like she’d just been a tiny pixelated image, and now Zed was finally seeing her brought to life.

  As her hand closed, claw-like, on his shoulder, he said flatly, “You were having an affair with Roger during training last year.”

  Both Ana and Ed Marsh stopped cold.

  “If you think throwing wild accusations around—in public no less—is going to save you from being grounded forever, think again,” Zed’s mother said through clenched teeth. Her jaw muscles were working overtime now.

  “You met back during that final stage of training. All little specialized work trips in Texas,” Zed continued, as if oblivious to his mother’s growing rage. “You knew you were leaving the planet in a few months, so you felt it was an easy risk.”

  Ed Marsh finally shook off his shock and stepped toward his son.

  “Zed! That’s enough—” He stopped short as he glanced at Ana’s face and saw something he didn’t like. Her mask had faltered for a moment, and he had seen it. He stepped between Ana and Zed and gripped their shoulders. “Let’s go to the med bay. Now.”

  Zed made no protest. Something he didn’t understand was happening. He wasn’t sure if he should be thrilled or horrified.

  As he turned toward the mess hall exit, he looked up, and his eyes scanned over the faces of the people around him, all standing in stunned silence, like a room full of wax figures. Zed hadn’t met everyone in Naug, not even close, but as his gaze fell on familiar faces, he experienced a sensation similar to the one he’d just had looking at his mother. Nothing so salacious, but the connections between memories and experiences were all smashing together into a new whole. It was happening too fast now. He felt like he was drowning in his own mind, overwhelmed by a torrent of mini-revelations that he couldn’t hold back.

  Zed began to stagger back as he pressed the heel of his palm to his eyes. It helped, but not before he stumbled into several nearby colonists.

  “Don’t touch him; he could be infected with something!” a voice bellowed. It was Sheriff Tom Davies, finally shaken out of his momentary shock.

  A hand grasped Zed now and nearly lifted him off the floor as he was quickly forced out of the room.

  “We've got to get him into quarantine pronto,” Zed heard the sheriff say just behind him.

  At that moment, Zed had to agree. That probably was a good idea, because now that he didn't have the input of faces and memories around him, that same explosion of connections was happening within his thoughts and memories.

  Zed had never felt so overwhelmed or scared as he did at that moment, looking into the unfiltered abyss of his own mind.