Extinct Doesn't Mean Forever by Phoenix Sullivan (easy readers txt) 📕

the lines were fresh and crisp. After four or five innings, though, they blurred and disappeared. Angel, a fast runner but a weak hitter, would run hard with every hit. Legs burning, eyes watering as he pounded into the dirt, he would run along the white line that was invisible but understood.

The insistent beeping of the monitor finally draws Angel’s attention. He transmits the report and packs his gear into his transport, a six-wheeled vehicle that looks like an enclosed golf cart with a joystick. The tires crunch against the rocky surface as he drives in silence. There are no roads on Mars, just designated routes marked with flags that Martian colonial law requires drivers to respect.

Feeling an itch around his neck like his tie is choking him, he claws at his pressurized suit. His cheeks tingle and sweat beads on his forehead. He swerves from the flagged route, slamming his foot onto the accelerator, and the engine buckles and grinds into new life, whipping the landscape by in an orange rush. The transport heaves like a panicked animal, charging across the Martian wastes. Angel sucks in air as his fist clenches the joystick. Tiny rocks clatter against the windows. He sees a ridge ahead, a sharp line on the horizon, and his leg spasms out, flattening the accelerator. A hissing squeak escapes Angel’s throat, and for a brittle second Angel is Stomper again, rushing and raging with power. The transport speeds closer to the peak of the ridge, leaping and bucking with every bump, gaining speed. The squeak grows into a full-throated scream, and the transport bucks as it soars over the precipice. The ground falls away, and Angel rides the high, feeling like electric current, feeling his brain come alive again. For a deathless moment the transport hangs suspended in air, without momentum, tricking gravity. And then they plummet, Angel and his transport — a little red wagon for the little red planet — and the surface rises up and smashes them.

The wreck lies a few hundred meters from the colony where Lisa and Angel live. Their home is the EnviroDome 4002, the most advanced artificial environment dwelling available. Angel purchased it for Lisa delighted at how easy it was to make her happy. Now, Lisa sits at the formica countertop with a cold cup of coffee, decidedly unhappy. Darren sits opposite her. She has invited him over to discuss why she is not happy with Mars or with Angel. Distracted in her kitchen, Lisa does not see the crash.

~~~

As a new recruit for Endless Power, Angel’s pride is apparent: his spine is straight, his smile is wide, and he laughs easily. He slaps friends on their shoulders and kisses Lisa in public. Like the other young men being initiated into manhood, he is vigorous and sharp-minded. Mornings are spent in physical training; in his afternoon classes he learns about the Asteroid Belt, about nucleite, and about the challenges they will face.

“You are not soldiers,” says the instructor. “Soldiers kill. You exterminate.”

One recruit raises his hand. “I don’t understand, sir.”

The instructor, a thickly built, crew-cut man places his hands behind his back and paces across the classroom. “Sentience, recruit. Sentience is everything. Taking the life of something that can think is killing. That’s what soldiers do. But you didn’t join the army. You were hired by Endless Power. Your job is to exterminate the vermin that impede our expansion to the Outer Planets. Wasps and Spitters don’t think; they just build nests and eat nucleite and shit out corrosive acids. They’re no better than termites.”

“But sir, they must think. The Wasps build homes. The Spitters are like garbage collectors. The Mantises are guards. They cooperate; hell, they practically have a civilization. Sounds pretty smart to me.”

Biologists who had aired similar qualms in the early days of nucleite exploration were quickly labeled as weak-thinkers who were anti progress. A few specimens of Wasps and Spitters were preserved for study, but the appeal of nucleite technology dazzled even the impartial eyes of science. Because Wasps and Spitters reproduced so quickly, most agreed that exterminating the few that lay in the way was more than justified. Such was the spirit of the times.

The instructor slams a fist on his desk. “A civilization? Goddamn. For them to have a civilization, they’d have to be human. And if they were human, then this would be a war. And if this were a war, then it would be fought by an army. And if this were an army, then you’d be soldiers. But you aren’t soldiers, and you aren’t in the army, and this is not a war, and Wasps and Spitters are not humans, and they sure as hell don’t have a fucking civilization! You’ve got to draw a line, recruit. Killing Wasps, or Spitters, or Mantises or a goddamn ant at a picnic is a god-given right. Even an old lady could do it and not feel a thing! If you’re going to be a pussy, maybe I’ll call up your momma and have her pick you up and take you home.”

The instructor is panting. The recruit shuts his mouth. Angel looks at his paper, taps his pencil. He draws a line down the middle. On the left, he writes SENTIENT. Under it: HUMANS. On the right side of the paper he writes WASPS, SPITTERS, MANTISES. He crumples the paper and shoves it into his jacket.

~~~

Angel sits at the kitchen table in his EnviroDome 4002. He pulls threads from a dishtowel, mutilating it. He and Lisa have not met eyes all morning.

The home is sound-proof, self-contained and thermally controlled, with adjustable humidity and airflow levels. The advertised “more Earthlike than Earth” quality brings Lisa comfort against the loneliness of Martian living. Angel considers puncturing a hole through the barrier of the EnviroDome 4002.

Bandages, slings and titanium pins hold his body together. Though Lisa calls the crash an accident, Angel knows better. He soared over that ridgeline and smashed into the red rocks