Orion Javen & Mazz

by Josiah S., 13

As their Vessel of Exile screamed towards the flooded city, what used to be called San Francisco, Orion Javen thought about what had brought him here. The assassination.  If this was karma getting him back for all the crimes he’d committed, rules he’d broken, and people he’d killed, he was glad that Mazz was here with him. Mazz was a robot who believed that robots and humans could achieve peace with each other and be seen as equals. Their real “name” was M-4zz, a robot created to help the Javen family, who were tech manufacturers. 

Orion had run away from his family with Mazz two weeks after his 15th birthday, after learning that his parents were prioritizing quick money over the safety of their employees. (One had died after an assembly machine malfunctioned and exploded, striking the employee in the head with a huge bolt). After that, he and Mazz had joined a small guerilla fighting force that resisted large, abusive corporations. They had only taken hits on smaller targets, but one day they were ordered to assassinate a politician named Baroque Park. He had been covering up dozens of murders of whistleblowers and journalists who were getting too close to uncovering his many crimes. 

After months of planning and setup, they reached the window to kill Park, and they did, but as they were making their escape, an alarm was tripped, locking down the building. They were caught by the police force and were immediately, without a trial, exiled to the apocalyptic Earth with 17 other convicts in small pods. As the two Martians entered Earth’s atmosphere, still healing from the nuclear war that ravaged the planet centuries ago, the small screen in the corner of their pod bleeped a warning that wasn't heard by either of them, as Orion’s vision went dark.

Orion woke up to the increasingly  pungent smell of leaking rocket fuel and loud banging  on their pod’s door. The first thing he noticed was how heavy he was, and the second was how the banging had gotten much louder than when he had first woken up. Mazz looked to be deactivated because of the immense amount of pressure that they both had experienced. As the banging reached deafening levels of volume, Mazz booted up, tried to stand, and fell.

“It seems that the gravity here is somewhere between 9.8 and 9.812 m/s2,” Mazz grunted as they tried to stand up. “Roughly three times as much as Mars. Also, we should probably do something about that banging.” As soon as they had finished their sentence, however, one wall of the pod gave in, causing a deafening crash that knocked over the two. As they both struggled to get up, Orion furiously raised a broken safety bar and swung it at their unknown attacker, hitting the person in the head hard. The assailant gave a cry of pain and crumpled to the ground, bloodied and unconscious. 

The smell of blood from outside the pod was overwhelming. The rest of the exiled criminals were savagely fighting what seemed to be Earthen scavengers clothed in makeshift armor made of scraps, beating each other with metal pipes, rocks, or any sharp item they could find. The combatants were on the top of an old concrete building, surrounded by water. The exiled martians were being slaughtered, and the scavengers had the element of surprise. Within seconds of Orion and Mazz exiting the pod, they were both locked in combat with scavengers. One of them, a thin, black-haired man lashed out at Orion, slicing at him with a makeshift dagger and struck his right arm. Orion gave a cry of pain and fell to the ground, writhing in agony. The scavenger lunged at Orion, about to deliver the fatal blow, when, suddenly, the attacker fell over. Mazz stood behind the scavenger’s limp body, fist outstretched. 

“Let’s get out of here,” Mazz yelled, “we have to jump, now!” The two raced to the edge of the dozen-floor tall building, and dived towards the water far, far below.