O P P O R T U N I T Y C O S T PA R T I I I short story Theron Camp // 12 Montana, 2036 MARS SETTLERS CELEBRATE THREE MONTHS SINCE ARRIVAL OF ROBINSON II CREW, the headline read. It was remarkable, this-- sixty-odd colonists in a hostile environment more than eleven light-minutes away, some living there for more than two years, and not a single fatality. Annie Zimmermann Olsen had paid close attention to reports on the Robinson missions over the past few years, and knew all the particulars of the program in a way that (she suspected) few others outside the program did. It was her main concession to her childhood dream. It was best that she’d stayed here, she reassured herself as she cleaned up after her breakfast. After all, she’d met Erik when they were in college in Great Falls, and they’d married the autumn after Annie graduated. They had gone to Colorado for their honeymoon, but Annie hadn’t left the state since. She still lived on the farm, but most days she’d bike into town to work at the thriving machine repair shop she’d established
several years ago, while Peter, Erik, and Andrea took care of the farm. She believed her work-- and the money it brought in-- was one of the main reasons that their farm was still thriving while other small farms in the area suffered. On her way out the door to work, she passed the fireplace and stopped to look at the pictures on the mantel. There, second from the right, was the one from when she and Peter were kids-- Peter was in his mid-teens, wearing that perpetual teenage look of exasperation, and Annie was twelve, her face obscured beneath a giant plastic astronaut helmet. As she fished her bike helmet from the cardboard boxes in the corner of the garage, she wondered how twelve-year-old her would react if she saw her now. She was domesticated. Tamed. This was her freedom, now-- a bike ride between home and work. Home, work, home, work. She had left Montana, what, two or three times in her life? The best she could claim now was a little shop which fixed people’s cars and tractors. Was this the best she
“She was domesticated. Tamed. This was her freedom now-a bike ride between home and work.”
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