There comes a time when the people you have known all your life become strangers, and you find yourself re-familiarizing yourself with them. After being gone for a year, that's how I felt sitting down for dinner with my family. James goes on about his college class on urban design— I didn’t even know he cared about the arts— and everyone else appears to be absorbed by his passion. 

Dozing off, I stare straight ahead at the huge canvas painting James hung in the dining room. It's of a woman sitting on a beach shore watching a ship sail away. The wind pushes her hair, and her hair trails down her face, and the sky's restless combination of warm orange, a bit of red, and dark blue envelops overhead. In this clash of colors, the woman’s brown skin is washed over by the purple light. 

My family sparks up conversations about people I'm unfamiliar with, and I sit awkwardly, hoping they change the topic. I shift in my chair and mindlessly fix my gaze on my cube, a smart watch that I wear at all times. I scroll to find my old IQ scores, and I gaze at my first score of 200. I took my first IQ test the second I landed on Mars, and my officer glanced at my score and laughed at me.

Mom and James stand to take all our dinner plates after we finish eating and return with dessert. Dad turns to West and inquires about the new bullet trains West’s company is in the process of building. Sunday is on her phone–she must have gotten it recently–giggling to herself. I feel aged seeing my baby sister, who used to play with dolls on the dining table, being completely absorbed by her phone.

“Sunday, no phones on the dinner table,” Mom says, coming in with the pumpkin pie in hand. “Especially since Naomi came back.”

James follows behind her, carrying utensils for all of us. He grins at me when I catch his glance.

“New utensils?” I say, when James sets down mine. I hold them, expecting all the weird dents James and I made as children, banging them on the tables, but I glide my fingers on the smooth silver.

“Yup. Got them last month.” James goes around and gives everyone else theirs before sitting across from me. “What was Mars like? Do you have any pictures?”

“I have a ton,” I say, taking off my cube from my wrist and selecting the picture application. I place the cube on the table and tap it once. The cube lights up, projecting 3D images of Mars right above it: the desert regions, the city, and the copper Martian spaceships. I swipe through the projection in the air, allowing James to examine each picture. “It's interesting, Mars is actually this pale golden brown, but the rust makes it look red.”

“Was it cold? Did you wear the suits everywhere?” Sunday asks and leans over the table to see the pictures.

“Yeah, it was deadly cold at night, but I only wore suits when I worked outside, in space,” I respond, leaning back in my chair.

“I wish I had gone with you,” James says. He looks at me with his dark brown eyes, twinkling. 

“I need to thank your superiors.” Dad takes a sip of his wine. “Especially for not murdering you. You came out in one piece.”

“Well, you don’t know what happened when I was there,” I say jokingly. Everyone laughs, but West studies my face, looking worried. I reassuringly squeeze his hand.

A year ago, when I proposed the seemingly insane idea of wanting to go to Mars, West supported me from the beginning. Without him, I would have never gone. I touch my cube, feeling the smooth surface. But maybe I would have been happier.

“I remember when you won that science fair with your solar-powered battery.” Dad looks at me with warmth. He leans back, reminiscing. “That's when I knew you were going to be an engineer.” 

“Yup, just like you.” I force a smile. That was a different time, when I would create to satisfy my own curiosity. When I didn’t have to prove anything to anyone and was allowed to just create.

“Mimi, I just remembered. I still have the doll you made for me.” Sunday jumps up from her seat and runs out of the room. She returns with Lou in her hand, a doll with dark bronze skin and an ocean blue dress littered with faded dots where glitter once sparkled.  I gave her Lou on her birthday as a promise that we were sisters forever. Lou has long lashes that were programmed to blink periodically, but now she looks like she’s twitching. 

“I remember this…” I say, taking the doll and analyzing it. I press the button on the heart, and a song starts to play. Lou’s mouth opens and closes to mimic singing. 

“You were talented, even as a child,” Dad says.  I feel a twinge of sadness, yearning for the burning passion I had as a child.

“Well, I have gifts for you…. all of you.” I turn around in my chair and put my bag on my lap.

“Mimi, you didn’t have to,” Mom says, smiling. 

“It's fine. I had to get everyone something.”

I pull Mom’s gift out from my bag, a Martian-style necklace with orange and red beads. Mom immediately puts it on her neck, smiling. Dad’s gift was maroon gauntlets with a radiant red jewel at the dorsum of the hand. He puts it on and admires its design. Sunday grins at me as I hand her a pair of red boots with a glittering red jewel on the outer ankles.

“Just use them inside. They are only authorized on Mars, not Earth.” I rummage through my bag for the last two gifts. “And they aren’t really useful on Earth, so think of them as trinkets.”

“What do you even use these for?” Sunday stands and puts on the boots.

“The boots are used for moving through zero gravity. And the gauntlet for arm protection when moving through space.”

“I should try to see how well it works on Earth’s gravity.” Sunday does a few mini hops, prepping herself for a jump upwards.

“Sunday,” Mom warns. “You’ll break the ceiling.”

Sunday sighs dramatically and sits. I give James and West the last two gifts: a green cube and a blue cube. 

“This is better than mine,” Sunday cries.

“Jealous?” He puts it on his wrist and waves it in her face. West stares at it for a moment, then accepts the gift. 

“Cubes? Did these cost you a lot?” West asks in a worried tone, inspecting his gift.

“No, not at all. They cost a lot on Earth, but are basically dirt cheap on Mars.” I lean over next to him to look at his cube, encouraging him to turn it on, but he only stares at it.

“Don’t tell anyone,” I playfully whisper to him.

His head whips up. “What?”

“I got you the high-tech cubes.” I tap mine. “The same ones I use.”

West doesn’t give me the reaction I thought he would. He looks at me for a second, then down at his cube, lost in thought. I thought he would have liked the gift, after all, we met through our love for technology in an engineering class at college. We sat next to each other for a few days before we started talking—mostly whispers about the quiz or missing notes we hadn’t taken— then we discovered we were more alike than we thought.

“Naomi, this is nice,” James comments while scrolling through his cube. He presses a button that lights up a projection of the solar system. Everyone looks up at the stars and planets that fill the room. I turn to West, and his face is unreadable, dazed.

“Why did you give me this?” West asks in a low voice that I only hear. He holds the cube in his hand, staring hard at me. “Explain, you have been acting a bit off.”

 I was a bit shocked by his sudden remark. The West I knew would be excited to even hold any Martian tech. We were told that years ago, that after the government successfully built a city on Mars, all of the leaders abandoned Earth and its people. Now, the Martians harbor their knowledge to themselves and think of Earth as inferior to Mars. West dreamed of using Martian technology to help Earth, and I promised him I would use anything I learned on Mars to help him. 

There is a harshness in his tone. What does he have against a simple gift? 

“West–”

“Naomi, can we call on this?” James rapidly scrolls through his cube. 

“Yes, we can.” I give a quick, tight smile to James. West still leaves his cube untouched and continues to watch me. Really, what is his problem?

West taps me and whispers. “Explain. Now. Before I say something to everyone.” 

“About what?” I quietly retort.

“Everything. Something is off.” West shifts in his seat. “You're being closed off, and this cube thing doesn’t make sense. Why give us something this important?”

“It's not important,” I remark. “I got it cheap when I went to the market.”

West leans close to my face. “No, you didn’t, this is not made for pedestrians. I know RVS.” He shows me the RVS’s symbol, Remote Vector System, on the back of the watch: a golden shield with red symbols on it. “They are a Maritan astronaut tech company.” 

“Okay… I took it from my ship, but no one was using it!” I snap.

“Naomi, for what reason?”

I hesitate, then say. “Fine, look, I'm only visiting,” I whisper to him even quieter, trying to avoid my family hearing.

“You’re going back?” West says too loudly. Mom looks at him immediately.

“Who’s going back where?” She says this calmly, but I know if I checked her heart rate right now, it would be skyrocketing. 

“I'm going back to Mars,” I say slowly.
“You’re going back?” My mom stands immediately and looks at me in shock. “You going back to Mars? Your internship is over.”

“I am staying there for longer. I got a job.”

“Why do you want to go back?” My mom’s eyes start to water. “The Maritan won't allow us to visit you.”

“I know,” I say quietly. “But I still have more I want to do.”

“Like what? Naomi, you are all alone there.” Mom opens her mouth to say more, but she hesitates and silently storms out to the dining room. Everyone looks at me, expecting me to go and comfort her, but I couldn’t. Why did she care so much about me going when this is good for me?

Narrowing his eyes at me, Dad gets up and follows Mom, leaving me to explain myself to my siblings and West. They all stare in shock until West speaks. “Why aren’t you staying?”

“I already told you.” 

West looks at me hard and leans closer to me.“You need to give us the whole truth. Why are you staying on Mars?” I could feel the heat on me, and lying would get me nowhere. The truth was going to become apparent later on.

“A few years ago, a team discovered a species of aliens living on one of the moons of Mars. The aliens were taken into a lab, and the Martian scientists found out that the aliens had four times the intelligence of a human.” I pause. “So one of the scientists had the idea to fuse the brains of an alien and a human to create a superior human brain.”

“Fuse the brains? The Martians are crazy.” West looks at me in shock. “Is that even possible?”

“Well, look at me.” There was a harsh silence that took over, and everyone stared at me. At first, expecting me to show them something physical, but then the realization set in.

“You did not.” West looks at me in pure shock and fear. 

“Yes…” I straighten my back. “I was struggling in Mars, and intelligence is everything. So I got the surgery, but it’s fine. Nothing changed.”

“So…you’re an alien now?” Sunday looks at me softly. 

“You don’t know the torture I went through.” I take a deep breath. “The Martians use brain stimulants to get absurd scores on the IQ test. Not only was I targeted for being from Earth, but also because I had such a low score, but it was a normal human score.” 

For the first time in that year, I wondered if everyone had made a mistake about me being smart or if being smart was something distant— an uncontrollable unit of measurement. My score consumed my entirety, and the badge where it hung was my identity, but at night, I dreamed of home every day. 

In the dining room, everyone goes silent in sympathy at my sudden vulnerability. It only ticks me off. I am not inferior anymore.

“Dont pity me! I am not an alien!” I yell. 

West glares at me, setting the cube down on the table. “You choose this over family,” he exclaims, gesturing at my body. “When will you smarten up? There is no way you thought we would accept this.”

“You weren’t there,” I say. “The Martians are not human. You would do the same thing, too.”

“No,” James also takes off his cube and slides it over to me on the table. “I wouldn’t.” 

“I still care for you all. I even begged the Institute to let me come back to see you.” I point out. “I was hoping that with the cubes you would consider coming with me.”

“When were you planning to tell us you weren’t staying?” West says. “And why would I want to come with you? I never wanted to mix with the Maritans. You knew that.”

I don't respond. None of what I am saying is getting through to them. I missed them all so much, and with the surgery, the Martian will never allow me to come back to Earth again.

“Naomi?” Sunday points to my arm. “Your skin.”

I look at my hands, and my brown skin is now a purplish brown. “I'm evolving.”

“Evolving?” James looks in fear. “I can’t do this. You don’t even sound human anymore.”

I stand and look at James and Sunday. “Sometimes you need to destroy what you once were.” 

“Even if it means losing family?” James asks. 

“Not intentionally.” I hold my hand out and admire the transformation. I watch as the purple hue becomes more potent on my arms, and I slip into the crack of something beyond my humanity.

West looks at me at a loss for words, and he glares at my arm, at my color. 

I don’t want to scare my parents with my transformation, so I decide to leave. I begin to walk out of the dining room, but someone grabs my hand. I turn around to see Sunday with tears rolling down her face.

“If you decide to come back, I will always accept you as family again.” She says with sincerity, holding Lou tightly. I silently nod, my eyes filling with water, but I blink it away.

I walk to the corridor, and I stop at the door. I dig into my pockets and pull out my badge with my new IQ score, 450, and a smile comes onto my face.

 I hear steps behind me, and I turn to see my father. He looks at my skin knowingly and leans on the hallway wall. 

“I figured as much.” He says slowly. Dad eyes my badges in my hand. “I used to be an engineer, too, for ships. Remember that?”

“Yes. You helped build the first passenger spaceships, then the Maritans stole your ships and isolated themselves on Mars.” I repeat monotonically. 

“There’s a reason I didn’t want you to go to Mars.” He breathes in slowly. “It's because I know how difficult it is to survive there.” He points to my badge. “But those numbers are not going to ease your mind or solve your problems.” 

I don’t say anything but stare at him. My father quit engineering spaceships years ago to build trains on Earth. He said he wanted to be closer to family and regretted pushing them off to build for the Martians.

“I’ve been following what’s going on on Mars through my old connections recently. Heard all about what they do up there.” Dad walks to me and holds my hand. He looks into my eyes for something, but I look back expressionless. “I don’t care what happened to you, but you will always be family. No matter what you did to yourself… But if you feel you need to go back, I won't stop you.” 

In my alien condition, I have forgotten what I would usually say in these moments; it was as if I were gutted out hollow and left with only my flesh. My father looks more visibly saddened at my indifference. I raise my hand, and my skin has rested in a deep plum color. I could not stay on Earth. Not anymore. And so I quietly open the front door and walk out.