My name is Ava, and I'm 6 years old (12 Earth years).  Somehow I got stuck trying to figure out how to change the batteries of the solar farm robots, and I have no idea what I'm doing.  Mostly, I'm just trying to make sure Lucas doesn't get himself killed.  Not that I have been any good at keeping anybody else from getting themselves killed.

I really miss Mom and Dad.  I don't know if I really want to write anything.

Ok, Oliver wants me to do it and Lucas says I should do it and he will be quiet while I work on it.  I know Lucas doesn't like being quiet, and if he can do that even though he doesn't like it I guess I can write something even though I don't like it.  The first thing I remember is throwing up a lot.  I was little, and sick somehow, probably because new arrivals had just showed up to join the Colony and one of them must have been a carrier of something.  Anyway my parents were trying to help me clean up afterwards, and I asked why we throw up, and they said sometimes your body knows it's better to get rid of something than to keep it inside you.  So, that's my first memory.

Lucas, put that down, you're going to hurt yourself.  I'll work on this when I know you're not going to drop that on your foot.  Yes you will.  Oh, shoot.

Ok, I'm back now.  Lucas dropped a dead robot battery on his foot, and we had to get that patched up.  Oh, the transcriber took down everything I said to him.  Ha!  Well, I'm leaving it in, so you can see what I'm dealing with here.  Lucas is going to be ok, but he's not going to be running around much for a while.  Well, maybe he won't.

So, after puking, what do I remember?  I remember meeting Oliver.  We were supposed to be doing some sort of safety class, I don't remember what, which probably shows how much good it did, but I remember Oliver was the only other one there as young as I was, and I sat next to him.  My parents told me later that his dad was the Colony director, or something.  All I remember is that Oliver was always whispering to me, and I kept telling him we were going to get in trouble, and he never shut up.  Oliver is a good guy, but he does tend to run his mouth a lot.  Shut up Lucas, I am not, we are totally different.

My parents worked in Building 9, where they make and repair solar panels.  Well they did, anyway.  I think they were there when Building 9 first got made; my mom was the engineer who was supposed to get the production process started.  It was a big deal, I guess, when they started being able to make those on Mars instead of depending on new ones being sent from Earth always.  They don't produce as much power as the ones from Earth but they can be made from local materials, so we can make them ourselves, which saves room on the spaceships sending us supplies.  Dad worked there also, in making them.  They didn't talk about work much when I was around, probably for two reasons.  First, they worked together all day, so if there was anything much to say about work, they said it while they were working.  Second, Dad didn't talk too much.  Pretty much Mom did the talking, sometimes even taking Dad's part.

She would say something like, "should we take Ava to Elijah's birthday party?"  Then she would sort of say Dad's part of the conversation for him, like "I guess you probably don't like being in big groups like that, but I think maybe it would be good for Ava."  Then she would just keep on like that, saying both parts of the conversation while Dad just listened, assuming he did listen.  "I guess you might be willing to if we just dropped Ava off there and then left, or maybe I stayed and you didn't have to go.  But I think it would be better if we talked to the other colonists more, we don't get out of our apartment enough."  It would go on for several minutes, with Mom saying both sides, and eventually she would say something like "Oh ok, you win, I'll just take Ava myself and you don't have to come, but you should consider going next time, it would be good for you."  

I remember it was only a couple years ago that it occurred to me that Dad never actually said much during these conversations.  Every once in a while he would speak up, usually to say that Mom had guessed wrong as to what he thought, so I guess most of the time she must have been correct, because he didn't do that very often.  I guess Mom and Dad were kind of a good fit in that sense; she was not great at being quiet and he wasn't good at speaking up.  He liked working with his hands, and didn't usually like having to talk.  He would sometimes spend time making these little clay figures, that he would eventually get fired in Building 11.  He had some little tools that he would use to sculpt them, making little animals with faces and lines drawn on them for fur and so on.  That's how I know something about what horses, and dogs, and squirrels, and all those other Earth animals look like, mostly.  Sometimes I would look up the images for what those animals really looked like, but they were never quite as cute as Dad made them look, so I preferred his little figures.

If we ever get to go back to Building 29, I am going to see if I can get into my parents apartment and find those things.  I left them there after the Evacuation, when my parents said we should move into one of the older buildings where the other remaining people were.  I hadn't played with them in a while, and it seemed like a temporary thing, and I wasn't worried about losing them, and then later I forgot about them with all the horrible stuff going on.  Now I kind of wish that I had them, it would be nice to have something Dad made for me.

Lucas, what are you doing, you just hurt your foot like five minutes ago why are you not sitting down?  No, I would not let you have any of them, you would break them and my Dad made them.  I would let you look at them, yes, but I don't have them now anyway.  We can't go there right now, it is too far to walk Outside and I don't want to try to drive the rover.  Olivia is busy finding leaks in Building 3, she is not going to drive us to Building 29 again just to get my old toys.

Well I'm sorry this whole thing is not making me somehow magically remember something about how to change batteries in the solar farm robots, maybe I can blame that on Lucas interrupting me?  Or maybe that I don't think Mom and Dad ever did anything that related to changing the batteries; that was done by somebody else, I forget their name but they left in the Evacuation.  Dad had to train them originally, and then they went and left.  So I suppose I should go look in Building 9, where they worked, to see if he has any notes on that training, although I don't know why he would or where they would be if he did.  But anyway, Building 9 is a lot closer than Building 29, so I guess it is worth a look.

Lucas, are you ready to walk?  Lucas, put that down.  Lucas, be careful!  God damn it, Lucas...