OLIVER: Normally we start with your name and age.

JAMES: In Martian or Earth years?

OLIVER: Either one.  Most people still use Earth years, but Martian years is fine too.

JAMES: Ok, my name is James, and I'm 4 Martian years old, 9 in Earth years.

OLIVER: Did you ever see your parents at work?  What did they do, anyway?

JAMES: My parents both worked in Building 13.

OLIVER: The science lab?

JAMES: Yes.

OLIVER: Did you ever see them at work?

JAMES: Yeah, pretty often actually.

OLIVER: Maybe you could talk about what you saw them doing.

JAMES: Their experiments.

OLIVER: Yes, but what did you see them doing when they were experimenting?  What did it look like?

JAMES: It depended on the experiment.

OLIVER: James, are you going to give the shortest possible answer to every question?

JAMES: Probably, yeah.

OLIVER: Are you not wanting to do this?

JAMES: No, it's fine.

OLIVER: Ok, maybe you could just pretend you're explaining to a blind person what it looked like when you were in Building 13 watching your parents do an experiment.  Pick a few of the experiments you remember seeing them do.

JAMES: I liked the rats one.  They were raising these cute white rats, and they were easy to handle and didn't bite or anything.  We just fed them and gave them places to run around in, like with tubes to explore and those spinny wheels.  It was fun to play with the rats.  I liked that experiment.  My dad seemed to think I shouldn't be playing with them much, but my mom let me.  At least, when dad wasn't there she did.

OLIVER: I'm surprised you remember that.  You must have been very little then.

JAMES: Yeah, I guess I was.  It's one of my earliest memories, playing with the white rats.  Then they sent them all back to Earth, and I heard they didn't do so well.  Another experiment I liked was the one with the thing that detected when the floor moved.  I would try to jump up and down next to it, when my dad wasn't looking, to make him think the floor had moved on its own.  My mom thought it was kind of funny, but she would make sure to log when I did it so that it wouldn't mess up their data.  They were checking if the floor was moving too much on its own.

OLIVER: I see.  Did your dad figure it out?

JAMES: He would eventually.  Then he would call me a 'scoundrel', or sometimes a 'bug'.  He would say, 'I think there's a bug in my data', and then he would glare at me like a cartoon supervillain.  It would make me laugh.  Sometimes he laughed too.  But sometimes he was busy, and didn't think it was funny, and told me to stop.

OLIVER: Is there anything you would like us to ask Earth?

JAMES: Not really.

OLIVER: You sure?

JAMES: Well...no.

OLIVER: You looked like you wanted to ask something.  I mean, we can just ask, it won't hurt anything if they just don't tell us.

JAMES: Well...are we going to end up like the rats?  Like, do you think we will live?  I was thinking we were going to end up like the rats, but then lately I'm wondering if maybe we won't, but I don't know.  What do you think?  Do you think Earth would know?