Guin twisted her head around.

Although 200 marsyears had passed since she had lived on Earth, Guin still remembered what it felt like to walk the surface of Earth without an environmental protection suit on.

She had briefly worked with HAZMAT teams one summer, helping to eradicate a deadly trend amongst Earthlings of starting their own home laboratories to cook addictive substances such as meth.  An unhealthy obsession with a momentary high.  A synonym maker’s dream:

20/20 (“Clear Vision” Hawaii)
222 (Chicago)
417 (SW Missouri because of meth capital)
Agua
Albino Poo
Alffy
All Tweakend Long
Anny
Anything Going On
the attenborough (London; 11/29/07)
Artie (as in i, Boise, ID 7/30/09)
Bache Knock
Bache Rock
Bag Chasers
Baggers
Barney Dope
Batak (Philippine Street Name)
Bato
Bato-(Philippine Street Name)
Batu Kilat (Malaysia, it means shining rocks)
Batu or Batunas (Hawaii)
Batuwhore
Beegokes
Bianca
Bikerdope
Billy, Or Whizz,
(Britain – cartoon character called Billy Whizz who seemed to be always on the stuff!)
Bitch
Biznack
Blanco
Bling (LA, CA 8/12/09)
Blizzard
Blue Acid
Blue Funk, (Southwest Area of SD Ca.)
Bomb
Booger
Boorit-Cebuano (Filipino Street Name)
Boo-Yah! (Southwest Area of SD Ca.)
Bottles (Used in New Zealand 7/31/07)
Brian Ed
Buff Stick
Bugger Sugar
Buggs
Bumps
Buzzard Dust
Caca
Candy
Cankinstien
CC
Chach
ChaChaCha
Chalk
Chalk Dust
Chank
Cheebah
Cheese
Chicken Flippin
Chikin or Chicken
Chingadera
Chittle
Chizel
Chiznad
Choad
Chunkylove (Missouri)
Clavo
Clean out the chimney (Used in New Zealand 7/31/07)
Coco
Coffee
Cookies
Cotton Candy (LA area)
CR (California Central Valley)
Crack Whore
Crank Is “Walk” & Coke Is “Talk.”
Crankster Gansters
Creek Rock (Sand Mountain, AL)
Cri,Cri (Mexican Border in Southwest Arizona)
Criddle
Cringe
Critty
Crizzy
Crothch Dope
Crow
Crunk
Crypto
Crysnax (LA area)
Crystal Meth
Crystalight
Cube
Debbie, Tina, And Crissy
Desoxyn (drug name for meth at the pharmacy)
Devil Dust
Devils Dandruff
Devils Drug
Dingles
Dirt
Dirty
Dizzy D
Dizzle (Missouri)
Dizzo (Missouri)
D-Monic Or D
Do Da
Doody
Doo-My-Lau (H.B.)
Dope
Drano
Dummy Dust
Dunk (LA, CA)
Dyno
Epimethrine
Epod
Eraser Dust
Ethyl-M
Evil Yellow
Fatch (Mexican Border In The Southwest Arizona Area)
Fedrin
Fil-Layed
Fire
Fizz Wizz
G (short for Glass or Go-fast)
G-unit (Los Angeles, CA 8/12/09)
Gab
Gackle-a Fackle-a
Gagger (So. Calif.)
Gak
Gas
Gear Or Get Geared Up
Gemini
George as in george glass from the Brady Bunch movie (CA 8/17/09)
Gina or “I want to talk to Gina tonight” (Calif; 11/18/07)
Glass
Go
Go Fast
Go-ey
Go-Go
Go-Go Juice
Gonzales (Like the cartoon “Speedy”)
Goop
Got Anything
Grit
Gumption
Gyp
Hawaiian Salt
Hank
High Speed Chicken Feed
High Riders (Used in New Zealand 7/31/07)
Highthen
Hillbilly Crack
Hippy Crack
Holy Smoke (Hong Kong)
Homework (This is because homework is generally done on paper which had lines)
Honk the BoBo (Southern MD)
Hoo
Horse Mumpy (Tampa, Florida)
Hydro
Hypes
Ibski
Ice
Ice Cream
Icee
Ish
Izice
Jab
Jasmine
Jenny Crank Program, (jenny crank diet) (Seattle, WA 11/4/07)
Jetfuel
Jib
Jib Nugget
Jibb Tech Warrier
Jinga
Juddha
Juice
Junk (San Diego)
Kibble
Killer
KooLAID
Kryptonite
Lamer
Laundry Detergent
Lemon Drop
Life
Lily
Linda
Livin the Dream (Alberta Canada)
Lost Weekend (Bay Area SF)
Love
Low
Lucille
M Man
Magic
Meth
Meth Monsters
Methaine
Methandfriend
Methandfriendsofmine
Methanfelony
Methatrim
Methmood
Method
Moon Juice (Missouri)
Motivation in a bag (Cleveland or Columbus, Ohio; (11/19/07)
Nazi Dope
Ned
Newday
Night Train (11/7/07)
No Doze
Nose Candy
On A Good One
(New Zealand)’place where meth is made is a “P lab”
Patsie
Peaking
Peanut Butter
Peel Dope
Phazers
Phets
Philopon (East Asia)
Pieta
Pink
Poison
Pookie (LA area)
Poop
Poop’d Out
Poor Man’s Cocaine (Philippines)
Pootananny
Powder
Powder Monkeys
Powder Point
Project Propellant
Puddle
Pump (Bay Area SF)
Quarter Tee Bag
Quartz (8/4/09)
Q’d
Quick (Canada)
Quill
Rachet Jaw
Rails
Rails
Rank
Redneck Heroin (Atlanta)
Richie Rich
Rip
Rock
Rock
Rocket Fuel
Rocky Mountain High
Rosebud
Rudy’s
Rumdumb
Running Pizo
Sack
Sam’s Sniff
Sarahs
Satan Dust
Scante (Hispanic Population in Southern California)
Scap
Schlep Rock
Scooby Snax
Scud
Scwadge
Shab
Sha-Bang
Shabs (San Francisco)
Shabu
Shamers
Shards
Shit
Shia (Missouri)
Shiznack, Shiznac, Sciznac or Shiznastica
Shiznittlebang
Shiznit
Shiznitty
Shizzo
Shnizzie Snort
Shwack
Skeech
Sketch
Ski
Skitz
Sky Rocks
Sliggers
smack
Smiley Smile
Smurf Dope
Smzl
Snaps
Sniff
Snow, Motivation (Colorado Springs, CO)
Space Food
Spaceman
Spagack
Sparacked
Sparked
Sparkle
Speed Racer
Spin, Spin, Spin
Spinack
Spindarella
Spinney Boo
Spinning
Spishak
Spook
Sprack
Sprizzlefracked
Sprung (Mississippi)
Spun Ducky Woo
Squawk
Stallar
Sto-Pid
Styels
Sugar
Suger
Sweetness
Swerve
Syabu (pronounced “shabu” – SE Asia)
Ta’doww (Southwest Area of SD Ca.)
Talkie
Tasmanian Devil
Tenner
The New Prozac
The White House
Tical
TIK (1/27/08 – South Africa)
T. D. – for – Tink Dust (as in: ”Tinkerbell”, from Disney)
Talkie
Time (Atlanta, GA)
Tina Or Teena
Tish – Shit Backwards (C.V. Calif. area)
Tobats
Toots
Torqued
Trippin Trip
Truck Stop Special
Tubbytoast
Tutu (Hawaii)
Twack
Twacked Out
Tweak
Tweedle Doo
Tweek (A Methamphetamine-Like Substance)
Tweezwasabi
Twistaflexin
Twiz
Twizacked
Ugly Dust
Vanilla Pheromones
Wake
Way
We We We
Whacked
White Bitch
White Ink
White Junk
White Lady
White Pony (Ridin’ the White Pony)
White
Whip (Western Australia 2/3/09)
Who-Ha
Work: I think that came about from it being my dealers “work” (1/22/08 Arlington, TX)
Wigg
Xaing
Yaaba (Thailand)

Yammer Bammer
Yank
Yankee
Yay
Yead Out
Yellow Barn
Zingin
Zip
Zoiks
Zoom

Freedom to choose is not always about making choices to enhance one’s longevity.

Guin leaned her head against the back of her helmet.

The circulation fans in her suit, linked with sensors on the outside of the suit, simulated Martian winds blowing across her skin and through her hair.

She felt the dry, gritty Martian air on her neck and smiled.

Memories of an early summer day in north Alabama sprang to the forefront of her thoughts.

She had tagged along with a drug enforcement task group as an advisor, her expertise on that particular day a tangential twist on her knowledge of rocket propulsion.

A lab hidden on the local Army base, assigned to explore alternative uses of popular street drugs, wanted access to unusual combinations, hoping to find the one mix of ingredients that could be used on another planet without cause or concern for breaking social rules or violating local laws.

The lab scientists concluded long ago that illicit laboratories were often the most innovative, their access to raw materials limited not by annual government funding but by the implied value of their product, value derived by addicts who often died as willing guinea pigs, a feat no military, government or commercial lab was overtly willing to take.

Guin’s mission was to ascertain the controlled explosive capabilities of the booby traps set up around labs in the backwood lairs of Appalachian moonshiner descendants, trained in ancient techniques and modern warfare to protect their territory against invaders both foreign and domestic.

She, too, wanted to find the perfect propellant.

However, she did not know why.

The company she worked for had only recently hired her and, like all new employees, put her through a trial period to test her willingness to do whatever it took to get the job done and to keep her eyes and ears shut while on joint assignment with other companies and unnamed tactical government agencies.

The HAZMAT suit she wore that day was nowhere near as sophisticated as her current suit on Mars.

Yes, it had a communications system and a rudimentary heating/cooling unit but it easily ripped on sharp objects and did not keep track of her vital signs; its external sensors added up to the detection of a few hazardous chemicals and that was it.  Otherwise, she and the team relied on portable gear to deal with expected hazardous situations, which often led to mistakes in the field such as when what they thought was a harmless 55-gallon drum of wax turned out to be a temperature-based state-change toxic fume bomb.

Guin wandered across the short Martian field, kicking up dust and sending small pebbles arching in a path in front of her.

She knew she was supposed to leave this area off-limits but had forgotten why, turning off her connection to the ISSA Net to let her thoughts meander without making meaningful connections for other Nodes on this planet and elsewhere in the Inner Solar System.

However, her telescopic vision locked on to one of the pebbles she’d kicked.

Its shape was unnatural.

This far out from the colony, the chance of a mechanical part falling off a lander and bouncing out here was next to zero.

But it was not zero.

Guin picked up the donut-shaped “pebble” and turned it over.

The visual chemical signature on the surface of the rock returned her to the memory of the HAZMAT team’s discovery.

“We are not alone.”

It wasn’t just that the meth lab cookery they found was way too complicated for the average unemployed lab tech to assemble from parts acquired on the old Internet.

None of the equipment had ever existed before.

All of this found in three mobile homes pushed together, a few rusted pieces of metal siding welded over the rooftops to give the appearance of a “triple wide,” ratty pink fiberglass insulation dangling between precariously-stacked cinder blocks in the crawlspace underneath, but the insides of the mobile homes were cleanly gutted and replaced with unearthly contraptions.

Guin squeezed the Martian donut in her hand.  It did not crumble like the other pieces of sandstone under her boots.

Guin had wanted to take a few samples with her from the meth lab but was removed from the building along with everyone else but a few guards.

She was driven back to her office and debriefed about what she saw.

Instructed never to say anything or write a single word about that day, Guin had nearly forgotten about it.  She wondered if she should reconnect to the ISSA Net and search for clues about that day but she chose not even to inform the secure Nodes on the ISSA Net what she was thinking about.

Guin had long ago accepted that she only knew what she knew and might never know everything she wanted to learn about.

But she was going to keep filling in the gaps.

That last shipment that was delivered to the colony was designated for this area.

Had she wandered here accidentally or on purpose?

Who had determined that the shipment should be set up here?

What was in the shipment?

Did those who packed the shipment know she was in the area and, if so, did they realize she had been in the party that came upon what first looked like a den of squalor on Brindlee Mountain only to discover the greatest mystery in the second decade of the 21st century?

She was going to find out!