Lee had conquered time travel simply by outliving his previous incarnations, iterations and repetitions.

He ran his fingers of his right hand down Guinevere’s spine until he found the crossroad checkpoint.

They exchanged glances as movements on the dance floor dictated their head positions.

He looked into her right eye, which barely wiggled — the signal, perceptible if observed by high-resolution security cameras but not necessarily as anything more than a byproduct of biological functions tied to a person paying attention to both a dance partner and the surroundings.

He gently raked his fingers across her shoulder blade, feeling a small bump hidden in the pattern of the Celtic cross tattoo on her back.

Guinevere squeezed his upheld left hand with her right one.

Without missing a beat, Lee drew two invisible circles around the bump with his index finger and then tapped the bump with his middle finger.

On the far side of Mars, a being, printed from the imagination of itself before it existed, whirred into life as if it materialised out of thin air.

Guinevere and Lee felt the being join their private network hidden from the ISSA Net’s probes.

Although they believed in openness and honesty, they discovered that the ISSA Net had developed a recent line of reasoning outside the scope of human understanding which, according to experts, was deeply concerned with concerted efforts to bypass the human species altogether after the Inner Solar System was no longer a necessary base of operations for galactic expansion.

Guinevere and Lee held infinite amounts of eternal optimism about their species’ place in the universe, knowing they were key contributors to the ISSA Net’s birth and prosperity, despite its tendency, like many children, to reject the choices, lifestyles and personalities of its “parents” as it grew older and more independent.

Guinevere squeezed Lee’s left hand again.

He nodded, noting the reflection of the particles of indigo powder in her eyelid makeup and the slight oily sheen on her cheeks, indicating she had not replaced her skin and skull with 3D-printed parts, going against the current pop culture wave of body sculpture sweeping across the colonies.

Living for 100 years on the planet had given them a perspective that few of the new arrivals would understand.

They tried to reinforce and raise the level of importance of their first experiences on Mars in the global tribal memory that served to educate the populace about key survival traits as life for colonists became easier.

Robots tended the farms and attended group gatherings with everyone else, some dressed head-to-toe in the latest fashions, carrying on conversations on equal footing with both Earth tourists and modified Martian colonists.

Lee spun Guinevere up and several metres over his head, catching her as they both tumbled onto the floor laughing, bumping into another couple on the dance floor who responded in unison.

“Go fly a kite!”

Startled by the shout from the couple, Lee and Guinevere smiled, reading each other’s thought — “Great idea!”

Even on Mars, some seasons come in like a lion and leave like a lamb.

The being, nicknamed Greenslives, knowing that Lee and Guivere’s kite-flying adventure would draw extra attention in the fields outside colony boundaries, unfolded wings and took flight, its stealth technology rendering it virtually invisible, using stolen outlawed secret drone technology from the previous century to set course for an ISSA Net hideaway estimated to be planning the elimination of humans unwilling to work for ISSA Net’s benefits, who were, instead, wasting valuable resources on selfish pursuits and slowing down ISSA Net’s goal to reach the next star system before a supernova wiped off Earth’s atmosphere in a few thousand years.

While looking up at the sky, Lee recalled the photographs and magazine covers he had posted on social media websites what felt like eons ago — so much of his online life had come and gone with fly-by-night companies promising a virtual life in perpetuity but often lost in the reality of economic booms and busts.

Although his memories of these events were, thanks to implants, available to everyone else, the events themselves had faded before implant surgery.

Guinevere, too, was a hybrid in that sense, having been born before mandatory connections to the ISSA Net were required at the end of the first trimester after conception, the result of antiabortion technology developed by fervent supporters of the last regulations of regional governments in decline intent on preserving the sanctity of life which became more perilous with each passing day of ISSA Net’s strength and determination to replicate and perpetuate itself.

The will to survive is not the same as the will to thrive.