Nope, the middle aged blond rescue worker, Named Major Evelyn Marva was not going put her in handcuffs of any sort. She did take a look over her, ask a bunch of questions, but once that was done, had her suit up and took her out to the transport and back to the CU.

Mom and dad were overjoyed at first, all hugs and tears, then a bit scowly and mad once the rescue officers left it to the three of them. They had every right to be, Tory decided. And she had every reason to feel guilty.

“What were you thinking, running away,” Mom said. “Its dangerous out there. You could have died.”

“We all had to go through a class,” she reminded them both. “I remember what I’m taught.”

“But you don’t always do what your taught to,” dad said. “We were worried sick.”

“Well I’m back,” she told them. “And I’m really not going to do what I did again.”

She sure wasn’t.

There would be restraints applied on her that would take months to be removed, that was for sure. An ankle bracelet, and a transponder injected in her shoulder in case she figured out how to remove bracelet without being detected. Her parents had been very adamant about option two being mandatory. It was either, that or be confined to their apartments until, whenever, and adamantly for her own good. An unhappy compromise, but Tory decided the bigger jail she could put up with better than the smaller one she might end up being confined to. Her escape did earn her some notoriety at the school, along with less bullying. Although that wasn’t anything she cared about anymore.

What Tory did care about was what the bornhere’s were going to do with the nuke. But weeks went by and there was no news, no news at all. There hadn’t even been any release that a nuke had even been stolen, and she searched every news source she had access to. After a few weeks went by, she decided it must have all been at trick somehow, maybe there had been no nuke at all. That was why they’d been given the case.  All the weirdness, well, who knew how Mars made people crazy.

So she started working on her next plan of escape.

About three Martian months after her return, Tory bumped into the old man who’d sent her on that adventure, Valentine, the first of the borneheres. She ran into him in the colony site’s main greenhouse on a class outing. He was just sitting there on a bench, seeming to be soaking in all the oxygen being produced all around him. She took a seat beside him, did the same.

“I heard you were back,” he said not looking at her, instead gazing at a rack of tomatoes growing on vines, swollen and a deep red, looking amazingly tasty. “Don’t seem to be any worse for wear for your adventure such as it was.”

“You lied to me,” she accused, not looking at him, not really wanting to.

 “You wouldn’t have done anything of any value if I’d given you the proper information,” he told her, in a voice that told her he was grinning. “As it was, it seems you’ve made quite the impact. Like you always will.”

The words hit her hard and strange. She finally glanced at him, to see if there were other signs of old people’s dementia or something. He just turned and smiled.

“You know about the-” she started to stand.

“Sit, sit,” he motioned. “It won’t be a good idea for you to attract attention right now.”

Tory sat back down.

“There were some very weird things going on at the base,” she said. “Do you know what was going on there?”

“I know that Mars isn’t the world you’ve been taught it is,” he told her. “There’s a lot more to it than you can possible imagine.  Be proud, Tory, what you accomplished will make quite an impact.

 She slumped on the bench.

“What impact. Nothing’s happened. Nothing’s changed. Nothing’s even been reported.”

Not even anything horrible.

 “You’re young,” he said, like all old people always said to her, as though she had no idea how the world worked. “Real change is never instantaneous. Sometimes it takes years, decades, centuries, millions of years. But I still might be able to get you on that return trip to Earth you want if you’ll help me out with something.”

“What?” she wanted to know, glancing over her shoulder.

“I want to know what you’re parents are up to,” he said, glanced at her sideways, giving her a wink. “What they are really up to. I can get you sent home as easily as I can get you sent across the Planitia if I feel like it.”

“And I should trust you?” she asked, glancing up at him. “Why should I ever trust you again.”

Valentine gazed down at her evenly.

“Well, get back to me when you’re desperate enough, then,” he told her, offered a smirk and then went back at staring at the tomatoes.