A Slice of Mars

Mars is a strange place these days. Domed city-states dot a planet increasingly brimming with life, the planet's corporate overlords were overthrown a hundred years ago and capitalism is on the way out, aging is a thing of the past, and yet there's a shockingly short supply of good pizzerias in town. Two siblings, Hett the roboticist and San the bureaucrat, decide to change that. But being granted a lease in a prime location is just the first step; they need help running this operation. They collect a bioengineer and a communications scientist, and somehow also a curious grad student from Earth; together, these five geeks might manage to run a business. But work is only part of life. Getting along with strangers is a much more complicated process. How can people with different brains understand each other? How might personal and cultural wounds heal over time? What do you do when your values or perspectives don't align? And exactly how tame is your coworker's rather large wildcat, anyway? From meetings and friendships to arguments and secrets, a handful of regular lives play out in a distant future society that can be both optimistic and alienating, as the group prepares to open a pizzeria on the busiest holiday of the century.