"They don't like us here," Cadmus aimed his arm at the window, "bang! Bang!"
"Cadmus, careful. Don't act that way." Said Balthasar. "They don't know us. They're acting in whatever way they know how. They don't understand."
Cadmus just laughed. I felt that familiar pang of longing and sadness seep into my stomach.
"Balthasar's right. They don't know any better. It's the same thing. Same as the people who were scared at our graduation. Same as the people cheering for us back in the city."
"Whatever, Aaron. Don't put your own feelings on them. Maybe they do know what we are. Maybe they do know what we're capable of. Maybe that's why they're angry. Maybe they're right. Anyway, they're stuck with us now. I don't think they asked for us anymore than we asked for this." He shook his arm and laughed. "Don't get me wrong. I love it. "
"Either way,Cadmus, we don't know. We don't need to. We're just supposed to protect them, so they don't have to go through what we've been through."
Balthasar let out his laugh like a pulse beam.
"Yeah, let's just drop it, okay, B? Thanks. I'm glad you're happy." Cadmus turned toward the window.

I stared out the window as more people lined the streets. There was an infrequent barrage of fruit and debris hurled at our transporter for what seemed like hours. I expected this expanse of cramped Roanoke to end shortly. It didn't. The terraformed bubbles were less pronounced here, they bled into each other wildly, oaks raggedly growing through elms, and underbrush crawling up and out through the canopy. The houses were small and seemed to cower under the green expanse. There were people staring down at us from the tree branches. Lean-tos were erected in their branches. Trash flitted through the streets. Mothers with babies at their feet stared at us as we drove by. They didn't seem to care that they were staring at us. It made me feel awkward and different. I tried to put my arm out of sight. My arm itched.

It was everywhere. And it was staring at me. I remembered a word that they used about Earth back at the orphanage. Impoverished: lacking wealth and resources, synonyms: destitution, depleted, poor. This was a word we never taught in regard to Mars. It came to me suddenly. Mars was impoverished. I had no idea why. Now I know the theories. There are a few. One states that because of the dog attacks, which my superior alluded to, the people--who were naturally inclined toward progress and success--were scared into lethargy and shock; resulting in a mass influx back into the Roanoke suburbs, which in turn resulted in a lack of employment and resources for this population that was expected to be working diligently in the outlays, progressing the subduction of the martian terrain.

Another theory posited that with subsequent "true" generations of martian born children, peace and tranquility bred laziness and and sloth and created a generation of slacker children who chose to live off of the scant resources of Roanoke. As Roanoke is a successfullysubdued area and survives via the massive output of arboreal oxygenation, the climate and terrain is much more suitable to choose a life of poverty than any natural landscape back on Earth. Thus, living below the poverty level of Mars is much easier to survive in and living in poverty is less of a detracting motivator than it would have been on Earth, causing more people to choose it on Mars. This theory is primarily held by the outlay terrafarmers. It has been discarded by the academics of Mars as regional bias, but is still held by many outlay terrafarmers.

Finally, a growing theory on the poverty stricken martian suburbs states that the Martian government was never prepared for the enormous success of the terraformation of Mars, and is ill-equipped to govern and legislate the populace of Roanake, let alone any other city outcropping that will inevitably arise in the future of Mars. Proponents of this theory argue that with the rapid growth and expansion of Mars,subdued lands will eventually form new governments and provinces out of the control of the central Martian Government, plunging the Martian society into an earthly bickering stratified society. They imagine the terraformed communities to purposefully let the subduction of areas fall into disrepair when their community and land is stewarded well enough to create a self-sustaining community, thus creating new cultures and languages capable of ignoring the Martian Government. Shortly after these new cultures are created, land disputes and cultural clashes will arise, eventually leading into hostility and even perhaps outright violence, skirmishes and warfare. This dystopian theory is flatly denounced by the Central Martian Government as preposterous.

Eventually we made our way onto the freeway and toward the outlays. It was a four hour trip to our assigned area. We would be dropped off and picked up by our host families who would take us to our lodgings. From there we would report to our field general on our successful arrival and begin our acclimation.