Exile
Mars. 750 words, 4 minute read. With Claude Sonnet and Midjourney.
The silver rocket gleamed against the dawn sky as Elon Musk adjusted the neck seal of his Mars suit. Through the prep room window, protesters waved signs bearing his face crossed out in red. One read: "GRANDMA DIED WAITING FOR HEALTHCARE WHILE MUSK FLIES TO MARS."
"Final systems check complete," said Flight Director Chen, her voice professionally empty. "T-minus forty minutes."
A security officer cleared his throat. "Sir, there's someone at the perimeter checkpoint. A…a teacher. One with clearance, from the President's office. She’d like to speak with you."
Minutes later, Musk stood before a woman in her sixties, wearing a NASA t-shirt that had seen better days.
"Mr. Musk. I'm Eleanor Patel. I taught science for thirty-seven years in public schools." She paused. "My students raised money to send me here. Emily, age twelve, asks: 'If you're so smart, why couldn't you fix Earth instead of running away to Mars?'"
Musk glanced at the rocket, then back at the woman's weathered face. "Tell Emily that Earth doesn't want to be fixed. Everyone wants efficiency until it affects their program, their job, their benefits."
"So you gave up."
"I prioritized," his voice hardened. "The algorithms weren't wrong. We were spending ourselves into extinction. Someone had to make the hard choices."
"And now someone's running from the consequences," she replied. "How convenient."
President DeSantis and three cabinet members arrived for the obligatory photo op, filled with empty platitudes about American innovation and mankind's destiny among the stars. Not one mentioned the DOGE cuts that had made it possible—the slashed entitlements that had done the impossible and balanced the budget. And, conveniently, that had freed up a few billion dollars for space exploration.
As they left, the Treasury Secretary lingered behind.
"Was it worth it?" she asked quietly.
"You tell me," Musk replied. "Your department has a balanced budget for the first time in sixty years."
"And you get to escape while we deal with the riots and the faltering social safety net." Her smile never reached her eyes. "Quite the exit strategy."
"Don't pretend you didn't know what would happen when you appointed me," he said. "You wanted the cuts. You just didn't want the blame."
The walk across the tarmac came next. To his right, supporters chanted his name. To his left, a child held a sign: "MY GRANDPA DIED AFTER MUSK-CUTS. MARS IS TOO GOOD FOR YOU."
Inside the capsule, blessed silence enveloped him as he secured himself in the command seat.
"Capsule secured," he reported. "Ready when you are, Houston."
"Copy that, Red Planet One," Chen replied. "Initiating launch sequence. T-minus ten minutes."
Musk extracted a small tablet from a compartment. On the screen appeared the DOGE dashboard—the national debt clock, Social Security projections, Medicare forecasts—all showing green after eighteen months of DOGE slashing through decades of bureaucratic bloat.
Green numbers that represented millions of individual stories. Hardships. Losses.
Progress.
"T-minus five minutes."
On another screen, the Mars habitat glowed red under the alien sun—ready for occupation, built by his robots while Earth argued about budget priorities. A new world without legacy systems or entrenched interests. A blank slate.
"T-minus one minute."
Through the window, he could see the Florida coastline. Behind him, a divided nation. Ahead, a hostile planet that might kill him a hundred different ways.
His finger hovered over the abort switch. One press, and he could stay, face the consequences...
"Ten... nine... eight..."
The teacher's face flashed in his mind. Emily, age twelve, who thought he was running away.
"...three... two... one..."
His hand moved away from the abort switch as engines ignited beneath him. G-forces pressed him into his seat as the rocket clawed upward.
Through the window, Earth's curve emerged against the blackness—blue, white, perfect from this distance. Too complex to reduce to numbers on a dashboard. Too beautiful to abandon completely.
As the rocket accelerated, Musk activated a final program on his tablet. Funds transferred from hidden accounts—billions earmarked for his Mars colony's expansion—redirected to a new foundation. One that would change the world.
The message he appended was simple: "For Emily, age twelve. Keep asking hard questions."
Earth shrank to a blue marble behind him. Fifty-five years old, alone in a capsule hurtling toward Mars.
Running away? Perhaps.
But sometimes moving forward and running away looked remarkably similar from the outside.