The Greatest Scientific Discovery

Enzo Maren sits quietly at his desk, contemplating whether or not he should quit his job.

Of all the reasons he thought he would leave the field of astrophysics, finding potentially the most remarkable discoveries in scientific history was not one of them.

He folds his hands under his chin and glances at the clock: It’s 11:34 PM on Wednesday, April 10th, 2025. Enzo has precisely three days to make a decision, one that could ultimately change life on Earth forever.

He reaches for his coffee cup to take a sip.

“Ay guey!” He spews out the scalding hot coffee, biting his tongue against the pain.

Enzo slumps back in his office chair, sighing. He picks up the picture frame of his wife from his desk. She’s mid-laugh, her hands pushing her curly hair out of her face. Her frame is small, much smaller than the average human.

Martian gravity is not as strong as Earth’s.

When Enzo first met his wife, Maris, she said she was not from here. Enzo thought she meant she was from another country - Puerto Rico, or somewhere, based on the way she spoke and her complexion. When she told him she was from Mars, he laughed.

Maris wasn’t laughing.

She talked of how her back ached from Earth’s stronger gravity. She preferred to live in cities where the carbon dioxide levels were higher, because her lungs were built for the Martian atmosphere. She hated the heat and wanted to live somewhere colder. But most of all, she wanted to know if there was a way she could go back home.

That’s why she went searching for a scientist. Someone who could provide her with those answers.

Enzo, at the time, was merely an intern.

“How did you arrive on Earth?” Enzo asked her. It was a Tuesday night, and they were eating at a popular Italian restaurant. Maris was eating a vegetarian plate - Mars did not have animal life.

“Teleportation.” She explained, through bites of her tofu meatball. “There's a rift in Wisconsin in the middle of a lake.”

Enzo had barely touched his plate of pasta. He was too busy writing down the information from Maris. It was scientific gold. As a struggling intern trying to fight for a spot as a researcher, having a groundbreaking discovery handed to him from this alien was like winning the lottery. Everyone everywhere was going to want to hear what Maris had to say, and Enzo was going to be the scientist to deliver it.

“Wait, what do you mean, a rift?” He frowns, shoveling a mouthful of pasta into his mouth. It had grown cold and stuck to the roof of his mouth.

“A rift is how we teleport. There's a corresponding rift on Mars for every rift on Earth.”

“You mean to say there are multiple rifts on Earth? How many?” Enzo exclaimed, scribbling more notes furiously into his notepad. He was on his third page, and his head felt heavy.

“I don't know exactly how many. But the one I used transported me into the middle of the lake,” Maris described, her eyes narrowed. “I arrived underwater. It must have been a popular lake because the beaches were packed with people. I had to swim out and pretend as if I had been there all along.”

Enzo took a sip of his Coke. “Who sent you here? And why? How many Martians are there?”

At this question, Maris's grey eyes grew glossy. Enzo felt a pang of guilt surge in his chest. She took a deep breath before responding.

“My Father sent me here to test the rift. We use them on Mars to transport around the planet, but we have never tested transporting between Mars and Earth.” Tears trickled down her cheeks. “The rift is broken. I tried to go back home, but it seems like it was a one-way ticket.”

Maris quietly sobbed into her hands. Enzo shuffled uncomfortably in his seat, not knowing if patting her was considered a kind or strange gesture to a Martian.

Enzo didn't say anything for a while. He needed a moment to let her words sink in. He stole glances at her while her eyes were focused on her plate. Her dark hair was short and curly, the tips of her ears sharp and pointed. Her tan face was speckled with freckles, like stars in the Milky Way galaxy. A real alien, right across from him.

She caught him staring, and her cheeks flushed pink.

He cleared his throat and picked up his pen, pretending to write something. He didn't need to record her physical features. Her face would be ingrained in his memory forever.

“I think my coworker at the office should take a look at the rift. He might be able to figure out how to connect it,” Enzo suggested.

“No, we can’t do that,” Maris muttered, her eyes staring down at her plate.

Enzo raised an eyebrow.

“My Father warned me about interacting with humans. If I were not to make it back to Mars, I should not converse with anyone.”

Enzo frowned.

“I know. I’m already breaking the rules by talking to you.” She said flatly.

Enzo perked up a bit at this. At least out of all the people on planet Earth, this Martian determined he seemed the most approachable.

Maris didn't want to leave Enzo at the end of their dinner. She told him he was the first human she felt she could trust. She also believed he was capable of fixing the rift.

For Enzo, it was the first person who believed in him…or Martian.

Enzo gave her a set of keys to his apartment. Previously, she had been drifting from park benches to underneath bridges.

He would leave every morning for his internship, assuring her he was searching for a way to connect the rifts. She would hug him for minutes at a time, praying to her Martian Gods that today was the day the rift would be repaired.

Enzo felt nauseous every time she looked at him with her puppy-dog eyes. He was her knight in shining armor.

The problem was, Enzo didn’t know how to fix the rift.

It was a Friday evening, and the two were enjoying a movie. It was easy picking a movie, considering Maris has never seen any films from Earth and therefore everything was new to her. Maris laughed at Earth’s attempt to depict a Martian. She didn't understand where the idea of ‘green skin’ came from.

“Enzo,” she said softly, turning to face him. He paused the movie. “Have you made any progress on the rift?”

Enzo’s cheeks burned red. In all honesty, he was very busy at his internship and hadn’t even made an attempt to work on the rift.

“I think I need help from my coworker,” he stammered.

She placed the bowl of popcorn on the coffee table and turned so she was facing him directly.

“I told you, you can't tell anyone about me or the rift. My Father warned me that if I did not return, I would endanger my entire species. We don't know how the people of Earth would react to us. I already broke his rule by talking to you.”

“He sacrificed you, didn't he?” Enzo questioned angrily.

“What do you mean?” Maris asked with complete innocence in her eyes.

“You were a test dummy! You didn't know if you would come back. And if you didn't, your Father told you not to ask for help! It's like he was trying to get rid of you.”

She pressed her face into his, eyes narrowed and jaw tight. Her voice was gruff and strangled.

“My Father would never abandon me.”

She stood up and stomped away, halting in the doorway before slamming the door behind her. Enzo rolled his eyes. He couldn't deny the fact that her Father sounded like a prick.

The days stretched into weeks, weeks turning to months, and months ballooning into years of the two being together. Enzo went to the office five days a week, devoting his time to Mars research, and in secret, studying teleportation theory, and visiting the rift at the lake. Maris would occasionally join him, giving him great detail about what she recalled when arriving in the rift.

Enzo tried at first. Tried to come up with solutions to connect the rifts. He ran tests and experiments, often arriving home late from work. Maris would wait patiently to hear of any progress. She was positive. Hopeful.

Enzo didn't want to succeed. Success meant Maris would leave.

As the years passed, their hope grew dimmer, like a slow-burning fire reducing to coals. Maris stopped asking about his progress. Enzo would let entire weeks pass without working on the rift. She didn't grow bitter, but rather, quieter. Her Martian quirks faded, her accent taking on a Midwesterner. People no longer asked where she was from. The things that made her Martian slowly faded.

Enzo asked her to marry her after four years. She was hesitant at first. It was like saying ‘yes’ solidified the fact she was never going home. She said yes, either way.

They went on long hikes and watched the sunrise. Maris said the sun was so much larger in the sky. They had afternoon picnics and explored the city. Maris tried her first cup of coffee. It gave her so much energy she was cartwheeling down the sidewalks, and Enzo laughed until his sides cramped. He showed her how to play basketball, and she showed him sports from Mars. At night, Enzo would find Maris sitting on the balcony, knees tucked into her chest, her eyes gazing at the red speck that was her home in the sky.

He would find her crying occasionally, staring out into space.

As the years went on, he had forgotten about the rift. With complete guilt, he hoped she would forget too.

It wasn't until this week at work that Enzo received a message from Mars.

It came through his computer's console encrypted in eerie-looking hieroglyphic letters. The message was short and to the point, but it made his heart throb and his hands shake.

Claiming to be from Maris's Father, he said they had been watching Enzo. He quivered in his seat at the thought. How much could they see? Were they always watching?

Were they angry with him for marrying Maris?

The message stated Enzo’s greatest fears. The rift was repaired, but it could only function long enough for a one-time use. Maris’s Father wanted his daughter back.

The plan was simple - be ready to repair the rift in three days, enough time for the next message with a set of instructions to travel to him. If he weren't there, he would personally be responsible for cutting off Maris from her home forever.

Enzo wanted to tell him what a terrible person he was-or Martian… or whatever he was. His point is, he put his daughter at serious risk. He abandoned her on a planet without any help.

The message concluded with a threat to Earth and all of its inhabitants.

Enzo sits at his desk, staring at the picture of Maris. He should quit his job today. Pretend he never read the message.

He stands from his office chair, stuffing his hands into his pockets. He takes a slow waltz around the office as if he were in a museum about his life, the life of Enzo Maren. There are degrees, scientific plaques, ribbons, and useless research papers with his name signed on them. There are piles of binders, stuffed full with documents, notes, and his life’s work in astrophysics.

And then there’s Maris. His greatest scientific discovery.

He could burn his museum of accomplishments and die a happy man, so long as he got Maris.

He takes another sip of his coffee. The clock shows 11:45 PM. She’s probably waiting for him, a movie on the TV and a bowl of popcorn hot and buttered, wondering what’s taking him so long to come home. He smiles at the thought, tears pricking his eyes.

In three days, she would be gone. His Martian, the one who believed in him. He had his job and love of astrophysics, but it didn’t compare. Not to the only person he ever gave a damn about.

He tries to conjure up an image of life without Maris. He would continue going to work. He had his apartment. Yet there would be a hollow space in his heart.

How can someone live with half a heart?

Enzo puts his head in his hands and lets his tears fall like raindrops onto his desk. His throat tightens. His chest aches. His jaw clenches at the thought of the message. He doesn’t even know her Father, and he hates him. Enzo hurls his coffee cup against the door. It shatters into a million pieces, coffee staining the carpet.

He leaves the office at midnight, eyes red and veiny. Maris hugs him when he walks in.

Enzo says nothing about the message.

It’s Friday, April 13th. Enzo arrives at his office, his face straight and insides numb. He powers on his computer and performs a complete wipe of his drive. He yanks out the hard drive and runs it through an electronic shredder.

He leaves his resignation letter on his boss's desk.

Enzo comes home early from work and finds Maris unboxing a brand-new telescope set. She perks up from her spot, confused.

“I was fired today,” he says, his voice rough.

She runs into his arms to hug him. He squeezes her tight.

Your Father can never hurt you again, he thinks. He was protecting her from the man who so cruelly risked her life.

After a few moments, Maris lifts her head from his shoulders. “I got a telescope. Maybe it will help you fix the rift.”

Enzo says nothing, but hugs her tighter.

At 11:59 PM, Enzo awakens to a deafening boom. It sounds like Thunder picked up the microphone at karaoke. He gasps at the sound of another boom, the picture frames quaking on the wall. Maris stumbles to the balcony, her grey eyes illuminated by the sight outside.

The world is on fire.