Dust blew and settled, eerily green in the night vision cameras. Dust storms were common in the barren land. Though they must wreak havoc to anything caught in them, they often blew important bits of debris into the collection grids for the scientists to neutralize and categorize.

“You have a very important job,” my mother had beamed when I graduated and became a climatologist. It sounded fun at the time, studying what was up there on the surface. It was considered uninhabited, alien, and the weather was volatile.

Dust gathered thickly on the camera’s protective dome, obscuring my view. I toggled the control switch that swiped a curved wiper over the arc of the dome. Sitting back in my chair I watched the three screens.

Glorious job, Mom, I thought. Day in and day out there was nothing but dust, trash, and green screens. Nothing indicated the surface was habitable.

Just as I’d put my feet up on the desk and my eyelids grew heavy, a shadow moved on screen.
Probably a tornado.

I squinted.

It leaped.