MARK WATNEY STOOD with his attention plastered onto a small piece of paper holding instructions. It had become his task—thanks to NASA—to provide the world with introductions of his fellow crew-mates, as well as provide them with a tour of the Hermes, the spaceship in which the Ares III crew would take residency for the next 150 days before finally arriving on Mars.

"I don't even know what language that is," Mark muttered to himself, flipping the small paper over in his hands. "Is that Armenian? Ah, fuck me."

Mark folded the paper up and placed it back inside the black box it had come in. He pulled out the camera and began tinkering with it, not even bothering to pull out the instruction paper again. It had annoyed him and he didn't exactly have the time to deal with something he believed to be so irrelevant. He would have to make do without it. If worse came to worse, he was a mechanical engineer; he could locate the device problem and correct it without too many complications.

"Okay," Mark said cheerfully as he finally managed to get the camera working. "Hi, kids! Uh, this is Mark Watney—astronaut. We're about six hours before our launch here on the Hermes, and I've been asked by the good folks at NASA to introduce you to some of our crew mates here, which I'm happy to do. So. . .uh. . .hello, Earthlings. Mark Watney here. I'm your personal guide on this tour of the Hermes."

Mark removed the camera from where he had placed it on its stand and began his venture through the enormous ship in search of the six remaining Ares III crew members, only stopping occasionally to explain the contents of the many rooms he passed by.

Soon enough he located Martinez.

"This is Pilot Rick Martinez doing the pre-flight checks," Mark explained to the viewers as he slowly inched himself toward the man in the pilot's seat. "As you can see, he's using some pretty sophisticated math to get us to Mars. You got enough fingers there, Rick?"

Martinez chuckled and glanced up at Mark. "Nah, man. I'm just balancing my checkbook."

"Seriously, though, Rick," Mark followed. "How do we get there?"

Martinez looked up from his checkbook and peered out of the spacecraft window. "Well, you basically point the bird in that direction, wait a hundred and fifty days, and thirty six million miles later we should be at Mars."

Martinez paused and looked from his left over to his right and then back again. "No, wait—that's Uranus." He chuckled and pointed his finger to the right, "Okay, that's Mars."

Mark laughed in response to Martinez's witty remark and shook his head. "I'm out of here."

Next he would move on to find Commander Melissa Lewis, who sat at her desk working on a copious amount of paperwork.

"Hey!" Mark exclaimed happily, attracting the Commander's attention. "I'm here to bring the world crew introductions, so go on and. . .introduct."

Commander Lewis shook her head, a small laugh escaping her. "I'm Commander Melissa Lewis."

"Y'know, there's a big year ahead of us," Mark said. "Maybe you can tell us what inspired you to take it all on?"

"Uh, sure," she answered. "Laura Clark, Christa McAuliffe, and, of course, Eileen Collins."

"And you're not gonna get a better answer than that."

Mark would then move on to find Beth Johanssen and his younger sister, Maia Watney. Both sat in front of computer monitors, just as he expected. They were the crew's "computer nerds" and both shared the title of System Operator. NASA admired both of their work so much that having the two of them on the Ares III crew became a sort of necessity to the organization.

"Introduce yourselves, nerds," Mark instructed, placing the camera in front of their faces.

Maia made a face and moved slightly away from the camera. "Ever heard of boundaries, bro? Jesus."

Mark let out a dramatic sigh and turned the camera back on himself. "Okay, this little brat here—," he started, pointing the camera back at Maia. "—is Maia Watney, my younger sister and one half of the Hermes technological expertise."

"I am also the better looking sibling," Maia stated with a small smirk, her attention on the computer screen in front of her. "You left that piece of very crucial information out."

Mark rolled his eyes at his younger sister and pointed the camera towards a chuckling Johanssen. "And you might be?"

"I'm Beth Johanssen, the other computer expert," she introduced.

"Is that it?"

"That, and I'm fuckin' psyched about going on Mars," Johanssen smiled, turning back to her screen.

"Thanks," Mark said. "That's a hell of an answer. . .to the entire world."

Maia laughed loudly at her friend's misfortune, and Johanssen cussed under her breath before placing her head against the cushion of her seat.

"What a way to make a first impression, Johanssen," Maia snickered, typing in some sort of code that Mark didn't care enough to try and comprehend. He would stick to dealing with Botany and leave her to deal with whatever technologically advanced shit he believed to be swimming around inside that little mind of hers.

Johanssen snorted. "You Watneys are no better than me, especially Mark over there."

"You're not wrong about that," Maia agreed.

Beth chuckled and looked at a confused Mark. "It's okay, though, Mark. Don't believe a word they say; you're one of the good ones."

"Thanks," Mark responded, seemingly confused by her words. "Wait, what? Who says that about me? Has Maia been telling you stuff?"

Both girls only smirked in response to Mark's questions and proceeded with their task at hand.

"This isn't over, you two," Mark remarked. "We're gonna talk later."

"Nobody wants to talk to you," Maia commented, her fingers moving rapidly across her keyboard.

"I bet Beck and Vogel do," Mark said.

Johanssen chuckled. "Then go find them."

"You two are the worst," Mark muttered before heading off to search for Beck and Vogel.

He found them both in the kitchen munching away on the food NASA supplied for them.

"Introduce yourselves, guys," Mark told the two of them, pointing the camera. "It is crucial that the world knows who you hunk of men are."

"I'm Chris Beck, flight surgeon," Beck said, munching on his food.

"My name is Alex Vogel. I am a German astronaut," Vogel followed.

"Gentlemen, why don't you tell the viewers what's cooking," Mark suggested.

Beck held up his fork and examined it, not exactly sure what to classify the food as. "Uh, yolk. . .uh, something chewy," he chuckled, shoving the fork into his mouth.

"And you here, Vogel?"

"Sausage," was his answer.

"Ah, German?"

"Wurst."

Mark chuckled. "Awesome."

When Mark was informed of the launch window, he made his way back towards the area of Hermes in which he had began the tour.

"Okay, everyone! Just a few minutes now until we leave for Mars. Uh, I hope you enjoyed your tour of the Hermes and seeing what a stellar crew we have. Say goodbye, crew!" he called.

The remaining six crew members responded with, "Goodbye, crew," eliciting an eye roll from Mark.

"Everyone's a comedian," he murmured. "Alright, we wanna say goodbye; we wanna wish everybody here on Earth an amazing year while we're gone. Let's go Cubs—actually, how 'bout holding off on winning that world title until I'm back on Earth."

"Yeah, that shouldn't be a problem," Martinez called.

"Shut up," Mark said. "Martinez is a Yankee fan. Anyway, have a wonderful year. And, just remember—what we do up there, we're doin' for everyone here on Earth. This is gonna be an amazing journey for all of us; we're all in this together. Mom, dad, love you—"

"I love you mom and dad!" Maia called, earning a chuckle from her older brother.

"Maia loves you, too, as you just heard her exclaim. We'll miss you, and, uh, the first thing we do when we get back is go to Gino's for some deep dish," Mark said.

"I hate Gino's," Maia grumbled.

"I haven't cared for thirty years, so I doubt I'll care now," Mark replied, looking back at the camera with a small smile on his face. "Alright then, Watney out."

And those were Mark Watney's last words before the screen went dark.