Eventually they came to a gap in a row of tanks that ran along the side wall of the vast cavern. This gap facilitated access to a doorway, but Jann’s augmented vision showed no room beyond.
Curious, she thought. “Nills, have a look at this.” She pointed at the door. “Are you seeing anything on the other side of this?”
Nills stood for a moment, moving his head from side to side. “No, nothing. The schematic just ends here.”
Jann tapped her temple again. “Gizmo, we’re at a location approximately halfway along the right-hand side wall of the tank room. There is a door here, but no information on what’s on the other side.”
“Yes, I have not been able to acquire enough data on that area to create any estimate of what lies beyond.”
She turned around to Nills. “What do you think?”
“You mean should we open it and take a look?” He grinned.
Jann nodded. “Yeah.”
“We’ve come this far,” Nills said as he moved over to inspect the control panel beside the door. “Looks pretty solid.” He stood back, looking at the door. “Whatever’s behind there, they don’t want anyone just walking in.”
He tapped his temple. “Gizmo, can you open that door for us?”
Again, it took the droid only a moment to bypass the security and release the locking mechanism. The door clicked open, and a crack of light broke along its edge. Nills placed a hand on it and gently pushed it inward.
It opened into a short corridor with several doors on either side, one of which was open and seemed to be the main source of the light. They silently entered, careful not to make a noise. Slowly edging their way to the light.
Jann peered around the edge of the doorway. It was someone’s living quarters. The walls were arranged with shelves stacked with old-fashioned books and papers. Art hung from the walls and strange antique science instruments were arrayed on various tables. The entire scene was like something from another century. She slowly moved her head around the edge of the doorway, trying to see more of the room.
An old holo-table desk came into view, cluttered with papers and junk. Sitting behind the desk was a man, writing something by hand, his long hair obscured his face. He somehow sensed their presence, jerked his head up, and looked directly at Jann.
It was Xenon Hybrid.
14
A Promise
It didn’t take Mia long to figure out how to walk again. The crossbow bolt that went through her foot had only pierced the outside edge. No major damage, just very painful. So with the aid of a crutch and a handful of painkillers, she was up and about. Her shoulder, however, had suffered a lot more damage, and she had to keep her arm in a sling so as not to start it bleeding again. Nevertheless, thirty hours after she woke up in the hospital, Mia Sorelli hobbled in to visit Zack in the intensive care unit.
The doctors had given her five minutes, no more. He had survived the first twenty-four hours, but he was still critical. Two officers stood on guard outside the intensive care unit, along with a mean-looking security droid.
She sat down on the edge of the bed and gently held his hand, felt its warmth, felt its lifeforce. “You hang in there, buddy. Don’t give up. And trust me when I say that I will find the bastards responsible. I’m not leaving this planet until I do.”
She sat for a moment in silence, nothing but the hum of machines and the wheeze of the ventilator. She nodded to him. “Gotta go, Zack. They’ve got me on a tight leash. Anyway, like I said, I got work to do—for both of us.” She stood up and hobbled out of the room.
Her next port of call was Bret Stanton’s office. She had tried a few times to contact him, but got the feeling she was being fobbed off. So, she decided to just walk right on in there and find out if they had searched the Xenonist clearing house in Jezero yet, and if so, what they had found.
Yet simple as this all sounded—to just walk right in there—Mia had a few practical problems to deal with, not least the fact that walking was a painful experience. Also, like Zack, they had stationed two officers and security droids to keep her safe, and their interpretation of that directive was to keep her contained in the hospital. But they clearly didn’t know Mia Sorelli. If she wanted to go see Bret Stanton, then there was nothing they could do to stop her except to physically restrain her. And since that was not an option, they had no choice other than to follow along after her.
So less that twenty minutes after leaving the hospital, Mia hobbled into MLOD HQ and barged into Bret Stanton’s office.
“Mia, what the hell?” Stanton almost jumped when he saw her. “You’re supposed to be in the hospital, getting well again.”
“I’m fine.”
“You can’t come barging in here just like that.”
“Oh, and why not?”
“Because…because you just can’t.”
“Relax, Bret. You’ll pop a vein.”
Stanton rubbed his forehead and sighed. “Why do I bother.” He gave another sigh, deeper this time, then sat back down behind his desk.
“You’ve been fobbing me off, Bret. So I’m here to find out what’s been going down.”
“Mia.” Bret’s voice was calm, almost avuncular. “You have to realize you’re not part of the department anymore. You’ve just got to accept that. You’re a Mars envoy, you’re in State. In fact, you should be halfway to Earth by now.”
“Except, someone tried to kill me…twice. And I’d like to know what you’re doing about it.”
“We’re doing everything in our power to get to the bottom of this.” Bret leaned back in his seat. “You know that, Mia.”
“Have you searched the clearing house yet?”
Bret leaned his head slightly to one side and screwed his mouth up. “It’s tricky.”
“You mean you haven’t?”
“There’s a lot of…politics involved. You have to realize that these guys have a lot of friends in high places.” He jabbed a finger upward. “A lot of the Council are old pioneers, original colonists. They see the Xenonists as…a cultural institution. They’re reluctant to go in all guns blazing.”
“What, in case they upset them?”
“Partly, and partly because of the social repercussions that would inevitably occur should the pure, wholesome, ethical reputation of the Xenonists be shattered and revealed to be a lie. This, coming after the trauma of the Great Storm, would be devastating to the morale of the people.”
“So we do nothing, is that what you’re saying?”
“No, I’m not saying that, Mia. I’m just saying we need to tread lightly. But rest assured, we will get the answers.”
Mia slumped down into a seat. Her shoulder was aching and her body felt tired. “I dropped in on Zack.”
“How is he?”
“Still alive, just about. But I made him a promise.”
Staunton gave Mia a suspicious look. “Oh?”
“Yeah, I promised him I would not leave Mars until I found who was responsible.”
“You should leave that to us, Mia.”
Mia looked at herself, examining her foot and her shoulder. “Well, I’m not up to much, as you can see. But I still want to do a little digging into archives, look into this cult, see what the history is. So, you can do me a favor and set me up with a terminal and some space to work.”
Bret shook his head. “And how do I explain that to the Council?”
“You’re forgetting I’m an envoy, off to represent Martian interests back on Earth. As part of my job, I need to be up to speed on the current socioeconomic status of the colony.” She gave him a wry smile.
Bret was silent for a moment, then he leaned in over his desk and pointed at her. “Just don’t get me into trouble, okay?”
“Can’t promise that.”
“Okay, but if you dig anything up, please come to me with it. At least give me a chance to cover my ass.”
Mia nodded. “Deal.”
They sat for a moment in silence before Mia finally spoke again. “Y
ou know, Bret, you’ve come a long way since that time on the caravan to Syrtis when I was the one urging caution.”
Bret gave a laugh. “Yes, I suppose I have. But then again, I did have a very good teacher.”
15
Innermost Cavern
Xenon’s eyes flicked from Jann, to Nills, and back. A tense silence permeated the room for a moment, like a taut bow. Then Xenon’s face slowly morphed into a look of recognition, quickly followed by confusion. His mouth opened slowly as if his brain struggled to formulate some words.
“Jann…Nills?” he finally said. “Is it…really you? How…how did you get in here?”
“We traveled all the way up to the enclave to see you. But when we arrived, we were met by someone who is trying to pass himself off as you,” Jann said as she stepped closer and studied his face. “So we went searching.”
Xenon’s eyes now flicked over to the open doorway. “They will know you’re here, they will come. You must get out.”
He stood up quickly, brushed past them, and went to the doorway. He looked down along the corridor. “The door is open. How did you get in?” Yet before they could answer, he waved a hand. “It doesn’t matter. You must get out, they will know.”
He looked over at Jann and Nills. “Argon, he’s the one you probably met. An interloper, a radical, and very dangerous.” Xenon glanced around the room. “He’s the one who locked me up in this place, him and his followers. I’ve been incarcerated here for…I don’t know how long.”
“Come with us, we’ll get you out of here,” Nills said as he moved over to stand beside his old friend.
Xenon hesitated.
“It’ll be okay,” said Jann. “We’ll get you back to Jezero City. They need to know what’s going on here.”
Nills tapped his temple. “Gizmo, get the rover ready. We’re leaving, and we have Xenon with us.”
But Xenon seemed to have difficulty processing this sudden development, not sure if what he was seeing was real, that his old friends were truly standing right in front of him, that escape was possible.
“Xenon, we gotta go. Time to move,” Jann urged.
He nodded, then cast one last look at the room before they headed out into the vast cloning cavern beyond.
Xenon gave an audible gasp when he saw the tanks. “My god, they’re producing hundreds.”
“What happened here, Xenon? How did it come to this?” Jann said as they threaded their way through the rows of tanks.
Xenon sighed. “Many years ago, new people started coming to the enclave. People with radical ideas. Militants, extremists.”
“What sort of ideas?” Jann continued.
“They wanted a better Mars populated by a new, pure race—Homo ares. Fundamentally, they wanted a Mars only for those who were born here, even advocating for the expulsion of all Earthlings. I tried to reason with them, of course. Then tried to fight them. But I was naive. In the end, they took over and started to execute their ultimate plan. Yet they still needed me—as a figurehead, I suppose—so they effectively imprisoned me in that place since…before the Great Storm, I think.”
“But why the cloning?” Jann asked. “Why start that again after all that had happened?”
“Breeding. The originals were depleted and can’t reproduce, so the only way to reestablish a new bloodline was through cloning. You must understand that Argon and his followers see themselves as a superior race, a more advanced human, and the true inheritors of Mars. They see people from Earth as just here to exploit the citizens and resources, like the old European colonists of centuries past.”
Jann stopped dead in her tracks and looked at Xenon. “Wait a minute, are you saying they’re planning a takeover?”
Xenon gave her a careful look. “As far as I can tell, yes.”
“Holy shit. This is insane.”
“Jann, Xenon, hold up.” Nills raised one hand in the air and touched his temple with the other. “We’ve got company.”
“I knew they’d find us,” Xenon said with an air of fatality.
Nills jerked his head this way and that as he analyzed the data entering his augmented vision. “Two groups, one moving through the far cavern.” He swung around, gesturing toward the back of the tank room. “Another coming from somewhere behind us.”
“Do we need to go through the cavern? Is that our only way out?” Jann said as she began to study her own augmented vision.
“Gizmo, can you find us an alternate route?” Nills concentrated for a moment as the droid did the calculations.
“I know another way,” said Xenon. “Follow me.”
They started moving toward the right-hand side of the vast cloning cavern, then followed along the side wall, heading for the same entrance that Jann and Nills had used to gain access. But before they reached it, Xenon directed them into a narrow side passage that was almost completely hidden in the darkness. From there, they mounted a rickety metal stairway that looked as if it might collapse at any moment, spacing themselves out so as not to put too much weight on it. It clanged with every step, the sound reverberating throughout the facility.
Eventually, they arrived at ground level. The stairway ended in a broad landing with several doors, one of which would lead them directly into the rover docking wing. Nills stood and inspected it, using his augmented vision to see beyond.
“What is it?” Jann asked.
“There’s two guards hanging around outside the entrance to the docking wing. Check your AR.” He pointed at his eye.
Jann looked at the door and focused on the augmented wireframe extending out on all sides. In one sector, she could see a label for a camera feed. She extended her arm and gestured at it with her hand. The camera feed zoomed out, and she could see a fisheye view of the rover docking area. Two Xenonists were positioned right in front of the tunnel entrance.
“We should try and take them. There’s only two,” she whispered to Nills.
A loud clang reverberated up the stairwell from down below.
“Sounds like we don’t have a choice, they’re closing in,” said Nills. “Xenon, you stay put.”
He gently opened the door a crack and peered through, then whispered, “Dead ahead, around ten meters.”
Jann steeled herself and nodded. “Okay, let’s do it.”
“On three…two…one.” Nills flung the door wide open, and they charged across the space, slamming into the two hapless guards before they could react. Jann swung a kick into the back of the guard’s knees, and he dropped like a marionette with its strings cut. She leapt high into the air and landed her knee down on his chest, knocking the wind out of him. Finally, she reached down and pulled the plasma pistol from his waistband, checked it was set on stun, stood up, and blasted him with it.
She turned to see that Nills had also managed to incapacitate the other guard and was now relieving him of his plasma weapon.
“Xenon, come. Hurry,” Jann called out.
He was still standing in the doorway, looking back at the stairway they had just climbed. “They’re right behind us,” he said as he rushed over to Jann and Nills.
“Let’s go.” Nills hefted the weapon and advanced down the docking tunnel. But he’d only moved a few steps when two incandescent balls of plasma came streaking out from the darkness beyond. One hit Nills on the chest, and the second slammed into Xenon’s shoulder.
Jann instinctively dropped to the floor and managed to get a shot off. The bright ball of energy briefly illuminated the darkened tunnel, and she caught a glimpse of several Xenonists in the distance.
She kept low and crawled over to Nills. He was slumped on the floor, his back against the wall, holding his chest and grimacing in agony. Xenon was no better. “Goddammit,” said Jann as she fired off two more shots. But she was shooting blind, just buying some time.
“Give it up,” a voice shouted out from the darkness of the tunnel. “You’re surrounded, there’s no way out.” With that, Jann could hear the clamor behind her as the other
group came rushing up the stairwell and gathered around the doorway. They took a moment to assess the situation, then slowly advanced.
Jann was trapped. She couldn’t shoot her way out, so she slowly lowered the weapon to the floor and raised one hand while quickly touching her temple with the other. “Gizmo, get out now! Bring the data to the MLOD, to Poe Tarkin…” A bolt of plasma slammed into her chest, sending her entire body into spasms. Her vision blurred, she lost control of her muscles, and consciousness slipped away from her.
16
Primary Directive
Gizmo considered the audiovisual data streaming into it via the camera feeds in the docking area. Both Nills and Jann had been rendered inoperable and lay slumped on the floor of the tunnel. The other human, Xenon, was similarly incapacitated.
It probed the ocular implants for both Nills and Jann, but there was no response. The high-energy plasma blasts they had been subjected to had fried the circuitry. It also meant that the droid had no way to ascertain their current state of health, or even if they were already dead.
Its last directive from Jann had been to disengage the rover, make its way back to Jezero City, and present the data that they had collected to Poe Tarkin, the head of the MLOD. Yet, from somewhere deep inside its silicon brain, a secondary directive emerged—one that would not fundamentally countermand the primary. So, it ran the numbers, considered the possibilities, estimated the odds. It searched for any possible scenario where it could effect a rescue of the three humans that currently lay scattered on the floor of the rover docking tunnel.
Plains of Utopia: Colony Six Mars Page 8
