The vehicle soon touched down on a large X-mark at the top of the very familiar cliff which overlooked the valley. After the tour guide ran through her spiel about the historical significance of this location, she paused and held a hand towards Holly. “Of course, today we are exceedingly fortunate to have in our company someone who knows all about this.”
Holly blushed again from the unwanted attention, but it wasn’t quite so stifling now given that these particular tourists, unlike those about to depart Terradox, had already had plenty of time to get used to her presence during their flight from Earth.
The guide continued speaking as the vehicle drove forward. She told the tourists that, like the Karrier, everything else Holly and her group touched during their incredible adventure — a hell of a euphemism if ever Holly had heard one — had been perfectly preserved. She listed as examples the group’s two landers, the aforementioned control bunker, and even the cracked window in Roger Morrison’s never-occupied New Eden office which had been smashed by a frustrated member of the group following their discovery of the complex.
“And speaking of discoveries at New Eden,” the guide continued, “the museum and nursery, which some guests may find unsettling, have also been left exactly as they were.”
After a few pensive seconds, the guide lifted the mood by revealing that the orientation tour’s next stop would be Terradox Sands, which she proudly dubbed “the most exclusive beach in the universe.”
The touring vehicle sped forward at a breakneck pace across the barren landscape. Every now and then Holly saw an armed guard stationed in the middle of nowhere. When the large hills which shielded the beach from plain view came into view up ahead, the vehicle ascended into the air once again. As it did, Holly glanced down and couldn’t believe how many guards were now in sight.
“There are so many guards,” Cherise said, stealing the thought from Holly’s mind with a careful whisper while everyone else remained engrossed by the guide’s well-practised routine and the overall grandeur of their tour. “Why do you think they need so many? Is it always like this?”
Holly looked down through the glass floor once more and counted at least a dozen guards within a relatively short distance. She turned around to glance at the two standing towards the back of their vehicle, then looked again at Cherise. Unable to think of a better answer, she told the uncomfortable truth:
“I really don’t know.”
five
The TE-500 touring vehicle gracefully soared over the wall-like rocky hills adjacent to Terradox Sands, bringing the white beach into view under the tourists’ feet.
There looked to be around 100 guests enjoying the area.
While Terradox Sands was far from the density levels of the elbow-to-elbow summertime beaches of southern Europe, which typically had more of their surface area covered by towels than sand, it was also far from the secluded paradise Holly had discovered during one of her exploration group’s first forays into the then-uncharted wilderness of Terradox.
Most of the guests Holly could see were sunbathing or splashing around in the shallow water near the sand. She also saw a smaller group climbing the pillar-like rock formations with the aid of helpful grips which been attached to the rocks, like those more commonly seen on manmade climbing walls on Earth. The climbers were then taking turns to jump or dive into the crystal-clear water below.
In her teenage years, Holly likely would have looked forward to climbing the rocks and diving down with the rest of the thrill-seeking crowd. Now, having matured to take a different view of elective risk, she couldn’t help but think about how unsafe this authorised guest activity looked — particularly given that the only insurance agencies offering policies which covered trips to the Terradox Resort were very explicit in their disclaimers that there would be no payouts for incidents involving individual travellers injured or killed while participating in optional activities or excursions.
The tour guide explained that each guest could enjoy up to seven days at the beach during their stay, with further optional activities including the likes of scuba diving and motorised water sports. When someone asked if there were any fish in the water, Holly was less surprised by the guide’s affirmative reply than she would have been if she hadn’t already seen some of the birds and butterflies which had been introduced to the romosphere’s unique ecosystem since her last visit.
As much as many members of the tour group would have loved nothing more than to get out of the vehicle and feel the warm sand under their toes, the tour continued at pace after just a few minutes spent hovering over the beach.
“There will be plenty of time for the beach,” the guide said warmly to silence the groans of some children who didn’t want to leave. “For now, our next stop is the Yury Gardev Memorial Garden.”
A large part of the reason Holly had agreed to return to Terradox was that she had been given the honour of opening the Yury Gardev Memorial Garden to the public. This ceremony was not the headline event of the Terradox Resort’s Anniversary Gala, but it was by a distance the one that Holly cared about most; even more so given that the other surviving members of the initial landing group were flying in from the station for the same purpose.
Following his peaceful passing on the Venus station, Yury ‘Spaceman’ Gardev’s ashes were to be scattered in the newly developed Memorial Garden which lay adjacent to the control bunker from which he had single-handedly uncloaked Terradox. That selfless risk, which ultimately hastened the fall from grace of the maniacal Roger Morrison and his corrupt-by-design Global Union, had made the ageing Spaceman a hero to billions. No one had a bad word to say about him and everyone agreed that a fitting memorial site was the least he deserved. Given the circumstances, Holly knew very well that her upcoming reunion with Rusev, Grav and the Harringtons would be even more emotional than it would have been had it occurred on the station.
But while Yury alone deserved a Memorial Garden on Terradox, he was anything but the only major public figure to have died since Holly last set foot on the romosphere’s surface.
Indeed, Roger Morrison and several of his most trusted colleagues and associates had all been found dead in their cells one infamous morning, just hours before the GU kingpin had been set to finally take the stand in his public trial.
The prominent theory surrounding the so-called “GU suicides” was that they had been assisted by the previously unknown David Boyce, a member of prison staff suspected of smuggling in an untraceable poison while delivering food or hygiene supplies. This theory, though far from bulletproof, was strongly supported by the fact Boyce never returned to work and had long since been declared missing.
Had this not been suspicious enough to suggest external involvement in the conveniently timed deaths, one of the key witnesses in Morrison’s trial was also found dead on the same morning. The death of Yoshirou Otsuka, who was not in custody, remained officially unexplained due to a lack of concrete evidence.
Otsuka, a quiet and unassuming man who was once a great friend of Morrison in their university days, had shortly beforehand come forward as the true creator of what came to be known as romotechnology. Otsuka had been due to testify about his role in its development during Morrison’s trial, but, like Morrison himself, death prevented his testimony.
Roger Morrison dying of natural causes mere hours before his trial would have been a coincidence too large for most to swallow; that several of his associates and a key witness also died on the same day made foul play self-evident, regardless of the failure of their autopsies to pinpoint the precise causes of death.
Holly had been keenly interested in Yoshirou Otsuka’s story since the man’s name first came to public attention during preliminary hearings into who knew what — and when — about Roger Morrison’s demonic plan for a global population Reset. The trials were not designed to be show trials nor vindictive spectacles, despite that being what many disgusted citizens understandably wanted, but would instead have been genuine attempts to get to th
e bottom of what else Morrison’s firms had been doing as well as to determine who had supported his ultimate plans and who had merely been working on their own part of the puzzle without knowing how it all fitted together.
With mountains of evidence to support his statements, some of it material and some coming directly from a handful of contemporary witnesses, Otsuka revealed prior to the first hearings that he and Morrison were once friends and equals who worked together on a project which led to their stumbling upon the fundamental aspects of what eventually became romotechnology. Otsuka connected many of the early and most important dots which Morrison had missed, but Morrison made it clear that his connections meant that his word would have been believed and that Otsuka would have found himself in trouble for plagiarism if he’d tried to claim the credit Morrison wanted for himself.
Long before any real-world applications of romotech came to be, Otsuka revealed, he and Morrison struck a deal.
Otsuka had understood in no uncertain terms that Roger Morrison, even at a relatively young age, could be either a powerful ally or a powerful enemy. With their ideas still largely theoretical, Morrison promised to secure the capital needed to proceed. He also promised, in exchange for sole authorship of their breakthrough paper, to pay Otsuka an extremely handsome sum and to ensure that the man’s future family would be very well looked after for generations to come. Otsuka told the pre-trial inquest panel that Morrison had essentially removed all of the risk and made him a comfortable man overnight. The man made no apologies for this, insisting that all he had ever wanted was to provide for his family.
“I needed security and Roger needed attention,” Otsuka had insisted. “We were very different people, even then. We knew a scientific earthquake of our creation was about to hit, and I had no desire for the invasive media attention which was bound to follow. For that reason I happily stepped into the shadows. Roger upheld his end of the bargain — ensuring I was well compensated and that my family were well looked after — and I upheld my promise of staying quiet. But let me make it clear that if I had known what he was doing, I would have broken that bargain in an instant. What I want everyone to note right now is that neither my name nor any of my family members’ names were on any of his lists of those to be spared during the Reset. The Catastrophe Survival Plan? I was not included, as you know, and I had never even heard of it. I did not know what he was doing. We did not know.”
Those had been Otsuka’s final public comments. Though some suggested that he should have been tried as an accomplice, those in charge of the legal proceedings, like Holly, accepted that Yoshirou Otsuka was no more responsible for Roger Morrison’s demented actions than was any other creator whose work had ever been twisted or misused by a madman. Holly didn’t think Otsuka deserved a memorial or anything like that, but nor did he deserve the vilification that had come his way from some quarters in the days prior to his death.
Barely a day went by when Holly didn’t wonder what else Otsuka would have revealed about Morrison had he lived long enough to see the trial begin.
As her thoughts shifted from Otsuka and back to the dearly departed Spaceman, to whom she owed even more than everyone else did, her tour group’s TE-500 came to a gentle halt at the arched entrance to the Memorial Garden.
The rest of the tour group chattered in respectful excitement when the guide revealed that they would now be allowed to leave the vehicle for a quick walk around the Garden’s perimeter. Holly stepped outside along with the Bouchards. CeCe and DeeDee were understandably less excited by the Memorial Garden than they had been by the sweeping views of Terradox’s landscape and particularly the beach, but they were nevertheless still smiling with joy as they jumped down from the vehicle’s steps and began using their fingers to draw shapes on the dusty ground.
Holly left them to it and walked towards the entrance archway, which was closed off by nothing more than a ceremonial ribbon she would soon cut. The Garden looked significantly bigger and better than she’d imagined. From the outside she saw many large trees which provided shade for the wooden benches present at regular intervals along one side of the main circular walkway. She knew that a water feature surrounded by a floral cuckoo clock proved an eye-catching yet tasteful centrepiece, and she knew that the old man would have loved it.
“Five more minutes,” the tour guide announced.
With the Garden itself off-limits for now, Holly opted to make the most of her remaining minutes by venturing just a few hundred metres towards the guarded stairway which led to the control bunker. Notable by their absence were the highly poisonous barbed plants which had once acted as a barrier around the bunker — the same plant whose thorns had played an important and unforeseen role in enabling Holly’s group to enter the bunker in the first instance. Wisely, these plants had been removed and replaced with decorative flowers which were much kinder to the eye as well as the touch.
The guard Holly met at the top of the stairs was young — early twenties at most — with very short curly hair and a prominent nose. Before Holly said anything, the young man pressed a finger against his headset’s earpiece and spoke: “Holly Wood is requesting permission to enter the bunker.” He then stepped aside after getting the go-ahead. “I had to check,” he said, directly to Holly.
“Of course,” she said. “Thanks.”
As promised, everything was exactly as it had been when Holly was last there. She entered the code to unlock the door, a code which she knew had been shared with only two senior TMC security officers. She couldn’t help but recall how her group had first obtained this code from Dante Parker, the traitor in their midst who had been the only person on Terradox at that time with any knowledge of the romosphere’s true nature.
A disorienting wave of emotions hit Holly as she stepped into the bunker, pushing and pulling her mind in different directions. She looked over towards the control panel, her attention focusing underneath the main unit as her eyes fell upon the radio module she had carried up to the cliff-edge overlooking the grassy valley on that bitingly cold morning with Rusev and Viola at her side.
Her gaze then shifted to Yury’s seat.
After only a few steps towards it, Holly stopped in her tracks and turned towards the door.
Had she heard something, or was she imagining things?
“Hello?” she called, unsure if the sound — if there had even been one — was a tap on the door or perhaps footsteps overhead.
Three firm knocks gave her the answer.
Holly opened the door, fully expecting to see the young guard from the top of the stairs who she assumed had now been tasked with telling her that it was time for the scheduled-by-the-minute tour to continue.
Instead, she saw one of the guards from her touring vehicle. This man, much older than the bunker’s guard, handed her a small headset.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“There’s a call for you,” the man explained. “Put this over your ear and press the centre to speak.”
Holly unquestioningly did as he said, noticing that the younger guard — evidently as confused as she was — was now peering down the stairs to see what was happening.
“It would be very helpful if you could talk while we walk,” the man before Holly continued, “because the tour is scheduled to continue in two minutes.”
Holly nodded as she placed the earpiece in position, walking as she did so. “Do you know who’s calling?”
“I was told the call came in from the security division on the Venus station. Goran Vuletic, I believe.”
Grav?
Holly stopped on only the second step and turned around. “I’m going to take this inside,” she said.
“But Miss Wood, the tour is—”
She closed the door behind her and stood once again inside the security bunker. Grav wasn’t one to chat, and if he had a non-urgent personal message he would surely have been calling from a personal line rather than the station’s security hub.
With the door safely
closed, Holly ignored the guard’s loud knocking and pressed her finger against the earpiece. “I’m here,” she said.
“Hollywood,” Grav said, his voice as difficult to read as ever. “This call is going through the TMC system, so it is not private. But what matters is that no civilians are listening. Are you alone?”
“I’m alone,” she confirmed, less than soothed by the nature of his opening remarks. “What the hell is going on?”
Grav hesitated, as though searching for the words. Seconds later he spoke very bluntly, as though delivering the simplest ones he could find:
“We have reason to believe that Terradox is in serious danger.”
six
“What danger?” Holly asked. “What are you talking about? Is this something to do with all of the guards?”
“Guards? No. The TMC has increased security ahead of the Anniversary Gala but this is nothing to do with that. This is not a human threat, Hollywood. I need you to come to the station today. Plans have changed.”
Holly didn’t know where to begin. “Start again,” she said. “What’s going on?”
“It is one of the other embryonic romospheres,” Grav said. “It has very recently begun to expand irregularly at a dangerous pace. Unfortunately, this particular romosphere is in disconcerting proximity to Terradox. According to every predictive model we have, if this expansion continues at its current rate then Terradox will be consumed. If nothing is done, the expansion may reach an unstoppable level and ultimately pose a threat to life-supporting environments far beyond Terradox: this station, and even Earth.”
Terradox Quadrilogy Page 37
