The Ruins of Mars: Waking Titan (The Ruins of Mars Trilogy)

by Dylan James Quarles

  Feeling guilty? taunted Crisp, intruding on the moment.

  Refusing to acknowledge the voice, she said nothing.

  At least one of you still has a life, he persisted. That’s more than I can say for myself.

  You killed yourself! Kubba shouted silently, forgetting her decision to ignore the imagined voice.

  Yeah, he chuckled. I did. But you helped.

  “Okay, let’s go,” said Harrison, cutting through Kubba’s helmet speakers and making her jump with surprise.

  Crisp settled back into the blackness of her subconscious with a rustle like metal shavings in a bowl.

  Standing, Harrison led the way to the statue of the praying woman in the rear of the chamber. Now pulled back half-a-meter from the wall, the statue seemed to loom—as if being separated from the cave had allowed it to grow. There, in the space between its back and the cave wall, was an opening much smaller than the tunnel they had entered through. Ducking his head, Harrison stepped into the new passageway.

  By the light of a dying sun—Sol 90

  As the bow draws itself across the strings of a violin, eliciting the birth of musical notes, so too was Harrison moved forward as he entered the mysterious new tunnel. A feeling of swelling, like some new emotion, tugged at a place in his stomach close to where the pain of Liu’s death had taken up residence.

  With the others at his back, Harrison walked a little way into the smaller tunnel before stopping to allow his mind the moments it needed to maintain balance and calm. With the grit of the Statue Chamber sand still fresh on his gloved fingers, his mind wandered—for the instant of a thought—to the face of his beloved Liu. Slamming the door on this hall of memories, he forced himself to step back into the moment. His heart thudded in time with the pulsing pings of his Augmented Vision.

  A few meters ahead of him stood an archway of cut stone, each piece of squared and smooth rock fitting together like organic geometry. Again, he felt the rise of some silent symphony reaching out to him from beyond the range of his digital vision. Were it possible that Harrison could see through Braun’s Eyes at that very moment, he would have glimpsed the shimmering shadows of the energy fields hanging, as if in waiting, just beyond the archway.

  Coming up to stand beside him, Ralph Marshall put a hand on Harrison’s shoulder. “Everything alright?”

  Disturbed by his feelings of ancient déjà vu, Harrison began to nod then grasped his friend’s elbow.

  “Do you hear that, Ralph?” he asked, his features masked and hidden behind the glow of his visor.

  “Hear what?”

  Met again with a rush of subtle longing, Harrison turned his head to the side in a fruitless attempted to hear that which was music only to the soul.

  “Nothing I guess,” was all he could manage before walking off towards the archway.

  Shrugging, Marshall took up stride next to Harrison as the group followed the determined archaeologist under the stone arch and deeper into the tunnel.

  Though Harrison did not know, for he had not bothered to ask, Braun too could sense the presence that danced beyond the young man's realm of understanding. Though he was now without his Eyes, as they were still on their spindly stands in the Statue Chamber, Braun knew well enough the feeling of the energy fields.

  Sizzling hotly across the fractal of his ever-folding soul, the churning patterns illuminated the AI until he was all but blind to everything save for the paths of predestined possibility that unraveled around his human crew.

  Unaware of the tempest raging through Braun’s mind, Harrison pushed forward, soon stepping into a wide hall. Totally different in design and decoration from anything he had yet seen, this new space held pillars of twisted and carved stone that lined the walls like a forest of handmade trees. Upon the faces of each stone were carvings of alien animals and birds, Earthlike in every way possible yet different in only the fashion that nature can accomplish.

  Eyes wide, every pillar, every line of carved rock, served to soothe the raw pain in Harrison’s freshly broken heart by burying it under layers of mystery. In the bliss of exploration, his loss became less tangible if only for a few moments.

  “Am I fucking dreaming?” Marshall shouted, gaping at the pillars. “This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen!”

  “Braun,” spoke William, his usually impassive tenor brimming over with energy. “Are you recording all of this?”

  “Forgive me, but I did not hear your question.” replied the AI, sounding distant as if only partially paying attention to the crew.

  “I said are you recording this?”

  “Yes, William. I am recording everything,” Braun murmured passively.

  “Try to pay attention, will you?” Harrison cut in, addressing the air as if it were Braun himself.

  “Of course, Harrison. I’m sorry.”

  Biting back on the impulse to berate the AI for using that word again, Harrison took a deep breath and focused on more important things.

  Ahead, a wedge in their path split the hall into two new passages. To one side, the tunnel forked left at nearly ninety degrees, while to the other, it continued with a gentle curve.

  Bringing up the previously scanned map of the cave network on his wrist Tablet, Harrison relayed the image to his teammates so that they could see as he traced his gloved finger along the line of their progress.

  “Okay, this is us,” he pointed. “The map shows the passage to the left with a lot of branches and offshoots. I say we stick right because that way leads us directly to the biggest of the buried domes.”

  Flicking his fingertips along the Tablet, he advanced the image to that of the giant dome near the canyon's rim. Unbroken and seemingly without a blemish to betray its ancient lineage, the Dome was a worthy and exciting goal.

  Resolute in his decision, Harrison led the team down the right passage and soon could no longer see the hall of pillars behind him. The pings of his Augmented Vision now focused ahead.

  As he walked around a soft corner, Harrison allowed his gloved hands to dance along the inlayed carvings in the walls. Creatures like snakes or eels twisted up either side and over the ceiling, their serpentine bodies adding a strangely complex pattern of criss-crossing lines to the tunnel.

  Putting both arms out, he realized with a stab of fear that he could touch each wall with the palms of his hands. Worried that the tunnel might narrow to the point of impassibility, he again felt the surge of the calling melody. As if some external persona were whispering in his ear, Harrison suddenly knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that the path would remain open.

  Rounding the final curve of the gently twisting path, the tunnel abruptly fed into a large chamber, and Harrison halted to allow his Augmented Vision the time it needed to determine the room’s dimensions.

  Decorated only with a long straight stairway leading to an open archway some meters up one wall, this new chamber was shaped like a giant box. On all sides and above, the straight hard lines of precise measurement clashed incredibly with the curving organic passageway Harrison had just navigated.

  With a sigh of bemusement, he labored over the impossible ways in which these tunnels and chambers must have been created.

  How, he wondered, could stone-aged people have devised a method to cut such mammoth underground chambers out of solid rock?

  Something wasn’t adding up. A truth, reminiscent of the one hinted at with Puma Pumku and the Dropa Stones, was beginning to surface. Sometimes the simplest of explanations seemed like the most convoluted.

  Letting out a low whistle, Ralph Marshall stepped from the narrow tunnel and came to stand beside Harrison.

  “Stairs!” he said, noticing the stone steps that grew from the floor. “Doesn’t this mean something? Isn’t that significant?”

  Nodding, Harrison didn’t mention the fact that they had already seen Martian stairs in the images returned by the CT scan of the ruin grid. Leading to the turrets of each corner tower, they had been much longer than this set, but the
ir basic design was the same.

  “You know,” he murmured. “If my dad were here, he would have a million things to say about this.”

  “How so?” returned Marshall.

  “Well, he had a bit of a hobby that slowly turned into something more akin to an obsession or a belief structure. He thinks, and mind you he’s not the only one, that the reason for so many of the similarities and mysteries in ancient architecture is due to, well, intervention.”

  “Intervention?”

  “From on high,” said Harrison.

  “Like God?” Marshall asked flatly.

  “No,” chuckled Harrison. “Like aliens.”

  “Wait,” said Marshall, turning to face his friend. “Are you implying that us having stairs and them having stairs is some kind of alien invention or something? Like a gift from them to us?”

  “Who knows, Ralph? Four years ago, no one even knew there was a them.”

  Filtering in through the narrow tunnel, Kubba and William both exchanged similar tones of surprise at the large room. As the others examined and documented the chamber and its stairs, Harrison moved a little ways off to be alone. Hoping that the voice of that distant and elusive caller would again reveal itself, the young explorer instead felt another personality move near to him.

  “Braun,” he said to the silence of his helmet.

  “Yes, Harrison?”

  “Back before things went so wrong, you told me that you felt a presence here in these caves.”

  “Yes, Harrison.”

  “Well, I feel it too.”

  “As I knew you would,” replied the AI cryptically.

  Sometime later, with their O2 reserves at seventy-eight percent, the team led by Harrison mounted the staircase. Taking the shallow steps three at a time, it was clear to the archaeologist in him that these stairs had been designed for feet much smaller and legs much shorter than his own.

  Part of the way up, he paused then glanced down at his wrist-mounted Tablet and saw with a mixture of excitement and foreboding, that they were nearing the giant Dome. Knowing full well that the pings of his Augmented Vision would be swallowed up by the massive room, he dug in his duffle sack for an X-Ray Beacon before resuming his ascent.

  As the landing at the top of the stairs came into view, Harrison could see the shadows that lay in waiting behind another archway. Stepping onto the landing, he moved forward, the ebb and flow of the hidden symphony again dancing just beneath the surface of perception.

  Through the archway at the end of a long tunnel, Harrison noticed a discoloration on the projection returned by his suit’s X-Ray pings. The thought that his Augmented Vision was threatening to burn out, as it had done during the sandstorm, chilled him profoundly. Quickly tapping at his wrist-mounted Tablet, he brought up the option menu. Hoping that if he shut off the A-Vision and then turned it back on, the discoloration would correct itself, Harrison prepared to cast himself into total blackness. As his finger touched down against the smooth surface of the Tablet, entering the command to shut down, the blue glow of his Augmented Vision winked out.

  There ahead of him, Harrison saw light. It was neither the pale blue glow of his Augmented Vision, nor the harsh hot assault of a spotlight but rather something more familiar. It was sunlight.

  Unable to speak and unwilling to wait for his friends, Harrison dashed off into the tunnel towards the source of the warming light. Though it was faint, he could see clearly enough by the waves of its contrast as he ran down the passageway.

  Racing along, his chest heaved with anticipation and excitement and his boots struck the floor like drums. In his haste, he scarcely noticed the somber statues that lined the walls around him.

  Behind, Marshall was calling out and running to catch up as Harrison neared the end of the tunnel and the light beyond. Sprinting at full tilt, the young explorer passed under the final archway and burst into the wide open expanse of the giant Martian Dome.

  Instantly met by a vision of combined surprise and awe, he skidded to a stop, kicking aside a pile of crystallized bones. Chuckling as they scattered, the haunting white shine of the bones caught and reflected the light of a miniature Sun burning brightly in the center of the Dome.

  The ghosts of Mars

  Thunderstruck, Harrison dropped to his knees. All around him, the twisted and shining bones of a thousand dead glinted and glared. With the blue glow of his Augmented Vision now turned off, Harrison could see the amber yellow light of the tiny star as it washed over everything in the room, making stark shadows in the negative spaces.

  About half the size of a Lander, the miniature Sun turned in slow circles, sometimes wavering or flickering like a candle in the wind. Spurts of fire twisted up and away as random flares released their energy, sending sparks of light dancing into the murky dark above.

  Unable to speak or move, Harrison simply stared—his eyes refusing even to blink. Still calling after him, the voice of Ralph Marshall was a distant buzz not even worth attempting to understand. Soon, though, even that sound fell away as Marshall himself entered the Dome and was silenced by what he saw.

  How long Harrison stayed that way, kneeling and staring, he did not know. When finally he did stir, he felt as if he himself had become like the thousands of dead bones strewn about: frozen and immobile.

  Struggling to his feet, he glanced briefly over his shoulder to be sure that his team was with him. They were there, gazing as he had done, in silence and in shock. Taking a few hesitant steps towards the miniature Sun, Harrison allowed himself for the first time since entering the Dome to play his eyes across the other elements that comprised the picture.

  Lying in neat piles that retained the original orientation of their design, the bones glittered with a light dusting of crystals like morning frost. Besides the few that he had scattered with his boots, they were totally unmolested. Picking his path carefully, Harrison made his way towards the center of the Dome and the sun that hung in the air above it. As each tentative step brought him closer to that ball of fire and light, the tugging song that had drawn him to this place rang louder. Nearly breaking through to the realm of tangible sensation, the call of the sentinel star made it seem almost like a conscious entity.

  Totally absorbed, Braun had become like liquid mercury. With an omnipotent view of all that had been and all that possibly could be, laid out before him in one continuous pattern, the AI felt lost in a sea of relativity. Even without the aid of YiJay’s mechanical Eyes, he saw the energy fields using instead his Ajna Chakra, his Sahasrara—his third eye.

  Binding, powering, and elucidating all of the finite webs that formed creation, the miniature Sun was a beating heart at the center of everything. Repeated and reflected countless times over, its influence never died.

  Though part of his being diligently recorded and processed the information his physical avatars reported, Braun’s essence—his soul—had transcended to a space in between spaces.

  Within two dozen steps of the fiery sphere, Harrison paused. There, directly below the sun, in the center of the Dome’s floor stood a small altar. Made of white stone, the triangular dimensions of the thing, coupled with its strategic placement, gave the altar an air of great importance. Moving closer, Harrison raised his hand to shield his eyes from the intense light so that he could better see the strange table. Nearly hidden in washes of orange and red, the outline of an object adorned the top of the altar.

  As if sensing his pursuits, the sun suddenly erupted a long arcing flare that stretched out then burst like a bubble directly in front of him. Jumping back in spite of himself, Harrison half-expected to be burned by the flames that licked at his body. However, when no change in temperature occurred and the fireball subsided, he began to move forward again as if in a trance. Closing the last few paces between himself and the altar quickly, Harrison stopped beneath the sun. Forced to turn his eyes down and away from the blinding light, which fell about him in sheets, the young Egyptian squinted and focused his attention on the stone ta
ble. There was something there: an object.

  Another flare bloomed from the sun like an octopus's arm, and in the yellow light of its ascension, he saw that the object on the table was metal. Somehow, despite everything, he was surprised by this. Metal was not something he had seen used anywhere within the ruins or caves. Its presence here was clearly meant to be significant.

  With a gloved hand, he reached out and felt the smooth surface of the object, surmising that it was round and no bigger than an egg. All at once, there was a bright flash so sudden that it lasted less than the time it took to blink. In the frozen second that followed, the sun turned an angry blood red, the fury of its turmoil palpable to Harrison like wind in the mind. Tripping backwards, he landed with a crash amongst a tangle of skeletons, the back of his helmeted head whacking the floor savagely. Quickly he scrambled to his feet, ignoring the pain in his head and preparing himself for the worst should the tortured sun unleash its bloody pain upon him. Instead, the burning ball abruptly changed back to its yellow glow and wavered as if adjusting something hidden within.

  “What the fuck just happened?” barked Marshall, breaking the long silence which had befallen the entire team.

  “I touched something on that table,” responded Harrison, he knees still primed in case sudden flight was necessary.

  “What?”

  “There’s some kind of metal ball,” pointed Harrison. “On the altar, I touched it.”

  “Why?”

  Distracted, Harrison ignored the question and shuffled forwards again. Keeping his squinting eyes on the tiny sun, he expected at any moment to be cast back as he had been before. Soon, however, he was again at the side of the altar. Only now, in the slightly diminished light of the sun, could he see more clearly the little metal device, which seemed somehow to power the burning star. Made of a black metal that possessed a smoothness more akin to liquid than solid, the little device rested atop the center of the table like a jewel in a crown. Reluctant to touch it again, Harrison leaned in closely, his breath catching in his throat as he saw a reflection on the glassy surface. With implications more mysterious than he cared to fathom, the reflection that stared back at him was his face—bare and without a helmet.