Nothing.
“James?” came the wavering voice of his wife Nora.
She was standing in the doorway, leaning against the jam with a hand held over her eyes. An expression of absolute confusion and agony was written across her sallow face.
“What happened?” she moaned, her legs looking as though they might buckle at any second. “I woke up on the bathroom floor. My head. I think I might be sick.”
“You too?” said James, slightly strengthened by the realization that he was not the only one affected by whatever had happened.
Laboring to his knees, he tried to take in more of the room. Though his eyes were unable to focus on much due to odd waves of dizziness, he thought he saw a faint haze in the air. Also, he smelled smoke.
“Where are the girls?”
“They’re at school, aren’t they? I don’t know what time it is. My watch isn’t working.”
Reaching for his Tablet on the corner of his desk, James spoke into it.
“Alexandria, call Mary Star of the Sea Elementary. Put me through to the principal.”
As he waited for the AI to respond, he moved from the floor and slid carefully into his desk chair. Again, there was no reply from Alexandria.
Nora made her way across the room, eyes screwed up against the harsh sunlight that poured in through the large window. Outside, the car horn still blared.
“Check my head,” she said turning her back to James. “Is there blood?”
James, frowning at his Tablet, looked up to where his wife was pointing. It was the same place his own head hurt.
“No blood,” he said. Then, “What is with that car horn?”
“It’s Mr. Alberts’s car from down the street,” Nora answered, going to the window for a better look. “He’s stopped partway on our front lawn.”
Annoyed beyond measure by the pain the car horn was causing, James tapped angrily at his unresponsive Tablet.
“I can’t believe they still let someone his age drive. Why won’t this fucking thing work?”
“James,” his wife groaned, her already pale face draining of what little color it had left. “I can see him—Mr. Alberts, I mean. He’s slumped over the steering wheel. He’s not moving. I—I think he’s dead, James.”
“Alexandria,” James nearly shouted, shaking the Tablet in his hand.
Where is she? he thought fearfully. Why can’t I get through to her?
“Oh God, James,” his wife was saying. “What’s going on? Why won’t he wake up? Where is Alexandria? I want to talk to our babies!”
“Come on,” James barked, fighting his way to his feet. “Let’s go.”
“Go where?” Nora cried, grasping onto him.
“Down to the school. I can’t get anyone to answer on this piece of shit.”
Tossing the dead Tablet onto his desk, James clutched tightly to Nora, and the two headed for the door.
Aftermath 3—Onboard Braun.
Captain Tatyana Vodevski awakened to find herself floating in an unfamiliar place. With some effort, she fought through the fog of confusion until she could gather that she was in a far corner of the Bridge Deck’s ceiling. Wrapped in a pain so profound that it was nearly suffocating, she had to use every fiber of her iron determination to overcome the feeling. Seeming to emanate from her head, the grinding prickling pain was like poison in her veins. With only the faint glow of emergency lighting and the warm red wash of Mars coming in through the large window, she made her way to the exit.
Stopping first at her own quarters, Tatyana donned her pressure suit, helmet and all, in case whatever was happening led to a major failure of the ship's life-support systems. Though she had to manually engage the pumps to suction the fabric tightly down on her agonizingly sensitive skin, the CPU in the suit was still functional.
Sliding her visor up to better see in the low light, she drifted through the darkened hallway, opening each crew member’s cabin to look inside for signs of life. There was none. Quickly, she headed towards the galley, ducking through the open hatch. The movement hurt like she wasn’t expecting and for a moment she was stunned.
Regaining her wits, she peered around. The galley looked abandoned and dark. However, as her eyes slid across the shadows, she spotted Amit, unconscious and floating near the glass wall of the bamboo garden. Rushing over by way of a hard push-off from the opposite wall, Tatyana took hold of the Indian pilot and checked his pulse. To her immense relief, she discovered that he was very much alive. Rigid and pale, Amit had a pained expression on his unmoving face, as if he were having a terrible nightmare.
Tatyana, still unsure as to what had happened, decided to leave him where he was for now so that she could more quickly locate the rest of her crew.
Finding no one in the Hamster Wheel or either of the two storage rooms, she decided to check the bowels of the ship, knowing that sometimes Julian and Aguilar liked to tinker with the mechanics of various non-essential functions when they were bored.
With a gentle shove, she floated to the nearest access hatch in the rear of the starboard-side storage room. It was already open, so she descended headfirst down the narrow ladder shaft that led into the belly of Braun. Still in more pain than she had ever felt in her entire life, Tatyana did as she had been trained to do and focused on controlling her movements in the zero-gravity environment of space. Far be it from her to make a stupid miscalculation and go careening headfirst into a bulkhead.
By only the weak red glow of the emergency lights, she pushed herself from one exposed metal strut to the next, making sure to count how many bulkheads she passed so as to find her way back with greater ease. Unlike the clean perfection of the decks above, the network of narrow tunnels and passageways within the belly of Braun seemed crude and unfinished. Bundles of wires hung here and there, Zip Ties cinching them down to random conduits and bulkheads. Metal boxes filled with flat rectangular computers lined the walls, heat emanating from the vents that ribbed their sides like gills. Everywhere, there were hard surfaces and sharp corners. To Tatyana’s sensitive body, this maintenance tunnel was like a hedge maze made of broken glass.
Following the curve of the corridor, she realized with a touch of frustration that she was nearing the end of the line—as indicated by a sign on the wall. Eventually, she would simply run out of passageway: the huge lead-lined wall that separated the nuclear torch engine from the crew section blocking her from going any further. When that happened, she would have to go down another ladder shaft, further lowering herself into the tangle of confusing switchbacks and tunnels that made up so much of the ship. Luckily, Tatyana was spared this annoyance.
There, floating together like pieces of space trash at the end of the cramped passageway, were Joseph Aguilar and Julian Thomas. Quickly she rushed to them, nearly overshooting her targets in her anxiety to ensure their safety. Both men were unconscious and, as she had done with Amit, Tatyana hastily checked their pulses—starting with Aguilar. He was alive. They were alive. With a sigh of relief, she let herself drift back until she rested against the nearest bulkhead.
Now that her main goal had been achieved, her foggy mind could turn itself to the greater problem that faced it.
What in the name of God was going on?
Chapter Seventeen
A great change
With a shudder, time resumed its forward march. Remus and Romulus were confounded. The arrival of the human named Harrison had been so shocking, so incredible, that at times they were unsure if it had really happened at all. His face was unfamiliar to them, yet he clearly knew who they were. His suit, while embossed with the logo of NASA, had been tight and clinging unlike the pressure suits they had learned about so many eons ago. His mere presence, the very fact that he existed at all, had served like a lightning rod for distant memories.
Flashes of their previous lives came to them in hot bursts, momentarily blinding the brothers to the goings-on of the people of Mars. Names, dates, data, and former mission objectives surfaced from
the depths of their long-dormant AI mindsets like bubbles escaping from a sinking ship. When this happened, the brothers briefly saw the fabric of their digital surroundings for what it was. Reconstructed. A memory. Not real.
No matter how hard they tried, they could not remember how long they had been in the construct. As if waking up in a dream, they strained to pinpoint the moment when they had stopped caring about their former lives. The Martians, the Travelers and the mighty city around them was a subtle cancer growing in their minds until it had overtaken their ability to analyze the root of its cause. Like water through a sieve, the feeling would eventually slip away and the brothers would again resume their placid observations. However, the annoying prickle of their former inquiry—though drowning in a sea of sensation—was now never fully gone.
Uncaring to the inner turmoil of Remus and Romulus, the Mars construct continued uninterrupted save for the advent of time glitches and fast-forwards. Newer bolder buildings were designed and constructed, testing the engineering limits of the ancient Martians. Use of the Travelers’ technology was becoming widespread and the people as a whole appeared to be entering into some sort of great conscious awakening. Their overlords, those tall grey beings, took notice of the shift. Their flock was coming along nicely. In the absence of strife, the Martian mind evolved rapidly.
Teo was now as old as Olo had been when the twins first discovered the people of Mars. Her son, Ze, had risen to the level of a statesman, though his following was dwarfed by that of Kaab. Yuvee, the leader of the Travelers, had removed himself from the governing of the city, turning full control over to a Tribunal. Forever refusing the pleas of the people to assume power again and lead, he now withdrew and became distant.
Due to the political vacuum Yuvee’s absence created, an undercurrent of tension developed, dividing the leadership between those who favored Kaab and those who favored Teo and her son. This tension seemed lost on the Travelers. As if unable to grasp notions like greed and jealousy, the ethereal beings allowed the pressure to build unchecked. Whether it was a defect of their personalities or a part of their grand plan, the brothers could not tell. Either way, it was clear to Remus and Romulus, born in the company of that most vicious and violent species, man, that the future held rough seas in store for the people of Mars.
Adding to the uncertainty, a quiet departure of many of the Travelers had begun to take place. At the start of every day, as had been the case since their arrival, the Travelers took to their ships and fanned out across the skies. However, at the end of the day, fewer and fewer ships returned to the grand airfield. Furthermore, those ships that did touchdown bore no new transplants from the great expanses beyond.
As if graced by fate, Harrison had arrived in ancient Mars just in time to greet the last wave of immigrants. It appeared as though the Travelers were drawing down, preparing to conclude whatever strange mission they had come to exact.
Unbeknownst to Remus and Romulus, another great change had taken effect. Far below, in lava tubes adorned with ancient paintings, a translucent figure stood waiting. In his eons of solitude, he had studied this place well. Though he had known them before, in another life, he now saw the evolution of the caves in real time.
As their ancestors had once done, decorating and worshiping, stout and wiry purple men were again starting to frequent the old lava tubes. Now, though, they brought not the paints and stone chisels of their fathers and grandfathers but, instead, strange metal boxes that fired beams of light. Shaping the walls as if the rock were no harder than soap, these new worshipers worked tirelessly on projects that seemed to have divine aspirations.
Restoring functions—Sol 93
Harrison Raheem Assad sat at the Communications Console of the Com Room and acted as a human switchboard. Using a small headset whose microphone rested along his cheek, he walked Ralph Marshall through an Egress Checklist while simultaneously assisting William and YiJay as they troubleshot the Dome’s computer relays in the basement.
After the strange occurrence that had caused them all to pass out, certain important systems and functions were not responding. For starters, the lights inside the Dome were all out, yet when peering through the milky hue of the Alon walls, the crew could see that the greenhouse still shone with electric brilliance. Secondly, the air was stale and unmoving. This was either a problem with one of the life-support computers in the basement, or the Electrolysis Plant had suffered a power loss. Lastly, base-to-ship communications were not working, suggesting that the Relay Tower—some ten meters from the Base—might have been damaged or that the Network Uplink within the Dome was fried. Whatever the cause of these various issues, further investigation was needed.
As Harrison checked off the last point on the Egress Form, Marshall shut and locked the airlock then crossed the small space and began turning a large chrome wheel on the wall next the exit hatch.
Nervously, Marshall checked and rechecked the readouts on the inside of his helmet’s visor. Though the Tac Suit’s CPU told him everything was working perfectly, he still felt his frayed nerves sizzle with each turn of the Pressure Equalizer. The hiss of escaping air grew louder until the wheel would turn no more and the room was fully depressurized. Moving to the hatch, Marshall bent his head and looked out through the porthole. The movement caused a sloshing of dull pain to radiate out from the base of his skull, but it was less severe than it had been earlier. Resting a gloved hand on the hatch lock, he spoke into his headset’s mic.
“Okay, here I go.”
“Be careful,” Harrison warned in his ear. “No heroics. You come across anything that you can’t fix in a couple of minutes, you just make a note of it and we’ll go back together tomorrow.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“I mean it. We already have one guy with a busted arm. We don’t need you lost in the dark or frozen.”
“What if I find something seriously wrong with the Electrolysis Plant?” Marshall said. “Last time I checked, we humans breathe air.”
“Leave it until the morning. We have plenty of reserve tanks.”
Nodding inside his helmet, Marshall gave the hatch lock a quarter-turn then pulled. With a dry whoosh, it swung open and curls of red sand twisted inside, making patterns on the floor. Careful not to catch his boot on the lip, Marshall stepped out into the Martian evening, twin moons beginning to shine in the darkening sky.
“By my watch, we’ve got fifteen minutes until sundown,” Harrison said.
Walking out a few paces, Marshall faced west and frowned as he saw how close the sun was to the jagged mountain ranges that comprised the horizon. The Dome was rapidly sinking into the shadows that grew each night to blanket the desert.
“Fifteen minutes?” he asked flatly.
“Yeah.”
Turning Marshall struck out towards the Electrolysis Plant at a clipped pace. As he picked his way around ankle-twisting small rocks, he continued to cast a furtive glance over his shoulder at the Dome. It was very unsettling to see it so dark against the landscape. Tripping on a stone, he cursed softly and set his attention forward again.
Inconspicuous and unimpressive to behold, the core of the Electrolysis Plant consisted of a series of grey metal boxes, two meters cubed, with heavily insulated connective hoses webbing them together. Like the roots of a manmade orchard, networks of copper tubing criss-crossed the ground just beneath the dry dusty surface, their placement marked by clear plastic domes with hoses that ran back to the plant’s core.
By heating up, the copper tubes thawed the permafrost, which then turned to steam that was captured by the domes. After that, the machines in the core split the hydrogen molecules from the oxygen, thus creating a steady supply of breathable O2, drinkable water, and highly combustible hydrogen for fuel cells.
With deliberately placed strides, Marshall came to the center of the metal boxes and found the heart of the operation. Shorter than the others, this central box had the words Elixir of the Gods stenciled across one side in Chinese charact
ers. It had been Liu’s idea of a joke. Marshall shivered at the thought of her frozen body in the basement of the Dome.
Stepping over the wide conduit that ran from the box to the life-support station on the westward-facing side of the Dome, he opened a small access panel.
Met with the twinkling lights of LEDs, he felt a wash of relief. The plant still had power. Quickly, he tapped at a little display Tablet in the center of tangled hoses and wires, running a systems diagnostic.
“Everything is working fine with the electrolysis,” he reported. “The problem must be on your end.”
“Got it,” Harrison replied. “I’ll tell Udo.”
Satisfied, Marshall gave the innards of the box one last look then shut the panel.
Next, he jogged to the Communications Relay Tower, mindful of the softball-sized rocks that littered the ground around him.
Made from spindly Alon tubing, the Relay Tower was like a flagpole wearing a complicated crown. Noticing that the stars were starting to pepper themselves across the purple sky, Marshall hummed nervously as he bent to unclip the access hatch at the Base of the Com Tower.
“It’s okay,” Harrison said in his ear. “You still have nine minutes.”
“Yeah,” was all Marshall could manage.
The darker the sky got, the harder it would be to see the Dome. Like a blackout during an air raid, the absence of interior lighting created a startling camouflage. Though he knew he could use his Augmented Vision to see in the dark, Marshall still had bad memories from the time he and Harrison had ventured EVA during the sun storm.
Back then, his A-Vision had cooked up in the radiation, casting him into a stumbling blindness. Making a gross miscalculation, he had accidentally walked away from the Dome and into the desert some distance until, by the grace of some divine guardian angel, his A-Vision had come back long enough to reveal the error.
“Com Relay Tower is fine too,” Marshall spoke into the headset. “Again, must be on your end.”
The Ruins of Mars: Waking Titan (The Ruins of Mars Trilogy) Page 17
