Manifest Destiny

by Allen Ivers

  Manifest Destiny

  Allen Ivers

  Copyright © 2019 by Allen Ivers

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Acknowledgments

  Dedicated to my wife, Lyn, for always believing, always pushing, and always supporting as I labored on this piece.

  And to Candy & Andrew Ivers — I hope I did you proud

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  Mars

  She had never gotten used to that peculiar crunch of the dirt under her feet. It behaved more like dust, fluttering into the air with a soft copper cloud. Even the most well-worn pathways, packed down by repeated falls of heavy boots, still kicked up powder like delightful fresh snow. She was entering a house that hadn’t been touched in decades.

  For all intents and purposes, that statement was true. More true recently than she liked to think about. The excitement distracted her from her work, pulled focus. She’d catch herself giggling if she didn’t keep her head in the math.

  Dr. Eliza Raines pushed each key on her computer with deliberate heft, cautious that the fat fingers of her EVA suit didn’t slip onto other keys. Her pop-up laptop, an obsolete relic that only she trusted, sung with a satisfying click upon each stroke. She liked the feedback of it, the solid nature. Hard to make a mistake when she can feel each entry kicking back into her hand. She didn’t mind the flickering amber display, the cracked glass cover, or the percussion of the keys. It had a kind of surly character.

  Over her head, looming like ancient Roman arches, hung two black stone beams. They connected the red sandstone walls of the canyon, bringing the ends of the narrow crevasse together, stitches on a healing wound. Compared to the random beveling and edges of the canyon, the arches were comparably smooth. Dark. Dense.

  Artificial.

  Raines stared up at the construction, feeling a smile start to crack over her wrinkled face. Decades of study and late nights had left their mark on her, strain on her body that cut lines along a square, defined jaw.

  Life of scholastic achievement was hardly physically arduous but it would be naïve to assume there was no effect on the human body – late nights, bright panels, and lack of food were hardly ideal conditions. It was another two years of physical training to even prepare her for this mission -- space travel is unkind on the body in the best of circumstances, and in her fifth decade, the trip was profoundly arduous.

  She had found life on Mars to be even more strenuous than the four-month voyage in the steel box someone charitably described as their ‘chariot.’ The lower gravity proved the trickiest, often causing sprains and hyperextensions when trying even the simplest of tasks.

  Months of training can only prepare a person so much. The sensation bore resemblance to the uncanny valley – not different enough to be distinct, but enough to turn the inner ear onto its side.

  The protracted Martian day was enough to leave Raines in a permanent state of jet lag, something Director Hotchkiss promised she would get used to -- she hadn’t. Atmospheric controls in the colony — and in her suit — couldn’t do much against the severe cold. And the invasive quarantine procedures were a necessary evil to prevent infection by any potential dormant local pathogens, and there was disturbing, uncomfortable probings endured for every expedition.

  She wouldn’t trade it for anything.

  William hobbled over to her, struggling to maneuver in his kit. He’d never gotten used to the environment suit, as he waddled the few yards over to her side, like a baby with an unfortunate treasure in its trousers. The geologist was the best she’d ever met, but he was a lab rat at heart. Field work was something he had to do before being allowed the more fulfilling work. She imagined he had trouble dealing with any environment that wasn’t sterile, but of course if that were the case, it would follow that his suit should be a second home. Which it wasn’t. He walked as though he had chafed his legs raw.

  He recited something to her, but all Raines could see was him flapping his thin lips in a pointless dance. She pointed a finger at the side of his helmet and he grimaced, tapping his wrist. The click of the radio, then:

  “The arch is less than five thousand years old.”

  Raines scrunched her bushy gray eyebrows, tightening around her silver blue eyes, “Carbon 14?”

  “The carbon hasn’t decayed. At all.” William stated this as though he had just uncovered a dead body. “Those arches were built sometime after Stonehenge. They could’ve been built sometime after disco for all we know.”

  Raines peered up at the obsidian curves suspended over her head. Her heart thumped in her ears, throbbing against its prison. Not fast, but hard. Like love. Or fear.

  “Check again.”

  William hesitated, turning back to his equipment. “I already did, ma’am. Twice.”

  “Then do it once more because I told you to.” Raines couldn’t help but bark the order at him, “Take samples from every six inches, compare them against each other, then do it all again.”

  William scuttled off, frustrated by her obstinacy. It was almost adorable.

  One mistake, one discrepancy in the data at any stage of the collection might jeopardize their findings, and grant all the reason to dismiss months of hard labor. There were already so-called scientists waiting in the wings and brandishing their credentials, eager to write volumes as to how her conclusions were wrong.

  It was the nature of modern science; there was always money in opposition to progress. She had to be thorough enough to scare those little vampires back into their covens to argue over theories proven true millennia ago. It had grown into a kind of sick pleasure, almost a hobby.

  And the bitter desire to silence dissent had always been true to her form, but in this case… if she was right, if every single sample corroborated her theories… muzzling morons would be the most minor of her pleasures.

  The more she looked at the arches, the more it commanded her to look. She’d always known that these were likely alien ruins, despite those that would claim otherwise.

  God doesn’t build in straight lines. Nature creates chaos, twists and turns that follow a madman’s path through a dark and hungry forest. But regularity, patterns, repeatable results; these are the marks of intelligent design. But for that Designer to be so young...they might still be alive.

  Raines shook off the thought, along with the growing headache. Her heart rate had climbed over 120, her suit monitor chiming a distant warning, as though to cheerfully deliver potentially hazardous news with a warm bell chime.

  The raw excitement might’ve just given her a migraine, if she wasn’t careful to manage herself. Or it was the dehydration. When was the last time she had stopped to eat or drink? Had it really been since this morning?

  She had been out at this dig site for six grueling months, with brief returns to Manifest to resupply and retreat from the environment
. When it wasn’t dehydration sapping her strength, it was wind storms chasing her team home. Once it was a meteor shower that ripped the camp apart. A lack of atmosphere that somehow managed to produce sandstorms also failed to protect the surface from orbital debris crashing down into her lab.

  Thankfully no one had been hurt, but how long did they want to roll dice on that? They’d rebuilt the outpost twice, retreating back to Manifest for supplies and rest. Every time, Raines had been reticent, as though the treasure they sought was just a few inches further from her grasp.

  There were scheduled returns every two weeks, as her team was relieved by a secondary group in a revolving door of thick glasses, high-waisted pants, and neuroses. While at Manifest, colony physicians would conduct a variety of additional tests on the returning field teams. Primarily, to be certain the scientists were healthy, but also to measure any change following prolonged exposure to the Arches. It was unclear what, if any, radiation they might be putting off, so the Powers That Be made certain to collect data at every possible juncture.

  She understood the method to the madness, as she was as much a part of the data set as the ground under her feet. But it didn’t stop her from resenting the whole practice. She belonged in this canyon, working, not making twice monthly stops to have her reflexes triggered with a rubber mallet.

  Raines tapped a note into her laptop: “10.5.2068 -- First Corroboration, Arches Artificial”

  That headache pounded now, pulsing fists beating on the inside of her head, warping their prison bars with each successive blow. Her skull might crack open under this cacophonous racket. It would give those physicals something useful to record.

  The Arch. Smooth and sweeping high overhead, fine lines etched into stone, hypnotic patterns fused together under pressure. Or an embossed message in a foreign language. The stone gleaming a soft green in the last of the sunlight, like seafoam or gemstone.

  She missed the ocean so much. She used to live right off the beach in Maui. Best posting she ever had, that observatory. They were mapping the surface of Titan with infrared cameras, trying to get an idea of the subsurface oceans, when the news came in about Mars. How they’d missed it, nobody could figure out. It’s not like the entire surface of Mars had been mapped for fifty years twice over. But there they were.

  Structures.

  If these discoveries bore true in the data, she could retire to a nice college, teach whenever she liked, and go swimming on the weekends in warm waters. She’d have the entire academic community at her feet, and all she would ask of them is to bugger off and let her analyze tidal patterns by way of boogie board. It all depended on careful management of the process.

  And these Arches.

  Raines shook her head, a few locks of white hair having slipped out of the cap, damp with sweat and clinging to her forehead. She needed to get a drink, her chapped lips pulling and tearing as she grimaced. This headache was starting to throb.

  But those arches… so green...

  When Raines woke up, she wasn’t in the canyon anymore.

  Hotchkiss peered through the plate glass, studying the bronzed horizon that had started to encroach on the colony perimeter. It had to be a half a mile tall, a whirling and gnashing gust of sand and vitriol, an encroaching tidal wave intent on visiting its feckless wrath against his fortifications. It may be futile, but it was jaw dropping in any case.

  He never took much stock in divinity or creators, even as a child, but historical context offered a reasonable explanation as to why old tribes ever did. If man felt an earthquake before he knew about tectonics, what better solution did he have other than an all-powerful terrestrial deity? Comets in the sky correlating with a good or bad harvest? A wildfire sweeps away a villager known for his infidelity? Or some poor bastard just keels over from any number of unknown ailments?

  Given the context, it made sense. A benevolent man in the sky who was owed only subservience, and when denied it, visited the random chaos of the universe upon the detractors.

  This thing before him was fairly compelling context. Though teams of engineers had worked tirelessly to neuter these otherworldly powers, the display alone still shook him in his boots.

  Context: the Gods were angry.

  The colony had survived a half dozen of these sandstorms in the last year. Winds over forty miles an hour, bordering on hurricane conditions, but without the water. The steel frames and concrete foundations creaked a bit under the strain, but other than that, there was a simple advisory to stay indoors.

  Maintenance crews worked around the clock to prepare -- and repair -- for natural events like these. There hadn’t even been any injuries recorded. This wasn’t something the colony took for granted, but it was something they practiced for. Not even a god would turn them away from the Red Planet.

  Hotchkiss turned back to his control room, a circular chamber with two tiers of computers and desks. It wasn’t actually more functional or ergonomic to lay out the room this way, he mused. It must’ve felt more official, something that felt right without any cause for it. Humans liked to have a center to things, a nerve cluster, like five fingers coming together to form a weathered palm. Corrugated steel floors laid the underfloor visible, and a low drop-ceiling missing some panels for easy maintenance on the dangling cables.

  It always looked incomplete, but if it was all slick, Hotchkiss would’ve been nervous. He drew comfort from seeing the inner workings. Like studying an ant farm. Perhaps it was incomplete, and no one ever bothered to bring in the last few panels – too many other priorities to see to. But had he designed this place himself, he would’ve sketched it like this.

  The aesthetics of Manifest always fell to the wayside against functionality and practicality, just the way he preferred it. Cogs in the most important machine ever built. Why cover them up?

  His team hustled through storm preparation, connecting calls on wired phones, ensuring all stations were prepared. A lot of hurry, but no panic. This was a practiced routine, but if done improperly, there could be real consequences.

  “Full checks?” Hotchkiss projected. He made sure not to yell. He simply spoke with authority, volume, and declarative heft. Had to make sure an order carried above the chaos.

  A technician raised his hand, “Gate won’t shut. Something’s jamming it open.”

  Hotchkiss leaned over the man’s console, as if his keen eyes might catch something different, but no such luck, “Debris must’ve caught in it. Make a note, we’ll get Unsrein and Collinsworth out there to hammer any dents out after the storm.”

  “How long are you going to be punishing them?”

  “Until I get bored. Have we heard from Dr. Raines?” Hotchkiss snapped out to no one in particular.

  DeShaun Mathers popped out of his chair, crisp and stiff like he was fresh from his packaging. The kid was young, mid-twenties, and the human avatar of eagerness. A brilliant technician but he took this all so seriously. Quite the little boy scout, “Sir, our last message was four hours ago.”

  Hotchkiss waved Mathers back into his seat, uncomfortable with the formality, “She’s going to have to anchor out there. The rover will tip over in that wind. Would you shoot that out to her? And they’re going to have to come back soon as the storm clears. She’s got to be out of food by now.”

  Mathers’s eyebrows bunched together, as he struggled to do math without showing it. Hotchkiss shook his head, “If someone doesn’t call her back, she’ll be too excited to leave and just starve at her station.”

  Mathers jerked his head, nodding a few too many times, before dropping behind his keyboard to type out that message.

  Hotchkiss stared at the efficiency on display, his stomach almost turned. “DeShaun? Can you maybe ease up on the throttle? I’m going to have an aneurysm just watching you.”

  Someone called out: “Storm is two miles out!”

  Hotchkiss looked back out the window. A colorful pinwheel on top of the residences looked like a blurry circle, spinning so fast it appea
red to be going backwards. It teetered on its fasteners, threatening to fly away to Oz. He’d be surprised if it was still there in the morning. Fletch was going to have to build a new one.

  “Alright, that’s it,” Hotchkiss placed a keycard in his console, twisting it. “Let’s lock it up.”

  Steel panels slid down over the windows, a phalanx of barricades to shield their high vulnerable position from the worst of the storm. Their elevated position made them a beacon for flying objects while the rest of the colony was protected by the concrete barrier wall. Just in time, as well, as rocks started to pepper against the glass.

  Everyone took one last glimpse at the approaching storm, before the curtains dropped.

  Something hit the glass. Hard.

  Hotchkiss jumped up from his station, startled by the disturbingly moist thud. The steel shutter groaned against it, unable to move over it or past it. Gears and motors whined at the obstacle, lacking the torque to exert their opinion on this piece of rubbish. It was small, only a few feet across. Stubby little arms gripped the glass, like a starfish, with rusty flesh that camouflaged against the storm behind it. It swelled, ever so slightly, before shrinking down again. The telltale rise and fall of breathing.

  But breathing what? The atmosphere out there was near nothing, and mostly CO2. Nothing should be alive out there.

  A smear of spittle around the edges of its fingers. Thick and viscous.

  Everyone waited, some turning to look at Hotchkiss. His jaw worked, trying to say something, but finding nothing. Mathers slid out of his chair, inching for the exit. As though he didn’t want to disrupt a conversation or wanted to sneak past his sleeping parents. He was almost free....