by Davis, James
"Look!" he exclaimed, as his hand moved across something harder, and more jagged than the stone he had been clearing. Roosevelt moved in closer, reached out and touched the place Johnny was pointing toward.
"It's metal," Roosevelt said, carefully touching the piece still attached to the wall.
"Yeah, it is! Rosie, this is the place from the report. Can we pry this off?" Johnny said, jumping to his feet.
"It's stuck pretty good," he replied, removing a small spade like tool from his belt that they had been using to collect dirt samples with. He slid the tip in behind the protruding piece of dusty metal and pressed hard on the handle. The piece flew off, with a small chunk of wall still attached. It hit the step and rolled down a few steps.
Johnny scrambled to grab the object before it rolled further downward. He stood up straight, holding it up like a first-place trophy, a smile covering his face. He turned it over a few times, inspecting it closely.
"Let's bag it and get out of here. The storm seems like it’s starting to die down," he said.
Roosevelt held out an open bag and Johnny dropped the chunk into it.
"I guess we'll be coming back here," Roosevelt said, snapping the bag shut.
"Oh, we'll be hammering this place for the next several months," Johnny replied with a huge grin.
Chapter Thirteen
2:09 p.m. August 19, 2048
Just outside Gungnir
“Back in time for lunch!” Roosevelt exclaimed, seemingly more excited about the prospect of food than he was about their find.
“Lunch! That's what you’re excited about? Not the Martian structure we found or the metal plaque?” Johnny guffawed. Roosevelt rubbed his stomach a few times before giving it a light pat.
“A man’s gotta eat when he’s hungry or said man will look like your skinny ass,” Roosevelt chuckled.
“Come in base, do you copy?” Johnny spoke into the mic inside his helmet. Tanner’s reply came a second later.
“G1, go ahead.” Johnny cleared his throat.
“Alright we’re about to come in. We gathered samples of the dirt and rock on the edge of the mountains and we think we found what we came here for already!” Johnny said, excitement dripping from his words. They continued to grab the samples from the rover and then headed for the airlock. Once inside they turned around and stared out over the rocky red terrain. Johnny reached up and wiped his hand across his visor to get a better view. He was still amazed at where they were.
“Looks like G2 is just about back. Should we wait out here to help them unload if they found anything?” Roosevelt asked. Johnny continued to stare out across the landscape for a long second before replying.
“Yeah we might as well. I’m sure they’ll want to know about what we found too,” Johnny said, setting down the bags of samples he had collected. Roosevelt did the same and spoke into the mic inside of his helmet.
“Hey base, we’re going to go ahead and wait for G2 to get here before we head up. We can see them coming now. Shouldn’t be too much longer. Stand by.” The radio crackled in his ear and then Tanner’s voice followed.
“Copy that.” Minutes later Rebecca steered the rover up next to Johnny and Roosevelt’s rover and climbed out. She and Erik gave the two men a quick wave and then turned back to retrieve a few items from their rover.
“You two find anything interesting out there at the crater?” Roosevelt asked.
“Nothing much. We collected samples from different layers of the crater though. If I’m not mistaken, I would say that the crater is actually a massive ancient lake from the different colored layers we found once we started digging and we think this area was hit by a pretty big volcanic eruption as well. There is a pretty thick layer of what looks like ash. It is all very similar to what we see on Earth,” Erik explained.
“What about you guys?” Rebecca asked, lifting a single eyebrow to Johnny's cheshire grin.
“Oh, you know just the usual stuff. Dirt, rock, a few fossil looking rocks, a stairway leading down inside of the mountain and an ancient plaque Rosie here pried off the stone wall,” Johnny replied, the huge grin still covering his face. Rebecca and Erik’s jaws both went slack with surprise. They did not expect any of them to find anything of significance so quickly, or at all for that matter.
“Get the heck out of here,” she said, and then quickly brought her hand up to try and cover her mouth as she didn’t make it a habit to curse, especially not in front of anyone other than her best friend, Cindy.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to,” she trailed off when she heard the three men chuckling at her sudden outburst of excitement over the possible find.
“Don’t worry about it. We aren’t going to think any different of you,” Roosevelt stated as he stepped up next to her and patted her shoulder.
“Alright guys, that's enough grab assin’! Get up here so we can all have a look at this plaque you found,” Tanner's voice sounded through each of their helmets' internal speakers.
“Sounds like someone is super jealous he wasn’t part of our little moment just now,” Roosevelt said with a chuckle.
“We better get up there before Mom gets mad at us,” Johnny added. This got a loud snort out of Rebecca as the words sounded inside of her helmet. They all had a good laugh at this before picking up each of the bagged samples and headed for the airlock.
“Alright, Scotty, beam us up,” Roosevelt said into his helmet mic, which got a few more chuckles from the peanut gallery. Tanner didn’t say a word. Like a small child, he was giving them all the silent treatment. The airlock closed and a decontaminant washed over them all as it lifted them back up into the lower level of the shuttle. By the time the doors re-opened the air dryer had them all cleaned of anything that could cause them to get sick.
“Let’s meet back in the observation room in twenty. That should be plenty of time for us each to get out of these suits and cleaned up,” Johnny said, lifting his bags and starting down the hall towards the living quarters. A half an hour later they were all standing around in the observation room waiting on Tanner. Finally, after taking his sweet ass time Tanner strolled in with a shit eating grin on his face. They all knew he took his time on purpose but ignored it so they could all get a look at the plaque Roosevelt and Johnny had found.
“Well? Let’s see it,” Tanner stated, now sounding more than a little annoyed.
Johnny grabbed the plastic bag containing the piece and opened it. He reached in with a gloved hand, pulling it out and carefully placing it in the table top. The strange item was no more than five inches in length and width. It was covered with a layer of red dust and still attached to a small chunk of the wall they had found it on. The group leaned in closely as Johnny stepped back, proudly watching.
"It's magnificent," Rebecca breathed.
"Quite a find, great work!" Erik agreed.
"The surface of the rock appears to have been worked, it's very flat. We'll need to get them separated and do some tests. We need to get that metal cleaned up and under the electron microscope," she said, rubbing her gloved hand across the piece of metal.
"How long?" Johnny asked.
Rebecca narrowed her eyes, shaking her head slowly, still examining the metal. She flipped it over, trying to determine what was holding it to the stone.
"A few hours and I can have these separated and cleaned up, and shortly after that I should be able to tell you what it's made of," she said.
Johnny nodded.
"Anything we can do to help?" he asked.
"You can get out of here and let me get to work," Rebecca replied.
"You ain't gotta tell me twice, I'm starving!" Roosevelt said, a little too excited, turning on his heels and leaving.
"We're gonna get twenty million viewers on the live stream when they hear about this. Guaranteed to break the internet!" Tanner exclaimed as the rest of the group left the room, not the least bit interested in Tanner’s live feed.
“We’re headed to the kitchen. You guys wa
nt us to bring down some grub?” Roosevelt asked before they all split off and headed in separate directions. Rebecca looked over to Erik who gave a shrug.
“I could eat,” Erik said.
“Same,” Rebecca added before turning to head toward the lab. Roosevelt snapped the fingers on each of his hands before immediately turning them into finger guns.
“You got it! Chef Roosevelt at your service!” he said with a chuckle. Johnny watched as Roosevelt stacked small peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on a plastic plate and whistled a loud obnoxious tune.
“Jesus Christ man, where did all of this peanut butter come from?” Johnny asked, looking inside of a cardboard box full of Jif.
“It’s my own personal stash so don’t get used to it! Now make yourself useful and start loading that other plate up would ya?” Roosevelt said, pointing a large knife toward a second plastic plate. Johnny slid off of his stool and started piling more of the finger food onto the plate.
“Nice! I love PB & J!” Tanner said, reaching in to snatch a sandwich from the pile. Roosevelt quickly smacked Tanner’s hand and pointed the large knife at him.
“Mind ya damn manners and wait till we get to the lab!” He scolded. Tanner rubbed his hand and glared at Roosevelt, his jaw twitching.
“Go ahead little man, do something! We’re on Mars and I guarantee nobody here seen shit!” Roosevelt said with an almost evil grin.
“I! You…,” Tanner started but then huffed loudly, spun around and stormed back out of the room.
“You sure know how to ruffle his feathers,” Johnny chuckled.
“That guy needs to be knocked down a few pegs,” Roosevelt replied as he cleaned the knife and placed it back into its drawer.
“You’re not wrong.”
Chapter Fourteen
3:42 p.m. August 19, 2048
Gungnir’s Laboratory
“I’ve never seen anything like it before in my life!” Rebecca said as she ran back and forth from station to station, double and triple checking her findings.
“Slow down and explain what you’re telling us,” Johnny said, holding a palm out toward her.
Rebecca stopped, looked at Johnny and took a deep breath.
"Okay, first, look here," she said pointing to a screen. "We see iron, sulphur, oxygen, nothing exciting but, look at these," she said, swiping at the screen to the next set of results.
"So?" Johnny asked.
“So, those are three unidentifiable elements. The total make-up of this metal is unlike anything I have ever seen and virtually has no melting point that I have been able to find and dissipates said heat almost immediately,” she replied, still overly excited.
“What do you mean there’s no melting point?” Roosevelt asked, scratching the scruff on his chin.
“I mean I threw everything we have at it and nothing could melt it. I heated it up to over six thousand degrees and it did not melt and was barely even warm as soon as I took the heat away. It’s amazing! This alone could change the world as we know it,” Rebecca replied before taking a bite from one of the sandwiches.
“So, is it an alloy or something that could be mined?” Erik asked. Rebecca laughed and muttered something unintelligible through her mouthful of PB&J.
“Didn’t quite catch that,” Johnny said with a chuckle. She stopped and took a long drink from her glass of water and then cleared her throat.
“I said I don’t know. There is nothing in this lab that can make heads or tails of it,” she said, shaking her head and staring off into space.
“So, we have a hunk of extremely strong unknown metal and a stairway that looks as if it leads deep into the base of a mountain. That about sums up today's findings? Anything else?” Tanner asked from the back of the group.
"Just the writing," Erik said.
"Writing?" Johnny asked quizzically.
Erik nodded his head, turning toward the screen and tapping a few buttons. A second later, an image of the metal plaque appeared.
"The dust has certainly done some damage, but with the lidar scan, no problem," he said, swiping across the screen and spinning the image to look at the opposite side.
The image showed what appeared to be covered in several symbols. The symbols weren't dissimilar to human writings but looked nothing like any language the group had ever seen.
"What's it mean?" Tanner asked.
"That we don't know. Unless you can translate ancient Martian," Rebecca replied.
"Wait!" Johnny exclaimed, moving closer to the screen.
Johnny reached out and touched the screen, moving the image around, inspecting it. He reached out and put his finger on one symbol. The symbol reassembled a triangle with three diagonal slashes through it.
"That one! I've seen that one!" He insisted.
"And where might you have seen that?" Rebecca asked.
"The spaceman!" Johnny and Roosevelt said in unison.
Johnny turned to another screen and tapped around, pulling up an image of the space suit he had found in a cave as a child. He zoomed in on the front of the spaceman. One of four symbols emblazoned over the left breast of the spaceman was the image Johnny had indicated on the plaque.
“Here. See it’s the same exact symbol,” Johnny said pointing his finger at the image on the screen.
“Did you ever figure out what it means?” Rebecca asked, blowing a strand of hair from her face and looking over her left shoulder at Johnny.
“Doc Winters has been working on that since the day he first showed up at my childhood home to study the spaceman. I can give him a call and see what he says,” Johnny said.
“Do you think he knows anything more than we do?” Erik chimed in, his Russian accent sounding extra thick as the day grew longer.
“Like I said he's studied the thing for twenty years. He knows more about it than any of us do,” Johnny replied.
“Just give him a yell. Can’t hurt anything,” Roosevelt said, shutting down anymore doubt from the Russian. Johnny moved to get his laptop, Roosevelt falling in directly behind him.
“So, what do you think he’s going to say?” Roosevelt asked.
“I’m not really sure. It’s been a few years since I talked to him last,” Johnny replied as he turned to walk into his quarters. He grabbed the laptop and they made their way back down to the lab. He set the computer down on the center counter and opened it to the main menu on the screen. He guided the mouse icon through the apps section to a video calling service app. Clicking it the app opened to a list of contacts Johnny had already saved into the memory. They all watched as he scrolled down through the A’s, then the B’s and C’s until finally stopping on a single contact in the D section simply named Doc. He clicked the phone icon next to the name and watched as the screen went completely black except for three dots in the center of the screen that seemed to get brighter and darker from one to the next in sequence.
A dial tone clicked through the speakers on the laptop a few times before an old white-headed man with shoulder length hair, horn rimmed glasses, blue eyes, thin lips and a hawkish nose.
“Johnny my boy! How the hell are ya?” Dr. Desmond Winters exclaimed through the small speakers of the laptop. Johnny laughed out loud.
“Hey, Doc. Long time, no see. How you been doing?” Johnny replied, a genuine smile creeping across his face.
“Never been better! I hear you’re a real-life astronaut now. How's life in outer space treating you?” Dr. Winters asked. Johnny chuckled.
“Not bad, actually. The trip to Mars didn’t take near as long with the new ION drives A51 invented for this trip,” Johnny said, nodding his head towards Tanner. The doctor started to say something but the picture became overly pixelated and the sound cut off completely for a solid six seconds.
“Sorry about that, Doc. You’ll have to repeat yourself. The service up here is awful,” Johnny joked.
“I said, have you found any new evidence up there to suggest that we humans came from the red planet? You know I’ve alwa
ys thought that after your dad called me out to look at the spaceman all of those years ago,” Dr. Winters explained.
“Actually, we did find something,” Johnny said, looking back over his shoulder at Roosevelt with his hand out for the metal piece they had found. Desmond Winters’ face became deadly serious as he leaned forward to the screen to get a better look at the piece of metal Johnny was currently holding up to the camera.
“Damn service is failing again! The picture is all blocky!” Desmond's voice sounded through the speakers. Johnny looked down at the screen just as the picture went straight to black and then back to the contacts list with a call ended stamp at the top right corner.
“Son of a bitch!” Johnny said as he desperately tried to regain the connection. He clicked Doc’s name several times but the same message just kept popping up over and over, Call Ended.
“Shit!” Johnny growled, slamming his fist down onto the table causing Rebecca and Tanner to both jump.
“Just chill out. We can try again later or in the morning before we head out,” Roosevelt said, patting Johnny on the shoulder to calm him down a bit.
“I know, but damn if the genius can invent an ion drive that got us to Mars in a few weeks instead of months you would think the 10G service would be impeccable even here,” Johnny said, pointing his chin at Tanner.
“Probably just hit a dead spot in the planet's rotation. I bet it's back up before we leave in the morning,” Roosevelt said.
“It damn well better be!” Johnny huffed before closing his laptop forcefully and storming out of the room.
“Well, that's about as much fun as I can stand for one day,” Tanner said, hopping off of his stool along the back wall and heading for the exit. Erik fell in behind him and soon they were all headed off to different sections of the shuttle.
Chapter Fifteen
4:13 a.m. August 20, 2048
Johnny’s quarters
A faint chime broke through Johnny’s dreams causing his eyes to pop open. A faint blue light beamed out of his closed laptop sitting on the table next to his bed. He ran a hand across his face and smacked his lips a few times before sitting up and scratching all of the normal places one does when waking from a deep slumber. He had slept like the dead after losing his temper and storming off to his room the previous evening. He sat up in bed and threw the covers to the side and snatched the laptop from the nightstand. He squinted hard as the bright light penetrated his light deprived retinas. Once his eyes were fully adjusted to the light, he glanced back at the screen to see One New Message across the middle of the screen. He moved the mouse to open the message. It was from Dr. Winters.