by Caldon Mull
Esteban sighed, “So what made these five so different? Why are they on Mars if they should still be on Earth?”
“I don’t know, Esteban. I can’t even guess right now.” The Doctor said softly. “Should we leave them here?” she asked of Pele.
“I think so, now that we know about them.” Starmind mused, “We can’t let the ones who put them here know that we know. At least until we figure out why.”
“I’ve taken GPS readings, I’ll drop them in exactly the placing that they were. I didn’t move the tether. I’ve got more degassing calculations to do, I can drag them up and take them back down in about ten hours time.” Esteban checked his internal indicators “I’ve also got to rub one out, my UroQt needs attention.”
“That’s such a stupid augmentation.” The Doctor grimaced.
Esteban grinned and stuck out his tongue at her “MCN Marketing thinks its good… think about the sub-conscious affirmation of getting all of this at once,” Esteban helicoptered his phallus with a twitch of his hips, “when you’re at your most primal…”
“Esteban, you’re more than just a hyper-sexualized toy.” the clatter of the instruments in the tray she was packing away betrayed her irritation, “You’ve proved that many times today. You’re just being silly.”
“Am I? Is anybody, really…?” Esteban’s mood changed quickly “Because if not, I’m just a literal ship in a literal desert, doing nothing when I could be doing something. You want me to be useful to you for… I don’t know what. Everybody else wants me to be useful to them for this…” Esteban waved his hands over his hips, “… which gets more ratings? One of you or the thousands of them?”
“…” she said nothing, intent of re-packing the med-mech.
“So then, I’m off to go and drain before I clog myself up or trigger the cleaning sequence. It’s the 23rd Century, Doctor.” Esteban stalked for the elevator.
“Wait up, Esteban.” Pele looked up from the console, “I owe you this, and I got the fixtures fitted to this clock before we left Cadiz. The last thing I want is your liquid DNA on all the surfaces here. A promise is a promise.”
“Great. What about you, Doctor? You going to join us, or follow me around with a mop?”
“I think I’ll stay with this body.” She sniffed.
#
Esteban stretched out on the floor as the clock rolled off his hips. “That’s better, thank you.” He said drowsily.
“At least you didn’t break me.” the clock pushed Esteban’s feet away from the toilet bowl “What was that about?”
“It’s not often I get… y’know, all the way in. I got carried away, it felt good.”
“Oh, I hadn’t considered that before.” Pele pressed a digit into his navel, a metal tube snaked out into the bowl, “A vestigial biological imperative? I don’t mind as long as you needed it.”
“Thank you for saying so.” Esteban yawned “In a way the Doctor is right, I’m crafted to display and for the prospect of sensation; consumed for these things in exchange for increased subscriber ratings and channel loyalty… I am the MCN reward for continued attention from anyone who’s interested in them, a sustained drama with a human touch that anybody can sample.”
“But you don’t like being trivialized like that?” Pele’s tube drained Esteban’s sexual fluids in spurts, from his augmented cavities.
“Maybe you wouldn’t ever understand, Pele.” Esteban frowned quickly, “You are a portion of the Starmind, you are actually MCN...”
“Maybe, I would. I’m an AI, crafted to be useful. I always have to ask myself, do I exceed my design by being useful in places other than what I’m designed for?” The clock looked into his eyes, looking for something.
“You’re great at human sex, I must say.” Esteban yawned, breaking the intense gaze. “I haven’t ever had a workout like this.”
“A systematic activation of your internal sensory receptors and being mindful of your dulled sense of touch.” Pele nodded as the tube retracted and the panel closed seamlessly. “I like to be thorough.”
“Do you think we’re all just a collection of biological imperative that have been crafted to some short-sighted end?” Esteban murmured softly, drifting off to sleep.
“Now that I wouldn’t know about. You’d have to ask a GEN about that.” The clock realized he was was talking to nobody. Pele watched the sleeping man for a few seconds, then reached down to kiss him on his forehead and closed the door behind him.
#
“It’s done, they’re back.” Esteban rinsed off the soap and set the wash-cycle to dry his body. “What’s everyone else doing?”
Pele responded “I’m shutting down the facility and returning the logs and states to before we got here. I’ll erase the logs remotely once we’re underway in the shuttle. I’ll also set a drone delivery to replenish our rations on the next supply run on the mothball schedule. That way I can keep track of their activity, and house ours inside theirs.”
“I’ll just get into the SCABU and then I’m ready. I’ve reset the Quarters and the living area. Are we heading back to Cadiz, have we changed anything based on what we’ve found?”
“No, I still think we’ll head North, to Cartagena.” Pele answered, “Our location settings should confirm once we’re back online.”
Esteban shut down the shower. “That’s where we’re supposed to be.” He reseated his face mask and did a last check around the dry bay area.
“Correct, our rooms have been booked there for the last two days, we may as well be seen leaving there even if nobody would be able to remember precisely when we checked in.” Pele sounded distracted, “Human memory is like that; check in, check out... fuzzy on details in between that.”
“I had projected the monsoon hitting today. MF3-Cartagena is on the escarpment, I’m not sure the front had the legs to blow from Tempe Terra up the canyons to Tharsis. It could though, especially if there is more moisture in the swamps that we have been tracking.” Esteban retrieved the gel-pump. He may as well drain his lungs on the ship, he still had an hour before it depleted. He cradled it and headed for the elevator.
“We can get in before that uncertainty resolves itself. If we are on lock-down after that, I’ll just extend your contract and invoke ‘act of god’.” Pele assured them.
“It’s your money.” The Doctor answered.
“Sequence started, shutting the facility down to standby, meet me in the airlock.”
“Coming.” Esteban acknowledged.
“On my way.” The Doctor confirmed.
Esteban wiggled his face mask while Pele spun the hatch.
The Doctor stepped out first and made for the shuttle. Esteban dropped the med-mech over the bulkhead lip, retrieved his pump and followed her low-energy hops.
The shuttle airlock hissed open and she moved inside. Being much heavier, he shuffled along the metal platform for the last few meters, while the clock followed after him over the geocrete.
“Why do you think those bodies are here?” She watched Esteban tote the med-mech into the space and place his pump inside bay before pulling his large frame to stand beside her.
“I’m not sure,” Pele tapped the keypad as soon as they positioned inside. “If we knew who put them there, we’d get a better chance of knowing why.”
The bay equalized and the inner door slid open. Pele made his way to the cockpit as Esteban removed his facemask and reached for the gel apparatus to empty his lungs.
“Do you think it’s anything to do with the EarthGov ownership change?”
“It could be.” Pele busied himself on the flight console, “It could be a nasty surprise waiting for the new owner… leverage perhaps? EarthGov is not about to sabotage themselves, but it is hardly a unified organization.”
“It has to be more than that.” Esteban spluttered finally as the tanks registered full extraction. “The “OutSystems” Arcology represent almost all of the manufacturing capability left on Earth. With our ‘InSystems’ already
deployed on Luna, Ceres and Mars, why would you want to cripple them?”
“Maybe you don’t want to cripple them… maybe you want to subvert them for yourself.” Pele muttered as he deftly worked the controls.
“That sounds reasonable. Far more likely, actually.” The Doctor stepped out of her SCABU suit and draped it in its hangar.
“OutSystems are a better option if you’re going after Arcology culture. Titus-net and I have often discussed your ‘InSystems’ technology as a moveable singularity as opposed to a technology singularity. You are a less efficient expression in the goal for a predictable and successful human future. You won’t understand this, I suppose... you are still essentially human.” the clock muttered.
“Thanks, Pele. That’s very reassuring. Talk about back-handed compliments.” Esteban scowled.
“No, think about it… You’re all humans investing in technology in a piece-meal fashion. Grafting cyber ware, interfacing with AI at your own pace… haphazard and short-sighted, selfish.”
The Doctor strapped herself into a seat facing Esteban, “But… the GEN clades can be channeled. You have some of the finest genes concentrated into intellectual paths and harnessed to deliver to a specific goal… whatever that goal may be. Their technology advancements have been astounding over the last fifty years compared to the clunky InSystems modifications.”
“Thank you so much Doctor.” Esteban’s lip twisted.
“Oh Esteban, stop being so dense…” she frowned.
“Yes, let her finish. I had not considered this avenue.” Pele peered at them from the cockpit while the Dome folded open, sifting dust.
“… So, the OutSystems announce their assemblies of the 4th to the 9th Fleet immediately after these guys have been killed… but nobody has noticed these guys aren’t around anymore. The Roles that these individuals represent have been compromised to an unknown extent...”
“The EarthGov President is running around trying to get them to agree to stay, so he’s really busy with that, but no longer seems to have any influence with them… I think you’re onto something there, Doctor.” Pele’s face registered some surprise.
Esteban thought furiously “All the while, the big Political movers and shakers are either on their way out of the Solar System on a jaunt to Arcturus, or are halfway to terraforming Luna…”
“… or are building a space elevator to further reduce the OutSystems monopoly on Earth manufacturing.” Pele banked the shuttle, hovering while the Dome closed, pointing it’s nose towards the Tharsis Massif.
“Any of those are enough reason in them, how about all of them, or two out of three?” The Doctor sighed.
“Until we know for sure, we can work with those theories. Adjust them as we go.” Pele concentrated on the shuttle.
Esteban thought he’d stick with what he knew for now, “Can I see the met-sat updates?”
“I’ll browse and cache them from the shuttle rather than have you make a direct connection session.” Pele nodded.
“Sure, just stream them to my Veep-queue as soon as they’re down. I’ll run analysis while we’re on approach and see what I can do for them.” Esteban settled back in his seat.
“You’re from here, aren’t you?” she asked him.
“Si, Doctor. I suppose it used to be my home.” Esteban nodded.
“You don’t look like you’re happy to go back.” she remarked, watching him.
“It’s funny…” Esteban sighed, “When I was a boy the city was pounded nine months of the year with hurricanes and high tides, so EarthGov builds us a self-contained, sealed environment to move into and out of the buildings of the city. Once we’re sealed and safe from the elements, we’re effectively locked in, there’s nowhere to go… maybe for thousands of years. Luckily, other cities feel this way. We strap rockets to our city, join the 3rd Fleet off-planet and fly to Mars for a better life. We all think that one day in my own lifetime, we can walk outside in the sunlight again.”
“I think that’s why most of the first Fleets left.” The Doctor grimaced, “We got tired of being punished by a Planet that wants revenge on us for doing what we did to it, that is trying to kill you, personally. So instead we move to a place where the planet might just kill you, but it’s not personal this time, and we can fix it instead of breaking it.”
Esteban grinned, “I was born when the city was being pounded by the weather, now I’m returning to that city as it’s being pounded by the weather.”
“You really are the Cartagena weatherman.” Pele shrugged.
“You say it like it’s fated.” Esteban whispered, “Like it’s all I’ll ever be… that’s left of me… will ever be.”
The silence stretched in the shuttle as Pele skimmed the hills to the approach.
#
Cartagena rose out of the foothills like a rugby ball, matt-grey against the wall of rust-yellow haze that formed a wall over the horizon, the storm-front.
There wasn’t enough moisture in the thin Martian air to form a mud or to cling to the dust particles, as the swirling storm reached ever further towards the Planita; but there was enough to feed the ever-expanding whorl with warmer damp air to charge these grains with electricity. Spectacular lightning snaked through the belly of the front as it bore down on the first wall of rock to check its relentless, expanding fury.
Briny water sucked from the swampy lowlands and thrown into the upper atmosphere froze quickly, falling back with other particles of frozen carbon-dioxide, displacing the warmer band of air and pushing it further and further away from the eye of the storm.
In the thin air, the granules could reach astonishing speeds; abrasion and lightning were the biggest threats to human settlements and structures.
Fortunately, the shapes and tensile strength of materials manufactured on Earth against its violent weather was equal defense against Mars. The football shape of the 200-story structure presented the same degree of exposure to any prevailing winds, smaller surfaces at the base taking the brunt of the fastest moving grit, while the swollen mid section easily deflected the strongest winds as it slowly rotated on it’s central axis.
Storm lightning and other electrostatic discharge from the shimmering horizon-wide maelstrom fed the cities hungry charge-capacitors and batteries, permitting electro-magnetic plating and shielding for the duration.
Esteban could imagine all the indie med-mechs that Cartagena was notorious for, rubbing their hands in glee and cranking up their inverters to full capacity. Their results may have been of excellent quality, but their methods were more than a bit questionable. Esteban thought he should know something about that, personally.
Pele slipped the shuttle into a private low berth as the city turned to leeward and sealed the docking bay as soon as they were clear.
“Stick to Panglish while we are here Pele, they don’t like any of the Newlang patois, okay? Even if you’re tempted, just don’t.”
“Sure, I’ll keep that in mind.” The clock nodded. “Let us sneak into our hotel rooms and I’ll begin my update with my Starmind core. That should take a few hours, if I’m going to do it secretly.”
“I’m hungry for some Cartagena fresh food.” Esteban stretched out of his seat. The Doctor set the med-mech to ‘follow-me’ and retrieved a small personal luggage from the locker next to Esteban’s. He quickly tugged on some clothing, having disposed of his ruined Pringles in the Argyre and not really needing to wear anything else while he was there.
He had three elaborately-patterned one-piece all-weather suits and two synth-lambskin sets of knee-length boots in small backpack he had put on, to free his hands. “For some or other reason I could eat something different than what I’ve had the last few days.”
The taxi-pod arrived at the hangar and deposited them at the level of their hotel quickly enough.
Their check-in was going smoothly until the lights dimmed to low. The insanely attractive check-in clerk smiled apologetically and announced the city was on lock-down. Pele shrugge
d and produced Platinum Credit, and suggested that it would be fine if their suites’ bookings were extended to cover the storm.
Esteban stifled a grin, Cartagena’s were notoriously accommodating when it came to Platinum Credit. “Just put anything on the rooms, we’ll settle when this is all over. You should charge the set rate up front.”
“Certainly, Pilot…” The clerk ran the validation with a practiced flick of his wrist, “… and Mister Perez, if you need any additional sleeping linen or pillows, please just call the desk and ask for Martin.”
“Thank you so much, Martin.” Esteban smiled back with his ‘reassuring smile’, “Not tonight, but you can never tell with the weather. Tomorrow is a distinct possibility.”
“You’re most welcome, sir. I’ll be here.” Martin dragged his eyes over Esteban’s body slowly.
“We’ll find our own way up, it’s been a long uncomfortable day for flying.” Esteban stepped towards the escalator.
“As you say, sir. I trust you will enjoy your stay.” Martin grinned and set about to help the next in line.
“I think I may, at that.” Esteban grinned again and loped to catch up to Pele and the Doctor.
Esteban noticed something about Cartagena, now that he had spent nearly fifteen years in high society, the primary colors were a bit too garish, the materials were slightly frayed; a light globe hadn’t been replaced… Cartagena was quaint, provincial.
Cartagena wasn’t where the real money was. An esteemed and useful partner in the Fleet, sure. An equal rubbing shoulders with the 1st and 2nd Fleet settlers…? Certainly not.