Mars Needs Books!

by Gary Lovisi

  “We can give them everything they want, everything they expect. Trick them big time, and we can get away with it. By making them think they have won, they will turn their attention elsewhere, hopefully within and against themselves. We can win this!”

  There were wild cheers now.

  Arabella Rashid raised her hands. “There is more. Listen carefully now, brothers. It will not be all that simple or easy. Earth and The DOC are not to be sated that easily. They will require the leadership of our revolt to be brought back to Earth for ‘questioning’. We all know what that means. Horrendous and painful torture, brain- scanning, memory-drain, and finally some form of public execution. This ‘leadership’ can be reasonably limited by us to just one man. The DOC will buy that, but that man must become a willing sacrifice to save Mars and its people. There is no other way to make such a plan work. The DOC will require their pound of flesh in the form of the leader of the revolt transported back to Earth. We must find the right subject. Someone who loves Mars and is willing to be destroyed for what he believes in. Someone who will lie to the interrogators even as they drain the last drop of blood and life from his living body and never give them the truth. Someone willing to go through hell so that Mars, its people and freedom, can live!”

  There was quiet now, but confusion too.

  One man stood up, looked around at everyone, said, “Lady, we don’t really have any leader. We are our own leaders. Each one of us. That’s what Mars is about.”

  Arabella Rashid nodded, “That may be true. That’s why this place is so special. So important. Why each one of you is important.”

  “Then what do we do?” another man asked.

  She said, “I’ve thought about this on the long journey out and talked it over with Ryan, Alvy and some others here. Do you know what we are, people? Do you know what each and every one of us is in the eyes of The DOC? We’re terminal cases. Nothing more. People who are waiting to die, or to be put to death. Except it won’t be any mercy killing. I can assure you. Terminal cases! Every one of us! Does that give you any thoughts?”

  They were thinking it over. They got the connection of a sacrificial lamb—the man who was the leader of the revolt on Mars, a man who had proclaimed himself the King of Mars! That last idea, King of Mars, was one touch the Earthers and The DOC could never resist falling for.

  “The King of Mars!” Arabella Rashid said. “Only our King will die for his people—so that they all may live. So they can survive. So in time they will secure their liberty!”

  Ryan came forward, kissed Arabella on the cheeks, then spoke to the throng pressed close around them. “This is what we’re going to do, find a willing terminal case, pass him off to Earth and The DOC as our new King, the leader of the revolt. Then sacrifice him like a lamb to the slaughter. It’s horrible, but it’s the only way to trick the Earthers. It’s the only way we can convince them. They expect a strong charismatic leader. It will be tough on the chosen one. He can not be implanted or reprogrammed with any kind of material, nor brain-wiped. He will have to memorize an enormous amount of material to feed them all bogus gobbledygook that looks legit, but that will be nothing compared to the interrogation he is sure to receive from The DOC. Then he will be tortured. Painfully. Horribly. Finally he will die at the hands of Earther and DOC scientists, but that death shall not be in vain!”

  There was silence in the huge hall.

  Arabella Rashid had checked again and again, all the med-reports, scans, all the files and computer extrapolations. She knew who she wanted.

  She looked at Ryan and said, “I’m sorry, but it cannot be you, James. I know you want to do it. I know you’d willingly sacrifice yourself in a minute for your brothers here, and for Mars, and for me, but you cannot be the one. The DOC would strip your mind apart. You’re already so programmed and implanted, they’d have a field day with you and eventually learn too much information we do not want them to learn. It would put everyone here in terrible jeopardy. James, you have to stay here on Mars and help lead the people. I have to play my part and go back to Earth with the leader of the revolt, this so-called King of Mars, in chains as my prisoner. Then I have to orchestrate his torture for information while the members of the DOC Board and Michael, look on. Evaluate. If a way can be found I will try to murder the man, to save him from further pain. It must be a helpless, innocent man, James.”

  Ryan could see Arabella was sickened by it all. But it had to be done exactly as she said. It was their only hope. It was the only way they could deceive the Earth Authority and The DOC. Give them what they wanted. Give them what they expected. Verify all their assumptions and expectations. Feed them what they wanted to see, hear, feel. They’d suck it all in, greedily. Then all their plans would be rendered impotent.

  Ryan knew who she was after. The perfect candidate. A loner and mystic—or nut some said—a guy by the name of Iron Mike. Marsman Iron Mike. He was the biggest, blackest, ugliest, most contrary son-of-a-gun Christian-zealot, recluse, that there probably ever was. He lived alone. He did not talk to anyone. Ever. He did not quote scriptures. He did not proselytize. He did not complain. He said nothing. He never read paperbacks, he only read the Bible. To himself. Quietly. He was the only man on Mars who had not joined the Resistance and the only man whom the Resistance did not fault for not joining. Such was the respect felt for the man by even the hardest of these men. Iron Mike had been here years before Ryan or any of the newer settlers. Some said he had been born on Mars. But that could not be possible.

  Marsman Iron Mike was a living legend on Mars. A living legend everywhere on the planet since he’d saved a dozen men from a mine cave-in.

  Ryan remembered it, twenty years ago when he’d first come out to Mars. They’d worked in the deepest, darkest tunnel of the old Olympus Mons Mine #12. They’d called it the Mine of Death in those days, and with good reason. They’d been down over sixteen hours, bone-tired, worn-out, a full twenty-man crew. They’d been ready to go up top at shift end when the cave-in suddenly began. The titanium shoring splintering and cracking like kindling, rending in loud screams, the men screaming even more loudly. The only way out, a tunnel twenty yards away looking like it was about to come down any second and trap them all in a terrible death. No hope in sight.

  Then they saw Iron Mike, standing in the tunnel, all six feet six inches of him, 300 pounds of bone and muscle and hard ass attitude. By himself he was holding up the splinters of the shoring with his bare hands. His arms outstretched like a great black Jesus on the cross, his blood dripping down his body as he held up the tunnel with bare muscle and grit, with only will power and his faith in His Lord. Like a modern Martian Samson in the Temple, he held the roof of the tunnel up so that all his brothers could run toward him and escape under the protection of his huge arms, and make their way to safety.

  To life.

  Twenty men would have been goners for sure. Long dead now. Suffocated or cut to pieces, and covered by tons of Martian soil. Those men included Ryan, Alvy, Old Manny (back when he had been Young Manny), Ernie Cigarettes, even Baxter Moneybags. He’d not been called Moneybags back then because he was a dirt-poor miner like everyone else. Those and fifteen others had all been saved by Mike. All of them would have been dead, had not Iron Mike saved their sorry asses. And that was just the beginning. Iron Mike didn’t stop there.

  Iron Mike saved dozens of settlers when one of the Marstown bubbles burst years back. In fact, there were half a dozen instances where the Marsman, as he was often called, always seemed to appear in just the right place at the right time. He just seemed to be where he was needed most.

  Marsman Iron Mike was a legend on Mars but he never spoke about any of it to anyone. He never talked about anything. He never gave interviews. He never said a word about anything to anyone on any subject. People said he had the spirit of old Mars within him. The spirit of the Old Ones who had been there before man had ever come out to the planet. Others said he was surely full of something—they just didn’t know
what and wouldn’t say!

  “Marsman Iron Mike is the man we need, James,” Arabella Rashid told Ryan.

  James Ryan shook his head, “You’ll never find him, and if you do, he won’t talk to you. Even if he does, he certainly will never agree to help us. I don’t even know if we should ask him. He would never agree. He’s never embraced the Resistance, or anything else for that matter. There is also the fact that you and I know what is going to happen to him on Earth. How could we ask that of anyone...?”

  Ryan was going to say more but he was distracted by some confusion at the opposite end of the huge hall. There was a mob and some turmoil. Someone was entering the hall and the crowd suddenly all stood. Silent. Watching.

  At first Ryan thought...could it be? Betrayal! Had Arabella somehow tricked him? Were the shock troops now beginning their attack?

  But no, upon further examination it wasn’t that at all. In fact, it seemed it was just one man entering the hall. Alone. A tall black male. Some thought him ugly as sin, others that he was just big and mean-looking. He boldly walked up to the front of the room where Ryan and Arabella Rashid and all the others watched him in surprise and awe.

  When Iron Mike finally reached them he said, “I’m your terminal case. No more than a year or so to live. I’m your man, Ryan. Let’s do it.”

  “Mike?” Ryan asked astonished. He had not seen his old friend in almost ten years, but he looked as though he had not aged a day.

  “Are you sure?” Ryan asked.

  “You know that I am.”

  Arabella Rashid said, “You know what it means, Mike? Torture. Terrible torture like you cannot imagine. I promise you that. And that’s not the worse. The physical part, I mean. What they do to your mind, to your very spirit, will be much worse.”

  He only nodded, “I understand evil.”

  She continued, “I’ll have to take you back to Earth as a prisoner—where you will have to play your part—to the death.”

  Marsman Iron Mike said simply, “I am ready.”

  Iron Mike stopped by Ryan as he walked off saying, “You’ll know where to find me when you are ready to leave.”

  Before he left Ryan asked him, “Mike? Why?”

  Iron Mike just kept walking away, then suddenly stopped, slowly turned and looked right back at Ryan and said, “I go where I am told, by My Lord.”

  You could hear a pin drop in that huge hall, each man’s breath stopped. Each man’s thoughts turned to Mike and the implications of his words. Only a smattering of men there were religious, but while most of those were from so many different and conflicting sects, all of them had heard what Mike had said and understood in their own way. In their own heart. And many wondered. Some suddenly felt tears run down their cheeks.

  Iron Mike walked away and was soon gone.

  Ryan looked at Arabella, “Was he ever...?”

  “No, James, I swear. He was the only one. He was never programmed, he was left untouched on purpose. He is another wild card. You can forget about him being brain-wiped or implanted. Did you get a look at his neck? He doesn’t even have an input slot for a disk. I don’t know where he is getting his orders from, but it is not from me or the DOC. That’s for sure.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  MARS IS FREE AND SO IS WE

  She didn’t think of Ryan now. Or Mars. The long voyage had changed her more. Hurt her. Hurt her for what she knew she must do.

  Of course, Mike made it all so very easy for her. He never complained. He never even talked to her. She was not able to get to know him. This made it easier for her and she was sure he did it for her sanity. As a gift to her. He never left his cube. He never said or did a thing on that long voyage back to Earth. He just prayed. Then he studied his part from the guidelines she’d given him. Preparing to play his role.

  He was...The King of Mars!

  It was all so ludicrous and sad, but Iron Mike was set to play his part, a part that was meant to be played, to the death!

  Arabella Rashid wondered where Mike took his orders from? It was not from the Authority. Not from any government agency. Certainly not from the DOC. But he certainly took orders and they came from somewhere. The fact that he said they were from His Lord, apparently from God Himself, just made things more curious. A hell of a lot more curious!

  It was strange.

  Could it be?

  Could it be as Mike said?

  Or was he the maddest madman of them all?

  Mike really was a terminal case. Some kind of cancer had set upon him almost as suddenly as he’d decided to become the needed sacrificial lamb for the Mars revolt. It was progressing at a rapid rate, the Mars doctors had told her. They said he had less than a year left. Coincidence? Or was it something more...?

  Now was the time Arabella Rashid dreaded. All the questions had been asked. It was all recorded, all so meticulously filed, documented, witnessed by hundreds of DOC specialists and Board members. Michael and his evil little minions made a special visit and showed intense interest. The records were on DVD, vid, holo, sensory media, every word, mood, meaning, nuance....

  When that was all done...it was still not finished.

  Now came the hard part.

  Now came the torture.

  The quest for information.

  For all information.

  It had to be done. The DOC required it.

  The DOC monitored it. Closely, intimately, you could almost say, lovingly.

  The DOC always got what it wanted just the way it wanted it.

  Arabella Rashid, Director of the DOC, knew the organization was a huge, evil, out-of-control monster that existed just to feed. It fed on people. It fed on the innocent. She led it, but she did not really control it. No one could really control it. In fact, the reverse was actually true. The DOC controlled her! And now she knew that it had been that way all her life.

  And she hated that. Blamed it all on Simon. However, now she had to face a grim truth. She was the DOC and the DOC was her. She was to blame and she knew it.

  That was why she was fighting so hard against it.

  That was why she knew she would win too.

  The DOC could never win.

  Battles, yes, it had certainly won many battles.

  But the DOC could never win the war. It could never be victorious in the final struggle. That was because if people like James Ryan, Arabella Rashid and Iron Mike could fight against that system, with someone like her as its darkest and most powerful advocate and enforcer, such a system could never prevail.

  But that system could sure do a lot of damage.

  It was doing that now to the ‘King’ of Mars.

  And it had done it for far too long on Earth.

  So DOC would win its battles.

  Ply its treason.

  Run its betrayals.

  Enjoy its holocausts.

  The murders, the killings, all the death....

  But it would lose in the end.

  * * * *

  They were ready now.

  Arabella Rashid looked down at Marsman Iron Mike. It was sad to see him lay there so calm and helpless, waiting to be taken apart by the best specialists of torture and pain the DOC had on their payroll. These were monsters in hospital gowns with rubber gloves, creatures who called themselves doctors. Each now anxiously awaiting the command from their Director to get to work. The work they loved to do so well.

  Then Arabella Rashid gave that command, though it broke her heart to do so.

  She looked at Iron Mike and knew he would win his battle soon, and his war as well. He was a very brave man. She only wished she could comfort him, hug him, wet his dry, swollen lips with soft kisses. Of course she could not. She could not cry for him, nor set her life down in exchange for his, all she could do for him now was silently pray that all played their parts to perfection and that it would all end soon....

  All he had asked her to do was to pray for him.

  So she silently prayed for him, and herself, for what she was
allowing to happen to him was tearing her apart.

  She saw his eyes look up at her for the first time.

  He smiled. It was a beautiful smile, there was only love and forgiveness there.

  It lasted for only a second.

  Then Iron Mike closed his eyes.

  Arabella wished she could do something for such a good and noble man. Perhaps even a holy man. Instead, she could do nothing. She had her own part to play here too. It had to be done correctly. If she screwed up now then all of Iron Mike’s pain would be for nothing. She had to steel herself. Hers was a terrible part, but it must be played, and played well with conviction and originality. She sighed quietly to herself, thought of James Ryan back on Mars and wished so much that she could be there with him. Far and away from here. Well, maybe, some day.

  Now she said impatiently, “Come now, doctors, stop wasting time. Let’s get on with it!”

  “Yes, Lady Director,” said the man they called Chief Specialist Rhom, but who in reality was the master torturer of the DOC. Care must be taken here now, for Rohm was one of Michael’s most intimate creatures.

  “What would you like to know first?” Head Interrogator Androix, asked the Lady Director and the members of the DOC Board who were viewing it all via hologram.

  “I want it all,” she said plainly and firmly. “Peel him open, down to the core. Drain him dry. Take out everything there is within him. I want his mind, his heart, his soul. The Department of Control requires it—and we all know the DOC gets everything it wants.”

  Rohm smiled and nodded, then he got to work.

  * * * *

  It had been going on for days now. They had all kinds of devices, drugs, diabolical machines, the latest and most incredible nanotech equipment to keep a subject alive. They could make this last for months, if necessary. Making the subject receive the most extreme forms of torture, while experiencing the most excruciating pain. It was horrendous. Rohm believed he had actually attained some form of higher art in this area and Head Interrogator, Androix, quite agreed.