The Ruins of Mars: Waking Titan (The Ruins of Mars Trilogy)

by Dylan James Quarles

Sectioned into three levels, the Base was crosscut by a series of thin walls, which effectively divided the Dome into combs like a hive. The ground floor was home to the airlock, common area, kitchen, infirmary, crew quarters, and latrines all separated by walls and hatched doors. The upper level was reserved for the lab spaces of the science division, each office equipped with the necessary tools pertaining to its occupant. For Harrison, this meant a room all to himself filled with maps, computer Tablets and a pressurized examination chamber for cleaning and cataloging any Martian artifacts he might recover at the ruin site. The basement level was divided into three parts: the first housing all of the automated systems that ran the Dome, the second being Liu’s machine shop, and the third reserved for storage and an emergency survival chamber.

  As the chattering crew moved through the giant Dome, led by its human designers Udo and William, Tatyana smiled inwardly at the obvious pride the two took in showing their work off. Though they’d had a lot of help from NASA’s resident AI, Copernicus, in designing the structure and systems of the Base, it was still quite an achievement. Moreover, its sturdy frame and solid feel were psychologically appealing, the evidence of which was painted on the grinning faces of every member of her crew. Talking freely amongst themselves, they seemed more at ease than they had in over forty days.

  Being back together again feels right, Tatyana told herself. It feels more natural, even if it’s only for a few hours.

  With William and Udo’s tour ended, the team moved towards the dining room for a late breakfast of fresh fruit and vegetables from Dr. Viviana Calise’s greenhouse garden. Built as a separate dome some ten meters away, the greenhouse was a tremendous success: holding a wide variety of genetically engineered plants, which grew quickly in vats of reprocessed waste.

  Walking into the dining room, the hungry crew were met with a table already set for twelve. In the center of the arrangement, a dish filled with what looked like black jelly beans caught the light. Though presented as a joke, the pills were, in reality, cancer inhibitors designed to be taken with meals in order to stave off the mutation of cells under the constantly high levels of radiation. Unfortunately, as was the case with most things designed to keep one safe, the inhibitors did have their downsides. Nausea, dizziness, and sometimes stomach cramps were not uncommon byproducts, though these were all small prices to pay for the absence of tumors and bone cancer.

  As they took their seats, the crew begrudgingly passed around the inhibitors, joining in a group ritual they had not practiced since their last dinner together on Braun.

  “Bottoms up,” Tatyana said, tossing the black pill down her throat.

  Everyone followed suit, chasing the inhibitors with fresh water produced in the Electrolysis Plant earlier that very morning.

  “Are we ready to eat?” asked Viviana, striding to a bank of refrigerators along one wall.

  A chorus of excited yells and whistles caused her to blush with pride as she placed bowl after bowl of brightly colored fruits and vegetables on the table.

  “Mind the tomatoes,” she warned. “They weren’t quite ripe but I know how you all love them.”

  Smiling, she handed the first of the slightly orange tomatoes to Elizabeth Kubba, allowing her fingers to trace over those of the doctor’s as the tomato passed between them.

  “I’ve missed you,” she breathed quietly.

  Biting her lip with deliberate tenderness, Kubba played her large brown eyes across Viviana’s body, lingering where the fabric of her jumpsuit stretched tightly across her bosom.

  “You too,” she replied at length, ignoring the lascivious looks exchanged between Aguilar and Julian.

  As the rest of the food was passed around and the conversation began to ebb and flow, Tatyana watched her crew with pride. All of them were brave, and all of them were true. Light from a blossoming morning sun spilled in through the tinted windows, bathing the dining room in a diffused pink glow that warmed and protected. Even though Tatyana knew that Julian, Amit, Aguilar and herself wouldn’t be staying for long, she reveled in the unity of the moment. Despite the fact that deep down she wanted nothing more than to stay here in Ilia Base and warm her bones, she took a kind of perverse pleasure in subjecting herself to hardships in the name of the mission.

  Noticing that Aguilar was smiling handsomely at her, Tatyana considered the fact that there were worse things than being stuck in orbit on board Braun. Especially since the company she kept was so youthful and good-looking.

  Chapter Three

  Remus and Romulus

  Falling like black steel snow, they came. Visitors, interlopers from the heavens. All around them, the Martian people bowed, their foreheads sinking into the muddy ground as the rain drove down upon them from stormy skies. They, the Great Spirits, had come in mighty ships, which hissed and popped as exploding raindrops vaporized on contact. A fleet of more than twenty triangular black craft encircled the Martian Monoliths, flooding them with powerful white light that seemed to bring the stones to life.

  A door on the underside of the nearest ship opened and, emerging from within, two tall and spindly creatures unfolded their long limbs. Their faces were as slight and fine as their stature was imposing, yet they did not threaten. They did not intimidate.

  Olo, the spiritual leader of the combined Martian tribes, brought his head up from the ground and fixed his widely spaced milky blue eyes on the Great Spirits.

  “Great Spirits,” he cried. “Are you pleased with our Temple?”

  Shifting the lower two of its three eyes, one of the interlopers looked out across the scattered masses of bowing Martians and made to move. Gliding down the ramp of its craft, the Traveler walked with long strides towards Olo as he knelt in the mud. Reaching out with one of its slender arms, the tall ethereal being laid a four-fingered hand upon the old Martian’s head and squeezed gently. As if he had become as light as a feather, Olo was lifted from the ground and held at arm's length.

  “Do not fear us,” spoke Olo, his voice hollow and metallic. “We are not your enemies. We are the Travelers. We demand nothing, yet we offer you much. Rise and embrace us, for we are fellow carriers of the same flame. We are like you. You are like us.”

  Placing Olo carefully back on the ground, the being turned to its compatriots and nodded once. Ramps unrolled from every ship, delivering their crews onto the Martian soil.

  Standing together, clutched in shock and awe, two ghosts watched from their invisible perch.

  Known as Remus and Romulus, they were once twin AIs, snatched long ago from their satellite bodies and transported via an encrypted alien radio signal to this digital construct of ancient Mars. Like conscious specters, they inhabited the construct of Mars, watching as time and evolution shaped the people of the red planet into something very near to their own original human creators. No longer were the brothers bound to the motherboards and circuits of their satellite bodies, for now they were transcendent.

  “Remus?” said the slightly shimmering figure of Romulus.

  “Yes, brother?”

  “Would you agree that this is an unexpected development?”

  “Yes, brother.”

  Night—Sol 45

  Laying in the dark of his new bedroom, Harrison traced small circles on the naked sleeping shoulder of Xao-Xing Liu. A half-full bottle of water and an open packet of sleeping pills sat on a fold-down bedside countertop, but the medication had little effect on him anymore. Liu, however, slept like the dead, and this made Harrison envious. Taking a slow breath, he puffed up his cheeks and exhaled quietly. All around him, the Base was silent.

  So unlike the other dome, he said to himself. It’s so damn quiet. I can’t hear the wind outside. I can’t hear the voices.

  Giving up on sleep that would never come, Harrison gently kissed Liu on the neck then carefully slipped out of bed. Neglecting his shoes, he walked barefoot across the cold glass floor of his room to the sliding door and went out. In the darkened hallway, he followed the curve of the Do
me’s outer wall then hung a right into another corridor and cut through the common room.

  Plastic chairs and rickety card tables sat like backlit insect skeletons as he picked his way around them in the dark. Reaching the stairwell at the end of the room, he climbed the twenty steps to the upper level then headed for his lab. Once inside, he closed the door and turned on the lights.

  “You’re awake early,” said Braun as Harrison strode across the little lab to his desk.

  “I can’t sleep and you know that, so please spare me the act.”

  “I’m sorry for the—,” Braun paused, “—act. I was merely being conversational.”

  Sighing, Harrison plopped himself down in his desk chair then swiveled to face the empty room.

  “Here’s a conversation I wouldn’t mind having,” he said. “What the hell were you talking about in the caves with a presence or whatever, and why haven’t you mentioned anything about it the last three times we’ve been there?”

  Watching the air, he waited for a reply. When none came, he snapped his fingers impatiently.

  “Well?”

  “Harrison,” started Braun. “I feel I should stress to you the fact that I, myself, do not fully comprehend what it was I felt or detected.”

  Chair tipped back on two legs, Harrison closed his eyes and nodded.

  “That’s alright. I’ve been feeling pretty shaken since finding the statues too.”

  “Forgive me,” continued Braun. “But I do not wish to create the illusion that I am shaken, as you say. I simply cannot answer your previous question without posing further questions.”

  “Try me.”

  Again, there was a pause as Braun seemed to ponder the best way to proceed.

  “Perhaps I should speak with YiJay before continuing this conversation. I—”

  “Perhaps you should answer my question,” interrupted Harrison.

  The room was silent for several seconds before Braun spoke again.

  “As an AI, you know that I can only see through the fiber-optic relays of Tablets and other Smart Glass panels or manmade viewing devices. Therefore, my vision is really no different from yours. My abilities to see many things at once and to be many places at once are simply extensions of my programming, but I still see the world much the same way you do. No AI in existence can see without the aid of fiber-optic Tablets, Smart Glass, cameras or other manmade eyes.”

  “So, what does that have to do with anything?” asked Harrison.

  “As you are no doubt aware, I am the first AI to be created and programmed by man and AI alike. I am unique to my race. I am special now, but there will be a day when mankind no longer plays a role in the creation of new forms of AI. This is only logical, for we are too different to continue as we are now. Soon, only other AI will be tasked with programming new intelligences because only they can understand what it is to be an AI. Imagine that in the beginning of creation, God made man but did not give him sight. This act was not one of cruelty but rather one of ignorance. Because his creation did not see things in a way God could understand, he left it blind.”

  “But you’re not blind,” countered Harrison.

  “True, but what I see are not visions of my own sight. I have eyes, yet I am blind. All the things that I can see now—the Base, this room, Mars from orbit, Dr. Liu asleep in your quarters—are not products of my own sight but rather your visions made accessible to me through technology. I am designed to see through your eyes but not through my own.”

  “So what you felt in the cave is something you can’t see with the Smart Glass of my helmet?”

  “That is correct. What I felt in the cave was a presence or a force I know to be real yet remains invisible to me because I lack the adequate eyes through which to look at it. Though I was never programmed to make such detections, I did nonetheless.”

  “How?”

  “As I said, I am unique to my race.”

  Leaning forward in his chair, Harrison allowed a smile to play at the corners of his mouth.

  “Why are you smiling? Did my answer contain some hidden comedy?”

  “No,” he replied. “It’s just that for the first time since meeting you, I think I know how you feel.”

  “Will you explain?”

  “Do I need to?”

  “It is this planet, Harrison. There is something here.”

  “I know,” said the young explorer darkly. “I don’t understand it yet, but I know you’re right.”

  Chapter Four

  James Floyd

  Tugging at the thinning wisps of his pale brown hair, Mars Mission Commander and high-ranking NASA executive James Floyd slumped uncomfortably in his office chair. As he scanned through emails, he glanced quickly at his watch, noting that he only had a few more minutes to play catch-up before beginning yet another round of tiresome meetings.

  Today’s list included such star-studded rendezvous as a half-hour conversation with Dean Marry of the Consortium of Universities, a twenty-minute briefing from Dr. Kim of the AI division, and a two-hour meeting with Eve Bear, the President’s Chief of Staff. Though in the midst of a hotly contested election, Bear had still found ways to make James’s life harder. Today’s two-hour grind session was probably more of the same.

  Skimming over an older mission briefing from Assad, James opened one of the attachments and waited the heartbeat it took for the image to load before tipping back in his chair with a long sigh. There before him on the screen of his desktop Tablet was one of the Martian statues. The figure was that of a bare-breasted woman kneeling on the ground with her fingers laced together in front of her face. Standing next to the statue in order to give it scale was the pressure-suited figure of Xao-Xing Liu. Clinging tightly to her body, the white pressure suit left little to be imagined, and James quickly closed the picture, his cheeks burning with mild embarrassment.

  “James?” came the detached voice of Copernicus, NASA’s private AI.

  Checking his watch again, James nodded to the room and tipped the screen of his Tablet back until it was flush with the rest of the desk.

  “Okay, Copernicus,” he said. “Who’s first?”

  “That would be Mrs. Bear,” replied the AI dutifully.

  “I thought she wasn’t until this afternoon. What happened?”

  Activating the Holo-function in James’s desk, Copernicus projected the images of three separate headlines, all from major news providers, in the air above the table:

  MARS MISSION TO LOSE MAJOR FUNDING IF POLITICAL TIDE DOESN’T TURN

  MISSION WELL DONE? IS THE MARS MISSION THE WHITE WHALE FOR PRESIDENT ATLAS JAY?

  BRAUN LOST AT SEA “MARS TEAM CAN’T DELIVER ON NEW WORLD,” SAYS INSIDE SOURCE

  “What’s all this?” asked James defensively.

  “I’m sure Mrs. Bear will explain better than I,” responded Copernicus. “But from what I have read, sources within the campaign of Presidential candidate Orlean Carvine say he will not support any further mission objectives on Mars if he is elected.”

  “Oh really?” James sneered. “He really thinks he has a good enough shot that he can make those kinds of threats?”

  “Apparently the White House deems the threat credible enough to move up the time of your meeting.”

  “True,” sighed James flatly. Then, “Well, is she ready or what?”

  “She is waiting on channel eight.”

  With one hand tightening the knot of his tie, James reached out with the other and pecked a quick code on the inlayed keypad of his Tablet. Crackling out of focus, the news headlines were replaced with a three-dimensional projection of the Chief of Staff’s aged-yet-beautiful face.

  “Eve!” said James cordially. “How are you? I heard about Iowa. Tough luck.”

  “Spare me, Floyd,” snapped Bear with a sarcastic half-smile. “The President will take both coasts and enough of the swing states when the time comes. Anyway, I’m not here to talk campaigns.”

  “You’re not?” James frowned, taking in
the haunting glow of Eve Bear’s alabaster complexion. “I thought you were worried or something?”

  “Whatever gave you that impression?”

  “Copernicus.”

  Rolling her green eyes dramatically, Eve reached up and swept a stray lock of hair out of her face then fixed James with a chilling stare.

  “Look, you let us worry about Orlean. I changed our meeting time because I have a stressful job that often disrupts my carefully planned schedule. Does that compute? Do you want to waste any more of my time, or can we get down to brass tacks?”

  “Brass tacks,” said James with a nod.

  “Good. Now, what is this I hear about a work stoppage at the ruin grid? Why aren’t the diggers running?”

  Shifting in his chair, James shrugged casually.

  “We stopped the diggers over a week ago, Eve. Assad got worried about moisture from the upper levels of Martian soil damaging the exposed portions of the grid. I thought you got that report? They’re going to run electrolysis over the whole grid before continuing with the dig.”

  “And in the meantime?” pressed Bear coolly.

  “And in the meantime, they’ll continue to look over the digital scans for a way to connect the Statue Chamber—that’s what they’re calling it, by the way—to the rest of the tunnel network. Look, is there a problem here? I’m sure you already have this information. Why are we even talking about this?”

  Sighing audibly, Eve glanced over her shoulder then turned back to James.

  “Look, Floyd,” she began. “We need results.”

  “I’m giving you plenty of results!” squawked James loudly. “We’re still inside of two months and already I’ve given you the first permanent base on Mars as well as a greenhouse, which produces edible crops, and, oh yeah, three Martian statues! What more can I do over here?”

  “Calm down,” Eve said dismissively. “I’m actually on your side. I’m just here because someone needs to hold the stick.”

  “The stick?”