by Ari Bach
Thoris Hotel was something like an arcology in that it contained everything an entire city would need, as did all separate structures on the red planet. It made its own air, drilled and refined its own water, and was run by its own devoted company. The hotel’s layout was completely unearthly. It took up far more horizontal space than any Earth contract would allow, spreading across three square kilometers of the brown sand, but standing only two stories tall. Nearly every wall was blue. Green moss-like fluff grew by every UV protected window, modified land algae with a high oxygen output.
Unlike the alien world they lived in, the people were utterly human. Few were modified, and some lacked links. They were quiet, as were the halls and even the humungous atrium. Veikko hacked into the hotel’s system to program reservations for the team. The only four-person rooms available were the Marsden family’s and one reserved for but canceled by the 19/50 Club. He looked up the club on the common Mars net and found they’d canceled their low gravity plans and were staying on Earth for the month. He linked out to the team and programmed their variable ID implants to show the names of the club members, luckily two male and two female.
The hotel check-in went smoothly, and they headed for their room. Veikko entered first and was the first to see the woman sitting on the first bed. She sat motionless as Veikko drew his microwave in surprise. The rest of V team flooded in and took up arms as well. The woman just smiled.
“What are you doing in our room?” asked Veikko.
“Ah, but it’s not your room, is it? It’s the 19/50 Club’s.”
“Who are you?”
“There is no 19/50 Club, you see. We forged it so you’d take this room so I could see you all for myself.”
“You have ten seconds to say who you are, or we use a bore to find out.”
“I’m Balder’s wife. And he calls you his kids, so I guess I’m your momma.”
The team considered it.
“Bullshit,” Veikko replied.
She just laughed. “My name is Niana. Head of the Phobosian Republican Army. Ya heard of me?”
Violet hadn’t. Varg lowered his weapon and spoke. “Yes, he’s mentioned you.”
“What does he have to say about me?”
“Nothing that needs to be repeated,” he said aloud. Then he linked to the team, “We can trust her. There were only three people still alive who knew Balder got hitched: Balder, Niana, and me.”
They lowered their weapons and took seats around the room.
“So I’m gonna brief you, and then you can brief me. Balder didn’t tell me much as Mars comm is unsecured, but if he wanted me to meet you, it’s likely about the Ares Project, am I right?”
Veikko nodded.
“Well, here’s the situation. We have a fission bomb stuck to it with an organic detonator. We don’t have the trigger, so I assume Balder sent it with you?”
“No, no, he didn’t give us an organic trigger.”
“Odd. Well, perhaps he doesn’t want you to nuke the thing. Why don’t you fill me in?”
Veikko started. “There are two companies trying to bring the Ares home. The Yakuza”—Niana cringed—“and a new gang calling themselves the Wolf Gang, run by the remains of the Orange Gang. We’re here to stop the Wolf Gang, another team is coming to deal with the Yaks. But nuking the device is very much what we’d like to do. He didn’t give us a trigger, though…. Is there any chance it’s here?”
“Not likely, unless he told you otherwise.”
Vibeke spoke. “It’s under the redwood.”
Violet remembered Balder’s last words to them. “Is there a redwood tree on Mars?”
Niana grinned. “It’s the tall one in the center of the atrium. The sneaky bastard. He left it here for us all along. Come with me.”
She led them out of the room. They spoke by link.
“Easy day, we nuke it and head home to kill Wulfgar,” said Veikko.
“I don’t think so,” said Varg. “I spoke to Balder about the situation here a few times before. He mentioned a nuke in the power of Valhalla’s allies but said it was an absolute last resort for an apocalyptic scenario. He wouldn’t use it unless it was absolutely necessary. He’ll want us to foil the Wolves, not risk a nuclear blast.”
Vibeke agreed. “Tensions are high on Earth. A nuclear blast here could start a war. Varg is right, we need to focus on the Wolves.”
“But he gave us the location for the trigger,” said Veikko. “Why would he do that unless he meant for us to use it?”
“Worst case scenario, we blow it in space if it lifts off.” Violet considered. “It’s an organic trigger, right? It’ll work on extranervous link.”
Vibeke was impressed. “That’s right. We could hit the trigger here when it was in transfer orbit, and it would still go off.”
“So we focus on the Wolves first,” said Veikko, “and keep the trigger on us at all times.”
They arrived at the atrium’s garden. It only produced 12 percent of the building’s oxygen but held most of its flowers and trees. A few lone wanderers were spread out around the plants. In the center was a giant tree, the biggest Violet had ever seen. She assumed it was due to the low Martian gravity. Niana lead them straight to it.
“The trigger is two meters, a chain-link worm. Standard organic trigger, it can smell your intent. You can squeeze its head, tell it to set off the fireworks, beat it to a pulp, but unless you actually mean to set it off, and you have to really mean it, it denies the signal. It’ll recognize me and Balder. We’ll see if he set it to recognize other Valkyries. If not, you may not be able to set it off.”
They looked around the redwood for any sign of a worm. Other large organics roamed the garden: a tall red hairy blob with two feet and two eyes, spybirds like those on Earth, and Octosqueegees, cleaning the windows. Earth had banned most organics after Høtherus, but Mars needed them. Animaloids designed to survive outdoors, to serve any purpose from food to work horse.
Vibeke pulled out her microwave and aimed it for the ground. Before anyone could ask what she was doing, she sent a low audio pulse into the dirt. A good idea, thought Violet, it would force the worm out of the ground. And so it did. Niana spotted it only seconds later.
She pulled the long chain out of the dirt and handed it to Varg. It beeped twice.
“It likes you! He must have programmed it to recognize your sort. Pass it around!”
Varg handed it to Veikko, and it beeped twice again. To Vibeke and Violet with the same results. Violet examined it. It was very much like an earthworm, grayish pink with a thick band around its head. The body, though, was twisted into a five-centimeter-thick chain. An impossible shape for anything alive, she thought. But organics were a very strange technology. Varg took the worm and wore it like a scarf for safekeeping.
The five returned to V team’s room and further discussed the situation, sharing all intel from each side. Niana told them that the remains of the PRA were at their disposal as long as they were on Mars before she headed out, back to their base. V team contemplated their next move. They would follow Yellow Boots once he arrived, of course, but none were completely content just to wait and see what he did.
YELLOW BOOTS arrived on the next shuttle. Two Tikaris were there to watch him. Hanging on the ceiling, Violet’s observed him getting off the shuttle and walking into the baggage claim. But it saw something else, a man behind him. Also wearing a black rubber business suit.
Violet’s Tikari stuck to Mehmet, while Veikko’s stayed to monitor for more Wolves. It counted eight men in black, all with a similar build. They watched Mehmet and the chubby quorum check into their rooms without incident. For two days the men didn’t move. They stuck to their rooms immersed on the Mars net, doing nothing notable, or wandered the hotel, still doing nothing notable.
When it came time for the next shuttle to arrive, Veikko sent his Tikari to count men of similar bellied build and garb. The team sat in Tarkas bar, snacking on spicy synth beef sticks while it worked. The
Tikari had counted four new men when there was a commotion in the jetway.
Veikko turned up his tympanum to hear what people were shouting.
“I want every room searched…. They’re here without question… I want them brought to me.”
Veikko could tell it was a female voice.
“Kill the three if you can, but the girl lives. I need her alive.”
It sounded bad.
“Vibeke Dyrsdatter, extremely dangerous.”
“Uh, Vibs…?”
Vibeke looked into Veikko’s Tikari feed just in time to see Mishka coming out of the jetway with four security guards.
She turned pale, livid. Before she could tell Veikko to send his Tikari into her heart, an alarm sounded. It was broadcast across the link and by sound in the halls. But the link also carried an image. Vibeke’s picture, clear as Mishka remembered her. Consider extremely dangerous. Apprehend at all costs. Kill all accomplices.
“We’ve gotta move!” whispered Veikko.
Half the bar was now looking at them. At least two Barsoom cops among them, already reaching for sidearms. Varg tightened the trigger worm around his neck. Vibeke and Violet were ready to go.
“We’re surrounded,” said Violet.
“Almost,” replied Veikko.
He leveled his microwave at the bar’s window and fired. The team had their mask fields up within a fraction of a second, before their ears popped. The cold still hit them like Kvitøya ice. All four jumped one floor to the ground and headed for the nearest rocks. Microwave beams burned the rusty dirt around them as the police fired. Violet’s suit absorbed a few hits, as did the others, but they made it to the rocks alive. Veikko’s Tikari flew from the window into his chest.
Violet spoke first, “I’ll leave my Tikari here to watch Aga, but we need to find somewhere safe.”
“There’s nowhere safe,” said Vibeke. “She has the entire Martian police force after us!”
Varg linked to the three, “The PRA will house us!”
“They’re in a crater across the planet from here!”
“Then we better get going,” muttered Veikko out loud.
Inside, Mishka heard the alert come in from the police, all four spotted. They’d blown out a window and gone outside.
“Follow them!” she demanded.
“We can’t, we can’t go outside, it’s—”
Mishka grabbed the officer by his collar. “I’m following them outside right now. I expect your men armed and armored behind me immediately, is that understood?”
“Yes, ma’am!”
The police scrambled to get into outdoor gear. Mishka didn’t have any, but she had oxygen, and that would have to be enough. She linked into the local map and found the bar where they’d escaped. It was on the same side of Barsoom but almost a kilometer north. She calculated the distance given the cold and the air available in her jumpsuit. She could make it.
Mishka fired at a window, and it blew out onto the surface. Travelers ran for cover and oxygen masks fell from the ceiling across the terminal. Mishka jumped out the window as her escorts pulled masks on.
“Who the hell is this lady?” one asked.
“Manifest listed her as Sanchita Patel,” said the commander, “a Red Beret Havildar.”
“Damn, I can see why.”
Mishka ran north. The cold cut into her painfully. She ignored it. She readied her microwave.
Veikko linked into the local police net and hacked the PRA files. He immediately found the most recent sight listings and checked the Barsoom file. Most recent contact with PRA: 3.5 years ago. Spotted in Aureum Chaos 14km east of Barsoom Colony.
“We head east,” said Veikko authoritatively. The others had no reason to question it. They had to get moving, and that was as good a chance as any other.
As soon as they left the rock, Mishka spotted them. She couldn’t outrun them, and if she reached them it would be four to one. Mishka linked to the police and demanded a rover sent to their position. Then she ejected her eye.
The eye shot for V team at top speed. Mishka aimed for Vibeke’s head. At top speed, though, it couldn’t correct its course fast enough, and it flew by her, missing her by centimeters.
Violet, running behind her, saw it. “Black dot!” she called out, not certain what she’d just seen.
But Vibeke knew the file by heart. It could only be Mishka’s new eyeball. “Microwaves!”
Violet pulled hers out but couldn’t see the dot. Mishka slowed it down and reversed its course. At half speed she shot for Vibeke’s temple. This time it could correct course. Violet spotted it coming and fired a wide beam in its direction. The eye briefly shorted out and fell to the rusty surface.
Mishka cursed, her link to the eye was disrupted. It would come back, but that wouldn’t be critical—her rover was on its way.
She linked to the rover and told them to run the four down, disable them at any cost even if it meant wrecking the rover. Its driver, Com Stockins, was more than happy to oblige. He floored the accelerator and careened toward the group.
V team was only a hundred meters from the first canyon when the rover caught up. Six gigantic wheels with a small cabin on top. Violet fired at the rover with no effect. It was mostly just rubber. Stockins laughed at the detector warning.
Mishka’s eye came back online, the link restored. She sent it after the rover to see V team crushed. The rover made it to their position when they were thirty meters from the canyon. They split up, girls left, boys right. The rover followed the boys.
Varg was beginning to feel tired, and when Varg got tired, he got lazy. Not lazy meaning he slipped up, but he wanted to resolve the situation as easily and quickly as possible. Thinking fast, he took his microwave and fired at the ground with a strong repelling beam. Holding on tightly, the beam jumped him like a trick pool shot up over the rover’s wheels and smack into its windscreen.
Com was surprised but unconcerned. He swerved to throw him off. Varg hung tight and turned, firing a lethal beam at the driver. The windscreen deflected most of it, and Com was only sunburned. He swerved again.
Varg used the motion to vault around the windscreen to its left and came in feetfirst, kicking Com out of the open cabin and into the wheels, and under the wheels.
Mishka cursed. She saw it happen and saw the rover slow. She sent the eye at top speed to hit Varg, but Veikko saw it coming and fired another wide beam to disrupt it.
Mishka screamed in frustration. They had a rover now. She’d not catch them anytime soon. She linked into the police and told them to monitor the rover’s position, but she knew it was a lost cause. Given a perfect vehicle for Martian terrain, they were uncatchable. But Mishka reminded herself, the police were her first avenue of capture but not her best. She knew they were following Yellow Boots. All she had to do was the same.
Violet broke off the rover’s tracking pip, and Varg drove the four down into the canyon and toward the last known location of the PRA. There they disembarked. The sun was going down, dim by day and growing darker as night approached. The air grew even colder, and their suits grew as much fur as they could.
They found no sign of manmade caves before it grew dark and didn’t want to risk illuminating their suits. They gathered into a small nook in one of the cliffs and went to sleep for the night, huddled together for what little warmth they could keep.
VIOLET AWOKE to the sound of voices, carrying softly through the thin air.
“—happy to see you!”
“I thought ya might be. Looks like you have the entire force after you now. Now you know how we’ve lived for the last twenty years.”
“I don’t envy it,” said Varg.
Niana continued. “So where are you headed next? Trade us this rover, and we’ll take you anywhere you please.”
“Violet?”
Violet snapped to attention.
“Where’s Aga?”
She looked into her Tikari. She had no second link control of it that far away, but
it could still send encrypted information and video over the common Mars net. It was adeptly following Aga under its own AI. She consulted its geolocator. He was north of Barsoom on the conveyor, headed farther north.
“Approaching Acidalia Planitia,” Violet reported.
“Varg’s tagged Wolves are there too. Nelson reads them on the same conveyor, two cars ahead.”
“They’re heading toward Vastitas Borealis. That’s where the Ares water tanks are. I suppose you’ll be wanting to catch up to him?”
“Yes,” said Veikko, “but we can’t risk the conveyors anymore, and this rover is short range. Do you have anything that can take us that far north?”
“Sure we do, but you’re not going to like it….”
They boarded the rover, and Niana took them to a small tent fort hidden in the canyons. Several PRA men in stillsuits erected another tent across the rover. In the central sealed tent was an impressive heating system and a table covered in printed maps.
“You have nearly 3,000 kilometers to cover. It takes the conveyor two days. We can get you there in one week.”
“Nothing faster?”
“The conveyor is the fastest thing on the planet. And you’ll be traveling by organic runner.”
Indeed they didn’t like it.
“Are you kidding?” asked Veikko.
“Nope, organic runners are the second fastest thing on the planet. Faster than that rover, faster than any skiff that can go that far. But that’s not the bad news. Bad news is that they live for five days. You’ll be walking the last two.”
Violet took a deep breath. They’d be heading north to the Martian lowlands, and they’d be walking for two days in the waste. It would be a superhuman feat just to survive. She spoke up. “I’ve got my Tikari on him. We’ve got the detonator here. A Tikari can sabotage a whole hell of a lot.”
“But it’s on its own,” explained Veikko. “You won’t be able to control it directly, only send it orders via common hackable net links. We need to be there, and just hope we can get there before they take off, before the Yakuza arrive.”