Champion of Mars

by Guy Haley

  “Hey, Holly. What are you doing?”

  “Working,” he said. “The insect you brought me.”

  “Anything interesting?” he said. He padded across the rec room to the kitchen area, still barefoot and in his pyjamas. “Got to be ready in half an hour for my stint in Deep Two. Constant manning of that place sucks, especially since Stulynow trashed a good part of it.”

  “Uh-huh. And yes. I’ll say interesting.” He told Maguire what he’d found.

  “You’re kidding? All from Earth?”

  “Nearly all, or engineered.”

  By then, Cybele had come to the last couple of per cent of the creature’s genetic code. It was proving elusive. “I cannot determine an exact match. I suggest some species of nematode as yet undescribed. The Terran genebank project is only forty-three per cent complete. Many smaller Earth species may never be fully sequenced.”

  “It’ll do, Cybele. Now, give us an overall breakdown.” The genome of the creature spun slowly round in the air.

  “Thirteen different lifeforms have gone into the manufacture of this creature. Nine of Earth, representing eighty-seven per cent of the genome. The remainder are from Mars.”

  “This is some kind of hybrid?” said Maguire.

  “You know what part of my job is here, Dave?” said Holland. “It’s to come up with novel ways of using the genetic material in the remnant, mainly to further the terraforming, to create new ecosystems of Mars-adapted Terran creatures.”

  “And this is one?” said Maguire. “That’s a ways away yet, is isn’t so? They’re not working on this sort of thing yet. Are they?” He was wide awake now, and sipped his coffee. “How did it get down into the caves?”

  “That’s not all. Cybele?”

  “Dr John Holland?”

  “Give me an idealised, engineered genome using the base components you have identified. Eliminate evolutionary drift.”

  A second helix, subtly different to the first, overlaid the hologram of the first. An animation of both creatures joined them. The one created by Cybele was smaller, and its head was a different shape.

  “And?” said Maguire.

  “Now Cybele, tell me how long a period of natural selection it would take to get from our idealised construct to the insect we found in the cave. Assume terraforming goes to plan, and we’re looking at an Earth-like environment here within three hundred years.”

  Years ticked on a counter as the idealised genome warped. The animation of the corresponding creature changed, legs growing, carapace lengthening. When it approximated the original sample, a chime sounded, and the holograms merged and flashed.

  “Circa seventy thousand years,” the AI said.

  “What are you telling me?” said Maguire.

  “That this thing was engineered, but Cybele’s evolutionary model suggests that it’s been wild in the environment for a long time, that’s what.” Holland felt good. A problem solved.

  “And so where the feck does it come from?”

  “Now that is the real question,” said Holland.

  HOLLAND DID NOT want to be present when Delaware sampled the cylinder, but he was made to attend, and set on monitoring the artefact’s energy signatures. Lasalle, Orson, Patel, Kick and a pair of mercs worked or observed in the lab, preparing for the moment they drilled into the artefact. Holland sat with his back to the block by his now scrupulously tidy workstation.

  The block sat on a woven carbon table, right in the centre of the lab. Around it was a diamond weave box, their view of the cylinder partly obscured by the copper faraday cage woven into the glass. A utility sheath equipped with multiple tools stood by the table.

  “Are your scans complete?” asked the Class Six.

  “They are,” said Patel. “I’m getting a pretty complex lattice. I think we are looking at a semi-liquid smart metal, here.”

  “The cylinder is solid?”

  “It is, Delaware,” said Patel, “for now. Looks to me like it might have polymorphic ability, although how it is controlled remains unclear.”

  “Keep your eyes on the energy fluctuations, Holland,” said Delaware. “I will attempt a sample now.”

  The utility sheath was similar to a mushroom, a long stalk mounted on tracks, topped by a hemispherical dome from whose underside depended a great many tools. At Delaware’s command, a thin, multi-jointed armature descended, a fine, ultrahard drill whining into action.

  The drill-bit moved toward the surface of the cylinder.

  “Contact in five...”

  There was a clamour of alarms from Holland’s workstation. “We’re getting the preliminary energy pulse.”

  “I see it, too,” said Kick.

  “Delaware, is this wise? We can come back to this later,” said Lasalle.

  “Proceed. The artefact is isolated. It cannot harm us,” said Delaware.

  “Four, three...” continued Patel. The alarms rang louder.

  Reality flickered in the room. The lab changed shape, and the people with it, different configurations of place, furniture, light and personnel blurring in front of Holland’s eyes, alternatives layered one on the other like a stack of subtly differing transparencies.

  “Two, one...”

  The note of the drill rose as it made contact with the cylinder.

  The centre of the box strobed, and high-pitched noise assailed their ears. Holland shielded his eyes with his hands. Inside the box stood the blue girl, behind her a dark shadow with six glowing eyes, and behind that – limbs waving and shoving as if they were trying to force their way past the shadow – strange and disturbing beings. Organic, crystalline, it was impossible to tell. They flashed and warped, unable to hold one shape, and screaming, always screaming.

  “Continue!” shouted the Class Six.

  “Class Three offline!” shouted Kick. “We’ve got energy leakage! For the love of God, shut it down!”

  “Continue!”

  Something struggled past the shadow, and the shadow growled and snapped at the air, but it was over and through it, stretching, coruscating with colours that have no name. It slammed into the box, cracking the weave. It skittered madly around the Faraday cage.

  It got out.

  As a bolt of lightning, it slammed from the box into Kick’s work station. It exploded, blasting the Dutchman across the room, a smoking hole in his chest. St Elmo’s fire glowed all over the lab. Arcs of energy played over the equipment. Patel screamed as a tendril found its way into the tablet, into his hand, and up through it into his face. His eyes melted, skin shrivelled. He fell to the floor, head on fire and legs kicking.

  “I... I.... I....” Delaware’s voice stuck, the same sound repeated over and over.

  A wind blasted the room, blowing papers and equipment everywhere. Emergency lights flashed. Alarms wailed, and from the blaze of light a cacophony of shouts, pleas, threats and endless, howling screams.

  “Shut it off! Shut it off!” shouted Lasalle. “Override code Patterson-phi-798! I am taking command. Shut it all down!”

  The glass box shattered. A merc grunted, collapsing with a piece of the frame poking out of his chest.

  Holland tore his eyes from the box and turned back to his workstation. He ran his fingers over holographic controls rippling with interference, found the controls for the utility sheath, pulled back the drill and shut it off. A pulsing power line drew his attention. “The artefact! It’s drawing power from the station!”

  “Shut it down!” Lasalle shouted.

  “I don’t know how!”

  Orson rushed over to Holland, pushed him out of the way. “We need to deactivate sub and main systems simultaneously. Here, here and here! Are you ready, Holland?”

  Holland nodded. He expanded his interface, and together they turned their fingers in wheels of light. Power indicators fell.

  The maelstrom at the heart of the box quietened. The light and wind died back.

  The station lights went with it. The pale glow of bioluminescent emergency lights
lit the room. Everything stank of ozone and stone dust.

  Silence came suddenly.

  “Holy fuck,” said Holland.

  “You said it. That was a close...”

  Orson gurgled as a robotic hand closed round his neck and squeezed it flat. He struggled as he was lifted up into the air. Delaware threw him across the room into a cabinet of lab equipment; he was dead by the time he hit the floor.

  “Delaware!” said Lasalle. “Qu’est-ce que vous faites...”

  The machine leapt across the room, fingers punching into Lasalle’s eye sockets. The bone snapped loudly. Its fist closed and jerked back, and the centre of Lasalle’s pulped face came with it. Lasalle’s body was yanked off its feet, spilling blood and brain matter across shattered glass.

  Holland froze. It was happening again.

  The remaining merc regained his wits and opened up, pistol rounds slamming into the robot, jerking it about. It advanced on him, striding into the gunfire, then grabbed the mercenary’s gun and hand together and squeezed. The mercenary screamed; he half sank, was half pushed to the floor. Delaware drew back its other hand and smashed the man in the face, breaking his neck.

  “Fucking AI,” said Holland. He rose to his feet beside the body of the other mercenary, the dead man’s gun in his hand. The robot spun round.

  Holland held the gun up in front of him, the way he had learned after the Five Crisis. He pointed it at the sheath’s head, and emptied the magazine into its face.

  It came at him, weaker now, but deadly yet. It slapped the gun from Holland’s hand, and punched him in the chest, and his ribs cracked. Glass cut into his back as he skidded across the floor. The AI walked toward him, lifting a chair, holding it high above its head.

  Holland prepared to die.

  Gunfire filled the room, assault rifles on full automatic. The robot danced under the impact. It managed a half-turn before its chest plating gave way and its innards were shredded to scrap.

  The sheath fell to the floor with a clatter.

  Jensen, Cybele and the third mercenary stood in the door, all carrying guns. Holland recoiled.

  “Steady! Steady!” Jensen shouldered the rifle. He stepped over the corpse of Lasalle and the shattered sheath. He knelt down and grabbed Holland. “She came and got me. Cybele is on our side, got that? On our side!”

  Holland shook with adrenaline, feeling sick. “Yeah. Yeah, got it.”

  “How many more sheaths has this AI got?” Jensen asked the mercenary.

  “He had three, including that one,” he said. His accent was South African.

  “What happened in here?”

  Holland stared at him blankly. “Something... it’s hard to describe. There was light, and... something was trying to get in. We shut it down, the AI went insane...”

  “And if it’s got two more sheaths, we’re still in danger. Cybele.”

  “Yes, Dr Jensen.”

  “Make sure it can’t get into your other body.”

  “I have taken steps already, Dr Jensen.”

  “Good.” He looked around at the carnage in the room. Kick, Lasalle, Patel and Orson lay dead in the smoking wreckage of the laboratory. “Because this isn’t over yet. Let’s get out of here; we have to shut Delaware’s base unit down. If something suborned his sheath, it would have had a direct link back to his brain.”

  “Wait!” said Holland. “We have to take the artefact with us.”

  “Are you out of your mind?”

  “Jensen, we have to take it back.”

  THEY STUMBLED ON Miyazaki’s corpse on the way to Cybele’s base unit. He lay face down in a wide pool of blood. Jensen checked him, started to roll him over and stopped. “Jesus,” he said. “His face is gone.”

  Holland had the block on a trolley. He gripped the handle hard as he stared at Miyazaki’s right hand. It was flung out behind his sprawled body, fingers half-curled, spots of blood on it.

  “Where are the others here?” said the South African soldier.

  “Suzanne and Maguire?” Jensen said.

  “I do not know,” said Cybele.

  “Are they dead?” said Jensen.

  “I do not know. The base’s central systems are malfunctioning.”

  “What is going on here?” said Jensen.

  “Hey, take it easy, bru,” said the South African. “I have been in worse spots than this.”

  “You have been in spots with alien artefacts?” hissed Jensen. “I think not.”

  “The artefact is not of alien origin,” said Cybele.

  “What?” said Jensen. “What the hell is it then, Chinese? I don’t think so. Are you going to tell me they’ve been dosing us with thought manipulation and LSD? What the fuck is it?”

  “Please. Consider item one. My base unit is adversely affected when the artefact is active. The quanta my hardware uses are affected. Quantum computing depends upon the unmeasured status of the electrons making up my mind. They can be either yes or no in a non-determinate state. Something about this machine affects that.”

  “Machine?” said Holland. “In what sense?”

  “I believe that this artefact is a human or AI construct from either a different time period, or a parallel universe. Possibly both. This is what upsets my operation. The artefact is atomically unstable, in the sense that it is not entirely of the here, or the now.”

  “Are you telling me this thing is from the future?” said Jensen. His hair was unkempt, and he spoke with such force that he spat. Only the South African mercenary seemed unaffected.

  “Consider item two,” said Cybele. “The insect that Dr Holland saw, and that was then captured by you, Dr Jensen. This proved to be a constructed lifeform that had undergone a period of independent evolution. If this artefact can bring things with it, then yes, I would say the most likely answer is that it is an artefact from the future.”

  “Where else would it come from?” said Holland. “Buried in the depths of this volcano, no other sign of intelligent life. It makes a certain kind of sense.”

  “And it is telling you to take it back?”

  “It sounds crazy, but I think it wants to keep us from harm.”

  Jensen looked at Miyazaki. “Not so crazy. You have to wonder why it was down there, hidden out of the way like that.”

  “What option do we have?” said Holland.

  “None. Herregud! None!”

  THE MERCENARY, MORESBY, stood outside the storeroom while Jensen and Holland squatted inside on the floor. The artefact sat in its block of stone on the trolley in one corner. Jensen and Holland cast nervous glances at it as they spoke. Holland told Jensen everything: the blue-skinned girl, his odd visions, the sense of dislocation, the alternative realities.

  Jensen listened. There was a discussion.

  The Norwegian used a pencil to outline his plan.

  “You are going to have to go down into Wonderland alone, Holland. If what you say is true, this thing has made some kind of personal connection to you.” He rested his head on his arms and bit his sleeve. “And why not? But look at Vance, and Stulynow; how can we know that these visions of yours aren’t all some kind of trap?”

  “Maybe if we do as it says, then all this will end. We’ll be dead anyway if we don’t try.”

  “Take Cybele with you. I’m going to weld her door shut. There’s a good chance that Delaware will try to take her out if it gets another sheath up into the base. I’ll stick with Moresby. If there’s trouble, then maybe we can take down another sheath, maybe not, but chances are the Six will come here again. If it does, we can at least delay it.”

  “Maguire and Suzanne?” said Holland.

  “Who knows? If either of us see them, we tell them to get out of here, in Delaware’s rover if possible. If not, get them to take one of the open tops, and make for the Chinese seismology camp. It’s seventy kilometres from here, but the co-ordinates are in the near-I drivers. If you do get out, let it do the driving; the mountain is dangerous.”

  Holland nodde
d.

  “Good luck, Holland. I am sorry I did not get the chance to know you better. I may be a pedant as Maguire says, but I am not such a bad guy once you get to know me.”

  “I know you’re not, Jensen.”

  They stood, and shook hands.

  “Now, stand back.”

  Jensen took a sledgehammer from a rack, raised it above his head, and swung it at the stone.

  HOLLAND CREPT THROUGH the base. There was no power for the alarms now; only bio-lights lit the way. It was eerily silent.

  “How am I doing, Cybele?” he whispered.

  Cybele spoke into his tablet via earbuds. She’d deactivated all their locational softwares on their implants, their tablets and all the other hardware they carried, so he was as safe as one could be with a homicidal AI stalking the base. This was old school hide and seek, with no advantage to either side.

  “There is no sign of movement. You are clear, as far as I can ascertain, to proceed to the lava tube airlock.”

  Holland swallowed. His throat was dry. The cylinder was heavy in his hand, and colder than it should have been. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. How’s your door?”

  “Jensen has sealed me into my base unit room. I have sufficient battery power to operate for three more hours. He is attempting to disable the Class Six’s base unit.” The unit was up in the atrium. Wide open, too many doors. Holland didn’t envy Jensen that task.

  “Will they be able to do it? They make those things tough,” he whispered. He ducked quickly past the wide door of the rec room and kitchen.

  “A standard base unit is constructed of the highest grade woven carbons. They are harder than synthetic diamond, and the systems within these portable units, such as I and Delaware inhabit, are possessed of multiple redundant back-ups. Moreover, the Class Six is a prototype, and its capabilities are unknown to me. There will be a manual shut-off, but the codes for that will have died with Lasalle.”