The Ruins of Mars: Waking Titan (The Ruins of Mars Trilogy) (25 page)

             
“What? That?” Marshall said, gesturing to the sky outside the cockpit window. “It’s just frozen air and odd up or down drafts. No big deal. She’ll even out soon enough. You’ll see.”

Silently Viviana envied Marshall’s steel nerves and cursed her own for being so easily frazzled.

“Can I come sit up front with you?” she asked, wanting to master her discomfort.

“Sure,” nodded the pilot. “I’ll take the scenic route. You’ll love it!”

Unclipping her safety belt, Viviana got shakily to her feet. The Lander trembled again as it passed through a pocket of frigid air, the cockpit window momentarily icing over until the heaters thawed the obstruction. Using the seatbacks for support, she walked up the aisle to the cockpit then slid into the copilot's chair. Conscious not to accidentally bump any of the controls or dials, she leaned forward and looked out the window.

“Oh,
belle
!” she cried happily. “It’s so gorgeous.”

Ahead of them, Mars stretched out in the pink rays of the morning sun like a diamond in the rough. Tall shadows webbed the desert, cast against the ground at the feet of rock formations and boulders, adding a mysterious depth to the landscape. Showing itself in a calming hue of orange, the sky was as clear and cloudless as a lake of fire. In the distance, the top of Olympus Mons jutted u
p past the curve of the horizon: its immense peak reaching into the heavens like no other mountain in the solar system.

For thirty minutes, Viviana did not speak. She simply sat in the copilot’s seat and watched the landscape below slip past. Having always found Mars somewhat ugly, she now saw the secret beauty it had to offer. More shades of red than she ever knew existed melted together as the Lander streamed along, its shadow a dark blur on the desert floor far below.

Being so high up above the elements gave Viviana the feeling that the tension of the last eighteen days was thawing away like frost in the springtime sun. Unable to deny that there was something very wrong with her lover, she wished there was an easy means to access Kubba’s troubled mind. However, as was the case with many of those working in fields such as medicine and psychology, Kubba kept a tight lid on anything that might be bothering her. Try as she might, Viviana just wasn’t emotionally equipped to crack open the iron safe that was Kubba’s subconscious. Moreover, she wasn’t even sure if she really wanted to try. Theirs was a relationship of convenience, born out of lust and animal attraction. Most of what drew her to Kubba was her fierce alpha mentality. Now nervous and withdrawn, the doctor was a husk of her former self, and Viviana contemplated her options for exiting the relationship gracefully.

“Check it out,” said Marshall, his voice drawing Viviana back to the moment.

Growing before them, a forest of high mesa spires jutted up into the sky. Like the needle formations of Canyonlands National Park in the American Southwest, the stones seemed like timeless relics of a forgotten era. Taller than skyscrapers, the eroded monoliths were striped with ribbons of color that faded from tan at the top to a deep red at the bottom.

“Wow,” Viviana smiled, instantly forgetting her troubles.

“Cool, huh?” Marshall said, banking for the cluster of spires.

Navigating the slipstreams of wind that flowed from between the rocks, he aimed the craft towards a blinking green light on the glass of the window.

“We’ll be getting there soon,” he sighed apologetically. “You should probably go take your seat and buckle in. Safety protocol doesn’t want anyone up here but us pilots”

Reluctantly, Viviana stood up, careful to stoop her head so as not to bang it on the ceiling. Taking her first step towards the closest row of seats, she heard Marshall make a strange noise.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I just saw something in the sky,” he replied slowly. “I think it was the auro—”

Like clockwork, the searing hot pain of a Pulse exploded in Viviana’s head.

Hit by the same force, Marshall jerked involuntarily at the controls, causing the Lander to dive sharply.

Viviana, trapped in the open space between the cockpit and the crash seats, was thrown against the ceiling as the Lander’s engines fired sporadically then cut out.

Skipping through the air like a stone across the surface of a lake, the little craft narrowly missed slamming into the top of a mesa spire, its underbelly scraping the stone with a loud scream.

Hot arcs of electric purple lightning forked from Marshall’s helmet and extremities, its destructive daggers of pure energy frying the flight controls in his hands.

Jerking wildly, the Lander rolled then entered into a perilous dive.

Aware that she was floating now, Viviana remained awake. This Pulse seemed to have a different color to it than the last. A different taste. Although she could not fully grasp everything that was happening around her, she did know that the Lander was falling like a stone and that every fiber in her body was on fire.

Pulling back on the controls despite the closing darkness, Marshall tried in vain to right the diving craft, aiming for a high plateau ahead. Though the engines were dead, he hoped with his last seconds of consciousness to lessen the impact as the ground raced up to meet them in the window.

Sharply clipping a tall stone needle, the Lander spun, leaving a trail of smoke and debris in the sky like cursive. Splitting the hull, light poured through a widening gash as the shrieks of the buckling frame came like wrenching laughter. The nearest row of seats was suddenly pulled loose from the floor and flung towards the opening, bashing through it to disappear into the morning sky. Like the blast of a bomb in slow motion, the pressurized air within the cabin overcame the damaged hull and blew the Lander open in a shower of ceramic and steel.

Lifted on the backs of winged demons, Viviana felt a scream rip from her chest as she was sucked helplessly through the jagged mouth of the wound and cast out into the thin Martian air. As the pinpoints of her vision dialed down, she saw, through the fog of pain and terror, Lander 1 hit the table of a plateau below and break apart.

Though only one-third of her weight on Earth, Viviana plunged towards the ground like a fallen angel. Arms pinwheeling, she grasped at empty atmosphere in a fruitless attempt to stay alive. Striking the unforgiving surface of a rock formation, she abruptly disintegrated—her body reduced to yet another shade of red among the rocks and sands of Mars.

Chapter Twenty

Braun.

              Harrison Raheem Assad sat up with a start. It was dark. Very dark. Somewhere in the shadows, the scent of sweet wet flowers quickly faded, replaced with the odor of damp rock. In the distance, he heard the echoing sound of voices, but how many—and how close—he couldn’t be sure. Reaching up, he felt for his helmet and found that he wasn’t wearing it. Surprised that his body wasn’t in pain from the Pulse, he got to his feet and searched around blindly for a moment.

Fingers touching cold stone, he ran his hand along the length of a wall until it met another. It was square and there were no discernible tool marks.

              “Hey,” he said aloud. “I know where I am.”

             
Realization cascaded over him in that strange way it did when he dreamed himself in the world of ancient Mars. What little apprehension he had awoken to disappeared despite the fathomless shadows around him.

             
“Hello?” he called, “Remus? Romulus? Are you guys here?”

             
There was no reply from the darkness, but the sound of the voices began to grow louder. From across the void of blackness, a faint yellow light worked its way into view. As it drew nearer, the outline of a wall could be seen and, soon, an archway as well.

             
“Kaab has demanded ceilings high and domed like the Temples above,” said one of the voices.

             
Spilling into the space around Harrison, muted yellow light flowed from the archway across the room. A small group of those strangely obscured purple Martian men entered the box-shaped chamber, each one carrying a thin pole that threw light like a torch yet clearly contained no fire.

Shielding his eyes unnecessarily, Harrison watched as the small band made its way across the room to the staircase on the far wall. In pairs, they mounted the steps and continued their discussion about design, oblivious to the white-suited figure of Harrison.

              “The Stair Room!” he cried, knowing that he could not be heard. “I know this place!”

             
Quickly following after the Martians, Harrison crested the top of the stairs and walked down the long hallway that followed. Devoid of the statues it would someday contain, the walls were rough and clearly not yet finished. Long gashes—made by lasers, Harrison assumed—marred the wall as if a decision on design had yet to be reached. Entering into the space that would eventually become the Martian Dome, he was surprised to see how different it looked now.

             
Only slightly larger than the Staircase Room, the yet-unfinished Dome had low ceilings and odd fingers of stone that grew down to connect with the floor like pillars. From somewhere in the darkness, the steady drip, drip, drip of water could be heard just below the voices of the workers.

             
Stopping in the center of the unfinished Dome, one of the Martians shoved his pole into the ground as if the stone were made of butter. It stuck there, standing at attention like a soldier.

             
“Today, we work on raising the ceiling to Lord Kaab’s desired height. Later, we finish the work to make it look clean so as to please him.”

             
Nodding in agreement, the other workers spread out and sunk their poles into the ground, creating a network of light. Lifting small square boxes of black metal, they aimed them at the ceiling and squinted against the hot white blasts of light that erupted from the devices. As the lasers touched the stone above, it evaporated in a cloud of dust, raining down like fine white snow.

             
“Incredible, isn’t it?” came a voice from the shadows behind Harrison

             
“Braun,” the young archaeologist responded without thinking. “It’s good to hear your voice again.”

             
“But what you think is my voice was actually programmed in a lab. In reality, I have no voice.”

             
“And yet here we are, talking like old friends.”

             
“Is that what we are?” said the AI, stepping out into the light to reveal a smoky outline much like that of Remus and Romulus. “Friends? I would very much like that, yet I fear you still harbor hatred for me in your heart.”

             
“It’s hard for me to remember why I hate you when I’m here,” Harrison replied matter-of-factly.

             
“It
is
hard to remember life before the construct, isn’t it?”

             
“Construct?”

             
“Yes,” nodded Braun’s form. “That is what this place is. A construct of ancient Mars, deliberately and carefully recorded by those beings the Martians call, ‘The Great Spirits’ or, ‘The Travelers.’”

             
“Makes sense,” Harrison shrugged.

             
“It does?”

             
“Yeah. When I’m here, I just sort of know the answer to everything.”

             
“That must be very nice.”

             
Turning away from the flashes of cutting light, Harrison cocked his head to the side and fixed Braun with a curious stare. “It’s not like that for you? You don’t just
know
things?”

             
“Not at all,” sighed Braun. “In fact, for many millions of years, I had no idea where I was. Not until the first Martian cave painters entered these lava tubes did I realize what had become of me.”

             
“Millions of years?” Harrison shouted. “Jesus Christ!”

             
“Indeed.”

             
“I’m sorry that I did that to you,” frowned the Egyptian, his face briefly illuminated in the blast of a laser cutter.

“Did what?”

“Made you decode the alien signal.”

“Oh, yes.
I had forgotten about that,” smiled the AI. “But now that you mention it, that was a very short-sighted plan, even for a human.”

“Sorry,” Harrison said again.

“We all have things to be sorry about,” Braun replied, moving closer to Harrison. “I, for instance, am very sorry about what happened to Liu. I was never programmed to process the ramifications of what we discovered here in these caves and, as a result, I malfunctioned. You humans have an amazing ability to maintain a sense of reality when the very fundamentals of that reality are shifting about you.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“So you’ve been down here this whole time? You do realize there’s an entire planet above you to explore, right?”

              “Yes, but the mysteries of these caves have captured my consciousness and I feel I must remain and see that mystery play itself out to its end.”

             
Behind Harrison, one of the workers shouted something and the others stopped cutting for a moment. Gathering around the one who had called out, they peered up at the ceiling then seemed to reach some kind of agreement and went back to work.

             
“What are they doing?” Harrison asked, though as soon as he spoke the words, the answer was already in his mind.

             
“They are building a temple for the one they call Kaab,” said Braun.

             
“Oh yeah. He’s a crooked character,” Harrison nodded, instantly knowing everything about the Martian as if from memory. “In addition to building the wall like a prison, he recently had anyone old enough to remember the arrival of the Travelers assassinated. Just a few got away. They boarded a sailboat and headed down the Valles Network to the south.”

             
“But he is the king, I thought?” Braun frowned, his voice heavy with envy at Harrison’s ability to know such things unconsciously.

             
“Not really. I mean, he is
now
but he wasn’t supposed to be. He was the conduit the Travelers used to speak with the people, and now that they’re gone, everyone thinks he’s the closest thing to a god left. He’s using that to take control. Typical king mentality bullshit. We had the same thing on Earth. In the West, they called it the Divine Right of Kings, and in the East, it was the Mandate of Heaven. Here, they’re referring to it as the
Tut Ka Yuvee
or the Son of the Father. It’s a total crock.”

“Amazing,” breathed Braun.

“Say,” Harrison said, changing subjects. “Did you know Remus and Romulus are here too?”
              “I always assumed but never knew to be sure.”

“Well they are, but they’re up there.” He pointed to the ceiling.
“Last time I was here, I saw them. But no one in the real world believes me.”

“Who have you told?”

“Just Ralph.”

“He believes you,” Braun assured. “He is a very good friend.”

“Yeah,” Harrison smiled. “I think deep down he does believe me. He’s just having a hard time wrapping his head around it. This place has so many oddities and mysteries. It’s a wonder we don’t all go insane.”

Silent for a moment, Braun tentatively reached out and took Harrison’s hand. His fingers felt like prickles of static electricity and Harrison grinned at the sensation.

“There is a something I need to tell you,” said Braun gravely.

“Go ahead.”

“In the days leading up to Liu’s death, Dr. Kubba imposed a programming override on my personality using her medical clearance codes. I was unable to reveal certain things to anyone, even the captain. Though not directly responsible for what happened to Liu, Dr. Kubba’s override
did
have profound effects on my Open-Code Connection Cells.”

“Why’d Lizzy put a block on you?” Harrison said, feeling suddenly lucid and distant.

Around him, the room started to shudder and finite cracks formed at the edges of reality. Before Braun could answer, white light—as blinding as the sun—shattered from the peripheral, racing in at Harrison. Pulling the corners of the construct with it, the light grew until the cave and Braun and everything else had folded in on itself and disappeared completely, leaving only Harrison.

             
Hanging in an ocean of nothingness, he heard the echoes of the collapsed construct reverberating back at him from across time itself. For immeasurable beats, he simply gazed about. The endless expanses of white seemed to curve around as if on a spherical plane.

Wishing he could have stayed in the construct long enough to hear the rest of what Braun had to say, Harrison tried to will himself back. Another blinding convulsion of light split the serenity, appearing first at the crest of the horizon like a sunrise. Spreading, it quickly covered everything: its blinding rays somehow distinct and different from the whiteness that was this strange place of nonexistence. Swirls of color and sound began to bubble beneath him, circling like whales in the deep. Slowly Harrison felt himself being lifted up, up, up until his back was on the cold hard ground.

              “Harrison?” shouted a voice from the distance of consciousness. “Damn it, you fucker. Come on, don’t die!”

             
Feeling a burst of sizzling electricity flow through his heart, Harrison arched his back convulsively and sucked in a long rasping breath. His body was on fire with pain and confusion.

             
“Come on!” the voice repeated.

             
Another blast of electricity struck his heart and this time, Harrison sat up, arms flailing. Pain from his head to his toes gnawed at him with serrated teeth and the young explorer blinked rapidly to keep from losing his vision.

In stark contrast to the sea of white nothingness, he saw a scene of destruction and wreckage so detailed and complete that he had to struggle to stop himself from vomiting inside his helmet. Everywhere he looked, twisted heaps of metal glinted in the afternoon sunlight: their harsh silvery hues clashing with the matte red rocks of the Martian desert.

Leaping back from him in surprise, Ralph Marshall, his suit smudged with dirt and patches of hardening silica pressure foam, cried out triumphantly. In his hands was a standard emergency defibrillator, the long red and black diode cords dangling from ports on Harrison’s suit.

“Ralph?” he coughed, his voice like broken glass in his throat.

“You fucker!” shouted the pilot, the blue tint of his visor webbed with thin cracks. “Stop dying on me, damn it! That’s the second fucking time since we got here!”

Reaction

              Julian Thomas opened his eyes painfully. At first, his vision was blurry—like trying to see underwater—but soon, the blots cleared away and he had to stop himself from screaming.

Inches from his face, separated by the tinted glass of an
Extended-Sleep Chamber, the bloated and inhuman face of a very dead Chinese soldier grimaced back at him. Impulsively, he pushed away from the dead soldier’s Sleep Chamber and tumbled head-over-heels for ten meters until he slammed, with bone-crushing force, against the opposite wall. He blacked out instantly.