Mars Awakening - Chapter 2

Copyright ? 2021 Brett Mahar

Please find below Chapter 2 of the science fiction novel - Mars Awakening. A link to Chapter 1 can be found in the first comment.

CHAPTER 2

 “Commander, that is the completion of the training material.” Chase heard September as a voice in his ear. Although September had said she was an AI, the voice certainly sounded human. In fact, it was a pleasant voice, quite melodious. He wondered what she would look like, an odd thought since September was a computer.

Chase groaned, “September, that video went for three hours. That can’t be everything someone should know about surviving on Mars. I will admit I wasn’t enjoying learning about space suits and airlocks, but it did seem rather relevant.

September, in her fluid but mechanical voice, replied, “It was somewhat short on specific details. Would you like a revision?”

“No, not at all. Can you let me out of here? It would be nice to feel my actual body for a few days before I die on this cold planet. Since the TronTV sealed us up completely in a tunnel, why do we need spacesuits? Airlocks?

“Commander, now that your training is complete, I can release you. I will inject you with a solution that will remove the paralysis. We estimate there is an 80 percent chance you will have full motion, as if you were never frozen. Interesting that you have now twice mentioned spacesuits and airlocks. This train does not come with either of them.

“Frozen, frozen!” Chase exclaimed. “Did you freeze me? Uh, no, please don’t answer that.”

September explained, “I have injected you, and it will take approximately three hours to remove the symptoms of paralysis. Maybe longer. You may feel weak for some time, the gravity on Mars is much lower, which should compensate. I will notify Lieutenant Janette Hawkins you’ll be functional in three hours. No doubt she is looking forward to meeting her commander.

Chase raised a quizzical eyebrow. “Lieutenant Janette was not frozen? She’s been awake this whole time?” Chase clearly didn’t have full control over his emotions yet; he was jumping up and down like a child. Hearing he had been frozen and then defrosted had been a shock. He had imagined some stasis chamber of some description; the thought of being a popsicle was not pleasant. Then, to hear that someone else was here but not frozen angered him immediately. He needed to get a grip on his emotions.

“No, Commander, that is incorrect. Lieutenant Janette Hawkins was likewise frozen, but Mission Control ordered her awakened two days ago. She has been keenly listening to our conversation.

“Lock her out of the computer system.” Chase snapped. He was angry.

 “Action complete, Commander.”                                                 

Over the next few hours, Chase began to feel and could slowly move his limbs. He would not describe it as a very pleasant process. In fact, it was one he would rather forget. Once movement returned, along came exhaustion; his body felt as if it had been running marathons. He was so tired he couldn’t care less that he was naked.

After what felt like hours, he could move his whole body, massaging life into his limbs. His attempts to sit up largely failed, and it wasn’t until his tenth attempt that he finally succeeded. Unfortunately, this brought with it waves of dizziness that took a long time for him to overcome. Over the next twenty minutes, he slowly worked his way out of the bed and dressed in the clothes someone left for him: blue jeans and a black, collared shirt, not what he expected a space uniform to look like. By the time he finally dressed, he was exhausted and dragged himself back to the bed and promptly fell asleep.

“Wake up,” an unknown voice demanded.

“Not again. Please tell me this is a dream,” Chase tiredly murmured.

“This isn’t a dream. Wake up now. The system has locked me out. Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”

Chase tried to lift his head and look across, but he was exhausted. “Lieutenant Janette Hawkins, I’m assuming. Nice to meet you. Chase slowly opened his eyes. He could see a young woman; she couldn’t be more than 20 years old. She had a thin face and almost white-blonde hair, although her eyebrows were slightly darker. Her eyes were brown with a perfectly symmetrical nose and thin, pink lips. Chase closed his eyes and looked at the mental picture he had taken of the lieutenant. He wasn’t sure if she was movie-star beautiful, but he considered her breath-taking. He wondered, briefly, whether he was, in fact, dead and ascended to heaven?

“Yeah, great. Such an honour to meet a murderer. The system locked me out on your authority. Let’s get something straight. You do not lock me out. I’m probably the only one who is going to keep you alive.” She said that last statement with such cold rage, and one look at her face, although beautiful, assured him that his brief fantasy of being in heaven was precisely that, a fantasy.

“What are you going to do if I don’t?” He would never understand why he said that. Lieutenant Janette Hawkins was his team member, and he had already gotten off on the wrong foot with her. Most likely, it had to do with her tone; he never did like authority. He could see she was also trying to establish dominance, put him in his place.

“I’m stuck on a planet with a team of murderers. Maybe I’ll join them. At this stage, you don’t look like you could defend yourself against a fly.” She took a deep breath, seeming to compose herself, and continued.

 “Let’s try starting this again, shall we? Mission Control told me you are now the commander of this mission. I read through your file, and it doesn’t quite say it directly, but it leaves little doubt you are an evil genius. I also watched the news, so I‘m aware of your exploits and know you’re a murderer. Why you are here blows my mind, why you are in charge baffles me. The fact that you are nothing more than a child is incomprehensible. Are you even fourteen?”

Hmmm, Chase thought. There went his hopes of getting her into bed. She thinks I’m a kid. True, he looked young. Although seventeen, he was at least shaving these days, maybe he should mention this fact to make him seem more mature. His young-looking face probably meant he would age well, but not something he wanted at this stage.

“I’m seventeen,” he said, “not that it matters. I don’t mind you calling me a genius, but murderer is not an affectionate title. How about we stick with Chase? Are you aware of how we got here? Did you agree to be frozen?” Chase took a longer look, this time not just looking at her face but looking her up and down. She was wearing a white collared shirt, top two buttons open, showing a white chest, sleeves reaching three-quarter length. Slender with pert breasts. Rather than jeans, she was wearing a long white flowing skirt, that reached her ankles. Although casual, the shirt had epaulets and a collar, giving an overall hint of being a uniform, mostly due to the TronTV logo on the shirt.

She noticed his attention and sniffed as if disgusted. “You can call me Lieutenant Hawkins, and no, I never agreed to be frozen. I was working on NASA’s Mars program, and I hoped to come here one day as an astronaut. My last memory was going for testing to join the astronaut program.”

There was a bit more to that last memory, but she chose not to share that; she hadn’t quite processed that yet.

“Next thing I know, I woke up here, two days ago. The rest of the crew is still frozen and asleep. The computer system was waiting for you to undergo basic training, a waste of time if you ask me. We should have awakened the crew and got to work setting up. There is so much to do, so much I don’t understand.” She gazed into the distance, obviously looking through her list of tasks that needed completion.

“Lieutenant Hawkins, is there any possibility we’re not really on Mars but in some cave on Earth. Is this just a trick?” Chase asked, a questioning look on his face, alert to any subtle clues that could prove she was lying.

She looked at him. “You think I wouldn’t check that? I’m not an idiot. There is a pendulum in the command module, and I calculated the gravity to be equal to Mars. I also checked gravity using the push-up test. I assure you I never could do a full push up, lift off the ground, spin over and land lightly on my hands. That is something they couldn’t fake.”

Chase thought, “OK. That’s one thing confirmed.”

He spoke to September. “Can you wake the crew one at a time? I’m going to need to talk to them as they wake up. Their last memories were that of dying because I screwed up. They may be somewhat unhappy to learn about our current situation. Actually, can you give me the tour before you wake everyone?”

The modules, he knew from the videos, would all be in a straight line. Their current accommodations were beyond the traditional idea of a spaceship. Most movies put people in tents or igloos of some description, but this was something completely different. This was a collection of large shipping containers transported to Mars and then parked in a tunnel, fifty metres underground.

It sounded simple, transporting twenty-five shipping containers to Mars, drilling a three-hundred-meter tunnel, and parking those shipping containers inside. The simplicity of the act was amazing, and so much more permanent than pitching a tent. Why not just remove that issue and dig a big tunnel and seal it? What equipment would you need to create a tunnel?

A big driller, and maybe an excavator could dig a pretty big tunnel in a year. He knew this because he had watched the time-lapse video. One driller and one excavator, run by an AI, working 24 hours a day, could dig a tunnel 300 meters long within a year. Getting the driller and excavator to Mars was the billion-dollar problem, and he couldn’t comprehend how they could achieve such an undertaking. September, the AI, had not been forthcoming with those details.

So, they were in a tunnel that protected them from radiation and made sure they wouldn’t die due to radiation poisoning. Moreover, the sealed tunnel had the potential to hold an atmosphere. Sealing the tunnel provided an area for the inhabitants, first, to survive but, second, they could potentially produce food. An essential for a long-term post that could grow over time. That tunnel driller, Chase thought, must be still on Mars. Eventually, given enough time, they could drill a hole one kilometre long, then with more time ten kilometres long. What could they achieve in those tunnels? Colonisation!

The tour began with walking through the accommodation modules. It was less of a tour and more of a self-discovery for Chase because his host Lieutenant Janette Hawkins, had just walked off. Chase decided he would need to give her a nickname, he was certainly not going to continue calling her Lieutenant Hawkins. He decided on the nickname of “LJ,” simple, and no doubt would annoy her. The module divided into four bedrooms, each with built-in toilets and showers. Walls separated the rooms, which had a few empty cots. His bedroom contained a small closet with four pair of pants, mainly jeans, and seven different shirts. The shirts were all in the same style, collared shirts with epaulets. Most were T-shirts, two had longer sleeves. Only three colours available, black, white and navy blue.

Chase knew his bedroom was in module 16, which was directly next to the command module. The command module was at the centre of the line of modules, which he knew from the induction video.

On one side of the command module was a screen the size of a wall. It displayed the Martian landscape, the camera angle high, looking out and down. At the bottom, what looked like solar cells came into view, and then a few pictures of the landscape of a harsh red desert, Mars. The clarity was fantastic. But it was an unfortunate reminder of where he was—a desert with no atmosphere, no water, no heat. Looking at that image, he once again realised the hopelessness of the task. How could they possibly survive?

LJ who had returned to the command module after walking off on Chase said, “Catches you by surprise, doesn’t it? I like to leave it as a reminder of the challenges ahead.”

Chase, who hadn’t seen LJ, brought his mind back from the enormity of the task and answered quietly, “It sure does catch you by surprise.”

This module appeared to be larger than the rest. Not surprising since it was the command module. It was three modules joined together; it was longer and broader than the rest. There was a massive table, which appeared to have enough seats for a crew of twenty. The table, LJ told him, was one big touchscreen and could, in certain sections, show holographic images. The command module was sparse; the table being the main feature and the incredibly large screen.

There also appeared to be computer stations for individuals to work, and one of them had a chair, he assumed it was LJ’s workspace. There seemed to be no clutter near this terminal either. LJ, he thought, was a clean person. He needed to remember that. The technology, on first impression, looked state-of-the-art. The touch screen table itself must have cost a fortune. He was sure they hadn’t skimped on anything. He walked over to the table and pressed his finger on it, but nothing happened. He felt like a fool, but eventually gave up and asked LJ how to activate the table computer. He was quite keen to check it out, see what it was running, what sort of power it had. He was mainly interested because he wanted answers, and he was sure they were inside this computer.

“To activate it, you just touch it,” LJ said, looking at him with a condescending smile on her face.

But Chase had touched it for about a minute, and nothing activated. “Very well, LJ, play your games.”

LJ seemed to relent when he didn’t take her bait. “The AI informed me that Mission Control hasn’t authorised you to touch the computer system. Apparently, they have a few trust issues with you, well justified I’m sure. I believe you can activate it by asking September, but you may not touch the computers. No programming at all, no authorisation to make changes.”

Rage built up in Chase. He was going to die on this fucking rock, and he wasn’t even going to get to do the thing he loved the most: code.

Chase called, “September, can you hear me?”

“Of course, Commander Chase. I can hear you anywhere on this train.”

“LJ informs me I may not touch the computers. Please clarify with her that that is not the case.”

September said in her silky voice, “Lieutenant Janette Hawkins is correct. The computer will not respond to you in any way. You do have voice command, although I will discard any changes you make to the code. If you tell someone the code you wish for them to program, then I will simply delete the code. The code must come from the programmers, not you. You are strictly forbidden. Lieutenant Hawkins, or LJ as you call her, is the best coder on board. I suggest you use her skills. LJ is your number one asset and, as such, she cannot leave the train.

LJ broke into the conversation and expressed her dismay, “What!? I didn’t come all this way not to leave the train under any circumstance.”

Chase said, “September, you told me that there were no rules on Mars, and, in fact, I needed to break the rules. Now, you tell me that the first rule is I can’t touch the computer system?

“Commander, you are correct. There are no rules on Mars. You are also correct that you may not touch the computer system.”

“Doesn’t that seem a bit hypocritical to you?”

“Commander, do you know that as well as TronTV there is TronGaming, which as well as games has also diversified into online betting?”

“No, I was not aware.”

“Commander, I believe good quality content and viewer engagement is the main objective of the TronTV Corporation. To increase viewer engagement, they have created a running bet on how many times you will attempt to access the computer system. I should also note that my programming is set to punish you for each attempt, nothing life-threatening, just ever-increasing amounts of electrical charge. I will ensure you do not accidentally die, just a lesson.”

“So, first, there are no rules. Then, you put in a roadblock, and you’re placing bets on me trying to break that roadblock. Not to mention the fact that you’re going to punish me with electrical injections. Have I got that right?”

“Yes, Commander, you are correct. You may be interested to note that since your awakening, ratings have leapt. I believe people have finally worked out why some of the lead-up ads for the show said “Mars Judgement.”

Chase processed what that meant. People were watching to see if/when he would die on Mars. His eyes grew wide, and he looked at LJ, shaking his head. “Honestly, sometimes I think I have awakened in hell, slow torture. Are we real?”

LJ slapped him shockingly hard.

Chase backed up hard and bumped into a chair.

“I’m not here for your pity party, boy. I’m not sure why you’re the commander when they have it out for you. They’re your sins, not mine, and if I were a church-going person, I’d suggest that you should rot in hell. “

Chase asked, “September, what are LJ’s statistics on surviving two years?”

“LJ has an 85 percent chance of surviving two years.”

“So, we are here to assist LJ survive for two years?”

“Commander Chase, you are here because the court sentenced you to be executed for crimes committed against the U.S. You have a reprieve to undertake an important mission. That mission is to survive and colonise Mars. I have explained this to you once already. Do you need further revision?”

“What language are all these computers programmed? Java?” Chase asked LJ. He decided to move on. For some reason, this AI wanted to keep telling him he was here to die.

LJ seemed a little taken aback by his quick recovery. Maybe she wanted him to cry. He had nearly broken when she slapped him. He would not let anyone catch him crying in front of this lady. She was beautiful, yet she saw him as a child, long past time to act like a grownup. He had been in bad places before and got out of them, although one of those bad places had resulted in his death. Well, almost his death. It was like the bad day that just kept on giving.

LJ replied, not looking at him, “They are all programmed in Netscript, a language I believe you have no experience with.”

“I’ve seen a bit of it around, may have browsed a book once a long time ago.” Built to handle the large video files pushed to users, TronTV needed a new way to get a massive amount of data down the line. If errors occurred, then the code still needed to work. Therefore, they built it for robustness. Not a lightweight code, but it carried a lot of redundancy rechecks. It took the world by storm when released, and suddenly, TronTV began to offer a quality of streaming no one else could match. It loaded fast while consistently maintaining high quality. They already had a large amount of the market, but once Netscript became available, TronTV made a huge jump.

“Well, yes. Although I wouldn’t bother getting too familiar. You’re not allowed to touch the computers.” LJ looked at him, fishing for a reaction.

Chase gave her his most devilish smile. “Oh, but LJ, as September just said, I have you to do my work for me!” 

Thank you for taking the time to read Chapter 2 - Mars Awakening, my aim is to keep posting one chapter per week. The full book can be purchased from Amazon. Paperback, ebook and kindle unlimited.