Life on Mars?
So this was it. This was what society twenty years ago had called “The Future.” Darren sighed and waited for Marianne Leblanc, a historian who specialized in repetitive events and who had a particular curiosity with Homo sapiens landing on Mars.
He didn’t have long to wait; the space shuttle pulled into the station precisely on time and a short, well endowed woman wearing a military uniform stepped out of the vehicle first before a long line of scientists and military personnel. She walked with a purpose and had already extended her hand towards Darren before she was even close to coming within contact distance.
“Mary White,” she said, “I prefer to go by the simpler name.”
“Darren Snyder,” he said.
“Well, Darren. What have you got for me?”
“Really nothing. HQ wanted me to see you to your hotel, but they didn’t give me any orders. You’re already aware, I presume, that nothing natural was found on Mars.”
“Ah, but that disease—”
“Just something they came up with to scare civilians.”
“Sure it was,” Mary said, smiling. “Let’s pretend I play along, why would they want to spread a story like that? I should think that getting people to flock here would be their goal; you know, to stop over population.”
“Ms. White—”
“Mary is fine.”
“Mary, over population is already a huge problem that won’t be solved if we open the doors to Mars now rather than later. And really, it’s not my place to tell you any rumors I might have heard. Whatever reasons HQ asked you here, they are keeping to themselves.”
“All right, Mr. Snyder. If you insist. But I still think you’re hiding something.”
“Think whatever you want.”
He led her in a gentlemanly fashion to the shuttle outside serving as a taxi. After noting quickly how authentic the blue atmosphere shield looked, she slipped into the vehicle, which sped towards the central station where everything was being prepared for opening day. Little did she know the information HQ had in store for her; Darren wouldn’t be surprised if this little opening of the planet would be delayed for quite a while while they figured out what to do about the bacteria-sized Martians that were already inhabiting the planet.
Author’s Note on post 341: This trend in naming my posts after songs is not on purpose; the title comes to me after the work is finished. But they work so well. Anway, this came to me after I finished 2001: A Space Odyssey which might be why, if you’ve read the book, you might be able to see similarities. I hope to be getting better at this 10-minute story thing.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 at 3:12 pm and is filed under Fiction Prose, Science Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.