The First Mann on Mars - Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight of the hilarious new science fiction novel, The First Mann on Mars by best selling, multi-award-winning author Mark Watson...

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The First Mann on Mars

©Copyright 2024 by Mark Watson

THE STORY SO FAR…

Moronic Billionaut Derek Mann, along with his snarky, silver AI sidekick Barry Wilkinson, have been rescued from an ugly, dangerous spaceship and have now landed on Mars. Back on Earth, things have gone predictably wrong—most of Northern Europe has been obliterated after Derek’s genius friend Noel decided to crank the Large Hadron Collider up to eleven. The rest of the planet is now enjoying the charming chaos of a post-apocalyptic era. Meanwhile, Derek and Barry have discovered that Mars is far from a barren dustbowl…

Chapter Eight: Fake Ars

Derek, Barry, and Doreen hurtled through the lush Martian landscape in a vehicle that looked as though it had been cobbled together from spare parts and a healthy disregard for aerodynamics. Doreen narrated their journey with great enthusiasm, pointing at various incomprehensible landmarks and saying things like, “That’s where we gurp the slurbongs!” Derek and Barry, who were becoming adept at nodding vacantly, did just that.

Before long, they screeched to a halt outside a giant warehouse. Its façade was dominated by a large sign that read “Fake Ars,” as the “M” had long since retired from its duties. The entire structure had an air of profound neglect, as though it had decided years ago to stop trying and was just waiting for someone to knock it down. In other words, it looked rather dilapidated.

“It looks rather dilapidated,” Barry observed dryly.

“Well, yes,” Doreen admitted, shrugging. “Back when it took ages to get rockets up here—and half of them fell apart en route—we didn’t really see the point in sprucing the place up. There’s only one staff member, and maintaining the warehouse isn’t in his job description. Mostly, he just watches it all on telly.”

She knocked on the door and waved at a security camera. “Coo-ee, Bert! It’s me, Doreen. I’ve brought a couple of Earthmen to help tidy up.”

The door buzzed faintly, as if it couldn’t be bothered, and then stuck halfway open. Derek and Barry had to help Doreen shove it aside. Behind it was a pile of unopened junk mail, which Doreen kicked unceremoniously into a corner.

Inside, the place was eerily familiar—like every industrial estate office you’d ever encountered but with slightly more dust and fewer motivational posters about synergy. After trudging up a creaky flight of stairs, they entered the main control room.

Here, they found a middle-aged Martian man in a sweater that might once have been beige, sipping a cup of tea and surrounded by a bank of TV monitors.

“Bert!” squealed Doreen, throwing her arms around him. She turned to Derek and Barry, beaming. “His real name’s Albert, but on Mars, it’s customary to shorten that to Bert.”

“You don’t say,” Barry replied with a tone so dry it could have doubled as Martian soil. He and Derek shook Bert’s hand and introduced themselves.

“Alreet,” Bert said in a Yorkshire accent as thick as a Todmorden fog. Derek opened his mouth to ask about it, but Barry, having learned his lesson, clamped a silver hand over Derek’s shoulder and muttered, “Just let it go.”

Doreen gestured toward the monitors, which displayed a series of dusty, rocky landscapes that looked exactly like the images of Mars that had been beamed back to Earth for decades.

“That’s Mars!” shouted Derek, pointing at the screen as though he’d uncovered a great conspiracy.

“That there’s Fake Mars,” Bert said casually. “We gather all your landers, rovers, and assorted space junk, toss it into the fake landscape, and let ’em wander about. Saves us the bother of having actual visitors.”

“And what do you need us to do?” Derek asked eagerly. “I’m not much of a…what’s the word?” He snapped his fingers at Barry for assistance.

“Err, thinker? Cricketer? Scientist? Mathematician? Or perhaps you’re referring to ornament, dilettante? The possibilities are endless, sir.”

“Astronaut!” Derek exclaimed triumphantly. “I’m not much of an astronaut.”

Barry nodded with mock solemnity. “Indeed, sir. You’re more of a layabout. Or perhaps a work-shy fop. Gormless moron, maybe? Or, dare I say, a total fu—”

“Okay, Barry, I get it!” snapped Derek, puffing up indignantly.

“You’ll be perfect for the job,” Bert cut in, his face splitting into a grin. “All we need you to do is pick up some rocks, wave at the cameras, and generally look convincingly astronaut-y for Earth’s benefit.”

“You’re telling me,” Derek said, scratching his head, “that for years, whenever Earth sent up rovers or probes or whatever, you’ve just been... staging everything?”

“Of course,” Doreen said brightly. “Can’t have you Earthlings knowing the truth about us, can we? You’d all come barging in, planting flags, and shouting about manifest destiny.”

Barry, who had been studying diagrams of the meticulously placed fake rocks, nodded thoughtfully. “Impressive. It appears the dust even has the right chemical composition.”

“Thank you!” Doreen beamed. “It’s all done with drones and a lot of imagination. Oh, and a holographic sky projection, obviously.”

Derek squinted at a small, robotic arm sweeping the ground in the distance. “Wait, is that the actual Opportunity rover?”

“Yep,” Doreen replied. “It’s been here for years. Lovely little thing.”

Suddenly, Doreen cocked her head to one side, as though listening to a distant voice—an entirely accurate description of what she was doing. She held up a hand for silence, which, against all odds, she received. After a brief pause, she straightened up and announced, “Good news, boys. Your spaceship and its computer have been fully upgraded. It’s currently rebooting, but once it’s back online, we’ll have you all set up with the same technology we use here.”

Barry tilted his silver head. “And that would be…?”

“Oh, just the basics,” Doreen said breezily. “A nanobiotic implant that gives you access to our universal search engine and a direct neural link to your ship’s computer. It’s very handy for, you know, finding out everything.”

“Universal search engine?” Barry inquired, one sleek silver eyebrow arching.

“That’s right,” Doreen said with a smile. “I’m sure, like all our Martian tech, the name won’t make much sense to you, but it’s called Yahoogle.”

Barry pondered this for a moment before shrugging. “Oddly, not that bizarre.”

Derek, feeling the need to contribute, nodded sagely. “I mean, it sounds a bit like something Earth might come up with if it had a few billion years more to evolve.”

“So, how does it work?” Barry asked.

Doreen grinned and rubbed her red hands together. “You’ve got two options: either a large, rather painful suppository… or,” she paused dramatically, “you can have it in a nice cup of Venusian tea.”

Derek’s expression brightened. “Tea? I like tea. What’s in it?”

Doreen cocked her head again, receiving a burst of Martian intel. “On Earth, you’d call it… green tea.”

“Suppository,” Derek and Barry said in perfect unison, their faces set in the grim determination of men who had made a difficult but necessary decision.

Doreen’s grin widened. “Excellent choice. Let’s just say the tea would’ve been far worse.”

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A short while later, our two heroes, now fully suited up and exuding all the grace of overly inflated penguins, painfully stepped through a hidden door and onto the dusty, reddish-brown expanse of Fake Ars. The landscape was an eerily perfect imitation of the Mars everyone back on Earth assumed existed—complete with strategically arranged boulders, reddish dust, and a general aura of lifelessness. They moved cautiously and it has to be said, a little stiffly toward a cluster of Earth machines cheerfully puttering about in the dust like lost Roombas at a robot convention.

The two crouched behind a plastic-looking hill, ready to follow Doreen’s instructions. Their Martian guide’s voice now spoke directly into their heads, which was as unsettling as you’d imagine.

“That’s great, lads,” Doreen bellowed at a volume that could have perforated eardrums.

Both Derek and Barry immediately yanked off their helmets and clutched their heads in pain.

“Too loud? Right, sorry about that,” Doreen’s disembodied voice continued. “You can control the volume by twisting your right ear. Just give it a little tweak.”

After a moment of ear-tweaking that made them look like they were trying to tune in to a Martian radio station, Derek and Barry managed to reduce Doreen’s voice to a less brain-shattering level. Satisfied, they jammed their helmets back on.

“Okay,” Doreen’s now perfectly reasonable voice continued, “let’s begin. See that robot over there? The one with the camera swiveling around like a nosy neighbor? As soon as it turns in your direction, start walking toward it. Wave, give it a thumbs up—look friendly, yeah?”

The Mars rover dutifully swiveled its camera toward them, and the two spacemen bounced over like eager kids trying to make friends with a particularly shiny toy. They waved. They gestured. Derek even attempted finger guns, which felt wildly inappropriate but oddly effective.

“Perfect,” Doreen said, her tone suggesting she was suppressing laughter. “Now, Derek, fall on it.”

“Fall on it?” Derek repeated, as though this was the most absurd thing he’d ever been asked to do. Which, to be fair, it wasn’t.

“Yes, fall on it. You know—collapse. Like you’ve tripped or fainted. Drama, Derek, drama!”

“Oh, uh… okay.” Derek hesitated before flopping onto the machine with the grace of a walrus dismounting a surfboard. The rover emitted a worried beep as Derek’s bulk settled on it.

At that moment, a hidden hatch sprang open behind the rover, and up popped Doreen, wielding a lump hammer with the kind of determination that suggested she had unresolved issues with Earth tech.

With a swift swing, she smashed the rover into pieces, scattering bits of camera and wheels across the fake Martian terrain.

Derek, still sprawled on the wreckage, looked up in astonishment. “Was that… was that really necessary?”

Doreen grinned, the hammer resting casually on her shoulder. “Oh, absolutely. It’s therapeutic. Now, on to the next one!”

“Right,” Doreen’s voice echoed in their heads, now at a volume that suggested she was finding her stride with the whole telepathy thing. “We’ve got incoming. Derek, go over to that robot there—the one with the European flag on it—and pick it up. Careful now!”

Derek lumbered over to the robot with all the grace of a toddler carrying a watermelon. Meanwhile, Barry squinted at the Martian sky, which fizzed and flickered momentarily before revealing another lander parachuting down like an overly eager party crasher.

“Good. Now position it… here.”

A glowing X appeared in the Martian dust, pulsing with the urgency that said, Put it here or else.

Derek dutifully placed the robot on the X, giving it a small pat like it was a good dog, and backed away, making sure to wave enthusiastically into its camera.

“Perfect!” Doreen chirped.

A moment later, the incoming lander thudded into the exact same spot with a crunch that suggested the European flag-bearing robot had just failed an impromptu stress test. Pieces of rover scattered like confetti at a bureaucratic funeral.

As if on cue, another hidden hatch sprang open, and up popped Doreen, wielding her trusty lump hammer with an enthusiasm that suggested she’d missed her true calling as a demolition expert. She made short work of both landers, hammering away with gusto until they were reduced to a pile of unidentifiable rubble.

“All done, boys!” Doreen grinned at them, her cheeks redder than usual from the exertion. Derek and Barry removed their helmets and grinned back, their faces flushed with the undeniable joy of controlled chaos.

“That was…” Derek began, searching for the right words.

“…strangely satisfying,” Barry finished for him, nodding in agreement.

Suddenly, both men winced and clutched their heads as a deafening voice boomed directly into their minds.

“GUESS WHO’S BACK!”

It was Nole. Of course, it was Nole.

Barry sighed. “Oh, wonderful. The universe’s answer to a persistent pop-up ad.”

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END OF CHAPTER EIGHT

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