Chapter 1
Author’s disclaimers:
1. because it’s hard science fiction, text has a lot of technical details. In a case, if it’s not convenient to explain them just inside text, I use notes, like this: [1]. Please check end of the chapter in order to find explanation.
2. English is not author’s native language. Author immigrant in English-speaking country, and according to language benchmarks, has C1 level (the first level of advanced English). It’s far from ability to write well-adjusted literature text. Because of it, author uses ChatGPT to translate what she wrote on her first language, then edit what she got from it before publish. Any feedbacks regarding style/English will be very appreciated!
3. Author planning to have 21 chapters.
4. This story is not very positive. Opposite, you can expect warm, but sad emotions.
Year 420 of the Martian calendar, 15th of September-2[1], evening, Astra
I stand in the airlock chamber, waiting for the automatic system to pump the air out and fill it with Martian atmosphere—the only air left, even though the attempt at terraforming was made centuries ago. The chamber’s rubber walls tremble from the motor’s work, but the sound, initially loud, becomes quieter due to the lower pressure. In my hand, there’s a homemade telescope[2]. I made it myself, following the Sector’s management orders.
There’s nothing special about it except for the optical image stabilization. What’s noteworthy is that it’s thanks to this telescope—or rather, my interest in optics and reading about it in Earth’s textbooks written before the Singularity Catastrophe[2] - that I’m still alive. And it’s also thanks to this that I’m now a slave. Or, as the locals of the Sector call me, a “la nogfler”[3].
The airlock door is open. I step outside and look at my home, consisting of two rusty iron barrels with an inflatable airlock docked to them, installed on rusty supports made of something resembling pieces of rails, casting long shadows in the light of the evening sun. I’m supposed to be happy that I live in a detached house, not in one of the barracks on the surface, like ordinary Sector nogflers who aren’t specialists.
I’m supposed to, but I can’t. I can’t because it’s very hard for me. I’m tired and lonely, as I have no one left except for my aunt, with whom my relationship is far from good. I brought the telescope home from work because I had to test the image stabilization system in night conditions.
The task could have been completed by checking the telescope’s work on the landscape objects of the settlement where I live, but I simply need fresh impressions, some adventure, something fundamentally new!
I decided to use my own telescope to look at Earth, the mysterious birthplace of humanity, and the place of appearance of post-humans—powerful representatives of superintelligence who replaced humanity as the dominant race throughout the Solar System, except for Mars.
From pre-singularity videos and textual content, as far as I understood, humans are not too adapted to living somewhere other than Earth, and we were supposed to go extinct even on Mars. Humanity was lucky not only to have managed to establish a Martian colony before the emergence of artificial intelligence but also to increase the atmospheric pressure during the unfinished terraforming to a level significantly higher than the Armstrong limit[4]
I don’t know if my ancestors would have survived on Mars if they were forced to wear a spacesuit every time they went outside, but I do know that I would be even more miserable now if I were wearing a bulky spacesuit instead of my purple striped jumpsuit and lightweight oxygen mask!
I walk down the street past other rusty barrels that the settlement’s residents use as dwellings.
Tired nogglers in striped coveralls of different colors—on this street, where the specialists live, mainly orange for men and, like mine, violet for women—are walking towards me from work.
Stripes, ugh! As soon as I thought of it, I shuddered: the stripes on the coveralls were supposed to remind us of what the whip of an unhappy fundjanin would do to the skin of a negligent noggfler. Yes, I was whipped too. But no, I don’t want to think about it!
Every noggfler within my field of vision is labeled with their name and, if I linger my gaze on him, with a number in a translucent window that pops up. The same is true for the living quarters made from barrels. My neural chip, and more specifically my neural chip and Pip-Boy—the implanted computer in my hand of Martian, and therefore primitive, manufacture, which is linked to the servers of the Sector Social Network—tries to do this.
As soon as I thought of the neural chip and Pip-Boy, I became even sadder—before I was captured into slavery, I had an old, pre-Singularity neural chip made on Earth. I raised my hand to my eyes and looked at the Pip-Boy, which, in my opinion, spoiled the way it looked, not at all matching my slender fingers with its rugged appearance and monochrome greenish screen made with a cathode-ray tube, not an LCD panel, which we on Mars forgot how to make more than a century ago before I was born.
My old neural chip, which they cut out and gave to some el Fundjanin[5], was a powerful enough computer in itself and did not require external computing support. What’s it all for me? I think people on Earth were much happier than we are on Mars. Perhaps this also applies to the Fundjanins.
In every other movie, the girl on Earth had a boyfriend who took care of her. She just sat at home doing nothing but raising children, and yet she complained that it was very boring and that she wanted to work! It’s crazy.
I turned the corner and walked out onto the square at the edge of the settlement. I came up to a recently installed, and therefore not yet rusty, water barrel used as the main reservoir for the settlement. In the reflection, I saw myself and thought that maybe not everything was so bad in my life: I was truly beautiful.
This is evident even despite the purple-striped oxygen mask covering my entire face except for my eyes. Turning in front of the reflection, I examined my figure—I have a narrow waist, wide hips, a round, firm butt, and a high chest.
Perhaps I should thank my oppressors for this—I have a new, artificially grown body, where a robotized surgeon of the Trading League, who remained from the pre-singularity times, transplanted my brain, with the necessary knowledge in optics required by the Fundjanins.
Unfortunately, due to technological regression, my new body will age several times faster than usual. But this is not what I should hate the Fundjanins for—if not for this body, I would already be dead. Nevertheless, I don’t have much time. It seems to me that I have very little time to live. Therefore, I believe that my life should burn brightly and quickly, like a fluorine jet[6] ignited in the atmosphere of Mars, erupting from a rocket engine.
That’s why, overcoming the fear of punishment, I’m going up the hill, which blocks the view to the West and Earth, past the cable car station, where a cabin is arriving right now. Just in case, I speed up, hoping to get away before the people in the cabin approach the software barrier surrounding the settlement.
I run, and my pipboy automatically starts supplying more oxygen from the shoulder tank. My breathing, so noisy in this cheap nogfler mask, is even louder now.
I manage to run up to the barrier before anyone from the arrivals appears on the path to the settlement. A red, semi-transparent wall appears before my eyes. I try to take a step, but my muscles no longer obey me, and a message appears before my eyes:
>> Settlement N42 guard demon. Attention! Suspicious activity detected and blocked. Nogfler 116.114.97.112, codename Astra. State your reason for leaving the settlement.
I’m at a loss for words and don’t know what to answer the digital guard. I glance at the keyboard and write the first thing that comes to mind:
“Maintaining physical fitness. Running up and down the hill.”
But then I remember that the biochip in the Sector is programmed for nogflers to periodically stimulate unused muscles, no matter how unpleasant it may be for us, which allows us to maintain physical fitness even if a nogfler stays in bed for months, if someone were to allow us to do so.
The guard demon hesitates for a few seconds and predictably writes in red before my eyes:
>> Access denied.
Meanwhile, a group of unnaturally lively miners in their orange-striped overalls exits from the tower to which the cable car docked. They are drugged, and the Sector forcibly injects all the noggflers engaged in heavy work with narcotics through their pip-boys.
And of course, among them is Duper! Nervously looking around, I try to push through the program barrier. Of course, I can’t do it, but Duper easily overcomes the barrier from the other side and first grabs my ass, then grabs me and noisily kisses my ear. His eyes are insane, with huge black pupils—although all people on Mars carry UV resistance in their genes, those who work in heavy industries don’t live long because they go blind from solar UV radiation, and useless slaves are not needed by the Sector.
For some reason, dark glasses are forbidden for noggflers. I think the Fundjanins did this for safety reasons, for the facial recognition system to work if identification by chip fails for some reason.
I feel disgust and try to break free from the drugged miner’s grip, almost forgetting about the pipe, which I almost dropped. The last thing filled me with horror, and I thought that I should use my mind, where Duper has no advantage, unlike physical strength. Trying to ignore the strong hands covered in wrinkles and chemical burns, greedily groping me, I connect to the demon, feverishly typing and sending:
“Report of violation of the First Night Law. Noggfler personal number 99.97.105.115.101.114 is trying to get what belongs only to the Fundjans and before the report applicant came of age.”
A red message appears before my eyes:
>> A report on violation has been received. Security measures have been taken in the form of muscular collapse of the noggler 99.97.105.115.101.114, nicknamed Duper.
The tight grip of his hands loosens, and we tumble down onto the red-and-black sand in the light of the setting sun. I fall on top of Duper, but it doesn’t hurt him. Instead, I knock the wind out of him, and he starts coughing.
The pipe hits his helmeted head, bounces off, and rolls away. In a panic, I jump up and run towards the pipe, but with relief, I see that it’s still intact. I quickly send a new command:
“Request for urgent work on Project Sharp Eye. Access to the hill and observation of the settlement from above at night after sunset is required to catch any potential rare bugs in the pipe firmware.”
The computer calculates something for a few moments in its electronic guts, located tens of kilometers away in the data center in the Capital City, and then it’s part, a chatbot, gives me a response:
>> Application approved. Information about the application and the provided access has been sent to the project manager, el fundjan named Geezer.
I realize that tomorrow I will have big problems. But that will be tomorrow, and now I’m free as a bird, a flying animal on old Earth, and I run, fly up the hill slope, and don’t even feel too upset when a message flashes before my eyes:
>> Violation report not confirmed. Nogfler 99.97.105.115.101.114, nicknamed Duper, did not violate the sexual inviolability of the applicant and, according to his statement, did not plan to.
A moment later, I also receive a telepathic message, sent via Sector’s Network to my neural chip from Duper:
“I just wanted warmth, kindness, and understanding. You are so beautiful and soft. And we have so little time left. Are you sure you want to die alone?” accompanied by the emotion of loneliness, although I’m sure in reality Duper felt nothing but lust.
Of course, I ignore the message and briskly skip up the rocks of the hill because the suit’s footwear is not designed for such journeys and will sink into the sand. Around me, it gradually gets dark. I see the road worse and worse.
Once, I fail to jump to a rock and fall. In slow, reduced gravity, Mars’s fall, as always, I manage to extend my free hand, more worried about the tube. Of course, I don’t get any bruises thanks to the same reduced gravity and the tight suit. I read that people on Earth often received injuries from falls.
I stand up, dust off my knee-length suit from dust, and turn on the flashlight on the Pip-Boy with the power of my mind, stretching my hand with the tube and implanted computer forward. I switch between different colors, trying red, green, and stopping at blue, which, as it seems to me, better corresponds to the atmosphere of the moment.
A blue beam of light with a narrow cone snatches the steep, rising slope of the hill from the swiftly plunging darkness of the surroundings. I continue to jump up, but now more slowly and carefully. The top of the hill appears, and here I am at the top. I turn off the flashlight not to spoil the view. Ahead of me, a blue dawn[7], and behind me, the lights of the settlement.
I feel an unprecedented emotional uplift and enjoy the moment, looking around, fixing this view in my memory. Even though I’ve seen sunsets many times, especially before being enslaved, I still haven’t forgotten how to appreciate the beauty of the moment.”
When I get bored, I decide to work and earn some justification before my superiors. I debug the pipeline firmware program around the settlement, running the tube between the lights and the illuminated barrels of buildings. The image isn’t always stable, so I keep a semi-transparent window with the source code of the stabilization script[8] in front of my eyes, controlling the stabilization. Honestly, I’m not too good at programming, so I have to learn on the fly. Nevertheless, I’m finally satisfied when the program works, and I come up with an “excuse” for why I started looking at Earth — “obviously” to catch possible rare bugs. I feel that I’m starting to freeze and that I’m dressed too lightly, so I gather my courage and aim the tube at the evening and morning star[9]—at Earth.
Notes
note1
The Martian year is approximately twice as long as the Earth’s year, so in one of the known versions of the Martian calendar, months are duplicated—the first and second April, for example
Note2
This refers to the technological singularity concept, where humanity creates an artificial intelligence smarter than humans, which in turn creates an even smarter artificial intelligence, and the process is repeated multiple times, forever changing the face of civilization, as well as the place of humans in it.
Note3
La is female article in Spanish. Author decided to use it to show society changes. The main language on Mars is English-Chinese pidgin, and English had hard Spanish influence.
Note4
The Armstrong limit is the line in Earth’s atmosphere (19 km) above which humans cannot survive without a spacesuit since water, including that in blood, boils at the temperature of the human body. Currently, going out into open space, also known as extravehicular activity, requires a spacesuit and several hours of preparation. Even at the lowest point on Mars, the pressure is below the Armstrong limit. The author believes that the survival of an isolated human colony on Mars is very difficult, in large part because you cannot just go out onto the street like on Earth
Note5
El is a male article in Spanish
note 6
Strictly speaking, this is the Martian atmosphere, or rather its main component—carbon dioxide - will burn in fluorine.
note 7
Due to the sparse atmosphere that remained so even after terraforming, sunrises and sunsets on Mars are not red like on Earth but blue.
Note 8
Script - a type of program that does not require preparation (compilation) for its launch. In this case, you can edit the script and immediately see the results.</footnote>
Note 9
Inner planets, which on Earth are Venus and Mercury, are visible in the morning and evening. On Mars, the Earth is added to the morning planets, which is brighter than both other inner planets.
