Buried in the Past, J.L.

Jones 1

It sucks to peak too early.

Buried in the Past

The bay windows tint in reaction to the growing intensity of the sun and to

those inside the shielded office the outside world is undergoing an eclipse. The

summit being held in this corporate building concerning the destiny of a once

great man, whose signature long ebony black hair has gone gray, is in stalemate.

None of the proposals seem profitable to four men with bloodshot eyes and too

much power as they sit sipping green tea in the temperature conference room.

Two oversized gold pens fall off on to the floor after being flung from the end of

the maple conference table like the bolt of a crossbow as heads shake in

disappointment.

The once great man with a haggard face apologizes for flinging the pens,

sits back in plush leather chair and supplicates that the tale be read again. Each

powerbroker, each wearing a tan suit, shuffle and scan the thick linen paper

again. They decide to hold a recess so each man can inspect the document

without the distractions of the other’s gazes. The once great man buries his face

in his hands, and places his elbows on the grand conference table. He thinks I

have nothing more. The other read.

Buried in the Past, J.L. Jones 2

Dueling captured asteroids that have become minor moons run across the sky like

the horrific horses they were named after. In a perpetual race, their combined gravitation

deflects three small gold plated probes into an orbit that is degrading. The thin

atmosphere begins to spark and the reliquaries of exploration vaporize. From the

northern polar weather station, the overcast is a fading bloody rose as the fine iron dust

storms from the equator causes a lock down in the compounds of Vallis Marineris. The

frequency of the violent squalls have increased as many journalists report the cause as the

failed attempts of past meteorological experiments. The scientists declare that it will be

only one more year of enduring the inclement conditions until the revitalization of the

biosphere is completed and stable. This positive proclamation is expected but not

believed by the weary citizenry. The population knows the politicians have panicked in

their current uncertain conditions. The pressing need to evacuate survivors of the global

war on Tellus had set the reconditioning process forward more rapidly than anticipated.

The population has many misgivings about the supposed progress and continues the

normal routine of survival.

The tempest gains velocity as it is forced into the great chasm and the forefront of

the system begins to assail all peripheral outposts. The new construction sites are

abandoned and most of the people prepare for another lockdown. Two post-graduate

students at the Lowell Academy in the Wells colony decide to take the civic order as a

furtive opportunity to explore the recently uncovered high mountainside caverns outside

their dome observation facility. Both enthusiastically get into their identical pressure

suits but hesitate to enclose themselves entirely with the new less hefty helmets.
Buried in the Past, J.L. Jones 3

The winds are light but lie in ambush. The eager explorers know the gusts will

come soon so they initialize a precarious thrust procedure and rapidly propel the sleek

silvery-blue diamond shaped hovercraft across the surging capricious dunes. The

students just evade the escalating edge of disruptive pressure and reach the entrance. The

code will not work.

The gusts of fine dust, prehistoric pumice and carbon dioxide begin to dance in

vortices causing pressurization leaks in the cockpit. The environmental suits activate in

caution mode without their consent. The digital data stream transmits again as the

massive star yellow ceramic doors recede into the mountain face. The students rush forth

but are abruptly jolted to a full stop. The automated systems have taken over as they

slowly proceed to the airlock. Pressurization commences and all the fail-safe redundant

precautions are followed. The ascent up into the corridors that will guide them to an

inner underworld moves meticulously and halts at every level.

“Vick,” the pilot says with authority and motions to get the other’s attention, “I

think we are stuck here for at 20 standard hours after the storm dissipates.”

“I hope not Giovanni, but the cavern’s larder is full. We have our student

credentials to access the supplies if we must.”

“So after we take off these suits, should we go to the main vein or to the smaller

shafts to the left?”

“Giovanni, stop with the phallus references. Sorry, but I’m not in the mood,”

Vick says with forced half smile.

“I didn’t realize that. Funny though. So which way?” Giovanni asks in a taciturn

but serious voice. Vick shrugs.

Buried in the Past, J.L. Jones 4

Being more technical minded and familiar with these jaunts, Giovanni practically

sheds his suit in an apparent wave of his hands. A being of lithe dexterity and motion, he

practically levitates while subtly positioning his posture to proceed left. He is statuesque

in height compared to most dwellers of Neo-Nergal as his skin is that of pulverized

quartz crystal with a haggard narrow face with close set large eyes. Goivanni is an

unimpressive student and comports too easily with the rest of colony. He has gone

unnoticed by the proctors and determiners. This innocuous condition is his motivation for

this excavation in the dust tempest. He is a person of the program, not a designer as he

wishes to be. His hubris and ambition override his fear of the weather.

Vick having lived on Earth for a while is more muscled than anyone else in the

academy and has a pigment to his skin that no other person on the planet currently has.

His complexion is a luminous ocher conveyed through an alabaster white integument

with pink and red tinted blotches. His stride is direct and almost lumbering. His short

frame served him well on Earth with the greater gravity, but here he has trouble reaching

access consoles and fitting into transports. One benefit to his physiology is that his debts

are lower. He needs less energy to condition his apartment due to the fact that he retains

heat much more effectively than most of the residents of the planet. However, a

modicum of resentment of his unusual genetics resides in every task that does not go as

expected for him. Vick is vain and impressed by his own physical prowess. He is

stronger and his vision is almost unnaturally acute compared to the rest of the populous.

These attributes are due to his blended Martian/Earthling ancestry and this has been a

long fought issue of contention while living alone at the academy. These traits and

incessant competition developed his resolve and fortitude. He takes risks where many
Buried in the Past, J.L. Jones 5

will not.

They carefully gather their excavation tools, survival gear and extra oxygen. The

hovercraft is secured and locked in place. Giovanni has already taken the subconscious

lead as they continue left. The aged abysmal caverns are a comfortable, artificially

regulated, temperature but get increasingly warmer as they explore down into the depths.

The network appears to be mineshafts previously bored out eons ago but are still smooth

dark tubes. Vick contemplates the relative strength of the stone as the crust was forged at

the beginning of the solar system. It has perpetually held up a mountain but in less

extreme conditions than what exist now one the surface. Soon a low repetitive infra-

sound rumble is heard unlike any the men have experienced before and surmise it is just

the storm above. They dismiss the sounds in their alacrity to make discoveries.

Hours pass and the tedious observations on the tunnel’s chemical structure wear

on their eyes so they cease activity. Both simultaneously put down the large hand held

scanners and Giovanni pulls an energy bar from his pocket. They lean with force against

the almost frictionless polished wall face of thickly layered divisions of discolored carbon

black strata and coruscating rock veins. The rumbling again resounds and increases in

amplitude as the rock face behind them fails and falls away. They tumble in tandem ten

feet down into a perfect cubical compartment.

“What on Mars was that?” Giovanni yells with distress.

“That was no dust tempest squall, that was geological activity. I thought the

planet was dead for now?”

“I thought so too. The remoltenization isn’t scheduled for awhile,” Giovanni

scantly surveys the unnatural room and a shimmer catches his eye and he tries to focus
Buried in the Past, J.L. Jones 6

his weaker vision, “What is that black box over there in the corner?”

“Get it. The evaluation fees for our dissertations may be sitting right on the

floor,” Vick says and rushes over to the corner with Giovanni. They grab it at the same

time as Vick allows Giovanni to hold it first. He brings it up to his face and sees English

on the side. Before he is able to remark, a hazy hologram projects halfway into the wall

so he brings it to the center of the room. The image resolves and the amazed students

listen with jaws agape.

A simulacrum of a man with thin black hair and round face struggles to pull up a

disheveled coverall environmental suit that appears to have been stained brown. Small

patches of the underlying synthetic gray textile are scattered on the suit as the brown

stains grow. He stands diminutive even more so than the five inch hologram can project.

The pain he is suffering is apparent to both students. The man crosses his arms against

his atrophied chest and stares with defiance and a singular serious facade of paramount

importance.

“I am Dr. Copern and I hope no one ever sees this as I hope to present my

findings to the world council in Geneva. If not, I am dead and I do not know who has

killed me but if you are not one of those persons who did, then you must get these

discoveries to the legitimate academic world, and if you killed me, I am gone but the

truth is not. First, we are Martians, and I don’t mean it in a jingoistic sense. We truly are

at least part Martian. In my explorations I found a small fossil or what I though was, and

put it through a genetic reader and found it was not an organism but an organic storage

device of what happened to Mars over a million years ago. I ran it though a translating

program and found the most crucial knowledge humanity has ever uncovered. The
Buried in the Past, J.L. Jones 7

molten core had cooled greatly and the spinning slowed because of its small size

compared with Earth and the magnetic field was weakening so the atmosphere was

breaking down and radiation was getting through. Oh, I should say there was a

civilization here on Mars well before Earth and they look like us, to an extent. So the

planet was dying and they had probed Earth but it was still too primitive for the Martians

but in the hour of need they designed a gateway… craaaaapulltiii.” The image disperses

into the universe momentarily but fights to stay in this dimension.

“Vick, what do think just happened to the recording?”

“I do not know?” A rumble from the tremors once again startles the students.

Giovanni shakes the device and it begins again.

“named Adameva, yes you are correct by thinking it sounds like Adam and Eve. I

have the proof, I just hope you honest bearers of truth can find it in the other

compartment. If not you are scoundrels and these are, my discoveries alone!” They

look at each other with apprehension and anxiety as the recording breaks up again and

then comes back louder.

“The device transported only two thousand Martians to Earth as the others took a

portal to what seems to be as they said “the Future”. The device then obliterated all that

was left including the buildings and atmosphere because of the counter reactive energy

created by fabricating such a doorway. It hurled rocks and debris into space. A hundred

years ago, some American scientists actually found some of these in the Antarctic but

thought the Martian meteorites were from an impact with a comet or an Ort cloud object

that sent them to Earth. This exodus appears to have happened at the dawn of man and

the myths of Adam and Eve are genetic memory of this event as well as the invasion
Buried in the Past, J.L. Jones 8

stories that are left over from the primitive primate brain. And yes they called themselves

Atlans, yes the story of Atlantis! Oh my here comes someone, no I mean you no harm

arrrrgggh!” The projection goes silent.

“So should we find the other device?” Giovanni asks without ardor.

“They are antiques, but not that rare?” Vick asks with a tangible discomfort.

“No forget it. Those recorders are nothing. I guess his story never got out, thank

Aries for that, otherwise the hybridization of our violent lower castes with the Homo

Erectus slave race never would have accepted us with such open arms. They did do a

good job building cities and turning them to rubble as they eliminated themselves though.

Now how many are left, what a million? The rest have been blended with the population

that decided to live on that ravaged planet,” Giovanni says as he looks around the room

quickly. He begins to speak slowly again, “That gravity there sure weakened the lower

caste to the point where the gases saturated their blood and drove them mad before a cure

was found. The indigenous diseases also amassed a hefty toll before the genome

merging. But the slave race worked out for awhile. We even saved some of the names to

preserve their accomplishments and remember them by.”

“But we also lost much of our memory in passing through the gateway and

needed new names. Can I have the holographic device? It could get a few credits at

auction or I could start a collection. It is a thousand years old probably? In any case it is

a good place to begin. So can I have it?” Vick pleads.

“Sure, I know how much you like your pets and their and I guess your partial

history,” Giovanni says condescendingly. Vick hears a reverberating underlying growl

before Giovanni and instinctually senses danger is coming. The caverns of past
Buried in the Past, J.L. Jones 9

discovery implode. The reactivation of the newly modified spinning molten core has

occurred ahead of schedule. A weak but growing magnetic field comes to Mars again as

a celestial shield. The students were not the only ones to take advantage of the storm

with all of the population protected indoors. The scientists and politicians rejoice in the

capital buildings because soon the red skies will transform to blue once again. The

consummate leaders will retain their ranks and survey the future from their posts in the

government lofts on top of Olympus Mons. For now the reincarnation begins as streams

of violet violates twilight. A pure purple projecting through the low levels of refractory

atmosphere as the illusory images of the dimly illuminated colonial domes reflect the first

cascading aurora in an epoch. The last gasp of playful plasma emissions from all the

habitats’ generators evanesce as the planetary breath exhales a nascent zenith as night

starts to swallow all the colors. Not before one blithe beacon calls to the struggling dying

scarlet horizon of the present for help, one last time.

The recess is taken. Some of the producers decide to just go home and

find other projects to worry about. Each personage was persona non grata but

now they look bothered as they enter and go to sit down and discuss the

problems. The chairs spin around the long oval writer’s room table being filled

with only one writer and four producers. They are there but quite distant in

thoughts of home, especially high thread count sheets. The writer explains his

allegory and the producers have heard it a thousand times before and one gives

the project a maybe. The others get up and leave to fight traffic and falling

asleep at the wheel. The three exiting do not speak but think, he’s over with.
Buried in the Past, J.L. Jones 10

The remaining producer, a giant of a man in both stature and capability in

the industry, is a friend that started out with the writer. He chews on his lower lip

in five exaggerated chomps and takes in a long deep breath and slowly exhales.

“Listen, I may be able to get this to straight to video if the script is better

than this story slash treatment deal. Yes, you hit all the sci/fi elements of mythos

and time travel and reasons why people feel special and unique in the universe.

In fact, if this was done even twenty years ago it could have been a revolution.

Now, it is just the same old combine and conquer the old bullshit. The next sci/fi

story, oh I’m sorry what you writers like to call speculative fiction now, stay away

from the local solar system and religion. You know don’t even do that, try

something with lots of technical jargon so you can enthrall and distract the

audience from the fact there are no more stories to tell. Wait, before you start

telling me that you can find the new narrative voice, stop! People don’t want a

new form. They want the old like you did here but no so obvious and they want

trivial details not poetry like your earlier work. You know what? Write a

screenplay about a family breaking down and I will get you enough money to live

on for a lifetime. Your past would prove profitable in that venture. So I will try

with this but, no guarantees. And don’t write any sci/fi unless it is only science, I

mean hard science that solves mysteries that are feasible here on Earth and not

with pivotal consequences to the destiny of mankind. I’m going now but just

remember not everything can be a resplendent success. Cheer up! Just recall

what you did in the past. Now that was something!”

Buried in the Past, J.L. Jones 11