The Martian Conspiracies, Chapter One

"Do you think something bad happened?"

"Nah, I wouldn't worry too much about it. It's probably just a false alarm. I mean, why wouldn't the security guards contact us if it was something important?"

"Yeah, you got a point there."

The two officers got out of their vehicle and moved to the front door of the massive central pillar. Habitat Atmospheric Regulator Facility was printed on the door. Around the pillar were six similarly massive bumps which housed the life support mechanisms for the colony. The top of the column met with the transparent dome separating the colony's atmosphere from the Martian sky, and below where they converged, huge pipes snaked out in all directions, barely visible in the city lights that illuminated the night.

"Honestly, Mel, you can just stay out here. Like I said, I don't think anything's really happening. I'll be right back out."

"You sure you're good alone, Ed?"

"Yeah, I'm good. Just gotta get a statement from the guards, procedural shit." Ed opened the door. "I'll see you in a minute."

"Alright, I'll wait by the door. I just got a bad feeling about this."

Both their radios chirped. "This is dispatch, we have a report of domestic violence at 422 Mendeleev Avenue, are there any officers in the area?" Mendeleev Avenue was just a few blocks away.

Ed looked at Mel and nodded. "Go on ahead, I can finish up here," he said.

Mel nodded back and headed towards the cruiser. "Dispatch, this is Officer Fuller, I'm on my way," he said into his radio. Ed closed the door behind him.

Ed headed to the security station in the back, only to find it empty. He peered in the window, trying to see anyone in the dim light.

"Hello? Anybody here?" He knocked on the window. "Red Star 8 Police Department, is everything okay in there?" The glow of the security monitors flooded the room from the right, but Ed couldn't quite see them. He tried the door, which opened. A bad sign; the security station was supposed to be locked anytime it was unoccupied. Still, it could be a simple mistake, right?

Ed entered and took stock of the security monitors. Nobody in reception, obviously, he had just gone through there, nobody in the break room, nobody in that hallway... Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement on one of the monitors, labelled HAR MECHANISM 6. There were several people on the monitor, which was cycling through the cameras. Ed counted about 14, only two of which were wearing security uniforms. The other 12 were in fatigues, street clothes, or some combination thereof. Ed grabbed his radio.

"Dispatch, this is Officer Harris, is there supposed to be any kind of maintanence work on the HAR right now?"

"This is dispatch, we have not been informed of any maintanence."

"Then we have possible intruders in the HAR facility. I'm going to check Mech 6, if I don't check in again in 15 minutes, send backup."

"Acknowledged. We will have units on standby."

Ed quickly made his way to the mechanism room and opened the door to see five sets of eyes staring at him in front of the giant life support machine. It towered above them, pipes and tanks and vents and catwalks twisting around to fill out the bump it occupied, with enough space in and around them for maintanence people to fit through. A couple more heads poked out from the machinery, and Ed made note of the two wearing security uniforms.

"I'm Ed Harris with RS8 Police Department. I'm responding to an automated tampering alarm. What's going on here?"

An older man in fatigues ran out from inside the maintanence area on the ground level. "You're too late! We're putting an end to your godless science experiment!"

Ed looked around the room.

"Science experiment?"

"Don't play dumb with me! These machines are spewing out tons of poison, and it ends now! We've planted explosives in all the machines, all around the vital points, so you'll never be able to fix them." The rest of the crew Ed saw on the monitor began to emerge from all around the machine. He even noticed a couple on the catwalks above. Ed recounted and found 17 people, including the security guards. No way he was going to be able to take on all of them. He lifted his radio from his shoulder.

"Dispatch, this is Officer Harris, requesting immediate backup and a negotiator to the HAR facility."

"This is dispatch, what's the situation?"

"I've got some people here claiming they've set up explosives around the HAR mechanisms."

"Copy that, sending backup now."

The man in fatigues pointed at Ed. "That won't work! We've got the power of God on our side!"

"Hey now," said Ed, "why don't we talk this out? I've got someone coming who can speak with you about it."

"The time for talk is over! We're done with the HARs spewing out chemicals like chlorine and sulphur! Right, everyone?" The man's statement was met with cheers of approval.

Ed wasn't sure what to say. The guy was clearly off his rocker, and his little crew must have been, too, if they went along with this. What could he possibly say that wouldn't make the situation worse? Then, the old man pulled out a box with a red button and extended an antenna from it.

"Wait!" shouted Ed. The man stared at him as he scrambled to think of what to say. "What do you mean, spewing out chemicals?"

"Have you read Oracle News?"

It took all the strength Ed had to not roll his eyes. That idiotic conspiracy rag, of course.

"The HARs are putting out chemicals to make us sterile. It's all about controlling the populace!"

"Sir, I can assure you, the HARs do nothing of the sort."

"I knew it! You're in on it! I've had enough of your lies. I've had enough of everyone's lies! With the press of this button, I will free us all from your tyrrany!"

"Stop! You'll be killed!"

The man paused for a moment, his face filled with righteous indignation as he once again stared Ed down. "Killed? I think not! God protects his children, and we are children of God! Let this be a testament to our faith that we trusted Him to deliver us from these cleansing flames!" he said before pressing the button.

Ed ducked and covered. Nothing happened for a moment; he almost looked up when a series of loud explosions erupted, followed by a storm of clangs and thuds. He waited another second, and looked up. The head of the man who he had just been talking to laid just feet away from him, the rest of the body spread out in a trail of chunks behind it. The next thing he noticed was the fire suppression drones flying out of their cubby holes and attempting to control the flames that were coming from the HAR. He looked around to see body parts and smears of blood, limbs peeking out from rubble. Behind him, he saw one of the people from on the catwalks splattered on the ground in two mostly intact pieces.He heard a voice cry out and looked up above to the catwalks. One of the walkways was dangling, and holding on to it for dear life was the other person he saw up there before the explosions. She was struggling to pull her legs up, to try and climb up to more stable ground, more stable ground which was no longer there, as the rest of the catwalk on that level had fallen away. Ed could only watch as her hand slipped. She fell, screaming, her life ending with a heavy thud.

"Dispatch to all units, what just happened?"

"This is Captain Murmu, we're just now getting into the parking lot. Looks like there were a bunch of explosions at the HAR facility."

Ed lifted his radio to his mouth. "Officer Harris here. I'm on the scene, and I can confirm those were explosions." He looked up at what was left of the mechanism, which was now leaning to the side.

"Officer Harris, this is Admin Mohamed, I'm the emergency on-call for the facility. Are you in immediate danger?"

Ed looked around. The fire suppression drones seemed to have the fires subdued.

"I'm in Mech 6, the HAR is on fire, but the drones are starting to get the flames under control."

"Okay, good. I need you to leave Mech 6, first of all, and then I need you to go to your left, and then take the next right, there should be a monitoring station there. If you can't get to it, just leave the facility and the fire department will take care of it."

"Okay. I can do that." Ed got up, trying not to dwell on the horror show surrounding the HAR, and made his way out of Mech 6. He shuffled down the hallway, then up the next, until he came to the monitoring station, which amounted to two screens on a desk in an alcove.

"This is Harris, I'm at the monitoring station."

"Good, do you see the part that looks like a circle with six other circles around it? What color are the circles?"

"They're all red, sir."

"Okay, can you please click on the button that says diagnostic on it and give me the admin code?"

Ed did so. A terminal window popped up, and several hundred lines of text whizzed by, most of them including the word error. Finally, the terminal stopped spitting out text. At the bottom, the admin code appeared.

"Blue alpha 1-667190-W, sir."

"Oh sweet lord."

Ed paused. He hadn't heard a whiff of panic from the admin before he gave that code.

"Admin, is something wrong?"

The administrator cleared his throat. "Well, officer, in simple terms, that code means all the HAR mechanisms are total losses. We'll have to evacuate the colony."

"The portable HAR units won't provide enough oxygen?"

"The HAR system doesn't provide oxygen, it regulates ratios of atmospheric compounds, cleans contaminents from the air, that sort of thing. The algae bays provide most of our oxygen. In any case, those portable units are for maintanence only, so they only have a sixth of the capacity of one of the facility's HAR mechanisms. Besides that, we only have four, and-"

"This is dispatch, cut the chatter."

"Right, Officer Harris, this is Captain Murmu, please get your partner and vacate the facility."

"Uh, sir, my partner's responding to the domestic at Mendeleev Avenue."

There was a moment of silence before the radio chirped again. "He's WHAT?"

"Well, sir, I told him to because I didn't think-"

"I don't care what you thought, procedure is procedure for a reason. We're going to have a talk when we get back to the station. Understood?"

"Understood, sir."

"Good. Now please leave the facility."

"Yes, sir, leaving now," said Ed, already making for the exit.