Z gazed out the window as she mulled over the experience ahead. Drifts and dunes of cumin and paprika passed beneath them; heat waves rose like punches that knocked the plane around the sky. It was nearly 150 degrees down on the surface, she told herself, an extreme environment, but no less extreme than the surface of Mars—just hotter. That must be why Logisen chose to put their training facility here: some sort of arid landscape immersion. Dunlap sat across the aisle, focused on answering messages. He had been mum about the whole experience—said he wanted to get her unvarnished reaction.
The plane touched down and the pilot made haste to taxi it off the superheated tarmac and onto the refrigerated floor of the hangar. Z and Dunlap stepped through the hatch into the bubble of cool air and a waiting car. The car sped out a side door and down a broad boulevard lined with ornamental gravel. The air pulsed. Against an adobe wall lay a tobacco-skinned corpse, a transient who, having drunk and drugged too much, had succumbed to heat and dehydration. Most people didn't even trust their autons to get them safely through these temperatures, but the Logisen autonomous had tires made special for the climate. Their destination was Phoenix 1.5, one of the early underground business centers built before contractors had mastered large scale underground development. Phoenix 1.5 had become too small to compete against developments with free-spanning atriums large enough to simulate the expansiveness of life on the surface.
The car sped through the old city, past skyscrapers that now stood empty, built with inadequate insulation during a time of a more hospitable desert. Life above ground was coming to an end in cities like Phoenix. The poor, who could not afford to live underground, had given up and joined a northward heat bowl migration. Developers had saved a remnant of Phoenix by creating viable sub-surface campuses, complete with worker housing. The location and names of these developments were marked by two-storey-high letters against concrete and dirt-insulated domes crowning the structures below—Gila River, Queen Creek, Avondale.
The car continued north and approached a dome labeled Ares. A large, industrial door opened and the car drove out of the sun and into a giant circular room bathed in artificial light and lush with green crops and orchards. Planters fed by hydroponics were stacked on racks ten feet high, where workers on scaffolds tended the crops. Rows of short, bioengineered trees sprouted lemons and oranges. Dunlap watched Z’s expression of stunned surprise.
“It’s like the farms in the City of Ghosts,” she said, watching the gardens pass beside the car. “This is probably how they looked when the City was alive.”
At the entrance, the auton had been scanned and its occupants identified. Only then was their hostess cleared to greet them. Allee had come to America from Senegal to study biochemistry at a New England university. There, she had begun to experiment with ways to grow buildings and realized that biology might provide an explanation for the substance the Martians had used as a ubiquitous building material. Today, she was the official greeter for Logisen’s most esteemed guest. As the auton reached the entry foyer, Allee held her slender frame board straight, so her white and sand tunic hung like starched and ironed drape from her shoulders.
The door to the car swung up and Z stepped out directly in front of Allee. Z looked up to meet eyes and saw the arc of slender wire across Allee’s forehead.
“Good morning, Commander Nasri. Welcome to Ares,” she said politely. “Good morning, Mr. Dunlap.” Z eyed Allee’s device; it resembled the Martian headpiece—stones at the temples, an arc of wire across the forehead—but attached to the arc, traversing the space above her eyes was a narrow slice of optical glass.
“What are you wearing?” Z asked with an unintentional tone of skepticism.
“We call it a ThreadBand. It is not as advanced as your headpiece. We’re prototyping.”
Z shot a glance at Dunlap, who looked surprised as well, and then looked back to Allee. “What does it do?”
“Commander, I could demonstrate it to you, but there are others here more qualified than I. I am a biomaterials engineer. I occupy that place. Now, please follow me. Oros is waiting to meet you. He will introduce you to our ThreadBand.”
They stepped through a revolving door and into the foyer. A double-width elevator descended to a platform overlooking the giant central atrium of what had once been a shopping mall. Three-storeys beneath them, young men and women walked in a chain along a narrow, meandering path. Seeing Z’s interest in them, the hostess explained, “They are performing a walking meditation. We have many exercises here to help train individuals to think as a group. In this one, each person walks deliberately, imitating as exactly as possible the movements of the person in front of them. Since the chain forms a circle, no single individual acts as the leader.”
Z studied them. “How long do they do this for?”
“This group is still learning. They will walk for two hours like this. The most advanced will meditate like this for hours on end. Come, follow me.” Allee led them along a terrace through arbors of potted vines. Storefronts lining their path had been converted into labs and work spaces. Inside, people toiled at their tasks, just as they would in any work environment, except Z noticed their ThreadBands projecting input controls and keyboards onto surfaces. Z pointed them out to Dunlap.
“Not that different from a tablet interface,” she noted. “Just miniaturized for the headband.”
Along the walkway they encountered a flow of pedestrians talking among themselves, but also interacting with their ThreadBands. Z caught snippets of conversations as she passed.
“Meet Albert.”
“… I’ve thought it through and it will require practice and tweaking…”
“That’s what he loves about his family…”
Hearing and understanding the conversations as she passed revealed them to be just random and mundane. Z thought back to the gentle burble of Martian conversations she picked up as she traversed the City. They were probably just as mundane, but seemed significant to her at the time because she could not decipher them.
Allee led them into a high-ceilinged courtyard, with overgrown planters and a few trees. It was bathed in sunlight from a number of solartubes. Allee quietly left. At one end stood a man in colorful, loose linen pants and shirt.
“Looks like an apostle in vacation clothes,” Dunlap snickered into Z’s ear.
The man walked toward them and held out his hand. “I am Oros. Welcome. Ms Nasri, I am honored to have this opportunity to be your host.”
Z smiled. “Thank you for having me. I take it this is where the Logisen mission specialists are training?”
“This is one of the locations for their training.” He motioned them to a railing overlooking the atrium. “This entire space is an experiment in recreating the Martian culture. Everyone you see is Marked, everyone has been trained in accordance with your descriptions of the City of Spirits, Ms Nasri.” He swept his arm toward the atrium, alive with the bustle of a large town square. “Behold, your work.”
Z looked at Dunlap, then at Oros. “I don’t think I understand your connection.”
Oros smiled. “I apologize. This must be a surprise to you. Let me begin our tour in our social research center.” With that, he walked briskly along the terrace, motioning them to follow. He chuckled as they stepped onto the escalator and it jolted into operation. “Our version of the Conveyor.”
At the bottom of the escalator, Oros crossed to another converted storefront and gestured as they entered. “Here it is, our social research center.”
Z took-in the room. It looked part research library, part brainstorming conference room. A handful of people sat at viewing screens, while a group sat in discussion around a table with a large digital workscreen on the wall near them.
“We, or I, began working on this the moment you made your first discovery, Ms Nasri. You may not have realized it, but your mission produced zettabytes of information during the five months you surveyed the City of Spirits—much of it in the public domain. It was too much for me, alone, but very soon I found the support of Mr. Ross and Logisen, who financed acquiring and renovating this space, and staffing this research.” Oros pointed to the people at the viewing screens. “These researchers are going through your videos and scans in minute detail. Your recordings are the most valuable, Ms Nasri, because you describe the actions of the inhabitants of the City. Our researchers code your descriptions in small vignettes of activities. AI compares those vignettes with known interactions on Earth and begins to extrapolate a social structure. We have paleographers studying the symbols you recorded—we think they are phonetic glyphs, but we are still working at understanding their meaning.”
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Z looked at him with surprise; this was comparable to NASA’s research—maybe better. “And have you been able to translate any symbols?”
“We are looking at a very old language that probably influenced our languages on Earth. We see elements that appear in Aramaic, the language of your ancestors, Ms Nasri, but we haven’t been able to translate meaning, yet, probably because their self-limited, underground society had few conditions in common with living above ground, on Earth.”
Dunlap pointed. “And those people around the table?”
“We have anthropologists and sociologists stitching together the social fabric that guides life in Ares.”
Z stepped back outside and watched people pass by on the terrace, dressed in flowing cottons and linens, wearing ThreadBands. When Oros joined her, she asked, “And this is what your researchers have prescribed?”
“We live a simulation of the social structure they have defined,” answered Oros.
Z turned to face him. “And who are you, in that structure?”
Oros tilted his head to the side and looked into her eyes. “The closest analog we have found is the Elder…”
Z gave him the look of a skeptic.
Oros continued, “…but since even you don’t know what his role was, we are only approximating.”
“Allee said you would be able to explain the ThreadBands to me.”
“They, too, are an approximation.”
“One would think. They don’t really look like the Martian device.”
“We have taken Earth technology as far as we can. They can’t bridge to the brain, like you have experienced, but we use them to guide our social construct simulation.” Seeing Z’s expression of confusion, Oros added, “The Ares AI guides everyone’s activities in the city through messages on the AR glass. Everyone is scheduled. Everyone is tracked. Everyone performs their function supporting the master plan of the city.”
“That was one of the first questions Ross asked me: were the headpieces in control, or were they controlled?”
“And we acted based on your answer. There is a ubiquitous AI fabric that manages everything.”
“But what about the individual? You can’t turn them into robots.”
“And we don’t—Ms Nasri, please be assured that we don’t try to control their lives. Think of it like an autonomous: the vehicle moves from point A to point B, but it doesn’t affect the activities of the passengers inside it. In fact, by coordinating their mobility, the autonomous enables their success.”
“So,” she said, gesturing to the people in the atrium, “the ThreadBands enable their success.”
“Their success. Our success. Ares. Ms Nasri, we have transformed this abandoned space into a city in less than a year. When each individual is responsible for the whole, we can achieve amazing feats.”
Z glanced over at Dunlap. He had been quiet since their tour began, observing the churning city around them. Oros continued. “You said two very important things when you met with the team. You said it was a harmonious culture. You also said it was a culture where everything worked; where people chose the good of all over the good of the individual. That is what we have achieved, here.”
“But here, any individual could short circuit the plan.”
“That is the advantage of the Martian headpiece: no individual could choose to short circuit the plan. On Mars, they needed the headpiece to navigate society. Meanwhile, it was the headpiece that navigated them.”
Z took exception to Oros’ conclusion. “The people I saw were happy in their lives, not limited.”
“I’m not saying that control needs to be oppressive. They survived a multi-generation interstellar spaceflight to get to our solar system. They lived harmoniously in underground cities for thousands of years.” Oros chuckled to himself. “Can you imagine achieving that without having some coordination of the society?”
They walked past windows revealing room after room of intense working teams.
“What is that, there?” queried Z.
“These are offices—really, they are more than that; they are functions of self-governing. That is where we manage our economy. We operate a global financial entity, just like a country. Each person in that room plays a role in activating a coordinated global economic plan.”
“And does that economy benefit everyone, or only Marked people?”
“It benefits Marked people, but then Marked people benefit everyone. Look at how you have benefitted the world, not just Marked people. And I can tell you that joining our economic plan could give you independence to achieve the things you want for the rest of your life.” Oros smiled pleasantly at Z, light glinting off his ThreadBand. Z smiled back, somewhat enticed by his suggestion. Oros suddenly lifted his eyes to consult the glass across his ThreadBand. “Excuse me,” he said to her. “I have to address a request. I’ll be back in a moment.” He walked calmly around a corner.
Z felt Dunlap poke her shoulder. “Well, what do you think, Z?”
She held her hands out and gestured to the space around them. “I’m impressed. I’d be crazy if I reacted any other way.”
“Yeah, me too. Here we are, in the middle of a desert so hot, dry, and nasty that living on the surface would burn you like a matchstick—and here they’ve created this underground utopia. I can’t help thinking that money alone couldn’t make this happen; this is different thinking. Imagine what a society like this could achieve—the crises we could avert.”
“So you think this is how we solve the world’s problems?”
“This is how we get to the solution. Z, NASA sent you to Mars to manage a geologic survey. If they had known in advance that we would find an ancient city—this incredible culture—do you think they would have put you in charge? No, they would have passed over you even though you have been the best person to lead the mission. I’ll bet Sharp regrets the day he assigned you to Mars Hab 3. He would have preferred some blockhead. That’s the kind of thinking that we need to circumvent.”
“Here’s what worries me, Dunnie. You aren’t Marked. What makes you think Oros and his pals wouldn’t overlook you?”
“They haven’t. Here I am. And what do I get out of it? Z, a horse is stronger than a human, but if you can hitch the horse to a wagon, a human can have a pretty nice ride.”
Oros returned, wearing a gracious smile. “Lunch is ready. We can enjoy it, up in our farm.” He motioned for them to accompany him. Dunlap reached for Z’s arm and held her back for a second.
“You’re obsessed with the Martians, but you think they died with the City.” He turned his head as if to take in his surroundings and encapsulate them in his next thought. “Z, here they are.”
They took the elevator up to the top floor and Oros led them out among the rows of hydroponic plants. “On the next Habitat mission, we’re going to need to restart the Martian farms. Our people will be in charge of that.”
“So that’s the training your mission specialists are getting, here.”
“There’s powerful AI managing all this. The technology we have developed to manage the farms and infrastructure will be important for the Habitat.” Oros led the group along a row leading to a small orchard of fruit trees. In the center stood a dining table, covered with a colorful tablecloth and creamy white ceramics. As they sat, Oros offered wine, a crisp, fruity white he told them was made in the city, from garden fruit.
Z smiled. “It’s nice to know we’ll have something to drink, next time I go up,” Z said, raising her glass.
The meal arrived—a green salad with tomatoes, cucumber, and capers, followed by a chicken ragout. Z was impressed; the food was fresh and tasty and healthier than any meal she had had on her PR tours. “Everything here is from the farm? The chicken?”
Oros laughed. “We do have chickens, but we can’t risk slaughtering them. The vegetables are all grown here; the chicken is engineered meat—tastes as good as the real thing, doesn’t it?”
“Yes it does,” Dunlap replied, before downing a spoon of ragout.
Oros continued, “Everything. Even the plates and the table we eat on were made here.”
Dunlap lifted the tablecloth to see the table construction. “This isn’t wood.”
Again, Oros laughed. “That’s the work of our dear Allee. The table, the plates, they were manufactured with a resin she has grown in her lab.”
“You are completely self-contained, here?” asked Z.
“Not 100%. We generate our own electricity and recycle waste. We get our water from the atmosphere and from an aquifer, the way our ancestors did on Mars. The only thing we take in from the outside is the air. I’ll show you.”
After lunch, Oros led them three storeys down into a fishbowl of a room where technicians sat at workstations. “This is the autonomic center of the city. Here we manage all the essential life support functions. To be fair, we inherited this room and a very basic management system from the original development. They had to manage this environment as strictly as we do. However, with the addition of a sophisticated artificial intelligence we can manage Ares so much more efficiently. Everything, everyone in the ecosystem is managed…”
“Like the brain that managed the City of Spirits,” Z added.
Oros smiled at Z and raised an index finger as if to gently tap her on the end of her nose. “Precisely. When you spoke to us from Mars, we listened. Thank you, Elizabeth.”
Z felt oddly flattered by Oros’ acknowledgement. Here she was, fighting to get NASA to understand the implications of the advanced civilization and mysterious technology they had stumbled upon… when here at Ares, they had absorbed every piece of information she had communicated, studied it, and applied it to creating a functioning, harmonious society.
Oros watched her carefully, then added. “When you return to your world, outside, with its failing, anachronous systems, with people living so far beneath their potential, clawing their way up the Darwinian ladder, think of Ares and imagine everything we’ve done spreading to the cities you visit, all over the world. I ask you, Elizabeth, who do you think can achieve more with a Martian headpiece?”