The Mission From Mars-Christina Long

Christina Long walked into the Red Sands Retirement Center. She was only a couple of years out of college and had started her journalistic career with little notoriety. For the most part, she was an average looking girl. Average height and weight, her long brown hair was pulled back in a pony tail. She didn’t do much to make herself look too noticeable in a crowd. It was better that way because some folks were shy about talking to a reporter.

She worked on local interest stories and was given the assignment of interviewing an old man with a “great story.” Odds were this would be a few paragraphs in a web article and that was it. As far as she figured, this story was going to be something along the lines of him being the descendant of someone famous and wanting to make sure the story got out before his death.
Christina walked in to Room 124. Seated in a chair on the far side of the room was the man she was looking for. “Spiro Wilson?” she asked.

The old man looked up and tried to stand. She waved for him not to and walked up to him. She shook his hand and sat down on his bed. “I understand you have a story for me.”

“Yes.”

“So where would you like to begin?” asked Christina.

Spiro took a long breath of air and said, “I suppose at the beginning. When I was twenty, I worked at Industrial Sciences as a maintenance worker. Some might consider me one of the final Founders left alive, but I had nothing to do with the creation of this society we have today. I didn’t come up with the design for the bio dome system we have above us. I didn’t set up the government. When I first came to the planet, I was on the last transport wave. I had turned nineteen during the transport and was almost twenty when I arrived. The year was 2030 when I left, but the time it took to get us here was almost a decade. So, we were told to ignore the time we lost in suspended animation and consider it like a hiccup.

“After my arrival, I got the job being a maintenance man. I will tell you, those early years were rough on everyone, but we persevered. I guess that was what the old Earth colonists thought life was like when they first went to America. Do you know about America?”

Christina nodded her head. She had learned about it in school, but didn’t really care too much. It seemed this story was proving to be a little better than she thought. The working title on the story was going to deal with the reminiscences of a lesser known Founder.

Spiro continued with his story. “So I got my job. Most of the work dealt with cleaning the floors since our roads were still dust instead of concrete. I had to attempt to keep some kind of sense of cleanliness in the building. One day I was told to move boxes from one storage area to another in the catacombs of the building. While doing the moving, I stumbled on a tape. I took it home with me. The reason I did it was because it had no markings on it and I figured at the time it had no real value to anyone. I decided to see what was on the tape, curiosity I suppose, and discovered more than I wanted.”

Christina stopped writing on her pad and looked up. The old man stopped for a reason. He wanted to make sure she was ready for this. She gave him a small nod to prod him forward in the story.

“The tape was the last message sent to Mars from Earth.”

Christina dropped her pad and pen. No one had ever seen or heard the message. THIS was a story. The only known person who had heard the reason why Earth stopped contacting Mars. Picking up her pad and pen, Christina asked, “What did the message say?”

“It was horrifying,” replied Spiro. “The man on the tape was a scientist. He talked about how Earth was engaged in a Third World War and the introduction of some kind of disease which was destroying humanity. The man was under some kind of time constraint. It sounded as if someone was after him. He warned that we should not come back.”

Christina wrote down everything the old man had to say. This was an unbelievable story. It was almost too good to be true. She needed to ask a few questions though.

“Mr. Wilson, my editor is going to question the legitimacy of the tape. Where is it?”

“I placed it back in the vault with all the other things I had moved in there. I couldn’t come out with the tape. Everyone was busy trying to get the colony going. We had succeeded thus far, but we were still looking for the long term goals. A new generation needed to be born on the planet and a stable civilization needed to be put into place. Taking a tape like this to the press, which was barely around at the time, would have caused who knows how much damage. I figured I would wait. If anyone ever thought about going back to Earth, I would talk then.”

“And the Senate vote yesterday is what made you place the call,” said Christina.

“Yes.”

“If I go snooping around for this tape,” said Christina, “I doubt I will get anywhere with it. Is there a way for me to view the tape without getting the run around?”

“Print the story,” said Spiro. “Once it is out, keep pressing it. Industrial Sciences will have to come clean about it.”

Christina nodded her head and wrapped up her interview. She asked a few minor detail questions designed to be filler. As a whole, this story had some real potential. She might even be able to extend it into a few editorials and follow up stories. All that was needed now was to write the article.