StudioPC
24th February 2006, 08:36 PM
Disclaimer: Moldiver is owned by Pioneer Animation. No money is being
made from this, and no such intent should be inferred. The writings
of Richard C. Hoagland can be found at www.enterprisemission.com. The
following fic is based on the article; "Moon With A View".
"Reality is a group hunch." -Frank Zappa
Morning dawned clear on Tokyo in the year 2043. With long fingers,
the sun chased away the shadows, summoning the citizens from their
beds and houses, watching them as they went to work, to school.
Or in the case of the Ozora Household, Tower Three, Level 29, Ichigo
Street, being lazy.
This morning, only two people were in residence; Hiroshi Ozora, age
24 and his sister Mirai, age 20. Their parents and younger brother
were in Australia, touring schools.
Hiroshi was skinny, with unkempt hair and eyes that squinted behind
his glasses, while Mirai was slightly shorter, with long brown hair
and a figure that was partly genetics and partly the result of
borderline masochistic exercise program. Mirai made her living as a
model, and her work literally depended on her looking good.
Hiroshi, on the other hand, only needed to keep his brain in shape.
He was a technologist, currently between jobs and keeping himself
busy with consulting work.
This morning, he sat in the dining room, a spoonful of cereal in his
mouth, a palmtop in one hand, and the morning paper in the other.
With one ear, he listened to the news, the other, he listened to
Mirai, who was in the living room working out on the Isokenetic
machine with weights added in.
"Ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred!" he heard her call out and
then the whine as the machine powered down and the clunk of the
weights being placed back in their holders.
Moments later, she walked in, wearing a sweat-soaked one piece outfit
that left nothing to the the imagination, and a towel around her
neck. Her hair was tied back from her forehead and she was mopping
her face with a small hand-cloth.
"Wha!" Hiroshi gaped. "Mirai!" Hiroshi wouldn't call himself a prude,
but Mirai had a tendency towards casual nudity that shocked him. He
suspected she'd work out naked if it wasn't for modesty laws and that
her figure required support and binding when doing any physical
activity.
She rolled her eyes at him and vanished into the kitchen. He heard
the fridge open and close and then Mirai returned, bottle of water in
hand and wearing a lightweight robe.
"Prude," she chided, opening the bottle and drinking deep.
"I'm not a prude," he replied, setting the paper down. "But really,
Mirai, don't you think you--" he broke off as the door bell rang.
"Who could that be? He asked, getting up.
Opening the door, he stared at the two men. Both wore identical dark
suits and one of them carried a briefcase. "Hiroshi Ozora?"
"Yeah?"
"My name is Tom Smith and this is William Lee Jones. We're with the
International Space Commission and we'd like to speak to you and your
sister. May we come in?"
"Sure," Hiroshi said and stood aside. "Mirai! Company!"
He led the two men into the living room and moments later, Mirai came
out, now dressed in a blouse and jeans.
"We'll get straight to the point," Smith said.
"We know about Moldiver," Jones said. "We know that Amagi was
Machinegal, and did not, as Amagi Corp is telling people, that he was
killed in a Jetcoptor accident."
Mirai's face was as hard as stone and and she had slipped one hand
into her pocket.
"What do you want?" Hiroshi said, grabbing his sister's wrist. "Like
you said, get to the point."
"Are either of you familiar with the writings of Richard Hoagland?"
Jones asked.
"I've seen him cited on a few conspiracy theory sites," Hiroshi said.
"Went to Cydonia once in college. He popularized the face on Mars
theory, didn't he?"
Smith nodded. "He and his team were considered crackpots, but they
maintained their position until the very end. The point, Mister
Ozora, is that he was right, and we need Moldiver's help."
"But there is no face!" Hiroshi said. "I've been to the Cydonia plain."
"No, you haven't," Jones said. "The real Cydonia is about a hundred
miles southeast. You should both feel special, you're about to be let
in on one of the biggest secrets in history."
"There is a face?" Mirai asked.
Smith nodded. "A face, a city under the Martian Ice, evidence of
ancient astronauts, the whole thing. Aliens seeding Earth with life
and the asteroid belt is the remains of a planet aside, everything
points to the fact that Hoagland was one hundred percent right, and
there's just one thing left to prove, which is where the two of you
come in."
Mirai removed her hand from her pocket as the siblings exchanged
glances.
"Go on," Hiroshi said in a guarded tone.
Jones opened the case, revealing a holo projector.
"July Twentieth, Nineteen Sixty-Nine," Smith said. "Neil Armstrong
and Buzz Aldrin became the first human beings on the Moon. During
their moonwalks, they found the remains of a structure several miles
north of the landing site. Radioing back to Earth for instructions,
they were instructed to take photos and then return immeditly to
Earth. Their find was hidden from public knowledge and the president
briefed."
"History records that were seventeen Apollo Missions," Jones said.
"But in reality there were twenty, three launched from Russian soil
in order to hide their real purpose, which was to find out that
structure was."
"The only clues we found were several samples of writing," Smith
said, "in what we now know to be an archaic form of Sumerian but with
Akkadian and Elamite mixed in. All now extinct languages. It's
suspected that those three languages descended from this one mother
tongue."
Jones took up the tale. "In Twenty-Seventeen, when Humans landed on
Mars, one of the first priorities was to verify the Face. History
says that no face was found."
"And reality?" Hiroshi said.
"We found way more than Hoagland ever suspected. There's at least
three cities on Mars, all demonstrating a clear Sumerian architecture
and more than enough writings to prove that there's a connection."
Jones leaned forward. "At least one of those structures was a
spaceport. There's also what appears to be an underground subway
system, possibly covering the entire planet. The buildings were also
patrolled by guard robots of some kind. Very fast, programmed to
kill. Some very good people died before we could figure out how to
kill them."
Smith took a deep breath. "We also found several functioning vid-
screen, showing humans issuing warnings, or at least that's what we
think based on the tone of voice. We can't understand what the
warning is, but it sounds bad."
"Wait," Hiroshi said. "Are you telling me that human beings at one
point had the technology and ability to go to the Moon and Mars, and
build cities? What the hell happened?"
"We wish we knew," Smith said. "What we do know is that it happened a
long, long time ago, and devastated the entire solar system."
"You still haven't explained what this has to do with us," Hiroshi said.
"Hoagland maintained that through what he called Hyperdimensional
Physics, Saturn, or more specifically, it's moon Iapetus, held clues
to our own origins. He cited it's unusual orbit, its strange 'yin-
yang' coloring, hexagonal shaped craters, and what appeared to be a
headronistic shape. He said that Iapetus was an artificial object
created for some purpose. He suggested an Ark, a seedship from
somewhere outside the solar system, a warship, or perhaps some kind
of resort."
"Now that the manned colony on Ganymede is up and running, the ISC
wants to start exploring Saturn. Those of us in the know want answers
to what we've come to call Hoagland's Riddle."
"And for that, we need to go to Iapetus."
"I see," Hiroshi said. "You want Moldiver along in case Iapetus is
really an artificial world and there's more of those guard things.
She's invulnerable, so they can't hurt her while she deals with them."
"Actually," Smith said, "we're more worried that whatever knocked
humanity back into the Stone Age is still around and wants to do it
again. We need to be able fight back, and your invention is our best
shot at that."
"So why not steal it?"
"It was suggested, but on the other hand, what's better? Wasting time
and energy trying to reverse engineer and duplicate the work and then
training someone in its use, or recruiting the inventor and someone
who already knows it backwards and forwards?"
Hiroshi frowned. He couldn't argue with that.
The two men stood up. "We understand that this is a big decision,"
Jones said. "So we'll leave you to think this over." Smith closed up
the projector and Jones set a card on the table. "If you decide yes,
call this number."
The two men let themselves out and the Ozoras stayed where they were,
staring at the table. The business card and the briefcase stared back.
Night had fallen when Mirai finally spoke. "Let's do it." She turned
to look at him. "I mean it Hiroshi, let's call the number, say yes."
"I dunno . . ."
"Oh come on," Mirai cajoled. "Think about it. This is like, the
scientific discovery of the millennium! Even if it's not aliens, it's
still so cool."
"Be serious, Mirai, this is a trap of some kind. It's absurd."
"Look at me, Hiroshi, look me in the eye and tell me you really,
honestly, believe that.
"I . . ." The words died in his throat and he found himself unable to
maintain eye contact. "I want to believe," he whispered as he stared
at the card on the table. The numbers beckoned to him, called,
whispering a siren song of promise and adventure.
Mirai watched him as he thought and thought. "I'll tell you in the
morning," he said and disappeared into his room, leaving Mirai alone.
* * * *
Hiroshi did not sleep. He spent the entire night searching, trying to
find any verification of Smith and Jones' absurd and insane story.
The first step was to dismantle the holoprojector. It was a stock
model, no bugs or recording devices and there was nothing in it's
data module that could be called malicious, that he could find anyway.
Leaving that alone for a bit, he dove into the information mines of
the 'net. He checked forums, searched using any terms he could think
of and dug as deep as he could.
Finally, he was forced to admit that if Smith and Jones were part of
a clever, well laid trap, they'd done their homework. Hoagland had
really said those things and there was rumors and theories that the
maps of Mars had been tampered with to hide the existence of the
Face. He'd also found rumors that Armstrong and Aldrin had found
something on the Moon. So that matched what they'd been told.
There was also no rumors about Moldiver's real identity. Which begged
the question of how the ISC knew about Mirai, and if they knew, who
else?
He wanted to believe them, God, he wanted to, but a tiny, paranoid
part of him refused. The story carried no logic, no basis in fact,
and it made no logical sense to bury something this big and be able
to keep it buried, for almost a hundred years.
Sighing, he stretched out on the floor of his room and stared at the
ceiling.
Occam's Razor combined with Shrodinger's Cat. The simplest
explanation was that Jones and Smith had told the truth, but the only
way he would know for sure is to open the box. That is, call the
number and follow through.
On the other hand, if it was a trap, he'd be handing them the Mol-
unit on a silver platter.
And he still had no idea how they knew about Mirai.
He must have dozed off, because the next thing he knew, Mirai was
standing over him.
"Hiroshi," she said. "I'm going. At the very least, I'm going."
"What if it's a trap?"
"What if it isn't? What if there is something out there waiting to
destroy us? I'm not going to sit here and wait for it, Hiroshi."
He thought of the reasons he'd created the unit in the first place
and sighed.
"No," he said and grinned. "No you can't, and damnit, neither can I.
All right, I'll call the number. Leave the mol-unit with me."
She smiled, and set the card-sized device on his chest. "I have to go
to work, bye!"
Hiroshi sat back up, made himself a cup of extra-strength coffee and
went back to work.
Step one was give himself some insurance. There was a subculture on
the internet where information was the coin of the realm, and for the
right info, you could get anything you wanted. Hiroshi was at the
edges, but he was owed a few favors and called one in. He contacted
one of them who he knew only by their handle; SilkyStingray, and
transmitted the data module along with an explanation. He left out
the part about Moldiver, but told them everything else. The bargain
was straightforward; If you don't hear back from me in two years,
assume I'm dead and do what you like with this. They agreed on a
password and that was that. Hiroshi then reassembled the briefcase
and set it aside before making something to eat.
The next step was the Mol-unit. He reconfigured the unit to only
activate in the presence of his or Mirai's brainwaves and then, he
removed the limiter.
He didn't care for the idea and was putting an awful lot of trust in
his sister. The limiter's sole purpose had been to prevent abuse of
the power the Mol-unit bestowed. But that had been when he thought it
was going to be used only on or around Earth, where it would've been
easy to find a safe spot to land if time ran out.
For her safety, and because where they were going was no place for
time limits, he took it out and prayed.
Finally, he retrieved the card and made the call.
"Jones."
"This is Hiroshi Ozora, we accept."
"Excellent. Tell no one."
"Not a problem," Hiroshi lied with a straight face.
"You'll get tickets and vouchers, along with instructions in the
mail. We appreciate this, Ozora. Welcome aboard."
Jones hung up.
"Yeah," Hiroshi said to the phone as he hung up. "I bet we are."
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made from this, and no such intent should be inferred. The writings
of Richard C. Hoagland can be found at www.enterprisemission.com. The
following fic is based on the article; "Moon With A View".
"Reality is a group hunch." -Frank Zappa
Morning dawned clear on Tokyo in the year 2043. With long fingers,
the sun chased away the shadows, summoning the citizens from their
beds and houses, watching them as they went to work, to school.
Or in the case of the Ozora Household, Tower Three, Level 29, Ichigo
Street, being lazy.
This morning, only two people were in residence; Hiroshi Ozora, age
24 and his sister Mirai, age 20. Their parents and younger brother
were in Australia, touring schools.
Hiroshi was skinny, with unkempt hair and eyes that squinted behind
his glasses, while Mirai was slightly shorter, with long brown hair
and a figure that was partly genetics and partly the result of
borderline masochistic exercise program. Mirai made her living as a
model, and her work literally depended on her looking good.
Hiroshi, on the other hand, only needed to keep his brain in shape.
He was a technologist, currently between jobs and keeping himself
busy with consulting work.
This morning, he sat in the dining room, a spoonful of cereal in his
mouth, a palmtop in one hand, and the morning paper in the other.
With one ear, he listened to the news, the other, he listened to
Mirai, who was in the living room working out on the Isokenetic
machine with weights added in.
"Ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred!" he heard her call out and
then the whine as the machine powered down and the clunk of the
weights being placed back in their holders.
Moments later, she walked in, wearing a sweat-soaked one piece outfit
that left nothing to the the imagination, and a towel around her
neck. Her hair was tied back from her forehead and she was mopping
her face with a small hand-cloth.
"Wha!" Hiroshi gaped. "Mirai!" Hiroshi wouldn't call himself a prude,
but Mirai had a tendency towards casual nudity that shocked him. He
suspected she'd work out naked if it wasn't for modesty laws and that
her figure required support and binding when doing any physical
activity.
She rolled her eyes at him and vanished into the kitchen. He heard
the fridge open and close and then Mirai returned, bottle of water in
hand and wearing a lightweight robe.
"Prude," she chided, opening the bottle and drinking deep.
"I'm not a prude," he replied, setting the paper down. "But really,
Mirai, don't you think you--" he broke off as the door bell rang.
"Who could that be? He asked, getting up.
Opening the door, he stared at the two men. Both wore identical dark
suits and one of them carried a briefcase. "Hiroshi Ozora?"
"Yeah?"
"My name is Tom Smith and this is William Lee Jones. We're with the
International Space Commission and we'd like to speak to you and your
sister. May we come in?"
"Sure," Hiroshi said and stood aside. "Mirai! Company!"
He led the two men into the living room and moments later, Mirai came
out, now dressed in a blouse and jeans.
"We'll get straight to the point," Smith said.
"We know about Moldiver," Jones said. "We know that Amagi was
Machinegal, and did not, as Amagi Corp is telling people, that he was
killed in a Jetcoptor accident."
Mirai's face was as hard as stone and and she had slipped one hand
into her pocket.
"What do you want?" Hiroshi said, grabbing his sister's wrist. "Like
you said, get to the point."
"Are either of you familiar with the writings of Richard Hoagland?"
Jones asked.
"I've seen him cited on a few conspiracy theory sites," Hiroshi said.
"Went to Cydonia once in college. He popularized the face on Mars
theory, didn't he?"
Smith nodded. "He and his team were considered crackpots, but they
maintained their position until the very end. The point, Mister
Ozora, is that he was right, and we need Moldiver's help."
"But there is no face!" Hiroshi said. "I've been to the Cydonia plain."
"No, you haven't," Jones said. "The real Cydonia is about a hundred
miles southeast. You should both feel special, you're about to be let
in on one of the biggest secrets in history."
"There is a face?" Mirai asked.
Smith nodded. "A face, a city under the Martian Ice, evidence of
ancient astronauts, the whole thing. Aliens seeding Earth with life
and the asteroid belt is the remains of a planet aside, everything
points to the fact that Hoagland was one hundred percent right, and
there's just one thing left to prove, which is where the two of you
come in."
Mirai removed her hand from her pocket as the siblings exchanged
glances.
"Go on," Hiroshi said in a guarded tone.
Jones opened the case, revealing a holo projector.
"July Twentieth, Nineteen Sixty-Nine," Smith said. "Neil Armstrong
and Buzz Aldrin became the first human beings on the Moon. During
their moonwalks, they found the remains of a structure several miles
north of the landing site. Radioing back to Earth for instructions,
they were instructed to take photos and then return immeditly to
Earth. Their find was hidden from public knowledge and the president
briefed."
"History records that were seventeen Apollo Missions," Jones said.
"But in reality there were twenty, three launched from Russian soil
in order to hide their real purpose, which was to find out that
structure was."
"The only clues we found were several samples of writing," Smith
said, "in what we now know to be an archaic form of Sumerian but with
Akkadian and Elamite mixed in. All now extinct languages. It's
suspected that those three languages descended from this one mother
tongue."
Jones took up the tale. "In Twenty-Seventeen, when Humans landed on
Mars, one of the first priorities was to verify the Face. History
says that no face was found."
"And reality?" Hiroshi said.
"We found way more than Hoagland ever suspected. There's at least
three cities on Mars, all demonstrating a clear Sumerian architecture
and more than enough writings to prove that there's a connection."
Jones leaned forward. "At least one of those structures was a
spaceport. There's also what appears to be an underground subway
system, possibly covering the entire planet. The buildings were also
patrolled by guard robots of some kind. Very fast, programmed to
kill. Some very good people died before we could figure out how to
kill them."
Smith took a deep breath. "We also found several functioning vid-
screen, showing humans issuing warnings, or at least that's what we
think based on the tone of voice. We can't understand what the
warning is, but it sounds bad."
"Wait," Hiroshi said. "Are you telling me that human beings at one
point had the technology and ability to go to the Moon and Mars, and
build cities? What the hell happened?"
"We wish we knew," Smith said. "What we do know is that it happened a
long, long time ago, and devastated the entire solar system."
"You still haven't explained what this has to do with us," Hiroshi said.
"Hoagland maintained that through what he called Hyperdimensional
Physics, Saturn, or more specifically, it's moon Iapetus, held clues
to our own origins. He cited it's unusual orbit, its strange 'yin-
yang' coloring, hexagonal shaped craters, and what appeared to be a
headronistic shape. He said that Iapetus was an artificial object
created for some purpose. He suggested an Ark, a seedship from
somewhere outside the solar system, a warship, or perhaps some kind
of resort."
"Now that the manned colony on Ganymede is up and running, the ISC
wants to start exploring Saturn. Those of us in the know want answers
to what we've come to call Hoagland's Riddle."
"And for that, we need to go to Iapetus."
"I see," Hiroshi said. "You want Moldiver along in case Iapetus is
really an artificial world and there's more of those guard things.
She's invulnerable, so they can't hurt her while she deals with them."
"Actually," Smith said, "we're more worried that whatever knocked
humanity back into the Stone Age is still around and wants to do it
again. We need to be able fight back, and your invention is our best
shot at that."
"So why not steal it?"
"It was suggested, but on the other hand, what's better? Wasting time
and energy trying to reverse engineer and duplicate the work and then
training someone in its use, or recruiting the inventor and someone
who already knows it backwards and forwards?"
Hiroshi frowned. He couldn't argue with that.
The two men stood up. "We understand that this is a big decision,"
Jones said. "So we'll leave you to think this over." Smith closed up
the projector and Jones set a card on the table. "If you decide yes,
call this number."
The two men let themselves out and the Ozoras stayed where they were,
staring at the table. The business card and the briefcase stared back.
Night had fallen when Mirai finally spoke. "Let's do it." She turned
to look at him. "I mean it Hiroshi, let's call the number, say yes."
"I dunno . . ."
"Oh come on," Mirai cajoled. "Think about it. This is like, the
scientific discovery of the millennium! Even if it's not aliens, it's
still so cool."
"Be serious, Mirai, this is a trap of some kind. It's absurd."
"Look at me, Hiroshi, look me in the eye and tell me you really,
honestly, believe that.
"I . . ." The words died in his throat and he found himself unable to
maintain eye contact. "I want to believe," he whispered as he stared
at the card on the table. The numbers beckoned to him, called,
whispering a siren song of promise and adventure.
Mirai watched him as he thought and thought. "I'll tell you in the
morning," he said and disappeared into his room, leaving Mirai alone.
* * * *
Hiroshi did not sleep. He spent the entire night searching, trying to
find any verification of Smith and Jones' absurd and insane story.
The first step was to dismantle the holoprojector. It was a stock
model, no bugs or recording devices and there was nothing in it's
data module that could be called malicious, that he could find anyway.
Leaving that alone for a bit, he dove into the information mines of
the 'net. He checked forums, searched using any terms he could think
of and dug as deep as he could.
Finally, he was forced to admit that if Smith and Jones were part of
a clever, well laid trap, they'd done their homework. Hoagland had
really said those things and there was rumors and theories that the
maps of Mars had been tampered with to hide the existence of the
Face. He'd also found rumors that Armstrong and Aldrin had found
something on the Moon. So that matched what they'd been told.
There was also no rumors about Moldiver's real identity. Which begged
the question of how the ISC knew about Mirai, and if they knew, who
else?
He wanted to believe them, God, he wanted to, but a tiny, paranoid
part of him refused. The story carried no logic, no basis in fact,
and it made no logical sense to bury something this big and be able
to keep it buried, for almost a hundred years.
Sighing, he stretched out on the floor of his room and stared at the
ceiling.
Occam's Razor combined with Shrodinger's Cat. The simplest
explanation was that Jones and Smith had told the truth, but the only
way he would know for sure is to open the box. That is, call the
number and follow through.
On the other hand, if it was a trap, he'd be handing them the Mol-
unit on a silver platter.
And he still had no idea how they knew about Mirai.
He must have dozed off, because the next thing he knew, Mirai was
standing over him.
"Hiroshi," she said. "I'm going. At the very least, I'm going."
"What if it's a trap?"
"What if it isn't? What if there is something out there waiting to
destroy us? I'm not going to sit here and wait for it, Hiroshi."
He thought of the reasons he'd created the unit in the first place
and sighed.
"No," he said and grinned. "No you can't, and damnit, neither can I.
All right, I'll call the number. Leave the mol-unit with me."
She smiled, and set the card-sized device on his chest. "I have to go
to work, bye!"
Hiroshi sat back up, made himself a cup of extra-strength coffee and
went back to work.
Step one was give himself some insurance. There was a subculture on
the internet where information was the coin of the realm, and for the
right info, you could get anything you wanted. Hiroshi was at the
edges, but he was owed a few favors and called one in. He contacted
one of them who he knew only by their handle; SilkyStingray, and
transmitted the data module along with an explanation. He left out
the part about Moldiver, but told them everything else. The bargain
was straightforward; If you don't hear back from me in two years,
assume I'm dead and do what you like with this. They agreed on a
password and that was that. Hiroshi then reassembled the briefcase
and set it aside before making something to eat.
The next step was the Mol-unit. He reconfigured the unit to only
activate in the presence of his or Mirai's brainwaves and then, he
removed the limiter.
He didn't care for the idea and was putting an awful lot of trust in
his sister. The limiter's sole purpose had been to prevent abuse of
the power the Mol-unit bestowed. But that had been when he thought it
was going to be used only on or around Earth, where it would've been
easy to find a safe spot to land if time ran out.
For her safety, and because where they were going was no place for
time limits, he took it out and prayed.
Finally, he retrieved the card and made the call.
"Jones."
"This is Hiroshi Ozora, we accept."
"Excellent. Tell no one."
"Not a problem," Hiroshi lied with a straight face.
"You'll get tickets and vouchers, along with instructions in the
mail. We appreciate this, Ozora. Welcome aboard."
Jones hung up.
"Yeah," Hiroshi said to the phone as he hung up. "I bet we are."
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