Caleb sat down heavily in his chair, he leaned back with a sigh and moved a piece of his jet black hair out of his eyes.
He glanced over at the holo screen and with a lazy gesture of his hand turned the recorder on.
“Record date”
The timestamp glowed in the lower left-hand corner, July 5, 2275.
“Still no progress on activating the memory drives we brought back from Mars. I just wish we knew what we had done to activate the first one!”
He scratched at the patchy stubble on his chin, he hated that he couldn’t grow a proper beard even at 42. Making a mental note to shave before bed he sighed again before continuing.
“We know that the various minerals contain records of the history of mars. It appears humans were once living there so we can only assume the surface was green at one point. Any text we found appears to be fragments of the oldest languages on earth. Or perhaps I should say our languages came from mars? Ah! If I could activate even one again then I could do more work on trying to translate. Hyun-Mi did an excellent job of clarifying the images we caught on our suit cameras. I’ll take the fragments I have and speak to the ancient languages professor at UBC.”
The next morning the sun woke Caleb up. When he sat up in bed he could feel it was going to be hot today, no surprise there since it was the dry season.
Global warming had changed the landscape significantly. The pacific northwest was officially a sub-tropical rainforest before 2100. Only the land restoration efforts started after the Unification War (2021-2030) stabilized global temperature.
Walking to the wardrobe, Caleb selected a white t-shirt and light coloured linen pants. He put his network connector into a leather bracelet and opted for his favorite leather sandals.
Artificial fibres are not allowed for everyday clothing or footwear.
After breakfast, he grabbed his metal water bottle and headed for the train to UBC. The only reason he could show up without an appointment was that the professor had already been working on the project and said to come immediately once the new images were ready.
As soon as he stepped out into the sun he closed his eyes to let the feeling of the sun on his golden skin sink in. It felt like heaven to be back on earth after 12 years off-planet.
Slipping on some sunglasses he set off for the train, public transit was fully integrated across the continent. It was rare to see private transport vehicles after the war, the only people who regularly owned them were government council members and farmers. The former was for security and the latter was due to being far from train stations. The only other small occupancy vehicles were for emergency services and resource distribution within cities.
Roads were only 2 lanes wide for the city vehicles, everyone else was on foot, bicycle, or took the train.
Inside the train it was nice and cool with only a few people at this time of day. Caleb picked a window seat and watched as the scenery passed. It was interesting because parts of the original coastline were permanently submerged but many towers had been built prior to that so there were the tops of ancient buildings sticking out of the water. UBC had been built on a location high enough that it became an island.
Divers liked to explore the ruins on days like this, he was sure they would be out there later.
Further out a pod of orcas could be seen breaching the water. They must be hunting thought Caleb. The pod currently had 8 new calves for a total size of 158 members. The local orcas nearly went fully extinct 200 years ago, divestment from fossil fuels meant that the tankers were no longer going through the waters and rising ocean levels killed salmon farms. War and cleaning up afterward kept everyone too busy to do further damage.
The buildings didn’t have any windows left in them which had allowed them to naturally turn into bird colonies on the upper levels and sea mammal colonies on the lowest levels.
The train announced the end of the line at UBC station. Caleb stepped out of the train to a gentle breeze, heavy with the ocean scent and seagulls calling.
He sent a message telling the professor that he was here and why mentioning that he would be waiting in the main library.
Artist and photogs if you feel inspired I would LOVE to feature your art at the top of future chapters (linking to any social account you prefer)
