The Mars Shock Read Online Free PDF

unfortunately.”
    Pencil Mustache sipped his drink. “It’s too widespread to stop. Everyone’s involved.”
    Kristiansen shook his head. “Medecins Sans Frontieres isn’t. And I won’t cooperate with any kind of cover-up, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
    “Ha! We don’t need you to cover up for us. We’ve got every media curator in the solar system to do that. No one wants to look at pictures of kids—things that look like kids—getting scrubbed.” Pencil Mustache corrected himself. “Obviously, some people want to. There’s an audience for everything. But fuck ‘em. Sickoes. Let ‘em voyeur, and we’ll store their browsing histories for future reference, thank you very much.”
    Kristiansen saw a glimpse of humanity there, as Pencil Mustache got worked up about the idea of people choosing to consume what information they wanted, rather than what the media provided. “Voyeur isn’t a verb,” he offered with a smile.
    “This war has made it into one.” Pencil Mustache sighed. “What I’m trying to say is, we’re on your side. If you can save even a few of the warblers, your outfit will be NGO of the year. I don’t expect much, but I’ll be there to give you any assistance we can provide.”
    Kristiansen digested the unwelcome news that Pencil Mustache was to travel to Mars with them. “OK. Thank you.”
    “By the way, I’m K’vin.”
    “Kevin?”
    “No, not Kevin.” He suddenly grinned. “That’s what my mother named me, but come on: Kevin Murray. How uncool is that?”
    “So how do you spell it?”
    “K, apostrophe, V, I, N.”
    “Superfluous apostrophes are cool?”
    “Haven’t you ever played any RPGs? There is nothing that rates higher on the cool scale than a random, uncalled-for apostrophe.”
    Kristiansen smiled, genuinely. “I’ll just call you Murray.”
    He and K’vin Murray came from completely different worlds, but they brought the same passion to their separate jobs.
    Once, he and Jen Colden had shared the same world. The same tastes, the same friends, the same ideals and beliefs. That had changed. Looking back, he couldn’t remember exactly when his eyes had been opened to the corruption of the establishment. But once it dawned on him, he could no longer be complicit in their crimes.
    As for Colden, if Mars hadn’t opened her eyes, he figured nothing ever would.
     

iii.
     
    The phavatars stayed in the field unless and until they had to be recalled for repairs. Colden’s platoon worked twelve-hour shifts. Another platoon took the other half of the clock, so the phavatars were operating continuously. Remote-controlled charging stations followed them around with ammo and fresh power packs.
    They cleared Conurbation 112 and moved on to Conurbation 117. By the time they got there, Alpha Base had crawled 100 kilometers further through Sulci Gordii, and Colden was just about ready to kill Danny Drudge.
    He acclimatized quickly. That was one way of putting it. He was forever wandering off on his own, looking for souvenirs. She’d made it clear that they were not allowed to bring any items back to base—Commander Jackson’s orders, woo-woo, nanites—but a separate directive conflicted with that standing order. They were supposed to be looking for “PLAN information storage media, computing assets, or any items related to the original colony on Mars.” These were the words of the Special Security Council, parroted back to her by Drudge when she scolded him for going off on his own.
    Meanwhile, the Chinese were out hunting for any items related to their own special area of interest: the People’s Liberation Army Navy fleet that had gone to Mars at the turn of the 23 rd century, and come back to terrorize the solar system in the form of AI-controlled space fighters.
    No more PLAN ships would ever fly against humanity. The Phobos impacts had obliterated the launch facilities in the Tharsis Montes and other locations around the planet. Sure, a few trolls had