This is a Test

Ch. 6 - Part I - Show Time

Cashe's life fell into a blissful monotony. Shit, shower, and shave by five, a quick morning meeting for his coffee, and then he didn't need to interact with anyone before dinner time. Everyone did their own thing, including the new introduced species. The surviving fish circled mindless in their tanks under some plants. The beehive and vermiculture box ended up in an area of the Garden that wasn't developed yet, but near enough to the existing lighting to keep the containers warm. They couldn't feed the worms too much sewage, or else the container would reek terribly, but as Cashe was rarely there, he figured that would not be so much his problem as that of others.

After a few uninterrupted days, Anoptica instructed them to congregate in the lounge one evening. Cashe knew what was coming. The company would announce their rankings, providing them an update on their performance.

Upon hearing of the television show aspect of the mission, Cashe researched reality competitions to see what he should expect. He hoped it would be like others where a host would name a rejected participant and dismiss them with a repeated catchphrase that would be applied to all contestants but himself. He imagined his interviewer for the project appearing on screen, smiling at the group, Cashe especially, before turning a disgusted gaze towards the geologist and saying, "Roger Borschmann, you have been eliminated. Pack your shit and fuck off." Cashe's interviewer seemed like the type of man to say something like that.

As the others took their seats, Dante popped in for Roger's assistance. The big man grumbled as he departed, but returned beaming as he lugged a case of beer to the table. Dante followed with a tray loaded with tall bags of popcorn, which found a home next to the unpacked bottles. Cashe took a bag and bottle for himself, wanting to have a celebratory drink ready for when Roger got the boot.

The lights dimmed and the largest monitor flickered. Cashe was fortunate enough to where his seat faced the screen, so he would be able to watch everyone as their backs would be to him. Booming orchestral music reverberated as a rocket was viewed from above, launching and passing by the camera.

"Mars. Humanity's first stop to exploring new worlds and its last chance for a new start." The announcer continued with serious-sounding platitudes about how Man had to ditch Earth post-haste unless every car and factory ceased all emissions by next Tuesday. As that didn't seem like an imminent solution, Anoptica was suggesting that everyone skip out to the utopic landscape that would be their claustrophobic, irradiated Martian colony.

The next voiced-over montages showed how Anoptica became the leader in space exploration, a subject Cashe had studied before interviewing. It had been a thriving search engine, raking in millions daily, but it hemorrhaged money in their attempt to create a rocket fleet that could launch satellites and return to Earth intact.

They had been vying for the contracts to refuel and replenish the future moonbase, wherein the International Space Station would be disassembled and incinerated in the Earth's atmosphere, with the remnants splashing into the ocean. Anoptica offered an ingenious proposal. Instead of destroying a multi-billion-dollar station already in space and then spending billions more to launch a brand-new facility into orbit, their rocket technologies could land each section intact on Earth's satellite. For a comparatively small fee, they'd take ownership of the ISS and either would have a functioning habitat on the moon, or else they would assume responsibility with the lunar clean-up.

The station was dismantled into its original segments, and though early attempts failed, they soon had modules deposited with minimal cracks in the frame, and on the sixth try, a fully functional airtight pod nestled on the moon. Over five years, seven of the nineteen segments landed successfully, connected by makeshift tunnels that were reinforced over time. The four that landed with minor damage were patched and connected to the others.

Cashe considered the deal a masterstroke of business acumen. The company needed to test traversing from the earth to the moon with payloads; the space station provided a ready-made subject. Anoptica received world-wide attention for their landings, successful or not, which provided data to make their rockets more effective. By assuming responsibility for the space station, they now owned the first working lunar colony where various governments had paid them to take it off their hands. Anoptica turned around and rented the modules back to the countries that built them so they could continue their original research.

Now the video changed from the past to the future, showing Anoptica's plans for Martian dominance, and how a team of intrepid scientists would take the first steps in helping build that future. A door opened, showing Cashe and the others habitants walking through in their spacesuits at the start of their mission.

The camera view changed to show a group of men in lab coats or overalls waiting. One seemed surprised at their arrival and he turned from a conversation to join the others in applause and smiles. The scientists clapped but the workers were more vibrant, fist-pumping and whooping it up. One gave the colonists a hearty thumbs-up while another approached with his phone to record history as it happened. The scientists walked to a large door, which slowly slid open.

The next scenes showed others in similar spacesuits climbing into seats in a rocket. The tinted helmets concealed the fact that it wasn't Cashe's group, and the actors shook as the camera jostled, simulating a realistic image of a ship blasting into space. After some scenes of their duplicates floating in zero-g, a landing on Mars was displayed. Their dopplegangers climbed down a ladder to step on the Red Planet, taking a moment to enjoy the view, before entering an awaiting rover. The announcer explained how all the equipment would be dropped in advance and that the facility would be 3-D printed before their arrival.

The rover navigated a short jaunt across the Mars landscape before entering a long tunnel in a glacier through a door that closed behind them. Once the rover was inside, the back opened and six people stepped out. After decontamination, one pulled off his helmet to whip his hair about.

"Who's ready for a bold new adventure?" Dante said.

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