A New Beginning
From time to time, the world experiences a few relatively peaceful decades. But sooner or later greed, corruption, and hatred coalesce into a weapon of frightening proportions when one power-hungry madman emerges, conveniently forgetting or ignoring the lessons of the past.
Here on Mars, it is now year thirty, or 2220 for those still living on Earth if you can call their existence living. Since the universal age law was passed by Earth Corp in 2190, forced transportation of all over the age of sixty began.
Anyone, regardless of their standing in the community or their occupation, was automatically rounded up and taken to the nearest spaceport, where they were loaded onto purpose-built ships bound for the Cydonian colonies here on Mars.
Many died during the long journey. Only the fittest survived.
***
Then last year, things changed. My name is David Michaels, and I’m now sixty-three Earth years old.
From my fortieth birthday, I spent the rest of my working life forced to toil in a factory that manufactured Psi components for the defense department contractors of Earth Corp. The alternative was to be cast out to starve.
I’ve been here in colony Beta 1 within the Cydon complex since I was removed from everybody and everything I knew on my sixtieth birthday. In my voluntary capacity as a greeter, I meet newcomers to help them settle in among our friendly community. All of them are people like me who have spent their entire lives back on Earth keeping their noses clean, obeying the laws and working for Earth Corp in some capacity or other.
Since the mid-2170s, with the increasing numbers of people no longer considered able to work because of their age but still relatively healthy due to medicinal advances, governments were at a loss as to how and what to do about the high cost of pension payments to the older generation.
Then in 2182, someone in the higher echelons of Earth Corp (I still don’t know who to this day) suggested that the Nazis back in the middle years of the twentieth century had the right idea after all when they set up their infamous concentration camps
That was when the idea of the Mars colonies was first mooted. It was the moment when mankind hit its lowest point. The older generation stopped being people and became a nuisance statistic, a pest that needed to be quickly got rid of. Unproductive units still need to be fed and housed, and Earth Corp was not about to foot the bill.
For several months, governments not yet influenced by Earth Corp, mainly non-western countries, argued vehemently against the suggestion. Most politicians initially rejected the notion out of hand, purely on humanitarian grounds.
But one man who would later become World President when he formed the first planet-wide government – James Baker, CEO of Earth Corp, held onto the idea of Mars colonies and made it a reality when he took office. His first proclamation ensured his initial popularity when he made any form of politics illegal and punishable by death.
Nobody disagreed with him over that, except the former politicians themselves. But when he introduced the universal age law along with his solution to the problem, he finally showed his true colours.
The inevitability of the world’s major banking groups under the leadership of Baker, who at the time also headed the IMF, turning the whole planet into one giant corporation, ended any altruistic thoughts about man’s humanity to man literally overnight.
From then on a truly chilling Orwellian chain of events began. Every member of the human race below the age of sixty either worked for Earth Corp or where forcibly exiled to starve in the bleak wastelands of the Sahara Desert. Those like me who had reached our ‘sell by date’ were sent here to Mars. Unlike the exiles, we got the best of a bad deal.
To create future employees, Earth Corp forcibly ensured the vast majority of its employees had children. When they reached their fourth birthday, they were ripped from the arms of their parents. That was the last they saw of them, as the children were sent to other parts of the world for immediate indoctrination, becoming the property of Earth Corp and, therefore, expendable future work units, no longer considered human.
Basically, Baker didn’t give a damn for anyone other than himself and his obscenely rich cronies. He made up his world government from the ranks of the rich and powerful. He exempted himself and them from their own set of rules, allowing them to live in luxury until they naturally died. Not one of Baker’s world governments was ever forcibly expelled from Earth.
In 2185, a massive construction crew of slave labourers made up from the countless prisons back on Earth were transported to the Cydonian region of Mars’s northern hemisphere. It is bordered by the Acidalia Planitia plains and the Arabia Terra highlands, close to the mysterious stone face, which is situated halfway between the Arandas and Bamberg craters.
The enigmatic face had intrigued us all for years since it was first photographed by NASA back in the middle years of the twentieth century. The area includes the regions of Cydonia Mensae, an area of flat-topped mesa-like features where our complex of settlements would be built, Cydonia Colles, a region of small hills or knobs, and Cydonia Labyrinthus, a complex of intersecting valleys.
By emptying the world’s prisons, Earth Corp closed down yet another unproductive system. Summary executions by Earth Corp thugs now took the place formerly occupied by the law, police, courts, lawyers, and prisons.
The unfortunate prisoners sent here were worked to death over a period of five years building the first of the settlements, like the one I now live in – Beta1, barely surviving on starvation rations. Nearly all felt the lash across their backs at one time or another.
Once the job was finished, the pitiful few who had survived were left here to fend for themselves while their vicious Earth Corp overseers returned home to Earth. Most died off through starvation when the food supplies ran out.
Some committed suicide by walking out through the nearest airlock into the hostile Martian environment or were murdered by their fellow convicts long before the first shipment of over-sixties arrived on what we euphemistically refer to as ‘The Mars Express’. Only three prisoners were still alive when the first batch of forcibly expelled sixty-somethings arrived.
***
I forged a genuine friendship with the last one still living – José Pereira, who was briefly incarcerated back on Earth for his outspoken political views about everything Earth Corp and Baker stood for before being transported here for life.
By day José had been a journalist for the one official worldwide news outlet controlled by Earth Corp. By night, he took on a crusading persona, borrowing the anonymous identity of a fictional twentieth-century literary character named ‘V’ as an anti-Earth Corp blogger within the now highly illegal world of cyberspace.
In the end, he was betrayed by the one person he trusted implicitly, his wife Mora, who he later found out at his show trial, had been deliberately employed by Earth Corp to hunt him out, bed him and gain his confidence. Between us, José and I began to formulate a plan. Something had to be done about Baker.
After changing my appearance by dying my hair black and applying makeup to my face to disguise the wrinkles, should I have to emerge during Operation Baker, José and I sneaked aboard a returning ship?
The ships of the ‘Mars Express’ are automatic; they have no crew. During the long return journey to Earth, José managed to override its controls and, when the time was right, set it down in the middle of the Sahara, where we soon found willing recruits to our cause. We were a motley band of mercenaries of all ethnicities and ages, eager for revenge.
Aloft once more, Jose reconnected its autopilot after encoding new coordinates, sending it to Earth Corp’s HQ, where Baker and his cronies were holed up.
While I remained on board against my better judgment, having been told that this was a job for younger men, José and Nathaniel Corbett, a former Earth Corp electronics expert, were exiled to the Sahara for standing up for his oldest fellow employee when the thugs came for him, led our mercenary team on the hunt for Baker.
No one within the vast building that is Earth Corp HQ took the least bit of notice of yet more maintenance operatives. Nathaniel bypassed the security system with ease; after all, he had designed and installed it, allowing them to travel to the penthouse suite where Baker resided.
Baker was visibly shocked by the sudden intrusion into his private quarters and tried to cry out for help. But thanks to Nathaniel’s electronic genius and the men holding him in their iron grip, Baker’s pleas for help were heard by no one.
To bypass his computer security system, one of Nathaniel’s mercenaries forced his head in front of the Iris recognition unit of his personal work station, allowing José to issue an order to all of Baker’s staff not to disturb him for the next two hours, on pain of expulsion from the corporation. All knew that Baker’s word was law. No one, not even the members of his world government, dared cross him in any way unless they wanted a visit from his thugs.
José then quickly transformed him into a walking zombie with a cocktail of drugs designed to keep him quiet for several days, a task made easy given Baker’s advanced age and lack of physical strength. At the time of his capture, he was eighty-five. The team retraced their steps unchallenged, quickly bundling the tyrant aboard disguised as a maintenance operative, where they hid him in the service ducts beneath the main corridor.
For the next several hours, we all hid from view, waiting for the ship to reactivate as its cavernous interior filled up with more over-sixties. The following morning the ship once again automatically headed back to Mars with its latest living cargo.
Once we landed back at Cydon, we emerged triumphant among the bewildered new additions to our society. Baker was dragged out in chains by Nathaniel’s fellow Saharan exiles. Amidst howls of hate and contempt, he was brought before a kangaroo court made up of former judges.
At first, he was full of bluster and indignation. But as the charges against him were read out, the realisation of his predicament finally dawned on him. Everybody assembled there that day increased his humiliation by laughing uncontrollably when we all noticed he had begun to soil himself. The great reception hanger rang to the sounds of thousands of people cheering when the verdict was passed.
It will come as no surprise when I tell you he was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to forcible ejection from the nearest airlock, a sentence to be carried out immediately. Not one person there voted for him or abstained.
Earth Corp carried on sending ships full of the over-sixties, still blindly following Baker’s decree. Each ship that arrived had its autopilot system altered by José, turning the vast ships into guided missiles for their return journey targeting Earth Corp HQ, then all its subsidiaries and armament factories across the world.
***
That was over a year ago. No more ships come here anymore. We live out our lives in peace. From time to time, we hear delayed radio transmissions from back on Earth. All here rejoiced at the news of Earth Corp’s inevitable demise.
Its ruling elite were all held accountable and sentenced to death by people’s courts across the planet. Like all the other failed repressive ideologies the Earth has experienced during its long period of human history, Earth Corp is now nothing but a bitter memory, consigned to the dustbin of history.
For the moment at least, relative normality has returned to our former home planet. How long that will last is entirely in the lap of the gods. Meantime we all get on with our lives here, free of any form of governmental control. Our society was initially made up of Earth’s senior citizens, self-governs without the need for any heavy-handed rules and regulations.
Why did I go along on the journey? I needed to visit Earth one last time to appreciate how much better my life here on Mars is, where common sense and common decency rule. Besides, I saw nothing wrong in having one last adventure, even if I took no active part in it. By actually being there, experiencing the adrenalin rush and the thrill of the chase vicariously through my companions made it all worthwhile.
During those final months of Earth Corp’s demise, with our blessing, José and Nathaniel set off back to Earth on the one remaining ship, heading for the Sahara on a mission of mercy. They returned with a shipload of exiled people from all parts of the world and all walks of life.
We are now part of a truly vibrant society, made up of former earthborn humans like myself and Mars’ new young generation, born either aboard the returning ship or here. As they grow up, they can call on literally thousands of surrogate grandparents only too willing to pass on our collective experiences and wisdom to this new branch of humanity.
The Mars colony of Cydon is indeed rich, far richer than anything money or power can buy. Nathaniel’s infant son Michael is seated on the floor beside me, happily drawing on some paper with a crayon as I conclude writing this first chapter of our new planet’s history.
Earth’s loss is Mars’ gain…