Red to Fade (10 page)

The planet transport ship moves around the glacitone dome that's under construction, getting ready to land on the runway of PTS-R2. The planet transport ship is in line with the runway of PTS-R2. The pilot announces on the intercom that the ship will be landing shortly. The planet transport ship finally lands on the runway of PTS-R2. At the end of the runway is PTS-R2. The planet transport ship moves slowly towards it.

PTS-R2 is built with huge double doors to allow spacecraft to go in and out to transport food, equipment, people and morphians. Every planet transport station is built the same. The planet transport ship is right in front of the huge entrance doors of the spacecraft entrance of PTS-R2. A spacecraft entrance of a planet transport station is made of two sets of huge steel double doors that are opposite each other and are joined together by steel walls and a steel roof. The ground surface of a spacecraft entrance is tarmac.

The process of a spacecraft going into a planet transport station requires that the first of the two sets of huge entrance doors must open, allowing the spacecraft inside. Once the spacecraft goes past the first set of double doors and is inside the spacecraft entrance, the first set of doors will start to close and, after they are closed, the spacecraft will be in between the two sets of double doors inside the spacecraft entrance of the planet transport station.

A closed double door will be in front of and behind the spacecraft. Clandarian equipment will be used to cleanse the occupied space between the two sets of double doors of the toxins and poisonous gases of Mars. Once the toxins have been cleared the second set of doors will open up, allowing the spacecraft inside the planet transport station. As soon as the planet transport ship has gone into the planet transport station the second set of double doors will close.

The planet transport ship that Connor is in has gone through the process and is now in the planet transport station. The pilot moves the ship close to the entrance doors of the arrival gate. Drivers drive small trucks with flights of steps attached to the exit doors of the planet transport ship. They place the steps right outside the doors and the flight attendants open them. All passengers exit the planet transport ship. Connor is walking down the flight of steps and is amazed as he looks around and sees this huge indoor spacecraft hangar. He sees quite a few other planet transport ships. There are bright lights all over the roof.

Connor and the passengers go to the entrance doors of the arrival gate. Connor is now inside the planet transport station passenger building. It's quite busy with humans and morphians walking around. The planet transport station passenger building would be as busy as Heathrow Airport. Connor goes through planet transport security, which is like airport security. He passes the security checks and is allowed to exit PTS-R2 and enter Red 2. PTS-R2 has loads of shops like an airport.

Connor sees a phone shop; he walks over and sees planet communicators on a shelve. Connor picks up a planet communicator and buys it. The planet communicator costs $500 US, which is equal to 1,000 Clandar Traden. They accept US dollars in the glacitone domes. The morphian phone retailer tells Connor that he gets free phone credit with the planet communicator. Connor thanks the phone retailer and puts the box with the planet communicator inside a plastic bag.

Connor thinks,
I need a place to stay
. He sees a retailer office for a hotel chain called Bedstay. Outside the office there is a huge billboard that says,
We can book you a room in any Bedstay hotel in any of the glacitone domes. We can also arrange for transportation from here to your Bedstay hotel.
Connor walks over to the Bedstay office. There is a hotel retailer there.

Connor speaks to the hotel retailer and asks if he could book a room at a Bedstay hotel in Red 1, and also have transportation from here to the hotel. The hotel retailer makes Connor's arrangements. It costs $150 US for Connor's package. Connor pays and the hotel retailer gives him booking receipts and tells him that there is coach transportation going to a Bedstay hotel in Red 1 that leaves in fifteen minutes.

Connor asks for directions to find the coach. The hotel retailer gives him directions. Connor leaves the hotel retailer office and goes through the entrance doors and leaves the PTS-R2 station. There is a huge parking garage and an outdoor car park with cars outside the station; also there are a lot of transportation coaches.

There are some civilians walking around going to their coaches and cars, and some civilians are going into the PTS-R2 station.

Connor sees a Bedstay coach with
Red 1
shown on the title display above the driver's seat. Connor knows that this is the coach he should be getting on. He walks towards the Bedstay coach, gets inside, shows the driver his receipts and sits down on a seat beside a window. The coach is half-full with earthlings and morphians. After ten minutes the Red 1 Bedstay coach takes off.

The Bedstay coach driver drives to the vehicle glacitone tunnel. The vehicle glacitone tunnel that's connected to Red 2 is about ten miles long. The time is now 7pm. It's getting dark on Mars. The coach is driving along inside the glacitone tunnel. Connor looks out of the window and sees a closer view of the activity inside the Red 2 glacitone dome, like cars driving around freeways and spacecraft moving around.

The coach is now driving around inside Red 2. Connor, still looking out of the window, is totally amazed by the spectacular, futuristic, sci-fi-style skyscrapers of Red 2. He has never seen skyscrapers like this before; their architecture is incredible. He sees human beings and morphians walking along the streets, citizens and immigrants eating and drinking in restaurants and retailers working in shops.

Connor thinks to himself,
These morphians are just like us
. He sees morphians and earthlings driving in morphian- and human-manufactured vehicles on the streets. Connor sees the glacitone window panels above the Red 2 city, and the tan sky above them. He is completely amazed; he's never seen a city with a roof over its head before, or a city that has a tan sky. After twenty minutes of driving, the coach is now inside the glacitone tunnel that leads to the Big Rock. The Glass Tomb is quite hot today because of the heat coming from the dome radiators. The temperature of Red 1 is 37˚C today.

After another ten minutes of driving, the coach is in the First Dome.

Connor is looking out of the window throughout the whole journey. Again he is blown away by the magnificent skyscrapers of this city. This dome is bigger and busier than Red 2. It has more shops, more businesses, more restaurants, more hotels, more buildings, more entertainment, more vehicles and more drivers than Red 2. The population of the Glass Tomb is eight million.

After twenty-five minutes of driving in the First Dome the coach finally arrives at the Bedstay hotel. All passengers exit the coach and get their luggage. Connor doesn't have any luggage so he goes straight to the reception desk. There is a morphian woman in a Bedstay uniform at the reception desk.

The woman says, “How can I help you, sir?”

When the morphians speak English their accents sound like a German or a Dutch accent.

Connor says, “I would like to check in and get a key to my room, please.”

Connor shows the receptionist his receipts. She gets the information from them and uses her computer to confirm that Connor's reservations have been made. Then she gives Connor a key to his room and says, “I hope you enjoy your stay here.”

Connor replies, “Thank you.”

Connor takes the key and goes to his room. Connor's room is on the first floor of the Bedstay hotel. Connor is now inside his room. He feels very nervous and paranoid about having this R-1 file. He believes that he needs to hide the file somewhere because he thinks that it may be tracked by Joel's crew. If they can track the file, they can track him as well.

Connor looks out of his bedroom window. He sees a library across the road from the Bedstay hotel. Connor says to himself,
That's where I'm going to hide this file; if they find the file in the library they won't find me
. Connor walks out of his room, exits the Bedstay hotel and walks across the road to the library. Outside, he sees a sign on the entrance door saying that the library is open from 7am to 10pm.

Connor enters the library. It's very quiet; there are a few inhabitants of Balaxia around reading books, and some students studying. The receptionist is at her desk on her computer, surfing the net. Connor walks around thinking about where he should hide the hard drive. He looks up at the roof and sees that it's made from acoustic drop-ceiling panels. Connor says to himself,
I could lift one of those panels and place the hard drive on top of another, but I need to be able to do it somewhere where I can't be seen.
He walks over to the toilets.

Connor enters the toilets. There is nobody in there. Connor goes inside one of the toilet cubicles, climbs onto a toilet and raises a panel of the acoustic drop-ceiling; then places the hard drive on top of another panel. Connor lowers the acoustic drop-ceiling panel he lifted, setting it back in place. He climbs down from the toilet, exits the toilets and the library, walks across the road, enters the Bedstay hotel and walks up to his room.

Connor is now in his room. He decides to give Dylan a phone call. He takes the planet communicator out of the box. The planet communicator looks like an iPhone. Connor takes off his jacket and reaches into one of its inside pockets and pulls out his small notepad and pen. He finds Dylan's planet communicator number and dials it.

Connor puts the planet communicator up to his right ear and hears Dylan's planet communicator ringing.

Dylan answers his planet communicator in his IT room in his house and says, “Hello?”

Connor says, “Dylan, it's me, Connor.”

Dylan says, “Where are you now?”

Connor says, “I'm staying at a hotel in the Big Rock.”

Dylan says, “Great, man, you made it. I went into work today and they brought me in for questioning. They asked me questions like, ‘Has Connor been acting strangely lately? Did Connor say to you that he was going to go to the First Dome? Do you know where Connor is? Did Connor tell you about what he planned to do in the FBI building? Has Connor been in contact with you?' I denied everything, I said the last time I spoke with you was a day before you took holiday leave.”

Connor says, “They might be on to you. Did anybody follow you? Have you checked your house for bugs?”

Dylan says, “I swept the house for bugs as soon as I came home from work. I told Trish to stay at her mother's for a while, to keep her out of danger.”

Trish is Dylan's wife.

Connor says, “Did you get Gabrielle's phone number?”

Dylan says, “Yeah, I did, hold on a second.”

Dylan found Gabrielle's phone number while he was at work today and stored it in his phone. He takes out his phone and finds the number.

Dylan says, “Gabrielle's office phone number is 567-768-390-1289. She works in Red 1 law enforcement, 27
^th
precinct.”

Connor writes down Gabrielle's number and the number of her precinct on his notepad. “Have you seen what's on the disk yet?”

Connor says, “No, I haven't. I'm only going to take a look at that disk if I have some sort of backup. I think they could be tracking it. I've hidden the disk away from here so that they can't track me.”

Dylan says, “I'll run a scan check to see if they are using any tracking software. Stay on the line.”

Dylan gets on his computer and works his IT magic, using highly advanced top-secret software to see if the FBI are tracking Connor's file. After fifteen minutes of working,

Dylan says, “I can't find any tracking software being used. It's weird; loads of the IT servers in the LA FBI building are offline. Those servers are usually online.”

Connor says, “Yeah, it might have something to do with those assholes going into the main server room and turning the servers into shrapnel with their machine guns.”

Dylan says, “Do you want me to come to Mars?”

Connor says, “No, man, thanks for your help. Do you have my planet communicator number?”

Dylan says, “Now that you've phoned me, your number will be stored on my planet communicator.”

Connor says, “I'm going to give Gabrielle a call. I'll stay in touch.”

Dylan says, “OK, watch your ass over there.”

Connor says, “Yeah, I will, take care.”

Connor hangs up. He makes adjustments on his planet communicator, making his number private so that when he calls somebody nobody will get his number. Connor dials Gabrielle's phone number on the planet communicator.

Gabrielle Hoffman is a beautiful African-American woman that can kick some ass. Gabrielle wanted to be involved in law enforcement from a young age. She grew up in a poor suburban area that had a lot of crime. She always wanted to make a difference in the world and help everyone. Gabrielle saw Mars and the Glass Tomb for the very first time when she moved from America to the Red Planet two weeks ago. She moved to the First Dome because she wanted to work as a Red 1 law enforcement officer as the salary is much better than that of an FBI agent. Gabrielle is in her office in the Red 1 law enforcement 27
^th
precinct. She hears her office phone ring.

She answers the office phone and says, “Hello?”

Connor says, “Gabrielle, it's me, Connor.”

Gabrielle says, “Connor? Connor Harper, is that you?”

Connor says, “Yeah, it's me.”

Gabrielle says with a shocked voice, “Jesus Christ, I heard on the news that you went on a shooting rampage in LA. They named some of the agents you shot.” Gabrielle knows some of the agents who were shot, guys she used to work with. The CommDrone1 virus has been eliminated. IT experts from all of the media corporations eliminated the virus and created firewalls, protecting their corporations from the CommDrone1 virus. After the virus was eliminated, the news about the shootings in the LA FBI building and on the Hawthorn Bridge spread like a plague.