The First Mann on Mars

©Copyright 2024 by Mark Watson

THE STORY SO FAR…

Moronic Billionaut Derek Mann, along with his snarky, silver AI sidekick Barry Wilkinson, are hurtling toward Mars in a somewhat questionable spaceship. Back on Earth, things have gone predictably wrong—most of Northern Europe has been obliterated after Derek’s genius friend Noel decided to crank the Large Hadron Collider up to eleven. The rest of the planet is now enjoying the charming chaos of a post-apocalyptic era. Meanwhile, Derek and Barry have been rescued from an ugly, dangerous spaceship and are finally approaching Mars…

Chapter Five: Green Mars

As the capsule continued its rattling journey towards Mars, something strange happened. The usual dusty, rust-colored orb of Mars loomed ever closer on the viewscreen, but then… it didn’t. The familiar barren wasteland of Martian rock and dust, the Martian landscape that all the textbooks and movies promised—well, it simply wasn’t there.

Instead, a shimmering visual field, like a curtain of static, flickered in front of the capsule. It reminded Derek of those old TVs that needed a good smack to show a clear picture, but before he could comment on it, they passed through the shimmering field and into a different Mars altogether.

“Wait, what?” Derek blinked at the screen. “What is that?”

Barry stopped pressing buttons for a moment—his version of a gasp. “That,” he said, staring at the screen, “is not the Mars we’ve been sold in all those shiny science brochures.”

The barren, red wasteland of Mars had been replaced by a sprawling expanse of lush, green forests, shimmering lakes, and rolling hills that looked suspiciously like someone had misplaced half of the English countryside. The sky, rather than its expected pinkish hue, was a soft blue with fluffy white clouds drifting lazily overhead, as though Mars had borrowed Earth’s weather for the day without asking.

"That’s not a dustbowl!" Derek said, pointing at the screen with disbelief and annoyance, like someone who’d been told they were getting a cheap sandwich but was handed a full roast dinner.

"No," Barry agreed, equally astonished. "It’s—" He flailed for a description, failing to land on anything suitably cosmic. "It’s a bloody postcard. From Surrey."

They watched in stunned silence as their capsule skimmed over emerald forests, fields of wildflowers, and what looked suspiciously like vineyards. The Mars Defense Force ships continued their merry, trident-shaped dance around them, completely unfazed, as if they’d known all along that Mars was hiding its true nature behind a digital curtain.

"You don’t suppose this is one of those advertising tricks, do you?" Derek asked, eyeing the screen with suspicion. "Like when a hotel promises ‘stunning ocean views’ but forgets to mention the construction site next door?"

Barry frowned. “Hard to say. But I suspect that NASA’s been lying to us for decades. Either that or we’ve stumbled onto the greatest interplanetary real estate scam in history.”

“Is this even Mars?” Derek asked, looking for a signpost that might confirm his existential dread. “Because I distinctly remember it being a dusty, rusty-coloured deathtrap the last time I looked.”

“Oh, it’s Mars all right,” Barry said, squinting at the readings. “But it seems someone forgot to mention the part where it's got trees, lakes, and—wait, is that a golf course?”

Sure enough, as they flew past what could only be described as Mars’ very own version of Augusta National, complete with manicured fairways and little space buggies, Derek felt his brain attempt to perform a somersault of logic.

“Well,” Derek said, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms, “this is lovely. I'm almost disappointed.”

Barry, meanwhile, had moved from confusion to outright annoyance. "They could have said, you know. I thought Mars was all 'desolate wasteland, no hope for humanity,’ and it turns out it’s Earth 2.0 with better landscaping and golf courses. Lots of golf courses. Typical bureaucratic oversight, I’d say. Forget the golf courses, make sure to mention the dust storms."

As the capsule drifted closer to the surface, the shimmering force field behind them vanished, leaving them fully immersed in the verdant Martian paradise. Below, they could now see clusters of domed buildings nestled between forests and lakes, connected by winding roads and, what appeared to be, solar-powered trains.

Just then, the comms crackled to life again. "Welcome to Mars!" Hotdog’s voice announced cheerfully, as if revealing a secret garden. "This is the real deal, folks. We project the barren wasteland bit on the front to keep the riffraff out."

Derek stared at the speaker in disbelief. “So, Mars is just… pretending to be a terrible place?”

“Standard interplanetary practice,” Hotdog continued, oblivious to the rising tide of incredulity in the capsule. "You keep the flashy bits hidden, that way only the right sort of people stick around. You’ll see, it’s beautiful here. You’ll love it."

Barry sighed, rubbing his temples. "Of course. Mars is a gated community."

And so, with the capsule now gliding over what appeared to be Mars’ version of the Garden of Eden, Derek and Barry prepared to land in what could only be described as the most inexplicably well-kept secret in the solar system.

Because why wouldn’t Mars be a paradise?

After all, nothing in the universe made sense anymore, so why start now?

“Barry,” Derek said, rubbing his eyes as if he might’ve accidentally left them on the "hallucinate" setting.

“Yes, Derek?” Barry replied, in a tone that implied he had long ago given up on being surprised by anything.

“Why is Mars… green?”

Barry ran a quick diagnostic, just to humor Derek. “According to the historical records—and by 'historical,' I mean ‘anything over an hour old'—Mars was a dusty wasteland devoid of life, oxygen, and any resemblance to an appealing travel destination. However,” Barry continued, as if reading from an unnecessarily long instruction manual, “current visual data confirms that Mars is now a verdant, lush, Earth-like environment. Conclusion: we’ve been lied to. Or something incredibly unlikely has happened. I’m going with the latter.”

Derek squinted at the planet below, which looked more like the English countryside than a distant, inhospitable planet. "Do you think this is Noel’s doing?"

“I think Noel is more likely to turn planets into fireballs than garden paradises, so... unlikely,” Barry replied, sounding just the slightest bit impressed.

As they descended closer to the surface, the Mars Defense Force ships—still buzzing around them like hyperactive bees—escorted them toward a large, shimmering dome.

“Barry,” Derek muttered, stepping out of the capsule and taking a deep breath of the rich, oxygen-filled air. “What the hell is going on?”

“It appears,” Barry said, in that annoyingly calm manner, “that Mars is not the barren wasteland we were led to believe. There is vegetation. And—if my sensors are not malfunctioning—birds.”

“Birds. On Mars.”

“Yes. Birds,” Barry repeated, a touch too nonchalantly for Derek’s liking.

Before Derek could fully process the absurdity of avian life on the Red Planet, a figure emerged from a nearby cottage, waving enthusiastically. She was a woman of about fifty, dressed in what appeared to be a floral-print spacesuit—complete with a garden gnome badge on the shoulder. Her face was lit up with the kind of welcoming smile that either said "I’m happy to see you" or "I’m about to sell you a very dodgy time-share."

“Oi, love! Welcome to New Eden!” she hollered, her voice thick with a Bristol accent. “Name’s Doreen. Mars Tourism Board, at yer service!”

Derek blinked at her. “Tourism? On Mars?”

“Yeah, love, where else? You think people want to go to Earth these days?” She laughed heartily. “Not with all that doom an’ gloom. Anyway, here we are—Mars! Ain’t she beautiful?”

Derek rubbed his eyes. “But… how?”

“Oh, you know, some clever boffins figured it all out. Bit of this, bit of that, and bam! Instant garden planet. You’ve got to hand it to those eggheads. If it weren’t for ‘em, we’d still be livin’ under the rocks like it’s 1969.”

Barry walked beside Derek, clearly struggling to compute the transformation of Mars into an interplanetary countryside retreat. “This makes absolutely no sense. Terraforming on this scale would take centuries, and there’s no evidence of such advancements in technology.”

Doreen shrugged. “Yeah, well, sometimes science is all ‘ooh, look at me, I’m complicated,’ and sometimes, love, it’s just a case of knowing which buttons to press.” She winked at Barry in a way that implied she was more familiar with the ‘off’ button than anything else.

Derek, still reeling from the absurdity of it all, looked around again. The air was thick with the sounds of life. Birds tweeted merrily from the trees, the river bubbled along happily, and nearby, he could hear the unmistakable sound of a lawnmower.

END OF CHAPTER FIVE

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