Rabbit Hole on Mars - Day 4 (Nov 4) 2,476 words

Chapter 4

“How does NASA not know how another rover landed on Mars right next to its only operational rover?” Special Agent Kantpis leaned back in his chair and tilted his head like a dog.

“Well,” Brian Creek said in a tired voice, “Did you check all the security cameras on Mars? Talk to all the Martians to find out what they know about a rabid rabbit?”

“Cut the shit, Creek,” Kantpis tipped his head the other way like a dog honestly trying to understand his master, “We've got enough problems here on earth to keep track of. It would be nice if we didn't have to worry about Mars for another few decades.”

“I will share anything I find or figure out with you, but as of right now, I'm just as clueless as you are.”

“Fair enough.”

“Scott, Opportunity's driver and operator, is waking up the rover. Follow me into the Mission room and we'll start looking for the rabbit together.”

Entering the Mission Room, Brian greeted everyone, “Wake up everybody. Today we are going to be on Mars looking for a rabbit with the help of the G-men from the FBI and NSA. Special Agent Kantpis is the FBI's lead man and I'm not sure who the NSA has...”

“Joe,” a fourty something, hispanic male with a buzz cut stepped from the back of the group.

“Joe...um,”

“Just Joe.”

“Jesus Christ,” Brian shook his head, “Just Joe will be the lead man for the NSA. Scott, fire up Opportunity. Everyone keep your eyes open and feel free to point out anything odd you might observe on the surface.”

Scott adjusted one of the toy figures at his rover control station. A small beat up android from the Star Wars films called R2D2. He had played with it as a child to expand his imagination, but now it was a trophy of where his childhood had led him. Holding R2D2 up into the air, he smiled and remembered that time in a sandbox where he lost another figure named C3PO. He never found C3PO and to this day it still bothers him. As he closely inspected R2D2, his eyes readjusted to focus on another object a few feet away staring at him, Brian.

Brian's hands were on his hips and and he was shaking his head as he looked down at Scott, “I'm in there telling them you are the best rover driver NASA's ever had and if we're going to find this robot, it's because you are on the team. Yet here you are, daydreaming with toys at your rover control station. Can you suppress your inner child for once in your life?”

“One of us had a childhood we enjoyed while the other was never a child. You were once spider like larva that busted out someone's chest after they had accidentally ingested you. Fully formed, bald head and bushy nostril hair. NASA found you and brought you here to torture this group and haunt our dreams like Fed Kruegger.”

“No idea what you're talking about, but everyone should have the right to skip their childhood. Put the toys down and let me know when Opportunity is warmed up.”

Scott nodded his head as he hit a few more buttons on a touch screen.

“Randall, can we get an update from what the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter can see from the sky?”

“Randal isn't here, Brian,” Donna Regency said. She was Randall's prodigy.

“What time is he coming in, Donna?”

“He's not coming in, he was complaining of chest pains when he called me this morning.”

“Genius. Why didn't I think of that? Who's going to brief us on the satellite imagery?”

“That would be me, Brian. Are you okay with that?”

Brian threw his hands up in the air, “You're the man now, Donna.”

The room became awkwardly silent.

Donna whispered to herself, “Shitshow.” She was a twenty six year old half African American, half Polish woman with a purple tint to her black hair. Taller and thinner than most of the men in the Mission Control room. She switched majors in college from video game design to study topography and remote sensing with satellites. She saw herself first and foremost as a gamer, then a NASA analyst.

“Pulling up a series of images on the center screen,” Donna said, “The first is two hours after Opportunity went to sleep last night. You can see that our Rabbit has been busy collecting rocks to build cairn after cairn since walking away from Opportunity. Or rolling away. Whatever. I've highlighted in a line all the piled up rocks. You can kind of see most of the tracks in the sandy soil. The rocks are in a straight line out about a half mile. By this point the sun has gone down, so where this little rabbit is getting its energy to build all these rocks and keep going is beyond me.”

Kantpis interjected, “What's the point of piling rocks?”

“Cairns can either be built as a memorial or as a landmark. When we pull back a little bit and see what happened two hours later on the next slide, our possible friend took a ninety degree turn and made piles of rocks for another half mile.”

Brian asked, “Does the number of rock piles mean anything?”

“I don't think so. I'll show you the next two slides and then I'll give you my take on what's happening. Slide three, another ninety degree angle, slide four, another ninety degree angle. If I highlight all the rows of rocks we find that our rabbit friend has boxed Opportunity inside. Essentially, the rabbit has created a corral for the rover and I'm guessing it doesn't want Opportunity going outside of the corral.”

Just Joe stood up from his chair, “Let's say this rabbit is from earth. Built by someone on earth rather. Where did it come from? Where is it getting its signal? Who funded this thing? Is it dangerous? Does Opportunity have any kind of defenses?”

Everyone in the room sat still.

“Feel free to share your thoughts.”

Scott decided to share, “We drive up a hill, then we drive down a hill. We look at a rock, we look at the horizon. Sometimes we take a selfie. Random rovers dropping out of the sky isn't really on our list of things to look out for.”

“Ok, got it. I want to get you guys to think outside the box. Cause that's what we're going to have to do to beat this thing. We've got to get on the offense.”

Blank stares.

Brian pointed at the screen, “Donna, where's the rabbit now?”

Scott opened Opportunity's eyes. The rabbit stood in front of and slightly over Opportunity. The rabbit head resembled a cake pan for a child's birthday cake. Slightly taller than the rover, the rabbit moved it's head back and forth as if inspecting. The head and arms moved much more fluidly than a normal hydraulic machine. Much more natural, like how a person would move. It was clear that whoever designed the rabbit, probably made it stronger, faster and more powerful than Opportunity.

“What's the plan, what are we doing?”

“We aren't doing anything,” Scott said, “This thing has arms. I have no idea if they are hydraulic and what kind of pressure they can apply. Last thing I want to do is piss this thing off. It might crush us.”

“Are you recording all this imagery?” Agent Kantpis asked, “Can we get still photos, high res? Copies of the videos on a drive or something?”

“Hand me a drive,” Scott said.

“We didn't bring one with us.”

“You can run down to the Best Buy down the road and get...”

“We'd like to use one of yours.”

“These drives you see don't ever get disconnected. We might all be in the same government, but we're lucky we have everything we do. You want images, you provide your own drive.”

Agent Kantpis, looked over at Brian.

Brian smiled, “I'm going to tell you the same thing. The money in our budget is mostly sitting on another planet. Feel free to pick me up some paperclips while you're there.”

“Agent Snyder, head over to Best Buy and pick up an external hard drive.”

“I don't have a government card,” Agent Snyder replied.

“You'll get reimbursed.”

“I've yet to be reimbursed from the last time.”

“Get a goddamn external hard drive!”

Agent Snyder turned and walked out the room shaking his head the whole way.

Everyone at Mission Control turned their attention back to the rabbit. It's inspecting gaze turned up to the sky as if looking for something else.

“Is there a microphone on Opportunity?” Agent Kantpis asked.

“No,” Scott replied.
“Speakers, anything?”

“No boombox either. Maybe on the next one.”

“How the hell are we going to communicate with it?”

“Charades I guess.”

The rabbit approached the rover. Scott, tried to back it up.

Brian pointed out, “The rover used to have a twenty minute delay between what we told it to do and what it could do. We've cut that down to twenty seconds with a stronger signal we're pushing towards Mars and the updated software we have installed in the rover.”

Opportunity rolled back a foot, inside the southwestern corner of the hommade corral. The rabbit joined the rover inside the corral.

“Okay, so the rabbit is fine with joining us inside the corral,” Brian said, “Wonder if it will let us out of it.”

Scott yelled, “It's reaching for something!”

The rabbit opened a hinged door outward from it's torso out so Opportunity could not see inside. It pulled out something with a wooden handle. Closing the lid it was clear to see the rabbit was holding a brush. Maybe a paintbrush.

The rabbit approached Opportunity.

“What the hell is happening?” Brian asked the air, “What's the brush for?”

The rabbit began to brush off the solar panels of Opportunity.

Scott rotated the optics to look down and see the brush knocking off all the dust.

Brian looked at some charts, “Power levels increasing. We've got ourselves a friend everyone.”

“We'll make that call, Mr. Creek,” Just Joe said.

The rabbit finished brushing off Opportunity, backed up and looked at the boundary it had built. Then looked at Opportunity.

“It's telling us not to go outside the corral it built for us,” Scott said.

“It's our friend as long as we play it's little games,” Just Joe said shaking his head.

Rabbit rolled away to a hilltop nearby and scanned the surroundings.

“What's he planning?” Agent Kantpis asked anyone listening. “Donna, what could he be looking for?”

“Well, he either knows exactly where he is or he's trying to figure it out,” Donna said, “But I have no idea for what.”

“Do we stay inside the corral or do we leave?” Scott asked.

Brian looked over, “What's inside the corral area? Anything useful to us? Is he doing us a favor keeping us here or is this our pen before the slaughter?”

“Stay put, Scott,” Donna said.

“You only have four operational hours a day, correct,” Agent Kantpis said, “We have to find out what our boundaries really are. Go outside the corral.”

“Is the FBI funding the rover now?” Brian asked. “As far as I know, I'm the one in charge here.”

“The NSA will be making the final call here as to what we are going to be doing,” Just Joe said.

“You want to fire me?” Brian yelled, “Fine, fire me. I don't give a shit.”

Just Joe said to Scott, “Head a few feet outside the corral.”

Scott pushed the controls forward.

“Am I fired?” Brian asked. “Can I get someone to just say 'you're fired'?”

Twenty seconds later, Opportunity crossed the line and went outside the corral.

“He's looking for a safe place to live,” Donna said, “Probably not interested in us out on the horizon throwing off his plans.”

Agent Kantpis asked, “Where did you come up with that Donna?”

“You don't play too many video games do you?”

Brian chimed in, “If no one's going to fire me, than you ask me to make moves, you don't tell anyone of my team what to do. Are we clear?”

The room became a stand off like an old Western Film where no one knew who was going to draw first. The tension was broken by the screen shaking. Opportunity was being forcefully pushed back into the corral by the rabbit.

The rabbit went back to the hilltop.

Donna walked over to Scott, “What's it take to drive this thing?”

“You can either push these controls or pre-program where you want it to go.”

“Can I draw something and you make the rover follow the pattern inside this quadrant of the corral?”

“Sure, if Brian's cool with it.”

Brian overheard them, “Do whatever you want. I'm going to the bathroom.”

The rover began to draw in the soil with it's tracks. First a box, then a long rectangular box. A head and a torso.

Brian stared at himself in the mirror, then began to talk to himself, “I've fired so many people. Now the only person left is to fire myself and I can't even do that. Who are you looking at right now? You're looking at a failure. Wait a minute, I'm not looking at one, I am one. Who tells the coach to get back in the game? Wake up man. The coach tells the coach to get back in the goddamn game. Now get your ass back out there and lead these ungrateful bastards.”

Opportunity finished leaving tracks of long rectangular arms and long rectangular legs. Once finished with the drawing, Scott used Opportunity's optics to look up at the rabbit on the hilltop looking down on the drawing.

The rabbit was clearly nodding it's head up and down.

Brain came back from the bathroom.

Agent Kantpis looked at the image from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on a side screen. A crude block drawing of a human. “Rabbit's nodding his head so he knows what you drew. What the hell's the connection?”

 Donna was smiling at Scott who already got it and was smiling back, “Minecraft.”