“Did you require aid locating something?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. Two things, actually, and both of them tricky. The first would be if we have anything about the aliens. Pretty sure your boss, Carlos, has already been looking, but thought I’d put it out there just in case.”
“He has indeed been seeking, however not having any success. While there are many four-armed creatures that do appear in some of the older legends and myths, none are three-eyed and self-replicating.”
“What if I told you they were simply foot soldiers for a being that can inhabit bodies?”
Did you know a minotaur could raise brows it didn’t have? Kind of comical. “That is new information. Where did you come across it?”
“Aries. He met this alien overlord dude last night. Calls itself master. Says it wants to rule the world and can supposedly take over anyone it wants. When Aries killed it, a ball of light exited the corpse and flew away probably looking for a new body.”
“Most perturbing, but at the same time, these new details will give us new areas to search. You said you had a second request?”
“Yup. I need anything we’ve got on Mars. Especially the ancient stuff. I’m looking for mentions of it having people or Martians, if any Martians survived, if there’s a way to get there.”
“I assume there is a reason for the interest?”
“Sage and Olivia said something about me visiting and meeting with the Martian Queen.”
“Visit how?” Asterion sounded genuinely curious. “My understanding is the Zodiacs can only beam to locations on Earth.”
“That’s what I need to figure out. According to the prediction, this queen might know how we can defeat the body-snatching alien.”
“Meaning the two are related,” Asterion murmured. He cocked his head and stared off into space for a moment before adding, “Carlos says your request might take a bit of time, as he’ll have to peruse the older archives that he’s less familiar with.”
“Nothing recent I take it then?”
Asterion shook his head. “It would seem the only historical mentions of Mars are of the planet as seen from Earth, the god the Greeks assigned to it, and the modern knowledge that is readily available.”
“In that case, I’ll leave the two of you to dig and head to my office. See if I can’t suss out something on my own.”
“I shall work diligently in the meantime,” Asterion promised.
“Thanks, dude.”
After a brief detour to the dining room to load up on snacks, Aquarius headed to his office, a techno geek’s wet dream. Multiple screens, a military-grade server, and the digital world at his fingertips, all assembled by Aquarius. While Tower could provide most things, it struggled with technology. The one thing he didn’t question? How the hell Tower, a place built thousands of years ago, managed to get him the electricity needed. Some things just had to be accepted because, otherwise, you might go mad trying to understand.
Search after search only emphasized humanity’s lack of knowledge about Mars. Yes, they had images of the surface andscientific theories as to why a planet that once seemed to have water went dry. Something about the atmosphere disappearing, which led to solar winds stripping the surface. If it once held any vegetation, or even civilization in the form of structures, they’d long been erased—or hidden. After all, Tower knew how to hide itself from living and even electronic eyes.
Some alien buffs believed the Martians went underground to protect themselves from the ravaged surface. Possible but, again, unconfirmed. No way of knowing unless Aquarius could actually visit. Speaking of which…
A peek at the latest SpaceX news showed them still working on getting to Mars with the first few missions being unmanned and still not for another year or two. A tad too long given the situation.
“Hey, oh mighty star god who watches over me…” A tad much but Aquarius would rather overdo it than piss off the Astraeus. The beings of power inhabited the Zodiac constellations, and each chose a person of valor on Earth to be their avatar. It meant cool powers, a wicked tattoo on the back, which connected them, and increased stamina, strength, and durability. “I don’t suppose you could beam me to Mars?”
No reply. The star deities never spoke directly to their avatars, but if they could act, they did, so the fact he remained in his chair made it pretty clear the answer was no.
A message from Aries popped onto his screen.
This might be a long shot, but maybe you should visit the techie who fixed the alien nanobot.Ah yes, the little machine that was the start of all their troubles.
Why? I doubt he knows any more than us at this point,Aquarius replied.
The techie who fixed it is actually a she. Apparently, Lance had no clue how to repair the nanobot and passed it on tosomeone else. I wasn’t too happy, as you can imagine, which is when he reassured meshecould be trusted.
How does questioning her help?
I’m thinking with this alien commander having lost his army, he’ll be wanting to do something to replace them. Those parasitic nanobots might be what he turns to next.
