First part of Valles Mariners section II: Noctis Labyrinthus

Section II—Noctis Labyrinthis
Isaac Davis’ LogIn the first few days of my freedom, I explored what would serve as our home for this expedition. It’s much larger and better-made than what we had even been allowed to use. I guess when there’s a whole lot of money and power involved, Ascraeus Mons doesn’t spare any expense.

I don’t know how I’m going to make it all the way through this, either. None of the passengers seem to know what happened. They’re happy as clams— disgusting, slimy clams. Ottenson managed to find me a security mask, so no one can recognize me.

I celebrated my first day of knowing I wasn’t going to die by going to the rec area for whatever sorts of diversions had been set up by Ottenson for these citizens, so newly-fallen to Mars’ surface.

The transport vessel, the Mariner, was a behemoth. The science vessel (apparently called the Mariner II—Ottenson’s right clever with names, I guess) I was smuggled onto docked into a strong, reinforced steel tunnel under the tall belly of the Mariner, allowing me my first free access to it. After donning the alien-eyed gas mask the few other security officers, Thompson and Mannis (both young, very angry men wtih no kinder attitudes to modern law and politics than myself), wore, I chose to climb up the ladder that led to the Mariner utility tunnels.

They were dusty, murky, and cramped. I had to crouch my  head to not bang it against the ceiling—which would have been awfully painful, as it was made of the same steel grating that made up the floor—and as I walked forward, I had to duck even further to avoid the all-too-infrequent steel-encased light fixtures in the ceiling. Clearly it had been constructed by teh same minds that went into the under-city, as it followed the same basic layout: tight, cramped corridors, pitch-dark were it not for the orange lights wanly illuminating small circles of walkway, made even more claustrophobic by extensive piping winding every which way. It was significantly less gritty, though, as there was no bare earth (or Mars?) or exposed wires. It was much more soundly-made, and of better materials. I wondered vaguely where the government had secured so many expensive-looking metals and plastics, considering how squalid the dwellings and turbines were at Ascraeus Mons. Then, recalling the sleek black steel of the prison and interrogation chambers deep underneath the mountain, I realized that they were probably holding a lot back from the average citizen. They likely had quite a bit of naturally occuring resources so as to be able to produce so much military and science material.

The sweet oxygen in my mask elimenated what would likely have been a musty, burning rubber smell, as here and there, black fumes issued from valves in the walls obscuring the path in front of me, but not making my journey any harder, since there were clearly marked directions on the left wall under every light.

I elected, for my first day of freedom, to head up to the nearest place I could get drunk. I had heard a rumor from the security guys that there was a bar somewhere on board the Mariner. I peered through the gloom [use word gloom too many times] to see that the map did not have a bar but a lounge—Le Canapé d’Aphrodite. Odd—as I understood it, Ottenson was one of three men (all nn agents, I learned) who had designed the Mariner. I wouldn’t expect him of all people to choose a fancy French name for a bar intended to be enjoyed for a two-day journey.

I followed the arrows in pink (the color code for the Canapé) down the corridor and around a bend which led inward toward the belly of the ship. This corridor was darker than the others, without lighting of any sort —pitch black and swelteringly hot [show, don’t tell; have him sweat or something]. The only illumation was a single orange lamp at the end of the corridor, some thirty feet down. I could see in its light a pink arrow pointing up, and the skeletal outline of a ladder, its shadow cast downwards and stretched on the black, concrete wall. I walked down this corridor very briskly—I don’t like dark spaces all that much, I admit.

When I approached the ladder, I found that the words Canapé d’Aphrodite were printed in swirly pink letters on the wall behind it, beside the upward arrow. I climbed upward to find that it led through a vertical shaft of darkness to a hatch which opened with the access code Ottenson had given me. The hatch hissed open on its hydraulic rail.

It was like a sunrise of neon pink and red. I had to blink a few times before I could clearly make out what I was looking at. It was every shade of pink and red, trimming the edges of a vast, black room. Ride-ribbed pillars hung lazily from the ceiling to the floor in twirly, organic patterns, like thin tree trunks that had been submerged for hundreds of years underwater and had gained barnacles and coral swirling all over them. Booths made of dark, rich wood curled out of the floor, lining the walls of the chamber, little alcoves of darkness lit only from pink neon lines skirting the outer edges and the lines where the floor met the walls. Through the murk of smoke, the tall, circular bar stood like a vivid vermillion carousel, art nouveau columns flanking an ornately carved wooden counter where patrons crowded around on stools, black silhouettes against the brilliant red of the lights behind the countless bottles that stood in beautiful tiers behind the three barmen. Surrounding the central bar were various half-couches and circular couches, which a few sat, smoking on fat cigars whose tips glowed like demons eyes in the darkness. The carpet was a deep wine red, and thick. I could barely feel my booted foot make contact with the ground. The ceiling was of vaulted wood, the same rich wood from which the booths and the bar were made, ribbed with neon lines and drooping down in the vaulted crosshatches with old, slowly rotating fans, which did little more than stir the smoke as coolly as the denizens of the lounge reclined, drank, and smoked. Over the bar was an image mad eof the pink and red lights of a woman draped in a greek robe perched atop an Arab sofa, and the words Le Canapé d’Aphrodite written in the same swirly letters as below, also bright pink, glaring out against the gloom of the room almost angrily. Haunting piano music wafted to my ears, a tune I knew— a jazz tune written back in the 1930s. [especially keep the swirling, the colors—on the theme of them all being drugged; explain how he knows that tune]

I had never seen such a place as this. This was luxury I had read about in books, perhaps seen in photographs, but never imagined I would ever see.

Where did they get the wood to make this? Who lived in this sort of leisure, in rooms like these? Since when did bars on Mars have boroque trappings and invoke ancient Greek goddesses?  [maybe one too many questions]

Since when did people on Mars dress in smoking jackets and long, sinuous red dresses, like a couple I passed, sipping out of one another’s glasses? I had been to many countries on Earth; I had migrated to Mars; I had been kicked out of my house and gone to live an unfamiliar life on a different planet; for the first time, I was truly in an alien environment. [need to make this part of his story explained earlier]
It's going in a new direction from here: this section will read like a "spooky hotel" type story, with lots of character development, internal nn politics, assassination plots, secrecy, Davis getting stalked by a Mysterious Figure, etc.