The Ruins of Mars (The Ruins of Mars Trilogy Book 1) by Dylan James Quarles

Author:Dylan James Quarles
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2013-01-04T00:00:00+00:00

Xao-Xing Liu—July 2046

Donovan drifted like a ghost through the darkened Beijing apartment. Flicking from room to room in the spacious penthouse, he covered his tracks with encrypted coding that continued to blind the Chinese watchdog AI, Tainwang, to his presence in the home. Tainwang was China’s premiere government counterintelligence AI, named after the four heavenly gods of Buddhism who oversaw the cardinal directions of the world. While vast and powerful, the Chinese AI was no match for Donovan, who simply mimicked Tainwang’s own intelligence signature and integrated himself, unnoticed, into the AI’s digital construct. In this way, Donovan became like a part of Tainwang: indiscernible from the rest.

As he moved into the bedroom, Donovan lingered to watch over the two figures lying in the large bed. Peering through the darkness from his vantage point behind the screen of a wall-mounted computer, he positively identified Xao-Xing Liu—the Chinese astronaut and payload specialist. From the rise and fall of her small breasts, he determined that she must be asleep, but deciding that it was better to be safe than sorry, he hid in the dim room like a living shadow.

Liu lay with her eyes closed, but she was not asleep. Listening to the hum of the air conditioner as it battled the sweltering heat outside the building, she fought hard to keep from tossing and turning with boredom. Ever since she had undergone the gene enhancement nearly a year ago, she found that two hours of sleep a night was all she really needed to feel fully rested. Whether it was tradition or just the desire to appear normal, she still tried to sleep the whole night through like she used to, but it was useless.

The man next to her in bed snorted softly in his sleep and mumbled incoherently in Mandarin Chinese. Breathing deeply in the chill of the heavily conditioned air, Liu silently squirmed with unabated excitement and relief. In two days time, she, along with the rest of the Mars crew, would disembark for the Moon to complete the remainder of their training at Bessel Base. Though the prospect of spending nearly twenty-four months on the barren surface of the Moon was less than appetizing, Liu was still excited—almost giddy—to leave. Like the rest of the crew, she had been flown home the night before to spend her final days on Earth with family and friends. However, with her parents long dead, she had no family with which to visit, and since the members of Project Braun were her only real friends, she felt that this time in China was less of a vacation and more of a chore. As she thought of the crew, her mind drifted to the young Egyptian American archaeologist, Harrison Raheem Assad.

Unable to deny that the two did have chemistry between them, Liu had at first tried to pawn Harrison off on the shy, yet clearly desiring, YiJay Lee. When it became clear that he had no interest in the sad-faced young Korean, Liu had instead opted to silence her feelings, burying them deep within herself like a dirty secret.

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