Arctic Earthwatch Station II stood like a sentinal at the top of the world. It's purpose to collect and digitalize environmental and atmospheric data and to transmit such data south for interpretation and analysis was part of an ongoing effort to understand man's effect on the planet he called home. As long as the satellite network and spec links fed the station data, it would continue to perform it's task with electronic precision.
The station's sole human occupant, Data Maintenance Manager, Bryce Winters, at times felt little more than a lighthouse attendent or janitor because the station's automatice systems were mostly self-running and self-regulating requiring little human input from him other than the odd recalibration or adjustment. Bryce made another calculation and then set the station controls to automatic. The glow from the readoutpanels was reassuring as he checked once more that all monitors were functioning in the proper transmission range.
When Bryce was not occupied with the maintenancer and upkeep or the station, he relieved the boredom and isolation of his high arctic outpost by surfing the Internet and making virtual contacts in the outside world. He regularly communicated with organizations and individuals this way. Ever since his contact with one of these organizations, the Marsdawn Project, he had noticed that the controls on his Internet hookup had been sluggish and slow to respond and that his phone and television links to the outside world felt different somehow. It was noting he could put his finger on. The controls jsut felt different.
His discovery of the Marsdawn Project had been an exciting revelation for Bryce. That the Old Brace Emprise probes had survived the collapse of the company and were now in the process of making Earth-shattering and historic explorations of the red planet, had lifted Bryce out of his usual cynicism and malaise.
The probes had confirmed his theory's about time-space disturbances within the solar system and proven the existance of wormholes. His ideas had been dismissed as lunacy by earthly authorities but the Marsdawn probes daily provided further proof that humanity was not alone in the universe. With each new discovery and turn of events on Mars, Bryce found himself more and more involved and even obsessed with the fate of the child-like Marsdawn probes.
Empty silicon and corbon pathways had evolved into electronic synapses whose junctions now throbbed with curiousity and imagination. The probes had almost magically developed vurtual lives and now seemed sentient beings, each with their own personalties, quirks and desires. The most exciting thing to Bryce, was the curiousity the abandoned probes exhibited. They had an isatiable desire for knowledge and explored the surface of Mars like kids on a trip to the zoo. Man had fulfilled the age old dream and become a God of sorts. He had created life.
But as the excitment of contact with the probes ahd tempered, Bryce came to realize that there were darker more ominous forces at work on Mars as well. As Bryce came to better understand these forces, it was then that his operating ssytems began to feel sluggish and unresponsive. Occasionally, a program he was running would stop and cancel itself and he would get a strange shutdown warning. Several times he would inexplicably lose a file he was working on and just as he would give up on retrieval, it would mysteriously reappear. The systems just didn't feel the same as the had before contact with Marsdawn. It was as if he had been invadedby a virus or cookie that was not responsive to the normal dstection programs.Once, an entity calling itself Vinda had sent him a cryptic message, "They watch in the North but you never see. Your eyes are closed." Vinda had then disappeared into cyberspace leaving Bryce mystified and a little scared as well. His efforts to trace Vinda were fruitl;ess. Over the long cold winter, Bryce fought off the paranoia he was feeling and tried to ignore the strange disturbances.
NOw it was almost spring and Bryce needed to escapr the gloomy silence of the station. Oprah reruns and the sexual foibles of the President were not relieving the opressive isolation of his lonely outpost.
"Ineed a vacation," Bryce thought to himself, "I'm going icefishing."
He adjusted his parka and made sure that his snowmobile boots were comfortabe before opening the stations airlock and stepping outside into the cold. The brilliant sunlight stung his eyes and he reached for his sunshades to ward off the glare. It had been an incredibly warm winter for this part of the world but it was mid-March now and the thermometer read -32*C. The morning was frigid and still. The Arctic air had a sharp, crystalline quality - all moisture frozen into minute ice particles that bit hais nostrils as he inhaled.
Suddenly, the snowbank to Bryce's right exploded towards him in a flurry of fur and snapping fangs as a huge beast lunged for him. Natuk's tail was wagging though and he covered Bryce's face with wet canine kisses and knocked him over in the excitement of the gretting. The big, grey wolf-husky cross had spent the night huddled in the snowbank,in the age-old manner of all dogs in this harsh, unforgiving climate. Bryce saw that the two gallon pail of food was empty and filled it so that Nakut would have another meal before they set out he would need his energy for the journey to the lake. The dog rested a huge paw on Bryce's arm and gazed at him with loving, pale blue eyes before chowing down.
"You big suck", Bryce laughed out loud and patted tyhe beast on the back.
He began to load the snowmobile with the provisions they would need for two days out on the tundra.
"This is just what I need", Bryce thought, "a couple of days of heaven. No responsibilities, no cares, no worries."
If only he could have seen what lay ahead.