We stand on their shoulders.
How I admire them. And they look even grander, even more impressive under the midnight lights of Metropolis.
The monument to the elders of the Loyal Order of Little Green Beings was hardly little by any means. It towered over the citizens on the Cosmic Promenade. Especially as a Little Green Being myself.
If it wasn't for the elders I imagine I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't have the opportunity to live in this incredible place, to take in the energy and the beauty.
I could never help but admire the perfection here at the center of Tomorrowland. The symmetry in the Power Palms, the distinct color palette of Cosmic Ray's marquee, the musical hum of the Transit Authority Blue Line. I noticed a slight inconsistency in the Green Line on my ride downtown today, probably a track bolt slightly loose. Need to forward that to their maintenance team.
For now I was off to do my part to protect Tomorrowland, by performing maintenance on the main ornamental gear assembly in Rocket Tower Plaza. A truly impressive piece of art and one of the most iconic features in Metropolis. It was my honor to be able to get up close and personal with something so important.
"Can you quit your gawking at this piece of trash and clip my safety harness, Kaelen?" my partner, Sprock was less enthusiastic about our profession. I buckled him in.
"You can take the Grand tonight, I'll grab the lessers." Sprock said. The 'grand' referred to the Grand Chronopolis Cog which was its official name in the original schematics. "With pleasure, Sprock."
Per usual Sprock finished up as I was barely getting started, muttered something about making last call at Cosmic Ray's and then lowered himself back down to the ground. That was fine with me. I will swing back and touch up his work after I'm done with the Grand.
I flipped my enhanced Martian goggles back on and began the motion of leading my spectral grease brush through the giant teeth of the cog.
"Hmm, what's this?" the brush caught a snag. I pulled in close and bumped up the night vision clarity on my goggles. Wedged between the two teeth was a tiny, complex, flat black metallic object. It looked like two cylinders exploded and then were put back together again to form a plus sign.
I enhanced the sub-atomic zoom on my goggles to get a closer look. There were symbols all over the thing. They looked Martian but not in a pattern I could decipher.
Luckily I knew someone who could.
The next morning I brushed through the crowd of tourists grazing through the central hub of the Tomorrowland museum. The first Power Palms always drew an audience of worshippers. There was several of the same model ancient jet airliner with a different logo on each; beautiful but derivative. An ancient yellow submersible rested on crystal blue neon 'water'. I had seen it all before. Plus I I had someone to see.
Down the far less busy south wing of the museum I arrived at the Martian exhibit.
"and over the red valley straight into the gorge of DARKNESS!"
Standing beneath the old Pioneer Satellite display was a group of diplomats from Saturn who stepped back and were visibly rattled by whatever story they were being told. They each did a small bow and turned to leave the exhibit hall, but not before one captured a quick holo-photo.
"Kaelen!"
"Grandfather!" I rushed in to receive a hug and the traditional head pat.
"What brings you out in the daylight, my boy? They take you off of the Kinetic Engineering late shift?"
"Fortunately, no." Grandfather smiled big at that.
"Good! The best discoveries are always made at night." He winked.
"I've actually come to ask you about this." I said reaching in my pocket to pull out the object I discovered while cleaning the Grand. As I opened my fingers to reveal the item my grandfather's face froze. The smile turned neutral for a moment and then became wider. His stance straightened and his eyes perked up with an energy I hadn't seen in many rotations.
"When the lost key rest in the hand of the sync-smith, the stars of the home world must align through the eye of the traveler. The metal tracks shall hum a forgotten melody, and the hidden gates of the Chronopolis will swing wide to the rhythm of the rails for all to see."
He folded my fingers back over the object.
"This is the temporal seed-cylinder, Kaelen. The Cog of the Cosmos prophecy is real. It always has been."
"Mom always said that was just an old story you told! The elders laughed when you brought it up."
"The elders don't want to admit the truth. They have lost the way." Grandfather sighed. "You must follow this to the end, Kaelen. You can finish what I started. Here." He reached for something in a sliding drawer beneath his desk.
"This is a map of Tomorrowland, overlayed with the Chronopolis gears. The gears are not quite in the right location to have it all make sense. Your cylinder there should help."
"Orin. Can I see you in my office for a moment?" one of the elders of the order poked his head out from the space they had located in the museum.
"Of course, Thorne. One moment please!" Grandfather then lowered his voice significantly. "Use my hyper-microscope to record the glyphs on the cylinder. I have a cipher I've left with Aunty Gravity. Tell her you need to see the secret menu." With that he put his hand on my shoulder. "I'm so proud of you, Kaelen."
He walked off towards Thorne's office.
I copied the glyphs and left quickly to head over to Aunty Gravity's and ask for the secret menu. I started thinking about all the things my Grandfather had ever said about the Cog of the Cosmos. His words always made me imagine the galaxy like a series of gears all working together to move. Mars sat in the middle, our knowledge powering the whole system. Grandfather described a time where Martians and Humans were able to share in this responsibility to keep the gears moving. Tomorrowland was built in this image of unity and knowledge, he said.
The smell of Galactic Goodies suddenly filled my nose. I walked in and grabbed a seat at the long service bar, waving to Aunty and making my request. Aunty made her way into a back room where I caught sight of a disturbingly large safe and arrived moments after with the cipher. I assembled the first message while sipping on a Space Ranger Float.
Stars tell the stories of what was seen / align to where they've been / find who first found little and green
The Gaze / The Spires / The Loom
Fortunately I was a bit of what the Martians call a 'jock' and was pretty darn good at astronomy. The Gaze, Spires, and Loom were all Martian constellations. The rest of this didn't make a whole lot of sense but I figured if I looked long enough I could figure it out. I left some credits on the bar and caught the Blue Line to the Star Port.
Star Port 77 now had an entire dock converted into a viewport for citizens to use and view their home planets or systems, as well as the local stars. Moving quickly and calmly I entered Port 77A to begin my search. Sitting down at the console I pulled the viewport to face Mars. I found the Gaze, which resembled a pair of Martian eyes that seem to be looking at the Spires. A series of mountain tops that are said to be an exact match of Tharsis Montes. Sitting above the mountains are a tapestry of stars known as the Loom. The Loom trails off into a one long point. My first guess was whatever I was looking for would be at this point, but the charts didn't show anything.
I wondered.
I pulled up some of the ancient star maps from my SMART band and sent them to the console. The viewport adjusted to show the constellations but as if I was viewing them from Mars. I then moved the timeframe back to the rotation that Earth first made contact with Mars. Now at the end of the Loom was something new. I focused in and applied the label to the object. The Pioneer Satellite!
I wonder if Grandfather knew what hung above him all these years at the museum. I couldn't wait to tell him. Running back into the Martian Exhibit at the museum I found a completely empty room. It looked like Grandfather had to leave in a hurry. There were papers everywhere, tools knocked about. Even some of the exhibit was disheveled. I ascended the maintenance staircase up to walkway near the Pioneer Satellite. Nothing looked obviously out of place on the satellite at first glance. I reapplied my goggles and hit the sub-atomic zoom again. Bingo. One of the side panels held an inscription of what looked like a giant math problem. I snapped a photo with my goggles.
"Hey! What are you doing up there?" down below me stood elder Thorne and three other elders.
"I uhh.."
"Get him!" the three elders quickly headed for the maintenance staircase. I am starting to think Grandfather didn't leave this mess.
With no place else to go I hopped over the walkway handrail and grabbed onto the Pioneer hoping it would hold. It kind of did. The wires connected to the panel I was holding onto snapped from the ceiling, but those on the opposite side held. Rapidly I swung in an arc forward towards where Thorne stood preparing to duck. I flew over the top of his head and let go of the satellite falling a small distance to the ground and immediately running out the door.
I hit my SMART band and called the only math expert I knew.
"Meet me at Aunty's!"
"This better be good - I'm missing the Lightcycle Race."
"Thanks for meeting me, Sprock. I wouldn't have called if it wasn't an emergency." I sat down at my spot at the bar looking nervously behind me.
"You're a weirdo, Kaelen. What do you need?" asked Sprock.
"I need you to solve this." I sent the inscription from the satellite to Sprock's tablet.
"Woah. This is a good one. Why do you need this?" he asked while getting to work.
"It's a long story, but I think it's important to Tomorrowland." I said making note of the other clients currently in the cafe. A Martian with a patch of the moon Phobos on his vest caught my attention.
"Let me see what I can figure out." Sprock said grinding away.
Three muffins and two cups of caf later Sprock made a noise of triumph.
"This is going to sound weird. But it looks like it's a conversion formula for sound frequencies to some kind of esoteric musical scale. There are nine possible notes on the scale. There are also what appear to be coordinates to a location?"
Sprock handed his tablet over to me to take a look.
"Interesting." I said setting the tablet down.
At that moment the Phobos patch Martian jumped out of his booth and reached between Sprock and I to try and grab the tablet.
"Hey!" we both shouted as the tablet slid down the bar and onto the floor. I spun the stool around as quickly as I could to catch the thief. Right before he was able to grab the tablet from the ground, Aunty Gravity stuck a rolling pin out to trip and then hold the Martian down.
"Thanks, Aunty." I said between breaths.
"No problem, sugar." offered Aunty. Sprock sat in shock.
"Who are you?" I asked the Martian on the ground.
"Sons of Phobos looks like" said Aunty. The Martian spat on the ground. Aunty shoved a muffin in his mouth.
"The what?" Sprock asked from his stool.
"The Sons of Phobos are a splinter faction of the Loyal Order of Little Green Beings. Think the galaxy belongs to them. Probably trying to get ahead of whatever you're after, Kaelen." Aunty explained. "I would solve this as fast you can, kid. They aren't nice guys."
"What should we do with him?" I asked.
"I have a recipe for a little green pie I've been wanting to try."
The Son of Phobos gulped.
I ran out the door with Sprock's tablet and hopped on the Blue Line to try and figure out what to do with this music scale formula. As usual I found myself harmonizing along with the hum the TTA cars generate as they glide through the different stops. The nine different stops.
The next three hours were spent determining the frequencies of each Tomorrowland Transit Authority Blue Line route stop. Once recorded I worked them through the formula to produce what Sprock thought was a note on some ancient Martian scale.
Once I finished I input the coordinates into Sprock's tablet and began to walk. They ended up being down a TTA service tunnel across from the Robo-Newz building. The tunnel was dimly lit by a small overhead light every couple hundred of feet. The space next to the tracks was damp with the occasional puddle reflecting the light from overhead. Why were tunnels like this always wet?
I closed in on the exact coordinates.
"Hello, Kaelen."
"Thorne. Where is my Grandfather?"
"He is unharmed, Kaelen."
My eyes noticed the patch of Phobos on his vest. He noticed my discovery.
"What do you think you know of the Sons of Phobos, Kaelen?"
"I know enough. You don't seem like very nice guys."
"The Sons have existed for many rotations to find the Cog of the Cosmos. It contains all of the power known to Ancient Mars. It is the power we need for our conquest. The power to right the wrongs of the downfall of the Martian empire!" Thorne stepped forward.
"The only thing stopping us now - is you."
Thorne removed something sharp from his tool belt that glimmered. I backed against the wall.
"Thank you for leading me to the map, Kaelen."
Just as Thorne stepped onto the tracks a TTA Service vehicle came flying around the corner and a cow catcher scooped him up, zooming further down the tunnel.
A familiar face had jumped out of the vehicle as it passed.
"Sprock! What are you doing?!"
"I need my tablet back to watch the race. Go ahead and finish this thing."
We heard a distant boom down the tunnel and then nodded to each other.
Along the wall at the coordinates were nine oval panels on the wall. Assuming they were lined up to form the Martian scale, I began to play the notes the formula had uncovered using my spectral grease brush. As I finished a small rumble led to the opening of a compartment behind the panels.
It was a map of the Chronopolis.
I once again found myself in front of the Grand Chronopolis Cog. According to the map, the center of the Grand was the way to finish this. I placed the temporal seed-cylinder into a tiny port. Smaller gears whirled. Machine parts clicked and hummed. The entire Chronopolis shifted and locked into a new pattern.
A bright light emitting from the center of the machinery caused me to leap back and to the side. In the plaza stood a vast, multi-dimensional hologram. A memory bank. It revealed that Tomorrowland was not just built as a showcase, but as a reserve, built upon ancient Martian energy tech and designed to serve as a beacon and guide for future civilizations to live in harmony with technology and each other. It showed lost Martian history and details about the Martian species’ decline, with instructions on how to avoid that same fate. The Loyal Order of Little Green Beings was formed to protect this knowledge until humanity was ready for it.
The hologram faded.
"and over the red valley straight into the gorge of DARKNESS!" the crowd of tourists erupted into applause and then began to file out of the Martian exhibit, but not before snapping a few holo-photos.
"Kaelen, my boy!" I ran in to see my Grandfather. "Come, join me in my office."
Thorne & the Sons of Phobos had quietly disappeared after the night in the tunnel. Grandfather was now chief elder of the Loyal Order.
"Still on the midnight shifts?"
"Of course, the best discoveries are always made at night." I winked. "Do you think they're ready?"
We both looked out his window at Tomorrowland. He put his hand on my shoulder.
"Soon." he said, and smiled.