A Flicker in the System
生命維持システムに現れる、誰も気に留めない小さな揺らぎ
Noah had been on Mars for two weeks when he first noticed the problem.
Early one morning, he was checking the levels when a strange number appeared.
For a single second, the amount of in the main dome had dropped slightly.
Then, just as quickly, the returned to normal, as if nothing had happened.
It was a signal that repeated at exactly the same time every night.
Noah stared at the screen, unsure whether his tired eyes were playing tricks.
He wrote down the numbers carefully and checked the record from the past month.
The tiny had appeared many times before, always ignored by the other engineers.
When he asked his Dana about it, she simply shrugged her shoulders.
"Old systems make old noises," she said. "The machine is fine. Don't worry about it."
But Noah was the kind of person who could not a strange .
That night, he stayed late while the others were sleeping in their quarters.
He was watching the monitor closely when, at exactly midnight, the returned.
This time, a faint red light blinked in a corner of the control panel.
The light pointed to a part of the system that he had never seen before.
It was a section of the map that was marked only with a code number.
Noah tried to open the file, but a message told him that access was denied.
Someone with higher had locked this data long before he had arrived.
He felt a cold growing inside him, stronger than his need for sleep.
Why would a simple life-support system hide one small part of itself?
He asked the central computer which the signal was coming from.
The screen paused, and then it showed a location deep the colony floor.
It was a place that did not appear on any of the public maps.
Noah leaned back in his chair, his heart beating faster than usual.
A of light, a locked file, a hidden room far below his feet.
Something was wrong with Colony Eleven, and he seemed to be the only one who cared.