Chapter 95

Zara fell in love with Hercules as they flew to Central City.

“Oh, my goodness. Now, I can appreciate what everyone is raving about. Did you know Wayne and Martan are building a parking building for the runners on the airport side of Central Dome?”

“No, but it is a good idea. Martian dust does get into everything. It was why we built the large service shop. I told Wayne we needed it ready to go before we sold any runners. Especially the sonic and magnetic cleaners. The shield on the runner repels a lot of the dust, but not if you park it outside.”

Zara said, “Martan told me they have planned for five entrances to the underground area. Each one will have a cleaner. He laughed and said the city will recoup the costs from the recycler you include as part of it. He has been waiting patiently for you to get home so he can discuss getting them built.”

Zeke groaned. He was going to have to set up a manufacturing plant for them. He had all the designs. They were designed to use the mineral recyclers from Harmony. He may have to build a plant to make them, too. They were expensive to import.

As they approached Central, they could see the smaller domes along the road and the air and spaceports. Central was huge on the horizon. It took two years to just build the 1.2km wide dome.

It stood 300m high on top of a 20m high wall that also went deep underground. The wall was 2m thick and joined on to the spherical cap for its width to give more support.

Central Dome also had an inner circular wall. It surrounded a 600m wide area and joined with the dome to air-seal the inner zone. Six, 10m wide roads ran from the twin 5m wide outside airlocks to the airlocks in the central wall and then connected to the innermost ring road.

A 300m high skyscraper that looked like a giant, twisted corncob, graced the centre. Four ring roads spaced roughly 100m apart and from the two walls split both zones into three rings.

Six huge, almond-shaped mixed-residential skyscrapers that reached the dome, were located between the innermost ring and the second ring road. Two more walls were built to divide the outer section of the dome into two sealed halves.

The walls ran north to south and at ninety degrees to the east-west roads. They effectively divided the segments between the other two roads in half.

People had the opportunity to lease the land beside the roads. There were strict building codes and rules to determine what could be done. The outermost ring of land, had no buildings in it, as it was for farming. The central zone also had designated green areas.

Over a hundred thousand people lived in or under Central Dome. In the event of a meteor strike warning, people in the outer zones were to go into the subterranean levels, the inner zone, or the side least likely to be hit.

Dirty and noisy industries could build in one of the four, 15m high subterranean levels under the dome. Else they could buy land outside and build their own domes. Controlling the pollution inside their dome was their problem.

The hydroponic and oxygen farms, geothermal generators, and the water storage and recycling systems for the city were all underground. At least a quarter of the people who lived in the dome worked beneath it.

Like Luna, they had an underground mag-rail tunnel system that led to all of the major domes in the area. It even had train stations, so you could swap trains. It was actually easier and safer to build tunnels. Dust and meteorites were bigger problems than earthquakes.

Even so, three of the roads out of Central were covered and ran between 3km to 5km to adjoining domes. They then joined to even more domes. The other three roads out of Central led to the surface of Mars.

Zeke was travelling above Stones Rd. He didn’t know how Frank got the road to their dome named after him, but he did. Other than going home and many places in between, the road also went past the airport for local traffic, and the spaceport. These buildings were located about 5km from Central.

Most people from Central used the mag-rail to get to the ports and other domes. However, a lot of people, like Zeke’s family, lived in their own complexes and had to travel overland.

His and Wayne’s two, 80m wide domes also fronted Stones Rd some 6km from Central. The main assembly line for the runners was in and under the west dome, and the offices, service centres, display rooms, and warehouses were in the east dome. Both had several subterranean levels.

A 15m long by 10m high and wide airlocked arcade joined them together on the surface. A similar arcade provided entrance from the road to the office dome. Zeke had installed his cleaners for the runners in both.

Across the road was an identical set of domes, and their road entrance faced Z.Runners. Z.K.Drives were the proud owners. They also had subterranean levels and access to a 12m square tunnel that ran to Z.Runners under Stones Road.

The domes that housed Mars Mineral Corp’s head office and provided accommodation for some of its people was closer to Zeke’s home and on the south side. Zeke’s dome was a good hundred kicks from Central and close to the west-south-west wall of Gale Crater.