Alan Scarlett and the Scarlett Virus

Twenty-seven minutes after she hit SEND, on Mars Ray Clark received a radio-Teletype message from his niece, Dr. Christa Scarlett. He read it and chuckled; the letter told about modern college freshmen and their inability to wrap their minds around the tools and devices that the ancient world considered high tech. He took the printed copy of the message to the vault. The vault was more than a room with thick walls; it was a secure facility in the government offices of Perseverance City, the capital colony of Mars.

The vault was protected by two-foot-thick walls and a single door that has the security of a bank vault. Inside the vault was the huge mainframe computer which controlled all terminals in Perseverance City and provided heat for the government offices above. There were several workstations in the main room of the vault, along with rows of safes containing all classified information collected by the Mars colonies, much of it collected by Ray. There was a vault within the vault, which was the cryptology lab. He reached out for the keypad and punched in the combination and, with a loud buzz and click, the cryptology lab door swung open, and Ray entered his office.

This is where Ray Clark’s real office was. Since the blowout in the Bradbury Canal, Ray’s job has shifted from casual intelligence gathering while working for Convair Intergalactic to active spying. “What’s up bossman?” asked Karen Seven as Ray entered. Karen Seven was probably the best cryptologist in the solar system. She was a typical Martian woman, tall and slender, with long legs, light brunette hair, and an extremely pale complexion, and she had a genius level IQ.

“I got a letter from my niece, wanna take a look?” said Ray as he handed his top team member the message from Christa.

“Melted clocks? I don’t get it,” said Karen as she glanced at the message.

“It’s a famous painting.”

Karen skimmed the message because, after the first paragraph, it devolved into a mish-mash of random numbers, letters, and symbols which appears to be a corrupted transmission. Normally the RTTY operator asks for a re-transmit of the message and ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the corruption clears on re-transmission. Not with messages to Ray Clark. “Salvatore Dali? We just got that code last week,” said Karen.

“Christa is probably just testing the new code,” said Ray.

“An encrypted message from Stiff Tits just a test? That will never happen,” said Karen.

“Betcha ten bucks and that’s DOCTOR Stiff Tits to you,” scolded Ray.

“You’re on,” and Karen attached the message to a cylindrical drum in the decryption device next to her desk. With a few taps on her keyboard, the drum started spinning, and a scanner read the spinning message.

Karen looked at her screen and said, “Looks like you owe me ten bucks,” and when the message was decoded, she hit the print button and the printer soon spit out the unencrypted message.

Bot 250 meters from Kōngchéng cannot detect electromagnetic fields Three ships parked at Kōngchéng space port Moving maintenance bot in to read ship’s logs Enter colony with bot?

“What do you think?” asked Karen.

“What if the last ship brought the plague?” said Ray as he stroked his chin in concentration. A plague among Asian countries in 2078 was one of the things that sparked the civil war, which eventually spread outward until it looked like humanity was going to erase itself from Earth. “Let me draft a reply...”

About an hour later, Christa clamped Ray’s message on the decryption device’s drum. The message was mostly about Salvator Dali’s painting Swans Reflecting Elephants, but it ended up a jumbled series of numbers. The letter spun, and the tight beam of light that scanned the spinning document finally generated an image that Christa’s terminal could produce.

Suggest plague protocol. Prepare to write off anything that comes in contact with target Requesting medical bot to assist Let Papa Bear drive.

“Anthony, Uncle Ray is suggesting plague protocol and is sending a medical bot at Kōngchéng. Draw up a wish list of what you want to see and send it to Ray very ASAP, he’ll drive from Perseverance. Sapperstein, let’s get that maintenance bot plugged into the data port on those ships and see what we can get.” Christa clapped her hands a few times. “Let’s go people, Uncle Ray wants us.”

Her assistants looked at each other. ‘Very ASAP?’ What is very ASAP?