Hi everyone (smiles and waves).

I've got the rest of the story mapped out and mostly written, so it looks like it should come in at about 95 chapters all up (gasp).

Chapter 79

An Unwelcome Visitor

Down in his office, Marshal Barron read the latest report from the Security Office about the general mood of the Martian populous, and it did not make for good reading.

"As you can see, the people of Mars appear to be moving towards an inevitable revolution."

The digitally altered voice speaking to Barron was just one of the many who had controlled the actions of Olive Roux in the past, and now held sway over him.

"When we put you in place as head of the Citizens Council, it was hoped there would be general acceptance by everyone that you were not under our influence, but it appears that hope has been dashed and everyone believes you are just another puppet of the Deep Council."

"Y-you can't blame me for that" Barron said "I did everything that was asked of me, but you all went too far."

"You can relax Barron; no one is blaming you. In fact we have come to the realisation that we have been far too careless for too long. For over twenty years no one has suspected we were the ones in charge here and it has made us... shall we say... a little sloppy?"

"You could say that, but it would be a massive understatement" Marshal sniffed.

"Well I can tell you now, all that has come to an end" the voice declared "We have been meeting and have devised a plan to get everything back on track."

"I'm not going to like this, am I?" Marshal sighed.

"I dare say you will not; for you will be going to the Orbit Station with Dias and her companions. We need to show the people of Mars that the supplies we sent were quite safe, thus putting more doubt on all of April's accusations about us."

"HA!" Barron laughed "I knew that food was safe. It will be good to see the look on..."

"Oh the food is far from safe" the voice revealed.

"What did you just say?"

"You need not be concerned; before you go, you will be given a vaccine to protect you from the influenza virus on board and everything else will be easy for you to avoid with some simple instruction."

"What do you class as simple instruction?" Marshal said with suspicion.

"For example, don't eat the grape jelly spread to avoid a mild upset stomach. There are a few more to remember but not many."

"How bad is this influenza you mentioned?" Marshal asked nervously.

"It is only a mild strain so anyone who has spent time on Earth, should already have sufficient natural defences in their immune system and only need rehydration and bed rest."

"What about Talon Descott and Abigail Dias?" Marshal checked.

"Talon was born on Earth and Miss Dias is young and strong, so the chances of her dying from a bad flu are exceedingly low."

"I don't think April and Luis would consider 'exceedingly low' as an acceptable level of risk" Marshal noted.

"Maybe not but we must convince the populous that it is too risky to allow future colonisation from Earth. If they believe their children are at risk, the citizens of Mars will demand you do something to stop the Earth invasion."

"It's hardly an invasion!" Marshal argued "As long as we can control the incoming numbers and the rate at which they arrive, there should be no problem at all."

"You are hereby formally warned" the voice scowled "We do not want that kind of information to spread among the populous. Don't even say things like that in private, if you want to maintain your position!"

"Understood" Marshal reluctantly submitted.

With only a few more days left before she would leave Mars, April began to feel very isolated. She rarely left home except to check on her botanic experiments and every time she went somewhere in public, people would ask her very awkward questions about who she thought was on the Deep Council or who she thought was responsible for the recent deaths. But the most troubling questions of all were related to why she was abandoning Mars.

April did her best to answer everyones concerns, but had taken more and more to simply working from home. Here she would still allow people to come and seek her council on any anything to do with her investigations, but she could also have some kind of control over how many people she saw per day giving her time to make departure preparations. After a week of visits, consisting of everything from casual conversations to hard interviews, April thought she had seen it all; until two security guards turned up at her door with the only true prisoner there was on the planet Mars.

"Hello April" Olive Roux smiled.

There are all kinds of ways for a person in custody to smile. There is the coy smile of admitted guilt, the fearful smile of an unknown future, and even the evil smile of the sociopath. Olive Roux though, gave the pleasant smile of someone who was actually happy to see an old friend.

"Olive... why are you here?"

"Sorry Mrs. Dias" one of the security guards spoke up "but she insisted upon seeing you before you left; said it was important for her to apologise before you go."

"Okay then; you apologise, I don't accept it, goodbye!"

"Wait please" Olive begged as April reached for the door button "Let me come in... just for a few minutes?"

April took a deep breath and sighed.

"Alright; come in everyone" she relented.

"No; you men stay out here" Olive insisted "How can I pour my heart out with an audience?"

The guards looked to April, who just sighed again and nodded.

"Thank you April" Olive said as she stepped inside.

"Make it quick Olive; I don't have a headache yet but I've got the feeling one can't be far away."

"Sorry to do this to you April, but I had to warn you and I couldn't do so unless I was sure we could not be overheard. Most of the bugged rooms in the base have been neutralised but as you might imagine, I am always under constant overt surveillance by both the people of Mars who want to keep me from contacting the Deep Council, and also by the Deep Council themselves because they don't want me to talk to anyone about them and their past activities; it's all very complex."

"So what do you want to warn me about?" April asked.

"Firstly, even though you won't accept it, I do want to apologise for keeping you in the dark about your son. When you arrived back in the US without him, I just panicked. The Deep Council had it all planned out; you would be told the ship had been sunk and all your friends lost, while Linton Adisa was under the impression you had been killed when your helicopter had been destroyed by the EFA. Once I'd had time to think, I thought of several ways I could have handled it better, but by then it was too late; I'd already told you your son was dead and the Council wanted us to get off the planet without any further delays."

"Yes I'm sure you were in a very difficult position, but..."

"Don't interrupt because I don't know how much time we've got before the guards take me away again. Before you go I have to warn you to be careful about any future dealings you have with Earth. I'm sure you can trust Professor Adisa and Doctor Spenser, but there was at least one person on that tanker ship who was not who he seemed to be, and the EFA is also not what you think they are."

"I think they were a bunch of idiots who were blind to what was happening all around them" April sneered.

"Your problem April, is you did not grow up in the age of capitalism and currency. These days everyone works just to survive, both here on Mars and back on Earth, but there was once a time where people with wealth and power wanted nothing but more wealth and more power. These people never had enough and some would even kill to get more. After the first wave of meteor strikes, the financial system began to fail so those who relied on their wealth found themselves completely at a loss; nobody wanted their money or their gold because food became the most valuable commodity."

"For someone in a hurry Olive, you seem to be going the long way round" April shook her head.

"All will become clear soon" Roux insisted "As well as those who had wealth, there were also people like Redding who were absolute sociopaths. People like him do not need wealth to stay in control because they can manipulate those around them with ease. When you are with Redding, he can make you feel like listening to him will bring great success, but that's not all; he also instils a high level of fear. Not fear of him personally, but fear of being left out or left behind while everyone else moves forward without you."

"Honestly Olive, I really can't see myself being drawn in by Redding; assuming he's still alive, and I highly doubt he is" April smirked.

"Oh he is, and I'm not worried about you" Olive warned "I'm worried about what he will do when he finds out what Doctor Sarah Spencer is doing with the railgun. When all this started after the first meteor strikes, the rich and powerful gathered together to discuss the problem; that was when he first formed the embryonic Deep Council. In that first group, he was able to identify those who were just fortunate enough to have power and wealth through family ties, and those who were truly ruthless like him. Do you want to guess what he did next?"

"Formed a power group with his ruthless peers?" April shrugged.

"No; he had them all eliminated" Olive admitted.

"What?" April gasped.

"The only ones he left alive, were the people he knew he could manipulate; anyone who would have an opinion of their own had to go. Before the global disaster of the Sholf 4 meteors, Redding was just your typical power hungry rich jerk, but the aftermath of the initial disaster was like a revolution of nature against humanity, and he saw himself as the people's only hope for the future. He wasn't the first man with delusions of grandeur to destroy anyone he saw as a threat."

April could not believe what she was hearing, but the worst was yet to come as Olive continued.

"Adisa and Spencer both made good leaders for the Railgun Project because they knew what they were doing, and they didn't really care about being in charge. The people in the complex are happy to follow Sarah now because they know she will just guide and co-ordinate them without inducing any fear. But when Redding learns about what is happening, he will not be happy till he back is in full control; that was why he started the EFA, so he could control both sides of the human chess board."

April was stunned to hear the truth about the EFA and Redding's control over it, and she soon found herself doing something she never thought she could do; asking Olive Roux for advice.

"So just what do you think I should do about all this?"

"Your friends on Earth cannot pretend they are safe in their underground home" Olive warned "Like it or not, they have to prepare for war."

As if what Olive had said wasn't bad enough, April then had to listen as Olive revealed the true facts about Henry Deming being Blues grandfather. It would not be easy, but she knew it would soon be up to her to tell Luis that his father had actually been alive all these years.

"There are just over two and a half thousand people here on Mars April; but the original plan was for there to be millions in the long term. Redding and the rest of the Deep Council knew they could not keep effective control if there were many settlements all over Mars and Redding thrives on being in control. Now that the Railgun can send people into space, you can bet your bottom dollar the Earth Branch of the Deep Council will find out about it and either take over, or try to stop it."

"And that is why Sarah must be prepared to fight" April sighed.

"Not an easy thing to do, but the only alternative is to give up, lie down and die" Olive admitted.

You are right about the plot getting intricate Vim. Bringing the story to its conclusion while setting up for the future, tends to mean there is a lot to include as characters find out what they didn't know before.

There is more to come out in the next story so I wanted to wrap up a bit of the current mystery before moving on; sorry if I'm hitting you all with too much at one time. As I had said before (a few months ago) the next story will not follow as many characters, so should be much shorter (about 35% ish as long as this one).