Oxygen Level Zero Mission 2 Read online

  I nodded. Rawling looked weary. I didn’t know whether to feel sorry for him or stay angry.

  “Remember the oxygen crisis in the dome? Remember how ex-Director Steven arranged for oxygen tanks to be stolen?”

  I nodded again.

  “You might not have noticed,” Rawling said, “but twenty tanks were stolen, and later only eighteen were recovered. I finally found out where the missing two tanks went. To the secret experimental lab. Steven had approved it to keep as many of the experimental animals alive as possible.”

  “Instead of trying to keep scientists or tekkies alive?”

  “Steven and Harrington thought people were going to die

  anyway. So why not at least keep alive these important

  experiments?”

  I shook my head in disgust.

  “At that time,” Rawling continued, “Dr. Harrington realized he didn’t have enough oxygen for all his animals to survive. So he released most of them onto the surface of the planet, expecting them to die. He didn’t realize how close this new generation was to being able to survive outside of the dome. The creatures survived long enough to make it to the greenhouse tent, which evidently had just enough traces of oxygen and water to keep them alive.”

  I was beginning to understand. “Which Harrington did not know until Timothy Neilson was attacked in the cornfield—“

  “Not exactly attacked,” Rawling said. “These animals are vegetarians. But they were desperate for water. You know no space suit is completely sealed down to a microscopic level. These creatures could smell the trace amounts of moisture that leaked

  from Neilson’s suit. They swarmed him and he panicked at the sight of what he thought were aliens. When he fell, they ripped holes in his suit looking for the water.”

  “When I captured one of the koalas, Dr. Harrington realized they could survive outside the dome.”

  “Yes,” Rawling said. “Remember, I said I would get him to help us. Only instead of helping, he took over the operation. I didn’t have much choice. Not when he patched me by radio-phone to a high government source on Earth who forced me to cooperate in trying to hide the existence of these things. When Neilson woke up from his coma, he was also threatened and forced to lie. And from that point on, I was effectively out of it. Nothing to say.

  Nothing to do.”

  “That’s why you wrote the letter of resignation.”

  “Yes. And no.”

  I squinted, puzzled.

  “Tyce, I couldn’t believe these experiments were simply to create a future food source. Think about it. Once the scientists learned to genetically alter animals to live on the surface of Mars, do you think they’d leave it at that? Or would they try to alter humans next? That’s where all this genetic stuff gets scary.

  Knowledge itself is not good or evil. It’s what people choose to do with it. Between Steven and Harrington and the high government source on Earth, you’ve already seen what can happen. I have no doubt that future genetic technology would be used on humans. But not on adult humans who have a choice.”

  I let out a deep breath. “On human embryos, right? Because that’s where the DNA changes have to be made.”

  “Exactly. My decision yesterday was to take all of this public.

  But only if you decided I should. That’s why I was looking for you when the screaming started.”

  “Me? Why should it be up to me?” I asked, stunned by the responsibility he was giving me. After all, I was just a kid.

  Rawling got up again. Walked around the room. Sat down.

  “Tyce, I know you hate being in a wheelchair. I know how much it means to you to have the freedom of that robot body.

  You’re the first human in history to be given that kind of opportunity.”

  Rawling’s lips tightened in anger. “As director, I had the power to stop the experimentation. I had the power to bring it to light.

  And I definitely should have done what was right instead of trying to cover it up and hide it from you.”

  “What does this have to do with the fact that it was going to be my decision?”

  “I was being blackmailed. I was told that if I didn’t find a way to keep these experiments secret, you’d be sent back to Earth when the shuttle left in a few months. Away from your family. Away from all you are about to learn on Mars. Away from the freedom of that robot body.”

  “You . . . were . . . covering . . . this . . . up . . . to . . .

  protect . . . me.” The words came slowly out of my mouth.

  “I thought I was. Until I realized something. You of all people know what it’s like to be experimented on without permission.

  And here I was, making another decision about you and your future without your knowledge. That was as wrong as covering up what I knew about the experiment.”

  He looked me square in the eyes. “I hope you can forgive me.”

  “Sure,” I said. “We’re friends.”

  Even as I spoke, I was haunted by guilt. I don’t know what I would have decided. Keep my freedom and allow the illegal experiments to continue? Or give up that precious freedom and do what was right—make the experiments public knowledge? I was just glad the decision had been taken from me by Ashley’s great screaming job in front of the secret lab.

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  Half an hour later, I was back in our mini-dome. Mom had already left for her lab. That left me, my father, and the two little Martian koalas. They were asleep in a box in the corner. As usual. Koalas on Earth sleep twenty-two hours a day, and one of the reasons that species had been picked for experiments on Mars was the low amount of energy they burned.

  I had things to do, too, like trying to find Ashley to tell her what I’d found out from Rawling.

  But I needed to speak to my father first.

  On my way past the sleeping koalas, I stopped and smiled.

  Their eyes were squinted shut, and they made tiny snoring noises.

  I had that smile on my face when I stopped in front of my father. He was drinking coffee and reviewing some technical notes when I cleared my throat.

  “Dad?” That word came out of my mouth as a surprise. I was so used to thinking of him as “my father,” like some uncaring person who bossed me around whenever he showed up.

  But I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about what he’d said to Rawling in the lab.

  Let me tell you this. Mess with Tyce, and you mess with me.

  Got it? As Tyce’s dad, I won’t fight his battles for him, but I’ll fight his battles with him.

  “Dad?” I said again. It felt less strange.

  He still held his coffee. But his eyes were on my face, not on the technical notes.

  “Yesterday,” I began, “I was really hurt about something.

  Rawling suddenly decided not to talk to me, and I couldn’t figure out why. It was like we suddenly weren’t friends anymore. Only I had no choice about it.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” my father said.

  “It’s all right now,” I explained. “We had a chance to talk about it.”

  “Good.”

  “Yes. And no.”

  Dad gave me a strange look. Probably the same strange look I’d given Rawling when he’d used those same words a half hour earlier.

  “Good because I found out he had a reason for what he did.

  Bad because it hit me that I’d been doing the same thing to someone else. You.”

  Dad set his coffee down.

  “You see,” I said, “it’s not fair for me to do my best to ignore you because I’m mad about stuff. If you have no idea why I’m mad, you probably feel the way I did when Rawling treated me as if I didn’t exist.”

  Dad smiled, but he looked sad. “Now that you mention it . . .”

  “Anyway,” I said, “I’m sorry.”

  “Me too,” he said. “Do you want to talk about what’s bothering you?”

  “How much time you got?”

  “As much as you need,” he
said. “Let’s talk.”

  (3,/2*8(

  Dad and I did talk. Lots.

  Over the next month, we became friends again.

  Of course, other things happened too.

  Rawling tried to resign, but his resignation

  wasn’t accepted. The surviving koalas were allowed

  to live. Harrington and the ex-director were both

  scheduled to be sent back to Earth when the next

  shuttle headed back.

  And, oh yeah. Ashley and I spent a lot of time

  hanging out together.

  In fact, things were just settling back to

  normal—as normal as anything might be for humans

  living under the dome on Mars—when an earthquake

  hit.

  Well, not an earthquake.

  This was Mars. I guess you’d have to call it a

  “Marsquake.”

  Whatever it was, it was scary. Although it

  happened at least two hundred miles away, it still

  rocked the dome.

  What was even scarier was the fact that it might

  not have been an accident.

  But all this, of course, is going to fill

  another diary. . . .

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  Have you ever wondered, like Tyce Sanders, how you came to be you and why you exist?

  As a human being, you’re made up of one trillion cells.

  How much is one trillion? To hold one trillion oranges, you’d need a box that’s 250 miles long, 250 miles wide, and 250 miles high!

  Even more amazingly, all these cells work together. Some cells grow hair; some grow teeth. Some cells don’t begin to work until you become a teenager. Other cells wait until you’re middle-aged.

  You have blood cells, heart muscle cells, liver cells, eye cells, brain neuron cells, and more.

  Most amazing, all one trillion cells are the result of the one cell created when you were conceived. As Tyce’s mom explained to him, the DNA in this first cell contains every bit of information needed for your body to grow.

  What exactly is DNA? Deoxyribonucleic acid. It’s life’s

  building block.

  DNA is shaped like a spiral staircase. In a human, the DNA ladder in one cell contains three billion “rungs.” (If DNA was the size of a real ladder, those three billion rungs would circle the entire Earth—twice. Wow. Think about that!)

  Because of its shape, DNA is able to replicate itself perfectly.

  When a cell needs to make a copy of itself, the DNA “ladder”

  unzips down the middle to form two halves. The result is two exact copies of the original. That’s how one cell at conception can pass on the exact copy of its DNA to all trillion cells of a human.

  Each different cell is able to specialize because it activates a different section of the DNA “ladder.” These sections are called genes. Some genes trigger a cell to become hair cells. Other genes trigger a cell to become blood cells. And so on.

  In one way, this method is extremely simple. After scientists discovered the “double helix” shape of DNA and everything else

  about it, they were able to run many experiments, including the ones mentioned by Tyce’s mother.

  In another way, however, DNA is overwhelmingly incredible.

  The information stored in the DNA of just one cell would fill the hard drives of a million personal computers. The microscopic chemical reactions resulting from the DNA coding happen millions of times a day in your body.

  DNA is so incredible that many scientists find it very difficult to believe that life was the result of accidental evolution. Like Tyce’s mom, these scientists cannot help but look to God as our Creator.

  After all, life itself is a humbling mystery.

  Think of it this way. We survive because of sunlight and water and dirt. Our bodies are nourished by carbohydrates from bread, which comes from wheat, which draws from moisture and sunlight and soil. Our bodies are strengthened by protein from the meat of animals, which feed upon plants. All of this is made possible by the water that falls from the skies and collects in rivers and lakes.

  Sunlight, water, and dirt.

  We forget how incredible it is because we see it and live it every day and give it little thought. We plunk down a few dollars for our hamburgers at a drive-through; we pick up milk from the grocery store; the sun throws off heat from 93 million miles away; the Earth remains in its fixed distance from the sun—not too close, not too far, held by gravity that we can predict but not explain.

  If you think of life this way, it’s not hard to believe that such a world with such mystery exists because of the unseen hand of a Creator.

  All of this leads to a much bigger question: why?

  Although learning “how” we’re on this earth is fascinating, learning “why” we’re really here is the most wonderful purpose given to us as humans. As Tyce discovered, that journey involves a search through faith—and learning what it means to be in a world created by a powerful yet personal God who loves you more than life itself.

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  Sigmund Brouwer and his wife, recording artist Cindy Morgan, split living between Red Deer, Alberta, Canada, and Nashville, Tennessee. He has written several series of juvenile fiction and eight novels. Sigmund loves sports and plays golf and hockey. He also enjoys visiting schools to talk about books. He welcomes visitors to his Web site at www.coolreading.com, where he and a bunch of other authors like to hang out in cyberspace.

  Document Outline

  Mars Mission 2 Title Page

  Copyright Special Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Epilogue

  The How And Why of Life

  About the Author