Disclaimer: Moldiver is owned by Pioneer Animation. No money is being  
made from this, and no such intent should be inferred. The writings  
of Richard C. Hoagland can be found at www.enterprisemission.com. The  
following fic is based on the article; "Moon With A View".

"Reality is a group hunch."  -Frank Zappa

Morning dawned clear on Tokyo in the year 2043. With long fingers,  
the sun chased away the shadows, summoning the citizens from their  
beds and houses, watching them as they went to work, to school.

Or in the case of the Ozora Household, Tower Three, Level 29, Ichigo  
Street, being lazy.

This morning, only two people were in residence; Hiroshi Ozora, age  
24 and his sister Mirai, age 20. Their parents and younger brother  
were in Australia, touring schools.

Hiroshi was skinny, with unkempt hair and eyes that squinted behind  
his glasses, while Mirai was slightly shorter, with long brown hair  
and a figure that was partly genetics and partly the result of  
borderline masochistic exercise program. Mirai made her living as a  
model, and her work literally depended on her looking good.

Hiroshi, on the other hand, only needed to keep his brain in shape.  
He was a technologist, currently between jobs and keeping himself  
busy with consulting work.

This morning, he sat in the dining room, a spoonful of cereal in his  
mouth, a palmtop in one hand, and the morning paper in the other.  
With one ear, he listened to the news, the other, he listened to  
Mirai, who was in the living room working out on the Isokenetic  
machine with weights added in.

"Ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred!" he heard her call out and  
then the whine as the machine powered down and the clunk of the  
weights being placed back in their holders.

Moments later, she walked in, wearing a sweat-soaked one piece outfit  
that left nothing to the the imagination, and a towel around her  
neck. Her hair was tied back from her forehead and she was mopping  
her face with a small hand-cloth.

"Wha!" Hiroshi gaped. "Mirai!" Hiroshi wouldn't call himself a prude,  
but Mirai had a tendency towards casual nudity that shocked him. He  
suspected she'd work out naked if it wasn't for modesty laws and that  
her figure required support and binding when doing any physical  
activity.

She rolled her eyes at him and vanished into the kitchen. He heard  
the fridge open and close and then Mirai returned, bottle of water in  
hand and wearing a lightweight robe.

"Prude," she chided, opening the bottle and drinking deep.

"I'm not a prude," he replied, setting the paper down. "But really,  
Mirai, don't you think you--" he broke off as the door bell rang.  
"Who could that be? He asked, getting up.

Opening the door, he stared at the two men. Both wore identical dark  
suits and one of them carried a briefcase. "Hiroshi Ozora?"

"Yeah?"

"My name is Tom Smith and this is William Lee Jones. We're with the  
International Space Commission and we'd like to speak to you and your  
sister. May we come in?"

"Sure," Hiroshi said and stood aside. "Mirai! Company!"

He led the two men into the living room and moments later, Mirai came  
out, now dressed in a blouse and jeans.

"We'll get straight to the point," Smith said.

"We know about Moldiver," Jones said. "We know that Amagi was  
Machinegal, and did not, as Amagi Corp is telling people, that he was  
killed in a Jetcoptor accident."

Mirai's face was as hard as stone and and she had slipped one hand  
into her pocket.

"What do you want?" Hiroshi said, grabbing his sister's wrist. "Like  
you said, get to the point."

"Are either of you familiar with the writings of Richard Hoagland?"  
Jones asked.

"I've seen him cited on a few conspiracy theory sites," Hiroshi said.  
"Went to Cydonia once in college. He popularized the face on Mars  
theory, didn't he?"

Smith nodded. "He and his team were considered crackpots, but they  
maintained their position until the very end. The point, Mister  
Ozora, is that he was right, and we need Moldiver's help."

"But there is no face!" Hiroshi said. "I've been to the Cydonia plain."

"No, you haven't," Jones said. "The real Cydonia is about a hundred  
miles southeast. You should both feel special, you're about to be let  
in on one of the biggest secrets in history."

"There is a face?" Mirai asked.

Smith nodded. "A face, a city under the Martian Ice, evidence of  
ancient astronauts, the whole thing. Aliens seeding Earth with life  
and the asteroid belt is the remains of a planet aside, everything  
points to the fact that Hoagland was one hundred percent right, and  
there's just one thing left to prove, which is where the two of you  
come in."

Mirai removed her hand from her pocket as the siblings exchanged  
glances.

"Go on," Hiroshi said in a guarded tone.

Jones opened the case, revealing a holo projector.

"July Twentieth, Nineteen Sixty-Nine," Smith said. "Neil Armstrong  
and Buzz Aldrin became the first human beings on the Moon. During  
their moonwalks, they found the remains of a structure several miles  
north of the landing site. Radioing back to Earth for instructions,  
they were instructed to take photos and then return immeditly to  
Earth. Their find was hidden from public knowledge and the president  
briefed."

"History records that were seventeen Apollo Missions," Jones said.  
"But in reality there were twenty, three launched from Russian soil  
in order to hide their real purpose, which was to find out that  
structure was."

"The only clues we found were several samples of writing," Smith  
said, "in what we now know to be an archaic form of Sumerian but with  
Akkadian and Elamite mixed in. All now extinct languages. It's  
suspected that those three languages descended from this one mother  
tongue."

Jones took up the tale. "In Twenty-Seventeen, when Humans landed on  
Mars, one of the first priorities was to verify the Face. History  
says that no face was found."

"And reality?" Hiroshi said.

"We found way more than Hoagland ever suspected. There's at least  
three cities on Mars, all demonstrating a clear Sumerian architecture  
and more than enough writings to prove that there's a connection."  
Jones leaned forward. "At least one of those structures was a  
spaceport. There's also what appears to be an underground subway  
system, possibly covering the entire planet. The buildings were also  
patrolled by guard robots of some kind. Very fast, programmed to  
kill. Some very good people died before we could figure out how to  
kill them."

Smith took a deep breath. "We also found several functioning vid- 
screen, showing humans issuing warnings, or at least that's what we  
think based on the tone of voice. We can't understand what the  
warning is, but it sounds bad."

"Wait," Hiroshi said. "Are you telling me that human beings at one  
point had the technology and ability to go to the Moon and Mars, and  
build cities? What the hell happened?"

"We wish we knew," Smith said. "What we do know is that it happened a  
long, long time ago, and devastated the entire solar system."

"You still haven't explained what this has to do with us," Hiroshi said.

"Hoagland maintained that through what he called Hyperdimensional  
Physics, Saturn, or more specifically, it's moon Iapetus, held clues  
to our own origins. He cited it's unusual orbit, its strange 'yin- 
yang' coloring, hexagonal shaped craters, and what appeared to be a  
headronistic shape. He said that Iapetus was an artificial object  
created for some purpose. He suggested an Ark, a seedship from  
somewhere outside the solar system, a warship, or perhaps some kind  
of resort."

"Now that the manned colony on Ganymede is up and running, the ISC  
wants to start exploring Saturn. Those of us in the know want answers  
to what we've come to call Hoagland's Riddle."

"And for that, we need to go to Iapetus."

"I see," Hiroshi said. "You want Moldiver along in case Iapetus is  
really an artificial world and there's more of those guard things.  
She's invulnerable, so they can't hurt her while she deals with them."

"Actually," Smith said, "we're more worried that whatever knocked  
humanity back into the Stone Age is still around and wants to do it  
again. We need to be able fight back, and your invention is our best  
shot at that."

"So why not steal it?"

"It was suggested, but on the other hand, what's better? Wasting time  
and energy trying to reverse engineer and duplicate the work and then  
training someone in its use, or recruiting the inventor and someone  
who already knows it backwards and forwards?"

Hiroshi frowned. He couldn't argue with that.

The two men stood up. "We understand that this is a big decision,"  
Jones said. "So we'll leave you to think this over." Smith closed up  
the projector and Jones set a card on the table. "If you decide yes,  
call this number."

The two men let themselves out and the Ozoras stayed where they were,  
staring at the table. The business card and the briefcase stared back.

Night had fallen when Mirai finally spoke. "Let's do it." She turned  
to look at him. "I mean it Hiroshi, let's call the number, say yes."

"I dunno . . ."

"Oh come on," Mirai cajoled. "Think about it. This is like, the  
scientific discovery of the millennium! Even if it's not aliens, it's  
still so cool."

"Be serious, Mirai, this is a trap of some kind. It's absurd."

"Look at me, Hiroshi, look me in the eye and tell me you really,  
honestly, believe that.

"I . . ." The words died in his throat and he found himself unable to  
maintain eye contact. "I want to believe," he whispered as he stared  
at the card on the table. The numbers beckoned to him, called,  
whispering a siren song of promise and adventure.

Mirai watched him as he thought and thought. "I'll tell you in the  
morning," he said and disappeared into his room, leaving Mirai alone.

* * * *

Hiroshi did not sleep. He spent the entire night searching, trying to  
find any verification of Smith and Jones' absurd and insane story.
The first step was to dismantle the holoprojector. It was a stock  
model, no bugs or recording devices and there was nothing in it's  
data module that could be called malicious, that he could find anyway.

Leaving that alone for a bit, he dove into the information mines of  
the 'net. He checked forums, searched using any terms he could think  
of and dug as deep as he could.

Finally, he was forced to admit that if Smith and Jones were part of  
a clever, well laid trap, they'd done their homework. Hoagland had  
really said those things and there was rumors and theories that the  
maps of Mars had been tampered with to hide the existence of the  
Face. He'd also found rumors that Armstrong and Aldrin had found  
something on the Moon. So that matched what they'd been told.

There was also no rumors about Moldiver's real identity. Which begged  
the question of how the ISC knew about Mirai, and if they knew, who  
else?

He wanted to believe them, God, he wanted to, but a tiny, paranoid  
part of him refused. The story carried no logic, no basis in fact,  
and it made no logical sense to bury something this big and be able  
to keep it buried, for almost a hundred years.

Sighing, he stretched out on the floor of his room and stared at the  
ceiling.

Occam's Razor combined with Shrodinger's Cat. The simplest  
explanation was that Jones and Smith had told the truth, but the only  
way he would know for sure is to open the box. That is, call the  
number and follow through.

On the other hand, if it was a trap, he'd be handing them the Mol- 
unit on a silver platter.

And he still had no idea how they knew about Mirai.

He must have dozed off, because the next thing he knew, Mirai was  
standing over him.

"Hiroshi," she said. "I'm going. At the very least, I'm going."

"What if it's a trap?"

"What if it isn't? What if there is something out there waiting to  
destroy us? I'm not going to sit here and wait for it, Hiroshi."

He thought of the reasons he'd created the unit in the first place  
and sighed.

"No," he said and grinned. "No you can't, and damnit, neither can I.  
All right, I'll call the number. Leave the mol-unit with me."

She smiled, and set the card-sized device on his chest. "I have to go  
to work, bye!"

Hiroshi sat back up, made himself a cup of extra-strength coffee and  
went back to work.

Step one was give himself some insurance. There was a subculture on  
the internet where information was the coin of the realm, and for the  
right info, you could get anything you wanted. Hiroshi was at the  
edges, but he was owed a few favors and called one in. He contacted  
one of them who he knew only by their handle; SilkyStingray, and  
transmitted the data module along with an explanation. He left out  
the part about Moldiver, but told them everything else. The bargain  
was straightforward; If you don't hear back from me in two years,  
assume I'm dead and do what you like with this. They agreed on a  
password and that was that. Hiroshi then reassembled the briefcase  
and set it aside before making something to eat.

The next step was the Mol-unit. He reconfigured the unit to only  
activate in the presence of his or Mirai's brainwaves and then, he  
removed the limiter.

He didn't care for the idea and was putting an awful lot of trust in  
his sister. The limiter's sole purpose had been to prevent abuse of  
the power the Mol-unit bestowed. But that had been when he thought it  
was going to be used only on or around Earth, where it would've been  
easy to find a safe spot to land if time ran out.

For her safety, and because where they were going was no place for  
time limits, he took it out and prayed.

Finally, he retrieved the card and made the call.

"Jones."

"This is Hiroshi Ozora, we accept."

"Excellent. Tell no one."

"Not a problem," Hiroshi lied with a straight face.

"You'll get tickets and vouchers, along with instructions in the  
mail. We appreciate this, Ozora. Welcome aboard."

Jones hung up.

"Yeah," Hiroshi said to the phone as he hung up. "I bet we are."

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