Disclaimer: Moldiver is the property of Pioneer, inc. No money is  
being made from this and no such intent should be inferred.  
Additional Material is drawn from and inspired by "Moon With A View"  
by Richard C. Hoagland, and "Above Top Secret" by Timothy Good.
Note: I was going to respond to all the C&C induvidually, but that's  
just not possible, so let me just say thank you and that your  
suggestions helped enormously.


Morning dawned clear on Tokyo in the year 2048. The tempurature was  
in the high seventies on the Farenhiet scale, traffic was running  
smooth, and in Tower Three, Level 90, 29 Ichigo Street, Hiroshi Ozora  
was being lazy.

Hiroshi was skinny, with unkempt hair and eyes that squinted behind  
his glasses. 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 his  
younger sister Mirai, who was in the living room working out with  
isokentic weights. They were the only people home. Their parents and  
younger brother were out of the country, visiting family.

"One ninety-eight, one ninety-nine, two hundred!" he heard her say.  
Moments later, he heard the clunk of weights being put away and the  
whine of the machine powering down.

There was the rattling noise of rummaging, a soft curse, and then she  
walked into the kitchen, wearing a sweat-soaked singlet that left  
almost nothing to the imagination, and a towel around her neck. Mirai  
was slightly shorter than her brother, with long brown hair currently  
tied back into a ponytail, bright brown eyes and a cheerful smile.

Though just as smart as the rest of her family, Mirai craved the  
spotlight. She thrived on the flash of cameras, the hum of the video  
recorders and the roar of the crowd. But to live that life, she had  
to be in top physical condition and she was. Her stomach was flat and  
hard, her arms and legs toned and tanned, and if her skin was any  
fairer, she'd glow. But Mirai had a sweet tooth and so she had to  
work even harder then most to stay on top. Her excercise regimen, in  
Hiroshi's opinion, bordered on the masochistic.

"Mirai!" Hiroshi protested when he saw her outfit.  He loved his  
sister, but she had a tendacy towards immodesty that shocked him. He  
suspected she'd work out naked if her figure didn't need support and  
binding when doing anything physical. Despite her rigorous excercise  
regimen, Mirai's physiology ran to curves, and she did have them.  
Long lean legs into wide hips and her flat stomach up to her chest  
which strained at the confines of the singlet.

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?"

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 a few moments of your  
time. May we come in?"

Hiroshi blinked at them. The ISC? He thought about all the places  
he'd sent his resume to as of late. He couldn't recall the ISC being  
on that list, but the last hour or so of his resume mailing binge was  
a bit of a blur. He gave it another moment's thought and then gave a  
mental shrug. He couldn't remember mailing them, but he probably had.  
The ISC paid good money. "Sure," Hiroshi said and stood aside.  
"Mirai! Company!"

He led the two men into the living room and gestured for them to sit  
on the couch next to the coffee table and then sat on the other couch  
facing them.

Smith got straight to the point. "We know about Moldiver." The  
statment was flat in tone, the man's eyes were hard, and he leaned  
forward, elbows on his knees. "We also know what really happened to  
Professor Hiroshi Amagi aka Professor Machinegal."

"Hiroshi?" Mirai had come into the room. She wore a loose blouse and  
jeans. Her hair was slightly frizzy, indicating that she'd taken a  
sonic shower. "What is it? I heard Machinegal's name."

"They know," Hiroshi said flatly.

Mirai's expression became hard as stone and she slipped her hands  
into the pockets of her jeans.

"Easy, both of you," Jones said, holding up his hands. "Easy, we're  
not here about that." Mirai stared at them. "This is just us laying  
our cards on the table. Just give us five minutes. Please."

Hiroshi's curiousity and good nature fought a brief battle with his  
instinct to protect his family and his invention and won, or at least  
forced it into a stalemate. "All right," he said, "five minutes."

"Starting now," Mirai added, sitting on the couch arm next to her  
brother.

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

"I've seen the name come up here and there in forums," Hiroshi said.  
"He was the one who claimed that there was a face on Mars."

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 protested, "I've been to the Cydonia  
plain. There's no face there."

"No, you haven't," Jones said. "The real Cydonia is about a hundred  
miles southeast."

"Then there is a face?" Mirai asked.

Smith nodded. "A face, a city under the Martian Ice, evidence of  
ancient astronauts, the whole thing. In fact,  so far, Hoagland was  
one hundred percent right, and there's just one thing left to prove,  
which is where the two of you come in."

"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 the  
course of their moonwalks, they found a crater containing debris from  
some sort of structure. The two men took samples and returned to  
Earth. Lab tests showed the sample to be what we now know to be a  
titanium alloy."

"But how could something this big be hidden?" Hiroshi asked. "Even  
after all these years, surely someone would have said something."

"The public hid it themselves," Smith said. "It wasn't until the  
Nixon scandal that the public as a whole realized that they could no  
longer completely trust the goverment. But by then, the so called  
official version had already taken root. Aldrin and Armstrong landed,  
took pictures, planted the flag, collected samples and returned to  
Earth. Simple, straightforward and easy to swallow. So easy, in fact,  
that the few who asked questions or disagreed were dismissed as crazy."

Jones nodded. "By the time the goverment realized that keeping this a  
secret might have been a mistake, they'd been lying to the public for  
so long that to tell the truth would be akin to cutting their own  
throats. So they continued keeping the secret."

"History records that were seventeen Apollo Missions," Smith 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 Soviets found an more intact structure on the dark side of the  
moon," Smith said. " There wasn't much but we did find samples of  
writing in what we now know to be an archaic and extinct form of  
Sumerian but with elements of Akkadian and Elamite, which are also  
extinct languages. It's suspected that those three languages  
descended from this one language."

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."

"But in truth, 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," Smith said as he 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  
managed to shut them down." He took a deep breath. "We also found  
several functioning vid-screen, showing humans or human appearing  
entities issuing warnings, or at least that's what we think they're  
saying. All we really have to go by is the tone of voice."

"Wait," Hiroshi inturrupted, "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 there? 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." Mirai  
noted, scowling.

"Hoagland was insistant that Saturn, or more specifically, its moon  
Iapetus, held clues to our own origins. He cited its unusual orbit,  
its strange 'yin-yang' coloring, hexagonal shaped craters, and that  
Iapetus itself was hexagon shaped. He said that Iapetus was an  
artificial object and that the old NASA agency had known about it for  
years."

"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."

"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?" Hiroshi asked.

"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, but it also suggested  
that their guests were desperate. Desperate men were dangerous men,  
as his father always said.

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.

Abruptly he stood and picked up the briefcase.

"Mirai, it's late, we should get some sleep. I'll decide in the  
morning."

* * * *

Mirai stretched out on her bed, teddy bear hugged to her chest. She  
wanted to go. As much as she loved her work, she missed being  
Moldiver. Of flying free, of being free. There was no greater joy  
than flight than to soar high enough above the earth, to see the  
clouds and the seas.

She missed that.

But her final battle with Machinegal had left its scars. It seemed  
wrong somehow to use the unit for something frivolous like flight or  
to be a vigilante. She now knew the consequenses for the mis-use of  
power and that night still haunted her dreams sometimes.

Still, she kept the unit with her, eyes alert, hungry for an  
oppurtunity to use that power, to be Moldiver once more. But nothing  
ever seemed like the right time.

But this. This somehow seemed right. She'd never spoken to Hiroshi  
about it, but she sometimes thought that the mol-unit was alive, in  
its own way and it had its own notions of what to do and when.

After a while, Mirai fell asleepl. But it did not come easily and as  
she laid there, she made her decision.

She was going to Iapetus. With or without Hiroshi.

* * * *

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 its 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, the trap-setters had done their homework.  
Hoagland had written extensively on ancient astronauts and conspiracy  
theories. There were also plenty of 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, or at least  
none that came anywhere near the truth. 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 the very paradox that this had been hidden for so long against  
impossible odds defied explanation. He was almost sure it was some  
kind of perverse trap.

But yet, the story appealed to the scientist within him. If humans  
had made it out to space before, somewhere in the ancient past, if  
there was some birthright, some inheritance hidden on Iapetus, just  
waiting for humanity to come and claim it, then it was the chance of  
a lifetime. The scientific ramifications alone were inconceivable.

IF it was true.

Sighing, he stretched out on the floor and took off his glasses. When  
you got right down to it, this was 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. To Iapetus, I mean. 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 can't just sit here and wait for it."

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

"No," he said and managed a weak smile. "No you can't, and damnit,  
neither can I. All right, I'll call the number. Leave the mol-unit  
with me, would you?"

She smiled, and set the card-sized device on his chest. "I have to go  
take care of some things. I'll see you tonight. Bye!" He heard her  
leave the house. With a grunt, he 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 stayed at the  
edges, but he was owed a few favors and called one in. He transmitted  
the data module along with an explanation, leaving out the part about  
Moldiver.  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. First, he reconfigured the unit to  
only activate in the presence of his or Mirai's brainwaves. Anything  
more would take precious seconds that they might not have.

Then he removed the limiter. The original purpose had been to keep  
the first mol-crystal from "eating itself", for lack of a better  
term, if used for more than six and a half minutes at a time. The new  
unit didn't have this flaw, but he'd left it in to keep Mirai in  
check. She sometimes let her temper get the best of her and what  
she'd done to Machinegal . . . he shook his head and put that out of  
his mind. Saturn was no place for a limiter and neither he, nor Mirai  
could afford that type of Achilles Heel. He would just have to trust  
her.

Finally, he retrieved the card and made the call.

"Jones."

"This is Hiroshi Ozora."

"You've decided?"

"Yeah, we'll go."

"Excellent. Tell no one."

"Not a problem," Hiroshi lied.

"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. "Welcome aboard?I  
bet we are."




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