Into the Inferno --BYO 2023 Non writer

A journey to the inferno
Jared and Nick were careful not to wake the sleeping security guard. To be caught this deep in the com center after hours was a major criminal offense, and neither of them wanted to spend the next 20 years in a prison cell. The graying guard was not a light sleeper, and they walked easily past him. Strangely enough once they past him, the security measures were largely minimal, and within a moment they were in the deserted mission control center for the rover, dimly lit by flat computer monitors. “ I drive tonight, you navigate” Jared blurted out, and they both snickered, largely brought on by the weed. I don’t think this probe was meant to be piloted when you are baked “Nick said quietly. Jared pulled the seat up to the console. There were several navcam screens about the main control screen that showed the barren rocky surface. His pale hands worked the keyboard and the rover started to move. There was a low hill in the distance, and this was Jarrod's goal. “You got to drive slow and not get bogged down in the sand” Nick muttered glaring at him with his large eyes. The first time they had snuck in and driven the rover, Nick had been at the controls and had nearly gotten stuck in a sand bank, when a blinding dust storm had apparently come up out of nowhere. All the cameras went blank and they ran out of the com center, only to see on the project site the next day that wind had “pushed the rover into sand, and it took several hours to free it. They would be more careful this time. After all, it had taken his father and his team of scientists 20 years to prepare and send the little rover all the way up there to go exploring, and he did not want to be the individual who wrecked their work. They looked up at the HD display in awe. The sun was out, over a tan orange sky that looked like hell. The surface temperature was around 900 degrees F. But the rover had been designed to operate on easily on Venus, so it presented no problem for operating in the hellish environment. They were moving across what some of the researchers had speculated had once been a dry lake bed or body of water, towards the hill, which at one time might have been an island. But no water had flowed here for more ages than anyone could imagine.

He was approaching the top of the hill. “switch it to the fish eye lens, nick said, I want to get some shots of the horizon from the top. The rover went over the peak and stopped.

In the distance, was a long structure that went from the hillside the rover rested on to another set of hills in the far distance. It was very old and falling apart, but parts of it gleamed in the bright daylight. To their left, was a squarish metal plate suspended on a metal pole. Jarod pulled the rover closer to it. In the light, on the scorched and scarred metal rectangle, he could just make out the faint traces of what had long ago been writing. What it said was unmistakable.


GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE, 2 MILES


1200 feet above them, far above the top level of the underground bunker, and two miles away, from the ancient entry tunnel, the first humans in 2000 years beheld one of the engineering wonders of man, before the runaway carbon dioxide boiled away the oceans and turned the worlds air into an inferno. So it WAS true, people had once lived on the surface. They were silent, looked at one another, and got up to walk the long tunnel back to the shelter and their quarters.

a reply to: openminded2011


You should enter this in the contest.
Just add - BYO2023 - non-writer to the title and post a link here:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

a reply to: openminded2011

Very good, openminded2011!

I enjoyed the storyline and the imagery. You had me thinking we were on Mars or some other distant planet, but revealed all at the end to leave me surprised and saddened. A bit like Planet of The Apes, but a bit more lighthearted.

The only thing that would have made it even better, is a few paragraph breaks in the first part.

Finally, stories need to end with "The End", so you may need the intervention of a Moderator to fix that.

All-in-all, I'm glad pthena suggested to enter it in the contest.

a reply to: openminded2011

A good read, with a hook at the end, which I love. As Encia said, a few paragraphs gives the reader a place to rest their eyes, and helps. If you are just dipping your toes, please keep dipping. You have a talent that should not be wasted.