Echoes of the Pioneers

Distrust and Confrontation of the Four Superpowers

6 April 2301, 00h35 — Twenty-Four-Hour Noodle Bar, Outer Residential Sector, XE-1

Transport trains still move softly through transparent tunnels outside the noodle bar. Hologram screens replay highlights from the Mars Unity Festival. Evie’s voice drifts occasionally from the public audio system. The city still looks peaceful. But inside the noodle bar, the atmosphere has completely changed.

Firo places the micro camera on the table. It looks tiny and silent. He rotates it slowly, studying its surface structure. It constantly adjusts its own transmission wave field — which means it has probably been active for a long time without detection. The signal it emits is routed through layers of relay nodes, making the original source nearly impossible to trace using standard XE-1 security tools. This is not ordinary surveillance equipment.

Firo, Seb, and Vera piece together what they know. The Big 4 — America, Europe, China, and India — are all operating on Mars with agendas that do not fully align with the UN’s public migration mission. The military cargo containers Firo tracked from Phobos Dock to XE-1’s restricted tunnels. Wanda’s background as an EU military pilot. The advanced spy camera in her apartment. Her file marked STATUS TRANSFERRED with no destination. Someone erased those records during the festival, while the entire city was distracted.

Firo does not tell them everything he is thinking. Some things he needs to confirm alone first. He leaves the noodle bar and walks through the late-night Martian station. Evie’s concert replay still echoes from the giant public screens: “Carry the light into tomorrow—” He stops walking. He looks toward the deeper underground elevator sectors in the distance — elevators that lead toward restricted areas ordinary citizens can never access. Mars still looks peaceful from the surface. But deep beneath the city, a new Cold War may have already begun.