Chapter 13 Moderator’s Note: It’s me again! This is another spot where the timeline gets a little shuffled in the original book. Throughout the week, there are little excerpts that fans like to call “The Creation of Plastic.” All of them are in the archives if you want to reread them. If you can’t remember, I’d definitely recommend a refresher before the end of the week. Happy reading! LOG ENTRY: SOL 114 (Mar. 2, 2036) Now that NASA can talk…

Chapter 12 Moderator’s Note: Hi everyone! In the original book, everything that happened on Sol 6 (minus the log entry) was put here. However, in keeping with the chronological theme, the parts that showed how Mark was stranded were put at the beginning. If you need a refresher, all posts are archived through Substack so you can reread them. In this chapter, there’s a timeskip note that I left in place. It’s obsolete now, since everything is in order, but…

Feb. 15, 2036 (Sol 99) “Come on up here, Jack,” said Venkat. “You get to be the most Timward today.” “Thanks,” said Jack, taking Venkat’s place next to Tim. “Heya, Tim!” “Jack,” said Tim. “How long will the patch take?” Venkat asked. “Should be pretty much instant,” Jack answered. “Watney entered the hack earlier today, and we confirmed it worked. We updated Pathfinder’s OS without any problems. We sent the rover patch, which Pathfinder rebroadcast. Once Watney executes the patch…

Feb. 14, 2036 (Sol 98) “I was up all night,” said Venkat. “Forgive me if I’m a little punchy. Who are you again?” “Jack Trevor,” said the thin, pale man before Venkat. “I work in software engineering.” “What can I do for you?” “We have an idea for communication.” “I’m all ears.” “We’ve been looking through the old Pathfinder software. We got duplicate computers up and running for testing. Same computers they used to find a problem that almost killed…

LOG ENTRY: SOL 97 (Feb. 13, 2036) It worked! Holy fucking shit it worked! I just checked the Lander. The high gain antenna is angled directly at Earth! Pathfinder has no way of knowing where it is, so it has no way of knowing where Earth is. The only way for it to find out is getting a signal. They know I’m alive! Happy dance, happy dance, I’m doin’ the happy dance! All right. Enough happy dance. Time to make…

PATHFINDER LOG: SOL 0 (Sol 96, Feb. 12, 2036) BOOT SEQUENCE INITIATED TIME 00:00:00 LOSS OF POWER DETECTED, TIME/DATE UNRELIABLE LOADING OS… VXWARE OPERATING SYSTEM (C) WIND RIVER SYSTEMS PERFORMING HARDWARE CHECK: INT. TEMPERATURE: -34C EXT. TEMPERATURE: NONFUNCTIONAL BATTERY: FULL HIGAIN: OK LOGAIN: OK WIND SENSOR: NONFUNCTIONAL METEOROLOGY: NONFUNCTIONAL ASI: NONFUNCTIONAL IMAGER: OK ROVER RAMP: NONFUNCTIONAL SOLAR A: NONFUNCTIONAL SOLAR B: NONFUNCTIONAL SOLAR C: NONFUNCTIONAL HARDWARE CHECK COMPLETE BROADCASTING STATUS LISTENING FOR TELEMETRY SIGNAL… LISTENING FOR TELEMETRY SIGNAL… LISTENING FOR…

LOG ENTRY: SOL 96 (Feb. 12, 2036) I was really hoping I’d wake up to a functional Lander, but no such luck. Its high-gain antenna is right where I last saw it. Why does that matter? Well, I’ll tell ya… If the Lander comes back to life (and that’s a big if) it’ll try to establish contact with Earth. Problem is, nobody’s listening. It’s not like the Pathfinder team is hanging around JPL just in case their long dead probe…

LOG ENTRY: SOL 95 (Feb. 11, 2036) Today was all about repairs! The Pathfinder mission ended because the Lander had an unknown critical failure. Once they lost contact with the Lander, they had no idea what became of Sojourner. It might be in better shape. Maybe it just needs power. Power it couldn’t get with the solar panels hopelessly caked with dust. Setting it on my workbench, I pried open a panel to peek inside. The battery was a lithium…

LOG ENTRY: SOL 94 (Feb. 10, 2036) Home sweet home! Today I write from my gigantic, cavernous Hab! The first thing I did when I got in was wave my arms wildly while running in circles. Felt great! I was in that damn rover for 22 sols, and couldn’t even walk without suiting up. I’ll need to endure twice that to get to Ares 4, but that’s a problem for later. After a few celebratory laps around the Hab, it…

LOG ENTRY: SOL 93 (Feb. 9, 2036) I found the Hab signal today. I have a solid bearing and direction to go. No more chance to get lost. According to the computer, I’m 24718 meters away. I’ll be home tomorrow. Even if the rover has a catastrophic failure, I’ll be fine. I can walk to the Hab from here. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but I am really fucking sick of being in this rover. I’ve spent…