Data Transparency

The hum of their lunar rovers echoed through the dusty remnants of the ancient city. Particles danced in the harsh sunlight that streamed through the skeletal buildings, casting long shadows across the cracked lunar surface. Dr. Jin adjusted her visor and her breath misted on the inside of her helmet.

"It's incredible," she said over their comms. "To think that a civilization once thrived here, on the moon."

Raj trailed behind her with a data scanner in his hand, searching for any treasure buried beneath the regolith. "Thrived might have been a strong word. It was a temporary settlement to continue their space travel. But they certainly carved a life for themselves."

Auggie, the pragmatist, chimed in. "Let's hope they left us a map somewhere."

Saul raised a gloved hand even as his eyes remained fixed to a geological scanner. "There's a lava tube ahead. That could be a shortcut to the old library complex."

"Lead the way," Jin said with a nod.

The team ventured into the yawning maw of the lava tube. As they did, each activated the lamps on their heads to pierce through the darkness. The air grew cooler. They moved cautiously, knowing these places have been unexplored for over a century.

Suddenly, Jin stopped moving. She raised her hand. Something wasn't right. The ground beneath them began trembling. She turned around to see a shower of dust of pebbles beginning to rain down upon them. A sharp crack echoed through the cavern.

"Cave in!" she warned, even though it was too late to turn around.

The floor gave way, plunging them deeper into the darkness.

Jin landed on her back. In a panic she ran her hands down her suit. No leaks. She slowly opened her eyes. Her lamp had shattered. Her HUD showed her oxygen as normal. Her pulse only slightly elevated.

Auggie coughed into the comms. "Is everyone okay?"

Saul's voice was next, strained but steady. "I think so. Nothing major at least."

Raj groaned. "My scanner's busted."

"What about you?"

"I'm okay."

Auggie flickered on her lamp. It showed the entrance overhead was covered with rocks, and hardly any other direction free sans a small passageway.

"We're trapped," she said grimly. "The entrance is blocked."

Jin's heart pounded, confirmed by the increasing heart rate displayed in her HUD. They were cut off. Their oxygen supply would last, but it was finite

"We have to find another way out," she said confidently. "There has to be something in that library that can help us. Let's go."

They continued their walk for several minutes. The passageway was beginning to open up, but nothing seemed to resemble a library.

They stalled for several minutes as Jin tried to think more about what to do. They hadn't anticipated this setback.

Then, Auggie brushed aside a layer of lunar dust. Jin noticed something glimmering underneath. She reached forward and touched it.

"Auggie, shine your light over here."

"What is it?"

"Look!" she exclaimed. "It's the archive!"

Saul scrambled over. His excitement was clear over the comms. He reached into a shelf and picked up a brick.

"Unbelievable! It's still intact!"

He ran his fingers over the surface, where Jin could see tiny etchings all over it. Once the dust was cleared off it was clear that it was not a brick, but made of glass.

"Project Silica," Auggie murmured.

"Silica? Looks like glass," Jin replied.

"It was an old research project on Earth, with the goal of long-term data archival. They stored the data in quartz glass using femtosecond lasers. That data was encoded in tiny structural changes within the glass itself, which should allow the data to remain stable for hundreds of years."

"So do you think there's something on there which could be useful?"

"Possibly," Saul noted, holding it up to Auggie's lamp. "But we'll need a way to read it."

He pulled a small device from his pack with a frown. "I jerry-rigged this on the way here. I was hoping to use it to interface with their systems, but even I didn't expect to deal with something this archaic."

"Is there anything that we can do to help?" Auggie wondered.

"We need to find a way to illuminate the glass," he answered, deep in focus. "If we can shine a polarized light through it, I think I'll be able to detect the nanoscale patterns and recreate the file system."

"Polarized light?" Jin's voice echoed. "How are we going to manage that down here?"

"Our headlamps?" Auggie asked, taking hers off. "Can we modify them somehow? Build a polarizing filter maybe?"

Jin turned to Raj.

"What do you think?"

"I think we can do it. We just need to create a filter to polarize the lamp."

"What about this?" Auggie grabbed a few plastic wrappers from the medkit.

"That should work well enough," Raj took them from her and got to work.

He knelt down on the ground of the dusty moon surface and pulled out his handy multi-tool. Activating its tweezers function, he disassembled her headlamp. A darkness fell onto the group. Everyone stood there quietly, hoping that he could repair their sight.

Then he switched the headlamp on again. Its beam was now dimmer than before, but more focused. Jin squinted as she looked at the glass brick again.

"It works. But now we need to decipher the data."

Saul brought out his makeshift reader and scanned the nano patterns present throughout the glass. Lines of code scrolled across the display. The language was ancient, but familiar. His fingers danced across the touchpad, translating and interpreting the puzzle.

It took upwards of an hour. Saul sat there, quietly crunching the numbers. Jin leaned back against the wall, deep in thought. Auggie did her best to look around the archive, but had no idea whether any of the other artifacts were useful.

"Here it is!" Saul exclaimed all of a sudden.

The datapad finished processing. With a quick keystroke, a holographic image appeared over everyone's head. It displayed a map in ethereal light, a sprawling network of tunnels and caverns around them.

"It's a map of the lunar tunnels!" Jin said with awe.

"This is incredible," Saul said, his jaw agape. "It shows the entire subterranean network that they built out so long ago, including all the hidden passages."

Jin just felt a wave of relief. They finally had a chance to get out of here.

"Let's go home," she commanded firmly.

Saul took the lead, followed by Auggie and her headlamp. It took an hour to navigate through the labyrinth tunnels. Although there was some interest in spending more time down here, to do more archaeological study, their oxygen supply was not going to last forever.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, they emerged into a vast cavern. Their lunar rover was parked nearby exactly where it had been left.

Raj ran up to the rover and placed his hands on the sleek metal chassis.

"We did it," he said, relieved and tired.

"We did it," Saul said with a chuckle as he turned off the map.

"I never had a doubt," Auggie said confidently.

As they re-entered the rover, the airlock re-pressurized and they could finally get out of their dusty suits. They could now leave the ancient city behind.

But Jin still had the archival data. With modern tools, they would be able to recover the rest of the data. Although she had never been someone who dwelled on the past, she couldn't help but be curious about what what kind of life the people had. What other data was lurking in there? She was eager to find out.