Free Fort Liberty, Volume Two by M Orenda Page A

observation deck is a dim multi-level control room, an enormous semi-circle of windows peering out into a wet Martian cavern. Logan stops at the railing, lost in the sheer scope of it.
    The cave itself is larger than he thought it would be, ridged with uneven rows of columnar grey basalt and squared volcanic pillars, pile formations that form its walls and ceilings. Along its floor, a watery landscape of pools and rock ledges stagger out in several directions, curving around the observation deck, and filling all the windows with color.
    For a moment, he’s sure the glow is something they’ve installed, a flood of blue-green lighting set up for the benefit of the observers in hues that aren’t damaging to the BIO227 bacteria.
    But then it hits him.
    It’s not artificial. It’s biological.
    The outside rock is glistening and iridescent, and color is flushing through it continuously, blooming green, then blue, shot with flashes of pure white, or muted purple.
    BIO227.
    He stares, trying to make sense of it.
    It’s using bioluminescence, which not uncommon in Earth animals, but this seems different, too bright, complex. The whole thing is alive with it, rippling with bright chemical signals. BIO227 is communicating within its colony, its shimmer forming a kind of collective activity.
    Dr. Neilson grins. “You get it, don’t you? You’re quick.”
    “It’s communicating.”
    “Give that man a prize.”
    Logan glares at him though the guy doesn’t seem to register it, too busy being the chosen one, with a sense of humor that would get him punched in pie hole under different circumstances.
    “It is communicating,” the guy confirms, waving one hand at the cavern beyond the glass. “What you see here are signals that are busy spreading information back and forth across the entire colony. Bioluminescence is something we’ve seen before, certainly. Earthbound bacteria were known to use it for quorum sensing, the most basic of decision making processes, yes-or-no stuff, colony-wide thought, frequently involving more than one species. BIO227 is also a combination of species, but it has developed very sophisticated communication methods. And how they live here---the energy they consume, the atmospheric by-products, these are capabilities that have taken us decades to even begin to understand. This colony has adapted, almost as if it was designed to live cleanly in this closed environment, and operate as one organism.”
    Logan feels it take hold, the scope of something so massive, a collective entity that fills an entire cave, perhaps miles of it.
    Nielson is still talking. “As far as we can tell, this is complex information that’s being shared, and processed. It BIO227 uses its mixture of species to full advantage, different cells that grow in different areas, and coordinate as multi-cellular structures. They don’t all have the same adaptations. They work together to create something larger. There are electrical signals passing back and forth between certain specialized structures as well, something akin to synapses in the human brain. The cells live and die in normal life cycles, but they refresh the colony in the same image, same types of cells growing in the same place, passing the same signals, perhaps even storing information, making BIO227, and whatever it thinks about, immortal.”
    “Whatever it thinks about?
    “Yeah,” Neilson arches one brow, his smile crooked. “We ran sensors through the cave and created our own custom EEG monitoring system. The electrical pulses match a recognizable brainwave activity, predominantly delta wave, like humans in a sleep state, like it’s dreaming. In other words, the colony itself is a structure for deep intelligence. A big brain. Incredible, eh?”
    “That makes no sense at all.”
    “Maybe not to you, but here it is. This is what evolution, outside our experience, looks like.”
    “How can that be evolution? What advantage is there in developing complex