The Specimen

Elias Kane thought he understood consciousness. As a neurologist, he surgically dissected the minds of other beings, convinced their pain was merely "interesting behavioral data." His selection as Chief Science Officer for the first long-term mission to Mars was the logical pinnacle of his career—a chance to study an alien world from the ultimate position of power: the observer. He was wrong. In Part 2 of the chilling hard sci-fi series, the desperate evacuation of the Ares III crew collapses into a nightmare of cold, clinical precision. The ancient Martian intelligence has ceased its subtle warnings. Now, it acts. Trapped and utterly helpless, Kane and his crew are transported to a vast underground facility—a museum of horrors housing specimens from across the galaxy. Stripped of their humanity, they are catalogued, restrained, and prepared for processing. As Kane watches his colleagues undergo procedures terrifyingly familiar to his own research, he is forced to confront the brutal reality he once inflicted on others. But Kane is different. He understands the science. He recognizes the protocols. And to their captors, that makes him uniquely valuable. Chosen for a terrifying experiment in empathy, Kane becomes both specimen and messenger. He will survive the full scope of their examination, gaining an understanding of suffering no human has ever possessed. His mind will be mapped, his consciousness laid bare, all to answer one chilling question posed by a superior intelligence: If you experience the horror you inflicted, and are given a chance to warn your kind… will humanity ever truly learn? Mars: Reckoning is a story of relentless psychological horror, karmic justice, and the terrifying price of knowledge. It's a deep exploration of consciousness, ethics, and what happens when the scientist becomes the subject on the ultimate examination table.