Stranded -The Martian

Chapter 9

*Sol 109*

I woke up to Mark shaking me and telling me to get up.

"Five more minutes." I mumbled into the pillow.

"You need to get up now Lucy." he said back to me.

"Ugh! Fine." I groaned and got out of my bunk.

I made my way to the bathroom to get changed and put my hair up into a ponytail.

I then went to the kitchen to get my breakfast where Mark was already sat eating his food while looking through the hexadecimal system.

"How's it looking?" I asked as I sat down in front of him.

"Well, we need to find something to use to write on which will be placed around the camera." he explained. I looked around the room and laid my eyes upon some squares of plastic and some rods,

"Hey, will they work?" I asked pointing to them. "Should do." he replied and we quickly finished our food.

I grabbed the plastic and rods, while Mark got the system up and grabbed a marker to write on the squares. "Here." I said as I handed him the squares and rods "Thanks." he replied, "Why don't you go and mark where they can go around the camera?"I nodded in understanding.

I got my suit on and went outside to Pathfinder. I stood in front of the camera and took about seven steps back and started shuffling my feet around the camera in a big circle. After that, I made foot imprints where each of the signs would be placed. Just as I finished, Mark came out holding the signs and a hammer, "Hey, did you mark it?" he asked. "Yeah, look for where my footprints are and that's where you should put the signs." I answered. "Okay," he said, "would you be able to hammer them into the ground?" I nodded.

After around ten minutes we had finished the hexadecimals and decided to head inside to relax for a bit. I had to go out to check on the Rovers but I heard the camera turning and realised that NASA were spelling something out. So I grabbed the small notebook and pencil from my suit, then walked over to Pathfinder and wrote down what the camera was spelling out. I quickly checked the Rovers and ran into the Hab straight to Mark,

"Mark! Look!" I shouted and showed him my notebook. 

"What?" he breathed out in disbelief, "we need to translate it." We got the hexadecimal system and translated it, it read:

HOW ALIVE?

"I guess my plan worked." I said with a wide smile.