by Karen Bao
“Thank you, Rose. Thanks for accommodating him. And for meeting me today, after . . .” My voice trails off, and I wonder if I’ve said too much by alluding to Mitchell’s death. During Committee times, talking about lost loved ones, even to give sympathy, was considered unproductive and thus disruptive.
Even though I hardly know her, Rose’s gentleness makes me too comfortable. She’s like Wes in that way. Around both people, I’m not afraid to speak first and think later.
Rose makes a hiccupping sound halfway between a laugh and a sob. “Cygnus is doing what he can. I wouldn’t ask for anything more.”
She doesn’t mention Mitchell, and I’m secretly glad. Grief is personal, but war is business; the first can’t interfere with the second if we’re to survive. That’s a hard truth, one that much of Dovetail has accepted, one that makes our hearts burst with unsaid words and unshed tears.
A truth that, as I soon learn, is ripping us apart.
THE MARKET DEPARTMENT’S POORLY LIT TABLES are dusted with crumbs and the ghostly slicks of evaporated spills. It doesn’t smell like anything in the cramped room, despite the fact that hundreds of troops and civilians are eating at once.
My lunch is euphemistically called “oat-and-soy stew,” a lukewarm mush made from the freeze-dried crops the Batterers brought up. The food should sustain me through this afternoon’s foot-combat drill for the latest round of draftees—with the leak in Defense finally fixed, we need to make up for lost training time. Still, the “stew” is so bland that as I eat, I open my senses to more interesting stimuli. A conversation coming from the table behind me, conducted in snappish Batterer accents, soon becomes impossible to ignore.
“Since when is bread made out of yams and cut into tiny cubes?” The speaker is a female soldier, just a year or so older than me. “They take our crops and turn ’em into cat food.”
“Everything’s too tidy here, you know?” says another voice, this one animated and male. With young Batterers, even statements come out like questions, I notice.
“The people too,” grunts another male soldier. “So neat with the way they do things, the way they eat, all nibbly like mice, the way they walk—their arms hardly swing, have you noticed that? Hey, Barnett, pass the peas, eh?”
Interesting, if insulting. I sink lower in my seat, hoping the Batterers won’t catch me eavesdropping.
“Five spuds for the first person to see a Loony cry,” grunts a female soldier. She lowers her voice and whispers, “Living under six dictators for a hundred years must’ve taken the heart right out of them.”
My mouth goes dry. How could she perceive us like that, and dare to express her opinion in public, even quietly?
“All those people died on Base VI and they’re pretending it didn’t happen,” one of the men says. “Business as usual, polishing laser guns and training teenagers to die. Not even a ceasefire, eh? Nope. Nothing.”
“I don’t trust them.” The girl lowers her voice to a whisper. “I feel sorry for them, but I don’t trust them.”
Her fellow soldiers all agree, saying “yee-ah” and “mmhmm” and “that’s just it.”
I get up, sort my waste at the compost and recycling bins, and jog to Defense, pushing thoughts through my mind. It’ll take more than quiet cooperation to break through the Batterers’ distrust. It’ll take something that they never anticipated.
* * *
“The Batterers don’t trust us. How will they fight with us, for us, if they don’t trust us?” After training lets out, I pace around the abandoned loyalist apartment Wes and Alex have occupied. The walls are concrete, the furniture made of twisted copper spotted with oxidized patches. Threadbare yellow throw pillows slump against the armrests. A string of flickering orange lightbulbs the size of buttons dangles from the ceiling’s center, like so many fires threatening to go out. A typical room in the Dugout, this one has no windows. I’m beginning to thirst for a glimpse of the stars.
The boys lounge on the copper sofas, looking like prisoners on Dovetail’s own turf. Exhaustion glazes their eyes; dried sweat cakes their skin. Wes lies on his back. Alex scribbles in his book, a frown framing his mouth.
“I’d ask the Batterers what we’re doing wrong,” I go on, “if it didn’t make Dovetail seem like the flailing excuse for a revolt that we are.”
Alex ignores me, but Wes nods, twisting his hands together on his lap. Copper-colored stubble covers his chin and upper lip; his eyelids are pink and puffy. Since we got back from Earth, he’s talked even less than I do, and it unsettles me. But I know he wants me around. If he didn’t, he’d have already insinuated that I should leave.
“We think they’re strange, but they think we’re . . . machines.”
Wes rubs his red eyes with a clenched fist.
“I can’t concentrate in this ruckus.” Alex purses his lips, throws his pen between his notebook’s pages, and ducks into the apartment’s one bedroom. “Keep it down out there, all right?” He slams the old-fashioned hinged door with a clang.
Wes shrugs, as if to apologize for his friend’s behavior. Aside from training and meetings where Asterion requires his presence, Alex hasn’t gone out in public all week. He seems more disturbed by the Singularity’s demolition than anyone could’ve predicted—more so than Rose, who grew up there. But he doesn’t talk about it, even though I think he wants to. He’s only scribbled more frequently than ever before, preserving his memories on paper. When people are nearby, he curls around his notebook like a mother wolf, trying to shield the words from wandering eyes.
“You and Alex must have seen us Lunars as robots too at first,” I go on. “As inhuman. There has to be a way to convince the Batterers that we’re people.”
Finally, Wes opens his mouth. “I’m about to say something, and you won’t like it.”
I wait for him to gather his words.
“After the fight on Battery Bay, the Odans had nothing. Many of our loved ones’ bodies were missing. But we went to a clearing in the park, lit some dry wood on fire, and prayed for their souls. People who knew them talked about the wonderful things they’d done in life, and, if they were young, the things they didn’t get to do.” He sighs and goes on in a near-whisper, “I spoke for my sister. Said she found some measure of happiness in life but had many unfulfilled hopes. I told them that Murray wanted someone to know everything about her, and to love her more with each new thing he discovered.”
Don’t we all? Watching him, reveling in his nearness, I wish more than ever that this war would leave the two of us alone. So that maybe we could experience for ourselves what Murray wanted, without sickness and death and demolition distracting us.
“Death hurts, Phaet,” Wes continues. “It doesn’t matter who you are or how you grew up.”
He’s talking about himself, and me, and everyone who’s ever lost anyone. It hurts the same for all of us. The Batterers too. Maybe we can convince them that blood, not metal wire, runs through our bodies. If we let ourselves feel—if we let ourselves be human . . . there’s a chance.
“It’s not shameful to say good-bye to your people after they’ve gone.”
I frown, thinking hard. Dovetail is afraid to show our grief, afraid to seem weak, afraid that the Batterer forces will abandon us. All those lives were cut short on the Singularity, and yet, we’ve only tried to move on.
We should have stopped living our lives based on fear long ago. More than a year has passed since we began our fight for freedom, but we’re still acting as if the Committee commands our every move. It’s time to put an end to that.
Without speaking, I give Wes a quick hug. Then I shrug on my jacket and dash across the Residential Department to find my sister.
* * *
Anka’s in our borrowed apartment, sitting on the living room’s black plastic sofa, doodling on her handscreen. Cygnus’s bedroom door is closed—he’s sleeping, or at least
trying to.
One lamp is switched on, and it throws yellow light on the sharp lines of my sister’s left cheek and jaw, on the soft curve of her lips, which she’s sucking in as she concentrates. I feel as if an invisible hand is dragging me back to better days. Anka looks just like our mother. She speaks without looking at me, squinting at her handscreen, engrossed in her work.
“What’s so exciting? It’s not every day my sister comes running home as if the Committee’s after her. Actually, no. That does happen every day.”
I let out a choked laugh. “Want to strike back at them? Even if it’s an indirect move?”
Anka lowers her handscreen. “Go on.”
“We need to smooth out the spikes between us and our guests.” I explain to her what we need to do, my voice rising and falling, filled with hope and solemnity, the feelings that I’m done hiding from others.
After I’m done, Anka breathes out for a long time. “I can’t make this alone,” she says, “but I know who can help. Mom’s old Journalist friends, maybe Alex too. It’ll be ready tomorrow. And it’ll be unforgettable.”
34,543.
The numbers, white against a black background, appear on every wall screen that flanks the Dugout’s main hallway. Thousands of eyes take them in, Dovetailer and Batterer alike. The ceiling lights are off, so the base is dark. At my sister’s direction, someone has brought in dozens of O-shaped mood lamps from a Militia official’s apartment. They glow yellow, like anemic candlelight, and the illumination makes the metal beams across the ceiling look as if they’re burning.
HOW DO WE MAKE SENSE OF SO MANY DEAD? the screens ask. WE DON’T KNOW. WE CAN ONLY TRY.
“34,543—it’s a prime number.” Sitting on my left, Cygnus rocks back and forth on his tailbone, whispering to himself. “A palindromic prime . . .”
I’d shush him, but it was hard enough for him to come here. He should do whatever he needs to do to stay.
Anka has helped several former Journalists make a video to honor the Singularity’s dead. The film screening at the vigil will begin in about two minutes. Out of respect, Anka, Cygnus, and I have changed into white Theta robes. I remember my mother telling me white was the ancient Chinese color of mourning—the Committee didn’t manage to steal that knowledge from her, the way they stole the Moon Festival. We sit lined up like ducklings in a row, the green-clad Phis clustered behind us.
Wes tiptoes up to my family and sits down to my immediate right. I’m surprised that he’s left his apartment, and even more surprised to see him all in white. Knowing the color’s significance to me, he must have requested old Theta robes instead of the ultramarine Kappa ones he used to wear.
Wes is my family now. I’d be kidding myself if I thought otherwise.
Behind me, Umbriel clears his throat, and I sit in suspense, wondering what will happen. He’s said he isn’t angry at Wes, not anymore—but now that they’re both here, will they get along?
“Uh, welcome back,” Umbriel whispers, and extends a hand to Wes to shake.
Wes’s eyebrows shoot up—he’s probably surprised that Umbriel greeted him civilly—and then he breaks into a welcoming smile. “Thanks, Umbriel.”
Ariel watches approvingly, nods at Wes, and then looks at me. All clear, his eyes seem to say. Then his eyes rake over the room as if combing the crowd for Alex, who said he’d take a spot in the shadows, out of sight.
“Psst. Wes. Remember me?” Anka whispers.
Wes releases Umbriel’s hand and takes my sister’s. “Anka, your art’s everywhere on base; how could I forget?”
“The scraps collection bins and the weapons-sharpener teams were her ideas too,” Umbriel points out, and Anka grins pridefully.
Wes faces my brother, observes his nervous knotted hands and faraway expression. “And I’m glad to see you safe, Cygnus.”
My brother shrugs. “Safer than I was.”
“With your sisters and this fellow around?” Wes points at Umbriel. “I say you’re covered. Free to work computer magic in peace.”
“I’m getting there,” Cygnus says. Umbriel gives Wes a forced smile, but it’s a smile all the same. My heart warms at the sight of my family members—from both Earth and the Moon—knitting themselves together.
As if to make the moment more perfect, a simple melody begins to play—it’s some kind of plucked string instrument, but I haven’t heard enough music in my lifetime to identify anything else about the song. The screens flash the words: HELENE AND HYPERION YOTTA, TINY DANCERS. As I realize what’s coming, my happiness ebbs away.
The text fades out into a video of two brown-haired children holding hands and hopping in a circle on the Base VI Atrium floor. The bottom right-hand corner shows the date and time, as well as the words DISRUPTIVE MOVEMENT. A security pod taped this, and someone—Rose, perhaps, pulled it from the video files.
KEPLER THETA. A smiling old man with several missing teeth appears on the screen. He’s wrapped a cloth around his head in an elaborate design. InfoTech caught him on camera for committing an attire violation.
CURIE SIGMA, LEADING ASTROBIOLOGIST. A long-necked woman wearing wrinkled robes stands before dioramas of different stars’ solar systems, pointing at planets on which spectra of organic molecules were detected. She’s not guilty of anything, except being in the wrong place at the wrong time when the bomb hit.
As we get more glimpses into the lives of the Singularity’s residents, my sister begins to tremble. She wipes tears away with clenched fists. Umbriel reaches out to comfort her, but she shakes her head. “I don’t want to stop being sad. We have to feel something, don’t you see? There’s no one else left to be sad for them.”
Beside her, I continue watching the video. There’s a young man studying on his handscreen; a middle-aged Sanitation worker mopping her brow; a teenage couple, clad in lab coats, kissing in a dark hallway. I reel in tears before they spill over, imagining how hopeful, how determined, how alive they all must have felt. No one besides Anka is crying; Umbriel looks angry, Ariel crestfallen, and Wes guilty.
Why was it them? I wonder. Why them, and not another base—or us?
“They’ve shown twelve victims so far.” Cygnus scrunches up his eyes, trying to wrap his head around the tragedy. “That leaves 34,531 more people.” His face goes slack, and then lights up with anger. “So many died. Killing the Committee won’t change that.”
I catch my brother’s eye and shake my head, brokenhearted. But his furious expression doesn’t budge. I can almost see numbers funneling through his head, adding to his despair.
To give him some privacy, I turn again to the video. A tan young woman stands in front of a giant touchscreen with equations scribbled across it, looking regally at the security pod that films her. MITCHELL MU, ASTROPHYSICS EMPLOYEE OF THE YEAR. Watching Rose’s sister, I sink deeper into sadness—as a rising scientist, she reminds me of myself, of my own unrealized dreams. Mitchell will never reach her potential. In theory, I still have a chance. I almost feel guilty for wasting it.
The next clip twists the knife harder. FRANKLIN PHI, reads the caption. BASE VI’S YOUNGEST VICTIM. The date the bomb dropped is in the screen’s corner. Against a backdrop of Medical white, gloved hands snip an umbilical cord and lift up a screaming baby. Fast-forward thirty minutes: a flushed, laughing woman cradles the newborn boy to her chest. Within seconds, his screams turn to soft giggles. Then Franklin falls asleep, his head nestled in his mother’s hand.
Franklin Phi came into the universe on the same day that he left it behind.
The tears come then, tracing lines down my face and spotting the white cotton of my robes. Warm strong arms and the aroma of smoke and wood surround me. I let my head drop into the curve of Wes’s neck and shoulder. With him as my cocoon, I’m safe. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t tell me it’s okay when it’s not. One thing I love about Wes: he doesn’t talk when there’s nothing to sa
y.
He stiffens, and I feel the weight of someone watching us. Umbriel. My friend nods, seeming to understand that there’s nothing I need from him, and we three turn back to watch the screen.
A low, melancholy hum presses on my eardrums. Wes and I remain entwined until he shakes my shoulder to get my attention. I lift my head, and he points upward.
The film concludes with black text on a white background: ON JANUARY 17, 2349, OVER THIRTY THOUSAND STORIES WERE CUT SHORT. REMEMBER THEM ALWAYS, FOR NO ONE ELSE CAN.
As if I could forget what I’ve seen today. It’s given me 34,543 more reasons to keep fighting.
The humming gathers strength behind us, swelling among the Dovetailers gathered on the balcony. In the front stand, Asterion, Andromeda, and her daughter all join in—Callisto’s throat tightens repeatedly, as if she’s swallowing tears. Several meters to the side and bathed in the faint lighting, Rose sits stoically, white and silver like a marble statue. Yinha stands close beside her, one comforting hand resting on her shoulder.
The Dovetailers sing a familiar melody but darker and heavier than I’ve ever heard it. Hundreds of lips move at the same time, putting new words to the tune we all know so well.
“Red blood falls on blackest seas
Children fall on bended knee
Only here is mankind free
Only here is mankind free.”
* * *
When I realize what they’re doing, tremors seize my spine and the tears dry on my face. The Dovetailers have appropriated “Luna,” the bases’ national anthem, and changed the words—but they’ve left the last line intact. In this context, it takes on a whole new meaning: Dovetail territories are the only places on the Moon where people can breathe.
More voices join in, and their sound fills the base. Soon, Anka is chanting the words out loud, and Wes is singing them in my ear. “Red blood falls on blackest seas . . .”
The Committee would have us sprayed with neurotoxic gas for this, I think, and I draw strength from our defiant act. Around the perimeter, soldiers in teal have added their voices to the chorus. Their backs are straight, their faces somber; those standing near Dovetailers join hands with them. The concrete floor upon which we sit vibrates with the music’s vitality.
