by Weston Ochse
Then the astronauts vanished and he was facing towards the immensity of space. He could see the asteroids coming and couldn’t duck. He watched as each one struck him. Small ones. Ones the size of Buicks. Others the size of M1 Tanks. Each impact felt like a bullet round going through his flesh. The pain became so magnified that he screamed but he had no mouth.
A young Martin Landau wearing a beige jumpsuit reached out and helped him up. Nathan was no longer the moon. He was someone far different. As he remembered the cast of Space 1999, he realized he’d become a member of the cast. But as he looked around, it was nothing at all like a soundstage. This was real. It wasn’t a cast. He was on the moon, but not the real moon. He was on a moon where people wore weird 1970s jumpsuits, had awkwardly long hair, and spoke in English accents.
“You’re out of uniform, Johnson,” Landau said to him.
Nathan looked down and noticed he was wearing a bright orange dishdasha, which left him feeling halfway between a Muslim and a Hari Krishna. “But I don’t know how I got here,” he said to the room.
Everyone laughed. He could feel his face turning red. “We don’t know how we got here either,” a woman he recognized as Doctor Helena Russell, played by Barbara Bain, said.
“But you do,” Nathan said. He held out his arms and saw he’d changed into his battle dress uniform. “They used the moon to store nuclear waste. It exploded and hurled the moon out of orbit and into deep space. Ever since, you’ve been having adventures after adventures. Hell, this was my brother’s favorite show. He almost wore out the DVD.”
“What is this DVD you speak of?” asked Clifton Jones, aka David Kano, the science officer and the only Black actor in the cast.
“It’s a video recording disc, like a record, but it plays video too.”
He noticed everyone’s wide eyes and remembered that the show was filmed when the 8-track was at the peak of entertainment technology.
“You called this a show, young man?” Barbara Bain asked him, placing one of her long graceful hands on his wrist.
“Yes ma’am. You and Mr. Landau are married. You have been since Mission Impossible.”
“I’m not married, son. I’m a doctor.”
She said it so simply and with such grace, Nathan stopped and for a second doubted himself. Then the world changed and he fell through the bottom of the universe. Michael Madsen stood above him. “Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey.”
Nathan opened his eyes and found himself strapped to a metal chair. His bare feet were in a pan of water. Wires ran from the wall, to a transformer, to the chair, then split and wrapped around his left ankle. A droplight with an impossibly bright bulb created a corona of brilliance just before his eyes, making it impossible to make out the rest of the men in the room.
But there was no mistaking Masun.
“Who are you? Why are you here?”
“You did this,” Nathan said, suddenly aware he’d somehow returned in media res, and that he’d been tortured for some time now. He smelled the awful stink of burning hair and knew it was his own.
“We did nothing!” Masun pointed to a man, who pulled a lever.
Nathan’s head slammed back and his body bucked in the chair as bolts of electricity jolted him to his core. Space 1999 episodes flashed through his mind, a planetoid turned into an intergalactic space ship. Hair burned. Skin scorched. His eyes felt ready to explode.
Then it stopped.
The freedom from the pain was so magnificent it made Nathan cry.
“I’ll ask you again, who are you?”
“Nathan Johnson,” he managed to say, half breathless. He gave his rank and unit, and plead with his eyes for Masun to believe him. “I swear. I’m no one else.”
“Then explain this to me,” Masun shouted, holding up a cell phone with Cal’s image shooting a bird. “Who is this man and why is he calling all of us?”
“I told you. He’s my broth—“
“Yes, yes, yes.” Masun shook his head. “We’ve heard this bullshit before. This is your dead brother and he’s speaking to you.” Masun sighed and seemed to gather himself. Then, “But we all know this is a bullshit story. This is not your brother. This is another operative. You have something planned. What is it?”
“I don’t have anything planned.”
“Of course you do. Do you not want to escape? Do you not want your people to come and kill all of us? Of course you do. You wished we would die, don’t you.”
“Yes. I mean, this is war. I want you to lose.”
“But losing means more than a war. It means a life too. And at this moment, it means your life too.”
Part of Nathan wanted to cry out for Masun to kill him. The pain was unbelievable. But another part, the part that made him get back up on the board over and over until he finally surfed a wave, made him want to fight tooth and nail until Masun himself was in the chair with Nathan working the lever.
“Listen,” Nathan said, his eye on the actuator for his agony. “I swear I have nothing to do with this. It’s as strange to me as it is for you.” He shook his head. “This is crazy. Hell, maybe I’m crazy.”
“Nice try, pretend Nathan Johnson. I almost believed it. I almost believed you didn’t know anything. But I am not a stupid man. Do you think I am a stupid man?”
“No I don’t think you are a stupid man.”
Then you’ll stop this nonsense and tell me the truth.” Masun sat forward. “And don’t let these lies you’ve said color what you need to say, for truly, now is your only chance.”
Masun’s words struck a chord. They were eerily similar to something Nathan had read before. ‘Whatever you do, do not let the past be a straitjacket!’ These words from Robert Heinlein in his triumph The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. An idea came to Nathan, inspired by the book.
“Okay. Okay, Masun. We can stop playing around now.”
Masun nodded. He tried not to smile and he almost managed not to.
“Then tell me who you are.”
“I can’t, Masun. Not yet. To tell you now would be to put something in motion that would get us both killed.” He shook his head. “I promise I’ll tell you. I promise nothing will happen to you. I just need one more day.”
“How do I know this is true?” Masun said, leaning forward, a grin clearly on his face.
Nathan didn’t know where his inspiration was coming from. No! That wasn’t entirely true. He did know that his brother’s craze over the moon had somehow infected him without him even knowing.
“Because I’m just tired of fighting you,” he said to Masun, knowing it was exactly what the man wanted to hear.
Masun leaned back and crossed his arms. He was so pleased with himself he could have farted and felt like it was a sign of divine favor.
“You have one day,” he said. “And after that we meet for one last time.”
“One day,” Nathan agreed. He just hoped he could figure out what he’d do next.
– 17 –
BOB HADN’T REGAINED consciousness since Nathan had returned. His breathing was shallow. His wounds had stopped bleeding. His skin was a sickly color of yellow. Nathan didn’t have a lot of confidence the man would survive much longer without help. Still, it didn’t stop him from holding a conversation. He just filled in what he figured Bob would have answered.
“My boys fell for the idea that luck would save them,” Nathan said to the comatose prisoner beside him.
He didn’t get an answer. Not that he thought he would, he just needed someone to talk to. Then he had an idea. He’d pretend to be Bob and answer like Bob would answer. After all, he couldn’t just lay there. It would drive him insane.
“I’d taught them about Dumas and how people fight for each other and they turned against me,” he said.
In a voice approximating Bob’s he said, “Maybe they thought it was you who turned a
gainst them?”
“Maybe, but that’s a stretch.”
“Is it? You’re one and they’re six. That’s six points of view thinking one way and one thinking the other. Listen, just because you’re in charge, it doesn’t make it right. We’ve had enough leaders try and make us believe that triple-fisted lie. No, maybe the best thing you could have done was to let them use the phone. I mean what would it have hurt?”
Nathan considered it. Bob was right, or rather he was right as he pretended to be Bob. He was even beginning to confuse himself. Here, in the closet of some Iraqi death squad hell, he was free from the trappings of being a leader of men and could see their point. He’d had a tool that could promise them safety – whether it really could or not didn’t matter – what mattered was he’d chosen to take it away from them and to have them enter combat without it. He could suddenly see their point of view clear as day. He’d looked them in the eyes and said “fuck you. Get your own luck.”
Bob was still comatose, but Nathan provided the voice. “See what I mean?” he asked himself.
“Yeah. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“You were probably too hurt because of your brother. Didn’t you say your dad passed too? How’d he die?”
“Killed himself.”
“What? So do you think your brother did too?”
“No. Do you think so? I never thought of that, but…”
“Why’d your father kill himself?”
“Inoperable brain cancer. He kept up until he could no longer talk. I mean, he could walk and hear and do everything else, but when the ability to form words left him, he just couldn’t hack it, couldn’t stand waiting to lose the ability to do all those other things that makes us human.”
“How’d he do it?”
“He crashed his car on the Pacific Coast Highway going ninety.”
“Ahh. James Dean.”
“Except my dad was driving a Camry.”
“Most popular car in the U.S.A.”
Nathan replayed the phone call he’d gotten from his mother about Dad. He remembered flying home, the funeral, and his mother being pissed off at the doctors, my father, god, the universe and everything. Most of all, he remembered lying on the floor in his sleeping bag in his brother’s room. Cal was on his bed. They were both staring at the ceiling where Cal had painted a depiction of the geography of the moon in glow-in-the-dark paint.
The Sea of Serenity. The Sea of Tranquility. Schroedinger’s Basin which is two hundred kilometers across. The mountain range Montes Appeninus, which runs more than six hundred kilometers and rises to more than five kilometers in height. Everything was there in painstaking precision.
One thing Nathan had learned that had made him wonder was how, although both the Earth and the Moon turned on an axis, only one side of the Moon ever faced the Earth. Called Tidal Locking, the moon is in synchronous rotation to the Earth which keeps the same side facing it forever.
“This proves that our oceans are in synch with theirs,” his brother would say.
“Are you talking to me,” came the slow slurred words of Bob.
Nathan snapped free from his mind’s eye and beheld Bob, who had apparently just woken up. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“Peachy,” Bob managed to finally say after licking his lips several times. “Fucking peachy.”
Just then the door was flung open. Rough hands reached down and grabbed both Nathan and Bob.
– 18 –
THIS ONE WASN’T a test.
And it wasn’t Nathan’s turn, either.
Somewhere between last night and today they’d decided it was Bob’s turn.
Nathan spent the entire time screaming and retching and praying that his brother would call. If he’d call, they might stop. If his picture would appear on their phones as it did before, then they might forget their need for this demented Passion Play. For amidst his screaming and the chanting of some Islamic liturgy, Masun cut off Bob’s head. The Navy man was almost too weak to cry out. Almost. He still managed to whine in the way a child might, small sounds twisting unbelieving around an impossible and permanent act of evil.
When the blood gushed, so did Nathan’s stomach. He’d never seen anything like it. The Iraqis cheered as Bob’s head came free. It rolled several feet and stopped. Thankfully, the face was away from the camera and away from where Nathan could see it. He knew that if he’d been able to see it he might lose what was left of his sanity.
Then Masun came at him and dragged him onto the stage.
Nathan couldn’t fight. He closed his eyes and began to pray outloud. “Our father, who art in Heaven, hollowed be thy name.” This sent Masun and the others into a furor, but Nathan refused to stop. With his eyes closed tight, he raised his voice and continued to shout, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.”
Masun had to hit him to shut him up. He had to hit him a bunch of times. So many, in fact, Nathan lost count how many times he’d managed to run through the prayer and how many times he’d been hit.
– 19 –
NATHAN AWOKE STARING at the empty blanket. Bob’s murder had been terrible. The sound, the blood, the look in Bob’s eyes.
“How are you doing, Bob?” he whispered to the blanket.
“Fucking Peachy,” his brain supplied.
Peachy like in The Man Who Would Be King movie, based on the Kipling story. Peachy Carnihan, who’d traveled to Afghanistan and become a God, only to have been brought back down to earth. In the movie, as in the story, Peachy was the one to survive, but at what horrendous cost. Perhaps Bob was lucky he’d died. After all, that left Nathan to take the brunt of whatever punishment the Iraqis might decide to deal out.
They’d changed Nathan’s clothes. His uniform was gone. He now wore an old off-white dishdasha. He felt the cool air against his feet and legs and knew he was naked beneath.
He tried to keep track of time, but it was almost impossible. He slept, then woke some, then slept some more. He became aware that he was hungry. He also had to use the bathroom. Both needs increased throughout the day and throughout the night, until he found himself paying in pain as the liquid in his bladder begged to come out. There was always the bucket in the corner, but he didn’t want to disgrace himself like that again. He also didn’t want to give them the satisfaction.
He finally gave up trying to hold it. He stood painfully, then walked to the bucket. He maneuvered his dishdasha over the top and then squatted. He was soon peeing, the feeling of release so satisfying he closed his eyes. A little of the warm liquid splashed his ankles, but it was far less than if he were still wearing a uniform.
He returned to his blanket and lay down, once again facing where Bob had been. Nathan tried to sleep. When he slept, he didn’t have to think about what happened to Bob or how hungry he felt. He didn’t have to wonder when his turn would be next. All he had to do was sleep, and if he was lucky, dream of his brother.
He awoke in darkness of the early morning to the sound of gun battle. It lasted about half an hour. When silence returned, he found himself praying that his team had come and found him. But it was not to be.
About five hours later, just past dawn, Masun entered the room and tossed a new man inside. He wasn’t American, but an Iraqi. His head bad been bandaged, as had his left arm. He wore a dirty uniform; one of the older versions of the American camouflage. A nametag above his left pocket read Awad.
The only thing Masun said before he left was “No food today!” Then he slammed the door and left Nathan alone with the new man.
Perhaps an hour passed before the other man awoke. When he did, he thrashed at first, then eased up as he realized his hands and arms were bound behind him. He noticed Nathan right away, so as he gathered himself and assessed his situation, he was also examining Nathan.
“Who are you?” he asked finally.
>
Was the man for real or was he a spy? It was almost too easy for Masun to place someone in here to spy on him. All he’d have to do is pretend to have a firefight, then throw one of his henchmen inside the room. But to what end? Nathan didn’t know anything. In fact, as he thought about it he realized Masun had never really bothered to ask him any questions that could even remotely be of intelligence value.
“Can you speak?” the man asked, his accent tinged with the tell-tale mouth roll of an Arabic speaker.
Nathan nodded, then added, “Yes.”
“How long have you been here?” He had deep set eyes and a heavy brow.
Nathan thought about it. Was it a few days? A week? “Not sure. A week, maybe?” Then he added, “My name is Nathan.”
The Iraqi looked around the small room without moving his head. He spent considerable time doing it. When he was done, he said, “This is not a good place.”
Nathan almost laughed. “No. It’s definitely not a good place.”
“I am Ali. We’ve been looking for you.”
Nathan’s world was bathed in hope. “So they know we’re here?”
Ali shook his head, and in doing so, caused himself pain. He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes. Eventually, the pain passed and he answered. “We were on a routine patrol when one of our men set off a mine. They’re everywhere around the building.”
Mines? If there was something worse than IEDs, it was possibly a minefield. Long ago outlawed, Nathan had never encountered a minefield before. Images from Vietnam War movies of men walking carefully through a swamp, only to step on the initiator of a mine flooded his mind. Those unlucky few couldn’t run, couldn’t hide, couldn’t escape their fate. To remove one’s foot meant that they’d either lose their leg or their life, as the explosion ripped upward.
