Moondust

by Gemma Fowler

  ‘OK,’ she said, sniffing the tears back. ‘I get it. OK.’

  ‘I’m so sorry. If there was any other way . . .’

  ‘I know.’

  Massimo stepped forwards and tapped her godfather on the shoulder. He shrugged him off angrily. ‘Tell the AstroExpo executives they can wait.’

  ‘Adam, It’s all right. You can go. I’m OK now. I feel better.’

  ‘See,’ he said after a while, ‘just like graphene.’

  Aggie smiled. ‘I love you.’

  Faulkner grinned. ‘I love you too, little one.’

  He got up to leave, the sky flashing bright blue again for a second. ‘Stay bright, Aggie.’

  ‘Stay bright, Adam.’

  ‘Oh, and call me if Rix starts being a clagger’s ass.’

  With that, the Ether went blank.

  ‘End of transmission,’ Celeste reported.

  Aggie leant back against the bed and stared at nothing. A deep uncomfortable feeling was growing in the pit of her stomach. She’d exhausted all her options. It was real. This was actually happening.

  Her happy, quiet, insignificant life would soon be over. Soon enough, she would be presented back to the world. The Angel of Adrianne, older, and presumed wiser.

  The look on Mir’s face when they had first met flashed before her. Mir was disappointed in Aggie – it was so obvious. How could the Earth believe in her again if she was just one huge disappointment?

  Aggie shook herself. She couldn’t think about that right now. She just couldn’t. Agatha Sommers only had a few days of freedom left, and she wasn’t going to let Rix and Mir ruin them completely.

  Lunchtime couldn’t come around quick enough. Aggie was meeting Seb in their usual spot; the frozen custard cart by the All-You-Can-Eat Bumper Buffet, on the first-floor balcony of the Whole Earth Complex.

  There were two types of cuisine available on the Lunar Base – wet food and Spacefood. Wet food wasn’t as bad as it sounded; in fact, most personnel would fight for a bowl of wet, normal-looking chilli con carne over the square, freeze-dried alternative. Personally, Aggie loved the weird, papery, smoky texture of Spacefood bars, but that was an opinion only she and Seb shared. The food outlets in Whole Earth’s great mall-like atrium specialized in wet food, which was why it was so popular.

  The Bumper Buffet outlet’s, sticky trestle tables and cross-contaminated buffet trays tended to put off most personnel. This meant that it was the sole haunt of tech and the guards. Always half empty, and never a yellow overall in sight. Just the way Aggie had always liked it.

  The frozen custard cart was at the far side of the balcony, tucked in the corner by an emergency escape hatch. Weeks ago she and Seb had dragged a table in behind the dispenser, out of the way of the crowds. Aggie was sure they were breaking a million safety codes by obstructing the door, but it was worth it to create their own private frozen custard heaven.

  As Aggie ascended the steps up to the cart, she checked her eyelids. She’d checked them for the ridges of her lenses fifty times today already, as if some freak in the gravity system had meant they’d sprung out of her eyes and floated away unnoticed. They hadn’t, obviously.

  She took a long, shuddering breath. She hadn’t felt this paranoid since Rix had allowed her to join the cadets in the Lunar Academy.

  In the distance, Aggie could just make out the skinny silhouette of Seb on the other side of the custard cart, filling up a huge bucket with something pink and glittery – Seb loved frozen custard for lunch, even when the other option was burritos.

  Aggie looked around the atrium and, for once, noticed how beautiful it all was: the swirling colours in the Whole Earth’s towering glass windows, the comforting murmur of personnel as they gossiped at their tables, the smell of coffee and sugar and the sizzle of synthetic meat drifting on the air. It was sad to think this could be one of the last times she came here as Domestic Analysis Aggie.

  When she finally reached the Bumper Buffet, she grabbed herself a burrito from the stack, heaped it with some beige cheese, sloppy beige guacamole, added a worryingly beige salad leaf and made her way over to her friend.

  ‘Hey, Seb. Been probed lately?’ she heard a guard shout to him.

  ‘If you see any of them little green ladies out on your next patrol, don’t forget to send them our way.’ another added with an explosion of laughter.

  Seb smiled tightly. ‘Hilarious, dudes.’

  Aggie placed her heaving burrito plate down on the table.

  ‘You OK?’

  ‘Cosmic, Aggs, yeah. Totally cosmic.’ Seb sighed. ‘Also, how long does it take to get a shuttle from Analysis these days? My next shift starts in fourteen hours, I was worried you wouldn’t get here in time.’

  Aggie felt a twinge of guilt and sat down.

  ‘Commuter shuttles were crowded,’ she lied. ‘Sorry.’

  She couldn’t tell Seb that she’d actually been in her pod, chatting to Adam Faulkner, the man who was like a living god to anyone who wore the Lunar Inc. overall, anyone on Earth, really.

  Seb nodded and brought his frozen custard pot to the table triumphantly. The thing was huge – interstellar toffee with extra chocolate stardust sprinkles and some glittering silver ball things that Aggie guessed were supposed to be planets. It was excessive, even for Seb.

  ‘Well, that’s quite something,’ Aggie said, taking a big bite of her burrito. It almost tasted like real beef. Almost.

  Seb slammed his spoon into the pot, sending silver planets spinning across the table. ‘It’s therapy food, man. I need it.’

  Aggie nodded. ‘Join the club.’

  Seb shook his head. ‘The Rock-Aliens are ruining my life.’

  Aggie glanced back to where the guards had disappeared, ‘Oh, Seb, they’re just a bunch of black holes. Ignore them.’

  ‘Oh no, those denks don’t have enough brain cells to bother me.’

  Aggie frowned, ‘What is it, then?’

  ‘They’ve put me back on border patrol. For like, a whole cycle.’

  He took a huge bite of custard and chewed it angrily. The chocolate planets crunched loudly.

  ‘I mean,’ Seb continued with his mouth full. ‘I thought the forced leave was the punishment, man. Two weeks with my parents? C’mon, and they say torture is supposed to be illegal.’

  Aggie laughed. Seb could be so melodramatic. How bad could a border patrol be, really? Right now, Aggie would kill for the chance to fly out into the lunar landscape alone for a few hours, leaving the busy, noisy, base behind her. Exploring the craters and mares, getting a glimpse of the restricted area on the Far Side. A place where there was no one around to care who she was. It sounded totally cosmic.

  Seb was still shovelling custard into his face. ‘That place is so creepy, man. And, the last thing I need is that bunch of clagger’s asses reminding me what I did every time I start a shift— Oh! Argh!’

  Seb’s hands flew up to his temples, his face twisted in agony.

  Aggie jumped up.

  ‘Seb!’ she shouted, grabbing at his arms. It was as if he was having seizure.

  ‘Medic! Help!’ she cried. But no one heard her.

  Seb battered her away. ‘Dude! What are you doing?’

  Aggie staggered back, her heart was jumping against her ribs. ‘What?’

  ‘Brain freeze, man.’ Seb groaned, rubbing his temples. ‘I got a brain freeze.’

  ‘Oh.’ Aggie fell back into her seat.

  Seb frowned at her. ‘Aggs, I get brain freeze every time I have custard. You know that. Why are you so jumpy?’

  She was still panting. ‘Sorry, I just—’

  ‘Hey.’ Seb’s hand touched the top of hers. ‘You OK? You’ve gone the same colour as your burrito.’

  Aggie twisted Seb’s fingers in hers, then realized what she was doing and pulled her hand away. Seb was her friend, her only real friend, she wasn’t going to ruin it by making it anything more.

  But she was jumpy – a massive quake on a Face surrou
nded by prisoners would do that to anyone – but she couldn’t tell Seb that. The look on the prisoner’s face flashed before her momentarily. She pushed her burrito away. There were too many nerves in her stomach to be properly hungry.

  ‘I’m fine, sorry. I’ve just . . . been busy lately, that’s all.’

  Seb raised an eyebrow. ‘Uh oh, not another toilet emergency?’ he said, winking theatrically. ‘I can see it now, a whole department covered in— Oh! Hello, Astrid.’

  Aggie turned and saw the intern hovering awkwardly behind her, her tray piled with soggy-looking nachos. When she saw Aggie, Astrid let out a little cry and slammed her tray down on the table.

  Seb was grinning so much Aggie could see all his teeth. He thought Astrid and her Lunar Inc. loving ways were hilarious. Aggie felt her whole body tighten up.

  ‘Hello, Sebastian!’ Astrid beamed and sat down in the seat beside Aggie. ‘Hey, Agatha. Oh wow, you know, I was going to get the burrito too!’

  ‘Spooky.’ Seb grinned.

  Aggie smiled nervously. Astrid had probably travelled all the way from Analysis just in case she bumped into her.

  The intern flicked her white-blonde hair over her shoulder and picked at her plate. The array of ‘society’ badges on Astrid’s overall sparkled in the light from the atrium windows; Aggie was sure Astrid had added a few more since she’d seen her. How did the girl have enough time to be part of that many extracurricular societies?

  Astrid sighed, sticking out her bottom lip directly at Aggie. ‘Oh, Agatha, it has been so desperate in the labs without you. Mo has been driving me c-r-azy.’ She twirled her finger beside her ear and rolled her eyes.

  Aggie picked at her burrito as Seb stifled a laugh in his custard pot.

  Astrid was oblivious. She took a sip of her bright green juice and leant forwards, eyebrows waggling, ‘So, tell me. How’s the “secret mission”?’ She said the words ‘secret mission’ as if she was holding in a burp. Aggie didn’t find it funny. The way she was feeling right now, Astrid might as well have leant across the table and slapped her.

  The Domestic personnel had been told she’d been transferred to Surface Analysis, but thanks to Aggie’s general ability to mess everything up, rumours were rife. Obviously, Astrid’s enthusiastic mind had gone into overdrive.

  Aggie laughed nervously. Seb was now staring at her with a look of amused bewilderment.

  ‘What “secret mission”?’ he said slowly.

  Seb was teasing her, Aggie knew, but still, even the slightest hint that something was wrong was too risky. She couldn’t have Seb finding out the truth, not without her telling him first.

  ‘Nothing!’ Aggie said, sweat breaking out on her palms. ‘Just Analysis stuff.’

  ‘Don’t be so modest, Agatha!’ Astrid exclaimed. ‘It certainly didn’t sound like “just Analysis stuff”! I mean, Commander Rix doesn’t come into the Civilian Sector for nothing, does he?’

  Seb’s eyebrows had disappeared right up into his curly hair. ‘He certainly doesn’t, Astrid. He certainly doesn’t.’

  ‘It’s been the talk of the Cadets,’ Astrid continued proudly, ‘and the G-Ball club, the Young Miners, even the Erms—’

  ‘Erm . . . the erms?’

  Astrid stopped and looked at Seb as if he was the crazy one. ‘The Emergency Rescue and Miners’ Society,’ she replied matter-of-factly. ‘ERMs.’

  ‘Cosmic.’ Seb was containing so much laughter now he’d started to go shiny. Aggie kicked him under the table.

  A high-pitched alarm echoed around the atrium. Everyone stopped what they were doing and stared up at the Ether screens that littered the walls.

  Aggie threw her fork down on her plate. Saved by the bell. Lunar Inc. personnel knew better than to miss the Lunar Forecast – the official vid roundup of life on the Lunar Inc. mine that was also beamed down to Earth.

  The Ether in the wall beside them fizzed, and the Lunar Inc. logo – a violet lightning bolt cutting across a grey moon – spun hypnotically in a flickering star-speckled spacescape.

  Aggie could feel Seb’s eyes boring into her. He knew something was up. The only thing in Aggie’s favour was that he’d never guess the truth. Not in a billion years.

  The electronic jingle floated happily through the air and the logo was replaced by the shining face of Roger Rix. A shiver ran up Aggie’s spine.

  ‘Citizens of the United Earth,’ he said, flashing his white teeth enthusiastically, ‘it is my personal pleasure to introduce you to the 545th Lunar Forecast, live from the Sea of Tranquillity.’

  There was another trumpet, and Celeste appeared to the right of the screen, an androgynous, plastic-looking avatar with dead eyes.

  ‘Thank you, Commander Rix.’ She beamed as a montage of images of happy life on the base streamed behind her. ‘This is a Lunar Forecast for the First Quarter.’

  Aggie sighed. Her godfather had dreamt up the Forecasts after Adrianne as a way of promoting the company, of keeping the citizens of the United Earth in appropriate awe of what was being done in the pursuit of lumite. Aggie wondered how long it would be before she was the subject. The idea of it felt unreal as she sat staring at the screens with her friends.

  On the Ether, Celeste’s fake face had grown solemn. ‘The original programmed Forecast has been replaced by this special message from the Government of the United Earth in Tokyo.’

  Aggie’s heart started to flutter. This was the Forecast Rix and Mir had mentioned. FALL had done something terrible in Tokyo, and she was about to see what.

  Behind Celeste’s avatar, the happy images of Lunar Inc. were replaced by images of fighting. Men and women with covered faces sacking a white marble concourse. The camera swivelled and shook erratically as projectiles bombarded the line of United Government guards that protected the building.

  ‘FALL, the terrorist organization, are continuing their enduring campaign of violence on the United Earth. Their aim is not certain, other than to destroy as much as they can. Destructive and mindless violence that will damage their political attempts within the United Forum.’

  Everyone in the atrium was silent. Only the muffled sounds of screaming and crashing from the vid echoed off the walls. Seb wasn’t staring at Aggie any more – his mouth was hanging open, looking at the screens.

  ‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ Astrid muttered as they watched the protestors break through the line of guards and race up the steps into the government building.

  Aggie was mesmerized. This was what Rix had talked about. FALL was getting stronger, more confident. This was why Lunar Inc. needed her.

  ‘Last night,’ Celeste continued, as the footage intensified, close-ups of fires and people screaming, ‘the United Government headquarters was attacked. Over a hundred dead, including Sanya Moya, the United Government’s Minister for Energy, who many believe was the gang’s original target. This attack is the latest in the terror group’s prolonged reaction to the upcoming anniversary of the Adrianne Disaster. Our thoughts go out to the minister’s family.

  ‘Hundreds have been injured, thousands are locked inside their homes, too scared to go outside. FALL are determined to bring back the Dark Days in their fight against the clean, enduring light of lumite. And they will stop at nothing.’

  From the screen a sound like a drill backfiring resonated around the giant atrium. Screams erupted from the balconies as a fireball swallowed up the crowds outside the facility. Aggie felt Seb’s hand on hers, squeezing it hard. She gripped it back. It didn’t feel so weird this time.

  A bomb? Was that a bomb?

  How could they? All those people?

  ‘This atrocity was unprovoked and unexpected. We urge citizens to be vigilant. We shall fight back against this extremism. We shall have peace again.’

  Aggie let out a long breath. She couldn’t believe what she’d just seen.

  ‘It’s like the Dark Days,’ Seb said, turning back to the table. ‘I’ve seen vids like that from the Dark Days.’ He sounded terrifie
d.

  ‘How could that happen, Aggie?’ Astrid stammered, looking up at Aggie as if she had all the answers.

  Aggie opened her mouth to reassure them but then the screens flicked from the riots to a flurry of lights and colour.

  ‘What the—?’

  ‘Lunar Inc. personnel,’ Celeste’s voice rang out, her tone had changed, she was back to her usual fake, happy self, ‘ready your dress uniforms and dust off your dance moves. Commander Rix and all on the Lunar Inc. board would like to invite you to celebrate the launch of our magnificent G Face. Our largest and most majestic mining face to date, a true feat of engineering and scale. Come enjoy a drink and celebrate the birth of lumite, and of course, on this tenth anniversary year, pay respects to the victims of Adrianne, who are never far from our hearts.’

  The personnel in the atrium started to clap and cheer. Aggie looked around at them all. It was as if the horror of the Forecast had never happened. All that pain and violence, forgotten in seconds at the promise of party and some free food.

  But those pictures had settled deep inside Aggie’s bones. The ball of nerves in her stomach grew.

  ‘EARTH BELOW!’ Astrid cried.

  ‘No way,’ Seb breathed. ‘Are they for real?’

  Aggie looked back up. The screens had changed again. A silhouette of a woman now stood in front of the Lunar Inc. logo. Her face and overall were obscured by the shadows, but no one watching could miss her shock of bright red curls, blowing over the backdrop of the dusty mining face.

  Aggie froze. No.

  The air in the atrium buzzed. Aggie winced as the word ‘Angel’ drifted up from the seating area below.

  ‘We hope you are looking forward to the party –’ Celeste smiled, now into her end piece – ‘and all the surprises it may bring! Interact with your screens right now and see how you can become a shining light for the United Earth.’

  Aggie looked at Seb. He was still staring at the screen.

  Astrid’s head was down, already texting her friends on her comms panel. Excited chatter rose up from the balconies.

  The room started to sway around Aggie. She remembered the face, her hair slipping, the flash from Mir’s comms. That sneaky Earth Relations girl had posted the vid she’d taken of her.