Moondust

by Gemma Fowler

  Rix watched him go.

  ‘Making friends?’ he said, keeping his eyes on the prisoner.

  ‘Getting some help,’ Aggie replied, pointing to the scrambler. ‘I knocked it over. The foreman said he could—’

  ‘An engineer in the wrong overall, is he?’ Mir interjected with a sneer. ‘I recognize that number, don’t I?’

  ‘No.’

  Rix suddenly rounded on Aggie, stepping so close she could see the full intricate pattern tattooed on his cheek. His pale green eyes skittered over her face.

  ‘The prisoners are dangerous, Aggie,’ he said with fake friendliness. ‘You know that.’

  Aggie nodded. Rix’s smile fell away.

  ‘I’m not talking about your personal safety. I’m talking about the safety of what you represent. Until we reveal you, we can’t risk you getting . . . damaged.’

  ‘That man is a FALL inmate – all the two-hundreds are.’ Mir interrupted again. Aggie frowned at Rix. Was he seriously going to let Mir talk over him like that? She’d thought Mir was on her side.

  ‘Sorry, Mir, but I didn’t have time to memorize the entire prison ID system—’

  ‘There’s a reason why Lunar Inc. doesn’t usually take FALL inmates, Aggie. It’s because we suspect they want to fight us from the inside. I shouldn’t have to tell you, but the implications of FALL finding out—’

  ‘You don’t talk to inmates,’ Rix spoke as if Mir didn’t exist.

  ‘Yes, Commander.’

  Rix pointed to Mir but remained looking at Aggie. ‘Stay with Earth Relations on the face.’

  Aggie met Mir’s glare. ‘Yes, Commander.’

  Rix clapped his hands and smiled. ‘Good job I’ve got eyes everywhere!’ he shouted, looking up at Celeste’s Eye in the ceiling, ‘Otherwise I’d be worried about you, hey?’

  Rix winked at Aggie, then strolled off down the trail, leaving the girls alone.

  Aggie swallowed drily.

  ‘Happy now?’ Mir said, grabbing the controls away from Aggie and revving the scrambler’s fans to max.

  ‘What will happen to him?’ Aggie asked, climbing onto the back of the trike. The prisoner was a red dot again, slowly fading into the dust.

  Mir turned the scrambler so fast the dust sprayed up around them.

  ‘Aggie. Do you understand the danger you just put yourself in?’ Mir was acting as if Aggie had just slapped her. ‘That prisoner is FALL. He was at Tokyo, Aggie. We can’t trust the Tokyo intake.’

  Aggie didn’t know what to say. Every time Mir said it out loud, Aggie’s plan to see Danny again felt even more stupid.

  Mir groaned in frustration. ‘Don’t tell me you actually thought he was interested in you.’

  Aggie felt her face start to burn.

  ‘Earth below, Aggie! Now we have to clear up this mess you made for us. So close to the party . . .’

  Aggie turned away from Mir. The prisoner was using her? She’d never thought about it that way. It would have made sense, but there was something else. Of course robotic Mir couldn’t see it – it wasn’t the kind of thing you could work out or put in a schedule. Aggie could feel it.

  Day-Cycle 07

  Aggie had managed to find the only SimStim machine in the whole G Face construction area. Which would have been totally cosmic, if a million other personnel hadn’t discovered it too. She shuffled uncomfortably in the queue, but it was early, and her need for coffee was stronger than her need to be on her own.

  Despite the stupidly early hour, the G Face early shift was well under way. Aggie glanced around the giant, bustling terminal. She automatically scanned the rushing blurs of the personnel as they passed her. No one paid her any attention. No one ever did. To them Aggie was just another lowly yellow nothing. A one-stripe who needed to get her overall cleaned. Over the years in hiding, Aggie’s cover had never been questioned. The Angel was dead. In the minds of the United Earth puberty hadn’t given the Angel spots or hips. To them, she was a perpetual seven-year-old, skipping and smiling in her pretty violet dress.

  Until him.

  Aggie bit her lip at the thought of the prisoner. He was dangerous, he was using her, he was . . . Aggie sighed. He was addictive, was what he was. He took up so much of her thoughts it was almost enough to make her forget about the party altogether. The biggest event in her new life was just around the corner, and all she could see when her thoughts drifted was his face.

  She wondered about him, about his life in the secret hideouts that FALL occupied, she wondered about how he got his scar. If he was hurt, if he deserved it.

  Loud voices pulled her back to the busy terminal. A group of guards ahead of her had been talking about the party but, predictably, their conversation had quickly turned to the one thing Aggie did not need to hear right now. Mir’s stupid Angel silhouette had done its job brilliantly – rumours about the Angel’s return were everywhere.

  ‘Navi is convinced it’s a fake,’ a young guard was saying to his friends.

  Aggie was sandwiched in the queue so close to them that she couldn’t help but hear every single annoying word.

  ‘Nah, c’mon. Lunar Inc. can’t fake the Angel. It’s her, I’m telling you,’ his friend argued.

  ‘No way! It’s a hologram. The Angel died after Adrianne – FALL killed her, everybody knows that.’

  Aggie winced and tried to bury herself further into the back of the tech head directly in front of her.

  ‘No – how can they even do that?’

  ‘I bet she’s a hottie now, though.’

  There was a burst of laughter and the tall guard finally reached the machine.

  ‘Don’t matter what she looks like. Who wouldn’t? The Angel of Adrianne?’

  ‘Yeah, man, gotta get me my Angel wings.’

  The boys shouted and whooped.

  ‘Only wings you gonna get are on the shuttle.’

  ‘Yeah, you look like an Afterlife junkie, Marv. The Angel’s gonna have standards.’

  The guards jostled each other. ‘Don’t call me FALL, you denk! It’s the double shifts, man!’

  Aggie made a sick face and prayed the boys weren’t ordering anything complicated. She needed to get out of here quickly. She was already convinced she was going crazy, the last thing she needed was her head filled with stupid rumours and gossip. That was the reason she was here in the first place . . . to get away from it all.

  Finally, the man in front slouched off with his extra hot, extra strong StimShot and Aggie got to the machine.

  ‘MilkStim,’ she said to the Ether, ‘extra shot. Actually, screw it, two extra shots.’

  The Ether swirled slowly. ‘Hey, Agatha, I’m sorry, but your current level-six status prohibits . . .’

  Aggie leant her forehead against the machine. So she could sneak away on the face and have a casual chat with a FALL prisoner, but ordering the coffee she wanted? No way.

  ‘Just give me whatever I can have.’

  ‘OK Agatha.’

  The machine crunched and a tiny steaming cup appeared in the slot. Aggie sniffed it gingerly. It was a black SimStim, no milk, no syrup, decaf by the smell to it – old socks and wood. Aggie glared at the Ether for a second, then caught a familiar black blur in the corner of her eye.

  ‘You turned up?’ she said with a relieved grin.

  ‘Well, it is my shift,’ Seb huffed. ‘I kind of have to.’ He turned away and began to shuffle into one of the dark inflatable corridors that led to the buggi park.

  ‘Let’s do this. Quick.’

  As Aggie followed Seb from the busy terminal into a hab crowded with building machinery, not people, she felt her whole body start to unwind. Here, it was quiet and cool, with bright LED lamps that swung as they made their way towards a row of shining black Lunar Inc. moon buggis.

  ‘Can I say, for the record, that I’m not happy about this,’ Seb said loudly, as they passed under one of Celeste’s Eye’s.

  Aggie pushed Seb lightly in the back. ‘There is no record.’
r />   ‘Well, let there be a record.’

  Aggie rolled her eyes. Seb had been testy about this trip ever since Aggie had suggested it. To her, joining Seb on his patrols to the Borderlands was killing two birds with one stone: Seb wouldn’t be bored and tired and creeped out, Aggie would be able to get away from the base and Rix and that black hole Mir and all the fragging Angel talk that, since the Forecast, had been driving her quietly insane.

  She wanted an escape and some quality alone time with her best friend. If it also involved getting out and seeing the proper open surface, well, that was a bonus. Aggie was beyond caring about the rules after the Forecast. Celeste was bound to tell Rix what she was up to, but screw him. If he could break the rules, then so could she. What was he going to do, fire her? Not fragging likely. Trouble was, Seb didn’t know any of this.

  ‘This is some next-level Craggie, man,’ he hissed as they crept towards the buggi.

  Aggie shoved him forwards. ‘No it’s not. Just keep walking.’

  Craggie was short for ‘Crazy Aggie’, the name Seb had given her after she’d made him stake out the bins by the Lunar Academy catering hall for two weeks because she thought the food was getting contaminated. On that occasion she was wrong, yeah, but still, it wasn’t that bad. Apart from the smell.

  Aggie had always loved sneaking around, maybe because she’d spent so much of her life hiding.

  She smiled to herself sadly. If only Seb knew the half of it. What was happening to Aggie at the moment was way beyond ‘Craggie’.

  ‘I can feel them warming up the engines,’ he whispered.

  ‘On what?’

  ‘The Shuttle of Shame.’

  Aggie pushed him again. They were walking down a long metal gangway that was lined on either side by gleaming black buggis. The bullet-shaped craft were designed to skim quickly and quietly over the lunar terrain, using the regolith dust sucked up from the surface as propulsion. Aggie thought the buggis were beautiful, so much more elegant than the cumbersome, dual-gravity scramblers available in the base itself.

  ‘WELCOME TO THE G FACE BUGGI PARK,’ Celeste’s automatic systems boomed somewhere overhead, making Seb jump out of his skin.

  ‘Hey Sebastian,’ the computer called from the comms panel on Seb’s wrist. ‘You have access to lunar buggi 0326 for your flight today.’

  Seb looked at Aggie nervously. Aggie frowned. The computer had seen her, she must have, but Celeste was acting as if Aggie wasn’t even there.

  A loud grinding noise went off somewhere to their left and the front hatch of a nearby buggi opened like the mouth of a great whale. A red cockpit was revealed, consisting of two seats, lots of straps and not much else.

  ‘Please proceed to your buggi. Your patrol starts in ten minutes.’

  All the colour had gone from Seb’s face. ‘Quick, just get in,’ he said breathlessly, glancing around the room as if he really believed the computer hadn’t noticed her. Aggie hesitated.

  ‘Aggs, if you’re coming, get in there now!’

  Aggie nodded, then jumped past Seb into what she guessed was the passenger seat.

  ‘Hey Sebastian,’ Celeste continued happily as Seb finally strapped himself in beside Aggie. ‘I’m plotting a course for G FACE BORDER PATROL into your nav system. Three-hundred-and-sixty-degree viewing is enabled. Have a pleasant patrol, Sebastian.’

  ‘Thanks, Celeste,’ Seb said, glancing at Aggie suspiciously.

  ‘Stay bright, Sebastian.’

  There was a click, a bleep and suddenly the buggi was launched backwards at an incredible speed.

  ‘What?’ Aggie said. Seb was staring at her again as he took a silver packet from his utility belt. It was a look he’d been giving her a lot recently.

  ‘What’s going on with you?’ he said as he rolled the pack open. ‘You’re being so weird at the moment.’

  ‘What?’

  Seb narrowed his eyes, ‘It’s like you’re here, but you’re not.’

  The glossy black panels of the buggi had become transparent, turning the craft into a translucent egg, skimming in a cloud of dust over the surface.

  Aggie glanced down, trying to hide the fact that her cheeks had gone red.

  ‘No, there’s nothing . . . Ooo, is that Spacefood?’

  ‘There’s something so satisfying about eating a square, dry apple pie,’ Seb said happily as fine, freeze-dried apple pie dust plumed around his head.

  Spacefood was considered a necessity rather than a luxury on the Lunar Base. It was emergency food, life or death food. But Aggie and Seb had always thought it was weirdly delicious.

  ‘Uh huh,’ Aggie nodded, a rectangular melon bar sticking between her teeth as it slowly rehydrated in her mouth. ‘Helfy too.’

  Seb frowned and looked at the dusty mush at the end of his packet, ‘I dunno, I think they might be at least ten years old.’

  ‘Oh, at least!’

  ‘Dude –’ Seb held up blue packet that read, ‘Extra Hot Chicken Fajita’ on the front – ‘This packet is older than we are. That’s the beauty of it. It’s had time to mature. Get tastier.’

  Aggie nodded and ripped open a bar of hot fudge sundae. As she bit into the dry sugary goodness, she watched the far reaches of the Lunar Base disappear into the distance.

  Aggie had never been this far away from the actual base before. Now, the great mining domes that always dominated the view from her room were just tiny white dots flashing in the gaps between the rocks and craters. The sun glinted off the transparent hull of the buggi, lighting up the miles and miles of tan and grey tundra around them. No buildings, no people, no Rix, no Angel, no FALL. It felt good. For the first time in what seemed to have been forever, Aggie felt as if she was really free.

  ‘Where are we?’ she asked, taking in the scenery dreamily.

  ‘Border Sea,’ Seb said, glancing at the controls, ‘Just past Goddard and Hubble craters. Right on the edge of nothing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, it’s the Borderlands, isn’t it? After the Borderlands, Celeste says bye, bye. Goes dead. Then all we got is the Far Side.’

  Aggie nodded. ‘It’s beautiful.’

  The border with the Far Side was the boundary of the Lunar Inc. base. A long line of glowing beacons flashed red halos of light intermittently over the rocky grey ground. Aggie followed their trail from one end of the dusty horizon to the other. Beyond them, in the shadow of the impending night-cycle, the Far Side loomed.

  The Far Side itself had been designated geologically unfit for mining years ago by the United Government and was now restricted due to solar flares and some other stuff that Aggie didn’t really understand. She looked out over the endless desert of grey that perfectly matched her mood. There was also something intriguing about it, something mysterious.

  ‘I like patrols,’ Aggie said, stretching back into the seat and dusting the Spacefood dandruff off her overall.

  Seb looked up from inputting his security checks. ‘I like patrols when you’re here.’

  Aggie smirked. ‘That’s understandable.’

  Seb made a bleeping noise and looked over at the controls, ‘Oh, hold on, emergency – your ego is taking up too much space. We have to eject you.’

  Aggie laughed, ‘Shut up, Sebastian.’

  Seb twisted the controls and started to tilt their seats upwards so they faced the black blanket of space above them, ‘Nope, sorry Aggs, this has gone too far.’

  ‘Seb! Stop it!’ Aggie laughed. The contents of her pack – now upside down – cascaded onto her face. ‘Seb!’

  ‘No, sorry, this is the ejection procedure – ooo, mango bar, I’ll have that.’

  The seats stopped when both Aggie and Seb were lying facing up at the stars. Aggie sighed and put her head on Seb’s shoulder.

  For a long time they just looked up at the great, endless vista above, with Seb munching loudly on his mango bar.

  ‘Aw, man, look at that,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  Seb point
ed to the glittering black above them, ‘All that. It’s amazing. The whole universe just hanging above our heads.’

  Aggie nodded, ‘Yeah.’

  Seb turned his head and squinted at her. ‘You’re so over it all, aren’t you? The universe and stuff. You’re bored of it like everyone else.’

  Aggie shrugged.

  Aggie and her father had spent hours together when she was small, just driving out into the rocky wilderness with their telescope to look at the stars. They shone so brightly, brighter than they ever did here, with all the light pollution from the base. It hurt Aggie to think about those happy, innocent days.

  ‘Well, it blows my tiny mind every time, man. We’re dust, Aggs, tiny little specks of nothing, floating around doing nothing, just . . . being, for no reason at all.’ He mimed his brain exploding with his hands and grinned at her.

  Aggie nudged him back, ‘When you put it like that it’s kind of depressing.’

  ‘Oh no, man. It’s the opposite of that, actually.’ He turned back to the stars and sucked in a deep breath. ‘Kind of romantic, though, when you think about it?’

  Something sharp stabbed Aggie in the chest. ‘How’d you figure that out?’

  ‘Well, y’know, when you look at it all, what we do day-to-day, it doesn’t mean anything, really. Like society and stuff. We shouldn’t worry about stuff like that. We should just . . . do stuff if we want to do stuff. You know . . .’ His voice trailed off.

  Aggie started to panic. She always did when Seb got like this. It brought out a confusing set of emotions in her that she didn’t really understand.

  When Aggie had first bumped into Seb at the custard cart in the Lunar Academy, friends weren’t part of the plan. Until she’d met Seb, the new post-puberty, blue-eyed, blonde-haired Aggie (it had taken three more years for her to brave it back to her natural red) had been a happy recluse. But theirs had been one of those friendships that was unavoidable. They were like magnets – after two sentences, they were stuck. There was no going back.

  In the years that followed, Seb had taught Aggie how to be herself again. He’d taught her some other things too, which was why moments like this felt so strange. On one level, she and Seb were unfinished business, but on another, he was like a brother.