Moondust

by Gemma Fowler

  ‘You?’

  Danny nodded. ‘All FALL want is to challenge Lunar Inc.’s power, create some kind of opposition. Some of us do it with violence, some of us just use our heads.’

  Aggie frowned. ‘But you were in Tokyo?’

  ‘I was there, then I got sent here.’ Danny said, glancing away. Aggie didn’t ask what he did to get sent here, she didn’t want to know.

  Danny sighed. ‘Aggie. Lumite doesn’t make any sense. Anyone who really thought about it would realize that. Just no one ever wanted to. Was allowed to.’

  Aggie noticed her hands shaking and clutched them together in her lap. ‘Lumite saved us. We owe everything to—’

  ‘And now we’re sucking the Moon dry, just like we did with the Earth. Look where that led us. Look where lumite has led us.’

  Aggie put her head in her hands. Lumite was good. It had to be, it was all she’d ever known. ‘You can’t . . .’

  ‘Look around you, Aggie!’ Danny shouted suddenly, making Aggie jump. ‘You really still think I’m the bad guy?’

  Aggie blinked, trying to stop the tears, ‘I-I don’t . . .’

  He pulled her hands down gently and leant closer. She could see the lumite dust glittering on his skin.

  ‘Aggie, Lunar Inc. is lying to us. It’s been lying to us from the moment lumite power was discovered.’

  Aggie shook her head, part of her still refusing to believe it.

  ‘There’s corruption right up the chain,’ Danny continued. ‘Who provides the shipping licences for the Far Side lumite? Who polices the no-fly zone? Who fakes the statistics to keep the Far Side “restricted”?’

  Aggie felt her whole body tense. ‘Rix,’ she muttered.

  Danny crouched down in front of Aggie. He looked at her with a pleading expression. ‘Aggie, I never wanted to hurt you. When I saw you on the face . . .’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘We’d thought you were dead. Seeing you changed everything.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Danny smiled. ‘Aggie. The Angel of Adrianne is powerful – no matter what side she’s on.’

  Aggie looked up. ‘The Angel belongs to Lunar Inc., she’s—’

  ‘You don’t belong to anyone.’ The ferocity in his voice took her aback. ‘The Earth has to know what’s happening here, Aggie. Now the Angel – the real Angel – is alive, we can tell them. You can stop this. You can stop it all, without violence, just the truth.’

  Aggie felt torn. ‘And give FALL their war.’

  Danny scoffed, ‘What do you think will happen when the lumite runs out? There will be a war, but it won’t have anything to do with FALL.’

  Aggie felt the room spin around her. Danny was right, with no lumite, the Earth would go back to how it was before. That couldn’t happen.

  Danny reached out and grabbed her hand again. ‘Aggie, it’s not too late. You can stop this.’ Electricity pulsed over Aggie’s skin. She wished Danny would let go, just so she could think clearly.

  ‘People are already dying,’ he continued, fixing Aggie in his stare. ‘You saw what it’s like out there. We don’t have radiation shields . . . Do you have any idea . . .?’

  Pain flickered across Danny’s face. It was a tiny break in his protective walls that made Aggie’s heart hurt. It made her see that underneath it all, and no matter what his beliefs were, Danny was hurting too.

  Aggie chewed her lip so hard she drew blood. He was right. There was only one option now, wasn’t there? She’d come here. She’d seen what Rix had done. How could she just walk away? Go back to being the Angel when she knew what was happening behind those glowing beacons?

  ‘We can go to my godfather,’ Aggie said. ‘We can tell him.’

  Danny stared down at his rough hands and started to laugh.

  ‘What’s funny?’

  He looked up at her, ‘Not us – you. I’m the last thing the world needs, trust me.’

  Aggie bent forwards. ‘But you’re the proof ! Whatever you’ve done, it’s nowhere near as bad as that.’ She pointed to the doors. ‘Out there, that is insane. It’s, it’s—’

  ‘Going to change the world,’ Danny finished for her.

  Aggie nodded. If they made it back to the base, whatever they did after that would rock the United Earth to its foundations. A lumite shortage. Just the thought of the consequences was terrifying. Then there was the mine and the prisoners and the lies . . .

  ‘They need to know,’ Aggie said quietly. ‘Whatever it takes.’

  Danny was silent for a long time. He fidgeted with the medi-kit he was holding as he thought. There was something in his expression that Aggie couldn’t read.

  ‘How did you get in?’ he asked after a long time. ‘How did you get here?’

  ‘I had inside help.’

  Danny looked shocked. ‘Who?’

  ‘Celeste. She brought me here,’ Aggie said. She murmured, to herself, ‘She wanted me to see.’

  ‘The computer?’

  Aggie nodded, remembering the dreams she’d had in the hospital. Celeste’s motives had something to do with her father, with her, she was sure of it now. She took a deep breath. ‘There’s a scrambler, it’s hidden at the top of the crater rim, about a mile away.’

  ‘You just bounced in here?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  A smile crept onto the edge of Danny’s lips. ‘And no one tried to stop you?’

  ‘I don’t think the guards were expecting someone just to walk into their secret illegal mine,’ Aggie said with mock-confidence. It was a total lie: she hadn’t actually thought about it at all. She’d just seen an opportunity and ran, but Danny didn’t need to know that. The look on his face was so intense now that Aggie had to look away.

  ‘Full of surprises, aren’t—’

  A rush of air erupted from the airlock. Aggie turned.

  The sequence of lights was changing; someone was trying to get in. Danny stood up and tucked the medi-kit into a pocket in his suit.

  ‘Put your helmet on,’ he said, keeping his eyes on the door.

  ‘What’s happening?’

  Danny pulled on the top half of his suit and moved to stand next to the door. He beckoned for Aggie to join him. ‘Put your helmet on,’ he said again, watching the lights turn from red to green. ‘They’ll know something’s wrong if they see us.’

  The doors opened with a rush of dust. Danny pulled Aggie down into a crouch, which was really difficult given the suits they were wearing. He clipped his helmet in and folded down his sun visor. Aggie fumbled with the helmet until it secured with a click.

  ‘Can you hear me?’ Danny’s voice glitched inside a sea of static.

  ‘Kind of.’

  ‘OK.’

  Aggie looked at the door. She could just make out the legs of four other prisoners in the haze. As soon as the gap under the door was big enough, Danny grabbed Aggie’s hand and bolted forwards.

  Danny hit the first prisoner in the knees, sending him toppling back into another. The dust from the airlock’s vents proved to be excellent camouflage – the prisoners just looked around them, trying to figure out what was happening.

  Danny hit an arm against the emergency release and slid out of the second airlock door onto the surface, dragging Aggie behind him.

  Gripping Danny’s hand, they bounced away from the Phoenix hab and into an area where hundreds of prisoners lay about under the shields. They looked like homeless people under a bridge, only gathered around radiation shields, not fires.

  As they approached, a few looked up, their round, reflective, robotic heads following them as they bounced. Aggie felt a rock ricochet off her own helmet. She tumbled slowly over and looked behind her as she fell.

  A gang of prisoners were just metres away.

  ‘It’s the Angel!’ one of them called. ‘The fraggin’ Angel’s here!’

  Aggie gasped, her hand reaching up to her head. She’d forgotten to put her sun visor down. She didn’t have her contacts in, her eyes were violet. They could see
her – everyone could see who she was.

  Suddenly, there was a rush on her comms and static screeched as word of her identity spread to the lounging prisoners.

  ‘Aggie!’ Danny shouted. ‘Get up!’ He spun around in mid-air and started to make his way back towards her. But it was too late. Before Aggie could get back to her feet, she was surrounded. Her ears were ringing with a mess of broken voices and static. It disoriented her, made her feel sick.

  Aggie didn’t need to hear the prisoners to know why they were so angry. They blamed her. She was the mascot for the company that did this to them. She did this to them.

  A sharp pain stabbed in her shoulder. Her arm fell away from where it was scrabbling to pull her visor down and her helmet hit the floor with a painful thud. A boot landed on her thigh, a numb pain ran down her leg. Aggie couldn’t move. She looked up. She could see herself, sprawled on the ground, reflected in the golden visors that looked down at her. Distorted laughter echoed in her ears as more boots made contact with her body with heavy thuds.

  ‘Aggie!’ Danny’s voice penetrated the white noise. Aggie looked around her. Danny was here somewhere, but how could she tell who he was?

  She gritted her teeth. She wouldn’t let this happen, she refused to suffer any more for what Rix had done. She pushed her hands against the dust and let out a yell. A madness came over her, a new strength flowed into her limbs. She lashed out, knocking two prisoners over with her feet. She punched at the helmets, aiming for the soft spot between the helmet and the collar, like the guard who’d held Danny in the cargo shuttle. She hit out at the same spot again and again. ‘Argh!’ Danny cried. Aggie pulled her hand back. Found him.

  ‘I can’t see you!’ Aggie panted, trying to throw off a prisoner who was clutching on to her oxygen tank. Danny threw a boulder on the man’s head. It landed with a crunch. As the man flew through the air, Danny grabbed her hand.

  ‘Don’t let go,’ he shouted. He flipped Aggie’s visor down and dragged her away.

  They zigzagged through the mess of dusty spacesuited bodies and away from the mine – uphill, in the direction of the scrambler. As they bounded away, Aggie looked back. The fight had already spread. All she could see now were the tops of the habs surrounded by clouds of dust and grappling prisoners.

  Danny pulled them both to a stop behind a rock just slightly up the cliff. Out of sight, they caught their breath.

  ‘Earth below,’ Aggie panted, looking at the violence erupting in the camp. ‘What did we do?’

  ‘Fights spread like fire in a prison,’ Danny replied. The black shapes of loader trucks started to appear out of the dust to the west. ‘But this is bad.’

  Huge forks of lightning erupted from the loaders. They were packed with grey-overalled Far Side guards, buzzers set to high. As the loaders crawled through the fighting bodies, Aggie could see the flashes of electricity meeting with the suits of the prisoners. They went off like fireworks, lighting up for a second then falling in slow motion, dead into the dust.

  Aggie clutched Danny’s arm. They had done this, they had started it. But Danny wasn’t looking at the guards. A group of prisoners were working to knock a capsule down the cliff into the mine. As they watched, more men and women joined in; the guards were too preoccupied with the fighting to notice.

  Danny leapt to his feet. ‘No, no, no!’

  ‘What?’ Aggie pulled him back. When he sat back down, Aggie released his visor. All the colour had drained from his face.

  ‘That capsule,’ he said. ‘It’s a supply capsule.’

  Aggie looked back to the mine, the capsule was on the lip of the cliff now. Rocking back and forth with the force of the prisoners. ‘So?’ she said, registering the look of bewilderment of Danny’s face, ‘What?’

  Danny pushed himself back. ‘We need to move,’ he said, grabbing Aggie’s shoulders and hoisting her to her feet.

  Aggie was confused. She looked at to the capsule, then to Danny. He flipped his visor back down.

  ‘Aggie, we need to go now.’

  In the reflection in Danny’s helmet, Aggie saw the tiny capsule finally drop away into darkness. A cheer erupted in her ears as the prisoners danced around the edge, watching it fall.

  ‘NOW!’ Danny cried. He pulled Aggie up the steep track with such a force she was sure he’d pulled her suit apart.

  Adrenaline rushed through Aggie. Danny was panicking. Why was he panicking?

  As they ran, the ground lurched beneath them so violently it sent them both sprawling to their knees. A bright violet light lit up the black sky. Aggie turned back. A cloud of rock and dust erupted from the machined hole at the centre of the mine. The ground rolled below them in waves. Mine supplies. Explosives. The capsule was filled with explosives.

  Aggie scrambled to her feet and followed Danny further up the slope. Huge chunks of moon rock and lumite rained down around them. Debris rushed past their heads, travelling unpredictably fast in the low gravity. Aggie ducked. Surely the only way the rocks would stop would be by hitting something. Aggie hoped it wouldn’t be something human.

  ‘Where is it?’ Danny panted as they reached the top of the shaking cliffs.

  ‘There, just there!’ Aggie pointed a shaking arm to the place she’d hidden the tiny trike.

  They ran towards it. Danny brushed the dust away and pulled it out.

  ‘Aggie!’ Danny shouted. Aggie looked up just in time. A huge lump of lumite crystal was spinning in the air towards her. She screamed and jumped into the gap in the rocks where the scrambler had been. The lumite shattered against the rocks a second later. Aggie blinked, and shook off the shards of lumite that now covered her. Debris was so much more dangerous on the surface. The Moon had little gravity to slow things down.

  Danny revved the fans on the scrambler. Aggie hesitated for a split second, but he seemed to understand the controls. She raced forwards and jumped on behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist.

  The ground below them rocked and lurched and twisted as Danny drove the little trike through the mess of rocks and boulders. Aggie shouted directions over his shoulder, hoping the tiny scrambler would be fast enough.

  Soon, the shower of rocks lessened, though something about the size of that explosion told Aggie that the tremors wouldn’t stop. The prisoners had done more damage than they could ever imagine.

  As her teeth chattered inside her skull, Aggie wondered just how much.

  Night-Cycle 01

  They raced through the craggy Far Side landscape as the mine continued to spit its rocks high into the horizon. The capsule had set off a chain reaction inside the great hole, explosions rocked the surface at regular intervals, pluming high into the black sky.

  The further away they got, the more stable the ground seemed, though it still shuddered wildly beneath the scrambler’s wheels as no normal quake ever had.

  A dim red glow appeared between the boulders up ahead, ‘There,’ Aggie shouted. ‘Head for the light.’

  Danny nodded, but didn’t say a word. He’d gone quiet since they’d escaped. Aggie put it down to shock, or the effort of driving. Aggie felt shallow to admit it, but it felt good to have her arms wrapped around him, it didn’t matter how many layers of padding and material were in between. Danny’s presence made her feel safe; the irony of it wasn’t lost on her.

  The red glow slowly became a series of dots, flashing along the border. Aggie noticed something odd about the rocks that littered the ground around them.

  She couldn’t remember there being many rocks near the beacons, but now she could see hundreds of them, big jagged shapes distorting the red flashes. Had the explosion been that big? Had debris really come this far? Aggie wasn’t sure – anything was possible on the surface, a lack of gravity made things unpredictable, but—

  There was a burst of violet light. For a split second it lit up the border. It was long enough.

  They weren’t rocks.

  ‘Guards,’ Danny said, slowing the scrambler and switching off it
s headlights.

  Hundreds of guards, armed with buzzers, lined the border. A black-overalled army, waiting, either on foot, or riding on the back of shuttles or scramblers. Every single one of them looked towards Aggie and Danny, buzzers poised, ready for a fight.

  Aggie felt her whole body deflate. This was it. The game was up.

  Danny stopped the scrambler and scanned the horizon. Without the headlights, the guards might not have seen them yet – it was a chance.

  There was a beep, and a grey light appeared on the Ether in the control panel.

  ‘Hey Agatha. What are you doing?’ Celeste said, casting a dim light over Danny’s face. They must have been close enough to the border for Celeste to operate again.

  ‘Celeste, the light!’ Aggie cried, reaching round and placing a hand over the dash. ‘They’ll see us.’

  ‘They already have your coordinates,’ the computer said calmly. ‘You’re giving off a heat signal, and the scrambler is fitted with a tracker.’

  Aggie pulled her hand back. ‘Oh.’

  ‘What are they doing, then?’ Danny’s breathing sounded laboured.

  ‘Nothing,’ Celeste said. ‘Please, keep driving.’

  ‘Out there? Towards the guards?’

  ‘Yes. We don’t have much time.’

  ‘Towards the guards that are trying to kill us?’

  ‘Yes, Agatha.’

  Aggie looked at Danny, unsure whether to put her trust in the computer. But Celeste had been right so far, hadn’t she? Plus, they didn’t exactly have a choice. Aggie nodded and Danny put his foot down. As they approached, they could see the army of guards in more detail. Hundreds of them waited in the blinking red lights. Their lumite-powered buzzers were poised in front of them, ready to attack.

  In the middle of the group, the small silhouette of Roger Rix stood on top of a great, black, wedge-shaped shuttle, hovering silently over the dust.

  Danny revved the scrambler to its max speed and headed for a gap in the guards between the shuttles, just big enough to squeeze through.

  Aggie took a breath and closed her eyes, waiting for the familiar, hot bite of the buzzers to pierce through the crude metal-caged suit.