Moondust

by Gemma Fowler

  ‘Danny, are you OK?’

  Danny closed his eyes as if it was taking every ounce of his energy just to stay conscious.

  ‘I need something with an atmosphere, the suit . . .’

  Aggie looked at Danny’s ancient Far Side suit. Of course, the needle would pierce the pressurized layer – they hadn’t had self-healing fabrics when the Far Side suits were made.

  Aggie turned to Seb. ‘Seb, you need to help him. I can’t carry him.’

  ‘Why are we helping this dude again?’

  Aggie shook her head, she hadn’t got time to explain. ‘He’s not like the others, he’s good, FALL aren’t—’

  Seb dropped Danny back to the ground. ‘No way, man. Aggs, if he’s FALL then he’s not good. He’s the opposite of good.’

  ‘We can’t just leave him,’ Aggie pleaded, glancing around the dust cloud for signs of guards. But Celeste would warn them, wouldn’t she?

  Seb looked at Aggie for a long time, then shook his head. ‘The shuttle’s hull is intact,’ he grunted, pulling Danny up and snatching the box.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Seb hauled Danny roughly into the remains of the shuttle and pulled down the hatch. Aggie kept watch outside, sitting on her haunches checking the dusty debris for any sign of movement. She scraped the dust with her boot. Any mark she made disappeared with the ground’s shaking. The quake was already getting worse.

  After a little while the comms in her helmet flashed.

  ‘I’m picking up life signs close to your position,’ Celeste said. ‘There’s no movement yet, but I would advise we move soon.’

  Something sharp suddenly jabbed in Aggie’s chest. ‘Rix,’ she said, turning in a circle, as if the thought had somehow conjured the commander up like a ghost.

  ‘I’m not receiving any life signs from the commander’s overall,’ Celeste said matter-of-factly. ‘Though I’m having trouble picking up all the manual signals.’

  Aggie glanced around her again nervously and nodded. Rix had been on the nose of the shuttle as it crashed into the ground. Even with an exo, surely that meant—

  ‘Good,’ she said, unconvincingly. The idea of Rix being gone didn’t make her feel any safer, just even more empty.

  She took a deep breath. Something else was niggling the back of Aggie’s mind, guilt spreading out over her chest again.

  ‘Celeste?’

  ‘Hey Agatha.’

  ‘Why did you do this?’

  ‘The guards are an immediate threat, Agatha. If they’re still armed then—’

  ‘No, not the life signs, this. Why did you show me?’

  The computer was silent for a while.

  ‘To protect you,’ she said quietly. ‘David’s orders were to protect you.’

  Before Aggie could react, the sound of grunts erupted from inside the shuttle.

  ‘Fragging hell, man, there is nowhere left to put this thing,’ Seb complained loudly.

  ‘Go for the upper arm,’ Celeste replied to him. Obviously an Eye inside the shuttle was still working. ‘There’s twenty per cent less scarring.’

  ‘Thank you very much, Celeste, but I won’t take orders from something that doesn’t have skin, if that’s OK.’

  ‘Just do it!’ Danny shouted.

  Aggie glanced back at the shuttle worriedly – what was in those tiny blue vials? Not drugs, surely? Danny was a lot of things, but he wasn’t some drugged-up meathead like the other prisoners. Danny did what he did because he believed he was right – not to get a fix.

  She got up and wandered to the edge of the shuttle debris. Her head was spinning. Who had told the computer to protect her – her father? And why? Because he’d known about the reactor? She shook the thoughts away.

  Here, the dust had settled and the endless black sky had reappeared between the rocks. Aggie looked up at the Earth. The beautiful blue marble. It looked so peaceful, just hanging there in the silent black sky.

  She imagined the people there, in their houses, going to work, worrying about money and their families and where they would go on holiday that summer. Aggie wished with all her heart that she didn’t have to do what she was about to. She was about to break open the quiet, peaceful world that the United Earth had become. She and Danny were about to change everything.

  A shiver of anticipation ran over her. How in all the seven states was she supposed to tell them that lumite was over? How would she start that sentence as the Lunar Base that had once saved them crumbled into the dust? The idea was overwhelming.

  Aggie looked up. ‘That’s it! How does the world see the base?’ she said, excitement creeping into her voice. ‘Celeste! How do people see the base?’

  Her comms flashed again with the computer’s presence.

  Aggie hauled herself up out of the dust, a foggy memory coming back to her.

  ‘Celeste, what time is it?’

  A hiss from somewhere close by made Aggie start. The escape hatch on the battered shuttle sprang open. She made her way towards the movement unsteadily, her teeth chattering with the pull and push of the ground.

  After a few steps she saw a shape moving towards her. ‘Seb?’ she called.

  ‘That’s offensive,’ came the deep-voiced reply.

  Aggie looked more closely. Danny was striding away from the shuttle as if nothing had happened.

  He came up to her and put his hands on her waist. His eyes were shining through his visor more brightly than Aggie had ever seen. Her legs wobbled, then she remembered what was happening around them and pushed him gently away.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Danny said with a lopsided smile.

  Aggie nodded shyly, not completely sure what was happening. She wondered what was wrong with her. The air around them felt as if it was alive with static. Maybe it was.

  Another shape emerged from the shuttle.

  Seb looked at them both for a second, them stomped past.

  ‘Yeah, man, don’t mention it,’ he muttered bitterly as he disappeared into the dust cloud. ‘No, seriously, it was my pleasure. Oh, and I’m sorry, what were you in for again?’ his voice crackled over the radio and tailed off.

  Danny looked at Aggie, a pained expression playing across his face.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said quietly.

  ‘You should thank Seb, really. He did everything.’

  ‘I already tried. He’s not exactly welcoming, this guard friend of yours.’

  Aggie frowned. ‘Well, he did almost just die so . . .’

  Danny smiled, ‘I suppose that would make you grumpy.’

  ‘We need to go,’ Aggie said, trying to avoid that stare.

  ‘This way, dudes!’ Seb shouted from somewhere in the distance. Danny and Aggie stood together for a second with nothing but the rumbling of the surface below them. Danny turned to her suddenly as if he was about to say something, but Aggie got there first. ‘We really have to go.’

  Danny smiled. ‘Yeah. There’s a whole world of people out there waiting to have their dreams crushed by us.’ His voice shook with the power of the quake.

  Aggie allowed herself a small smile. ‘Better not keep them waiting.’

  Night-Cycle 01

  As they crept along the edge of the rubble back to where the scrambler was still hidden by the rocks, Aggie gave Seb a rapid account of what had happened on the Far Side.

  Between his expressions of utter disbelief, she started to hear distant shouts of the uninjured guards regrouping. With that and the shaking of the ground, they had to move. Fast.

  When they reached the trike, Danny took the driver’s seat. Seb huffed loudly as he was forced to sit on the small cargo shelf at the back. Aggie slid in behind Danny and placed her gloved hands on his waist. She felt a vibration on her arm, it was coming from Seb.

  ‘Seb? Your comms.’

  Seb started then looked down at his forearm. ‘Damn, almost forgot about that,’ he said, swiping the panel and revealing a familiar face behind the screen.

  ‘Astrid!’ Aggie, Seb and
Celeste shouted in unison.

  ‘Who?’ Danny said from the driver’s seat.

  Aggie peered at Seb’s panel. Astrid looked worried and tiny against the commotion going on behind her; people in all colours running this way and that, carrying boxes and equipment. She was wearing an overall with a reinforced exo over the top – the red cross of the ERM badge shone on her helmet.

  When she saw their feed, Astrid’s face lit up.

  ‘Oh, Aggie! You’re OK! Oh thank the Earth you’re OK!’ Her eyes darted around them. ‘Earth below, is that THE prisoner? Ooo, I totally get it now, Aggie, very—’

  Seb pulled his arm back. ‘What do you want, Astrid?’

  ‘Sorry!’ the intern said, ‘The ERMs have assembled! We’re active!’

  Seb turned to Aggie. ‘I’m sorry, is she actually happy about that?’

  Aggie shook her head and dragged Seb’s arm closer. ‘What’s happening?’

  Astrid ducked as a gang of guards stomped past carrying a piece of equipment.

  ‘It’s a code seven. Sorry, to the untrained that means a full, base-wide evac. Total abandon ship. I’ll be honest, Aggie, we didn’t even train for this!’

  Astrid bobbed down again as another group of guards pushed by, holding emergency oxygen tanks. She was talking so fast that Aggie could feel her terror.

  ‘Aggie, something exploded, something really, really big. We saw it go up from the rec room. It looked as if it was from the Far Side! Cayla thinks it’s an attack, from FALL. But it was so big, it lit up the whole sky!’

  Aggie felt a crush of guilt.

  ‘Where are you?’ Astrid continued. ‘The ERMs are coming! You’re on our priority list – there’s a shuttle waiting—’

  ‘No. Astrid, get to the shuttles, like I told you,’ Aggie said, feeling a concrete brick reforming in her stomach. But Astrid wasn’t listening, she was shouting something to someone off-screen, her ERM’s badge shining.

  ‘E Face fell in a few minutes ago, C Face won’t be long. The commuter shuttles aren’t running, people can’t get to the shuttle bays. We’re trying to help, but if we don’t go soon . . .’

  Aggie looked at Seb, his eyes bulged out of his head. He had no idea of the damage that they’d done on the other side of the border. He just watched dumbly as Astrid described their home crumbling into ruins.

  ‘The whole base?’ Aggie stammered dumbly.

  ‘It’s gone, Aggie, or it’s going, fast. It’s a code seven! Argh!’

  Aggie and Seb screamed with Astrid as they watched the ceiling of the corridor crash to the floor. Aggie couldn’t take it any longer. She looked at Danny – what had they done?

  ‘Astrid! Please, go!’

  ‘Where are you? I can bring a rescue shuttle.’

  ‘No. Astrid. Don’t worry about us.’ Aggie felt cold. If they didn’t move now, her plan wouldn’t work. As if reading her mind, Danny kicked the scrambler into gear and started to move forwards.

  Astrid looked horrified. ‘Leave?! I just refuse to be the girl that left the Angel of Adrianne to just—’

  Seb stopped her and pulled his arm back, ‘Astrid, please just go. We’ll get off the base. Just get to a shuttle.’

  ‘I have a shuttle, the ERMs can help—’

  ‘Now,’ Seb demanded, in a voice Aggie had seldom heard him use.

  Astrid looked as if she was being torn apart. She glanced from the corridor to the camera. There was a crash and the camera fizzed . . .

  ‘Astrid!’ Aggie cried as the comms on Seb’s arm flickered. The sound went dead. Astrid flung her arms around, trying to communicate, but it was pointless. Seb flicked the comms unit off.

  ‘This is not how I imagined this day turning out,’ he muttered.

  After an hour or so of driving, they left the pulsing red of the border region and found themselves plunged into a darkness as thick and black as the Ether itself.

  ‘It’s the night-cycle,’ Seb stated obviously. ‘I forgot we were going into a night-cycle.’

  Celeste spoke to them through the Ether. ‘All power will be rerouted for the evacuation. No one will be paying us any attention.’

  ‘Looks as if Celeste has it under control, Seb,’ Danny grunted. ‘We’re in a good position.’

  Seb huffed loudly. ‘Well, I don’t think “good” is the right word really, Danny. “Good” would be steak on the menu in Whole Earth, or finding out you have the afternoon off, or maybe waking up and finding out this whole thing was some horrific, pointless dream.’

  ‘It’s important to be positive,’ Danny offered, but was cut off quickly.

  ‘Oh, I think I am being positive. I think describing our current situation as diabolical is pretty clagging positive, actually. I am the voice of positivity dude, really, I am.’

  Danny glared. ‘Seriously mate, your attitude is going to compromise this whole mission.’

  Seb stared at Danny’s back for a second, then squared his shoulders defiantly. ‘Sorry, dude, but there’s no fragging way that I’m taking orders from a clagging terrorist.’

  ‘You have no idea what I am.’

  ‘OK, you went through some terrible stuff over there, I’m sorry about that. But I bet it’s just about as terrible as derailing a Hyperloop train, or destroying a hydrodam, or bombing the clagging United Government! Dude, Aggs might be able to forget what you did – because she’s mental – but I know what people like you are really like.’

  Danny’s eyes narrowed. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Oh really?’ Seb laughed coldly. ‘Well, I’m sticking around, dude – sorry to disappoint you. Because I’ve seen what you’re doing, and I swear on all the lumite in the Moon, if you hurt her in any way . . .’

  ‘Seb!’ Aggie shouted. Her cheeks had started to burn beneath her visor. But the boys didn’t hear.

  Danny had stopped the trike, jumped off and was squaring up to Seb. Seb pulled back as far as he could in the cargo shelf and braced himself for a blow. But before Danny could get close, Aggie clambered off and pushed a hand against both their chests.

  ‘Stop it!’ she shouted. ‘What are you, children? Are you both forgetting what we’re doing here? Don’t you understand the implications of it all? Our lives will never be the same. Don’t you see that?

  ‘We’re allowed to be scared, Danny – look at all of this. I’m terrified!’ She turned to Seb. ‘And you. You know what you’re doing. Don’t wind him up. You’re better than that.’

  Seb looked at her defiantly for a second, then down at the ground. Danny kicked a rock with his boot. When he looked back at Aggie, she was surprised to see colour on his cheeks. Was Danny actually blushing? Had she actually made him blush?

  ‘You’re right.’ He turned to Seb and muttered softly, ‘You’re a guard, which doesn’t make me want to be best mates. But we’ve got to work as a team, for now.’

  Seb shook his head in resignation. ‘Yeah, man. For now.’

  The two boys nodded and Danny climbed back onto the driver’s seat.

  As the scrambler sped out across the surface and the dust began to clear, Aggie felt an odd sensation. One that she hadn’t felt for many years. One that felt completely inappropriate given the situation they were in. In fact, she felt guilty for feeling it at all, but she couldn’t deny it.

  Suddenly, she felt strangely complete.

  Her best friend leant comfortingly against her back, the spark between herself and Danny fizzed in the space between them as she held him tightly around his waist.

  The moment was bittersweet. She wished she could stop time here. Nothing else would matter and the three of them would be here together, travelling the rumbling Moon for eternity.

  Night-Cycle 01

  As they drove back through the Border Sea, the base began to rise up around them. The closer they got to these densely habited areas, the reality of what was happening was all too obvious. It was pandemonium.

  ‘Earth below,’ Danny muttered from the front of the bi
ke, his words repeated by both Aggie and Seb in unison as they took in the chaos.

  The bright lights that lit up the base during the night-cycle flickered intermittently, turning the familiar domes into nothing more than a collection of foreboding black shadows. To their left, a riot had broken out between the prisoners in B Face and the guards who kept them at bay. The quake had made a crack in the side of the dome big enough for the red-overalled men to squeeze through one at a time. Violet forks of lightning danced around them, as the guards tried desperately to stop the leak by shooting at the prisoners with their buzzers, but they were too strong and too many.

  Soon their little scrambler reached the huge sky-blue entrance to Tranquillity.

  In the gloom and dust and desolation, the great foyer looked like the entrance to an alien temple. A great hexagonal door shone like a glittering beacon, guiding them towards it. Carved deep into the rock above it was the Lunar Inc. logo and beneath it, the company’s motto:

  OUT OF DARKNESS, WE SHINE

  ‘Stand back, I’m opening the doors.’ Celeste said.

  At her command, the doors hissed and began to open slowly.

  WELCOME TO TRANQUILLITY BASE. PLEASE WAIT UNTIL THE ALARM SOUNDS BEFORE DEPRESSURIZING YOUR SUITS. ONCE THE AIRLOCK HAS RELEASED, YOU WILL BE GREETED BY A PORTER WHO WILL TAKE YOU TO YOUR QUARTERS. ALL AT LUNAR INCORPORATED WISH YOU A PLEASANT STAY ON THE LUNAR SURFACE.

  They walked inside and were hit by a wall of silence.

  The huge, rocky space that Aggie had visited before was empty. The air was thick with dust and the smell of burning plastic and metal; furniture had been tossed across the floor and plants sprawled in their soil.

  ‘They evacuated the directors first – that makes sense,’ Danny said as he joined her.

  The huge moon globe still hung in the ceiling, but it no longer glowed. The Lunar Base map flickered and glitched, lighting the huge dark space with sporadic flashes.

  They picked their way over the shattered moon rock floor to the other side of the giant, glowing orb.

  Seb hung back, quietly staring up at the ceiling. Aggie guessed why.

  She put an arm around her friend’s waist, making him jump and glance at Danny.