Moondust

by Gemma Fowler

  ‘Whole Earth,’ Seb muttered as the three jumped down the broken slope of a collapsed commuter shuttle tube. ‘The only bit of the base still standing.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘So we access the tunnels, then what?’ Danny butted in. Seb scowled.

  The blueprint animation skimmed through the tunnel system and then brought them out to the grinding mechanisms of the cargo bays. Seb grimaced.

  ‘The cargo bays use a magnetic catapult system to propel the capsules containing the lumite cells to a docking platform on the Lunar Inc. skyport in the European Mountains.’

  ‘Hey, Celeste,’ Seb panted, ‘I didn’t pay that much attention in astrophysics class, but still I can’t see any human surviving those Gs. When we get back to Earth, they’ll have to scrape us off the walls with a spatula or something,’

  ‘Seb!’ Aggie said with disgusted look.

  Seb shrugged. ‘Just speaking my mind, man.’

  Celeste spun quickly, then settled. ‘There is actually a forty-seven per cent chance of human survival, increasing to fifty-one per cent with the use of exo-skeletons.’

  Seb’s mouth dropped open. ‘Oh, only forty-nine per cent chance of dying? Well, what are we waiting for?’

  ‘We’re not waiting, Seb, we’re already on our way.’

  Seb rolled his eyes. ‘Computer’s don’t really get sarcasm do they?’

  ‘No, Sebastian.’ Celeste flashed.

  ‘Well.’ He sighed, turning to Danny and Aggie. ‘Looks like we’ll be going home with the last of the lumite. Awesome.’

  Night-Cycle 01

  They passed more than one body as they bounded through the debris. The Lunar Inc. personnel’s garish overalls made them easy to pick out from the grey ground. A purple boot sticking out from beneath a collapsed tunnel, a collapsed pink helmet that had somehow lost its body, an orange human form sprawled out in the distance, its lifeless limbs sticking out at inhuman angles. Aggie was glad she hadn’t seen their faces. She didn’t know if she would be able take it. She focused on training her eyes to skim over any spots of colour in her path.

  Soon, the dimly glowing spires of the Whole Earth grew taller on the horizon, the only thing standing in the sea of destruction.

  They found a working airlock and slipped inside.

  ‘Follow the red markers up to the atrium,’ Celeste said as they emerged into the darkness of Whole Earth’s service tunnels, ‘and then head to the frozen custard cart. The door that leads to the cargo tunnels is just behind it.’

  Seb and Aggie exchanged a look and burst out laughing.

  ‘Why are you laughing? Did I say something wrong?’ Celeste said, sounding confused.

  ‘Not this time, no,’ Danny replied, looking totally perplexed.

  Aggie smiled at Seb and stepped forwards. ‘Of all the gin joints in all the world . . .’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Celeste said. ‘They don’t serve alcohol in Whole Earth.’

  The sight of their familiar, beloved frozen custard cart torn apart brought more tears to Aggie’s eyes. It was stupid, she knew, but that cart represented the good times she’d had on the base: the days when her biggest problem was cleaning up a toilet water spillage, or talking clag with Seb when they skived off their shifts. Good days, she realized now – days she’d taken for granted.

  Seb placed a hand on her back. From the look in his eyes, Aggie could tell he felt the same. ‘It’s OK. I’ll buy you a custard when we get back to Earth, I promise,’ he said, with a reassuring squeeze.

  They entered the black staircase the other side of the service door and descended to the tunnels. The tunnel’s gravity systems were obviously working, but as Aggie followed the boys down the stairs, her visor automatically collapsed down over her face.

  ‘There’s no air down here,’ she said, her overall bleeping in agreement.

  ‘Atmospheric systems must be down,’ Seb mumbled behind his visor. ‘But the ceiling’s still there, so I guess we’re good.’

  When they finally reached the end they were hit by a sudden burst of activity.

  They were standing at the edge of a great junction of thick metal conveyor belts that rose up out of the hard moon rock like the ribcages of great metal whales. Travelling along them was a constant stream of glittering raw Lumite crystal. The belts sped along their interconnecting routes, missing each other by just inches, guided by sets of mechanical connections that clicked like crickets on a summer’s day.

  Unlike the last time Aggie had ventured into the tunnels, these were fully active. They were lugging the day’s lumite supply to the production plants, unaffected by the destruction wrought by the quake above ground.

  The noise of the place permeated the thin material of their visors and rang against their ears. It was a hundred times louder than the face had ever been. For a while, Aggie wasn’t sure if the vibrating of the tunnels was from the quake or just a normal side effect of walking so close to this subterranean lumite highway. She quickly decided it was a mixture of the two as she noticed the thin cracks that wove their way around its high, vaulted ceiling.

  ‘We need to get going,’

  ‘Good idea,’ Danny replied.

  ‘Celeste isn’t here,’ Aggie said. ‘She should be here.’ It worried Aggie – Celeste felt like a weird kind of family to her now. All this time the computer had been protecting her on her father’s orders. She was a link to all the information about her father that she’d never dared ask Adam Faulkner. Her godfather had already stolen her life, she wasn’t going to let him steal her father’s memory too. Celeste was one of them, she mattered.

  Aggie looked around the cavernous tunnel. ‘Where is she?’ she whispered to herself.

  Danny put an arm around her shoulders, ‘Celeste’s trying to save the base. If there’s trouble, she’ll be here.’

  ‘I’m worried she’s not OK,’ she replied quietly.

  ‘Out of all of us, I’d give her the best chances, man,’ said Seb, stepping up onto the walkway. ‘I mean, what is she even made of, really? She’s just a bunch of wires and dust and Plexi nonsense.’

  ‘Don’t talk about her like that, Seb,’ Aggie snapped.

  ‘Hey, I was trying to make you feel better.’ Seb grabbed the handrail suddenly. It swung under his weight. His eyes went wide. ‘OK, that’s normal. I’m going to say that’s normal. Nothing to be scared of. C’mon, follow me.’

  Danny gave Aggie’s shoulders a squeeze and gently pushed her forwards. ‘Let’s concentrate on getting out of here first, hey?’

  Aggie nodded and stepped onto the walkway in front of him, her head turning this way and that as she scanned the chamber for signs of Ethers and Eyes.

  As they ran along the thin, shaking walkway beside the speeding containers, pieces of the roof started to tumble around them like grey snowflakes. Aggie looked up and felt them rain down over her visor with a pattering noise.

  ‘We really need to be quicker,’ Danny panted, looking at the cracks in the ceiling.

  Ahead, Seb stopped suddenly, his eyes wide. ‘Aw, dudes, it could just work!’ he said, spinning around excitedly.

  ‘What?’ Danny said,

  ‘OK, bear with me, though, right, because this is going to sound crazy.’

  Danny gestured around them, ‘We’re already way beyond crazy, mate.’

  Seb cocked his head to the side, ‘Hmm, maybe not this crazy, but hey. Right, so there’s this old movie.’

  Aggie rolled her eyes. ‘Oh no, Seb . . .’

  ‘Wait, wait, hear me out. There’s this really old movie, I can’t remember what it’s called but there’s a dude in a hat, he loves the hat. And he’s like an adventurer in the really olden days, like a grave robber, with an awesome whip thing, that’s pretty awesome, and—’

  ‘Seb!’ Aggie cried.

  ‘OK.Yeah. So hat dude and this little Chinese dude escape from the bad guys in a cart, kinda like these things. They’re like, surrounded and then they see these carts going really f
ast and they jump in them and they escape the bad guys.’

  Danny grinned. ‘So, the plan is just to jump on the conveyor?’

  ‘Yeah, I guess that was my point.’

  ‘Wow.’ Danny laughed and slapped Seb on the back. ‘Good plan. I like it.’

  ‘Really? You feeling OK?’

  Danny pulled a face. ‘No, not really.’

  Aggie peered over the railing at the blur of lumite that raced below them.

  ‘They’re going really fast, Seb.’

  Seb looked about to implode with nerves, even though it was his idea. ‘It worked out OK in the movie.’

  Aggie looked back at the conveyor. They were linked together with great buzzing magnetic locks. They’d have to time the jump just right to avoid getting crushed or electrocuted or just generally ripped apart. Even with their exos, it was a risk.

  Seb appeared beside her, biting his lip, ‘Well, I guess it’s my idea, so, I should go first.’

  ‘Good idea,’ Danny said, stepping closer to the ledge.

  ‘Trying to get rid of me, dude?’

  ‘Always.’

  ‘Don’t think about it too much, right?’

  Danny nodded.

  Seb set a shaking hand to the railings, then, without another word, leapt over the ledge and disappeared. Aggie gasped and ran forward, but when she looked over, there was no sign of her best friend.

  ‘Seb!’ she cried, searching the distance for his violet lamp.

  Then, a loud crash and a rush of sound burst into her ears. ‘This is cosmic!’ Seb shouted, his voice only just audible over the thunder. ‘I feel like it’s going to rip my head off!’

  Aggie looked at Danny and activated her exo with a flick of her finger, as the suit buzzed around her she jumped over the railing.

  She hit the glittering mound of lumite blocks with a deep, horrible crunch. The exo moaned in protest as Aggie crumpled down into them, her limbs twisting painfully beneath her. The speed she was going was unbelievable; beyond the speeding belt; the world was a constant, sickening blur.

  She turned her head and spotted another light falling onto the conveyor behind.

  ‘Next stop, Earth!’ Seb cried from the front, as the tunnel whipped and twisted and turned. Aggie screamed, terrified and thrilled in equal measures. It was like being on a roller-coaster. The lights of the narrow tunnel flew past, changing from violet to red to green to yellow, all the colours of the United Earth, blurring together above her head. The exo inside Aggie’s gloves gripped the edges of the conveyor as if she’d been welded to the metal. A good thing, because the lumite blocks beneath her shifted like marbles under her surface boots. She let out a long cry as she fought to stay upright, ducking away from the pipes and debris that had fallen across the tunnel – for a few seconds all Aggie’s worries were left behind on the tunnel floor.

  *

  Before Aggie could really enjoy it, the rush of the tunnels started to fade into a slow rumble. The tunnel began to open out into a vast, cavernous space that vibrated with noise.

  ‘This is our stop dudes.’ Seb jumped off the conveyor and punched the air. ‘Oh, man! I knew that would be totally cosmic!’

  Aggie rolled off the belt and staggered to her feet, her comms roaring with the sound of machines crunching and gnawing the raw crystal.

  Above them, a great Plexiglas dome protected a series of clicking, whirring conveyor belts that ran like snakes along the rock floor, packing the crystal into capsules before converging at the centre. Here, they delivered their load into a huge black cannon-shaped object that pierced through the dome and spat the packed capsules out into the black void above.

  The launcher. Their ride home.

  ‘Where do we fit into this then?’ Seb said, finally coming down from his conveyor-riding high and glancing worriedly around at the launcher’s chewing, spinning mechanisms.

  Aggie pointed to the place where the conveyors met the launcher. A stack of pebble-shaped capsules waited to be filled with their Lumite cargo. ‘There, I think.’

  She shook her head. Seb had been right, every part of the cargo bay looked deadly. Even getting close to the capsules through the launcher’s crunching mechanisms and rushing conveyors looked impossible.

  As Danny jumped down from his ride on the belt, a huge cloud of dust erupted out of the tunnel behind him.

  The three of them turned and stared as a lumbering figure emerged from the mist.

  Night-Cycle 01

  ‘R UN!’

  Celeste’s voice was so loud it distorted in their helmets.

  ‘Start running!’

  The shock was enough to send all three of them racing away across the conveyors towards the empty capsules. Aggie felt terror begin to rise in her chest. She’d immediately known who the intruder was.

  ‘It’s Rix!’ she shouted breathlessly. ‘He’s alive!’

  Aggie hadn’t even thought about the commander since the Forecast Suite. She glanced back just in time to see a scrambler break out of the dust cloud and catch Rix on his side, knocking him back to the ground. Instantly, the unmanned trike turned its fat wheels and rammed the Commander again. But he learnt quickly: his next move was to crawl out onto the conveyor itself – out of its reach.

  When he stood upright, backlit by the dust and light of the tunnel behind him, he looked like a robot or an alien from an old movie.

  His deep, desperate, ragged breathing echoed inside Aggie’s helmet, as he was moved along the conveyor towards her.

  She scrambled away over the lumite that littered the conveyor belt, but it was like running on ice. The ground shifted violently, sending her slamming head first into the rocks. The conveyor belt jolted and began to tear in two with a thundering groan. When the dust cleared, Aggie let out a cry. She was alone. The boys were on the other side, the side they needed to be on to get to the capsules.

  Above her head, the domed ceiling shuddered, a great gap opening between its arched panels. Her overall bleeped. They were losing pressure.

  ‘Aggie!’ Danny shouted from somewhere below her.

  ‘I’m OK. Stay there!’

  Not really thinking, Aggie started to scramble up onto the tilted side of the broken conveyor. When she reached the top, she stopped.

  From her new vantage point she could see the fight between Rix and Celeste unfolding like a choreographed performance.

  Ethers convulsed in the darkness as the computer used everything at her disposal to stop Rix’s progress towards them. The giant Ether at the top of the conveyor system began to flicker. Then, with a deafening screech, the mechanism on the belt closest to Rix reversed and started spitting jagged chunks of crystal towards him with the force of bullets. A few met their target, but Rix’s overall was doing its job too well. He stumbled, obviously dazed, but quickly regained his footing.

  As Aggie watched this strange battle between man and machine, panic was rising further and further in her chest. Under her feet, the deep, steady roll of the ground was more pronounced. Somewhere nearby another building came crashing to the ground with a plume of smoke and dust.

  ‘We need to get out of here, dudes,’ Seb shouted from somewhere on the other side.

  Aggie wasn’t paying attention; Celeste’s presence had moved to a gigantic loader truck buried in a pile of debris to the left of the tunnel. There was a low hum, then a clunk, and suddenly the loader’s stack of spotlights flicked to life. Rix was blinded. He tripped, tumbled head-first into a pile of rubble and began to drag himself over the rocks on his elbows.

  When Rix had crawled out of the spotlight’s glare, Aggie saw the lights flicker on one of the giant robotic arms that littered the bay. The arm flexed, making it look like a massive, prehistoric reptile. Rix was on his knees now, crawling slowly towards the the broken conveyor where Aggie stood. Soon, he would be out of sight, in the deep black shadow of the machinery.

  The great arm swung across the width of the bay, its bright lights leaving a blue streak in the back of Aggie�
�s eyes. The huge metal pincer at the end of the arm met with the side of Rix’s helmet with a loud crunch. The commander’s cry of pain rattled out over the comms. Then, silence.

  Aggie nervously watched the darkness below her. Even overalls couldn’t cope with an impact like that, surely.

  For a long time, the noise of the bays was replaced only by her own great gasping breaths. Every muscle in her body was tensed. But Rix didn’t reappear.

  ‘He’s dead?’ Danny asked quietly, as if the sound of his voice could bring Rix back to life.

  ‘I don’t know, man,’ Seb replied. ‘That guy’s like a little angry robot.’

  ‘We really need to go,’ Aggie whispered, scanning the darkness for signs of the boys, ‘Where are you?’

  During the fight it had all become clear to Aggie. Celeste wasn’t hurt or in danger, she was trying to keep Rix away from them. All this time, she’d been fighting him through whatever physical means she could. A slow spread of guilt started to grow in her stomach. How had she ever not trusted the computer after everything she’d done?

  The lights in Aggie’s comms unit suddenly lit up.

  ‘He’s down but he won’t be down for long. He’s very good at fighting,’ Celeste’s voice said quickly. ‘You need to go now. Go to the capsules.’

  Aggie began to climb down from the conveyor, picking her way carefully over the shaking debris towards the launcher, where Seb and Danny’s lamps winked blue and violet in the darkness beside the waiting capsules. A piece of rock skimmed past her ear, smashing into the launcher beside her. Another glanced off her temple, making the world around her shift for a second as she drunkenly found her footing. By the time she’d regained her senses, Rix was already running towards her. Half his overall had been torn apart, leaving his white ribbed exo showing through like a twisted alien skeleton. It was broken. He had no protection.

  She could hear the boys shouting above her, trying to find a way to cross the debris to help her. She was on her own.

  Rix slammed Aggie into the edge of the launcher like a rag doll. Her overall sang with a million warnings, pressure, oxygen, exoskeleton . . .