by F P Adriani
I grabbed his arm and yanked him from the stand. “We’ve gotta go.”
He shook off my hand, but he kept moving fast with me. “What did he say—something that upset you?”
“Naaa. His dead body is what really upset me.”
Tan came to an instant hard stop. “What?!?!”
“He’s dead, goddammit!” I said, nervous spit shooting out my mouth as my feet began moving again.
“But how can you be sure he’s dead!”
“Because. Half the back of his head is now a goddamn crater.”
“Shit!” he said in a breathless voice as our feet plowed on. “Where the fuck are we going?”
“I’ve gotta contact goddamn James,” I spat now. “Goddamn him—every time I’m around him, I get into a mess! Maybe he doesn’t mean to drag me into shit, but he’s always been too fucking goal-oriented for my own good.”
“Then what about after you talk to him—where will we go?”
I glanced at him. “I’m sticking to my original plan—that’s why I came here: for me! I need to get something from this. Should have gone there from the get-go—instead I’ve been sidetracked, and into a new disaster to boot! I’ve gotta start addressing my personal shit more directly….”
Now his hard hand on my arm pulled me to a stand-still position. He was panting badly, and, for that matter, so was I, not only because of the trot. I just realized that someone I’d spoken with only hours before had now been snuffed out. The poor guy. Shit, crap. I hadn’t wanted this to happen….
“Have you ever stopped to think,” said Tan, “that maybe that’s all played out? Maybe those few fucking threatening letters are it, the extent of it all? We’ve been on Earth and here for days, and you’ve found nobody, and nobody’s found you. And I’m totally glad about that. Maybe it’s blown over. So let’s just go HOME.”
I snapped my arm from his grasp. “I can’t. I’ve got to make sure. How the fuck do I know this guy isn’t dead because he just met me?”
There was a pause. And then Tan pointed out, “But he said someone was tailing him before then.”
“Yeah, but I was already here that day—”
“Stop blaming yourself for every goddamn thing—”
“We’ve gotta go,” I said fast, and now I began speed-walking again. “You just don’t seem to get it: if there is someone who’s still got it in for me, I’d rather the person bother me here than there. I’ve got others to think about back home.
“But I told you not to come to Earth-Moon, goddammit, Tan. Now I’m worried about you too so much. Too many men are sloppy and think they can’t be hurt—but look what happened to him!” My arm shot out toward the direction we’d been running from.
We kept moving and now my mind moved as fast as my feet: I had to find a really secure Communications panel or building somewhere to contact James. I thought of going back to that public library to see if they had some listings.
But then suddenly I realized it was too goddamn late to be too secure. This whole fucking courier bullshit was as secure as things could get here, and someone still wound up dead. And would anyone care? Would anyone know? Once I’d told James about it, who knew how the guy’s death would be squelched. Maybe I had to hope for that. It would be better than the local police controlling that scenario….
I decided to go back to the goddamn motel. I’d use the supposedly secure Communications room there. Then Tan and I would check out in an hour, as I’d planned.
When we were almost there, I noticed his hands were shaking really badly, which made me feel really bad. “Tan, why don’t you go back to the room and wait for me there?”
“What? No. Are you nuts? I’m not leaving your side.”
My anger flared at his words. “I wish you would, for fuckssake. I should just rip off my locator and take off so you can’t be near me and in danger.”
“Don’t you dare!” he said through furiously-white shaking lips.
My sigh in his face was abrupt; my right hand sped through my hair. “All right, all right. Calm down. Look: I’m going to contact James inside the motel Communications. Just wait outside in the hall. Let me talk to him alone. You don’t need to be in any deeper than you already are.”
*
Communications rooms everywhere were supposedly built quite sound-proof, but you could never be sure who might be listening in along an electronic line.
Unfortunately, I had no means to determine how good a particular line was on the Moon. Hopefully, James would do something on his end….
I sent a text-only message to him:
Urgent—call me back here high-security ASAP!
I waited. My mouth was dry, my head pounded, my fingers bounced from one of my body parts to the other, including to my head; it was intact, but I feared for how long that would be the case.
I had no evidence that Dylan’s murder had anything to do with why I’d come here in the first place. But, especially considering he knew about the new ring, you’d have to be an idiot to not see that the whole thing seemed fucking suspicious….
I finally got an incoming-communication beep, and then I opened the line to James—only the audio. I was too nervous to share too much.
“What the hell’s going on?” his harried voice asked. “I was just on my way out—”
“Who the fuck cares,” I said, my own voice both snide and frantic. “Whatever you gave me to give him, it was too late—he’s dead!”
“What?!?”
“You heard me. He seemed really off when we met last night—said he’d been made. I told him I’d check on him at his place today. And then I find his brain’s carpeting the floor!”
“Oh shit. Shit shit shit,” James said on a loud groan.
“What the fuck have you done to me?”
“IIII didn’t do this. You have any idea what this will cost us? We’ve had him in there for three years. Never a problem there before.”
“Yeah well now this is MY problem. What if someone saw me?”
“Did someone?”
“I don’t think so—I mean as far as I know, which might not be very far.” I heard blood pounding at my eardrums, wanting to burst out of there. This guy’s death might have the side effect of making me have a goddamn stroke. I hated jobs-gone-wrong. They were the absolute worst when the jobs were for a large organization because the people directly involved were the ones who usually took all the blame. James could keep his hands washed from the distance he sat at; I didn’t even have a water supply to use, forget about soap.
Now he asked, “Did you make the delivery?”
“Yeah. Was the package sensitive?”
“Not really. No.”
“Lucky you,” I said, the snideness momentarily overtaking the franticness.
Now James asked fast, “Does anyone else know—are the police there?”
“How the fuck should I know? I only found him an hour ago. I got out of there like lightning. I really don’t need the Moon police after me at all.”
“Don’t worry—I’ll take care of this.”
“Fucking how?” I spat.
“With whatever it takes,” he replied. “You’ve got to keep in contact with me—”
“No. I’m through with that. I’m on my own and going to do what I should have done here in the first place.”
“Where—where?” he asked, his voice suddenly tense.
“That’s my business,” I said, and then I abruptly ended the communication.
*
In the motel room now, Tan and I moved like twin tornados, throwing our shit together and making sure our suits were done up as perfectly as possible.
As I fussed with Tan’s suit, double-checking it, he said, “Come on—I can do it.”
“We’re going on the train—we should wear the helmets.”
“Why!”
I lowered my voice to almost a whisper. “Because. Then we’ll be somewhat disguised, and we’re taking a longer trip than necessary to divert an
y attention and sow confusion.”
“There’s already enough confusion to last me a lifetime.” He pushed my hands away. “Come on. I’ll do it. I’m not a kid.”
“Then stop acting like an annoyed one!” I snapped as I hoisted the strap of my case over my shoulder.
*
We were on the train. Through the window beside us, the eerie, deeply shadowed moonscape shapes zoomed by below the layer of space-black. The highlighted ridges and craters and human structures dotting the view all seemed to move as fast as my palpitating heart.
I couldn’t believe what I had found myself in and now had gotten Tan involved in. I wondered if maybe he was right and we should have just gone back to Diamond, if the whole thing had actually been over before it even started….
I sighed inside my suit, inside my helmet. I’d slid the exterior filtering-visor aside to keep my view of everything exterior to me as clear and bright as possible. Tan was beside me, so I didn’t feel alone.
However, seated inside a long narrow tube inside the other long narrow tube of the clear rail traveling-dome, I felt trapped, trapped by the space, trapped by my circumstances. My legs moved in a nervous tic against the seat; my eyes kept darting here and there, expecting to find cops, or possibly someone even worse.
Every once in a while, Tan stared at me; others did too. I didn’t necessarily stick out or anything: a handful of other people inside the rail-car were also totally inside suits. But most of the passengers weren’t so suited up, and maybe they tended to be suspicious of those who were, like the suited-people were hiding themselves more than protecting themselves. Or maybe I was just being paranoid….
It suddenly felt as if I were sitting inside a pressure cooker. Heat rose in a searing flush along my skin and seemed to be overwhelming the suit. I hadn’t pressurized it, just closed it. But if this whole-body heat sensation kept up, I’d probably wind up with heat exhaustion.
My right leg moved faster; I kept glancing at the digital clock on the car’s silver top panel. I’d planned on passing right over Colony 6, going back to 7, then going back to 6 again. But…I now saw that would just be too much for my body to handle.
I flipped up my helmet, touching a gloved finger to Tan’s still-closed helmet till he opened his too.
“We’re getting off at 6,” I said then.
“But you said—”
“Forget what I said.”
*
For many years, there had only been three motel chains on the Moon; they’d achieved a sort of monopoly both there and on other moons in nearby layers. But, in more recent times, some competition had developed in the form of a few newer and smaller chains.
I now chose one of those lesser-used motels for me and Tan. And by the time we checked into our new room, I was too exhausted to do anything more than drink several glasses of water, take a shower, and collapse into the double bubble-bed.
*
Later when I woke, it was quite dark in the room, I was alone in the bed, and I realized I’d probably slept alone. There was a small white table-and-chairs set opposite the end of the bed, and Tan was seated there. He was still suited up and he had his camera out.
“What you doin’?” I mumbled.
“Thought I’d check what I got last night. I’ll project it against the wall.”
I sighed as I sat up and slid my pajama-ed ass nearer to the bed-casing’s opening. “Maybe I’ll get off easy because no one noticed me there,” I said, referencing Dylan’s shack. And now my face flushed as I remembered what had happened. I had this feeling that James would somehow squelch the whole thing. …No. I was sure he would do that.
A bitter stinging sensation in my mouth now, I swallowed hard. I’d always feared I’d wind up like Dylan: some unknown person, some unknown Miscellaneous, dead somewhere; my corpse cleaned up, my existence totally buried from human history along with my body….
Now Tan said, “Why would people notice you? You didn’t look suspicious.”
He stood up, pulling the table toward the center of the room; then he pulled the camera to the farthest edge of the table from the white wall; then he fiddled with some of the buttons; then an image of Nightlights and its inhabitants appeared on the wall.
The colorful yet oddly ghost-like view bounced around, courtesy of either Tan’s arm shaking or his trying to get in too much information in too little time. What I saw on the wall didn’t seem worthwhile, but I figured a critique of Tan’s camera technique would neither be relevant nor wanted….
“Wait,” I said, my eyes on the wall images as I moved closer along the mattress. “Hang on a second.”
“What—what?” said Tan, his head snapping to me.
I frowned. “Go back a bit—to when you panned toward the bar.”
He did as I’d asked, saying, “Yeah—there you are.”
“That’s not what I meant. Keep going—did you get more of that area?”
“I don’t remember….” He hit some buttons again, and the images came again, including a brief shot of the woman with her tits out, but also including more of me and Dylan at the bar. I wouldn’t exactly say we looked like we were talking intimately or anything, but there appeared to be someone, some woman, interested in us, at least from Tan’s recording angle. The woman had been sitting at a table between where Tan had sat and I had sat, and her head kept going toward me and Dylan at the bar….
However, for all I knew, she could have been one of the women Dylan had paid to fuck. Maybe she had been watching us out of some twisted jealousy. Her clothing looked cheap; so did her teased hair—
The camera panned away and then a moment later, the film reached its end.
“That’s it,” Tan declared. “So what did you see?”
Feeling frustrated in the extreme, I let out a sharp sound and shook my head fast. “I don’t know. Nothing, I think. Just nothing.” I bent forward and squeezed my forehead in my shaking hands. I really did have goddamn nothing—now what? Did I make a mistake coming to this motel—should I go to where I stayed at before in this colony? Where the hell should I look next….
Tan, both his presence and his voice, broke into my thoughts. “We haven’t eaten anything since practically this morning. And my stomach’s growling.”
“Mine too, now that you mention it.”
There was a pause.
Then, from Tan: “Did you tell you-know-who where we were going?”
I shook my head from side-to-side even faster now.
“What do you think he’ll do?”
“Who knows,” I said. And before Tan could ask anything more, I jumped from the bed and went to use the bathroom.
*
The street outside this motel wasn’t as nice as the street outside the Colony 7 motel. But, fortunately, when we stepped out onto this street later on, it wasn’t as busy as the other street; the people here moved slower, as if they had all the time in the Moon to have a good time.
As Tan and I walked along this more peaceful route, looking for someplace to get something to eat, I let myself imagine that no one anywhere knew anything about Dylan’s body yet. Everything was fine there. It would be let go, and I would be left alone….
Tan and I finally stopped outside a café, but when we walked into the lobby, we found that the place was packed. Apparently, the street wasn’t busy because everyone was inside this café-hotspot.
When the café’s host said there would be at least a half-hour wait, Tan turned to me and said on a tired sigh, “You want to wait for a table here or try somewhere else?”
“Let’s just try somewhere else,” I said on a sigh of my own.
Back out on the street moving again, my feet started dragging just as I remembered something: this street was considered a great restaurant strip. A lot of people in this colony came here to eat, especially on a Moon-Friday night, which this was. For a moment, I despaired we’d find nowhere to eat soon, and I also wondered why I’d forgotten that this was a popular restaurant strip.
Eventually we crossed a crowded corner where a bunch of moon-cars were going in both directions. Then we passed a standard moon-gray building on my right.
At that moment, I happened to turn my head and see a big, brightly-lit sign in the shape of a woman wearing a large helmet, a jumpsuit, and moon-boots. Across the woman’s midsection my eyes automatically read the lit-up-in-red words: “May says, ‘May I serve you’?”
…May…May. May could have been a name, not a month.
I stood staring at the electric woman, at the electric words, and I felt something spark inside me. My head snapped up to above the woman, to where it said, “May’s Moonrest Café.”
The woman was a new addition, but the café’s title did it. This was it; it must have been. I knew the place’s name. I’d been here. Oh yes….
“My goddamn blocking,” I said now through suddenly shaking lips.
Tan finally noticed that I’d stopped and become distracted by the place, and he also must have heard what I’d said, even though I’d said it low to myself. He now asked me, “What do you mean?”
“I should have seen this, remembered this—May.”
“What—what?” he repeated.
I turned to him then, to his confused brown eyes, and lowered my voice again. “This place is half a motel. There are rooms to rent for the night in the back. It’s half-like, well, like a swingers joint. He used to come here a lot. And this was where I was…with him.”
The confusion in Tan’s eyes turned to anger, then quickly to disgust, then quickly back to anger again.
And then the anger sunk into pure disappointed gloom as I said to him, “I warned you this wouldn’t blow over into nothing. I’m going in.”
I didn’t give him a chance to argue with me. I pulled my helmet over my head and stepped through the front door.
Immediately I noticed that the place had undergone some redecorating; it used to be a half-orange half-brown space. Now it looked more ruby red, ruby-red chair cushions, ruby-red shades pulled over the insides of the windows. Even the bar counter had been painted the same dark red. Apparently, since I’d last been here, the owners had decided to just be upfront about what people could expect from inside: red, the color of sex.
