Mission: Lights of Langrenus

by V. A. Jeffrey

  “The highlands. If so, it'll be a beautiful city. And difficult to build.”

  “And probably one of the wealthiest cities. Besides Langrenus, this one will be near some of the richest sources of ore and minerals on the moon. If you need anything else or any information at all, let me know and I'll try to help,” he said. Fred made to leave and then turned back at my office door. “Oh, and I almost forgot. The new city will be named St. Anthony.” He shrugged and he was off.

  I cocked my head to one side. I had inducted Fred into my little network that I was trying to build with Genevieve on Mars. So far, I wasn't sure how successful we were. It seemed as if things had turned back to the normal, daily grind. Even though I knew things had changed the semblance of normality was deceptive and it had a lulling effect on me. However, my allowing Fred in on a bit of what I'd done had helped and I could see that he really was very important to me. Robin, of course, was on another level. She was the head of the operation here on Earth though she didn't know about Genevieve, I don't think. I hadn't told her. In my opinion, I still had the right to have my own secrets until I got to know some of these people better.

  “St. Anthony,” I said quietly and went through my stretches for the morning before drinking down my coffee. Then I turned to my blinking and humming computer consoles, watching and sifting through the 3D image holograms of real-time work being done on some of the assembly rooms on the other floors of section C-30. I grinned appreciatively about Fred's ability to fish useful information out of the vast Vartan drain and my reliance on him. Then I got to work.

  By lunch time, the green alarms went off throughout the campus. Then came the inevitable announcement by the Virtual Voice.

  “Attention, all Vartan management employees of section C-30. Special required meeting in the Green Room, Friday, 9:00 am. Attention, all Vartan management employees of section C-30. Special required meeting in the Green Room, Friday, 9:00 am.” We would also get this memo by company mail.

  I was intrigued, for once, in a very long time about a company meeting. Normally, I was exempt from company meetings after the mess last year. Not from Green Room meetings, however. But I wanted very much to hear what they had to say about St. Anthony, the new moon city.

  . . .

  It was now lunch break. Fred, Chip and I took a gander on the promenade above to watch the fly-cars and roving cargo ships flying below.

  As many times as I've been up here it never stops amazing me how beautiful it is. And the sky! Bluer than blue.

  “It's as beautiful as the lights on the moon. Heard they were having an unusually active amount of light showing up there,” said Fred waving at a freighter ship whizzing by a few meters out from the promenade.

  “What do you mean?”

  “TLP. You've been there. You should know about that stuff. Reminds me of the time my wife and I went to Alaska and saw the northern lights. Gorgeous sight!”

  “I'll bet,” said Chip absently. “Aren't those fly-cars supposed to be on the first traffic level, like way below here?” He asked, giving a hard look at the freighter ships passing by.

  “Things have been getting busier. More people moving here. Besides, if they're headed either from space or headed out to space they're allowed to cross traffic levels. Chip, you're talking about fly-cars, not freighters,” said Fred authoritatively, as if that ended the matter. It did, verbally, but Chip and I shared private looks full of misgivings about this. I think we were wondering where all that extra traffic was coming from lately. A worrisome thought.

  “So what do you think?” Asked Chip.

  “About?” I asked.

  “The name and the meeting?”

  “St. Anthony is an interesting name. People invoke his name to recover things that are lost. I believe his name is also invoked to protect Pilgrims. If memory serves me right,” I said but this jostled uncomfortable memories of my time on Mars and what I'd learned there. Humanity and all its rich cultures and tapestries of history would be lost if we didn't act and I was learning over time that many preferred to believe a lie – that we were fine and things were getting better. It didn't mean that things couldn't get better, but it made no sense to believe in lies. But that was always the way with human beings. Nothing on that front had ever changed. I changed the subject. I didn't want my friends to see me brooding.

  “I'm feeling like bratwurst, sauerkraut and a good hot pretzel and a soda. How about you guys?”

  “Sounds good,” said Fred. “Let us know a bit about what you learn there. My reputation's at stake Bob,” he added.

  “Don't worry Fred. You've got my back, I've got yours.”

  “I've got something else you might find interesting, but I wanted to wait until we got outside. You know how many ears are plastered on walls in there.” He cast a glance around.

  “What?” We both asked.

  “The president of the company is supposed to be meeting with you guys at this meeting. Last minute change. Don't mention I told you.”

  “The president of Vartan?” Exclaimed Chip as we made our way to the company beer garden. “Who is the president now anyway?” We all glanced at each other and shrugged. Even Fred didn't know. I'd assumed it was Elias Vartan, the one who had been here since I'd been working here. But a year ago that was put in doubt. Truth was, no one talked about it openly. No one knew.

  “Let us know. Only you will find out before we do now,” said Fred.

  “I'll definitely let you know,” I said and moving in line, I ordered a weisswurst and a soda. I wondered whether any of this new information was somehow related. How could I piece these things together? After work, which would end right after lunch for me, I was going to have more vomit-inducing fly-boy lessons from Diamond Dog. I looked over my lunch skeptically, just thinking about it.

  All the while after lunch I wondered, why St. Anthony? My friends had seemed to find the choice interesting, as well as a few other employees at the beer garden.

  Why St. Anthony? Who chose that? And who was running the corporation now?

  3

  The Green Room was a large assembly-like meeting hall of different shades of green. It had a serene, calming effect on people. This time the walls had shrunk inward to accommodate a smaller group than the usual gatherings here. I was sitting on an end seat as others were still filing in. There were about fifty of us gathering for the meeting. And it was about the new moon city being proposed.

  On the front podium streaming holographic images were building, one on top of the others as we were taken through a panoramic, inside view of an artist's creation of what it might look like. It was beautiful, if I had to say so. Something almost “Old World” like, instead of Modern. A very different design from Langrenus, which possessed architecture of a Bauhaus-rooted aesthetic. I wondered at it. Excitement and gossip would build soon after. I had been given a tip just ahead of the crowd about this project. People would be wondering and critiquing the name and the fair look of the city. It reminded me of Old Vienna, as the Mayor's palace looked a bit like a miniature, plainer version of the Schoenberg. I recalled the housing modules nearly ready to be delivered. They looked noting like that. I was still in the process of making quality inspections with my Q.A. team. I supposed only the wealthy would be living in the Old World-style domiciles while the regular folk would be living in the nondescript, dull looking domiciles. Class snobbery was still alive and well.

  Surely, I thought, the artists and designers of the holographs were having fun. Buildings were made to be useful these days, not beautiful for their own sake, a time and a way of thinking, sadly, that was long lost. Today, if a building happened to have beauty to it, and a few actually did, it was only by happenstance and the wonder of the clouds, blue sky and the lighting helped to make it so. But I digress.

  It was really a preliminary meeting of the beginnings of the project. Engineers, architects and city planners from all over the country and from Portugal and Italy, interestingly enough, were there to talk
about what they were planning for the city. Excitement for the project was building. They planned to start construction on it in three years. That was news. Big news. In the buzz of the more concrete issues, I'd forgotten to ask about the name. But I took numerous notes on my little pad, tapping and swiping away. I swiveled around in my chair during a break only to find Grant glowering at me from behind. I smirked and he seethed even harder, but his gaze bugged me. Three guesses why. I had no proof and humans could be just as devious and frightening as any alien, but still. I turned around and joined one of the conversations around the room with a young Italian architect from Florence. I decided to keep far away from him and continued taking notes.

  . . .

  Later after work I went with Fred and a few others to have a drink before going home. He grilled me with the details and I filled him in. Fred was buzzed and I felt I needed to weigh his words carefully with the amount of beer he had to drink, but Fred had some more unexpected - and unpleasant news for me.

  “The word is, Grant is going to be taking over the client customer services department in section C-30 next month.” He took a swig from his bottle of brown ale. I felt heartburn searing through my chest and down to my kidneys. Suddenly, my deliciously bitter IPA was a little too bitter to bear. He also happened to drop some manna along with that big piece of dung. He made mention again of it. That the light displays on the moon were strange and unusually active right now according to his nieces and nephews, who had come over to visit him and Bev.

  The first time I shrugged it off thinking of it as a slightly interesting but non-essential aspect of life that we hear about and don't give much thought to. I was wrong. However, right now I was more interested in the fact that we seemed to have an acting CEO for the time being named Henry Weiss. We all met him near the end of the meeting and the name got around just a few hours after. Most people were wondering which direction he would take the company in, myself included. We wondered if he had the leadership ability to keep us soaring in the air as the lead aerospace company in the world, or if he would be a do-nothing CEO, merely existing to collect a fat payout.

  “Guys, he did say he was acting CEO. There's only so much he can do before the real CEO is finally voted in,” I said to another co-worker. He and the others shrugged that off and kept up the tongue wagging. You know how people are.

  When I got home I mulled over the things that stood out to me. I was learning to examine the expansion and the other things that excited others and weed them out for other, subtler issues. Whether they had any importance I didn't know but my mind glossed over the things that others saw as important. I focused on things like the name. Not too many thought about it after the initial news.

  “Tell me Pam, why do you think someone would name a city built in this day and age St. Anthony? Seems old fashioned.”

  “St. Anthony? Is that the name of the new city? I'd heard it was going to be Crater City. I'm not sure.”

  “Well, I certainly hope it won't be Crater City. How boring would that be?”

  “Honey, don't get excited. It's just a name. I'm sure they have far more important things they need to worry about in planning and building it.”

  “Yeah, but names are important, Pam. A name can set a mood, tone or describe the personality of a place.” I protested. Pam, ever the pragmatic wife, just shrugged and continued folding clothes and handing them to me to put away.

  “But really now, just on the top of your head?”

  “Hmm. Well, from what I know as cursory knowledge, he was Portuguese and those who pray to him do so for lost things,” she said. “Or pilgrims. He died young. He was also a follower of St. Assisi. A most excellent thing in my book. It's all so mysterious. I suppose I do like a small mystery. Lost innocence, perhaps? A city for people looking for some kind of salvation or seeking penance? Or peace? I get the feeling that whatever you saw up there, something about the future, it's no longer there, Bob. Something is lost and we must find it again. Maybe,” she said quietly, folding and putting away the last shirt.

  “See? Lost things are what caught my attention too, hon. Lost things.”

  “Yeah. That is interesting,” she said pensively. I was silent after that. We both got ready for bed. I kissed her good night and we turned out the lights. As I lay in the dark I thought about my adventure on Mars, as I did from time to time. I also wondered about the lunar lights. Was there really anything odd about them? There could be. There were many “hidden things” around us now. And thinking of things, some things truly were lost. Others had been found. I wasn't yet sure which was which and whether this was ultimately good or bad.

  4

  In the passenger freighter to work I received a personal message marked “PRIVATE” on my data pad. That was always Robin. As soon as I arrived at the campus, instead of going to section C-30 and to my office I went to the West campus. I'd been given a special red badge-card that I kept hidden from prying eyes on my own South campus, that allowed me access to this part of the grounds. I had pretty high-level security clearance through this badge. I passed through many floors in the airlift, then in the elevator, passed by a group of security officers I'd never seen before. They nodded at me curtly and kept on their way, seeing my red badge displayed on my chest. I made my way to the thirty-ninth floor. I passed by administrators and other high-level white collar types and pink collar types. Most took one look at my uniform – dark blue and white - gave me a curt nod and went about their business. Some did not make eye contact at all but most greeted me with a look of surprise and even- did I imagine it - appreciation. There was a new thing for my mind to absorb. At the end of the floor was Robin's office. This floor was soft white and silver. I almost felt I was walking in the sky, as it gave that feeling of serenity and floating.

  I knocked on her office door: Robin Baez – Social Administrations Director. I heard a soft, short command giving me leave to enter. Robin's office was mostly cream, wood, and white. It gave one a feeling of both presence and authority but light tranquility as well. I sat in one of the plush chairs facing her desk as she turned from her computer consoles to greet me. She smiled. She looked a little gaunt, something I hadn't noticed before.

  “So how are we doing today, Robert?”

  “I'm doing fine. Thanks for asking. Came as quickly as I could.”

  “Thank you. Things have been silent for a while. We're mostly observing certain things and gathering data. Soon we'll be making some important moves and we'll need you for one of them.”

  “I'm ready when you guys are.”

  “I trust you've been building a list of possible contacts for the network?”

  “I've done my best. It's slow going right now.”

  “That's fine. I don't expect much right now anyway. I was wondering. How is Chip coming along with the brain wire, or was it red wire?”

  “Oh, yes. The hive wire.”

  “How's that coming along?”

  “So far, Chip hasn't said much except that he's still examining it.”

  “That was a gold mine of a find, Robert. We really hope he can do something with it. Something that can help us all on this planet. Anyway, the reason why I called you here is because we do have an interesting situation going on in Langrenus. The Boss has been observing it for a while and feels like we need to get someone on the ground to take a closer look. I don't know if you've heard about it?”

  “You mean the TLP?” I asked. She nodded and tapped something on her screen, then used her hand to open one of the holograms on the screen up wider so that I could see.

  “We've been watching and building models on the data we've got so far.” It was a moving holographic image of the Langrenus Crater and its now famous lunar lights. The lights were unnaturally bright and active and moved like sheets of curtain, or wide walls of mists rising up and off into space from the crater. There was especially furious activity near the northerly areas of the moon. She pushed the images of the city back into the screen until it widened o
ut into a large panoramic view of the moon. She then swiped her hand over the image and it morphed into a full view image of the luminous moon in space with a full view of the pattern of lights that were reigning up over about a quarter of its surface.

  “As you can see, it's far more active and unusual looking than it has ever been in history, from what I've read so far. The lights are a popular phenomenon with the residents and they are growing as a tourist attraction. But this sudden burst of activity might become dangerous to the human population.” My own senses were telling me that something was off about it. Fred had mentioned it twice and now Robin was mentioning it.

  “I was in a Green Room meeting and we all got a chance to meet the acting CEO. He sees this as a problem?” I probed. She smiled briefly at this.

  “Of course, we don't work for Henry Weiss,” she said quietly. I gathered that the real CEO preferred to remain in the shadows. How this was managed without the board knowing or the media, I had no clue but that wasn't my business, no matter how hard I tried to make it my business.

  “I was thinking that for so many centuries TLP seemed mysterious because we weren't on the moon's surface to watch it happen. We could only view it from a great distance. Now that we are on the moon we are able to see its activity in greater detail. Maybe there is no issue at all,” I said, trying to play devil's advocate though my own mind told me that Fred might be right.

  “I think there is, though. After all, some who have taken to studying the phenomenon have noticed in the last few years a sharp increase in activity. Usually at times when the greater amount of the population is at sleep. Of course, the population on Langrenus has exploded in the past couple of years and now there are various work shifts and because there is no traditional daylight and night time there like here on Earth, and no visual cue of these times, the population easily rotates work and leisure time on shifts. So almost as many people are awake and working during “night” on the moon as during the “day” time. Some have noted that there is a difference in occurrence, duration and luminosity and even behavior of these lights. We believe something is amiss, Robert. We would like to send you on a private mission to check it out.”