by Dan Eaton
It still felt wonky. I’d been preoccupied with Myra and Nina for a long time and never really thought about Ananyu that way before, so I guess I shouldn’t hold it against her if she wanted to keep a little distance between us. I found out much later that Ananyu’s grandmother was a professional matchmaker that was highly sought after, back in her younger days in Mumbai. After she came to the US, she still dabbled in matchmaking while she spent a lot of time babysitting Ananyu. Ananyu learned many life lessons sitting at her grandmother’s kitchen table. Ananyu had done compatibility charts on the two of us and found something lacking. Of course, by that time, I had my own opinions on the subject.
Anyways, when I wasn’t elbows deep in the dirt, thinking about taking Ananyu to the Prom was pleasanter than thinking about my sessions with Christine or the always present possibility of having another run in with Yang. Either of them were far better topics to think about than Sam’s prediction that our mystery man was going to strike again during the school break. Things had been too quiet and I was certain that the silence didn’t mean our antagonist had gone away, yet instead was just the quiet before the storm.
They were all out to get him. The Chinese had subverted the NLH staff and now that bitch Christine wanted him to come in for another session. He’d been surprised when she hadn’t signed off on him after his first session with her. He didn’t have a choice about going, however, she had always struck him as a true patriot and figured she’d give him a pass quickly. Hah, true patriot, she was so far in bed with the Chinese it was a wonder she didn’t try to conduct the session with him in Mandarin, while her real boss, Mr. Zhang, watched on. He was trying his best to fool her, unfortunately, the handwriting was on the wall. Soon, she’d follow her master’s wishes and denounce him.
Once, that would have terrified him, yet he was so worn down. At work, at the cafeteria, even at home, they were watching him. Always watching to see what he did. He’d even seen Sam Tanner snooping around. It was hard to believe the Chinese could bring someone like Sam down, however, they obviously had. When the Chinese had threatened to destroy NLH, he had hoped to rally the inhabitants against the Chinese and their illegal acts of war. But the Chinese were smart and had insidiously wormed their way into the fabric of life at NLH. Now they had everyone subverted and were out to finally bring him down.
If the dreams would let up and let him get one good night’s rest, he could keep on fighting forever, although they never stopped, waking him night after night. He was so tired of the struggle, death didn’t sound so bad now. He still had enough in him to strike one last time against the Chinese. After that, he’d perish, but he’d make them pay a high price for his death if he had his way.
“So what’s she got us up to today?” I asked as Myra finished loading our work cart.
Myra gave me a smile and said, “Your mother would like us to harvest all the tomatoes out in that last section in the Expansion. “
The Expansion was the latest name for the Grand’s first expansion. I thought it was kind of dumb since the machines were already working on the next expansion. What were they going to call that, the Expansion’s Expansion? I said, “Great, we will waste half the day hauling crap back and forth.”
Myra laughed and said, “Just think of all the exercise you’ll be getting. You could use some, it’s not like you’re up loping through the Grand every morning like you use to.”
“Whatever”
Myra took Mei and Yang ahead while Adam and I started pulling the two work carts along. Yang and I seemed to have reached an uneasy truce. We didn’t talk to each other and avoided being near each other. I still wasn’t happy with the situation, however, Mom had sat us both down together and asked us to play nice or else. Neither of us were dumb enough to ask what the else was and Mom laid out the ground rules for us working together. If we had anything to say to each other, or there was a disagreement about something needing done, either Adam or Myra were the facilitators and had the final say on any decisions. So far, it seemed like it was working.
After a long walk we finally reached the farm chamber out at the end of the expansion. Myra and the others were already inside by the time Adam and I got there. I had just stepped in the door and walked a few steps along the outside of the first bed when I heard the noise that distracted me. Looking down at the nearest tomato plant, I spotted a bee making its way around the plant looking for blossoms. On Earth, I wouldn’t have thought a thing about it, although, here on the Moon, the bee was out of place. Myra was standing with Yang and Mei on the opposite side of the chamber and a little further in. I called over to her and said, “Hey Myra, come over here please.”
The bee was probably just an orphan that didn’t make it back to the hive when Marisa Daniels had removed the hive from the room. One missing worker bee wasn’t a big deal on Earth, unfortunately, Blayze’s mom, Marisa, had a tough time keeping her bee hives going and would probably want to recover this bee and check the room for any other strays. Myra walked up to me and I pointed out the stray and said, “You’d better give Mrs. Daniels a call and see what she wants to do about that.” Myra pulled out her E-Pad to make the call while I walked out to the carts to find one of the bee traps we always carried just for this sort of thing.
As I walked back in, Myra looked up and said, “That’s weird, I can’t get a connection.”
Before I could ask her what she meant, the yelling started. We looked over to where the noise was coming from and saw a panicked looking Yang wildly swatting at his shoulder while Mei looking very frightened was yelling for him to stop. Even as Myra and I turned to rush over to them, we saw Yang suddenly jerk and then resume his frenzied swatting only to jerk again. It was obvious that Yang was being stung by a bee and I knew it was bad because a terrified looking Mei was now yelling in Mandarin and trying to pull her brother away from the bees. Yang yelled something In Mandarin to his sister and tried to push her away, however, we saw it was already too late as she jerked twice to bee stings.
Adam was standing there watching the whole thing in shock. I yelled at him, “Adam, trip the emergency alarm, now. We need medical help.”
Myra was racing with me to reach Mei and Yang. I grabbed her wrist to stop her and said, “Myra, grab the hose and spray water at the bees to calm them down.”
Myra dashed off to grab the hose and I turned back to try to help the Zhangs. As I drew closer to Yang, I distracted him from the bees, and instead of swatting at them, he charged at me, yelling, “This is your fault. You’re trying to kill me and Mai.”
I really wasn’t into those self defense classes that Nina had made me go to although I must have remembered something because I was able to deflect Yang’s grab for me and instead, flipped him over and sent him crashing to the floor on his back. He hit heavily and had the wind knocked out of him. Looking at him just lying there helpless and immobile, I pulled the pruning knife I carried on my belt and started advancing on him. Myra had run up with the hose, then suddenly dropped it and stepped in front of me. In shock and anger she said, “Bryce, what the hell are you doing?”
I pointed down at the still unmoving Yang and said, “Look at his shirt, those bees are all gathered up by that spot on his shoulder. There’s got to be something attracting them to his shirt. We need to get it off him before he starts swatting them again and gets stung some more.”
I handed her the knife as understanding lit up her eyes. I grabbed the hose and started spraying the air around Mei who had collapsed into a pile near her brother’s head and was crying. Adam shouted at me and said, “Bryce, no one is responding to the emergency alert. I’m not getting through.”
Myra had cut Yang’s shirt off and was using the blade to remove the stingers still attached to his arm. Yang didn’t look so hot. There were angry welts on both his arms and hands and one on his neck. It looked like his face was starting to swell.
I told Adam and Myra to get Mei and Yang out of the chamber as I turned for the door and ran out looking for t
he nearest emergency station. Back in third grade, one of my classmates had been stung by a wasp and went into anaphylaxis. Fortunately, our teacher knew the kid was highly allergic to stings and carried an EpiPen with her whenever the class was outside. By the looks of both Mei and Yang, they both urgently needed an EpiPen. I loped down the corridor as fast as I could and fifty meters down came to a station. I banged the big red button and nothing happened. I hit it a second time and there was still no response.
A year ago, I had watched EMT Jim Dean pull the fire and medical trolleys out of an emergency station in the original Grand. I yanked open the station’s doors, vainly hoping the emergency alarm would go off. When it didn’t, I activated the medical trolley, and pulled it out like I remembered Jim Dean doing. Turning it back towards the room where we were working, I hit the throttle and hurried back the best I could.
Myra and Adam had the Zhangs outside the room when I pulled up. I said, “Myra, there’s got to be an EpiPen on the cart. Find it while Adam and I get them loaded.”
There was a bay on either side of the trolley to transport patients and Adam was helping Yang over to it. Yang was really looking bad. He had hives all over his chest and had started wheezing in just the little amount of time I had been gone. Mei looked flushed and fainted just as I reached her. I picked her up and carried her to the other bay. Myra said, “Bryce, I found the EpiPen, but there’s only one. What do we do?”
I looked at Mei and Yang, conscious that they were both in serious trouble and whatever I decided could have deadly consequences for them. I said, “Yang is already wheezing. Give it to him and then get on. Adam, go grab Yang’s shirt and then stay here and don’t let anybody in that room until Sam shows up. Don’t give that shirt to anyone but Sam.”
Myra had run over to Yang and jabbed the EpiPen into his thigh. She waited several seconds and then ran back to join me.
With that done, we took off, as Myra stood beside me on the rear deck of the trolley. Jim had said the trolleys were capable of thirty kph and that was probably true for someone who had trained on driving one. I’d never driven anything other than a bicycle before and was lucky to be doing half that and staying on the path.
Myra said, “How long until we can get them help?”
I said, “Probably five minutes, at the rate we’re going.”
Myra said, “I’m worried about Mai, she needs a shot too.”
I was about to answer, when I saw another emergency station coming up. I pulled up and hit the red button and nothing happened. I pulled past the doors and then jumped off and said, “Quick, Myra. There’s got to be another EpiPen on the trolley here. Grab it and give it to Mai.”
We got the trolley out and Myra injected Mei with the EpiPen.
We’d been back on the trolley and were approaching the junction between the Grand and the extension when Myra’s E-Pad started ringing. We were past whatever was causing problems with communications and my mom was calling Myra to find out how we were doing. Myra didn’t answer the call. She triggered the emergency function and was speaking to station security within seconds. Sam grabbed the call when she saw who was calling and Myra quickly updated her. By then, I was about a minute out from the medical station in the Grand, and as we pulled up, Ananyu’s mom rushed up to the cart to assess Yang and Mai’s conditions. They were quickly loaded onto gurneys and hurried inside.
Myra followed them inside. My legs felt all rubbery and I just slid down and sat on the rear deck of the trolley. I’d been running on adrenaline since this had started, and now, with nothing to focus on, I started shaking. I was sitting there like that when I heard Sam say, “Look here, Bryce, it’s against Habitat rules to upchuck in public places, so don’t you be doing that, hey.”
She gave me a smile and said, “Seriously, though, you doing okay kid?”
I looked at Sam and said, “They tried to kill them Sam. Mei and Yang, someone tried to kill them.”
“I know. Let’s go have a long talk about what happened.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Solace of Friends
Good morning fellow NLH residents. It’s Wednesday, March 23rd, 2039.
In Habitat News, the Virgin Galactic liner, VLS Eve, arrives this morning at 10:00 am with a contingent of tourists eager to visit the Habitat. This is an extension of Virgin Galactic’s space tourism endeavor and they hope that NLH will become a regular destination soon. Please give these folks a warm welcome if you encounter them. The tourists arriving today from the United States are: Bill and Peggy LaValley, Crockett and Karen Thyne, Cubby and Nancy Loewecke, Steve and Joanne Behnke, and Martin and Julie OBlack. Also arriving from Brazil are Artur and Catrina Kunai, Pedro and Izabel Honda, Zacarias and Vidonia Ichikawa, Miguel and Catia Ootani, and
Bernardo and Catalina Tsutsum. Finally, arriving from Denmark are: Tage and Lisbet Fransen, Morten and Ailsa Asmussen, Bodil and Meta Hagemann, Niles and Karon Gress, and Pedar and Trudel Fransen
Also in the news, yesterday, there was a power failure in the computer closet serving the Grand’s Expansion. This resulted in a communication failure within that part of the Grand that lasted approximately forty five minutes. . In related news, two members of a work crew from CDB Farms suffered bee stings and had to be rushed to emergency care. Both have recovered. An investigation is ongoing to determine how this accident occurred.
In financial news today, on the Lunar Stock Market shares of Mussconny Machine are trading at $33.18 a share, Mussconny Fabrication at $36.87 a share, Hotel Whipple shares are at $32.16. O’Reilly’s Shellfish Company is at $27.07 a share and CDB Farms is trading at $27.31 a share. MM Brewing is at $2.84 a share, and Daniels Designs is at $2.40 a share. Psuche Neural is at $12.85 a share.
“Sandy, could I speak to you about that matter you brought to me last week?”
I turned around, and there was Sam Tanner. I said, “Sure, Bryce is in and out of here tonight, so why don’t we step into my office where it’s a little more private.”
Mr. Zhang had approached me last week, wondering why I had refused the contracts Northern Lights had offered me. The Chinese company had designed some autonomous road building robots and wanted me to fabricate the frames and install the electronics that they would supply. It would be a sweet deal for both companies and I was ready to sign on the dotted line when Northern Lights suddenly canceled the offer and withdrew from the negotiations. I was disappointed I didn’t get the business, however, I figured Northern Lights must have run into a roadblock. Then Mr. Zhang came by and shed new light on the situation. Northern Lights was just as perplexed over me suddenly dropping out of the deal. I suspected our emails had been hacked and took the matter to Sam Tanner.
As Sam Tanner sat down in one of the comfortable chairs in my office, I offered her some coffee. With both of us set with fresh cups of coffee, I said, “So, uh, Sam, what did you find?”
“I had one of my friends back home dig into this for me. Using the passwords for your system, she was able to track your email from your virtual server to the Habitat’s email server. From there, there’s a log showing it being transmitted to the Habitat’s comm server that manages the link from here to the satellite link in LEO. There’s no record of the communication server receiving the email. My friend Sherri did some digging on the comm server and was able to find the deleted message headers, so we know the email actually got there. Somebody deleted the message after it arrived, yet before it was transmitted to Earth.”
“Somebody from the staff here. That’s why you had your friend look into it, and didn’t use one of the facility people.”
“Don’t know who I can trust, hey. Sherri also found some left over message headers that looked like they were from Northern Lights. The body info was corrupted, but it looked like it might have been a contract. In the inbound message logs, she found an email from Northern Lights where they canceled the deal. She checked the outbound message log and there were several emails from you to Northern Lights, the last one was you turning down
the deal.”
“So somebody got into the comm server and sent me a message posing as one from Northern Lights canceling the deal and sending out one posing as from me telling Norther Lights to go get stuffed. Neither one of us had a clue what was really being said. If Northern Lights hadn’t reached out to Mr. Zhang to find out why I turned them down, we would have had no idea what happened.”
“That pretty much sums it up. All the servers involved are virtual boxes running on the system locked away in the server room. To do privileged administrative tasks on them like this would have meant someone had to be on the private network. There’s no connection from that network to the rest of the Habitat, so it had to be someone on the facility team.”
“So, uh, that rules out Bryce right?”
“I can’t completely rule him out, although it makes it extremely unlikely. I can’t say a fifteen year old wouldn’t have the sophisticated computer skills to pull this off and have reasoned out a way to get in the room, however, Bryce has never displayed those kind of talents and, for what it’s worth, the access logs have never shown him in the room. It’s not airtight, but it’s a pretty good bet it wasn’t him, hey. We also need to remember that this may have nothing at all to do with the previous incidents.”
“So, uh, we got someone else on the rampage?”
“This could be industrial espionage. Maybe someone paid off one of the facility staff just to insure this deal didn’t go through. It’s not like that kind of thing has never happened before. If we catch whoever did this, it doesn’t get Bryce off the hook unless they admit to the other incidents.”
“Wait a minute, how did Sherri get access? She’s back on Earth, right?”
