As a reporter, you develop a nose for a story—there’s a reason they used to call us newshounds. I was used to tracking down leads, swimming the grid, and cornering unwilling witnesses, all to get to that essential bit of the truth for my readers.
But being the story—that’s quite a different thing.
I wanted to shrink back behind the curtains, to give up my role to someone more excited to play the lead.
But there was no one else to save the world. Just me and Rafe.
—From When the Lights Went Out,” by Sanya Thorn
Sanya’s Velcro seatbelt kept her strapped down to her seat as the moon buggy bounced over the lunar landscape, kicking up dust as it went. The dust settled back to the surface almost immediately behind them in the negligible atmosphere.
Luna was slowly developing one as human activity released various gasses on the surface, but the solar wind just as constantly stripped it off. Sanya had written a rousing science feature article on that one in her first year as a cub reporter.
Simpler times. She sighed and turned her attention back to their goal. They’d passed the beginning of Redemption’s lava tube now. It loomed over them like a mountain. They followed its curve, zipping along the wide lunar plain that separated it from its nearest neighbor.
The jostling of the buggy rattled her bones.
-Where’s the transmitter again?-
-It’s on the Hayes Promontory.- As they ran along the side of the hulking cliff, she could see glints of reflected Earthlight off the wide light wells that both collected solar energy and let light into the city during its fourteen-day-long “days.” A team of automated mechs was working on one of them, cleaning and maintaining it. The mechs paid them no heed.
She looked up. The Earth hung in the night sky, part of it wreathed in shadow. She’d never figured out the whole Earth-Moon phases—when it faced away from the sun or toward it, and how the whole shadow thing worked.
It wasn’t really her fault. One, she wasn’t a scientist, like her mother. And two, she wasn’t actually outside all that often, especially since Avri’s death.
She wondered how the dropnauts were faring up there.
-Can I ask you something?- Rafe’s question startled her out of her musing.
-Sure.-
-Why did you become a reporter?- He sounded genuinely curious.
She stared at her gloved hand, which was gripping the buggy’s roll bar as if her life depended on it. -My mother. She was a scientist at Alpha Base, but I think she would have been one if she hadn’t been bitten by the science bug.- She missed Alara Thorn. -When she died, she was working on a new edible fungus that would grow outside without air.- Sanya had been proud of her mother’s success.
Rafe’s helmeted face swiveled to look at her. She couldn’t see him inside—only the reflection of the Earth and the starry sky above. -I’m sorry. What happened to her?-
-Hey, eyes on the… lunar surface.- She was silent for a few minutes. Even now, after five years, it was difficult to think about that time.
He turned away. -You don’t have to tell me.-
She watched the terrain ahead of them shift with the bouncing of the buggy. -She died of radiation-induced cancer. She spent a lot of time outside with her studies. Too much.- The last few months had been hell. Her mother had been unable to speak or swallow, her throat closed by a grapefruit-sized tumor. None of the conventional methods had worked. Chemo, radiation, even gene therapy. How the hell was radiation supposed to cure radiation-induced damage? -We lost so much in the Crash. They could have cured her.-
-Probably. But even before the Crash, medicine wasn’t perfect.- His gloved hand slid across to squeeze her free one, resting on the seat between them.
If she closed her eyes, she could still see her mother’s face. Her piercing gaze. -She had this unquenchable desire to know. Everything was a solvable puzzle to her.- Even her cancer. -It was too much for my father. He left when I was seven.- She saw him occasionally, but they had very little to talk about. -I think that’s why I became a reporter. To know. And to help.- She glanced at his profile. -And you?-
Rafe steered around a wide outcrop, taking them farther from the city for a couple minutes. -I was creche-raised.-
-Oh. I’m sorry.- She wasn’t sure why she said it. She’d been in a creche too, after her father left.
He laughed. -Nah, it was great. My creche parent, Treva, was strict but fair. They wanted me to grow up to do whatever I wanted.-
-And you chose publicity agent?- Sanya laughed. -I would have thought thromb star or dropnaut. Or maybe poor but satisfied artist?-
-Funny. I did actually try my hand at art, but I decided I needed more… human interaction.-
-What did you… draw? Sculpt? Trace?- The man had hidden depths she hadn’t suspected.
-Paint. Old-style, watercolors. Mostly moonscapes. Sometimes women.-
-Those I have to see.-
-Maybe. If we make it out of this.-
That sobered her right up. -Yeah, well.-
He bit his lip. -That bad experience you mentioned before—the last time you went outside.-
-Yeah?-
-Was it with a guy?-
She shook her head. -Her name was Avri. She was… we were together for four years. She fell…- Sanya closed her eyes. She could still hear that scream. -Three hundred meters to the crater floor. She was gone before I could reach her.-
-Sorry.- He reached over and squeezed her gloved hand.
They rode on in silence for a few minutes.
-Can I ask you something?- She looked at her gloved hands, waiting for his response.
-Anything.-
-What’s with the shakes?- She expected some kind of trademarked bullshit Rafe Wilde response. He surprised her again.
-There’s a power core underneath the old Chinese base that’s slowly melting the ice under the surface. It’s only going to get worse.-
-Cracking hell.- That explained a lot. -And the return—it’s a rescue program.-
He nodded, staring straight ahead. -I can’t confirm or deny that.-
Bullshit. That was confirmation enough. She let it go, for now.
The Hayes Promontory came into view ahead, a plateau that connected to the main mass of the lava tube but extended out a few hundred meters from its walls.
-So… where’s this hideout of yours? Just in case I want to drop in sometime.-
-If I tell you, I’d have to shoot your body up into the void.-
She wasn’t sure he was joking. Entirely. -Seriously, though. Where is it?-
-It’s… over there.- He pointed off into the distance, in the direction of Oceanus Procellarum.
-That’s vague.-
-It’s all you’re getting.- He went silent again.
She wondered why he was single. Did he like being a free agent? Was he ace? Or just too driven for a relationship? Who are you, Rafe Wilde?
-Looks like we’re here.- Rafe pulled the buggy to a halt, sliding up to the edge of the promontory like a stunt driver, spraying it with dust.
Sanya sighed, shaking her head. Men. She pulled herself out, landing lightly on the lunar surface. She stepped back to get a good look at the cliff face in front of her. When she’d placed the illicit transmitter, she’d made sure she could find it again when the time came. -It’s this way, if you want to come.- She set off at a good clip, not waiting for him. There was no knowing how much time they had. Best not to waste it.
She didn’t look back. But she doubted he would follow.
Time enough when all this was over to learn his secrets. Sanya grinned at the prospect.
Hera paced back and forth across the small space inside the storage cube, cursing under her breath-words that would have made her creche mother proud. “This is dome-cracking air-hissing crap-fucking ridiculous.” She was still sweating profusely—the heat had gotten worse, not better, as the night had worn on.
Ghost looked up at her, sipping from his canteen. “Yup.”
“I mean, here we are trapped like moon gunk in an air filter.”
“Yup.” He held out the canteen.
She took it, and the lukewarm water soothed her dry throat. “Three hours. Three fricking hours! When will they go away?” She crept to the door and peered outside. The drones were still patrolling, passing just outside the cube in a regular progression. One every sixty seconds. Or the same one, over and over again. Maybe it couldn’t sense her with the canceller button on, but Ghost didn’t have one. Either way, it wouldn’t leave.
Ghost shook his head. “Don’t know.”
“You seem awfully unconcerned about the whole thing.”
He was always calm—one of the things she loved and hated about him.
“I just know there’s nothing I can do right now to change the situation.” He rummaged through his pack and drew out some junlei leaves. “Hungry?”
She shook her head. “I’m too anxious to be hungry. Any change with Sam?”
Ghost looked down at Sam’s motionless form. “Nope.”
Sam had been following them across the wide space between the fence and the first of the storage cubes, telling them about how he’d gotten there, when something had happened.
His voice had… run down, was the best she could manage for a description. He’d collapsed, falling heavily to the bare earth.
They’d dragged him across the empty space together, reaching one of the storage units just as a drone appeared at the edge of the base and made its way toward them.
Now they were pinned down inside a storage cube—the first open one she’d found—and Sam wasn’t moving.
She knelt beside him, putting a hand on his metallic shoulder. “What do you think is wrong with him?”
“Near as I can guess, the frequency of the shimmer field must have changed.”
“Then why isn’t this affected?” Hera touched her button.
“Who knows? Maybe they synch? Maybe there’s a predetermined sequence?” He chewed on some dried fruit they’d brought with them.
She nodded. “Probably. You’re the engineer.” She sidled up to the cracked door again. “Still there.” She had to do something. This was ridiculous. “I’m going out.”
“What? Where?” Now he sounded alarmed.
Hera snorted. “I don’t know. But I have to do something.” Rai could be dying out there somewhere. The button would protect her from the drones. It had to. “Being stuck in here is killing me.”
“We should wait.” Ghost’s eyes met hers.
“For what? He’s... shut down.” She’d almost said dead. “We don’t know for how long.” Her friends were out there somewhere.
She’d failed the team on the Bristol, and they were all dead.
That didn’t make any sense—she’d been nowhere near the jumper when it had been hit and had no way to know that piece of space debris was coming—but it felt true.
Ghost shook his head. “We need him. Without Sam, we’re going in blind.” He reached out to touch Sam’s chest and stiffened, reaching for his temple. “Cracking hell!”
“What?” She sank down next to him. “What’s going on?”
-This.- He took her hand and rested it on Sam, and suddenly she was in a whirlwind of noise and pain.
Hera howled.
Then she sensed him. Sam. Somewhere up ahead, through the storm. She pushed forward against the static/pain/wind. She could feel him there, tantalizingly close. Sam!
Someone took her hand. Ghost.
-What in the cracking hell is this?- She looked around again. There was nothing else but raging static. Her own form was little more than an outline.
-I think Sam called us. We’re in vee.-
Hera nodded. One more weird thing to account for on a mission that had gone surpassingly strange.
They joined virtual hands, and together they pushed ahead through the electronic sleet.
It rushed past her like sandpaper, fraying her nerves, her emotions, her will. Ghost held on to her tightly. He was no more than a wisp of a form, a shade of his normal self, as if an artist had drawn him in quick brushstrokes.
-You okay?-
-Hell if I know. You look like the surface of the Moon.-
Hera would have stuck her tongue out at him if she’d had one.
Together they pressed on.
She knew this wasn’t real. Still, hurts like hell, for being just a figment of my imagination.
Then the wind began to slow. Bits of static flew around her like snowflakes floating up into the ether.
Her vision slowly cleared, and she could see Sam lying there on a white floor. She pushed through the last of the tempest and dropped to the “ground” next to him. He was prone on that white surface, just like in real life.
Ghost settled in next to her, moving like a stick figure. It was weird. -What is this place?-
She shook her head. -You were right—we’re in vee space. I think Sam called us.-
All around them, chaos swirled, a technicolor flow of static energy. But in this small space, it was calm.
-Why do we look like this?- She held up her arm, a beautiful tracery of green lines that shimmered when she moved.
-Low processing power. Sam’s almost out of energy.-
Makes sense.
Sam began to glow, or rather his chest did. A blue line of light ran along a seam on his chest plate.
She reached forward to touch it and it opened, revealing a shiny blue sphere inside. The sphere lifted into the air and began to spin. -What is it?-
Ghost was transfixed. -It’s his core.-
-His core?-
-Like his brain.-
She frowned, or she would have, if she’d had her human form. -I know what a core is. But why is he showing it to us?-
-I think he wants us to take it with us.-
The core darkened and fell back into Sam’s chest. Then the floor began to darken, too, the bright white surface shifting to gray and then to black.
-Ghost.- Hera was frightened now. She’d been in vee many times before, but never like this. -What do we do now?-
-I don’t know. I think… I think maybe we’re inside Sam’s core, and it’s out of power.-
If the power core dies, do we die too?
Ghost was only a faint blue outline now against the static—an actual ghost. Hera grinned in spite of herself. -Here.- She reached out toward him. -Take my hand and maybe…-
The static storm snapped and closed on them in a heartbeat, obliterating the strange world.
There was searing pain, and then nothing.
Ghost woke to the most terrible hangover of his life. Worse than his twenty-first birthday bash with Tanner Blythe. Even worse than his last bender on Luna, when he’d been kicking himself for breaking up with Rai.
For a long while he just lay there, his eyes closed, willing the throbbing, pulsing pain at his temples to go away. He tried to convince himself that he was back home in bed, that in a few minutes he’d get up and have the house AI administer something to him to stop this aching hell in his skull.
Eventually he decided that no one was going to help him but himself.
He opened his eyes. He was staring up at the plain white ceiling of the storage unit. A dim light pervaded the space, making him blink as his eyes adjusted.
The heat had broken at last. A cool breeze threaded its fingers through the partially open door, as if testing its welcome, and then exited through a series of vents near the ceiling.
It was daylight outside, from the light that shone through those same vents.
He didn’t have the energy to query his loop.
Ghost pushed himself up, groaning at the pain in his back. He must have fallen on his back when Sam’s vee space had… exploded? Collapsed? And he’d laid in a bad position for hours.
Medicine. Pack. His mind could only handle one thought at a time. He located his pack—it was about a meter away, propped up against the wall.
One hand over the other. He winced as the movement caused a spike of pain in his head, but he forced himself forward anyhow. A painful glance sideways—the muscles of his neck protesting mightily—confirmed Hera lay on her back too, on the far side of Sam’s prone body.
Sam. He was supposed to do something for Sam.
Put on your own in-flight mask first. Ghost grinned at the image and then yelped as pain jumped up his neck.
Finally, he reached his pack. Unlacing it proved to be another challenge, as his fingers didn’t seem to want to obey commands from his feeble brain. But at last he got it open and managed to pull out his med kit.
His training served him well. It was at the very top.
He opened it and sought out one of the pain tabs wrapped in a disposable junlei bag.
Inserting it under his tongue, he leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes, waiting for it to take effect.
Jolly led Ghost—Gordy back then—by the hand down Main Street. The other children followed, allowed to walk without direct supervision. But Gordy got special treatment from their creche mother.
“I want to walk with Hera.” He’d been pouting for three blocks, since they’d left the protective environment of the creche. He lived for these field trips outside its walls.
It was so boring there. Nothing ever changed. Play, study, sleep. Play, study, sleep.
“You know what happened last time I let you run free. You nearly destroyed Farmer Appavu’s apple cart.”
“It was an accident.” He hadn’t known that thing he’d pulled had been keeping the cart from moving. How could he have predicted how the whole cart would roll off the plaza and down into the creek? Surely she could understand that.
He looked up at Jolly. She was tall—twice as tall as he was, at least. When she laughed, she was kind of pretty. But right now her determined face made her look old and severe.
He tried another tack. “I was five back then. I’m almost five-and-a-half now.”
She pulled him aside and knelt to look him in the eye. The other children gathered around, and he felt his cheeks redden. “Gordon, when you can show me you’re worthy of more responsibility, I’ll give it to you.” Jolly’s braids clinked against one another as she poked his chest. “Do you think I want to keep my eyes on you all the time? I have a life of my own, you know.”
The other kids snickered as she stood and started off again with him in tow. All but Hera.
She came up beside him and took his other hand. “I’ll walk with you, Gordy.”
He grinned.
Jolly looked down at them and frowned but said nothing.
Hera squeezed his hand.
When they reached the Market, she pulled them to one side, just above the crash of the Moon River’s waterfall. He looked up at where the water burst forth from the cavern wall, a continuous gushing where the manmade the river began, feeling the spume on his face.
“Who can tell me the fifth tenet of Redemption?”
Gordy raised his free hand.
“Someone’s been studying. Gordy, tell us. The fifth tenet.”
“I will not lie.”
The other kids laughed.
“No, don’t make fun of him. Gordy, that’s not the fifth, but it is one of them. Hera, which one?”
She shot him an I’m sorry glance. “Number four.”
“Perfect. And what’s number five?”
Hera bit her lip.
Gordy squeezed her hand.
“Um, I will make a better world?” She looked up at Jolly pensively.
“Close enough. ‘I will help build a better world.’ In everything we do, we strive to ‘Recycle, Reuse, and Restore.’ She gestured at the Market. “We’re fortunate here on Luna. We don’t have the pests that they had on Earth. Still, we have our challenges. But all of our waste—food waste, human waste, etc.—is reused. Much of it becomes fertilizer for the farms over in the Ag Annex, which turns it back into food for the colony.”
“Eeeew. We’re eating poop?” Gordy couldn’t help himself.
Jolly laughed. “I suppose so. As humankind has since the beginning. Where did you think fertilizer came from?”
He frowned. “Um, dirt?”
“And where does dirt come from?”
“I don’t know.” He’d never really thought about it.
“Dirt is the decomposed form of everything that lived before, along with minerals from the ground.”
Gordy looked at the dirt under the plants along the riverbank in consternation.
Jolly ruffled his hair. “You get used to the idea.” To the rest of the kids, she said, “Come on. Let’s go into the Market. I’ll show you how each of the things they sell is a product of Recycle, Reuse, and Restore.”
“Can we buy something?” Tamryn looked hopeful.
“We’ll see. Maybe if you behave.” She knelt next to Gordy again.
Gordy frowned in dismay. What did I do now?
She surprised him. “You can go without me.”
“Really?” Excitement made his stomach flip.
“As long as you go with Hera and promise to behave yourself.”
“Yes! I will. Thanks!” He threw his arms around her neck. “You won’t regret it.”
“Make sure I don’t.”
He took Hera’s hand, and they ran off into the Market together.
Ghost opened his eyes.
His head had stopped pulsing. There was still a baseline pain, like the remnants of a bad headache, but he decided he could live with it.
He looked around the room. This whole base—the whole city—was littered with things made to be disposed. There were plastics, pavement, petroleum products everywhere.
Earth had been a very different world than the one he’d grown up in.
Recycle, Reuse, and Restore was a cornerstone of his own upbringing, and it was almost physically painful for him to see so much evidence of the abuse of an entire world.
Hera still lay on her back where he’d seen her in his hangover haze.
He made his way over to her and laid her out more comfortably, retrieving a clean shirt from his pack and wrapping it up to make a pillow.
She moaned.
“I know, I know. Here, this will make you feel better.” He slipped a tab under her tongue.
Then he sat back to await her awakening.
Sam lay next to them, his chest gleaming in the light from the doorway.
Sam. The vision in vee—Sam wanted them to take out his core. What was that all about? Sam had gone to such an effort to pass on that message—it had to be important.
Then he understood. So we can take him with us.
He scrambled back to his pack and found his toolkit. He flipped it open and found a screwdriver. Standard. He hated using such a blunt instrument on such a beautiful mech as Sam, but it would get the job done, and Sam could have any damage fixed later. If there is a later.
He searched for the seam Sam had shown him.
He’d done some work on mechs. Usually there was a place that would cause the panel to pop up if you pressed it in just the right spot.
Working his thumb around the edge, he finally found the release. The center of Sam’s silver chest popped up just a millimeter. He inserted the screwdriver and pried it up as carefully as he could. Suddenly it popped off, falling to the floor with a loud clatter.
Hera sat up, staring at him. “What the cracking hell?” She reached up to rub her temple. She stared at him, then looked at Sam’s open chest. “Did that really happen?”
Ghost laughed. “I guess it did, if you remember it too.” He frowned. “Though we should probably see if we’re talking about the same thing.”
“Sam. The static. His core—”
He reached into Sam’s chest and pulled it out. “This?”
“Yes. But it was glowing.”
“He’s powered down now. All the way. Probably the shimmer screen.” He pulled out a soft cloth from his pack and wrapped the core gently. “I think he gave us his blessing to take him with us and to go on.”
Hera nodded, staring at the wrapped-up core. “Is he okay in there?”
“Yeah, as long as we don’t damage it.” He tucked it inside his pack and then replaced the tool box and medicine kit. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I’ve been run over by a sledge. But I’ll get over it. What did you give me?”
“A little telaxodin. My hangover cure.”
“You mean it was worse than this?” She rubbed her temple. “Totally not fair, to have a hangover and no wild night of drinking before.” She got up and reached for her canteen. “It’s cooler than last night.”
“Yes, and yes.” Ghost closed up the pack. “I have a plan. Ready to storm the castle?”
Hera grinned. “Think it will work?”
He grabbed her hand and squeezed it. “It’ll take a miracle. But maybe.”
She kissed his cheek. “Then we better come up with a miracle.”
Ghost closed his eyes, longing for more and knowing it would never be.