Attention: ALL
Subject: Memorial Announcement
Set your calendars for the first weekend of June for the inaugural memorial holiday as we celebrate the life of our founder Faraday Tanner and all who helped Lunar Trust One become a reality.
Shift supervisors will distribute holiday hours so that everyone can participate. Expect feasts, contests, performances, presentations, and extensive decorations throughout common areas. Volunteers welcomed!
—President Marshall
My fingers flew over the Playbox controller, smashing buttons in familiar patterns. I’d missed this so much. An airy space in my chest filled with glittery excitement as I played. I was speed. I was luck. I wasn’t a stressed-out girl living in a bubble that was about to surrender-slash-pop.
My scores were trash, but I didn’t care. All I needed was this moment, freed from the real world of responsibility and heartaches, where I could let my body respond as it wanted, and my mind was honed in on a single purpose. Play.
It wouldn’t last long. It never did. Everything that wasn’t “right now” may as well not exist, which, in a weird way, made right now that much more real. I wanted to hold onto it all, this right now, but I was afraid of gripping it too tightly.
If the past few weeks had taught me anything, it was that holding my breath and waiting for the other shoe to drop was agonizing. Better to enjoy each moment on its own, to let the past be past and the future come on its own time.
One month ago today—that was how long it had been since the RC had landed on the moon. We worked, ate, showered, exercised, visited with friends and family. We had meals and dates and sleepovers. Plants had to be watered, washrooms had to be cleaned, and the ordinariness of our routines nearly camouflaged the impending doom.
But there doom sat, floating at the edges of every conversation, simmering with buttery tension. We went through the motions aware that any moment might be the one that ended our shared dream, and we fell asleep—if we could sleep—only to face the same dread when we woke.
People in my lunch line tended to look exhausted, and that was only the people who still showed up for meals, instead of waiting for Stephan to make a delivery round. Nobody finished their food, no matter what we served.
Halle sat next to me, playing a farming game on her tablet while Andrek and V hammered out a new series of messages to send to Earth. Since V’s contact had gone dark, Andrek’s old squad mates had become our only hope for reaching out to Faraday’s former friends. V was a mess about it, because we’d not been able to nudge the accord’s progress, and we could get caught breaking the communication ban any day. It seemed we were further away from making the accord happen than when she’d told me about it.
Joule had just left for his shift, though he’d put up a whiteboard to clarify our schedules for next week, adjusting for my new official “bedtime.” Which was something I had to have now. At least everyone was supportive about it.
It had taken several terribly bad prescriptions before finding a good fit last week, so I was rested for the first time in ages. With that came a whole rainbow of thoughts and feelings I didn’t know how to balance yet, because I was too busy figuring out what they were.
“Message away,” Andrek announced, his voice heavy. “Now we wait.”
“Again,” V added with a sigh.
A shuffling noise behind the whiteboard pulled my attention.
“Does nobody else hear that? Really?” I asked for the third day in a row, but apparently no one did.
I paused my game and lowered the controller. Andrek’s eyes were brittle and cold, same as V’s. Getting hold of his squad mates had been easy, but moving up through the chain of command to reach those closer to Brand had proved harder than any of us expected. And pandering to Brand’s labyrinth of yes-men had taken a huge toll on both Andrek and V. It was weird too, because it didn’t seem like anyone working with Brand could stand him, but they all had to act like they did, policing everyone around them to do the same.
The air, which wasn’t all that pleasant to begin with, curdled. It was like, by contacting another of Brand’s underlings, we’d invited him inside, and now he and his infamous sneer stood here in our living room.
There was only one fool-proof way to shift the mood, so I turned off my game and set the projector back to its usual screen: a sprawling chart that showed every minute detail of our plans for the first lunar memorial. Though our planning had had to take a backseat to the accord and searching for the spy, it was still the thing that had originally brought us together, and the one thing we had to look forward to not sucking.
My sister’s energy booted out Brand’s like she’d knocked him away with the swing of her hip. Ra ra, no room for monsters.
V brightened, going to the wall at once to study some unmade decision, no doubt. There weren’t many left, but even one was too much for her. Halle glanced over, just for a moment, to check that “Memorial Mountain” was still listed on potential ideas for future years. It was, for her sake, but far, far in a future we weren’t sure would exist.
“All right, I’m off then. Break’s over.” Andrek stretched. “Should I tell your parents you’ll bring dinner?”
Office picnics had become a regular thing, more out of necessity than desire. My parents wanted to make sure I was eating, which was annoying but fair. I was still angry at them for a hundred reasons, but that wasn’t one. Between eating more and sleeping better, I felt less cloudy all over, like I was a stream refilled with water instead of mud.
“Yeah, thanks,” I told Andrek, and he came to kiss me on his way out. His eyes were bloodshot and sunken. Not from lack of rest, I didn’t think; he got plenty of that. It was the stress of waiting in constant terror. “Pace yourself, okay?”
“Always, princess,” he whispered into my hair. “You too. I’ll let you all know the moment I hear anything back.”
Once he had gone, I settled on the floor to watch V think. She paced in front of the projection and muttered loose strands of whatever she was calculating in her head while her fingers twisted through her hair. I knew she was mulling over the accord and not the memorial still, but she reminded me so much of my sister in moments like this, when she was lost inside a puzzle. It made my heart swell till it was so big in my chest, so exposed and thinly stretched like a balloon, that I had to measure my breaths in the careful in-for-three and out-for-five rhythm Dr. Fromme had taught me.
Our biggest remaining decision, likely the one V was unable to chew on now, may have been the most important one of all: who would emcee. They’d be the voice who set the tone for every other year, their words recited again and again, on top of being the mouthpiece for our message now to the trust and whatever supporters we had left on Earth.
I’d narrowed the applicants down to three trustees. Two professionals from the entertainment department and one amateur comedian-slash-defunct environmental science professor from sanitation. Each were high-energy funny and smart, charismatic, and convincingly solemn when necessary. I couldn’t possibly choose between them, and V had grown increasingly frustrated with my indecisiveness.
I’d thought the “when” would be the hardest choice. It couldn’t be her birthday, which was my major argument. Nor the day she’d died. For weeks we considered the day she released her first video, but ultimately decided it was too close to two other religious holidays.
We eventually settled on June 5, which was less than one week away.
“Should I play the auditions again?”
V stalled with the energy of a snapped rubber band returning to its normal shape. “Hang on a moment.”
I sat on my hands to hold my questions, knowing she’d only speak once she’d found her words.
I’d been playing an RPG Halle sent me, where I was this hero warrior leading my party through battles all over a sprawling empire. In it, I was the one everyone in the game turned to for decisions. That was not my real life, and, frankly, that was for the best. V let me contribute, even veto sometimes, but she was the brains here, the one with vision. There was nothing wrong with being the NPC at her side.
Getting closer to V had been such a bumpy road so far. I wasn’t complaining, but it was tricky to know where I stood. It felt stupid to ask with everything going on. We’d kissed a few more times, and we held hands a lot, but she was hot and cold with me. Not brittle, ice-queen cold, anymore, but not yet comfortably “warm.” She’d been thrilled that Joule and I decided to date.
“I actually like them all,” V said finally. “I don’t want to pick only one.”
“Does that mean it’s time for me?” Halle withdrew a die from her chest pocket. She always had one on her. She said it was easier to leave decisions to chance than to worry over each one.
V frowned and spun to the screen. “I don’t think that’s right either.”
I freed my hands and shook them a bit to get the blood flowing. “What if we don’t pick? Why not use all three?”
“If only it were so easy,” V said, her eyes glazing over as the “other” topic loomed between us.
“Let’s make it that easy,” I offered, perking up as the idea sank in. “They could riff off each other, take turns and stuff. It could actually solve a few issues with the schedule, if it’s not just one person.”
V made a noise that meant she was considering it. I was convinced she’d come around to agreeing. She’d have had a quicker counterpoint otherwise.
“Meanwhile, is anyone hungry?” I asked. We’d gotten into the habit of eating here. Most people weren’t using the cafeteria much anymore, whether because they had “too much work to do” or because they were avoiding the security patrols clogging the hallways, I didn’t know.
I retrieved three sack lunches and passed them out. Sacks—what half our menu was reduced to these days, for convenience and portability. Today there were cupcakes, though I was only making dessert twice a week lately since I’d been running deliveries with Stephan so much.
The shuffling noise came from behind the wall again.
“Do you hear it now?” I asked.
“I heard something!” Halle said around a mouthful of burrito.
V swallowed fast, cocking her head to the side to listen. We passed a beat, quiet. “I don’t hear—”
“Shh!” Halle said and mouthed, “Listen.”
A scraping sound came from behind us on the couch.
Concussive thumps. Footfalls.
The wall panel popped some wholly unnatural way, and I jumped up, pulling V and Halle along with me. Just in time.
Three security guards pushed the panel open, spilling its broken parts and insulation all over our abandoned seats. They wore lightweight armored suits, fit for emergency space procedures. Boots to helmets white.
Halle shrieked once then clamped her mouth shut hard, her peachy cheeks mottling. V stiffened into her full mask, arms tight at her sides. The guards clocked us, unsure who to zero in on as dangerous. Me, ghost-white and gripping the other two by their arms; my friends, wide-eyed but hard-jawed.
One clicked open their visor. It rose ridiculously slowly, revealing suspicious gray eyes and pale white skin. Only then did I notice the long blonde braid snaking out the back of the helmet.
“Danny?” I said.
“You three alone here?” she asked, ignoring me calling her name.
“Yes,” I answered, instinctively stepping between her and my friends. I wasn’t expecting violence—the guards were trustees, same as us—but she recognized what I’d done almost before I realized I’d done it.
Danny relaxed and moved back. “We didn’t know there was anyone here. It’s supposed to be a closet, not…” She glanced around, taking in our couch and projector, our spilled lunches fallen onto a rug. Nobody puts a rug in a closet, her face said. “Whose quarters are these?”
“Well,” I started awkwardly.
That was a complicated question. No one’s. Andrek’s. Sometimes mine. Joule, V, and Halle all used it too, but like me they returned to their own rooms more often than not. I decided she probably only wanted surface facts, not the deep-down story behind it.
“My boyfriend’s. He’s an assistant to my parents in Planning, the Tanners, you know?”
“He at work? Who else has access to this space?” one of the other guards asked.
“Why?” V countered. “Is something wrong?”
“Besides y’all storming into our living room?” Halle added.
Danny jerked her head, meeting my stare with a weary, almost sad, expression. “You three need to come with me.”
“Why?” V asked again, her pitch rising.
They urged us out the hole they’d made in the wall, revealing a hidey-place I knew nothing about. It wasn’t a large space, probably only big enough for one person to stretch their arms out and touch each wall, but inside...
Inside was a hoard of supplies. I saw crates of various sizes, with labels like “H2O” and “Pantry” and “First Aid,” scrawled in an almost illegible script.
The missing supplies, right here in our secret headquarters.
“To be questioned and charged,” Danny answered gravely. “For crimes against the trust.”
Faraday had expressed a lot of opinions about security on the trust, and I vaguely recalled a number of heated talks with my parents and the board. It would start at the breakfast table, follow us through the hallways into the collective’s foyer, and spill out of the conference rooms hours later.
She never wanted a police force, that was what I remembered most. Something about armed forces turning violence inward. Part of her presidential campaign had been about resisting the urge to have a fully surveilled settlement, which is why security cameras were only in high-profile areas like the labs and the unpopulated domes.
In the end, security came to mean emergency first-responders—not cops, but defenders. I wondered if she ever imagined they’d end up patrolling daily and busting through walls.
Probably not. She probably never imagined the RC would follow us to the moon either. Or that there’d be an RC mole, or maybe two, making trouble. I didn’t have the first clue how she’d be responding to all this.
The lead guard brought us to Commander Han’s office and left us there. I guessed they had to get back and help their partners gather the stash they found. While we waited, V whispered instructions in a too-calm voice.
“We haven’t done anything wrong,” she reassured us, “so there’s nothing to be afraid of. Tell them it’s not ours, and we don’t know whose it was. Someone’s obviously setting us up. Our best course now is cooperation in figuring out who, because that’s Brand’s insider.”
I heard her, and I knew her advice was sound, but I couldn’t help but sweat waiting. What if the guards looked at the tabs they confiscated and read the messages we’d written to the RC? What if they noticed the notes we’d made about our hunt for the spy? There were so many things that could make us look more suspicious than a stash of water tubes and towels.
A flash of Commander Han finding out all our secrets filled my mind, plus Andrek’s and V’s and everything we’d tried doing to thwart the RC.
My parents and Dr. Fromme filed into the office first, accosting us.
“What’s going on?” asked my dad.
He was quickly interrupted by my mom, frantic and accusing: “What did you do?”
“Are you okay?” This from Dr. Fromme to Halle, then V. “Do you need your inhaler?”
The device passed from her hands to her daughters’ pocket. Then Joule and Andrek got marched in, guards glued to their sides. Only then did Commander Han join us, driving her chair into the center of our crowd and directing us to gather in front of her.
“Thank you all for coming in so quickly,” Han said, as if we’d been politely invited for tea instead of having been dragged in like criminals. “It seems these young people have gotten mixed up in rather serious matters involving a hoard of missing supplies. I need to speak with them urgently.”
“We don’t know anything about what was behind that wall,” I blurted.
“We really don’t,” Andrek agreed, his voice reedy with tension. “And I’m the one who commandeered the closet for personal use. No one else was involved, so you can let them go.”
“On the contrary, at least these four others were involved,” Han said. “You weren’t living there alone.”
“Why didn’t you ask for new quarters?” My mother rounded on Andrek.
“If we’d known from the start, we could have helped,” my dad insisted.
“I just—I’m sorry.” Andrek’s face turned a disturbing shade of hot pink. “I didn’t want to seem ungrateful. But it’s more than that? You’re my only family. So long as I didn’t officially take new quarters, then I haven’t left. Not really. And you all could grieve without—well, without dealing with my stuff too.”
“All of that is beside the point and can be dealt with privately later. Please excuse us for now.” Han gestured to the guards who, politely but firmly, escorted my parents and Dr. Fromme back out of her office. “Now then. You five. You must admit how suspicious this seems.”
“Was it all of the supplies that are missing?” Andrek asked. “Is there any evidence we put it there?”
“No, and curiously no,” Han answered. “It’s only about half of what’s been reported missing, and it seems the crates have been wiped of fingerprints. Therefore, we must go on the facts we do have. You five are complicit in sabotaging the trust. Whether through theft and hoarding or something more sinister.”
“It wasn’t us!” I cried, but I doubted she cared what I had to say. “We would never steal from the trust!”
“So you’ve said, but the facts remain in contradiction, where they’ll be until we uncover the truth. I understand at least three of you are aware that we have a major ongoing security problem involving hacked communications, deliberate mishandling of trust resources and equipment, as well as outright sabotage that amounts to treason. Since you seem so close, I wager all of you know. So what am I to make of what’s been found in your possession?”
Halle puffed on her inhaler, as the rest of us stood in uneasy silence.
“How did you come upon this discovery?” Joule wondered aloud. “It seems reckless to go around busting through random walls.”
“Nothing random about it,” Han said. “We received an anonymous tip.”
“Then we’re exactly where we were before finding anything.” Andrek shook his head. “You still have missing supplies and a traitor to find.”
“Unless the answers are right in front of me.”
“That wouldn’t make any sense though,” V countered, her gaze fixed on a point below Han’s wheels. “If we took those supplies, we certainly wouldn’t have tipped you off. So whoever told you must be the one responsible for the theft. Why else would they stay anonymous? It’s obvious the real saboteur is framing us.”
“That’s one possibility, but one which doesn’t absolve any of you of appropriating community space for private use, which is also theft.” Han rolled her chair back an inch, jarring V’s attention as the two locked eyes. Surely the commander must see V was right.
“Empty community space,” Andrek said, breaking the look between them. “I know it wasn’t exactly ‘right,’ but I don’t see how it’s theft. As for the supplies, another possibility is that the supplies were already there before us and have nothing to do with us at all.”
“Say that’s true,” Han said. “Say that the stolen goods were hidden before you came upon the space and claimed it. What would the thief benefit from by revealing its location? They must have intended the goods to serve some purpose, presumably not simply to return them intact. The more interesting question, to me, is why you would jump to the conclusion that you’re being framed. What would be gained by that, unless you have some leverage over the saboteur you’re not telling me about.”
“How could we?” Joule asked. “If we knew that, wouldn’t we also know who it is setting us up to take the fall for them?”
“My thought precisely,” Han said, not missing a beat. “Which is why this requires further investigation before any charges are formalized. This matter is far from resolved.”
V lifted her chin. “Are you releasing us then?”
“Not quite.” Han pinned each of us with another hard look. She wasn’t convinced we were innocent, but she wasn’t convinced we weren’t either. “But I’m not holding you here for the moment. Obviously, you won’t be able to use that closet for private quarters anymore. Whatever your reasons, whatever the truth is behind the supplies and the discovery of you five abusing unmonitored spaces, you’ve exposed a critical weakness in trust security. For that I’m grateful. For now I’ll waive immediate consequences while we investigate further, provided that you and your friends don’t cause more trouble or go looking for another clubhouse. Leave this to us.”
“We will,” Andrek lied, and the rest of us chimed in our agreement. I stared at my feet instead of meeting anyone’s gaze, my whole body hot with embarrassment, terror, and anger at whomever had put us in this position.
“I suggest you take my warning seriously lest more trouble find you,” Han reiterated, signaling a guard to open her office door.
“So we can go?” I asked through my clenched jaw.
Commander Han exhaled heavily. “I don’t think any of you realize how damning this is, or how dangerous. I may have other questions, so respond promptly if I message you. I’ll be assigning each of you a guard.” Seeing us bristle, she added, “For your own safety. They’ll maintain a respectful distance unless more evidence against you comes to light. You must understand the position you’re in. If we come to learn you five had nothing to do with the theft, there will still be consequences for your misuse of other property. Regardless, whoever reported you didn’t give up these supplies haphazardly. It was a calculated move, though to what end, I can’t conclude yet. Return to your normal routines, but be vigilant.”