Attention: ALL
Subject: Quake Report
Our heartfelt gratitude goes out to our lunar neighbors at the IAS, UC, and EAC bases, whose foresight and hard work into moon quake stabilization allowed us to prevent catastrophic losses during today’s impact event.
Though two dozen of our own suffered injuries, we are pleased to share Medical’s report that they were minor and easily treated.
—President Marshall
As soon as I left my quarters for work the next morning, I got stopped in the hallway. A maintenance crew had a number of wall panels stacked on the floor as they worked on something with the mess of wiring beneath. Surrounding the crew and their tools was another chattering group, security. There was no way around them, so all I could do is wait for them to let me pass.
“Fixing the door controls, I hope?” Mom asked, stepping up beside me. “That was scheduled a month ago, but I’m glad it’s finally become a priority.”
She surveyed the crew with a wary gaze, probably reviewing each worker’s stats in her head. Her hair was neatly styled into a bun, though deep circles ringed her eyes and the pallor of her skin told its own story.
I preferred tired Mom to normal Mom most days, but not while trapped with her in the hall. Maybe I could slip into our quarters and squeeze in more sleep.
“A few more minutes, ma’am,” a security guard told us. She had platinum blonde hair fixed into a long, sturdy braid. “Apologies for the wait, er, twice over.”
Mom waved her hand dismissively and turned to go back to our rooms.
“Yeah, that’s going to be locked for a bit now,” the guard added. “Sorry again.”
Mom rose one shoulder in a sort of shrug then leaned against the wall.
I slid to sit on the floor beside her, trying to think of something distracting to talk about so she didn’t start in on me.
“At least it’s getting fixed,” I said brightly. “Though it’s weird they need a security team to help.”
“All the active work crews have security assigned now.” Mom rubbed her temples and shifted her feet as if she were considering sitting too.
“Oh,” I said, suddenly interested. “I haven’t heard anything about that.”
She shook her head and appeared to settle on not sitting though she glanced at the floor forlornly. “No reason to broadcast issues. Only stirs rumors. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“What else has gone missing?” I asked, grateful to have landed on a topic that didn’t center me. “Will there be security in the kitchen too?” I hadn’t noticed any extra security at work. They were always around, I supposed, but why wouldn’t they be? Everyone had to eat.
“Odds and ends.” She cleared her throat and caught me looking at her. “Minor issues. Don’t worry about it.”
“At least they’re minor.”
“Right,” she said, lowering her voice. “Anyway. Focus on the memorial. That’s where your attention should be.” She went quiet a moment, and I expected her lecture to start any minute, so I rushed to find something else to say.
“Can I get a tab? Like, are there extra in your department?” For once I was pleased with what jumped out of my mouth. It’d be awesome to have my own, so I could game wherever I wanted like Halle did.
“What for?”
Gaming, obviously, but I couldn’t tell her that. I meant to say, “So I can pay better attention to the announcements,” which she’d have liked and agreed to, but instead I said, “Because Viveca’s sending me her memorial files, and I’ll have a ton of reading to do.”
Mom’s face hardened. “I don’t think that’s wise,” but she didn’t tell me what part wasn’t wise—the sending or the reading or me having my own tablet.
“I’m trying to do a good job, Mom, like you wanted. For Faraday.” I knew better. I did. But I’d lost control of my lips. “And I’m taking it slow, aren’t I? Viveca would have had us building some stupid statue days ago probably.”
“You’d do well to follow her lead. She’s got a good head on her shoulders.” She leveled me with an inscrutable look. “But try to keep things professional? You don’t want to exhaust your dating pool in less than a year.”
Her opinions about Viveca flooded back to me all mixed together. Flawless. Out of my league. Running things before long. So of course she must have thought I’d screw things up with Viveca if I ever managed to start something.
“I won’t do well to follow, actually. I hate her ideas.”
Mom’s gaze drifted to the ceiling as she asked, “Then what are yours?”
“I don’t know yet,” I said, basically growling. “That’s why I need a tab.”
“If her ideas are so awful, why do you want her research?”
“I don’t know what else you want from me!”
“None of this is what I wanted, Lane. Please lower your voice.” Mom gestured vaguely at the blonde guard, whose sideways looks at me were full of sympathetic cringe. She’d rolled up the sleeves of her uniform, revealing hot pink scars lacing her forearms.
I didn’t care if we had an audience. Sure, I’d been dodging this talk for weeks on end, but Mom had been letting me. What kind of mom did that?
“First you were all ‘A memorial is important for the trust, Lane, so screw your feelings,’ but as soon as I got involved, you’re saying ‘She can’t handle it.’ Why can’t you give me, like, the tiniest bit of faith?” I was on my feet somehow, and the half an inch of height she had on me didn’t seem so much anymore.
“You’re completely out of line right now, and I don’t think you have any idea what you’re saying. Where is all this anger coming from? The memorial is important, more than I can possibly explain. And I do think you should be involved, we all should, just not in the capacity of—”
“Of contributing more than a goofy smile and a thumbs-up?” I pasted on my fakest smile and thrust my thumbs out. “Quick,” I said, using only the corner of my mouth, “take a picture for the propaganda.”
“That’s not what I mean. You keep twisting my words!” Bright spots of mottled pink flared over her cheeks. “If you would calm down, we can sort this out.”
“I am calm!” I yelled and immediately recoiled from the way her eyes flared.
“All you ever want to do is fight with me,” she said, almost too softly to hear. “But I’m not the enemy.”
“Then why do you always act like one?”
She groaned and scratched violently at her hair until the bun collapsed. “I don’t think I do.”
She sounded so sad that I hated her more for it, how her feelings made me dance circles around her while mine changed nothing. “What about a tab? Can you get me one?”
Mom was silent as she forced her hair into a semblance of a ponytail, grizzled hairs floating free over her forehead. Finally she said, “I’ll look into it,” which meant The answer’s still no.
I sighed and sank to the floor.
The blonde guard cleared her throat and waited a painful moment for Mom to react. “Sorry again, about the wait. We’ll get this cleaned up right away.”
“Yes, that’s fine. Thank you all.” Mom took a loud breath and turned back to me. “I—I hope you have a good rest of the day. I love you.”
She wove around the workers, and the guards stepped quickly out of her path. I caught the blonde one’s eye and grimaced, provoking a sad laugh from her.
“Not that it’s my business, but I think she means well,” the guard said. “And not that you asked, but I’d give anything to fight with my mom again. She and my brother worked security for your sister’s campaign before... you know. Maybe you knew them? Iris and Jonah Hetzel. I’m Danielle. Danny.”
I tried to remember an Iris or Jonah from security but came up blank. “I don’t think I met them. Were they—I mean—Did they...?”
Danny busied her hands twisting the end of her braid. “They were there, yeah, but only my mom’s body was found.” She squared her shoulders and set her jaw. “Anyway. Maybe cut yours some slack. You never know what’ll happen.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I gave her a tight smile. “Thanks, Danny. I’ll try.”
Two hours into the worst shift yet on the moon, I was holed up in Chef’s office nursing a bloody finger and a splitting headache. I couldn’t get myself together.
Chef had this sign on her wall that very colorfully explained how time worked on the moon. Like, a lunar day was actually 655.72 Earth hours long, so a “bad day” on the moon was really only a bad few seconds. I didn’t totally get it, but I appreciated the sentiment as I rocked on her couch and tried not to scream about how ill I felt all over.
My body was basically one big bruise, and I didn’t bruise pretty and purple. I went straight to a mottled blue-black before it faded into puke green and jaundice yellow like the grossest tie-dye ever. According to my bruising timeline, I’d be looking exactly my worst when Joule took me and Andrek out for our rain-checked date that night. Or roughly half a lunar second from then.
I kept thinking about how desperate Viveca had sounded with Halle. Then that lip quiver and an apology. A real person was under the mask she wore—her being with people as awesome as Halle and Joule was proof—so I’d be an asshole to hold it against her when she was the only one of us to keep her cool in the quake, the only one able to act with more than shock.
She hadn’t been unsettled during the quake because she was already unsettled. Already afraid. Of them, whoever that was. Somewhere between her Faraday-obsessed childhood and her triumphant admission into the trust, something had spooked her enough to carry that fear here to the moon.
Knowing she hid something so important prickled curiosity across my skin. I’d always loved a good mystery, but it felt crispy and strange in real life, with real people. I’d focus on the memorial with her for now, hoping the truth would come out.
Anyways, in the meantime I’d have my hands full trying to make her treat Faraday like an actual person instead of only a glorified hero. My sister was both, and Viveca’s ideas would be intolerable until she understood that.
“Knock, knock,” Stephan called, peeking through the curtain Chef had fixed over the door opening. “You done bleeding out yet? Chef needs us on the serving line.”
I uncurled from the couch and brandished my throbbing finger. “Second bandage did the trick. I’ll be out in a few.” I didn’t add “minutes,” because that lunar time sign had my head all screwed up.
“Not like that,” he scolded and made me scoot to make room for him. Before I could form the words to argue that I was fine, that I didn’t need help, he removed the clunky dressing, cleaned, treated, and redressed my wound. “There. Smooth edges and not too much pressure. You shouldn’t even feel it under your gloves now.”
“You could be a nurse,” I said, impressed at how much better my finger felt when I hadn’t even realized it was still bothering me. “You make that look easy.”
Stephan blushed at my compliment. “Anything you do often enough starts to look easy from the outside.”
“Still. Thanks.”
“Besides, there’s better company in the kitchen,” he said with a wink. “Don’t forget your hairnet.”
“I would never!” I scooped up the tangled thing and stretched it over my head. Flecks of dry dough from this morning’s pie-making crumbled onto the couch, and I scraped them into my hands before I left. I wasn’t sure if the trust had rodents, but the collective sure had, so I’d rather not take chances.
The serving line was extra complicated today because we were serving mango and black bean wraps, and Chef thought making them ahead of time would be disgusting. “Hot beans and cold fruit turn into inedible lukewarm mush if they sit too long,” she told us.
So, twenty of us stood elbow to elbow, serving each plate fresh alongside a pile of rice pilaf, seaweed salad, and a handful of grapes.
My mouth watered at the blend of aromas, even as my headache throbbed at the clamor of kitchen staff and cafeteria chatter. On my left was Stephan, laying the warmed tortillas flat between the rice and salad, then scooting each plate to me for spiced beans.
“One helping or two?” I asked over and over, until the words became their own meaningless mush, the swarm of faces a slideshow of the same. I sprinkled a dash of dried mint or parsley over each plate, just to add that one special touch. Every few minutes though, we got backed up waiting for more tortillas—Chef preferred we serve right off the grill—and those in line ended up pulling us into their conversations.
Most trustees who got stalled chatted about the quake, comparing their bruises and shock, and how well they had or hadn’t reacted when the alarms sounded. Stephan, who sported an eggplant purple eye, told vivid tales of being caught in the group showers.
“I’d just come from a gym class, so I was still clothed,” he said for the fifth time, now to Danny and a group of her fellow guards. “But the others weren’t so lucky. Soon as the lights went out after that first rumble, you’d have thought we were on a sinking ship. Limbs tangled like ropes, water sloshing everywhere. We were all too slippery to get our safety harnesses on right. Total mess!”
“I heard about that,” Danny said, grinning at me as I heaped beans directly onto her fresh tortilla. “Seems like the most embarrassing way to meet new people.”
“You’re not wrong.”
I tried to join in too, after a while, and rolled up my sleeves to show how strange the colors looked next to my constellations of freckles. But Stephan’s story was more interesting, while mine still felt personal and private.
By the time folks made it back for seconds, there was a steady back-and-forth across the line about other topics, like the recent storms on Earth and which nation states were most vulnerable to the RC because of it, the ships we’d soon build, and all sorts of self-care talk.
And, of course, Faraday. If they’d met her, where, and when. What they’d been doing when they saw her first video. How her first, second, and third books made them feel or led them to discovering what they wanted to do with their lives. The whole cafeteria hummed her name as stories poured out. It was good.
Really good.
I started to think this was what Viveca and I should be doing before making any big decisions—listening to people, letting them tell us how they wanted to honor her.
Once my shift ended, I was high with so much energy I practically floated to my quarters. My bruises still sang with pain, but that was yesterday’s news, yesterday’s problem, because, tonight, Andrek and I had a date with Joule. An actual, somebody-made-special-plans, not-just-a-hangout-or-hookup Date. A real, I-had-better-not-fuck-this-up-for-us Date.
“Ohmigod, will you get in here please? I’m losing my mind!” Andrek screamed the moment I stepped into our wrecked living room. Every surface but the table had clothes piled on top, and a cursory glance told me he’d gathered options from every decade since humans first made it to the moon, maybe further. Dark skirts and pants of all lengths covered the chair, jewel-toned dresses hung from the shelf, precariously close to Faraday’s urn, and a veritable rainbow mountain of pinks, butter yellows, sandy beige, and mint greens engulfed the couch.
The visual effect was super overwhelming and made my head spin.
“What kind of unholy deal did you make with entertainment?” I poked at something lacy pink and shuddered at the coarse texture. “And why is there so much pastel? You know it washes you out.”
He whimpered. Pitifully. “Will you puh-lease come here?”
“I thought you were wearing Bentley,” I said, referring to his favorite suit, the one outfit his RC money paid for that he didn’t shun.
I headed toward his room, stopping to run a finger down the hem of a hunter-green dress. If I wore this, would Joule think of his dance with Viveca? A shiver wiggled through me, and I retracted my hand.
Andrek stumbled out, groaning loudly and struggling with who-knew-what behind him. “Lane, help me!”
He spun and leaned against the wall to steady himself, his hands lost inside some laced contraption that ran the length of his back. I guessed it was a corseted vest.
Along with that, he had on his tailored pants, the lower half of “Bentley”—slim-fit, navy with silver pinstripes, and damn sexy. His breath whistled out of him, and his face was splotchy with red spots.
I untangled his fingers and went to town undoing the lacing, working hard not to giggle.
I’d seen him nervous before. Plenty. His nerves had been so high when we met, the day of his first interview with the collective in Masdar, it had seemed like the wind could shatter him like glass.
This was different though, a whole new level of excitement and anxiety, which sent a flurry of thoughts scampering through my head.
What did it mean that Joule had him all worked up this way? What did it mean that I’d hardly thought about it? Joule had made a point of asking us both out, but maybe he was only being respectful of what Andrek and I have. He hadn’t included Viveca or Halle, which was best, whatever. I still needed to keep as much distance between Andrek and Viveca as possible.
But was it a big deal that I didn’t stir Andrek up this much, this way? It had always been so easy with us. Comfortable, relaxed. I couldn’t decide if I should be worried or not, and the indecision alone knotted my stomach like a pretzel.
This date had to go well. Andrek did so much for us, and he’d been so careful with me. He needed Joule or someone like him to lighten the load he carried inside. Otherwise our own “good thing” wouldn’t last nearly as long as either of us needed it to. And that would be tragic.
Once he was free, Andrek let out a colossal breath and wrapped me in a hug. “Oh, thank you, thank you. I don’t know what I was thinking. Terrible idea. I wanted to fancy things up somehow.”
I tried not to feed the bear that was my internal back-and-forth by gauging the hug’s intensity or length. Just because he wanted Joule didn’t mean he wanted or needed me any less. “Bentley isn’t fancy enough?”
“No!” He released me and draped himself over the pastel mountain that was now the couch. “Have you seen Joule? That jawline, ahhh! His voice! What are you wearing?”
I clamped down my runaway thought train. “Did he tell you what he planned? Maybe I should wear a jump—”
“No the fuck you shouldn’t,” he said, and I stifled a laugh at the squeak in his voice, because he was obviously in a whole mood. “Which is why I laid some things out for you on your bed. I like the cream best, but I’m not sure if it matches Bentley. Hence the, uh, all this.”
He patted the fabric mountain tenderly. So tenderly, in fact, that my swirling gut sank with the responsibility he’d put on me. Please don’t mess this up, he was saying without words.
I went to my room and shut the door behind me, ignoring Andrek’s indignant sigh when it closed. It was probably best if he didn’t see me spiraling when he was already on edge. I knew he loved me, that what we had was special. I needed to get my game face on and support him. Support us.
On my bed were three outfits, all with pants, thank goodness. I’d never been comfortable in the open air of skirts and dresses, though I liked to imagine myself wearing them. I couldn’t ever figure out how to move or sit, and I ended up so in my head that I couldn’t have any fun.
The cream thing was, ironically, still a jumpsuit, albeit a silky blend with wide palazzo-style bottoms. The top half had a loose-fit bodice with a low-hanging drape neck and long sleeves that cinched at the wrist. No tags, covered seams, nothing to irritate my skin, and it would cover my worst bruises. There were tiny, barely noticeable, midnight blue specks that shimmered like tinsel and gave the cream an illusion of depth.
Like the negative of a starry sky. Or a super elegant cupcake.
“Do you love them?” Andrek asked through the door. “If you don’t, you can pick something else.”
“Hang on.” I smoothed the outfit over my clothes, admiring the subtle way it held its shape. It was perfect. Impossibly perfect.
My core unclenched, and the fog in my head cleared. Andrek really was thinking of me, who I was, what I liked, what I needed to feel comfortable. Whatever he—or we might have with Joule wouldn’t change “us.”
I cracked open the door and saw him waiting for me, a hopeful smile below his worried eyes. A new thought struck like a lightning bolt. It was good that I didn’t make him nervous, that he didn’t need to break into hives or obsess over his appearance. With me, he was free to be all parts of himself.
And so was I.
“What do you think?” I asked.
He leaned down and kissed me thoroughly, sandwiching the creamy silk between us. “Tasteful and fun. Like you.”