Attention: West Gym Users
Subject: Basic Hygiene
Whoever is leaving used towels on the floor, STOP IT. The laundry bins are next to the door for this exact purpose. Not only does it make the gym inaccessible for low mobility and wheelchair-using trustees, it’s plain disgusting. We don’t need our floors to be a petri dish for your germs.
—Sanitation
By the time Joule arrived, I’d showered and dressed, and Andrek had decided not to wear a top aside from his Bentley vest. At some point, thespians came and hauled the extra clothes away, but I missed that chaos while I washed up, luckily.
Even still, between the three of us, emotions ran so high I phased out more than I’d like. I managed to process that Joule looked super-hot, said something about surprises and his plan to take us on a proper tour of the trust, since, according to him, we hadn’t explored enough. Or I hadn’t, at least, since all I did was go to work, the washroom-slash-gym, and back to my quarters. My one visit to Viveca’s quarters didn’t count because that was only yesterday.
The first fifteen minutes of our date were a blur of the hallway’s flat gray panels and speckled molding under lemony lights. Andrek and Joule kept me between them, and Joule explained his favorite facts, pointing out different departments as we walked.
They made like they were talking to me, but really they were nerd-gushing over my head while I concentrated on keeping up with their long legs. I was already fucking things up, I could tell. The best I could do was stay out of the way as much as possible to let them focus on each other.
“Each dome’s diameter is precisely three-point-one-four miles,” Andrek said, “which makes Lunar Trust One—”
“Pi miles wide,” Joule spouted, and when I looked at them in confusion, they were both waggling their eyebrows. “Lane, do you get it?”
Together they repeated, “Pi miles wide!”
“That’s a lot of pie?” I asked.
They erupted into laughter, and I forced a chuckle too, so I wasn’t the odd one out. It sounded weak, but it seemed to convince Joule.
Andrek, who knew better, half shrugged and changed the subject, letting me slip into my head, except now I was thinking about pie.
Faraday had made a pitiful looking pie for her first date with Zara and Khalid. Chocolate cherry pecan. It had tasted great, because I helped, but it looked a complete mess. I remembered how she’d burst into our flat after, smelling like all things good and warm, her cheeks pinked, and her lips swollen from kissing. She’d been on a lot of other dates, mostly with couples or trios, because her time had been so precious. “I finally found them, dove,” she’d told me that night. “The ones who fill me.”
It had struck me as cruel then, what she’d said, when she knew she was my whole world. As though I was nothing, as though I gave her nothing. I hadn’t met Andrek yet though, so I couldn’t understand what she meant, how there was a part of her that would always be outside of me, where I didn’t belong.
Now I wondered how she knew for sure, how she could tell that they were the ones for her, whether it was just a choice she’d made or if it was more like a truth she happened upon.
With me and Andrek, it was different, a choice and a truth at once. But we were the couple now, entertaining a third. I didn’t know how to do this dating thing at all, I realized.
“First stop!” Joule announced as we reached a closed hatch labeled “Courtyard.”
The guys swung the hatch door wide for me as if they’d practiced the move their whole lives, or at least the last few weeks while they’d been seeing each other alone. They were so in sync already, and I felt clumsy and out of place, despite their careful attention.
I stepped inside, thinking only of their themness and my otherness, but what I saw shocked all thought away and sent me backward.
Space was right the fuck above me, and it went on forever.
My brain assured me there was a dome, meters thick, and that the view must be an illusion meant to give trustees a sense of “outside,” but my eyes argued otherwise, and panic set in. A meltdown was on my horizon; it was only a question of when.
“Awesome, right? The dome’s not even a mile high, as many have asserted,” Joule said.
That didn’t seem true. I couldn’t see the dome surface at all. It was just dark nothingness. I gulped my breaths, unable to pull my gaze from the black sky.
“If you look closely, you can see the seams in the video screen,” he went on, like this was the most interesting topic and not trivia to ward off the nothing overhead.
“Guys?” I whispered. It was the most I could manage. “Are you sure we should be out here?”
“It’s safe.” Joule laughed deeply. “If we walked out onto the open moon dressed like this, our lungs would freeze before they could collapse.”
That helped. Weirdly.
I forced my chin to my chest and noticed we were standing on grass. Real squishy green grass that stretched across the whole courtyard. There were even bona fide weeds. Dandelions.
My shoes were off seconds later and I dug my toes in. I couldn’t help myself. I dropped to the ground and sprawled, letting the grass tickle and poke my skin. It made me think of a blooming cactus I’d had in the collective. It had never flowered. Mom said it was too young. We both were.
The guys stood over me talking, but I’d completely lost track of their colony manual conversation. Something, something else boring, and atmosphere and maximum occupancy, but did you know blah blah and ice asteroid miracles, social welfare, and ethical transparency. They chattered about the other bases, especially Blackstone and Guanghan, and how resources flowed back and forth across the moon. Andrek was in science heaven.
I hitched up my sleeves to expose more skin to the ground. The view wasn’t so scary from down here. I could see Earth’s curve, glowing. If this was a video projection, it was expertly crafted. Maybe it was a real-time image? There was a breeze, and I almost convinced myself it wasn’t forced air hissing through the recyclers.
It could be wind if I didn’t look. When I did, warmth bathed my face, and I shielded my eyes. Not the desert bake or the glare of sunset spraying over the treetops, but bright and warm all the same.
Here I could breathe.
Here I could relax.
“This is the best place ever,” I said.
Their shadows fell over me, overlapping.
Joule laughed again. “Word is you’ve seen only the corridors of one-quarter of one dome. I hear the garden has seeds that haven’t grown on Earth in thirty years.”
“I don’t care,” I said. “This is my place, and I shall call it Lane Land and defend it with my life.”
“Hard to defend anything from the ground,” Andrek pointed out.
“Shut up, you. I do plenty from the ground.”
To my surprise, they stopped talking and dropped next to me in the grass. After a comfortable silence, Joule told us how he’d left Czechia for Masdar just in time. A lot of folks from the free states had fled to the collective once the Royal Corps had come calling.
It seemed too personal to ask which environmental or political tragedy led his family to Czechia in the first place, so I waited for him to explain if he wanted.
Instead he talked about his work. Apparently, he was a problem-solving whiz, so rather than assigning him to a single task, he sort of belonged to the whole manufacturing department, flitting between other peoples’ projects, somehow able to pick up on whatever others had missed.
I was amazed when Andrek talked, because he was usually so cagey about his past. He told Joule about his stint in military service and growing up unhoused. He stopped there, not naming Brand or the RC, but even though he avoided those subjects, his voice held notes of vulnerability I hadn’t heard from him since the attack. He wasn’t performing for Joule at all.
Neither said a word about the RC’s final attack or what it had done to the war crimes accord or why the launch date had to be moved so soon after, which was thoughtful of them. They didn’t mention the looming memorial either, thankfully.
I didn’t say much. It wasn’t like I stayed silent, more like I didn’t have anything important I wanted to add. My life story was well known, and my own work projects were public fare on full display every day.
I wiggled to my belly and stared hard into the blades of grass. Delicate roots gripped the imported soil, and it was so perfectly random and asymmetrical I got dizzy.
“I don’t know what’s taking so long with my surprise. It should be here by now,” Joule said, and I perked to attention because I’d forgotten all about surprises. “You may not have as much time to play with yours as I’d hoped, Lane, not before we leave.”
“We have to leave?” Groaning, I planted my face onto the dirt. “Can’t we stay all night?”
He pushed himself up. “No, there’s a group meeting here in—” he checked his tab “—ten minutes, actually.”
“For real?”
Andrek’s hand found mine and squeezed. “We can come some other time. If you want.”
“I’m glad you like it,” Joule said, flashing me a warm smile before launching into another technical lecture, this time about the trust’s designated green spaces.
I chewed my lips and tried to hush my brain, which was busy working to convince me that I wasn’t really on this date. I was some kind of chaperone. A kind gesture to Andrek, the one Joule actually wanted to connect with.
I’d managed to forget about his promised surprises a second time when Viveca showed up in the courtyard with a cart loaded high with space suits, mag boots, and helmets.
I winced when I saw her, because this was the exact opposite of keeping her and Andrek apart. That was going to prove harder than I’d thought, especially with our boyfriends falling so hard for each other.
Viveca handed out suit sets and dragged me aside to help me into mine. After she gave my outfit a cursory glance, she issued a quiet “hmm.”
“What’s that mean?” I demanded. As usual, it came out more harshly than I intended. Not that I heard it myself so much as I saw her face tighten, her eyes sharpening. “It’s borrowed.”
“Fits you, is all,” she answered. “I was expecting something with spikes or spurs, I guess.”
That was rich. Like I was the prickly one. “I wasn’t expecting you at all. I thought you two were fighting.” In fact, I knew they were fighting, because every time I saw them together in the cafeteria they’d been arguing.
Her laugh startled me with its warmth, even as she shook the suit for me impatiently. “We’re always fighting, and that’s our business, not yours. Step in now. I don’t have all night.”
I complied, forcing one leg then the other into the protective boots and pants. “That doesn’t sound like...”
I wasn’t sure how to finish. Love? Fun? Healthy, maybe.
“Oh, because we’re not snuggly cuddle bears like you and Andrek, we must be badly paired?” She shoved the sleeves onto my arms and set into the locking seals that wrapped the front of my chest. “If you’re curious about what makes ‘us’ work, ask Joule. I don’t need to prove anything to you.”
“Of course not! It’s just—” I stammered for the right words, the ones that wouldn’t work the opposite of what I meant. “I’ve never dated, aside from Andrek, so I don’t know how other people do it. I’m not sure I’m ready.” I snuck a glance at her face as she worked her way up the seals over my chest. “I didn’t mean to sound... To pry, I mean.”
She met my eyes, and it was like an electrical surge before her thick lashes fluttered to cover the charge. “Oh.”
For a moment I wanted her to say more. There was this hesitation in her voice that made me wait, but right then the boys laughed.
Our boys. Having the best time so easily.
It wasn’t fair.
“Did you manage to get it?” Joule called, and Viveca straightened abruptly, which sent her shiny hair flying behind her. It smelled like candy. She eyed Andrek’s vest with an intense look.
“I wouldn’t have been late otherwise.” She snapped at my seals with a finger flick that I felt through my spine then nodded approval of her work. “Check the cart. Under the helmets.”
I bet she’d been on thousands of dates. Fancy ones, unlike me and my “Let’s eat something and have sex before we play video games.” With those eyes of hers and those unstoppable lashes so thick they were like three pairs per eye. Her candy hair.
I bet she could dance too. Sexy dances like the tango or salsa, not like me who sort of stomped and flapped to the backbeat. No one would have ever invited her to be the third wheel on her boyfriend’s date.
“I need to talk to Lane a minute, okay?” she said. “Girl stuff.”
I froze so fast my knees locked and I nearly tipped over onto her. “What, why—”
She pulled me a few steps further away, then whispered conspiratorially, “Be gentle with him, all right? He’s nervous. Like, obsessively nervous. It’s his first time dating a guy seriously, which is huge on its own, plus you were his imaginary friend when he was little. So just... If he seems aloof or whatever, don’t believe it, that’s only his autopilot mode. Tonight is important to him.”
I couldn’t follow her because it didn’t make sense. I was his imaginary friend. “Really?”
“I know it might seem like it’s all about Andrek,” she said, and I was definitely not imagining the shadow that fell over her face when she spoke his name. “But that’s not it. He has a challenging time talking in groups, but he couldn’t keep seeing only one of you without sending the wrong signals. It’s fine if you’re not ready, or if you don’t want to be involved romantically. He’ll understand.” She ran her hands through her hair and peeked over my shoulder at the guys, worry playing over her features. “You’ll be gentle, won’t you, and allow time for him to open up? Don’t let them pair up without you.”
I heard her. I did. But I was doubly convinced then that she saw someone different than I did when she looked at Andrek, and it recolored everything she’d said.
I shook my head, then nodded to mean yes, which I expected made me look like a bobblehead doll and probably didn’t communicate anything.
“I will.” I squared my shoulders, more certain than ever that it was Andrek who needed protection, not Joule. “He’s safe with us. Don’t worry.”
She stepped back, smiling with something like relief, and patted my shoulder awkwardly. “Good. Thank you. Just—thank you. And go to group tomorrow. We’ve already wasted too much time.”
Viveca whirled away with another burst of candy scent, answering some question of Joule’s, and I was left with my back to the boys trying to figure out what to do with my face before I turned around. My body was not answering me fast enough when I told it how to behave.
I didn’t know that I was ready for another boyfriend, or if I even wanted one, but Joule was actually a genuine fan of me. Me! Her Joule, with his giant brain and thousand-lumens-bright smile. And Viveca had to make sure that I was gentle? That I wouldn’t hurt him?
Or Andrek wouldn’t. I could have been totally wrong, but it seemed like she didn’t want me to leave Joule alone with Andrek.
I already knew that would be impossible.
“Lane? I’d like to show you something,” Joule called.
My head was still shaking. How long had I been doing that? Back and forth. Up and down. I might have been rubbing my face too, though I couldn’t feel it. Or maybe I could, but the heavily padded gloves didn’t feel like me.
My senses spun out, away from center.
Dust but rippling like water.
I didn’t get her. I didn’t get her. I didn’t get her. Each time I thought I had a pin into what she was after, what made her up, she went and scrambled the recipe.
No, no, it was like she changed the cookbook entirely.
It was maddening. Distracting.
Was I always this wrong about people? Perhaps I’d always been wrong about people but never knew. Maybe no one wanted to tell me. Maybe I only picked people to be around who wouldn’t tell me I was wrong. Who wouldn’t dare. What if I was also the one I was wrong about?
That wasn’t it. Couldn’t be.
I couldn’t be only wrong. I’d worshipped my sister, and that was the one person everyone agreed was unmistakably “good”: Joan Faraday Tanner was a Whole Good. And I was also right about her being the greatest ever first.
And no matter how suspicious Viveca acted around Andrek, I was right about him too. So, one might argue that meant I was excellent at reading people, sorting out their ingredients and understanding how they’d taste. One could totally argue that.
I could. Right now.
Viveca must have been an outlier then. The one person I read backwards. Except also Joule. Maybe. I’d pinned him as a “good guy” but not as someone who’d wanted to be my friend since he was little.
I’m smelling strawberry, not just candy.
Strawberry candy.
What an absolute mindfuck.
“Lane?” Andrek moved into my peripheral vision and held still.
“She… Wait?” I slowed the pace of my head shaking and found my way back from dust. I was not totally ready to come back to my body yet, but I didn’t want to keep going in circles. My breath wouldn’t pick a pace.
Turn now, I thought, and this time my legs obeyed with only a slight delay.
Andrek gave me a small smile. See? I was right, and he was the sweetest, and Viveca needed to keep her nose out of his business.
Joule had a silver briefcase in front of him. And two helmets. Because we were putting on space suits, duh. I was barely listening, but I was sure I didn’t remember anyone mentioning going outside.
How had I missed the strawberry scent? It was right there in the front.
“Andrek, let me check your suit before I go,” Viveca said.
I shrugged at Andrek that I was all right now, but it was only almost true. I was making my way toward all right. If I were fully there, I’d be finding a way to stop Viveca from going near him.
Joule came closer to me, helmets and the briefcase held easily in his hands. We sat on the grass side by side.
“Maybe now isn’t a great time,” Joule paused to straighten the grass where I’d been lying before. He didn’t smooth it to set the blades of grass erect, rather he patted it down to make the space remember my shape. As if to say, Stay. She was happy here, not too long ago. His dark gaze darted toward me.
“It’s cool,” I managed as I heard Andrek thanking Viveca. My breath was still this uneven staccato stumble, lurching then lagging. I was afraid I’d croak if I spoke more.
“This was supposed to arrive when we did, except, never mind that. I should have warned you both, I suppose, about going outside. Not the sort of thing to spring on someone. I’m sorry. I don’t know if you’re in the mood for all that, but anyway. I’m rambling. This is the thing I planned for you. It’s a gift.” Joule slid the briefcase between us and clicked the latch open.
I reached to lift the case’s top, not smiling yet, because my face was still between decisions and attention. Viveca was at the door, leaving, but I waited for her to be all the way gone.
Then I looked at my gift. Inside the briefcase, row after row of numbered plastic vials glinted under the artificial sunlight. There was one larger vial without a number, filled with clear liquid, and some kind of 3D printed device too, which Joule plucked from the molded foam.
“It’s an edible bubble machine,” he said, putting the device in my hands. It was cold and remarkably light. “All these vials are concentrated flavors, for mixing however you want. You know, to try out recipe ideas without any waste.”
Andrek sat beside me and oohed quietly.
Joule selected three vials and pulled out his tab to read something over. “Like this,” he said, opening the screw-tops and releasing one miniscule droplet from each into the largest vial’s solution. “Coconut custard, vanilla, and almond, with the tiniest bit of lime. Recognize it?”
“My pudding!” I gasped.
He plugged the solution into the device and pointed to the button. “That’s what I was going for, but you’ll have to tell me if it’s right.”
I turned on the device and pressed a trigger for it to start. At once, bubbles exploded from its front. There was no odor, but when Joule waved the air, it sent a few of the spheres at my face, and the taste was immediate when the bubbles popped.
“You made this for me? It’s amazing!” I could feel my smile stretching my cheeks wide. Bubbles streamed around us until I turned it off.
“I sent you the flavor list, but I can label the bottles if that’s easier. There’s not much smell, so it might be hard to identify what’s what unless you have the list. And there’s plenty more solution, but I can always get more made for you, or different flavors. I probably shouldn’t have added anything before explaining all that, because it’s so full now, but maybe you could add different things and mix it how you—”
I interrupted his ramble with a tight hug.
“Thank you,” I said. “This is the best gift I’ve ever had.”
He was stiff as a wall at first, but after a second, he softened and put one arm around me carefully. Like he was afraid I’d break.
I squeezed him even harder. Maybe we didn’t have to date each other for him and Andrek to. We could still be friends.
Andrek grabbed the device and aimed it at us at full blast. Joule and I broke apart and chased him around the courtyard until we were laughing so hard we collapsed onto the grass again.
When I caught my breath at last, I asked, “Why are we wearing space suits anyway?”
Andrek’s surprise, turned out, was more of an adventure than a gift like mine was. While helping build the shipyard scaffolding, Joule had discovered what he called “G-jumping” by adapting Faraday’s gravdrives for individual use. It was like bungee jumping in reverse.
I didn’t completely understand it, but Andrek must have because he couldn’t stop grinning and muttering about flying.
We linked arms and headed through the hallway to the northern arc then descended into the subbasement. It was a vast storage space full of cargo crates, material tanks, and extra equipment, plus the entrance to the trams that led to the secondary domes. After securing our helmets, we squeezed onto slender benches as three-foot tall bots loaded cargo meant for the shipyard into the hold.
“Strap in tightly,” Joule reminded us. “It picks up speed more than you’d expect.”
Then the yawning whine of the engine swallowed sound. The tram set off, whisking us away from the dome. Amber light swept overhead in a slow strobe, and we sped into the shadowy lunar tunnel.
It was strange moving fast after weeks of walking. The persistent forward tug, like my insides were off-center, thrilled me. Our speed pulled at my arms, and I wanted to raise them and yell “Faster!” But nothing would ever match the speed of the launch. I’d already reached peak velocity.
Joule’s helmet tipped against mine with a click. “Do you think you’ll jump? It’s fine if you don’t want to after…” He meant my meltdown, or rather, my almost meltdown but way-too-obvious shutdown. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
I chewed my lower lip, sure that I wasn’t sure about anything. Nope. Not now, not ever. Not for me. “Probably not.”
“I get it. Truly. I melted earlier too. I almost needed to reschedule after lunch with V and one of her mind-meltingly bad pep talks.” He belted a laugh that I felt in my bones. “She thinks she’s so great at them when, really, she’s the worst. The absolute worst.”
His eyes narrowed, but the strobing golden light obscured the rest of his features beneath the helmet’s glare.
“Is that what happened with you?” he asked. “It was, wasn’t it? And I invited her there. I’m so sorry, Lane. She has the best intentions, I swear it. She always does, but she’s terrible at gauging her effect on people.”
I made out the hint of a frown, and I wanted to scrub it off him. “It wasn’t her.”
“You don’t have to pretend for my sake. I’ll make it up to you, I promise. We’ll do something low-key together soon. Just us.”
I gripped his hand. “I’d like that.”
“Between you and me, my stomach’s still a queasy mess. I don’t want to jump either. Maybe I’ll just do it once or twice to show him how.”
A loud clank sang, and the tram stopped. That was when I decided I was most definitely not going outside. Not today, not for date purposes, not even for Andrek.
I watched the guys play from the comfort of the tram station with no regrets except that Faraday couldn’t see how her gravdrives had become more than paradigm shifting. They’d become fun.
The station window was thinner than the dome, offering an unfiltered view of the shipyard. Unlike the courtyard, it was easy to tell what I saw was real, not a projection.
Earth didn’t loom huge amid the stars; it hung quietly over the white horizon like a delicate crescent earring. Politely visible.
Missable. Like me.
I could have covered it with my pinkie finger if I wanted. Or I could have turned on my helmet’s adaptive features and zoomed in to see cities as globs of white light, where the planet sat in our shadow. How many of those cities belonged to the RC now? The communication lockdown made it impossible to get news that ops didn’t want us to know about.
I dragged my gloved hand over the window, wondering if I could bring myself to cover the planet just for a moment. It should be harder to erase eight billion people, a whole planet, millions of years of human history, billions of years of plates shifting, plants growing, evolution to extinction.
I didn’t do it either. It would have been so easy, but I didn’t try.
Andrek soared, a mere speck high above the steel beams that reached like shining arms into the velveteen sky. He screamed so loud, whoops of joy and holy shits, I had to turn the volume down in my helmet. I could barely see the cord connecting his suit to the tallest beam, but every so often it caught the light, appearing like a white snake slithering toward the stars.
“That’s it, you’ve got it,” Joule guided him, his voice a purring whisper through the speaker. “Hit it now!”
There came a brief flash of neon green light as the gravdrive array sparked to life across Andrek’s core, and he dropped, sinking toward the shipyard proper and into Joule’s open arms.
“Did you see me, Lane?” he hollered, breathless with wonder. “Did you see?”
“I saw,” I said, but I could hardly form the words through how numb I felt.
Faraday would’ve loved this so much. How was I supposed to memorialize her when things kept changing and moving?
If I could hold things still somehow, for even a moment, then maybe I could see the way.