by Stuart Gibbs
Thankfully, most of the other plants in the greenhouse were doing far better than the squash. They hadn’t grown nearly as well as NASA had hoped, but Dr. Goldstein had been having some success lately. The rumor was that she’d upped the amount of our own recycled poop she was using in the fertilizer. It was disgusting but effective. Around Dr. Goldstein, I could see the bright red fruits of a few dozen precious strawberries, as well as some tomatoes ripening on the vine. No one had been allowed to eat any of them yet; they were being saved so that everyone on the base could share them at the peak of flavor. In the meantime, it was torturous to look at them while trying to swallow rehydrated space eggs. I was dying for a taste of fresh strawberry. And while I hadn’t been a big fan of tomatoes back on earth, now merely looking at them made my mouth water like Niagara Falls.
“How many more days do you think it’ll be until the berries are ready?” I asked.
Dad glanced back over his shoulder at them. “They look awfully ripe. I’m sure it won’t be much longer.”
“They looked good to me two days ago.”
Dad laughed. “Shari knows what she’s doing. We wouldn’t want to wait all this time and then eat them before they were ready.”
“I wouldn’t care. An unripe berry would be a billion times better than this.” I shoved my eggs away, unable to stomach another bite.
“Shari’s making a lot of progress,” Dad told me. “Hopefully, pretty soon we’ll be eating fresh fruit a lot more often. And the greenhouse at Moon Base Beta is going to be thirty times the size of this one. Once that’s built, there’ll be fresh food all the time.”
“That’ll be like ten years from now.”
“It’s scheduled to be done much sooner than that.”
“If there aren’t any construction delays. Which there will be. I’ll bet we’ll be back on earth before they even start building MBB.”
Dad didn’t argue the point, which probably meant he thought the same thing. Instead he asked, “When’d you get so cynical?”
“Since I moved to this fabulous location.” I gestured with false excitement to the rest of MBA. “I promise, when we get back home, I will never complain about eating my vegetables again.”
“I’m going to hold you to that,” Dad said.
My watch buzzed, indicating a text had come in. I glanced at it, knowing it wouldn’t be from any of my friends back in Hawaii. There was no real day or night on the moon—the sun was overhead hundreds of hours at a time—so MBA kept to a twenty-four-hour schedule synced to Central Standard Time and Mission Control in Houston. Hawaii was five hours behind, meaning it was still nighttime there.
The text was from Dr. Levinson, my math teacher back on earth, alerting me that our class on the ComLink that day was going to be delayed fifteen minutes. All teachers at MBA taught our classes remotely from earth, and most weren’t merely teachers; they were NASA scientists who spent a few hours a week educating us for extra pay.
“That’s strange,” Dad observed. “I thought Nina was shutting down your ComLink access.”
I stared at him, realizing he was right. All texts came via ComLink. “She said I’d be able to use it for school, though.”
“I thought she only meant for class,” Dad pointed out. “Any texts would probably still be blocked.”
“Let’s see.” I opened the message center on my watch. I hadn’t bothered checking it that morning because it wasn’t supposed to be working. Instead, it was. I had sixty-five texts in my folder. The first was from Riley Bock, who’d probably sent it long after I’d gone to sleep. “Yeah, there’s messages.”
“What’s going on?” Mom asked, sitting back down with Violet, who was happily devouring blueberry muffin cubes and singing about blueberries with her mouth full.
“Nina never shut down Dash’s ComLink,” Dad said.
“Oh.” Mom seemed pleasantly surprised. “Maybe she had a change of heart about it.”
“I didn’t know Nina had a heart,” Dad said, keeping his voice low so no one else would hear.
“I love blueberries!” Violet sang. “They’re delicious and nutritious and malicious!”
“ ‘Malicious’ means ‘evil,’ ” I told her.
“There could be evil blueberries,” Violet shot back. “Blueberries who try to take over the world so that no one eats them anymore. Luckily, I can defeat them!” She crammed a blueberry cube into her mouth and made a show of crushing it with her teeth.
I turned back to my parents. Our food was disgusting enough without having to see Violet chewing it with her mouth open. “You really think Nina changed her mind? Because she seemed awfully determined to punish me.”
“Maybe she was only making a show of punishing you,” Mom suggested. “So the Sjobergs would think she was doing it and be satisfied.”
“I don’t know,” I said skeptically. “That sounds awfully human for Nina.”
“Don’t question it,” Dad advised me. “Just be happy you’re still on the Link.”
“Know who else likes blueberries?” Violet announced suddenly. “DeeDah!”
“Who’s DeeDah?” Mom asked, humoring her.
“She’s my new friend!” Violet grinned. Her teeth were stained purple with blueberry.
“Oh?” Dad asked. “Where’s she from?”
“Here,” Violet replied. “She lives in the bathroom.”
Dad and Mom looked at each other and tried not to laugh. They always found Violet’s stories amusing. “Is DeeDah a little girl like you?” Mom asked.
“Oh no,” Violet said seriously. “She’s a walrus.”
Mom and Dad couldn’t keep their straight faces any longer and cracked up. “Oh, Violet,” Mom giggled, tousling my sister’s hair. “You’re such a goofball.”
I forced down the last of my breakfast and stood. “I’m going to see if I can find Roddy and talk to him before school starts.”
“All right.” Mom blew me a kiss. “You know where to find us.”
I took my plates to the cleaning station, then headed out of the mess hall. I could have just stopped by the Brahmaputra-Marquez family table to ask where Roddy was, but then I would have had to talk to them. Dr. Brahmaputra-Marquez and Inez were nice, but Cesar was a jerk and Dr. Marquez, our base psychiatrist, was always trying to psychoanalyze everyone else even though he was the looniest person at MBA. He had hundreds of weird tics; at the moment, he was sticking his pinky finger into his nostril so deep it looked like he might poke himself in the brain. One of the biggest problems with living on a moon base is that you’re stuck with your fellow Moonies no matter what. So I took any chance I could to avoid the ones I didn’t care for.
“Where are you going?” Kira asked as I walked past.
“To talk to Roddy.”
Kira jokingly faked a shudder of disgust. “Why would you do that?”
“He had something to do with why Patton tried to beat me up last night.”
“Oh. I heard about that. Nice move with the Urinator.”
“Thanks.”
“See you in class.”
“You too,” I said.
As I left the mess hall, I gave Dr. Goldstein a friendly wave through the greenhouse window, hoping it might lift her spirits, but she was too distraught over her sick squash to even notice me. My route to the rec room then took me past the science pod. Sure enough, most of the adults at MBA were already at their workstations: Dr. Janke in astrobiology, Dr. Kowalski in chemistry, Dr. Balnikov in astrophysics, Dr. Kim and Dr. Alvarez in geology. Dr. Daphne Merritt, the base roboticist, was also in her office, right by the air lock, examining something on her computer.
As Dad had guessed, Roddy was already in the rec room, playing virtual-reality games. This wasn’t an amazing deduction on Dad’s part. Roddy was almost always playing virtual-reality games; sometimes he logged as much as fourteen hours a day. Now he was obviously trying to squeeze in some time before school. A set of hologoggles was strapped over his eyes, and his hands were sheathed i
n sensogloves. He was whirling around madly, pausing now and then to pounce forward with a stabbing motion. I assumed this meant he was having an imaginary battle, though to me it looked like he was dancing ballet with a bad case of stomach cramps. One of the big problems with veeyar games is that no matter how cool you looked inside the game, you always looked like an idiot to anyone watching you play it from the outside.
“Roddy!” I shouted, so he could hear me over the game’s audio. “It’s Dash! Can you talk?”
“Sure!” Roddy made a pirouette and stabbed an invisible enemy beside me. “Jack in! I could use some backup.”
“All right.” I didn’t really want to jack in, but I had little choice. I needed to find out what Roddy knew. So I slipped on some sensogloves, strapped on some hologoggles, and fired them up. There was a flash of light, and then I was plunged into a world even more bizarre than I’d imagined.
Excerpt from The Official Residents’ Guide to Moon Base Alpha, “Appendix A: Potential Health and Safety Hazards,” © 2040 by National Aeronautics and Space Administration
VIRTUAL-REALITY DEVICES
Moon Base Alpha has been equipped with the latest virtual-reality entertainment systems to provide endless hours of enjoyment for you and your fellow lunarnauts. However, please remember that, when you use the veeyar system, you are doing it in a public space, rather than in the comfort and safety of your own home. People wearing hologoggles often fail to be aware of the real world around them, so make sure that other people and objects are not close by before you jack in. Many veeyar games require the players to make sudden dramatic, potentially dangerous motions such as kicks, punches, and karate chops. Try to only deliver these to your virtual opponents and not your fellow lunarnauts.
In addition, if you encounter anyone using the veeyar system, remember that they probably are unaware of your presence, and keep your distance until you can make sure they know you are close by. Otherwise, you might receive an attack meant for a virtual enemy, rather than yourself.
STEALING JULIET
Lunar day 217
After breakfast
I had expected to find myself on a bizarre virtual planet, fighting some sort of terrifying aliens. The last time I’d jacked into a game with Roddy, I’d been transported to a moon made of broken glass, where I’d battled beings who looked like giant, angry blobs of snot. But this time, I actually found myself on earth. We were in a charming little Italian village, and our enemies appeared to be completely normal humans. Angry and deadly humans, but humans nonetheless. The only odd thing about them was their clothing, which was straight out of the Renaissance: puffy white shirts, leather pants, and floppy feathered hats. Their weapons were simple swords, rather than ray guns or photon blasters. It was so disorienting, it took me a few seconds to get my bearings.
This was a few seconds too long for Roddy. “Don’t just sit there!” he yelled. “Help me kill these guys before they kill us!”
I spun around to find Roddy’s avatar beside me. While real Roddy was short, flabby, and pear-shaped, virtual Roddy appeared to have stepped out of a comic book. He was nearly seven feet tall and every inch of him bulged with muscles. He was also dressed in a puffy shirt and a floppy hat. Normally, Roddy’s avatar wore high-tech body armor, with multiple guns strapped to his chest. Now he looked like a member of a juggling troupe. His only weapon was a sword with an extremely thin blade.
I had never bothered to modify my avatar, so it looked exactly like me—though the game automatically outfitted me. I found myself in medieval clothes and armed with a sword as well. I raised it as one of the enemy attacked, deflecting his blade. Even though the contact was completely imaginary, it felt unsettlingly real. My sensogloves gave me the feeling of our swords clanging together, while speakers embedded in the hologoggles made the sound ring in my ears.
“Why do these guys want to kill us?” I shouted, fending off another attack.
“Because I kissed their cousin!” Roddy shouted back. While I was fighting only one guy, he was taking on three at the same time.
“That’s it?” I ducked to the side of a fruit cart as my opponent lunged at me. He missed me and cleaved a watermelon in half.
“Yeah,” Roddy replied. “They’re Capulets, we’re Montagues, and our families hate each other.”
“Hold on,” I said. “This is Romeo and Juliet?”
“Duh.” Roddy calmly speared one of his opponents through the chest. “You’ve never played it before?”
“I didn’t even know there was a veeyar version of it.”
Roddy looked at me as though I’d just said I’d never drunk water. “How could you not know that? William Shakespeare was one of the world’s greatest game creators.”
“Shakespeare didn’t create games,” I told him. “He was a playwright.”
Roddy laughed disdainfully, like I was an idiot. “Please. I know what I’m talking about. He created a ton of games: Macbeth’s Battle for Scotland, Revenge of Hamlet, Shrew-Tamer . . . I’ve played them all.”
I would have argued the issue, but it would have been pointless. Once Roddy thought he knew something, there was no talking him out of it. Besides, I needed to save my breath. I didn’t have a lot of practice sword-fighting and my opponent was awfully determined to lop my virtual head off. I was deflecting his attacks as well as I could, but they kept coming. I quickly found myself backed against a wall with nowhere to run.
“Die, Montague scum!” the enemy screamed, raising his sword above his head.
At which point, Roddy came to my rescue, slicing him in half. From head to toe. Both halves thudded to the cobblestones in front of me. Thankfully, no blood or internal organs spilled out; Roddy must have had the game’s violence settings set to Teen.
He’d taken care of his opponents in a similar way. The three of them were now in a dozen large pieces scattered about the plaza.
The dead bodies faded away and were replaced by the words EXCEPTIONAL SWORDPLAY! LEVEL ONE HATH BEEN COMPLETED.
“C’mon,” Roddy said, leading me down a narrow alley. “The Capulets are a big family. More of them will be coming for us soon. We have to get to Juliet.”
“So you can marry her?” I asked, trailing after him.
“Marry her?” Roddy’s avatar stuck out his tongue in disgust, which meant that real Roddy had done the same thing. “Dude, she’s only, like, thirteen.”
“I know, but in the play . . .”
“It’s a game, dimbulb. The whole point is just to kiss the girl. She’s crazy beautiful. And then her cousins try to kill you and your family. But if you defeat them all, you get to kiss her again. For, like, thirty whole seconds.”
“You can kiss a virtual girl?”
Virtual Roddy shot me another you’re-an-idiot look. “Yeah. It’s cosmic. And good practice for when Kira and I start making out in real life.”
I shuddered just thinking about this. Roddy truly believed that he was a great catch and the only reason Kira hadn’t succumbed to his charms yet was that her father didn’t want her dating anyone at the moon base. In truth, the reason was that Kira thought Roddy was a weirdo and a creep. Learning that he’d been making out with virtual Shakespeare characters wasn’t going to improve her opinion of him.
We appeared to have settled into an exploration mode in the game, slinking about Verona in search of Juliet while trying to elude angry Capulets. Even though it was completely fake and ridiculous, being on virtual earth felt fantastic. It was easy to imagine I was wandering through one of the thousands of real Italian country towns, breathing fresh air and feeling the sun on my face. Yes, it was only a matter of time before sword-wielding hooligans tried to kill us, but for the moment, it was a welcome break from the dull, sterile surroundings of Moon Base Alpha.
In the lull between attacks, I asked, “Did you do anything to get Patton and Lily angry at you last night?”
Virtual Roddy shot a wary glance at me. “Sort of.”
We came upon a large, open-a
ir market and wove through the maze of stalls and merchants. All around us, imaginary people were selling imaginary cheese, fruit, and goats. “What’d you do?” I asked.
“I was spying on them.”
“Why?”
“Because they were obviously up to no good. I saw them in the gym after dinner, and they looked like they were trying to be all sneaky. . . .”
“Wait a minute. You were in the gym?” We were all supposed to work out in the gym for two hours a day to counter the effects of low gravity on our bodies, but Roddy hadn’t done this in months.
“No,” he corrected. “They were in the gym. I was just passing by. But I could tell they were up to something, so I decided to spy on them.”
I wondered if this was true. I knew that, in addition to being attracted to Kira, Roddy also had a crush on Lily Sjoberg. In fact, Roddy had a crush on pretty much every woman at MBA who wasn’t related to him; he was a year older than me and his body was already surging with hormones. Lily was the girl who grabbed his attention most of all, though. Every time he saw her, his train of thought would immediately derail and he’d stare at her, slack-jawed with puppy love. Chances were, Roddy hadn’t been randomly passing by the gym; he’d probably been lurking around, watching Lily use the exercise equipment. I decided not to call him on this, though. “And? Did you see them do something?”
“I’ll say. After a while, they snuck out of the gym and went into the base control room.”
A virtual fishmonger waved several handfuls of dead eels in my face, trying to sell me the slimy things for breakfast. I ducked around him. “What’d they do in there?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t see.”
“Why not?”
“Because they were inside the office and I was outside it. Duh. I don’t have X-ray vision.”
“You don’t have any idea what they did?”
“Nope. But I’ll bet it was bad.”
“Why?”