Dark Side of the Moon

by P. C. Rasmussen

  Daniel was getting antsy now and Kyle knew exactly why. The kid was worried that Bark's words were gospel and that it would mean that he wouldn't get off this dump after all. Kyle needed to run some damage control to prevent the kid from falling headlong into a depression here. "Let's just figure out if you can even fix this thing first, okay?" he suggested, his tone derisive. "Or should I shop around for someone else? Someone who's a bit more upbeat about getting in touch with Earth?"

  The glare that earned him was hot enough to burn, but Kyle merely smiled and shrugged in response. Bark began to move the junk, aided by Daniel, and together they pried the door open. Bark stepped inside and eyed the dead hulk of machinery, then started inspecting the other walls inside the room. After a moment, he located what he was looking for, a smallish almost hidden door set into the wall. He opened it by pressing on it and leaned forward to inspect the contents for a moment. When he straightened up again, he was holding a black, dusty case.

  "What's that?" Kyle asked.

  Bark gave him a look he couldn't read, then placed the case on top of the console and opened it. "The tools needed to fix this bucket," he said and inspected the contents of the case. "Everything's still here. So, providing I can figure out what's wrong with this shit bucket, I've got everything I need to fix it. Unless we're talking spare parts; those are not available."

  Kyle nodded. "Good to hear," he said, happy that his little tirade had affected Bark the way he'd hoped it would. "What else do you need?"

  For a moment the other man considered this and then gave Kyle another of those bland looks. "Peace and quiet," he said, glanced at the door, then at Daniel and then looked back at Kyle. "And a seat on whatever rescue vehicle you're going to book."

  That pulled a smirk from Kyle. "That goes without saying," he agreed, then grabbed Daniel's arm. "Let's give the man some peace and quiet here," he added and shooed the younger man out of the confines of the com-station room.

  They found a place to settle down on some boxes nearby, and just sat there for a bit, both of them lost in thought. Kyle observed that Daniel kept glancing at him and couldn't help wondering what was on the younger man's mind.

  "Why?" Daniel suddenly asked.

  Kyle faced him fully, his lower arms resting on his knees, his back slightly bent to accomplish that position. "Why what?" he asked, well aware that Daniel was repeating his previous question.

  "Why choose me? I'm of no use to you. You could easily do this without me," he said and he sounded as worried as he looked. Obviously, he was concerned that Kyle would change his mind somewhere along the line because Daniel felt he couldn't contribute to this escape attempt.

  "Look at me, kid," he suggested, which Daniel was already doing. "What I told you earlier still stands. You've been handed a pile of stinking shit here and you don't deserve that. I don't give a shit that you ran someone down on your way home from a party. There are too many people in the world as it is. And the punishment doesn't fit the crime here. They could have given you a slap on the wrist or put you away for a year or two and that would have been the end of that. There is no fucking reason for you to rot up here. So, yeah, when I leave here, you're coming with me. And Bark is too, because he's doing the hard work on this one. Without him, I can't get in touch with Earth."

  "Yeah, I get that, but ... what if you can't take anyone else? What if you can only take one? Then what?" Anxious beyond reason, Daniel was fidgeting with a crease in his jeans, picking at it in a way that would leave a hole there if Kyle didn't stop him.

  He reached out and grabbed Daniel's wrist, stopping his almost OCD-like behavior. "If they can take me, they can take more than me," he reassured him. "And even if the impossible should happen and I'm told I can only choose one, you're my first choice. Got that?" His tone was perhaps harsher than necessary, but Kyle aimed at getting his point across no matter what. He wanted Daniel to relax, to be attentive to the task at hand. Right now, he wasn't attentive to anything other than being left behind. "I'm not leaving you behind, Danny," he insisted.

  Once more, the guy's eyes welled up with tears and this time one broke loose and trickled down his face. The way his lips crunched together told Kyle how hard Daniel was fighting to remain in control.

  "I know you said you didn't want to hear about it unless it was a done deal, but I need your help. You get along with people here. You know them. You know who to talk to. So, you see, I do need you. You're an asset. And I don't repay friends by stabbing them in the back," he pressed on when Daniel made no attempt to reply. The last part left a sour taste in his mouth that, for a moment, he couldn't pinpoint. But when it came right down to it, a part of him wasn't one hundred percent sure that what had happened to Pete was fair. Then again, he only had to remind himself of what Pete had done, of what he had been about to do again, and the sour taste along with any lingering doubts seeped back into the morass they had risen from. What Pete got was what he deserved. Besides, there really was nothing Kyle could do about it now anyway. It was in the past and so far, nobody had bothered to invent a time machine. "Do you hear me?" he pushed when Daniel still didn't reply.

  The kid merely nodded and rubbed the back of one hand under his nose. It took him a while longer to regain enough composure to not start crying when he opened his mouth. He even managed a tight little smile when he finally was ready to talk again. "Thanks," he muttered.

  "Don't mention it," Kyle said with an easy smile.

  Before either of them could say more, Bark suddenly turned up. He had some undefined tool in one hand and his sleeves were rolled up over his elbows. Whatever had happened to him a few days ago, his arms were full of bruises. But obviously that was not foremost on his mind. "The damned thing has been vandalized," he said, his expression full of disappointment. "All the wires have been cut. A piece is missing from each of them. Whoever did this wanted to make damned sure it wasn't easy to fix."

  That bit of news could put a spoke in his wheel and Kyle wasn't happy about this at all. "Fuck," he muttered and rose. "So ... you can't fix it?" he asked, hoping that wouldn't be the case.

  "If we can find replacement wires somewhere, then sure. But without that, no way in hell," Bark countered.

  Judging by Bark's disappointment, Kyle assumed there was no easy fix for this, and it wasn't like there was a hardware store nearby either. His response, however, was to turn to Daniel, who was still sitting on his crate. "Any ideas?"

  The kid just sat there and stared up at both of them, his expression blank. After a moment he rose too, towering over both of them. Kyle almost chuckled at that thought. Towering was probably too strong a word, but Daniel was taller than both of them. "The junk heap?" he asked.

  Bark glanced from Daniel to Kyle and back again, and there was something in his expression that spoke more than words. "In dome 2?" he asked and Daniel nodded. It was immediately evident that Bark wasn't going anywhere near dome 2 again.

  "The five of them are gone," Kyle said, feeling the need to reassure the other man in some way. "There's nobody left in dome 2 but Jack and Andy. You're not afraid of them, are you?" he asked.

  Bark just stared at him for a second before looking away, jaw squared. He obviously had no reply to that; at least none that he would say out loud.

  "There are the Russians down the other end," Daniel inserted doubtfully.

  "Mike mentioned them; said they weren't a threat," Kyle said, with a sideways glance at the kid, before returning his attention to Bark, who was staring off into the distance, a decidedly tense expression on his face. "Of course, if you don't want to go, we can try and see if we can find the right stuff ourselves," he then suggested.

  Bark grimaced and sent a look over one shoulder at the com-station door. "It has to be thick enough to carry the current," he said thoughtfully, then looked back at Daniel, avoiding Kyle in the process. "If I show you, will you remember what it looks like?"

  Daniel glanced at Kyle, seeking either support or sugges
tions, but then shrugged lightly. "Yeah, sure," he agreed. Together, the two of them returned to the com-station with Kyle trailing behind.

  Inside, Bark showed Daniel what kind of wire he was after and how much of it he needed, while Kyle watched and hoped it wouldn't be too hard to find stuff like that. He wasn't technically endowed, though, and wondered if Daniel knew shit from Shinola when it came down to it. All Kyle could do was hope he did.

  "We'll be back soon," Daniel promised Bark, who nodded curtly and said nothing in return. "Right?" he added and glanced at Kyle.

  "Yeah, sure we will," Kyle agreed. "All we have to do is find some coils of wire and we're in business." At this, he gave Bark a scrutinizing look, which the other man chose to ignore. It didn't sit well with Kyle, because he saw it as negative right now. "Right?" he repeated Daniel's question, now directed at Bark.

  "If you find the right wire, sure, no problem. I can fix this if I have the right wires," Bark said. "Whether the station will do you any good when it's operational is a totally different matter."

  So that was the problem then? Kyle smirked; couldn't help himself. "Don't worry about that. I'm sure we'll be able to get in touch with someone Earth-side. Once I get in touch with my father, things will start happening."

  Bark frowned lightly. "Yeah, and pigs can fly," he grumbled.

  Even though Bark's comment could have riled him up, Kyle decided not to let it get to him. "Somewhere in the universe, I'm sure they can," he said with a smile, then turned to Daniel. "Let's move like we got a purpose, Danny."

  They left Bark at the com-station and he closed the door from the inside they walked away. Kyle wondered if he really would be safe in there if someone was really out to get him, but then who would that be? The threat from dome 2 was gone and it didn't look like there was much action in dome 1. So unless the mysterious Bark had gathered other enemies since his relocation to dome 1, the guy was just being paranoid. Of course, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you, Kyle thought and smirked.

  As they headed back toward the tunnel to dome 2, Daniel seemed pensive, but not for long. Almost at the tunnel, he glanced at Kyle. "If we can't find it in dome 2, dome 4 might have it. Stella says they have a junk pile twice as big," he said.

  At least the kid was trying to stay positive; that was always something. "Hell, right now I'm ready to swipe light wires if that works," Kyle countered with a smile. "As long as we get the damned thing up and running, I don't really care where the wires come from."

  Daniel nodded. "Yeah. Problem is, though, that light wires are too thin. They would never work in a unit like the com-station. The power running through that thing is just too much for those wires to handle," he said, pulled the tarp away from the tunnel opening and let Kyle step through first.

  Kyle glanced back at Daniel when he followed him through. "I always thought wires were wires," he admitted with a half-shrug.

  That made Daniel grin. "No, if you use light wires on something like that, they'll melt. It wouldn't last half an hour," he said.

  This reminded Kyle of something he had managed to forget; mainly because he had thought he was here to stay when he was told about it, and therefore had stashed it away in the back of his head among all the stuff he would no longer find any use for. "Oh yeah, that's right. You went to MIT, didn't you?" he asked and Daniel nodded. "So you know all this crap. You're practically a tech-head yourself."

  "Technology is many things," Daniel said. "I never really managed to use any of it in real life, you know. And Bark is ... well, he said he used to be a com-technician. So he knows this much better than I do."

  In Kyle's opinion Daniel was just being modest. Of course, he hadn't seen the kid in action and didn't know if he knew one wire from another, but he claimed that he had earned his degree, so it was obvious that he would know such things. Kyle smirked. "Well, at least you know light wires from com-station wires. That's more than I do."

  Daniel smiled and it eased something in Kyle that he managed to wrestle a smile out of the guy. "I guess," he agreed.

  "Let's go raid the junk pile," Kyle said and picked up the pace. He had no doubt that they would find what they were after. No doubt at all.

  ***

  Trolling for treats

  The junk pile seemed to have grown since they had saved Stan's bacon. Kyle stopped and eyed it for a moment, not sure where to start looking for what they needed. Daniel stopped next to him and seemed hampered by the same concerns.

  "I sometimes wonder where it all comes from," Daniel said after a moment. "It's not like anything's being produced here. So where does all this stuff come from?" He made a sweeping gesture at the pile.

  Kyle took a deep breath. "Who knows?" he countered. "And it's not like it really matters either. I learned a long time ago that it doesn't pay to dwell on such matters." He arched an eyebrow at his own choice of words and snorted. "Look who's getting all artsy-fartsy here," he added with a snide grin. "Let's go trolling for treats."

  Daniel glanced at him, then shrugged lightly and they both started toward the pile. The thing about this pile was that it did contain wires, and lots of them. They were just nowhere near the lengths they needed and patching them together wouldn't work very well, Daniel said.

  There were a lot of things Kyle couldn't identify and a few he could and wished he hadn't, but for the most part the pile - pile? The term almost made him chuckle. It was more a mountain than a pile - consisted of furniture parts, pieces of metal, short cuts of wire and clothing.

  After an hour of roaming up and down the sides of the heap, finding wire and discarding it, Kyle ended up on the other side of this treasure trove and just stood and stared at it. "What's a guy gotta do to get some fucking wire in this joint?" he muttered, then glanced upward in search of Daniel. The kid was nowhere in sight, but he could hear him rummaging somewhere. "Dan?" he called.

  "What?" Daniel turned up on the right side of the pile, a coil of something over one arm, a box with wires sticking out of it in the other hand. "You find something?"

  "Nothing that's worthwhile. You?" Kyle replied and squinted at the coiled something on Daniel's arm.

  "This might work," Daniel said and raised that arm a little. "But it's not enough."

  The prospect of having dig through this crap for any length of time - and let's face it, it wasn't called a junk pile for nothing - made Kyle feel a little tired. "How much more do you need?" he asked. "That looks like a lot."

  Daniel glanced down at the coiled wire. "Yeah, but it's not enough. Not by a long shot. They didn't just cut the wires, they cut a part out of them. Bark will have to replace the missing wire and there're a lot of wires in that station."

  For a moment, Kyle's mind just tripped along without a care in the world, but then it suddenly stood up and took notice. "Something like that wouldn't be available in that all-purpose clothing store, would it?" he asked. "I mean ... they've got other shit in there that has nothing to do with clothing."

  It was with some concern that Kyle realized that his words had stopped Daniel dead in his tracks. He just stood there and stared at Kyle as if he'd revealed the meaning of life and Daniel had realized it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. "Uh ..." That wasn't much of a response, especially considering that Kyle thought the kid was smarter than making inarticulate noises like that.

  "Uh what? Should we go look? Or do you want to continue scouring this pile of ... crap?" He made a gesture toward the junk.

  "Well ... we can always try. I ... don't think I've ever seen wire in there, but ... I haven't been through all of it," Daniel finally said, sounding a little uncertain.

  "Then let's go," Kyle suggested and eyed his hands. They were full of cuts and scrapes. "I'd rather scour that room than get any more cuts from doubtful pieces of metal."

  "Okay," Daniel agreed and dropped the box. But he took the coil of wire with him. "Why would there be wire in there?" he asked while they headed in th
e direction of the 'mall'.

  Kyle shrugged. "Why wouldn't there?" he countered. "Think about it. They lock us up in this place with no chance of ever leaving, and none of them are ever going to set foot inside the domes. They must know that things will start to fail along the way. There's only so much they can maintain from the outside, so why not leave us the tools to maintain some of the stuff on the inside?"

  The frown that graced Daniel's brow was accompanied by a pushed-out lower lip. "That makes sense," he said. "I just figured they sent us up here to die, so why should they care if we've got light? Nobody's bothered to fix the lights in domes 5 and 6, after all."

  "I think it might be wise to refrain from doing that," Kyle said with a smile. "The loonies might not like it. They don't seem too keen on crossing the tunnel into dome 4 from what I understand."

  "That's bullshit," Daniel said quietly. "They came through before, took people. Jack ..." He stopped talking for a moment, his face a mask of indecision. "Then again ... Jack doesn't really have all the answers, does he?"

  "Doesn't strike me as being the case, no," Kyle agreed. They turned a corner and very nearly ran into Jack and Andy.

  The two other men stopped short as suddenly as Kyle and Daniel did, and for a moment the four of them just stood there and eyed each other.

  "Well, well, well, look at what the cat dragged in," Jack said. He didn't sound too enthusiastic about this meeting.

  "And a good day to you too," Kyle countered and smirked. He had no love for either of them, not considering what they had let happen without lifting a finger to stop it, but there was that part of him that understood such behavior as well. "You're still hanging around this dome, huh?"

  Andy folded his arms over his chest and eyed him surly. "What's it look like, wise guy?" he asked, his tone derisive. "What are you two doing here? I thought you were all chummy with the gardeners now."