Mickey bounced slightly (his shoes read eighty-five lbs psi) over to the large slab of rock known as the Welcome Desk and eyed the shiny brochures insouciantly; he was waiting for the receptionist to ask him if he needed any help. Skye stood by him and caught a few minutes of MIB³ playing on the left-most television screen.
The middle screen looped endless news programming, and the right showed various corners and hidden alcoves of the 3.14 acre facility. Sunlight rained down through the upper glass panels, lighting up the floor and the towering structure supporting the inner framework of the Dome.
A couple in their late thirties walked past the door and into the Observation Deck. Employees bustled by occasionally, but it must’ve been early for Mickey saw no one really besides himself and Skye, and a redheaded receptionist standing behind the wide slab of desk. The TV behind her was playing at low volume. Mickey barely heard it.
He grew tired of waiting, and finally spoke up.
“Are there any rover tours scheduled for today?”
The girl looked up from the computer screen and into his eyes, prodding there for a moment.
“Yesss!” she said, checking the computer. “There are three. The one going to Tycho crater leaves out in two hours and comes back tomorrow afternoon. Plato’s crater comes right after that, and the local trip leaves about noonish. Should I book your seats?”
The girl tapped the tips of her fingers on the polished countertop. It looked like sardonyx—blisters and rings of bright red minerals ran through it like tyrannical blood vessels.
“What’s the local trip?” Mickey asked. It sounded intriguing, and maybe cheap.
“Takes you to Aldrin, Armstrong, and the Collins craters to the north of here,” she said, as if reading a script. This was a question she evidently heard all too often.
“How long does it last?”
The redhead smiled quickly, and dropped her head to scan the computer again. “Two hours and twenty-eight minutes, approximately.”
“Should I book your seats? You’re still early at this point.”
She snatched a peppermint from the glass dish on the countertop and tossed it in her mouth. Mickey heard (felt) the hard candy rolling into, against and over her sharp teeth.
“Not just yet. We’ll come back later.”
He smiled, grabbed Skye up, and walked down to A-Block to see if Crass and Eva were up yet.
They better be, he thought. We’ve got big plans and little time.
3
Crass and Eva woke up Saturday morning with the light of the lunar day coming through the shades of the picture glass window. Facesnap was up and running, as usual. Persona welcomed us with a foreign tongue.
“Buenos días, Crass. Should I fill you in on the status of Earth? Any thought directives?”
Her blonde ponytail bobbed behind the pixilated image on the screen. He called it her digi-face. It smiled at him, transiently.
“No thanks, Persona. Could you find a poem that maybe relates to the Moon and can help us start the day?” he asked.
He put on his pants and slipped into the balancing Moon shoes. Eva was at the window, looking out over the dull and rolling plains of regular ole regolith. The Sun was momentarily in her eyes. She turned and walked towards the screen on the opposite wall.
“I love poetry! Do you think you could find some Whitman, Persona? That may narrow the results just a tad.” Eva walked over to the nook and sat down in the chair, looking over his stuff.
“Ok, Eva. I think I’ve found it. The title is Look Down Fair Moon, by Walt Whitman. It goes a little something like this—
Look down fair moon and bathe this scene,
Pour softly down night’s nimbus floods on faces ghastly,
swollen, purple,
On the dead on their backs with arms toss’d wide,
Pour down your unstinted nimbus sacred moon.
Persona read this with a naturally flowing cadence suggesting she was probably trained in the skills of elocution. Either that or the poem was much too good to be screwed up with amateur reading skills.
“You like it?” she said with good cheer. “Took me half a nanosecond to find it.”
Eva spoke before Crass got the chance to open his mouth.
“I loved it! I could listen to Walt’s words all day. And who taught you how to read?” she asked, scribbling something on the ream of hotel stationery with the LunaDome tattoo.
“My programmer did, Mr. Zanderburg. He’s really smart.”
The assistant smiled again. White teeth showed behind the red crescents of her smooth lips. She looked young, in her early twenties, if he had to guess.
“And very rich,” Eva finished for her. She was drawing on paper with a black pen. It traced across the page in wild, tangling lines.
Then Crass had an exciting thought come bubbling up to the anterior veranda of his stoned ass mind. Now that he’d cashed out of the Bitcoin community, Facesnap would no longer be mandatory in the presence of his Earthly domain. He could throw the television screen out the window and use the MoboGloblal glasses if he wanted to watch a show or a movie.
The MoboGlob…wait a sec…he’d brought them here with him, didn’t he? Surely. He ran around the room, searching for his book bag until he finally found it lying by itself on the cushions of the white loveseat.
Eva and Persona were chatting about the last boyfriend who’d been excommunicated from the heavenly bosom prior to the rocket launch from Innsmouth Island. His name was Brett and he was gone now, thought Crass.
Sometimes all a woman needed to drop anyone was one very good and powerful feeling, and she’d been on her way out the door. Did anyone blame them?
Hasta luego. And all you could do at that point would be to stop and stare.
Don’t go. I love you!
And she’d already be in her fast car with the accelerator pushed to the floor as the dial of the speedometer spun over towards 9 o’clock, then high noon, and further east towards the mouth of the Atlantic Ocean.
There were three space cakes left, each wrapped tightly in aluminum foil at the bottom of his book bag. He glanced past them and saw a hump of fabric. His toboggan. And wrapped up inside was a carbon fiber carrying case for expensive, new glasses. From what the designer had said about them, there were only three prototypes in existence and this was one of them. A rarity indeed.
MoboGlobal at this point was unheard of. But when you played cards in backrooms with eclectic people, you started asking questions and sometimes (rarely) made friends with people who had a true vision for their product or art. Jean Glassé was exactly that kind of guy. A Frenchman who could take ordinary glasses and infuse them with the sexiest of modern technology.
Crass eased them out of the case, and wiped off the crystal lenses with the microfiber cloth that hung in the middle like a black and shiny pearl. He brushed over the head-mounted display very gently and slid the apparatus over his eyes. The tiny processor vibrated into life as the computer screen flashed across the interior scope of the glass lenses.
HELLO CRASS.
He used the blinking of his eyelids to say HEY back. The screen zoomed in on a spinning wheel with several options. Crass blinked once again (took loads of practice to get it down right) and the door was unlocking. The sign on it read Memory Transmutation.
Off in the distance, Eva and Persona had both quieted down and Crass looked up through the glasses as a knock came from the airlocked door. The computer near the door indentified the visitors as Mickey and Eva.
“I’ll get it,” Crass said, rushing up and over to the door.
He planted his palm in the center’s traced diagram, and then looked at Mickey and Skye as the door actuated, positioning itself in the wall to the left.
“What are those?” Mickey asked, looking at him strangely and grabbing for the clear shades over his eyes.
“Expensive is what they are,” Crass said, batting his hand out of his line of vision. “Hands off.”
H
e didn’t want to upset the picture. He was recording the moments now. A red light blinked in the upper hemisphere of the right lens. The real treat came later, after all the processing was done, and he traveled back to the door located in the hub of the large wheel with all those sexy options.
Thanks Jean, I owe you one buddy.
“Are we going to eat soon?” Eva asked. She had put the pen down and bounced over to join us by the door. Her shoes were still by the foot of the CloudBed, placed side by side each other.
“I guess. Is it breakfast time?” Crass asked with a quick look at Mickey.
He grinned slightly, revealing the top layer of his gold teeth. A black stubble moustache was prickling out above the top of his stretched lips.
“It’s 8:30,” Skye said. “I checked the time on the TV when we were at the Welcome Desk.” She looked up at Mickey.
“Really?” Mickey asked sarcastically. “Because to me, it looked like you were foaming at the mouth over Will Smith. And maybe even Tommy Lee Jones too.”
“WHATEVER! MICKEY!” she practically yelled, throwing a right hook at his upper arm and then settling back down.
Mickey threw up his hand to inspect and gently rub the area. Coils of leather bunched up as he bent at the elbows.
“Asshole,” Skye muttered lowly. “And what about the redhead at the counter you ASS!? I saw you flirting with her, but I didn’t say anything about it, DID I?”
“That’s because you were off in La-La land, dreaming about Agent J and Agent K. And the redhead thing isn’t really my cup of tea. Ya dig?”
Crass said nothing and let it play out before him. He was recording the moment, after all.
“They’re crazier than the Puerto Rican and Mexican girls combined,” Mickey said matter-of-factly. “And to top it all off, she’s American, which entails more melodramatics and less sex.”
Crass thought he saw a twinkle in the big white orbs of his eyes.
“Yes Mick, but not always. We can’t just throw them all in one box and label it American,” Crass said. “But I see what you’re getting at. I think.”
“America thinks God is in the TV,” Eva said.
(What?)
Crass turned around, still rolling footage. She looked like a college student debating over global warming. It was one of those statements that just sounded too alien when it processed in the brain. But once it rolled around in there like a pinball for a while, it somehow started to make sense and grew on you like an infectious black tattoo.
Eva pulled her hair back over her shoulders and looked over at all of them, serious face.
“All the TV programming any human being could ever need or want is right there on the wall 24/7. Watching, lurking, but always calling your name. Here,” she said cautiously, almost whispering. “Sit down on the couch, waste away your existence with nine thousand different channels.”
“Buy this, buy that. Are you out of a job? Need a loan? Want to sue your mother-in-law? Need to get out of jail? Feel like killing someone? Feel like killing yourself? Do you want to talk to a psychiatrist about it? Need a prescription for it? Don’t have a phone? Want to get one for free from a socialist government?”
“Do you ever feel bloated? Constipated? Not pretty enough? Without breath? Geezus Price, does anyone here follow me yet?”
“It’s the treadmill and the people on the couch are the goddam guinea pigs.” Eva crossed her arms. Her eyes were swimming with passion, downright submerged in its hellfire embrace.
Crass remembered then he didn’t have to turn for the glasses to pick her up on the small screen embedded near the top rim of the glasses. There were thirty-two different high-definition cameras positioned at all angles in the arms and across the back strap. Later this would prove useful when the film was developed. Likely back on the Blue Planet.
“Jesus, Eva,” Mickey said with a cunning enough smile. “Why don’t you tell us how you really feel about it?”
“The more the world develops and grows, the tougher it’s going to become for people to escape from reality,” Eva said. “There are enough distractions on Earth to keep folks busy a very long time.”
“But here’s the thing guys; people there aren’t ready for a change. They’d rather just go to work, come home, turn on the tube, eat their modest dinners, go to sleep and dream about the coming weekend’s events. Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. That’s enslavement by choice. Nothing else.”
Her tone had moved from a flirty, college babe down to a serious and most perturbed woman protecting her children.
It was strange, so very goddam strange.
The MoboGlobal glasses took care of the rest of the conversation, and we all traveled down to the café for breakfast, still thinking on what Eva had said in the doorway of the room on A-Block.
Breakfast screamed through the airwaves, and filled the place with a sweet (pancakes) and salty (bacon, eggs) atmosphere of heavenly delight. And then came the smell of fresh coffee—all anyone ever needed to feel awake.
It was here. Thank God, he thought.
Give me a cup of joe.
4
On a Saturday morning at 8:48 a.m. EST, on the surface of the magnificent desolation called Luna (or the Moon), the same group that had gathered at the rock cliff plateau known as Innsmouth Island, were collected in the café of the LunaDome. Its large glass windows overlooked the landmark known as Little West Crater.
Sixty-two years ago, an American astronaut named Armstrong stood by it and snapped a panoramic photo for the entire world to see.
Sitting perfectly in the grey wash sea of regolith was the shiny white and gold remains of the Lunar Module from his mission—Apollo 11. And here today, in 2031, Crass stood by the windows and munched on a few strips of bacon from the deli counter.
The nearly hundred foot diameter of the crater he saw well. The Sun was suspended high in the sky overlooking it and the old carcass of the Eagle Lander. No rust and no dust. It looked the same as it did when it had landed over half a century ago. A silvery glint bounced off a spot near the steps of the ladder.
They’d left a plaque behind. Some might ask, for whom? Well, it was for anyone that just so happened to stop by and visit for a while. Anyone at all—human beings, cyborgs, aliens, astral bodies, you name it.
Space and the outer confines of our galaxy, and way out into other galaxies beyond our own, were all open to the public. And by God, if you were a race intelligent and brave enough, and could somehow muster up the financing and engineers and astronauts and fuel and rocket ships, then you could go wherever the hell you wanted to. Any damn place at all. Name it. We’ve mapped it. Someone has, or maybe would like to try.
Quantum physics was still exploring new ideas and theories. Superposition. Possibilities. Microscopic universes. Quantum computers. Entanglement. Sub-atomic particles and other things he wasn’t entirely sure about.
Crass sighed and ate another piece of bacon. Over by the Starbucks ample-size storefront, he saw a bald man standing at the counter, and brooding over the menu board like it was written in Braille.
He went to walk over and bounced instead, touching off the floor with his soles, and making it to Captain Don’s back, a space of ninety feet or better, in about six or seven broad strides over the tile. The little robots were cleaning, but dodged him (motion sensors) when he skipped across and edged up at the coffee counter beside the Cap.
He didn’t break his concentration to look over at him. He continued eyeballing the dressed up names (Venti Café Caramel Frappucino, Grande Chocolate Chai Tea Latte) with his head titled upwards gazing at the selection. And then he spoke without turning his eyes away from the lights of the menu board.
“You would think I stepped off the edge of the world,” he said softly. “What is this shit?”
“Pansy tonic water,” Crass said, tapping the countertop with his hand.
Captain Don laughed and smiled, turning to look at him. He hadn’t shaved and strangely had the Jason Statham look (a
lways three day stubble) going on. His head glowed under the bright lights.
“I find it’s best to apply the K.I.S.S. method of deduction.”
Captain Don’s brown turned down in a comical V shape. “The what?”
“Keep It Simple, Stupid.”
“Shit fire!” he exclaimed. “I haven’t heard that since ninth grade man.”
“What should I do then?” he asked. “Any recommendations?”
They guy in the green apron behind the counter, nametag of Javier, was busy at a bronze colored machine, steaming milk or something for an espresso. He was filling an entire tray with them; one by one they went into the cardboard slots, until twelve of them were full.
“Order up,” he said over the intercom.
A lone teenager with shaggy brown hair came strolling through the open doors. He had on a shirt supporting a metal band called Starburst Artifact. A bright, encircling tunnel of cosmos entangled the words.
“That’s easy,” Crass replied. “The White Chocolate Mocha wins nine times out of ten, every time. That’s the odds of this particular establishment.”
“You’ve got it all figured out, huh? What are you? A gambler?” the Cap asked jocularly. “Some kind of math teacher or logic professor?”
“Something like that.”
Crass eyeballed the tray of steaming hot espressos, twelve of them, sitting on the counter by a napkin dispenser shining under the bright fluorescents.
The kid bounced up to the counter joyfully, brushed the hair out of his face, and grabbed the steaming tray under the bottom. How much did liquid weigh here? Crass wondered. And the kid was about to bounce off, not thinking of the dire circumstances of such a mistake, being nearly weightless on the Moon’s surface in a giant biome built exclusively for Outer Space tourists.
“Hey kid,” Crass said, looking at the teenager. “You might want to pump up your shoes before going any further with that boiling hot coffee.”
LunaDome: A Novel Page 15