SuperMoon

by H. A. Swain

  “I don’t have any currency,” she whispers, then drops down to her heels.

  “Don’t worry about that!” I reach inside the red knapsack again. “I can get us just about anything with this.” I hold up Castor’s data scanner—our ticket to everything in AlphaZonia.

  With my old device stowed inside the knapsack and the Wearables back on, I lead Uma and Quasar down the hill to Lost Feelies—the Yoobie neighborhood closest to the edge of ’Fith with good food and possible MUSCie sightings.

  Uma sticks close by when we emerge from a quiet side street onto a busy promenade lined with automated food marts and filled with chattering, nattering people Streaming under filtered streetlights. “That’s a lot of people!” she says.

  “Everybody comes here,” I tell her. “Yoobies, tourists, sometimes even Moonlings.” I pause for a second and consider telling her that I’m looking for a Moonling runaway, but she shrinks away as if afraid.

  “Is there lots of security around here?” she asks.

  Her sweetness and innocence make me feel mercenary, so I keep my true objective to myself. I’m afraid she won’t like me if I admit what I’m really up to. “There are no SecuriBots, but don’t worry!” I reassure her. “Moonlings won’t hurt you. They’re odd-looking, but mostly they keep to themselves. We’re safe here.”

  I pull her into the flow of bodies and head for my favorite place—a white boxy building with red letters spelling out FOODINI MART flashing above the entrance. Quasar parks himself beside the building to wait while we go inside.

  I step up to a bank of screen pads over square cubbies. “If you have a TFT chip, you can experience what D’Cart recommends to eat, then think your order, but we’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way.”

  I hold up my TouchCuff next to the screen and hear the subtle click of recognition. An automated voice says, “Welcome, Jubar Thrashman. What would you like to eat?”

  Uma glances at me, perplexed. I hold my breath, afraid of what she’ll think. But she gives me a little nod, as if an understanding has passed between us, and she says, “Yeah, Jubar, what’s for dinner?” with a wink.

  Grinning with relief that she’s willing to go along, I explain the system to her. “This is a 3-D food printer. There are tons of options. First, you choose the size of the portion that you want. One-Bite Snack, Make Mine a Meal, or Behemoth.”

  “Let’s make it a meal,” she says.

  “Next you choose the ingredients you want.”

  “Whoa,” she says when all the options show up on the screen. Four kinds of kelp, six types of ground insect pulp, nine legume purees, dozens of veggie pastes, and three faux meat mashes.

  “I like these best.” I choose pea protein, beet paste, and ground grub worms. “Next, choose the shape you want.” I pick the outline of a burger.

  On the screen, we watch a three-armed robot holding green, red, and white squirty tubes lay down layer after layer of nutritional pastes. First, white circles of grub worm form the bottom bun. Then a red beet patty is built on top of that. A thin swirl of green pea paste comes next. And finally, another white paste bun on top. When it’s done, a convection light zaps my order to cook it, then the robotic arm slides it forward into the cubby. I tap the screen, which lifts up like a door so I can take out the tray of food.

  “Your turn!” I tell Uma.

  She chews her thumb as she studies the screen. “There are so many options. I don’t know what to pick!”

  “How about … a neat-meat flower bouquet with green algae foliage?” I suggest.

  “Okay,” she says uncertainly, then watches with astonishment as swirls of umami-flavored paste form roses on bright green stems with delicate leaves.

  “It’s beautiful!” she says when her dish slides out.

  “Let’s make something for Quasar.”

  “Here, let me!” She chooses a Behemoth chixen-flavored bone-shaped biscuit.

  “He’ll love it!” I say when we remove it from the cubby.

  We take our food outside to the center of the promenade where other people chow down, and find an empty table.

  “Where’s Quasar?” she asks.

  I elbow Uma and point to a knot of people. In the center of that knot are two tourist girls fawning over the dog. They squee and squinch and take pix with their FingerCams each time he sits up, rolls over, or dances on his hind legs for the food scraps they hold out to him.

  “Plutes,” I say, nodding at the girls. “From the Distract, on the other side of Merica.”

  “How can you tell?” she asks.

  “See their elaborate body paint under their dresses? And those FingerCams? They come here in their flying cars.”

  “Look at Quasar go! He can work a crowd better than any human I’ve ever seen.”

  What Uma says gives me an idea. I climb on top of a bench to scan the crowd for MUSCies, hoping Quasar’s antics have enticed them over, but no luck. There’s not a single telltale hood anywhere along the strip of food marts. I climb back down and whistle for Quasar. He leaves the girls and trots to our table for his dinner, which Uma gives him along with a pat on the head. The Plute girls follow.

  “So … does this dog, like, belong to you?” the tall one asks.

  I nod as I take a big bite of my burger.

  “I would one hundred percent, literally, like, buy him from you right this second. How much do you want for him?”

  “He’s not for sale,” I tell her as I chew.

  “No but, she means, like, name your price, and literally, she will pay it,” the shorter one insists.

  “I understand what she means, but like, literally, one thousand percent, my dog is not for sale,” I tell her, mocking her silly diction. “Not everything is a commodity.” They look at me blankly. “Although you can pay me for all the pix you took of him with your FingerCams.”

  The tall one scrunches up her face, and the short one sneers. “Um, noooo,” they say together, then walk away.

  Uma laughs, then takes a big bite of her meaty roses. “Hey,” she says with surprise. “This is pretty good!”

  “We can build some dessert next, if you want.”

  “That sounds fun,” she says, and I realize that I’m having fun, too. Which feels strange. I’ve never been anywhere in AlphaZonia just for fun. Usually Castor and I are skulking around, scavenging what we can, then slinking away into the dark before anyone notices us.

  “And then what?” Uma asks as she finishes off her dinner. “What will we do next?”

  “I’m going to go to a place called Soggywood,” I tell her, leaving out the reason why. “You can come with me, if you want. It’s a crazy place if you’re up for some adventure.”

  “Yes!” says Uma with a huge smile. “Anything with you.”

  UMA JEMISON

  ALPHAZONIA, EARTH

  THE THROBBING MUSIC hits me beneath my sternum before we exit yet another stolen AutoPod. This car didn’t call her Jubar Thrashman or Braga Tralluri. This time she’s Rensealer St. Barnabas, but I don’t really care. If it weren’t for Talitha (or whoever she is), I’d be quivering in a bush somewhere, hiding from Dr. Fornax.

  “Why is this called Soggywood?” I gape at the holo displays dancing on the front of every sleek building lining the street, luring the sparkling crowds inside. Big groups of people pass us. They all wear funny jumpsuits, the women’s formfitting and printed in intricate designs, revealing patterns of skin like leopard spots or zebra stripes or leaves, and the men’s with silver mesh sleeves. No one seems to notice us. Like MUSCies, they’re too preoccupied with what’s happening inside their minds to notice two out-of-place girls. I start to relax. Clearly, there are no MUSCies here who will see me.

  “What should we try?” Talitha sweeps her arms out.

  I stand there befuddled by all the choices. If you added up every moment of fun on MUSC from the time the first inhabitants landed to the present, that wouldn’t equal the amount of fun people are having right here, right now. Finally, I
point to the place directly in front of us.

  “What about that—Best Stream Memes of the Week?” A two-story holo of a girl about our age with orangey-yellow skin, pink hair, a pig nose, and little piglet angels circling her head dances next to some guy farting rainbows while the words Well, slap my ass and call me Jimmy play over and over.

  Talitha doubles over laughing. “No way! Castor would be so proud. He made that meme at the Pink Palace last night! I have to get a vid for him.” She blinks to capture the loop. “I think we can find something better, though.”

  We walk a bit farther and stop in front of a place with a holo of two people sitting cross-legged, staring blankly but intensely at each other while a quiet crowd looks on. “Competitive meditation, ugh,” says Talitha. “All you do is watch their brain waves. Snoozefest!”

  “What’s that?” I motion across the street to a line of people entering a dark cavern on the left side of a circular building, then exiting on the right by pushing through silky pink fabric beneath the projection of two long legs squatting. Each person emerges covered in some kind of shimmering slime and smiling beatifically.

  “That’s a ReBirth Spa,” Talitha says. “It’s meant to re-create the peace and comfort of the womb. No devices, no lights, only the gentle echoing sound of a distant heartbeat. At the end you’re covered in a restorative gel made from krill. It’s supposedly a transformative experience and great for your skin, but dead boring and a little creepy, if you ask me.”

  We both look around. There are so many options that it’s almost too much. Mostly I want to crawl back into a Pod and go somewhere quiet where I can talk to Talitha under the starry sky. But she has a different idea.

  “There!” She snaps her fingers and points diagonally toward the place with the throbbing music. Pulsating red, blue, and green light beams crisscross the sky above a rotating structure that’s a vague replica of a MUSC station. “Do you like to dance?” she asks as she pulls me across the street with Quasar at her side.

  “Well, uh, um, I’ve never really tried—”

  “Now’s your chance!” she says. “This is a CelebriStreamer MashUp Dance Party!” We step inside what looks like a Travelator Capsule that slowly goes up two stories and stops. We exit onto a rotating circular balcony. The bass of the music hits me between the hip bones and makes my ears buzz.

  “It’s so loud,” I shout to Talitha.

  “Usually sound is only pumped in through HearEars, but this place goes old school.”

  Overhead lights swirl across the ceiling like the aurora borealis. Down below us, on a dance floor, a mosh of sweaty bodies smash and crash together. Arms in the air. Butts in the air. Hair whipping everywhere. Talitha points into the center of the space, eye level to us, where a clear bubble floats by with a person inside who wears long, tall, sparkling magenta boots with platforms as high as small cars. They’re bouncing along to the driving rhythm of the song pervading the entire club. Then another bubble floats by carrying a person dressed like a black-and-white space harlequin with half white hair and half black. A different song starts up and collides with the first one as the bubbles bump into one another.

  “What are they doing?” I yell to Talitha over the thunderous, dissonant music.

  “They each pick a song,” she shouts close to my ear. “Then they mash them together, layering tracks over tracks to make one song. And when the crowd is happy with that, their bubbles join.”

  She holds up a finger for me to wait, and within seconds, a new song resolves as the rhythms of one song meld with the melody of the other. I look up to see the tall booted person and the harlequin dancing together in one giant bubble.

  Below us, a circle of light beams up from the floor, enclosing a gnarl of dancing people who are lifted toward the ceiling on a spinning platform. They dance with a fierceness of display, all eyes on them, flinging rainbow drops of sweat and spit in the vibrant swirling lights. The platform skates around the bubble in the air.

  “Get ready!” Talitha takes my hand.

  “For what?” I yell, bracing myself, though I don’t know what’s coming.

  “Here we go!” she shouts.

  The platform swoops toward us. Talitha takes a half step back as the railing in front us disappears, then she jumps from the balcony, pulling me along through the air, so that we land, teetering on the edge of the floating dance floor circle. My heart pounds in my chest and fills my ears, then is replaced by the roar of cheering from the dancers that we joined.

  “What do we do now?” I yell.

  “Dance!” Talitha screams as we’re sucked into the center of the gyrating bodies. “Just dance your ass off, girl!” She grabs my hands, and we move.

  I forget about my body. Forget where am I and who I am, and let the chaos of the mashed-up music charge into my brain and take over my limbs. I thrash. I jump. I wiggle and shake, hot and sweaty next to Talitha. Our sweat mingles. Our fingers intertwine. My thighs rub up against hers. Our bellies touch through the thin fabric of our clothes. This is what the Earth is. This is what I’ve missed. Getting caught up in a moment with no worry about what comes next or what came before. Just letting everything go so that I’m entirely lost in this exact moment of time and space.

  Our dancing disk makes it back to the ground, then another lifts up, and another. People leap from the balcony. The crowd cheers. More bubbles with different Streamers float in and out, mashing up their music.

  I love being lost in the happy chaos of it all until I turn and see, leaping over our heads, two MUSCies in travel suits and hoods. My scream is lost in the cheering of the crowd. I yank Talitha into me.

  “I have to go!” I shout.

  She puts her arms around my shoulders and continues to dance with me close. “Go where?”

  “Just out!” I say, but she doesn’t hear me.

  She tosses back her head and laughs, then stops and points to the MUSCies dancing on the spinning disk above us. She says something that I can’t make out.

  “I have to go now,” I scream, and shrink down, looking for a way to worm through the tangle of bodies.

  “Bathroom?” she yells, and I nod—anything to get out of here. She points me in the right direction, and I run.

  I hide in a bathroom stall, too afraid to even pee. What are the MUSCies doing here? Who are they? I didn’t get a good look. Could they be looking for me or just here to have a good time? And why did Talitha look so interested in them? I thought she hated people from MUSC.

  Mostly, I know I need to leave. I slip out of the building, wishing I knew how to hijack a Pod, even though I have no place to go. I end up standing on the sidewalk, Pods zipping by, people swarming from one club to the next. I have no idea what to do. I have no currency. No map. Then I see a flash of brown and bright eyes in a small dark alcove between two buildings.

  “Quasar!” I call.

  He yips. I duck into the space and hug that dog tight while we both wait for Talitha to come out and find us.

  TALITHA NEVA

  ALPHAZONIA, EARTH

  THE MOONLINGS TELL me nothing. Maybe it’s because the music is so loud, or maybe I seem strange, dancing up to them and asking, “How are you enjoying your time on Earth?” In response, they both stare at me with their strange, large eyes through the clear faceplates of their hoods.

  “Do you come down here often?” I shout as I sway in time to the beat, smiling ridiculously so they know I’m friendly.

  They look at one another, then back at me. The taller one says through a communicator vent, “We do not seek sexual experiences or mind-altering substances.”

  “Jeez!” I step back, bumping into the Yoobie behind me. She elbows me hard in the kidney. “Ow!” I yelp, and bounce forward again, stepping on the toe of the other MUSCie, who jumps away. “I wasn’t offering you those things,” I say. “I was being nice.”

  “Thank you for your interest in us,” the first one says robotically, then they both turn away as if I’m not worth their time. />
  I shake my head and walk away, disgusted by their assumption. Who do they think they are? As I thread my way through the crowd, looking for Uma, I mutter in frustration. I don’t know how D’Cart expects me to find this supposed rogue Moonling without any information, or at least a description. Then again, why would a runaway show up at an Earth club? That person is probably hiding out in the desert somewhere waiting for the Drones to give up their search. That’s what I would do if I showed up on Earth and wanted to hide.

  I don’t find Uma in the bathroom or at the food and drink vendors. Nor do I spot her on the dance floor, curls bouncing, reflecting light in her cute little silver shirt. Right then, I want more than anything to be with her. At least she’s nice and understanding and talks to me like a human being, unlike those MUSCies, who treated me like trash.

  After a few minutes, I grab some Gem Water from a vendor and leave the club, hoping she’s waiting for me outside. As soon as I hit the fresh air and relative quiet of the street, I hear Quasar’s bark. A happy yip to tell me where he’s hiding. I follow the sounds to a small cubby between two clubs, where I find Uma sitting, knees to chin, with her arms around Quasar’s furry neck.

  “There you are!” I say, and squat down to face her. “I was worried that I wouldn’t find you. Are you okay?” She nods but looks miserable. “Want something to drink?” I hand her the glimmering bottle of bright blue Sodalite Gem Water.

  “Thank you for choosing me,” the bottle announces when Uma uncaps the top. “I will cool your body and promote truthfulness.”

  “Uh-oh,” she says, and gives me a quick side-eye glance. “A truth serum?”

  “Nah,” I say, and snuggle in beside her. We pass the bottle back and forth, taking turns sipping. “What happened in there?” I ask. “Why’d you leave?”

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m just exhausted. It’s been such a long, strange, crazy day. I got overwhelmed. My head is pounding, and my stomach is in knots—”