Horror, Humor, and Heroes

by Jim Bernheimer

  Numbers don’t lie. The planet I’m trying to avoid can barely sustain itself and the Human race must look beyond the natural habitat. I’m not sure who is winning that race, but the Earth sure isn’t! Now, with the discovery of sub-surface ice on Mars, colonization of that planet looks promising.

  The Moon is merely a stepping stone to Mars. Truthfully, between the Moon and the Red Planet, Mars is the better prospect for full scale colonization. It has water. Its gravity is much closer to what the ground-pounders are used to. The Moon’s only advantage lies in her proximity to Earth. We’re the testing area for the technology that will populate Mars.

  Freedom City isn’t really much of a city. It’s only been around for eighteen years. We’d barely be a tiny blip back on the big blue ball in the sky, but it is home to one hundred and thirty-three permanent Lunatics. I still remember the party that we had just before my tenth birthday when we broke the one hundred residents mark with my sister Laura’s birth. The BBC and CNN both sent documentary crews up for that. Sadly, being the fifth child born on the Moon doesn’t earn nearly as many perks.

  The question I get asked most often is ‘Do I miss not growing up on Earth?’ How can I miss something I’ve never really known? Seriously, I’ve seen movies, V-blogs, HD-Unifeeds and the like, but I’ve never set foot on Earth. I don’t know what it’s like to weigh six times what I am supposed to. People wonder ‘what it would be like to be so light?’ I wonder what it would be like to be so heavy.

  My E-Avatar is rising on Googlecharts again, furiously giving interviews and answering questions from pre-populated FAQ databases. There’s usually a good ten or fifteen questions waiting for me each week that I have to answer and twice that number that I have no intention of answering – ever. My Avatar is always in the top one hundred, but recently, it’s back in the top ten again. It’s amazing how many other students write reports about me. Is it fair that some of my classmates can do reports about me but I can’t? You’d think I’d be the resident expert on my life!

  What I really want to know is why can’t I simply do college the same way I have been doing high school? My arguments fell on deaf ears. I even pointed out the cost of shipping me to Earth and back could send four people through their first four years of school or feed entire third world villages! They’re adamant that I receive the college experience – whatever that is! Maybe TJ – also known as Tom Jensen, my best friend and Natural Born Lunatic number two, is right and I am something of a ‘domebody.’

  The past three years in the ‘heavy-suit’ have been a nightmare, but I can now take six times my body weight for ten hours a day. When crazy old Doc Melton clears me, I’m heading down to be with heavies and leaving the only home I’ve ever known. Mom’s been cleared for the trip for over a month. Dad and Laura are staying here. It seems like everyone’s waiting on pokey old me. Maybe I could have worked harder, but that suit is so blasted heavy!

  The International Space Agency’s got enough data from me and TJ that they’re going to start Laura and the Campbell twins on heavy-suits at age ten instead of waiting until twelve, like they did with us. I’m sure they’ll be really thrilled about that!

  My reward for all this hard work is getting to spend the next three years in physical therapy and wearing a Waldo suit – the same kind that they use to help the elderly and people with paralysis; that is definitely going to take some getting used to!

  Good Lord! I don’t need to tell you how nervous I am these days! The biggest room in Freedom City holds maybe sixty people if we pack in like sardines. Once I’m Earthside and checked out, they’re talking about me giving speeches to tens of thousands of people in concert halls and stadiums. I’m not thrilled about that, but I’ve been doing recorded speeches and whatnot for years. It makes me wonder: how many other teenagers have speechwriters? Heck, when I get ‘down to Earth,’ that phrase always makes me laugh, I’m supposed to have my own press secretary and two flesh and bone personal assistants. It’ll be a miracle if I don’t trip over them and crush them in that damn Waldo suit!

  #

  The door from my parents’ room opens and Mom enters the kitchen. Dad’s on the backshift right now and Laura is at the Campbell’s for a sleepover. Mom scoops up a ‘yeastie beastie’ from a mesh bag, slices it in half and starts spreading jam on it. About the beastie – we don’t really have flat bread up here. Low gravity baking is less a science and more of an art; exact results are rather hard to come by.

  “Morning sunshine! How’s my big boy today?” she asks cheerily, as she ruffles my hair and gives me a big kiss on the cheek. It’s going to take another twenty seconds for my hair to settle down. I want to get a buzz cut, but the image consultants say my longish brown hair is a hit right now. I did mention my life is bizarre, didn’t I?

  “Mom, I’m fifteen. Is a shred of dignity too much to ask for?”

  “Ah but if I stopped, where would I get my entertainment from?” she replies. “Your sister still enjoys my motherly affection and if I start giving your father that kind of attention, he’ll start thinking about being the first family with three children born on the Moon. We are so not going there!” she says with mock severity before laughing. “So, seriously what’s with the ‘woe is me look’ this morning? Getting nervous about the trip?”

  I twiddle with my breakfast for a moment before replying, “A little, but mostly I’m still hacked off about those heavies from GreenPETA naming you the worst mother in history.”

  Mom clasps her hands together, doing her best Academy Award winner impersonation, and says, “It was an honor just to be nominated – but to actually win! It really gets me right here. To beat out the likes of the mother from Mommy Dearest and that woman who drowned her five children, it’s just too much. I need a moment. You don’t suppose they’re planning a presentation? We could see if it can be worked into our press junket!”

  Obviously, Dr. Kendra Cornell has a sense of humor to go along with PhDs in Physics and Electrical Engineering. Mom’s theatrics distract me from my anger; at least she’s able to laugh it off. I was pretty upset when my heavy classmates informed me that the super activist organization declared that she was the worst mother in history for treating her family ‘like a science experiment in a government-sponsored laboratory.’ I went to their message forums to defend her. The results weren’t pretty and reinforced my opinion that I don’t belong down there with a bunch of narrow-minded idiots.

  Seriously, they ranked her above a woman that drowned all her children! It still bothers me on some level, but Mom says I should expect protesters at my appearances. What they’re protesting, I’m not sure I want to know, but Mom and Dad explained that lots of ground-pounders try to push their version of the truth. It’s only because our family happens to be in the news again with us heading to Earth; that’s what triggered all this.

  You’d think the environmental groups would be onboard with us. They were at first. If there was ever a community that focused on recycling and conservation, it’s us. We eat more tofu and soy per person than twenty average Earthlings combined. Red meat, huh, what’s that? The recent shift is, from what little I can understand, more about the politics behind colonizing Mars. They make some decent points: without a fundamental change, it’s nothing more than another world to infest and drain of its resources. Still, while they’re waiting for this mythic change to occur in human nature, there’s no reason to halt our progress.

  “I’m glad the solar storm is restricting our bandwidth to Mission Essential. At least I don’t have to go to school today,” I say.

  “I’m sure you have plenty of homework downloaded to keep you busy. Adam, it’ll all blow over soon. They’re just looking to make a big splash. Given any more thought to being a Tiger? They’ve got a good chance in both football and basketball this year!”

  I shake my head at her. “You do realize that Dad’s argument about the superior Princeton Ivy League education is a bit better than trying to sell me on Clemson’s athletic program
? I don’t think I’ll be playing sports anytime soon.”

  Good genetics and a lunar dome full of MENSA members have done wonders for my grades – putting me two years ahead of my peers and fielding offers from universities all over the globe. My parents continue to push for their alma maters. Me, I’m not so certain. The smaller and more isolated schools are starting to sound better. A crowd up here is twenty people in the same place.

  “I’m going to hold off until I can actually see the campuses. I’m also thinking about some of the ones in England. Right now, I’m leaning towards Florida. The Provost at Embry-Riddle seems very interested in having me attend,” I say hopefully. The proximity of that school to the Cape and its status in the field of Aeronautics piques my interest. After Earthside Medical clears us and I graduate, we’re due to start a six-month long ‘good will tour’ for the International Space Agency, so I’ve got time to decide.

  Mom gets that slightly disappointed frown. Over the years, she somehow finds a way to watch every Clemson athletic event possible. I even caught her watching a table tennis tournament once! If she weren’t my mother, I’d say she’s a bit out there. Technically, I guess we all are. Her time off after Laura’s birth was spent tending her newborn and watching her beloved Tigers get to the Sweet Sixteen. Nobody came out and actually accused her of planning her pregnancy around the NCAA tournament, but she’s never gone out of her way to deny it either.

  Karen, yet another annoying classmate, claimed that I’m only getting these offers because of where and when I was born, despite my grades being better than hers! I reminded her that I didn’t exactly ask for any of this, and the ensuing rant wasn’t exactly my finest hour, but I was provoked.

  “Are you getting nervous? I know your grandparents can’t wait to see you.”

  “Mom, it’s not like I don’t see them on the monitor every week.”

  “It’s different for them; trust me. Oh, look at the time! You’d better get going for your appointment with Medical. OTB, young man.”

  “It’s hard to be ‘on the bounce’ in Bertha,” I mutter.

  I’m not sure where the saying originated from, a famous book, or so I'm told, but it’s apt. With an exaggerated sigh, I bounce off to my room. My very own Iron Maiden is waiting there for me. My heavy-suit’s name is Bertha. I slide into it and adjust the straps, wondering if Karen or any of the other ground-pounders would have the drive to spend ten hours a day in this contraption. Okay, so I’m occasionally bitter. Last I checked, I’m still a teenager.

  The safety seals are still on the zippered pouches. I vividly recall the tongue-lashing everyone gave me when they found out I had been ‘easing my burden’ a tad. Hey, I still weighed four times my weight! My ‘dirty little secret’ is still here. I’ll need it soon enough.

  #

  Twenty minutes later, I’m clunking along Neil Armstrong Avenue at my Earth adjusted weight of nearly seventy kilos. No bouncing for me anytime soon. The passageway is a simple affair. From the portholes, I can see the new family units under construction. In two years, we’ll be able house nearly four hundred people and be a respectable little village. Naturally, I won’t be here to see it.

  I pause by one of the three pressure doors along Armstrong Avenue; they test them once a week. I’ve only ever seen them used ‘for real’ once, when I was seven. The press made a big deal of it. A micro-meteor perforated the outer hull in Segment Two, forcing everyone into their suits and on emergency air while the damage was surveyed and patched. We live in Segment Three, so we were isolated for nine hours – probably the scariest nine hours of my life.

  Realizing that I’m skylarking, I head for the main part of the dome. It might sound paranoid, but I worry that if I leave, they won’t let me come back. This is my home; the only home I’ve ever known. Once they send me away, it almost feels like I’ll have to earn my right to come back. Maybe that’s the difference between people born here and everybody else; every adult here serves a purpose. No one ‘retires’ here. They go back to Earth for that.

  Lost in thought, I almost barrel into someone; a pair of arms keeps me steady. “Easy there, junior. We can’t have you injuring your flight crew now, can we?” The voice belongs to Chuck Sanders, shuttle pilot and ‘official’ ISA stand-up comic.

  He’s a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Air Force and hopes to make full-bird Colonel soon so he will finally be Colonel Sanders. Yet another joke I pretended to understand, something about chickens. He refuses to let me call him anything but Chuck.

  I reply with our usual joke, “Sorry. What’s up, Chuck?”

  “Unfortunately, he is my partner. Hello, Adam. Is today the day the Doctor clears you for our trip?” the burly Commander Ivan Popovic dryly answers in his thick Eastern European accent.

  I lie, saying, “I hope so. Too much longer and we’ll be outside the optimum window.”

  Colonel Popovic smiles knowingly. “Then we will take the longer route.”

  Chuck jumps in, smacking me on my suit. “Besides, if we’re on the longer route, I can regale you with the further adventures of Chuck Sanders, Intrastellar Truck Driver. Our new motto is – ‘At least we don’t haul pee, anymore.’ Man! That really brought the ladies running! Thank God for the new recycling system.”

  I’m glad I’m going with them. Out of the eight crews that make trips between Earth Station One and Luna Station in orbit above us, they are my absolute favorites. This is their last run before being reassigned Earthside. Sounds like the start of a bad horror vid, doesn’t it?

  “Your Mom said you’ll be at my July Fourth barbeque this year. Last I heard, my two nieces are already trying to figure out what to wear to impress you.”

  I groan. Okay, so I’m a little sheltered. I usually appear on the vid-screen in my standard grey jumpsuit. I’ll never make a fashion statement or anything, but some of the things the female heavies wear are rather revealing. I’m not sure I show that much flesh in the shower! Some of them even wear clothes made out of that new fiber, the one that’s transparent under certain wavelengths. Most people wear special glasses to see through those clothes, but TJ showed me how to adjust my monitor to just the right spectrum; his girlfriend Cassie wears it for him almost every day. The rest of that day, and several subsequent ones, were pretty much blown out the airlock upon discovering that three girls in my class wear those clothes on a regular basis! For two of them, it’s a fabulous idea. I’m not sure what the other one is thinking, but that can be said about heavies in general.

  Chuck and Ivan turn towards the Ops Center as I continue my slow trek to Medical. I’m no longer winded from walking a few hundred meters in Bertha. I’m still getting used to the idea that I’m going to shrink an inch or two under Earth’s gravity. My bone density is good, but I can look forward to substantial joint pain and inflammation in my immediate future – yet another reminder that it really isn’t my idea to be going.

  Doc Melton is waiting for me as I enter. I see him scrutinizing the security seals on Bertha. Sheesh! It was three months ago! “Good morning, Doctor. Experiment numero uno reporting for prodding.”

  My long time nemesis eyes me. “Ah, but up here it’s just our three person staff and an occasional ground-pounder specialist. There’s a whole team ready and waiting for you on Big Blue. I’ll bet my next paycheck that you’ll be begging for my poking and prodding in less than a week. Okay Adam, you know the drill. First, we’ll do some ultrasounds to verify the bone density, a little radioisotope, some pictures, the treadmill and then more pictures. Just think; these are the last set of full body images that I’m ever going to take of you.”

  “Well, what do you know? There is a bright side to this after all!”

  “Very funny, young man,” the doctor says while inputting data on his screen. “I was thinking the same thing, but probably for different reasons.”

  Using a treadmill in Bertha is more fun than I can possibly describe, but we have to make sure my heart and lungs are strong enough. Thirty minutes of w
alking in a heavy-suit – most people call it the Lunar Frogmarch.

  I never asked for a Drill Sergeant, but Doc Melton felt I needed one. I doubt that I’ll ever like the man, but I’ve come to respect him. The Chief Medical Officer of Freedom City has always taken a special interest in me.

  It all came to a head just after my fourteenth birthday. One of my ex-friends sent me a data disk that was supposed to contain movie clips and the like. Instead, it contained all this conspiracy theory garbage about the things they are doing to me and the rest of us Lunar-born children. Me, like the shining example of easily misled stupidity that I can be, bought it, suit, air hose and mag boots or – as Doc put it – hook, line and sinker. Obviously, there’s no fishing up here, but we do have our own executive golf course. The fairways are just a tad longer then most heavies would be used to. TJ has a longer drive, but my short game is much better.