by John Zakour
‘‘Either is calling her a bitch,’’ Aprill pointed out. ‘‘She just has issues.’’ Aprill looked down on Elena. ‘‘You gotta admit she has a subzero sense of style.’’
Windee nodded. ‘‘I do love those pumps she’s wearing.’’
‘‘Ah, if one psi is pulling us to the ground, why can’t three psis push us away?’’ I asked.
‘‘Normally we could,’’ Lea said. ‘‘Only Daddy’s personalized vehicle is equipped with internal psi dampers. Our powers are very restricted while we are in here. Much too restricted to counteract Elena.’’
I looked at Sputnik.
He looked back at me. ‘‘Hey, a man with seven mind-reading wives can never be too careful!’’ he said.
All we could do now was ride out the rest of the trip to the surface, hoping it wasn’t Elena’s intent to crash us. We continued plummeting toward the ground, picking up more and more speed the closer we came. It was starting to look very much like Elena did plan on crashing us.
‘‘Interesting,’’ HARV said.
‘‘What?’’ I said, grasping to my seat.
‘‘Computing our current direction, velocity, and altitude, we appear to be heading to crash directly into Elena.’’
‘‘So this so some of weird murder-suicide?’’ I asked.
Lea shook her head. ‘‘No, that doesn’t match Elena’s psych profile.’’
‘‘Psych profiles can be wrong,’’ I said, holding on for dear life.
‘‘Let’s hope it’s not,’’ Lea answered.
We were now so close to the ground that I clearly saw Elena standing just hundreds of meters directly below us. Racing closer and closer toward the ground, we all braced for impact. The girls closed their eyes. I had to watch. If this was going to be it, I wanted to see it coming. If this wasn’t going to be it, I needed to see what Elena was going to do.
Elena held up one finger. Our craft came to a jarring halt, less than a centimeter before it would have crashed first into Elena and then into the ground.
The sudden stop rocked us. It was jarring, but not enough to kill us. It should have been though. Elena softened the stop.
Elena spun her finger around. Our craft turned upright. The dome covering the craft popped open. A split nano later our seat belts all released. The eight of us tumbled to the ground. I’ve hit the ground a lot in my career; this one didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. Not sure if it was because of the dust on the surface of the Moon, our Moon suits, the lower gravity levels on the moon, or because Elena cushioned our falls. I figured it was the latter. Apparently, she didn’t want to kill us, at least not yet.
Elena flicked her hand. The craft went flying off into space. If Elena had wanted to kill us outright we would have been all pushing up Moon daisies now.
Elena stood over us all. ‘‘You’re probably wondering why I called you all here today,’’ she laughed.
The four apes were the first to react. They leaped to their feet and charged at Elena. I may not be the smartest guy on the Earth (or the Moon) but I knew that wasn’t a good move.
Elena stood there waiting until the apes were about a meter from her. She raised her right hand up into a simple stop position. The apes each looked like they crashed into a plexisteel reinforced brick wall. They stopped dead in their tracks, their faces squished backward by a barrier that wasn’t there, at least not physically. The apes slumped to the ground.
Elena smiled. ‘‘Sleep tight, boys and girl.’’ Elena concentrated on Sputnik and his girls. ‘‘Now, Uncle, let’s talk.’’
I tried hard not to concentrate on which of the apes was female. This was my opportunity. Elena wasn’t paying any attention to me. This was my chance to take her out. I popped my weapon into my hand. I took aim. I squeezed the trigger.
Nothing happened.
I squeezed again. Still nothing.
‘‘GUS won’t fire,’’ HARV said in my head.
‘‘Why won’t GUS fire?’’ I screamed in my head.
‘‘You know you can’t really yell in your thoughts,’’ HARV said.
‘‘Please tell me.’’
‘‘I do not believe that Elena is the guilty party here,’’ GUS said calmly.
‘‘Why not?’’ I asked.
‘‘I just don’t,’’ GUS insisted.
‘‘I think Elena has gotten to him,’’ HARV offered.
Great, just great. I was growing less and less fond of the really intelligent weapon concept. Meanwhile, Elena was managing to hold Lea, Aprill, and Windee frozen while she dangled Sputnik in the air (well the space) above her.
‘‘She has to be expending a lot of energy,’’ I thought to HARV. ‘‘She took our vehicle down from kilometers away. She is surviving on the Moon without a Moon suit. She convinced my gun not to shoot her and she is holding off three other powerful psis . . .’’
‘‘It’s also got to be a killer to walk on this dusty, rocky surface with those heels on,’’ HARV noted.
I shook my head.
‘‘I was a female for a while,’’ HARV said defensively. ‘‘I know these things.’’
‘‘My point is, she’s not paying any attention to me,’’ I said.
I took a deep breath. This was another of those times when I needed to put all my gadgets away. I had to take Elena down the good old-fashioned way. Tackling her worked once before on the shuttle. I saw no reason not to go back and take another sip from the well of success again.
I paid close attention to Elena. She was ranting on and on to Sputnik about how he wanted her and her mother and would do anything to get her father out of the way. She had hate in her heart, meaning her eyes weren’t on me.
I pushed myself up quickly, too quickly. I forgot to take into account the Moon’s limited gravity. I started floating upward.
‘‘Not actually the fierce attack you were hoping for, huh?’’ HARV said to me.
Making matters worse, Elena noticed me out of the corner of her eye. ‘‘Silly Zach,’’ she said. She flicked a finger at me.
Telekinetic shock waves hit me, launching me backward, spinning me faster and faster, farther and farther away.
‘‘Not one of your better moves,’’ HARV added.
As I spun, half of the time I saw the toxic waste dump coming closer and closer while the other half of the time I saw Elena and the others getting farther and farther away. I had to do something to stop myself before I ended up barreling into the barrels of toxic waste. Of all the ways I could think of being killed this ranked way low on my list, slightly above being audited to death.
‘‘Goddess condemn you Zach,’’ I heard Elena say in the back of my head. ‘‘You’re going to be the death of us both.’’
I stopped twirling and careening towards the toxic waste. My body spun around and started floating back toward the brawl. And it had now become a brawl.
Windee and Aprill had managed to get behind Elena. Windee had her arms wrapped around Elena’s legs. Aprill was standing on top of her with her hands cuffed over Elena’s temples. Aprill was arching backward and sending out deep messages to sleep. I was getting drowsy just watching from a distance.
Lea was standing in front of a kneeling Sputnik, shielding him with her body. I watched a hovercraft come in for a landing less than fifty meters from the melee. Growing closer, I saw Carol, Melda, and three other blue-haired girls and at least ten security apes and two battlebots rolling (the bots, literally) out of the ship. The apes were in special heavy-duty armor. The bots had eight arms each and were the type made from reinforced plexisteel.
‘‘I dropped my guard because of you, Zach,’’ I heard weakly inside my brain.
The apes formed a protective shield for Melda, Carol, and the other psis as they moved in on Elena. The two bots covered them all by firing energy blasts at Elena. Elena deflected the blasts around her, but every shot she repelled had to drain her more.
Elena squeezed her fists. The two battlebots crumpled like old-fashion
ed aluminum cans. They were ready for the recycle bin, but they had done their job.
I came to a stop less than a hundred meters from the action. I had a ringside seat for the melee. Carol, Melda, and the other psis were crackling with energy as they faced off against Elena.
For her part, Elena was glowing with power from every pore in her body. She was using this energy to fend off Carol’s and Melda’s attacks while at the same time lashing out at Sputnik with her own attacks. Lea, though, was using her own energy to deflect Elena’s mental blows.
Meanwhile, Aprill and Windee maintained their holds on Elena.
Aprill was projecting thoughts of sleep that became so powerful a couple of the ape guards gave in and curled up on the ground and started napping. Windee kept trying to place thoughts of confusion and doubt into Elena’s mind.
It was impressive that Elena could hold out this long against this sort of onslaught. That wasn’t even taking into account that she was surviving on the Moon without a suit. Elena was starting to quiver though. Not even she could hold up much longer.
Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that Lea was no longer on the defensive. Carol, Melda, and the others’ attacks had forced Elena to start defending all the time. This allowed Lea to create a ball of pulsating energy between her hands. I focused on Lea standing bold and tall, like a deity, an angry one. Stretching out her hands she expanded the wad of energy. It was as if the energy had a life of its own and it was pulsating, growing and feeding off of Lea.
‘‘Zach, check on Electra,’’ Elena said to my mind.
Lea spread her arms out as wide as they would go. The ball of energy bolted from Lea’s midsection directly into Elena. The force of the blow sent Aprill and Windee hurling back from Elena, launching them about a hundred meters from where they were hit. The energy engulfed Elena, encircling her entire body. Elena fell to the ground, fighting with every ounce of strength she had.
‘‘No!!!’’ she screamed. She fell silent.
While everybody else rushed to Bo’s side, I hurried to Elena’s. I bent down and felt for a carotid pulse. I found it. I was relieved. Elena had been nothing but trouble, but I knew she didn’t deserve to die. She could have killed me on a number of occasions and didn’t. I owed her something.
Carol was quickly at my side. ‘‘She’s going to be all right, Tió,’’ she said. ‘‘They want her alive.’’
Chapter 25
Within nanos, the ape security team had placed a big metallic helmet, hand restraints, and leg chains on Elena. The helmet looked three times too big for her and had multicolored flashing lights all around it. I assumed it was a psi inhibitor, probably working by embarrassing its victims into submission.
We all watched as the apes put her on a stretcher then carted her away.
‘‘Oh, yuck,’’ Windee said. ‘‘That helm so does NOT go with the rest of her outfit.’’
Aprill nodded in agreement.
‘‘Great job, my girls,’’ Sputnik said lifting his fist over his head.
‘‘So what do you do with her now?’’ I asked.
‘‘That is none of your concern, Mr. Johnson,’’ Sputnik told me.
‘‘I beg to differ,’’ I said, walking toward Sputnik. ‘‘She could have killed me a couple of times now and she didn’t. That makes her a person of interest to me.’’
I gave Sputnik a little, not so friendly, jab with my finger. Suddenly I felt myself disliking him more and more.
‘‘Wow, Tió, cool the warp drive,’’ Carol said in my brain.
‘‘Yes, Zach, you are standing on the surface of the Moon. I would play nice,’’ HARV said.
‘‘I don’t like him either, Mr. Zach,’’ GUS chimed in.
‘‘Zach, please don’t aggravate my father,’’ Lea said in my head.
I backed away, just a little. I didn’t trust Sputnik. The guy was covering something up. Well of course he was covering something up. All politicians have something to sweep under the carpet. I had the impression, though, that Sputnik’s carpet was extra bumpy.
‘‘Where are they taking Elena?’’ I asked as politely as I could.
Sputnik didn’t answer but Melda did. ‘‘She will be taken to our psi center. She will be given the best of care there. You can be sure of that.’’
Carol put her hand on my shoulder. ‘‘Be calm, Tió,’’ she said so everybody could hear. ‘‘I’ve been to the center; it’s top-notch.’’
‘‘She will be healed,’’ Lea assured me.
‘‘By healed, you better not mean lobotomized,’’ I said.
Lea and Melda both smiled at me. Sputnik was glaring but I didn’t care.
‘‘We don’t . . .’’ he started to say.
Melda cut him off in mid-sentence, ‘‘We are only going to help her learn to control her vast power.’’
‘‘We do not hurt anybody, especially our own,’’ Lea added.
Aprill, Windee, and the other psis nodded in agreement in the background.
‘‘Remember, my sister, her mother, runs the place,’’ Melda said.
‘‘Remember, Elena told me her mother was dead,’’ I said coldly. ‘‘So I think it’s safe to assume they don’t have the best of relationships.’’
Melda’s smile didn’t fade. ‘‘Elena disowned her mother, Shara Lee, after Shara refused to blame poor Bo for Elena’s father’s, Mo’s, death. But her mother never turned her back on her. A mother’s love is unconditional.’’
I looked back at Sputnik. Still wasn’t sure why I despised him more than usual, but I kind of liked the feeling. It should have worried me, but it didn’t. Maybe it was the Moon-made air I was inhaling? Whatever the reason, I enjoyed being able to say whatever was on my mind.
‘‘How do we know Sputnik had nothing to do with Mo’s death?’’ I asked.
‘‘I lost a part of myself when my twin brother died,’’ Sputnik said, as sincerely as I had ever heard a politician state anything.
‘‘I assure you, Mr. Johnson, my husband Boris had nothing to gain by killing his own brother Morris,’’ Melda said.
Just because he had nothing to gain didn’t mean he didn’t do it. Human nature is a strange beast and there’s nothing natural about it.
Still, it was time to do a little reevaluating.
Chapter 26
I flew back to the base and our hotel with Carol, Melda, and Lea. Now that Elena was apprehended and under control, Sputnik apparently didn’t feel the need to travel with Lea by his side. That was good. It gave me a chance to feel out Lea without her dad and leader around. It’s hard enough to speak freely in your dad’s presence when he’s just your dad; it must be exponentially tougher when your dad is your boss and leader of the colony you live in.
While I talked with the ladies I had HARV run background checks on Bo’s brother. I learned his given name was Ivan, but he changed it to Morris and preferred to be called Mo. He helped engineer a lot of the psi breakthroughs the Moon has experienced.
I decided to start there.
‘‘So, Bo’s brother Mo was quite the scientist,’’ I said to Lea and Melda.
They both gave me polite smiles. They nodded just as politely. ‘‘Yes, he didn’t have my husband’s gift of gab but he was gifted in the lab.’’
‘‘In many ways, it’s like they were mirror twins,’’ Lea added. ‘‘What one was weak in the other was strong in.’’ She thought for a nano, ‘‘Not that Daddy was weak in anything. Let me rephrase that, what one just wasn’t quite as strong in, the other one was extra-strong in.’’
‘‘So they got along?’’ I prompted.
‘‘Zach, you’re dealing with Bo’s wife and daughter. Of course they are going to say they got along,’’ HARV said in my head.
Both wife and daughter shook their heads no. ‘‘Not really,’’ they each said as one.
‘‘I may have spoken too soon,’’ HARV said.
‘‘They were brothers. They’d compete over everything,’’ Lea said.
>
‘‘At least they were smart enough to marry identical twins or else they never would have been able to settle on who married the best-looking woman,’’ Melda said.
‘‘Yes, it’s the only time they ever agreed to a draw in their lives. If not, they would have driven each other crazy,’’ Lea added.
I thought about what they had said, taking it in. I had to say, ‘‘Then why are you so certain Bo wouldn’t kill Mo?’’
Melda laughed. ‘‘My husband thought Mo pushed him, made him better. He hasn’t been the same since Mo died.’’
‘‘I know Daddy’s an administrator and politician and therefore there isn’t much he wouldn’t do.’’ Lea reached out and gently touched my arm. ‘‘Trust me, Zach, this is the one thing he wouldn’t do. Kill his brother. He had nothing to gain.’’
‘‘What about Elena?’’ I asked.
‘‘I wouldn’t rule out her killing her father and blaming poor Bo,’’ Melda said.
‘‘No, I mean, would Bo try to eliminate Mo to get to Elena?’’
‘‘I don’t think anybody can control Elena,’’ Carol chimed in.
‘‘Yeah, but if anybody thought they could, it would be Bo,’’ I said.
Lea shrugged. Her eyes opened wide. ‘‘Why would he need to control Elena?’’ she said. ‘‘He already has me. You saw how easily I took my cousin out when I needed to.’’
I leaned away from her. Don’t know why, it just seemed like the right thing to do. ‘‘You and a small army of psis and apes.’’
‘‘Oh, this is going to be good,’’ HARV said in my head.
I knew I was egging Lea on and by doing that I risked her cracking. Or worse, her cracking me, then scrambling me like an egg. It was a chance I was willing to take.
Lea shot a finger in my face. ‘‘You’re just lucky I like you or you’d be cleaning the Moon dust off my shoes with your tongue right now!’’
I locked eyes with her. ‘‘Yeah, I get that a lot. My point still stands.’’
‘‘Zach, are you sure you know what you are doing?’’ both HARV and Carol said in my head.
No, of course I wasn’t sure, but I’ve never let that stop me. I was flying by the seat of my pants and they had a huge rip in them. If history has taught me anything though, it’s that you learn more about people when they are angry than when they are calm. The harder they are to get to boil, the more you discover when they do pop. Lea was a cool customer most of the time, but I was stirring the pot of her emotions, cooking up trouble. I only hoped I could digest the results.