Moondust

by Gemma Fowler

  She wasn’t exactly surprised; Domestic Analysis had a soulless, zombie-like workforce of Lunar Academy dropouts and flunked trainees, sentenced to a life of air-quality checks and toilet water sampling. Most personnel on the base didn’t even know that her department existed, which was exactly why Aggie had decided to work here. Well, and the fact that she was completely useless at everything else.

  As she made her usual beeline for the breakfast vending machine, Aggie noticed that something was different in the labs today. It was only after she’d swiped her Blipcard on the reader and the machine had spat out her freeze-dried peanut-mallow protein bar that she’d figured it out. It was quiet. Funeral home quiet. Aggie could actually hear the shuffle of her bulky surface boots as she made her way along the row of desks to her own.

  She checked her contacts again nervously. No, it wasn’t that. But what?

  She noticed a group of girls whispering and glancing at her from behind their screens, and a familiar feeling of dread swept over her. What had she done wrong this time? She winced at the memory of a previous incident with over-acidic toilet water. Aggie had never really tried to make friends with the other Domestic personnel, but she’d made herself even more unpopular that day. Some of the staff in E Sector still couldn’t sit down.

  She walked up to her desk uneasily, placed her breakfast down amid her bombsite of paper printouts and sampling tubes, and slowly began to unearth her Ether screen. Her desk was an abomination, a state of organized chaos that opened a small window into the way Aggie lived her life. Basically, like a mess.

  As she moved a pile of sodium readouts, something slipped off the side and clattered loudly to the floor. The sound was deafening in the unusual silence. Aggie looked around at her colleagues and mouthed a theatrical, ‘Oooops!’ in their direction. Mo, who sat next to her, just rolled his eyes and slunk back down behind his screen. Not even a ‘tut’ of disapproval from Mo? What on Earth was going on?

  She bent down and picked up the offending item. It was the broken mineral depositor she’d hidden under there on Friday. The magnetic cap was stuck in ‘on’ mode, making it impossible to get the tiny air con filter sample out of it. Not wanting to go and see Professor Spooner about another breakage, Aggie stuffed it into her overall pocket so she could stash it under her bed later. Out of sight, out of mind.

  ‘Agatha?’

  Aggie jumped. Astrid was calling to her from behind a nearby sample booth. Aggie instantly turned her attention to an evacuation poster on the opposite wall and pretended not to hear her.

  ‘Agatha? Hellloooo, base to Agatha? Are you reading me?’

  Aggie took a bite of her bar and made a show of pretending to notice her.

  Astrid giggled, ‘Aah, Agatha! Houston, I think we have a problem.’

  ‘Oh, hey Astrid. It’s early. What’s going on?’

  Astrid was fresh from the Lunar Academy, and Aggie had been assigned as her mentor. All of the younger personnel had mentees, and despite her protests, it had been decided Aggie should have one too – it would draw more attention to her if she didn’t.

  Astrid was a proper Lunar Inc. geek and hung on Aggie’s every word. The intern made Aggie nervous. The last thing she needed was someone following her around, asking an endless stream of questions. But Astrid’s enthusiasm was proving to be stronger than nano-fibre. Aggie often thought that if Astrid ever found out who she really was, the shock might kill her.

  Astrid pointed to the corridor. ‘Look. Look!’

  Aggie followed her gaze to the glass doors that separated Spooner’s office from the labs and saw two sky-blue-overalled guards flanking the entrance. Guards wearing sky blue instead of black could mean only one thing.

  Astrid took an excited breath, confirming Aggie’s suspicions. ‘Aggie, it’s him.’

  The doors swished open and a skinny, hook-nosed man skittered out into the labs. He looked around for a second before spotting Aggie. As his beady eyes focused on her, her heart stopped.

  ‘Ah! Agatha, there you are,’ Professor Spooner snarled. ‘Only thity minutes late today, quite the achievement. Thank the Earth that today was the day the commander decided to pay us a visit, Earth knows why.’ He gestured with a gnarled hand for her to follow him. ‘Maybe the shuttle is finally ready for you; Earth knows how often I’ve suggested it.’

  Beside her, Astrid made a noise like the emergency warning siren. The shuttle the professor was referring too was the Shuttle of Shame, the transit shuttle that took misbehaving members of Lunar Inc. staff on a one-way trip back to Earth. Aggie forced a smile and followed the professor, her heart pounding in her chest for the second time this morning, and it wasn’t even 7 a.m.

  Giant portraits of the god-like Founding Five stared down at Aggie from the walls of the corridor leading to the professor’s office. These were the legendary men and women who discovered lumite power. The people that had united the Earth.

  She couldn’t look at the painting obscured by shadows at the end of the row. Her father’s youthful face gazed out against the backdrop of the colossal lumite reactor he had invented. She pushed away the familiar urge to rip the painting down, and turned to the largest of the five, the one that hung over the doorway to Spooner’s office.

  Adam Faulkner, the newly retired CEO of Lunar Inc. and the man who’d brought her up as his own. His grey eyes sparkled, even in paint. He held the tiny lumite cell – his invention that had single-handedly saved the world from the energy crisis. Aggie felt a sudden flush of pride. She straightened her shoulders and walked past Spooner and the guards into the office.

  The doors snapped closed behind her, cutting the professor off. But it didn’t stop Aggie picking up his whining voice through the glass. ‘A liability, that girl. I’ve always said it. I’m surprised it’s taken this long.’

  A man was standing on the far side of the glass-walled room, staring out at the base. He was dressed in a sky-blue Tranquillity overall. The only indication of his high rank were the lumite violet badges on the arms and shoulders – this man’s rank was the highest of them all.

  Aggie’s breath caught. She found it hard to believe that he’d come all the way to Domestic just to pay her a visit.

  Roger Rix was an important man.

  Slowly, Rix turned and smiled.

  ‘How are you doing, Aggie?’ he said brightly and gestured for her to join him by the window.

  Aggie shuffled her feet. She’d known the commander for most of her life; he was the man her godfather had charged with engineering her disappearance. The only person on the base who knew. But despite that, Aggie always felt as if Rix was behind glass. Distant.

  As Aggie approached him she instantly felt huge. Rix had the slouched, fidgety energy of a first-year from the Academy. The faded geometric tattoo on his cheek was the only indication of his past in the gangs of the Dark Days: a past her godfather had saved him from, a past that, despite Rix’s small frame, had earnt him a fierce reputation on the base.

  ‘So,’ Rix continued, ‘are you going to tell me? Or shall I start guessing?’

  Aggie was confused, ‘I, er . . .’ She could feel the broken mineral depositor in her pocket.

  ‘About how you’re doing?’ Rix prompted with a smile.

  ‘Oh right. Yeah. That should be easy,’ Aggie said, laughing nervously.

  Rix had the usual mixed-up accent of the United Earth, but with the clipped tones of the African territories. His words came out with sharp edges.

  She took a deep breath; she hated questions about work. She’d always been so bad at science. It was a constant embarrassment, especially after her godfather and Rix had done so much to hide her away. Adam Faulkner had expected her to have at least some of her father’s head for physics, but all she had showed so far was a fantastic ability to break stuff. Expensive stuff, mainly.

  ‘I, er . . . we stopped a CO leak in one of the Medical Centre vents last month. I, well, I mean, the maintenance team stopped it, really, but we noticed a spike in t
he—’

  ‘Well, that’s great, Aggie, really great.’

  ‘Well, it’s not usually that exciting down in Dom—’

  ‘Thing is, Aggie,’ the commander said, cutting her off. ‘The thing is, we’re still fighting, that’s the truth. Until the next generation, there will always be a fight.’

  Aggie didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. But instead of letting on and looking stupid, she nodded knowingly, following his gaze out of the windows and onto the sprawling base beyond.

  ‘These are difficult times for that fight, and it’s important that we’re doing everything we can to put an end to the possibility that we might lose.’

  Now Aggie was really confused. Had she missed something? Were they at war again? Surely not, there hadn’t been a war on Earth in her lifetime, not since the discovery of lumite twenty years ago; when the countries of the Earth signed the United Earth Treaty and became a peaceful planet.

  Rix waved a hand at her dismissively, ‘Oh, you wouldn’t remember, you were too young. But I’m telling you, the days after Adrianne were almost as dark as the ones before it.’

  Aggie froze.

  Rix was talking about Adrianne, the disaster that had given her her lumite violet eyes and her fame. The disaster that killed her father and changed her life forever. The disaster that her treacherous brain refused to let her forget.

  ‘A society without hope isn’t a society at all,’ Rix continued, taking a bright blue protein pack out of his overall and tearing it open with his teeth.

  Aggie still couldn’t move. The last thing she wanted or needed was to reminisce about that day. In all the years she’d known him, Rix had never even mentioned it before now.

  The commander stared at her, scrutinizing her face while sucking on his drink loudly. It made the pale lines of his tattoo pull and sag.

  ‘See, you can’t have that many people die and ignore it. But we never tried to hide it, did we? We faced it, your godfather and I. We stood up and we took it head on.’

  He flicked his hair from his eyes. When he looked back, they were on fire.

  ‘There will always be opposition ready to poison people to think another way. Terrorists. Non-believers inside the United Government . . .’ He shook his head. ‘Whatever we do, Aggie, there’ll always be someone out there who would risk going back to how it was before. Going back to the dark and the violence, all for some crazy twisted moral. You heard about Tokyo, right?’

  Aggie shook her head.

  ‘Oh well, get ready, the whole base will be talking about it by tomorrow. People are finding it too easy to forget what lumite has brought to our planet: cheap power, fresh air, regenerated climate, no war . . .’ Rix paused. ‘Ten years of progress. And still FALL are intent on destroying it. Destroying us. The tenth anniversary of Adrianne has lit the touchpaper. Now it’s only a matter of time before they hit us hard.’

  Aggie reeled. FALL stood for the First Anti-Lumite League, though no one ever cared what the letters stood for any more, thanks to the group’s love of violence. Aggie hated FALL: they were extremists, they didn’t care who got hurt or what damage they did, as long as they destroyed something Adam Faulkner and Lunar Inc. had created. FALL pretended to be political, that their goal was to sit beside the ministers in the United Forum, but everyone knew they were just another gang left over from the Dark Days.

  Rix looked back out of the windows. ‘The timing is terrible, with the cell recall in India, the problems with the quotas on B Face – we’re losing control . . .’

  He turned back to Aggie and gestured to the chairs, jumping into the nearest one. ‘So,’ he said, his tone suddenly brighter, ‘how about it?’

  Aggie sat down opposite him. ‘Wh-what?’

  Rix leant forwards. Aggie could smell the protein pack on his breath. Blueberry.

  ‘How about we fight back? Fight the terrorist propaganda with some propaganda of our own. Show the people of the United Earth that lumite is strong.’

  ‘I don’t understand . . .’

  ‘Ah c’mon, Aggie. Did you really think you could spend your whole life hiding behind a new last name and a pair of blue contact lenses?’

  Aggie’s heart stopped. Rix grinned.

  ‘When FALL feed the people their poison, you are our only antidote. The world can’t listen to terrorists. It just cannot. It needs its Angel back.’

  Aggie felt as if the world was starting to collapse around her. She couldn’t go back. She couldn’t be the Angel again.

  Camera flashes, crowds of people chanting her name, hot studio lights, strangers reaching out, touching her with desperate, clammy hands . . .

  ‘You need save them again, Aggie,’ Rix continued. ‘Just like you did after the explosion, that’s all.’

  It was crazy.

  ‘Roger— Sorry, Commander, I can’t—’

  ‘It’s a lot to take in.’ Rix nodded. ‘I get that, but what did you think would happen? Really? Your whole life is a lie, Aggie. The truth is going to slip out sooner or later . . . You can’t work in Domestic Analysis forever.’

  Aggie tried to control her breathing. ‘But, it’s been so long . . .’

  Rix rubbed his temples. He was losing his patience. ‘G Face opens next month,’ he said sharply, ‘It’s going to be the biggest face in the mine. The new, shining diamond in Lunar Inc.’s crown.’ He bent further towards her, fidgeting in his chair. ‘We’re going to launch it with a show like nothing the United Earth has ever seen. Show the nonbelievers that – anniversary of Adrianne or not – the future of lumite is bright.’

  Rix’s eyes flicked over Aggie’s face.

  ‘See, Aggie, your daddy—’

  There it was. Aggie felt as if someone was scrunching her stomach into a ball.

  ‘He was a good man,’ Rix went on, getting more animated with each word. ‘A good scientist. I owe him. Adam owes him. Hell, everyone on that big ball of blue down there owes him. But they just don’t want to know it.’

  Aggie squirmed in her seat, fighting the urge to run out of the room.

  ‘He brought all this into being. His brain. His science. If it weren’t for your daddy we’d all still be fighting in the dark like animals. Now, I know that, but there’s no point saying that to anyone on terra firma. He made a mistake, he rushed through the safety tests to make the Switch On deadline. He took a risk, yes he did, and when that reactor exploded he paid for it with his life, and the lives of thousands of others.’

  Aggie winced.

  ‘Down there,’ Rix continued, ‘there’s a lot of hate, and FALL are using it to destroy us.’

  Rix clenched his teeth as he talked, his knees bounced up and down. Aggie just felt sick.

  ‘But what those people down there need isn’t a reminder of his mistake. They need reassurance. We need to remind them that Adrianne was a one off. And it will never, ever, happen again. We need to let them know that every one of their precious sons and daughters out there on our base is protected, and that they’re protected down there, in their little lumite-powered lives.

  ‘We’ll never forget that day, for sure, but we’ve learnt from your daddy’s mistake – no more reactors, just the cells. Production here, away from the Earth – and we’ve used what we learnt to make lumite power stronger.’

  It was all getting too much for Aggie now, ‘Please, Roger, I just—’

  Rix moved closer, so he was almost crouching at her feet. He tilted her chin, forcing her to look at him. ‘You got to get used to talking again, little Angel. The tenth anniversary of Adrianne is only a few weeks away. I know you haven’t forgotten. Celeste shows me your sleep records. It’s a tough time for all of us, but I’ve got to show everyone that everything is good. Only the Angel can distract them from whatever FALL have planned. You get that, right?’

  Aggie nodded.

  ‘And what that means?’

  Aggie stared at Rix, terror whirling inside her. ‘I’m sorry.’

  The commander bounced back to
his feet and pulled another pack from his overall. ‘Hey, I don’t need you to be sorry,’ he said, checking himself in the mirror. Aggie caught Rix’s pale eye in his reflection.

  ‘I need you to make up for it,’ he said, ‘for what your daddy did.’

  Aggie looked away.

  ‘For ten years we’ve hidden you. I’ve given you everything you ever wanted. I’ve kept you safe, haven’t I? Now, all I’m asking for is a little payment. You understand?’

  Aggie didn’t respond.

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ he said, stepping towards the door. ‘So, it’s time to get you out there. Get a bit of moondust on your overall. The G Face opening party is the show, but as long as FALL are gunning for us, Lunar Inc. is gonna need its Angel.’

  He made his way to the door, where Professor Spooner still lingered. ‘A team from Earth Relations will contact you.’ He pointed to Aggie’s eyes. ‘Keep them blue, for now. Until the party we act as if nothing’s changed. Don’t want our little secret getting out before the big day, hey?’

  Aggie nodded.

  ‘Stay bright, Angel.’ Rix smiled and disappeared down the corridor, followed by his security.

  Only the faint sickly smell of protein packs indicated that Rix had ever been in the office.

  Aggie sat for a moment and tried to calm her breathing. Bring back the Angel? Be the Angel of Adrianne again after ten years?

  Aggie almost laughed. During her two years on the base she’d grown more confident, more assured that her disguise was working. But there was always that fear in the back of her mind. That all it would take was one slip of a lens, or one over-curious friend to blow it all apart.

  Now she guessed that Rix had been planning to blow it apart all along.

  Over the years Aggie had stupidly believed that Rix had had her best interests at heart, that he was following her godfather’s orders, nothing else. But really, Aggie wasn’t a Lunar Inc. employee, she was company property.

  She took a deep, shuddering breath and looked out of the window – at the great rainbow-hued Whole Earth Complex which shone in the centre of the base. Aggie loved this place. The Moon was her home, her sanctuary, her whole life. And with a few words, Rix had just destroyed it all.