by Joshua James
“And I love you, kiddo. Let’s…you hungry?” Sydal noticed in his HUD that it was past seven. The curfew was lifted until eight that evening.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“All right. Let’s go get you something to eat,” Sydal gently lifted his son up off of him, then got off the floor himself.
“We gonna get something from home?” asked Matthew.
“No, bud, we can’t go…we’re gonna go to the food court. Okay? You can get anything you want.” Sydal took his son by the hand and started up two flights of stairs to the dark side ground-level door.
“Even pizza?”
Sydal was amazed and somewhat jealous that Matthew went from witnessing his mother’s death to being excited about the prospect of pizza in a matter of hours, although he knew that one day the seriousness of what had happened would dawn on his son. He knew it would screw him up in some sort of way when he got older. He just hoped he could lessen the impact as much as possible.
“Sure, if they got it. Whatever you want.” All Sydal wanted to do was keep his son distracted from the horrible tragedy he’d lived through, though he knew in the back of his head that this wasn’t possible. Because as soon as they ate, he was going to do everything in his power to get the both of them off the moon.
Where would they go? It was a question that Sydal had to answer before trying to depart from the moon. Not sleeping a wink, even though his body desperately needed it, he spent the rest of the night at the bottom of that stairwell thinking about just that. Earth was, of course, an option. They didn’t have any friends, family, or a home there, but with his police experience, it shouldn’t be hard to find a job once they got there. But were they under the same restrictions just imposed on the moon?
Sydal though about maybe leaving the Milky Way. The idea of living on a colony settlement, out in the middle of nowhere, always appealed to him. There he and Matthew could have a quiet life, far from the hustle and bustle of someplace as highly populated as the moon or Earth.
Lastly, Sydal considered living in a Sanctuary Station. The havens, free from the war or politics of the AIC and UEF, were often funded by and owned by Waterman-Lau, though. Considering their insidious actions on the moon, whatever they exactly were could be found in their space stations as well.
“C’mon, kiddo, finish up. We got to get out of here,” Sydal said. He looked around. People were clearly a bit shaken by the previous night’s events. It was quiet, somber. But people, being as resilient as they were or perhaps in denial, went about their daily routine. Cafeteria workers showed up working registers, counters, and kitchens. Janitors still did their rounds cleaning off trays and tables.
UEF soldiers stood guard, two at every entrance and exit. They scanned the crowd themselves, looking for who the hell knew what. Their presence was ominous. Just seeing them angered Sydal, because he knew they weren’t there to protect them. Why they were there, he didn’t know, but they weren’t protectors. Not after what he saw last night.
“Where are we going?” asked Matthew, his mouth half full of cookies. He had a kid’s dream feast in front of him, with pizza, cookies, and even a cupcake.
“I’m not sure yet. A vacation. Think of it like a vacation.”
“Are mom and Becca coming?”
“No, they need to keep sleeping, bud. It’s just gonna be us.” Sydal pinched his son’s cheek. Matthew tried to wiggle away. “Just us guys. A dude trip.”
“Cool!”
“Yeah…” Sydal sat back in his seat. “Now finish up so we can get out of here.”
As Matthew ate, Sydal went over the messages in his HUD. He had quite a few messages from Detective Janis, his partner. There were thirteen. He started with the three latest messages because those before just looked like general questions as to where he was.
Received: 1700 : A5th: From: Detective Janis
Where you at? Haven’t heard from you since Aitken Basin.
Received: 2300 : A5th: From: Detective Janis
This shit out here is crazy. Never thought I’d see this on the moon. Earth maybe but…anyway, hit me back. Worried. That’s right I got emotions too.
Received: 0600: A6th: From: Detective Janis
I don’t know what the hell is up but chief called everyone in. 0800 sharp. His words. Don’t get yourself fired asshole.
Sydal didn’t trust his partner at that point. He didn’t trust anyone. Except for maybe…
No. No. Don’t let that thought enter your head. Don’t you dare.
Sydal looked as his son eating his dream breakfast. He didn’t look like he had a single worry in the world. How could a boy be that content after he saw his mother did? What if he was one of them, like his sister?
Hatred was too light a word for what Sydal felt about himself in that cafeteria. The fact that he doubted that his son was his son almost made him want to throw up his own breakfast. Still, he couldn’t shake the thought. How could he tell? He sure as hell couldn’t tell that his little girl was a monster in disguise.
Sydal tried to formulate a real plan. He had to find a ride and get the hell off the moon. Like everything though, the devil was in the details.
The docks were an obvious choice, at least at first glance. That was all Sydal had to go on at the moment. He was tired and had a hard time thinking straight. The coffee helped. The pancakes and eggs would’ve, if he could’ve eaten them. That image of Maria dead, body slumped against the wall in their bedroom, made it hard to stomach.
“You keep a tight hold on my hand. Do not let go. You understand, buddy? No matter what, you hold on. Got it?” Sydal instructed Matthew as they stood in line for the buses to the Lunar Dome. There were no ship docks on the dark side. Going back was a necessary evil.
“Don’t let go,” repeated Matthew.
“That’s right. No matter what.”
“Sydal?” One of the LTA workers walked up to Sydal. From the looks of her, she was a teenager, just working her first-ever job.
“Yeah?”
“We got you a rover. No bus.”
“Why no bus?” asked Sydal. He didn’t ask for a rover. He sure as hell didn’t order one.
“C’mon, man, I, they told me to find you and show you to your ride. Hell, I’d rather take one of those bourgeois black rovers than the dirty bus.” The LTA worker was just doing her job.
But you also don’t know that these bastards aren’t in bed with whatever Fredrich Bausman and my Rebecca were.
Sydal looked down at his son. With his free hand he felt under his coat to make sure his pistol was still in its holster. Although, according to what he saw and did on Aitken Basin, that meant he might as well have had a slingshot. It did just as much damage.
“No, we’re okay. Tell Ms. Lau I said thanks but no thanks, we’ll wait for the bus.” Sydal wasn’t taking any chances. He couldn’t. It wasn’t just his life on the line anymore.
The LTA worker sighed and rolled her eyes. “Okay, man, but what am I supposed to tell her? She ordered it for you, paid me good credits to get you.”
“Tell her to go—" Sydal remembered to watch his mouth. After all, his young son was with him. “Tell her thanks, but no thanks.”
Sydal gave Matthew the window seat on the bus, which was fine. He could just look over the little guy’s head, considering he couldn’t have been taller than four feet at that point. And he did. The detective kept his eye on what was happening outside the moon’s facilities, out on its surface. What he saw didn’t as much shock him as it just worried him more.
There were UEF ships everywhere. Some waited their turn to land at one of the moon’s many docks. Others, more worryingly, appeared to be patrolling. The worst part was, others were just far enough away from the lunar surface that it looked like they were guarding it. But guarding it from whom? Sydal knew, like most, that the closest the AIC ever got to the Earth was Europa. Any fleet would’ve been intercepted before they even reached Mars.
As the bus ride went on, Sydal split hi
s attention. Half of it was focused on keeping Matthew entertained, distracting him from how scary his small world had just become. The other half was on the lunar surface. One thing that stood out to him was the state of the communication towers that peppered the surface near the dark side and lunar dome. They were in shambles, pieces, rendered inoperable.
Once they reached the Lunar Dome, Sydal and Matthew were confronted with the usual crowds of the morning commute. Again, he couldn’t believe people were just going about their day like nothing was wrong as they walked by armed soldiers staring them down as they passed. To make matters worse, no one did more than snicker or whisper among themselves when they saw cultists out in the open, standing next to the soldiers, spouting nonsense.
What really worried and confused Sydal was that not far away from the exit from the bus stop, two lines were formed and enforced by soldiers. One line just went into the Lunar Dome proper to go to work, or attend whatever business they had there. The other line led off to the side, into what he knew as a warehouse once owned by Waterman-Lau.
“Present your identification and join the line to your left,” ordered one of the soldiers when Sydal and Matthew reached the point where the lines split. He ordered them to join the one leading to the warehouse.
“Why? Where does that line lead?” asked Sydal. It was a reasonable question.
The soldier didn’t react in kind. “Identification!” he ordered, clearly agitated. Sydal could read his body language. This soldier was ready to act out in violence, and didn’t seem to care that he had a kid with him.
“Yeah, fine, fine.” Sydal presented his digital police badge.
“Detective Rowan Sydal?” The soldier looked at the badge, then back at the detective. “Orders are for all police personnel to report to their precinct for briefing. You need to report to your precinct immediately. To the right.” The soldier instructed Sydal to join the line that led to the Lunar Dome proper.
“What’s…just curious, soldier, where are these other people going?” Sydal couldn’t help but enquire.
“They’re the first wave reporting for processing. Soon the rest of the lunar population will do the same. New policies.”
Sydal nodded to the soldier, picked up Matthew, and went to the right.
Processing? Processing for what?
Sydal couldn’t believe how many soldiers were there. They must’ve been twice as many as he saw the night before. Were they multiplying? Or, more likely, dozens more troop transports must’ve arrived as the residents slept. Again, it was worrying.
Sydal racked his mind for an illegal way off the moon.
It’ll probably have to be under the radar. Something tells me they aren’t just letting people leave.
In his time on the force, he’d run into more than his fair share of smugglers and pirates. Hell, he’d once even managed to corral the Golden Lion himself. That infamous pirate wasn’t on the moon, but his brother Wei Wan was, the last time Sydal’d checked. And like all smugglers and pirates he hung out in the Crater, a hidden bar right off a line of long-abandoned AIC docks from before the war.
“Dad? Where are we going? Are we almost there?” asked Matthew, head on his father’s shoulders.
“Almost, bud. Just hang in there,” Sydal had to find a way to the abandoned docks first. That wasn’t going to be easy. Everything, everything was guarded. With soldiers everywhere, sneaking around, especially with a kid in tow, might be near impossible. Still, he was going to try, because staying felt much more risky.
“Rowan!” Sydal heard the last voice he wanted to hear in that moment. He heard Detective Janis.
Sydal tried to keep moving and ignore his partner’s calls for him. Was he being foolish? Maybe. But there was no way to know about Janis now. Could he ever really be convinced that Janis had made it out of Aitken Basin alive? He didn’t think so, and he didn’t want to find out.
“That woman is yelling at you,” Matthew said.
“I know, buddy.”
“Rowan, wait up! I need to talk to you.” Janis pushed her way through the crowds to catch up.
Shit. Deal with this and move on.
“What’s up, Detective?” Sydal said coolly, trying to keep things formal and quick. He rubbed Matthew’s back. “I’m kind of in a hurry.”
“Aren’t we all,” she said. “Heading to the precinct, I hope. C’mon, I can come with…oh hey, Matthew.” Janis seemed startled to see him, as if she’d missed the fact that he was there as she was walking up. “What are you doing out here with your daddy?”
Janis acted like everything was okay, everything was normal. That was a far cry from the woman Detective Rowan knew. Under these circumstances, his partner would probably rant about conspiracies and how the company was out to get everybody. The fact that the diminutive detective wasn’t stuffing her face with some snack was another concern. He’d known her for a decade, and he could count on one hand the number of times she wasn’t chewing on something.
“Afraid I can’t do that,” answered Sydal.
Janis frowned. “What do you mean? We have to. Orders from on high.” She raised her eyebrows playfully and smiled. “You know how it is.”
Sydal took out his pistol and stealthily pointed it at Detective Janis’ stomach. No one else seemed to notice, but his partner did.
“I do know how it is,” he said, his voice low and surprisingly clear.
Janis looked down, but the expression on her face didn’t change. She just looked back up at Sydal, staring in his eyes with an eerie shine.
“I see. It’s like that, is it?”
“It is,” Sydal said tautly.
“Well, don’t let me stop you. Run. Run as fast as you can, because there’s no getting away from this.” The tone of Detective Janis’ voice changed. It was calm, measured, unsettling, and there was a faint smile on her face that hid what were surely insidious intentions. “Eventually you’ll fall in line. Just like everyone else on this barren rock.”
Sydal slowly backed away, making sure to keep his eye on his former partner. He kept glancing behind him to make sure that he didn’t bump into anyone unpleasant. Once he felt comfortable, he holstered his pistol.
In a flash, Janis spun around and disappeared into the crowd.
Sydal strained to see where Janis had gone, staring into the crowd, when a familiar face came into focus.
He almost fell over with shock.
His wife Maria was standing in the crowds smiling at him. Standing next to her was Ms. Lau from Waterman Lau, and on the other side was his daughter Rebecca, holding her mother’s hand.
Sydal stopped backing up and stared. He couldn’t believe his eyes. Just hours ago he’d watched Maria bleed out on their bedroom floor. Now there she was, as radiant as the day he met her. There was nary a scratch on her body. And their daughter clutched her leg, looking every bit the precious jewel he always saw his baby girl as.
What the hell is this?
Sydal didn’t know what to do. If he’d had his doubts that Maria wasn’t an impostor before, he had no doubt now. So why was he feeling this strange mix of happiness and relief? Who or what would manipulate someone on that level?
“Maria?” Sydal squeezed Matthew tighter to his chest.
“Hey baby,” answered Maria.
“Mommy?” Matthew was ecstatic upon hearing his mom’s voice. He tried to wiggle out from his father’s grasp, but Sydal held firm.
“What’s wrong with you, Detective? He clearly wants to go to his mother,” Ms. Lau said. “Let him.”
Sydal doubted that a woman that privileged, that rich, that connected to whatever this was, would let any creature replace her. Besides, by all accounts, she was always a bitch. “That’s not his mother.”
“Really? Sure looks like her. I mean, I didn’t know her, never met her but from the photos and videos I’ve seen…you can’t argue the likeness.” She smiled. “Right? I mean, who would ever believe it wasn’t her?”
How long have the
y been watching us? “That’s not my damn wife. I would know.”
Ms. Lau tilted her head to the side. “Would you?”
“Go screw yourself. Now if you wouldn’t mind getting the hell out of our way—" Sydal suddenly felt guns pressed against his back.
“Daddy, look, army men!” Matthew stared at the soldiers, heads fully encased in helmets.
“Come here, Matthew.” Maria knelt down and beckoned her son. Sydal wouldn’t let him go.
“Let go of the child,” ordered one of the soldiers behind Sydal.
“If you think I’m just going to let you take away what’s left of my family, you really are one dumb—"
“Either you let him go willingly,” Ms. Lau said calmly, “or those two soldiers behind you will beat you into submission with him still in your arms. Your choice, Detective.”
It was an impossible choice. But giving up was no choice at all.
Sydal’s hand slowly moved towards his holstered pistol. But before it got there, he was caught off-guard. Rebecca ran up to him and clutched onto his leg, just as she had her mother’s. She squeezed tight.
“I love you, daddy,” said Rebecca. She looked up at her father with the same eyes he’d known and adored since birth. Sydal melted.
Sydal was so taken aback by his daughter that he didn’t even feel the tendons on the back of his knees being cut until it was too late. But he did feel the warm wet of blood soaking his pants and running down his calves. His leg gave way under him as the thing pretending to be Rebecca smiled and stepped back, blood dripping from the sharp things that had been her hands.
Sydal managed to hang on to Matthew as he fell to one leg, taking a knee right next to his son. Matthew’s eyes grew big.
One of the soldiers grabbed Matthew by his arm as Rebecca retreated back to her mother, a dripping line of blood tracing her steps. Sydal did his best to hang on, but his strength was leaving him. Hell, it was a miracle that he’d kept going so long, but his body was ready to give up.
“Let go of the kid!” bellowed the soldier trying to wrestle Matthew away from Sydal.