Dark Side of the Moon

by V R Tapscott

  And then Bailey, trying not to cry, put out her hand to touch my cheek. “We were so worried about you, but you made it. You’re a tough old bird.”

  I tried to laugh, but something stabbed me in the chest and I just managed to whisper, “Old bird? You’re older than me!”

  And then Olive. She kissed me on the cheek, but I couldn’t feel anything, so she must be pushed to her limit here. “You scared me so much, I’m not sure being human is a good idea after all!”

  That made me smile, even through the pain and numbness. “Being human is always a good idea, sweetie.” I could feel myself drifting though, even as I was talking.

  I remember jumbled up dreams, the unearthly metal, the crater wall, Dale ... Dale ...

  “Dale? Dale??”

  And out of the darkness beside the bed, his deep voice saying, “I’m here, Jane.”

  I slipped back in it again, but this time the dreams weren’t nightmares, and Dale was in all of them.

  “..think she can hear us when she’s asleep? I’ve always wondered ab ... Hey, Jane!”

  I was feeling a little vague, but at least ALL of me didn’t hurt now.

  “I can hear you just fine, but only when I’ve been woken up by loud people!” It still came out in a whispery rasp, but I felt like I could talk.

  Bailey came into view and I realized she and Olive were both there, with mother and Dale hanging in the background.

  “Hey, you all don’t have better things to do than wake up a sick woman?”

  General laughter, then, “This IS what we do, Jane. We travel around the hospital now and wake people up so they can take their sleeping pills.”

  I said, more seriously, “Hey ... um ... how am I doing? What’s wrong with me?”

  Bailey and Olive exchanged looks and Bailey said, “Looks like some kind of fishing accident, Jane. Maybe a harpoon or something went through your side, messed up stuff pretty bad inside and smashed a rib on the way out. Olive and I were in Chelan, Cai was with you. I guess you must have decided to show him how to fish or something. Anyway, he had on a wetsuit and wound up with a heart attack. No one seems to know how it happened. And no one found the harpoon.”

  I took this in kind of vaguely, thinking there was something important I was missing, then nodded. “Harpoon, huh. No wonder it hurt so much.”

  “You’re healing fast - a lot faster than they expected, for some reason. Must be all that working out and healthy living, huh?”

  I was feeling a little vague again, but not enough to pass out yet. “Yeah, that must be it. All that working out paid off. Also the vodka sours and the screwdrivers.”

  Olive spoke up, looking a little concerned. “Your eyes looked weird at first, Jane. Are you seeing okay now?”

  I frowned, barely remembering that I’d probably been in vacuum for a while. “Yes, I’m seeing fine.” I looked around the room, finally registering that I hadn’t seen Cai. “Cai? Are you here?”

  Bailey took a breath, “He’s here in the hospital too, Jane. He had a heart attack, but he’s on the mend and he’ll probably be out before you. We think you must have gotten him up from a deep dive and that’s why your eyes looked odd - like you were depressurized too fast.”

  I nodded. I could see I’d have to be careful to stick with the story they were telling me. At least I hadn’t seen any police, so it didn’t seem to be a problem with that. “Yeah, I don’t really remember much though, to tell you the truth.” Which was pretty close to the real truth.

  “You lost a lot of blood, honey. It was pretty bad, in fact, that seems to be more the issue at this point, your system has a lot of catching up to do. Do you remember anything about someone putting a bandage on you?” She was slowly shaking her head.

  “No, Bailey, to be honest I don’t remember much about that day at all. It seems like it was years ago, like it’s all fuzzy with time. It’s not been that long, has it?”

  “No, it’s only been a couple days, Jane.”

  Dale elbowed his way back up to the front, and smiled at me. “Hey, you need some help, ma’am?”

  Tears came unbidden to my eyes and I said, “All I can get, mister.” I made kissy face at him and he kissed me. I must taste gross, my mouth feels really ikky. “You don’t have to kiss the sicky, sicky.” But I smiled at him. A lot. “Where are we? In Chelan?”

  Bailey smirked, “No, of course not, Jane. How could you be in Chelan. You’re at Harborview Medical in Seattle. It’s the one with the great ... harbor ... view.”

  I tried to shrug and made a mess of it. “Well, like I say, it seems like years ago. When can I go home?”

  From Dale, “Soon, baby, soon.” He smiled so warmly at me it made me tingle. I started to drift again then, they must be giving me some great drugs.

  I woke up and looked around a little. I could hear a funny noise over to the side and I managed to look over there. Dale was sitting, snoring softly in his chair. The sun was coming in the blinds and I felt pretty good. I tried moving my hands and that seemed to work. I moved my head some more and looked around the room. Seemed whoever was in this room was pretty popular. I even saw a big poster-painted card signed with a lot of very sloppy names and a big “Chelan Elementary School” painted on the side, and on the other side “Get Well Ms. Bond!” It was really cute, all flowery and looked like a lot of kids had worked on it. Flowers, balloons and lots of cards. Wow. Even a plant. I had to giggle, it was a prickly pear cactus in bloom. I won’t do that again, giggling hurts. A lot.

  As long as I didn’t laugh, or do anything like breathe, I was fine. I lay there just looking at all the stuff around me. Life is pretty good, and trust me, it’s a hell of a lot better than the alternative. I’ve been too close to that a few times and it’s not for me. At least not without a fight. I started taking stock of my parts. I could move my hands, my feet, I could only twitch my legs a little but that was probably only ‘cause they were under the blankets. For all I know, I’m strapped down. As far as I could tell, no paralysis of anything. Which was good. I was just doing eyebrow exercises when Dale woke up.

  “Hey there, beautiful!”

  “Who are YOU talking to, mister?”

  “Who do you think, Miss?”

  I peered around theatrically, “There must be a nurse in here who I can’t see.”

  He came closer, leaned over and kissed me. “No, it’s you. It’s always you.”

  I smiled and said, “So, when are you busting me out of here? I wanna go home.”

  “Probably pretty soon, they seem to think you’re healing really well. No infection at all, for some reason, and that really helped the healing speed. You’ll have a lot of pain, but that will be pretty much the same here or at home. If you want to go home, I’ll push them harder.”

  “Oh, I definitely want to go home.”

  He smiled and looked fabulous. “Then I’ll push them harder, starting right now.” One more kiss and he walked out of the room.

  I lay back and in spite of my brave words, I almost immediately fell back asleep.

  Next time I woke up, Dale was back in his chair again, asleep again. I must have been out for a while. I felt a lot more wide awake this time, and I found out later they’d cut back my pain meds and drugs. I’d have to start eating and the like on my own. Which sounds like a good thing, right? Well, maybe not so much. Turns out one reason I’ve been feeling pretty good is that I was pumped full of pain meds and when that started wearing off, I started hurting - a lot. I considered begging to go back on my drugs, but then I thought about my sunny little corner of the world and decided maybe I’d suck it up and not whine. Much. I did whine enough to get some Percoset, and apparently I’m pretty susceptible to it ‘cause later I got some really weird dreams. The docs had said I could leave tomorrow, but I have no idea what tomorrow is at this point. I’ll ask Dale when he wakes up, or when someone else gets here.

  It was quite a kick being loaded into an air-ambulance and being whisked away. The trip was by no means a
s fast or smooth as riding with Olive, but it was dang close. They were able to land in the field over the garage and they rolled me down right into my living room. After checking me out to make sure nothing had come loose in the flight, they left. Dale had flown with me, and I expected Olive and Bailey to turn up soon. And no doubt my mother would arrive, somewhat put out to be last, no doubt. Bailey said that she had been very human while I was mostly dead, and I was looking forward to trying to see if she’d changed, or it was just temporary fright of nearly losing her only daughter.

  As expected, Bailey and Olive walked through the door from the downstairs conference room not very much later. I wasn’t sure that Dale knew anything about it, and from his reaction - first surprise, then irritation, then resignation - he hadn’t known much.

  He eyed Bailey and Olive, then turned to me. “It’s not over, is it?”

  I shook my head gently. “No, it’s not. It never really was. We had a wonderful vacation, but I’m sure we’ll have to return to saving the world.”

  I raised my arm in greeting, and even that little movement hurt. This being damaged sucks, I’m looking forward to being past that! “Hi guys. Have a nice flight?”

  I watched Dale, worried about his attitude, but he’d known what he was buying when he got me and I thought he’d come around ok.

  “Dale? Are you ok, honey?”

  He looked at me for a long moment, then nodded his head. “Yeah, this is what I signed on for, I guess. You can’t keep from laying your life on the line and I guess that’s one of the things I loved about you.”

  He kissed me. I could hear both Bailey and Olive sighing, whether it was disgust over the PDA, or relief over him saying that, I wasn’t sure.

  “Olive?”

  “Yes, boss.”

  “Show Dale ... your ... tricks.”

  She grinned. “Which ones, I got a lot of ‘em.”

  “Well, first off, let him try to shake your hand.”

  Dale looked at me oddly, then reached out for Olive’s hand. She put it out willingly and his hand went right through it. He recoiled like it was a snake, and his eyes got big.

  Gently, I said, “Dale, she’s like Kit. Only she’s got more power than he did, and she can project an image of herself. Did you notice that she never got close to anyone when you were at the hospital in Seattle? It was because she had to be very careful not to let anyone know she doesn’t have a real body, and she has to be within a certain distance of her ship - which you’ve seen as the little smartcar - to even be able to make that projection.”

  “Olive, can you shake hands with Dale, please?”

  She smiled and said, “Yassuh, boss.”

  She stuck out her paw and Dale, looking confused, put out his hand, expecting to find empty air again. He was doubly confused when he found a warm, seemingly human hand. This time he let go of it slowly, seeming to be almost in awe.

  “She can generate actual physical parts when she’s here in the house. The main computer is downstairs in the big room where we spent so much time, and it’s much more powerful than the one in the ship. She’s limited in how much she can do, and right now is limited to hands and the like.”

  “Right now?”

  “Yes. Right now. She’s working at doing more.”

  “I ... see.”

  “We’ve had that discussion and we’re comfortable with her not becoming Hal, so don’t worry about that. We’ll go into more detail later, but I wanted to cover what needed to be covered before my mother gets here. She knows nothing about any part of this life.”

  “Olive, can you take Dale on a quick ride in the ship? Just a short one, so he knows what it can do. Bailey, bring me some chips, please?” I made my best invalid face at her and she rolled her eyes.

  “Did the doctors say you can have that?”

  “Nope. But they didn’t say I couldn’t and I’m not looking at my diet requirements until I get my chips and salsa.”

  “Bossy cow.”

  I smiled at her and leaned back, watching Dale and Olive disappear into the house.

  Bailey reappeared with the chips, salsa and some various things to drink.

  “I brought you water and PepsiMax just in case. I’m serious about the diet, honey. We really need to make sure you don’t do anything to anything.”

  I sighed. “It was my lung, not my stomach.”

  “It took out a chunk of your intestine, too!”

  “Oh. Well, yeah. I kinda forgot about that.” I looked at the bowl of chips, the salsa, the drinks. I frowned. “I’ll have water I guess.” And then, morosely, “And some of that yellow baby food they sent along, I suppose.”

  I started eating the “Apples and Fruit!”, which was kinda weird, considering that apples are already fruit, aren’t they? At any rate, it tasted like some kind of sugary paste made of flavoring and vitamin pills. I looked sadly at the chips that Bailey was chowing down on, but I behaved.

  Olive and Dale came back and since he was only pale, not puking, I figured that keeping the trip short had saved him. I grinned at him and offered him some “Apples and Fruit!” but he declined. He seemed to like the chips too. Everyone friggin liked the chips.

  I finally gagged down my “Apples and Fruit!” and said, “We need to talk about what happened and what we need for plans. Obviously, there’s more now that we don’t know about. Olive, can you tell us what happened?”

  Olive looked at her hands, then said, “I can show you. It might be easier than telling you. But it won’t be pretty, and you all should be sitting. Maybe with a bowl nearby.”

  I said, “Oh, that bad, huh?”

  Olive nodded. “Yeah, that bad.”

  A hole seemed to open in front of us, a hole we could see the moon through. It was a perfect shot of the surface, and you could see the Chinese expedition cameras. There was some desultory conversation and after a while (sped up, Olive mentioned) the cameras nosed down. After a back and forth of conversation that I didn’t remember a bit of, three people filed into the picture and made their way across the screen to the far side of the crater wall. The camera followed them, seeming to have been run by an expert cameraman. Then, I could see all of us close to the artifact. A bit of hesitation, then I reached out and grabbed the thing. The action slowed down to a crawl and I could see as I touched it, the skinsuit seemed to dissolve away from where it had touched the alien metal, and especially taking the speed of the video into account, the suit must have seemed to vanish.

  Olive said, “Jane, you might want to close your eyes here.”

  Like a fool, I ignored her. The film started again, and the item showed itself to be a piece of the alien glass metal about a foot long and half an inch in diameter. It moved. It moved, seemed to aim itself and simply shot away from the crater. I was bent over, the suit mostly gone with just a bit remaining on the far side of my body. The “thing” launched. It went straight away from where it was embedded, and I happened to be standing in front of it. I could see it enter my lower abdomen, and then practically instantaneously it shot out of my upper left side, having punched through anything in the way. Blood and tissue exploded in a fog behind me. I could see a look of shock come over my face that probably mirrored what was on my face now. My body fell to the ground and blood began exiting in great gouts. Cai shrieked, a scream that must have damaged this throat. I could see him attempting to cover the wound with his hand while scooping me up. I could see him hitting the side of the crater with me dangling from his arms, a bloody trail left behind us. The ship with its wide-open door intersected his bounce off the crater wall and Cai fell through the door, dropping me on the floor. He seemed to crumple to the floor and lie still. Olive showed how human she’d become by dithering about for a few seconds, then grabbed a bandage from somewhere and pasted it over my gushing wound. Immediately the blood stopped flowing. I realized the ship was already moving and had been while she was attempting first aid. It took no longer than a few minutes and I’m not sure that Olive even sped u
p the video. The door popped open and Olive screamed at Cai to “get Jane out of the ship”. Cai lay still. Olive, tears flowing freely, started pulling on me, her hands slipping in the gore, but managing to get me down the ramp. Then she returned to the ship, and about all there was of Olive at that point WAS hands. She managed to get Cai dumped off the bottom, then the camera view moved away. There was no longer any sign of Olive. She was simply gone.

  The room was in utter silence. I was regretting with every fiber of my being having watched the presentation. From the look around the room, everyone was feeling the same.

  We all sat, stunned. After a few minutes, people began to come to life again, albeit more like zombies than regular people. After milling about aimlessly for a while, someone thought to turn on the TV. A mindless sitcom came on and we watched, soaking up the stupid until we began to find a way to live with life again. After an hour or two, we were some semblance of normal and it was well, since shortly after that I heard tires on the gravel driveway. Mother had managed to catch a flight out of Seattle, landing in Wenatchee, I guess. I would have giggled when I saw the car, but it would have hurt too much. For someone used to driving (or being driven in) a large HumVee, driving a tiny Kia herself must have been excruciating.

  Her eyebrows went up seeing Bailey and Olive already there, but she seemed to be trying to take it all in stride. I had no doubt there would be repercussions though.

  And dammit, she liked the chips and salsa too. By then, everyone was more or less over the shakes and had been making inroads in the food again. I suppose that’s why there’s always so much food at funerals. Somehow eating validates life.

  I decided I’d go to bed. I was a little scared to stand, but with Mother on one side and Dale on the other I managed to stand and even shuffle carefully to the couch. I’d decided taking the stairs might be too much to ask, and I think that was wise, since I was pretty woozy and hurting after just the trip to the couch. I fell asleep almost instantly, distantly aware of the murmur of chat between all four of my keepers. I had no dreams that I remember, for that I was grateful.