One Hundred Percent Lunar Boy (32 page)

“Oh, he’s incarcerated for sure. Look at this.” Slue pressed another button on the handheld machine, and additional text appeared. She read it out loud.

“Ringo Rexaphin. Charged and held without bail for aiding an Ocular Fugitive. Charged with the crime of lying to a detective of the Ocular Investigative Division. Charged with breaking Quarantine Directive Number Sixty-Seven. Charged with terrorism. Awaiting trial.”

“Terrorism?” Hieronymus gasped. “All he did was cover for me.”

“There is nothing we can do for him right now,” said Slue, looking back into the rear seat. “But I have a question. Your uncle. The one who got you that ancient copy of
The Random Treewolf
that you showed me in the rotunda at school.”

“My uncle Reno.”

“Right. You told me that he comes to the Moon to do research at that giant library, right?”

“Yes.”

“That incredible library that’s on the far side of the Moon?”

Hieronymus stared at her. They passed a tall white tree without leaves. It had been painted white. Then someone had spray-painted graffiti on its trunk.

“Do you think your uncle might be there
right now?
”

“I don’t think my uncle Reno can be of any help.”

“Your uncle Reno is about to be incredibly helpful. By allowing us into the library. By showing me the Lunar Law section, where I will find every civil code, in printed paper form, that relates to Quarantine Directive Number Sixty-Seven. And I am certain that there is no code at all that spells out the exact circumstances that lead to the unjustified punishment we are all sooner or later subjected to. Not in the original, not in the paper form that has obviously been updated for decades. If I can get there and scan the original, and then get it to my brother…”

They passed another tree that had been painted white.

“Why are the trees painted white?” Bruegel asked.

Slue ignored him as she turned to Hieronymus again.

“The Earth girl…”

Hieronymus stared at Slue. “Yes. The Earth girl.”

“Did you really expect to see her tonight?”

“I was hoping to see her.”

“That is not what I asked. I want to know if you were
really expecting
to see her.”

Hieronymus looked away.

Slue continued. “You did not really believe that she would be there tonight, did you?”

“I don’t know what to believe.”

“This whole trip was an experiment for you, wasn’t it? To prove that what you saw with your goggles off was not the absolute truth. Am I right?”

Hieronymus nodded.

“But when you saw her without your goggles on, you were certain that you would never see her again?”

“Slue…” was all he could manage as she spelled out what he knew to be true.

“But isn’t it odd, Hieronymus, that if you really, really wanted to be certain, you would have found a much more dependable method of returning to LEM Zone One? Instead, you decided to rely on your friend Bruegel here, and look where that has led you. Yet you must have known that. You
chose
to depend on Bruegel because he is undependable, and you knew that he would complicate things by proposing to bring me along. Is this not true?”

They passed several white moon moose in the distance. Two of them were nose to nose, fighting over something they both had in their mouths at the same time. It was another of the dog-sized hummingbirds, a dead one.

“She…” Hieronymus began. “is not even on the Moon. Last night, I saw her projected color…turn upward into the sky, and return to Earth…I am certain that the authorities figured out what happened, and she refused to cooperate, and they sent her back.”

“You did not want to believe it,” Slue whispered.

“No. But we had this deal. To meet at the Ferris wheel. To see if it was true. I knew it was a ridiculous thing. I was as certain of her departure as you are certain that those police officers will go back to their station, oblivious as to what happened.”

“But if you really wanted to test this out, you would have just paid a few extra bucks to take the express transport or the TGV back to LEM Zone One.”

“Yes. I must have subconsciously wanted to fail. If I failed to return to LEM Zone One, then the possibility would remain that she was still there. That my failure to get to the Ferris wheel was nothing more than a self-fulfilling prophecy, with nothing to do with being a One Hundred Percent Lunar Boy.”

“Like a normal person.”

“Like a normal person who screws things up because he plans things badly.”

“But we are not normal people,” said Slue, a hint of finality in her voice.

Because of the Omni-Tracker, the three students from Lunar Public 777 at least knew the direction they were going in. However, Slue was worried that sooner or later, someone in some police station would notice the unusual path that one of their Omni-Trackers was taking, and she knew that it would not be long before they had to ditch the machine somewhere.

But first, she had to make a couple of phone calls.

On the device’s keyboard, she typed in the name Reno Rexaphin. On the translucent screen in front of her, the map landscape changed, and a small green dot flashed inside of what appeared to be a vast subterranean structure within a mountain. She checked the coordinates. It was about three hundred kilometers from their present position.

The giant library. Filled with books made of paper.

“Bruegel,” she asked the big fellow sitting next to her in the driver’s seat. “Bruegel?”

“Ugh, hi, Slue. Are you having a good time?”

“Yeah, listen, Bruegel, how much fuel do we have left?”

The big fellow squinted forward to look at the instrument panel. From what he could gather, the news was not encouraging.

“We should have enough to get us to the Dog Shelter,” he replied optimistically.

“Bruegel,” continued Slue. “We are nowhere near the Dog Shelter.”

She referred once again to the positioning of the Omni-Tracker. There was only one single highway that snaked through the entire far side of the Moon, and throughout this entire time, she had been directing Bruegel to drive in its direction. When she looked at the fuel level that remained in the vehicle, she was able to conclude (as she was quite good in mathematical reasoning, unlike her two companions) that they might reach the highway, but they most certainly would not reach a fuel station. However, almost hidden on the map that floated in front of her, just half a kilometer of the highway, was an indicator for an abandoned town. Or mining camp. Or something from long ago no longer in use. It was simply called
JOYTOWN 8 (ABANDONED)
. It was the "abandoned" part of the name in parenthesis that got her attention. She realized there was only one available option. She checked the coordinates and told Bruegel to head there, which was not too difficult—they were heading in that direction anyway.

She turned to Hieronymus.

“Your uncle Reno. He lives at the library?”

“Yeah,” replied the exhausted Hieronymus. “Because it is so out of the way, all the researchers usually stay there.”

“Is he the kind of guy who stays up late? You know, past midnight?”

Hieronymus shrugged. “I don’t know. Give me the Omni-Tracker —I’ll try to call him.”

Slue already knew that it was possible to use the Omni-Tracker as a telephone, but she adamantly refused to allow Hieronymus to call his uncle. She didn’t even want to use it to call her own family, whom she figured were probably getting worried, as it was already quite late.

“We should be really careful about who we call with this machine,” the One Hundred Percent Lunar Girl told him. “Any calls to anyone in our families would send up red fags with the police—we know that they are looking for you right now. A call to your uncle Reno would probably catch the attention of the authorities, as you are missing, you are wanted, and your uncle is your only known relative on the Moon. Anyway, there is only one person on this entire round rock who is going to help us right now, and he is the only one I am going to call.”

“Who is that?” asked Hieronymus.

Slue smiled at him as she punched in the number in the Omni-Tracker.

Pete was extremely surprised to get a late-night call from Slue. And highly embarrassed. There was no way she could not hear the sounds of the Ginger Kang Kangs in the background as he and Clellen were having a totally excellent time at the Dog Shelter. The only thing he was thankful for was the fact that she did not call a few hours earlier while he and Clellen were checked into that sleazy motel over by Telstar.

“Pete! Hi, it’s Slue!”

“Oh…hi, Slue. Uh…how’s it going?”

“Great, Pete! Wow, I can hardly hear you! Are you at a club? What band is that? I know that song!”

“Oh. Yeah. That’s the…ah…Ginger Kang Kangs.”

“Wow! That’s so funny, Pete! You must be at the Dog Shelter!”

“Yeah, I’m at the Dog Shelter…”

“Guess what, Pete? I’m with Hieronymus and Bruegel and we were supposed to go the Dog Shelter tonight too! We were going to see the Ginger Kang Kangs also!”

“Really?” Pete was beyond embarrassed.

“Yes, Pete. I had nothing to do tonight after you canceled our date. Remember, you canceled on me tonight because you said you had an emergency? I hope it turned out all right—this emergency of yours. I was very worried. Whenever someone says that they have an emergency, you know, it can be worrisome for others. So Hieronymus and Bruegel ofered to take me to the Dog Shelter to see the Ginger Kang Kangs because your emergency was stressing me out. But we never made it! We had an emergency of our own!”

“Really?” Pete asked, completely perplexed over what Slue was telling him.

“Yes. A real emergency. Now, Pete, can I please speak to Clellen?”

“Clellen? You want to speak to Clellen? Uh, Clellen who?”

“Now, now, Pete. Don’t be coy. I know she’s there. I need to speak to Clellen.”

“Really?”

“Pete. Just pass your phone to her.”

There was a moment where all Slue could hear was noise, shufing sounds, people’s voices, and the loud sound of the band. Then Clellen’s unmistakable voice.

“Hello?”

“Hi, is this Clellen?”

“Yes, this is Clellen. Whom do I have the pleasure of conversating with?”

“Slue! Remember me?”

“Slue?” The noise in the background appeared to diminish as Clellen obviously took the phone with her to a less noisy part of the club. It was clear she did not remember the name Slue. “Are you from school? Do I know you?”

“Of course you do! I’m the girl with the goggles and the blue hair…”

“Oh! Of course! We met in the rotunda! You’re one of the Toppers! You’re the friend of Mus!”

“Yes. I’m the friend of Mus…”

“You are so cute and so gorgeous! You know, I almost dyed my hair blue after I saw how hot it looked on you, but then I didn’t want anyone to think I was copying you.”

“No one would think that, Clellen. You can dye your hair whatever color you want—who cares what anyone thinks. Besides, you already have beautiful hair.”

“You think so? I’m always doing things with it, like jelling it up or putting rollers in it.”

“It always looks good.”

“Thank you so much, Slue! You’re so sweet! We should hang out soon!”

“Let’s hang out tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“Yeah. You’re with Pete, right? He has his incredible car, that Prokong-90, right?”

“I think that’s what his car is. It’s really fast. We were in a motel earlier this evening so we could be alone and have some luv-fun and after a few hours of wrapping the rainbow we then remembered that the Ginger Kang Kangs were playing tonight and I looooove the Ginger Kang Kangs but we thought we would be late because the Dog Shelter is pretty far from Telstar, but his car is so fast that we got here in forty minutes!”

“That’s amazing.”

“Yeah, and Pete is so nice, he’s such a honey…”

“I’m sure he is, Clellen.”

“You really want to meet up tonight? All of us?”

“Why not? That’s why I called you and Pete. I heard about a really cool party tonight out here where we are.”

“Where are you?”

“We’re on the far side of the Moon.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, and there is this place called Joytown 8—it’s an abandoned outpost. Some kids from Gagarin University are organizing an all-night dance party there. It’s going to be so much fun! You and Pete have to come!”

“Oh, Slue! That is so nice of you to invite us! And Mus is there?”

“Mus is here.”

“So it will be like a double date! Me and Pete, you and Mus!”

“Well, I guess so. Except Bruegel is here, too.”

“Oh, that Bruegel,” Clellen said with an affectionately dismissive tone in her voice. “He’s always the odd man out, I suppose.”

Hieronymus was amazed at how well Slue arranged it all, but he was reluctant to get any more of his friends involved with his snowballing troubles. He knew full well there was no all night party at the abandoned Joytown 8. None of them were sure anything even remained of whatever this Joytown 8 may have been. All through Lunar history, hundreds of towns and outposts were created on the far side of the Moon, and the vast majority of them failed. Sometimes they were completely disassembled, but sometimes they remained as empty ruins. Slue was hoping that at least some buildings were left standing. Her plan was to park and hide Bruegel’s Pacer, which was quickly running out of fuel, and then, with Pete’s Prokong-90, head out deeper into the far side of the Moon till they got to the gigantic library. Once they were there, they would somehow sneak in. Slue would find the law library and get all the proof she needed that prosecutions against One Hundred Percent Lunar people were in fact illegal, that what had happened between Hieronymus and the Earth girl could not be proven, and that she herself deserved to live a life unencumbered by the whims of a paranoid partnership between the government and powerful transportation corporations that snatched people like her away to be cast into the deepest corners of the solar system simply because her eyes are able to see where time bends space and space bends time.