One Hundred Percent Lunar Boy (36 page)

But only the One Hundred Percent Lunar kids in the car knew that all that activity at the domed building had nothing to do with drugs.

“What did you do?” Hieronymus quietly asked Slue as the vehicle sped up an abandoned avenue, away from the horrible domed building.

“I took the Omni-Tracker in there, pressed the special alert button for the police, and I left it in the center of that room.”

“Why did you do that?”

“Why? Are you as insane as those guys with the rope? That place has to be destroyed. All those people walk in there and half of them starve to death because they can’t figure how to walk out. I think this is a matter for the police…”

But Hieronymus did not pay much attention. He was thinking about what those fellows had told him. The desire they, and many others, had to see the incomprehensible. Then it occurred to him: Of course that was why, from time to time, a One Hundred Percenter was murdered and their eyes stolen. The need to experience that color was so enormous that some people resort to murder to see it. Or, like the fellows with the rope, they’re willing to put their own lives at risk. Three missing chapters from one of the greatest philosophical texts—that explained what happened if a normal person saw that color in a
controlled
way. Such mad curiosity, he thought he could not imagine—but in fact, when he considered his own indulgence with the Earth girl, and the highly illegal thing he just did with Slue, it became clear that these same curiosities were what the authorities wanted suppressed at all costs…

They sped past the decrepit poles that had, at one time, formed a perimeter around Joytown 8, and after a bumpy ride over a grassy plain, the lone highway on the far side of the Moon appeared—Highway Zero. Within moments, they were on it, a dark, winding four-lane pavement with only periodic lamps upon tall metal towers every half kilometer. There was no speed limit on the far side of the Moon. Pete stepped on the gas pedal. The strange countryside passed them by, and directly above, Hieronymus noticed there was a comet, a bright fat slash in the evening sky, hanging just under the dark purple abyss above.

Slue continued to tell half-truths to Pete and Clellen.

“How did you three get all the way out here?” Pete asked, keeping his eyes on the road ahead of him.

“Bruegel drove us in his mom’s Pacer,” Slue answered.

Clellen laughed out loud.

“Bruegel, you don’t even have a license! And that Pacer! I can’t imagine that thing even rolling up the street!”

“It’s actually a wonderful car!” Slue lied. ”And Bruegel is an excellent driver. Unfortunately, the fuel station we had planned to go to was closed, so we had to park it in Joytown 8. We’ll come back during the week with some fuel and pick it up.”

Completely uninterested in Bruegel’s plight, Clellen changed the subject to something she was far more curious about.

“So,” she grinned, "You and Mus? Are you and Mus…?”

“Mus and I,” Slue began, a thin smile spreading across her face, "have invited you, and Pete, to
another
incredible party tonight!”

Pete glanced back for a quick second.

“I hope this next party is better than that smelly drug thing we almost went to just now,” he said with some dismay. ”We missed the last two songs of the Ginger Kang Kangs for that!”

“That was not the actual party,
Peter
,” Slue continued, purposefully calling him Peter because she knew he hated it. ”The real party was moved to a huge underground library that’s farther up the highway. It was supposed to be in that strange domed building, but my friends from Gagarin University who are holding the party had to move it at the last minute because all of those drug addicts got to the site first and decided to have a drug party there. That’s why I ran back into the building, to get directions from one of the druggies.”

“Where is this library?” Pete asked.

“Exit 399. Go on to West Gong Road of Highway Zero. It’s just further up, and at this speed, we’ll get there in an hour.”

“A library is a weird place for a party, Slue,” Pete added.

“Not this library. The books there are made of paper.”

“What? Paper? You’ve got to be kidding!”

“Yeah. Billions of them. But the party itself will be held in a special reception area, and I think the Rapoozles are playing.”

“Who are the Rapoozles?” Clellen asked.

“A really great band from Saint Exupéry,” she lied, making the whole thing up as she went along. Hieronymus looked at her.
Are you completely insane? There is no party. There is no band called the Rapoozles. They are going to be so pissed of at us once we get there and they see there is no party and we forced them to drive hundreds of kilometers for nothing
.

But Slue was not the least bit worried. She had yet another plan on top of this one, and an even further plan beneath that one. She was prepared to lie and cheat her way into that library if necessary, right to the law section, right to that one page in the code book of Lunar law that would nullify all these illegal proceedings currently chasing Hieronymus Rexaphin to the far side of the Moon, and filling her own future with a terrible expectation of dread, and even worse, defeat.

Hieronymus fell asleep, his head resting against Slue. The purring of the Prokong-90’s engine had a very soothing effect on him…

People are not supposed to live here!

Like the Angel of Death who does not understand what death is.

You don’t even know what that color is. But you see it. And yet, you don’t understand it.

You belong here, on the Moon. A false world. An artificial blight.

If you ask the Angel of Death what death is, he won’t be able to answer you.

So I ask you, what is the color you see? You don’t know.

It has no name. But it is yours. It is yours.

You know it because you dream in this color.

You are dreaming of it now. Do you have a name, your own name for this color? A secret name?

Whisper it. Whisper it as would an angel who understands the secret of mortality, but cannot explain it to mortals for fear of having his wings torn from his back and placed in an oven…

Hieronymus awoke, snuggled together with Slue, who was also asleep. Bruegel slept against the car door, and Clellen, up front. He stuck his fingers under his goggle lenses to rub his eyes. It was a dream he was familiar with. The same questions, over and over, asked by a voice he had never met. He leaned forward.

“Hi, Pete.”

“How’s it going, Hieronymus?”

“Good. I fell asleep.”

“I know. Everyone fell asleep.”

“How long have I been out?”

“Maybe an hour.”

“You don’t mind driving this far out?”

“Not at all. I’ve taken this route before. A couple of years ago, my da and I drove from one end of the far side to the other. I like it out here. It’s very quiet.”

The landscape had changed, and there was less grass and more rocky soil, and the sky was even darker—not as dark as the nighttime on Earth, but almost. The hills on all sides of them were pointy and in some cases even twisted. The comet above had moved to a different place in the sky.

“Oh my…” Pete said, slowing down slightly. ”Look at that.”

Of to the left, and standing about a hundred meters from the highway, was the distinct figure of a lunar gorilla. It stood erect, just like a man, its long arms hanging down its side. It watched the approaching car with great curiosity.

“Have you ever seen one of those before?” Pete asked Hieronymus.

“Once. When I was a boy. A gorilla was lost and wandered into town. It was very strange, because a lot of people thought it was a man in a gorilla costume. He just walked up the street, looking around. He didn’t bother anyone, and nobody bothered him. I was in a park with some friends, we were playing soccer, and the gorilla walked through the middle of the field, and we stopped the game, and one kid insulted him because we also thought that it was a guy in a costume, and the kid was pissed of because the walking gorilla prevented him from scoring. Later, I told my father that there was a man in a gorilla suit who walked through our game, but he told me that in fact that was no man, that was a genuine gorilla who walked all the way from the far side of the Moon and was lost.”

As the car passed the mysterious figure, Hieronymus could not help but think that the creature was looking at him, directly in the eye, as if the gorilla knew all about his plight and how much trouble he was in and how much he was endangering all those around him.

“Listen, Pete, I think you should know something. I’m in a lot of trouble. I’m wanted by the police.”

Pete glanced over at Hieronymus for a quick second.

“I didn’t hear that last part about you being wanted by the police.”

“But you heard the part about me being in trouble.”

“Yeah, I figured that.”

“You should just drop me of here. Take everyone else home.”

“We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

“That’s not your problem. But if you keep hanging around with me, I know it, I’m going to drag you down and you’re going to end up going to jail.”

Pete just laughed.

“I’m not going to jail. That’s such a silly thing to think, going to jail. I haven’t done anything wrong, and neither have you.”

“Oh, I did something wrong. Last night…”

“Let me guess. You showed your eyes to someone.”

“How did you know?”

“I didn’t know, but what else can a One Hundred Percent Lunar Boy do that would get him in trouble with the police?”

“You’re right. Anyway, you should know that we’re not really going to a party tonight.”

“I figured that.”

“You knew?”

“Yeah, Slue is a terrible liar. Clellen believed her, though, which is funny in and of itself. I figured that it must be something really important for her to go to such lengths to get someone to drive her so far into the other side of the Moon. I also feel pretty bad about punking out on her tonight—you know, hooking up with Clellen behind her back and all—but it seems to be okay. I think she likes you a lot more than me, and it’s fine, nothing was really happening between me and her anyway. Whenever we’d go out, she would talk about you
a lot
. So it’s cool, and besides, what Clellen and I did earlier, at this motel in Telstar, oh man, she is one wild girl…”

“Well, I’ve known Clellen for a long time,” added Hieronymus. “A lot of people misunderstand her. I’m really glad you met her because you and her…sort of compliment each other, in a weird but good kind of way.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah. You’re like one of the big athletes in school, and she’s really one of the most eccentric kids in my class, and, I don’t know, it’s the kind of thing we always like to imagine…”

“Listen, I’m just curious about something, and you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. When we were driving through that ghost town back there, and you and Slue came out of that abandoned building and you were holding hands. And with me it’s cool, I think its good and I’m glad. Really glad. But I was wondering, was she seeing the both of us at the same time?”

The highway ahead was empty. The white line was never ending in its faded journey before them. The lights along the side, atop their lonely poles, passed like the solitary stranded sentinels they were.

“No. I kissed her for the first time tonight. And this was after she found out about you and Clellen. We were never both going out with her at the same time.”

Then Hieronymus did something that surprised himself. He leaned forward so he was certain that only Pete could hear, despite the fact that the others were sleeping, and in a barely audible whisper said, “I’ve been in love with Slue since I first met her in the third grade.”

Eventually, the others woke up. Bruegel rubbed his eyes, wishing he had brought some beer or vodmoonka or something like that, and then asked out loud,
Where are we going, really? It is so incredibly late. Where are we? What the Hell kind of place is this?
Clellen was adamant that the party they were going to was going to more than make up for the journey out here—it was going to be at a library where they had books made of paper, and Clellen herself was not entirely sure what that meant, but it sounded way awesome, and besides, if it got too late, they would just all find some place to sleep, maybe a motel. It would be a nice excuse to go to a motel again, and she was sure that out there in the middle of nowhere, a motel would have a lot of rooms, one for her and Pete, one for Slue and Hieronymus, and one for Bruegel, where he could just go of by his mopey self.

Slue did not listen to any of this. She kept quiet and wondered,
Yes, when we get there, how are we going to get in, how are we going to get in, how are we going to get in?

It was a ghastly scene. The first police officers to arrive did not even know Joytown 8 actually existed. When they were told to trace the distress signal on the Omni-Tracker Slue had activated, and when they first came upon the domed building, they could not believe the sight and, most of all, the terrible odor. Like Pete, they too simply thought it was some kind of drug party or bizarre cult event filled to the gills with lunatics. They drew their guns and went inside, walked past the bearded fellow, past the broken rope, past the long-dead mummified corpses, and, following the Omni-Tracker’s signal and the inexplicable human sounds, entered the circular room.