One Hundred Percent Lunar Boy (12 page)

But you see, that is another lie. My cousin is an indentured servant. That’s what happens to One Hundred Percent Lunar People. The corporate government sets up the law so that sooner or later, they trap and arrest as many of them as they need. Then they are sent to a secret prison on the far side of the Moon. They train them to be pilots, and force them to fly those giant ships, because no one else can. They force them to do it — my parents and my aunt believe that the government and their corporate partners are afraid of the One Hundred Percenters becoming a united political force, so they keep them subjugated like that — using their talents to pilot their ships because once it is clear how powerful they really are, all travel inside the solar system will change. That’s why there are all of those strange stories about them being demons and crazy. The “powers that be” want everyone to be afraid of them and for the One Hundred Percenters to be afraid of each other…

Windows Falling On Sparrows was fabbergasted by Slaquenn’s incredible story and at first only pretended out of politeness to believe her. She thought the idea was beyond silly, but she also found herself thinking about it more and more as the school year progressed. She did her own research. The only official information she could find was that indeed, some people on the Moon suffered from a mysterious condition called lunarcroptic ocular symbolanosis. But that was it. No additional information could be found for anyone on Earth. A few weeks later, she asked Slaquenn what that meant, but at that point Slaquenn refused to speak about it. Then, when Slaquenn and her family disappeared out of the blue, Windows Falling On Sparrows reached the only viable conclusion — that everything her friend had told her about her cousin, the One Hundred Percent Lunar Boy, was ultimately, one hundred percent true.

Unexpectedly, during her own voyage to the Moon, she came face to face with a chance to test this theory. It got her into a bit of trouble, but it helped confirm her suspicions.

Everything became quiet. The Earth loomed through the window, but smaller as they flew away at an incomprehensible speed. Her father, despite her mother’s non-stop berating and criticizing, fell asleep. Most likely, he took another pill of E-94. Once he was out, Exonarella followed suit, suddenly falling asleep just next to her husband as if physically connected to him, as if whatever medicine he had taken somehow entered her bloodstream as quickly as his. She rested her head on his shoulder, eyes closed, childlike.

Windows Falling On Sparrows sneaked away, anxious to explore this wonderful ship, and determined to find a few answers to this nagging question…

She wandered through the long, crowded corridor. All the tourists were up and about. This particular Mega Cruiser was supposed to have an extraordinary observation deck, but none of the wandering crowds knew where to find it. A group of boys who were obviously in a party mood said some fattering things to her as she passed, but she only smiled at them and continued. She was, at this moment, not particularly interested in boys or observation decks. She had her own agenda — finding out what the pilot looked like. Finding out if the pilot was a…

She passed and dodged around the annoying gawking crowds. She believed she was heading in the direction of the bridge. That’s where they would be. The drivers, the pilots, the captain. All she wanted was to take a quick peek — see if anyone sitting behind a steering wheel or a joystick or whatever they used in massive space vehicles like this actually used, just happened to be wearing the telltale goggles. She was not sure what she would do with this information. But it was her latest obsession. And her obsessions had to lead her somewhere.

She left the crowds behind her. This ship was truly gigantic and the corridor she was in, known among the passengers as
The Spine
, as it ran the vessel’s entire length, was extraordinarily long. Along with the occasional crowds of gathering tourists, small electric cars appeared and disappeared from the myriad of port holes and sub corridors.

Then, from nowhere, a large human figure clothed in a one-piece jumpsuit made of wrinkled paper and hundreds of miniature metal antenna stepped out directly in front of her. A security guard. He asked her where she was going.

“I want to meet the captain,” she demanded.

The guard, who wore a white plastic shield over his mouth that had three small blinking red lights, studied the bold teenage girl.

“Sorry, miss, but nobody sees the captain unless it is an absolute emergency.” His voice was bored, and she thought he appeared to be staring at something on her forehead instead of looking at her in the eyes.

“Can I meet one of the pilots?”

“Absolutely not. No one is allowed to meet any of the pilots under any circumstances.”

“Why is that?” she asked, sensing a validity in her suspicions.

“Mega Cruiser pilots are extremely busy and they have to be free to work outside the concerns and questions of teenage passengers.”

“Really?” she remarked. “Are you sure it has nothing to do with the fact that the only ones who can pilot Mega Cruisers are One Hundred Percent Lunar People?”

“What?” The security guard was genuinely perplexed by this.

“It’s true, isn’t it, that all pilots of Mega Cruisers are One Hundred Percent Lunar Men or Women?”

“No. That is an extremely silly idea.”

“You know that it is not at all a silly idea. You know that it is fact.

Please answer. In order to successfully pilot ships through the solar system, you must be a bearer of lunarcroptic ocular symbolanosis — true or false?”

“You are arriving at an outlandish conclusion, miss.”

“Do they wear their goggles when they pilot ships like this? Or, do they take their goggles off just before starting, peering of into the void, able to see the past and the future all at once, able to visually navigate the vast reaches — ”

At that moment, an oval door slid open across the passage and three figures stepped into the brightly-lit corridor. All three wore the distinctive black shiny rubber suits known to be worn by the cockpit crews of extremely fast spacecraft. One was a man, the other was a woman. The third, walking between them, had so many hoses protruding from nearly every part of the body it was hard to tell at first that this too was a male. But the most interesting thing was the helmet this man wore — like a shiny black egg, covering his entire head. The other two wore no such head gear, and they appeared to be guiding him, as if he could not see…

“I tell you, Reginald,” began the woman to the man beside her. “You are not missing a thing down there. Earth is a burn-out. It smells like rotten eggs and burnt plastic…”

“I’ll bet it beats the far side of the Moon, Peggy,” replied a voice from behind the faceless helmet.

“Well, you’ll never find out, Reggie,” added the man on the other side of the masked one who, like the woman, was helping him walk forward. “You’ll never be allowed down there, so don’t bother worrying about it.”

The girl froze. They must have entered the ship right after takeof, probably at the orbital refueling station about two hours earlier.

She shot past the security guard and ran directly up to the middle figure.

“Excuse me,” she said to him in an excited, breathless manner. She could see her own reflection in the man’s shiny helmet, her own black hair falling over her dark eyes. “Are you a One Hundred Percent Lunar Man?” she asked.

There was no answer. All three of the rubber-clad crewmembers greeted her inquiry with desolate silence.

“You are all dressed as cockpit crew, but you,” she directed her voice to the fellow in the middle with the hidden face, “you’re the actual pilot — you are a One Hundred Percent Lunar Man, are you not? I just overheard what you three just said. You were just talking about not being allowed to go to Earth. And yet here you are, wearing a Mega Cruiser pilot suit. Is it true, the rumor going around, that only One Hundred Percent Lunar People can drive the big, super-fast ships across the solar system?”

The woman gave a worried glance over at the egg-shaped helmet as the bold girl from Earth continued.

“Are you wearing Schmilliazano goggles under that mask?”

The security guard finally intervened and uttered something about spoiled teenagers as he grabbed her wrist, scanned the ticketbracelet she wore there, then escorted her the entire thirty-five-minute walk back to her cabin, woke up her parents, and informed them their daughter was lost and disturbing the crew of the Mega Cruiser. They, as expected, were terribly annoyed at having been roused out of their slumber, and as a result, forbid their daughter to leave the cabin until they approached the Moon, which was, at that point, only about eight hours away. This reprimand had but a null effect and she only smiled as she sat down into her deeply cushioned travel sofa. The Earth appeared smaller and smaller through the window. The actions of the security guard and the reaction of the crew, for her, validated the rumors and everything Slaquenn had said — that the pilots of this Mega Cruiser, and thus all Mega Cruisers, were of limits, and for only one reason. They were beholders of lunarcroptic ocular symbolanosis. They were able to see things normal people could not imagine.

Her mother was thoroughly disgusted by the crappy little hotel where they were scheduled to stay for two days.

It was called the Hotel Venice.

It was cramped. The walls were paper thin. All the carpets were damp, and the entire building, situated in the exact center of the red- light district of LEM Zone One, smelled of mold. The room itself was tiny. There was a double bed and a cot with a very thin mattress next to a cracked window. Exonarella complained she must have been having an allergic reaction to something because her throat felt very scratchy. Outside, the blinking neon sign illuminated a street below where about every third person was a prostitute. She screamed in shock when she discovered a huge hummingbird hovering just outside the window, tapping on the glass, hoping to get a treat. She pleaded with her daughter to shoo the wild beast away, but Windows Falling On Sparrows opened the window and gave it a cookie she’d brought along from the Mega Cruiser before waving it away. Meanwhile, Sedenker made himself comfortable on the bed and smiled at his distraught wife, as he often did whenever her face exhibited profound repulsion.

“Not bad!” he declared. “Totally free!”

“And if you had a job, we’d be able to walk away from this hellhole and find ourselves a decent hotel!”

Her husband continued to smile as he shrugged his shoulders. This made Exonarella even more angry.

“Go ahead and smirk, you self-satisfied, overweight oaf! Is this your idea of a nice hotel? A place to bring your youngest daughter? Did you see all of those prostitutes outside and in the lobby? And what was that disgusting creature outside, tapping on our window? I swear, if I don’t die of an allergic reaction to whatever this moldy odor is, I will die of a heart attack from the shock over what a terrible husband and father you are! How can you sit there and do nothing while your daughter is exposed to prostitutes!”

“Mom,” Windows Falling On Sparrows interjected, "I think I can handle the sight of a few hookers.”

“I am handling the sight of those hookers very well myself, if I may say so,” added Sedenker, his smile growing even wider.

That remark only brought upon Exonarella’s wrath in full seismic spectacle.

“You weak, weak, worthless man!” she shouted as she grabbed one of their small bags of luggage and threw it at him. “When I am dead tonight from allergies, heart failure, and the inevitable knife wound that I am sure I will get from the gang of thugs or pimps who are planning to break in here tonight and rob us, you will know that it is your fault, you complete mediocrity, you poor excuse for a man, you lazy, doltish, passive life-waster! My mother was right about you, I can’t believe I am married to such a loser! An unemployed charlatan! May you rot in the gutter! You have ruined my life! Look at me now! You have ruined — ”

Windows Falling On Sparrows made a quick announcement that shut her mother up quickly.

“I’m going out,” she said very matter-of-factly, as if they were back home on Earth.

“What?” screamed her mother. “You’re going out? Where are you going? This is a HORRIBLE neighborhood!”

“I want to go see the LEM. You know, the original. The LEM.”

“LEM? LEM what? I have NO idea what the Jesus Pixie you’re talking about!”

“They call this area LEM Zone One because right around here is where the first people from Earth landed two thousand years ago. The ship was called the LEM. There are still parts of it left. I want to go and see it.”

“Have you any idea how dangerous this area is?” Exonarella shouted.

“Oh, let her go,” Sedenker said. “You’re driving her nuts. You’re shouting like a mad-woman. Those are mostly tourists out there.” Then he turned to his daughter. “Don’t be gone too long. Remember where the hotel is. And whatever this LEM thing is, if they have any media images for sale, bring one back.”

She felt very much the Earthling as she walked through the filthy, neonlit streets. Her mother may have been right. There were riffraff in every direction, sinister-looking prostitutes and strange-looking men with harsh expressions staring at her as she walked past. Voices asked questions she could not answer because their accents were too thick and too full of idiomatic expressions that made no sense to her.