Luna

Episode Five: Terror comes to Tucson

Goodbyes said, Calypso slipped into her three wheel electric Savant and silently rolled off into the darkness to work with Rin seated at her side, up front scanning the horizon.

Two men parked down the street from the MacKenzie home watching Dr. Montaño and Rin get into her small Ev and drive past them to attend her security meeting. The younger man tapped,”It’s 6:00PM and the subject was observed leaving her residence as predicted. Dog’s with her.”

Calypso Mind-texted Mac on her way in the dark. “Did you see the map in Luna’s sketchbook?”

“Hard to believe she’s 16. It’s awesome. ”

“No, it isn’t, Mac. It’s not a girlish cartoon map with fairies and dragons. It’s a carefully rendered map of a path north sketched on a grid with charger locations, campsites, and friends listed with contacts to see all along the way from here in Tucson straight up north to a spot labelled ‘The sub-Arctic’. “

“She calls it cursive. Weird, right?”

“I wish it had been a map of some fantasy world. Listen, I’m stopping at the Space Station. See you tonight. Off around 6AM. Love u bye.”

The older man drove, following her to the “Space Station” convenience store where she parked like she did every week to charge her vehicle for the week and get a cup of coffee before entering the Diaz-Borman Space Base for her weekly meeting.

When Florida and Houston went under the space program had to move somewhere and Tucson with its infrastructure and asteroid mining and lunar and planetary sciences and space defense industries was an ideal site for the vast complex that could be entered by civilian traffic at two guarded entry points.

Every Tuesday Dr. Calypso Montaño entered Diaz-Borman Space Base through a guard gate guarded by a statue of a fist holding a lightning bolt above the earth with the slogan “Peace in Space through Strength” only after stopping for a large coffee and a charge boost every Tuesday at a convenience station across from the base entrance and that clenched fist on Kuiper Drive.

She parked under the bright lights of the solar carport where the chargers were charging no one else at the moment. “Stay Rin. Wait for me here.” Door’s unlocked. You’re my good boy guardian aren’t you?”

“Bark.”

“I’m going to get Cass to program you to pant.”

The two men parked around to the side of the convenience store. They watched her from the shadows like a pair of wide-eyed screech owls, dispassionate apex predators perched in the front seat of their old electric heap watching a kangaroo mouse with their talons itching. The younger man tapped his head. “Subject recharging EV. Subject inside store. Ordering coffee. Does not see us. Disarm security cams.”

“Located. Disarmed.”

“Robo-dog sighted in vehicle. Locate. Neutralize remotely.”

“Located. Hacking…neutralizing Robo-dog’s systems.”

“Disarm confirm. Confirm. “

A voice tapped some keys. “Confirmed. Neutralized.”

The old man looked at his nephew. “This is for all whom we loved” and he muttered a prayer and wrapped his black scarf around his face. “We only have seconds before she gets back into her car. Let’s move.”

The two men, dressed in ill-fitting official military garb, ran straight to her small car and hopped into the back seat.

“Glad I gave up the carbon sin of smoking, Nephew. Can kill a man.” The old man wheezed and rested his crossed hands on the magazine of his combat weapon.

“Try running with 40-pounds of explosives taped around your waist, Uncle. For Gaea.” The old man took out a lone survivor of their clan’s climate apocalypse, his great grandfather’s traditional hunting knife, gripped it in his weathered right hand, held it down in the shadows and said, “For Gaea. For Justice.”

As Dr. Montaño walked back to her EV and grew closer she Mind-texted Luna who was not answering her Mind-pad. “I noticed Rin’s shut down. What the moons??” She set her cup down next to her seat and slid in next to inanimate Rin. “Great, dog. When Cass gets home he’ll have to reboot her again, Luna. Him again. It again. Her again. I’m hanging up.” As she buckled her buckle from the darkness behind her a large old hand came over her left shoulder and a cold blade appeared over her right shoulder in another large old hand pressing the sharp cold on her throat hard enough to feel a cut sting while make it difficult to swallow. As she struggled the firm voice behind her startled her. “Keep moving or you’re dead. We have your husband and your daughter. Do anything and they’re dead. Talk. Move. Breathe wrong. They’re dead. You’re dead. We’re all dead. Like your fucking planet.”

“Mom? It’s Luna! I am so sorry-“

Calypso freaked against the knife. “How do I know that’s not AI? You sick twisted-“

“Quiet, woman! Drive! Through the guard gate.”

Calypso gripped the steering wheel and stared at the armed military sentries guarding entrance of the Diaz-Borman Space Base with a frantic expression as she passed by them. They responded to the security decal on her front bumper, saluted her civilian rank and waved on the 1000th face they’d scanned this morning.

“Take us to Space Command.”

“You’re a true believer. Aren’t you?”

The man in the darkness behind her, close enough to breathe down her neck, sounded worn and gruff. With an accent. “Where are you from?”

“Shut up.”

On into the night she drove past personnel, vehicles, hangars filled with experimental craft, across tarmacs, past leviathan boosters in their upright hangers, radar and launch pads and spotlit monuments to astronaut Franklin R Chang-Diaz and aerospace pioneer Frank Borman.

The young man in the dark was sweating rage. “Why are we not there yet? Uncle, do you have our manifesto ready to post on our site?”

“Confirmed. For Gaea. For a just and whole world.”

“For Gaea. For a just and whole world!”

Calypso choked. “You’re Guardians of Gaea.”

“Shut up, woman.”

“Why us? Why here?”

The young man sweating rage exploded. ”Because you are building space arks for the rich to escape the heat and to escape justice.”

Calypso, the scientist, rolled her reddened tear drained eyes and said, “That’s pure bullshit. You aren’t about to kill a lot of innocent people over bullshit are you?”

Uncle glowered at her. He gestured for silence. “We’re here. Here. Pull over here.” Calypso obeyed the old man and braked and rolled to a silent stop in front of the 28-story ultra-modern tower housing the offices of Space Port Command. The boy gripped the door handle, and looked out his window and when he saw it he locked his eyes on the eerily familiar path he had studied for weeks on a video feed. And there were the doomed security officers. For Gaea. For our people.

The old man and the young man adjusted their military tunics and hopped out and jog marched right up to the entrance and felled the unwary guards in an instant and Calypso leapt from her car and screamed in a circle and honked her horn as searchlights danced all around her, and soon sirens wailed and she heard gunfire from the first floor, pow, pow, crack, crack, crack and then there was scuffling and gunfire on the second floor and red lights began pulling up discharging officers and robots and suddenly the older man appeared in the well lit door way and stumbled back outside towards her, wide-eyed, clutching his neck as pulsing blood streamed through his fingers. Soldiers shouted “Halt!” and froze in place with their weapons trained on the old fanatic. She froze next to her car with its doors still open. He dropped his combat rifle and fell onto his back in the back seat.

Some said he said, “For Mother Earth.”

Some said it appeared he had pulled out a weapon. Frantic armed soldiers shouted at the old man to “stop!” While others yelled “Hold your fire” at each other while the closest soldier instructed him to “drop your weapon and drop to your knees. Now.”

Calypso looked into the old man’s panicked eyes and he looked into hers and she watched him calculate something. “Your odds if you decide to take me hostage?”

“No. 5..4..3..2.1.” He wasn’t calculating anything. He was reciting a count down. He closed his eyes, furrowed his brow, tapped his mind-pad, posted their manifesto and when he said, “For Gaea”, whatever was strapped to his young disciple, his acolyte, his obedient admirer, his nephew, a boy consumed with unquenchable rage, blew the front half of the building into flying rubble pelting the workers commuting in for their shift with stones, machines and bones and sent the entire complex into an airborne heap of smoldering chaos.

LUNA AT SCHOOL

Luna was between classes when she felt the explosion coming from the direction of the space port. Had a night launch failed? As she raced to her next class, she scanned her mind pad for any news. None yet. When she entered Mr. Smith’s history class, she could see through the classroom window the searchlights on the base scanning the night sky and illuminating the huge plumes of smoke at the far edge of town. The news reporter on Mr. Smith’s radio said there had been an incident at the space port. “Police and security forces have cordoned off the area and are asking people to stay clear. It appears the front half of the administration building has been blown away, and there are reports of numerous casualties… at this point we do not know the cause of the explosion.”

“My mom went there this morning. She’s there now. I need to talk to her. “

Mr. Smith and the students fell silent. “I just got a text from her. She’s alive and she’s in an ambulance and she’s being taken to Desert Metropolitan Hospital.

Mr. Smith said, “You need to go there.”

“My dad texted me he’s going to pick me up. Can I be excused?”

Mr. Smith nodded and Luna friends assured it everything would be all right Luna was frantic. Classes were dismissed. Everyone was reporting the news flashes as they came. Amira wasn’t answering.

Dammit Amira pickup.

Luna did not have to wait long for her dad to show up on his electric bike. “Hop on“

Next Week: Luna Episode Six