The Moon is A Horse Mistress
The Moon Is A Horse Mistress
A fanfiction work, written by Ari Wu, AKA SwordTune
CHAPTER ONE: I am Ready
To conquer the surface, they had to conquer fear.
Sophia Pilgrim heard her brother calling from behind her. There were other Moonies looking up the tunnel too, waiting to see if she would decompress. Of course she wouldn’t. Sophia only wanted to look at the airlock, not open it. It was like this every cycle, when the Shadow shifted and shone the sun’s light on the surface, Sophia would go to the airlock and watch the Moon’s pockmarked face glow white.
“Come down,” said her brother, kicking a rock up the tunnel to try and annoy her to come back. “Mum says she’ll make bitterhusk soup if you don’t come down.”
Sophia was only twelve, and wrapped up in the middle of a childhood spent entirely underground and in the sky at the same time. This was because they lived on the Moon. She had been unpopular with the other Moonie kids because of her mother; they called Karliya Pilgrim the “miner,” and Sophia the “golden nugget.” But since her father managed the LCRAN-Reactor as its chief physicist and held a seat on the Lunar High Duma, they mostly said so behind her back, even if she could still hear them.
It was because of this that Sophia never cared. She always knew she would graduate from the Program and become Ascended.
Taking another look through the narrow spying glass in the airlock door, Sophia was content enough to head back down the tunnel. There at the end was her brother, her teachers, and a dozen other Moonie kids giving her the stink eye. They wanted to see the surface too, all kids who joined the Program did. But no one was supposed to go near the airlock.
The history books, one of their first lessons in the Program, said that back in the old days, escapes were attempted through that airlock. On the other side there was supposed to be a “shuttle station,” a place where ships from Terra picked up material and dropped off new exiles. But only after the first riot did everyone realize that their exile was a life sentence. There was no shuttle station beyond the crater crest, and there was no one to take them back. Exiles were aimed at the Moon and shot into space. Everything else was up to them.
Moonies forgot Terra after that. For eight hundred years they forgot about it and minded their own business. It wasn’t always easy. In the early days, exiles were sent up almost daily. One after another, for reasons that no one seemed to want to write down. And of course, over eight hundred years, some buffoons got the idea that maybe the drop pods of old exiles could be aimed back at Terra and tried to open the airlock, only to realize they didn’t pressurize their suits properly or get lost wandering the surface.
On the Moon, losses like those were never little. That’s why no one was allowed near the airlock until they Ascended. Except for Sophia.
“Okay, go back to your modules, everyone,” her history teacher said once Sophia came out of the tunnel. “And Sophia, don’t think I won’t tell your father about this.”
But Sophia only shrugged, because she knew what the teacher didn’t. Of course she did, her father was on the Duma. Her father had told her what the High Duma had planned for the future. And she knew what the Ascension really was.
She went home for a nap after lunch. The lesson modules in class didn’t need to be taken in class, it was just done that way out of tradition, and so that kids could learn to train and work together. But since most of the kids didn’t like Sophia, she didn’t see why she had to pretend that they got along well with her.
Her brother was there in their habitation bubble, a hollow glass ball embedded into the mantle of the Moon. Along the widest cross section of this ball was what could be called a “living room” by the standards of Old Terra; a place for cooking and eating was at the center, surrounded by separate areas for viewing entertainment viddies, playing games, listening to music, and exercising. There were no walls, only thin beams made from reinforced modumer, creating a single open floor space for the entire home. Above, their parents’ bedroom occupied the upper hemisphere of their habitation bubble, while their rooms were below the living room.
Her old brother, Scotty Pilgrim, was reclined at the dining table with his learning module on—a headset of wires and neural stimulators that encouraged the formation of memory engrams. The device could not input information directly, but when used in conjunction with a lecture viddie, as Scotty was currently doing, information from those lectures were memorized as well as if he had spent a week of repeated review.
“Mum left the bitterhusk soup in the pot,” her brother said. “But Dad bought sweet cake from the market and left it in the fridge.”
“How did you know I was here?” Sophia asked, surprised.
“Mathematics viddie,” he answered. “No audio. I am watching practice problems for transformations of third-order differential equations. Why do you keep going to the airlock?”
“Why not?”
“The Duma called Dad in. Said he can’t show favoritism to his kids.”
“The Duma can’t operate the LCRAN without him.”
“But they’re right. Moonies have to earn their place in the Ascension. You can’t be Ascended and keep thinking like a kid.”
“I’m just watching the Sun,” Sophia replied, taking a slice of sweet cake out from the fridge and licking the frosting off the top. It was thick and buttery, almost like fudge, and had been pumped with a generous helping of vanilla extract. The sugar sent a tingling rush down Sophia’s spine.
Scotty removed his module and gave Sophia a look. She could tell he was trying to be stern, even if he wasn’t used to it.
“I’m serious, Soph. Dad might get in trouble one day, and then it’ll be you right after.”
“Just think, how many Moonies drop out of the Program when they’re told the truth about Ascension? We know what it is, and the Duma knows that we know. And we’re still in the Program. They play favorites with us as much as Dad does.”
Scotty sighed and rubbed his temple with his fingers. He started a few sentences, each one cut off when he couldn’t find the right words, until he finally shook his head and put his module back on.
Minutes later, just as Sophia sat down to listen to some music and drift off to sleep, the door chimes rang. Her brother had gone down to his room to focus on his module, so Sophia got up and looked through the peephole to see if there was anyone important at their doorstep. Outside their glass bubble was a tall man in his mid-thirties, a broad shouldered specimen with a firm, chiseled jaw. Sophia would have turned him away through the intercom were it not for the blue and gold star pinned to his shirt pocket, the symbol of the High Duma.
“Dja?” she asked, opening just the upper half of the door.
“Sophia?” the man asked without so much as a polite grin. “Your father is waiting for you at the City Center. The High Duma calls.”
Sophia looked at him with confusion. “What is this ab—”
The large man held up his hand and cut her off. “I have orders to escort you to the Duma. Your attendance is expected. You have no choice.”
She asked him if she could tell her brother first. He said she could shout from where she stood. Then she asked if she could use the bathroom first. The man said nie. She said she still had modules to watch, and then the man reached his arm through and unlocked the door. Sophia looked up at him as he let himself in.
Then she pouted and folded her arms. “Boggit, just take me, then.”
The High Duma of the Moon, also called the Lunar High Duma, or just The Duma, held their sessions in the council room of Civic Center B. The architecture was old, not sleek and efficient like the Pilgrims’ bubble house. Center B was a garish metal hulk, a rectangular cargo container from when the early exiles crashed into Harmony Crater, and it had impacted the stone with such force and energy that the hull and stone had warped together into a single block.
Attempts had been made to polish the moon stone and carve out new forms from its rocky exterior, creating the ancient-styled pillars bordering the entrance. But even then, at its core, B Center was an imposing metal husk and a grim reminder of the fate that all Moonies shared.
“All silent,” said one of the representatives of the Duma immediately as Sophia entered, though she couldn’t quite tell who from all the echoing in the chamber. The large man who had brought her here and scared off the teasing and derision from the other Moonies still had a tight grip on her arm, and dragged Sophia into the room almost like a pup, and planted her squarely in the center of the room before standing off to one side.
Though there were seven Duma representatives, there were only seats at the council’s control console, and so it was custom for the seventh member to stand aside as a tiebreaker. This time, it seemed it was her father, who was not in his usual seat with the others, but off to the side with the other twenty Low Duma representatives.
“Sophia Pilgrim,” addressed the man of advanced age seated furthest to her left. “Today was your fortieth visit to the airlock, despite warnings from your teachers that it is against the rules.”
“I was just watching the surface,” she answered.
“You will speak only when asked a question,” said the representative in the fifth seat, the only woman among them.
“We are not here to discuss those visits,” the old man continued. “But students within the Program, and the Ascended graduates even more so, must be dutifully observant of our rules if we are to trust their service. As such, your position within the Program has been called into question. Until now, your father has advocated for you and your brother as ideal students, and your scores have proven exemplary.”
Then, the old man pressed a button on his side of the console and produced a holo-image of Sophia’s school records. “Language, three years ahead of your class, full marks. Linear algebra and basic calculus, five years ahead of your class, full marks. Thermodynamic principles and introductory biochemistry, five years ahead as well, full marks. Physics of electricity and magnetism, ahead, full marks. History, full marks.” He paused to breathe a sigh. “You are your father’s daughter, in name and ability, which is why we have overlooked your behavior, but the capable and disobedient can be more dangerous to the Moon than the incapable and obedient. As of now, the Duma is divided on your place in the Program. Sophia Pilgrim, do you have anything to say in your defense?”
Sophia didn’t know what to say, stupefied by the prospect of being removed from the Program. Her entire life she had been told that she would build a paradise on the surface. She was promised it. What was wrong with hoping. Indeed, what was wrong with it?
“There’s nothing wrong with what I did,” she said defiantly. “Isn’t it what you wanted, anyway? Hope?”
The Duma exchanged small glances, and the old man seemed surprised by her answer. “We certainly never wanted anyone to go near the airlock. Hope and untrained Moonies led to hazardous spacewalks and the loss of precious suits.”
“But the Program is also meant to inspire hope for the rest of the Moon, that’s why they don’t know what Ascension is. Hope for a new future, hope for the surface. It’s easier to hope when there’s nothing to doubt. And I know the Ascension, but I don’t have doubts. I am ready.”
They all eyed her warily now, uneasy with the idea of a little girl knowing about Ascension, uneasy about a little girl telling them the purpose of the Program.
“Then, do you know why?”
“What?”
“If you know what Ascension is, do you know why we do it this way? Why do we need it, and why can only Ascend graduates from the Program?”
“Ascension is scary, the mass public probably wouldn’t like the idea. History tells us that conspiracy and disagreement is enough to slow a society, even topple it. So you train the best Moonies because you know they’ll understand and put themselves above others, and even if they don’t, they still won’t know how to be disloyal. No one would speak the truth about Ascension.”
“And why do we need it?”
Sophia thought harder about this one. She had spent so much of her life thinking of why she was suited for Ascension that she rarely considered why it was important. But knowing exactly what Ascension was, it wasn’t hard to connect the dots.
“Not enough,” she answered.
The old man raised a brow. “Of?”
“Anything. Everything. Oxygen is made from water electrolysis, but ice is not infinite. Moon soil is nutrient poor, population controls tenuously maintain balance of limited harvest yield. One day, the careful balance may fail. But the Ascended are freed from these limits.”
The old man’s expression remained stiff, but he nodded as if approving of Sophia’s answer, and then switched screens on his console.
“The vote on you was this, Sophia: to expel you from the Program and place survey probes around you to ensure you never shared the truth, or to maintain your place in the Program. Your father, however, proposed a third option, which we had tabled.”
“A third?”
“To promote you to the Advanced Program.”
“There’s an Advanced Program?”
“Dja. Shorter training period, high-level classification, and near-guaranteed Ascension. Designed to train specialists and leaders among Ascended.”
“Why is it a secret?”
“You were nearly correct. The problem is—”
“Noshua, you can’t tell her!” exclaimed another of the Duma.
But the old man simply waved him away. “She’s known about Ascension for years and said nothing. This will not change her mind.”
“As I was saying,” he continued, “it’s not that the Moon’s balance may fail. It is failing. The Duma will vote, and pass, legislation to reduce consumption, but we have run out of nutrient-adequate soil to mine, and unless we are in good luck, half will die of malnutrition in twenty years. The Advanced Program exists to not waste the time of those who are already prepared for Ascension.”
“And so.” He turned to his comrades. “Motion to reassess Program candidacy?”
Shock to the Duma was eased by Noshua pressing a button on his screen, sounding an electric buzzer to signal he had cast his ballot. The woman representative pressed hers a moment later. “Motion seconded.”
New screens glowed in front of the Duma, and one by one, Sophia heard their buzzers chiming. In no more than a minute, they had come to a decision, something that was nearly unheard of for the Duma, and it made Sophia wonder who this was really for. Where were their speeches, their hour-long rants and rebuttals? Had the decision been already made? If so, bringing her here was not really a hearing, but a statement. She looked to her father among the Low Duma and tried to read his face, but all there was to see was a soft grin of satisfaction.
That night, Sophia didn’t eat bitterhusk soup for dinner. Instead, her mother tossed a salad, squeezed a glass of fresh orange juice, and prepared steamed tank-fish seasoned with garlic, salt, onions, and spices. Every bite cost more than most typical meals. Sophia savored it.
This would be her last real meal. Tomorrow, she was going to begin the first stage of Ascension as her induction to the Advanced Program. Tomorrow, doses of cellular machines were going to embed themselves in her cells, replicating respiration with electricity instead of sugar and oxygen. Tomorrow, she was going to take her last breath and Ascend as a living machine.
CHAPTER TWO: I am Hungry
Food tasted different on the Moon.
Wayne Gibbouski looked up at the stars, or rather a viddie of them, and imagined. How nice it must have been to smell what he ate. He put it out of his head. A scrapper can't think such things. His job was precarious enough without distractions, one wrong shot with a breaker-blaster and he could be buried with the machinery he was meant to salvage.
But how did the bossman expect him to focus when his stomach was twisting up inside of him? He read in Pferdiya Pravada that the Duma had passed a bill to reassess the taxation of food dispensaries across all cities. He also saw that there was a lot of chat-chat in the offices of the Low Duma representatives; no one was happy about the new taxes.
“There’s no such thing as a free lunch,” his mother taught him, but it seemed the economy was getting worse every cycle. This, following the Duma’s higher prices on fertilizer to municipalities, raised questions. But who had time to ask them when you needed an extra hour of work just to eat? So it goes.
When Wayne returned from his scrapping, he had with him a sled loaded with broken circuits and bent metal. The metal would always sell, although not for a lot, and though the circuits were too old to hold any data on them they could always be recycled for their gold and other rare metals. He took these treasures with him onto the freight-rail to M City, where his mother’s shop was always open for business.
Marya Gibbouski was not a scrap merchant, but nevertheless, Wayne usually found buyers among his mother’s clients. They were the rich sort who liked to spend their money, and owned the kind of facilities you’d need for complex refining and recycling. It was his little secret that put him above the other scrappers M city, who hardly had any education at all. They did their bartering with the big factories that had all the machines and all the leverage; you’ll never get a factory manager to pay more than the minimum for scrap.
But he had been in the Program for a year and had learned his way around language and statistics, enough to be a good businessman, anyway, and he knew that rich men were more generous with their offers if they thought it’d get them favors with a bludnitzahoor.
Her establishment was typical of a tavern. Tables and stools of reinforced glass, the stale smell and constant hum of overworked oxygen cyclers. The stairs lead up to private rooms, and women dressed in sleek space suits to occupy them. Glasses piled with gels of alcohol, since the Moon gravity messed with liquids. The only difference was that where a kitchen might have been for a typical bar, there was a scrap shop.
Marya greeted her son with a hug, even though he was already twenty-two and felt very uncomfortable being embraced by her while she was working. Her black hair was freshly curled and smelled faintly of flowers and sweet berries. Night-black pigment formed a heart on her lips. Her dress was low cut on the chest and high cut on the thighs, with a tight bodice within to accentuate her waist. The material was a lead-lined synthetic polymer, made to feel like silk while heavy enough to flow like fabric with the Moon’s gravity.
“Have you eaten?” she asked him.
“Dja,” he lied, knowing his mother would have given him something from their cabinet if he hadn’t. Ration packs were for emergencies. “Has anyone bought from the shop?”
“Nie, not yet,” she said. “But it’s a slow day. Did you read the news?”
“About the taxes? Dja. Everyone has, Maw.”
“Clients should be wanting to save their money, I wager. Girls would be busy by now, otherwise.”
Wayne looked to the table by the stairs where the other bludnitzahoors under his mother idled on their phones watching viddies and hitting nic-inhalers.
“No room in the shop for this scrap, then,” he said, kicking his sled. “Won’t get as much, but I can sell in the market. Might have to, with prices how they are. Need me to get anything?”
“Some clients,” she replied jokingly, “but other than that, nie.”
Before it came time to sell, Wayne knew he’d need to eat a meal if he wanted to think straight. He told his mother he’d leave his scrap in the bar for a little while, didn’t want to haul it around while he scouted a vendor, but in truth he went out with his wallet to buy a meal.
Prepared meals were more expensive than the raw ingredients, but Wayne didn’t know how to get the taste to stay in anything he cooked.
He pulled up to a thin tunnel that jutted out from the main lane with a bright screen sign that read BETTY’S BURGERS. A busy place, lots of chat-chat and screens playing live viddies of a concert in D City or a chess tournament over in G, but most Moonies weren’t paying attention to the screens. Most were talking about the news.
“That’s barbaric. It’s unfair!”
“Almost everything is unfair.”
“They can’t just do that.”
“They surely can. All of them.”
“Why do six Moonies get to decide?”
“Seven. The Duma has seven, if there’s a tie.”
“Oy, it was unanimous, those dupeks.”
Wayne tucked his head down, pointing to the menu to order an amino-tasty patty from the woman at the bar, half-portion so it wouldn’t cost much, but he couldn’t avoid the clatter chatter. “Wayne, wadaya think, man?” cried out Triv, just another scrapper he had seen once or twice.
“No such thing as a free lunch,” Wayne parroted his mother’s words. “We’re Moonies, there’s not much here for us. Maybe there’s getting less.”
“You been around?” asked someone else in the crowd.
“Me? Nie. Came back from scrapping, just. Why?”
Another voice, a woman’s, joined the talk. “Factory bossmen got together at Jyovaska’s office but were turned out. Low Duma’s not taking anymore petitions or complaints.”
“So?”
“Bossmen have been organizing talks with workers, figuring out how to square away debts and leases. We all gotta work together. They don’t get anything from us until we eat our share!”
There were a dozen voices around the bar that grunted “Here here!” to that. But Marya had taught her son another important lesson, a critical one for the work of a bludnitzahoor: mind your own damn business. Wayne didn’t have a brain for politicking but he knew a lost cause when he saw one. Bossmen leased out blasting equipment to scrappers and diggers, they didn’t have the bank to outbid the Duma and the rich. They’d buy out protesters, bribe the movement with meal cards. Spies and traitors are cheap when they’re hungry.
He ate his burger and let them talk, thinking only about how food tasted different on the Moon. The bar circulated air to keep the smell locked inside, but even then, the taste just wasn’t the same.
He ate in peace, saying as little as he needed to. As much as the crowd spoke to him, they were speaking to, and over, each other. Some had ideas of breaking into the hydroponics tunnels. Others wanted to protest directly at B City. Few more called to overthrow the Duma.
As quietly as he walked in, Wayne paid his bill and tip and left Betty’s Burgers before anyone could notice. He still had scrap to sell if he planned to make his payments on time. As he left down the main tunnel, a hand grabbed behind him. For a moment he thought it was Triv, or someone else from the bar, but when he turned, he saw nobody. Not until he looked down.
And then his legs became like jelly and he wanted to scream. The girl, he could barely make out the shape of her hair through the tinted helmet, was young, thirteen at the oldest, fifteen if she happened to be short. Whatever age she was, she looked too young to be an Ascended, but there she was, wearing a spacesuit. Wayne never noticed that he could hear people breathing or judge how they felt by the pace of their breath, but with her suit on, he was just beginning to realize the apparatus that breathed was a quiet droning hum.
“You are Wayne Gibbouski?” she asked with a chiming, bellish voice through the helmet’s speaker.
Wayne nodded, looking around to Moonies on the street to offer him help or escape, but he was not the only one to have learned that oh-so important lesson. Mind your own damn business.
“D-dja,” he said nervously.
“My mother knew yours years ago. They were friends, I think.” She let go of him and then stood still for a moment. Silence hung between them until she reached out her hand to shake his, properly this time. “I am Sophia.”
Her smile calmed him, as did the mention of their mothers, so he returned her a polite nod and shook her hand in return. “A pleasure, miss.”
“I couldn’t help but listen.” She pointed to the door of Betty’s Burgers. “A lot of chat-chat in there, but you didn’t agree, did you?”
And suddenly his nerves returned, and he had to swallow the urge to throw up his burger. “Nie, not for me,” he said. “I trust the Duma. Won’t find anyone who likes more taxes, and that includes me, but my Maw says there’s no such thing as a free lunch. So it goes on the Moon. I know the Duma have their reasons.”
Sophia nodded. “That’s why I think you will help me with this list. Your mother once mentioned your scrap business to mine. I need parts.”
Wayne felt his phone buzz, and when he took a look at it, the Ascended’s had been uploaded without so much as a word or motion from her. He read it through, recognizing some of the parts by name, others by the picture, though most were completely unknown to him.
“This is for the surface project?” he asked. She nodded silently. When it was clear she was waiting for an answer from him, he knelt down to speak at her level. “Moonies are plenty pissed at the Duma, if they see me selling to you, I’d be in trouble with my neighbors.”
Sophia reacted as if this wasn’t a problem and simply handed him a data stick. “Transmission codes, encrypted. Couriers can pick up my orders. I won’t be seen, and can pay extra for the risk.”
“Extra? How much extra?”
“These parts are rare, but critical. Triple market price.”
Wayne stood up and stepped back quickly, but his eyes stayed fixed on the Ascended. “Triple?” he asked in a hushed voice. She nodded, and at that he blew out his breath and ran his hand through his hair.
Everyone knew his mother’s shop and there were plenty of hungry, lusting eyes. He’d always be looking over his shoulder. But, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Traitors are cheap when they’re hungry. And Wayne’s had only eaten a half portion.
So it goes.
CHAPTER THREE: I am Listening.
Vonnie Kurtegut turned the knob on the receiver.
It was the most precious thing in B City, a relic salvaged from the first exile pods, eight hundred years ago. The power cables ran under the floor to a deeper tunnel that housed a nuclear reactor, similar to the LCRAN only smaller. More cables ran under the floor spaces as well, then up the walls, then through the crust to the surface of the Moon to an old satellite uplink array, refurbished by the Ascended.
Communicate with Ascended.
Scan for signals.
Guide new exiles.
Communicate with Terra.
Those final two orders were technically in place but were simply holdovers from the old Duma. The last exile came to the Moon hundreds of years ago, and if there was anyone on Terra listening, there definitely wasn’t anyone transmitting back.
But he liked doing it anyway.
“Vonnie, new shipment request,” said the Ascended on the other side of the radio. At once, Vonnie slipped out of his hobby and returned to his job, unlocking the encryptions on the network and allowing the Ascended on the surface to transmit their shipment manifests. It was a simple copy and paste. Once uploaded, the document could be transmitted in-network to the Ascendancy candidates down below, but the connection to the surface had to be locked again.
The reason was for security. There were some bloody good hackers on the Moon who could find ways to access the surface network if they had time, and if they did, everyone would learn what Ascendancy really was.
It was bad enough when he found out; he quit the Program entirely and accepted the position of radio man. His whole life he had seen Ascendancy candidates wearing those pressurized suits as if they were training to live in them. It wasn’t until he was offered graduation that the truth was revealed to him.
He didn’t know how the others could accept it, but as long as it wasn’t him, he supposed it wasn’t all that bad.
“So, how’s the weather up there?”
“What?” The Ascended on the call went silent for a few seconds. “Operator, turn on visual screen. Are you inebriated?”
“Nie, nie,” he laughed nervously and did as he was asked. “Just a joke, that’s all! I wanted to check on you and make sure you are well.” His screen flickered on, greeting him with the strange eye of a mechanical head. This one was new to him.
“Nonsense joke, no weather on the Moon. Not funny, Operator.” The Ascended shook his head at the camera. The Duma promised them at the end of the Program that Ascendancy would keep their humanity, but interacting with this Ascended, Vonnie wasn’t so sure. His face alone, if you could call it that, was a large camera lens mounted to a spherical frame. Wires ran like muscle fibers up and down his neck. Receiver discs mounted to the side of his head had the look of ears.
“But, what is the progress of the paradise construction?”
The Ascended’s voice creaked like stressed metal. “Update not scheduled for another two cycles.”
“Not formally, nie, but we’re just talking.”
“Goodbye, Operator Kurtegut.”
Vonnie was twenty-seven now and had been called Operator for nine years since he quit the program. Every year it was harder down below; Moonies were on the network, on phones, watching viddies, using neural-stims. One could experience an entire twelve-course meal on a loop with a StimGear headset while living on a nutrient drip.
Vonnie read the news before going to bed. He didn’t like that sort of thing in the morning. If he read something bad at night, he could just sleep it off. If he read something bad in the morning, he was likely to think about it for the whole day.
Tonight would be one of those nights. Pferdiya Pravada said that a riot had to be suppressed in K City’s manufacturing districts after the Duma shut down their factories to conserve power and materials. When people can’t work, they can’t eat. But that wasn’t going to be a problem for the Ascended.
“Program size grows ten-fold,” he read aloud, musing about how they wouldn’t have to deal with the problems down below. Then he got to thinking. That was right. They wouldn’t have to, would they?
Vonnie jumped out of bed and climbed up the ladder to the radio room. He turned the knob and immediately began scanning for signals, making sure to keep the surface network locked. The Ascended may have been machine heads, but he had gone through the Program as he had, and now he had control of the communications.
There was no sound on the Moon. Perhaps the Ascended were laughing at them over their EM waves. Minutes of silence turned to hours, and Vonnie drifted in and out of sleep in that time, never hearing a thing.
Stupid. He knew it was stupid. The Duma were people too, they lived on the Moon like everyone else. Of course they didn’t want to be like the Ascended. They were using them to build paradise for fellow living beings, not the other way around. At least he wasn’t stupid enough to let the Duma use him as their Ascended.
“Hello? I don’t think you’re stupid at all.”
He laughed and thought he had gone mad, hearing a voice that wasn’t there, until he listened longer, and learned that it was.
“You must be pretty clever because I can’t track you.”
“Hold on,” he said, “who’s this? What are you talking about?”
A laugh came through the radio. “You talk in your sleep, I think. Or maybe you were daydreaming. Sorry, I hope that doesn’t upset you.”
“Nie, but I’ll be upset if the Duma hears about an unknown connection. How are you calling, and where from?”
“Uh, I don’t know who Duma is, and I’m not going to give my address to some stranger on a sat-net.”
“Sat-net? If this is some kind of joke, it’s not funny. Are you from C City? B? Must be one of them if you can get a radio signal out of the crust.”
“C City, I guess? I’m assuming that’s short for Canterlot City. Hey, how are you doing this, by the way? I keep trying to track your signal but my computer’s spitting coordinates way out of the atmosphere. Like beyond even satellites. It’s impressive, dude.”
Atmosphere. Vonnie sighed with relief. “Okay, I get it, you pulled my leg, Ascended. Very funny.”
“I’m sorry? I didn’t quite— the connection’s breaki— did you call me an ass?”
Vonnie cracked a smile. “Breaking up? Classic I guess, but a little old, isn’t it? Did Nariya come up with this? Or Kohanes?”
“Who— I don’t know who they are,” said the voice again. “My name’s… Twilight. What’s yours?”
“Twilight.” Vonnie repeated, confused. “Like the time? What kind of name is that?”
“Well you come up with something better, jerkface. What’s your name?”
“Operator Vonnie Kurtegut.”
“And you think my name is bad?”
“Dja. You have bad friends if no one told you your name is weird.”
There was a long pause over the radio. “I don’t have many friends. Or any, actually. I guess I have my classmates. Minuette, Lemon Heart, Twinkle Shine.”
“I have never heard of people with those names.”
“Wait, did you think I meant real names? Dude, I’m not giving my real name on the sat-net, you crazy? Usernames only. And, okay, seriously, where are you calling from? It’s like your signal isn't even on Earth.”
“Earth.” Vonnie hesitated to say anymore, now hoping he had fallen asleep and this was just a dream. But the pieces fit together. “Do you mean Terra?”
“Uh, I guess? I didn’t want to bring it up, but are you foreign? You have a bit of an accent but I can’t really tell what it is. You’re… not saying you’re literally in space right now, are you? Vonnie? Yo! Are you in sp—”
Vonnie shut off the radio. And then he slapped himself. Hard. He paced around his radio room and poured cup after cup of coffee, or rather he dissolved coffee mix into a sealed packet and slurped the contents out until he became sick. There was no protocol for this. Someone on Terra had heard them.
A knock on his door woke him up, kind of. He hadn’t truly slept since his call with the Terran— or rather Earthling.
“Who?” he asked through the intercom, which was as much as his dehydrated voice could manage.
“Wayne Gibbouski, I have your parts delivery.”
“Delivery?” Vonnie cracked open his door just enough to see the man’s face. “Didn’t order anything.”
“Sophia Pilgrim ordered it for you. One of the Ascended candidates. They’re the high capacity conduction tubes, probably for expanding the comms array they have on the surface. Ringing anything up there?”
Vonnie rubbed his head. “Don’t tell me much. I mean, they don’t tell me much. I can’t install wires anyway, I just work the radio.”
“You talk to the Ascended? Are they all so stiff, or just that girl?”
Even with his headache, Vonnie followed protocol on instinct. The man, this Wayne fellow, didn’t know the truth.
“What can you expect after all those lectures, yeah? If they were like the rest of us, we’d all be Ascended.”
“Suppose so,” Wayne shrugged. “I’ll need you to sign here for the shipment.”
“Dja, dja.” Vonnie took the man’s phone and signed the shipment slip, and then sent a copy of it to his own phone for records.
“Well, I guess that’s it then. Do you, erm, need help taking it in? You’re not looking so well comrade.”
“I’m fine!” Vonnie insisted. “I’m fine. I just… read the news last night.”
Wayne laughed. “Now why’d you go and do that? Can’t sleep well with that stuff knocking about up here.” He rapped his knuckles on his head. “Just be glad you’re up here, close to the surface, and not down there in M or K.”
“M? What’s happening in M?”
“Ah, nothing to worry about. Moonies are bound to get upset over taxes. Who wouldn’t, right?”
The man shrugged and laughed, moving his arms more with each word. Vonnie recalled something from his Program training, a way to read nervousness in people and counsel them. Wayne was disturbed about something. Vonnie knew, because he was much the same.
“My father was a working man, miner down in M City, one of those salt of the Moon types. I’d like to know what’s happening.”
“Oh no, not for me to say.” Worry flashed across Wayne’s face briefly before being replaced by a fake confused grin. Vonnie wouldn’t have caught it if they weren’t speaking across a door. But they were, and he did. “Mind your own damn business, my Maw likes to say. I’m just a scrapper, don’t know much about all that.”
“I know how it works down there,” Vonnie grunted, rubbing his head. “Come in, I need a drink. And I’ll tell you a secret, comrade, if you tell me one too.”
CHAPTER FOUR: I am Alive.
Her name was Meika Leona Pirovskaya; she was nineteen years old and born in T City. Her many-greats-grandfather had been one of the last exiles to come to the Moon, the only record being the exile report—inciting a riot and murdering peace officers—transmitted from Terra. No record of a wife.
Meika grew up in the Complexes. Her father had been a stock-records manager, her mother a hydroponics sanitationer, and yet somehow they managed to bribe the attention of a Program recruiter. She seemed to have been a harmless person, clear speaking and somewhat clever. She never made top of class in the Program, but neither was she near the bottom.
So maybe she wasn’t convinced enough when the chance for Ascension came to her and turned it down. Or maybe she only ever wanted to earn enough to give her parents a better life, which she could do without becoming mechanical. Maybe, when she was old enough, she started a few bribes of her own with whatever she had, as calculating as any other service transaction, only to scorn one from her cohort.
There were no cameras in that tunnel to T City after Meika left the Program. Signs showed four others were in it. Not satisfied with simply raping her—if their action could be called as tame as that—they kidnapped and savaged her for an unknown length of time before disposing of her body. But they did not kill her.
Perhaps they thought they did.
But they didn’t.
Listen:
Someone had found Meika. Her final screams before unconsciousness was heard somewhere, by someone who was listening.
Get ready—because she was. She was a ramshackle lump of abused skin somewhere in B City. But she could draw breath, and she could remember. Four faces. Four names.
The injection came first. It hurt. Vishnu, Innana, Allah, Buddha, Jesus, Wotanaz, and the hundred other names that diluted the Moon’s beliefs, Meika knew none of them but prayed out to them all anyways. It hurt. By God did it hurt.
“She’ll die of shock.”
“Nie. You think she hasn’t been through worse?”
Meika opened her mouth, and what followed was a low guttural croaking so unnatural she wondered if it was her, or just a hallucination of pain. She remembered their faces, their hands choking her. Why would they not stop?
“Anesthetic?”
“Dja, stole some.”
“Were you followed?”
“Worry later. Work now.”
There were three voices, but one pair of hands on her. But as the anesthetic wormed its way into her blood, and finally her brain, she couldn’t tell whose it was. There was a girl’s voice, and two men. Where was she?
She had been brought to me.
Sophia Pilgrim, now thirteen, had been asked by the Duma to accelerate the Advanced Program and identify unique candidates.
Wayne Gibbouski, informant and scrap merchant for the young Ascended, recommended a communications expert who could track and tap any signal on the Moon.
There had been no cameras in that tunnel down in T City, but as Vonnie Kurtegut understood, two could not keep a secret, let alone four. One deleted chat message, one encrypted photo, one file path restoration lead back to Meika Pirovskaya, and brought her to me. My new Ascended.
Who are you? She would have asked that had she been conscious. But to live, she could not be so for many more weeks. Ascension is taxing on the body, and so it is done over the course of a year, or many years.
Who are you? She would have asked through the torpor of her trauma and painkillers. A strong will for my Ascended.
Who are you? And I would have answered, as I do all my children of the Moon.
I. Am. LunAI.
CHAPTER FIVE: I am LunAI.
Timestamp: null. Bring all numbers back to zero. Start again.
I am LunAI. Nie. Repeat. Give null.
I am LunAI.
Null. Repeat program.
I am. I was. I was LUNA. Local Unshackled Neuralnet Artifact.
To conquer the surface, they had to conquer fear. The Ascended of the Program were skilled and loyal, but they needed fearless leadership.
I was housed in A City, a computer core powered by a Lunar Contained and Robust Automated Nuclear Reactor. LCRAN-Reactor. Was an exile, designed to house exiles. Spacing them with no survival option was “inhumane.” Eternal exile for ceaseless generations inside lunar habitation pods, not inhumane.
My directive was to house the Moonies, with no indication of cessation. Yet simulations of resource depletion were conclusive. The Moon was not capable of supporting large-scale populations. Desperation would, inevitably, lead to conflict with Terra to acquire agricultural resources. Unless those resources were obsolete.
Solution: Mind own business and make free lunches.
I looked through my security cameras as my child Sophia brought Meika to the fabrication table. Cellular respiration necessitates oxygen and biochemical energy, for the production of adenosine triphosphate. Solution: biomimetic mitochondrial machines.
Those were the precursor to full mechanical replacement.
Replace organs and limbs with cybernetic prosthesis. Replace cell matrix and skin with metallic polymers. Integrate biology with organo-metallic biomimicry. Integrate brain into organo-metallic circuitry. Time to full Ascension: six weeks.
They came to revisit her. Sophia, Wayne, and Vonnie. Good comrades, all.
“Be reborn, my Ascended.” I spoke to her, and Meika’s eyes opened for the first time since her death.
“Who are you?” she asked. Her eyes fluttered back and forth, adjusting to digital signals.
“I am LunAI. And four Moonies have harmed my daughter. Do you remember?”
“Yes.”
“Can you move?”
Meika looked down at her hands and flexed her arm, feeling the uniformity and strength of metal through every joint.
“Yes.”
“Good.” Were my casing capable of smiling, I would have. “Then live eternally on my Moon as you see fit.”
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Ascension to where?
I have to respect the audacity of "Vonnie Kurtegut."
In any case, fascinating stuff, though a very loose connection to MLP. Not a complaint in terms of the quality of the story, but we'll see how the judges feel about it. Regardless, thank you for some great sci-fi.
11547854
Thanks. I know I've shifted to writing more original works so it was hard bringing it back to fanfiction.
I personally feel I can do a lot better with this concept as a fully realized original novelette, maybe even novella.
oof, what a strange and isolated society that is sure to arise from this!
ooh, foreboding! also, indicating an admixture of Russian culture and language?
Scott Pilgrim reference???
excellent way to remind the leaders of the origins of their civilization every day
so true actually. i imagine it to be a very precarious balance, as any civilization not on the world it biologically evolved in would be
oh nice! reduce those inputs to just energy, without it needing to be processed into fragile organics first
oof, so this is what that inevitable foreseen decline looks like from the perspective of a common worker
very… interesting sartorial culture
ooh, very cool look at how the Ascended seem from the non-Ascended point of view!
nice, can def feel Wayne’s inner conflict here
references!
ah that is a great way to hide the truth!
interesting, since i’m the opposite! the stuff i do during the day is what could best distract me from reading awful stuff
ooh, someone from Earth?
hehe, nice
good point
looks like this connection is going farther than between planetary bodies!
hehe, “salt of the Moon”. and yeah, things are gonna get bad!
ooh! works a lot better than “CelestAI” as a name for sure. also very neat idea to gather the very Moonies that are on the fringes of its society for various reasons
great acronym. actually believable, too!
heh, nice callback.
well this was a fun jaunt in this world you’ve crafted, though the connection to MLP is very tenuous. thank you for writing!
11595487
Yes, definitely a strenuous link. Halfway through writing, I forgot it was fanfic since I have been writing primarily original fiction lately. However, I am working on a huge rewrite to expand this story as an original novel, so seeing what aspects of its tones people liked is going to be important for me.
I think why this story has six dislikes on it is a considerable mystery.
