Can you scream on the moon?

"Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say."

Commander John Koenig smiled at the words being spoken by his son Pete. He must have heard that in a movie or something.

"Is that true Dad? No one can hear you scream in a vacuum?"

The commander sat back in his office chair, watching his oldest child lay on the living room floor and play with small, plastic toys.

'Oh... how I miss this boy,' Koenig thought to himself.

"Well Pete... Yeah. It's true. Sound needs air to travel, and since there's no air in the vacuum of space..."

"Nobody can hear a scream," Pete said, interrupting his dad. "In space. Or on the moon too because there's no air on the moon," the boy said doing his best to sound bored.

Koenig sighed and turned in his office swivel chair and looked around the nice living room. It had a thick, plush, wall-to-wall carpet and stylish furniture. There were end tables around the couch, and a fireplace no one ever used.

To Pete, it looked as if his dad was wearing his duty uniform, sitting in a simple swiveling office chair in the middle of the family room. Pete didn't think this was odd in any way.

"But you have air on the moon, right? Inside your base?" the boy asked.

"Yes Pete, we have air. We have special, pressurized offices."

Koenig strained his neck a bit to see better out the large, glass patio door. He could see a bit of his backyard! Beyond that, he could make out some details of the North Carolina sea shore, as it held back the ocean that he so loved. It looked like a nice day out; it was sunny and he could see the trees moving slightly in the breeze.

Early summer days such as this were his favorite. The view made him want to get out of that chair and walk on that beach with his family.

But he knew he couldn't.

He turned away to get his mind off the view and noticed a large purple spot on the arm of the otherwise cream colored couch.

"What happened to the couch?" he asked Pete.

"I did NOT do it DAD!", Pete said loudly and indignantly. "Julie did it!" he added.

"What happened?" he asked again.

"Julie spilled Grape Mega Cooler on it and mom can't get it off. She tried scrubbing it," the boy said.

Just then a four year old girl burst into the room screaming "Daddy!!!!"

Commander Koenig smiled a huge smile and said "Hi honey! Come here and talk to Daddy."

But the girl stopped in her tracks just inside the doorway. She looked around the room confused.

"Daddy? Where are you?" she asked. "Peeeete," she whined, "I HEARD you say 'Dad'. You were talking to Daddy. Where's Daddy? Daddy, are you hiding?"

Commander Koenig just sat there and sighed.

"Daddy?? Where are you?" she said again with a tiny bit of panic in her voice.

He knew his daughter couldn't hear him, but managed to say "Pete, help your sister…" before being cut off by his son.

"Julie, you can't SEE or HEAR Daddy until you put on your SmartGlasses," the boy said with a bit of a know-it-all tone in his voice. He was only eight, but he had long mastered basic use of Augmented Reality.

The little girl looked puzzled for a brief moment, grinned a huge grin, and then ran full-bore out of the room.

Commander Koenig asked his son "How is she doing?"

"Good. She's starting to figure Virtual out," he said.

Before he could say another word, Koenig could again hear the word "DAAAADDDYYY!!!!" excitedly yelled as little Julie ran back into the room.

Koenig smiled. Julie was now wearing a light, thin pair of pink glasses emblazoned with a 'Hello Kitty' logo on the side.

This time, she could see what Pete saw - her father sitting in an office chair in the middle of their living room.

Her face lit up and she ran towards him even faster, arms outstretched, running to give him a hug.

Commander Koenig's bright, smiling face turned worried. "No! Honey don't..." but before he could finish, little Julie ran through the 3D image of her father as if he were a computer generated ghost.

She didn't hug him like she expected. Instead she fell forward into the spongy cushions of the couch, almost exactly on the unsightly purple stain.

She whined a little as she turned around.

"Daddy, I can't hug you. Why can't I hug you?" she asked practically crying.

"This is a VChat, honey. You can see me and hear me, but I'm not really here. I'm at work right now." Koenig said. "I'll be home to hug you real soon honey. My work is almost finished here."

"You *CAN'T* *TOUCH* him Julie!" her older brother said somewhat mockingly. "Dad's NOT HERE. He's on the moon! You can talk to him and show him stuff and that's about it."

"I'm sorry Daddy. When will you come home?" she asked.

"Soon, honey. Soon." She was too young to notice the slightly sad tone in his voice. He knew damn well he wouldn't be on earth for at least two more months.

About an arm's length away from the Commander, a glowing blue dot grew out of nothingness to the size of a tennis ball and pulsed gently. To him, it looked like it was gently floating near his head just a little up and to the right of his view. The blue glowing ball was unobtrusive, out of the way, yet Koenig knew it was there.

It was dim and lacked a bright gold glow, and so Koenig knew he was the only one who could see it. His children had no idea it was there, and unless they were REALLY paying attention to his subtle finger motions, which they weren't. They had no idea anything appeared.

Without even really thinking about it, Koenig casually flipped his fingers up without moving his arms much. He could see a thin, blue glowing line shot quickly up from his fingers and "touched" the orb. The name "Moldovo, Frank" sprung out of the orb in easy to read block letters. It was a message from his Chief Pilot, Frank.

Koenig flipped his finger slightly to the side. The line and the orb shot off into infinite nothingness. Both were gone forever.

'Moldovo can wait. My family is too important,' Koenig thought.

Just then his wife walked by carrying a small basket of clothes.

"Oh, hi John. Didn't know you were here. What's going on?" she said casually. "How are things on Moonbase Alpha? Isn't the first group of tourists going to arrive today?" She barely looked at him as she walked around the room and picked up a few things the kids had laying on the floor.

"Tourists arrived a few hours ago; they are getting settled in. The hotel isn't finished, but its enough to house the 120 tourists. The base is still a bit of a mess, we're still getting things up and running. We ran into a problem with several machines in the FabShop." he said.

His wife just laughed a little. "FabShop? I thought all that tech was working. It's been on the market for years. What's the trouble?"

"We're not sure." he said. "Rodriguez thinks it might be a software glitch making production flakey at best. He'll get the food printers up and running, but then the ceramics fab craps out. He'll get that problem fixed, but then the polymer units seize up. Lewie is busy debugging things. He thinks it might be a network issue."

Kelly picked up the clothes basket, "You ARE well supplied, right? You've got emergency backups of prefabbed food and clothes, right?" she sounded worried as she finally looked directly at him.

"Yes, honey," Koenig said trying to reassure her. "We have more than enough backups. We won't have to go hungry and naked anytime soon." He paused and then added under his breath with a smile, "at least I hope not."

"Ok." She said.

"Worse comes to worst, we can buy some supplies from the Chinese," he added. "Or just eat basic protein or basic veg."

"Are the Chinese online? And wait - don't they only have 20 people or so?" she asked.

"Yes. They are online, and they have 13 people. They should have enough Fab Space to print some supplies for us in a pinch. But, I don't think we'll need it. We're well stocked and we can have an emergency transport from Earth orbit send us supplies in 52 hours."

She grinned. "How's the Big Dome? Is it done yet? Is it beautiful?" she asked.

She was of course referring to the 1,323,287 m3, pressurized glass dome that was built near the Luna Luxury Hotel.

"The dome is done and pressurized and beautiful," Koenig said. "Wait 'til you see it. I'll have to bring you all here. Someday... Long after I've spent time on earth and I've forgotten how much I hate it here. I really miss going to the beach with you."

"I miss you too Daddy!" Julie said.

"Hate it there? You were so excited to get this assignment." she said.

Koenig just sighed and looked out the window. "I am very happy to be a part of this project, but…" his voice trailed off, "the bland isolation of this place is... getting to me a bit. I really miss you guys. I miss earth. I miss the ocean."

"Have you flown in the dome yet?" his wife asked somewhat excitedly.

"Not yet. Many of my staff has, and I think all of the hotel staff has, but I haven't gotten over there yet."

Julie spoke up, "Daddy can FLY?" she asked with wide eyes.

Koenig just smiled and said "Yes honey. Here on the moon the gravity is much less than earth. We've built a giant park where anyone can put some wings on their arms and fly around like a bird."

Julie just stared at him and said "Whooaah." And then a second later added "Daddy I want to fly too!"

Koenig just chuckled. "You will honey. One day you will fly. We all will."

His wife said "Pete, did you show Daddy what you made at school today?"

Finally Pete was excited about something. "Oh, I almost forgot!" He jumped up and ran over into the next room.

Pete came running back into the room. Running along beside him was a small plastic robotic dog. It pranced along and kept pace with Pete perfectly.

Koenig looked down and said "Wow! That looks great Pete!"

Pete spoke out the command "Sit!" and the robotic dog obediently stopped and sat like an organic dog would. It gently bobbed its head up and down and looked as if it was panting a bit - just like an organic dog would.

"My friend Josh helped me with it," Pete said. "I still want to make some changes to the AI. He needs to be smarter. He needs better code."

"Good work son!" Koenig said. "Is it REAL? I can’t tell from here."

Pete said casually "Not yet. Its still just virtual. I was going to Fab it earlier today, but the fab checker told me there is a... " Pete paused a bit as he struggled with the next phrase "unpossible object in the legs."

Koenig smiled. He had guessed that by looking. He's had enough engineering experience to know that it's pretty easy to build a virtual shape and make it do things, but the real challenge is to make the virtual shape in such a way that its behavior *can* exist in the real world. There are advanced apps to help with this, but usually software for kids omits those functions.

"It's pronounced 'impossible', Pete. An 'impossible object' is something that we can make in virtual space, but it can't exist in the real world. Don't worry. It will take time, but you will get good at making things." Koenig said to his son.

"Why can't it exist like this in the real world?" Pete asked.

"Well, the rules are different Pete. The rules of physics in the real world can't be violated, but in the virtual world… well… anything is possible…"

Commander Koenig was interrupted by a riphole that opened up in roughly the same place as the orb did. The hole started out as a bright gold glowing pinpoint, and then quickly expanded into a oval about a meter wide. The interior of this hole was pitch black; the outer edge glowed gold. Designed to look like some kind of rip in the fabric of spacetime that just impossibly hung there; hence the name 'riphole'.

The gold indicated that everyone with SmartGlasses in the room could see it.

Almost immediately, the head and shoulders of a cheery woman appeared in the gap.

"Commander, I hate to interrupt, but I have several notifications. Captain Moldovo has been trying to reach you, he would not tell me why. Maria Santo in Astronomy wanted me to inform you that she's just discovered a previously unknown asteroid. Finally, I want to remind you that the dinner reception with the EarthLuna shuttle guests is tonight. Hi Kelly. Hi Julie. Hi Pete. How are you all today?" the female head asked, somewhat stiffly.

All three of them just responded with a monotonous "Fine."

The head smiled.

Koenig replied, "An asteroid? What's its status?"

Isa replied "The asteroid has been tracked by Moonbase Alpha, and 3 lunar satellites. Also, we have additional data from Yue Chengbao. All data correlates. The orbit is now…"

Koenig interrupted, "The Chinese are sharing telemetry data with us now?"

Isa answered, "Yes. Their data feed went online about 42 hours ago."

Isa continued, "The asteroid orbit is stable and should continue to be stable for approximately 37 years, at which point it will leave lunar orbit and continue away harmlessly. The asteroid has been designated S/2049M1, although Maria Santo has applied with the International Astronomical Union to claim naming rights."

John just chuckled at that. "Risk of impact?" He asked.

"Negligible risk," Isa replied.

"Thank you Isa. Tell my staff I'll be with them shortly," Koenig said. "Wait. Belay that. What time is it?"

"It is 2:23 pm." Isa replied.

"Inform the Department Heads that I'd like to assemble a status report meeting at 2:30 pm."

Isa replied "Excellent sir. Thank you." The riphole disappeared shrinking into the infinitely small.

"Well, kids. I've got to go. I love you all. I miss you and I'll see you soon." Koenig said with a certain amount of sadness.

His family seemed indifferent. To them, he was like a neighbor that stopped by all the time. He was only a VChat away.

Koenig thought being away on this assignment wouldn't bother him - he was shocked at how wrong he was. It seemed as if every waking moment he was burdened with the reality that he was 384,400 km away from his family dealing with problems on a dead, grey, lifeless moon.

"Bye dad," Pete said without even looking up.

"Bye bye Daddy!!! Come home soon!" Julie said exuberantly.

His wife had already moved to another room to continue the laundry. She hadn't even bothered to say goodbye.

Koenig feigned a smile for Julie's benefit, did a little wave, and then subtly flipped up a finger, which opened the VChat interface. He clicked the red "hang up" button. Koenig watched with a certain degree of sadness as his vision of living room and his family faded away into nothingness.

It became immediately obvious to him that he had been sitting in his swivel chair, at his desk on Moonbase Alpha.

In his grey... lifeless... empty... desolate office.

He pulled the SmartGlasses from his face, dropped them on his desk and gently rubbed his weary eyes. They teared up a little.

The best doctors, along with all of the peer reviewed scientific literature swore up and down that the six RGB lasers in the SmartGlasses were harmless to human eyes.

"The red, green and blue lasers are ultra-precise and can generate a pixel smaller, faster and in more colors than your eye can see! They gently paint their image with a soft, almost undetectable amount of energy. Step into the Virtual! Order your personalized pair of SmartGlasses today!" yapped the commercials.

Commander Koenig gave his eyes another deep rub and looked around at reality. He sighed at the drab, grey surroundings.

It was a big office, but like pretty much all of the buildings on the moon, everything was made of grey, boring lunacrete. It reminded him of the pics he saw from his academy days of the old Cold War Soviet bunkers.

There were no real decorations anywhere. Why would there be? Getting stuff to Moonbase Alpha was still a bit expensive and besides, why bother to bring paintings, statues, and Knick knacks when they could be virtual.

Tired of staring at Lunacrete? Cover it in virtual Gauguins, Picasos, tacky 1970's era wall paper, or pictures of naked women. It was easy and didn't cost a penny extra.

Koenig wondered why he never decorated his office. He'll have to ask a therapist about it one day.

But he couldn't argue that lunacrete didn't work well. On the moon lunar soil was cheap and plentiful and could easily be made into a solid, air-tight concrete. Years ago, Koenig had looked at Lunacrete specs first hand. From an engineering perspective, there really were a lot of uses for the stuff. It just looked... ugly.

'The reality here is so damn boring,' he mumbled to himself. Louder he said, "Isa, remind me to talk to Judy about spicing this place up. It's just so… depressing. Maybe she has some of v-files of the beach, or something."

The voice from the girl who appeared in the riphole replied "Would you like me to tell her now?"

The Commander just sighed. "No, just remind me the next time I see her."

She replied "Yes sir."

He paused for a moment, sighed again, put the glasses back on, stood up and walked out of his private office into the adjacent Command Center.

The Command Center was simply a giant room that had been designed somewhat like a barren grey amphitheater. There was one large, grey wall opposite of him. It was smooth without any remarkable blemishes and flat, except for the slight left-right curve. It was perpendicular to the bottom floor of the room. The bottom floor was a small, round area with a 5 meter diameter.

Four sets of staircases lead to the top, and they cut through four semi-circular rings of built in desks.

The entire structure was nicely shaped 3D printed lunacrete. There were office chairs at various spots at the desks.

To anyone accustomed to a workplace decades prior, this room would have looked completely unfinished. There were no network wires, electrical outlets, displays, charging ports, keyboards, mice, or anything else that looked like it belonged in a Command Center. There were a light fixtures strategically placed here and there; some environmental control ducts could be seen placed every 2 meters or so; and several panels built into the walls contained emergency supplies, but that was about it. It was really a boring room built out of grey, drab, lunacrete.

It wasn't crude by any means; it had been finely shaped by giant, precisely controlled 3D printers. The desk surfaces were smooth with slightly rounded edges, the floor surfaces were roughened slightly to provide grip for walking.

The room was typical of just about all of the architecture on Moonbase Alpha.

The only real feature to the room was the single large window above that was perfectly angled to show the earth. Of course, from a stationary point on the moon, the earth never really moved too much. It always remained in about the same spot in the lunar sky. Sure, libration caused it to rock back and forth a bit, and appear a bit larger and smaller as it went through phases month after month - but it was always there.

Commander Koenig stood at the top of the room, in the center of the top ring. Next to him were a couple of work areas. Essentially they were empty grey desks with a couple of chairs.

With his SmartGlasses, he could see there were currently several 2D "screens" projected on the wall. One had the time of day, which was permanently linked to the local time in Houston, Texas, just as it had been during the early Apollo missions nearly 90 years ago. Another screen had a wireframe of the moon, with a dot for Moonbase Alpha, and little dots for the man-made lunar satellites in orbit. Another dot represented the position of the newly discovered asteroid, and a dotted trail showed the path of the EarthLuna shuttle that had landed.

Several other meters and graphs were projected. Air situation looked normal, pressure was fine, CO2 scrubbers were working away with no complaints, and all of the various Helium 3 mining operations were progressing as they should. The Commander looked over the dozens of meters and graphs approvingly. Everything was functioning and there was nothing to worry about other than some glitches in the FabShop, which caused delays getting parts for the Eagle shuttles, all of which were currently offline.

And then he looked up again through the large glass dome of the raised roof. Beyond it, he could see an ocean of stars with the earth in the middle. It always hung in the same spot in the sky, and everyone knew exactly where to look for it. Such were the joys of living on the surface of a tidally locked moon.

Glancing up, he could see the eastern coast of North America and realized again how much he missed his family and how much he missed earth. The VChats were nice, but he wanted to BE on that beach with them. 'Just two more months and I am off this rock,' he thought.

He looked down again. The room was empty. "Isa?"

Quickly, a riphole opened up. It started around chest height, and quickly expanded into an oval that was more or less his height. The same woman from the riphole in his last VChat stepped through the portal and walked into his world and stood next to him. The portal quickly collapsed into nothingness.

"Yes sir?" the woman asked.

"Please ask Captain Moldolvo to join me in the Command Center."

Isa briefly looked down at the floor for a moment, then looked back at him and said "Message delivered."

"Thanks Isa." He said as he continued to gaze upwards at the earth. A few seconds passed. Slowly, in a low voice he wondered aloud "What am I doing here?"

Without missing a beat, Isa replied in a mechanical, computerized fashion "You are Commander John Koenig, currently assigned to Moonbase Alpha. Your mission mandate is to direct and oversee the final phase of the construction and operation of Moonbase Alpha, to assist the construction crew of the Luna Luxury Hotel, and to..." she was interrupted by Koenig.

"Thanks Isa, I know all that. But that's not what I meant." he said sadly. "Why am I here and not with my family? What the hell am I doing? What difference am I making?"

Isa's expression turned to a confused one. "I'm sorry Sir, those are difficult questions for me to answer. Can you restate?"

He smiled a bit. His AI was good, but not that good. "TrueAI" wasn't quite a thing yet. The AI they used were intelligent problem solvers, good with analysis. Like everyone else, they had access to the sum total of human knowledge, which helped them, most of the time, when they managed to get the context correct. However, these AI were strictly reactive. They only did what they were told to do by humans. Left alone, they would do more or less nothing.

They didn't want; they didn't crave; they didn't ponder or wonder. They were never overwhelmed with anxiety or joy or laughter or fear - unless someone programmed them to behave that way for entertainment, and even then, it was usually never quite convincing.

"Never mind Isa," he said dismissively. "Let's see details of this asteroid Ms. Santo discovered."

He subtly flicked his fingers up towards the tactical display of the moon. A bluish, ghost like line extended from his finger, captured the tactical display. With another subtle flick, he pulled it towards him and it enlarged. Another flick caused a small brown dot in orbit around the moon to enlarge, while the moon itself shrunk in size. John's point of view shifted to zoom in on the asteroid. With another subtle flick, a white rectangle appeared that displayed text - the relevant data regarding the asteroid. The Commander flicked through it casually and got an overview.

"The asteroid is in a stable orbit, and at that mass, our defense lasers would pulverize it before it had a chance to even get close," John said absently.

Isa stood there, looked away for a second in deep thought, and then replied, "Yes sir, you are correct. There is a 99.998% chance our defense network would protect us from impact."

John flicked his finger idly and the asteroid construct along with the schematic of the moon it was orbiting shrunk back into its original space near the wall.

The door opened. "Helllllooooo Commander!" a bright, chipper, bubbly voice said as a bubbly woman practically bounced into the room. Her hair was knotted, and arranged wildly, held in place with hair gel and black, lacy, ribbons. She wore black, decorative, lacy gloves with no finger tips, and had dozens, if not a hundred or so, cheap, thin, plastic bracelets on each wrist. She was wearing a black bra, and two very loosely fitting, ripped looking t-shirts that barely covered it. The collars on her shirts have been ripped to make them 4 times the normal size. They seemed to be more of a decoration than a covering. The ensemble was completed with a black, frilly, lacy dress that hung low on her hips exposing much of her midriff.

"Hello Judy," John said glancing her over. "Interesting outfit. 90's grunge?" he asked.

She giggled and followed up with a condensing "Oooh. So close. 80's new wave. Early Madonna more specifically."

She flipped her finger slightly and the show began. A small gold glowing musical note appeared out of nothingness and floated above Judy's head, slightly to the right. The glowing gold color indicated that it was public, so anyone wearing SmartGlasses could see and hear it.

Music started playing and it immediately started pulsating to the beat of the electronic synthesized drum. All this was quickly followed with a woman singing "Get into the groove, boy you've got to prove, your love to meeeeee..." Within seconds the program started playing with the AR lights in the room. To anyone with SmartGlasses, it appeared as if the room had suddenly transformed into a nightclub.

The Commander just smiled. Normally, in a professional setting, he'd disapprove of this sort of thing, but lately he found Judy's bubbly antics a welcome relief from the dull, drab, depressing environment of this half-built moon base.

Before he left earth for this assignment, the mission psych-specialists told him that Judy would be a welcome relief. He didn't quite buy it at the time - in those days his thoughts were dominated by enthusiastic professionalism towards this assignment. The bump in rank and pay was terrific; and he saw the challenge of commanding the team that would build the first permanent moon settlement as a hell of an opportunity. He saw himself as one of the first pioneers on a new frontier - Columbus, Lewis and Clark, Yuri Grigaran, Neil Armstrong, and now John Koenig.

At least that was what he told himself when he signed up. Sure, he would be leaving wife and two children behind, but the Lunar Long Range Data Transmitter (LORADSER) was up and running before he signed on. The LORADSER made it easy to share high speed data back and forth between the moon and earth. He'd be able to make all the VCalls he wanted.

There'd be an unavoidable lag of 1.3 seconds because of the speed of light, but other than that, he asked himself "What could go wrong?"

He realized, much too late, that all the stuff that was truly important went wrong. He missed his family.

The launch from earth went without a hitch, the travel to the moon was quick and peaceful, the landing was textbook flawless. The digging, crafting and 3D printing involved to create the very first underground living quarters worked without a hitch. The Helium 3 mining facilities came online without issue. The mission details were specified and planned and worked on by some of the best human minds, assisted with some of the most advanced planning software and Artificial Intelligence agents humans had created. The PR side of things was deftly handled by Ogilvy & Mather Public Relations - the best in the business - and lots and lots of people wanted to be with them on the moon vacationing, or doing science of some sort. The hotel was already booked solid for at least a year.

The Commander himself was a fairly skilled public speaker and leader. Aside from some quirky issues here and there in the hydroponics bays, the meat farms, and some of the newly arrived FabShop equipment, everything just moved along smooth as glass.

But it didn't take the Commander long to realize that he deeply missed his family. He watched his 13 month old daughter turn into a precocious four year old only from a VCall. He of course, hadn't held her since he left nearly two years ago. He didn't want to think any longer about how much he missed his son and wife - it was too painful.

"Soon this will be over," he kept telling himself. "Soon."

Judy's antics had worked to keep his spirits up. Plus, she was a professional. Being a sort of councilor and providing social relief was her job, and she was good at it. She instinctively knew when to apply her talents, and when to pull them away before becoming an annoyance. Testing showed she wasn't suited for engineering or other technical fields, but her Emotional Intelligence scores were practically off the charts.

Proving this, 30 seconds before the Commander started to become irritated with Madonna, Judy waved her hand slightly and it all stopped.

"That's a fun song." the commander said simply as he masked the complex, somewhat depressing thoughts running though his head.

She just smiled and said "I thought you'd say that. So I put together a program based on some of her stuff I think you might like. Want it?"

"It's not all dance club stuff is it? I don't know how much of that I can take," he said with a grin.

"I figured you say that too. No. It's not all 'dance club stuff'" she said with a flirty giggle. She moved her hand upward as if throwing a softball underhanded. A musical note with a slight gold glow flew up from her hand and floated about a meter from her in front of the Commander. He flipped his hand up in a subtle catching manner, a blue-lightning bolt looking lasso reached out, grabbed the note, and pulled it into his hip pocket.

"Thanks. I'll listen to it tonight." he said. "Did you need something?"

"I only wanted to stop by to tell you that I will have to leave your 2:30 meeting a little early. I'm meeting the EarthLuna shuttle guests."

"I haven't looked at the manifest. Visiting dignitaries again?" the Commander asked.

"Nope! Not this time. These are bona fide civilian tourists. Well, there are one or two 'dignitaries'," she said with a bubbly smile.

"Really? I didn't think the hotel was online yet."

"It's not. This is the 'soft-launch'. These people are civilian tourists, but they aren't just run of the mill. Some are friends and family of investors. Several were volunteers for the Moonbase Alpha fan club, there's even a few contest winners."

"Oh," the Commander said trying to hide his sadness.

"I'm going to greet them, give them a few pointers about life on the moon, what to expect and all that, and then I'll give them a little tour," she said. "They ALL want to see the Big Dome."

Judy smiled, "You know… Commander… It might be good for you if you were also there. You know to greet them and give them a little welcome speech."

Initially he dismissed the idea simply because he was not in the mood. It was as if Judy could see his thoughts written on his face. She interjected, "There will be lots of dignitaries there, Commander. You are shipping back to Earth in 8 weeks? These are people you will want to impress."

He smiled slyly at her suggestion. "Well… Yes. But as base Commander, I *should* greet the first civilian tourists to step foot on the moon. So. I will."

Judy smiled cheerfully, jumped up and down slightly, and clapped a bit. Her gaudy Madonna jewelry jangled as she celebrated.

"Isa, inform the staff the meeting will be 15 minutes. And write a welcome speech for me for the civilian guests."

Both the Commander and Judy could hear Isa say, "How long would you like the speech?"

"Just a few minutes. Nothing too formal. See if you can throw in some quotes... something inspirational from the first moon landing, or something else historical."

"Yes sir." In a few nanoseconds, Isa spoke to the AI's for the rest of the staff. Everyone's schedule was updated. A speech was prepared and awaited the Commander's intervention.

A text reminder with a simple flat icon of Isa's face popped up in front of the Commander. It was blue, only he could see it.

Underneath, it said simply "Ask Judy about 'spicing up my office'."

He flicked his finger and it disappeared.

"Oh Judy, I was wondering…" he said.

"Yes, Commander?" she asked with a grin as if she knew what he was going to say.

"I think the drabness of this place is… getting to me."

She just smiled.

"Do you have any apps that… will… brighten.." his words sort of drifted off.

"Why Commander? Are YOU asking me for some VayKay apps??? THE man who swore he'd never use those 'things' because 'he likes his reality just fine'?" she replied teasingly.

"Did I say that?" he asked condescendingly. "I tried a lot of that out a few years back when it was new. It all just seemed so cartoonish and fake looking."

She straightened up and stopped teasing him.

"The software has advanced a lot. What sort of experience are you looking for?" she asked.

"I don't know. Something nice? Something green? Maybe the beach or ocean or something?"

She just smiled and said "I'll put a few things together and send it to you." She sat down at one of the chairs waiting for the meeting to begin.

Slowly, other staff members arrived, some in person, others appeared virtually.

Lisa Mertz, head of hydroponics, a tall, blond woman entered the room with her characteristic quiet self, simply sat down and waited.

The doctor on staff, Perry McBride, walked in with a cheery "hello".

Maria Santo, chief astronomer, showed up simply beaming, probably excited from her discovery.

Lewis "Lewie" Rodriguez's avatar materialized in an empty chair. It wasn't easy to see, but he was distracted, seemingly working on something in the real world.

Lieutenant Rhonda Franklin walked in, also wearing her duty uniform. She had her dark, thick hair in a ponytail.

And finally, an obviously agitated Frank Moldovo, also in his duty uniform, walked into the room. "Commander, I have been trying to talk to you about the flight status of all of our Eagles," he blurted out.

Commander Koenig just looked at him. It was obvious to everyone in the room the Commander's patience with Moldovo was wearing a little thin.

"What about the flight status?" the Commander asked dryly.

"There ISN'T ANY. ALL THE EAGLES ARE GROUNDED," Moldovo said with a degree of exasperation.

The Commander did his best to feign concern. "They all need repair?" he asked.

"Yes, sir. I can't get the parts I need from the fabshop."

The Commander sighed. "Alright. We can address that in a minute. Does anyone else have anything to report?"

Everyone shook their head. "Plants are all good," Lisa said.

Lt. Franklin added, "All construction is on schedule, sir. In fact, we are ahead of schedule in several areas."

"Everyone is healthy like a horse," McBride said.

"It's some kind of network problem," Lewie said. "Something is... interfering... with the fabrication network. I'm getting close to the problem, but, its... unusual."

"I hope we can get the problem fixed, we CAN'T fly anywhere," Modolvo said with concern.

"Do we have a need to fly anywhere?" the Commander asked.

"Well... No, sir. But regulations state..."

The Commander interrupted him. "I'm aware of the regs Captain. Lewie, how much longer do you think..."

"It won't be long, Commander. I am just about at the root of the problem."

Koenig turned to Moldovo, "Captain, can you cannibalize parts from one Eagle and put them in another?"

Moldovo rolled his eyes, "Well... Yes sir, but I don't think..."

"So then its not quite an emergency," the Commander stated.

Moldovo just looked at him blankly. "Well... I don't think..."

Right in the middle of his sentence, the room went completely black. Not like a dark night on earth black; not like the empty room in a dark basement...

This was BLACK. And quiet.

And lasted a second or two before the emergency lights came on.

People could see each other, but things... looked strange. All the Virtual displays were somewhat out of sync. The situation reports on the walls showed errors before resolving themselves. Everything seemed... off.

"What's happening?" the Commander asked.

Everyone began waving their fingers frantically looking for answers. People were talking to their AI assistants. It was all a jumble.

Isa materialized, "Sir. There is a problem with the LORADSER. Our connection to earth has been severed. Uplink cannot be re-established."

The Commander replied, "How is that..."

But his question was cut by a scream. A LOUD SCREAM.

It was Judy. Her Madonna jewelry hand was pointing up at the domed window. Beyond it was nothing but black.

"IT'S GONE!!" she screamed. "THE EARTH. IT'S GONE!!!"

The confusion was overwhelming. The Commander just stared. "How... How could it be gone?"

No one seemed to have an answer.