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Red Moon

Blood rises over the ad-lit tunnels of a Lunar Colony.

By Thomas MarstonPublished 2 years ago 12 min read
Runner-Up in New Worlds Challenge
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“Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space... or so they say,” the hologram echoed. The hue of the digi-board’s synthetic lights electrified the miner’s byway, silhouetting the rush-hour crowd. McParlane turned away from the advertisement and limped down the tunnel street.

The interiors of the tunnels were tall, the roofs strutted like the inside of a whale’s ribcage, lit by flickering blue and purple movie posters and tv show banners and advertisements. A flood of people roared home, all miners, surveyors, and quarry workers come to Carbon for work in the Silica Group lunar colony. High above, a pod-rail train screeched. It swung down the lines with yellow lights cutting the blue dusk, flowed around the curve in the tunnel and disappeared. Two INE Responders screamed by on Knife-311’s, flying bikes. In the darkness, puddles dotted the floor, the leakage from cooling lines, condensation, grey dust swirling in the moisture, disturbed by passing feet. It was humid. The trailer for a Lunarwood feature about an astronaut alone in the vacuum of space blared out from a billboard. In it, a man was decapitated. Next, the screen flashed a pair of tits.

Below, in the center of the street, silent e-Trucks carried silica, aluminum, and bodies to and from the mines.

Everything in Carbon was owned by the Silica Group: stores, streets, refineries, houses, mines, politicians, courts, doctors.

“Trust no one,” the hologram sang out. McParlane slipped between a laughing couple. The Investigator was a good-looking man that appeared to be in his late twenties. He wore civilian clothes – a pair of black pants with sneakers and a black raincoat. His hair was short and ragged. He had dark, almost black eyes and was taller than average, with a thin, almost elegant figure. His clothes were in mediocre shape, dusty. He was a security Investigator for Carbon Colony’s INE management force.

He wound through the flow of people, pausing to look into a bright-lit agency. Digi-boards showed hologram advertisements for ‘mental health retreats,’ unpaid vacations to Silicon Group mental rehabilitation facilities. Scenes of a crying miner, curled and small against looming shadows, then the same laid back on a chair, speaking to a blonde therapist, then smiling with a wife and kids in artificial sunlight, bright-lit against a white curtain, on loop. A soft ambient-pop song filtered through the door, like water dripping from a rusted pipe. He sighed.

A screaming siren. Above him, red lights flashed in the blue-dark of the tunnel, splitting open the shade of the night. The heads of the crowd lit up. A clearing formed. Red light refracted in the puddles on the ground, swirling, and in the brightness, the holograph advertisement seemed a deep violet. The spotlights of two Knife-311’s cut through the throng, centering on a body curled up on the side of the road. They hovered for a moment, tearing away the shadows. A gout of steam from either. They descended.

It was a man, lying just off the sidewalk, halfway into an alley. The fronts of the buildings were girded in a soft white plastic, slightly offset from the wall. Back-lit with indigo, the light spilled out in a gentle flood over the feet of those who danced by. It condensed on the somber face of the lying man.

He couldn’t have been any older than twenty-five. His face was scruffy, covered with a thin beard, dusty and worn in. His hair was long and unkempt. Green eyes peeled open to the lights descending from above, and his stocky frame pulled back into the alley. His clothes were standard mining attire – light grey coveralls, two sets of yellow reflective bands running in chevrons along the chest and back, the front pair broken by a zipper – covered in dust and water. The edges of his sleeves were singed black, his hands bandaged. He pressed against one of the side walls of the buildings, his knees tucked close to him. His chest and chin rose to meet the descending Responders, the red light falling on his ragged body.

McParlane turned away from the rehab agency. The man on the ground was ten feet away. Through the gathering crowd and the lights of the advertisements, he watched out of the corner of his eye, sticking close to the wall, along the edges of the passing current.

Swirling puddles boiled away from the heat of the Responders’ bikes as they hit ground a few feet from McParlane. The crowd swarmed, suffocating. The pair pulled their helmets off, leaving the lights of the Knives on as they stepped down off the bikes. They approached the man, heavy black boots thudding.

Responders, or INE (Infrastructure and Efficiency) Mental Health Compliance Officials served the role of police and paramedics. Their job was to ensure those who needed help with policy were given the support they needed. Those they did help rarely returned.

McParlane hated working with them. Whereas Responders were employed, Investigators relied on a free-lance job-board for work. During a tenure of employment with the Silicon Group, all contractors received an apartment, alongside a monthly allowance for food, water, and clothing, so long as they had a contract. But only so long. Sometimes an Investigator got unlucky. Sometimes, then, they too got helped.

One of the Responders inched in towards the lying man. He shifted, repositioning himself against the wall. The shadows of the crowd that had begun to form were long, and through them, McParlane slid forward, working his way behind the first row.

“Hello,” the older of the pair began, “we’re INE. You seem to be in a state of distress and we’re here to help.” He had his hands on his hips and looked wide, tall. The red lights silhouetted him, spreading a blotch of black ink over the man on the ground and the wall behind him. His voice had that emptiness of condescension.

Around the scene there was a circle, no more than ten feet in diameter, where the public pushed in. They peered over one another, heads darting back and forth, whispering loudly, joking, pointing. The first of the two Responders was now standing over the man, the second keeping back the crowd, the red lights of their bikes a dark, coursing glow.

The first Responder, a middle-aged man, bald, took the lead, veins bulging from the ridges of his sweaty head. He wore combat boots shined to a mirror. The other was a woman, younger by a few years. She was tall, heavy, with a rim of black hair around her mouth. Their uniforms were the same, an off-white shirt, overcoat, cargo pants. Across their chests, they wore a trio of blue stripes. Batons swung from their waists alongside electro-sedaters.

“Would you kindly get up off the ground so we can have a proper conversation?” He continued.

The man on the ground looked up without saying a word. He leaned back against the wall, relaxing his posture, giving the Responder a blank stare. His hands were wrapped in dirty bandages. A bag of clothes was tucked beneath him.

“We’re here to help. You look like you need medical assistance. I don’t want to escalate this situation,” the Responder said, “but I need you to understand you cannot remain here. We’re asking you to move.”

The man stared up at them and didn’t say a word. Above, a pod-rail ran by. The tunnel echoed with metal rails reverberating, clanging, and striking against the air and the walls. The crowd had nearly doubled.

“Okay. Alright then.” The Responder stepped toward the man and crouched down onto one knee. His voice lost its politeness and became like iron. “You need to move.”

The man on the street lay there. He blinked once, then began to speak politely, “I’ll be up on my feet in just a moment.” His voice was strong, full of life, with an edge, but not harsh.

The Responder stared at him. The man continued to lay on the ground.

“I want you up now.”

“Of course.” The man said. He didn’t move.

“Alright,” the Responder said, then reached forward and grabbed the man by the collar. He stood up, stooping, pulling the man up, just off the ground. The man’s body went limp in his grasp, his arms dropping to his sides, his neck weak. He made himself heavy.

The Investigator looked at the Responder, the lights on the Knives beast-like and pulsing red. It overshadowed the crowd and the man dangling, like limp prey, by his collar.

The man’s head lulled, swayed to the side lightly. He and the Investigator made eye contact. Despite his limpness, he looked alive and strong, almost unfazed. Something sat inside him, roaring out through the glints in his eyes. Red and purple and blue swirled. Pulled up towards the light, his face was good-looking, though dirty, with a short beard and a slightly downward hooked nose. His hair was pulled back into a black braid behind his head.

The Investigator stepped forward, breaking out from the audience, his face tense. He looked down at the lying man as he spoke.

“Any problem here?” he asked.

“This man requires help. We are assisting him.”

“Oh?”

The first Responder turned towards him, patting for his electro-sedater. “You need our help too?”

“James McParlane. Investigator. #2892029.” He fumbled, pulling a phone from his pocket and flashing his badge.

“We met this one passed out off the sidewalk, in the alley. Not safe for anyone. Leave this to us, Investigator. It’s our job.” As he said this, the Responder dropped the man from his hands. His body tensed again as soon as he hit the ground, catching himself. He didn’t move.

“Could I talk to him?”

“Talk to him in the rehab facility.”

“It’s urgent.”

“Investigator,” the Responder said, “let me do my job.”

“I’d like to speak to him.”

“Might get violent. He’s not in a state to examine.”

“I have a contract.”

“With him?”

“Yes.”

“Bullshit.”

“About Schyullkill. Look at his hands.”

The Responder frowned at him, scanning him bottom to top. Around them, the tunnels echoed with footfalls and the sounds of advertisements. A puddle on the ground was a mirror, flashing with crimson. The Responder looked at the crowd gathered around him. He took a step towards the Investigator. “Anything happens, we’ll be watching,” he whispered. The Responders returned to their 311’s, pulled on helmets, and got on. Their bikes began to hum, a low, whirring hum, then lifted from the ground and, with a high note, screamed off over the crowds.

For a moment, the crowd lingered. They watched the Investigator, the man lying on the ground, as the dark blues and purples swirled like an electronic tide. Ahead, the shouts of a fight broke out and the crowd gravitated towards it, reforming the flow of traffic along the sidewalks. Above, a screen flashed to the next ad, one McParlane had never noticed before.

James McParlane looked down at the man on the ground. “You should move,” he said, “unless you want more help.”

“Thank you,” the man said without moving. He looked straight forward, his arms tense on either side. There was a pack of dirty clothes behind him and nothing else.

“You should go home. At least keep walking.”

“Thank you, sir. That’s good advice.”

“You don’t move, you’ll get picked up.”

“By who? You?”

“No.”

McParlane looked down at the man seated on the ground. His face was tense and covered in dust. There was pride in his eyes and tension ran from cheekbone to jaw. McParlane stuck out his hand.

For a moment, the man sat and watched the Investigator, then his eyes flicked up toward the roof of the tunnel, to the pod-rails, to any passing Knives. He shifted himself up onto his knees and, without McParlane’s help, pulled himself up.

The clearing had given way to the waves of people. The night was blue and shadows. Across the street, the flushed face of a man smiling ran on a digi-board, selling a bottle of prescription Solar pills.

“Thanks,” the man said.

McParlane looked at him and nodded. He felt tired. The muscles in his body were empty, soft, worn out. They had been for months. He turned and began to walk away.

“Hey,” the man called out. “Shane Kehoe.” He stuck out his hand. McParlane looked at him, tried to shake it around the bandages. They ended up nodding.

“You’re a miner?” McParlane said.

“Yes, I was,” Kehoe said, “but I can’t anymore.” He held up his hands. “I lost my job.”

“Were you in the Schyullkill fire?”

“Yes sir.”

“You lost your job because of it?”

“No, not that.”

“What then?”

Kehoe looked at the Investigator for a moment. “Instigating, sir.” His eyes were proud, bright, a glint clung to the edges, staring into McParlane’s.

“How?”

“I believe the mines need a second exit. It’s too dangerous. It has to be safer. Gowan said he’d fix it a month ago, and look what happened. All those people, sir, for no good reason. None at all. It’s fucked up. Someone else needs to sit the Chair. One way or another.”

“These digi-boards don’t just output, Kehoe. I’d be more careful.”

The two men looked at one another for a moment longer. Neither said a word. McParlane nodded, looked back down at the ground, and walked away. For a while, Kehoe stood there, watching the Investigator slip into the crowd. He picked up his bag and walked off in the opposite direction.

McParlane continued down the street. The hologram still looped. “Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say,” it said again, “Come find out the truth in the sequel to last cycle’s biggest movie, A—.” McParlane walked away. “A truly thrilling experience: what happens when even the universe stops listening?”

McParlane followed the tunnel for a while, dragging his feet. The muscles around his eyes were tense. His hands fumbled with the phone in his pocket and he walked with the flow, in no rush to get where he was going. Advertisements ran along the sides of buildings and hung from banners along the roof and danced in holograms and lights. But he couldn’t get the young miner out of his thoughts, and as he trudged, he chewed at his lip, struggling with himself. There was something, for some reason, that made it so he couldn’t wash him away.

Kehoe. An instigator.

A thought entered his mind. He pushed towards the Courthouse, ignoring the sounds of the crowd rushing around him. He decided to commit Kehoe’s face and the sound of his voice to memory. He sped up.

AdventureSci FiMystery
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About the Creator

Thomas Marston

Author and poet.

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