Chapter 4 Children of the Moon

Chapter 4

Children of the Moon

  Pock marked with craters Luna’s airless gray surface is stark and lifeless. However, that is only her face.  Far beneath her barren façade cities hum with activity, she is alive.

   Fueled by a vast supply of Helium 3 and constant unfiltered sunlight dozens of sub lunan cities provide perfect shelter, comfort, purpose and pleasure for millions of people. Linked by a vast network of anti grav tunnels Lunans also enjoy easy secure access to each other.

  However, easy access did not mean every citizen of the Moon could go wherever he or she wanted. Luna has her secret cities; unknown cities built by Ancient Terrans who migrated to the Moon thousands of years before. Fleeing their nuclear devastated home world Earth, they established colonies on the Moon and over time, transformed Luna’s interior into a vibrant honeycomb teaming with people pulsing with life.  

  This was where Kian awoke.

  Sunlight streamed through Kian’s bedroom window, glaring in his face like a spotlight until he cracked his eyelids and turn away. “My head,” he muttered as he slowly pushed his covers back and glanced at his alarm clock. “Wait, this can’t be right. 7:30, feel like I’ve been asleep for ages, not hours. Overtime too much overtime, really makes you sleep hard and dream harder.”

  Running his right hand through his shaggy mop of brown hair, he cleared the cobwebs from his brain, swung his legs out of the bed, and sat up. He yawned and looked around his bedroom as if he had not seen it for a dozen lifetimes. One by one, the boring details of his life began to fall in place, banishing his crazy dreams and pulling him back into the real world.

 “What a dream, never had one like that before. Kia, of course I’d come up with such a silly name. But man she was gorgeous, huh, dream girls are always knockouts. Wish I could remember more, later maybe, it’s gone now, maybe a cup of coffee will bring more of it back. The parts I remember were really nice, and so real. ”

  Sliding off the bed, he planted his bare feet on the floor, stood up and tromped off to the bathroom to empty his bulging bladder.  Upon walking by his mirrored medicine cabinet, an odd feeling came over him, as if he had just glanced at a stranger in the corner of his eye. He turned toward the mirror saw his stubbly face and wop sided bed head hair, shrugged took a few more steps, confronted his toilet and did his business.

  Soon his was in his shower washing his dream away right along with his factory job funk. It usually took about three days-three showers to shed it but he had two weeks of vacation, plenty time to get nice and clean.

   Soon his was stretching out on his living room sofa watching the morning news and sipping coffee, just another day on planet earth. His coffee cup was soon empty as his belly so he clicked off his T.V. put on his boots and headed out the front door to top off his caffeine with an egg McMuffin. He never made it to McDonald’s; he did however make it to his front porch, where the impossible sight a wall of white stopped him dead.

   He spun around, saw his house then looked back and saw white walls where trees should be, saw white walls where his truck should be.

  “Still dreaming,” he said easing from his porch, down his concrete steps and unto more white. “Yeah, still fast asleep,” he then stepped onto the white floor that should have been green grass and remembered.

  “No, no, I’m not here. I’m in bed,” but even as he spoke each word aloud he knew speaking them did not make them true.

  ….’where am I…’

  Suddenly a door sized section of the white wall slid from sight. A tall man with slicked back black hair, dressed in a sixties style black suit, tie and white shirt stepped through the opening and walked straight up to Kian.

  “Welcome to the Moon Mr. East.”

  “What, huh, what,” Kian backed away as the man walked closer. “My name’s not East, its West, Kian West.”

  “No James, we renamed you. We did give your face back. They know your name not your face. So again I say, welcome to your new life James East, or would you prefer Jimmy.”

 “My name is not Jimmy!” Kian said drawing up his courage as he stepped up to the stranger. “Take me back!”

  “Back where, Chimera?” said the man, through a crooked smile. “Not possible.”

 “It was no dream. Kia was no dream! Take me back now!”

 “No, and from now on you will address me as Doctor Miles. Your time there is finished. Your time here however has just begun. You can never go back to Chimera or Kia, unless, of course you astral project, but you don’t have a body down there, so that probably not work out so well, would it?”

  “Take me back or I’ll take your head off!”

 “No you want, in fact you can’t. You not super anything anymore, you can’t can fly you can’t breathe water and all that other foolish comic book stuff; you’re just another working stiff again. You see we have a job for you, a job you really going to hate.”

 “I won’t do anything for you!”

  “Then Chimera will suffer for your obstinacy. The same kind of nano bots that brought Kia back to life can just as easily render Chimera lifeless. It would only take about a day. So you will assimilate into your new home. You will root out malcontents for us so we can properly dispose of them before they infect out Lunar Utopia with their silly notions of equality and freedom. Do you understand?” 

  Kian said nothing but he understood, all too well, he understood.