Chapter 17 Children of the Moon

Chapter 17

Children of the Moon

 While Tech Maria was gone to prepare the girls another more vegan breakfast, they helped each other get dressed. It was not an easy task. Much of what they found on the bed was a bit of mystery to them, especially the undergarments and hosiery. However, after several humorous attempts they finally wriggled into their strange new garments and were ready to eat by the time Maria returned.

  “My, my,” Maria gushed as she pushed in a cart of fruits, rolls, bean soup and juice, “You two are quite the young models.” She was obviously in a better mood. Possibly, because she saw she would not have to dress them herself. “Maybe you two are not such big babies after all.” She then stepped around the cart and pulled up two side flaps turning the cart into a small table.

  “There, enjoy, and try to keep the grape juice off your clothes. They look so nice on you.”

  Penny looked at Kress who was wearing a powder blue mini shift, puffy sleeved white blouse blue hose and black ankle boots. She could not see why Maria thought such an outfit was anyway attractive.

  Kress was just as mystified, as she looked at Penny sporting a pleated red plaid mini skirt, tan turtleneck sleeveless top, white hose and red pumps.

 Neither of them was comfortable as both of them felt strapped and bound in tourniquet tight under garments to which they were entirely unaccustomed. Nevertheless, they ate their breakfast and slowly began to ease into their new reality, even as their heart ached for their parents and Chimera.

   Both knew they could not find hope in constant weeping and self- pity. For the moment, they could only learn adapt and grow. If there was hope, it lay in tomorrow, until then they would simply have to endure… 

  Kian’s surprise ‘date’ with Sandra went better than it might have. He actually enjoyed his ride in her ‘77’ Firebird. Which he learned was actually a solar powered electric car. The body style and interior was the only thing about the car that was authentic. It makers having fabricated it from plastic metal alloys unimagined in the seventies.

  Sandra like everyone else on that lived on the face of the Moon had an obsessive fascination with late twentieth century Earth especially its’ fashion, pop culture and clunky technology.    

  After a long talkative date at a local Pizza place Kian ascertained that Luna’s working class people and lower echelon middle management had been spoon fed a sanitized and carefully rewritten history of Earth; a history that  excluded any mention of robots or any other kind of technology that might afford them a true picture of how things really were. The Company had taught them to cherish their fore fathers pre Nuke War past, a perfect peaceful past that never really existed on Earth or anywhere else.

  The Technocrats, commonly known as the Company controlled Luna’s population through an ongoing program of subtle brainwashing, keeping them ignorant and therefore dependent as trusting naïve ‘children. Manipulation was not only their forte but also their addiction, an addiction born out of hubris, fear and insatiable sadism.

   As Sandra pulled her faux, Firebird unto the U shaped concrete driveway that curved in front of his new modest brick home, he found himself feeling quite sorry for her. However pushy Sandra was, he soon realized she was a decent person lost in the dark and as much at the mercy of the Company as the Chimerans. Setting her and her fellow Lunans free from the Company’s strangle hold was now just as important to him as saving Kia and his friends on Chimera.

  He was now certain the Technocrats controlling things from far below were just as sadistic toward the Lunans as they were toward the Chimerans. No one was safe. It was only a matter of time before these power crazed mad men decided to snuff out everyone they deemed unworthy that is, subhuman, be they genetically altered or not.   

  These thoughts weighed heavy on his mind as they got out of the car and walked up to the front door of his new home. It was not that he had forgotten they could read his mind. He simply did not care. They and he both knew there was nothing he could do about it anyway, which of course was yet another way of pressuring him into self -evolving into a higher god like life form, their ultimate goal, their ultimate expression of hubris.

   As much as he had already figured out, yet another question was waiting for him once he entered his new home.

   “Nice,” said Sandra, as they stepped inside the cozy warmly lit house and made their way into the roomy living room comfortably furnished with a couch two recliners and an old console TV that someone had neatly arranged around a real working fireplace. “Come on lets go see the rest of the house. I just love new furniture.”

  “Sure, I need to get the lay of this place and sooner is better.” Kian said rather glumly. 

    “What’s the matter? Don’t you like new stuff; hey it’s on the Company’s tab.”

 “New stuff, huh,” Kian said as he judged the brown vinyl couch and chairs and the cheap plastic console TV to be circa 1965 if not earlier. Then there was the awful deep pile yellow shag carpet that covered every square inch of floor space like a giant fuzzy mustard stain. “Yeah it’s really nice,” he groaned.

 “Isn’t it though,” Sandra was excited anyway, “Let’s go check out the rest of the house.”

  They did. Off the left, an arched doorway led to a kitchen dining room combo. The kitchen was replete with a hideous avocado refrigerator, built in maple cabinets and a white sink embedded in a butcher block L shaped counter.

  To the right of the large rectangular room sat a long wooden dining table ringed by six high back wooden chairs. The room’s greatest charm, its' only charm, was the shiny white linoleum covering the floor and sparing it the shag infestation inflicted upon the rest of the house.

  Everything was all quite serviceable, but Kianhad yet to see house’s most significant contents.

 After checking out his spacious but rather plain bath and bedroom, they found two more bedrooms just down the hall from his.

 Upon entering the first bedroom, they saw a small powder blue bed, vanity and chest of drawers. An open closet near the bed exposed something that he could not understand. Clothes filled its interior.

    Sandra looked at him and shook her head, “Do you have a daughter?”

  “What, no!”

  Sandra walked over to the closet and pulled out a short blue dress, then looked down and pulled out a pair of white patent leather boots. “Let’s go check the other bedroom.” She said, her eyebrows furrowed with wonder.

  “Yeah, lets’” Kian was mystified.

 When they entered it, they found the same thing, girl’s furniture and girls clothes.

  “It sure looks like they intend for you to share this house with two young women.”

  “That’s not possible. I came here alone. You’re the only woman I know here Sandra.”

  “Well these clothes are not exactly womanly, more teenybopper I’d say.”

  “Ah, Yeah, but, but I don’t have a clue who they might be for.” Kian sat down on the bed. Sandra, just as confused as him bid him goodnight as she headed out the door.

 “How ‘bout you call me in the morning, my office number is in the envelop" She said halfway through the doorway, "I really want to know what’s up with you and your mystery roommates?”

 “Sure, Sandy, when I know you’ll know. But right now I don’t have a clue.”

  “No just two teenaged girls.”

 Kian shrugged as Sandra waved goodbye…