One Hundred Percent Lunar Boy (29 page)

Bruegel opened his door and jumped out. The exterior of the vehicle was extremely hot. He crawled under the automobile’s spherical body and opened the trunk. Slue left the car as well and began walking away. She stopped, staring at the Earth on the horizon.

Hieronymus remained in his seat, as still as a statue, full of anguish and regret.

He thought of his father.

He walked out on his father at the very moment his father was lying to the police about him. How could he have done such a thing? Ringo was probably calling everyone he knew, trying to figure out what the Hell had happened. And if by some chance the police figured out that it really was Hieronymus, then his da would be arrested, too.

The sounds of Bruegel working on the engine filled the passenger compartment. Restless with anger and despair, Hieronymus breathed as slowly as he could and tried to reason himself into a state of calm. His only recourse was to look at Slue, standing in her poncho, her back to him, a figure in the wasteland, looking at the far-away world of everyone’s ancestor.

A long time passed. He opened one of the doors, climbed out, and almost fell on Bruegel, who was under the vehicle and still poking around the engine.

“How’s it going?” Hieronymus asked him, noticing that his hands were covered in black greasy oil. There was also a streak across his face, as if he had scratched his cheek with one of his filthy fingers, leaving a long track of soot-colored goo.

“Not bad. Just a ruptured hose between the ganfoil and the friddercod. I think the best thing would be to shorten what’s left of the hose and connect the ganfoil to the channer instead.”

Bruegel held up a mechanical device for Hieronymus to see.

“You’re not worried about the friddercod?”

“No,” he answered. “The friddercod can get enough acetone coolant if I tape this other tube here—from the blonzelarator. I mean, it’s not perfect, but it should last for a few days till I get a new hose.”

“How long do you think before we can get moving again?”

Bruegel sighed.

“Well, I have to be careful about cutting and refitting these hoses. If I screw it up, we’ll be stuck out here—and Jesus Pixie only knows where ’here’ actually is. I think I can get us going in about an hour.”

Hieronymus nodded his head and slowly began walking toward Slue, who was still standing about fifty yards away. He heard Bruegel call his name.

“Hieronymus?”

He turned around.

“Yes, Bruegel?”

“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, man. You know, getting us lost, then my car breaking down.”

Hieronymus waved his arm in a
don’t worry
kind of gesture.

Slue found a patch of grass and was sitting in it by the time Hieronymus had reached her. He found a grassy spot nearby and laid down. At first he rested his face in the dry green grass. Then he looked over at her. She looked at him, then she looked at the Earth.

“I’m really afraid of something,” he said.

“What,” she answered, barely audible.

“Well, a detective called my father. I overheard him asking my father where I was last night. My father lied and told him that I was at home.”

“So,” Slue replied. “that’s good. You’re lucky your father covered for you…”

“Yeah, well, it’s not so simple. I know the detective. I remember him from two years ago. When that boy died after pulling of my goggles. I remembered his name. And I know he remembers me.”

“And…”

“Well, me and that girl, we messed up in one serious way. I took her to her hotel, and in the lobby, the clerk and some other people, I think they were hookers, got a pretty good look at me when I brought her back. This one woman even made a nasty remark about it. The clerk ofered to call an ambulance.”

“So? What are you afraid of?”

“I’m thinking that maybe this detective will start to add things up. Maybe he could tell that my father was lying. Two years ago, he really wanted to nail me for killing that boy. The guy even mentioned it—he was baiting Da about it. He has a reputation for really hating people like you and me. I have this feeling that, as soon as he got of the phone, maybe he pondered to himself—remembering that
I’m the one who got away
. What’s to prevent him from, you know, on a wild hunch, or even out of spite, getting a picture of me from the school, and then asking the clerk at the hotel if that was me who brought the girl home?”

“You’re going to drive yourself nuts if you begin to worry about that.”

He looked up. They could hear the sounds of clanking metal as Bruegel worked on the car, and in the dark red sky, a shooting star fell. Slue looked at it also.

“See that shooting star?” he asked her. “That’s our fate. To be specks cast into the cosmos. To drive ships across the solar system till it burns us out. Sooner or later, they’re going to get us. One by one. We’re already in the net—it’s just up to them to decide when to pull us out and stick us in the pilot seats. Of course it’s true. Who else can drive those Mega Cruisers?”

Slue said nothing. Her silence confirmed that she thought the same thing…

“It has to be true. If we take our goggles off, we can see the direction of everything before it gets there. It’s confusing here on the surface of the Moon, but of course, out there, going as fast as any of those ships can go, in the midst of those incredible distances, we know that in order to get from point a to point B, you have to visualize where point c will be as it crosses its own way between D and e as it intersects a and B. At those speeds and those distances, you need to see where time and space bend. No normal person can do that, and certainly no machine can as machines cannot see the fourth primary color.”

Slue pulled some grass up with her hands.

“All of a sudden, you’re good in math. Point a, point B…”

“No, I still suck at math. But no normal mathematician can do what we can do—see the fourth primary color, which exists everywhere.”

“It is logical, but it’s also frightening.”

“You know I’m right. You know it’s true. How many One Hundred Percenters do you know past the age of twenty-five? How long do they let us live among normal people before we’re taken away for doing something as normal as looking at another human being?”

Slue looked at him for a long time. The wind blew her hair. The sound of the car repair continued like a clanky drum in a garbage yard.

“Slue, what was your father talking about on the phone”

“My father? What do you mean?”

“When Bruegel and I got to your apartment, your father was talking with your brother Raskar. He sounded really mad.”

“Yes,” she sighed. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

“Something about Raskar getting involved with something dangerous? With his ’radical friends’ and things that they ’found out’ about?” Hieronymus pushed.

“Raskar. You know he’s a lawyer. He just started working at the Federal Courthouse down in the District of Copernicus. He thinks he may have uncovered evidence that…there are those in the government and in the corporate power structures who want to revive certain parts of the Regime of Blindness.”

“What?”

“It’s just a theory, but there are others who agree with him. Those are the ’radicals’ my father referred to. One of them is a very powerful judge. He has also discovered that laws are being electronically altered. A little like
The Random Treewolf
. The crime of updating, but applied to the lawbooks. Laws that refer to LOS, specifcally. And the high numbers of LOS people who disappear—maybe your friend from Earth is right about the Mega Cruiser pilots. He is not sure how to prove it, but he is very afraid, and he wants to do something drastic, but he doesn’t know what.”

“Your brother Raskar told you this?”

“Some of Raskar’s friends are LOS people. I met them. They told me about the fourth primary color—there is more to our eye color than we can even imagine. You have no idea what I heard. And the lies we’ve been told…”

“Go on.”

“Please,” Slue said. “Not now. I don’t want to think about this. It’s too upsetting.” Hieronymus wanted to insist, but she quickly changed the subject. ”Have you noticed the position of the Earth?”

“Yes. We’ve gone a long way.”

“Have you noticed something else?” she pressed.

“Something else?”

“Everything around here is a little darker.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah. Look at Bruegel’s pathetic jalopy. Doesn’t it look darker than before? And the ground—much darker than when we got of the highway a few hours ago. Wouldn’t you agree that the light out here is, well, different than when we started?”

Hieronymus looked around.

“We are a lot further out of our way than I imagined.”

“So far out,” Slue added. “that if we keep going in this direction, we’ll be on the far side of the Moon, and then we’ll really be lost.”

As if by providence, as soon as the word "lost" came out of her mouth, they noticed something on the horizon that pulled them back from the abyss of helplessness. A flashing blue light in the extreme distance. Slue immediately took of her poncho and turned it inside out— its interior was bright red, and she began to wave it in the air with both hands, the wind futtering it high above her head.

“What the Hell are you doing?” Hieronymus shouted.

“The police, you dummy!” she yelled back. “That’s a police beacon!”

“Are you crazy?” Hieronymus exclaimed. “What if they start asking me about last night?”

“They won’t. There are thousands of police officers, Hieronymus, and the vast majority of them are not out looking for One Hundred Percent Lunar Boys. Besides, you told me that your father covered for you.”

Slue waved her inside-out poncho even higher.

Hieronymus instinctively walked backwards, away from her.

“What’s wrong with you? You’re just like your idiot friend over there—he’s afraid of the cops, too! Is that what you learn in the Loopie classes? Fear of the police?”

Hieronymus was at a loss for words. All he could think about was that detective with the wax-like face calling his father a few hours earlier.

In the distance, the flashing light appeared to change direction and grow slightly brighter.

“They saw us!” Slue shouted. She turned again to face Hieronymus, who continued to walk toward the car.

“Don’t be stupid, Hieronymus! They’re here to help us! We’re lucky! Do you know what would have happened if we ended up on the far side? We’d get lost! We’d keep on driving and we’d run out of fuel then we’d have to walk, and then we’d starve to death! Don’t you know what it is to be rescued? Don’t you know?”

The distant vehicle began to take on a definitive shape as it got closer, and as expected, it really was a police car. It slowed down, coming in their direction like a Saturn on its side, riding on the rings. Slue continued to wave her poncho. Hieronymus turned and realized Bruegel was obviously perplexed by this latest development.

“Hey! What’s going on? Who’s coming—oh, damn! The police!”

The cop car came to a stop in front of Slue and Hieronymus. The first thing they noticed was its wheel—the rubber treads were about ten times thicker and deeper than the treads on the wheel of Bruegel’s car. There was also a strange scoop thing attached to the front and a metal plate under the sphere. The engine turned off. Two police officers climbed out. They wore the characteristic stovetop hats and capes that cops everywhere wore.

They approached Hieronymus and Slue, their faces the very definition of neutrality.

“Good evening,” one of them said politely. “What are you kids doing out here?”

“Our car broke down,” Slue volunteered without hesitation.

“You took an old Pacer all the way out here?” the other one asked.

“Yes, we did, Officer. We thought we were taking a shortcut—but we got lost.”

“How did you get lost?” the other officer asked. “Where were you going?”

“We were going to…” Slue was about to say LEM Zone One, till she realized how paranoid Hieronymus must have been feeling. “Well, we were looking for a club called the Dog Shelter. We wanted to see a band called the Ginger Kang Kangs…”

“What? The Dog Shelter? You think there’s a club out here?”

“Well, Officer, unfortunately for us, the highway was jammed, so we decided to take some back roads.”

“Miss, you are not even on a back road. This is open country.”

“Yeah, we stupidly thought we would cross a field, but we couldn’t find the road we were on, and I think the field just turned into this big expanse of wilderness.”

“Where is this club you were heading to?”

Slue paused.

“Well, it’s…”

Hieronymus decided to ofer up the incriminating words himself.

“LEM Zone One, sir. The club is next to that place they call LEM Zone One, but because we’ve never been there before, we had no idea where we were going—well, we thought we knew how get there, but we messed up in following our directions.”

The two officers looked at each other, and one of them sighed.