The Merman and the Moon Forgotten

Two • The Voice





Sometime in the near future…

Colorado City, Colorado.





Oh, Steward Nikolas Lyons. The Rones enter the city of Huron at the peril of us all.

“What?” Nick’s face ripped from the viewer. The shed was lined with antique motherboards, microwaves, cappuccino machines, key-making machines. And none of them could speak.

The Rones lie about their true intent. They enter the city of Huron at the peril of us all.

Nick dropped the screwdriver. He heard a voice. More specifically, he heard a woman’s voice.

“I’m losing my mind.” Nick wiped the blond hair from his face. “I can’t lose my mind. First, I have to get off this planet, then I can lose my mind.”

Sure, in order to finish the machine, Nick resorted to the Nick Lyons living-dead power formula: three parts soda, two parts energy drink, six parts chocolate syrup, chased down with Pepto-Bismol. But that wouldn’t cause hallucinations . . . right?

The Rones lie about their true intent. They enter the city of Huron at the peril of us all.

Nick looked down to his feet. The voice came from under the floorboards. “Ha, ha, Tim. Funny. I can hear you under there.”

The Rones lie about their true intent. They enter the city of Huron at the peril of us all.

He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again.

“I will not hear voices . . . I can’t hear voices.” Nick had to give every ounce of his focus to the machine.

For a moment, Nick wondered if it was, in fact, his machine, the Prometheus 10,000, that was speaking to him. Maybe it was picking up one of those old time radio signals? He looked down to the scuba diving goggles, which served as a sort of viewer into the Prometheus 10,000. The machine’s skin had been stitched together from a theater spotlight, an unwary antique television and three different game consoles. One could see lights blinking deep within its belly while cables escaped from various holes, only to be dragged back in. His brother, Tim, often referred to it as the greatest abuse of technology. To Nick, it was the machine that would get him off this rock.

Earth.

One must understand. Five years ago Nick had been practically abducted from the Lunar Colony by his own parents and forced to move to Earth with its suburban globalization. Nick remembered de-boarding the transworld shuttle at the Colorado Spaceport. He walked through the rampway to Gate F10, clutching his red backpack. The gate dumped out into a mash up of passengers and shoppers, all clutching their respective possessions. But that wasn’t what made Nick sick to his stomach. It was the mass lying on the ground. At first he assumed someone had unknowingly dropped their luggage, until he saw those brown eyes.

A teenage boy was hemorrhaging.

From nowhere, an ambudrone flew past Nick, announcing, “Geneva virus detected. Geneva virus detected.” It then smothered the boy in quarantine jelly, leaving him there like some dying cocoon. The shoppers, with their department store bags and eyes in perfect balance, stepped over him, around him, beside him. But their eyes never fell on him.

Nick dropped his backpack, tore through the crowd, and kneeled down to the boy. He didn’t know it was the Geneva virus at the time, all he knew was the boy needed help. Nick screamed at the top of his lungs, “Help! Somebody help him!” The course of shoppers slowed as they searched for the voice. When the source was found, they glared at him, glowered at him, and a few even shushed him, but no one helped him. Not knowing what to do next, he reached out to the jelly. Suddenly there was a flash of light and he lay ten feet from the boy, stiff as a board.

The ambudrone had tazed him and now floated over him in its white, orbish body, saying, “Please keep your voice down. You are disturbing the shoppers.”

Looking up at the plastic outline of the ambudrone, he had only one thought: I need to get off this planet.

And Nick’s mind never changed on the subject. He missed Moon.

He also missed the sun.

Like some global cataract, a fog had covered the Earth for the last one hundred years. One political party blamed it on their opponent’s unchecked consumerism and continued burning of fossil fuels. The other party blamed it on their political enemy’s CO2 pumps, which were placed all across the globe to suck out the supposed overabundance of CO2 and balance the ecosystem. But it was now believed the pumps sucked out too much carbon dioxide, sending the ecosystem into a tailspin. Nick didn’t care who was to blame. He just wanted to go home, back to Moon. Everything there was black and white. Everything there was . . .

“Simple.” Nick blinked. “Now I’m talking to myself. Just like Grand.”

So, when the philanthropist announced that he would give out a million dollars to whomever could build an effective solar transference machine and return solar radiation to the planet’s surface, Nick had found his ticket home, literally. All he had to do was build the machine, win the prize, and buy a one-way transworld shuttle ticket back to the Trafalgar Lunar outpost. Sector nine. Quadrant 4b. Easy.

Just like the movies.

Some might call Nick naïve, simple, even an arrogant fourteen-year-old—they usually did. But Nick didn’t care. He believed with all his heart this machine would change everything. Speaking of, Nick needed to get his butt in gear for his very first demonstration at two o’clock that afternoon.

The Rones lie about their true intent. They enter the city of Huron at the peril of us all.

“Tim? Seriously. I’m gonna punch you in the mouth if you don’t knock it off . . . Tim??”

Come to think of it, Nick hadn’t seen his brother all afternoon. He walked to the window overlooking Hiker’s Canyon, scanning for any signs of Tim. Hiker’s Canyon was a large, open canyon surrounded by spruce trees. On one side were the massive, newly built homes, and on the other a refugee camp filled with shanties and dorms and teenagers. The Geneva virus, also known as the genetic plague, swept through the planet nearly twenty years ago. It attacked the nervous system, killing the adults, but crippling the children. By the end of it all, the Geneva virus left millions of children homeless. Local orphanages were unable to deal with the demands, so every country formed their own intranational refugee camp.

Nick couldn’t have felt luckier.

Moving next to the refugee camp was Nick’s saving grace. He couldn’t stand all the kids at the private school. They were snobbish, preppie students. But refugee kids? They knew how to have a good time. Tough as nails and wouldn’t say no to anything.

Nick’s eyes drifted to the bottom of Hiker’s Canyon. There lay a blond curly-headed boy, clutching his stomach while trying to cough up a spleen or two.

“Oh boy.” Nick had found Tim.

“You should know better, Tim.” Nick bolted out the door. “Never go to the refugee camp by yourself. Back off, Rocky!” Nick yelled to a six-foot-tall, fourteen-year-old—well, girl, if he were to be categorical about it. In a stroke of prophetic naming, her parents called her “Rocky.” Shortly thereafter, they passed away from the virus. The refugee kids ordained her with the full title, “Rocky, the She-Bully.” With this knowledge, he made a quick, confident assessment: Tim’s digestive system wouldn’t survive the afternoon.

“Rocky!” Nick yelled again as he jumped several steps and landed in packed dirt.

“I can—take—her, Nick.” Tim tried to stand, but his legs were matchsticks. “Go away! I don’t need your help.”

Rocky shoved him down.

“Leave him alone,” said Nick.

“No, Nick—khaa—khaa!” Tim clutched his pant legs. “You promised.”

“I can help.” Nick leaned around Rocky.

“Go away! I said I don’t need your help.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. Nick had protected Tim from bullies since the Lunar Colony. Their move to Earth hadn’t changed a thing.

“Look, everyone,” said Rocky. “Tim’s big brother came to the rescue, again.”

“Little brother?” Tim tried to stand up again. “I’m the oldest.”

“By 28 minutes,” Nick said. “We’re fraternal.”

Rocky’s porpoise neck swung around. Her eyes critiqued Tim’s floppy physique, dust blond hair and sloping brow. Even though Tim was fourteen, he wasn’t much taller than a seventh grader. He even had small hands and slow reflexes, like their dad.

Rocky’s eyebrow led the way back to Nick. He was tall, stocky with large hands, more like their grandfather, Grand.

An unearthly sound came from deep within Rocky. It proved to be a laugh. “Hah, hah, haaaaah!” Her finger pointed at Tim. “Tim’s the big brother! Oh, that’s funny! He’s like your genetic fart.”

The hecklers roared with that one.

“Shut your drain!” Nick gritted.

Rocky’s mouth clapped shut, sucking up the heckler’s laughs with it. Her horse-like legs pushed her forward.

Nick tried to step around her, but she shadowed him. “Out of the way, Rocky.”

Nick’s eyes crept skyward and he didn’t like what he saw. Either Rocky’s hair hadn’t been combed for months, or the brush had completely given up, taking an easier job as a street scrubber. Her right piggly hand hung clenched, while her other hand held an ice cream cone, which left her mouth and fingers caked in brownish white cream. From her nose came an inordinate amount of hair, especially for a fourteen-year-old. In fact, she just had an inordinate amount of facial hair altogether. Nick sighed.

I really need to get off this planet.

A spark leapt from the black bracelet around Rocky’s wrist. The refugee camps couldn’t afford to lose track of a refugee, as it would have to answer to BioFarms: producer, buyer and seller of human organs. In order to pay for the cost of the refugee camps, the U.S. government had a contract with BioFarms Corporation. All refugees and their organs were considered property of BioFarms until their eighteenth birthday. It was an ideal business arrangement for the organ manufacturing corporation. Mortality rates in the refugee camps were so high, and it was bioethically responsible to pass on one’s organs upon death. Since the organ manufacturing company would be upset if they lost a harvest, most refugees were leashed by black bracelets, unable to wander more than fifteen miles from their camp. If they did, their leashes would set off electric shocks, reminding them to return to the perimeter. Some of the more unruly refugee leashes were set to three miles.

Rocky’s was set to one hundred yards.

The leash crackled another blue arc, making her arm convulse.

Nick smirked. “Got you on a short leash?”

“I don’t feel it no more.” Rocky took a long, drippy lick from the cone, showing the readout on her leash: Geneva Virus Levels: 0.05. Chance of Cardiac Arrest: 1 in 100. Life Expectancy: 19.

A pang of sympathy ran through Nick. Growing up in the refugee camp wasn’t an easy life. Maybe Rocky was just misunderstood.

“They shortened her leash again,” said a bystander. “Rocky was caught sneaking into a pet shop off of I-90. Mixed all the pet food up with the Geneva virus and fed it to the animals.”

Nick’s sympathies evaporated.

“What do you want with Tim?”

“I told him to give me his ice cream. He wouldn’t. We don’t get any fancy stuff like you preppies up there. So what? You gonna hit me now? Or are you afraid I’m gonna get you sick?”

“I’m not supposed to hit a girl. Grand wouldn’t like it,” Nick said, clearly against his will.

“You won’t hit a girl? Oh, look at you,” said Rocky. “Aren’t you a goody two shoes ‘cause you won’t hit a girl. But the real question is—” Her head bobbed like a buoy. “—Who’s. The. Girl?”

“You’re right. That’s a very good question.”

“Oooh,” the hecklers said.

“What? Did? You? Say?”

Don’t hit her. Don’t hit her. Grand wouldn’t like it.

“Come on, Tim. Let’s go.” Nick turned toward the house.

“Oh no you didn’t. Where you going? Is it feeding time for grandpapa?” Rocky rounded her arms imitating an old grandpa. “I need a wipe, little Nicky. I think some of this plum juice dribbled on my big, fat, belly!”

The hecklers guffawed in response.

Nick turned quickly and took three long paces, cocked his head up and grinned. He smiled so long, Rocky started to get an uncertain look in her eyes. Nick found the smile to be a very useful, versatile instrument in a confrontational situation. Way better than a grimace. It was great for a faceoff with knuckle draggers like Rocky. You just smile ear-to-ear, long enough for your opponent to let their guard down. All the while thinking, I’m about to punch you in the face.

Like right now, for example.

CRACKK!

An ice cream cone somersaulted ten feet away. Rocky spun, her dreadlocks tilt-a-whirling down.

“Don’t talk about Grand like that!” Nick pushed two awestruck kids apart and marched toward the house.

“Mgggrrrhh!” came an inhuman sound.

Nick looked back.

“Raaggh!!!” Rocky leapt to her feet and charged. Nick shifted slightly to the left, grabbed her waist, and threw. Rocky fell with the impact of a moderately sized meteor.

“Aaaiiighhh!!!!” Rocky’s face turned beet red. She dug her pudgy fingers into his shoe and pulled. Nick’s world spun. Air kicked out of his lungs and the blue sky looked back down. Rocky charged on hands and knees.

“Woah!” Nick crab walked in reverse, her fingers lashing at his shins. He leapt to his feet. “Freak!”

Rones lie about their true intent. They enter the city of Huron at the peril of us all.

No, no, no, Nick thought. Come on!

Rones lie about their true intent. They enter the city of Huron at the peril of us all.

Little lightning bolts danced around Nick. Vomit swirled up the back of his throat. His lips started to move, even though it wasn’t his voice: “Rones lie about their true intent. They enter the city of Huron at the peril of us all. Rones lie about their true intent. They enter the city of Huron at the peril of us—Ooof!” Nick groaned. Rocky’s shoulder slammed into stomach, separating organs.

Nick was on the ground again. Rocky grabbed a snatch of his blond hair and dragged him to his feet. Fortunately, she left her right side completely exposed. Nick took full advantage.

Crackk!

Rocky toppled over. Her legs kicked up at eleven o’clock, teetered, and fell to nine.

Nick stood to his feet and prepared for the resurgence.

She said nothing.

Nick heard his own heavy panting. “Grand’s awesome. Talk about him like that again, and it’s you in traction.” In a triumphant breath, Nick pushed through the crowd and toward the shed.

“Auuiigghhh!” Rocky’s wails frightened away a flock of pigeons. “You’re not supposed to hit a girl!”

“I could have taken her.” Tim grabbed Nick’s arm. “I didn’t need your help.”

“You’re welcome,” Nick said.

“We made a deal.” Tim wiped the caked blood from his mouth. “You don’t bail me out anymore, and I don’t snitch on you about all your little experiments.”

“How are we supposed to finish setting up for the demonstration if you’re in the ER fighting for your life.”

“Oh—” Tim rolled his eyes. “—now I get it. You didn’t care about me at all. This is all about your little machine. By the way, what’s a Rone?”

“I dunno.” Nick looked away.

“You were all psych ward about some Rones being bad and some city—Huron?”