The Merman and the Moon Forgotten

Eight • A Rushed Reunion





Nick Lyons. My name is Nick Lyons,” Nick answered the St. Mary’s nursedrone sitting behind the front desk.

“Full name, please,” the nursedrone said, tilting her plastic alloy head to emulate a person asking a question.

“That’s my full name. Grand calls me Nikolas, and so does Caroline Wendell too, I guess, but Nick is the name on the birth certificate.”

“How may I help you?” said the nursedrone.

“My mom and dad were drinking diet sodas, and they got really, I don’t know, sick, or poisoned, or—”

“ErikandSonyaLyons!” Tim had just caught up.

“Your parents are in the Disease and Poison Emergency Wing.” The nursedrone pressed a button. “Nick and Tim Lyons are here for Erik and Sonya Lyons.”

A female voice from the console answered, “Send them to the waiting room. I’ve a few questions about their parents’ files. Their biochemistry is off the charts. . . .” The voice walked off.

The nursedrone pointed down the hall. “Follow the signs to the Disease and Poison Emergency waiting room.”

They took off running. The white plastic walls reflected their desperate sprint.

Zzzzzz.

A small, white sphere with green scanning eyes floated next to them. It was an inocudrone.

“Medi-one records tell me—” The inocudrone paced with them. “—that Nick Lyons and Tim Lyons have not received their inoculation shots for fifteen days. Remember that forty new strands of the cold and five new mutations of the Geneva virus have appeared in only the last forty-eight hours. Please remain still as I administer the vaccine.”

Tim and Nick stopped obediently and put their arms out to the inocudrone. There are two places on the planet not to be without your inoculations: the refugee camps and the hospital.

The inocudrone was cycling through its third and last shot when it announced, “Receiving a new transmission from Medi-one for Nick Lyons. You are to receive the neural inhibitor, R-5235—”

Nick jumped back. “No . . .”

“R-5235 is designed to suppress all aggression.” The inocudrone aimed its needle at Nick’s stomach.

Nick sidestepped quickly, found the red emergency shut-off switch and twisted. The inocudrone fell straight to the ground. A crashing sound reverberated throughout the hallway causing nearby drones to pivot in their direction.

Tim jumped over the disabled inocudrone. “What happened?”

“Come on.” Nick tore into another run.

They charged through the sliding doors and were met by a packed waiting room divided into refugees and suburbanites. One side wore tattered, mismatched clothes, while the other wore that week’s hottest fashion. Still, they all shared the same expression: fear.

Among the suburbanites was a mother wearing a Robin’s Little League shirt and matching hat, holding her three-year-old daughter. She covered her mouth, crying bitterly as a doctor spoke under hushed breath. Nick couldn’t hear what the doctor was saying, but he could guess. The mother and child left with the doctor, opening up two seats for the brothers.

“What’s happening?” Tim said as he plopped down next to an old, snoring hover-bus driver.

“I don’t know,” Nick shrugged.

“So, if it’s not the Geneva virus, what is it?” Tim said.

“I don’t know.”

“Where’s Grand?” Tim said.

Nick sighed, “I don’t know.”

They waited for what seemed like an hour. Just when Nick was about to doze off, he heard the cautionary tone of an inocudrone.

“Please, Mr. Lyons. You cannot go any farther until I take a reading.”

“My grandsons. Where are they?” came a Scottish accent.

Nick stood to his feet.

“I am collecting some very disturbing vitals,” the inocudrone said.

“My grandsons!” the Scottish voice bellowed.

Everyone’s gaze shifted to the voice on the other side of the room.

“Mr. Lyons!” said the inocudrone. “Not only are you six hundred and twenty days overdue for your inoculation shots, I am detecting fifteen viruses, four of them predating the iron age, twelve forms of bacteria indigenous to the south side of Moon, and a form of metal that cannot be found on the periodic table whatsoever. I am processing the necessary vaccines now. Wait one moment.”

“I would be pleased, hubcap,” the Scottish voice said, “if you took three paces in the opposite direction.”

“I will need to administer thirteen different vaccines,” the inocudrone announced. “Five through the arm. Seven through the nose. And one—”

FRZEEESHHHH! came the sounds of an exploding inocudrone. The door slid open revealing a shower of sparks revealing a swarthy looking man.

“Grand!” The brothers said.

Their grandfather stood like some Viking out of time with his white and yellow marbled beard. He wore a green trenchcoat plastered over with dirt. After three great steps, he pulled the brothers into a hug that smelled of sweat and hovertruck. Nick returned the hug. Tim stiffened.

“My boys!” Grand said.

“Wait a second—” Tim raised his hands. “—you never come down here. I thought an ‘evil shadow’ covered the face of Earth or something?”

“Nikolas—” Grand grabbed Nick by the shoulders. “—I finally cracked Ludwig’s puzzle. It was buried in Machu Picchu of all places. The Merrows are under attack. Huron needs you.”

“Huron—How do you know about the voice?” Nick said.

“Wait—What?” said Tim. “Whose Huron? Back on Moon?”

“Well.” Grand’s head tilted. “Yes. It is moonside.”

“Moonside?” Nick said. “Wait. What’s a Merro—?”

“There’s a good deal that I need to explain—” Grand had his hand up. “—But now is not the time. First, I’m to fetch Erik and Sonya. Where are they?”

“Fetch?” Tim said under his breath.

“They’re in there.” Nick pointed to the epidemic ward. “One moment they were talking, and the next, Dad couldn’t breathe and turned all purple-death.”

Grand looked to the door with a sign clearly marked Disease and Poison Ward: No admittance beyond this point without clearance. He tried to pry the doors open. They beeped a warning but wouldn’t budge. Then Nick saw something very odd. Grand’s eyes lost their hue and turned blue while waves of blue misted from his fingertips.

“Grand?” Nick said.

Their grandfather’s hands formed a hollow circle and plunged into the crack of the door. It rolled apart like paper.

“Scuccas? How could it be?” Grand mumbled to himself. He looked down to Nick, then back through the gap. “It is time we be leaving, boys.”

“Um,” Nick said, “why are you all blue and misty?”

“It’s my jynn’us. Now, let’s go!” Iron-like hands seized their shoulders and shifted the boys away. He mumbled something about “my scent” as they marched out of the hospital.

“In the truck. Don’t doddle,” their grandfather commanded.

The hovertruck’s nose was buried in a mulberry bush, clearly ignoring the parking pads. Both boys tumbled into the cab and were met with the smell of pipe smoke and truck sweat. Before they could manage their harnesses, the hovertruck rocketed upward and in complete defiance of all commercial airway regulations. They sped through a pair of holosigns that read, Beauty and the Botox: When nature has been beastly to you, and Mind Transplants: Don’t die, download! Nick glanced quickly at St. Mary’s. He half-expected a fleet of policedrones on their tail, but there were only a couple of mangy dogs tearing across the lawn.

Or were they horses?

“What’s going on?” Tim said, just as they broke through the clouds.

“Waiting . . . no use waiting at the hospital,” said Grand.

“For what?” said Tim.

Grand squeezed the steering wheel. “For your parents.”

Nick looked sideways to his grandfather. His crinkled brow spoke worry, even fear.

Nick really considered that idea.

Grand? Afraid?