So I was cleaning up my computer the other day, and I found this. I had forgotten it, and now I want to start working on this story again, but I'd like some feedback on the writing style and stuff like that, and whether or not you guys enjoy it. If this ends up becoming a thing and I put more of it up, then I'd also like some input on how you think the plot is going.
Just a short summary of background info before I actually post the first chunk of writing:
The story is based somewhere around 2060 or a few years later, focusing on the efforts of two semi-genius level men working on something called the LunaGaia initiative. This is a non-government mission to place a human settlement on the moon to expand the limits of science and the human race. Eventually, as with every story, they will run into resistance from various organizations when they try to push the project through.
Anyways, here's the first chunk of the story. Be gentle, since I wrote this when I was very young and I havn't really edited it since.
Chapter 1
Spoiler
Show
“Have I ever told you how much I hate ties?” Tony asked as he adjusted his in the mirror.
“Only about as many times as you’ve dragged me to get what you call real Chinese food when I order takeout,” replied Mark.
“Alright, just checking. And besides, you know that the stuff I get is so much better.” The tie was embossed with hundreds of pinpricks of light, mimicking the stars in the night sky. It was impressive, and fit the theme of the meeting later that night. “Hey, Mark, what time do we have to be there?”
“Seven.”
“Holy crap!”
“What?” asked Mark, panicking.
“We're going to be on time for something,” exclaimed the astonished Tony.
“Dammit Tony! Don’t scare me like that. You know, I think that they planned it that way after the last time. It’s just about impossible to sleep in till seven at night.”
The blonde friend turned around and grinned. “Hey, don't push it. I finally got an alarm that can wake me up last week.”
“Not to mention the girls wouldn't allow the party to start till you got there,” Mark laughed.
“Oh, come on, don't think I haven’t noticed that you've got your eye on one of those pretty little ladies. What was her name, Summer?” Mark mumbled something that could have been a yes and trudged off towards the living room to grab his coat. Tony laughed and followed him into the room and out the door.
Mark spoke next; “alright, what are we driving?”
“An old junk heap I like to call a 2012 Jaguar. V8 engine and so much horsepower that the cup holder could probably power a smaller car.” Mark slowly turned towards him as his jaw hit the floor.
“Where the hell did you get that?” he asked incredulously as the garage door opened and a black sports car pulled out of the driveway on autopilot.
“My dad doesn't use it anymore. He got himself something nicer,” he said, thinking about the brand-new sports car gleaming in the streets at his parents’ beach house. “Let’s hit the road and see if we can’t pick up some beautiful women and a bottle of wine on the way.” They both chuckled at the old joke as they jumped in the car and pulled the convertible roof down. Tony ripped the car out of the driveway of their home as the garage closed and he slammed the car into first gear.
“Come on, what are you waiting for? Give her some gas!” yelled Mark
“Just remember, you asked for it.” Tony could hear the blood starting to rush through his ears as his heart accelerated with the anticipation for the drive in store for them. The highway was a dream of a night drive. Barely any cars on the road, and even fewer cops to ruin the good time. Mark, in the passenger seat, stood up and enjoyed the breeze, blessing a nearby limo full of young women with a smile and a wink as his tie flew behind his back like a thin flag.
“Hey, Mark, get down from there! You’re gonna hurt yourself.”
“Spoilsport,” he laughed as he sat down. “You just have to ruin all the fun, dontcha?”
“Relax, you’ll have plenty of time to flirt and hang your head out the car like a dog after we get there in one piece. Besides, I don't want to have to find another sidekick.”
“Who are you calling sidekick? You’ve been working for me this entire time, or haven’t I made that clear enough?” His face was all laughter and grins.
“Whatever you say, man. Whatever you say. Put on some tunes, lackey.”
"The usual?”
“The usual.”
A moment later, the sounds of a rock band from the 70s rocked the car, and Tony sang along and tapped out the drum part while Mark shredded the air guitar, their actions much more indicative of twelve-year olds then the mid-twenties that the pair actually were.
“Yo, Mark, cut it out, we’re gonna be there in a minute. Nice and respectable, just for one night.”
“Who, us? That's a load of bull!” He chuckled to himself. “But if you insist. British accent this time?”
“Nah, you know this one is actually important. This could land us a permanent job for the rest of our lives instead of this part-time consulting crap that we’ve been doing in Florida.”
“But I like our job!” sarcasm.
“What’s your favorite part? The not being able to afford good food, or staying in a dusty old one-room apartment? If we get a hold of this, you could afford that holoroom for your games that you always wanted, or hey, a decent apartment to bring your girlfriends back to. You might finally get laid!” he said good-naturedly.
“Ouch, way to rub salt in the wound. And a holoroom would be nice too. I haven’t been in a holoroom since college, I've just been using that TV next to the couch.”
“Yeah, well think about that while we’re at the party, it might encourage you to act normal for once.” Tony paused for a moment as he pulled up to the Galleria of San Francisco. “Seriously though, you and I have been dreaming about an opportunity like this since elementary school when we saw 2001: A Space Odyssey. If we handle this right, everything that we’ve worked for could begin to come together, starting tonight.” They got out of the car, and Tony threw his keys to a nearby valet. “Alright, you ready to crash this party?”
“You mean the one that you were invited to as a candidate to lead the LunaGaia Project, rendering crashing moot?”
“Yeah, that one.”
They walked up to the ornate steel double-doors and threw them open to find themselves ushered towards a table by an immaculately smooth waiter. He extended his hand for their coats and draped them across their respective chairs. Tony motioned towards the crowd in the center of the Galleria and asked Mark, “Shall I be the first of us to ingratiate myself with the brass, or do you want the honors?”
“After you, fearless leader,” Mark bowed. Tony dived into the crowd, followed by his childhood friend, to meet the other candidates for the commanding position in the Project and to familiarize himself with the higher levels of this organization. The first person that the pair talked to was a man in his late twenties, similar to them, although looking like he came straight from the military. He stood ramrod straight, with his arms clasped tightly behind his back, talking crisply and politely to them, looking extremely uncomfortable in his suit and tie, as if he was used to a harsh military uniform more than the smooth cloth of civilian clothes. After a few minutes, it was clear that no one was enjoying the conversation, and both parties moved on. A smiling middle-aged man was next, and being much more friendly than the military spook, he warmly shook both Tony and Marks’ hands and the three of them talked animatedly of the plans of the LunaGaia Organization for several minutes. His name was Ryan Gates, a mid-level executive of recruitment, and he had seen both of their resumes before sending them to the coordinator for this very event to invite them. He went on to tell them that their case had been unique, that although submitting resumes as a team was accepted and even encouraged, they were the only people to do so. Every other candidate had chosen to come as a single person, not as a team.
“It should help you in the running,” the man said, almost confidentially. “The Board of Directors wants a team at the colony that can work together, because of the psychological impacts of spending so much time in an enclosed space. It’s been the plan ever since America was chosen to lead the mission and send the first crew to the Moon. The funniest thing is, its no secret! Its posted in our meeting notes, available to the public at all times.”
“Well, thanks for talking to us, it was a pleasure, but we’ve got to be off. We can’t just talk to one person the entire time, I hope you understand.”
“Ah, yes, of course. Look here, though. Here’s my card. Now that the candidates have been selected, I've been moved to human resources.” He scribbled something on a white business card and handed one each to Tony and Mark. “That’s my personal number. You two are the first candidates that I've met that aren’t complete stiffs, and I like it. Give me a ring and I’ll be glad to help you with anything I can. Don't tell anyone though, I’m supposed to remain official.” He nervously patted his graying hair and turned away, saying, “I’ll talk to the two of you later” and joined a group of beneficiaries a few feet away.
“Well that was an extraordinary stroke of good luck.”
“Yeah, Mark, it is, I hope that he’s right about doing well as a team and everyone else being boring. It’ll make things tons easier on us in the long run.”
The pair were just discussing their next target of interest when the hum of conversation in the room started to die down. At first, neither of them had any idea what was going on, until people started to make their way towards their tables.
“I guess we missed the fancy schmancy CEO clanging his fork and wineglass together,” said Mark.
“Yeah, lets hurry back to the table.”
They made good time crossing the grand hall and seating themselves, not nearly being the last ones standing. As the remainder of the gathering seated themselves at their respective tables, two beautiful young women walked up to the table and sat down, occupying spaces previously held by their shawls, which neither of the men had seen. The younger one looked at Mark and asked in a sweet voice, “Mind if we share the table, handsome?”
He responded with a wide gesture of acceptance, “of course. One as beautiful as yourself need not even ask.” Always the lady-killer.
While his friend was busy flirting with the younger woman, Tony had eyes only for the older one. Like an apparition of a dream, Jeane had somehow shown up in his life yet again. She was dressed in a resplendent dark blue dress with silver streaks emerging from random points and flowing outwards in an alluring pattern accenting her form and beauty. The minimal makeup that she wore only added to the effect, creating a perfect mix of light and dark across her fair skin. He could stare for hours at her like this in a complete stupor. She laughed, and the music floated across Tonys’ ears, one of the most harmonious things he had ever heard…the laugh faded and she looked at him expectantly, and he realized that she must have said something.
“I’m sorry, can you say that again? I think I managed to miss it,” he managed to stutter.
“I asked if you were going to stop gaping at me like a fish out of water long enough to introduce my sister and I to your friend here.” She was all smiles and laughter, clearly enjoying herself.
“Ummm, yeah, sure. Jeane, this is my best friend, Mark. Mark, this is Jeane, and this young woman is Jeanes’ sister…”
“Leanna, but most people call me Lee for short.” She smiled prettily and seemed give a small curtsy in her chair, if that was even possible. “Both of you look sharp today. I think that men look amazing in suits, don't you, Jeane?”
“Yes, it makes men so much more attractive. I like the tie, by the way.” Jeane was looking at his starry night design.
“Thanks.” Tony was blushing this time. Why does this have to happen every time? It’s just a simple compliment, why cant I just react the same way that everyone else does? “So what brings you here with your sister?”
“Our father is on the Board of Directors for the LunaGaia Organization. We’re here as guests, although whoever is picked will have me as their Chief Medical Officer. My sister, sadly, doesn't seem to be interested in a position on the Moon, so her presence here is purely for fun.”
This is too good to be true! If I can pull off getting the Commander position on this Project, I can have as many chances with Jeane as I need! I can’t let myself get nervous, though. Keep it cool, Tony. Rock steady, just like the club meeting way back at San Diego.
“So now I have to ask, what are the two of you doing here?”
“We’ve been jointly nominated for the position of Commander when the project goes online.”
“Wouldn’t that be a bit cumbersome though? To have…” she was cut off by the lights softly dimming and a man walking on to the brightly lit stage to a round of applause. Tony turned around, glad to have an excuse to collect his runaway thoughts and emotions.
The man spoke through some hidden amplification device, probably a standard amplifier.
“Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Recruitment Night.” This was met with more applause. “Most of you probably know, but I am Marcus Galt, President and CEO of LunaGaia. The point of this gathering is to have our candidates show themselves to us, give a small speech, and meet their peers while our hardworking staff begins to evaluate them.”
“For those of you who are looking forward to a chance to lead the human race into the next era of expansion, this is your chance to show yourselves off to us. Tell us why we want you. Why are you better than everyone else?” The speaker took a short pause to glance at his watch. “Our first candidate should be ready in a few seconds, so the staff should be making their final preparations.” Marcus Galt walked off the stage, and was quickly replaced by the military man that Tony and Mark had talked to earlier.
He started the speech without a grabbing introduction or momentum of any kind, citing military academy experiences and multiple training courses in spaceflight and technology with NASA and several private agencies. The mans' voice was a robotic monotone, with no inflection or excitement to hold attention. When he finished, a few people politely clapped before stopping abruptly in the realization that no one had joined them.
The vast majority of the speeches were more of the same. Soldiers, businessmen, former astronauts, and even a politician pitched their experiences to the uninterested crowd. Every hour or so, a young, unofficial candidate would start to raise interest with a mildly interesting speech that forced the evaluators to think about them in a serious manner. Tony was nearly asleep when he felt a tap on his shoulder. A man stood behind him and beckoned. Tony got Marks’ attention and they followed the man into a small room near the stage.
“You are the next candidate party to present yourselves.” His tone was official, with a no-nonsense manner accompanying it. They both nodded.
“Ready?” Mark asked.
“Nope, but this is about as ready as I’ll ever be anyways.”
Minutes passed, and they had started to wonder if they had been forgotten amongst the dozens of potentials when the door opened on well oiled hinges and the man waved for them. They followed him down a short corridor and he soundlessly stood by the door to the stage. The two friends went through and were nearly blinded by the spotlights that shone down on them from a platform several stories about the ground floor. Tony forged ahead, approaching a thin, metallic strip embedded on the stage floor. This is what they must be using as a mic. Darn, I was looking forward to using that earbud, too. Mark was right behind him. Alright, just stay cool. Blow them completely out of the water with your words and make them wish they could be as confident as you.
Tony forced himself to relax and wear a confident smile over his features as he walked on stage. The audience seemed to sense the change in mood and several stirred from near-unconsciousness. Tony began by describing the inception of his dream of a human habitat on the moon, waxing eloquent on the beauty of the fantasy that he wanted to share with the world.
...And I thought to myself ‘this thing, this lunar outpost, is just about the most amazing thing I've ever imagined.’ At the end of the week, I switch majors to a double major in material engineering and architecture. I wanted to build this, I really did. A few years later, I've earned a Ph.D. and a few Masters degrees to back it up and I’m out of school with Mark here, looking for a job. We come here to LunaGaia looking for one, and find it, and for the past year and a half, we have designed systems and technologies for this very project. We have a first class education from the University of California in San Diego in half a dozen fields that are perfect for this position. We have the most experience out of all the potential leaders here in the Project and in designing a lunar colony. And while my friend here may not have the complete obsession that I do with the project, it is still the pinnacle of all his work and aspirations, as I’m sure he’ll tell you when he gets up here. We work as a team. We always have, through high school and college and in the corporate world. What one of us doesn't know, the other does. We have worked together for more than a decade to prepare for this, we have the will and perseverance to push through anything that might happen and to send humankind into the next Golden Age of expansion and beyond.” He paused for effect, but instead received a thunderous wave of applause and cheering. Turning away from the amplification strip, he asked Mark, “was it really that good?”
Mark looked back at him and said, “My friend, you really have no idea what a confident speaker you can be when you want to. You've got them eating out of the palm of your hand, especially considering the previous speakers had them nearly asleep.” He glanced at the judges board, who displayed a mixture of approval and expectation. “Better let me start talking so they don't start thinking that I'm just along for the ride.” He stepped forward slightly and held his hands up for silence, which was almost immediately and respectfully given.
“Well I’m not sure how I’m supposed to match up to that, but here goes. He’s right; everything he said is absolutely true. I should know, he must have tried to get me to drool over that dream of his hundreds of times since high school. Don't get me wrong, he’s my best friend, and I want to get onboard the LunaGaia Project almost as much as he does, but I don't eat, sleep, and breathe it like him.”
“Like he said, I'm Mark Angelo. Mr. Hoenheim and I act as a team. I’ll start out saying that I'm the mechanic. Both of us can strip down a car and put it back together better than it was, and that goes for just about anything made of parts, but he likes to focus on big picture stuff. He’s a natural leader, and he makes things come together perfectly, almost like clockwork when he works with people. He makes a plan, and organizes everything, and we build it together. However, getting into more advanced machinery, I'm the go-to guy. I have a doctoral background in physical chemistry and degrees in material and mechanical engineering. I specialize in the type of equipment that would be found in the base structures; fuel cells, mining equipment, and photovoltaic technology. Say that the catalyst for the oxygen recycling machine leaks. I can distill some chemicals from common greenhouse fertilizer and scrounge some silicon crystals from a solar panel. Problem solved. Improvisation is a skill that is rarely found anymore, with overregulation and procedures explaining everything, but no one can prepare for everything, they have to have the knowledge to create an imaginative solution to every problem. The two of us can work together to make sure that problems in any scenario can be solved quickly and permanently, and to keep all systems operational simultaneously.” Mark caught his breath
“I’ll say again, we are a team. We’ve known each other for more than a decade, and each of us can almost exactly predict what the other will do in any situation. You evaluators are looking for a cohesive group to send up there to start the colonization. Right here, right now, you can look at the first two members, the leaders that will make that dream come true.”
Tony and Mark bowed and left the stage amid the clapping of hundreds of impressed staff and candidates. They walked down the series of corridors, exchanging high fives and a fist bump along the way back to their table. Almost too late, Tony realized that Leanna and Jeane were probably still at the table and steeled himself mentally to talk to her. The two men approached the table, and indeed, the women were still sitting there, politely watching the next speaker, who appeared to be a retired Air Force pilot with a crew cut of brown hair just visible underneath his military cap.
“I didn't think it was possible, but you managed to wake everyone up and get them to applaud you in the same speech, congratulations,” Leanna smiled.
Mark grinned and replied, “All in a days work for us.” They sat down and quiet conversation resumed.
Jeane was the first to talk to Tony. “I had no idea that you were such a good public speaker, where did you learn that from?”
“I don't know. I guess I've got a way with words.”
“Tony, that's not just a way with words. Considering that you were trying to sell yourself to these people, that was one of the better speeches I’ve heard in my lifetime. You could start up a school for the children of world leaders. And I’m only being mildly sarcastic.” She seemed impressed.
“Perhaps, but that's not nearly so interesting as this whole business.” Tonys’ eyes seemed to shine as he started to talk about the potential of the moon colony endeavor. “We have the chance to be at the forefront of everything science has to offer to us. Biology, chemistry, fusion technology, lasers, radiology, physics, medicine; it doesn't matter what field. Every scientist has something on the moon that they want, every lab in every college on earth wants to be able to conduct experiments with the materials and gravity of the moon. To be the one leading all that…would be amazing. All that innovation and discovery in one place as humanity expands its horizons past our cradle of life. Every time I think about it, I feel like I'm having my cake and eating it too. This is something I've dreamed of almost my whole life, I've never desired anything as much as to lead the LunaGaia Project.”
By this time, the entire table had started to listen to his whispered monologue. Mark faked clapping his hands together in applause. “Bravo, good sir, bravo. I say, lets have ourselves an encore.” His fake British accent was almost exactly right, as always.
“That was quite the speech, Mr. Hoenheim. It almost excited me. And I am a very difficult woman to excite,” Lee said flirtatiously.
Mark immediately grinned mischeviously. “Is that a challenge?”
“You’ll have to excuse my sister,” Jeane said as she directed a glare at her. “She has picked up somewhat of a free spirit as part of her life in New York, although I'm forced to agree with her. Having subject matter that isn’t about you makes your speech so much more refined and eloquent. I would be extremely interested to see you try to inspire some new recruits to the project if you should be named commander.”
“Thanks, and I’ll be sure to give a rousing monologue at liftoff,” Tony replied.
At this moment, Mark cut them short. “Hey you two, looks like speeches are over. Better start paying attention now.” They all turned to look at the stage and, sure enough, Mr. Galt was standing there, about to launch into the closing statement.
“That’s all for the speeches everybody. If you will all remain seated for a moment while our staff retires…” the row of men and women in the front stood up and walked out of the room on cue. “…you are all free to partake in the wonderful meal that has been laid out for you.” For a moment, everyone wondered what the executive was talking about. Suddenly, a section of the floor directly in front of the stage lowered, taking the desks with it. Another platform rose to replace it, carrying a huge table with steaming dishes from all parts of the globe and a team of the same white-gloved waiters that had seated everyone. Each waiter whisked himself off to a table and bowed, providing each guest reverently with a menu, after which he poured water into delicate glasses. The menus were a relatively new technology; flexible touch screens. The first list to light up was the wine menu, and as each diner chose an item from the menu, the waiter for that table received an alert on a small screen sown into the wrist of his coat. The army of white-gloved figures again began to filter out to serve the drinks, each carefully balancing a tray of beautifully crafted wineglasses. They functioned almost like a robotic army, each flitting about with perfect precision between comrades and tables. Polite conversation had started once again, and the entire building hummed with hundreds of voices.
After perhaps a quarter of an hour had passed, and Tony was finally beginning to feel more at ease with Jeane. He helped himself to a mouthful liquid courage, and was currently waiting on a refill and his meal, a bowl of thin rice noodles with beef and onions. The conversation had been going well, and they were discussing their careers after college.
“So you already work for this organization? Doing, what did you say it was? Designs?” she asked.
“Yep, Mark and I do some concept design work. You remember the old Kennedy Space Center that LunaGaia took over a few years ago? Well we’ve got a cubicle all to ourselves in there. The boys here in SF send us specifications and requirements: maximum space, maximum energy usage, and a few dozen other things. Sometimes we even get a failed design or two in our little care package, and we work our magic for them. Launch systems, shuttles, rovers, energy plants, fuel cells, underground nuclear reactors, and mining equipment. Everything you could possibly want to scratch a living off moon dust, we’ve designed at least four or five versions. Mark does the calculations and technical work, and I make sure that everything can fit together in one cohesive unit, whether it be by itself or to fit in with a colony design that they give us. Over the past year or two, we’ve probably filled a couple of computers with renderings and blueprints, along with notes on needed improvements and changes. Most of them end up being ridiculously expensive, but that's something that we’ll get to work on if we get selected.”
“Really? That's fascinating. You know, I almost went into designing things myself. I was a getting myself into a few architecture classes in college before deciding to stick with medicine. I'm still a little bit obsessed with architecture though. Every time I see a new building, I want to see the plans and calculations for it.”
“I thought I remembered you being on that other team in college. You remember? The LunaGaia Club? You were in charge of architecture for that group. As I recall, you almost pushed your group to the top. Your designs were pretty good, if a little bit too extravagant for their purpose.”
“What do you mean extravagant? I only designed what was needed for the base. I calculated the weight and it was just as light as all the other designs.” She retorted indignantly.
“You’re absolutely right, Jeane. But I think that building glass structures is more suitable to an Earth environment than to an irradiated desert like the moon. Glass isn’t the most durable material or the easiest one to transport, especially by rocket. Once there is a mine on the moon and a mineral processor, glass would probably be easier to make than metal, but the design was for moving everything from Earth. Just being realistic here, sorry.” An apologetic smile crossed his face. “Didn't Professor Elric tell you all of this when your group didn't win the contest? From what I understand, he should have sent everyone messages about their groups’ designs with critique and possible improvements. I know he did for my group, and we ended up taking first place.”
“Now that you mention it, there was the one message that I never got around to opening. I was feeling a bit headstrong then, and I didn't want to get any criticism, constructive or not. After that I guess I just forgot about it and it just sat there ever since.”
The waiter brought over a tray loaded high with food and set each item in front of the person who ordered it in a gentle, almost delicate manner, careful not to spill a single drop of soup or sauce. Just as he finished serving, the lights started to dim yet again as Tony told Jeane “check the message, I'm sure it’ll be some variation of what we talked about and not anything rude or mean.” A projector screen lowered from the ceiling, and a light snapped on near the back of the building, showing an old fashioned radar countdown in deep black for the background and cool blue for the numbers. All conversation was quickly hushed as the countdown neared zero and the screen faded to an even deeper hue of black.
An old rocket showed onscreen, a model that looked to be over a hundred years old. A voice narrated the countdown.
“3…2…1…blastoff.”
The engines blasted to life, created a thick screen of dust and smoke around the base of the spacecraft as it lifted itself off the earth and into the sky. Ever so slowly, it gained momentum until eventually it became a fiery arrow streaking across the sky. Short clips of the rocket floating in space and astronauts going about their work played. The final stage released, and the astronauts plummeted back to earth, landing somewhere in the ocean. Another spacecraft now appeared, ready to launch. This time it was a space shuttle, complete with heat shielding on the underside and the titanic dorsal fuel tank. It lifted off cleanly, almost incomparably faster than the first ship, and shot into space. Dozens of additional clips showed satellites being prepared, men going on breathtaking spacewalks, and the now-decommissioned International Space Station Mk. 1 under construction. A cross cut view of the space station revealed more than a dozen astronauts moving around like bees in a hive, conducting experiments, exercising, and maintaining their home. A computerized female voice started to speak as the screen flashed to a new rocket, sleek and modern in every possible way. It stood at the same dock as the other ships had, covered in spotlight beams to keep away the darkness of night. Its outside was a smooth white metal. Tony had to check again to make sure he wasn't seeing things. It seemed like the metal itself was white instead of painted on. But that couldn't be possible, unless…
“Ouranos Spacecraft Mark 3 prepped and ready for liftoff. Reactor engaged. Ignition in 5…4…3…2…1…Ion-.” Whatever the computerized voice was about to say was drowned out in a searing white noise that came from the rocket. No smoke came from the launch pad, only the sound of whatever powered that ship. Like a greyhound from its cage, the Ouranos craft bounded upwards into the air, and after a few seconds was only a speck in the sky. In its wake was a perfect circle of glass, completely melted by the heat of the engine, reflecting the enormous power that the ship held. The camera switched to a view inside of the spacecraft. Showing a small bank of computer screens and a small crew inside what must be the bridge. Again, Marcus Galt stepped onto the stage to speak. With the video playing in the background he began.
“What you are seeing now is streaming live to you from outer space, where our newest innovation, the Ouranos Ion-Propelled Spacecraft is being tested. A little less than a minute ago, that same craft lifted off the ground at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.” The crowd oohed and ahhed. “And we are being transmitted back to them!” he exclaimed. The executive turned around and waved at the screen. “Good job boys. You know the drill. Fly her around for a couple orbits and see how much maneuverability she’s got, then bring her back down.”
The astronauts responded with a mixture of salutes and thumbs up, reflecting their mixed histories in the military, various space programs, or civilian companies. Before they could sign off and get to work, the Galleria exploded into cheers and applause, and the crew aboard the spacecraft was left speechless from the enormity of the situation. Eventually a few of them regained their sense of self-awareness and waved back, which pushed the crowd to even greater heights of celebration. A minute or two later, Marcus was forced to gesture at the pilots to shut off their camera, and the crowd rapidly quieted.
“Ladies and gentlemen, if you will allow me, I would like to outline the plans for the remainder of the night.” Silence asserted itself within a few seconds. “Those of you who are not candidates here tonight, you may leave as soon as you want to. For those you of you who have submitted their candidacy for the chance to lead the next chapter in human expansion, you must stay. As you finish your meals, you will be lead one at a time into a room where you will find out if you are good enough, or if someone has bested you. Good night and good luck to you all.” He walked off the stage to rejoin the rest of the executives at their table.
Tony and Mark turned back towards the female occupants of their own table only to find them starting to stand up and gather their belongings. Mark opened his mouth to speak, but his friend beat him to it. “Where are you guys heading off to? You haven’t even finished your…” He looked at their plates only to find them both completely finished, down to the last crumb. “… dinner. Well that was fast.”
Jeane replied, “You’ll find that my sister and I are different from many other women.”
“You sure are,” replied Mark
Jeane gave him a thin smile. “Perhaps we’ll see each other soon. It is a small world, after all.” She seemed to direct this towards Tony.
They walked off, with the men still gazing after them. “I am SO glad that you’ve had that crush on Jeane for forever and a day.”
“And why is that?”
“Coz I just scored Lee’s dij code.” Mark seemed extremely pleased with himself. “Dude, we really need to get you to a bar, and soon. You always got plenty of women, but you never could flirt. I saw you mumbling over there. That was almost as bad as my first attempt back at middle school. You remember? She ended up asking me out.”
“Yeah I remember. That was about the funniest thing that happened that year. How many dates did you go on, two?”
“Two and a half,” Mark said defensively.
“Ah, yes, the infamous half-date. The one where you had a fight and broke up halfway through the movie?”
Mark nodded. “At least I ended up pretty good at picking up women.”
Tony laughed heartily. “But can you get them to stay with you for any length of time? Don't worry buddy, there is always time to learn from Hoenheim-Sensei.”
They continued their discussion of dating styles for almost an hour, until everyone else had gone from the room.
“ECHO!” yelled Mark.
Tony swatted him on the back of the head and grinned. “Comon, we don't want to get yelled at for interrupting a meeting. Besides,” he gave a small laugh, “I'm so nervous, I might smack you again.”
“Oh, I'm scared.” Tony took a swipe at him, but missed when Mark ducked. A few seconds later, a man came into the room and announced their names.
“Mr. Hoenheim and Mr. Angelo?” He looked around the room and saw that there was no one there but the two of them. “If you two will just go down the hall and follow the arrows, the directors would like to speak to you.”
They got up and went towards the door that the man indicated. When they opened it, sure enough, there were arrows taped to the walls to show them where to go. They walked down the corridor and took turns according to the arrows. Left. Left. Right. Eventually they came to a door marked ‘Candidates Enter.’ Tony went first. The moment he opened the door, someone hit the wall next to him. Some backwards instinct of curiosity made him open the door to find a huge man facing him with a gun pointed at his heart. Without thinking, he dived and rolled between the mans’ legs, coming up behind him. Tony punched the mans’ shoulder and pulled the rest of his arm back, grabbing the gun as he kicked the man in the back to send him sprawling. The gun emptied into the wall and Tony was thinking what the hell is this?! He started towards the gunman to knock him out for good, but Mark was already sitting on the mans’ back, keeping him pinned down. He walked over to the wall where he had emptied the gun and found nothing, not even dents in the wall. He had definitely heard a silenced gunshot, so something must have fired. Upon further inspection of the area, Tony found tiny foam balls littering the floor around the room. He went back to the prisoner, who wasn't even struggling, and was stunned to see the face of Marcus Galt.
“Alright, Mr. Galt, what’s your game?”
A not-unpleasant smile crossed his face. “This was a test of your reaction time.” In a slightly louder voice, “Alright boys, you can come out now.” A door in the back of the room that neither of the friends had noticed opened and a small group of LunaGaia staff entered the room. “You can let me up.” Mark stood and helped the executive to do the same.
“That was the one thing that we actually needed you in person for. The rest we could have done with just your resume, although I have to admit, you had the best speech of the night.” They shook each others hands. “It’s nice to finally meet the two of you in person. Please, sit down.”
Chairs were brought into the room so that everyone could be seated comfortably. “First of all, I would like to congratulate you on two things. The first is your quick reflexes. By far the best of all the civilian candidates. We gave each type of candidate a different challenge. Military personnel were treated to a disaster zone outside and were graded based on how many holographic people were saved. Civilians were given your scenario, a gunman, and were graded on reaction times.” Mr. Galt paused for a quick drink from a bottle of water. “Now the second thing that I want to congratulate you on: You have been named Joint Commanders of the LunaGaia Project.”
Tony could not believe his ears. “Excuse me, sir, but can you say that again?”
“Sure. You have been named Joint Commanders of the LunaGaia Project.”
“Hey Mark. I'm dreaming. Punch me.” Mark socked him hard in the shoulder, but he barely noticed.
“I'm sorry, can you say that one more time?”
Mr. Galt laughed and repeated himself a second time and Tony started to grin from ear to ear.
“Mark! Buddy! We did it! We did it! WOOHOO!!!” They high fived, clasped each others hand, and pulled into a tight hug, slapping each other on the back.
The middle aged man in front of them smiled at the pairs’ celebrations. “OK, when you two are done roughhousing, you can follow me. We’ve got work to do.”
“Only about as many times as you’ve dragged me to get what you call real Chinese food when I order takeout,” replied Mark.
“Alright, just checking. And besides, you know that the stuff I get is so much better.” The tie was embossed with hundreds of pinpricks of light, mimicking the stars in the night sky. It was impressive, and fit the theme of the meeting later that night. “Hey, Mark, what time do we have to be there?”
“Seven.”
“Holy crap!”
“What?” asked Mark, panicking.
“We're going to be on time for something,” exclaimed the astonished Tony.
“Dammit Tony! Don’t scare me like that. You know, I think that they planned it that way after the last time. It’s just about impossible to sleep in till seven at night.”
The blonde friend turned around and grinned. “Hey, don't push it. I finally got an alarm that can wake me up last week.”
“Not to mention the girls wouldn't allow the party to start till you got there,” Mark laughed.
“Oh, come on, don't think I haven’t noticed that you've got your eye on one of those pretty little ladies. What was her name, Summer?” Mark mumbled something that could have been a yes and trudged off towards the living room to grab his coat. Tony laughed and followed him into the room and out the door.
Mark spoke next; “alright, what are we driving?”
“An old junk heap I like to call a 2012 Jaguar. V8 engine and so much horsepower that the cup holder could probably power a smaller car.” Mark slowly turned towards him as his jaw hit the floor.
“Where the hell did you get that?” he asked incredulously as the garage door opened and a black sports car pulled out of the driveway on autopilot.
“My dad doesn't use it anymore. He got himself something nicer,” he said, thinking about the brand-new sports car gleaming in the streets at his parents’ beach house. “Let’s hit the road and see if we can’t pick up some beautiful women and a bottle of wine on the way.” They both chuckled at the old joke as they jumped in the car and pulled the convertible roof down. Tony ripped the car out of the driveway of their home as the garage closed and he slammed the car into first gear.
“Come on, what are you waiting for? Give her some gas!” yelled Mark
“Just remember, you asked for it.” Tony could hear the blood starting to rush through his ears as his heart accelerated with the anticipation for the drive in store for them. The highway was a dream of a night drive. Barely any cars on the road, and even fewer cops to ruin the good time. Mark, in the passenger seat, stood up and enjoyed the breeze, blessing a nearby limo full of young women with a smile and a wink as his tie flew behind his back like a thin flag.
“Hey, Mark, get down from there! You’re gonna hurt yourself.”
“Spoilsport,” he laughed as he sat down. “You just have to ruin all the fun, dontcha?”
“Relax, you’ll have plenty of time to flirt and hang your head out the car like a dog after we get there in one piece. Besides, I don't want to have to find another sidekick.”
“Who are you calling sidekick? You’ve been working for me this entire time, or haven’t I made that clear enough?” His face was all laughter and grins.
“Whatever you say, man. Whatever you say. Put on some tunes, lackey.”
"The usual?”
“The usual.”
A moment later, the sounds of a rock band from the 70s rocked the car, and Tony sang along and tapped out the drum part while Mark shredded the air guitar, their actions much more indicative of twelve-year olds then the mid-twenties that the pair actually were.
“Yo, Mark, cut it out, we’re gonna be there in a minute. Nice and respectable, just for one night.”
“Who, us? That's a load of bull!” He chuckled to himself. “But if you insist. British accent this time?”
“Nah, you know this one is actually important. This could land us a permanent job for the rest of our lives instead of this part-time consulting crap that we’ve been doing in Florida.”
“But I like our job!” sarcasm.
“What’s your favorite part? The not being able to afford good food, or staying in a dusty old one-room apartment? If we get a hold of this, you could afford that holoroom for your games that you always wanted, or hey, a decent apartment to bring your girlfriends back to. You might finally get laid!” he said good-naturedly.
“Ouch, way to rub salt in the wound. And a holoroom would be nice too. I haven’t been in a holoroom since college, I've just been using that TV next to the couch.”
“Yeah, well think about that while we’re at the party, it might encourage you to act normal for once.” Tony paused for a moment as he pulled up to the Galleria of San Francisco. “Seriously though, you and I have been dreaming about an opportunity like this since elementary school when we saw 2001: A Space Odyssey. If we handle this right, everything that we’ve worked for could begin to come together, starting tonight.” They got out of the car, and Tony threw his keys to a nearby valet. “Alright, you ready to crash this party?”
“You mean the one that you were invited to as a candidate to lead the LunaGaia Project, rendering crashing moot?”
“Yeah, that one.”
They walked up to the ornate steel double-doors and threw them open to find themselves ushered towards a table by an immaculately smooth waiter. He extended his hand for their coats and draped them across their respective chairs. Tony motioned towards the crowd in the center of the Galleria and asked Mark, “Shall I be the first of us to ingratiate myself with the brass, or do you want the honors?”
“After you, fearless leader,” Mark bowed. Tony dived into the crowd, followed by his childhood friend, to meet the other candidates for the commanding position in the Project and to familiarize himself with the higher levels of this organization. The first person that the pair talked to was a man in his late twenties, similar to them, although looking like he came straight from the military. He stood ramrod straight, with his arms clasped tightly behind his back, talking crisply and politely to them, looking extremely uncomfortable in his suit and tie, as if he was used to a harsh military uniform more than the smooth cloth of civilian clothes. After a few minutes, it was clear that no one was enjoying the conversation, and both parties moved on. A smiling middle-aged man was next, and being much more friendly than the military spook, he warmly shook both Tony and Marks’ hands and the three of them talked animatedly of the plans of the LunaGaia Organization for several minutes. His name was Ryan Gates, a mid-level executive of recruitment, and he had seen both of their resumes before sending them to the coordinator for this very event to invite them. He went on to tell them that their case had been unique, that although submitting resumes as a team was accepted and even encouraged, they were the only people to do so. Every other candidate had chosen to come as a single person, not as a team.
“It should help you in the running,” the man said, almost confidentially. “The Board of Directors wants a team at the colony that can work together, because of the psychological impacts of spending so much time in an enclosed space. It’s been the plan ever since America was chosen to lead the mission and send the first crew to the Moon. The funniest thing is, its no secret! Its posted in our meeting notes, available to the public at all times.”
“Well, thanks for talking to us, it was a pleasure, but we’ve got to be off. We can’t just talk to one person the entire time, I hope you understand.”
“Ah, yes, of course. Look here, though. Here’s my card. Now that the candidates have been selected, I've been moved to human resources.” He scribbled something on a white business card and handed one each to Tony and Mark. “That’s my personal number. You two are the first candidates that I've met that aren’t complete stiffs, and I like it. Give me a ring and I’ll be glad to help you with anything I can. Don't tell anyone though, I’m supposed to remain official.” He nervously patted his graying hair and turned away, saying, “I’ll talk to the two of you later” and joined a group of beneficiaries a few feet away.
“Well that was an extraordinary stroke of good luck.”
“Yeah, Mark, it is, I hope that he’s right about doing well as a team and everyone else being boring. It’ll make things tons easier on us in the long run.”
The pair were just discussing their next target of interest when the hum of conversation in the room started to die down. At first, neither of them had any idea what was going on, until people started to make their way towards their tables.
“I guess we missed the fancy schmancy CEO clanging his fork and wineglass together,” said Mark.
“Yeah, lets hurry back to the table.”
They made good time crossing the grand hall and seating themselves, not nearly being the last ones standing. As the remainder of the gathering seated themselves at their respective tables, two beautiful young women walked up to the table and sat down, occupying spaces previously held by their shawls, which neither of the men had seen. The younger one looked at Mark and asked in a sweet voice, “Mind if we share the table, handsome?”
He responded with a wide gesture of acceptance, “of course. One as beautiful as yourself need not even ask.” Always the lady-killer.
While his friend was busy flirting with the younger woman, Tony had eyes only for the older one. Like an apparition of a dream, Jeane had somehow shown up in his life yet again. She was dressed in a resplendent dark blue dress with silver streaks emerging from random points and flowing outwards in an alluring pattern accenting her form and beauty. The minimal makeup that she wore only added to the effect, creating a perfect mix of light and dark across her fair skin. He could stare for hours at her like this in a complete stupor. She laughed, and the music floated across Tonys’ ears, one of the most harmonious things he had ever heard…the laugh faded and she looked at him expectantly, and he realized that she must have said something.
“I’m sorry, can you say that again? I think I managed to miss it,” he managed to stutter.
“I asked if you were going to stop gaping at me like a fish out of water long enough to introduce my sister and I to your friend here.” She was all smiles and laughter, clearly enjoying herself.
“Ummm, yeah, sure. Jeane, this is my best friend, Mark. Mark, this is Jeane, and this young woman is Jeanes’ sister…”
“Leanna, but most people call me Lee for short.” She smiled prettily and seemed give a small curtsy in her chair, if that was even possible. “Both of you look sharp today. I think that men look amazing in suits, don't you, Jeane?”
“Yes, it makes men so much more attractive. I like the tie, by the way.” Jeane was looking at his starry night design.
“Thanks.” Tony was blushing this time. Why does this have to happen every time? It’s just a simple compliment, why cant I just react the same way that everyone else does? “So what brings you here with your sister?”
“Our father is on the Board of Directors for the LunaGaia Organization. We’re here as guests, although whoever is picked will have me as their Chief Medical Officer. My sister, sadly, doesn't seem to be interested in a position on the Moon, so her presence here is purely for fun.”
This is too good to be true! If I can pull off getting the Commander position on this Project, I can have as many chances with Jeane as I need! I can’t let myself get nervous, though. Keep it cool, Tony. Rock steady, just like the club meeting way back at San Diego.
“So now I have to ask, what are the two of you doing here?”
“We’ve been jointly nominated for the position of Commander when the project goes online.”
“Wouldn’t that be a bit cumbersome though? To have…” she was cut off by the lights softly dimming and a man walking on to the brightly lit stage to a round of applause. Tony turned around, glad to have an excuse to collect his runaway thoughts and emotions.
The man spoke through some hidden amplification device, probably a standard amplifier.
“Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Recruitment Night.” This was met with more applause. “Most of you probably know, but I am Marcus Galt, President and CEO of LunaGaia. The point of this gathering is to have our candidates show themselves to us, give a small speech, and meet their peers while our hardworking staff begins to evaluate them.”
“For those of you who are looking forward to a chance to lead the human race into the next era of expansion, this is your chance to show yourselves off to us. Tell us why we want you. Why are you better than everyone else?” The speaker took a short pause to glance at his watch. “Our first candidate should be ready in a few seconds, so the staff should be making their final preparations.” Marcus Galt walked off the stage, and was quickly replaced by the military man that Tony and Mark had talked to earlier.
He started the speech without a grabbing introduction or momentum of any kind, citing military academy experiences and multiple training courses in spaceflight and technology with NASA and several private agencies. The mans' voice was a robotic monotone, with no inflection or excitement to hold attention. When he finished, a few people politely clapped before stopping abruptly in the realization that no one had joined them.
The vast majority of the speeches were more of the same. Soldiers, businessmen, former astronauts, and even a politician pitched their experiences to the uninterested crowd. Every hour or so, a young, unofficial candidate would start to raise interest with a mildly interesting speech that forced the evaluators to think about them in a serious manner. Tony was nearly asleep when he felt a tap on his shoulder. A man stood behind him and beckoned. Tony got Marks’ attention and they followed the man into a small room near the stage.
“You are the next candidate party to present yourselves.” His tone was official, with a no-nonsense manner accompanying it. They both nodded.
“Ready?” Mark asked.
“Nope, but this is about as ready as I’ll ever be anyways.”
Minutes passed, and they had started to wonder if they had been forgotten amongst the dozens of potentials when the door opened on well oiled hinges and the man waved for them. They followed him down a short corridor and he soundlessly stood by the door to the stage. The two friends went through and were nearly blinded by the spotlights that shone down on them from a platform several stories about the ground floor. Tony forged ahead, approaching a thin, metallic strip embedded on the stage floor. This is what they must be using as a mic. Darn, I was looking forward to using that earbud, too. Mark was right behind him. Alright, just stay cool. Blow them completely out of the water with your words and make them wish they could be as confident as you.
Tony forced himself to relax and wear a confident smile over his features as he walked on stage. The audience seemed to sense the change in mood and several stirred from near-unconsciousness. Tony began by describing the inception of his dream of a human habitat on the moon, waxing eloquent on the beauty of the fantasy that he wanted to share with the world.
...And I thought to myself ‘this thing, this lunar outpost, is just about the most amazing thing I've ever imagined.’ At the end of the week, I switch majors to a double major in material engineering and architecture. I wanted to build this, I really did. A few years later, I've earned a Ph.D. and a few Masters degrees to back it up and I’m out of school with Mark here, looking for a job. We come here to LunaGaia looking for one, and find it, and for the past year and a half, we have designed systems and technologies for this very project. We have a first class education from the University of California in San Diego in half a dozen fields that are perfect for this position. We have the most experience out of all the potential leaders here in the Project and in designing a lunar colony. And while my friend here may not have the complete obsession that I do with the project, it is still the pinnacle of all his work and aspirations, as I’m sure he’ll tell you when he gets up here. We work as a team. We always have, through high school and college and in the corporate world. What one of us doesn't know, the other does. We have worked together for more than a decade to prepare for this, we have the will and perseverance to push through anything that might happen and to send humankind into the next Golden Age of expansion and beyond.” He paused for effect, but instead received a thunderous wave of applause and cheering. Turning away from the amplification strip, he asked Mark, “was it really that good?”
Mark looked back at him and said, “My friend, you really have no idea what a confident speaker you can be when you want to. You've got them eating out of the palm of your hand, especially considering the previous speakers had them nearly asleep.” He glanced at the judges board, who displayed a mixture of approval and expectation. “Better let me start talking so they don't start thinking that I'm just along for the ride.” He stepped forward slightly and held his hands up for silence, which was almost immediately and respectfully given.
“Well I’m not sure how I’m supposed to match up to that, but here goes. He’s right; everything he said is absolutely true. I should know, he must have tried to get me to drool over that dream of his hundreds of times since high school. Don't get me wrong, he’s my best friend, and I want to get onboard the LunaGaia Project almost as much as he does, but I don't eat, sleep, and breathe it like him.”
“Like he said, I'm Mark Angelo. Mr. Hoenheim and I act as a team. I’ll start out saying that I'm the mechanic. Both of us can strip down a car and put it back together better than it was, and that goes for just about anything made of parts, but he likes to focus on big picture stuff. He’s a natural leader, and he makes things come together perfectly, almost like clockwork when he works with people. He makes a plan, and organizes everything, and we build it together. However, getting into more advanced machinery, I'm the go-to guy. I have a doctoral background in physical chemistry and degrees in material and mechanical engineering. I specialize in the type of equipment that would be found in the base structures; fuel cells, mining equipment, and photovoltaic technology. Say that the catalyst for the oxygen recycling machine leaks. I can distill some chemicals from common greenhouse fertilizer and scrounge some silicon crystals from a solar panel. Problem solved. Improvisation is a skill that is rarely found anymore, with overregulation and procedures explaining everything, but no one can prepare for everything, they have to have the knowledge to create an imaginative solution to every problem. The two of us can work together to make sure that problems in any scenario can be solved quickly and permanently, and to keep all systems operational simultaneously.” Mark caught his breath
“I’ll say again, we are a team. We’ve known each other for more than a decade, and each of us can almost exactly predict what the other will do in any situation. You evaluators are looking for a cohesive group to send up there to start the colonization. Right here, right now, you can look at the first two members, the leaders that will make that dream come true.”
Tony and Mark bowed and left the stage amid the clapping of hundreds of impressed staff and candidates. They walked down the series of corridors, exchanging high fives and a fist bump along the way back to their table. Almost too late, Tony realized that Leanna and Jeane were probably still at the table and steeled himself mentally to talk to her. The two men approached the table, and indeed, the women were still sitting there, politely watching the next speaker, who appeared to be a retired Air Force pilot with a crew cut of brown hair just visible underneath his military cap.
“I didn't think it was possible, but you managed to wake everyone up and get them to applaud you in the same speech, congratulations,” Leanna smiled.
Mark grinned and replied, “All in a days work for us.” They sat down and quiet conversation resumed.
Jeane was the first to talk to Tony. “I had no idea that you were such a good public speaker, where did you learn that from?”
“I don't know. I guess I've got a way with words.”
“Tony, that's not just a way with words. Considering that you were trying to sell yourself to these people, that was one of the better speeches I’ve heard in my lifetime. You could start up a school for the children of world leaders. And I’m only being mildly sarcastic.” She seemed impressed.
“Perhaps, but that's not nearly so interesting as this whole business.” Tonys’ eyes seemed to shine as he started to talk about the potential of the moon colony endeavor. “We have the chance to be at the forefront of everything science has to offer to us. Biology, chemistry, fusion technology, lasers, radiology, physics, medicine; it doesn't matter what field. Every scientist has something on the moon that they want, every lab in every college on earth wants to be able to conduct experiments with the materials and gravity of the moon. To be the one leading all that…would be amazing. All that innovation and discovery in one place as humanity expands its horizons past our cradle of life. Every time I think about it, I feel like I'm having my cake and eating it too. This is something I've dreamed of almost my whole life, I've never desired anything as much as to lead the LunaGaia Project.”
By this time, the entire table had started to listen to his whispered monologue. Mark faked clapping his hands together in applause. “Bravo, good sir, bravo. I say, lets have ourselves an encore.” His fake British accent was almost exactly right, as always.
“That was quite the speech, Mr. Hoenheim. It almost excited me. And I am a very difficult woman to excite,” Lee said flirtatiously.
Mark immediately grinned mischeviously. “Is that a challenge?”
“You’ll have to excuse my sister,” Jeane said as she directed a glare at her. “She has picked up somewhat of a free spirit as part of her life in New York, although I'm forced to agree with her. Having subject matter that isn’t about you makes your speech so much more refined and eloquent. I would be extremely interested to see you try to inspire some new recruits to the project if you should be named commander.”
“Thanks, and I’ll be sure to give a rousing monologue at liftoff,” Tony replied.
At this moment, Mark cut them short. “Hey you two, looks like speeches are over. Better start paying attention now.” They all turned to look at the stage and, sure enough, Mr. Galt was standing there, about to launch into the closing statement.
“That’s all for the speeches everybody. If you will all remain seated for a moment while our staff retires…” the row of men and women in the front stood up and walked out of the room on cue. “…you are all free to partake in the wonderful meal that has been laid out for you.” For a moment, everyone wondered what the executive was talking about. Suddenly, a section of the floor directly in front of the stage lowered, taking the desks with it. Another platform rose to replace it, carrying a huge table with steaming dishes from all parts of the globe and a team of the same white-gloved waiters that had seated everyone. Each waiter whisked himself off to a table and bowed, providing each guest reverently with a menu, after which he poured water into delicate glasses. The menus were a relatively new technology; flexible touch screens. The first list to light up was the wine menu, and as each diner chose an item from the menu, the waiter for that table received an alert on a small screen sown into the wrist of his coat. The army of white-gloved figures again began to filter out to serve the drinks, each carefully balancing a tray of beautifully crafted wineglasses. They functioned almost like a robotic army, each flitting about with perfect precision between comrades and tables. Polite conversation had started once again, and the entire building hummed with hundreds of voices.
After perhaps a quarter of an hour had passed, and Tony was finally beginning to feel more at ease with Jeane. He helped himself to a mouthful liquid courage, and was currently waiting on a refill and his meal, a bowl of thin rice noodles with beef and onions. The conversation had been going well, and they were discussing their careers after college.
“So you already work for this organization? Doing, what did you say it was? Designs?” she asked.
“Yep, Mark and I do some concept design work. You remember the old Kennedy Space Center that LunaGaia took over a few years ago? Well we’ve got a cubicle all to ourselves in there. The boys here in SF send us specifications and requirements: maximum space, maximum energy usage, and a few dozen other things. Sometimes we even get a failed design or two in our little care package, and we work our magic for them. Launch systems, shuttles, rovers, energy plants, fuel cells, underground nuclear reactors, and mining equipment. Everything you could possibly want to scratch a living off moon dust, we’ve designed at least four or five versions. Mark does the calculations and technical work, and I make sure that everything can fit together in one cohesive unit, whether it be by itself or to fit in with a colony design that they give us. Over the past year or two, we’ve probably filled a couple of computers with renderings and blueprints, along with notes on needed improvements and changes. Most of them end up being ridiculously expensive, but that's something that we’ll get to work on if we get selected.”
“Really? That's fascinating. You know, I almost went into designing things myself. I was a getting myself into a few architecture classes in college before deciding to stick with medicine. I'm still a little bit obsessed with architecture though. Every time I see a new building, I want to see the plans and calculations for it.”
“I thought I remembered you being on that other team in college. You remember? The LunaGaia Club? You were in charge of architecture for that group. As I recall, you almost pushed your group to the top. Your designs were pretty good, if a little bit too extravagant for their purpose.”
“What do you mean extravagant? I only designed what was needed for the base. I calculated the weight and it was just as light as all the other designs.” She retorted indignantly.
“You’re absolutely right, Jeane. But I think that building glass structures is more suitable to an Earth environment than to an irradiated desert like the moon. Glass isn’t the most durable material or the easiest one to transport, especially by rocket. Once there is a mine on the moon and a mineral processor, glass would probably be easier to make than metal, but the design was for moving everything from Earth. Just being realistic here, sorry.” An apologetic smile crossed his face. “Didn't Professor Elric tell you all of this when your group didn't win the contest? From what I understand, he should have sent everyone messages about their groups’ designs with critique and possible improvements. I know he did for my group, and we ended up taking first place.”
“Now that you mention it, there was the one message that I never got around to opening. I was feeling a bit headstrong then, and I didn't want to get any criticism, constructive or not. After that I guess I just forgot about it and it just sat there ever since.”
The waiter brought over a tray loaded high with food and set each item in front of the person who ordered it in a gentle, almost delicate manner, careful not to spill a single drop of soup or sauce. Just as he finished serving, the lights started to dim yet again as Tony told Jeane “check the message, I'm sure it’ll be some variation of what we talked about and not anything rude or mean.” A projector screen lowered from the ceiling, and a light snapped on near the back of the building, showing an old fashioned radar countdown in deep black for the background and cool blue for the numbers. All conversation was quickly hushed as the countdown neared zero and the screen faded to an even deeper hue of black.
An old rocket showed onscreen, a model that looked to be over a hundred years old. A voice narrated the countdown.
“3…2…1…blastoff.”
The engines blasted to life, created a thick screen of dust and smoke around the base of the spacecraft as it lifted itself off the earth and into the sky. Ever so slowly, it gained momentum until eventually it became a fiery arrow streaking across the sky. Short clips of the rocket floating in space and astronauts going about their work played. The final stage released, and the astronauts plummeted back to earth, landing somewhere in the ocean. Another spacecraft now appeared, ready to launch. This time it was a space shuttle, complete with heat shielding on the underside and the titanic dorsal fuel tank. It lifted off cleanly, almost incomparably faster than the first ship, and shot into space. Dozens of additional clips showed satellites being prepared, men going on breathtaking spacewalks, and the now-decommissioned International Space Station Mk. 1 under construction. A cross cut view of the space station revealed more than a dozen astronauts moving around like bees in a hive, conducting experiments, exercising, and maintaining their home. A computerized female voice started to speak as the screen flashed to a new rocket, sleek and modern in every possible way. It stood at the same dock as the other ships had, covered in spotlight beams to keep away the darkness of night. Its outside was a smooth white metal. Tony had to check again to make sure he wasn't seeing things. It seemed like the metal itself was white instead of painted on. But that couldn't be possible, unless…
“Ouranos Spacecraft Mark 3 prepped and ready for liftoff. Reactor engaged. Ignition in 5…4…3…2…1…Ion-.” Whatever the computerized voice was about to say was drowned out in a searing white noise that came from the rocket. No smoke came from the launch pad, only the sound of whatever powered that ship. Like a greyhound from its cage, the Ouranos craft bounded upwards into the air, and after a few seconds was only a speck in the sky. In its wake was a perfect circle of glass, completely melted by the heat of the engine, reflecting the enormous power that the ship held. The camera switched to a view inside of the spacecraft. Showing a small bank of computer screens and a small crew inside what must be the bridge. Again, Marcus Galt stepped onto the stage to speak. With the video playing in the background he began.
“What you are seeing now is streaming live to you from outer space, where our newest innovation, the Ouranos Ion-Propelled Spacecraft is being tested. A little less than a minute ago, that same craft lifted off the ground at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.” The crowd oohed and ahhed. “And we are being transmitted back to them!” he exclaimed. The executive turned around and waved at the screen. “Good job boys. You know the drill. Fly her around for a couple orbits and see how much maneuverability she’s got, then bring her back down.”
The astronauts responded with a mixture of salutes and thumbs up, reflecting their mixed histories in the military, various space programs, or civilian companies. Before they could sign off and get to work, the Galleria exploded into cheers and applause, and the crew aboard the spacecraft was left speechless from the enormity of the situation. Eventually a few of them regained their sense of self-awareness and waved back, which pushed the crowd to even greater heights of celebration. A minute or two later, Marcus was forced to gesture at the pilots to shut off their camera, and the crowd rapidly quieted.
“Ladies and gentlemen, if you will allow me, I would like to outline the plans for the remainder of the night.” Silence asserted itself within a few seconds. “Those of you who are not candidates here tonight, you may leave as soon as you want to. For those you of you who have submitted their candidacy for the chance to lead the next chapter in human expansion, you must stay. As you finish your meals, you will be lead one at a time into a room where you will find out if you are good enough, or if someone has bested you. Good night and good luck to you all.” He walked off the stage to rejoin the rest of the executives at their table.
Tony and Mark turned back towards the female occupants of their own table only to find them starting to stand up and gather their belongings. Mark opened his mouth to speak, but his friend beat him to it. “Where are you guys heading off to? You haven’t even finished your…” He looked at their plates only to find them both completely finished, down to the last crumb. “… dinner. Well that was fast.”
Jeane replied, “You’ll find that my sister and I are different from many other women.”
“You sure are,” replied Mark
Jeane gave him a thin smile. “Perhaps we’ll see each other soon. It is a small world, after all.” She seemed to direct this towards Tony.
They walked off, with the men still gazing after them. “I am SO glad that you’ve had that crush on Jeane for forever and a day.”
“And why is that?”
“Coz I just scored Lee’s dij code.” Mark seemed extremely pleased with himself. “Dude, we really need to get you to a bar, and soon. You always got plenty of women, but you never could flirt. I saw you mumbling over there. That was almost as bad as my first attempt back at middle school. You remember? She ended up asking me out.”
“Yeah I remember. That was about the funniest thing that happened that year. How many dates did you go on, two?”
“Two and a half,” Mark said defensively.
“Ah, yes, the infamous half-date. The one where you had a fight and broke up halfway through the movie?”
Mark nodded. “At least I ended up pretty good at picking up women.”
Tony laughed heartily. “But can you get them to stay with you for any length of time? Don't worry buddy, there is always time to learn from Hoenheim-Sensei.”
They continued their discussion of dating styles for almost an hour, until everyone else had gone from the room.
“ECHO!” yelled Mark.
Tony swatted him on the back of the head and grinned. “Comon, we don't want to get yelled at for interrupting a meeting. Besides,” he gave a small laugh, “I'm so nervous, I might smack you again.”
“Oh, I'm scared.” Tony took a swipe at him, but missed when Mark ducked. A few seconds later, a man came into the room and announced their names.
“Mr. Hoenheim and Mr. Angelo?” He looked around the room and saw that there was no one there but the two of them. “If you two will just go down the hall and follow the arrows, the directors would like to speak to you.”
They got up and went towards the door that the man indicated. When they opened it, sure enough, there were arrows taped to the walls to show them where to go. They walked down the corridor and took turns according to the arrows. Left. Left. Right. Eventually they came to a door marked ‘Candidates Enter.’ Tony went first. The moment he opened the door, someone hit the wall next to him. Some backwards instinct of curiosity made him open the door to find a huge man facing him with a gun pointed at his heart. Without thinking, he dived and rolled between the mans’ legs, coming up behind him. Tony punched the mans’ shoulder and pulled the rest of his arm back, grabbing the gun as he kicked the man in the back to send him sprawling. The gun emptied into the wall and Tony was thinking what the hell is this?! He started towards the gunman to knock him out for good, but Mark was already sitting on the mans’ back, keeping him pinned down. He walked over to the wall where he had emptied the gun and found nothing, not even dents in the wall. He had definitely heard a silenced gunshot, so something must have fired. Upon further inspection of the area, Tony found tiny foam balls littering the floor around the room. He went back to the prisoner, who wasn't even struggling, and was stunned to see the face of Marcus Galt.
“Alright, Mr. Galt, what’s your game?”
A not-unpleasant smile crossed his face. “This was a test of your reaction time.” In a slightly louder voice, “Alright boys, you can come out now.” A door in the back of the room that neither of the friends had noticed opened and a small group of LunaGaia staff entered the room. “You can let me up.” Mark stood and helped the executive to do the same.
“That was the one thing that we actually needed you in person for. The rest we could have done with just your resume, although I have to admit, you had the best speech of the night.” They shook each others hands. “It’s nice to finally meet the two of you in person. Please, sit down.”
Chairs were brought into the room so that everyone could be seated comfortably. “First of all, I would like to congratulate you on two things. The first is your quick reflexes. By far the best of all the civilian candidates. We gave each type of candidate a different challenge. Military personnel were treated to a disaster zone outside and were graded based on how many holographic people were saved. Civilians were given your scenario, a gunman, and were graded on reaction times.” Mr. Galt paused for a quick drink from a bottle of water. “Now the second thing that I want to congratulate you on: You have been named Joint Commanders of the LunaGaia Project.”
Tony could not believe his ears. “Excuse me, sir, but can you say that again?”
“Sure. You have been named Joint Commanders of the LunaGaia Project.”
“Hey Mark. I'm dreaming. Punch me.” Mark socked him hard in the shoulder, but he barely noticed.
“I'm sorry, can you say that one more time?”
Mr. Galt laughed and repeated himself a second time and Tony started to grin from ear to ear.
“Mark! Buddy! We did it! We did it! WOOHOO!!!” They high fived, clasped each others hand, and pulled into a tight hug, slapping each other on the back.
The middle aged man in front of them smiled at the pairs’ celebrations. “OK, when you two are done roughhousing, you can follow me. We’ve got work to do.”
Spoiler
Show
Two men sat at large black desks covered in piles blueprints and notes and maps. With their backs to each other, they pored the papers, occasionally scratching out minute changes. Every so often, one of them would crumple a paper into a tiny ball, muttering to himself about calculations and systems, and toss it in the general area of the trash bin. The desks were made of a smooth matté black plastic and stretched for about ten feet before curving to the floor to support itself. Attached to the end of each table was a draft station that smoothly curved out of the desk to ninety degree angle. The board was around five feet across and almost as tall. They rested near each other, nearly completing a square of furniture with its twin, leaving but a small gap for entry and exit. Opposite the draft stations sat a wall of supplies and machines; a coffee pot, scanner-printer, drawers stuffed with drafting tools, and a small bookcase with books on subjects ranging from mechanics to geography to chemistry. All of this sat in an otherwise empty room carpeted in a chaotic mosiac of color and shape. Underneath the layers of equations littering the walls, one could see that they were painted a pure, snowy white to emphasize the sunlight entering from the transparent fourth wall that overlooked the jungle of steel and glass that was downtown San Diego.
The light cacophany of the machines in the room seemed to fill the silence in the room, growing in Tony Hoenheim’s mind until the assortment of beeps and whirrs became unbearable.
He pinched the bridge of his nose briefly, then;
“Hey Mark, check this site out. This site is near the pole, so solar panels will work year-round except for a few days each rotation. We wouldn’t have to rely on another source of energy much, and having a nuclear reactor anywhere near us is not the sort of situation I want to put our people in. The scans show that the crater near the site is full to the brim with ice water and some other materials, and the land is relatively flat, so we won’t need heavy moving equipment to flatten it out. Can you work with it?” He placed the image facedown on his desk and a square of Marks’ desk lit up, showing the same image. He studied it for a few moments.
“Yeah, this will work. But so will the past dozen sites you showed me. There’s a reason that you’re the expert on base design and all that. Look, I’ll be done with this design in a few minutes. I just need to figure out how to take a few more pounds off this thing. Why don't you make the final decision on one of those sites and plug it in to the projector? Then we can run some simulations with this beautiful hardware that you never use.”
Tony ignored the quip and got to work. For the next few minutes, he pored over scans of potential colony locations. They all had water and were exposed to the sun for the majority of the moon’s orbit, and most were relatively flat. None had surfaces of solid rock, it was all regolith, or lunar dust. It had to be. They would use it to cover the buildings and provide radiation shielding, since carting all that lead to the moon would force them to start without some basic necessities or almost double their budget just to get the rocket fuel. Even if the plan was to use an ion propelled spacecraft, the fuel that it needed was still enormously expensive.
He finally settled on the site labeled ‘Hermes.’ It had a lake contained within a crater, similar to the site that he had shown Mark a few minutes earlier, but had one or two geographic features that Tony preferred. A few small hills stood half a mile away from the site, perfect for a second solar array or a solar flare bunker or any of a thousand other purposes. The plain on which they would land the first parts of the base extended for several thousand feet from the lake before other craters started to appear, leaving a huge area available for building. We probably wont use that much real estate for a decade or more, he mused. The only downside to the area was that it was slightly rougher and more uneven than the others, but Marks’ machine would probably be able to take care of that without any problems. He picked up the map, and set it down on the same spot that he had used to show Mark the other map, and told the computer, “Scan for original file and project on Wall 2.”
A separate panel of the desk flashed to life and lifted so that Tony could view it without leaning over uncomfortably. A touch-keyboard lit up on the desk, and the area tilted slightly to accommodate its user. On the screen, thousands of images flashed every second as the processor searched for a match to what it was given. Tony stood up and walked over to one of the walls to start erasing the multitude of equations, but paused as he began to do so. “Save images on Wall 2,” he commanded the computer. A digital persona alerted him that everything had been saved to the server, and he took a soft cloth to the wall, removing the ink and displaying the colorless landscape he had chosen. It was a stark, gray surface of dust and rocks. Even the lake off to the side seemed to be lifeless and devoid of color, but the only thing that Tony saw was opportunity and the expanding boundaries of human progress.
He turned to face Mark with an expectant look on his face.
“Just give me a minute, I've only got an ounce or two to shave off before it fits into our weight budget,” Mark responded impatiently
“I’ll make us some coffee then. You know, we should probably try to get some sleep eventually instead of living off coffee and energy drinks. We’ve probably gone through more of those in the past couple days than we did before senior year midterms. We got so screwed up after than, do you remember? I’d be surprised if you did; you started seeing things and tried to sleep on the top of our car, thinking it was a cloud. The only reason I know about it is because Ethan took a whole bunch of pictures and uploaded them to the net. They got me doing almost the same thing!”
Mark grunted.
“Fine then, don’t be any fun. I’ll leave you alone till you finish shaving weight off that thing.” He went to make the coffee with a sigh. As much as coffee makers had been automated, Tony still liked to use the type of machines that people had used in the early 2000s. The coffee ended up tasting better, in his opinion. Modern coffee machines did everything by themselves; loading the beans, grinding them, brewing, and so on. He loaded up the grinder and put the beans in. They smelled heavenly, an African mix of beans from a relatively new company. The grinder went to work, and Tony congratulated himself on making the adjustment to it, making it completely silent. The noise of the grinder was the one thing he disliked about making coffee, but a simple tweak and replacing the blades with a new metal alloy he had been experimenting on fixed that. The beans finished grinding, and he loaded the fine powder into the machine and set it to brew. As soon as the black coffee dripped down into the pot, its scent filled the air even more. He sat down at his desk, filling his mind with designs and plans while he waited for both his friend and the coffee to finish. When the coffeepot was half filled, Mark turned his computer on and scanned his design into it, sliding several schematics on and off the desk to get a full three-dimensional model of his creation.
He told the computer system to load the machine onto the same wall that Tony had loaded the map. A polygon wire frame appeared on the lunar dust and gradually filled in with color. It looked like a spider, but with only four legs. They touched the ground in a perfect square, with the wheel-feet lightly resting on the surface. A computer system, power source, and communication antennae loaded up on what would have been the head of the spider, which was covered in a gold-colored foil to prevent radiation damage. Attached to the back of the foil covered head was what appeared to be a very large rake, made of carbon fiber to save weight. Its dark gray color contrasted with the gold of the head and the white plastic of the legs severely, but they weren’t going for aesthetics. Everything that would be sent up to the moon would have to be based on function, not for pretty machinery. There would be plenty of time for that when, and if, they had their own production facilities.
Mark set about inputting a series of commands on the keyboard, loading the program it would need in order to perform the simulation correctly. After half a minute of typing, he stood up and told his co-commander that it was ready.
“Lets hold on a minute,” he said. “The coffee’s nearly done.”
The pair stared at the display on the wall to pass the few short moments until the brew finished.
“Where are you going to set down the ship? I see a few good locations, but I have no idea what areas you wanted to reserve for the structures.”
Tony thought for a moment. “Probably a ways off from this hill.” He pointed “We need a flat area so that the pilots don’t kill themselves and us on the landing, but this is far enough away from the main plains area so that having a chunk of melted slag and glass won’t be an issue.”
“Lets grab the coffee, I'm about to fall asleep from pulling an all-nighter on the life support system circuitry yesterday. And I’m so tired I have no idea what you just said.”
They both made for the coffee pot at the same time, but Tony got to it first. He grabbed a black corporate mug embossed with the LunaGaia logo, a woman with a green and blue eye and a grey one, one smaller than the other; the moon and the earth, and filled it. Mark did the same as he took a sip. Tony looked at his coffee in disgust, having gotten a mouthful of bad taste.
“No wonder it tasted so bad, its just plain black. I must be really desperate for caffeine if I'm forgetting to put sugar in my coffee.” He reached for small stand near the coffee machine and then added some sugar from the packets next to the mugs. After a moments hesitation, he added some powdered chocolate to top it all off. “There we go. café mocha.” They both grinned.
“I can’t believe it. You’ve been drinking the same damn coffee since you were twelve years old.” Mark chuckled. “Anyways, you ready to see if my design and programming skills are up to snuff?”
“Yeah. This is the first major piece of mobile equipment that we’ve finalized. And all I did was mess around with an old NASA rover chassis, so if it works then we know that we can use it as a base for other designs instead of making ours from scratch. God, how I love being lazy!”
“Alright then, lets do it. Computer, run simulation using specified program.”
The projector flashed the words ‘Program Initiated’ on the wall, and the machine came to life. Almost every factor present on the moon was present in this simulation, so there was no chance that the simulation could be wrong. If the computer said it worked, then it skipped stress test and went straight to field tests.
Thousands of rocks, ranging from pebbles to man-sized boulders that weighed over a hundred pounds littered the moonscape, but the sifter was able to push them aside easily with its high powered engine and the low gravity. The sifter smoothed out a large area of lunar dust with its rake, leaving small, even trenches where its teeth had sunk in to the ground. They continued to watch as it continued to flatten and smooth the land, hoping that it wouldn't break down and force them to redesign it. However, and to their relief, the machine didn't stop until it reached a particularly large boulder and had already covered twice the amount of land that they needed for the initial stage of setting up the base and building it up to self-sufficiency.
They turned and high-fived each other.
“What’s next?” asked Mark.
“We’ve got the site picked, and the machinery to prep the land for the structures is finished. We have start designing some of the structures to actually go there. I’ll give Lev a call and have him come up here to help you with that in a few minutes. He’s going to actually design the structures, but you have to make sure that they can fit in the space that we’ve been given on the ship. Make them inflatable, collapsible, whatever. We just have to make sure that they fit. Send me a message when you come up with a final design. I want to make sure that it fits with the overall plan and doesn't mess anything else up. You can use the draft room to brainstorm and design the buildings. Make sure you send that design to Marcus first.” Tony pointed at the machine projected onto the wall. “We don't want him to think we aren’t doing anything.”
“Yep. Can’t be seen as the lazy, barely out of college guys that we are,” Mark said with a sarcastic smile. “That wouldn't be good at all.”
“Ugh, I'm too tired for sarcasm. Put that by me again when I've had more than five hours of sleep this week.”
Mark laughed and proceeded to scan the notes for the design into the computer, compile them, and send them with his plans to the director.. He grabbed his dij and started towards the door, but before he could exit the room, Tony stopped him.
“I'm going to send you the specs while Lev is on his way over. A list of what each module requires in terms of space will be in there too. We’ll leave the general equipment designs to the engineers, its simple enough.” He smirked at the last comment.
“Don't worry about it, I got it covered.” Mark slipped out the door.
Tony walked back to his desk and started to compose a message to Lev.
Hey Levyn,
So you've probably heard from Professor Elric by now that Mark and I have been appointed Joint Commanders of the LunaGaia Project. You know, the one with the little club back in college? Yeah, so we need someone to work with us on architecture. Designing all the buildings and modules and stuff. Why don't you head over to HQ and get to work with Mark? I know that you know where it is and that you’re absolutely crazy about this whole idea, not to mention the best person for the job. This is, by the way, an official invitation to join the LunaGaia team.
Tony
(Mr. Hoenheim)
P.S.
I'm sending some specs to Mark on your way over here. Just some limits so that you don't relocate the Empire State building to the moon.
He stood up and began to pour himself another cup of coffee while waiting for his friends response. Sure enough, he received a message from Levyn just as he was adding sugar. It read,
I'm in the car now. Dibs on the Star Trek uniform!
Typical of Lev. He is the nerdiest architect I know, but also the most fun to be with, Tony thought. Ah well, time to get started on those specs. He sat down at his computer once more and started to type. A file on the edge of the screen told him the size of the cargo bay and the weight limit of the craft. The organization only had enough money to finance three launches of the Ouranos ship, and he would have to pack as much equipment and supplies in as he possibly could.
The way he wanted to organize it was one launch for equipment, outdoor fixtures, and supplies, and the other two to bring up the colony buildings. They could start to siphon water from the lake almost as soon as the buildings were operational, but the greenhouses would take a month to compete their first growing cycle, so some food needed to be put aboard the ships for them to last until then. Electricity wouldn't be a problem once the solar panels were up and running, and there were fuel cells that could be used as a back up power source to last them a few days until a ship from Earth could get to the colony. Tony would not envy any person who was trying to do all this with the old fashioned chemical-propelled rockets. The Ouranos had more than double the capacity of the previous craft per launch and it was still hard to decide what to bring.
He shook himself from his brief reverie and started to type in the requirements for the buildings. Two colony buildings had to fit in each cargo bay, leaving…
Tony continued the calculations, occasionally referring back to the spreadsheet of maximum weight and space to make sure that he was staying within the limits. A few minutes later, he sent them off to Mark and leaned back in his chair and yawned. This week had been busy. He and Mark had gone through dozens of their old designs, picking out those that could help and refining them, and tossing those that did not into the trash heap. The refinements had been the difficult part. They often took hours to shave just a few pounds off the structural frame or bracing and keep it stable at the same time. At least all that time in the dingy cubicle had payed off and they didn't have to do all of the work now. The only thing that they hadn’t made plans for was the in-situ resource utilization. That plan would probably take the next few months to draw up and integrate with everything else. Tony would have to design a pump that worked without atmosphere or normal gravity, make sure that they had all the energy needed to run all the systems…the list went on and on.
I gotta get started on this thing eventually. Its not going to plan itself.
He stood up and walked towards the door. It opened at his approach and he walked out into the hall way and towards the second draft room. The carpet in the hall was a dull, corporate gray and blue affair, with little cushion. The walls were even worse. They were off-white and devoid of any kind of excitement. I really don't like that the only parts of this building that are fun are a few of the executive offices. They could have at least picked a less dreary carpet color, rather than this gray thing. Tony eventually reached the draft room and walked inside, switching on the light as he went. A long table at the other end of the room supported a bank of computer screens. The holograph machine sat exactly in the middle of the room, perhaps the most useful tool for what he needed to work on. It was a medium sized hemisphere of black metal with a smooth chunk taken out of the top. In this hole, hundreds of tiny lights sparkled, ready to light up a darkened room with their intensity. This particular machine, and its twins in the other two draft rooms were special, utilizing an almost unique technology. Motion sensors and cameras were hidden around the room, not only for security reasons, but to help the user interact with the machine. Any person that used this device would be able to physically interact with the images projected into the air just by touching them. Touch-interaction technology, that was the technical term, was thought impossible. It was still thought impossible now, since many experts say that its just a trick of the computer making the images move when something got near enough to it. Tony didn't particularly care; it was a useful tool and an entertaining toy, and that was about all he was concerned with at the moment.
He went to one of the computer screens and turned it on, quickly finding the files he needed and uploading them to the holograph emitter. The lighting in the room dimmed to almost nothing, and the machine flickered to life, sending cascades of light in every direction. The same landscape that the projector had shown on the whiteboard manifested itself in the air of the room, highlighting tiny motes of dust as they fell like a meteor shower. Using a marker tool from a menu to his left, he pinpointed a spot almost on the edge of the crater, close enough to toss one of the thousands of stones lying around into the lake. A small white dot appeared with a text message. ‘Insert Blueprint File’. For now, a placeholder would have to suffice. Simple icons would probably work for the time being. Lets see…grab a couple of images from the internet and…here we go.
Just as he began the process of placing the markers and was starting do some calculations, he realized that he had no idea what size they were going to be. Dammit, I should have thought of this before I came over here. The only thing I can really do right now is find a place to put the solar panels.
Muttering to himself in frustration at his lack of forethought, Tony started to look up sun exposure rates for the area. A few different spots caught his eye. The first was a spot near the edge of the crater where the colony was to be launched. Checking the numbers, he saw that it received between 80 and 90% sunlight for four-fifths of the year. The hills were another site, and received sunlight for a week or two longer than the crater. The only downside was that the other hills that surrounded it cut off some of the sunlight, leaving the amount of light it received at 75%. Ideally, they could use the third site, located on top of the biggest peak within a couple of miles. Because it was at such a high elevation, it received almost full direct exposure to the sun, with a small two week dark period. It would be perfect and make running the base so much smoother, but the same thing that made the location ideal was also its downfall. Moving enough cable to connect anything at that peak to the base below would cost LunaGaia a huge part of the budget, not to mention the difficulty of moving the cable to the top and getting someone up there to connect everything. Too much trouble.
Tony took a seat in a chair near the computers and started to weigh the costs of the two sites. Whichever one he chose, the team would still have to deal with a dark period when the moon rotated away from the sun. The most appropriate solution to that would probably be either a miniature nuclear reactor or a couple of fuel cells. The fissile reactor should only be a last resort, thought Tony. Intense artificial radiation is one of the last things I want to have to deal with when we’re setting this thing up, even if I didn't have to bring a nuclear technician on the team to take care of it. Mark and I both know how to fix and maintain fuel cells, and we can change them to consume basically any kind of fuel we have.
Almost half an hour later, he came to his decision. Fuel cells weren’t nearly as reliable as solar panels, and two cells would be required for the amount of energy they needed, doubling the chance of mechanical failure. There was only so much that engineers can fix before the machine becomes completely inoperable. The hilly area would better provide for the needs of the colony since it could stay online for more of the year than the crater location, leaving less chance for the fuel cells to break down. They were still unreliable and unproven, ever since the car market had gone into electric vehicles and abandoned the technology.
Tony’s eye wandered over to the crater that they would use for a water source. He called for the computer to upload another file, this time an old schematic of a zero-gravity water pump that he and Mark had designed back in the cubicle. “We’re going to have to redesign this before it actually goes in to anything,” he thought aloud.
He dragged the file over to the lip of the crater and rotated the layout of the map so that he could put the virtual pump in the water, halfway submerged.
“Run a 6-inch thick airtight pipe from Lunar Pump Unit to Point 1,” he said. Water access won’t be too hard at least, he thought. Tony pulled up the next file on his list. Just a simple refinery structure to synthesize bastard metals out of the regolith and stone.
A message flashed across the screen. ‘Warning: Structure Unstable’. No way. Mark had done this one, and even if architecture wasn't his specialty, he was never wrong. He opened the file and took a look at the stress test and rendering. The file showed a building far larger than the original mining facility that he had designed. Whereas the original was simply a pressurized covering of some ground with the few basic necessities of equipment and machinery, the new building was multistory, nearly an impossibility without this being the only item on a shuttle. Looking inside of it, Tony saw a metal hatch secreted in the ground level floor, no doubt for access to the minerals below, and several larger pieces of equipment that would not be out of place in a small mine on earth. Small cranes, robotic arms, and conveyor belts lined the walls. Below the hatch, in a crosscut, he could see an elevator under construction, along with a shaft that cut at least a dozen feet through the regolith. The elevator was only a simple mining cart attached to vertical rails, but that kind of machine was still a huge level of extravagance on an extra-terrestial colony. He looked on, completely intrigued by the ostentatious design and the level of situational ignorance that had gone into this work.
The second floor showed a miniature version of a system that he had given many long hours of study, a smelter. Two massive bowls hung, suspended from the ceiling of the building by iron hinges and braces. The material that made up the smelting pots was by far the most interesting feature however. Whatever they were made of, he didn’t recognize it.
Tony continued to look for a few minutes, noting details on what he wanted to keep in the new design and those features which were useless and needed to be removed. The thing that puzzled him was the material composition of the smelters. In all of his classes and textbooks, Tony had not heard of a metal like that able to withstand the temperatures of molten metal.
It had to be graphics. The chances were so slim that a new alloy had been created without the general public finding out that it was effectively impossible. Curious, he tried to open up the file on the molecular structure of the metal, for the computer showed that both metals had existing files for it. As soon as the file started to open, the entire display that had been there only a moment earlier sucked itself back into the hologram machine. In its place was a line of bold, red text.
‘Access Denied: Enter Employment Passcode’
There was no virtual keypad being emitted, so Tony went over to the physical keyboard and typed in his password. Instead of bringing the original display back into the air, the entire machine beeped once, briefly showed a line of text telling him that he had been denied access, and promptly shut down, leaving the bank of computer screens as the only light in the room before they shut down as well.
Well, great, Tony thought to himself. Just great. Whatever I did, the computer obviously doesn't like it, and now I'm stuck standing in the dark. He continued to grumble about the annoyance as he fumbled around the room for the light switch.
What seemed to be several minutes later, he found the light switch and flicked it on. All of the computers and the hologram emitter were completely dark. He manually pressed the power buttons on several of the machines, but without exception they all turned off before showing even a single image on the screen.
Tony pulled out his dij to request a technician when he saw a message from Lev.
At the building now. Receptionist told me how to find Mark. He left her a message saying to let me in and where he was. Can’t tell you how excited I am! Talk to you later, I'm on my way up now.
The message was listed as received more than an hour ago, so the pair were probably just past the reminiscing and at their third cup of coffee. He had to laugh at the absurdity of his thoughts and his absolute certainty that they would be going through it anyways. He knew them both so well, especially Mark.
Wrenching himself back to reality, he allowed the dij to reconnect with the local server and put in a short request for a computer technician, outlining the problem with as few words as possible. While he was waiting for the help to arrive, he glanced at his coffee and realized that it had been completely empty for some time. The clock showed that only a minute had passed since his request had been sent. There was still a good ten minutes left before the technician reached the room. Tony ventured out and into the dreary hallways and back to his office for a refill, which mercifully had been kept warm by the coffeepot automatically. Thank you technology! He took a small sip, savoring the exotic tastes for a moment or two before filling his cup to the brim and leaving for the draft room again. There was a small, middle-aged woman about to enter the room as he arrived.
“All of the machines in there aren’t working right now. Just so you don't go in and get frustrated when they don't work,” He remarked
“That's why I'm here. Are you the one who asked for tech help?” Her voice could not have been more terse.
Tony answered yes and they both walked into the room. She strode over to the nearest computer terminal and tried to turn it on. She got the same result that he had previously received.
“Well, you sure did a number on this system. What the hell did you do?” She seemed intent of being rude and unwelcoming to him the entire time.
“Nothing,” he replied. “I was just looking at a rendering of an molecular blueprint when it asked me for my password. I put it in and now it’s doing this. I have absolutely no idea why.”
By now, the technician had pulled out a small device and connected it to the computer. When she turned it on, a line of text appeared on screen before quickly disappearing, giving her just enough time to read it before it was gone. Tony asked her what she had seen.
“It was computer code, stupid. I didn't get a chance to understand it with you breathing down my neck.” At this point she was just being absurd. Tony was nearly on the other side of the room. He sighed and decided to ignore her remarks until she was done with the repairs.
“Now I’ll have to go into the box and fix it,” she continued. There was a door at the side of the room that opened into a small storage space that was completely filled with computer memory and processing panels. Tony took a look at the brand of computer that the LunaGaia Organization was using for the first time. Engraved into every piece of machinery was the logo for EVE Computers Inc. he looked back at the wall of processors. EVE computers normally had cool blue lights on them, but the lights on these had crimson lights shining from every LED. He knew something was more wrong than he had thought, turning the situation in his mind from a coding mistake to a complete system failure. Although his mind had already jumped to the nonexistent possibility of his causing all of this, he declined to say anything about the status of the machines to the angry technician beside him, and retreated back into the main draft room. She poked around in the processing room for a few minutes longer, pulling out panels and pressing buttons, and getting whatever information she could out of the device that had been plugged into the mainframe.
Her figure emerged from the dark of the tiny room. “Out of the million and a half ways to break a computer, you managed to pick the one that I can’t fix. Congratulations.” She seemed all the more ticked off now that she hadn’t been able to find a solution. She stormed out of the room.
Now it was Tonys’ turn to be angry. “Hey, wait a minute! It’s your job to fix this thing. You can’t just walk off without finishing your work.”
She made a rude gesture at him. “Watch me,” and continued to walk down the corridor.
He rubbed his head in frustration and returned to the office that he shared with Mark to send a message to the director. He would probably want to know about employees not doing their job and the problem with the computer. As soon as the send button had been pressed, Tony decided to check up on Mark and Lev. They hadn’t sent him any messages in the entire time that they had locked themselves in the other drafting room, which either meant that the two of them had made enormous amounts of progress, or were brain-dead for the day and goofing off. The second situation was much more likely, knowing the two of them.
Tony quickly walked out of the room, excited to see both of his friends. The second draft room was the opposite direction of the first one, so he took a right instead of a left when exiting their private office and took the series of turns that he had memorized nearly on the first day. As he walked towards the room, the elder of the two commanders reminisced on his first few days at the headquarters of the international Organization. The first day, they had both been so excited to assume their new roles at LunaGaia that he and Mark had arrived almost half an hour before the office building was even unlocked. The Director, Marcus Galt, had found them standing outside, staring upwards at the logo attached to the top of the building. Over the course of that first day, they had been introduced in their wide-eyed state to various teams of engineers and intellectuals that were supposed to work with them on designing every aspect of the proposed colony. They had gone past several dozen experts in nearly every field; astronauts, nutritionists, Ph D engineers, physicists, chemical analysts, and several others. It was around six at night when they had finally met the entire staff of HQ and had been shown to their joint office. It had been prepped over weekend between the dinner at the Galleria and coming to work for the first time, and included nearly item it now had, with the exception of the coffee machine. That was Tonys’ only request, as the room was nearly perfect in its original state. The two friends spent nearly an hour sitting in front of their desks before they were finally able to shake themselves out of shock and begin to work. An hour later, Mark announced that it was time to head home for the night. They left the building and walked over to Tonys’ car, still the Jaguar. They decided on a detour to an authentic Asian buffet to celebrate survival of the first day at their new job, and toasted themselves to the promise of many accomplishments to come. The two of them returned home exhausted and with bulging waistlines to sleep for a few hours before returning to work.
The second day was only little more productive. The Director gave them a tour of the building, which helped to relieve the awe that had worked its way into their minds. Afterwards, the Mr. Galt and a few members of the Board showed them some financial records to insure that the situation was known. They began to realize that however ambitious it was, LunaGaia still suffered the same problems as earlier space programs. Each participant country was only willing to give a small amount of money to the cause, boosted only slightly by a few eccentric billionaires and minor donations from other science organizations in the international community. Their budget was small, and already dwindling from expenditures on personnel and the expensive development of the Ion Shuttle, the latter of which would hopefully pay for itself in fuel costs and efficiency, which was the one piece of news that wasn't a surprise.
After being sent back to their office to retrieve their designs from the server in Florida, they both received a message from the higher-ups simultaneously. It turned out to be a short briefing on the limitations of the Ouranos craft, and a few paragraphs discussing the number of launches that could be sustained while retaining the ability to supply the colony with any materials it might need. The message also stressed the importance of keeping enough money for one extra launch, in case everything went south and all colonists needed to be recalled to Earth. Mark left the reading and interpretation of the note to Tony, who grew more melancholy at each sentence. He hoped that this downward slide of his understanding of LunaGaia affairs was taking would soon stop. The dream that he had almost always had of humans spilling out onto the moonscape with the aid of a fleet of space faring ships was slowly disappearing before his eyes. Humanities’ first baby steps into space were going to be much more humble than Tony had imagined. His emotions wandered over to empathy for those individuals and groups who had tried and failed before him.
Tony pulled himself back to the present. I can’t allow myself to wallow like this. I will push myself, my friends, my team; whoever I need to make this colony start and survive. I refuse to let anyone to fail! The mental speech continued unabated for several minutes as Tony gradually pushed his despair into a dark corner in the recesses of his mind. When the last of his emotion seeped back behind the mental wall that he had constructed, he started to feel himself returning to his usual confident personality.
A light pressure on his shoulder made itself apparent, and Tony turned to find Mark standing behind him.
“You alright?” he had asked. Tony nodded.
“Look, I know this whole situation is pretty dismal, but between the two of us, we have enough brains and skills to make up for an entire army of experts. No one else can do the work that we can, no one else can even come close to being as dedicated as us. The Organization picked us for a reason. We are the best that they could find. You’re worrying about nothing.” Mark smiled reassuringly, patted his friends’ shoulder, and went back to his seat.
“Thanks Mark. I needed that. All of these limits on what we can start with were bogging me down. I can’t focus on anything else. It all starts to become pale and ghostly, like a half-remembered dream.”
Mark looked thoughtful for a moment, and then moved his gaze back up. “You know what would be good right now? Lunch.”
“Now you’re talking. I’ll let you chose this time, since I forced you into that buffet restaurant yesterday.”
“Forced? I was almost jumping out of the car and sprinting there by the time you finished telling me about it. Lets hit that soup place down the street. Something hot sounds really nice right now.”
They walked out of the building and into the diner, where they both had delicious variations on mushroom and beef stew. They walked back some time later discussing the finer points of fuel cell efficiency and weight reduction and spent the rest of the day working on old designs to produce the technology that was needed to have a lunar outpost running and self-sufficient in as little time as possible. The next few weeks were spent in their office, staying late at night and arriving early in the morning. They took as many designs as they could from their database and gradually whittled them down to be as light and small as possible, while still retaining functionality. Whenever a particularly complex problem reared its head, Mark would retreat to his drawing board and Tony would gradually begin to piece together a rough plan to pack all the items they needed within the three shuttle launches that they had been allocated. It was an arduous process, first adding items until he had double what they could possibly bring up, and then cutting it down past the bare minimum requirement for survival and repeating, carefully managing this seesaw balancing act until his calculations showed a model that might actually work. From there, he could allocate a few pounds here or there where he saw fit, depending on the remainder of the designs that had to be finished.
He mind returned to the present as he neared the door to the draft room. The hallway was brightly lit, so Tony could see only the faintest of lights flashing beneath the door. Muffled voices suddenly became clear as he opened the door to find Mark and Levyn hard at work with the hologram machine.
“Hey guys, how’s the work coming along?”
Mark grunted a distracted acknowledgement, but Levyn looked up excitedly.
“Thank you so much for giving me this job, Tony! I can’t think of any way to repay you. Thank you so much!” He was practically bouncing off the walls, reminded of his excitement by Tony’s entrance.
“Dude, chill. If you want to work here, you can start by relaxing and not making a fool of yourself.” They embraced, having not seen each other except through pictures and the occasional dij message for years. “How’ve you kept yourself busy since college? I think I heard somewhere that you had a job in the big apple for a few months. And now you live right here in San Diego. What happened?”
“Well, you’re right. After I left graduate school, I was hired at an architecture firm in New York. They had me doing basic stuff, you know, homes, businesses. Nothing exciting. They started to get a little ticked off at my creative additions. I could never resist putting something new and controversial onto a building, as you well know. The company started heading downhill and I left before they could start the layoffs. There’s plenty of architecture stuff happening now, so I figured it would be easy to find a job, and I was right. I moved out here about a week after a quit. San Diego has been the cultural and economic powerhouse of the country for the past few decades, and wherever that happens, skyscrapers start going up like weeds. Anyways, I got myself a few nice, open-ended contracts for some freelance architecture doing some homes in uptown. Apparently the style that I practice is very popular with the new genetics billionaires that are popping up on the coasts. I've been busy with three or four projects at a time until you called me.”
“But won’t this interfere with all of your contracts? This is a full time job.”
“You caught me at the best possible time. I've only got two contracts right now, and one of them is nearly finished. I was going to accept another one next week, but I can always refer that one to my brother. He just finished his Ph. D and needs some work.”
“Great!” Tony laughed. “That sounds just like your luck. How are you going to finish the ones that you already have?”
“Oh, I guess you wouldn't really know this, but I usually work weekends anyway. That's one of the other reasons why I had so many contracts all the time. I got them finished nearly twice as fast as other architects, what with all my weekend and late night work sessions.” Lev almost looked sheepish as he said this.
“I'm glad that you’re used to it, because you’ll probably have to pull your share of late nights here too, for when you really get rolling and don't want to stop. It's a phenomenon that Mark and I have oft experienced in the past few weeks. We were actually talking this morning, saying that it was starting to get worse than college midterms week.” Mark overheard them and burst out laughing, shortly followed by the other two young men.
When the brief hilarity had subsided, Tony asked his friends “So how goes the catching up? And what are you working on over there, Mark?”
“I'm checking some sites that this guy told me about. Experiments with closed-system architecture; underground greenhouses, arctic bases, the like. And for your first question, we didn't have to,” replied Mark.
“We’ve actually kept in touch. This guy is actually pretty good at maintaining long distance friendships.” Lev looked at Tony pointedly.
The accused man turned to face Mark. “How do you find time to talk to people? Besides, I've honestly never seen you on your dij and we don't even have a computer in our apartment. How is it that you can stay in touch with people?”
“Didn’t you know? I’m a practiced telepath” he said, obviously joking.
Tony shook it head. “Whatever. What have you found so far? Have you gotten started on any designs yet?”
Levyn answered this time. “Not yet. We started with the online stuff and he haven’t gotten through it yet. There’s a ton of legitimate stuff out there that I've kept track of over the years. They start about three years ago and the most recent one is from a couple of weeks ago. It's an experimental dormitory unit that packs about twenty people into something a little bigger than a dumpster, provided that none of the occupants suffer from claustrophobia. The Nagasaki Technological Institute did it, naturally.”
“That sounds like exactly what we need,” Tony said thoughtfully. “Its obviously been possible for a while but no one wanted to build anything so intricate. I might have to call them when they open and talk to someone about getting a hold of the design. Why don't all three of us have a look at what these places have? Or at least Mark and I. You’ve probably seen them already since you’re the one who brought them here.” He brought a chair over to the screen and sat down.
He found the websites so interesting that he powered on the computer next to him and began to read through the list. There were more than a hundred links in the message that Lev had sent ahead of him, and each was an extremely reliable source from universities, research groups, and government-backed companies all over the world. There were designs for rovers, experiments on extracting oxygen from lunar soil, and plans to organize the layout of lunar colonies. Tony was genuinely amazed at the amount of information that he was getting from this. Even the books in his office didn't have anything like this, and they were considered the definitive texts on the subject. The only things that they contained were barely more than theories, computer models that attempted to describe things that could only be explained in physical experiments.
“Lev, buddy, where did you find all of this? This stuff is some of the best information I've seen since I worked with professor Marthin!”
“Do you remember how I always used to read those manga comics and spend hours on my dij watching Japanese cartoons? And how you always used to tease me for entertaining myself out of my race?” The last sentence was accompanied by a wry grin.
“Hehe, yeah.” The other two young men laughed as they remembered the countless times that they had found him on his bed, glued to the electronic screen of a digital comic book.
“Well now I spend all of that time researching lunar colony ideas, mainly architecture since I can do work with that. I don't have anything else to do, so I just search different school and research group websites, and I end up finding something interesting every month or so. Its not every often, but its enough to keep me interested and looking. I've actually got several notebooks filled with notes and some rough designs right here…in my house.” He slapped his forehead with his palm and continued. “OK, I’ll bring them on Monday. I forgot to grab them on my way out.”
Mark snorted in laughter. “Just like old times, eh buddy?” Lev only looked annoyed with himself as he nodded and pushed himself into thought.
The other two continued to read the articles. One of them showed an experiment that had been preformed in Antarctica last year. A group of post-graduate students, along with a couple of professors, had buried a small greenhouse in ice and studied measurements on it for over a year. The unit was small, only eighteen feet by seven feet, and cylindrical, but it had produced enough food for two men to live off of continuously, starting at the one month mark of the experiment. They used a series of terraces and wall plants to give the fruits and vegetables maximum surface area while they grew in an extremely humid and carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere, removing the need for irrigation or watering. No human intervention, and this thing can feed two grown men indefinitely. This is definitely something that I need. A few minor adjustments for radiation shielding and access from the rest of the base, and our food requirement is nearly fulfilled with a few of these.
The next article was on a base layout design that looked suspiciously familiar. It was shaped in hexagons, with a large building in the center of each shape, and six slightly smaller buildings as satellites. This is scary. And my exact design. How could anyone have gotten a hold of it? Tony was staring to panic, and frantically searched for the author of this article. Whoever it was, he would make sure that any renditions of his design were taken down and disallowed unless he posted it. His erratic gaze finally settled at the top of the website, where another familiar image was displayed. The Face of Gaia, which was the LunaGaia seal and logo, was proudly displayed at the top of the page. Appeased somewhat, the still furious commander started to look methodically at the text and soon found what he was looking for. His surprise and anger began to subside as he read the footnote on the article. ‘Design planned by Dr. Hoenheim, with consultation from additional experts.’
This puzzled Tony. There had been no other people working with him. As far as he knew, LunaGaia hadn’t even looked at his designs. He decided that a closer inspection of the design was warranted. The graphics of the picture were definitely done by someone else, but the layout of the design was the same idea with the same ratios that he had used since college, and finally set in stone during his cubicle days with Mark. As he continued to look at the picture, more differences made themselves apparent. Every structure appeared to be at least partially sunk into the ground, whereas the original idea was for everything to rest on the surface. Everything was scaled up too. Judging from the included cross-section of one of the buildings, each pod was the size of a normal house, which was completely unrealistic when taking into account the capacity of the shuttle. Each of the passageways between the buildings were also completely immersed in lunar dust, an even farther cry from his plan. It was as if some science fiction artist had taken his design and fit it to his own fantasies. The mere thought of it made Tony simmer, but he forced himself to calm down, mindful of his frightening transition from surprise to anger earlier. As he continued to look at the image, he found his inner circle of calm that he knew so well from his high school anger management days. He started to reflect on the past few minutes almost from a third-person perspective to maintain the calm.
I had no idea that I was becoming that attached to the Project and my designs. I mean, I always knew that I was completely obsessed with it, but to let the chance of some person copying my work evolve into full-blown anger? That's just getting out of hand. It wasn't even a recent or accurate design. I think what I need is some way to detach myself from this. Maybe take a day for vacation and find a hologame arcade. I've only played a few times since college. Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. I’ll put it past Mark later. Sometimes I feel like he knows me better than I do.
He felt that a short talk with the Director was still in order, but now that he had thought his anger out, it seemed much less urgent than it had a few seconds before.
They both continued to read through article after article, as Tony rapidly caught up to his friend. Levyn continued to sit a few feet apart from them, deep in thought about what could be anything from a new pair of chinos to finally hitting a bar, if either of the men knew anything about him. Minutes turned into hours, and finally Levyn asked if there was anything to drink in the building. Mark replied that there was a water cooler around the corner and some warm coffee back in their office if he cared for some. He walked out the door and came back a minute later with a large thermos of the stuff, eagerly sipping it in spite of its piping hot temperature. After a minute or so of burning his tongue and blowing on the black coffee to cool it, he asked;
“So can I have a crazy cool office like yours when I come here tomorrow?” He looked and sounded like an eager child.
“Hahaha. Sure. Maybe not quite as big, but it’ll suit your needs quite well. If you need anything that isn’t already there, I can give you some contact information for someone who can get you whatever you need. Within reason of course. LunaGaia is a non-profit on a budget, so we cant spend huge sums of money decking out executive offices. Everything that we got for our office after we got here was under five hundred dollars, and that was mostly the books. We had to pay for the coffee beans ourselves, but we got the sweet coffee machine for cheap off the internet and then got reimbursed by the organization.”
“That's so cool! I can’t wait to look at it and see what its like.” The childish glee had definitely come back to him now, and was probably going to stay for the remainder of the day, possibly carrying over the weekend and halfway through next week.
“Well, I can show you what’s in your office now. We’ve got rooms partially set up for all the required members of the team, so it’s all ready for you. Let’s just get this over with so that you can sleep off your excitement tonight and get to work getting yourself settled in tomorrow instead of ogling at everything in the vicinity.” His remark fell upon deaf ears, however, as Lev was already performing a nerdy victory dance across the red carpet of the draft room.
They walked down the hall, and Tony led his friend down the series of turns that he had reviewed before so that he could show his team where they would work, whenever he picked them. He was again disappointed when he saw that the carpet in here was the same design as his, and put a note in the back of his mind to never have discriminatory carpeting in any building he owned. They both came through the door, the second man nearly bursting through the door in his excitement. He surveyed the room in disbelief, as if he could not believe that anything in it could possibly be his. Overeager eyes roamed over the furniture, carpeting, lights, and floor to ceiling windows, which were now dark because of the night spreading across the city. Levyns’ usual grin became wider and wider until it seemed like the smile had nowhere else to go but past his ears and into his afro.
“This. Is. Unbelievable! It’s so awesome! I can’t wait to start working here tomorrow! Thank you so much, Tony. How can I possibly make it up to you?”
“You can get to work in a few days when you’re done being way too hyped up about this job. I am your boss now, so I eventually want to see some results, which, quite honestly, I think you could do blindfolded. That's why I picked you, you know. You have the best track record and mixed background of any architect I could think of. The fact that you would be so eager helped a bit too.”
“You know me too well, old friend. If I knew you had been named commander with Mark, I would I come groveling at your feet for even a minor internship the moment I found out. I geek out about this sort of thing just as much as you are deeply impassioned about it.” At the presence of serious discussion, Levs’ childish personality matured into something more reasonable.
“Well be that as it may, it’s getting later, and I'm getting hungry.” Tony checked his dij for the time and showed the readout to his friend. The numbers read half past six. “You’re welcome to spend as much time here as you want. Hell, spend the night, I don't care. However, if you do want to leave, make sure you’re out of here by ten. That's when the janitor locks up the building. I’m going to go get Mark and leave, I’ll see you tomorrow.” Tony walked out of the room to fetch his roommate.
He walked back into the draft room to find him still seated at the computer, reading those articles that the architect had sent him. He stood up as Tony entered the room and walked towards the door. “Dude, I've been waiting for you. It’s getting late.”
“Why didn't you call me and wait by the car?”
“Coz its November and I forgot to bring a jacket today. Its freakin’ cold out there, man! Or did you forget that this is San Diego?”
“Let’s just get to the car and go home. I’m feeling like cooking tonight, so I’ll let you take the car to grab some soda from the store when we get home. I drank the last one on Wednesday. Oh, and no diet. Gross.”
“And when have I ever had the slightest urge to do or eat or drink anything healthy?” Mark asked. Regardless of what he ate, he seemed to be one of those people that could eat anything and never gain weight. His natural metabolism also gifted him with an ability to keep a normal-looking amount of muscle without every doing a single pushup or ever going to the gym. Mark was an extremely lucky man in that regard.
“Just so I know if some person decided to kidnap you and replace you, now that we’re bigwigs in the business,” he joked. The chance of their being in any danger was so remote that they might as well be hit by an ice cream business operating out of a Ferarri. Not to mention that although LunaGaia was currently humanities best chance of reaching and living on the moon, it was still a small non-profit, hardly a target for corporate warfare.
They reached the car. “I am so glad that its Friday today and the weekend tomorrow. TGIF.” Mark said.
“Oh, crap, it’s Friday? I better remind Lev to get out of there before the janitor locks up.” Tony pulled out his dij and sent him a quick message. The response was almost immediate, as usual. “Good, now I won’t feel bad if he leaves himself in there over the weekend. He gets so spacey when he’s around a new toy, and I think he’s still trying to wrap his mind around this jackpot,” said Tony in a worrying tone.
“And food wont be a worry, since there’s a ton of vending machines in the lounge.”
“You do realize that that guy rarely, if ever, carries cash on his person, right?”
“I rigged all the machines. Cheetos are free. And I'm pretty sure that Cheetos are his favorite, same as me.” Tony could have sworn that his lips curled up like a cats when he said this.
“Alright. But now that I'm not worrying, my stomach is reminding me that I havn’t eaten for hours. Let’s hit the road, dinners going to take a while, and cooking makes me even hungrier.”
Tony put the key into the ignition and drove towards the apartment that they shared since they had moved to San Diego. It was smaller than the rental home that they had lived in for the few days leading up the dinner, but much cheaper. Great, considering the meager salaries they received, even as Joint Commanders of the LunaGaia colony. Their first check should be in the mail now, but it wouldn't be much more than their previous hourly pay unless they got bonuses.
They passed the time of the drive home by turning on the radio to a classic rock station and singing in various stages of dissonance. When they reached the apartment, Tony smoothly pulled into the parking lot and turned the car off, leaving the two of them in darkness and silence as they fumbled for a key. They finally found it and turned to face the building. The apartments weren’t amazing, but considering the amount that they had paid for the first month, it was a steal. The landlord was a little bit of a hardass but fair when they were bargaining, and handy enough to fix anything that went wrong in the building, so overall, they were satisfied. They both walked in to their apartment and went to their respective tasks. Mark grabbed his coat and started to head for the door.
“Six pack of beer sound good?”
“IPA if you don’t mind. I’ll start cooking though. I'm feeling some pasta primavera tonight.”
“Eh, as long as its hot and there’s a lot of it, I don't really mind what you concoct. Scratch that. I think I've still lost half my taste buds from that time you decided that the recipe wasn't good enough.”
“Don't worry, pasta primavera is nearly impossible to make any better. Even chefs have trouble with trying to make it better.”
Mark walked out the door, and Tony got to work.
The door opened again a while later, and Mark returned with a six-pack just as the pasta was nearly finished.
“Yo, grab some plates, will ya?” Mark grunted acquiescence and headed over to help. They sat down on the couch and turned on the television as they dug in to their titanic helpings.
Tony began to speak through mouthfuls of warm, cheesy pasta. “I made enough for eight or so people tonight, so we should have a little bit of leftovers for lunch tomorrow. Even with both of us eating.”
Mark tore his gaze away from the TV just long enough to assess the amount of food left in the pot. “I don't know, dude. I'm feeling awfully hungry tonight.”
“Whatever, just leave a small bowl for me. I really don't want to do anything except microwave stuff tomorrow.”
Mark looked at him in surprise. “Does this mean ramen for dinner tomorrow? Sweeeet.”
“Yeah, unless you want to use your limited cooking experience on some mac and cheese or something. Besides, I bought a crate of the good stuff instead of that instant crap you always buy. I swear, you have no taste buds when it comes to Asian food.”
Mark gave his signature grunt, as if to say, ‘yeah, whatever, I don't really care,’ and continued to chow down on his food. The rest of the night passed uneventfully, with the TV showing a rerun of a series that showed humans with superpowers. Far from an epic movie, it was basically a testosterone-filled drama with people of varying powers and strengths instead of a handful of Superman-caliber heroes.
They ate plate after plate of pasta and downed several bottles of beer a piece in impromptu celebration of their first month as the leaders of the first permanent human settlement away from Earth. By the time they finished, it was well past midnight and both men were exhausted.
After nearly falling asleep on opposite ends of the small couch, they decided to head to their respective beds to sleep. They both knew that they probably wouldn't wake up until almost noon the next morning from their food coma, and were prepared to spend the weekend relaxing and having their own miniature vacation from all things extra-terrestrial.
The light cacophany of the machines in the room seemed to fill the silence in the room, growing in Tony Hoenheim’s mind until the assortment of beeps and whirrs became unbearable.
He pinched the bridge of his nose briefly, then;
“Hey Mark, check this site out. This site is near the pole, so solar panels will work year-round except for a few days each rotation. We wouldn’t have to rely on another source of energy much, and having a nuclear reactor anywhere near us is not the sort of situation I want to put our people in. The scans show that the crater near the site is full to the brim with ice water and some other materials, and the land is relatively flat, so we won’t need heavy moving equipment to flatten it out. Can you work with it?” He placed the image facedown on his desk and a square of Marks’ desk lit up, showing the same image. He studied it for a few moments.
“Yeah, this will work. But so will the past dozen sites you showed me. There’s a reason that you’re the expert on base design and all that. Look, I’ll be done with this design in a few minutes. I just need to figure out how to take a few more pounds off this thing. Why don't you make the final decision on one of those sites and plug it in to the projector? Then we can run some simulations with this beautiful hardware that you never use.”
Tony ignored the quip and got to work. For the next few minutes, he pored over scans of potential colony locations. They all had water and were exposed to the sun for the majority of the moon’s orbit, and most were relatively flat. None had surfaces of solid rock, it was all regolith, or lunar dust. It had to be. They would use it to cover the buildings and provide radiation shielding, since carting all that lead to the moon would force them to start without some basic necessities or almost double their budget just to get the rocket fuel. Even if the plan was to use an ion propelled spacecraft, the fuel that it needed was still enormously expensive.
He finally settled on the site labeled ‘Hermes.’ It had a lake contained within a crater, similar to the site that he had shown Mark a few minutes earlier, but had one or two geographic features that Tony preferred. A few small hills stood half a mile away from the site, perfect for a second solar array or a solar flare bunker or any of a thousand other purposes. The plain on which they would land the first parts of the base extended for several thousand feet from the lake before other craters started to appear, leaving a huge area available for building. We probably wont use that much real estate for a decade or more, he mused. The only downside to the area was that it was slightly rougher and more uneven than the others, but Marks’ machine would probably be able to take care of that without any problems. He picked up the map, and set it down on the same spot that he had used to show Mark the other map, and told the computer, “Scan for original file and project on Wall 2.”
A separate panel of the desk flashed to life and lifted so that Tony could view it without leaning over uncomfortably. A touch-keyboard lit up on the desk, and the area tilted slightly to accommodate its user. On the screen, thousands of images flashed every second as the processor searched for a match to what it was given. Tony stood up and walked over to one of the walls to start erasing the multitude of equations, but paused as he began to do so. “Save images on Wall 2,” he commanded the computer. A digital persona alerted him that everything had been saved to the server, and he took a soft cloth to the wall, removing the ink and displaying the colorless landscape he had chosen. It was a stark, gray surface of dust and rocks. Even the lake off to the side seemed to be lifeless and devoid of color, but the only thing that Tony saw was opportunity and the expanding boundaries of human progress.
He turned to face Mark with an expectant look on his face.
“Just give me a minute, I've only got an ounce or two to shave off before it fits into our weight budget,” Mark responded impatiently
“I’ll make us some coffee then. You know, we should probably try to get some sleep eventually instead of living off coffee and energy drinks. We’ve probably gone through more of those in the past couple days than we did before senior year midterms. We got so screwed up after than, do you remember? I’d be surprised if you did; you started seeing things and tried to sleep on the top of our car, thinking it was a cloud. The only reason I know about it is because Ethan took a whole bunch of pictures and uploaded them to the net. They got me doing almost the same thing!”
Mark grunted.
“Fine then, don’t be any fun. I’ll leave you alone till you finish shaving weight off that thing.” He went to make the coffee with a sigh. As much as coffee makers had been automated, Tony still liked to use the type of machines that people had used in the early 2000s. The coffee ended up tasting better, in his opinion. Modern coffee machines did everything by themselves; loading the beans, grinding them, brewing, and so on. He loaded up the grinder and put the beans in. They smelled heavenly, an African mix of beans from a relatively new company. The grinder went to work, and Tony congratulated himself on making the adjustment to it, making it completely silent. The noise of the grinder was the one thing he disliked about making coffee, but a simple tweak and replacing the blades with a new metal alloy he had been experimenting on fixed that. The beans finished grinding, and he loaded the fine powder into the machine and set it to brew. As soon as the black coffee dripped down into the pot, its scent filled the air even more. He sat down at his desk, filling his mind with designs and plans while he waited for both his friend and the coffee to finish. When the coffeepot was half filled, Mark turned his computer on and scanned his design into it, sliding several schematics on and off the desk to get a full three-dimensional model of his creation.
He told the computer system to load the machine onto the same wall that Tony had loaded the map. A polygon wire frame appeared on the lunar dust and gradually filled in with color. It looked like a spider, but with only four legs. They touched the ground in a perfect square, with the wheel-feet lightly resting on the surface. A computer system, power source, and communication antennae loaded up on what would have been the head of the spider, which was covered in a gold-colored foil to prevent radiation damage. Attached to the back of the foil covered head was what appeared to be a very large rake, made of carbon fiber to save weight. Its dark gray color contrasted with the gold of the head and the white plastic of the legs severely, but they weren’t going for aesthetics. Everything that would be sent up to the moon would have to be based on function, not for pretty machinery. There would be plenty of time for that when, and if, they had their own production facilities.
Mark set about inputting a series of commands on the keyboard, loading the program it would need in order to perform the simulation correctly. After half a minute of typing, he stood up and told his co-commander that it was ready.
“Lets hold on a minute,” he said. “The coffee’s nearly done.”
The pair stared at the display on the wall to pass the few short moments until the brew finished.
“Where are you going to set down the ship? I see a few good locations, but I have no idea what areas you wanted to reserve for the structures.”
Tony thought for a moment. “Probably a ways off from this hill.” He pointed “We need a flat area so that the pilots don’t kill themselves and us on the landing, but this is far enough away from the main plains area so that having a chunk of melted slag and glass won’t be an issue.”
“Lets grab the coffee, I'm about to fall asleep from pulling an all-nighter on the life support system circuitry yesterday. And I’m so tired I have no idea what you just said.”
They both made for the coffee pot at the same time, but Tony got to it first. He grabbed a black corporate mug embossed with the LunaGaia logo, a woman with a green and blue eye and a grey one, one smaller than the other; the moon and the earth, and filled it. Mark did the same as he took a sip. Tony looked at his coffee in disgust, having gotten a mouthful of bad taste.
“No wonder it tasted so bad, its just plain black. I must be really desperate for caffeine if I'm forgetting to put sugar in my coffee.” He reached for small stand near the coffee machine and then added some sugar from the packets next to the mugs. After a moments hesitation, he added some powdered chocolate to top it all off. “There we go. café mocha.” They both grinned.
“I can’t believe it. You’ve been drinking the same damn coffee since you were twelve years old.” Mark chuckled. “Anyways, you ready to see if my design and programming skills are up to snuff?”
“Yeah. This is the first major piece of mobile equipment that we’ve finalized. And all I did was mess around with an old NASA rover chassis, so if it works then we know that we can use it as a base for other designs instead of making ours from scratch. God, how I love being lazy!”
“Alright then, lets do it. Computer, run simulation using specified program.”
The projector flashed the words ‘Program Initiated’ on the wall, and the machine came to life. Almost every factor present on the moon was present in this simulation, so there was no chance that the simulation could be wrong. If the computer said it worked, then it skipped stress test and went straight to field tests.
Thousands of rocks, ranging from pebbles to man-sized boulders that weighed over a hundred pounds littered the moonscape, but the sifter was able to push them aside easily with its high powered engine and the low gravity. The sifter smoothed out a large area of lunar dust with its rake, leaving small, even trenches where its teeth had sunk in to the ground. They continued to watch as it continued to flatten and smooth the land, hoping that it wouldn't break down and force them to redesign it. However, and to their relief, the machine didn't stop until it reached a particularly large boulder and had already covered twice the amount of land that they needed for the initial stage of setting up the base and building it up to self-sufficiency.
They turned and high-fived each other.
“What’s next?” asked Mark.
“We’ve got the site picked, and the machinery to prep the land for the structures is finished. We have start designing some of the structures to actually go there. I’ll give Lev a call and have him come up here to help you with that in a few minutes. He’s going to actually design the structures, but you have to make sure that they can fit in the space that we’ve been given on the ship. Make them inflatable, collapsible, whatever. We just have to make sure that they fit. Send me a message when you come up with a final design. I want to make sure that it fits with the overall plan and doesn't mess anything else up. You can use the draft room to brainstorm and design the buildings. Make sure you send that design to Marcus first.” Tony pointed at the machine projected onto the wall. “We don't want him to think we aren’t doing anything.”
“Yep. Can’t be seen as the lazy, barely out of college guys that we are,” Mark said with a sarcastic smile. “That wouldn't be good at all.”
“Ugh, I'm too tired for sarcasm. Put that by me again when I've had more than five hours of sleep this week.”
Mark laughed and proceeded to scan the notes for the design into the computer, compile them, and send them with his plans to the director.. He grabbed his dij and started towards the door, but before he could exit the room, Tony stopped him.
“I'm going to send you the specs while Lev is on his way over. A list of what each module requires in terms of space will be in there too. We’ll leave the general equipment designs to the engineers, its simple enough.” He smirked at the last comment.
“Don't worry about it, I got it covered.” Mark slipped out the door.
Tony walked back to his desk and started to compose a message to Lev.
Hey Levyn,
So you've probably heard from Professor Elric by now that Mark and I have been appointed Joint Commanders of the LunaGaia Project. You know, the one with the little club back in college? Yeah, so we need someone to work with us on architecture. Designing all the buildings and modules and stuff. Why don't you head over to HQ and get to work with Mark? I know that you know where it is and that you’re absolutely crazy about this whole idea, not to mention the best person for the job. This is, by the way, an official invitation to join the LunaGaia team.
Tony
(Mr. Hoenheim)
P.S.
I'm sending some specs to Mark on your way over here. Just some limits so that you don't relocate the Empire State building to the moon.
He stood up and began to pour himself another cup of coffee while waiting for his friends response. Sure enough, he received a message from Levyn just as he was adding sugar. It read,
I'm in the car now. Dibs on the Star Trek uniform!
Typical of Lev. He is the nerdiest architect I know, but also the most fun to be with, Tony thought. Ah well, time to get started on those specs. He sat down at his computer once more and started to type. A file on the edge of the screen told him the size of the cargo bay and the weight limit of the craft. The organization only had enough money to finance three launches of the Ouranos ship, and he would have to pack as much equipment and supplies in as he possibly could.
The way he wanted to organize it was one launch for equipment, outdoor fixtures, and supplies, and the other two to bring up the colony buildings. They could start to siphon water from the lake almost as soon as the buildings were operational, but the greenhouses would take a month to compete their first growing cycle, so some food needed to be put aboard the ships for them to last until then. Electricity wouldn't be a problem once the solar panels were up and running, and there were fuel cells that could be used as a back up power source to last them a few days until a ship from Earth could get to the colony. Tony would not envy any person who was trying to do all this with the old fashioned chemical-propelled rockets. The Ouranos had more than double the capacity of the previous craft per launch and it was still hard to decide what to bring.
He shook himself from his brief reverie and started to type in the requirements for the buildings. Two colony buildings had to fit in each cargo bay, leaving…
Tony continued the calculations, occasionally referring back to the spreadsheet of maximum weight and space to make sure that he was staying within the limits. A few minutes later, he sent them off to Mark and leaned back in his chair and yawned. This week had been busy. He and Mark had gone through dozens of their old designs, picking out those that could help and refining them, and tossing those that did not into the trash heap. The refinements had been the difficult part. They often took hours to shave just a few pounds off the structural frame or bracing and keep it stable at the same time. At least all that time in the dingy cubicle had payed off and they didn't have to do all of the work now. The only thing that they hadn’t made plans for was the in-situ resource utilization. That plan would probably take the next few months to draw up and integrate with everything else. Tony would have to design a pump that worked without atmosphere or normal gravity, make sure that they had all the energy needed to run all the systems…the list went on and on.
I gotta get started on this thing eventually. Its not going to plan itself.
He stood up and walked towards the door. It opened at his approach and he walked out into the hall way and towards the second draft room. The carpet in the hall was a dull, corporate gray and blue affair, with little cushion. The walls were even worse. They were off-white and devoid of any kind of excitement. I really don't like that the only parts of this building that are fun are a few of the executive offices. They could have at least picked a less dreary carpet color, rather than this gray thing. Tony eventually reached the draft room and walked inside, switching on the light as he went. A long table at the other end of the room supported a bank of computer screens. The holograph machine sat exactly in the middle of the room, perhaps the most useful tool for what he needed to work on. It was a medium sized hemisphere of black metal with a smooth chunk taken out of the top. In this hole, hundreds of tiny lights sparkled, ready to light up a darkened room with their intensity. This particular machine, and its twins in the other two draft rooms were special, utilizing an almost unique technology. Motion sensors and cameras were hidden around the room, not only for security reasons, but to help the user interact with the machine. Any person that used this device would be able to physically interact with the images projected into the air just by touching them. Touch-interaction technology, that was the technical term, was thought impossible. It was still thought impossible now, since many experts say that its just a trick of the computer making the images move when something got near enough to it. Tony didn't particularly care; it was a useful tool and an entertaining toy, and that was about all he was concerned with at the moment.
He went to one of the computer screens and turned it on, quickly finding the files he needed and uploading them to the holograph emitter. The lighting in the room dimmed to almost nothing, and the machine flickered to life, sending cascades of light in every direction. The same landscape that the projector had shown on the whiteboard manifested itself in the air of the room, highlighting tiny motes of dust as they fell like a meteor shower. Using a marker tool from a menu to his left, he pinpointed a spot almost on the edge of the crater, close enough to toss one of the thousands of stones lying around into the lake. A small white dot appeared with a text message. ‘Insert Blueprint File’. For now, a placeholder would have to suffice. Simple icons would probably work for the time being. Lets see…grab a couple of images from the internet and…here we go.
Just as he began the process of placing the markers and was starting do some calculations, he realized that he had no idea what size they were going to be. Dammit, I should have thought of this before I came over here. The only thing I can really do right now is find a place to put the solar panels.
Muttering to himself in frustration at his lack of forethought, Tony started to look up sun exposure rates for the area. A few different spots caught his eye. The first was a spot near the edge of the crater where the colony was to be launched. Checking the numbers, he saw that it received between 80 and 90% sunlight for four-fifths of the year. The hills were another site, and received sunlight for a week or two longer than the crater. The only downside was that the other hills that surrounded it cut off some of the sunlight, leaving the amount of light it received at 75%. Ideally, they could use the third site, located on top of the biggest peak within a couple of miles. Because it was at such a high elevation, it received almost full direct exposure to the sun, with a small two week dark period. It would be perfect and make running the base so much smoother, but the same thing that made the location ideal was also its downfall. Moving enough cable to connect anything at that peak to the base below would cost LunaGaia a huge part of the budget, not to mention the difficulty of moving the cable to the top and getting someone up there to connect everything. Too much trouble.
Tony took a seat in a chair near the computers and started to weigh the costs of the two sites. Whichever one he chose, the team would still have to deal with a dark period when the moon rotated away from the sun. The most appropriate solution to that would probably be either a miniature nuclear reactor or a couple of fuel cells. The fissile reactor should only be a last resort, thought Tony. Intense artificial radiation is one of the last things I want to have to deal with when we’re setting this thing up, even if I didn't have to bring a nuclear technician on the team to take care of it. Mark and I both know how to fix and maintain fuel cells, and we can change them to consume basically any kind of fuel we have.
Almost half an hour later, he came to his decision. Fuel cells weren’t nearly as reliable as solar panels, and two cells would be required for the amount of energy they needed, doubling the chance of mechanical failure. There was only so much that engineers can fix before the machine becomes completely inoperable. The hilly area would better provide for the needs of the colony since it could stay online for more of the year than the crater location, leaving less chance for the fuel cells to break down. They were still unreliable and unproven, ever since the car market had gone into electric vehicles and abandoned the technology.
Tony’s eye wandered over to the crater that they would use for a water source. He called for the computer to upload another file, this time an old schematic of a zero-gravity water pump that he and Mark had designed back in the cubicle. “We’re going to have to redesign this before it actually goes in to anything,” he thought aloud.
He dragged the file over to the lip of the crater and rotated the layout of the map so that he could put the virtual pump in the water, halfway submerged.
“Run a 6-inch thick airtight pipe from Lunar Pump Unit to Point 1,” he said. Water access won’t be too hard at least, he thought. Tony pulled up the next file on his list. Just a simple refinery structure to synthesize bastard metals out of the regolith and stone.
A message flashed across the screen. ‘Warning: Structure Unstable’. No way. Mark had done this one, and even if architecture wasn't his specialty, he was never wrong. He opened the file and took a look at the stress test and rendering. The file showed a building far larger than the original mining facility that he had designed. Whereas the original was simply a pressurized covering of some ground with the few basic necessities of equipment and machinery, the new building was multistory, nearly an impossibility without this being the only item on a shuttle. Looking inside of it, Tony saw a metal hatch secreted in the ground level floor, no doubt for access to the minerals below, and several larger pieces of equipment that would not be out of place in a small mine on earth. Small cranes, robotic arms, and conveyor belts lined the walls. Below the hatch, in a crosscut, he could see an elevator under construction, along with a shaft that cut at least a dozen feet through the regolith. The elevator was only a simple mining cart attached to vertical rails, but that kind of machine was still a huge level of extravagance on an extra-terrestial colony. He looked on, completely intrigued by the ostentatious design and the level of situational ignorance that had gone into this work.
The second floor showed a miniature version of a system that he had given many long hours of study, a smelter. Two massive bowls hung, suspended from the ceiling of the building by iron hinges and braces. The material that made up the smelting pots was by far the most interesting feature however. Whatever they were made of, he didn’t recognize it.
Tony continued to look for a few minutes, noting details on what he wanted to keep in the new design and those features which were useless and needed to be removed. The thing that puzzled him was the material composition of the smelters. In all of his classes and textbooks, Tony had not heard of a metal like that able to withstand the temperatures of molten metal.
It had to be graphics. The chances were so slim that a new alloy had been created without the general public finding out that it was effectively impossible. Curious, he tried to open up the file on the molecular structure of the metal, for the computer showed that both metals had existing files for it. As soon as the file started to open, the entire display that had been there only a moment earlier sucked itself back into the hologram machine. In its place was a line of bold, red text.
‘Access Denied: Enter Employment Passcode’
There was no virtual keypad being emitted, so Tony went over to the physical keyboard and typed in his password. Instead of bringing the original display back into the air, the entire machine beeped once, briefly showed a line of text telling him that he had been denied access, and promptly shut down, leaving the bank of computer screens as the only light in the room before they shut down as well.
Well, great, Tony thought to himself. Just great. Whatever I did, the computer obviously doesn't like it, and now I'm stuck standing in the dark. He continued to grumble about the annoyance as he fumbled around the room for the light switch.
What seemed to be several minutes later, he found the light switch and flicked it on. All of the computers and the hologram emitter were completely dark. He manually pressed the power buttons on several of the machines, but without exception they all turned off before showing even a single image on the screen.
Tony pulled out his dij to request a technician when he saw a message from Lev.
At the building now. Receptionist told me how to find Mark. He left her a message saying to let me in and where he was. Can’t tell you how excited I am! Talk to you later, I'm on my way up now.
The message was listed as received more than an hour ago, so the pair were probably just past the reminiscing and at their third cup of coffee. He had to laugh at the absurdity of his thoughts and his absolute certainty that they would be going through it anyways. He knew them both so well, especially Mark.
Wrenching himself back to reality, he allowed the dij to reconnect with the local server and put in a short request for a computer technician, outlining the problem with as few words as possible. While he was waiting for the help to arrive, he glanced at his coffee and realized that it had been completely empty for some time. The clock showed that only a minute had passed since his request had been sent. There was still a good ten minutes left before the technician reached the room. Tony ventured out and into the dreary hallways and back to his office for a refill, which mercifully had been kept warm by the coffeepot automatically. Thank you technology! He took a small sip, savoring the exotic tastes for a moment or two before filling his cup to the brim and leaving for the draft room again. There was a small, middle-aged woman about to enter the room as he arrived.
“All of the machines in there aren’t working right now. Just so you don't go in and get frustrated when they don't work,” He remarked
“That's why I'm here. Are you the one who asked for tech help?” Her voice could not have been more terse.
Tony answered yes and they both walked into the room. She strode over to the nearest computer terminal and tried to turn it on. She got the same result that he had previously received.
“Well, you sure did a number on this system. What the hell did you do?” She seemed intent of being rude and unwelcoming to him the entire time.
“Nothing,” he replied. “I was just looking at a rendering of an molecular blueprint when it asked me for my password. I put it in and now it’s doing this. I have absolutely no idea why.”
By now, the technician had pulled out a small device and connected it to the computer. When she turned it on, a line of text appeared on screen before quickly disappearing, giving her just enough time to read it before it was gone. Tony asked her what she had seen.
“It was computer code, stupid. I didn't get a chance to understand it with you breathing down my neck.” At this point she was just being absurd. Tony was nearly on the other side of the room. He sighed and decided to ignore her remarks until she was done with the repairs.
“Now I’ll have to go into the box and fix it,” she continued. There was a door at the side of the room that opened into a small storage space that was completely filled with computer memory and processing panels. Tony took a look at the brand of computer that the LunaGaia Organization was using for the first time. Engraved into every piece of machinery was the logo for EVE Computers Inc. he looked back at the wall of processors. EVE computers normally had cool blue lights on them, but the lights on these had crimson lights shining from every LED. He knew something was more wrong than he had thought, turning the situation in his mind from a coding mistake to a complete system failure. Although his mind had already jumped to the nonexistent possibility of his causing all of this, he declined to say anything about the status of the machines to the angry technician beside him, and retreated back into the main draft room. She poked around in the processing room for a few minutes longer, pulling out panels and pressing buttons, and getting whatever information she could out of the device that had been plugged into the mainframe.
Her figure emerged from the dark of the tiny room. “Out of the million and a half ways to break a computer, you managed to pick the one that I can’t fix. Congratulations.” She seemed all the more ticked off now that she hadn’t been able to find a solution. She stormed out of the room.
Now it was Tonys’ turn to be angry. “Hey, wait a minute! It’s your job to fix this thing. You can’t just walk off without finishing your work.”
She made a rude gesture at him. “Watch me,” and continued to walk down the corridor.
He rubbed his head in frustration and returned to the office that he shared with Mark to send a message to the director. He would probably want to know about employees not doing their job and the problem with the computer. As soon as the send button had been pressed, Tony decided to check up on Mark and Lev. They hadn’t sent him any messages in the entire time that they had locked themselves in the other drafting room, which either meant that the two of them had made enormous amounts of progress, or were brain-dead for the day and goofing off. The second situation was much more likely, knowing the two of them.
Tony quickly walked out of the room, excited to see both of his friends. The second draft room was the opposite direction of the first one, so he took a right instead of a left when exiting their private office and took the series of turns that he had memorized nearly on the first day. As he walked towards the room, the elder of the two commanders reminisced on his first few days at the headquarters of the international Organization. The first day, they had both been so excited to assume their new roles at LunaGaia that he and Mark had arrived almost half an hour before the office building was even unlocked. The Director, Marcus Galt, had found them standing outside, staring upwards at the logo attached to the top of the building. Over the course of that first day, they had been introduced in their wide-eyed state to various teams of engineers and intellectuals that were supposed to work with them on designing every aspect of the proposed colony. They had gone past several dozen experts in nearly every field; astronauts, nutritionists, Ph D engineers, physicists, chemical analysts, and several others. It was around six at night when they had finally met the entire staff of HQ and had been shown to their joint office. It had been prepped over weekend between the dinner at the Galleria and coming to work for the first time, and included nearly item it now had, with the exception of the coffee machine. That was Tonys’ only request, as the room was nearly perfect in its original state. The two friends spent nearly an hour sitting in front of their desks before they were finally able to shake themselves out of shock and begin to work. An hour later, Mark announced that it was time to head home for the night. They left the building and walked over to Tonys’ car, still the Jaguar. They decided on a detour to an authentic Asian buffet to celebrate survival of the first day at their new job, and toasted themselves to the promise of many accomplishments to come. The two of them returned home exhausted and with bulging waistlines to sleep for a few hours before returning to work.
The second day was only little more productive. The Director gave them a tour of the building, which helped to relieve the awe that had worked its way into their minds. Afterwards, the Mr. Galt and a few members of the Board showed them some financial records to insure that the situation was known. They began to realize that however ambitious it was, LunaGaia still suffered the same problems as earlier space programs. Each participant country was only willing to give a small amount of money to the cause, boosted only slightly by a few eccentric billionaires and minor donations from other science organizations in the international community. Their budget was small, and already dwindling from expenditures on personnel and the expensive development of the Ion Shuttle, the latter of which would hopefully pay for itself in fuel costs and efficiency, which was the one piece of news that wasn't a surprise.
After being sent back to their office to retrieve their designs from the server in Florida, they both received a message from the higher-ups simultaneously. It turned out to be a short briefing on the limitations of the Ouranos craft, and a few paragraphs discussing the number of launches that could be sustained while retaining the ability to supply the colony with any materials it might need. The message also stressed the importance of keeping enough money for one extra launch, in case everything went south and all colonists needed to be recalled to Earth. Mark left the reading and interpretation of the note to Tony, who grew more melancholy at each sentence. He hoped that this downward slide of his understanding of LunaGaia affairs was taking would soon stop. The dream that he had almost always had of humans spilling out onto the moonscape with the aid of a fleet of space faring ships was slowly disappearing before his eyes. Humanities’ first baby steps into space were going to be much more humble than Tony had imagined. His emotions wandered over to empathy for those individuals and groups who had tried and failed before him.
Tony pulled himself back to the present. I can’t allow myself to wallow like this. I will push myself, my friends, my team; whoever I need to make this colony start and survive. I refuse to let anyone to fail! The mental speech continued unabated for several minutes as Tony gradually pushed his despair into a dark corner in the recesses of his mind. When the last of his emotion seeped back behind the mental wall that he had constructed, he started to feel himself returning to his usual confident personality.
A light pressure on his shoulder made itself apparent, and Tony turned to find Mark standing behind him.
“You alright?” he had asked. Tony nodded.
“Look, I know this whole situation is pretty dismal, but between the two of us, we have enough brains and skills to make up for an entire army of experts. No one else can do the work that we can, no one else can even come close to being as dedicated as us. The Organization picked us for a reason. We are the best that they could find. You’re worrying about nothing.” Mark smiled reassuringly, patted his friends’ shoulder, and went back to his seat.
“Thanks Mark. I needed that. All of these limits on what we can start with were bogging me down. I can’t focus on anything else. It all starts to become pale and ghostly, like a half-remembered dream.”
Mark looked thoughtful for a moment, and then moved his gaze back up. “You know what would be good right now? Lunch.”
“Now you’re talking. I’ll let you chose this time, since I forced you into that buffet restaurant yesterday.”
“Forced? I was almost jumping out of the car and sprinting there by the time you finished telling me about it. Lets hit that soup place down the street. Something hot sounds really nice right now.”
They walked out of the building and into the diner, where they both had delicious variations on mushroom and beef stew. They walked back some time later discussing the finer points of fuel cell efficiency and weight reduction and spent the rest of the day working on old designs to produce the technology that was needed to have a lunar outpost running and self-sufficient in as little time as possible. The next few weeks were spent in their office, staying late at night and arriving early in the morning. They took as many designs as they could from their database and gradually whittled them down to be as light and small as possible, while still retaining functionality. Whenever a particularly complex problem reared its head, Mark would retreat to his drawing board and Tony would gradually begin to piece together a rough plan to pack all the items they needed within the three shuttle launches that they had been allocated. It was an arduous process, first adding items until he had double what they could possibly bring up, and then cutting it down past the bare minimum requirement for survival and repeating, carefully managing this seesaw balancing act until his calculations showed a model that might actually work. From there, he could allocate a few pounds here or there where he saw fit, depending on the remainder of the designs that had to be finished.
He mind returned to the present as he neared the door to the draft room. The hallway was brightly lit, so Tony could see only the faintest of lights flashing beneath the door. Muffled voices suddenly became clear as he opened the door to find Mark and Levyn hard at work with the hologram machine.
“Hey guys, how’s the work coming along?”
Mark grunted a distracted acknowledgement, but Levyn looked up excitedly.
“Thank you so much for giving me this job, Tony! I can’t think of any way to repay you. Thank you so much!” He was practically bouncing off the walls, reminded of his excitement by Tony’s entrance.
“Dude, chill. If you want to work here, you can start by relaxing and not making a fool of yourself.” They embraced, having not seen each other except through pictures and the occasional dij message for years. “How’ve you kept yourself busy since college? I think I heard somewhere that you had a job in the big apple for a few months. And now you live right here in San Diego. What happened?”
“Well, you’re right. After I left graduate school, I was hired at an architecture firm in New York. They had me doing basic stuff, you know, homes, businesses. Nothing exciting. They started to get a little ticked off at my creative additions. I could never resist putting something new and controversial onto a building, as you well know. The company started heading downhill and I left before they could start the layoffs. There’s plenty of architecture stuff happening now, so I figured it would be easy to find a job, and I was right. I moved out here about a week after a quit. San Diego has been the cultural and economic powerhouse of the country for the past few decades, and wherever that happens, skyscrapers start going up like weeds. Anyways, I got myself a few nice, open-ended contracts for some freelance architecture doing some homes in uptown. Apparently the style that I practice is very popular with the new genetics billionaires that are popping up on the coasts. I've been busy with three or four projects at a time until you called me.”
“But won’t this interfere with all of your contracts? This is a full time job.”
“You caught me at the best possible time. I've only got two contracts right now, and one of them is nearly finished. I was going to accept another one next week, but I can always refer that one to my brother. He just finished his Ph. D and needs some work.”
“Great!” Tony laughed. “That sounds just like your luck. How are you going to finish the ones that you already have?”
“Oh, I guess you wouldn't really know this, but I usually work weekends anyway. That's one of the other reasons why I had so many contracts all the time. I got them finished nearly twice as fast as other architects, what with all my weekend and late night work sessions.” Lev almost looked sheepish as he said this.
“I'm glad that you’re used to it, because you’ll probably have to pull your share of late nights here too, for when you really get rolling and don't want to stop. It's a phenomenon that Mark and I have oft experienced in the past few weeks. We were actually talking this morning, saying that it was starting to get worse than college midterms week.” Mark overheard them and burst out laughing, shortly followed by the other two young men.
When the brief hilarity had subsided, Tony asked his friends “So how goes the catching up? And what are you working on over there, Mark?”
“I'm checking some sites that this guy told me about. Experiments with closed-system architecture; underground greenhouses, arctic bases, the like. And for your first question, we didn't have to,” replied Mark.
“We’ve actually kept in touch. This guy is actually pretty good at maintaining long distance friendships.” Lev looked at Tony pointedly.
The accused man turned to face Mark. “How do you find time to talk to people? Besides, I've honestly never seen you on your dij and we don't even have a computer in our apartment. How is it that you can stay in touch with people?”
“Didn’t you know? I’m a practiced telepath” he said, obviously joking.
Tony shook it head. “Whatever. What have you found so far? Have you gotten started on any designs yet?”
Levyn answered this time. “Not yet. We started with the online stuff and he haven’t gotten through it yet. There’s a ton of legitimate stuff out there that I've kept track of over the years. They start about three years ago and the most recent one is from a couple of weeks ago. It's an experimental dormitory unit that packs about twenty people into something a little bigger than a dumpster, provided that none of the occupants suffer from claustrophobia. The Nagasaki Technological Institute did it, naturally.”
“That sounds like exactly what we need,” Tony said thoughtfully. “Its obviously been possible for a while but no one wanted to build anything so intricate. I might have to call them when they open and talk to someone about getting a hold of the design. Why don't all three of us have a look at what these places have? Or at least Mark and I. You’ve probably seen them already since you’re the one who brought them here.” He brought a chair over to the screen and sat down.
He found the websites so interesting that he powered on the computer next to him and began to read through the list. There were more than a hundred links in the message that Lev had sent ahead of him, and each was an extremely reliable source from universities, research groups, and government-backed companies all over the world. There were designs for rovers, experiments on extracting oxygen from lunar soil, and plans to organize the layout of lunar colonies. Tony was genuinely amazed at the amount of information that he was getting from this. Even the books in his office didn't have anything like this, and they were considered the definitive texts on the subject. The only things that they contained were barely more than theories, computer models that attempted to describe things that could only be explained in physical experiments.
“Lev, buddy, where did you find all of this? This stuff is some of the best information I've seen since I worked with professor Marthin!”
“Do you remember how I always used to read those manga comics and spend hours on my dij watching Japanese cartoons? And how you always used to tease me for entertaining myself out of my race?” The last sentence was accompanied by a wry grin.
“Hehe, yeah.” The other two young men laughed as they remembered the countless times that they had found him on his bed, glued to the electronic screen of a digital comic book.
“Well now I spend all of that time researching lunar colony ideas, mainly architecture since I can do work with that. I don't have anything else to do, so I just search different school and research group websites, and I end up finding something interesting every month or so. Its not every often, but its enough to keep me interested and looking. I've actually got several notebooks filled with notes and some rough designs right here…in my house.” He slapped his forehead with his palm and continued. “OK, I’ll bring them on Monday. I forgot to grab them on my way out.”
Mark snorted in laughter. “Just like old times, eh buddy?” Lev only looked annoyed with himself as he nodded and pushed himself into thought.
The other two continued to read the articles. One of them showed an experiment that had been preformed in Antarctica last year. A group of post-graduate students, along with a couple of professors, had buried a small greenhouse in ice and studied measurements on it for over a year. The unit was small, only eighteen feet by seven feet, and cylindrical, but it had produced enough food for two men to live off of continuously, starting at the one month mark of the experiment. They used a series of terraces and wall plants to give the fruits and vegetables maximum surface area while they grew in an extremely humid and carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere, removing the need for irrigation or watering. No human intervention, and this thing can feed two grown men indefinitely. This is definitely something that I need. A few minor adjustments for radiation shielding and access from the rest of the base, and our food requirement is nearly fulfilled with a few of these.
The next article was on a base layout design that looked suspiciously familiar. It was shaped in hexagons, with a large building in the center of each shape, and six slightly smaller buildings as satellites. This is scary. And my exact design. How could anyone have gotten a hold of it? Tony was staring to panic, and frantically searched for the author of this article. Whoever it was, he would make sure that any renditions of his design were taken down and disallowed unless he posted it. His erratic gaze finally settled at the top of the website, where another familiar image was displayed. The Face of Gaia, which was the LunaGaia seal and logo, was proudly displayed at the top of the page. Appeased somewhat, the still furious commander started to look methodically at the text and soon found what he was looking for. His surprise and anger began to subside as he read the footnote on the article. ‘Design planned by Dr. Hoenheim, with consultation from additional experts.’
This puzzled Tony. There had been no other people working with him. As far as he knew, LunaGaia hadn’t even looked at his designs. He decided that a closer inspection of the design was warranted. The graphics of the picture were definitely done by someone else, but the layout of the design was the same idea with the same ratios that he had used since college, and finally set in stone during his cubicle days with Mark. As he continued to look at the picture, more differences made themselves apparent. Every structure appeared to be at least partially sunk into the ground, whereas the original idea was for everything to rest on the surface. Everything was scaled up too. Judging from the included cross-section of one of the buildings, each pod was the size of a normal house, which was completely unrealistic when taking into account the capacity of the shuttle. Each of the passageways between the buildings were also completely immersed in lunar dust, an even farther cry from his plan. It was as if some science fiction artist had taken his design and fit it to his own fantasies. The mere thought of it made Tony simmer, but he forced himself to calm down, mindful of his frightening transition from surprise to anger earlier. As he continued to look at the image, he found his inner circle of calm that he knew so well from his high school anger management days. He started to reflect on the past few minutes almost from a third-person perspective to maintain the calm.
I had no idea that I was becoming that attached to the Project and my designs. I mean, I always knew that I was completely obsessed with it, but to let the chance of some person copying my work evolve into full-blown anger? That's just getting out of hand. It wasn't even a recent or accurate design. I think what I need is some way to detach myself from this. Maybe take a day for vacation and find a hologame arcade. I've only played a few times since college. Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. I’ll put it past Mark later. Sometimes I feel like he knows me better than I do.
He felt that a short talk with the Director was still in order, but now that he had thought his anger out, it seemed much less urgent than it had a few seconds before.
They both continued to read through article after article, as Tony rapidly caught up to his friend. Levyn continued to sit a few feet apart from them, deep in thought about what could be anything from a new pair of chinos to finally hitting a bar, if either of the men knew anything about him. Minutes turned into hours, and finally Levyn asked if there was anything to drink in the building. Mark replied that there was a water cooler around the corner and some warm coffee back in their office if he cared for some. He walked out the door and came back a minute later with a large thermos of the stuff, eagerly sipping it in spite of its piping hot temperature. After a minute or so of burning his tongue and blowing on the black coffee to cool it, he asked;
“So can I have a crazy cool office like yours when I come here tomorrow?” He looked and sounded like an eager child.
“Hahaha. Sure. Maybe not quite as big, but it’ll suit your needs quite well. If you need anything that isn’t already there, I can give you some contact information for someone who can get you whatever you need. Within reason of course. LunaGaia is a non-profit on a budget, so we cant spend huge sums of money decking out executive offices. Everything that we got for our office after we got here was under five hundred dollars, and that was mostly the books. We had to pay for the coffee beans ourselves, but we got the sweet coffee machine for cheap off the internet and then got reimbursed by the organization.”
“That's so cool! I can’t wait to look at it and see what its like.” The childish glee had definitely come back to him now, and was probably going to stay for the remainder of the day, possibly carrying over the weekend and halfway through next week.
“Well, I can show you what’s in your office now. We’ve got rooms partially set up for all the required members of the team, so it’s all ready for you. Let’s just get this over with so that you can sleep off your excitement tonight and get to work getting yourself settled in tomorrow instead of ogling at everything in the vicinity.” His remark fell upon deaf ears, however, as Lev was already performing a nerdy victory dance across the red carpet of the draft room.
They walked down the hall, and Tony led his friend down the series of turns that he had reviewed before so that he could show his team where they would work, whenever he picked them. He was again disappointed when he saw that the carpet in here was the same design as his, and put a note in the back of his mind to never have discriminatory carpeting in any building he owned. They both came through the door, the second man nearly bursting through the door in his excitement. He surveyed the room in disbelief, as if he could not believe that anything in it could possibly be his. Overeager eyes roamed over the furniture, carpeting, lights, and floor to ceiling windows, which were now dark because of the night spreading across the city. Levyns’ usual grin became wider and wider until it seemed like the smile had nowhere else to go but past his ears and into his afro.
“This. Is. Unbelievable! It’s so awesome! I can’t wait to start working here tomorrow! Thank you so much, Tony. How can I possibly make it up to you?”
“You can get to work in a few days when you’re done being way too hyped up about this job. I am your boss now, so I eventually want to see some results, which, quite honestly, I think you could do blindfolded. That's why I picked you, you know. You have the best track record and mixed background of any architect I could think of. The fact that you would be so eager helped a bit too.”
“You know me too well, old friend. If I knew you had been named commander with Mark, I would I come groveling at your feet for even a minor internship the moment I found out. I geek out about this sort of thing just as much as you are deeply impassioned about it.” At the presence of serious discussion, Levs’ childish personality matured into something more reasonable.
“Well be that as it may, it’s getting later, and I'm getting hungry.” Tony checked his dij for the time and showed the readout to his friend. The numbers read half past six. “You’re welcome to spend as much time here as you want. Hell, spend the night, I don't care. However, if you do want to leave, make sure you’re out of here by ten. That's when the janitor locks up the building. I’m going to go get Mark and leave, I’ll see you tomorrow.” Tony walked out of the room to fetch his roommate.
He walked back into the draft room to find him still seated at the computer, reading those articles that the architect had sent him. He stood up as Tony entered the room and walked towards the door. “Dude, I've been waiting for you. It’s getting late.”
“Why didn't you call me and wait by the car?”
“Coz its November and I forgot to bring a jacket today. Its freakin’ cold out there, man! Or did you forget that this is San Diego?”
“Let’s just get to the car and go home. I’m feeling like cooking tonight, so I’ll let you take the car to grab some soda from the store when we get home. I drank the last one on Wednesday. Oh, and no diet. Gross.”
“And when have I ever had the slightest urge to do or eat or drink anything healthy?” Mark asked. Regardless of what he ate, he seemed to be one of those people that could eat anything and never gain weight. His natural metabolism also gifted him with an ability to keep a normal-looking amount of muscle without every doing a single pushup or ever going to the gym. Mark was an extremely lucky man in that regard.
“Just so I know if some person decided to kidnap you and replace you, now that we’re bigwigs in the business,” he joked. The chance of their being in any danger was so remote that they might as well be hit by an ice cream business operating out of a Ferarri. Not to mention that although LunaGaia was currently humanities best chance of reaching and living on the moon, it was still a small non-profit, hardly a target for corporate warfare.
They reached the car. “I am so glad that its Friday today and the weekend tomorrow. TGIF.” Mark said.
“Oh, crap, it’s Friday? I better remind Lev to get out of there before the janitor locks up.” Tony pulled out his dij and sent him a quick message. The response was almost immediate, as usual. “Good, now I won’t feel bad if he leaves himself in there over the weekend. He gets so spacey when he’s around a new toy, and I think he’s still trying to wrap his mind around this jackpot,” said Tony in a worrying tone.
“And food wont be a worry, since there’s a ton of vending machines in the lounge.”
“You do realize that that guy rarely, if ever, carries cash on his person, right?”
“I rigged all the machines. Cheetos are free. And I'm pretty sure that Cheetos are his favorite, same as me.” Tony could have sworn that his lips curled up like a cats when he said this.
“Alright. But now that I'm not worrying, my stomach is reminding me that I havn’t eaten for hours. Let’s hit the road, dinners going to take a while, and cooking makes me even hungrier.”
Tony put the key into the ignition and drove towards the apartment that they shared since they had moved to San Diego. It was smaller than the rental home that they had lived in for the few days leading up the dinner, but much cheaper. Great, considering the meager salaries they received, even as Joint Commanders of the LunaGaia colony. Their first check should be in the mail now, but it wouldn't be much more than their previous hourly pay unless they got bonuses.
They passed the time of the drive home by turning on the radio to a classic rock station and singing in various stages of dissonance. When they reached the apartment, Tony smoothly pulled into the parking lot and turned the car off, leaving the two of them in darkness and silence as they fumbled for a key. They finally found it and turned to face the building. The apartments weren’t amazing, but considering the amount that they had paid for the first month, it was a steal. The landlord was a little bit of a hardass but fair when they were bargaining, and handy enough to fix anything that went wrong in the building, so overall, they were satisfied. They both walked in to their apartment and went to their respective tasks. Mark grabbed his coat and started to head for the door.
“Six pack of beer sound good?”
“IPA if you don’t mind. I’ll start cooking though. I'm feeling some pasta primavera tonight.”
“Eh, as long as its hot and there’s a lot of it, I don't really mind what you concoct. Scratch that. I think I've still lost half my taste buds from that time you decided that the recipe wasn't good enough.”
“Don't worry, pasta primavera is nearly impossible to make any better. Even chefs have trouble with trying to make it better.”
Mark walked out the door, and Tony got to work.
The door opened again a while later, and Mark returned with a six-pack just as the pasta was nearly finished.
“Yo, grab some plates, will ya?” Mark grunted acquiescence and headed over to help. They sat down on the couch and turned on the television as they dug in to their titanic helpings.
Tony began to speak through mouthfuls of warm, cheesy pasta. “I made enough for eight or so people tonight, so we should have a little bit of leftovers for lunch tomorrow. Even with both of us eating.”
Mark tore his gaze away from the TV just long enough to assess the amount of food left in the pot. “I don't know, dude. I'm feeling awfully hungry tonight.”
“Whatever, just leave a small bowl for me. I really don't want to do anything except microwave stuff tomorrow.”
Mark looked at him in surprise. “Does this mean ramen for dinner tomorrow? Sweeeet.”
“Yeah, unless you want to use your limited cooking experience on some mac and cheese or something. Besides, I bought a crate of the good stuff instead of that instant crap you always buy. I swear, you have no taste buds when it comes to Asian food.”
Mark gave his signature grunt, as if to say, ‘yeah, whatever, I don't really care,’ and continued to chow down on his food. The rest of the night passed uneventfully, with the TV showing a rerun of a series that showed humans with superpowers. Far from an epic movie, it was basically a testosterone-filled drama with people of varying powers and strengths instead of a handful of Superman-caliber heroes.
They ate plate after plate of pasta and downed several bottles of beer a piece in impromptu celebration of their first month as the leaders of the first permanent human settlement away from Earth. By the time they finished, it was well past midnight and both men were exhausted.
After nearly falling asleep on opposite ends of the small couch, they decided to head to their respective beds to sleep. They both knew that they probably wouldn't wake up until almost noon the next morning from their food coma, and were prepared to spend the weekend relaxing and having their own miniature vacation from all things extra-terrestrial.
