Chapter Three
A few nights ago – how many, who knows? – I was awakened at gunpoint by an angry mob of lunar workers from one of the lower wards. My first thought was Boško was dead. Damn. I liked him a lot. A great sense of humor and loyal to the death. No way he’d let these fucks in here. He’d have to be dead. This was a very bad situation I was coming into but I had the thought this could be worked out. I’ve had my share of crises to deal with and this was just going to be another one for the books. These fuckers were going to have to die. No question about it.
These unmen probably figured out their comrades weren’t dying in surface accidents. I mean, they were, but these accidents were planned by yours truly so I could keep the remaining colony functioning at its optimal best. Increase caloric surplus, decrease mouths to feed, and do all this as systems became more automated, reducing the need for human work hours. It was simple math, people. Nothing personal. There was an elegance to my plan and it produced maximum joy.
My math aligned with an accident rate that shouldn’t have raised any eyebrows, so what happened? I was taking on the burden required of me as leader of this lunar colony, as its founder and visionary. I know how that must sound. Visionary. It’s politically incorrect to call oneself visionary, isn’t it? But what else do you call it? As the person trying to protect these people from the realities of what had presumably happened on Earth, as the only person with the moral courage to do the things that needed doing, I stayed true to the vision.
So I told them a lie. Not just any lie. The lie they needed to hear. It was a lie that kept them happy and secure, and living the best possible life on the Moon. The whole human civilization project was founded on a wonderfully creative tapestry of lies. The sooner one understood that, the sooner one could go about the business of keeping it afloat.
Leaders work with what they have. Lies are a tool like any other. Slave away in this life, paradise in the next. For God and country. Make California great again. You know the deal. Very simple stories. Very effective. They were clearly beginning to wear off down here in the crater. But goddammit, progress is one grand narrative, and the lies are what keep us charging forward.
Forge On.
Fiction is for losers, people who lack the vision and the balls to let their stories run free. Fiction is a failure of imagination. I was making history here. The simple story I gave them, worked wonders:
Something had happened on Earth, communication was down, some kind of global meltdown, but we were working on it and when things went back online, everyone would be allowed to return to Earth. Forge On.
You’re welcome. I told them we were better off up here while this crisis, whatever it was, passed. Forge On. They asked about their families, why they couldn’t make connections with anyone, and I actually told them the truth. Forge On. Your families are most likely dead. We had to just remain calm, count our lucky stars, and wait for the systems to come back online and everyone would be able to return to Earth in an orderly way, once it was safe. You got it: Forge On. It had the monosyllabic symphonics of fuck you or fuck off, which wasn’t by accident. Forge On. It helped when I listened to their incessant complaining and I could just calmly say, ‘forge on,’ and be thinking, ‘fuck off,’ all in the same breathe.
So your family was dead. Forge On.
That was a pill they could swallow and none of these people really cared about family anyway. A lot of these surface colonists were men, socially incapable, had multiple families, young women that birthed them healthy children. They pretended to care about them because it was part of the story, and I rode along right there with them. We write it together and everything works out just fine. Multi-authored future. Forge on, you fucks. What more do you want from me?
And now these animals are asking me to write a message here claiming I’m being held prisoner. No doubt they think this will serve as some kind of ransom letter. I’m typing it out with one hand here, and they almost certainly think this can be used as leverage to get what they want from Earth, trading me for the rockets and supplies that they need to get back home. The idiots have no idea what’s going on. It’s not their fault. I had them working the ice processors deep inside the South Pole, about as far away from Earth as you could get, literally kept them in the dark year-round.
My second thought, after realizing my head of security was kaput, as I was waking up from deep sleep with all these unmen in my room, was what these brown-skinned lower-ward workers were doing in my face and how had they gotten a hold of my prized collection of Smith & Wesson revolvers? Second and third thoughts, I guess. Those babies were tucked away in my private reserves, locked tight and only brought out on special celebrations, or on the rare occasions when I thought I might need to blow someone’s head off. It was part of my lunar cowboy persona. Never had to use them, but that was the point of having them. The animals had drugged me heavy. How long had they been here? Had they drunk all my whiskey? Fuckers.
Before I could ask what was going on or how they got my prized revolvers out of the reserves, I felt a sharp pain shoot up my right arm and saw my hand had been cut off at the wrist, neatly cauterized and completely exposed, the flesh around my nub inflamed red and charred black at the edges. Reflexively, I tried to scream but could barely breathe, let alone utter a sound. Fucking animals. They could have taken the tip of my index finger and gotten in just as well.
Sick mother fucks.
The tranquilizers they’d given me were still in heavy effect, and I just stared at the nub and back at the angry mob stomping around my master’s quarters and the .44 magnum Smith & Wesson that killed Jesse James dancing right up in my face. My favorite fucking firearm pointed at my head by some skinny brown-skinned puke that I would have gladly murdered right then and there if I had faculties over my body. He was yelling something in Arabic. They were all yelling but I couldn’t hear anything. My legs and the good arm were chained to the bed. I could feel the resistance and the cold steel around my wrist and ankles because I was lunging for the guy’s throat with my swollen nub, the one with my Jesse James murder weapon. These idiots were so fucked.
Now they were laughing hysterically. I think I must have said, because I remember thinking it, Boško, please kill these lower-ward slaves now. Get these fucks out of my fucking face. This is completely unacceptable, do you hear me? They were laughing and I think it was somewhere in that moment that I pissed myself, really let go, thinking these animals were going to kill me right then and there. Over the course of the last decade they had learned to speak English. Why not? Part of the genius of this colony was using language as a kind of keycode, English at the top, Spanish for the servant class, Arabic and really any other leftover immigrant population language at the bottom.
But then a rational thought entered my brain.
They were keeping me alive for something. Taking my hand had showed their hand, so to speak. They wanted me alive. I still had some cards to play.
As I scratch out this message locked away somewhere in the storage lockers deep within one of the lower wards – which one, I have no clue – I feel pity for these animals because the order and life I’ve provided these people is about to come crashing down hard. There is no ransom letter that’s going to get them off this rock. They could have had a life here under my supervision. That’s a fact. The last decade proved that to be the case. I had enough dehydrated protein and food rations to last me and the seventh colony a lifetime. Probably more, actually. So what if I supplemented those reserves with the occasional laborer, for fresh meat. There was no way they were all going to live anyway, and our resources were limited. We’re on the fucking Moon lockdown budget here, you know?
Two hundred thousand calories extracted from a body up here is worth more than all the platinum and gold on Earth, you feel me? And did I hoard all those calories for myself? Of course not. I didn’t even take any for myself, just a taste to make sure the chefs were hitting their culinary marks. I took pleasure in the performance. The meals were the way to keep the English-speakers in order and that was enough for me. This was in the name of science. We never lost a day on the lunar arrays. Knowledge of the universe was expanding at a rate never before known in human history. It’s basic Dusky Seaside Sparrow logic I was applying here.
I spread those precious calories and minerals evenly amongst the fine folks in Lunar Colony Seven. They paid me fortunes to keep them safe, sound, and most importantly happy, and that’s what I did. I was doing my job, fulfilling my contractual obligations to the shareholders who elected me. This was a democracy. I owned the companies, but they elected me to run them! It was practically in the contracts that you could be turned into food, and the unmen doing the work down here knew what they were getting into when they signed on the line.
They could have remained on Earth and starved away. No one twisted their arms. Nice slow deaths back on Earth, and I’m not even talking about whatever happened there at the end. At least up here they got to experience the Moon, walk its surface once a month, maybe, and know they were advancing the human race. They were a part of history in the grandest sense, like sailors on Columbus’s voyages, or the first people to walk across the Bering Strait. Did they think I would hand-hold them the entire time?
I remember Carol saying once, all in a ‘theoretical proposition’ kind of way – her words, not mine – as a theoretical proposition, cannibalism is a deeply unethical and illegal act, and discussing it in any practical sense is both distressing and inappropriate. Well, fuck you, Carol. Did you really think there were that many ducks up here in the Seventh Colony? Really? Duck à L’Orange. Pan-Seared Duck Breast with Blackberry Sauce – blackberry sauce! Crispy-skinned duck breast served with a rich blackberry reduction, accompanied by sautéed greens and mashed potatoes. You’re welcome, Carol! Duck Confit. Slow-cooked duck leg preserved in its own fat, served with crispy potatoes and a side of frisée salad. Are you getting the picture yet, Carol? Duck Breast with Cherry Port Sauce. Great choice. Peking Duck. Duck Ravioli with Sage Brown Butter. The list goes on, Carol.
You had a good life while I was in charge. With the animals out of their cages, I expect the lies to become naked again. Soon enough you’ll be eating each other right out of the rib cages, you know what I mean? I gave you all a gift. Shackleton Crater and all the colonies will shit the bed when you kill me. So sure, send this letter back to Earth. Stick it up your asses for all I care. No one is coming to save you because nobody is home. The real joke is, even if the world were spinning as it always had, who did they think was going to pay to keep me alive? Who did they think I was? So, Carol, when they eat you, I just have one question: I wonder if you’ll taste like the Duck Ragu Tagliatelle you were bitching about, or something else?
