Jeramey Kraatz - The Moon Platoon

“No way! Is that really her?” Hot Dog asked. Then she gasped, covering her mouth with both hands and muffling her voice. “Her hair’s metallic . And she’s got antigravity hair clips in! Look at it float! It’s like she’s underwater!”

The woman looked very, very unhappy.

“… drives like a maniac …” Benny heard her say as she stomped away from the car.

“Is she famous or something?” he asked.

“Uh, yeah.” Hot Dog’s eyes went wide. “She won the last season of Heart-throb or Hologram? !”

Benny looked back to the woman, who was now all smiles as she posed for pictures and holovids with some of the other kids who had definitely recognised her. In seconds, two fashionably dressed people darted out of the Taj’s front doors and were corralling all the EW-SCAB winners into one big photo opportunity.

Hot Dog started forward to join them, but stopped after a few steps, turning her attention back to the car. Meanwhile, Drue crawled out from under the Space Runner and started to walk around it, letting his fingers smudge the thin layer of Moon dust that had settled on the vehicle.

“This must be some kind of prototype,” he whispered in reverence. “Check out this paint job. I think those ghost flames are made of microscopic LED particles.”

He didn’t seem to notice the pilot’s side door folding open, but Benny did. A man stepped out, the gold tips of his black cowboy boots glinting as gravel crunched beneath his feet. Benny instantly recognised the guy’s trademark facial hair: a close-cut reddish-brown beard with three horizontal lines shaved into each side.

Elijah West.

Elijah West was barely out of the car before two people in matching black coveralls were by his side. Both of them had long, slender noses that looked as though they’d been broken and reset at awkward angles. The man was nearly two metres tall – a bald mountain. The woman was shorter and built sturdily, the kind of person Benny would have liked to have with him when lugging around scrap. She definitely wasn’t from the Drylands, though. The left side of her head was shaved, and the rest of her short, dyed-magenta hair was pushed to the right.

“She runs like a dream, but the acceleration’s got a ways to go,” Elijah said, taking off a pair of black driving gloves with gold studs on the knuckles. He tossed them and his keys to the big guy in coveralls. As he continued, the woman pulled out a HoloTek and made notes. “Let’s punch up the horsepower. The new wheels are better, but we’re going to need a different tread or more weight because I’m sliding all over the dust out there.” He pulled off a fur-lined coat to reveal a dark red space suit covered in intricate stitching that pulsed with light. “And the brakes are too sensitive. The whole driving experience is just a little too … smooth. I want to feel like I’m behind the wheel of a muscle car, not a luxury SR.”

“Maybe we should work on a motor and antigravity combo propulsion system?” the woman asked, not looking up from the screen.

Elijah smirked as he pushed a pair of aviator sunglasses to the top of his head to reveal big, hazel eyes.

“Now you’re speaking my language, Ash.”

“Bo and Ashley McGuyver,” Hot Dog whispered. “The best mechanics in the universe.”

Benny wasn’t sure if she’d been talking to him or herself. He was still in a state of shock. He’d been on the Moon for all of five minutes and he’d already nearly been hit by a car and was standing within a few metres of Elijah West. Fortunately, the Heart-throb or Hologram? celebrity and her assistants were still taking photographs with their backs to the courtyard, meaning most of the kids hadn’t realised Elijah was there.

“Good news,” Ash continued. She motioned to the bigger guy. “Bo’s finished retrofitting that Chevelle you had shipped up. She’s ready for a spin outside the resort whenever you are.”

A smile took over Elijah’s face. “I’ll take her out now.”

“Oh, no you don’t!” A woman’s voice came from somewhere behind Benny.

Elijah frowned – just for a flash. Benny turned around in time for a woman wearing a tailored pink suit to walk through him.

The chill that went down his back was so strong he thought for a second his knees might give out.

“Whoa,” Hot Dog said beside him. “Ghost woman on the Moon.”

But it wasn’t a ghost. Benny turned back around to get a better look at what he guessed was an incredibly realistic hologram, way more advanced than his spider back on Earth. There must have been a swarm of microscopic hover-mechs projecting her image from somewhere.

“Pinky,” Elijah said, his smile coming back, “why do you sound so upset? Don’t tell me Trevone’s been trying to hack you again. You know it’s only to look for flaws in your security.”

“I do not have security problems, thank you very much. Of course, you’d never know if I did because you had me muted .”

“You kept trying to get me to do things I didn’t want to.” Elijah shrugged. “Besides, you do have the capability to unmute yourself.”

Her hands curled into small, tight fists before motioning for Elijah to follow her away from the Taj and around one side of the fountain so they could talk more quietly – and so they wouldn’t be in the background of all the photos still being taken at the entrance. Benny crept around the other side of the big metal hand, trying to figure out where Pinky’s image was being projected from.

Pinky took a deep breath, tucked a strand of white-blond hair that had fallen out of her bun behind her ear, and continued. “I had to explain to three European royals, half a dozen internet TV egos, and the CEO of HoloTek Japan that they’d all have to leave in preparation for our scholarship arrivals without getting to talk to you in the flesh. Even though you’d apparently promised all of them that you’d see them off personally. If you had actually bothered to tell me you weren’t going to be here …”

“Relax, Pinky,” Elijah said. “I’ll handle everything. And besides, you were the one who suggested I take that woman out for a tour.”

“Yesterday,” Pinky said. “You were scheduled to take her out yesterday . And don’t think I didn’t see that you went on a short joyride instead of out to the see the old Moon landing site like you were supposed to.”

“Not short enough,” Elijah said, glancing over his shoulder. “If I had to listen to her talk about her burgeoning singing career any more, I’d have walked out of the Space Runner without a helmet on. Speaking of which, will you make sure she and her handlers are on the transport back to Earth with the last of the guests and seasonal staff in an hour?”

“Impressive tech,” Jasmine said from Benny’s left. He hadn’t even realised she’d come up beside him. The water in the fountain must have covered the noise of her footsteps.

“Yeah,” he said. “Impressive, angry tech.”

“At least the EW-SCABers got a few pics with her,” Elijah continued.

“Please don’t call them that,” Pinky said. “It sounds so disgusting.”

“What? I think it’s funny.”

“I don’t know why I even bother making schedules if you’re just going to ignore them.” Pinky sighed.

Elijah smiled at her. “You’re being dramatic.”

“No. Not yet, but I’m about to be. There’s something else. Take a look at the readings we’ve got from the deep space probes. I found some anomalies that at first we thought were solar winds but now … well, I’m not sure what they are.”

Elijah tapped once on a slim band wrapped around his right wrist, and a series of graphs appeared in front of him. They were made of light, but he swiped through them as if they were tangible.