Chapter 6 Step backwards

The base was quiet. The artificial morning hadn’t fully settled. I lay still for a moment. Then I checked my eye-ring.

Missed call. Matt.

I got up quietly and stepped outside pulling the door behind me. Even the Divided Hands district of Gladivea at this hour was quieter and cleaner than anything in the Aquilas dome Matt and I called home. I called Matt back..

He answered before the second pulse.

"There he is!" he said.

"Here I am."

"Two days, nothing. I’m sitting here watching pressure reading wondering if you floated off somewhere!"

"Still grounded. How’s the job?"

He exhaled. "Same useless shift. Watching pressure numbers and pretending it matters. Half the AI systems argue with each other and somehow I'm the idiot in the middle." A pause. "That thing on LunarCast last night." He said, squinting his eyes and scratching his lower jaw.

"I saw it."

"Was that your work?"

A small pause. "No," I said.

Silence. Then— "Alright." He didn’t believe me. We left it in the space between us where old friends leave things they’ve decided not to pull apart just yet.

"When are you coming back?" Matt continued.

"Soon."

"You always say soon."

"I always come back."

"That’s true," he said. "Be careful with your work."

He ended the call. I stood in the corridor for a moment then sent him a message.

Don’t eat all the food I bought.

When I went back inside I got a notification. The briefing had already been sent by Sera.

I sat down and opened it. Same target. New location— a private residence within the Aquilas sector, relocated after the events of two nights ago. A man who had survived one attempt and moved to another nation.

Forty-eight hours.

I read it twice. I made tea and sat with my own thoughts. That mild surprise I noted. Then I sat it aside. I had become good at setting things aside.

Finally, I went to wake Tasha up. As I called her name, I was reminded of the time I was with my ex-lover. I would always bring tea while kissing her forehead, and gently waking her up. She was wonderful, beautiful, and smart. Unfortunately, as our love deepened, I lost her. And all I had left from her to carry were memories.

Tasha woke up and looked at my hands curiously.

"What’s that?"

"I made tea."

"You’re a big tea person."

"Thanks." I paused. "I got the brief."

"Alright. Fill me in."

I shared the details as she was stretching herself and putting her clothes on. She wore a dark shirt and some black pants. I continued to tell her about where we would stay while she went in the bathroom and did her makeup. She didn’t use much.

"Alright. That sounds good."

"So, Who’s gonna kill Grandisfield."

""Whichever one of us gets there first," she said, but there was no confidence in it."

I nodded and got whatever we had in the fridge, a little cheese, and some rolled bread in a bag to make sure there wouldn’t be any crumbs on the floor.

Tasha wasn’t talkative while we ate. She was more than usual quiet. Even after a few days of knowing her I could tell. She kept her eyes closed as she ate.

"Why are your eyes shut?" I asked.

"I don't like the silence, nor watching you put food in your mouth."

"Are you saying I eat like an animal?" I said, putting my food down.

"No. Not at all. It's just that I don't like looking at people when they eat."

She kept her eyes shut, so I did the best thing I could. I shut my eyes also.

We finished our food and gathered our things. Not that I had anything other than my electronic devices and my old 2000s watch. I liked it. You didn't see many like that anymore.

Tasha held my hand all of a sudden and held me in place. "I need some things here before we enter Aquilas."

"Lead the way." I said.

She took me to dome number three, next to where we were in Gladivea’s lower residential area. We took the subway.

She took me to a shop that occupied the ground floor of a building. The sign above the door said Elara’s in letters that had faded to near-illegibility. Inside, the shop sold clothing. I use the term loosely. Most of it was functional. Mostly lunar-practical wear that prioritized thermal regulation and electromagnetic compatibility over anything else. Very basic.

Except for one wall.

The wall was dedicated entirely to lingerie. An explosion of color that had absolutely no reason existing in a city built for survival, and was therefore, I thought, possibly the most human thing I had seen on the moon.

An older woman emerged from behind a rack of thermal underlayers. She pressed her lips while observing Tasha. Then at me with an expression that lingered a little too long.

"Finally you bring someone." she said. "And you…" her body shifted towards me directly. "Are you going to buy those sexy lingerie for your lady or are you just here to look at things you can't afford?"

"Elara!" Tasha said, in a tone that was not quite expected. "Stop it."

Elara laughed. "Come." she said, and turned toward the back of the shop.

We followed her past the clothing, past a second door, and down a staircase. The room below was not large. It didn’t need to be.

What it lacked in size it compensated for in inventory. Racks of weapons along two walls. Compact, clean, well-maintained. A workbench along the far wall with tools I recognized and several I didn’t.

"Twice she saved my life." Elara said, without looking at either of us, already moving toward a specific rack. "So for her, the good prices."

She pulled two sidearms from the rack and set them on the workbench. Then a compact rifle. Then ammunition.

"These two," Tasha said, pointing at the sidearms.

Elara nodded and began to prepare them. I picked up one of the sidearms and checked it. Clean. Recent manufacture. The kind of weapon that had been maintained by someone who understood that a weapon is a tool and tools deserve respect.

"You know," Elara said, not looking up from her work, "the last time she came to me like this, with a very serious face, the other person didn’t come back."

"Elara!"

"I’m just saying."

"I appreciate the confidence." I said.

Elara faced me for a moment. Something shifted in her expression. Not warmth exactly, but something friendly. She went back to work.

Tasha paid. Only fifty Lun for each. Which was so low it was almost an insult to the quality of what we were receiving.

"Be careful with this one. He has the face of a man who thinks too much." Elara said to her.

"He does." Tasha replied.

I said nothing. I was too busy thinking.

"Float free Tasha." Elara said.

"Float free." She said with a smile.

We needed to cross back into Aquilas. The shift began before the border itself. The transit tunnels widened and the ceilings rose higher, as if space itself was less scarce there. Harsh industrial lighting softened into warm gold panels set into polished ceilings. Even the air smelled different. Less metal, more perfume, filtered and curated. Security drones hovered silently at every junction, visible enough to remind everyone they were being watched.

When we got to our destination we felt it. The electromagnetic floor panels felt slightly weaker in this section of the northern dome. The gravity loosened as if removing a heavy weight from your body.

Tasha moved through it without comment. I noticed my own step adjusting subconsciously.

We settled on the roof of a low service building across from the Luman Haven Hotel. It was something Aquilas had tried to forget. Rust stained the outer walls beneath fading white paint, and several of the balcony lights flickered instead of shining. It was the cheapest hotel in the dome, built near the outer gravity grid where the electromagnetic pull was weakest and the wealthy rarely came unless they had to. Around it rose polished towers of glass and silver, making the Luman Haven look even smaller. An old wound left visible in the middle of luxury. Between us and the hotel lay an open courtyard washed in white light, too exposed for mistakes. Grandisfield's balcony stood above it all.

He appeared at 15:00. Came out onto a small exterior platform and sat. He wasn't doing anything in particular. Perhaps checking his eye-ring. And for forty minutes he was simply a man sitting outside. We figured he was waiting for someone.

Then a figure appeared at the far end of the platform. Lunar. Hulon sector from what I could tell. They spoke quietly for a few minutes. Grandisfield listened more than he talked. Nodding every once in a while. Then the figure left.

Twenty minutes later a call from M.O.M came. Sera's face. Economy of words as always. Tasha reported the target's position. She did not mention the Hulon lunar visitor however.

"Finish it." Sera said.

The call ended.

We camped on the third floor's roof. Talking about Lunar conflicts and snacking on sticky-beans.

We were waiting for many long hours. Eventually Grandisfield came out of the hotel. I had the sidearm Elara had given us. The weight of it familiar.

Tasha positioned me above the platform. Clear angle. Direct line. She checked her gun once, twice, and a third time before moving below to create distraction.

"Belly," she said. "We need him to be able to speak."

"Copy that."

A few minutes went by and Grandisfield started walking further, talking to someone on a call. From my position he was alone. I raised the weapon. Grandisfield stood in the middle of the street, when a girl's voice came through. "Daddy!"

The girl had been severely affected by the moon. Weak bones. Thin body structure. His daughter.

Grandisfield tilted his head down with a smile. "Hello baby! You need to go back to your room. It's not safe to be out here."

"Okay dad." The little girl said in a sad tone.

I understood then why he had chosen this place. He wasn't hiding in luxury. He was hiding near her. For one second the rifle felt heavier than the Moon had ever made anything. He wasn't a target on a briefing file. He was a father smiling at his daughter.

He didn't know I was here. He didn't know anything, however had suspicion that something was wrong. He sent his daughter back to the hotel and raised his head to the floor. He continued his call.

Tasha’s signal came through my earpiece. Small explosions went off below. Grandisfield spun toward the sound. His guards moved instinctively around him pushing toward the hotel entrance. He turned the wrong way. Toward me.

I stayed still without acting. Tasha hissed through the ear piece. "Shoot him! What are you waiting for?"

I was wasting time. Tasha’s voice became a background noise as I aimed at his legs. I took the shot.

The recoil ran through my arms, but what hit harder was the sound that came after. A child screaming for her father from the window of their room.

It caught him in the side. He folded but didn't go down. Grabbed the arm of the nearest guard, kept moving, one hand pressed against his leg, he rushed toward the hotel door.

His guards were pulling him forward when Tasha came from the left.

Three shots. Three men. without any hesitation. Grandisfield fell to his knees as his guards fell. He picked up a weapon from the ground beside him and kept moving toward the door.

My body moved before my mind did. Somewhere behind the gunfire I could still hear the girl screaming, and every step forward felt like stepping deeper into something I already hated.

The hallway was empty except for the blood trail running over the polished floor. I followed it up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Every room on the second floor looked the same with soft crimson walls, polished artificial wooden panels, and artificial flowers arranged beside identical doors. The luxury made the blood look brighter.

I heard footsteps above me and ran harder. When I reached the next floor, I stopped.

She was standing in the hallway. Grandisfield's daughter. Barefoot, one hand against the wall to steady herself in the low gravity, staring straight at me. Her eyes were wide with fear.

"Please," she said. "Don't hurt my dad."

For one second I forgot why I was there. Then a door opened behind her.