Into the Mist

Robin and I repeated the experiment several times, but to no avail. I was really starting to get irritated that the mist only talked to me. Maybe I didn’t wish hard enough. I couldn’t help feeling a little special to be chosen for once, even if it hadn’t been confirmed, but why had they left me? If they wanted to help me, why didn’t they come back? I started to wonder if I really was as crazy as Robin was starting to treat me.

I avoided Galen successfully and poured myself into training. I liked my new muscles, they made me feel strong.

“I’m proud of you,” Steve said, taking off his gloves. “You’re doing... well.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I put my hands up. “Be careful. With compliments like that, it just might go right to my head.”

Steve sighed. “You’re impossible. You know that?”

“Yep.” I smiled at him. It wasn’t my fault he couldn’t have a conversation with a girl.

I made it at least a week without getting into any kind of escapade. All in all, life was going my way for a change.

“I have good news for you,” I was eating in the lunch commons again. Galen passed behind me.

“Don’t be seen with me,” I said.

“I know, I know, but I found out something you’ll really want to know about.”

“What are you trying to do? Get her in trouble for EVER?” Robin to the rescue.

“Calm down Romeo. This affects you, too. I have a plan. I can’t meet with Arienne, but I can meet with you.”

“What makes you think I’d do that?”

“Because I have info you both want to see.”

“Robin,” I pleaded. Robin was a pushover when I begged. His breath came out hard through his nose.

“Fine,” he conceded. “What do I have to do?”

“I need to go to your room. I have a disc that will bypass your computer and you can get feeds from Earth. Something called a world wide web.”

“They have a whole Earth network?” I was so intrigued. The info we could find out; I could discover news of the war.

“We can’t put it in Ari’s room. They’d know. But they’ll never suspect hero- boy here.” I knew he was right, but I was so jealous. To have all that information at my disposal...

“Oh Robin, I know it’s a risk-”

“It’s more than a risk,” he interrupted. “This sounds like a capital offense.”

“It is,” Galen said. “But you would never guess the things they know. And about us. You can even find your family.”

“I know where my family is,” Robin put his arm around my chair and I almost teared up. Robin and I had agreed years ago, as small children, that we would be family to each other since neither of us had regular contact with our earthly parents. Except Robin’s family did send him the rare holiday package. We always shared.

“That’s, um, sweet and all, but Ari and I want to know what the planet knows,” Galen said quietly.

“It’s Arielle,” Robin said. Then he leaned to my ear, “You really want this?”

I turned to whisper to him, “I do. The voice in the garden said there was fighting on Earth. That could be a reason to need us as soldiers. Don’t you see? It all ties together. I need to know.”

“Okay,” Robin said to Galen. “What’s your plan?”

The idea was for me to return to our pod after supper and chat up the “R” lounge guard about Steve long enough for Galen to sneak into Robin’s room and install the disc. I fabricated a conversation for Nancy that involved her and a possibility of interest with Steve that took up a good 45 minutes. When I could break away, I nearly fell rushing to get to Robin’s room.

“Whoa, young lady,” Nancy called out, “study hall is nearly over and its lights out.”

Damn. Damn. Damn.

“Oh! I left my guide in Robin’s room.” I lied. It would buy me 5 minutes, tops.

With Galen already gone, Robin was studying his computer with such rapt attention, he didn’t even hear me come in and jumped.

“You have to be more careful,” I chided him. “I could have been anyone.”

“Arienne. There is a whole world we know nothing about.”

“I know. Isn’t that the point?”

“I mean, they don’t even think about us out here. It’s like we don’t exist.” That thought had never occurred to me. I thought of earth people every day. They didn’t think about us? “It’s like we are earth’s garbage can,” he went on, sounding dumbfounded.

“The politics everyone talks about. What is that?” I asked.

“It seems to be a fuel war,” he said. “They have used up earth’s natural fuel. But that’s where we come in.”

“How so?”

“The 21st program. Even the people of earth know little about our colony, only that we’re the undesirables. Some of them think the government could use us in a war- like we thought- but the Lunar Colony’s contributions are helium-3 and uranium.”

“For what?”

“For fuel.”

He continued. “They won’t have enough for everyone. The biggest system is going to annihilate the little system to keep the fuel.”

“But we don’t have any helium-3,” I began. Then I answered myself, “Ooh, the 21st program. What does it say?”

“There is a mining colony on the dark side of the Moon,” Robin said slowly. “That’s where we’ll go Arienne, to the mines.”

“Oh God.”

“Light’s out!” Nancy spoke through her monitor, “Proceed to your rooms.”

“We’ll look up more tomorrow,” Robin promised.

But in the morning Robin was gone, his room cleared. Galen was also nowhere to be found.