A man’s piercing red eye lights flash out from behind his security desk. Their stop light glow reveals a sinister shadow stretching out of the massive statue of Lord Christ Long Cock in the center of the reception center. The guard taps the side of his enhanced visor as if it isn’t working right.
“Hmm,” he thinks out loud. “Call Brick,” he demands. He looks straight at me, but doesn’t move. I don’t move either. My candle’s pet flame dances wildly. How enhanced is his visor? It looks thicker than the average person’s pedestrian eye piece.
“Yeah, man. I see this weird flickering light at the front door,” he explains. I gasp, hiding my body and candle light behind the nearest Greek pillar. “I think I heard something too, but wait. It's gone now. Yeah, the light. No!” he groans. “No, I got some sleep today. A whole eight hours. No, I checked that too and it’s working at full capacity. No bugs. No viruses. I did– man! I did a sweep! Whatever. You know I can’t afford that. Look, I’ll call you back if any other weird thing happens. No, you’re crazy!”
The guard stops talking and brightens his red beams, turning the whole reception center as red as the surface of Mars. I extinguish my candle, unsure if I could light it again. He walks around the several story statue, whipping the glowing river of his gaze left and right, left and right. My mom was a grade school women’s basketball coach before she was deemed obsolete. She always told her girls, “keep your head on a swivel. Head on a swivel!” I bet this man played basketball in his youth too.
The guard’s hefty boots bounce their soles on the marble floor, drumming an intimidating rhythm closer and closer to me. I step when he steps, since it seems he could hear beyond his headphones. When his light whips left, I shuffle to the right. When his light whips right, I duck. With the visor’s vision light on that high, I can’t risk obstructing it. It would make no sense to this man if there is suddenly a new wall in the reception center he stares at all night.
I reach the giant leg of Lord Christ Long Cock’s Statue. The guard is now sniffing the pillar I was hiding behind moments ago. I look ahead, unable to move. The elevator and stairs are blocked off by visor scanning stations. Nothing, not even a germ can get through the electromagnetic field between the scanners without a visor and the correct permissions downloaded.
“Call Brick,” demands the man at the front door pillars, disrupting my thinking. “Hey, it smells weird around where I saw the light. What? No way! Are you serious? You’ve got to send me the link. No, I can’t. I’m past my free trial limit. You can’t? No. No, not there. They have a paywall too. No, man! I spent it on– whatever, look. Could you send the link to the ad walls, so I can watch? Thanks. What? Oh, yeah, it smells down here and–Hey! Shut up, man!”
The surrounding walls of the reception area light up in unison. The guard turns down his red river. Suddenly, Savannah Dessert, a NonStop News anchor hovers over the two of us on all four walls. As she takes off her jacket, she says;
“--have stopped all operations completely, breaking several laws just like their terrorist leader, Rebel Saint, who they claim still walks among us, undetected and hiding in plain sight.” Savannah Dessert starts to unbutton her tight white blouse. “They claim the attack on the Lord Christ Long Cock Tower in Chicago is just the beginning.”
“Woo! That’s us!” exclaims the guard, still on the line with whoever the hell Brick is. He watches the wall with red heart eyes beating madly from his visor.
“Involvement in the Moon Miners strike is punishable by death, of course,” continues the news anchor, undoing her tight blonde bob. “But Lord Christ Long Cock himself admits the criminal organization is too valuable to lose all at once, unlike the massive sweeps we all participated in during the Obsolete Elder Years. It will take many of us free folks, who are unfit for the conditions on the Moon to replace the entire workforce.” Her shirt falls off of her shoulders as she winks. “They also claim to have leverage besides that fact. Unable to reach their first source, the leader of the union reached out to the new Editor-in-Chief of Fun Words, Hard Steel. In their message to Steel this evening, they say, ‘Knowledge is power! You don’t know where Rebel Saint is, and we do. Until our demands are met, we will remain in solidarity; our hands unmoving, and our lips sealed.’”
“Damn,” says the enamored security guard. “I’m glad they brought her back. Savannah Dessert is my favorite!”
The ad walls continue to wail on about Man Steaks and Wall Blockers during the NonStop News ad break. I look above the brightly lit wall and see an opening to a higher floor. If I could climb up the statue, and hop off of the big head undetected, I’d be free to explore. I’m no athlete anymore, like I was when my mom was a coach. It is quite a climb. Touching it, I see the surface of the statue is too smooth.
I lean against it, thinking of a new, more realistic plan. I need to get to the Moon Digger crash up on the highest floors. Savannah Dessert reappears on screen, fully clothed again. The guard is hypnotised, zooming his visor vision in and out. My stomach turns, then grumbles.
I think about Margaret and her candle in my hand. I put the candle in my right pocket. I reach my left hand in my left pocket and feel a new sensation. The microbe salad I was digging for is opened and leaking out of its container.
The slime is all over my left hand. I try to shake it off, but it sticks. I look up at Lord Christ Long Cock’s big head again. I cover my other hand in the microbe salad and jump.
Savannah Dessert’s clothes fall down as I climb up. The man is still distracted and sees nothing but his unrequited lover. Women are working together in solidarity.