Lunar Rising

My eyes are trained to pick out details, from the tiniest crack in a dented piece of glass to a well-hidden security breach in a database. But I can’t pick out details from something that I have no experience with or when I have no clue how to decipher the details I find.

I’m frustrated. My gaze sweeps this room, then the next. The machinery inside is dark and dead. When I open the doors and turn on the weak lights, I can tell that most of these machines are only gravity and oxygen machines. The heating and conversion machines are a little harder to find. These machines are not located in many rooms down here because their main systems run through the entire city, with multiple maintenance stations on the side.

I peer through the doors one at a time. If the room is empty except with a few metal crates lying around, then it is no use to me. These bulbs are among the rarest and hardest technology to find. Random crates are not going to hold them. I have to take one from a machine, and fast. The lunar rising barely has any more hours left to it. One Tylius day is not nearly as long as an Earth day, but it is almost close. Near twenty hours in a day. So far, subtracting the night, which leaves us with ten hours of lunar rising, we only have less than four hours left.

I wipe away some of the dust on a squeaky window. My sleeve comes away with grime sticking to it. With disgust, I wipe it off on the wall and lean closer to the stained-glass window to look inside. For some reason, my view is still blurry. I use my sleeve to wipe the window again, but it remains cloudy.

Then I realize something great. It’s cloudy from the heat and steam inside. This is a room with a heating machine!

Jackpot, I think. Time to find Raven the last piece of the puzzle.

The door opens without much resistance. When I turn on the lights, to my dismay, the lights don’t even work. The solar panels that lie beyond the city and connected to the underground batteries are probably damaged from this extreme radiation from the moon. The battery connected to here must have been completely depleted because of the power requirement of this room.

I walk into the dark room and leave the door propped open against a crate, providing me a little bit of light so that I can see. This room does not have a small round window on the ceiling like the other rooms. The heating machine, which is so large that it fills up nearly the entire room itself, is whirring and clicking and spewing warm steam into the air.

The noise around me is disorienting. Gently, I climb over the first hunk of machinery and proceed deeper, looking closely for the bulb. Warm, moving metal shifts below me. My heart races against time as I step closer to the main area of the machine.

Dim light from the open door is completely shadowed by the lurking mechanisms and contraptions. Slowly feeling the bumps, I try to tell where the bulb might be.

My hand brushes against a small knob-like piece of hot steel. It’s sucking in air rapidly and gives off a very faint, golden glow.

I hope this is the bulb that I was looking for. My fingers search around it for the part that I screw it off of. The bulb is very hot, and it is not fastened that securely.

This is only a heating system, I think to myself. What if I try to kick the bulb free?

I adjust my position so that my shoe is pressed flat against it. I pull my leg in to get ready, and then I shoot out as fast as I can, feeling the bulb connect with my heel.

With a loud BANG, the bulb flies off and ricochets off the metal walls. My arms fly to cover my head and I roll up into a tight ball. The steaming and hot piece of metal grazes the edge of my hand, and the delayed jet of pain sears through my arm.

When the sound of the bouncing bulb dies away, I uncurl myself and crawl towards the last place I heard the sound. Adrenaline pumps through my body. Sweat beading on my forehead and on the back of my neck make me shift in discomfort.

Behind me, a high-pitched whistling sound grows louder and louder. It sounds very unstable. My fear increases to the point where it defies gravity.

I stand up and jump away from the machines. In my heart, I hope and wish: The machine better not explode! But my mind knows the truth.

Right as I land on the floor, with my palms closed securely around my ears, the machine’s high-pitched whistling crescendos into something that send my skull rattling in my head. I grit my teeth and shut my eyes, rolling fast towards the open door.

Stumbling outside, I kick the crate aside and slam the door shut.

Behind the door, a huge blast echoes. I can hear it as it roars close to the window. With a sickening crack, the window bursts. I scramble out of the way as the entire door soars off the hinges and crashes into the hallway. Smoke and sparks come out of the room, but slowly coming to a grinding halt is the object of interest.

The bulb is saved.

Raven pops out of the invention room, which is quite close by. I hadn’t noticed that I had went a full circle during my time of searching through rooms.

“Charlotte!” he cries out, waving his arms at the blown-up room. “You just took out an entire heating system!”

“The city isn’t even here anymore, Raven. Calm down.” I bend over to pick up the bulb from the floor. “Besides, I got you the bulb, and my mistake didn’t cost us our lives.”

I’ve spoken too soon. The words have barely left my mouth when the air becomes chilly and dry.

“Okay, okay…” Raven shakes his head and extends his arm for the bulb. “Hand me the bulb, please.”

I give him the bulb and follow him into the invention room.

Riaddne waits for us. Raven’s work on her has paid off. Rather than being as bulky as she once was, Riaddne is now a cube that can be transported by two people. The tube protruding from the side is where Raven screws on the energy-capturing bulb.

“Let’s see if this works...” Raven secures it and steps back to admire Riaddne. “It’s actually done, Charlotte.” We fist bump and laugh in relief.

“Are you ready to test it out?” I ask him.

His gaze is brimming with hope. His voice gently teases me as he replies, “Are your eyes the most beautiful color in the universe?”

I almost laugh at his logic. “White is a bleak color, Raven.”

“No. White light is a combination of all possible colors.”

It takes both of us to carefully shift the invention across the floor. The bulb trembles a little in its place. We set down Riaddne just before the skylight as Raven prepares to turn on the invention for its first working test run. He flips a switch and presses a few buttons.

“Charlotte…”

“What is it?”

He looks up at me and grins, studying my eyes in the light of the room. “Your eyes. I’ve been meaning to tell you. They’re not really white, not completely.” He tilts his head and pauses for a moment. “They’re not gray, but more luminous. Some blue and green shades. Your eyes are beautiful.”

“I never saw blue or green. Only white.”

“I doubt you’ve seen yourself in natural light, in person.”

I smile at him as he finishes Riaddne’s set-up. “You’re a flatterer.”

“Well, I couldn’t be one without you to inspire me, could I? Now, I just need a hand to move this…”

With my help, we move Riaddne to the broken skylight and turn the pipe to the light. The bulb gleams in the intense light, but nothing happens.

Nothing happens… until…

“The bulb is melting!” Raven pushes the invention safely away. We look at the bulb. Half of one side has melted down into steaming liquid silver.

“Why didn’t it work?” He’s frantic. “I turned everything on, and it was all set…”

“Because the bulb you got was the wrong model.”

The unfamiliar voice at the door gives me a jolt. Raven and I whirl around.

The boy at the door opens his palm and tosses us a bulb. Raven swiftly catches it with one hand, and his other hand cups around it. He opens his hands and shows it to me. This bulb is slightly bigger, and I can feel that it is a new, protected, and stronger one. The boy at the door looks to me the same age as John was. Wearing a clean and neat guard uniform, and having slicked, golden-blonde hair with a few stray strands sticking up, this young man looks like a government goon but doesn’t act like one.

“Raven,” I whisper to him. “Who is he?”

Raven shakes his head. He doesn’t know either.

The boy makes a movement to come farther inside the room. My hand goes immediately to a wrench lying next to Riaddne.

“My name is Ellison Stone,” the young man says. “And I am not alone, nor the enemy. You have to trust me. I came here to help you.”

“Who is with you? Why are you helping us?” I brandish the wrench and narrow my eyes accusingly. “We cannot trust anyone right now. State your business and show us everyone with you.”

“I said that I am here to help you,” says Ellison. “I was friends and bandmates with John before. I know about your invention. The government at Tylius talks about you two nonstop, second to the lunar rising. The important thing is, we’re here to help.”

Ellison waves over a girl who can’t be any more than seventeen years old. Her wavy red hair falls past her shoulders and her eyes are plain brown. She’s wearing a flexible pilot suit.

“Hey,” she says with a small smile, although her eyes fail to meet the same level of friendliness. “I’m Suzanne.”

“Where is John?” asks Ellison.

Raven and I move our feet in discomfort at the question. Then Raven speaks for us. “John… was caught in the lunar rising.”

A very long, silent pause brings the room’s tensions so high, I can feel them straining to break.

Ellison sighs and steps closer to us. “We need to get moving soon. We had to evade city security by distracting everyone with a tip sent to one of the Brazilian cities of Tylius. A bit of hostility rose up, but I’m sure it was nothing that the RSA ambassadors couldn’t handle.”

“You mean to say that you nearly started a war, so you could get here?” I can’t believe them.

Ellison shrugs. “Well, when you put it that way, you make my careful plans sound bad.” Suzanne gives Ellison a sharp look and he corrects himself automatically “Our plans.”

“We need to get you out of here ASAP,” says Suzanne. “The government can track jets, and the one parked over the elevator shaft still has a signal. It’s how we found you.”

“How do we know you’re not working for the government?” I ask.

But then, to my surprise, Raven is the one who lays his hand on my shoulder. “Listen, Charlotte. Do we really have a choice?”

I’m stubborn, but I know he’s right. These people have already proven that the jet reveals our location. We can’t hide here. We have to go with them.

“Okay, okay…” Raven sighs and gestures towards Riaddne. “Let’s get Riaddne out of here too.”

“No problem.” Ellison and Suzanne grab two ends of the invention and move it out of the room.

I pocket my wrench. As Suzanne passes me to the door, she acknowledges me. “I don’t even know your name,” she says. “Ah well, if you are against the government about the ozone layer as well, then perhaps we are on the same team. Am I allowed to know your name?”

“I’m Charlotte.” Dropping all defenses despite my lack of trust, I decide to tell her my real name. “I was from the government originally, back on Earth, because I was taken in as an orphan. I ran away and came to Tylius to seek a better life.”

“Let’s get going,” groans Ellison. “This thing’s heavy.”

After moving Riaddne up several flights of the stairs to the very top, almost to ground floor, Ellison explains what we must do next.

“The government is about to launch their light-sensitive bombs to capture dark energy,” he says. “Our jet is parked right over the broken stairwell, so going up the rest of the stairs is safe. Raven, you know your invention the best. Take it up the stairs and into the belly of the jet, and Suzanne will be your pilot. She will fix up your leg with some fresh bandages, and then you can get to work. Your job is simple. Get up and close to the moon’s strongest point of radiation in the atmosphere and use the invention. You’ve already explained what it does on the way up here. If you can successfully capture the same energy that the government is doing dangerously, then you can go to the Capitol and show everyone.”

“Everyone?” Raven’s mouth drops open. “The Capitol?”

Ellison has a point, I realize. “All the biggest and most powerful countries in the world are here on Tylius, and they’re all gathered in one place.” I say. “By going to the Capitol with your working invention…”

“Yes, Charlotte’s right.” Ellison coughs and waves his hand to get some white dust clouds away. “Test your invention safely from within the jet, and once you make sure it works, go to the Capitol. Suzanne is a skilled pilot and a wonderful woman to work with.”

Suzanne smiles at his compliment.

“What about me?” I ask. “If Raven and Suzanne are going on your jet, aren’t we going too?”

“I’m getting to the second plan.” Ellison gestures towards the nearby elevator shaft. “Charlotte, you and I will climb up the ropes in the shaft and get to your stolen jet. We’re going to fly the jet behind theirs and make sure nothing goes wrong. If necessary, if something goes wrong with one of our jets, we can have backup. We won’t follow them into the Capitol, if the plan works, because we need to distract the other forces with the stolen jet. Got it?”

I nod and promise myself that I won’t let anything happen to Raven.

“We’d have to do all of this before the government launches their bombs, right?”

“Yep. And before the government catches up to us. They’ll have tracked your jet by now.”

“Okay, great.” Raven throws his hands into the air. “We’re getting on jets and flying through the air during a lunar rising.”

“Do you want to back out now and be captured by the RSA?” Suzanne snaps.

“Now’s not the time for this nonsense.” I study their tired postures. When was the last time Raven and I slept? “We’re exhausted as it is. Ellison’s explained the plan. Let’s get moving.”

Suzanne and Raven haul Riaddne up the final flight of stairs. Then Raven sets it down and turns back to me.

We stare at each other. It seems ages ago since we first met each other, during that gravity check.

I swallow. “See you later, Raven. Good luck.”

He nods and smiles at me. “See you later, Charlotte.” Raven looks away and runs up the steps to catch up to Suzanne.

“This way, Charlotte.” Ellison and I go to the elevator shaft, where he moves aside the elevator doors with his hands.

In the darkness of the shaft I can still make out the outline of the rope ladder that Raven and I had descended from. Ellison moves back and takes a running leap into the shaft. His hands snag the rungs just in time, and he climbs upward towards the waiting underside of the jet. The trapdoor is still open, and he goes inside.

“This jet is a bit rattled,” he says, “But I can still fly it. Air conditioning needs to be turned on. Are you coming?”

“Yeah.” I run forward and jump to the rope ladder. Somewhere down the halls behind me, up the stairs, I can hear a jet’s engines rumbling and preparing to take off. Quickly, I climb the ladder through the trapdoor and shut it behind me.

The jet is already cooling from the air conditioning. When I look around the illuminated jet, I can’t see Ellison. I peer into the cockpit and he’s not there either. Then I hear a rummaging sound coming from the back.

Ellison appears from the shadows in the back and turns on the rest of the lights. “I checked the protection status of the jet. It’s stable, but we need to be careful. I’m flying. Let’s get in the cockpit.”

I sit in the co-pilot seat and Ellison gets himself situated in the pilot’s seat. He turns on a microphone attached to his ear. “Suzanne, do you copy?” He presses a small round blue button on the side control panel, and the reply is put on speaker.

“I’m here,” says Suzanne’s voice. “We’re taking off first.”

“Got it.” Ellison prepares the jet for takeoff. “Charlotte, sit down!”

He notices me fidgeting in my seat. “Where is the government?” I ask.

“I don’t know.” He taps his microphone. “Hey, Suzy, can you track any signals coming from other jets?”

“Give me a second. We’re taking off first.”

True to her word, one second later their jet is in the air, flying before us. Ellison laughs and shakes his head. He switches on several things and pulls a large lever. “We’re off autopilot. Taking off now.”

The jet suddenly lurches forward, sending me flat against my padded seat. Ellison grips the controls and steers the plane upward. My stomach drops to my feet.

“How much experience do you have with flying?”

Ellison shrugs as if the question is casual. “I’ve done it once or twice.”

I’m putting my life on a stranger’s flying. His flying. The thought almost makes me laugh.

We follow Raven and Suzy’s jet through the air for about a minute.

The speakers begin to crackle. A signal is coming through. “Ellison,” says Suzanne’s voice. “The map says there are five government jets headed our way.”

“Five?!” Ellison gasps.

“Are you deaf or do you want me to repeat what I just said?”

“I heard you! Charlotte, quickly now, can you stand up and go to the back? We need to distract the jets and throw them off guard from the other plane.”

Unclipping my seatbelt, I stagger to the back of the plane and look out the tinted window. Three government jets fly behind us. These are not ordinary jets that are built solely for speed. These are military jets, built for both speed and destruction.

How can I distract them?

My gaze searches the jet for anything I can use. I pause at the mirror in the bathroom.

Tightly holding my wrench with two hands, I unscrew the heavy bolts fastened into the corners of the mirror. Luckily for me, the mirror is thick but not too large. With the mirror in my arms, I creep to the emergency exit door near the back of the plane.

Through the tinted window, the light from the lunar rising can only barely shine through. It’s not enough to reflect off the mirror. Would it be safe to open this door?

“Ellison, keep the jet steady.”

“That’s gonna make us an easy target!”

“Do you want me to get some jets off our trail or not?” The jet steadies. “That’s better.”

I heave the mirror before the door. My arm reaches over and pulls on the emergency latch, and then I use all my strength to pull it inward. The doors on a jet always open inward first, then outward. The cabin pressure against the door makes me grit my teeth and try again, with one hand balancing the mirror on its side on the floor. It won’t move.

There’s too much cabin pressure for the door to open.

“Depressurize the plane!” I call back to Ellison.

A pause. “Are you going to open a door?”

“…Yes.”

“Are you insane?!” he screams.

That’s when one of the jets shoots a blast aimed at our main body. It’s a blast that barely hits the outer rims of the plane, but it’s enough to shake up the plane.

“Whoa!” I grab the mirror with both hands as my feet slide away from the door.

“Steadying!” Ellison yells. “I’m gonna depressurize, but only because I hope what you’re doing isn’t going to kill us!”

I bring the mirror back into position and reach over once more to pull on the door handle. I take a deep breath to calm myself. Using the hand on the mirror, I shift it so that the pale, reflecting light coming from the tinted window is pointed towards one of the jets.

“I’m opening…now!” I pull the door firmly.

The door opens inward, and then flies outward. The brightness of the lunar rising nearly blinds me, so I shut my eyes and shrink against the back of the mirror. Stars explode all over my vision, but moments later, to my relief, they clear away.

Mirror in position, door wide open. My hand goes to my ear. Super-ear is turned on, and I listen for the effect of my reflection attack.

There’s a loud boom that makes my entire body vibrate. One jet has gone down. I hear the whistling whoosh of the burning plane descending right onto a second jet, creating a massive collision.

“What the hell happened back there, Charlotte?” Ellison sounds scared. I look up from my crouched spot and see his panic-stricken eyes meet mine.

“I took down two planes!” I shout. “One left!”

I shift around behind the mirror, and the mirror moves with me. All I need to do is to move the reflective beam around randomly… surely, I’ll end up hitting the pilot’s windshield of the last jet trailing us.

My messy plan miraculously works. I have to turn off Super-Ear because of how loud the explosion is.

“Close the door!” I ejaculate, my lungs bursting from the exertion. The mirror is really heating up against my back. “Close it!”

Opening the door is manual, but Ellison can close it electronically…right?

My own doubts are killing me. My back is searing with pain from the mirror, which is melting from the extreme radiation of outside.

“Close the door!”

“I don’t know if I can!” Ellison fumbles with the multiple control panels. “I can’t find the controls for the cabin!”

I look up, searching the ceiling in the cabin. “It’s here! I’ve got it!”

“Be careful, Charlotte! And hurry!”

Another blast grazes our jet. The entire aircraft shakes. Somewhere in the jet, an engine groans.

Cursing under my breath, I jump up, letting the mirror fall to the floor. The control panel on the ceiling ejects and slowly moves down to me on a mechanical arm. I tap in the command to close the emergency door.

The door beeps and a little light above it flashes red. Then it slams shut and the electric lock clicks.

I sink to the floor in silence for a little bit, trying to regain my mind. The mirror is cracked and partly melted, lying abandoned on the floor.

“Charlotte, I need you here beside me in the cockpit,” says Ellison.

“Coming.” I head over to the co-pilot seat and sit down, securing my seat belt. My mind is back and thinking clearly.

Raven needs me to make sure the other two government jets don’t call for backup. We need to take them down as fast as possible, somehow.

“Where are the other two jets?” I ask Ellison.

He taps his mic. “Suzy, how are things?”

“We’re approaching the zone of high radiation. You’re following, right?”

“Yep. I can see your jet right up ahead.”

“Great. Raven can get this invention tested out soon and…”

The voice on the speakers crackles and goes silent.

“Suzanne!” Ellison nearly hurls the controls out from their sockets. “Hold on tight, Charlotte, we’re in for a wild ride!”

Ahead of us, I can see the two remaining fighter jets targeting Raven and Suzanne’s. I don’t know what we’re going to do once we get close enough. Ellison’s fingers on one hand flies as it skillfully types one-handed on a touchscreen control pad, while the other hand, veins bulging, steers the jet. We lurch forward with a jolt of speed, headed right towards the other two jets.

To my surprise, Raven’s jet sparks with bright yellow and fires back at the RSA fighter pilots.

“You didn’t say that you took a fighter jet!”

“Can we not talk about details right now? It was the closest jet available!” Ellison slams his hand into the little blue button. “Suzanne! Suzy, do you copy? I need you to be in this for the back-up plan!”

I look at him, alarmed. “Back-up plan? What’s wrong?”

The cockpit crackles. “Ellison…I’m here…”

Ellison’s face breaks into a relieved grin. “Suzanne! You had me really worried there!”

“Back-up plan? What’s wrong with the original plans?” I shriek.

Ellison ignores me, sending my blood boiling and my anxiety levels rising. “Suzy, my radar caught something. I think we have to do this with the back-up plan.”

“Already?” Crackle. “I thought…we had… extra time!”

“I thought so too, but two hours passes very quickly.”

“What’s going on?” I’m almost ready to pull my hair out in frustration.

He turns to me, and finally addresses my questions. “The shuttle filled with capsules of bombs,” says Ellison, pointing.

I follow his finger. In the close distance, headed for the same spot of high radiation, the tiny, floating box, equipped with boosters, loaded with doom, heads towards its final destination in the burning sky.