Lunar Rising

Cold shock hits me like a punch in the stomach.

“Neil, what—”

He doesn’t reply immediately. His hand is already on the trigger, but he can’t bring himself to pull it. He can’t kill his best friends, can he?

“No, Neil… just listen to me, okay? You don’t have to do this.” Charlotte moves a step towards him. I admire her bravery, but my arm flashes out to block her in warning.

“Don’t move!” Neil shouts. His voice eerily echoes down the hallway.

“Why?” I ask, distraught. “We’ve known each other for years! Why did you decide this?”

Neil hastily wipes a tear away from his cheek. “I had no choice. They forced me to.”

“When was this?” Charlotte retorts angrily.

“A short time ago, back when we were just starting out in the city.” Neil stares at us through hot tears. “I told them everything about Riaddne, Raven. They told me the sentence if I didn’t provide more information. I won’t bring it up here. But I would go free if I told them who my accomplice was. I told them Emios Ire’s son, Raven Ire, and then I was free to go.”

I’m speechless.

“But why this?” says Charlotte. She motions slightly with her hand towards the blaster. “They didn’t blackmail you to shoot us, did they?”

“No, no, you’ve got this part all wrong.” Neil moves a little bit and waves his hand towards the back of the hallway, towards the locked room. The lock clicks, and the door swing open. Five more armed people bustle out and halt in a line with their weapons ready.

“While I was scouting, I met them. They didn’t threaten me, but they did tell me this: This lunar rising is going to last far more than one hour. And unless we kill every single one of the government’s men, we will never be free. They have special jets with protection from the lunar rising, and that’s how the men are getting here. This entire greenhouse itself belongs to the government. They moved it so that it was positioned closer to us. Noticed the saucer shape? It’s all portable. Charlotte, you’ve committed countless government crimes. Raven, I’ve already turned you in for your invention building. I’m the only innocent one.”

“You’re far from innocent now, you filthy--!” I grab Charlotte’s arm to stop her from saying any more.

“Let me finish!” Neil shouts, gripping the blaster tighter. “We’re trapped here, don’t you understand? But I’m innocent as long as I don’t help you guys. Mrs. Quinn, the lady who talked to me, said that she can arrange for me to have whatever job I want to have. Raven, you already know that my dream isn’t to be a mechanic. I’d wanted a government-position job since I was small. I can walk free after today and my life will go on. I can forget you all and live my future!”

I’m shaking all over, and my leg is hurting again. Even as Neil’s words come out, I can tell that he’s trying to persuade himself as he says these lies.

“The government is just going to send more people. The lunar rising will last an entire Tylius day. We won’t last the rest of today here. Or at least,” Neil’s fingers close around the trigger, “you won’t.”

Before I know what is happening, Charlotte has pulled me down to the ground just in time to dodge Neil’s blast. Then, Charlotte spins me onto her back partway, my legs doing their best to stay out of her running feet, and whisks me behind a stack of boxes on the side of the hall. She sprints up to Neil, knocking him out with the force of her own head, and dodges a narrow blast before whirling onto the next assailant. Everything that happens next falls into a blur. Charlotte races back to me and supports me with her own back. The wound on my leg cracks open and I can feel warm blood seeping out of the bandage. With my weight on her shoulders, Charlotte still manages somehow to bypass three of the men and knock another out. Then we run all the way to the open door at the end of the hall.

When we run into the room, I immediately see a large hatch on the ceiling. There’s a tiny protected circle of glass that looks outside to the shining brightness. Charlotte sets me on my feet, and as I regain my balance, she slams the door shut and locks it.

“Okay,” she huffs, her attention darting everywhere at once. On me, the room, and the hatch. “We have about two minutes if they want to break down the door. Now what?”

“I think we’re in the room at the very top of the greenhouse,” I pant, holding my calf in an attempt to ease the bleeding. “We’re safe for now, right?”

Charlotte glances at the hatch and scurries up the ladder to look through the little window.

“We won’t be safe for long. There’s an aircraft hover-parked right over this hatch. Its shade is cast over the hatch, so this is how those men just keep coming.”

The door is pounded on. “Unlock this door and stand down!” a strong voice booms. “Give up or we will be forced to attack!”

Charlotte looks around the room one final time before answering my question. “We’re not safe here. Those men will call for back-up, and the aircraft will leave to bring them here. When the government goons come, we’ll be completely surrounded, even if the hatch were to remain shut and locked. We can’t live off of nothing in this room forever.”

Is everything hopeless then?

I look at Charlotte and then we both look at the hatch, and the waiting aircraft. Our minds seem to merge into one. We both have the same, crazy idea.

I’ve never flown a jet before, and neither has Charlotte.

It was almost pure luck to scramble into the aircraft from where we were. After opening the hatch, I went first, and Charlotte helped push me up, little by little. We climbed a black rope ladder up into the open trapdoor on the belly of the jet, and our eyes were directed to look only at the soothing darkness waiting for us up ahead. Looking sideways at the white moonlight would’ve blinded us. The heat was unbearably uncomfortable for us, and especially for my wounded leg, but we somehow succeeded. Upon entering the aircraft, Charlotte and I had found it empty, much to our relief. Charlotte checked to make sure nothing was fried from the outside radiation, and then she got into the passenger seat next to the pilot’s seat. That left the spot open for me to be pilot.

“I thought you would fly it,” I grumble at Charlotte jokingly as I climb into the seat. My leg is carefully settled in a position where it wouldn’t get crushed.

“I’ve already carried you tons of times today. You’re flying this, not me. It won’t require your leg; only your hands. Besides, I don’t know how.”

“I don’t either!”

We search the area around us until we find the autopilot settings. It’s already turned on. The location entered is the Capitol of Tylius. I clear the location, but I don’t know what to put in.

Finally, Charlotte reaches over and taps the coordinates of our city.

I snatch the autopilot pad away from her. “What are you doing? We can’t go back there!”

Charlotte’s beautiful white irises are luminous in the cool darkness of the passenger seat. “We have to. Raven, the next step is to fix your invention.”

A sharp pang pierces my heart. “It’s gone. I can’t fix it; the government smashed it beyond repair!”

“You have to try.”

“Why?” I blatantly shoot back. “Why is it suddenly so important to you?”

“Remember the purpose of her?” she asks me. Before I have time to reply, Charlotte interjects, “She was gonna save the world. We have to fix her and try. Otherwise, Earth will die. We can’t rely on our solar power forever. The heat from within the atmosphere, outside of the city shields, will only get stronger. The shields will melt. The people will die. Do you not understand?” Charlotte’s voice was desperate. “If we don’t go back, people won’t realize the importance of the ozone layer until it’s too late.”

I’m speechless, but what Charlotte has said strikes a chord inside me, resonating in my brain. I shut my eyes in defiance. “There will be other ways of getting energy other than extreme solar power.”

“What others? Nuclear fusion didn’t do us much good. How many countries were destroyed from those few catastrophes?” Charlotte lowers her voice further. “Just trust me, Raven. Please. We have to get back there.”

“The city will be flooded with people looking for us,” I argue. “We won’t be safe there.”

She raises and eyebrow and throws me a small smile from the corner of her lips. “Since when has the prospect of danger stopped you from going places? Besides, there won’t be a city there. Remember that it moved away for the lunar rising?” She coughs and points at the button on the autopilot pad: BEGIN ROUTE.

I hit the button, and the jet takes off into the white sky.

Charlotte found a couple frozen sandwiches in the back. She thawed them, and now we chew on our meal. I didn’t know how famished I was until I tasted the bread and meat. We devour the sandwiches eagerly.

A little while later, the jet begins its initial descent.

“All gears are ready for landing,” Charlotte reports, tapping and scrolling through pages of updated information about the aircraft.

“Auto-pilot should be able to take care of that, right?”

“Yep.” She taps a code into the autopilot pad. “Just sit back and relax. How’s your leg?”

“Fine.” It still throbs a bit, but the major portion of the pain has subsided. “I won’t slow you down this time. I think I can walk on my own.”

“But if you need help, I’ll be here.” Charlotte smiles at me. I look away quickly to hide the blush rising to my cheeks.

The jet slows down. Outside, I can see that the lunar rising has made the ground thick and powdery, and very bright white. The tinted windows on the jet help me see that the city had left a huge indentation in the ground. There are a few holes dotting the ground. As we fly closer and lower, I can tell that those are abandoned elevator shafts.

As we glide over the city, Charlotte suddenly tells me to get out of the pilot seat.

“Hey, what are you doing?” I ask as I climb out of the cockpit entirely.

Charlotte fastens her seat belt and gestures for me to sit down. “Hold onto something, Raven. I’m gonna hover-park this thing manually.”

“WHAT?”

She turns auto-pilot off and grabs the controls.

I sit down as fast as I can and grab a metal railing jutting out from the wall. Charlotte turns the jet with a heavy lurch that sends my insides spinning. The sandwiches that I’d had before are having a dance battle in my stomach.

“Charlotte!”

“I’m trying!” She grits her teeth. “I just need to hover-park…now!”

The jet suddenly halts. Then it starts to move backward.

“No, no, no!” I shuffle over to Charlotte, who is frantically messing with controls. “Let me do this!”

“Have you ever hover-parked a hover vehicle?” Charlotte shakes a panel before releasing it back into the square in the ceiling.

“Only a hover board, but I can try!”

“I’ve parked a hover-scooter! I can do this!”

Charlotte pushes a button, and we start to move forward, gently.

“Where’s the control for parking?” I ask her.

“I don’t know!”

“Hey, we’re coming right over the shaft! Now would be a great time to park the jet!”

“I said I’m trying!”

“We’re gonna miss it!” I reach forward and attempt to press a button. “This one is the hover-park button, right?”

“Hey, don’t touch that!” Charlotte blocks my arm and moves to finger some more knobs and panels. “Sit back! I got this!”

“We don’t have time for this!” I lean far over the cockpit. “Just--!”

My leg gives an abrupt burst of pain as I lean too far. My knees collapse, and my hands quickly try to break my fall. My palm slams into a large, red button.

The entire jet falls into a deafening silence. All at once, the small lights go out, and the jet’s engines turn off.

The jet falls to the ground.

It isn’t a long drop, since we were hovering very close. Luckily, the jet didn’t take any damage, except for a light rattling. The air-conditioning has turned off, and I can feel the air heating up.

“We need to get out of here, now!” says Charlotte.

Charlotte and I scrabble at the trapdoor and the electronic lock opens.

Whether it was luck or fate, I don’t know. But by some miracle, we had fallen right over the elevator shaft. The trapdoor opens up into darkness rather than bright lunar rising light.

I uncoil the black rope ladder and send it down until it can go no further. I gently yank on the ladder.

“It’s firm. Do you want to go first?”

“Sure,” replies Charlotte. “I can scout ahead, see if we can land on the lowest floor. From there, we should be able to find Riaddne’s room.”

With my heart in my throat, I watch Charlotte descend the rope ladder with dreaded apprehension lurking in my mind. Then, with my healthy leg first, I follow her into the darkness.

“There are still lights on in the halls down here,” Charlotte calls up to me. As we keep going, we talk.

“Shouldn’t the lights go out? After all, the entire city just moved away.”

“Not the entire city. These underground floors are a part of it too. I bet they have their own power plants and solar panels connected to the rooms. The radiation from the moon right now would definitely light up all the rooms and halls.”

We continue for a little while more in silence.

“Why did Neil betray us?” Why did he choose to value his own life over his friends?

“He’s the opposite of John,” Charlotte whispers. “John sacrificed himself to save us in the face of danger, but when Neil was given the choice, I guess he felt that he just couldn’t self-sacrifice.” Charlotte pauses. “I don’t really feel angry towards Neil at all. I can see why he’d do this to us…after all, it’s what I would have done a year ago. I always looked out for myself, and no one else.”

“Yeah, but that’s because you had no one else. With Neil, it was different. He had us.”

“But he also has a living dad whose safety would’ve been compromised, and a future which only had him working a job that he didn’t desire.”

“I have living parents too…” Then I stop. My father’s angry and displeased face rises to the surface of my mind. His cold words come back to me. “Never mind,” I mutter.

We shuffle down the ladder.

“This is the end of the ladder,” Charlotte announces.

There’s a floor that is a little higher up than where we are now. The only way to get there, however, would be to swing the ladder until our feet touch the floor.

We jerk our bodies back and forth, and the ladder swing higher and higher. Charlotte lets go of the rope and lands perfectly on that floor, and I admire her skills quietly.

I try to mimic her. My jump is accurate, but my landing is far from graceful. Luckily, Charlotte supports me before I can stumble. We continue briskly, not even pausing to catch our breath.

The hallway’s lights burn steadily, up until the end, near the staircase. Here, the lights flicker, sending a cold shiver of apprehension down my back. Charlotte pulls open the door to the stairwell, and a gust of cool air blows into our faces.

“I guess we just keep going down these stairs until we reach the end,” Charlotte whispers.

I nod and lead the way, hobbling down the steps as fast as possible, gently holding to the railing. We rush past several floors. As we progress, I can see through the windowed doors that the lights on each floor are getting dimmer and less stable.

As we reach the bottom of the stairs, Charlotte hurries in front of me to pull the door open. The chilly air catches me off-guard.

Charlotte peers down the halls and nods to me. We sneak into the hallway.

The lights are so unsteady here that the hallway appears to me in flashes. Charlotte and I hurry down the hallway. I recall where the room is and instruct where Charlotte must turn.

We stop in front of what I remember to be the room.

Charlotte presses her ear against the door and listens hard. “It’s all clear,” she whispers. Her hand slowly moves to the handle, and she opens the door.

Silence in the room. Both of us don’t dare move inside yet. Finally, I take a deep breath and step in.

Turning on the lights, I can see Riaddne’s ruins in a messy pile in the center. Charlotte closes the door behind us and locks it.

“We have to fix the invention, Raven.”

“No offense meant, Charlotte, but you’re no engineer.”

“Then you can just tell me what to do.” Her white eyes are brilliant in the flickering light. “I’ll do whatever you say. Just tell me what to do to help fix it.”

I study the broken machine. The original body is dented, but it’s nothing that we can’t fix in a few minutes. The dents don’t matter. The body is still relatively intact. The smaller parts simply need to be placed back into their places… I pause and kneel down, examining the broken pieces of steel and wire. Then I reach over from my secret place behind a crate where I’ve stashed my notebook of ideas. This is a good time to change a few things. Easier to fix, and hopefully better results.

I glance at the broken window in the corner. The moonlight shines into the room through there. It is blindingly bright, but not as bright as I’d remembered it from before.

“We don’t have much time left.” I put my leg in a position where it doesn’t get in the way. “Come on, hand me that crescent-shaped piece over there.”

“This one?”

Grinding work, sweat dripping from our hands and faces, we screw panels on and tear completely broken ones away. Falling away with a creak, the removal of a panel shows the messed-up inside of the machine. Gritting my teeth in frustration, I reach inside and get to work, muttering through the corner of my mouth occasionally to tell Charlotte to do something.

My hands have never flown so fast on this machine. Glancing down at my notebook, I make alterations quickly. Charlotte hands me tools and salvages what she can from the wreckage to help me repair the usable parts. After what seems like hours, we’re almost done with the machine.

“We’re missing one thing that’s crucial to my new designs.” I point at a section of the page in my notebook. “It’s the whole reason I brought this thing to Tylius. Have you seen this anywhere?”

“Is that what I think it is--?” Charlotte jumps up. “I’ve done research on Tylius before coming. It’s the main thing that they use for their machines on this floor. If we search in the rooms here, there should be some machines that use this.”

Charlotte and I talk it out. If what she says is true, then the key to finishing Riaddne could be in one of these rooms. The only problem? The mechanisms on this floor help regulate the factors of life. If we tamper with the wrong one, it could mean the death of us and the city.

“Basically, we’d blow up,” I explained to Charlotte.

“Ok…” Charlotte clearly feels uneasy about leaving everything up to me. Knowing her isolated past, I assume that she usually trusts all the work to herself and no one else. “How can I tell which machine to turn off and take this from?”

I close my eyes and picture a machine that powers oxygen cycles. A machine that large should have multiple ones. Some of the little bulb-like fragments are used to help captured the air around it, and some of them capture light from outside, transforming it into heating. The safest for Charlotte to nab would be one of those, I think to myself.

Explaining to her what the machines look like, Charlotte exhales and nods. “I think I can do this. I’m not so sure about my ability to work machines, though. You saw how I flew that jet. And that jet was a government jet! One of the safest and easiest to fly in the world! Powered with clean fuel and everything! There was an autopilot, Raven, and I still couldn’t land it properly.”

I grab her shoulders and stare into her eyes.

“Look, Charlotte,” I breathe. “We don’t have any more time for doubts. The government is planning to launch those light-sensitive bombs to capture the same energy as I am. Sure, they will capture lots of energy at once, but Riaddne can capture much more over time. They need Riaddne, and for that, they need you.”

Charlotte’s gaze wavers and almost looks scared. Then she stiffens and toughens up. “You’re right, Raven. Thank you. And if I somehow manage to fail, and we both die in my mistake, then at least we’ve tried.”

When Charlotte has left, I turn back to Riaddne and prepare her as best as I can. The only piece left is the bulb that captures energy. Heaving, I push Riaddne near the broken window, where bright light floods in from the lunar rising, waiting for no one.

“Please hurry, Charlotte,” I whisper under my breath.