The Moon Platoon

He didn’t seem to notice the pilot’s side door folding open, but Benny did. A man stepped out, the gold tips of his black cowboy boots glinting as gravel crunched beneath his feet. Benny instantly recognised the guy’s trademark facial hair: a close-cut reddish-brown beard with three horizontal lines shaved into each side.

Elijah West.

Elijah West was barely out of the car before two people in matching black coveralls were by his side. Both of them had long, slender noses that looked as though they’d been broken and reset at awkward angles. The man was nearly two metres tall – a bald mountain. The woman was shorter and built sturdily, the kind of person Benny would have liked to have with him when lugging around scrap. She definitely wasn’t from the Drylands, though. The left side of her head was shaved, and the rest of her short, dyed-magenta hair was pushed to the right.

“She runs like a dream, but the acceleration’s got a ways to go,” Elijah said, taking off a pair of black driving gloves with gold studs on the knuckles. He tossed them and his keys to the big guy in coveralls. As he continued, the woman pulled out a HoloTek and made notes. “Let’s punch up the horsepower. The new wheels are better, but we’re going to need a different tread or more weight because I’m sliding all over the dust out there.” He pulled off a fur-lined coat to reveal a dark red space suit covered in intricate stitching that pulsed with light. “And the brakes are too sensitive. The whole driving experience is just a little too … smooth. I want to feel like I’m behind the wheel of a muscle car, not a luxury SR.”

“Maybe we should work on a motor and antigravity combo propulsion system?” the woman asked, not looking up from the screen.

Elijah smirked as he pushed a pair of aviator sunglasses to the top of his head to reveal big, hazel eyes.

“Now you’re speaking my language, Ash.”

“Bo and Ashley McGuyver,” Hot Dog whispered. “The best mechanics in the universe.”

Benny wasn’t sure if she’d been talking to him or herself. He was still in a state of shock. He’d been on the Moon for all of five minutes and he’d already nearly been hit by a car and was standing within a few metres of Elijah West. Fortunately, the Heart-throb or Hologram? celebrity and her assistants were still taking photographs with their backs to the courtyard, meaning most of the kids hadn’t realised Elijah was there.

“Good news,” Ash continued. She motioned to the bigger guy. “Bo’s finished retrofitting that Chevelle you had shipped up. She’s ready for a spin outside the resort whenever you are.”

A smile took over Elijah’s face. “I’ll take her out now.”

“Oh, no you don’t!” A woman’s voice came from somewhere behind Benny.

Elijah frowned – just for a flash. Benny turned around in time for a woman wearing a tailored pink suit to walk through him.

The chill that went down his back was so strong he thought for a second his knees might give out.

“Whoa,” Hot Dog said beside him. “Ghost woman on the Moon.”

But it wasn’t a ghost. Benny turned back around to get a better look at what he guessed was an incredibly realistic hologram, way more advanced than his spider back on Earth. There must have been a swarm of microscopic hover-mechs projecting her image from somewhere.

“Pinky,” Elijah said, his smile coming back, “why do you sound so upset? Don’t tell me Trevone’s been trying to hack you again. You know it’s only to look for flaws in your security.”

“I do not have security problems, thank you very much. Of course, you’d never know if I did because you had me muted.”

“You kept trying to get me to do things I didn’t want to.” Elijah shrugged. “Besides, you do have the capability to unmute yourself.”

Her hands curled into small, tight fists before motioning for Elijah to follow her away from the Taj and around one side of the fountain so they could talk more quietly – and so they wouldn’t be in the background of all the photos still being taken at the entrance. Benny crept around the other side of the big metal hand, trying to figure out where Pinky’s image was being projected from.

Pinky took a deep breath, tucked a strand of white-blond hair that had fallen out of her bun behind her ear, and continued. “I had to explain to three European royals, half a dozen internet TV egos, and the CEO of HoloTek Japan that they’d all have to leave in preparation for our scholarship arrivals without getting to talk to you in the flesh. Even though you’d apparently promised all of them that you’d see them off personally. If you had actually bothered to tell me you weren’t going to be here …”

“Relax, Pinky,” Elijah said. “I’ll handle everything. And besides, you were the one who suggested I take that woman out for a tour.”

“Yesterday,” Pinky said. “You were scheduled to take her out yesterday. And don’t think I didn’t see that you went on a short joyride instead of out to the see the old Moon landing site like you were supposed to.”

“Not short enough,” Elijah said, glancing over his shoulder. “If I had to listen to her talk about her burgeoning singing career any more, I’d have walked out of the Space Runner without a helmet on. Speaking of which, will you make sure she and her handlers are on the transport back to Earth with the last of the guests and seasonal staff in an hour?”

“Impressive tech,” Jasmine said from Benny’s left. He hadn’t even realised she’d come up beside him. The water in the fountain must have covered the noise of her footsteps.

“Yeah,” he said. “Impressive, angry tech.”

“At least the EW-SCABers got a few pics with her,” Elijah continued.

“Please don’t call them that,” Pinky said. “It sounds so disgusting.”

“What? I think it’s funny.”

“I don’t know why I even bother making schedules if you’re just going to ignore them.” Pinky sighed.

Elijah smiled at her. “You’re being dramatic.”

“No. Not yet, but I’m about to be. There’s something else. Take a look at the readings we’ve got from the deep space probes. I found some anomalies that at first we thought were solar winds but now … well, I’m not sure what they are.”

Elijah tapped once on a slim band wrapped around his right wrist, and a series of graphs appeared in front of him. They were made of light, but he swiped through them as if they were tangible.

“How is he doing that?” Benny whispered.

“Must be some kind of motion sensor,” Jasmine surmised.

With each swipe, Elijah’s eyebrows drew closer and closer together until finally they were almost touching. Benny watched the graphs pass by, but they might as well have been in a foreign language to him.

“You’re sure there hasn’t been an equipment malfunction?” Elijah asked. “These readings don’t make any sense.”

“All probes are functioning normally. I’ve triple-checked everything,” Pinky said.

“What is that?” Jasmine asked. She put one foot up on the side of the fountain to lean forward and get a closer look at the projections, knocking a few rocks into the water as she did so.

Elijah glanced over his shoulder and did a double take, pushing the charts out of the way with one wave of his hand.

“Jasmine Wu,” he said. He nodded to her necklace. “You got my gift. I’m glad.”

She froze, staring up at him.

“Y-you know who I am?” she stammered.

“Your suggested changes to our manufacturing process for hyperdrive engines increased productivity by three percent,” he said. “Of course I know who you are.”

“Technically it was a little less than three percent,” she murmured.

Elijah didn’t smile, exactly – it was more of a look of approval, Benny thought.

Drue was suddenly pushing past Jasmine and extending his hand to Elijah.

“Mr West. It’s an honour. You may remember meeting me last year. I just wanted you to know that—”

“I know who you are, though not because we’ve apparently met,” he said. Then he turned away from Drue and nodded to Pinky. “Prepare a report for me on these charts. I’ll review them before dinner.”

“Elijah,” she said, “there are guests waiting for you. The charts. Where are you—”

“They can wait, Pinky. Right now I’ve got a date with an American classic.”

And then he was heading towards big frosted-glass doors that led into the garage, Pinky and the McGuyvers trailing after him. Now, it was easy for Benny to see why he’d thought the building glowed from space: the exterior was covered in the same highly reflective metal as the Space Runners.

Benny looked at Drue, who was standing perfectly still, his hand held out even though Elijah was gone. Finally he let it drop, and his face softened a little. Benny saw something flash in his eyes. When he spoke again, he sounded friendlier. “So, Jazz, you really helped him overhaul his manufacturing?”

“It was nothing,” Jasmine said as she shoved her necklace inside her space suit, avoiding looking any of them in the eyes.

“Really? Because it sounded pretty impressive.”

“It was just a matter of having a specific outcome in mind and looking at all the possible ways I could get to it.”

“Wait,” Drue said. “Are you the person who suggested that they recycle the fission coolant to be used as secondary radiation shielding?”

Jasmine blinked, finally looking at him. “That’s right.”

“I’m glad they managed to find some people as smart as I am.” Drue grinned. “So, listen, next time you talk to Elijah, put in a good word for me, OK, Jazz? Tell him I’ve got a ton of great ideas.”

Jasmine just stared back at him.

Hot Dog raised an eyebrow, leaning towards Benny. “You spent the entire flight from Earth with him?”

Benny shrugged. “He was asleep most the time.”

By this time, the kids had all realised that Elijah was in the courtyard, and everyone was following him in a massive swarm, keeping a few metres of distance, as if they were afraid to get too close. He paused in front of the entrance to the garage, turning to the rest of the kids gathered behind him. Standing before Elijah in their matching space suits, Benny thought they looked kind of like a miniature army, ready to follow their beloved commander.

“Hello,” Elijah said with a bulletproof smile. “Welcome to the future.” His voice boomed through the courtyard, pumping out of hidden speakers. “I hope you’re all ready for an exciting life up here on the Moon.” And then his expression changed, for a moment looking somehow sad. “This year’s scholarship winners represent the most impressive applicants I’ve ever had the pleasure of welcoming to the Taj. I have such high hopes for all of you.”

He held out a hand, and the big man in coveralls gave him back his black driving gloves. Then Elijah turned and walked through the garage doors.

Drue, Hot Dog and Jasmine immediately turned their attention back to the custom Space Runner. Benny’s mind was still buzzing over the hologram technology he’d just seen. He’d known the Taj was full of electronic wonders, but to see them up close and in action was something he couldn’t have prepared himself for. He wondered what kind of holograms he might be able to design if he had access to that sort of tech. The insane pranks he could pull. Intangible zombies rising out of the football field to attack opposing teams. Holographic monsters waiting under his brothers’ bed. The stuff he had at home – the ramshackle machines and electronics that made up their caravan – might as well have been prehistoric in comparison.

Who needed spiders?

He tried to make a mental list of everything that had happened so far as he looked at the sky. Hundreds of thousands of miles away was Earth. His family. The Moon was sure to have all kinds of new experiences waiting for him, but part of the excitement was knowing he’d get to tell his brothers all about them when he got home. After all, they were the main reason he was up here in the first place – apart from the obvious excitement of going to the Moon. Their minds would be blown by the Space Runner trip alone, and he hadn’t even set foot inside the resort.

As he stared at the planet above him, Benny promised himself that he’d get at least one good adventure out of his time at the Lunar Taj. Something to share when he got back home. Maybe he’d even figure out a way to bring some of the magic back to Earth with him. Not just money. And something more meaningful than Moon rocks or holovids.

“Ahem.”

The sound of a throat being cleared filled the Grand Dome. It took Benny a moment of looking around before he realised a man was standing behind a chrome podium beside the front doors of the Taj.

“Hello?” His deep voice boomed. “If I could have your attention.”

He snapped his fingers and his image was projected on either side of the Taj, nine metres high, at least. Even in the video Benny could tell that he was exceptionally tall and so thin that he wondered if the man simply floated away whenever he stepped out of the resort’s artificial gravity field.

“Gather round,” the man said, motioning for the kids scattered across the courtyard to come closer. He paused, looking up at his image on the side of the wall and taking a moment to smooth down the pointy beard on his chin, which was dyed the same minty green colour as his hair. “We’ll have plenty of time for meet and greets later, but we’ve got a schedule to keep. My name is Max Étoile. Once, I was talent manager to the stars, but now … now I live among them!”

He flung his arm dramatically towards the sky and stayed that way, frozen, for a few seconds before continuing.

“Life on Earth was glamorous, but when Elijah West offers you a spot managing the Lunar Taj, you don’t say no. Not that you’re our normal clientele. Let’s get you all accounted for so we can begin orientation. The first thing we’re going to do is get you set up with a new state-of-the-art Lunar Taj HoloTek that will guide you through the rest of your stay and give you your room and group assignments. If you’ll make your way inside in an orderly fashion, you can sign in at any of the guest check-in terminals using your biosignature and—”

The crowd of kids surged forward, pushing past Max and through the entry doors.

“An orderly fashion!” he said again, sighing into the microphone.

“Let’s go!” Drue shouted back to Benny before running forward.

Jasmine and Hot Dog started after him. Benny was at the tail end of the group, but he didn’t mind – it meant that when he stopped, breathless, inside the doors to gape at the main lobby of the Lunar Taj, there was nobody to run him down.

The lobby was four storeys high, with walls that were at first metallic blue but then began to shift, until Benny realised that the entire room was made up of screens slowly cycling through the colour spectrum. The floors were black marble, speckled with just enough gold leaf to make it look like he was standing on the night sky. On one wall hung a portrait of Elijah in a silver tuxedo. It must have been five times Benny’s height. Along another wall were framed paintings of speculative Lunar Taj designs and various blueprints. On the opposite end of the room, giant windows looked out onto the lunar landscape.

Benny walked up to one of the check-in terminals. A gold-framed sketch of what appeared to be a first-generation Space Runner hung above it. Elijah’s signature was at the bottom right corner, dated almost ten years ago. Benny would have been two years old when Elijah was drawing this. It was shortly before his father lost his job and his mother had left. Right before they’d been forced to leave their home and join the caravan because they couldn’t afford the rent any more.

A flash of light in front of him broke his train of thought. An outline of his body and heartbeat appeared on the wall, identifying him based on his unique biological signature.

“Check-in complete,” Pinky’s voice said. “Welcome, Benny Love, to the Lunar Taj. You’re going to have a great time. Please take your complimentary HoloTek for further information.”

A panel slid away on the wall, revealing a sleek rectangle that appeared to be made of glass or some kind of shiny plastic. The top left and bottom right corners of the device were edged in chrome. As he picked it up, the electronic screen powered on, and he realised that by pulling on the metal corners, the HoloTek could stretch instantly from a pocket-size gadget to a thirty-centimetre-wide tablet. It was the type of hyperfast computing equipment he’d always dreamed of owning but never could in real life.

Until now.

On the wall in front of him, he saw his heartbeat speed up before the image faded away.

“What room are you in?” Drue asked, coming up beside him. The boy was tapping away at his own HoloTek, hardly looking up at Benny.

“Huh?”

“Bottom right on your screen. What do you have?”

It was only then that Benny noticed a small red horse on his HoloTek. The numeral twenty-six was glowing on its side.

“Number twenty-six? A horse?”

“Horse here, too! But I’m number one.” Drue grinned. “Let’s go see what those girls got.”

He grabbed Benny’s sleeve and dragged him away from the wall, eyes scanning the crowds until he spotted his targets near the windows at the other end of the lobby.

“Hey, so what rooms are you girls in?” he asked as he approached. “This might shock you, but I got—”

“Drue, shut up,” Hot Dog said. “Look at this view.”

“Hey, I was just trying to—” Drue started.

“Whoa,” Benny said, interrupting him. Beyond the four-storey floor-to-ceiling windows in front of him, a swatch of carbon-coloured land extended for miles to the horizon, eventually giving way to a starry sky. It was so utterly still that for a moment Benny was sure he was looking at a high-definition picture. But he wasn’t. This was real.

“Mare Tranquillitatis,” Jasmine said, her voice breathy, barely above a whisper. “Also known as the Sea of Tranquillity.”

“It’s where Apollo Eleven landed,” Drue said. He pointed. “Look, you can almost make out the American flag, right by that glowing alien.”

“What?” Hot Dog asked, pressing her face up against the window. “Where?”

Drue snorted.

“He’s trying to be funny,” Jasmine said, glaring at him for a second. “The landing site is on the other side.”

Benny raised his hand to the glass, placing one finger on the point where the surface of the Moon and the sky met. The landscape seemed oddly familiar, not unlike that of the Drylands, just without wind blowing dust around everywhere. He wondered if he’d feel at home out there, too, racing across the grey plains.

“Barely into the first day and the resort is already getting gummed up by grubby little hands,” Max said from behind them, tapping one shiny purple shoe on the floor.

They all took a step back from the window.

“Pinky, get them to their rooms and arrange to have these windows cleaned as soon as everyone’s gone. Elijah may be treating this place like a sleepaway camp but it’s still a luxury resort.”

Pinky’s voice was then everywhere, reverberating through the lobby. Her image appeared on one of the walls. This time she wore a pair of glasses with thick black frames.

“Please note your room assignments on the bottom right corner of your new HoloTeks. Because of the number of scholarship winners this year, we’ve broken you up into four randomly assigned groups that you’ll stay in for the remainder of your visit. The teams will be led by members of Elijah’s Pit Crew, and will be staying on separate floors. Throughout the next two weeks, your team will be your family, and you’ll compete against the other groups in a variety of challenges. There may even be a special prize for the team who proves to be the most courageous, ambitious and brainiest.”

“This is it,” Drue said. “I bet this is how they’ll pick who gets to stay.”

“I’d better be on a good team,” Hot Dog said.

Benny glanced at Jasmine and Hot Dog’s HoloTeks. They both had horses as well. At least he’d already met a few other members of his group.

“Oh, man, I’ve gotta be on the Miyamura team. Please let me be on the Miyamura team,” Drue whispered. “Those twins are the fastest racers in the universe behind Elijah. I need to know their speed secrets.”

“I hope I’m with Trevone from the second EW-SCAB year,” Jasmine said. “He’s so smart. I read his interview in Lunar Wired last month and he’s just—” she blushed – “so interesting.”

“On the first floor we’ll have the Firebirds, led by Sahar Hakimi,” Pinky said. Sahar’s face appeared above the icon of a golden bird, tail feathers splayed out like flames. Her eyes were piercing, the same dark colour as the scarf wrapped around her neck and head.

“I tried to talk her into letting me drive her car when I visited the Taj last summer,” Drue said. “I thought she was going to break my face.”

“I hear she hardly says a word,” Hot Dog said.

“She doesn’t have to. Her eyes are very, uh, expressive. I could definitely tell what was going through her head that day.”

Benny had read that Sahar was from the Middle East and came from a caravan similar to his. They’d tried to cross a desert, but something had gone wrong along the way. They’d run out of water, or maybe it was petrol – Benny’d seen several versions of the story, but Sahar herself had never gone on record. All he knew for sure was that in the end, only she had emerged from the desert, barely alive. The next year, she’d gone to the Moon.

“On the second floor,” Pinky continued, “are the Chargers, led by Trevone Jordan.”

A blue lightning bolt appeared below Trevor’s photo.

“Of course,” Jasmine said quietly. “It’s his favourite colour.”

“The Vipers will have joint leaders – the Tokyo twins, Kai and Kira Miyamura – on floor number three.”

Drue looked back and forth between the red horse on the screen and the smaller one on his HoloTek.

“Crap,” he muttered.

“That means—” Benny started, but he was cut off by Hot Dog’s gasp.

“Finally, the Mustangs will be on the fourth floor, led by Ricardo Rocha,” Pinky said.

“The beast from Brazil!” Hot Dog half shouted. There were practically hologram hearts in her eyes. “The only person from the first scholarship year to be invited to stay on the Moon. Did you know he was living in an abandoned building and leading a street gang in South America before he got invited to the Taj?”

“It wasn’t a gang,” Drue said. “It was an amateur football team that ran drills in the streets. I don’t know how he was the one who got picked to stay up here. He’s not even a very good pilot.”

But Hot Dog either didn’t notice Drue was talking or didn’t care about what he had to say.

Pinky smiled. “Now, please make your way to the lifts at the back of the lobby and find your rooms. Simply place your hand on the door to unlock it – the room is already keyed to your unique biosignature. And once again, welcome to the Lunar Taj. I guarantee it’s an experience you won’t forget.”

Benny stopped half a metre inside his assigned room. The rucksack he had slung over one shoulder dropped, hitting the floor behind him. He’d been expecting the place to be nice, but hadn’t really given a lot of thought as to what that might actually look like. And now he was here, standing in a suite that was at least ten times bigger than his RV on Earth. Everything was plush material and dark, polished metal, the walls a slate grey with thick red stripes shooting across the room. Huge pictures of distant planets and celestial bodies hung in metallic frames on all the walls except the furthest one, by the bed, which was just one big window looking out onto the Moon. There were multiple sofas, a small dining table, and—