Totally Wild, Part Two

Moon colony trouble from a human POV. Science fiction story with hope for the future. 

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Transcript

Welcome to Bo-Rev. I'm Bodine Boling, and what I'm about to read to you will repeat. This is Totally Wild, Part Two, a science fiction story with hope for the future.

For a while, Edie had let herself believe the plants in the greenhouse dome were okay, maybe a bit wilted or yellow, but nothing to worry about. But from where she stands now, the only gardener in the greenhouse, Edie sees a problem impossible to miss: all the plants are diminished. Especially the ones growing food. Making this a crisis, maybe, unless the plants get better—if not, what was she supposed to do? The weight of expectation pins Edie to the ground, making her feel much older than her 30 years.

Edie picks up the bag with the device she'd checked out of maintenance that morning. It still feels strange to have the last working greenhouse monitor all to herself. When Edie had handed over the lending ticket, it shocked EK, who ran the desk, since it was rare for anyone to be assigned old tech, especially the last one of something. But the women are friends, so EK had asked Edie, do you even know how to use this? Edie's gaze shot to the nearest camera, confirming the red light was on. Of course I do, Edie said, her voice raised for the microphone. In truth, Edie had only practiced with the device during drills, when old tech came out of an air conditioned vault and everyone looked relieved when things turned on. Edie could move between menus for soil composition, humidity, mold. But that was all she knew how to do. Edie didn't say that. Instead she explained that she had been formally assigned to solve the problem of the dying plants. EK looked shocked. Ask for help, she said. Don't try to do that alone, talk to other gardeners. A suggestion that felt impossible to Edie, which the maintenance worker could read on Edie's face. So EK softened her voice and said, living in a place like this is confusing, and they make it that way on purpose. Edie glanced between the red lights of two nearby cameras. Shh, Edie said. But EK didn't stop. We're told to make do with less, aim to survive and no higher. But what if there's more, more to want and more to have. Edie kept her voice low. They're watching. Maybe not, EK said, while turning around to look right into the closest mound of a camera lens. Maybe no one's watching because they have better things to do. Anger reared up in Edie, this was so dangerous and stupid, but the colony anthem blasted through her head unbidden: we get along together, we get along together. Trying to keep her voice steady, Edie said, would you mind, only if it's easy, but is now a good time to check out that device? EK stepped back to retrieve the old tech, which had been brought over from the vault earlier in the day, then slid it in a bag patched with bits of plastic. But before she handed it over, EK slipped something else in the bag, too. Edie couldn't see what, but she murmured, if that's a gift, I can't reciprocate. EK shook her head, don't worry about that. It's only something I wanted you to see. Then EK held out the bag. Edie wondered if this gift was from the black market, but black market stuff was too special for normal days. Edie took the bag, but aware of the cameras, she did not look inside.

Back in the present moment, alone in the greenhouse dome, Edie still feels a bit of her earlier anger. Thinking how much she hates that she and EK fall on opposite sides of what threatens to break the colony in half. Despite her curiosity, Edie forces herself to ignore the unknown item EK put in the bag, and withdraws the greenhouse monitor. It's battered and fragile, small enough to fit in her hand. Still, Edie marvels at it. She has so few physical items that each one she touches casts a spell. Edie turns the device on and swipes around to find parts of the screen still responsive to touch. But it gets stuck on the main menu, blinking idiotically. A cold wash of fury roils Edie. It isn't fair that she should be asked to fix the plants, when all she has to work with is the broken technology of her ancestors, and her own empty mind. Edie wants to fling the device against the dome wall and shatter the greenhouse glass, since why not, if everything's falling apart anyway.

But then the whine of hydraulics makes Edie look over to see another woman unzip her way into the greenhouse dome. This is Tall E, another gardener, here to take over Edie's shift. It's clear in how Tall E lopes uncertainly across the dirt that she's new to the dome. Until three weeks ago, Tall E had been in the security division. Edie couldn't imagine why anyone would rotate out of security, when they have all the power, and all the privacy. A demotion, Edie suspects, since Tall E always looks so done in by the greenhouse humidity. Which probably means, Edie thinks, Tall E can't be trusted, or that she's a criminal. Edie returns the device to its bag and happens to touch the other thing her friend had added. Edie can feel it's a small booklet, something with multiple pages. Now she's really curious, but Edie yanks her hand out of the bag, not wanting Tall E to notice something else is in there. Once Tall E is close enough, she calls out to Edie, any luck with the plants? For a moment, Edie considers EK's advice to talk to another gardener for help. But Edie snaps out of that and lies. Yes, Edie says, I think I have it figured out. This so surprises Tall E, she stops walking, and points to the bag Edie carries. Edie freezes, thinking Tall E can make out the booklet inside—people went mad with jealousy for objects held by others, it happened all the time. But Tall E only asks about the device, did the old tech tell you what's wrong? Edie clutches the bag closer to her body, obscuring the shape of anything within. Yes, Edie says, the device told me what to do. Edie notices that Tall E is already sweating, and feels a bit superior: Edie has been gardening so long, she's barely aware of the humidity anymore.

Exiting the greenhouse dome, Edie takes care with the delicate zipper. Then she's standing in the central area of the colony, which holds not only the dome but also the biggest building and a few barns storing gear. Branching out of the main area are four sections, each with housing and recreation. Section two is right in front of Edie. This is the section all colony members are about to share, so the other three sections can be evacuated, deprived of air, and abandoned. Stopping life support for three sections will give section two and the central area another decade at least. Or, that's the theory. No way to know. Edie had petitioned security to save section four, where Edie lives and maintains a thriving personal garden. Plus the woods are in section four, and that's the only nature most colonists have ever seen, since only gardeners can access the greenhouse. But security rejected Edie's petition. They couldn't prioritize six mechanical trees and a few benches over the continued survival of the colony. And Edie's borderline illegal personal garden was irrelevant, since she only grows flowers.

An early count of colony members listed more than 2,000 people. Now, almost a century later, they number 201. This idea to reshape the colony only came about recently, after such a long time of everyone doing nothing, because of gravity, which has been gradually loosening its hold. Gravity is part of the life support system, the easiest part to notice. Failure there was thought to speak to larger failures looming. But no one could be sure. The devices to check on life support functions had been used the most in the first few decades of the colony, and were the first old tech to fail. Section two was chosen for colony relocation because it has the most gravity.

The declining gravity untethers Edie, like she's always one shove from adrift, and she wonders if maybe this was the planet itself trying to shed her, trying to shed them all, after so much time spent squatting on this inhospitable crater-ravaged rock. And where the life support bubble is shiny, maybe the exhausted membrane is about to snap, and she'll shoot out into the dark. Maybe Edie can fall to Earth.

Thinking of Earth makes Edie look straight up at the swirling whites and blues of the planet in the sky, a view smudged by the life support bubble. Earth is full tonight, huge and bright. While Edie stands looking, far away, from her home on the moon. Edie doesn't want to lose her garden. Or the woods. The colony anthem jams her head again: we get along together, we get along together. And she knows there is no other choice.

That's when Edie notices the nearest red light is out, which indicates the camera most pointed at her isn't recording. Glancing at the next closest camera reveals no red light either. This means Edie is in a black market, so-called since red lights are off, forming areas unobserved by security, even when they're right in the open. Usually people use black markets to trade mysterious trinkets from the past, as mythological as the early settlers who brought the items up from Earth. This close to the greenhouse, no one's around and there's nothing to trade. But Edie delights in feeling invisible. So she slips out her own private black market item, which Edie always keeps tucked in a close pocket, and unfolds a small postcard, disintegrating at the edges, as it's nearly 100 years old. There's no message on the back except the date it had been sent, which was 2035, the year the moon colony began. But what really moves Edie is the front of the postcard, the text that said, Why go to the moon when Earth looks like this? And a picture of an endless expanse of sand. Edie carefully refolds the card. She marvels, from her place a century forward in time, at a postcard's unspeakable waste of resources.

Then Edie recalls the mysterious, probably black market item in her bag from her maintenance friend EK, and experiences again that desperate curiosity, what could it be. But this puts her in mind of EK's side of the colony strife. That there's a whole contingent of people who don't want to move to section two, who believe that life on the colony has run its course, and it was time, past time, to go home. Back to Earth. Even though contact with Earth had been severed 60 years earlier during an electrical storm, which also took out primary power and the internet. The emergency backup relit the cameras and continued life support, while everyone on the moon waited to be told what to do, as six decades tripped past, time as real on the moon as anywhere else.

Going back to Earth is impossible, Edie knows there's nothing there. The postcard itself her proof, and why else put people on the moon, and how else forget them? She pictures a flat nothing of a planet, as barren as the moon's cold craters. Obscured by clouds and colored by the oceans to look inviting and full of life. Imagine, as Edie often did, the feat of relearning space travel, just to find nothing there and no one left.

Since she's still in the privacy of a black market, Edie reaches into the bag to retrieve the item EK had left there, unable to resist any longer the object's pull. Edie is shocked to discover a mini calendar, glossy images on each page representing a month, with tiny boxes for each day, marked with codes known only to the settler who'd brought this up from Earth. Looking at the calendar, Edie can hardly breathe. It's the pictures. Each month shows an Earth nature scene, wild lush nature, with animals. And not just cats. Huge things she didn't know the words for. Edie thinks of her garden, the flowers she grows, nothing like this. And a note from EK tumbles out, written on actual paper, unimaginable that a worker in maintenance has access to this stuff. The note says: If only a tiny bit of this is left, wouldn't that be enough?

Edie's heart pounds in her chest as a trap door seems to open under reality, exposing how much is possible, and how deeply she can feel. Then relief strikes Edie like lightning. If they're meant to go back to Earth, the plants dying in the greenhouse don't matter.

Edie turns all the way around to face section four. Where her home is, and her garden, and the woods. And probably the cats. Cats are the only animals anyone on the colony has ever known. These cats—the last two, as there are no more kitten embryos to thaw—like to curl up on a branch in the tallest mechanical tree in the woods. The tree is a food dispenser for the cats, the only one they use, even though it stopped warming their food months before. Edie realizes she wants to see the cats, in fact longs to see them, something in her yearning for nature up close.

Then Edie looks again at the bag in her hand. Why not try to use the old tech device to fix the tree, so it heats up their food again? What if she just goes into the woods right now, while she still can. They'd lose the woods soon enough when the section shut down, but tonight it has air. Yet Edie hesitates, held back by the belief, not a law but close to it, that anything wild must be left alone.

But maybe, Edie thinks, this is the way to survive, by caring about something and giving yourself to it. Still light from weaker gravity, Edie no longer feels untethered. As she heads to the woods, every step becomes a leap forward. All she'd needed was somewhere to go.

This has been Bo-Rev. Written, read, and edited by Bodine Boling. Music composed by Brian Rodvien. From one human to another—dream big.