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Winter on the Moon
26 July 2006 20:53My skin is a grid of Chiclets.
I turn my solid white eyes over to the sky on my right. I don’t need to breathe but the batteries that power the whirring oygenator that replaced my heart can run out of power eventually. And I can still get bored.
I look back down through the thick dome glass and resume scanning. I feel like the stars in the black sky behind my back are sequins on a cape.
I can feel the subzero temperature but it’s more like I’m made of marble rather than actually cold. I’m perched way up at the apex of a recdome in a complete vacuum. I’m a snowflake on the windshield.
What that means is that I’m on the moon, I’m naked, and I’m outside. I’m stuck to the smooth surface of the dome that covers the park where the people play. I’ve been here for hours waiting for my target. I keep looking down.
They’ve done their best to recreate Central Park and for the most part they did a pretty good job.
Or so we’re told.
At night here when the Earth is full, you can still look up and see the new shapes of the continents.
Can you imagine the terror and the chaos of The Lottery? A completely viable second earth had been set up, they said. An earth where we could frolic in controlled safety. Our race would not die out. We exhaled in relief. We’d seen what the aliens could do. Their technology far outstripped ours.
The catch was that this second earth they were talking about was The Moon. A series of tunnels and domes had been set up there. The moon is not as big as Earth. The moon is in fact a lot smaller that Earth.
There was a lottery but the rules were dictated by the aliens. We had no say. Which was cool because it meant that not just the president and his staff would go on the list but sucked because the aliens didn’t have kids or wives. Those kinds of connections weren’t taken into account.
1/16th of the Earth’s population was teleported to the Moon. The rest were left on Earth and used to help with the experiment.
I was part of a batch of humans that were changed to be able to exist outside. We are the police force here. They call us the wintermen. The meaning has become lost since there are no seasons here anymore but the name is apt. We’re white, we’re cold, and we kill things.
I stare down into the park and keep scanning.
tags
I turn my solid white eyes over to the sky on my right. I don’t need to breathe but the batteries that power the whirring oygenator that replaced my heart can run out of power eventually. And I can still get bored.
I look back down through the thick dome glass and resume scanning. I feel like the stars in the black sky behind my back are sequins on a cape.
I can feel the subzero temperature but it’s more like I’m made of marble rather than actually cold. I’m perched way up at the apex of a recdome in a complete vacuum. I’m a snowflake on the windshield.
What that means is that I’m on the moon, I’m naked, and I’m outside. I’m stuck to the smooth surface of the dome that covers the park where the people play. I’ve been here for hours waiting for my target. I keep looking down.
They’ve done their best to recreate Central Park and for the most part they did a pretty good job.
Or so we’re told.
At night here when the Earth is full, you can still look up and see the new shapes of the continents.
Can you imagine the terror and the chaos of The Lottery? A completely viable second earth had been set up, they said. An earth where we could frolic in controlled safety. Our race would not die out. We exhaled in relief. We’d seen what the aliens could do. Their technology far outstripped ours.
The catch was that this second earth they were talking about was The Moon. A series of tunnels and domes had been set up there. The moon is not as big as Earth. The moon is in fact a lot smaller that Earth.
There was a lottery but the rules were dictated by the aliens. We had no say. Which was cool because it meant that not just the president and his staff would go on the list but sucked because the aliens didn’t have kids or wives. Those kinds of connections weren’t taken into account.
1/16th of the Earth’s population was teleported to the Moon. The rest were left on Earth and used to help with the experiment.
I was part of a batch of humans that were changed to be able to exist outside. We are the police force here. They call us the wintermen. The meaning has become lost since there are no seasons here anymore but the name is apt. We’re white, we’re cold, and we kill things.
I stare down into the park and keep scanning.
tags