one more draft…

The jumble of shoes and legs and badges suddenly comes clear, just as Hampton releases Reynolds toward the open metal bookshelf at the back of the room. Flying backwards over Hampton’s squared hip, Reynolds slams into the framing with a crash that muffles its way into my head. Several code manuals, random papers, a few pictures and bunch of other crap I keep leaving on the shelves when I walk in instead of putting away properly comes down around him.

He’s not down for a moment before he scrambles right back up with cold anger in his eyes, this time directed at Hampton.

It’s Hampton who speaks first, though, pointing firmly at him. “Don’t talk. Don’t even open your mouth. Go downstairs and wait in the car. Now.”

Back on the screen, the heatmap, with no more color than a static satellite photograph of the moon, circa 1950, stands prominently atop the pile of monochromatic videofeeds. Lines of hard white cut perfect black shadows. Near the bottom, bodies of grey.

“They’re not dying,” Officer Gerent says in a small but even voice. “They’re already dead.”

“No!”

My chair bucks as if suddenly alive, jerking me up and to the side in an awkward spin. There’s more yelling, but my ears are ringing as I fall hard, in a tangle of chair, cushion, body, and floor. Pairs of shiny black shoes at the bottom of black pants stomp and shove and tangle with each other, barely a foot away.

Something hard hits me across the back, but not very hard, like something dropped, and then one pair of the shoes lifts free of the ground, as if flying. Stunned and confused, with one hand on my echoing ear and stinging forehead, I roll onto my back with bizarre slowness and watch the shoes rise.

“Reynolds!”

“He’s killing people!”

I fumble and cough my way back upright, turning slightly to see Reynolds almost on me again, but he’s facing away. Against the wall, the young Interpol officer clutches his cliptop like a shield in front of his chest.

In the doorway, Hampton jabs an angry finger at Reynolds and then away. “Stop! Step back right now!”

“But he-”

Hampton moves in quickly, pressing Reynolds away from me as much by his hand as by his command. I try to stand up, to apologize, but I’m still barely catching my breath.

Reynolds’ arm shoots out over Hampton’s own. “Look! They’re dying!”

Without him crushing me down, I just lay against the desk, sucking short gasps and trying to see through the tears.

“What the hell is going on in here?” The older officer’s voice is an angry bark, but it’s hard to hear over the rush of blood in my ears and the pathetic wheezing in my throat. “Reynolds!”

“My cousin works up there and this fat bastard,” my chair jerks forward with a thud, “better turn the power back on right now!”

I fumble my arms weakly onto the desk and prop myself up. The first thing I see is the close-up of a grayscale face. I hang my head, shaking it slightly. This can’t be real.

“Don’t tell me no, you-”

I scream soundlessly, my ears burn and my head tightens in on itself from the pressure of the desk in my gut, but he has me pinned. I can actually feel the steel pressing through my flesh and against the bone of one rib.

“Let him go!” I can barely hear Gerent’s voice through the growing ringing in my ears. “Officer Reynolds!”

I can’t make a noise or take a breath or move my head from the polished thinsteel of the desk and I squeeze every muscle I have left to keep from being crushed. Somewhere in the fading sounds around me I hear Patrick crying out.

“Hey! Help!”

Then there’s the tiniest relaxation of pressure and Reynolds’ voice is beside me. “Fix it,” he growls, releasing me with another shove, “or so help me…”

“This can’t be right,” I mumble, just as uselessly. But there it is. In flat monochrome.

“Is that the-” Behind me, Officer Reynolds catches himself. “Are those bodies?”

There, on the bottom of one of the feeds half-covered by the heatmap: a collection of grey bodies piled against the closed doors. I crush the desire to power off the computer. It’s way too late.

“Officer Reynolds,” the Interpol man says with a small tremble in his voice. “Please-”

“Fix it!” Suddenly the big officer is crushing my shoulders in his hands. “Turn it back on! Now!”

“Officer Reynolds!” Gerent’s voice is thin and squeaky now. “Stop!”

“Dad!”

I try to turn to Patrick just as Reynolds shoves me toward the screen and the desk stabs me in the chest. The steel edge catches me just below the sternum, sucking the wind from my lungs.

“Hurry up, you fat pig! Fix it!”

“Oh.”

Officer Gerent’s soft, ridiculously insufficient remark hangs awkwardly in the room for a long moment, but I hardly notice; my stomach is sinking into my toes and my mind feels like it’s going numb from the inside out.

Two fee in front of me, a few hard glints of white within the general grey and black shadows are the only discernible evidence of the lunar resorts on the heatmap; empty light reflecting off the rigid glass and steel biospheres. The rest is a dead, charcoal grey, the cold remains of a forgotten fire.

This is impossible.

“This is what I was trying to say. I didn’t do this. I’ve been hacked.” I settle into my chair in front of the screen, keeping Patrick close. I have to get my logs up and make my case as quickly as possible.

Gerent speaks up as my hands lift over the keyboard, his smartly-dressed form stepping quickly up beside me. “Mr. Nemmons, please don’t touch anything.” Despite his movement, his voice is still uncertain, as if the request is actually one which I could refuse.

I know full well that’s not true, but my mouth is already on autopilot. “I’ve been working overtime on a bunch of reports for the office tonight, when all of a sudden the system went out of control and started accessing stuff all over the place.”

“Sir, we need to assess-”

“Dad!” Patrick’s gasp doesn’t cut Gerent off, but actually punctuates the fact that Gerent had stopped speaking mid-sentence.

My mouth shuts as I face the screen again and Patrick reaches forward, tapping the lunar heatmap to the front: cold grey, hard white, and absolute black.

Not a hint of red or orange.

Following him into my office, though, it’s clearly not fine.

“Dad,” he says softly.

The screen is still scattered with the video feeds from the resorts, but they all look empty now; hollow images of shadowed, photo-negative buildings and craters. My heart dips at the apparent evidence sitting on the screen for the police and Interpol officers to see.

Behind us, his uniformed bulk filling the room, Reynolds’ grunt of satisfaction is clearly audible.

A quick glance shows the officer’s summarizing eyes on Patrick, confirming his obvious snap judgement from earlier. I give Patrick’s shoulder a firm squeeze and offer his worried face a half-hearted smile, but it’s as much to fend off my own fears. Officer Gerent squeezes into the small room around Reynolds. It’s already clear he’ll bend whichever way looks best to the other two.

As the three officers watch me, I realize how guilty I’m starting to sound. I’m over-reacting. There’s no reason Patrick can’t come in with us. We did nothing wrong.

“No, that’s fine. That’s fine.” I turn again, acutely aware of Reynold’s deprecating stare, and of the fact that I’m only making it more valid a condemnation.

Patrick has stopped in his doorway, watching.

I wave him over toward my office. “Come on, Patrick. It’s fine.”