The Moon Dwellers

“It will only make the Sun Realm more powerful,” Tawni agrees.

“But the star dwellers are right, in a way,” I say. When I see the looks on my friends’ faces, I explain, “I don’t mean in bombing us—not that. Just about our leaders. They’re just puppets for President Nailin, right? He dictates the terms, and they agree to them in exchange for a bit of money on the side.”

“Yeah, true,” Cole says, “but why not just come and talk to us about it, rather than chucking bombs around?”

“Maybe they did,” I say. “Maybe we ignored them.”

I think Cole might blow up, lose his temper again—he is certainly in one of those moods—but he doesn’t. He chews on the side of his mouth like he is chewing on my words, trying to understand them, and then says, “If that’s true then they should be removed from power. As far as I’m concerned, there should be a rebellion, but not against us, against the sun dwellers, by both us and the star dwellers.”

“But so many people will die,” Tawni says.

“People are dying now!” Cole shouts. He lowers his voice, looking around as if the walls might have ears. “Just more slowly. The life is sucked out of us, day by day, as the sun dwellers take more and more from us. One day they’ll take our souls.”

He has a point, but that’s when the second breaking news story comes on, so we turn our attention back to the telebox.

The next story is all about us, referred to as “the escaped guests from the Pen,” who are deemed to be “armed and dangerous.” Our photos and names are stuck to the bottom of the screen while they show footage of the destroyed fence, the downed guards, and the dropped guns. Without explicitly saying it, they imply that we’re responsible for the whole mess, rather than admitting it was the star dweller bombs that caused the destruction.

Next they give information on who to call if we are spotted. Security checkpoints are being added to all major subchapter borders, and roadblocks are in place to search vehicles that may be hiding us. The penalty for harboring “the fugitives”—meaning us—is a life sentence in the Max.

The lead investigator, which basically means hunter of humans, is speaking live from the Sun Realm, and will be traveling to subchapter 14 to personally begin the search. His name is Rivet, and his face is what sparks my thoughts about the inherent nature of the human race.

Let me tell ya, I don’t know where they found this guy, or what hole he’d been hiding in, but he is the epitome of evil. His face is cold and hard, with black eyes that are so close together they appear beady, like a snake. Fierce black eyebrows rim them in a perpetual frown. His mouth is the snarl of an angry dog. A three-inch scar cuts one of his cheeks in half. He has a low-cut Mohawk and multiple piercings in each ear, which fits in perfectly with the dozens of tattoos that litter his muscular frame. Everything about him screams intimidation.

His words are cold, like icicles, and I almost feel like he can see us through the screen, directing his threats right at us. He keeps his comments brief: “I ca

“Murder?” I say. “I was in for treason, but they didn’t even mention your crimes. We didn’t kill anyone, they can’t say that!” I am angry and flustered. I knew they wouldn’t be fair to us—have never been fair to us—but I don’t want people to think I am a murderer.

“There’s something I should tell you,” Cole says, finally sitting down on the floor.

I glance at him, but then back to the telly as the next segment begins. It is a review of each of us—our pasts, our crimes, our sentences, that kind of thing. They start with Tawni and brush past her pretty quickly, saying Cole and I are bad influences on her and that her sentence is much lighter—for the minor charge of illegal interstate traveling.

“My parents are hard at work doing damage control again,” Tawni says sullenly, as if she would prefer to be depicted as a hardened criminal.

They move onto me next, turning my parents’ slight rebelliousness into an act of high treason, framing it like we are a family of thieves and spies, not satisfied until we destroy everything from the Star Realm to the Sun Realm. They go into a lot of detail about how it makes sense that I would try to escape, given my life sentence. By the time they are done with me, I even feel slightly ashamed of myself, although I have done nothing wrong.

The broadcast ends with Cole, touting him as the ringleader of our little gang, noting that he is “as cu

I wait for them to tell Cole’s story about the bakery, his attempted theft of six loaves of bread, his apprehension and short juvie sentence.

I find out the truth.

There was no bakery, no bread, no mild sentence. Cole duped me. The way his eyes sparkled when he told the story, his attention to detail, his effortless laugh: it all made me believe without a doubt that he was telling the truth. The true story paints a much grimmer tale.

According to the reporter, Cole attacked an Enforcer without provocation. The Enforcer was conducting a routine search of Cole’s neighborhood, looking for anything suspicious—they do that from time to time. They don’t need search warrants; just a badge and a uniform authorizes them to go wherever they want, whenever they want. Cole jumped the guy and killed him, broke his neck cleanly. They say it was instant death and that Cole is a murderer. Cole was sentenced to life in prison, just like me.

The segment ends and Tawni clicks off the telebox.

I stare into space in silence. I am upset that Cole didn’t tell me the truth, but even more upset with the information in the broadcast. Although I haven’t known Cole for long, I know enough about him to realize that he wouldn’t kill someone without a damn good reason. I want to ask, want to know the real story, but also know that Cole has to want to tell me. I don’t want to force something out of him that he prefers to remain buried. So I just wait. A few minutes go by in silence, each of us lost in our own thoughts. Cole still won’t make eye contact with me—his face turned away—although I look at him a few times.

Tawni is the first to speak. “Cole, she’s one of us. She should know.”

Cole finally turns his head, and I see what he’s been doing in silence. Crying. His cheeks are slick with moisture and his eyelashes beaded with tears. It scares the hell out of me. In the short time I have known Cole, I’ve found there to be a strength in him that is beyond anything I’ve seen in someone before. It makes me want to be his friend, to depend on him, to count on him. But now he looks broken, destroyed, devastated. The pain on his face is utterly complete.

He starts slowly, building momentum as he unloads his pain. “There were three of them,” he says, “but I thought there was only one.”

“Enforcers?” I ask.

He nods. “When I came home from school he was in the house. My younger sister, Liza, had stayed home sick. My parents were both out, working, like always.” He pauses and takes a deep breath. Before he starts again, a fresh stream of tears dribbles from each eye.

“He was on top of her,” he continues, “trying to take everything from her. God, Adele, she was only eleven.” I feel my own batch of tears well up and I fiercely blink them back. If Cole can’t be strong, I need to be strong for him.