Organised chaos.
Now that’s an oxymoron. If you took the time you will find that most things around this spinning rock is an oxymoron. Take Lieutenant Loche for example in his perfect, pre-fitted uniform while he strokes his synthetic, polymerised blond hair. His aesthetics make him naturally surreal. And that’s not even starting with his synthesized thoughts that destroy his reasoning as chief commander. Cheif commander, now that’s a joke of a title. Loche may be commanding us around like little worker ants while he stands soaked in that feeling of power. Yet he is not even a pawn to the chess masters that sit in some luxury pod sipping on some ancient, earth-made champagne. Loche is merely a disposable cell that lives to die. But then again, so am I.
Organised chaos. That’s what life is like during your stay at the docks the great Mare cities where everyone in their constant rush to finish as many quotas as possible. Sparks fly and hammers swing while the work gets done. Me, I’m a mechanical Engineer, focused on renovating the fusion drives of the Luna battleship the Collidis. Three hundred and ninety-eight meters of the greatest engineering humanity has ever done. That’s what it once was fifty-three years ago. Now it better fits the description of a rust bucket which underpaid engineers, like me, are trying to resurrect from a junkyard. Why they even want to resuscitate a hunk of metal like this, well I don’t fucking know! For some suicide war with the Martians, protection against pirates or some secret mission the Luna Federation is playing at. All while the orchestral cacophony of hammers and the grinding of metal screams as I am alone in my thoughts.
Dread hits me faster than the feeling of anti-gravity drugs as I notice Lieutenant Loche stride towards to me eyes fixed on his destination. “Ash” his abnormally deep voice carries over the commotion with a sweeping effect. “You’re done for the rotation“, “Sir, I’m gonna get this last one done” where I notice the synthetic tissue that surrounds his unfused left wrist which I know is one of the reminders of the great plagues. “You’re done for the day“, he says in a slower, deeper acidic tone. Annoyed, I stand up and pack my Pads and holo tools into my case while Loche swipes me a slip which appears on the digital com around my wrist. “You are to report to the Deullum’s office in Mare Procellarum, level 28 in 63 tempus’s” reading what I have already been given. “Yes sir” I stand barley in form. Between the Vacdoor and myself, I swipe my wrist at the identity port and the heavy door responds by sliding into the ceiling. Behind me, worker ants continue to drip sweat over the ancient warships that dwarf the oversized space.
A few tempus’s later I enter the main atrium of Mare Tranquillitatis where my eyes glance up at those immense metallic beams which hold up a hundred metres of Lunain bedrock above our skulls. I suppose the main atrium must be about a football field wide and many more long, from what my guess of what the capacity of a football field used to be. Its all guesses after all.
Around me and the swarms of bodies advertisements and news run with care on the screens that shine from the walls. Want to become a necessity? Become an ice miner today! Martian Gunship fires upon abandoned Venus station! Then the latest news of excitement comes on screen. Want to live forever or want a new body? We have beaten death, We have taken Gods throne. Stor your mind in a Sensus. Small but unmissable text at the bottom of the screen reads Protogen inc. I dismiss the news knowing the cost that comes with getting a sensus is nothing short of a small fortune.
I suppose if you had the money and wanted an extra hundred years, why wouldn’t you get it? I reach the locus station where I find the pods leaving to Mare Procellarum. Please strap in as we will be experiencing up to 2g’s of acceleration during this journey. Have a nice trip! The forceful but elegant female voice runs. Some dismiss the voice which people do all the time especially if they have taken bone density drugs. For a clone defect like me, it would just break my body into lots of painful pieces. The sound of magnetic fields forming as we accelerate away. A few tempus’s later we surface to Luna rock while flocks of ships of various sizes enter and disembark from the docks. The blue lights from distant drives are visible glittering in the distance. My eyes catch Earth and for a second I thought I see green patches of grass and vast forests. But that’s an imagination of an Earth that no longer exists. An Earth that is dead.