Aurelia hated both surprises and secrets. Until she'd moved to Lunar, she'd had no unexpected events. On a colony as rigidly organized as Earth, there were very few surprises to be found. As for secrets, as far as she had known there'd been none of those either, though she was now rapidly learning differently.
Jonathon, on the other hand, appeared to be one of those people who enjoyed leaving others hanging. The previous night, he'd only laughed when Aurelia had begged him for the details of his plan, and he'd told her to go to sleep. Now she had to get through an entire day at work before she could get out to see him. If we're going to have a relationship, she thought grimly, we are going to have to work on this.
Fortunately, her morning had enough interesting cases that she didn't have time to dwell on Jonathon's plan. By lunchtime, her feet were already aching, and she was glad when her deputy chief, brought her a sandwich and coffee.
"Thought you might be able to use these," Jason said with a grin as he stepped into her office.
He seemed constantly to be grinning. He wasn't an especially attractive man, but his smile lit up his face in a way that was contagious. Aurelia smiled back at him.
"Sure could. Thanks." She unwrapped the sandwich. "So how's Elza doing?" she asked before taking a bite.
Jason was the only other hospital staff member who knew of Elza's problem, and he had shouldered most of the burden for taking care of her. He sat on a lab stool and shrugged. "Seems to be doing fine. I've cut her stim patch intake to almost a quarter of what it was in the last two days, and she's handling it. She had a little nausea at the beginning, but now she seems just tired."
That gelled with what Elza had told her the night before, which satisfied Aurelia. Not that she was checking up on the woman, but, well, yes, she was checking up on her. "How long before she can work properly?"
Jason sucked his teeth. "Couple of days maybe, if she's up to it and not too tired. She should have her last patch tomorrow, I think. But it might take a bit longer for her to get her energy back."
Aurelia was incredibly grateful to Jason. He'd stepped in to help without question, knowing nothing about Aurelia and Jonathon or the resistance, and he was doing a great job of holding his curiosity in check. He must know that things didn't really add up from his point of view.
"Listen, how about you take sixth and seventh day off this week," said Aurelia, clicking her screen to look at the staff rota.
Jason looked surprised. "Both?"
She nodded. "Both. I can get cover for you. And you've been working plenty of overtime with Elza. Go for it."
"Awesome. Thanks, Aurelia."
He skipped off back to work, leaving Aurelia smiling. He was beginning to be one of her favorite parts of working in Lunar Hospital. Jason's grin and attitude not only made her job easier, but they also made her look forward to getting to her office. She was lucky indeed that Elza had chosen him for the job.
***
By the time Aurelia rolled her screen up, paperwork done, the dome above Lunar was already fading into the darker night colors. She didn't even bother to go upstairs to her quarters but simply called a transport pod from her office. Once outside, she took a deep breath of clean, cool air and looked up.
The dome was the most remarkable feat of human engineering ever realized. It was both flexible and solid, breathable enough to let old air out but strong enough not to let the moon atmosphere in, and it was self-healing as well. Not only that, but it was capable of producing a huge variety of different light levels, depending on the time of day, and a whole host of different color shades to simulate the Earth sky. Aurelia had learned at some point the basic mechanics of it, but that was so long ago she could barely remember. What she did know was it had taken almost a decade to perfect, and it had been the key factor in making a moon city viable.
The entirety of Lunar City was under the dome, and a clever system of vacuum locks allowed shuttles to enter and leave through the bubble itself. Stretching as far as the eye could see, in reality the dome covered an area only a little larger than that of City 01, where Aurelia had been born. The rest of the moon surface was left fairly uninhabitable, though there were always scientific Workers or resource projects going on out there. The enclosure made things safe: the air good to breathe, the atmosphere safe to live in, and the city, contained as it was, mostly okay to live in. It wasn't until she considered Nicholas that Aurelia could see while to her the dome made Lunar safe, for others it might make Lunar a prison.
She was shocked out of her sky watching by the impatient metallic beep of her transport shuttle, which had obviously been waiting for her for some minutes.
"Sorry," she muttered, getting in, well aware of the fact that she was apologizing to an inanimate object. These days, she was never sure who or what was listening to her.
One of the first things she'd learned when arriving in Lunar was that you could trust no one. Everyone in the city was out for themselves, hoping to improve their status, at best to be elevated to the elite ruling class or at least to get more rations, more luxuries, or other favors. She guessed she'd been more than lucky in meeting the people she'd met. Okay, she had sort of fallen into the resistance, a decision she was more secure with now, knowing what they were fighting for, understanding what Lunar City was doing to Earth and her people, knowing that it had to stop. But it was still a risk, and one she had carefully chosen not to think about whenever possible.
Thinking of Earth made her homesick. She missed her parents, and she resolved to intercom them as soon as she was able. She wondered if there was somewhere in Lunar she could go to at least see Earth. She should ask Nicholas.
The transport pod slid to a stop at the security gates, and this time Aurelia didn't make an idiot out of herself by trying to unbuckle her safety belt. She waited until the pod had stopped safely in front of Jonathon's house before leaping out. He wasn't waiting for her this time, and she hesitated for a moment, unsure of what to do. Was she supposed to walk in? That seemed kind of presumptuous. She wasn't used to the protocols of Lunar yet, especially when they involved the rich and famous. In the end, she settled for ringing the bell, which brought Jonathon to the door in seconds.
"Um, you really don't need to ring," he said, lowering his head to kiss her. "Next time, just come in and yell if you can't find me, okay?"
She smiled. For someone both wealthy and renowned, he was quite nicely normal and down to earth, which was really what had drawn her to him in the first place. "So what's the plan?"
Jonathon shook his head. "You really are impatient, aren't you? Come on; we'll go downstairs, and I'll tell both of you at the same time. There's no point in telling the same story twice."
They walked through the long white corridor. It was completely empty of furniture, and Aurelia couldn't help thinking that if she lived here, she'd at least hang some paintings or maybe put a side table in or something. Then, she chided herself, half amused that she was already decorating the place in her head. Partly to stop herself from mentally redesigning Jonathon's entire house, she decided to tell him about the clone training protocol while they walked.
Jonathon listened closely and nodded. "I see what you're getting at," he said as they descended the stairs. "Such skills could be very useful to us. We might take advantage of them later. But right now we have one priority: we need to get Nicholas out." They were approaching the door of Nicholas's room, so Jonathon stopped for a moment. "He's a dangerous man, Aurelia, and it's best for us all right now if we get rid of him."
"I disagree," Aurelia began, but Jonathon was already turning and opening the door.
Nicholas was standing, looking pale, which Aurelia guessed was because he'd been inside for too long already.
"Don't worry," she said, going to hug him. "We're here because Jonathon has a plan to get you out of here."
The clone bit his lip, but he nodded and sat on the couch.
Aurelia sat next to Nicholas. Jonathon grabbed a desk chair to perch on, and spoke. "Alrighty, the most obvious solution to the problem is to get you off Lunar altogether, right?" he asked.
"Why?" Aurelia wanted to know immediately. She wasn't trying to be dense, and she thought getting Nicholas to Earth would probably be in his best interests, but she wanted to make sure.
Jonathon smiled at her. "Let's come back to the question in a second. We need to make Nicholas as unidentifiable as possible. There are places on Earth where we can hide him, but not as long as he looks like a clone. A disguise means getting him a new uniform and finding a way to cover his wrist numbers. And part of the reason we need to get him to Earth is because people in Lunar are just too used to seeing clones. Even if someone doesn't recognize him as Nicholas, which is always a possibility, then the build, the facial structure, everything will scream clone to a Lunar resident. Earth residents see far fewer clones and are far less likely to jump to such a conclusion. Right?"
Both Aurelia and Nicholas nodded.
"So the plan is to get Nicholas back to Earth. Questions?"
"Er . . ." It was Aurelia who spoke first. "That's not really a plan. I mean, it's more of an idea than a design, isn't it?"
Jonathon's face fell a little. "Yeah, I know. I'm working on the details, and there are still a few arrangements to make, but I wanted to tell you as soon as possible. You could have valuable input. We'll get to transport in a moment, but first let's talk about hiding Nicholas's identity."
Aurelia crossed her legs and sat back. "Obviously the hospital is the right place for that," she said. "We can requisition uniforms . . . well, Elza can . . . without arousing suspicion since we have so many Workers."
"A tech Worker uniform would be best," put in Nicholas. "I mean, I can handle tech stuff if necessary, but I'll have a hard time pretending to be a med Worker."
"Not a problem," Aurelia said. "There are plenty of tech Workers at the hospital. It leaves the issue of the wrist numbers. As far as I know, they're irremovable, correct?"
Nicholas nodded. "Can't be cut out or removed in any way. Trying to modify them will simply trigger an alarm system at best or kill me at worst. They're designed to be permanent."
"Okay, so if we can't take them out or change them, maybe the best thing to do is cover them," said Aurelia, thinking aloud.
Jonathon looked curious. "What do you mean?"
"I mean," she explained, "that we hide them under something. If I can graft synth skin over the numbers, then they won't show. Well, they will after a few months; they'll grow through as the skin binds together, but for a while they won't be there."
Nicholas nodded. "New skin could work."
"I'll need to talk to Elza about all of this to make sure, but I think we can do it," said Aurelia.
"What do I do without a personal number?" Nicholas asked.
It was a good question. A citizen's number was everything: it was required to enter buildings, to get rations, to get housing. Every day on multiple occasions, everyone recited a personal number.
"I've got contacts in City 01 who will deal with a new ID," said Jonathon. "It's not a problem. You'll either be taken somewhere where you won't need a number, or you'll be given a false one logged into the system. It's the least of our problems right now."
"The biggest problem," Aurelia said, uncrossing and her legs and crossing them in the opposite direction, "is how to get you off Lunar without attracting attention."
"Ha!" exclaimed Jonathon. "I was waiting for you to come up with the question. It's where I come in. I know exactly how to get him off. There are a couple of people who owe me a favor, one of which I spoke to last night. Remember the shuttle pilots?" he asked Aurelia.
How could she forget? On her trip up to Lunar, the shuttle all three of them travelled aboard had been attacked. Aurelia had been visiting the flight deck and had met both the pilot and his co-pilot.
"Technically, a pilot is considered to be responsible for his shuttle," Jonathon said. "Which means if your shuttle is destroyed because, oh, say, someone's trying to assassinate a presidential hopeful who happens to be riding up to Lunar . . ."
Aurelia gave a small snort. That was exactly what had happened. Jonathon winked at her.
"Then . . ." he continued, "you are held responsible and downgraded in order to pay for your mistake. However, I interviewed both pilots after the accident and was satisfied they'd had nothing to do with the incident. So I spoke up for them. I pulled rank, and both guys are still flying."
Aurelia saw where this was going. "Now, they owe you and in return are willing to take Nicholas down on a flight."
"Yep. We've got to smuggle him on board, but they're willing to carry a stowaway and make sure he gets off the shuttle at the other end."
"It sounds quite . . . simplistic," Nicholas said hesitantly.
"There's the beauty of it," said Jonathon. "Less complicated plans have less chance to go wrong."
Aurelia nodded, "It sounds like our best chance."
"And what if I don't want to go to Earth?" Nicholas asked, his voice less hostile than the question seemed.
Jonathon looked at him. "If you want to live, it seems that you don't have any other choice right now."
Nicholas was still pale, but he nodded.
"Alright, I'm getting out of here; I need to contact the people who will help you when you get down there," Jonathon said, standing. "I'll be upstairs if you need me," he added, talking to Aurelia.
When he left, Aurelia turned to Nicholas. "Are you okay with all of this?"
He shrugged. "He's right; what choice do I have? Live first and plan for the future second, right?"
Aurelia gave him a hug. "I need to go and talk to Elza," she told him.
"No chess?"
"Maybe next time."
He was still sitting on the couch when she left, but she didn't have time to console him any longer. She knew that he was afraid that being on Earth would mean the end of his fight for the clones. And it might. Away from Lunar, away from the influence of the ruling class, and presumably cut off from all other clones, there would be little he could do. Aurelia hoped for his sake that Jonathon would agree to let him return once he was president, but there were no guarantees.
She found Jonathon in the living room and gave him a brief goodbye kiss before calling a transport pod to take her back to the hospital.