As the Moon Climbs

Charles glared at Regan. “After all we’ve been through, I’m not giving up. Not when we were finally going to start our new life with each other.”

Regan furrowed her brow. “But it’s over. Julia won’t be there tomorrow to meet you. There’s nothing you can do.”

“You never wanted me to be with her!” Charles screamed, face red. “You couldn’t stand that I picked her over you!”

“I didn’t…” A tear slipped down Regan’s cheek. It was true. She’d always loved Charles. It killed her that he didn’t love her back. “That isn’t fair,” she said. “I helped you from the beginning. Every crazy plan, I followed. Everything you asked, I did. All so I could watch you end up with someone else!”

Their eyes met and Regan looked away. Charles’ anger bled out of him. He collapsed in a chair and they sat in silence.

“I can’t believe she’s dead,” he murmured. “Now we’ll never be together.”

Regan squared her jaw. “I don’t know about that.”

She made sure they were buried in the same cemetery. It’s what Charles would have wanted.

The teacher gestured and the next question in the lesson hovered in front of the white board. The dark letters were as clear as if they’d been printed on the air.

“What is the capital of New New York?” she asked.

A dozen holodesk lights flashed in response.

“Yes, Amily?”

The little girl grinned and lisped, “New New York City.”

“Correct, thank you.” Another gesture, another question. “In what year did Google establish the first colony on G-Earth? Marius.”

“2247,” the boy replied.

“Very good.” Her gaze fell on another boy in the back of the room, slouched in his chair. His eyes fluttered open periodically as he struggled to stay awake. She pursed her lips.

“Danel, what are the principal exports of Neu Deutschland?”

He sat bolt upright. “The principal exports are coffee and tea making facilities and a large number of people who have been in the business of the company and—”

“Enough,” the teacher interrupted. “Please, turn off your autocomplete function and pay attention.”

Danel blushed. “Sorry.”

“Who are we facing, captain?” Nelson, a fresh recruit to the Raven Guard, struggled to remain professional, but Captain Danvers could see his genetically-enhanced muscles trembling with excitement. The rest of the squad sat around the hold of the ship, checking their gear one last time before the engagement.

“We’re up against Orks today,” Danvers answered. A collective groan from the others was silenced by a glance from the captain.

“Orks are strong but stupid, aren’t they?” Nelson asked. “We’re going to slaughter them.”

“Is his omophagea busted? Stick him in the front,” one of the squad members said, eliciting laughs. “I’d prefer Tyranids, even with the hive mind and the clicky noises,” another muttered. “As long as it isn’t those banshee Eldar types,” a third chimed in. “Damn psychic shrieks gave me migraines for a week.”

“The next man to complain gets front row,” Danvers snapped. Silence fell as heavily as a Warlord Titan’s footstep. “We use standard strategy,” he continued. “When the Orks charge in a group, we send one man over their heads to the back of the field while the rest of you scatter to flank them.”

“And when they have possession?” Nelson asked.

“We do what we can to keep the players apart, but if they’re already grouped, we don’t waste time trying to break their ranks because they’ll just trample us into the ground.”

Nelson frowned. “What, we’re just going to let them score? That’s absurd.”

Captain Danvers’ eyes narrowed, then widened again as he bared his teeth in a shark-like grin. “Looks like we have a volunteer to be the hooker, boys.”

Later, after Private Nelson had been revived from the suspended animation brought on by the reaction of his Sus-an membrane to extreme trauma, he would look back somewhat fondly on the day he learned the true meaning of the “WAAAGH!” But he would always be one of the worst space rugby players in the Legion.

“Just one more time, doctor,” the man pleaded. “Please?”

Dr. Habber tapped the hologram of the patient’s chart that floated above her hand, flicking through its many pages with a frown. “John, if I approve this, you’ll be back here in a month with a new obsession.”

“No, I swear, this is it!”

“That’s what you said last time.” She tried to look him in the eye but he kept bobbing his head up and down. “I did warn you about the dangers of repeating the procedure so often?”

“You don’t understand, doctor,” he sobbed. “I’m hideous. Disgusting. No one can love someone who looks like I do.”

“I should recommend you for counseling,” she muttered. “Fine, once more, but if you want another reassignment after this, find someone else to do it.”

John licked his eye in delight. She assumed it was delight, anyway.

“I want,” he said, “to look like a blue whale.”

Within the hour, John was in the tank being restructured. Dr. Habber thought it would serve him right if he ended up as a chameleon with a mouth full of baleen.

Ray’s heart was the first thing to go, but that was to be expected. Fragile parts, hearts. His new one had a 50-year warranty, ten years for labor. His liver was next–he’d always been a drinker–and he thought about having it regrown with nanobots but opted for a full replacement to be safe. For his 120th birthday he had both kidneys swapped out–cheaper by the pair–and his fourth wife surprised him with new lungs on one of their anniversaries, he couldn’t remember which. By the time his third set of eyes had been installed, all but one of his organs had been replaced. He’d held off on the last one because it was the longest and most expensive operation, but it was finally time.

“Are you comfortable, Mr. Weaver?” the doctor asked, flashing her perfect white smile.

Ray inclined his head slightly. The walls of the sensory deprivation chamber darkened and he floated in the nanofluid, nerves numb, blissfully unaware of the passage of time. If someone had been watching from outside, he knew they would have seen the liquid bubble around him, exposing muscle and sinew, his eyes staring blankly from open sockets.

When he left the clinic, the soft caress of the ocean breeze on his newly grown skin made him feel truly alive for this first time in a century. A smile stretched his wrinkle-free face. He couldn’t wait to show his sixth wife.