When my wife asked, “What?” I shook my head. “No, what?”
I reiterated the train of thought above, then added, “I was wondering if it would be possible to build a colony on the Moon using just what you could buy at Knox?”
We pondered it for a few moments, then suddenly said in unison, “Yes!” Inspired by Matt Weir, the result of my musings continues below.
The grandkids pushed them aside and went to Roza, gently taking her hands and leading her past Sturdlan Vilbix, ignoring them.
As they did, every piece of spy equipment Turdland’s people had brought had its electronics and quantum circuits scrambled. Turdland shouted, “Hey!” and they found themselves alone – and in the flesh without the Image Enhancement Field surrounding them.
I was startled to see “they” were a “he” with blaze orange hair, coiffed into something they’d called a beehive in the 1960s – the grandkids’ great great grandmother had worn one just like it, but brunette instead of orange. It wasn’t really flattering on either Studland’s real or virtual face.
They stood looking like a pretty ordinary early-forties-with-no-life-extension-procedures person with a slightly crooked nose, the skin damage caused by acne just under his eyes, and a remarkable five-feet-eleven-inches (1.8 meters for a small slice of Earth) of non-height, and I said, “Nice to finally meet the unenhanced you, Brad.”
His eyes bugged, he looked wildly around him, seeing his monster-multiple-sense-recording drones and sputtered. “You’ve destroyed a billion credits of…”
“We didn’t destroy anything, Brad. It’s all been deactivated and gently dropped to the lunar surface. The grandkids – two of whom are twenty-nine-year-old-Earth-standard and so are legal chaperones to your superstar.”
“She’s not ‘my’ superstar! She belongs to all of…”
I tapped my Fourfold cellphone and it unfolded into a laptop screen and lit. “According to this, while you do indeed release her artistic output to the rest of the System you both do so solely to,” I glanced down to read it precisely, “ ‘consumers who can appreciate the brilliance of ‘Roza Rymbayeva Golovkin, Six-Times-Great-Granddaughter Of The Last Walker’ and have been rigorously cleared by the RRGSTGGOTSLW Corporation’ – which, my grandkids’ diggerprograms inform me consists entirely of yourself.”
A dark, raging anger burbled to the surface, darkening the person’s face. Their arms twitched and they looked surprised. They twitched harder, then stomped a foot. Their visage darkened even more and they leaned closer to me and breathed, “I can still kill you with my unenhanced muscles. I was once…”
“A fake MMA champion. Yeah, Natalie was quick to find that because her father was a REAL MMA competitor when he legitimately served in Combined Forces back in the day.”
“I served…”
I cut them off, “Beers. At a really…how can I put this diplomatically?” I paused, “Let’s just say that your bartending license was as fake as all of your other licenses. So, lets skip the rest of your empty threats…”
“I’ll show YOU EMPTY!” They twitched and then froze in place.” I could still see their muscles pulling against the restraint-field the grands had thrown up around him.
“You know, Brad, I’m gonna give you exactly one time to make this all right. You’re going to give Rosa back her life – and that includes ownership of all her music that is currently funding your not only greedy lifestyle but a lifestyle astoundingly debauched depraved, and corrupt, reminding me of a politician from the early 21st century who ran for a high office a couple times. Now, I’m going to release the field around your head. You can respond, but before you start cussing me out, I’d like you to remind you that we have all of the records you’ve tampered with, as well as how you’ve set up the dispersal of fees and investments so that most go to you and a fraction goes to Rosa. You can still manage her fame – which appears to have been the case before you got greedy.” Brad’s face grew red. “Hmmm…maybe you do have a conscience that might be shocked back to life. We’ll see. I expect to hear two words from you. Those words are, ‘I accept’. If those are not the words I hear, the AI is recording this entire encounter and will broadcast this event to our lawyers – as well as several lawyers you have retained in various places both normal and amazingly corrupt. Also, in the event you totally lose it, this encounter will instantly be broadcast live to several live feeds – and instantaneously translated into forty-three languages. Am I clear?” Brad’s eyes had nearly bugged out of their sockets. “I expect two words from your mouth. If it’s more than that, all of this as well as your records and passwords will be broadcast to anywhere Humans are listening.”
I grinned at him. I waited. The grands were waiting too. Probably Natalie – who had just finished her training as a sergeant in the Solar Marines – was a specialist. It wasn’t clear exactly what she’d specialized in, but I don’t dig that deeply into my kids or grandkids’ lives.
I waited a bit longer then opened my mouth…
Resources: The Moon Trees, https://www.urbanforestdweller.com/we-almost-forgot-about-the-moon-trees/ ; https://www.space.com/moon-colonists-lunar-lava-tubes.html Image: https://external-preview.redd.it/xL2Y2UHb2B0JN5P162FShQfxqCTYNuOp3WEYxdF86j4.jpg?width=1080&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=6955074e421a5e98c69b2da35179a3a91faa5662
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