Moon Fall
Chapter 4 - A Drink from the Well

When we woke up he was in a bed, in a white windowless room, and door and a side table with a water flask filled almost to the brim. He’d jerked up out of bed and his eyes felt dry, so did his mouth and hands. He sat up and he looked down at his chest. He was covered in neopads, wireless devices that sent bio-signals to monitoring machines. He pushed off the bed and felt his legs give way. He managed to right himself before falling completely on the ground by hoisting himself up onto the bed side. It took him a few seconds to get his footing but eventually he stood up, still leaning on the bed.

He took a breath and felt his head wobbled from left to right like it was about to leave his neck but it quickly settled.

Grabbing the flask with both hands he put his lips to it and drank deeply. It was water, cold fresh water. He poured some on his hands, and rubbed it on his face and chest. He removed the clear pads and tossed them onto the ground. He rubbed the water over his face and into his eyes. He felt his heart racing and he took a deep breath making a loud sound and he coughed spitting up some of the water he’d just swallowed.

The door opened quickly and a young man in a white coat came in. “What are you doing?”

The young man approached him but Peiter brought up a hand and the man stopped. “I’m fine. Sorry.” he said, and he suddenly stopped.

His voice.

He ran a hand over his neck, the collar was gone. “My collar.”

The young man shook his head. “You won’t be needing that anymore.” he came up and helped Peiter back onto the bed, sitting up. He knelt and picked up the pads and put them back on his chest. “You old timers and your suddenly deep regression attempts. You think it’s easy, and you let age jump in and then all of a sudden you wanna jump right in. Well it doesn’t always work that well, you almost killed yourself. Next time if you wanna take a few years off, get a regression plan and a doctor to monitor your change.” The man said, his tag on his jacket indicating he was a doctor.

“Regression... but I haven’t...”

The doctor snapped his fingers and a mirror appeared in thin air a few inches from Peiter’s face.

Regression therapy was a new science using earth tech and whitewater studies to regress the age of a person back as much as twenty years. Peiter now look like he had in his late twenties or early thirties. This was the face he remembered seeing in the mirror and he suddenly imagined Sheila’s face coming from behind him to hug him, and for a split second he felt her touch even though it was in his mind.

He shivered and suddenly felt very cold. “I didn’t... I”

The doc brought up a data-pad “Says right here you might have come across a open font, a whitewater pure source. Given the right kind of situation studies how it can cause forced regression but that would require a fusion power source and some powerful magnetic wavelengths going on. You were about a few seconds close to going coral yourself. That’s why you don’t ingest or inject pure whitewater.”

That was the danger of whitewater. Distilled and modified it had great potential, natural or pure whitewater could cause all manner of effects including what was called Full Coral. The process to distill it was simple, and pure whitewater was illegal for everyday use but with distilled whitewater in abundance no one needed pure whitewater save scientists. In the beginning people were shooting it up like a drug and drinking it like whiskey till people started drying up and turning into white statues. Scientists had already warned people against it, but that didn’t stop some people from pushing the limits. If it hadn’t have been for Alexi pushing distilled whitewater and more control over the pure distributions Whitehome would have been scrapped.

Just another reason the president held his position.

“The doctors right Peiter.” The voice that sounded next made his skin crawl.

Alexi stepped into the room, two armed guards stood behind him. “Doctor can I have a moment with your patient?”

The doctor frowned and nodded. “of course, he’s perfectly fine. I’ll have his things ready to be checked out in a few hours.” The doctor turned to Peiter and wiggled the pen at him. “Make no plans to leave planet side for at least forty eight hours, for safety sake at least four days max. The RI effect.”

“Retrograde Instability” Alexi nodded. “Don’t need you turning into a large pile of white chalk now do we?

“See normally the RI effect happens within less than an twenty four hours. The human system is so complex it takes the whitewater time to do it’s job properly, your system is in an unstable state. Want a book? A coin? No problem, RI effect is ten minutes, depending on size as much as an hour, but with biological regression and limb reconstitution we leave a safe time frame to about twenty four hours. Your situation is a bit more, intense.”

“So what the doc is saying is, don’t leave town.” Alexi smiled slyly.

“Well no, he can visit... oh.” The doctor nodded as Alexi gave him a droll look. “Right, I’ll follow up with a last minute check up in a few hours.”

As the doctor left the door shut behind him, the two guards stood outside.

Alexi looked Peiter up and down advancing a few steps and then stopping. “So, I have a situation. It would seem that once forgotten antiquated command codes were used without my knowledge to commandeer a evacuation shuttle and go out within a few miles of one of the worst line storms that has been recorded in the entire history of this planets observation. Orders that come back with my name on them, and to my surprise when I double check those orders I replace your name.” He started to pace, his hands clasped behind his back.

Peiter sat back in the chair.

“What were you doing out there? I doubt the fine doctor sent around an invitation to tea.” he turned and glared at him.

“I received a message from Doctor Gillespie, he was ranting, the connection was sketchy.” Peiter explained with slight embellishments “He said he had something for me... something of Sheila’s, “the name felt odd coming from him without the wraps, “something she’d left with him, they worked together.”

“Yes, Deep Nine. Old rig that was the second to last rig she’d worked on before she committed suicide.” Alexi said the last bit as a taunt.

Peiter let it go. “Since the connection was spotty I checked the region and noticed the storm.”

“So to get something Sheila left you, you commandeered an evacuation shuttle and put six highly trained men’s lives in danger for an old hermit and some old love letter?” There was anger in his voice.

“There was no letter, there was nothing.” Peiter said hanging his head against the palm of his hand. “I can’t really remember much of what happened really.” Which was true, up until he saw the whitewater font Gillespie had drilled everything went blank in his head. He remembered being warm, everything went white, and he’d felt yanked away from something but he couldn’t focus on the memories.

A few moments seemed to pass. Alexi slowly crossed the distance. And put a hand to Peiter’s shoulder, it felt only slightly warm. “I’m sorry.”

He looked up into the eyes of his old friend. “In my report I’ll have the commander explain that I ordered the evacuation of the noted geologist and you having been acquainted with him through your late love brought the danger to my attention. I will make it look like the order was authorized quickly which will excuse the old codes you used.” he removed his hand then. “They will of course be deactivated. You understand?”

Peiter nodded.

“Just be glad no one was hurt.” Alexi’s voice was slightly dark. Turning Alexi walked towards the door. Stopping just a few feet away from the exit he turned his head. “I’m glad...” He paused and waved his hand at him, “this happened Peiter, whether by accident or not, but you could have killed yourself. Next time be more careful.” Giving him his winning smile he tilted his head. “See you at the Moon Fall festivities.”

The door opened and Alexi waved. “Looking good old man.” With that he vanished and the wall to the left opened revealing all his personal effects.

It took everything Peiter had not to toss the flask at the closed doorway.

Getting to his feet Peiter found fresh cloths and his storage pack from his exosuit. Inside it contained three veils of the yellow solution and one vial of the gray metallic powder he’s scrapped off the walls.

Along with the veils he found his data-pad Activating it he found it had been accessed less than an hour ago by a security protohack. He closed his eyes in frustration and activated the hidden partitioned data storage and found it had not been compromised. Inside he found the encrypted digital data from the scanner that now lay under several thousand feet of coral sand.

He slipped the pad into his pocket and dressed. Checking himself out of the medical district he practically skipped down the long stairwell to the open access to the local tube on his way back to his offices. The outer dome and transport hubs were more populated now than he’d remembered them. Moon Fall was bringing people from all over Whitehome. There were people mostly dressed in white but several groups were dressed in a yellowish white head wraps like those worn by desert people of old earth and new mars. They were dressed in thick robes and seemed to gravitate towards the outer dome gardens. Others, either from other domes or living in the Capital dressed in their everyday cloths moved about milling around the info-kiosks or entering and exiting the local bar and clothing stores near the transport hub entrance.

He quickly checked the local shuttle arrival times. Grace’s shuttle was arriving in a few hours. He only had a few hours to gather his things.

The emergency doors shut behind him and the airlocks hissed slightly. The tube picked up speed quickly, not that you could really feel the acceleration. He’d taken the red like internal tube system that spiraled through the capital dome like a coil and then back out again. He was heading to the outskirts, the industrial zone where he’d take a private tube to the Hydroponics Dome only a mile to the west of the Capital Dome.

When he left the hub he noticed that the streets were almost ghostly empty, the festival had sucked all the people to the dome gardens to view the star lit sky that was probably the most clear it would be, promising astronomers the best views they’d have for a few years to come. He stepped across the open streets hearing his own feet as the only sound he could hear. At the Hydroponics office two women sat on stools accessing data from the main screens. Both were young but most likely had undergone regressive therapy, he knew the one on the red head on the left. The girl on the right was new, brunette with her hair up in a bun. One long strand down one side of her face off to the side. She was the first to look up as he entered.

“Hello, how may I help you?” She looked at him and the red headed receptionist also looked up to see who had entered. The red head frowned a moment and tapped on her screen.

“Oh my! Director, you didn’t let security know you were going in for regression.” She looked up and smiled. “I almost didn’t recognize you.”

He gave her a slight smile and placed his hand on the small black dias before the horse shoe like desks.

“It was a spur of the moment thing.” He said still not used to having his voice back.

The use of his voice caused an eyebrow to raise on the red head. “I’m always shocked when I see regression, I’ve only done it once and I went home and looked in the mirror and giggled for hours.” Her cheeks flushed and her grin split her face from ear to ear. “I like the change Director, it suits you.”

He hadn’t taken the time to fully take in his current situation but he was still pressed for time. “Yes, I’m just getting used to it myself.” He folded his pack under his arm and waved goodbye as he passed them. He could hear them say a few things where they didn’t think he could hear, but he tried not to pay attention. The changes were starting to become more and more prominent to him as time passed. His sense of touch was stronger. As he’d moved through the throng of people in the tram station he could smell perfumes and body odors both clean and foul. Nothing that shocked him but it was odd how much he could identify and sort through. It was distracting at the very least.

He’d braced himself against a long metal bar near the doorway on the tube and was shocked at how smooth and cold the surface was.

The clear round glass like view port in the center of the the door to the private tube showed the port was empty. He called the pod and it arrived in only a few seconds. The door shifted to the side and he sad down on the white bench like seats that faced one another. The door shut with a light warning bell he’d come to almost not notice but he recognized it now that he’d heard it over and over again for years and never really gave it any thought.

His pod slid up the tube with only minimal feeling of the acceleration g forces it was putting on him, he’d never remembered feeling that slight tug before. He felt the material of his back shift under his grip and he shifted it to a more comfortable position as the pod slipped through he tube across the coral landscape towards the other dome in the distance. Behind him, through the glass side doors on either side, he watched as the Capital Dome grew smaller and smaller. The Hydroponics and Industrial Domes were over thirty miles away, he made the trip via tube in only three minutes.

Stepping out of the pod he only saw a few people carrying a verity of things, some leading gravunits with tubing and large crates from one area to another. Up the steps to the elevators he slipped in and pressed his Ident code. A green light blinked and the doors closed and within a few seconds opened again. Stepping out he looked up at the large glass walls and the more familiar world beyond. This was the bio dome The worlds Hydroponics was carved into the glass and inked with black but it was the view on the other side of the glass that always made him smile. A rich lush forest with campfer trees and lush plant life filling everything you could see from left to right of the long hallway. It was as if he’d stepped off Whitehome and onto another world or perhaps Earth.

He took a deep breath and smelled the fresh air that was pumped through the dome. Here it was the freshest, here it was the most natural and this was where he loved being more than anywhere else. Sheila had said it was an instinct in him, a need for what in his genetics he felt was right and good. The feeling of home, of Earth, of what made us human. He took a step to the long glass wall and looked down at the UV lamps dotting the landscape and the coral paths through the underbrush. Most of the ground area was minerals taken from the two moons. Soil reclamation from crushed asteroid material that hit the moons and seemed to collect upon their surfaces was removed and brought here and other domes to grow these lush natural atmospheric production plants.

This was how the old ways of air production was used and it was still used to this day though not as necessary. Hydroponics was always top of the field in early colonization, but given twenty or fifty years the field became a commonality, like farming was still an importance but food could be grown and modified on the bio-molecular level and it was considered almost three steps above a hobby.

Turning away from the view he moved down the hallway and through the maze like parts of the upper dome to his office.

The door opened with a chime he stepped into his office. The lights all came on and the glass went from the smokey white to clear overlooking the Coral planes beyond the dome, the Capital in the distance with it’s lights blinking off and on. He closed the door behind him activating the privacy screens to the room, the window went black instantly.

He went to his desk and dropped his pack off then he tapped the table bringing up the command console.

“Activate verbal commend overrides Peiter Hollman, access codes to be dual enter able and verbally input. Regression recognition protocols, bio scan permission granted. Acknowledge.”

The room filled with a flash of white light and then red. “Acknowledged. Command parameters altered and reset.”

If he had his voice back, there wasn’t anything he could do about it. He’d at least make sure he could use it in emergencies and with the change he needed the system to recognize him. He tapped the table and the glass case with the old vial of whitewater emerged from the desks black surface.

Alexi must have assumed he’d taken the whitewater with him. Reaching into the case he removed the vial and placed it in his pack with the other vials.

Returning the case he watched it sink into the desk. Rounded the closest side he sunk into the chair and let out a breath. He tilted his head towards the door to his private quarters. The door closed and he felt a sudden wave of exhaustion come over him. He looked at the open pack on the table and saw the edge of his data-pad sticking out, just slightly.

There was so much swimming in his head right now along with the overwhelming feeling of clarity and a growing hunger, but mostly he felt tired. He checked the time and saw that it was far beyond his normal sleep cycle.

Getting up he grabbed his pack and locked down the office.

As the doors to his private quarters shut behind him he looked around the small room. He’d once had a condo in the upper dome, very lavish in it’s decor and full of memories. The condo was still his, but he hadn’t been in it since Sheila had passed away. He’d tried to live there but after a few months he found he was spending more time in his office. He’s been given a psych evaluation just before a promotion and he’d gotten a bigger office, slept there and within a even shorter period of time the old director moved off-world to a new colony. The position was his, and he had the extra room added on and within a few days he’d moved in permanently.

The bed was clean and automated systems had cleaned and folded the sheets for whenever he was to get to sleep. A small room off to the side was his bathroom where a real shower system had been installed. It wasn’t rare for water systems like this to be installed but most people had moved to sonic or whitewater scrubbers or bath houses. The whole room was what anyone else would consider an efficiency. No more than twenty foot by fifteen with a long dresser fitted as if it came out of the wall, a large mirror that doubled as a vid screen, no windows, and a small bathroom. On the dresser was an alcove for food storage. Simple things like water vessels and drink tablets, he even had some alcohol he’d ordered from mars, a whiskey he’d bought several years ago but never drank.

He opened the lid with a wave of his hand and he pulled out a tall glass charade with water in it. It was cold to the touch, almost too cold as he set it down. He reached in and grabbed a glass and poured himself a cup. From a dispenser he pulled two tablets out and dropped them into the cup and a red glow came from the counter top. He set the glass atop it and the water seemed to darken as the tablets dissolved, the water slightly bubbled and a swirl of thin foam formed across the liquids surface and swirled slightly as the water heated.

Hot coco with a hint of marshmallow.

Opening a cabinet he set his pack into the drawer and shut it firmly, a lock activating as he did so. “Dim the lights, start shower, setting four.”

As he said it he realized he was tapping in the instructions on the counter top near the shower door. He canceled the manual entry and started removing his cloths. He tossed them onto a small cushioned chair in the corner near the bathroom door and stepped into the shower. The water was warm and going from the cool room to the warm shower made him shiver but not in the way he was used to shivering. It was such a change that it set his teeth on edge. He felt as if he was submerging his cold body in a waterfall of warmth.

He cleaned quickly and shut the shower off after a time. He let the humidity fill the room, he’d always liked the scent after a rain or after a long shower. Normal rooms were set to modify humidity to the preference of the inhabitant, but Peiter felt sometimes changing it naturally like this and keeping it this way, slowly drying on it’s own, made it feel more reactive, as if he was there. Grabbing a towel he dried off and hung the towel around his neck, draping it over his chest.

Looking into the mirror he still felt as though it hadn’t happened. Normal regression therapy was at least as close to an exact science as growing a plant. The right soil consistency, the right dose, seedlings needed nutrients. The same went for regression, the body didn’t exactly have to be prepared for the procedure but once the process began a careful eye was needed. Regression used whitewater and body chemistry to modify everything from bone density to hair follicles, but it needed more than just DNA if you were not careful it could regress you more than your body could handle.

Whitewater could rejuvenate dead cells and burn away free radicals to help with fighting the aging process. Scientists weren’t sure how but there was a down side, mass recombination considerations. Your body would use it’s own matter to do the job of rejuvenating itself. Whitewater just reprogrammed your cells to do a rapid jump to a condition the body would have felt healthy from 2 to 20 years previous. In some people that meant basically a weight loss. Though whitewater and the regression process burned fat and other nutrients to perform the process anything left over or not having enough could cause severe medical problems. If you were iron deficient in your older years, you could die or acute iron deficiency if you tried regression without proper medical assistance. If you were considered overweight, in some cases, whitewater would shift the excess fat and unhealthy cells to a specific place, in many cases places where excess fat was considered fine. This would normally mean something as simple as an extra cup size for women, or men in some cases, or thickness around the thighs and hips. The danger though lay in the consistency and in some cases large hunks of flesh would envelope similar to moles or skin tags that looked more like fist to head sized lumps of flesh that felt grisly or rough to the touch. It was a simple medical procedure to have them removed but it was uncomfortable to watch and there was some pain involved in regression. In cases where the person had a disease or illness like a cancer of tumor like grown they either knew about or knew nothing of, whitewater would regress the body and replace the mollification and extrude it much in the same way.

The medical term for this expulsion or separation of excess fat or unwanted biological mass was called ‘biomass-rejection’ or ‘flesh ball’, and it was concentrated in one place. When studied it was found that the cells themselves had been cut off from each other and the only real thing keeping it connected to the body was the dermis and the nerves and veins within the skin holding it to the body.

Peiter looked himself over. He hadn’t changed much in the past twenty years save for a few pounds and he didn’t notice any flesh balls. If he’d been unconscious in the medical wing he wondered if they would have removed one without even mentioning it. Once the doctors were done with him he’d never noticed any scar or indication of surgery. He ran his hands across his chest and ribs, stretching backwards with his hands on his hips. He did some squats and stretched and felt his muscles tighten and relax. He leaned in and looked at his face.

“The years have been kind to you.” He mocked as he stared at a slightly fogged reflection. He wiped the mirror and tied the towel around his waist. The hair around his eyes seemed darker, and he’d already started to get a dark shadow around his jaw. Stretching his neck up he noticed that the whitewater regression had removed the scar along his neck. That long ‘y’ shaped scar that he’d had for years, burned into his memory as a constant reminder of why he’d have to wear the collar.

He tentatively touched where it used to be, and felt no familiar ridges.

Regression wasn’t something he cared for, and in any other circumstance he’d be angrier but in this instance there was nothing he could do. He hadn’t been held down and forced, and considering the circumstances coming out looking younger was a lot better than coming out dead. It wasn’t that he was elated or burning with rage either. It just was, and there was nothing he could do about it. It’d be embarrassing the next time he met someone he knew, and he’d have to explain what had happened or rather come up with a simple answer to long drawn out questions. Anyone who knew him knew he didn’t consider regression something he’d want done. He thought back to the story Alexi had gleaned from the entire situation. It’d be better to keep all versions of the story as close to that one as possible.

It was the closest to the truth anyway.

Draping the towel over the counter in the bathroom he slipped into some gray night cloths and went to bed, the room went dark.

The dreams came in flashes, powerful and vivid ones. Images and smells and feelings of something deep down welling up. The bubbling of a spring yet the feeling of electricity, or power.

He stood on the coral like plane overlooking a vast expanse of the night sky. The ground shook and he fell to his knees as something rose up on the horizon. It was a great wall of white, and the closer it got the clearer it became. It was a sand storm, it spanned the entire horizon so that it almost looked like the horizon was approaching him. He’d never seen the like before. It felt as though someone was touching his hand and he turned his head to see who it was.

And then he was high above, looking down as Whitehome grew smaller below him. The great storm that constantly covered the equator of the planet like a big white belt spread over the entire planet. He could see silvery pinpoints of reflected light vanish. He knew those were domes, colonies both big and small. Off in the distance he saw the two moons appear as his assent continued.

A darkness began to appear where the great storm had once been a darkness like a great planet wide ravine seemed to appear. The planet of Whitehome seemed to change from a round off white marble in space to two halves of a circle connected in the center by a bright white light that pulsed and vibrated his very bones. Large bits of coral fell into space and were sucked by by this white ball of energy, his assent seemed stopped as he suddenly felt something pulling him back to Whitehome This great energy, this white ball of unfathomable power was sucking him in. He could see both moons being pulled towards Whitehome, bits and pieces of the moons seemed to fall off it’s surfaces and fall into the large opening and swirl around like a planetary ring, slowly being swallowed by the white light. The moons grew closer and closer and the the light grew brighter and brighter and Peiter couldn’t see the planet anymore just a bright light. The light seemed reflected against the two moons as it almost seemed they too were swallowed hole.

Then a horn blew.

That’s what it sounded like, a horn blown over the plains like form an old immersion video. Warriors standing on a plain of battle... the battle call of a great horn except instead of men in strange garb running down a plain to fight against a greater or lesser enemy, the horn was all. It’s vibrations echoed in his ears and his eyes clamped shut from the light. He felt the vibrations in his teeth and his chest, his heart seemed to stop beating and just thrum away with the sound. His breath caught and he felt he was unable to breath.

He woke clutching his chest as a warning klaxon blared loudly in his ear. For a moment he almost felt like it was someone shouting his name.