Julie’s phone buzzed in her pocket like a handful of bees trying to escape. Maybe someone looking for directions, she ignored both the thought and the buzzing phone. Everyone at the viewing party in her Tucson home stood around the television. Somehow the Chinese were convinced to air their Moon landing live, it was a boast of sorts to show the world how confident and technologically advanced they had become. Indeed, Julie argued China was finally taking the mantle of world leadership from the United States with this first lunar landing of the century.
“What do you think their first words will be?” Alex asked.
“Likely a state-written line. They’ll want something quick that can be broadcasted again and again. Easily consumable. Easy cultural power.” Julie answered.
“So you’re saying it’ll probably be,” Edgar slowly stepped across the small group, mimicking astronauts on the moon. Julie thought he looked like an old cartoon character trying to sneak around.
“You snooze, you lose, NASA.” He said.
Alex laughed, “Get out of the way, you idiot!” and pushed him away.
“You can see the detail in the surface now.”
“Look at all of those pocked-marked craters, there’s so many. I didn’t think there would be that many at the South Pole.”
Julie found herself inching towards the screen as the Chinese module descending closer and closer, not even feeling her phone buzzing again in her pocket. Translators narrated the chatter from the taikonauts, a well-practiced rehearsal of altitude and readings. The camera switched to a shot from just above the module. A series of cubesats acted like studio cameras, jumping from view to view to create the most dramatic shot possible.
“Here it comes.” She whispered to herself. Years of studying locations of lunar resources, water-ice, Helium-3, solar abundancy regions gave her an intimate appreciation of the event. The Chinese were landing exactly where she wrote was an ideal location in her PhD. She still wasn’t convinced they hadn’t used her work without consultation, and most people in the industry took it for granted they had. As a result, the last few months Julie was invited to universities, various space companies, and had given a few scattered news interviews in the United States. She had picked up some knowledge of the Chinese goals in space along the way.
75 meters the translators said, 50 meters, 0.5 meters per second. Nominal. The group stared at the television. Even Edgar wore a fixed look of anticipation and determination. 10 meters. 5 meters.
The view cut to the cubesat floating above showing the silver and red module inches above the lunar surface. Except, there was no great puff of lunar regolith being blasted by the descending module. A stale landing.
0 meters.
No touchdown?
Please advise
The module slowly began to disappear into the lunar surface at 0.5 meters per second. Scientists from the original landings were afraid Neil Armstrong’s Eagle module may land in some kind of lunar quicksand and sink to the depths below, but they landed. There was no lunar quicksand. Julie knew that.
“The surface isn’t even moving, they’re going right through!”
The screen cut to a blue tinted White House on a darker blue background – Julie had seen this before, everyone was familiar with it by now. The picture appeared just before the president spoke over a decade ago about the death of Bin Laden, and again a few years back when he confirmed oceanographers had found Atlantis, and one more just a few months ago announcing ground troops were invading East Turkey.
After a brief announcement about an incoming message from the President of the United States, a stern face appeared sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office. Surrounded by picture frames and small flags, the President was hunched forward just enough to put weight on his elbows. “My fellow Am –“ the President paused. “No. To all who deserve truth in proper and due accord. Our Chinese brethren’s lunar excursion did not fail. They would have reached the Moon had there been a Moon to reach –“
Julie’s head was a billion light years away, floating in some exotic orbit as she continued listening to the President explain that the Moon didn’t exist. “…top secret titled “Lunar Overloard” exists to project the Moon…”
Alex collapsing on the couch next to her barely registered to Julie. “…as an explanation of tides and Gods of old…” Julie closed her eyes, remembering the handful of lecture halls and speaking venues she was invited to the last few years. Julie knew she wasn’t nearly important enough to host a talk of her own. But she was a nice piece in a collection for a panel, and she welcomed the attention. Julie looked back to the President holding a manila folder up to the camera.
In every talk there was a section for Q&A from the audience. Some asked technical questions, some asked what they thought were great questions, but Julie could see through them. They were simply poorly educated in her field of expertise. And in almost every talk, there were strange questions. Cranks. Conspiracy theorists lacking any shred of evidence. Easily dismissed as a rule. One person claimed crystals in the center of the Earth secretly powered all batteries. Another that Jesus would walk out from the Great Orion nebula. Julie saw the passion behind their eyes in each one. Saw just how much they believed that aliens built skyscrapers on the dark side of Enceladus. Then, of course, she remembered the one person who didn’t quite fit that description.
“…Moon shall continue to command the sky as a reminder of our humanity, and now a reminder of the truth provided by the United State of…”
Julie could hardly see anyone sitting in the audience with hall dimmed for projectors, but she could tell hardly anyone was in attendance. It was a weekday evening, she could hardly blame them. Only one person had a question after going through the rounds of the lecture. It was more of a comment, really, but people always saw attention of authority as a platform to show their own brilliance. The dark outline spoke from his seat. Julie didn’t bother squinting. She could tell this person was using his moment to lecture the lecturers about orbits influencing meteors that killed the lizard people. Another quack. But he was so casual, so matter-of-fact with his conspiracy. Julie couldn’t laugh. An old lady clutching a walker telling her that Jesus will walk through a nebula was one thing, but this was a normal sounding person. It felt different.
The screen turned back to reporters in a studio, blank faced before stammering over an incredible review.
“This can’t be real.” One of Julie’s house guests said. “This absolutely cannot be real.”
Julie stood in silence, searching through her memory of that one crank.
“When I was up in Utah, in one of the talks,” she started softly, “There was one person I remember that had a question. Not a question, really, more of a comment. That’s just how people get.” More of the shocked houseguests began listening. “His voice was so casual, like everything he was saying was obvious fact. I mean it wasn’t, nearly everything he was saying was horrifically incorrect. Things about diamond meteors and auroras in space – nonsense.” She laughed to herself. “Right before we cut him off, he mentioned that –“ she waved it away. “He mentioned that the Moon was a hologram created by the US military. It was silly! But..” Her phone buzzed again.
“You think this is real?”
“Where do you think the Chinese module went? It went straight through the Moon!”
Julie fell back into her void, blocking out the voices around her. Her phone buzzed, she reached into her pocket. Every text, all 291 of them, read the same thing:
I told you about the Moon, Dr. Yates.
The New Martian 