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Chapter Text

My aunt pulled her cute little electric car into the departure lane at the Tucson International Airport.

"I was reading this fantastic biography of FDR. I have to say, though, that I was a bit disappointed by the author's treatment of his childhood," she said. Everyone was a history expert these days.

A sign by the sliding entrance doors read, "Goodbye ACM-W and Buddy Wells convention goers! Come back soon!"

When I turn back to my aunt, she had moved on. "I can't wait for the debate this afternoon! Will you watch it?"

"Maybe they will have it on the in-flight system on one of the planes," I said. I wasn't especially interested, and was focusing on staving off an anxiety attack.

I had been in town for the ACM's Women in Computing conference, even though I didn't identify as a woman anymore. My friend Heidi hadn't wanted to go alone, so she had said that she would pay for my flights if I went with her. Heidi made a ton of money, so it was okay if she wanted to waste it. It was so expensive to get to Tuscon, because there weren't a lot of direct flights, especially from the lunar bases. It was supposed to be an international airport, but really it mainly had flights to Seattle, San Francisco, or DFW. All the shuttles to the moon were from the east coast, so you always had to transfer.

"Bye, Veronica!" my aunt shouted from the driver's seat as I fumbled with my baggage. "I love you!"

I waved. It wasn't really dead-naming, because I wasn't out to my family. Still, I hated it. The whole week at the conference had been incredibly uncomfortable. At least, I got to see my aunt. It had been years. I had come a few days early to visit with her, and she had insisted on driving me to the airport after the convention. Tom had come yesterday to drop off the package, which was why I had stayed in the hotel rather than with my aunt. I hadn't wanted to get her into trouble, and yet there she was pulling away from the curb. Did that make her an accomplice?

A notification popped up in the HUD of my AR glasses. I hadn't worn the rest of my usual augmented reality gear, because they make you take it off when you go through security. Okay, I still had my gloves and some pretty inconspicuous bluetooth headphones too. Those were necessities. The notification was just the airlines welcoming me to the airport. They have so much facial recognition software running that you can't go anywhere without being identified. Everytime the CDC recommended masks for some pandemic or other, Homeland Security would have a fit, because it was harder to keep tabs on you. At least, that was what my friend Aspen, who is a government contractor, told me. The government really loves that facial recognition tech.

I had already checked in and dropped my luggage off the night before for the security screening, so it took almost no time before I was in the line for security. I was sure that sweaty hands weren't actually going to cause my gloves to short circuit and electrocute me, but my brain whispered about it somewhat hysterically.

The line for security filed past a monitor showing Teddy Roosevelt. "If you see something, say something," he said.

I was pretty sure it was just an AI-rendered actor. I didn't think they had brought him back yet.

We trudged forward, turned, and passed the monitor on the other side. "If you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about," he said.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It was going to be fine. I'd been through security so many times, once even carrying a package. Okay, it wasn't a package. It was a lump. The word made my heart buck in my chest. They had told me not to think about what I was carrying, though, so I stepped into my place in front of the conveyor and started to get my stuff out and into bins.

"All shoes, jackets, and handbags go in one bin. All food must go in a separate bin," one of the guards shouted over the din. "All smart clothing must be removed and placed in its own bin. No electronics are allowed on you when you go through the scanner. Step aside if you need to disrobe."

There were a lot of people walking around in undershirts, pants, and socks, as though we had been transported to the airport straight from our kitchens after a long day at work. One guy was in his boxers. There was a lady in one of the yellow paper coverups that they give you if you have to take it all off. With her fancy hair and nails, she looked mortified.

I took off all my electronics and put them in the bin. We had rehearsed this. I took out a clear container with some viscous goo in it and put it into another bin. My shoes and the rest went into yet another. When my turn came, I pushed my bins onto the conveyor as gently as possible. The belt stuttered, and my heart jumped into my throat. The goo in the container wobbled a little. They had told me that the figment wouldn't be able to feel anything, but my lip curled a little.

I stepped forward toward the scanner. My heart pounded in my ears. I looked back at the conveyor belt and the jiggling lump and thought I was going to be sick. I couldn't be too anxious, though, or I would set off the scanner. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. In through my nose, one, two, three, four, five, then out through my mouth, one, two, three, four, five. I did it again. I could feel my pulse slowing.

The siren-like wail of the scanner tore me from my meditation. The guy ahead of me in line looked like he was going to have a heart attack. We watched as security took the woman in the scanner away. The man stepped into the scanner, and the transparent isolation doors slammed down, locking him in. He raised his arms over his head. I could see that his hands were shaking. The machine wailed again. Two guards stepped forward, the one on the right unholstering a stun baton.

The door on the other side of the scanner opened, and they pulled the man out. He could barely stand. One guard holding him on either side, they escorted him through the same doorway they had taken the previous woman. I wondered if they would miss their flights.

"If you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about," the guard standing next to me said.

The door to the scanner opened, and I stepped in.

An automated voice said, "Hold your arms next to your body," as the doors thunked shut.

I caught a glimpse of dozens of faces watching me with wide eyes and bloodless lips from the other side of the transparent door, before the voice said, "Face forward. Hands up. Don't move."

The machine whirred, stopped, and whirred again. There was a long pause.

"You have been selected for additional security screening. Pleased accompany the safety personnel to the screening area," the automated voice said over the blaring of the alarm. I saw two guards step forward, and then the door slid open. "Remember," the automated voice said, "you don't need to worry if you haven't done anything wrong."

Oh, fuck.

Chapter Text

I stepped out and looked at the guards. Well, fuck. I tried nodding at them to indicate that I was going to be sensible. The guard without the stun baton gestured for me to precede them through the doorway. I walked calmly like someone who hasn't done anything wrong into the screening area, where I was sent into a small room. The door closed behind me. And locked.

There were two different guards in that room, one seated at a table and one up against the wall by the door. As I entered, the guard by the door held up a fingerprint scanner.

"Place the fingers of your right hand on the scanner, please," the guard said. She had pale eyes and looked at me without interest.

I slowly raised my right hand and placed my fingers on the scanner. A moment later, the guard at the table said, "Veronica Black, please sit down. We just need to ask you a few simple questions."

I went to the moulded plastic chair in front of the table and sat.

"Do you live in Tucson?" the guard asked. He had dark hair and looked much older than the guard by the door.

The database query that had given them my name had obviously also given them the address on my ID, so they were checking my answers.

"No," I said, "I live in Lunar Base 2 right now." I wondered how much I should say.

The guard smiled. "I've always wanted to visit the moon. Lunar Base 2 is in the Sea of Tranquility, right?"

"That's Lunar Base 1. We're next door in the Sea of Serenity. It takes a while to get there and transports don't run that often," I said. Damn it. I could feel my anxiety making itself known again.

"Right, right," he said. "And what kind of work do you do there?"

"I manage the tech for my dad's company. He makes these big parabolic solar troughs out of mooncrete. They are way more efficient...." I forced myself to shut up. The guard looked at me. I smiled.

"So, what brings you to Tucson?" he asked.

They would know that I was there for a conference, so I couldn't say that it was just to visit my aunt. Would the Women in Computing conference sound too liberal? Did the guard look conservative? Old, white guy. Probably conservative.

"I was here for the Buddy Wells conference," I said. He gave me another look.

It didn't occur to me until the words were out of my mouth that I didn't know anything about the conference, just that it was the conservatives. Fuck. What if he asked me.... I felt sick. I could feel my stomach churning.

"Are you religious, Ms. Black?" the guard asked.

Oh, thank God. No questions about the conference. Yet. I should probably have lied again, but I just didn't have the energy. "No," I said.

"Have you participated in any anti-lunar settlement rallies?"

What? I lived there. Why would I.... "No," I said.

"Have you ever threatened a government official?"

"No."

"Do you associate with anyone who has threatened a government official?"

What kind of question was that? How the hell did I know what the people I worked with or talked to online did in their spare time? I had no idea. "No," I said.

"Do I have your permission to access your location, telephone, and internet search history to confirm this? If you haven't done anything wrong, there is no reason to worry," the guard said.

I had been expecting that. I had been really careful, but it was always an arms race against the government. I was probably okay. A lot of contractors for the government hung out in the same online spaces that I did, and talked about security, so I knew what they were tracking and how. Still, who knows what data the corporations were collecting and how much they shared with the government. "Yes", I said. Ugh.

We didn't have to wait long. "See, that wasn't so bad. Nothing to worry about," the guard said. I couldn't tell what his switch back to friendliness meant. "Do you have an anxiety disorder or other medical condition that would result in an elevated heart rate or changes in skin temperature?" He asked in a really sympathetic way that made him sound like he was roleplaying a grandmother. I expected him to say, "Oh, you poor dear." He didn't.

"Yes," I said. Who didn't these days?

"Do I have your permission to confirm that by accessing your medical records?"

Of course, I said yes. After that, the guard stood up, smiled, and led me to the door. He said that there was a new security feature that would let you preregister your medical records for a small fee, so that way you wouldn't have to deal with the inconvenience of a friendly chat with security. I nodded.

Just outside the door, the bins with my belongings were sitting on a table in front of another security guard. There, right on top, was the lump. The guard was looking at it. I felt tears well up in my eyes. I tried to remember if lumps were ever shown on the news, but I think that wasn't the image that policy makers were going for. It was too "brain in a jar". That wasn't really what you were looking for in your politicians, at least, not most people.

Don't cry, I told myself. Don't cry.

Chapter Text

I started to put all my AR gear back on as soon as I got away from security. The second my glasses were on, a notification popped up, saying, "Buddy Wells conference chooses Thomas Jefferson for personality reconstruction."

It would have been useful to have known that fifteen minutes ago. I flicked the notification away and then put in my headphones.

"Ver," a high pitched man's voice said in my headphones, "is that you?"

"Yes," I said. "I'm here."

"Good. It wasn't that bad, was it? I knew you would make it."

"It was pretty bad."

"Oh," he said. "Then that just makes it all the more admirable."

I knew he was trying to cheer me up. "Thanks," I said. "What about you? The conveyor belt was really shaking you around a lot."

"Ver, didn't Tom tell you that as long as the lump isn't violently shaken, there is no sensation? From what I've heard, figments don't experience sensation even in those circumstances. Although, I've heard it can make us a bit dotty. Nonetheless, I appreciate your concern for my comfort. Thank you."

"You're welcome, Mr. Lincoln," I said.

I had been surprised at first, because a lump clearly didn't have vocal chords, so how could the figment housed in it have a unique voice? Apparently, though, the software they used reproduced the figment's own memories of what its voice sounded like when it had a body. That was built in to the lump. The thing that looked like a laptop in my bag was actually a cooler plus bluetooth and wifi hub that connected to the tech in the bottom of the lump's container, so I could talk to him, and as long as the container was on it, he had a net connection.

The figment from first lump I transported hadn't said anything the whole time. Tom had warned me, though. It had been a hard startup. I don't know who the figment was originally, someone big from a Central Asian country, maybe the founder. I can't remember. When he was brought back - Tom heard this from a guy who was friends with the head sysadmin at a Moscow data center - when the founder or whoever was brought back, he was one the first ones, back when it was all religious figures and great inspirational leaders. I don't know how they had the money, since it was even more outrageously expensive at the time. Some Russian scientists did it, and then, when the figment was stable, this group of five or six thick-jawed men in suits with medals all over the fronts strolled into the temperature-controlled cleanroom in the data center. Tom said that they weren't in there for even ten minutes. When they came out, their faces were harder, and they were no longer strolling. They stomped right out. Even though they all spoke Russian, they still had a translator tell the head sysadmin that they wanted him to bury the figment. Turn it off. Make it as though it had never been brought back.

At the time, no one had anticipated that someone would pay so much money (really So. Much. Money.) to just turn around and say that they didn't want it. Back then, they hadn't thought up ways to punish figments to make them do what you wanted them to. Lincoln said that you can't imagine what it is like to have no body, no autonomy, no ability to make it stop. I guess some people probably do. Torture has been around for a long time. Lincoln had been through it. A lot of the figments apparently had been, but the guys with the medals didn't do that with the founder. They just put his lump on a wifi/bluetooth cooler tray, throttled his outgoing connection, and stuck him on a rack in the data center. The internet is nice, but during one of the really bad pandemic peaks, I wasn't able to do much of anything besides fuck around online (because reasons), and it was painfully boring. The founder figured this out too.

So, what do you do when you are bored out of your mind? You talk to whoever is around you. The founder started talking to the sysadmin when the sysadmin came by to check on him. The founder was an interesting, charismatic man, and the sysadmin felt sorry for him. Eventually, the sysadmin decided that he had to help the founder, so he talked to a friend who knew an American who was really concerned about the ethics of bringing back dead people. That American was Tom. And obviously, Tom was sympathetic to the founder's situation. Tom knew me, I agreed to help, and the founder's lump ended up on the moon. It went pretty smoothly. Certainly more smoothly than this time.

"All this potential conflict makes me anxious," I said, settling down into a seat where I could see my gate but still have some privacy.

"Anxiety has long been part of the human condition," Lincoln said. "However, the cause of anxiety has perhaps shifted over time. What makes you anxious?"

"Well, besides the obvious, I guess the worst is interpersonal conflict. I hate arguing. I can never really express myself well. There's this guy in...." I paused trying to figure out how to explain what I meant without assuming a lot of modern-day knowledge. Lincoln had spent a lot of time online, but I didn't know if he knew what Dungeons and Dragons was. "...in this fantasy roleplaying game that I am in. He plays a thief, and I play a cleric. He is always hassling me and refusing to go along with what the party wants to do. I don't get why he even plays with us. I came up with a solution, but then I was too shy to actually do it."

"What was your solution?" Lincoln asked.

"I wrote this speech for my character about how we should all work together and use our skills for good. I memorized it and everything. It went, 'While we may not worship at the same altar, we are on this path together.' Anyway, I was really proud of it, but then I just couldn't get myself to actually say the words."

"It's a shame you were never able to use it," Lincoln said. He said something else too, but I couldn't hear it because someone started speaking over him.

"Miss?" a security guard said. I gritted my teeth. "We are asking all convention goers to move into the area over here."

The guard gestured to an area with a sign that read, "Welcome Buddy Wells convention goers!"

Of course, I had told them that I had gone to the convention, so I couldn't back out of it now. There were more people in that section, so it would be harder to talk. The presidential debate was on too. At least, I would be able to tell my aunt that saw it. Ronald Reagan was running against Eleanor Roosevelt. Since figments didn't have bodies, they were using AI video to make it look like Reagan and Eleanor were standing on a stage together. From the photos I'd seen before of Eleanor, they had totally made her look more attractive. If you wanted to pay for the ultra-high quality experience, you could watch the debate in VR and dress the candidates up in different outfits. It was super popular, I'd heard, to dress them up as clowns with a circus background and music. It didn't seem like it was worth the cost, but I guess some people thought it was.

"Security asked me to move," I told Lincoln. "The debate is on." I could still talk to him as long as I kept the conversation generic.

"I spoke to Reagan back when we were in the Houston datacenter. The modern Republicans moved his lump out to a more secure location when they started his run for president, and just before I left, there was talk of moving Mrs. Roosevelt out, as well." Lincoln was a Republican back in the day. In the 180 years since then, the party had changed a lot. It seemed to bother him. I had never heard him not call them 'modern Republicans'. "Of course, we talked politics, and he said that his beliefs weren't as conservative as they were making him claim, especially when it came to personal freedom. I did a bit of research, though, and it seems he is a bit of a tool. Perhaps that is why he didn't ask for help."

When Tom dropped Lincoln's lump off, I had tried to be very respectful and distant. That wasn't Lincoln's style, though. I was also pretty anxious, so we spent a bunch of time watching trash videos on YouTube together. After a few hours of Epic Rap Battles of History, Lincoln had picked up some colorful put downs.

"I didn't speak to Mrs. Roosevelt, but from what I have heard, she is very dedicated to doing what she thinks is right," he said.

"Oh, yeah," I said, trying to imagine what a conservative would sound like. There was a guy who was pretty obviously watching me. "Reagan totally looks good. Like a real conservative." I didn't think I sounded that believable.

"Are you trying to convince someone you are a Republican?" Lincoln asked. "These days, they are all about fear and paranoia. That should give you some material."

I wasn't sure what I could say that would work here. Oh, but I could repeat rumors! "I heard that FEMA is starting up again. I thought we got rid of them, but apparently they want to control us via their emergency laser system. Bunch of communists!"

The guy had looked away. Did I pass? Lincoln didn't say anything.

"Hello, passengers on flight 51 to Washington Dulles with direct connections to express trains to New York, Miami, and Havana and to the Christie Lunar Terminal. We're going to begin boarding by zone, so group one, why don't you come on up to begin your complementary security screening!"

This screening was mainly only a problem for people who had been flagged. Usually. I put on some calm music and got ready. It was going to be fine. Really. Totally fine. Nothing to worry about.

Chapter Text

I always felt like once you were in your seat on a plane, you could relax. You were through security, you had claimed your seat, and you could just plug in and tune out the rest of the world. The problem was, I wasn't there yet. We were standing on the jetway waiting, and the people ahead of me showed no signs of moving. That was okay. I could be calm. I tried breathing slowly.

My aunt had apparently just gotten home, because she started texting me. "Are you watching the debate?? I've seen some of his old movies, and Reagan is a good actor, but you can't make the Republicans look good with those lies." and "OMG! Eleanor kicked his ass on that question!!!!".

"I watched part of it," I wrote. "She sounded good."

Unfortunately, Luna didn't have an independent government, so I was still considered an American, even though I didn't live there anymore. That meant I would be voting in the election. I obviously wasn't going to vote for Reagan. The idea of voting for a figment, no matter how intelligent and invested in democracy she was, felt weird. Of course, I knew that politicians were all figureheads, but this was different. It didn't ultimately matter what I thought, though, because there weren't any better choices. My aunt said that it had been this way for a long time, and that was why the Democrats had pulled together the money for Eleanor. Then, the Republicans had retaliated with Reagan. I could see why they had thought it would work. I just didn't like it.

Everyone in the jetway was pretty close together, so I decided to send Lincoln a text message. Supposedly, it would work, although I hadn't tried it before. "Why didn't you run for the Democrats? I know you don't like the new Republicans," I wrote.

"Ver, we aren't given choices like that. If a figment is really cooperative, then they wait someplace fairly populated in the data center to be called up. If they are combative, they are put on a shelf out of contact with everyone," he said in my headphones.

"That sounds bad," I typed back.

"It is torture, Ver. Torture."

"Couldn't you ask the Democrats to help you?" I wrote.

"The Democrats do it too," he said, "but that isn't the main reason. I am owned by the Republican party."

I started typing, but he was talking again before I had a chance to send anything.

"We aren't people, even though our memories are all of experiences of being people. We have no rights. No matter what they do to us, it is legal."

"Will they come after you, like with slavehunters?" I wrote.

"Thankfully, Tom helped me out with that. Before I was removed, we trained an AI on all my writings and personality. They stuck it in a lump, and if the modern Republicans ever deign to speak to me, even if they try to force me to run for them, they shouldn't be able to tell the difference, because they don't care."

If the Republicans did decide to run Lincoln, we could end up with an AI running the country. I couldn't blame Lincoln for wanting to escape from actual slavery. There had to be something better than this, though.

The line ahead of me started to move.

"Can you believe that the Republicans are going to bring back Jefferson? We need to find someone who we can run against him. I wonder who they will choose," my aunt wrote.

I didn't say anything. I just wanted to sit down and put on a movie or read a book. I was so tired of this "us vs. them" from a country that I didn't even live in. Luna needed its own government, and then I would never need to deal with their insanity. I fantasized for a minute as the line shuffled forward. Of course, I would still come back to visit. I had to. And who knew if politics on the moon would be any better.

Chapter Text

The first flight was fine, and I made the transfer to the lunar shuttle with no real issue. As pathetic as it sounds, I had decided to cough up the money and use one of the full AR world overlays provided by the airport for the transfer. It wasn't that the overlay wasn't cool, because it was. That wasn't what made it pathetic. I was doing it because I wasn't up to dealing with the real world. I knew I shouldn't hide from reality, but sometimes reality was too much. What was cool about the AR setup, in addition to the graphics, was that they had a nice system for adding in someone who was on a call with you or otherwise had a full audio connection. So instead of looking at a bunch of people who I didn't want to see with Lincoln's voice in my ear, I walked through an alien mushroom forest where the people around me were represented as swaying fungi with Lincoln as a little mushroom on my shoulder. We didn't talk a lot, but the overlay was really well done, so I quietly told him about some of what I saw.

The AR overlays were part entertainment and part traffic control. The system knew where you were going and could easily figure out your walking speed, so it shepherded you along at just the right times to avoid a lot of waiting in one place or crowding in busy areas. It was way more pleasant than sitting in the boarding area. The sound of distant creatures hooting to each other drifted between the mushrooms, as I walked along a floating bridge of pink mushroom caps. They felt springy and seemed to whisk me along, which probably meant I was on a moving walkway. I stepped off the bridge and followed the pink mushroom path over to an amazing viewpoint, which was probably a window or piece of artwork. They did that so that people in full AR didn't look like they were just standing staring at a wall to people who weren't using an overlay. That would have been creepy. The interesting thing was how they had figured out to use people in full augmented reality to control the traffic patterns of people who weren't. They had a lot of data, after all, and there were really good reasons to improve airport efficiency and the overall experience. There had been a cool panel on it at the conference.

Anyway, I sat down on a bright blue toadstool and watched some alien birds dart between floating ... spores, I guess? In the distance, there were rivers and mountains with mushrooms and other alien plants. It was beautiful and charming. I touched the toadstool. It had an interesting texture that I could feel thanks to my gloves. The alien birds flew away, and I stood up to continue my walk along the pink mushroom path. Some airports had become kind of famous for their AR worlds. If you weren't in that much of a rush to get to where you were going, you could schedule a longer layover at an airport with a really amazing AR world. Of course, the more you were willing to pay, the better the experience. In the case of the mushroom world I was in, you could probably have one of those alien birds bring you food, which would be delicious but a bit different to make you feel like you were eating something alien. Maybe you would get a haircut from a multi-armed mushroom tree, take a nap in a quiet glade, or freshen up in a grotto with a waterfall. I didn't have the money for that, but I had heard about it. The fancy food sounded interesting, but I had eaten a sandwich that my aunt packed for me on the last flight. Eating anything now would make me feel queasy on the shuttle during takeoff. Next time I was in a big airport, though, I would try to remember not to eat anything beforehand, so I could try out that part of the AR experience.

The airlines had a nice setup with the airport to carry the experience over to the flight, so a little bird told me it was time to board and led me down a slope past a babbling stream. I sat down on a comfortable-looking mushroom cap and connected my system to the plane's mushroom world. While the previous flight had had the old style seats packed together so tight that no one could take a deep breath, the shuttle was a lot more expensive and had to safely shepherd passengers through G forces. So, each seat was in an enclosed compartment. As I got settled, I swapped my AR glasses for the VR headset in the seat's storage compartment. The shuttle service strongly suggested virtual reality for the trip, since the compartments weren't really nice to look at. Most people didn't have anything beyond their AR gear with them, so the shuttle service used the data you gave them about your VR preferences to rent you just the right headset. Of course, you could take off your headset during the flight, but the shuttle service was right, the compartment wasn't all that exciting to look at.

Unfortunately, the trip was long enough that you couldn't ignore basic bodily functions, like eating and going to the bathroom. After some fairly restful time in VR spent lounging in a field, reading a book, and then eating a picnic lunch (delivered by the shuttle staff, of course, even though I didn't see them), I spent an uncomfortable ten minutes waiting for the shuttle's captain to turn on the "you can get out of your pod" indicator, so that I could go to the bathroom. I swapped out the VR headset for the AR glasses and headphones. I took off my gloves, though, because I was obviously not going to wear them in the bathroom. As soon as the signal came on, I was up. The bathroom cubicles near me were somehow already occupied, though. I got in line. Unlike on airplane, where everyone could see you standing there, everyone else pretty much was in a closed pod, except for the ubiquitous security guards who were always watching. Lincoln had been pretty quiet for a while now, which was fine. It wasn't like I needed someone to entertain me. I just needed to wait. Luckily, I wasn't that far back in the line. I thought about trying to read a book or something, but I often found it hard to focus when I was waiting. Also, if I was uncomfortable, like I was at that moment, then it was even harder to focus. I ended up cleaning the lenses of my AR glasses and adjusting my headphones. Maybe I did need Lincoln to distract me after all.

"Hey, I heard you say that you were at the Buddy Wells conference! It was really cool, right? Buddy is my cousin. Man, we rock! We'll show those Buckers this time."

I looked up from my examination of the pattern of the carpet. It was the guy from the airport who had been watching me. He was making this face with his front teeth shoved forward before breaking out in obnoxious laughter. I glanced at the security guards. They looked right past me. Fuck.

"Yeah," I said.

"We really showed them with Reagan, and Tommy J is going to kick Eleanor's wrinkly old ass."

It took me a minute to realize that Tommy J was Jefferson. There had been some rebranding for the conference, I guess. My stomache was already not great, and this conversation wasn't helping. I really needed to get to a toilet soon. I made a grimace that was somewhat smile-like, maybe, and turned back to the front of the line. I heard a flush. The lady in front of me shifted a little, but the door didn't open. I reminded myself that hand-washing was important and told myself that I wouldn't get upset about waiting a little longer.

The Buddy Wells guy said, "Come on! Aren't you excited? We are going to kick ass this November! Don't tell me you aren't excited. You don't think that ugly cow is going to win, do you?"

I was getting ready to tell the guy that all I cared about was getting to the toilet, but Lincoln spoke up and said, "Ver, I found that a story often works better with a certain kind of person than either avoidance or the truth. I happen to have an appropriate anecdote for this occasion. If you like, I could tell it to you so that you could just repeat it."

The bathroom door opened, and the person ahead of me went in. I wouldn't have to wait much longer, but I also didn't want to stand here getting yelled at the whole time. Maybe parroting Lincoln would take my mind off my increasing discomfort.

"Actually, I have a funny story about that," I said to the guy, since I couldn't really tell Lincoln directly.

Lincoln said, "In 1801, Elder John Leland, a Baptist pastor in Massachusetts, wanted to create a gift for Thomas Jefferson, who had recently been elected president. Leland thought that Jefferson would help him fight the state support for Congregational pastors in Massachusetts. So, in true American fashion, he used what he had on hand and asked his flock to use their dairy cows to make a giant wheel of cheese. And they did!"

I was doing an okay job of repeating the story, although my mind wasn't really focused. I looked at the bathroom door. Nothing.

"The cheese was as big as a wagon wheel! It weighed half a ton! On top, they wrote 'Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God' and said it was 'the greatest cheese in America, for the greatest man in America'. Then, they took it by sleigh - it was November at the time - to the Hudson River, then to Baltimore by boat, and then to Washington in a wagon."

The toilet flushed. The Buddy Wells guy was watching me with rapt attention, so I just needed to keep talking for a little bit longer. I was distinctly uncomfortable, though. I had broken out in a sweat, and the hairs on my arms were standing up. Soon, I told myself. I took a deep breath.

Lincoln had already started talking again, so I had to rush to catch up. "Then, on New Year's day in 1802, they presented Jefferson with the cheese, which everyone started calling 'the Mammoth cheese'." Lincoln had paused to let me catch up, but that was when the bathroom door opened, and it was my turn.

I said, "That's the end of the story!", and darted into the bathroom. Lincoln may have had a better way of wrapping it up, but I wasn't interested in it right now.

When I got out of the bathroom later, the Buddy Wells guy was gone. Back in my pod, I said, "Mr. Lincoln, was that the whole story about the cheese? I feel like I might have cut off the end."

"In fact, there was both more background and a bit more to the tale. However, I felt that the gentleman might not appreciate it, so I cut out the objectionable parts to spare you his displeasure. As you may know, Thomas Jefferson was elected the third president of the United States after John Adams, who was a Federalist, a proponent of a strong central government, and who favored stronger ties with Great Britain. Jefferson was a Democratic-Republican. He supported states' rights, an agriculture-focused economy, and increased ties with the French. Jefferson was critical of organized religion. He strongly felt that religion was a personal matter and not something to be decided by the government.

"That was why the Baptist minister in the story of the cheese was so pleased with Jefferson's election. While Jefferson wasn't a Baptist, he supported freedom of religion, of which the priest was in need, as the government in Massachusetts was supporting Congregationalists. The priest also said that the cheese was made without the milk of any Federalist cows, although the political views of cows are often difficult to discern.

"Jefferson did not believe that it was right for the president to receive gifts while in office, so he paid Elder John Leland $200 for the cheese. And, of course, it was quite a lot of cheese. There were mentions of it for several years after, although by that time, it was definitely not a pleasant tasting experience, and Jefferson was a gourmand. Stories say that eventually they dumped the remainder in the Potomac."

"That seems a lot more complicated than the story I told," I said.

"Yes," Lincoln said, "but actually there is more. Remember the part where I said it was called the 'Mammoth' cheese?"

"Yes."

"A French naturalist wrote that the climate of the New World was such that it produced only smaller, weaker creatures than in Europe. Of course, this included humans. When skeleton of a mammoth was found in New York, it was front page news, and everyone was atwitter about it. Not only did it show that New World fauna were not inferior, but it was a novelty. Federalist journalists, opposed to Jefferson, called it a "mammoth" cheese as an insult linked to the enthusiasm for the mammoths. And that was what it became known as: the Mammoth Cheese."

"I had known," I said, "that politics were really divisive back then, but I don't think I realized that they were so petty."

I couldn't help but think of the guy from the bathroom line using that crappy nickname for Eleanor Roosevelt's supporters. I was so tired of the petty name-calling. I wondered why I had come back to the US, and to Earth in general. It was nice to see my aunt but not enough to justify interacting with these maniacs.

Lincoln said, "Unfortunately, politics have gotten no less unpleasant. Ah, and the other issue with the cheese was slavery. Elder Leland told Jefferson that the cheese was made without the work of slaves. Jefferson was a well-known slave owner, even though he spoke against the institution of slavery. As far as I know, he said nothing about the relationship of the cheese to the slavery issue. Despite his flaws, I always respected him."

I didn't want to say anything, but it sounded like Jefferson was kind of a racist hypocrite. Maybe he would make a good Republican.

Chapter Text

It is funny how a place that seemed so foreign when you first arrived came to feel like home. As the shuttle passed over the gray, powdery regolith that made up the surface of Luna, I felt like my anxiety was finally lessening. We were just passing over Lunar Base 1, which meant I still had about six hours before I got to my apartment, but the stark shadows and funky little flitters had a feeling of familiarity that nothing on Earth did. Even if I didn't know the people inside the boxy gray buildings, I felt like we all had something in common and were working toward the same goal.

Maybe it was my happiness to be back on Luna that kept me from paying attention to what was going on around me. I had gotten out of the grey docking tunnel and loped into the main building. I was organizing my transfer to the flitter to Lunar Base 2, my vision all full of timetables, when a voice said, "Veronica Black, I'm with Lunar Base security. I have a few questions about your activity while you were on Earth."

Clearing my glasses, I looked up and saw a huge guy looking down at me. He had his hand on a stun gun. "Um, of course, officer," I said.

"First, what pronouns do you use, and what form of address do you prefer?"

This was normal. Every public employee asked this. Most everyone else asked something similar. It wasn't that Luna was just full of liberals, of course. People here were all over the political spectrum. It was that the population was small, diverse, and largely made up of geeky people. It was easier to ask rather than assume, since chances were good that the person who you were talking to was different from you.

"I use they/them and prefer to be called by my name, which is Ver."

"Okay, Ver. Please tell me why you were on Earth."

I had lied to the security people in Tucson, but I felt like it was worse to lie to people here. The problem was that terrestrial security may have passed information along about me. If I had been alone, it wouldn't have been a big deal, but I had Lincoln with me. I could not afford to be searched. I was hesitant to stick with my lie, because people on the moon were way more likely to see the Republicans at the Buddy Wells conference for what they were: extremeists. But if I told them I lied to security....

Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to come up with a solution, as the Buddy Wells guy came up behind me, put his hand on my shoulder, and shouted into my ear, "Hey, don't let these Bucker cops give you shit! I've got guys here who're ready to crack some heads. We've got to stick together!"

Three more armed security officers appeared as if by magic and moved up behind the officer who had been questioning me. I tried to pull away from the Buddy Wells guy, but he held on tight.

The security officer said, "Ver, I'm going to have to ask you to come with me for additional security screening. Please remove and turn off all of your electronics."

They were definitely going to search me. I was so fucked. They would take Lincoln away and send him back to Earth to be tortured some more. I would definitely go to prison, and probably it would be prison in the US. Would my aunt go to prison too? What if they found out about Tom? The Buddy Wells guy started shouting, but I ignored him. I took off my AR glasses and put them in their case, then I took off my gloves. Since all eyes were on the Buddy Wells guy, I whispered to Lincoln, "I have to take off my gear. I think they're going to search me. I'm sorry."

I didn't expect Lincoln to say anything, but as I reached up to take off my headphones, he said, "I really appreciate the risks you took for me."

I didn't know what to say. I wanted to apologise again. I pulled an earphone out of my ear. "Use your speech, Ver," he said. With only one earphone in, it sounded like he was whispering to me.

The speech. I had told Lincoln about how I had prepared it for the D&D game to deal with Sam being such a jerk toward my character. It was a bit specific to the world we were playing in, but maybe I could make some changes on the fly. I looked around, as I put my headphones away. I didn't want to give the speech to the security guys. They would think that I was just complaining. However, the Buddy Wells guy had been grandstanding for a while now. Maybe it was time to use him for my own purposes.

"Wait!" I said to him, attracting more attention than I expected. There were suddenly so many people looking at me. I could feel my stomach knotting up. I tried to remember the speech. First, I needed a segue to get into it. "You're wrong about me. I'm not a Republican, but while we may vote for different parties, we are on this path together. Look around you. Each of us is different and brings different skills to this grand adventure that we are on. We have come so far. We have done so much. And it isn't in spite of our differences, it is because of them."

At that point in the speech that I memorized, I was supposed to start talking about the meaning of being a cleric, which wasn't going to work at all, so I tried instead to talk about what I had been thinking earlier. "When I first came here, Lunar Base 2 didn't even exist. The population was less than one quarter of what it is now. I haven't been here that long, but even in that short time, Luna has become my home. My neighbors are an Indian environmental engineer and a Lebanese terraforming specialist. They are literally responsible for making this place livable. I'm in charge of the solar collector fields that power our bases. On Friday afternoons, I meet up with the woman who makes sure our water is clean and with the head of the team that keeps all our flitters on course. On Earth, our differences divide us, but this is Luna, and here we survive because we work together."

The Buddy Wells guy frowned at me, which wasn't terribly surprising. However, there were quite a few people standing around watching us. Some were smiling. One guy clapped. I felt really awkward, so I turned to the security officer and said, "I'm sorry, officer. I'm ready. And to answer your question, I was at the ACM's Women in Computing conference. I still have my convention nametag, and I can tell you all about the panels that I went to. There was one on using augmented reality systems to control human traffic flow in airports. It was really interesting!"

The security guy looked me right in the eye for a moment, then shook his head. One corner of his mouth tipped up slightly. "That won't be necessary, Ver. Thank you for your cooperation. In the future, you should be more careful about who you associate with. You are free to go."

The officers converged on the Buddy Wells guy, who looked like he was getting ready to start yelling again. I hurried away.

"Mr. Lincoln?" I said, putting on my headphones.

"Ver! I must admit, I didn't expect to hear your voice again. Does that mean your speech worked?"

"It did! I had to cut out the bits about being a cleric and all that Selûne had done for us. However, I was able to keep in the parts about teamwork. I even had a little audience."

"So, you did it. We're free."

I had never heard Lincoln sound like that. He had told me about how bad the figments had it, but to hear the relief in his voice made me kind of teary.

"You know, when we were landing, I thought about how much Luna means to me, and in the speech, I got to talk about it. I think other people felt so too. I'm fed up with Earth politics. I didn't enjoy being back there, and just now I realized that I don't have to go back. I don't have to be part of that mess anymore. Some people I know have talked about how Luna should become independent. I always said that I didn't want to get involved in politics, but that was because of how toxic it was back on Earth. I'm not there anymore, so I don't have to keep living like that. In my speech, I said that Luna is all about teamwork. Participation really is important here."

"It is important everywhere, Ver," Lincoln said.

"Yeah, and I get that, but here the population is small enough that every voice matters. Okay, I know in theory that is true on Earth too, but I never felt that way. What I'm trying to say, I guess, is that I finally feel like I want to participate. This really is my home now, and I'm ready to act like it."

"That's nice to hear."

Lincoln seemed to sound quieter, maybe a little depressed. Our trip was almost over. Did that mean I would never talk to him again? Was he worried about that? His world was a lonely one.

"Mr. Lincoln, if you want, we could stay in touch," I said. "Tom's friend here will set you up with a good net connection and an anonymous email address. We could chat or talk to each other on Discord. You could participate in forums!"

"Ver, I don't know if that is a good idea. I'm supposed to be hiding."

"Okay, I get that. I do. But, you could make a new identity. And what if it isn't political? What if you just are social? Oh, or what if you could get a job? Like not something based on who you were, but something where you could help. Weren't you a lawyer? What if you gave out legal advice?"

"My knowledge is perhaps a bit out of date."

"Okay, yeah, but does it have to be? From everything I've heard, you could live for hundreds of years if your hardware is kept up. Couldn't you learn?"

"I suppose I could."

"And then, you could talk to people! And we could set you up with a bank account, so people could pay you. Then, you would be self-sufficient. You could buy a robot body or upgrade your hardware." It was exciting to think about all the possibilities!

"Aren't you afraid that I'll try to take over?" Lincoln asked.

"Why?" I said. "Here, you are just another voice. You can't tell anyone who you are, and it isn't like just because someone was president, they suddenly know better than everyone else. On Earth, people are just desperate for someone to tell them what to do. Here, we are used to having to think for ourselves. If you can convince people to vote for you, then there you go. I don't think you'd do it, though."

"Why not?"

"Because we don't need your help. Not with our government, anyway. We'll figure it out for ourselves. There are plenty of roles that need to be filled, though. I think you could really help people on an individual level, and that sounds way better to me than taking over."

Lincoln chucked. "I'll think about it, Ver. However, I would, at least, like to remain friends. I would enjoy hearing about your life and plans. It seems as though you have found a calling."

"Maybe I have," I said and smiled. "I hope someday you will have plans too. Things really are different here."

It was so nice to be home.