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“Mr. President, I've been tasked with providing an update on situation codename Full Moon, concerning the moon-sized sphere currently orbiting Earth at close range.”
“Please proceed, Doctor Trafalgar.”
“As you know, the unidentified Object that entered low orbit on August 9 of this year has, until now, remained undetectable in the visible light spectrum, though it appears a solid mass at higher wavelengths. That has changed. This morning at 0400 hours, it took on a visible uh… form.”
Behind Law, beyond the tall glass walls of the government building, dawn was creeping over the horizon to the east. It was very fucking early in the morning, and all the assembled officials and agency representatives had been called from their mega mansions for this emergency meeting. Scowling generals and thin lipped technocrats blinked blankly at Law, and he longed to release some kind of pathogen into the room.
Over Law's shoulder, he could see the curve of the sun starting to rise above the horizon, red beams waving. He turned his back to it in irritation.
“This alarming change can perhaps be traced to an incident that took place yesterday afternoon, although the mechanics of the transformation remain mysterious.”
The officials were starting to gawk out the window behind Law, nudging each other and pointing.
Law sighed as the commotion mounted. He continued in the same weary monotone.
“As I previously reported, the intra-orbital craft carrying Chief Engineer Eustass and his crew experienced an unknown failure early yesterday afternoon. Although the rest of the crew survived the fall into the North Pacific, Chief Engineer Eustass, at the time embarking on an unplanned space walk attempting to make contact with the Object, was–”
“IS THAT A HEAD???” someone shouted.
That was the signal for chaos to break out. The whole room stood and started braying and thumping fists on desks.
Law took off his glasses and massaged the bridge of his nose before turning to look behind him.
Kidd's massive, disembodied head was rising above the horizon instead of the sun. The Object, though only the size of earth's moon, was four times as close, and so the head filled a good chunk of the sky. Its expression was murder, and its eyes scanned the horizon as morning crept over the land.
Law turned back around to face his panicking audience. “Questions? Anyone? No? Well, let's wrap it up.”
The space agency director blocked him from leaving and pointed him firmly back to the front of the room.
“Order! Quiet! Whatever, SHUT UP!” The ancient chief of staff bellowed.
The room quieted to general muttering as Law slouched back to the mic.
“Yeah, so.” He shuffled his papers. “It's a head now. I'll take questions.”
He dismissed the first three questions about HOW and WHY it was a head, rolling his eyes.
“It's just a head. We've all seen heads.”
“But why Chief Engineer Eust—”
“He was fucking around in space, that's what happens when you fuck around in space,” Law cut him off angrily.
“It's saying something, its mouth is moving, someone translate!”
“It may be attempting to communicate, yes,” Law admitted, “though we can't confirm whether it is doing so intelligently. My expert opinion is that it is not.”
“Someone get a lip reader in here. Someone?”
It was indeed moving its lips soundlessly, becoming angrily animated as the sun finally rose below it and the capital moved into range of daylight. Its eyes glared directly at them.
“We DON'T need a translator,” Law tried again.
Some genius eventually pointed a universal translator at it, and a heavily filtered AI voice sounded through the suddenly silent room.
“This is all Trafalgar's expletive fault … that expletive commie terrorist expletive with his expletive expletive expletive expletive …”
All eyes shifted from the head outside the window to the scientist slouching on the lectern.
“...Distinguished officials,” Law straightened, “I move that we nuke it to hell.”
“Sergeant, please take the Doctor into custody,” the President directed. “Again.”
Law threw down his papers.
“Trafalgar, hands,” the grizzled sergeant instructed, dangling cuffs. “And don't get creative like last time.”
Law ignored him and pressed two middle fingers to the glass wall, glaring at the giant space moron orbiting outside.
“You fucking ruined everything,” he hissed at it.
Law watched the waning and waxing of the Object out his cell window over the following weeks, tracking its phases and plotting how to overthrow the government and get nukes. So it was pretty much like his last stint in custody, except that Kidd was a giant head now.
Someone banged on the cell door. The flap at the bottom opened and a tray delivered three newspapers, an envelope marked CLASSIFIED, and a little cup of military-grade pharmaceuticals.
“I can't believe you assholes are still making me work,” Law called, tossing the envelope in the corner. “Where are the rest of my drugs?”
“They said you'll get em when you finish those paper things,” the guard called back.
“Tell the agency I'm going to nuke them.”
“Man, see, this is why you're in here…” Booted footsteps retreated down the hall.
“I'm in here because no one competent shares my utopian ambitions,” Law complained quietly.
The headlines of the newspapers were mildly entertaining.
Shadow of orbiting head disrupting crop growth around capital; local economy in shambles
The man in the moon: Eustass Kidd's checkered life before space career
Vatican reverses position on ‘celestial’ head; now acknowledges potential divinity
A little article deep in a back section discussed the lensing effect that made the head appear slightly bulbous, as though seen through a crystal ball. It suggested that the head was an enlarged projection of something much smaller that was trapped deep in the core of the Object.
“Huh,” Law scanned through this. The public wasn't supposed to know about the Object — the official position was still that the head was a collective delusion. “Some egghead is about to get arrested.”
He threw aside the papers and looked with distaste at the classified documents.
“Fine… let's see.”
The first document was a questionnaire from Congress, demanding answers to the usual bullshit. He got out his favorite red pen, and crossed out most of the questions altogether.
“Am I a member of the communist party… fuck you, and fuck those useless hippies. Have I ever committed an act of treason… yes, obviously, it was on my CV when you hired me. Did I conspire with Eustass Kidd to make contact with the Object in an attempt to harness its power for myself… NONE of these are science questions! I am a Scientist you knuckle-dragging chucklefucks, you gave me that presidential pardon and put me in that fucking cubicle specifically so I could develop extraterrestrial programs for your space agency…”
He skipped down to one question near the end, asking why the head appeared to be speaking, but didn’t make any sound.
It is in space, he wrote in red.
He turned to the other documents wearily, taking another shot from his little cup. These were mostly calculations and readouts from his team at the space agency, asking for corrections and clarifications on their research on the Object. It took some gall for the agency to lock him up but keep sending him work. Every day Law considered feeding them nonsense, but he honestly couldn't bring himself to let his own program fail.
He applied red ink to each page carefully, musing over the latest data.
On the final page, he answered a little drawing of a penguin with a little drawing of a heart, smiling slightly, thinking of his team of eggheads. Too bad they were all soft as baby lambs and useless to his larger designs.
He turned back to the window to gaze at the waxing head. It was only half full at the moment. Even so, he could see its mouth forming new words.
“Huh…” Law squinted at it through his telescope, mouthing along with it until he understood what it was saying. “...Oh. Fuck.”
Head demands Trafalgar Law be brought to justice for unknown crimes; state denies knowledge of whereabouts
Could one man be responsible for the alien vessel holding us hostage?
Civil unrest across the country over government inaction
The headlines had taken a real hostile turn, Law thought. Especially since Kidd had learned how to nudge the Object in its orbit so that his massive fucking melon was constantly eclipsing sunlight in the capital.
He shuffled aside these papers and scoffed at the gossip rag beneath. This one was outright calling for Law to be launched into the sun as an offering to appease the head. There was some religious fanaticism leaking into the public psyche, it seemed.
The cell block door slamming startled him from his reading.
Slippered footsteps approached down the hall along with booted ones, and the door to the cell across from Law opened and closed. Muttering, boots leaving, door screeching.
“Law?” A familiar voice called.
Law slumped back in his chair. “Penguin, what the fuck?”
“Haha… uhh, I guess I wrote a little article they didn't like.”
Law looked over at the newspaper clipping about the Object's lensing posted on his wall. “That was dumb, buddy.”
“The public deserves a little truth,” Penguin defended himself. “There's so much propaganda and bullshit coming out of literal government agencies right now, including ours. It's so unethical.”
“Mhm…” Law checked his nails.
“And I guess I'm associated with you and drawing ‘secret love messages’ to you or something, and you're getting blamed for Kidd's head, so yeah,” Penguin reflected. “Also, um. Did you tell them about my stuff with the communist party?”
“Nah,” Law reassured him, “I don't care about your sappy book club.”
“Yeah. I didn't think anyone else cared either. But it's suddenly like a big fucking deal to Congress?”
“Yeah they'll probably prosecute you for anti government activities,” Law shrugged. “Which is a drag but it never stopped me. Hey, did they let you have a laptop in there?”
“Uh…” Penguin looked around his cell. “Hey, yeah! Do you have one? We could play Civ 34.”
“No Peng it won't have games on it, they want you to keep doing space head research under surveillance. Can you take out the battery and pass it to me?”
“Yeah. Yours dead?” Penguin skidded the battery across through the flap on his door.
“No they don't let me have electronics, they think I'll use the components to break out of containment.” Law stripped the lithium-X battery from its casing and wired it up to an arrangement around his window frame.
“Ah.”
“Cover your ears.”
Law took cover behind the bed as the window frame chucked itself out of the concrete wall and into the world. He opened Penguin’s cell a moment later and waved him over.
“Okay come on, we're escaping.”
“Sick,” Penguin grinned.
Outside, wreathed in dust and debris, an anti aircraft tank was pointing its gun directly at them.
“Oh come ON,” Law threw up his hands.
“You can't contain the truth!” Penguin raised his fist.
“Back in your cells, commie trash,” they were instructed through a speaker.
They climbed back inside.
Over the next few weeks the rest of Law's team from the space agency gradually filled up the cell block, most of them charged with releasing classified information to the public, and the rest locked up for good measure.
Law was growing despondent, his failed escape attempts stacking up. He refused to even look at the head anymore. Which was probably for the best because Kidd had figured out how to move himself around inside the Object, and the huge, hovering middle finger that had featured for the past two days was definitely directed at Law personally.
“We could try escaping again,” Shachi suggested, to cheer Law up. The crew were all sitting around the hall outside Law's cell, trying to get him to break out and join their book club.
“No, I'm over it,” Law muttered, lying on the floor in his cell.
“Okay well we got a new assignment from the agency today, you wanna see what it is? Might be something that could advance your utopian agenda.”
“Fine. Read me the brief.”
“Okay, we have been tasked with thr calculations for another capsule launch — nice! But this one will only be carrying one crew member. Huh. And it's headed… ohhh…”
There was shuffling as the others all grabbed at the brief.
Bepo read it aloud before the others could shush him. “It's headed into the sun? Like right into the sun.”
Law rolled over onto his back and stared at the ceiling, processing this.
“Huh. They're really gonna do it,” he marveled. He sat up and looked out his repaired window, where the Object was rising into view. It wasn't a middle finger anymore. Or a head.
“Are we launching Law into the sun?” Bepo wondered.
“No! God, of course not,” Penguin insisted. “We're not gonna do this, we're—”
“Yes we ARE,” Law's door burst open and he stood there, eyes gleaming.
“Are we??”
“YES. Well, no. We're going to plan a little detour. We are going to launch me…” he whipped around and jabbed a finger toward the window. “THERE.”
Framed in the window was the Object — a freckled ass four times the size of the moon, hanging full-phase and luminous in the sky.