Question

  Something squelched under my boots as I stepped through the door of light. It had only been a step, one step through a mysterious door found in the long-abandoned ruins on the dark side of the moon; and with that one step, I could already tell I was some wear far from where I had started.

  “A garbage-filled subway tunnel… not exactly what I would have expected.” I glanced at the underside of my boot and decided I didn’t really want to know what I had stepped in.

  I shrugged in my suit, finding it much more cumbersome now than it had been on the other side of the door. As I clicked my radio on, I scanned the area hoping it would work.

  “This way, ha, this way to what?” I said absentmindedly reading the graffiti sprayed on the wall.

  Static crackled in my ear as I tapped in the binary code to Abby indicating I was on the other side. The tunnel led in two directions, one way up the stairs bathed in red light the other a dark conglomeration of shadows even the lights on my helmet couldn’t reach.

  “Well, I’m not going that way.”

  My radio remained silent except for the static as I looked back at the door of light. I had a strong urge to go back through, but something pulled at me.

  “Well, it looks like I’m going this way then.”

  With a last look at the door of light, I made my way over to the stairs. As I moved one step at a time up the stairs, I noticed the light seemed to buzz through my suit. With a glance, I checked my gages relieved to see them all steadily in the safe zone.

  Slowly the end of the stairs came into sight, and I was relieved and somewhat disappointed to find it resembled a normal subway station. It looked familiar though it had been years since I had been anywhere near one. The red light was ominous, cast over the filth of the station, but besides the trash and the graffiti, it was empty.

  “Well ok then. So why is there a subway station on the moon? That’s if I’m still on the moon that is.”

  I continued to look around, part of me wondering when the next train would arrive, when the distinct sound of squealing brakes emanated down the subway tunnel. A silver train, brightly lit with white light pulled up to the station. The light washed out the red as it came to a stop, leaving me in nothing but shadow. Then with a hiss the doors opened beckoning me inside.

  “Well, why the hell not!”

  The pressure in my suit changed the moment I stepped onto the train, not exactly how it had been on the moon before I entered the light door, but considerably lighter than in the station. With a hiss, the doors slid shut behind me, and the train began to move. I watched through the window of the doors as the station disappeared just now remembering why this place felt so familiar.

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  “Is it interesting to see it empty?” The voice came from behind me, a voice I never thought I would hear again.

  Slowly I moved to face her as sweat began to prickle at the back of my neck. She was dead, had to be, I would know otherwise, but there she was, sitting in a seat she never got, a seat she had given up guaranteeing my safety.

  “Mom?” She smiled sadly as she nodded to a seat across from her.

  I took the seat, watching her the whole time. She smiled at me making no movement as the train continued to move down the track. A warning signal went off in my ear and I glanced down to my gages already knowing that my vitals had spiked.

  “I am sorry if this form causes you discomfort, but I believe it is the best fit for the decision you are about to make.” She made a waving gesture and the train slowed pulling up to a station, the same station we had just left from. Only this time it was packed with people. I turned in my seat and watched as the child version of me held my mother’s hand tight while tears streamed down my face.

  “What’s going on?” I was calmer than I should have been, and a little voice in the back of my mind screamed warnings to me.

  “Where we are is important, but not as important as the question I have for you.”

  I listened to my not mom, as the memory of my mom knelt beside me. Her words echoed in my ear as her mouth moved silently.

  “Be strong my love, I can’t go with you.” The warmth of her hand flashed across my face as she cleared away my tears. “Someday you will understand, but I can’t go with you.”

  She was right, I didn’t understand at the time, I didn’t understand until much later. The seat she had procured, she had given up. Given up to an important man who was unable to procure one for his granddaughter… Abby. In exchange, I would be housed in the dormitories of the elite and given an internship with the moon station when I came of age. Everything she did led to where I was at that moment.

  “What’s your question?” I said turning back to my not mother.

  She smiled at me, that smile I still dream about.

  “First, I should let you know we are on a ship, one that could save what’s left of your race. It was left here, during the creation of your world. The builders, suspecting that someday one of your kind… or perhaps another if evolution would have turned out differently, would be in need of it. I tell you this because it is important, whether it is important to you, is up to you.”

  She paused, allowing the words to sink in. The implications were not lost on me, but I wanted to know what sort of question was so important to go to this much trouble.

  “So, what’s the question?”

  “It is simple. If you could go back, as you are now, and change the future, and all those that needed to listen and believe in you, would. Would you?”

  The answer came to me without even thinking. I turned in my seat once again to watch my mother as the scene played on repeat. How different would things be if the war hadn’t started. If we hadn’t destroyed the world? With a sigh, I turned back to not mom.

  “No… I wouldn’t change anything.” I stared at her, my whole body wanting to change my answer, but I knew that even if I went back and everything not mom said was true it would only postpone the inevitable. “You said the ship was left for us? What do I have to do for that?”

  She smiled at me.

  “It was always meant for you.”