Light on the Dark Side of Mega Corp Moon

“I’m a terrible liar,” I lied to the interviewer.

“Do you think you’re ugly?” they asked.

“Average.”

“Would you say you’re the smartest person in the room most of the time?”

I feigned a laugh. “I’ve never thought of myself that way.” I was definitely thinking just that. Even including all the people on the other side of the one-way mirror I knew were there.

When we finished, the interviewer’s purple eyes refocused and I waited for them to read whatever report card had been beamed to their XR lenses.

“Welcome to Lunar Lane, Mx. Tristan Kurtz,” they said, their sharp facial features relaxing. “You head to the moon in one week. Just one change in plans: your main job is intelligence gathering. Trade secrets, ideally. You will still be involved in engineering—we have lots of robots that need upkeep—but we’re giving you a title with some vertical latitude. That way you can liaise with the sorts of people who tend to be in possession of the kind of information we deem valuable from other corporate and private entities. We’re especially interested in intel on our main energy extraction and shipping competitor, Helium X.”

My right arm twitched with the need to pump it in the air. “It’s an honor to join the team,” I said instead. “And mission accepted.” 

†

I had barely settled into my pod when the invitation to the inter-corporate social came in. It was time to get to work. But rather than immediately mingling upon arrival, I found myself drawn to a large bay-style window that offered a breathtaking view of the lunar surface. Domes, lights, and heavy vehicles dotted the nearby surroundings like a small town in a nighttime desert. 

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” a deep voice asked.

I turned around and found myself face-to-face with the most beautiful person at the event. I hoped they had something valuable to share with me.

“It is. The XR sims don’t do it justice.”

“Handel, he/him, Helium X,” the man said, and extended a large, dark hand.

I extended my own. “You’re warm,” I blurted, not realizing how cold I was.

“Running hot comes in handy here: space is cold.”

“I’ve always run cold, maybe I won’t notice. And I’m Tristan Kurtz, they/them, Lunar Lane.” 

“Well, Tristan, I’d be happy to help you…adjust,” he offered with a lopsided smile. He still hadn’t let go of my hand.

I squashed my unusual bout of nerves and tugged him in the direction of an auxiliary sanitary pod I had spied on my way in. I congratulated myself along the way for my successful seduction, and all the Helium X trade secrets I would soon extract from him at just the right moment.

†

“What made you want to make the jump to the moon?” I asked Handel two weeks later at the next mixed corporate event. I had briefly berated myself for not getting any relevant information from him during my previous seduction but quickly came to my senses: starting off slow was better. More authentic. Higher yield in the long-term. “Bad breakup?” 

“Was that your motivation?” he deflected, mischief sparking in his deep brown eyes. 

“I asked the question first,” I said, my intended pout turning into a laugh.

“But I’m wrong, aren’t I? You’re following your dream. Even if that dream is mostly raw ambition.”

Instead of bristling I played along. “Is this one of those ‘takes one to know one’ moments?”

“I confirm nothing.”

But I didn’t need him to confirm that he was interested in sneaking away from the party again. Didn’t even need the backdoor script Lunar Lane had given me into his vital tracking to monitor his interest. Bulges are timeless.

†

There wasn’t a social event the next week. Or the week after. Instead I plotted out a soap opera worth of coy questions and then got to work on the robots. The medical bot was having a hard time applying some of the new materials. Different supplier; that was all it took to throw off generative learning. It would get better, but cut off from a database that should have shipped with the new material, it wouldn’t be fast enough. 

I was nearly done making some manual tweaks to the code when I received a message.

“I heard there’s a thing,” a familiar teasing voice said. “We’re hosting this time. Maybe you’d like a VIP tour beforehand? You know, scout the place out like you usually do, only from the inside this time.”

“I’d love to see your sanitary units,” I replied, putting the bot aside. The robot could wait.

†

Our bodies were pressed together in the soft afterglow of sex when I got a message from my spyware that agents from other corporations would soon arrive in the common space. I was running out of time again.

I raised my head off the hard muscle and soft hair of his chest and studied him. Handel studied me back.

“You got the heads-up too?” he asked.

I nodded. Then froze. 

“We can always come back to this,” he said, stroking my clean-shaven jaw and tipping my chin up to meet his lips. “Unless you’re done playing spy?”

“I…”

“Have the same bullshit job I do. They tell you to gather intelligence? Something valuable?”

I forced my head not to nod, not to move an inch.

Handel laughed, but it was warm, jovial even, not cruel.

“My ex responded the same way. We all have that job. Every single low and mid-level spacer. The only people that don’t seem to know are the execs and the terrestrial HR departments.”

“So, I’m…not a real spy?” I found myself squirming against the cold, hard wall of the sanitary unit. 

“Sure you are,” he said, winking. “Just like I am. But you’re a spy on a celestial body populated nearly entirely with spies. And each corporation, even competing ones like ours, has contracts to supply different components of our lunar infrastructure. Each corp pitches in, but they also leverage those opportunities for espionage. So, there are, literally, no secrets.”

“So us…”

“Not a secret. Didn’t you notice the timing of the first guests’ arrival from your spyware? We’re a pretty respectful bunch. A small community, but a tight one.”

My mouth hung open. “You popped my spy bubble.”

He chuckled. “Think of us as productive spies since we actually spend most of our time doing something useful—that’s what it takes to survive a hostile environment. You and your robot skills will fit right in. Still interested in cozying up in sanitary units?”

Maybe I wasn’t the smartest person in this particular room, but that felt okay—good even. I closed the modicum of physical space between us that I had unwittingly created. “More than ever.”

“I might not need to steal corporate intel,” I added. “But I absolutely plan on stealing more of your warmth.” The way he wrapped his thick arms around me was answer enough: regardless of who we worked for, nothing was truly stolen amongst spacers on the moon. 

© 2024 Jason M. Harley

About the Author

Jason M. Harley is a queer, non-binary McGill University professor in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences and the Director of Research of their university’s healthcare simulation centre. Their work gives them insight into some of the latest developments in AI, biometrics, and VR in medicine, training, and most recently, outer space, through consulting with the Canadian Space Agency. Jason’s research has been featured in The Guardian and CBC, amongst other media outlets. Their comic book, Fake News and Dinosaurs, co-created with their husband and visual artist, Daniel Beaudin, has been featured on Global News TV and the Toronto Star. Jason’s fiction has also appeared in Tesseracts, Polar Borealis and elsewhere. They live in Montreal, Quebec and can be found on Bluesky @jasonmharley.bsky.social.