It’s not entirely in my comfort zone to do this without an editor involved in the process, but just for fun, I’ll see what I can make of it from week to week. (Expect between 600-1000 words each post.) About a year ago, I banged out about 2800 words of this story and then left it. Shamus calls that “padding,” so I’ll post them in the rough and keep going from there. And hey, if you like it, share the link around…

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For Heather, a true and honest friend

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The Moonborn Code

1: Wolf at the Door

he dust swirled, and people died. The satellite images were terrifying. These parasites weren’t meant for Earth.

Dr. Elgin Parker turned the screen off and faced the lab team. “That’s what we’re up against. Signal silence is falling across the globe, and we can’t rely on Ground Team for assistance. Terramoon is on her own.”

Wesley Liu slouched in his chair and shrugged a muscular shoulder, his dark, narrow eyes inscrutable. The guy looked like a hamhead, but you never knew what would come out of his mouth next. Although, this time, it was fairly predictable.

“Didn’t Ground Team cause this?”

Elgin smiled. It felt like stretching an elastic band horizontally across his lips and pulling it tight. “We don’t know how the nanobots escaped. It could have been espionage, sabotage or accident. It doesn’t matter. The point is, we can’t allow the infestation to reach Terramoon. In a few weeks, we may be all that’s left of humanity.”

Ilsa Fridau leaned forward, her blue eyes wide and sharp in her wrinkled, aged face. “The transports have been stopped, right? What about abducted ships? It’s panic down there.”

Elgin held out his hands to placate the elder team member. “We control the spacedock. What are they going to do?”

“But spaceborne contamination off a ship—”

“So get to work. We have a DNA puzzle to solve. The terraformer nanobots have to be shut down before they migrate.”

The research team rose collectively and strode for the door, their long, bounding steps carrying them quickly out of sight.

Elgin turned back to the blank monitor and stared at its emptiness, a feeling like space-sickness twisting up his stomach and dizzying his brain. He had never expected to have to see this.

Truly horrible.

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Wesley Liu went to the nursery. The children were excited to see him, their ethereal faces lighting up with the most beautiful smiles. Their teeth stood in perfect white rows. Their faces and their limbs were perfectly proportioned. They were the crowning achievement of humanity.

Wesley sat down in their midst and read to them. They loved the colorful stories, both the well-illustrated and the well-worded. Their intelligence was one more affirmation of the project.

Here, in the midst of the Moonborn, Wesley could think.

Terramoon had been operational for forty-eight years, her purpose disguised behind lunar tourism and a series of experimental bio-domes built by Terracorp as “a space living experiment.” The Moon was only a detour, though. A pit stop. The real challenge lay outward, and global corporations with grasping minds were willing to foot the expenses.

Now, it was more vital than ever. It was one thing to have an earth contaminated by human occupation. It was another to have it given a violent face-lift by the most advanced terraforming technology ever invented.

The nanobots were meant for Mars. Meant to ingest and re-form the very molecules of the planet according to strict specifications. The whole Earth now knew they were fully functional—had experienced it firsthand.

Wes Liu had a lot of questions. Wicked ones. For starters, what were the nanobots doing, feeding off the environment they were supposed to recreate? Feeding off the very flesh of the people they were meant to serve?

The geneticist read an antique, real-paper volume of Little Red Riding Hood, hiding himself amidst the innocence of the Moonborn children.

Part 2 >>