Pandora's Chase

Chapter Seventeen

A sigh of relief unburdened Chase as he took a moment to digest where he was. He slipped out of the coveralls Donnie made him wear, revealing his normal clothes. As he did, part of him couldn't believe he'd made it to the moon on his own. Hope rose in his chest, and he started to believe that he would find Jax.

He looked around the Grand Room on Mare Serenitas. It was a wide cavern lined with many shops and bright, colorful lights. Stairs and people movers led the crowds up and down the floors, the room ten stories tall at least. To the right of where he stood was a narrower passageway at least a hundred times longer than the Grand Room was wide. Off to the left was a three-dimensional transparent rendering of Mare Serenitas. Chase walked up and studied it. Next to the display was a large trash can where he nonchalantly relieved himself of the bunched up coveralls.

Beyond the door he'd come through was life on the moon. Mare Serenitas was a series of enormous, air-locked buildings connected by hallways and tunnels. The shuttle pad, where Chase had come in, was on the edge of it all. The one, enormous corridor that stretched across the entire city was intersected by many smaller halls and adjoining rooms.

The launch areas for personal spaceships were on the other end, by the public bars, restaurants, and lower-class housing. The higher-class citizens purchased the residential areas close to the commercial launch pads, which were conveniently by the evacuation pods.

After gaining a feel for the city, Chase began to stroll about the room, angling towards the main corridor. There were people everywhere, dressed in different uniforms and styles of clothing and hair. The hairstyles were much more exotic than on Earth. The most curious thing for Chase were the different animals tethered to their masters. Some he had seen pictures of, but most were totally new. Earth had many restrictions on these things.

"Jaxi would love this place," Chase whispered to himself. He was always thinking about Jax, but here, in this moment, in awe of Mare Serenitas, he'd slipped from his brother for a moment. He remembered the feeling he had when he thought of the disk on Earth and focused on it again.

Right then, Chase experienced the weirdest sensation he'd ever felt. It was like feeling gravity pull on him when he jumped off a rock that jutted out over the creek. But it was more consistent. It didn't end like it did when he landed in the water, and it wasn't gravity pulling him to Earth. It was the disk, tugging ever so slightly on him. It was like seeing a mountain far ahead, but instead of physically seeing it, he was feeling it like a stretched rubber band, longing to be let go. He felt this connection to the disk, and he was beginning to read that feeling.

He understood he was closer to it by the span from the Earth to the Moon, but he could also sense that the disk had traveled many times farther than that distance. There was something else that he couldn't quite put his finger on too. He could feel that he was going towards it, but also that that gain was reducing in speed. Like he was decelerating while moving towards it. He didn't know what that feeling meant, but it motivated him. He wanted nothing more than to get on with his mission.

Chase followed the crowd along the outside wall of the Grand Room and considered his options. He was terribly hungry. He needed to eat, but he also needed to find his father's friend, Cael Durwood. Could he ask around about this guy? Probably not.

He could find a place to eat and ask for ways to look people up. There had to be some public computers around to get on the nets. With that idea in mind, food became number one on his list. Food, then computers, he thought, and made his way into the large corridor, confident it was food he was smelling.

As he passed through the corridor, Chase found it lined with numerous restaurants. To his disappointment, it was much the same as an Earth mall, food court smell and all. It actually bummed him out a bit to see that resemblance. He'd come all the way here just to see the same things. Well, the same setup; the people and animals were a completely different story.

Soon, though, he started noticing the little nuances that made this place what it was. A city on the moon. The technology in the menus on the wall. The slight difference in air pressure, like flying in an aircraft. People in uniforms designed to be worn under spacesuits walked around, either coming or going to work. Through the glass on the dome roof, he could see the cruisers outside, transporting goods from one end of the city to the other. When he added all these details up, Chase got the feeling he was expecting. He had been so preoccupied with getting away from Glaze that he hadn't noticed it before.

Then it was the food. Even though it was close to Earth, the food on Mare Serenitas was quite foreign. Some of the higher-end restaurants carried exotic meats and spices from all the settled planets. The most exotic were from planets not settled yet, and that showed in their prices. There was a market here for interplanetary foods. It had grown quite large, since there was a ban on Earth for all extraterrestrial flora and fauna. Mare Serenitas was the closest avenue for this market, and many paid the price to experience it.

Accompanying the restaurants were many shops offering clothing, gadgets, and technologies. Not to mention many tattoo and hair shops closer to the docks. One shop close to the Grand Room, The Last Stand, specialized in weaponry and other sorts of gadgets. Two massive IPAC Agents guarded the opening of the shop, ushering Chase quickly by. They gave him a distinct paranoia that said 'They know I'm here illegally.' It was ridiculous. How could they know just by looking? Still, it was concerning all the same for someone that had never broken the law like this.

Trying to act normal, he scratched his chest, completely forgetting about the marking. A sharp surge of pain jolted through his chest. In that moment, a vision of the clock on the map counting down flashed in his mind, creating an overwhelming sense of urgency. The searing pain of the etching reminded him of Jax and the disk. It was easy to get lost in the newness of space travel, but the marking drove his mind forward. In that moment, for Chase, the marking became like a whip, and he was the lion.

Who, then, was the lion tamer? he thought to himself as the marking grew warm on his chest.

As he walked, he thought about the conversation he'd had with his father the night he opened the box. They spoke about Cael Durwood under the moonlight, and Chase recounted the only part he remembered could help him.

"The last I heard," Leo said to him, "he started a night club after they let him out of prison."

"What? Prison? We're going to get help from a criminal?"

Chase smiled, remembering that comment. He too was now an interplanetary criminal. No more judgment allowed.

There wasn't a lot of information for Chase to use, but he was confident he could find the man. But first, he needed food.