This is our second day without decent Internet connectivity. Having completed her sign-off from her air shift, Brenda Redmond logged the last three songs into the playlist, along with the ad blocks she’d run
The guys from the Alternative Lunch didn’t exactly look happy, but it was unsurprising when a big part of their show was live interviews with authors of alternate history, in between their alternative rock. With Internet to the other lunar settlements still patchy and Earth and Mars completely cut off, they were going to have a problem.
But there was no time to discuss it, not when they needed to get ready to sign on. So she stuck to the normal hand-over protocols and wished them well.
Now she needed to grab lunch before her teaching responsibility. There wasn’t time to get up to the dining commons and eat and still get to Miskatonic Sector and her classroom in time, so she always had her lunch sent to her classroom on the days she taught class.
As she went to open the Meals app and put in her request, she discovered she’d left her phone in the mail app. It had just updated with new mail, and she recognized a name she hadn’t seen in ages.
Robbie Sandberg had been Brenda’s best friend all through grade school and into jr. high. Even as anti-clone prejudice mounted and her social circle shrank, Robbie had stuck by her, even at the cost of other friendships, of taunts and cruelties.
And then one day Robbie came with tears in her eyes, explaining that her parents had ordered her to dump the “clonespawn.” Only by begging and pleading had Robbie been able to gain the tiny concession of being allowed to see Brenda one last time and explain the situation rather than simply disappearing from her life.
It had been a painful moment during a stage of life that was already painful because of the havoc puberty wreaked upon young bodies and minds. At the time she’d barely suppressed her anger enough to force out some words about the Fifth Commandment. The only saving grace was it being right about the time her own parents had decided to bring the family up here to the Moon, so she had her own burden of obedience. But looking back, she knew she’d been let far too much snark into her voice as she said she was leaving school to begin her training at Johnson Space Center to join her father in his new posting as Chief of Engineering here at Shepardsport.
Remembering, Brenda felt bad that she had hardly thought of Robbie since then, even after they’d both turned eighteen. However, Brenda had her own life up here on the Moon now, with people who respected her for what she could do, and now she had a family of her own.
As she waited for the sector airlock to cycle so she could pass through into Miskatonic Sector, she opened the e-mail. Whatever she’d expected, it wasn’t the message she got.
The tone was unmistakable panic. It took Brenda several re-reads to sort out the disorganized missive: Robbie was in college, and the administration had just received orders to clear the campus. Everyone had twenty-four hours to vacate the dorms — but Robbie couldn’t move home.
Apparently she had come out to her parents about something and there’d been a horrible row, to the point they had tried to tell her she wouldn’t be going back to school. But all her friends had gone to bat for her, finding her a job, a place to live until the semester started, a replacement laptop and phone for the ones her parents had confiscated on the grounds they’d paid for them.
As deeply religious as her parents were, it would be easy to expect it was her sexuality. Except there was nothing about a girlfriend — or a boyfriend for that matter.
Could she have decided to argue back against their anti-Sharp prejudice? But given the way America under the Flannigan Administration was going, it seemed unlikely that someone who didn’t toe that line would be getting a full-ride scholarship at any major university.
Whatever was going on, one thing was clear — Robbie was being kicked out of the dorm and being told to return to a home where she was not welcome, where she didn’t feel safe. She was desperate — and Brenda was completely helpless to do anything on her behalf.
Right now she had a class she needed to be ready to teach. Fourth-graders might not be as bad as seventh-graders, but she still needed to have her wits about her. Afterward she could look for someone she could trust and talk with them about the situation. Given the timestamp on that e-mail, it had probably been bouncing around the Internet for a while before it found its way up here. A couple more hours wouldn’t make a huge amount of difference.