Luna saw cuts and scrapes appear on her arms from the effort of moving the materials, but she didnt feel them. They were as numb as if she had left them in ice for an hour, the pain insulated from her by the layers of alien control.
Luna could feel that control now as Bobby continued to bark and run around her. She could feel what it wanted her to do, and she fought it, the small part of her that was still her horrified by the prospect even as the rest of her picked up a rock.
No! she commanded herself. I wont do it. I wont do this!
She fought against the impulses with every fiber of her being, pulling back at her arm with the full strength of a will that had previously stood up to everything from parents instructions to the raging ocean. For a moment or two, it felt as if she was even able to make her body hesitate, frozen on the brink of action. It was too much, though, like trying to hold back the weight of an avalanche with her bare hands. With an inner cry of despair, Luna felt that avalanche pour over her.
She turned and threw the rock at Bobby, crying as she did it.
He yelped, then whined as he hurried away, limping slightly on one paw. Luna saw him retreat to the edges of the buildings they were working on, lying down and watching her with a forlorn look that matched how Luna felt only too well.
But what she felt didnt matter, not in the face of the aliens instructions. No matter how much her mind crashed against the limits of the cage that held it, the prison of her body kept working, lifting and tearing, separating resources and stacking them ready for collection even though the ship above Sedona was gone now.
She tried to count the minutes that passed, tried to keep some track of the time that was ebbing away, but there was no easy way to do it. Her body kept her eyes on the work, not on the progress of the sun, and if she got hungry or tired, she didnt feel it. In the deepest recesses of her mind, Luna understood now how the controlled were so fast and strong: they didnt care about the pain or the tiredness that would have stopped most ordinary people; where most people stopped well short of the limits of what their bodies could do, the controlled were pushed to those limits all the time by the aliens who commanded them.
Who command us, Luna corrected herself.
She didnt want to think of herself as one of them, but Luna wasnt sure how to distract herself from any of it. She couldnt shut her eyes to block it out. She couldnt stop herself from doing any of this. The most that she could do was try to grasp for memories of her life before this: sitting with Kevin on the shore of the lake when hed told her about his illness, going to school and and
She latched onto a memory, thinking about one day when shed been due to meet up with Kevin after school. Theyd planned to go down to a pizza place on the corner not far from their houses. She could remember the feeling, what it had been like walking through their town, heading for a spot that had been just theirs, that no one else had known about, behind one of the wooden fences that surrounded an old house a little way along that no one had lived in for years.
Getting there meant clambering through the fork in the old tree that kept a gap clear among a stack of old junk, then running along the boards of a low roof in just the right pattern that her feet wouldnt fall through, all the while making sure that no one who might shout at her for being somewhere she shouldnt be saw her.
In other words, it was exactly the kind of route that Luna loved to run along. She made her way along it with the kind of speed and willingness to get muddy that would probably have made her parents sigh if they saw it. While she ran, she found herself thinking about Kevin, wondering if today would be the day when he got around to asking if he could kiss her.
Maybe he wouldnt; he could be pretty oblivious about things sometimes.
She made her way through the gardens, over toward the spot where she and Kevin were due to meet. She heard a noise from beyond the fence, and saw Kevin and a couple of other boys she hadnt seen before.
What are you doing back here? one asked. Hiding away so no one can find you?
Im not hiding, Kevin insisted, which Luna guessed was just about the worst thing he could have done.
Are you saying that Im a liar? the boy demanded. He pushed Kevin, so that Kevin scraped back against the wall. Are you calling me a liar?
Luna slipped through the gap in the fence. I am, she declared. Im saying that youre a liar, and a bully, and if you give me a couple of seconds, Ill probably think of plenty of other nasty things to call you too.
He spun toward her. Youd better run. This is between me and him.
And your friend, lets not forget that, Luna said.
Youre being smart because you think I wont hit a girl! Well
Luna punched him in the nose, as much because she was getting bored waiting for him to actually do something as anything else. He roared and set off running after her as Luna sprinted away.
She didnt lead him back the way shed come, because that was her route, but she knew plenty of others. Just for fun, she cut across the garden where they always had their pool filled, hearing a splash as one of the boys missed his turn. From there, she scrambled up onto one of the nearby roofs, then over through the park, then across into the garden where the big, angry dog lived, taking care to only step in the spaces out of range of its chain. A snarl and a shriek of anger behind Luna told her that the second of the boys had fallen behind.
Ill get you for this! he yelled out.
Luna laughed. Not unless you want to have to explain to people how I managed to punch you and get away with it.
She ran back in the direction of Kevin, who was waiting there with the confidence of someone whod seen this game before.
You know, I could have taken him, he said, trying to look tough.
Luna managed not to laugh. But its more fun this way. Come on, you can buy me pizza for rescuing you.
But you didnt rescue me. I could have taken him
***Luna smiled at the memory, or would have if shed been able to move her face. She tried to think of the bullys name, because she was sure that shed known it once. What bully though? What had she been thinking about? The fact that she couldnt remember made Luna pause in terror. Shed been thinking about it just a moment ago, and now it was gone, like like
Luna tried to grasp the memories, she really did. She knew that she had memories; a whole lifetimes worth. She had friends, and a life, and parents she definitely had parents, so why couldnt she remember their faces? Maybe she didnt have parents. Maybe all of this was just some sick joke. Maybe shed always been like this, and she was just defective somehow, feeling that she was different as a distraction from the work that the aliens needed her to
No, Luna thought fiercely, Im me. Im Luna. They transformed me, and I have real memories somewhere.
She wasnt sure where, though. Every time she tried to grab for what felt like the beginnings of a memory, it slipped away into a great fog of thoughts that felt as though it was consuming every part of her. Luna tried to drag herself away from that fog, but it was creeping in more and more around the edges of who she was, seeming to fill everything, carrying away small pieces of memories, of words, of personality.