To The Moon And Back

Chapter Eight

"This tea tastes horrible," Meadow complained, setting aside her cup after only two sips.

"You're right, it is," Sage agreed, putting her own cup down even though she had drunk more than half of it and previously declared it to be 'just the thing I needed'. Not that Selene was surprised, Sage had always been an ardent follower who would chop and change her mind depending on the opinion of others and once again, Selene found herself wondering why she had never really noticed it before. How had she continued to think that they were good people?

"Maybe we should just be grateful that we're here at all and that we're not locked up somewhere," she suggested, defiantly draining her own cup of weak, milky machine-made tea, even though she didn't like tea. It was warm, it was wet and it was better than nothing after the shock they had all had. At least, that was how she saw it.

"Sandwich isn't much better," Cosmo added, savagely biting off the corner of his cheese and tomato as if he had been expecting tea at the Ritz. "And why are they treating us like we're children that need babysitting?"

"Maybe because we arrived unannounced, without permission, with the intent to protest and stop their operations?" Selene suggested breezily. The guard outside the room snorted in amusement, which for some reason she found heartening.

"This isn't the end," Meadow insisted, pushing aside her untouched meal of cardboard-tasting sandwich and stale potato chips as if it were poisoned. "As soon as we get back to Earth we can see about arranging passage again."

Selene sighed, rolling her eyes so hard it hurt. "No, we won't."

Cosmo shot a glare her way. "You don't get a say in this."

"You're well in with those International Rescue guys so your opinion doesn't count," Meadow added, siding with Cosmo as Selene knew she would.

"You should never have called them," Cosmo continued to complain, slurping his tea bitterly.

"Oh yeah? And just how would we have landed?" Selene demanded to know, crossing her arms to suppress the urge to reach over and throttle him.

"We would have figured something out," Cosmo said, waving his hand dismissively. "Now we have them butting into our business and causing trouble."

"Yeah, they should have stayed away," Sage chimed in, completing the lineup of backstabbing while Atlas simply stared at her, a nasty smile on his face.

You're nothing but her yappy dog, Selene thought, shaking her head in disgust. Blindly following her lead, unable to think for yourself. That was the hardest part. She'd spent so long believing that they were doing good, that they were radical free thinkers trying to right the wrongs of a society that they didn't feel they belonged in when, in reality, they were nothing but idiots playing a dangerous game they had no hope of winning. That didn't mean that she agreed with the government and their exploitation of the moon's resources, nor did she plan on giving up her fight, but she knew this wasn't the way to do it. She should have listened to Genevieve's warning.

Selene looked over at Rain, hoping to find at least one friendly face but the other girl, exhausted by the whole ordeal, was fast asleep on the table, her head pillowed on her folded arms.

Unable to sit still any longer she got up under the pretence of taking her cup to the recycling chute, but when she returned she made sure to seat herself at the opposite end of the table, physically separating herself from the group as much as she had mentally removed herself from the equation. She dropped her head into her hands, fingers massaging her temples as she tried to fight off the stress headache blooming into life.