Happily Ever After (The Lunar Chronicles story continuation)

Chapter 12: Landing on Luna

Wolf looked at the box of hair dye. "You can't be serious about this."
Thorne pouted his lips. "Fine, if you don't want to dye your hair, go ahead."
"A little hair dye won't change anything." Wolf insisted.
Thorne squinted, "I don't know about you, but my perfect hair only supplements my charming face. I would get recognised instantly."
Wolf shook his head. "There's something seriously wrong with your logics, for that did not make sense."
"Suit yourself." Thorne shrugged, continuing to pilot the Rampion.

Wolf and Thorne were aboard the Rampion, heading for Luna. It had been impossible to convince Wolf to stay behind. Instead, Cress had offered to stay with Scarlet, but Thorne would be able to call her at any given time. You never knew when you would need your personal hacker, or just your girlfriend.

"How can you still not know how to land?" Wolf shouted above the loud rumbling noises coming from the ship.
"There is absolutely nothing wrong with the way I land my ship!"
"I thought it wasn't technically yours yet."
"It will be!" Thorne shouted back, which was true, he had just not paid the full amount yet to President Vargas.
With a loud thump, the ship half landed half crashed on the Moon.
Thorne put on his pair of leather gloves on to hide his cyborg fingers, he didn't know how anyone on Luna would react to his mechanical fingers if they saw them. He didn't know how people reacted to cyborgs.
They had landed on Luna, but far enough away from the Lunar camp to not be seen.
However, they had to walk a few miles.
They arrived at some large buildings. The dusty walls were a greyish white, probably to mask and camouflage them a little. No one wanted a big flashy building saying: Look at me! I'm a terrorist camp.
Most of the camp, however, was situated underground to protect it from foreign attack. There were so many army green tents, that they filled an enormous area, bigger than was visible through the camera than had been set up.
Thorne had no idea what to expect: traps, armed Lunars or maybe something completely else? The tents and buildings looked deserted, as if no one had been in the area for decades. No one came to greet them or see why these strangers were standing on their doorstep, figuratively speaking, because they had no idea where the entrance was or where they were supposed to enter by.
Wolf tried to take a peek inside one of the tents. There was not a single soul in the area, but it was stuffed with weapons, especially guns and bullets, enough to arm a legion. Thorne looked inside and saw what he recognised to be the rocket launcher that had fired the missile at Rieux, but Thorne doubted telling Wolf about any of that would do any good.

The white stone they were standing on gave a rumble as a hole opened. A hatch in the ground.
Wolf nudged his head, silently asking if they should go down. Thorne nodded.
He went first, climbed down a row of metal bars hammered into the rock, functioning as a ladder.
They descended into a cave-like room lit up by a single light. The rough walls where barely visible, Wolf could only see them far away in a shimmer of light. The room was enormous.
They were encircled by twenty armed Lunars. Judging by their stature and the way they held their weapons, Wolf judged that they could only have been former Lunar guards or members of the Lunar army.
The circle opened to allow a tall figure entering the circle. Wolf flinched as he realised that she wore a thaumaturge uniform. The thaumaturges had all been stripped of their title and received a trial. Some had gone to prison, some had been exonerated and some had been presumed dead, but it looked like some of those were hiding in this camp. Wolf thought all existing uniforms had been destroyed, but some had apparently been preserved and kept by these former thaumaturges who had been presumed dead.
The woman only stared at the two, waiting for them to say anything.
"Marik Grinwick, thaumaturge RM 3," Thorne announced.
"Robbin Prane, Alpha, Loyal Soldier of the Pack," Wolf said.
The woman nodded approvingly. With a wave, she signaled for us to follow her. The circle opened up and allowed Thorne and Wolf through. They walked through halls carved in the rock of the Moon. They went on and on. How big was this place? How had they been able carve it out so smoothly?
They entered a room which no longer looked like a cave, but a completely normal room. The perfect smooth walls were painted light blue. If someone had taken a picture, no one would have known  that it was of an underground room. There were no windows, but the room was lit up by enough artificial lights.
"Sit," the woman said pointing at some chairs standing stacked in the corner. She sat on a leaf green couch while Wolf and Thorne took some chairs to sit upon opposite from her.
"I need some proof before you move any further." The woman's face was now more visible in the light, her piercing green eyes stung when they made eye contact. Her black curly hair almost covered her large ears, her nose was slightly too big. Her pinecone skin looked scarred and consisted of many old wounds.
Wolf brought forward his forearm, showing his LSOP0962 tattoo. He had always hated that tattoo, but it finally became useful for him now. The woman smiled. "And you?" She said referring to Thorne
"Ehm, I don't suppose I have any physical proof. And my ability to manipulate bio-electricity was taken away from me. After the Lunar War, we were taken as prisoners by that treacherous cyborg who claimed to be of royal blood." Thorne said, but Wolf noticed he was trying too hard.
"I can vouch for him," Wolf said, "he is a loyal and was the thaumaturge of my pack."
The woman creased her brow, "most pack members don't speak fondly of their thaumaturges."
Wolf raised his chin, "I wasn't just given the title of alpha, I earned it."
"I like you, you have the right attitude."
In fact, Wolf didn't have the right attitude, he just knew what the right attitude was supposed to bo.
"You said you lost your ability to manipulate bio-electricity?"
Thorne nodded. "And Prane here lost his susceptibility to it. As I said, we were taken captive here on Luna, held in the dungeons under the Royal Palace in Artemisia. They experimented on us, gave us this thing they called the Implant." Thorne tried to sound bitter and hateful, but he wasn't sure if it worked.
"But you managed to break out?" She asked sceptically.
"I convinced Prane here to use his strength, combined with my wits we figured out how to knock some guards out and escape." Thorne said.
"You see," Wolf explained, "the guards have become soft and have no control, especially now no one is there to motivate them."
Thorne wanted to seize the leading word again, he wanted to look like the dominant of the two, because no one would otherwise believe he had been a thaumaturge. "It helped that they had somewhat forgotten about us after that wretched cyborg murdered our beloved queen and destroyed the Blackburn house."
Wolf couldn't help but think: Thorne shut up, shut up, SHUT UP! He was making everything worse.
The woman, however, didn't seem to notice. "Mona Park, I was the head of thaumaturge sector GC 9."
Wolf's eyes widened, but he blinked quickly to make sure it wasn't visible. "Any relation to Aimery Park?"
"He was my older brother, before he was murdered by those godforsaken rebels." She said both coldly and hateful.
"I met him once, he was a loyal soldier," Wolf gulped after the words burned in his mouth.
Mona Park just nodded in appreciation. Her face shifted to a colder version, something Wolf didn't know had been possible. It was as if she had just remembered that she should keep her feelings to herself. "We can remove your Implant for you."
"What?" Thorne said a little too surprised.
"We figured out a way to remove the Implant from your nervous system. We haven't been able to test it fully, so you two will be perfect. We've been lacking test subjects ourself. We can't get hold of any implants for ourselves, besides, it is a cruel thing to force someone to become a shell.
Wolf tried to hide his shock and surprise, "that would be perfect, we can't truly express our gratitude."
They wanted to take his and Thorne's implant away. That wouldn't just be taking away a little chip, it would be taking away any sense of security they had in this camp.