His Throne

6 - Mysterious Lights

I'm typing the documents about the planets on my computer and yes, I am a very busy person.  While working, Tha scans the Moon's surface through the window with her camera and takes pictures of it.  I didn't know why the Moon didn't affect me when I'm up close to it.

Tha turns around at the door for a minute and the knocking came.  She turns to me.

"Dr. Hoffman is here."

I stand up from my desk and walked straight to the door and opened it.  A man is standing on the other side.  He is taller than me and he has brown slicked back hair and a goatee beard.  He also has a british accent.

He looks at Tha.  "You've got your own android, eh?"

I giggled.  "Yes.  I do."

A hovering android came next to the man.  "Dr. Hoffman.  I have received messages from the android, Terminal Helper Android 5000."

"I know, Hicpa.  I've already read it." Hoffman sighed.

I gazed at the hovering robot.  "James.  You have your own too?"

"Yes, I do." James laughed, "This is the H-C-P-A; Hovering Computer Programming Android.  I call him Hicpa for short."

"Good to see you, Alexa Helen Cooper." Hicpa greeted.

"Nice to meet you too." I smiled.

"Come on.  We're gonna show you something." James waved.

We exited my cabin and took the elevator to the 106th floor.  The areas in the space station are placed in a stack; the mission control center is underneath the docking station, the laboratory is sandwiched between the cafeteria at the bottom and the office above it and the bridge is at the top of the station.

We stopped by at the workbench and James brought out a gray dusty rock and set it down on the tabletop.  "Check out this rock that Taichi, Hicpa and I brought from the Moon.  What do you think?"

"I don't know.  It's just a rock." I shrugged in confusion.

James called out.  "Taichi!  Can you show them about this rock?"

"Okay.  I'm coming."

Taichi Yoshida is a Japanese engineer who is two years younger than me.  He has thin eyebrows and black hair that's slicked over to the side.  And even his skin is smooth like a marble sculpture.

His brought out a device and a plexiglass box and then put the rock into the box.  He turned on the device and it's saw blades began to spin and he put it onto the rock.  We watched as the machine had shattered the rock into pieces.

"It works." James cheered.

"What is this?  Why the rock?" I questioned.

"We're just testing that new device that we made." Taichi answered, "It's called the Spinner Saw Drill."

"Oh, okay.  I see.  Well, it is a nice invention you made." I laughed.

"Thanks." James nodded.

I walked over to the slanted window and leaned against the railing and looked down.  This really confused me.  The station travels directly to the bright side of the Moon and that's what I saw.  A building.  The same building, just like in the video.  Suddenly, the alarm went off and the shutters on the windows closed automatically and I couldn't  see the Moon anymore.  An arm pulled me away from the railing.

"Alexa!  What are you doing?"

I turned over to the guy.  "Oh, hey Martin.  I'm just looking at the surface of the Moon but the windows just closed."

Martin rolled his eyes.  "Didn't you know that?"

"What?"

"The center of the bright side of the Moon is dangerous when you look at it without goggles." Martin explained.

"Well.  I just looked at the side of it and that's it." I shrugged.

"The side and the dark side of the Moon are okay, but not the center of the bright side." Taichi sighed.

Hours passed.  It's breakfast time and the gang already had their own breakfast.  I stared at the meal and pictured about the thing in my head.  It stayed in my memory after seeing it before the shades closed.  It is so clear that I can see it from up here.  I don't know if it is real or am I hallucinating.  Jennifer's voice called before I glanced up.

"Alexa?  Are you alright?"

I looked around and then at her.  "Yeah.  Yeah.  I'm alright."

The gang looked at me in confusion as Martin asked me.

"You don't look alright.  You just zoned out.  What's up with that?"

I sighed for a bit as I remember seeing them on the Moon.  "I'm sorry.  I just could get that thing out of my head.  It never goes away.  I saw them."

"See what?" Taichi asked.

"The lights." I told them, "There are lights on the Moon.  And they're all facing up."

James wondered.  "The lights?  You saw lights on the Moon?"

"Yes, I did." I nodded.

"I don't understand.  I didn't see them.  Are there really lights there?" Jennifer wondered.

We finished eating our breakfast and went back to work.  I sat on my chair and continued writing documents without saying anything.  I felt guilty after seeing them yesterday.  Tha walked up to me and stood on the other side of the desk from me.

"You are worried about something.  What is it?"

I sighed as I pushed my glasses up against my face.  "I don't know.  It's just that I just saw something."

"The lights on the Moon.  I saw them too.  I also find strange readings from an architecture."

"You have?  What do you mean?" I gasped.

Tha explained.  "I received an odd message from someone unknown.  Someone that no other person had ever met."

Someone that no other person had ever met?  Who is it?  What is it?  Tha showed me a message with her monitor.  It looks like some sort of weird writing.  The writings are not like other languages on Earth but from somewhere else.  I couldn't even understand what language it is.  When I'm finished writing documents, I lied down on the couch and stared up at the stars and the cosmos in space.  It's like buckets of paint spilled onto the ink and formed into a picture.

"Tha?  I don't know what to say, but I wish I can go to the surface."

"If you need to go to the surface, you need a helmet and some astronaut gear." Tha advised me.

I nodded and I already know that need them when I go to space.