Free One Hundred Percent Lunar Boy by Stephen Tunney Page A

we going to work on this project together or not?”
    “I think you kissed him.”
    “I never kissed him and I don’t think it’s any of your business”
    “I think you know indeed that it is my business — and you know why.”
    “You are such an idiot.”
    “All of us One Hundred Percent Lunar kids have to stick togeth — ”
    “I knew you were going to bring that up!” At this point, the noise level of the rotunda had decreased significantly as the last groups of students shuffled themselves out, and the discussion between Slue and Hieronymus once more became a public spectacle.
    “We are NOT friends because we are both members of the LOS community! That has
nothing
to do with
anything
!”
    There was an astonishing silence after that last syllable. A small group of students at the next table glared at them.
    “
LOS community?
” Hieronymus gasped, his expression incredulous, embarrassed, amazed, and disgusted all at the same time. “Where does that come from?”
    “LOS. L unarcroptic O cular S ymbolanosis! What are you, utterly and completely
ignorant
about
everything
in your own life!”
    “No, it’s the
community
part that bugs me.”
    “There is no name for us as a group! Have you ever wondered about that?”
    “What are you talking about? Everyone calls us One Hundred Percent Lunar…”
    “Exactly! Have you ever wondered about that stupid expression?”
    “No, but come on, LOS community sounds like a place where frail elderly people go to stay away from…”
    “One Hundred Percent Lunar Boy, Girl, Person, whatever is a derogatory expression that others invented for us. Do you know where it comes from?”
    “Slue, I don’t know, and I don’t want to know,” he lied.
    “Ninety-four years ago there were camps on the far side of the Moon. It was where they stuck all of us. It was during a time known as the Regime of Blindness. It’s not spoken about in schools. It is denied, and the deniers have been in power for generations…”
    “I told you, I don’t want to know this!”
    “Of course you don’t. It’s been erased from the history books.”
    “Then how do you know? Who told you?”
    Slue stared at him, unable to speak, the answer unable to launch itself from her gut.
    A cruel laugh came up from Hieronymus — it sounded cruel, but actually, it was sad and, at its center, just plain jealous.
    “Did one of your boyfriends tell you that?”

    Hieronymus realized things with Slue were suddenly falling out of hand — and he was squarely to blame. He always liked to tease her. Two minutes earlier she was trying so hard not to laugh when he was mocking Pete. How quickly it had shifted into this. She was standing — her hands were clenched into fists. Her blue hair matched the short jacket she wore over a black t-shirt. Black and blue. In ancient times, blue was a sad color. It was associated with melancholy. Slue-Blue. Slue-Blue. For the first time, he quietly damned everything in his life for the simple fact he could not see her eyes. As they really were — without the purple lenses. He could see the shapes of her eyelids and he saw her eyelashes, the dark dots of her pupils and the whites of her eyes — but without the color of the iris, her eyes were denied. As were his own.
    They stood frozen. They were about to talk about it, she wanted to, she wanted to tell him
we will not die if we look at each other with our eyes uncovered
but he stopped her — how long could humanity live on the Moon and remain human? There was no percentage below One Hundred. Either you were human or you were something else entirely. The Moon was a stone in space. The air they breathed was artificial. The water they drank came from melted comets. She dyed her hair blue. They were working on a project together. She stood. They were always told never to look at each other, never to speak to one another, but that was a lie from somewhere and Slue knew things he did not know and he was afraid to find out. It