Free The Luna Deception by Felix R. Savage

first meeting with Lorna to their attempted sabotage of Dr. Hasselblatter’s campaign. Fr. Lynch listened in silence, tapping his pistol thoughtfully on his thigh. Bright spots streaked across the sky. Some of them would be ships en route to Earth. How he wished he were aboard.
    “I did my best work,” he said. “But I guess, and I want to be humble here, but I guess it was too good. It’s backfired. And he blames me! Well, I guess it is my fault. But he thinks I did it on purpose.”
    Fr. Lynch said, “I actually saw something about this on the news. ‘Audacious proposal to revive tourism on Mercury …’”
    “You’ve been following the election, Father?”
    “No, it was on The Civilized Universe.”
    Mendoza groaned. TCU was one of the top news feeds in the solar system. This was getting worse and worse. “And Lorna’s mad because he didn’t see it coming. It never even occurred to him that the whole thing might backfire. He’s too highly educated, too sophisticated. He lives in a garden city on the freaking moon. He hasn’t a clue what regular people want.”
    “I’d say that’s accurate. He might forgive you for screwing up. He’ll not forgive you for having made him look a fool.”
    “I didn’t do it on purpose. I just did … my best.”
    “And that was the right thing to do. We should always do our best. Sadly, it doesn’t always work out for the best.”
    “So WHAT AM I GOING TO DO, Father?”
    “Calm down.”
    “OK. OK.” Mendoza steadied his breathing, like they were taught to do in kendo practice. “He wants me to fix it. But how? I can’t fix it.”
    “Oh, I don’t think that’s what you should be worrying about,” Fr. Lynch’s calm voice said in his helmet. “The man knows that you know he’s been illegally meddling with an election. That’s a felony. There’s a non-zero chance he’ll try to kill you.”
    Mendoza sat down on a rock. “Jesus.”
    “I don’t want to scare you unnecessarily, but you’ve been dodging his calls all day. A man like him would interpret that as a declaration of hostility. He’ll think you are thinking about going to the authorities.”
    “I wasn’t. You’re the only authority I trust.”
    “Some authority I am! Sardonic chuckle. But you don’t need to be powerful to know how the minds of the powerful work. It’s all in the Gospels and St. Augustine.”
    Fr. Lynch started to walk back towards the Cherry-Garrard dome. Mendoza followed.
    “I’m glad you came to me. I shouldn’t say this, wish I didn’t have to, but going to the authorities would probably have been a mistake. Lorna has a lot of connections in this city.”
    “He’s made sure I know that. I thought about hiding out, trying to get a flight back to Earth, but …”
    “I think that might be wise.”
    Mendoza had not expected the Jesuit to endorse his panicky impulse. “But Father, you can’t hide in Shackleton City! It’s impossible.” He’s a priest, not an IT guy. He doesn’t know how the surveillance works. On the other hand, Fr. Lynch’s repertoire of precautions—going outside to hear confessions, turning on the maidbot to mask voices—indicated a healthy awareness of the surveillance regime.
    “Father, we’re going the wrong way!”
    The Jesuit had struck out on a path angled around the Cherry-Garrard dome. Ahead, the lights of the high street glowed through the trees in the dome’s prow. On their right stood the recycling facility that handled the dome’s organic waste. Overhead pipes channeled water from the recycling plant’s tower to the reservoir on top of the dome. The whole system was gravity-fed, taking advantage of what little gravity Luna had, to keep the water flowing in the unlikely event of a power outage.
    “Turn off your BCI,” the Jesuit said.
    “Can’t. I can turn off my uplink to the wifi network, but …”
    “Do it. Got any other implants?”
    “Only my retinals. Oh, and I’ve got iEars.”
    “Can you disable