-=The Sky Moves Sideways=- (Zombie and Count)

[CountofTuscany]

Being the hero, having fame and fortune, becoming rough, living life, bringing down the oppressing government, running away from home, getting to know the universe, inheriting the business, what was this kid really about? He had just enrolled into a pirate ship, found in one of the many underground pubs next to the interstellar bay of the Moon. Yes people actually lived on the Moon, the garage of the Earth. Earth was full of rich people now a days, to live there meant you had enough to buy a piece of it, which over the years grew to be more of a luxury than a need. Why live in your own home when the business or the industry offered a bed and food in the same place you worked? Well, that's exactly what Heinz didn't want. A normal life. An accumulation of generations of desperation all swollen ready to burst into this man's... or boy's little humble spirit. If you even believed in a spirit now a days. The lack of a god-figure corrupted the human race into a stale cookie, or flat soda, which ever you feel is worse, not my choice if you'd ask me, but hey, you're not.

Oliver Heinz was a 19 year old, school drop out. He was going to graduate in a few weeks (a genius move on his behalf), but for some reason, he didn't feel like it was the way to go. Something inside of him yearned for an adventure, something to grow. The worst part was that his parents were okay with it, or rather, he had been misunderstood, as the parents were too busy watching their favorite series, Radioactive Toy, while he asked them. They didn't see him in any business school, or anything other than hard work, so he might as well be out there doing something different. Being a pirate now a days was something that had changed of the centuries. It was now understood as a bounty for the market, getting freelance jobs done, even if it meant things had to get dirty. Most pirates captains were friend's of senators or big authorities giving them diplomatic immunity. The pirate business though was the unofficial name, for the "clean" market and for the press he was just part of a freelancing company.

"Come on Jinx!" He said as he stepped between a high pile of boxes that red in bright LED lights 'TO MARS'. The lens over the moon dispersed the sun's glow to give the same sunny effect it gave on the Earth, not that Oliver knew anything about the Earth. He looked at his forearm, which was covered by a large metal plate, with three lines across it. Pressing the first one, it lit green and showed him the time. He was twenty minutes early to the meeting, where all the new recruits would be picked up. Jinx was his iPet, fictional yet living and responding form of "life", as the robotic activist called it, claiming that robots had a conscious on a level we could never understand. All mumbo jumbo to Oliver, he just had it because charging it was cheaper than feeding a real life pet, and real animals were so expensive these days. Jinx was a red panda model, it had 20TB of multimedia files, had a videophone capability, and hypernet connection. Oliver had tweaked him a little to be able to do stuff it wasn't supposed to, but he kept that a secret most of the time. Jinx seemed like a real animal though, except for when he responded in a mid polyphonic tone, "I'm going... jeez!"

Oliver looked back, having his backpack on with all his clothing, everything else was either on his wrist, or with Jinx, or already on him. He sighed as he sat on a couch on the street. The moon lacked any type of weather other than perfect weather (and snow for the holidays), so it became a very relaxing place for the few who escaped the clutches of the industrial or business life. The Dark Side of the Moon was the real wicked part full of night clubs for all public, it was really the adult play ground of the Inner Solar System. They called it Laz Veigas II, for some reason he never knew. His head looking up at the sky above, watching the fake clouds roll, as ships appeared all around the dock. Shipments, cargo, workers and robots were going all around. It was a busy place, in which he grew around and knew quite well.

 

[Tainted Rainbows]

A normal life. That was exactly what Samantha had grown up with. In fact her parents had even tried to hide the fact that there were people living on the moon up unto she was about 11 or so. Ever since then, Sam had been yearning to go there. An Earth bound child, with space high dreams. Of course her family was rich, so she had more than enough money to get there. Sam just didn't know how she would go about doing such a thing. She asked around, but everyone always just laughed and asked why she wanted to go there. She was never one for arguing so she would just sigh and end it there. After a few years, Samantha put her dreams in the background while she studied, did well in school, and eventually graduated. At such a young age, she was considered a genius. Graduating so early had it's advantages though, Sam now worked for a large company, Lunar Landing Tech. Corp. They were the original company to settle the moon, and now they wanted to settle Mars. That was it, Sam's ticket off of Earth, and into space. She had been dying for an opportunity like this since she was a kid!

Sam was now 20 but she had her life ahead of her. She was a stunning red-hair girl with a cute little pixie nose and a round face. She looked like she could be a perfect model, if that had been the road she had chosen. When the shuttle had touched down on the moon, she couldn't believe she was actually there. It was like she was in a dream and she never wanted to wake up. She had tried to learn as many things as she could before coming here from England, though nothing she had read about or seen pictures of could compare to this. It was all so different, yet the same. 'How strange...' she mumbled to herself. This was her first job, making sure a few shipments of materials got to Mars safely. She didn't know why they thought she would be good for this job, maybe it was some kind of joke, but she didn't really care. She was finally on the Moon and ti didn't matter to her why she was there.

Sam got right to work as soon as she got there, finding the loading docks and looking for the correct ship. She intended to speak to the captain like she was told to do and make sure everything was set, then she was going to ride with the cargo to Mars, but come right back to the Moon. She didn't really see the point in this, but hey, she was only doing it once. Sam paused for a moment, pulling her hair back in a ponytail before she continued on. She looked so out of place here, a small woman such as herself, wearing business attire among a ton of brutish looking men, obviously the sailors of the sky. If her parents knew what they had her doing, they would be sickened. That only made it better though. Showing her parents she wasn't to be sheltered like they tried to do to her. As Sam walked, she looked around for where she was supposed to be. She really had no idea where to go, there didn't seem to be any order to the ships. As she was looking elsewhere, she ran smack into someone. She yelled, falling backwards on the ground. "Damn it!" She yelled, though it almost sounded cute in her thick English accent. She looked around at her forms that were now in the dirt. As she was looking at her papers she saw a red panda. She smiled a bit before gasping. Red pandas had been extinct for over a decade now! Oh well, she would just have to worry about that later. She looked over at whom she had run into, smiling a bit. "I'm really sorry about that." She said, picking up her papers. "I just have no clue where I'm going." She laughed nervously.

She finally got back up and dusted herself off a bit. "Do you think you could help me find ship MAR52?" She asked, her bright blue eyes looking over the man she had just ran into. She really hoped he would be able to help her. He seemed nice enough to do so and a lot less intimidating than most of the men to here. She smiled politely, hoping that might help a bit. Sam was never really a good people person, but she figured with a new adventure such as this, she would have to learn to be and quick. She looked back down at the red panda, still quite amazed to be seeing one like this.

 

[CountofTuscany]

Oliver sighed, he was finally going to be out of this junk. His face came back down to the moon, as he looked at the streets. Many old robots running around, trash in every corner, this place was a real dumpster, The Garage of the Earth. Where he really should be is at the Dark Side right now, having endless fun, but he didn't have enough money for it. He would settle to go to one of Jupiter's Moon's or even get to see Venus. He had heard that the Outer Solar system had a bizarre culture, where people actually cared for one another. As hard as that was to believe for him, a drop of hope lingered inside him, blurring his vision of reality. Now that he remembered, he had not even read on where they would be going. Looking again at his arm, he pressed the second ring, letting it lit a blue hue, where a 3D projection appeared with a cube of various colors. With his other hand he seemed to grab the cube and spin it, to where a mailbox appeared. Opening his e-mail he read up... So they were headed to Mars to colonize some part of it that nobody ever cared for. The thing about Mars was that it was a highly odd place. It was a smaller copy of Earth, but dirtier and more ... well real. Earth was a golden cage now-a-days. People had colonized Mars many many years ago, way before even Oliver, or Sam, the thing was that it had not been officially been allowed to do that, until know, so back at Earth they just said it was uncivilized, and people took that as not terraformed, so that the ultra-mighty company of Lunar Landing Tech. Corp. could still be in the mind of everybody as pioneers.

The first ring he had pressed a few moments ago began to beep and flash between red and off. "Come on Jinx... let's go." He finally got up and turned off his arm-computer. "Why don't you play that--" his command to Jinx, making his ears perk up and then look forward he jumped to the right as Oliver was hit by something, taken by surprise, but his useless reflexes had saved him from an embarrassing fall. He looked down at her, and apologized, "Hey watch where you are going!" He had noticed that she had a funny accent, one he had only heard on television by weird guys that believed in some archaic monarchy system. Oliver did not continue his lecture though, because he was stunned for a slight moment. Girls were just as common as man here in the Moon docks, it was all that Earth machismo that made them have their weird point of view by making women so special, it was her clueless face, as if she had just arrive a few moments ago. Jinx caught onto her eyes and greeted her nicely, "What are you looking at lady!?" Jinx rapidly hid behind Oliver's leg. As this lady looked up at Oliver, he saw something special in her... something he wanted.

A friendly smile came over his face, he only wished to help, her pretty little face. "Hello there, sorry about that, instant reaction, you know we can't really control that." He now could not help but show a grin. He was a tall man, around 6'02", with short brown hair, his eyes were a dazzling purple, you know those genetic make up things his parents had transmitted to him. His skin was a light pale color, and lacked anything to perturbs it's surface. His face was in the stage between man and child, as his cheek bones were starting to stick out, and his jaw become what a man's would look like. His hand was extended towards her. He was wearing a yellow loose shirt with a black card diamond over his heart, the shirt had a square sleeveless on the left and a sleeve up to his elbow on the right. He had his arm-comp. over his left arm, and a wristband over his right wrist. On his right forearm he had a leather piece of clothing that seem to have lot of mechanical things, pockets, bags, what not, for stylish purposes and not. He wore a pair of black shorts that covered past his knees, the shorts had straps and belts all around them, and even wires. His sneakers were high tops with gray areas. The straps of his back pack were over on the place where it corresponded. He listened to her cute voice and nodded.

"MAR52? That sounds familiar." He said placing his hand up to his chin. The Panda finally came out from behind and stood on both hind legs to say, "Isn't that our--" The multi-tone voice shut off as Oliver had interrupted, "I believe all the MAR ships are over there!" He pointed all the way to where the Lunar Landing Tech. office was, a gigantic sky scraper, that big dull, gray and square. Incidentally this is where she was from, and it would make most sense for her, but he spoke once more, "Oh wait... no those are the LAR... MAR52... Jinx have you heard of that before?" Jinx sighed and finally finished, "It's our ship you nitwit!" Jinx came back on all fours and looked at the Docks where they had to go, "Oh yeah... that's why. Are you a pirate too?" He asked as he began to walk, after (if) she had grabbed his hand, towards where they were supposed to be, which was a good half block away.

 

[Tainted Rainbows]

It was odd, one person so ready to get out of a place running into someone who was dying to be there. It was probably the fact that Sam was so excited to be at the place she had wanted to go for so long, she didn’t notice how crappy of a place it really was. She never really even knew no place was as rich and spoiled as Earth though that was mainly because her parents had hid it from her and all the things she read online only wanted to attract people to move there so it said nothing bad about the place. She had never even thought about going any further into space than the moon. Jupiter or Saturn had never even crossed her mind. Sam had always been pretty dumb for someone so smart. She had just about no street smarts due to her upbringing of being so sheltered and spoiled. But on the upside, if she had grown up on a place like the moon, she would have been completely the opposite. Very street savvy but probably very dumb. But if she had a say in it, she would keep it how it was. But lacking street smarts made Sam look quite ignorant in many cases, she tended to try and see the best in people, often falling for scams. But she couldn’t really help it.

Sam had always been quite clumsy, though it kind of fit, the smart, clumsy girl. Her eyes widened as he yelled at her to watch where she was going. She definitely hadn’t expected that, but oh well, he probably hadn’t meant to be mean. Maybe he was just having a bad day? He had a strange accent. She had heard it before, but only at school from the exchange students. She had to admit, she did quite enjoy it. She didn’t know what to do about this situation anymore. She didn’t know whether to just let her question hang in the air and leave or if she should stick around and see if he was going to be nice or continue to be mean. She just stared at him until it the red panda spoke. She gasped and looked down at it, watching as it scampered behind the man’s leg. She stammered for a moment. “D-did that just talk?” She asked, looking from the panda to Oliver. She couldn’t believe her ears. She had never seen much a thing before. Earth had tried to avoid all the most recent advancements with technology. They only used the things that made Earth better for the rich. Trying to keep tradition and such. This was not one of those things.

Samantha smiled as he finally warmed up a bit, though she was still quite amazed at the talking extinct animal behind his leg. It was then that she noticed his eyes. Such an odd color, in fact she had never seen a man with purple eyes before. Sam was a fairly short girl, even for average standards. She stood at 5’3”, her hair went down to her shoulder blades and was a bright blazing orange. She had bright blue eyes and was all woman. Her lithe frame had curves in all the right places, though it was hidden a bit behind her dark blue blazer and pencil skirt which also had wires on it, they were just made to look like some sort of pattern. She was at least wearing proper shoes to be in a shipyard, rather than heels. She took his hand, shaking it lightly. Just from her grip it was obvious she was at least toned and definitely not as wimpy as her stereo type led her to be. She had on navy blue clad stockings, though when she fell, if one was paying attention at the right moment, they would be able to catch her garter belt holding them up. She smiled politely at the man, wondering where he was from; if he was from here she would probably get super excited and start asking a lot of stupid questions. She couldn’t really help it though, that was just how her personality was, she got excited about things and expressed it.

When the small panda spoke again it was then that she realized it was a robot. That made so much more sense. It was so real looking for a robot though. How amazing. Maybe when she settled in, she could get one though maybe a different animal though. She listened to the man as he tried to find the MAR ships, she looked where he pointed, She couldn’t help but giggle a bit as the panda seemed to know it better than his owner did. She opened her mouth to thank them when she realized they were still holding hands and he started walking towards the docks. Well, it looks like she would be hanging out with him a bit. She was a bit surprised as he asked if she was a pirate. She couldn’t help but giggle a bit. “No, I’m not a pirate, I’m a cargo inspector and technician.” She said. At least that was what her boss had called it. “It’s a fancy name for cargo babysitter. I make sure it gets where it needs to go.” She said, her English accent as thick as ever. “Are you a pirate? Are you from the moon?” She asked. The second question was what she really wanted to know.

 

[CountofTuscany]

All that time, his eyes watched her keenly, which allowed him to notice her different body language. The did not seem to fit around this place, and then her questions made it too obvious. “So ...” He said with a smile at her, not realizing himself they still held hands, after pulling her in a little closer he finally let go, feeling the softness of her palm. There was something about her which he could feel trust, it was really odd, he had never felt this for someone he just met, but then again, most people on the Moon were all a bunch of jerks, Oliver didn't even trust his parents much. He looked back at her, as Jinx slowly came forward, between them to look up at both of them, recollecting data on this new girl.

“You aren't from around here then...”

The sentence was signed by a sly smile, as if he liked that detail a bit too much. He had heard from relatives, that Earthlings were so preoccupied about 'upper intelligent' things that they tended to be a little away from the ground, and thought about other things. Oliver never really got that, but then again he never really got anything too well. Jinx ear's twitched as he was recording her voice to recognize her, her accent would be something to really help. They continued to walk, as a robot passed by, accompanied by a large man and a women in dirty, blue mechanic suits.

Oliver finally answered her questions, as they came near the docks. A sip had just arrived, it's dynamic design would pierce into anything, and the edges reflected the light that was radiated from the atmosphere. “Yes I am originally a celene.” He had learned at least this much from Earth history class. Celene was how the Romans called the Moon. Moonling, or moonbeing sounded way too ugly compared to celene, so the people that were born on the moon were baptized as celene. He thought a moment about her job, sure she could trust her as a person, that's what he felt, but could he trust her as a co-worker? She was in charge of the cargo and a direct link to the company, they might just have to do some freaky things, and there she would be responsible for reporting it, and he did not yet know if his captain had some friends or not.

He stretched his hand to stop her from talking and said, “Watch this...” He turned to the ship that had just arrived, and would see how they were going to receive it. Mechanical arms, as a trio of flying robots came from the ground as a hatch came open, the arms moved around in all directions you could imagine to grab onto the ship. There was one that poked into one of the ships entrances, allowing it to move like a drill while it was there. The robots went around scanning it entirely, way too busy to see the beauty of their own machined life. He looked back at her and winked, “Well about your question, I don't know if I could answer that to you.” Oliver laughed after that, to show he was just teasing her. “Come on, we better hurry... uh...” He paused and then remembered, “I don't know your name yet, weird accent girl!”

 

[Tainted Rainbows]

Samantha didn’t even know her body language gave her away as to being an alien to the planet. She thought she fit in quite well. Well… that was until she started looking around again like a complete tourist. Then she knew she either looked crazy or like she had never seen any of this before. She was a bit confused as to why he had pulled her closer, but it was welcome. As he felt her palm it would be obvious she had never done a day’s work of hard labor in her life. Sam was always very trusting of everyone, always failing to see the evil in the majority of the human race. This normally led to her getting scammed by people quite often. As she stood with the man she had just met, it felt different. Almost like she had known him for a while already. She shook her head as he said she wasn’t from around here.

“I’m from Earth.” She said with a large grin. “England to be exact.” She added. She wasn’t quite sure why he was smiling as much as he was about that small tidbit of information, but she saw no harm in it. Despite the fact of where she was from, she was nothing like the stereotypes that Earthlings had. She was sweet and actually cared about other people rather than only about herself and her things. She blatantly stared as the woman in a jumpsuit and the robot walked by. She had never seen such a thing and it was interesting to her. She didn’t stare in a rude sort of way, just in an inquisitive way.

Samantha’s grin only grew as he finally answered her questions and he was indeed a celene. “Oh! That’s so cool!” She said, grabbing onto his arm. She really was excited to meet a real live celene. She was still smiling and looking at him, every once in a while glancing at the small panda, as he thought about something or another. The panda still was amazing to her. She didn’t know why she wouldn’t be able to trust a pirate, despite what they used to stand for, they had come a long way and finally made a fairly reputable name for themselves. She thought it was just fine that he was a pirate, in fact, she would probably ask him about it later, once they got a bit closer which she was sure that they would.

Sam was about to start asking him a bunch of questions when he put his hand to her mouth and told her to watch. She stopped and did as she was told, looking over at the ship that was beginning to dock. She watched as the robots buzzed out and started to scan the ship, not even realizing how beautiful they were in doing so. She smiled contently, watching it. But it was soon over and she looked back t him as he started talking again. “Well that’s not fair.” She said as he said he didn’t know if he could answer her question. She knew he was teasing though. She gasped as he called her funny accent girl. “My Accent isn’t funny!” She said, a bit flustered. “If anything, yours is!” She said, though she quickly calmed down. “I’m Samantha Gorges” She said starting to walk in the direction they had previously been headed. "And you are?" She asked, pausing and looking back at him.