Read Online One Hundred Percent Lunar Boy by Stephen Tunney - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Stephen Tunney
Tags: Fiction, Literary, General, Fiction - General, Science-Fiction, adventure, Science Fiction - General, Love Stories, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Science Fiction - Adventure, Teenage boys, Dystopias, Moon
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twenty noisy students from an art group walked past them heading for the pigment distribution terminals.
“Well, what?” she answered.
“Well, I think we got stuck with a very boring assignment,” Hieronymus lied as he played with his stylo-point, drawing a small translucent box in the air, then drawing a cloud shape inside that, then clicking on the cloud where it animated itself with a tiny cartoonish lightning bolt, lines suggesting rain falling beneath it.
Slue looked at it for a second, then waved across it with her own stylo-point, erasing it.
“Get serious, Hieronymus.”
“Why did you erase my rain cloud drawing?” he asked with obviously fake indignation.
Slue was about to lecture him on the obvious — that as One Hundred Percenters, they had never seen rain, nor would they ever experience the sensation of rain for it never had and never would rain on the Moon. She was about to get all serious on him, have a stern goggle to goggle chat on their plight in life, until she realized he was already open to page 42 of
The Random Treewolf
, his stylo-point busy underlining whole sentences in the translucent floating graphic in front of him.
From her tablet, she activated and pulled up her own copy of the same novel. She stared into the translucent image of the page before her — with a wave of her hand and the correct amount of clicks from the stylo-point in her fingers, she adjusted the opacity of the image in front of her. She began to read, starting also at page 42 — until she realized
her
page 42 was extremely different from the page 42 Hieronymus was reading and making notes on.
“Hey, we’re supposed to be working on the same book.”
“We are,” he answered, his focus never leaving the page image in front of him.
“No, we’re not,” she insisted. “Look at your page 42. Now look at mine. They are extremely different.”
He never took his eyes off the work in front of him, nor did he give Slue the satisfaction of looking in her direction as he spoke. He knew she would sooner or later come to this realization. In fact, her reaction was all going exactly to his plan.
“We are both reading
The Random Treewolf
by Naac Koonx,” he blandly reported.
“No, I am reading
The Random Treewolf
by Naac Koonx. You are reading something entirely different!” Her voice had begun to increase in volume, and he smiled. Some students at another table turned to stare at her.
“Shhhh…” he whispered at Slue.
Another crowd passed through the rotunda. “Hi, Slue!” A boy walking among them called to her. His voice echoed above the mashed sounds of a hundred conversations and she glanced at him for a quick second. Bob. Big. Athletic. Not a Topper. Okay student, but completely bland and nondescript. He "liked" her and she truly wished he didn’t. He emerged from the shadows with fifty other faces, smiling, staring at Slue as if she were pleased to see him. But she was indifferent, and the smile she tossed back at him lasted as long as her glance. Bob’s class transversed the rotunda, briefly illuminated by the room’s circular dark yellow globe light above, then their walking forms disappeared into the shadows at the opposite end. She’d say hello to him later. After this crisis over the book was resolved.
She whispered, but even her whispering was heard a few tables away.
“You are not reading the same book as I am. Our pages are remarkably different!”
“Same book, Slue.”
She dragged her chair closer to Hieronymus and the floating image of the page in front of him, then nearly thrust her face into the letters as she pointed out the obvious discrepancies to his amusement.
“Look at what you are reading!” she said, circling some text in the middle of the page with her stylo-point. “Who is this character Neef? And what is this business about the donuts in the back seat of the pelican push cart? And look! Look at that line, that sentence!
The candy-fine ran-ran bungled over her top
“Well, what?” she answered.
“Well, I think we got stuck with a very boring assignment,” Hieronymus lied as he played with his stylo-point, drawing a small translucent box in the air, then drawing a cloud shape inside that, then clicking on the cloud where it animated itself with a tiny cartoonish lightning bolt, lines suggesting rain falling beneath it.
Slue looked at it for a second, then waved across it with her own stylo-point, erasing it.
“Get serious, Hieronymus.”
“Why did you erase my rain cloud drawing?” he asked with obviously fake indignation.
Slue was about to lecture him on the obvious — that as One Hundred Percenters, they had never seen rain, nor would they ever experience the sensation of rain for it never had and never would rain on the Moon. She was about to get all serious on him, have a stern goggle to goggle chat on their plight in life, until she realized he was already open to page 42 of
The Random Treewolf
, his stylo-point busy underlining whole sentences in the translucent floating graphic in front of him.
From her tablet, she activated and pulled up her own copy of the same novel. She stared into the translucent image of the page before her — with a wave of her hand and the correct amount of clicks from the stylo-point in her fingers, she adjusted the opacity of the image in front of her. She began to read, starting also at page 42 — until she realized
her
page 42 was extremely different from the page 42 Hieronymus was reading and making notes on.
“Hey, we’re supposed to be working on the same book.”
“We are,” he answered, his focus never leaving the page image in front of him.
“No, we’re not,” she insisted. “Look at your page 42. Now look at mine. They are extremely different.”
He never took his eyes off the work in front of him, nor did he give Slue the satisfaction of looking in her direction as he spoke. He knew she would sooner or later come to this realization. In fact, her reaction was all going exactly to his plan.
“We are both reading
The Random Treewolf
by Naac Koonx,” he blandly reported.
“No, I am reading
The Random Treewolf
by Naac Koonx. You are reading something entirely different!” Her voice had begun to increase in volume, and he smiled. Some students at another table turned to stare at her.
“Shhhh…” he whispered at Slue.
Another crowd passed through the rotunda. “Hi, Slue!” A boy walking among them called to her. His voice echoed above the mashed sounds of a hundred conversations and she glanced at him for a quick second. Bob. Big. Athletic. Not a Topper. Okay student, but completely bland and nondescript. He "liked" her and she truly wished he didn’t. He emerged from the shadows with fifty other faces, smiling, staring at Slue as if she were pleased to see him. But she was indifferent, and the smile she tossed back at him lasted as long as her glance. Bob’s class transversed the rotunda, briefly illuminated by the room’s circular dark yellow globe light above, then their walking forms disappeared into the shadows at the opposite end. She’d say hello to him later. After this crisis over the book was resolved.
She whispered, but even her whispering was heard a few tables away.
“You are not reading the same book as I am. Our pages are remarkably different!”
“Same book, Slue.”
She dragged her chair closer to Hieronymus and the floating image of the page in front of him, then nearly thrust her face into the letters as she pointed out the obvious discrepancies to his amusement.
“Look at what you are reading!” she said, circling some text in the middle of the page with her stylo-point. “Who is this character Neef? And what is this business about the donuts in the back seat of the pelican push cart? And look! Look at that line, that sentence!
The candy-fine ran-ran bungled over her top
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