excerpt from 

THE LESSON 

RIDING THE BUBBLE

“You’re Liaisons! So liaise already!”

The Moon Luna my home. Liaisons my cockroaches, always underfoot.

I love the Moon enviro, the endless half-tube halls radiating like wheel spokes from the giant domes, the caves, the craters, the fractional gravity, the Earthrise, I love it all! Here on Luna I can be as connected as I want to be. When I want some privacy from the monitoring I can go off into orbit and around to the dark side near the poles. Too many people bother me and I’m gone with suit shut down. Sometimes I prefer action, the action of escape. Chaos of avoidance is better than nothing going on with hundreds of liaisons waiting for my next move.

“You are the laziest bunch of liaisons as I’ve ever liaised!”

“Why don’t you do something? Anything?” Oh! Turn it back on me eh! Demanding flock of vultures! It’s only been two weeks of mourning dead Wilson Phillips’s, waiting for some new break, waiting for Mars to get closer.

“Me! Okay then get all your bosses on vid holo! Now!”

“What! We’re all bosses!”

“You guys are all teeny tiny itty bitty shrimpy bosses! I want to talk now to the guys you grovel for! I know their names; don’t make me call them myself! You’re all liaisons to me so it’s your jobs!”

“What?”

“What!”

“Mines on vacation…”

“Call her boss!”

All this commanding I did to the liaise staff meeting left me with the dilemma of having something truly important to tell all their bosses. I think basically I’ll tell them each not to worry. Of course a sure way to make anyone worry is to tell them not to. That ought to stir up some chaos.

The Luna com techs tell me that soon there won’t be any gaps or blind spots left in the con nets. I’ll miss the adventure of escape. Since I noticed that the music amplifier system at the “Eagles Landing” tavern blocks all the monitoring com modes off my suit I’ve been having all the liaison meetings there. This gets rid of many of the University teams who haven’t got the best gear. Their commo problems don’t affect me.

“You!” I pointed to her.

”Um… should I go?”

“What? And leave me alone? No I need to talk with you about operations on Mars. The weather.”

“Sure.”

“It’s Agnes isn’t it? Agnes M…mm…?”

“Agnes Muesel.”

The power of my job is so sweet sometimes. Everyone fears a Senior Researcher ‘without portfolio‘. I have only myself to fear. Someday I might have to research myself! Later. Right now I have the top investigation available with a live Librarian to boot and unlimited budget for my travels and interests. Appointed for life but not immune to impeachment or prosecution. No time limit on cases. No caseload over two priority cases; I prefer them one at a time. No restrictions to jurisdiction or precedent, only periodic desperate justification necessary.

I am a scrutinizer, an interpreter of historical events, a spy upon civilization. A somewhat slow to arrive Knight In Shining Lami, a bully of bureaucracies, a scare’r of conspirators unrestricted by superiors, unrestrained by politics or association, unaffected by proximity to events. I get sent by a situation in revelation not by a boss who can fire me if I don’t cover up or distort or obstruct justice or hide the truth like a turned journalist. I am sworn to tell the truth, all the truth, every truth, and every truth relevant, even half-truths and the untruths. This of course also includes every lie available, every excuse, every side to the total story. I make a list of all the versions of history and present them all. But it is I who writes the final report. Even if no one ever reads it, so what! If it changes Governments or the course of war, so be it. I am an inquisitor to scare everyone with the idea of impartiality not impartial not prejudiced but inclusive complete. Let historians in the future decide who was right. My job is to appease everyone’s present sense of guilt that everything possible be done, be looked at, be considered, be included.

All of this inclusiveness is very conducive to the accumulation of liaisons. They collect like thirsty miners to a comp bar. They come and go at the whims of the mechanisms of every compartmentalized organization I encounter. I have yet to have actually ever requested the services of a liaison from anywhere, they are sent to me. I accept them to further my minor remote control of those who send them. A fresh large contingent of liaisons to an investigation is a sure sign of their boss’s interest in whatever it is I’m up to. I see it as all good Governmental fun of joining in as subtle as arm twisting. Once at a surface interview I witnessed an armed robbery from across a shopping district lane. I alerted my cortege of local police and military liaisons. They were much more interested in relating to their relative superiors that I had accosted them and precipitated the subsequent shootout! ‘If you get killed our job is to just call it in!’ I was told. ‘It’s up to your own bodyguard to cover your ass!’ Bodyguard! I was supposed to have a bodyguard!? This was news to me. I decided that day that in any dangerous situation I would send the liaisons in first ahead of me whenever possible.

I’m usually welcomed by my subjects and at locations given tours, orientations, liaisons and guides. And I can tell when things are getting hot in the high up tippity top offices; that when my liaisons get pulled it is always a good indication of toes being stepped on inadvertently or otherwise.

My staff Helen, Moody, Demarist, John D and all those others whose names I’ve never remembered are often primarily occupied with dealing with this multitude who wish to participate in following me around. It’s their job to remember every bodies name not mine.

All this liaise-ing going on, all this interest in my activities does not make me paranoid at all. Oh no, not me. I deal with their incessant pestering involvement merely by scaring them all shitless every chance I can get. As in demanding to talk to all their bosses.

The excitement created by the events I am usually investigating is always far gone into the past. I am more an event archeologist then compiler of current events. I’m a gatherer of evidence and opinions well after things have cooled down, hopefully, usually. The position of Unattached Independent Senior Researcher Investigator was chartered to interview aged soldiers about thirty or forty years old war crimes. We are research historians with the power to tell the Librarians who to declare war on, sort of, well suggest maybe that some data will be lost or truth unlearned. ‘Chroniclers with clubs!’ Kinda history cops with computers and everybody’s number.

Unfortunately very many people also have my number. At my tube home at Crater View Estates even Agnes and I as we liaise cannot evade the tentacles of access. Our liaison-ing is interrupted.

”Hello!” Gah! Crap tank leaks! I forgot to set the message up again and tab no vid. “Anybody home?”

“Helen.” I acknowledge her 3D intrusion. “Thanks suit you jock sack!” I mumble to a booping that sounds vaguely like an electronic chuckle.

“Oh hello! Whoa…big guy scores! Hi Honey, I’m Helen. Can’t shake hands I’m just a beam of light! Ha ha.”

“Agnes…Helen.” I introduce my Liaison to the light beam.

“I should go…”

“No darling don’t go I’m not the jealous type.”

“I got to go um…bye…ah Helen.” Agnes flees.

“We were discussing the weather on Mars.”

“Must be hot there tonight.”

“You scared away my date!”

“You Pig! Liaison-ing with liaisons again I see!”

“Well…what?”

“What! Well I’ll be there next week! The Moon! The big cheese! I blast off!”

“Oh go blast off then!” I playfully tease her constantly about her, our, interplanetary ship that sits in seemingly endless delay. “Are you ready? What about Mars? It’s time to go!”

“Sorry Boss. Moon first. Mars maybe. In a month, maybe.”

“That might be too late for the data.”

“I know so I got you an appointment with Vorax on VORAX. He’s there right now.” A little reminder; like I could forget another famous genius trillionaire inventor. “He’s got a great new interplanetary. Maybe he’ll lend it to us!”

“What’s he like? Is there really a chance here?”

“I think so. Read his bio. He and de Boveray been rivals before. He’s crazy and just might let us have a ship if I can‘t get ours ready in time.”

“Sure.”

“You’re gonna owe me Paul!”

“Anything for you!”

“I pulled the strings to get you in there. He can get us to Mars. I’m not cashing this in till it’s something worth it. I want you to owe me! You’re gonna pay interest on this!”

“Yes Helen whatever you want. You can have the pick of the liaisons!” That caused her to shoot me a sour frown face.

She hung up. She’s right time is running out. Two weeks after getting mind fucked by hippies, two weeks of chasing dead Wilson Phillips’s it time to get with it and get a ship from somewhere.