14 ILLEGAL ENTRY

14 ILLEGAL ENTRY Lunar day 252 T minus 16 hours to evacuation I got the message from Nina shortly before dinnertime: DIVERSIONARY TACTICS UNDERWAY. LOCKING MECHANISM DISMANTLED. INITIATE PROCEDURES IMMEDIATELY. Which I figured was Nina-speak for "I'm distracting Chang. His door is open. Go break into his room." I was helping my parents pack up their experiments in the science pod at the time. (I was no longer allowed to help Dr. Goldstein since I had

swiped excrement from the greenhouse and used it on the Sjobergs, even though most of the other Moonies were secretly thrilled I had done this.) Kira was helping with Dr. Iwanyi's experiments nearby. No one was keeping an eye on us, though. They all had a hundred other things to do. So all I had to do was say, "Kira, want to take a break?" "Sure!" she said, trying to tamp down her enthusiasm. Kira loved going places that were supposed to be off-limits to her. When I'd approached her with Nina's plan earlier, all I'd had to say to convince her to break into Chang's room with me was, "Want to help me break into—" She had exclaimed, "Yes!" before I'd even said where, let alone launched into an explanation of why we were doing it. Kira set down the equipment she was packing, and we hurried through the base. I knew our mission was taking place much later than Nina had hoped; a lot of unexpected things had happened to me that day. Thankfully, Nina hadn't come looking for me yet; she'd had her hands full as well. In addition to her standard duties of running the moon base and overseeing the evacuation, she now had to deal with the Sjoberg excrement

incident. Lars had already been furious about not getting first dibs on an evacuation rocket. When he learned that his children had been smeared with space poop, he went nuclear. He had raged so violently that I thought he might collapse from a heart attack, negating the whole point of investigating his attempted murder. He had been particularly enraged at me, because his wife and children all claimed that Patton and Lily had been merely minding their own business in the rec room when I had entered and attacked them out of the blue. So Nina had been forced to take statements from everyone involved and then compare what we claimed against the security footage from the rec room, which of course proved the Sjobergs were lying through their poop-stained teeth. This reinforced Nina's insistence that the Sjobergs didn't deserve any priority for seats on the rockets home, which only angered Lars Sjoberg even more. He claimed I had obviously doctored the footage (as if I even knew how to do such a thing, or could manage it on such short notice) and that I had been a constant menace to his family. He also warned that, once he got back to earth, he was going to sue

NASA for every penny it was worth as well as make life miserable for Nina and everyone else from MBA. Which probably left most of the other Moonies wishing that whoever had poisoned Lars the night before had done a better job of it. At least, that was what I was wishing. I knew it wasn't right to wish someone dead, but on the other hand, Lars Sjoberg seemed to want the exact same thing for me. Eventually, he stopped shouting at Nina and me and retired to his residence, but he continued to rage in there for a long time afterward. And even once that had stopped, there had been periodic bursts of what I assumed were Swedish obscenities from behind his door all afternoon. Meanwhile, Patton and Lily Sjoberg had used up most of the base's remaining toothpaste supply brushing and rebrushing their teeth. Chang's residence was located almost directly below the Sjobergs" suite, right across from the rec room. Through the open rec-room door, I could see Violet, Inez, and Kamoze in there, but they couldn't see me, as they all had hologoggles on. Now that Patton and Lily had been vanquished and Roddy had been roped into helping his mother pack for

evacuation, the little kids were all free to use the veeyar system. They were galloping around while Violet kept yelling things like "Blast them with sparkle power!" "Looks like they're playing that unicorns-versus- aliens mash-up you created," I told Kira. "It's more fun than I expected," Kira said. "You should try it." "Boom!" Violet yelled. "Nice work, GlitterWings!" Kira and I waited while Dr. Balnikov carried some equipment past and Dr. Marquez wandered by aimlessly before the coast was clear. Then we tried Chang's door. As Nina had promised, it wasn't locked. Normally, all our doors had electronic locks that could only be opened by the people who lived in those rooms, but Chang's clicked open when I turned the knob. We quickly slipped inside. "How do you think Nina managed that?" I asked, keeping my voice low. "She must have the ability to override any lock in the base," Kira said confidently. "Makes sense that the moon-base commander would be able to do that."

"So Nina could come into our rooms any time she wants?" "Maybe. I wouldn't get too worked up about it. After tomorrow, it's not going to matter anymore." Kira and I cased the room. It didn't look like it would take long to search. To begin with, it was significantly smaller than our room, as it was designed for only one person. There was only a single sleep pod built into the far wall, with a cheap chest of drawers, a SlimScreen table, and an InflatiCube. There was no window. It was small, square, and drab. Like living in a walk-in closet. It occurred to me that Chang didn't spend much time in his room. Now I knew why. If Chang had hidden evidence, there was almost no place to hide it. "I'll take the drawers," Kira said quickly, before I could claim them myself. "You take everything else." She made a beeline for the spindly bureau. Since Chang wasn't evacuating the next day, he hadn't packed anything yet. Not that any of us had much to pack. I wandered over to his SlimScreen table. It was in sleep mode, the screen saver a rotating collage of photos. They were all of people who looked a good