World: ???

Location: ???

It might surprise you to know that most indigenous people have a Trickster God. Many are male, and most can shift from male to female, depending upon their mood or the trick they are planning. They also mete out their own sense of justice, offering good or bad luck to the poor human they decide to play with, depending upon how they handle their fortune or misfortune. They love laughter, dance, song, and sex - not necessarily in that order.

They break rules, fly in the face of reason or convention. They will do things just out of curiosity or boredom. They question authority. Their likes and dislikes change often. Their quicksilver nature infuriates the other Gods. But their heart – no one knows if they have loved and been constant, with a heart that might be as slippery as their thoughts.

It was Coyote who visited me between the Earth and the Moon.

We were somewhere I recognized only by the memory of a book my adoptive mother once showed to me. We were sitting below enormous trees, by a waterfall, with a round, rocky mountain face called Tesa'ak, Half Dome in a park called Yosemite, now underneath the Ocean. It was wrapped in the green cloak of Spring. We were dressed as young men, in leather loin cloths, sitting on the grass and leaning back on our elbows.

He was glistening - skin tanned the color of almonds, and hairy-chested with a pronounced trail that ran from his chest to groin and below. He caught my gaze and grinned wickedly. This was how we'd first met, in my teenage dreams.

"Why is it, Crow, that we always meet when you're a second away from dying? Are you chasing Death? If you are, I'd be really upset. Here I am, all oiled and ready, hoping to satisfy a primal urge with a much-loved friend, and you're about to go limp forever."

A chill ran up my spine and my skin broke out in goosebumps. He had saved me whenever I was backed into corner, or facing a gun barrel, being suspended from a cliff, or bitten by some mutant snake or vampire hare. "What do you mean?" I asked, trying to sound cocky.

Coyote waves his hand, and a huge holo vid-screen appears, but what it shows is in black and white, like the old Yosemite photo from that book. There I am, in the pod, and the attendant. The image is frozen. My body is turning into atoms, soon to become digital bytes. The attendant is stooping below me. He's holding a pair of wire cutters whose jaws are aimed upwards into the base of my pod.

I glare at him. "Is this one of your tricks?" I growl.

His shoulders slump, and the smile vanishes. "No, Daniel Crow Feather. None of the Gods have anything to do with this. Has it never crossed your mortal mind that I might enjoy your company? Your escapades make me laugh, and after millennia of making mortals laugh, it is a gift to find someone like you. When you die, and the Great Spirit takes you, you are gone forever. It is why I intervene at times like these."

"But we don't die anymore," I correct him. He looks at me with his knowing, ageless eyes.

"Perhaps what you think of as living forever is simply making your dying go on forever. Life is the Great Spirit's gift, yet you would deny them its return when your time is done? When you cannot feel this..." Coyote simply lays his hand on my knee, and my entire body spasms in ecstasy, "then you are gone, my dear friend."

I watch as a crystalline tear tracks down his face. And I remember Crow Mother's words: "if you can make him fall for you, it might be of use to you both." I see him looking intently at me, and he laughs softly. "Tell Crow Mother that she is wise, but I am wiser. But in this, we both win." The scene on the vid-screen unfreezes. The attendant slips and falls on his ass, as my body completely vanishes.

"I believe a proper thank-you is in order," he says into my ear, nibbling my ear lobe.

World: Terra Veritas

Location: Moonbases Gamma and Delta

After putting on my clothes – which are sent separately, in case you're wondering – I exit to find my party sitting on one of the very few benches in the Arrivals lounge.

"Old man, these youngsters were beginning to get on my nerves. They thought something might have happened to you!" Holly was tapping her cane loudly, her laugh high and infectious. "Got all your body parts?" She walked up to me and gave my jewels a squeeze, which seemed to shock poor Sunny. "Yup! He's fine," she announced, whispering "I'm not gonna to ask about the dog hair."

"All right - let's get going. We're staying at the Armstrong Arms in Moonbase Delta." Lester starts towards the Delta tube train station when his statement finally registers.

"Hold on! We're supposed to be booked at the Grand Metaverse – penthouse level, with a hot tub and sauna on every floor, gourmet synth, open bar, and..."

"And we will be. Our cyborg doppelgangers are checking in there now. We can't trust our employers, Danny! Any one of them might be behind this, so our best bet is to do the real research elsewhere. Yeah, the cybes won't fool them forever, but hopefully they'll fool them long enough."

The Delta tube train is one of the oldest models, first used when Moonbase Alpha was built. It's old and looks even older. The windows have scratch marks, the seats are partially torn and there's a corny soundtrack of songs about the moon or with 'moon' in the title.

Have I mentioned that in 2045 A.D. the International Space Program was bought, and is still run, by Disney, Inc.?

Moonbase Delta is being built in Mare Imbrium. Workers are housed in prefabricated dorms, with a handful of prefab houses meant for investors. It's in one of these that Les has arranged for us to stay in.

Sunny is busy stargazing and Holly is chatting Les' ears off on how she can't wait to experience the moon gravity so she can run again. Wanda is sulking, and I can't blame her. She's consigned herself to the fate of riding on our shoulders, being that she can't fly in a suit, and if she went suitless the gravity would propel her into space. Les has promised her that a surprise awaits her, but Wanda is an A.I. who has zero patience. And let's face it - nobody can tolerate a testy A.I. for long.

Teepee looks bored, which is not the sort of mood I'd expect of a pre-teenager who's lived his whole life on one square mile of a big Earth city. "What's up, son?" I ask, tousling his hair. Instantly his face lights up.

"I never thought I'd ever hear anybody call me that and like the way it sounds."

It's statements like that which make life worth living, friends. "You seem disappointed. Teeps, you're on the moon! Do you know how many kids never get to go beyond their own hometown?"

"I don't know, Dad. I thought it would be livelier, I guess." He gestures to the rocky landscape surrounding us on all sides, the lights of Moonbase Gamma long since having faded into darkness. "It's just so...so empty!"

I point out that it was the solar-powered hydroponic farms on the Moon that produced food for 25% of Terrans after the Ka-boom.

"Can we see them while we're here? I've never seen a farm," he asks, his earnestness breaking my heart. There were farms under State Street next to the Library he could have seen, but I never thought to show him. That makes me wonder if they survived the fire. It makes me furious that more people may have suffered because some a**hole rich guy's body got fried and people want his mind saved from disintegration. And that, because I'm looking for him, someone else is after me and my found family.

Off in the distance, I think I see some glittering lights.

"Hey boss!" squawks Wanda, "Les says we're here!"

We're about to step onto the Moon – some for the first time – when some loudspeakers blare out the most annoying Disney song ever written.

"It's a small world after..."

I trash four speakers with my mini-crossbow before that line has a chance to repeat itself ad nauseum. My team gives me a round of applause. We no sooner step through the entrance which boldly announces "Welcome to Mickey's Mare Imbrium" when we're faced with a battalion of white armor-clad soldiers with some very real pulse laser cannons. And stupid-looking helmets.

"Jesus H. Mouse, boys," yells Les, his arms upraised, "Who pissed in your synth-beer?"

Seconds later, Les is on the ground, a smoking hole in his chest.