The Luna Deception by Felix R. Savage Page A

also added a few easter eggs. It was a risk, but Elfrida was on his mind, and he wanted to give her a little wink. So he created some jizo statues, like the ones at temples in old Japan. Elfrida was half-Japanese; maybe she’d be interested enough to take a closer look. And if she did, she’d see his name carved on the bases of the statues, very small.
    His signature would also serve as a back-door into the sim, if he needed to make any tweaks in future.
    Finally, he faked up some authentic-looking datasets to give the impression that all this was based on voter feedback. The people of Mercury want MOAR ART. The whole thing was superficially plausible, and sublimely ridiculous.
    It took him forty-eight hours, including two all-nighters. Cross-eyed with exhaustion, he sent it to Lorna on Saturday morning, and went to sleep.
    ★
    A ping from Lorna woke him an hour later.
    “You, my friend, are a genius. I freaking love it.”
    The relief was shaming. “Hope Dr. Hasselblatter loves it, too,” Mendoza mumbled.
    “Oh, he will, if his consultants tell him to. Now we just sit back and wait for the solar system to bust a gut laughing.” Lorna sounded gleeful at the prospect. “Abdullah-dallah won’t win the UNVRP directorship, but he’ll be in the running for Faceplant of the Year. These pols!”
    Mendoza stifled a yawn.
    “There are just a couple more things I need you to do. Those voter feedback datasets? The consultants say those are great. A really convincing touch. So if you could send over the polls they’re based on …”
    “There aren’t any polls. I—I faked them.”
    Lorna let out a surprised bark of laughter. “Naughty, naughty! But don’t sweat it. Just fake the polls, too.”
    Mendoza recalled a UN statute he had recently looked up—the one that forbade ‘interference with the process of a poll, survey, census, or election, or fraudulent misrepresentation of the results of the same’—and the penalty for violating it: a minimum sentence of five years. He rolled on his back and stared at the stiffened fabric of the ceiling. Usually when he was home, he had his iEars on. Now he could hear his neighbors arguing. It was like living in a cardboard box.
    “Is there a problem?” Lorna said. “You don’t have to do the polls, of course. Just describe your random sampling method and put together some graphs of the results.”
    “OK.”
    “When you’re done with that, come out to my place. You’re off today, right?”
    “Right.”
    “Then come for dinner. Bring the polls in physical format. In fact, we’d probably better not use use email from now on.”
    So even Lorna thought it wise to take precautions at this point. Mendoza could guess why he’d mentioned email specifically. Voice calls, like meatspace conversations, could only be captured by the local surveillance systems. Email, on the other hand, might get routed through servers off Luna, which meant it could be read by anyone, such as the UN’s widely-feared Information Security Agency (ISA).
    Mendoza stretched out his legs. His toes touched the far wall of his apartment. He pushed, testing the give of the fabric, feeling trapped.

v.
     
    “Look at that!” Lorna exclaimed, pointing up at the sky.
    Mendoza’s sleep-deprived reactions were slow. He saw nothing except the black lunar night.
    “An intercept! That was absolutely an intercept.” Lorna blasted to his personal feed, which Mendoza had running in his HUD: “The Precision Orbital Risk Management System network just saved us from another meteorite. ” He added to Mendoza, “It only takes one strike, you know. If the impactor was big enough, it would be like dropping a nuke on one of these domes. You wouldn’t even survive long enough to die of anoxia.”
    Mendoza shuddered.
    “Anyway, it’s good to know the PORMSnet is up there, protecting us. Helps me sleep better at night.”
    They wandered on along the cobbled path of the stone garden. Anonymous figures strolled past,