Change my identity somehow.

I get caught in a bubble like feeling where I can't hear the protests and the suggestions Isabella is calling out to me. I feel like I'm deaf but still can hear sounds. It does feel like a grenade exploded near me, but without the fatal side effects. Now I can think in peace.

My whole time on the Moon flashes before my eyes and things that I have notice starts to make sense. I remember I was tailing this one Khan family member for information and I saw the most unusual thing a Earthling would never seen on the planetside. It would look like a regular illegal plastic surgery shop in an alley. But this shop doesn't use any plastic surgery. It's procedures are more simpler and less painful.

Getting there is much more difficult than getting the courage to enter the procedure. Still in the bubble feeling, I exit out the hotel room and walk in the direction opposite of the blood spatter hours before. I do know that Isabella is now protesting out from the room but doesn't dare come out due to her half-nakedness. I pop the bubble feeling and now can hear the business and the tourism in the plaza below. Moon authorities--there are more like security and clean up crew than police--are busy cleaning up the mess the Khan family has made two floors above. Fact is that the Moon authorities do not want to get their hands dirty in crime affairs and connections. But planetside police bureaus and intelligence agencies are willing to put brave people on the Moon doing undercover work.

Speaking of undercover work, I wonder what happened to that one cop from earlier. Maybe he got shot but is now hiding without the crowd. Or maybe he did get away but doesn't want to blow his cover now that he know some of the faces of the culprits who killed that one Asian dude.

Getting through this crowd is sort of like the way Japanese people walk on those immense crosswalks. Never ever do they bump into one another. Same goes for the Moon City, especially in the Metro Pagoda district. I pass by stalls selling Asian food and Asian pottery until I come to the district wall. I go through the tunnel and out to the barrier walkway. This walkway is like a tunnel as well, but instead of dark walls, thick glass gives you a view of a lifetime. The glass is tinted in a way so that the rays of the sun can hurt your eyes. The glass work like the old-fashioned space suit visors work. From the inside is a clear view and from the outside is a dark yet golden look. A bridge connecting to a Trans-Depot connect with the walkway. This is the way to other parts of the Moon City.

Luckily a bus arrives at the depot. This a similar to the ones they have on Earth, which are propelled on repulsor-lift consoles. I enter and pay with my card. I ride in a front seat and await the driver to set off. No passengers enter the vehicle but a group of tourists and unnoticeable Khans exit and get on the platform. The doors close and the bus undocks from the depot and enters what looks like a series of rings with red and green lights on top. Once the bus enters one ring, the magnetic field sucks it in and pushes the bus out to the other rings. The bus travels from a snail's pace to that of a cheetah, but inside the passengers don't feel the G-forces.

The elevated ring highways which the buses and other vehicle travel on spans much of the Moon City, going from the bottom to overhead the domes. It doesn't take long for the bus to pass by two domes and enter a larger depot than the one before. It is there the bus docks and passengers are poised to get off and onto the platform. If you noticed that we are on the Moon and having that there is no air on the Moon, we can't survive in it's vicinity. That is why when a bus docks, a tube resemble that of the walkway earlier connects and offers pressurized air venting.

I get off the bus and walk to the end of the walkway. There a automatic door opens once I move in front of it. I set for the walkway heading toward the elevator that goes down to the parking garage, where the individual vehicles are stored, and goes up to the central plaza. This plaza has at least eight elevators going up and down from the very center of it. In the middle of this console which houses all the elevators is a huge sculpture of the person who owns the nearest casino and hotel: Rex Tanner.

I go up alone in the elevator since nobody from the bus wanted to go up. I could probably guess that they had their cars in the parking garage, but they want to walk like normal people would. I couldn't blame them after all, since I had to walk and jog after a Khan I was tailing. As the elevator slowly comes to a stop, the jolt from the cables jogs my memory. I saw in my mind several distinct signs that I did see while on my mission tailing the Khan family member. I remember a noodle shop, a wig stall, and a overzealous guy selling real fake watches and dice from his own jacket, which was the only real thing on him. The doors of the elevator open and I finally see a familiar sight. The scene was of the market, which I traveled through on my mission.

I remember it alright, going from the elevator to the start of the marketplace. In the distance I see the same noodle sign that I saw in my travels. It's red background and its distinct lighting would make anybody dying for food to run to that shop. Unfortunately, the guy behind the counter is a lot more younger, but inexperienced with his work. I guess the old master is teaching and apprentice to take over when he dies. He is making progress but it's less of my worries. I make the effort to walk to the shop to see a vantage point on seeing the next sign I remember.

It's supposed to be a wig stall, but there is so many stall in the street below that I might have to get a closer look at each of them. Luckily there is a set of stair going to the lower street. On the upper street are groups of tourists and regulars eating and drinking on the chairs and tables right in front of the food and drink shop on the far wall. I descend of stairs to find myslef stuck in a close encounter with the tourist kind. I have never seen so many tourist at this hour before, and the crowd is literally bumping into one another as they move up and down the street and from every stall.

The first stall I come to sells cell phones, either working or unusable. The second I come to sells mints, one of every kind, common and rare alike. The next sells lotions, but many people are staying away since it smells like rotten eggs and gym socks. Every stall I come to is like the wig stall I remember on my mission. Once I feel like my memories are enough I see something catch me eye. Maybe I don't need the stall, but thinking again I probably would need it. On the upper street, I see a figure, short in stature but obvious enough. His flaunting and strutting like a fine horse is like that of an eager business, looking to see if a customer would like to buy his products. And it is there that I see it. A shine that is unmistakeable. I make an effort to find a set of stairs and go up there to tail him.

Find the stairs was easy, but keeping the businessman in my sights was difficults. Since he was short, he was barely noticeable in the crowd of tourists on the street. I kept looking for his hat but it would pop up someplace, and then seconds later, pop up in another section of the crowd. I pushed and shoved all the way through the crowd and finally got close to him, but only to find him getting farther away. This time I didn't make an effort, which is because I didn't need to tail him. I found the stall which I was looking for.

A stall covered in wigs of all types and all colors. By far, this is the most neat stall in all of the plaza's market street. Oblivious to the owner, I get frightened by her tap. She laughs sinisterly at my scream, which is like a schoolgirl's scream. I turn quickly to look at the tapper. Come to think of it, by her looks, she doesn't look like a woman. Actually she looks like a skinny man on hormones. But this person doesn't really have a certain promiscuity about her, or him.

"What's wrong sexy? Did I scare ya?" she says in a unusual voice for a woman. Her voice sounds like a man's voice with a weird womanly mask on it. I am now probably think if this doctor at this one surgery shop is for real, because I don't think he or she did a very good job at it. After asking me but getting no answer, she continues to laugh to the point that she knocks a group of long haired wigs off her stall. Now distracted by his mess, she bends down to pick them off the dirty floor of the street. This gives me time to enter the recognizable alleyway.

The alley is dark but it's manageable. The light from the reflecting Moon dirt shines in somehow into the tiny crevaces of the alley. I could see more dumpster than floor around here. It's a lot more messy than before, which was just a regular alley. Now I feel like a bunch of ravenous dogs came through here and tore the place up. Going further, it comes to a point where I have to climb on the dumpsters to get my way through.

After several instances of climbing and jumping from dumpster to dumpster, and one instance of me almost getting clotheslined by an overhead wire, I find a widening of the alley. I also see a distinct orange light shining onto the far wall, which turns right. The alley widens more as I walk towards the illuminated alley. There to my amazement is the place where I can change my identity.

The place is actually part of the building, having only the front entrance lit up for business reasons. After walking into the door, I find that not many people have been in this place for some time. Maybe it's because of the wrecks of dumpsters in the alley or some other reason. The light illuminates the lobby-like room just fine and the owner must have good housekeeping skills to keep it in the state that it's in. When I feel like nobody is home, I just give up on the idea of changing my identity and attempt to leave. But to my astonishment, I hear rustling upstairs. I let go of the door handle as I am about to leave and try to call to the person upstairs.

"Hello. Anybody home?" I call out in a rather loud voice. I call out again and wait for an answer. Instead of an answer, I hear rushing footsteps. I look at the staircase behind the front desk and ten seconds later I see a pajama-clad leg with black furry slippers step out onto the illuminated steps.