When the Moon Hits Your Eye

Vera Garcia, a former sex worker turned real-estate agent, takes a call during a house showing. The caller, Danica Albright, offers her a lucrative consulting job. Vera agrees to meet later.

Danica explains the job: Representative Mike Groupo of Idaho has a request. Vera must enter his hotel suite around 10 o’clock that evening and wear a specific costume. She must observe him pleasuring himself while dressed in the suit. There is no sex involved. They offer Vera $10,000 for her services. Vera, skeptical but needing the money, agrees.

Charlie Simms, Groupo’s assistant, greets her that evening and shows her to the suite. Vera dons a blue NASA jumpsuit with astronaut LeMae Anderson’s name stitched onto it. She mutters an apology to LeMae and completes the job.

Two days later, Danica calls Vera again, citing a problem. Someone in the neighboring hotel suite recorded audio of the encounter and sent it to the press. The Review-Journal plans to run the story. Groupo’s team wants Vera to hold a press conference, claim that she had consensual sex with Groupo, and take a $100,000 payout. Danica warns Vera that her name will be exposed either way.

Vera agrees to meet with Simms at four o’clock that afternoon to discuss the statement. She arrives early and overhears Simms on the phone. He plans to have Vera claim that a spontaneous encounter occurred and then leak her past as a sex worker to make her look like a political pawn, discrediting her and redirecting blame to Groupo’s opponents.

Vera leaves briefly but then returns at four o’clock, pretending that she heard nothing. Simms hands her talking points. At the press conference, Vera introduces herself, displays the notes that Simms provided, and dramatically throws them in the air. She tells the truth: She was hired for a non-sexual act, she never slept with Groupo, and Simms planned to smear her as part of a political cover-up. She explains that she wore a NASA jumpsuit, rubbed Groupo with cheese, and watched as he pleasured himself with a wheel of brie.

Astronaut Davis Baruch reflects on his childhood dream of spaceflight, sparked at age seven while watching Apollo 13. He has dedicated his life to that goal, often at the expense of other possibilities. Now, he grapples with frustration over Jody Bannon’s rogue moon landing.

Davis participates in a NASA outreach session. He answers questions about Jody’s mission, sticking to approved language while inwardly cringing at the memory of Jody’s crash course in astronaut training. When a reporter asks about lunar instability, Davis explains that spaceflight always involves risk and that Jody accepted that risk. When a YouTuber calls the moon’s transformation a miracle, Davis agrees but adds that other phenomena, like vaccines or childbirth, are also miracles in their own way.

Another reporter brings up the Groupo incident, which Davis declines to comment on. A journalist asks whether it is fair for Jody to land on the moon, bypassing the years of training that Davis and others have undergone. Though NASA gave him a scripted answer, Davis goes off script, claiming that it is unfair but that it is the world we live in.

After the event, Davis meets with fellow astronaut LeMae Anderson and admits that his superiors told him to take the next day off. He expects to watch the moon landing from home.

Jody Bannon finds space travel uneventful and surprisingly dull. He questions why NASA requires elite astronauts when computers can handle the mechanics of lunar landing.

Years ago, Jody recognized that he lacked the discipline for traditional astronaut training. Instead, he purchased an aerospace firm, won a government contract, and designed the Major Tom lander with extensive automation so that he could go to the moon safely. He then created HMS bots matching his own physical parameters, maintaining his body weight for two years to pass as one. His plan hinged on slipping past NASA protocol, which he did.

On the third day of his journey, Mission Control at Manta relays concerns from Houston. Lunar geysers have released enough material to form a thin atmosphere, and seismic activity is increasing. Houston fears that the lander could be struck by debris mid-descent. They recommend aborting, but Jody refuses. He believes that his only shot at avoiding legal fallout is landing on the moon.

On the fourth day, NASA provides new landing coordinates in a relatively calm region as Jody rehearses an inspiring quote to say upon landing. Manta Control interrupts him, shouting at Jody to abort the mission as a geyser erupts. Debris strikes Major Tom, tearing it apart and hurling Jody across the lunar surface. Another geyser erupts moments later, and the flying debris kill Jody instantly.

President Brett Boone releases an official statement, honoring Jody Bannon as a symbol of human courage and innovation. He encourages continued exploration despite the tragedy.

CNN offers additional context, explaining that the moon’s new “organic matrix” has destabilized its surface. The geyser that killed Jody formed too quickly for prediction, resembling a geological super volcano.

At a high school lunch table, students Mackie Meyer, Lisa Christensen, Peter Strickland, and Cyrus Marx discuss Jody’s death. Mackie observes that, despite Jody’s many accomplishments, he will now be remembered primarily for his death. Cyrus mentions an emerging Reddit theory that the geyser launched Jody into space, not onto the moon.