Curtis is wandering down the corridors, checking all the doors to see if
he’s allowed to go in. He’s not. He tried to teleport directly into a couple
of the rooms, but they’re temporally locked as well. He’s made it to the
main living area now. Cheyenne is already there. She’s staring at the open
door to Mateo’s stasis chamber. “Hey. Is everything okay?” he asks, hoping
not to frighten her.
“Huh? Oh, yeah. I just feel bad for the guy. It really sounds like Danica is
screwing him over. He’s just trying to get back to his wife. Wait, is Danica
here?”
“I didn’t see her,” Curtis says, “but these walls have ears. Literally.”
“Right.” She breathes deeply, and continues staring at the pods. “I should
be more careful.”
“Hey, you’re trying to get home too, aren’t ya?”
“I’ve never been in any hurry my entire life. So yes, but...it seems weird
to be so earnest about it. Him, I get. His life span is so short. Everything
here is so weird.”
“How long is your life span?”
She just looks at him with no intention to answer.
She’s totally right. This place is so weird. You can be gone for minutes,
and miss out on so much. In fact, you could be in stasis for the same amount
of time as civilization had existed up to the point that Curtis first left.
Empires would rise and fall. Wars would be fought. “Come on, let’s stop
being depressed.”
“It’s the last day of the year, did you know that?”
“I guess.”
“He was supposed to be awakened, but the hatch never opened.”
“Maybe we could try to open it.”
“I already did. It didn’t work. It requires an access code. These people are
so distrustful. I’ve never understood that. Where I’m from, our ancestors
fought wars so that one day, we could live free from conflict. I don’t think
that war is good, but I’m having trouble fitting in here.” Wow, they’re both
making a vague connection between the situation they’re in and war.
Interesting. There’s something about this girl.
“Well, this isn’t my first time being put in this kind of situation. Maybe
it’ll be easier if you don’t try to go through it alone. Let’s do something
fun together.”
“Something like what?” she asks.
“Well, a lot of this facility is off limits, but there’s one area I know is
open.”
“Let me guess, your bedroom.”
He laughs. “No. Come on, I’ll show you. It’s a doozy.”
Cheyenne follows him into the elevator, which she never thought to try,
because everyone says that it just goes up to the surface, which doesn’t
even have a breathable atmosphere. That turns out to be okay, because in the
mostly empty room at the top are two vacuum suits, which a little robot
helps them put on. As she explains to Curtis, she’s seen space from ships
and space stations before, but never like this. It’s wild, hopping along
this planet, kicking at the space rocks. Because she’s traveled back in time
to a completely unrecognizable calendar, and she’s been in stasis a lot of
the time, the date is irrelevant. But, if she adds up all the time she has
spent outside of stasis since arriving, it’s been nineteen days. It’s her
birthday, and this is the best gift she’s ever received.
No comments :
Post a Comment