A Complicated Love Story Set in Space

by Shaun David Hutchinson

  “I should’ve left you locked in the restroom.”

  “Don’t be like this,” DJ said.

  I rounded on him. “And you should’ve left me to die in space. At least it would’ve been quicker and less painful than being here with the both of you.” I stormed out of the galley, ignoring their calls to return.

  FIVE

  I STOOD AMONG THE TREES and looked up at the clear blue sky. A cool breeze danced across my skin, carrying the scents of a hundred different plants and flowers that I didn’t recognize. I closed my eyes and tilted my face toward the sun, letting its warmth embrace me.

  Of course, it wasn’t real.

  The garden was real. I’d passed rosebushes and gardenias and palm trees and flowering plants in a thousand different colors, some of which might not even have originated on Earth, but the sky overhead was an illusion. A dome made to look like the sky.

  I’d stumbled upon the oxygen garden after leaving DJ and Jenny. I hadn’t known where I was going, only that I needed to go. The ship, which had seemed so massive before, had already begun to feel too small. I had barely been trapped on Qriosity for a day—how was I going to survive six months or more?

  The thought expanded within me like a toxic cloud, and just when I thought I would explode, I stopped in front of the door tagged “O2 Garden.” It was exactly what I needed, right when I needed it. Even if it was a lie.

  Once inside, I’d followed a stone path carved through the dense flora, which led me on a circuitous trail to a small pond ringed with benches. As I sat, a bee zipped around in front of my face. I tried to swat it away, but it darted out of my reach and then hovered near my nose. In actuality, it was a tiny machine that looked like a bee. I’d never seen anything like it, but instead of being fascinated by the miraculous tech, it only served to remind me that we were in so deep that we couldn’t even see the surface anymore.

  “Hey, loser.” Jenny exited the bushes at the other side of the pond, and seemed surprised to see me. “I guess you found my secret hideout. I had hoped to keep it to myself for longer than an hour, but…”

  I stood. “Sorry.”

  Jenny rolled her eyes. “Sit down. Unless you think I’m going to give you cooties.”

  “I got my cootie shot in third grade.” I moved to the end of the bench to make room for her.

  “That’s a relief.” Jenny flopped down beside me unceremoniously, spreading out to take up as much of the bench as she could. She already seemed more at home here than I did. More relaxed. “Just so you know, Noa; I want to go home too.”

  “Then why did you take his side?!” I let out a guttural sound that was half growl, half sigh. “DJ’s ready to give up and wait to be rescued, but I’m not interested in waiting around to be saved. I mean, this whole situation is—”

  “Ridiculous?”

  “Totally absurd,” I said.

  “Bonkers.”

  “Bananas.”

  A look of unrestrained longing spread across Jenny’s face. “Do you know how many people I would kill for a banana right now?” She fished a Nutreesh bar from her jacket pocket.

  “How many of those have you had?”

  “I stress-eat, Noa,” she said. “And, frankly, I don’t appreciate your judgment.”

  I held up my hands. “I’m not judging you for eating; I’m judging you for eating that. Seriously, how much of that crap are you going to put in you?”

  Jenny bit off the end with a vicious tear. “As much as I damn well please. Any other questions?”

  Fighting was the last thing I wanted to do. Actually, a fight might have been a nice way to work out the seething knot of frustration that had grown in the back of my head, but I didn’t want to fight with Jenny. She scared me.

  “I don’t suppose DJ changed his mind about rebooting the computer?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.

  Jenny shook her head.

  “Any chance I can convince you to switch sides?”

  “I’m not on DJ’s side either.” Jenny stretched her legs and kicked off her boots. “I’m on my side.”

  “Okay, but—”

  Jenny cut me off. “You’ve got opinions, I get it. And, like I said, I’m with you on wanting to go home, but DJ seems a lot smarter than you.”

  “Hey!”

  “I’m sure when it comes to baking or dreary poetry, you’re a genius, but I have to go with my gut. It’s not personal.” Jenny finished with a smile that made it difficult to stay angry at her. She was also right. Even about my love for melancholy poets with cold, black hearts, but I wasn’t ready to quit.

  “Let me see if I understand your position,” I said. “You want to go home, but you don’t want to die in the process.”

  “Exactly!” Jenny said.

  “And you’d rather wait for rescue because it’s the safer of the two options.”

  Jenny patted my arm. “I knew you were more intelligent than you looked.”

  I couldn’t help laughing. “Okay, but how do you know rescue is coming?”

  “Because the chatty hologram told us so.”

  “And you’re just willing to take it on the word of a computer program?” I asked. “How would the hologram know whether the distress signal was broadcast or not?”

  Jenny’s eyes narrowed. I had planted the seeds of doubt. Now I needed to water them.

  “Qriosity was minutes from exploding when I woke up, and we still don’t know what caused that damage. Isn’t it possible that our long-range communications might also be compromised?”

  “I guess,” Jenny said carefully.

  “Rescue might not be coming. But we won’t know until months from now when it either arrives or doesn’t. By then, it will be too late.” I’d done the best I could. I had no clue if anything I’d said was true, but it sounded plausible, and that’s what mattered.

  “Do you know what the last thing I remember is?” Jenny asked.

  “Tell me.” This was the longest Jenny and I had spoken. DJ and I’d had time to get to know each other while I was floating in space, waiting to die, but Jenny had been locked in the restroom, and since meeting, we hadn’t slowed down long enough to talk.

  “I was reading a book. The sequel to a series I’d been waiting to get my hands on for over a year because the first book’s cliffhanger was…” Jenny clenched her fists. “It was a lot. But now I might never know what happens. Do you know how frustrating that is?”

  “Extremely?”

  “I would easily sacrifice you or DJ for another copy of that book,” she said.

  I laughed, hoping she was joking. “Where are you from?”

  “Warwick, Rhode Island.”

  “You don’t have an accent.”

  Jenny shrugged. “My parents move a lot for their jobs. We’ve only been there a year.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “I’ve tried not to like or dislike any of the places we’ve lived. It makes them easier to leave.” Jenny spoke about it with an ease that felt practiced though not necessarily sincere. “As long as I have my kitties and my books, anywhere is home.”

  “Is that why you’re not as freaked out about our situation as I am?”

  Jenny threw me a frown. “Oh, I’m freaked out. At the same time, I’m used to being dropped into unfamiliar places and situations and having to make it work. Waking up on Qriosity wasn’t the same as waking up in Warwick, Rhode Island, but they’re both basically outer space.”

  Knowing more about Jenny hadn’t exactly helped me understand her cautious approach to the reactor or how I could change her mind, but it did make her slightly less scary. “I’m sorry you’re stuck out here with me and DJ.”

  “Could be worse,” she said. “At least you’re both pretty.”

  I laughed in spite of myself. “Wow. Thanks?”

  “Have you seen DJ’s butt?” She grinned. “Of course you have. How could you not? It’s too bad you have no ass to speak of, but your face makes up for it.”

  “Wa
y to objectify me, Jenny.” I winked. “You’re not wrong, but I am more than just a devastatingly handsome face.”

  Jenny patted my shoulder. “Sure you are.”

  I sighed heavily, feeling slightly better about Jenny but still frustrated by my inability to convince her I was right. “What are we going to do?”

  Jenny pulled her legs onto the bench and retrieved another Nutreesh from her pocket. She seemed to have a never-ending supply of the things. “Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to sit by this serene little lake, in this weird garden that defies all explanation, and contemplate the impossible nonsense that’s happened to me over the last couple of hours. After that, I might take a nap.”

  “What about me?”

  “Don’t know,” she said. “Find DJ and tell him what you told me. Maybe you can change his mind, though you might try being a little nicer. You’ve been kind of a dick. Either way, I don’t have the patience for you right now. I need some Jenny time.”

  I envied Jenny’s ability to ignore the crisis to focus on her own immediate needs, and I wished I could fix my own problems with a meal-replacement bar and a nap. Sadly, there was only one solution to my dilemma, and I was going to have to go through DJ to reach it.

  SIX

  I SEARCHED QRIOSITY FOR NEARLY an hour before I finally found DJ standing at a console in Reactor Control with his back to the door. He didn’t notice me when I walked in.

  “So this is the reactor?” I said. “I was expecting something with a little more flash.” The center of the room was dominated by a massive dark cylinder that had dozens of pipes and tubes running into and out of it. It had an industrial quality to it. Like equipment that belonged on an oil rig instead of on a spaceship.

  Startled, DJ turned around so quickly that he lost his balance. “Noa? Where’d you come from?”

  “Seattle,” I said. “Didn’t we go over this already?”

  “I meant—”

  I rolled my eyes before I thought better of it. “I know what you meant. I came looking for you so we could talk.”

  DJ hung his head like he expected me to yell at him. “I don’t want to fight, Noa.”

  “Neither do I.” There was nowhere to sit in the reactor room, so I flopped down on the floor and leaned against the wall. DJ shrugged and joined me. “Can we just discuss our options?”

  “Of course.”

  I held up a finger. “Okay, if we do nothing, you think that someone will rescue us in a few months.”

  “Right,” DJ said.

  “Why?” I asked. “Because a hologram told you? We don’t actually know if an emergency signal was sent.”

  To his credit, DJ listened to my questions and seemed to consider them before replying. It probably helped that I wasn’t shouting at him. “Okay.”

  “Jenny Perez said our batteries will last about a year. If the signal didn’t go out, it might be too late by the time we realize help isn’t coming.” While I’d been searching the ship for DJ, I’d spent my time working out what I’d say to him.

  “That’s true too,” DJ said.

  “Additionally, who’s coming for us? NASA? NASA doesn’t have ships like this. The truth is that we don’t know if rescue is ever going to arrive and, if it does, we don’t know who they’ll be or whether we’ll want their help.”

  DJ nodded slowly. I didn’t know if he was coming around, but he hadn’t dismissed my argument either. I didn’t want to admit it out loud, but DJ probably was smarter than me when it came to science stuff. “What about our other option?”

  “Reboot the computer,” I said. “Crank the ship back to life and use it to get ourselves home.”

  “Then you know how to fly a spaceship?”

  His question caught me off guard. “Well… no, but—”

  “Because I’ve got no clue how to fly one, and I’m betting Jenny doesn’t either.” DJ gained no obvious satisfaction at pointing out a detail I hadn’t considered, which made him a better person than me.

  “Fair point,” I said. “Maybe we can learn, though. And the worst-case scenario is that we have real food and hot water while we’re waiting for rescue to arrive.”

  DJ shook his head. “The worst-case scenario’s that we die, Noa. That’s what I keep trying to get you to understand.”

  “Then we die!” I said. “But we can’t just do nothing!” I was losing my hold on my temper. I stood and paced the room. “We were kidnapped, DJ. You get that, right? Someone or something stole us from our lives and is holding us against our will.”

  “I do understand—”

  “Do you?” I asked. “This isn’t a spaceship; it’s a prison. I don’t know why we’re here or what they want from us, but I can’t do nothing!” I was having difficulty breathing. I pressed my hand to my chest. “I can’t just be a victim!” My knees gave out. The bones in my legs vanished. I hit the deck. Pain radiated up through my thighs.

  And then DJ was there. He wrapped his arms around me and whispered, “It’s going to be okay,” over and over until my heart slowed and my jelly legs felt strong enough to support me again.

  “Sorry,” I said, feeling foolish. At the same time, I felt safe in a way I hadn’t since waking up in this nightmare. I wanted to lean into him, dissolve into DJ’s chest. But his closeness threatened to suffocate me, and the warmth of his body grew stifling.

  “Okay,” DJ said.

  I disentangled myself from him, trying not to seem ungrateful for his help. “Seriously. I didn’t mean to lose it like that.”

  “Okay,” he said again. “Let’s do it.”

  I backed away. “Do what?”

  DJ took a deep breath. “Reboot the computer.” He motioned at the console he’d been working at when I arrived. “I was considering doing it anyway. Thinking it was wrong to stand in your way of going home.” He shrugged. “Anyway, all we have to do is hit that button, and it’ll restart everything.”

  I punched DJ in the arm, and I wasn’t sure which of us it hurt more. “Why didn’t you tell me straightaway instead of letting me ramble like that?”

  “Figured it couldn’t hurt to talk it out one last time.” DJ moved toward the console. “So are we gonna do this or what?”

  A large button labeled “Reboot?” on the touchscreen blinked from a neon yellow to a dull mustard. I reached for it and hesitated. I wasn’t having second thoughts, but now that we were going to do it, I felt the weight of the decision.

  DJ stood beside me, waiting. I gave him a terse nod, and we pressed the button together.

  The screen went blank.

  I counted the seconds, hoping for the best. I hit twenty and was going to ask DJ if we’d made a mistake, fearing that our worst-case scenario had come to pass, when a steady vibration ran through the floor. Consoles around the room flickered to life. A light from within the cylinder in the center of the room began to glow and swirl. It looked like it was filled with bioluminescent jellyfish swimming madly, faster and faster until they were nothing but a polychromatic blur.

  Eventually, the shaking settled into a low, steady thrum that I could hardly feel.

  DJ smiled at me, flashing those dimples. “Looks like we did it.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked. The screen on our console showed graphs and readouts far more complicated than what had been inside my hud. I couldn’t make sense of any of it, but it did seem like we had restarted the reactor.

  “We didn’t blow up.”

  “Yet,” I said, smiling cautiously. “Thanks for not being the kind of person who was too stubborn to change his mind and admit he was wrong.”

  “I mean, I wasn’t wrong to be cautious.”

  I patted his shoulder. “Everyone makes mistakes, DJ. It’s not your fault you’re not as smart as me. Few people are.”

  DJ laughed, and I thought everything was going to be okay. Even if we couldn’t figure out how to fly the ship right away, we’d work it out eventually. Together.

  “Warning!” shouted the ship over the sp
eakers. “Trinity Labs Quantum Fold Drive will initialize spatial tear in five minutes. Warning!”

  And then that happened.

  The blood drained from DJ’s face.

  “That sounds bad,” I said. “What does it mean? DJ?”

  “I think we need to go to Ops.” I barely had time to register his reply before he sprinted out of the room.

  I chased DJ through the ship to Ops and was out of breath by the time I caught up. He was standing at one of the stations, staring at the viewport, at a pulsating fissure in space where there had been nothing but stars before. The rip crackled with energy, and it made me feel dizzy.

  Jenny was already there, standing in front of the viewport. “What is happening?” she yelled over the sound of the alarm.

  Photons surged into Ops, forming into the shape of my least favorite hologram.

  “Hi! I’m your host, Jenny Perez, whom you probably remember as the precocious kid detective and bestselling author Anastasia Darling on the award-winning mystery entertainment program Murder Your Darlings. If you’re seeing this holographic message, then you’ve initiated your Trinity Labs Quantum Fold Drive.”

  “We did?” Jenny asked.

  “No we didn’t!” shouted DJ.

  “Sure you did,” Jenny Perez said in a tone that managed to be simultaneously cutesy and condescending. “These things don’t initialize on their own.”

  “How do we stop it?” I asked. My heart was ramping up again. I had to lean against the back of the nearest chair for support.

  “Warning! Trinity Labs Quantum Fold Drive will initialize spatial tear in three minutes. Warning!”

  Jenny Perez flickered. “It seems that you’ve recently rebooted your Nexus Systems Quantum Cluster Advanced Logic Engine, which should only be done by a certified Nexus Systems technician.”

  I stared bullets at her. “Have you ever investigated your own murder?”