A Complicated Love Story Set in Space

by Shaun David Hutchinson

  “Actually, yes!” Jenny Perez replied. “In episode seven of season four, Anastasia Darling—”

  “What’s restarting the computer got to do with the fold drive?” DJ said, cutting her off. Whatever calm he’d had earlier had fled.

  “Rebooting the Nexus Systems Quantum Cluster Advanced Logic Engine has initiated the Phone Home protocol.”

  “We’re going home?” Jenny asked.

  A small flicker of hope ignited within me. Jenny Perez quickly snuffed it out.

  “Under normal circumstances, Qriosity would return to Earth upon the initiation of the Phone Home protocol. However, the navigational system is unable to determine Qriosity’s current coordinates, which are required for plotting a course.”

  “So the drive did initialize on its own,” DJ said. “I knew we didn’t do it.”

  “Who cares about that right now?” I said. “Are we going home or not?” I didn’t understand what Jenny Perez had said, though it sounded like she’d implied we were lost.

  “Without origin coordinates,” the hologram replied, “Qriosity will select a destination at random in an attempt to reach Earth, though the chances of doing so are infinitesimally small.”

  “That seems silly,” Jenny said at the same time as I shouted, “Make it stop!”

  “I’m trying,” DJ said, though I hadn’t been talking to him. “Nothing works. I’m locked out of the computer.”

  Jenny Perez continued talking as if I cared what she had to say. “The Trinity Labs Quantum Fold Drive creates a tunnel through space-time, connecting two points, allowing for near-instantaneous travel between destinations millions or even billions of light-years apart. Isn’t that neat?”

  “No!” I said. “Shut it down!”

  “Sorry, Charlie,” Jenny Perez said. “Once initiated, the Phone Home protocol cannot be terminated. The Trinity Labs Quantum Fold Drive will engage every nineteen hours until Qriosity successfully reaches Earth. Sorry about it!”

  “Warning! Trinity Labs Quantum Fold Drive will initialize spatial tear in thirty seconds. Warning!”

  “DJ?”

  DJ shook his head. Tears rimmed his eyes.

  “What is going on?” Jenny asked. “I don’t understand what’s happening.”

  If rescue had been coming, they’d find no trace of us when they arrived. Once we passed through that rent in space, we would be lost forever.

  I fell into the chair, my arms limp, my heart broken, and my soul exhausted.

  The tear pulsed and grew brighter. Qriosity spasmed.

  “Warning! Trinity Labs Quantum Fold Drive initializing spatial tear. Warning!”

  A final convulsion shook Qriosity as blinding light filled the viewport. I covered my eyes and when I looked again, we were somewhere else. I couldn’t tell the difference between where we were and where we’d been—the stars looked the same as before—but it didn’t matter. We were never going home.

  A countdown clock appeared on the screen at my station. 18:59:59.

  Tears ran freely down DJ’s splotchy cheeks. “Noa, I’m sorry. I can fix this. I can—”

  “Forget it,” I said. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  WHERE NOA HAS GONE BEFORE

  ONE

  QRIOSITY’S MEDIA LIBRARY CONTAINED 330 episodes of Murder Your Darlings—including a mercifully short season that skipped ahead a few years to follow Anastasia Darling as an adult—and I was determined to watch every single one.

  In the week since we had rebooted Qriosity’s computer, which had resulted in the ship, and us along with it, being sent skipping randomly through the universe, I had done absolutely nothing but sit on the overstuffed couch in the rec room and watch the worst program ever created. Murder Your Darlings had run for thirteen seasons, but it should have been suffocated after thirteen episodes. Anastasia Darling was obnoxious, her parents were oblivious and had no business raising a child, I easily guessed who the murderer was within the first five minutes of each episode—it was nearly always the guest star—and the only person worth rooting for was Dominique Lavoie, Anastasia Darling’s nemesis-slash-cousin. And yet, undeterred by the show’s terrible acting and predictable plots, I spent my every waking hour on the couch watching it.

  I didn’t shower or brush my teeth. I ate Nutreesh bars, which tasted like an old book that had been left to soak in a mud puddle, I drank coffee, and I only got up when I needed to pee. I attempted to sleep in my quarters during the day, but the persistent noise of DJ and Jenny pleading with me to come out made that difficult. When I did sleep, I dreamed of falling. There were no stars, no Qriosity. I just screamed and fell. Fell and screamed. Forever. And every nineteen hours when Qriosity vibrated as it prepared to fold space, I sat alone and cried. Each new location we jumped to was as devoid of light and life as the last. No sun, no planets. No hope.

  Between watching Murder Your Darlings, not sleeping, and avoiding DJ and Jenny, my schedule was full. DJ had been especially persistent in his attempts to cheer me up. At one point, he sat outside my door for four hours, talking at me. I almost broke during that time; I almost got out of bed and let him in. Five more minutes and I would have. I told myself I was proud for outlasting him, but there was definitely a part of me that wished he’d stayed.

  The rec room on Qriosity could have been a living room in any one of a million homes on Earth. There were a couple of reclining chairs to use while wearing the Mind’s Eye virtual reality devices, which I hadn’t tried yet, a sagging couch with lumpy cushions, and a projector for watching the ship’s catalog of movies and programs, and the room smelled like old sweat and feet. That last part was mostly my fault.

  DJ flopped down on the couch beside me and let out a dramatic sigh.

  I fought the urge to look at him. I kept my eyes straight ahead, my attention on Anastasia Darling. Not that watching the show required much brainpower. Some programs were better if you gave them your full focus. You picked up on nuances and details that casual watchers might miss. Murder Your Darlings was not one of them. I’m pretty sure paying attention made the show worse.

  “Noa—”

  “Shush. I’m busy.”

  I expected DJ to leave, but he remained sitting beside me, quietly watching Anastasia solve the murder of her favorite librarian’s prized cockatoo. Spoiler alert: the murderer was a library patron angry about a late-return fee.

  “How can you watch this?” DJ asked at the end of the episode.

  “It’s the only program in Qriosity’s library.” I refused to look at him. I was not going to be distracted by his bright blue eyes or his impossible dimples. “There are also a bunch of movies starring or co-starring Jenny Perez, but I haven’t dipped my toes into that pool yet. There are a couple that don’t look terrible. They don’t look great, either, but we have to make do with what we’ve got, right?”

  The next episode began, and DJ sat with me while Anastasia, who was on a plane, traveling to Europe with her parents, discovered the pilot dead.

  DJ shifted on the couch, probably trying to find a comfortable position, and it groaned each time he moved. “Come on, Noa. Shut this off and talk to me.”

  “No.”

  “You can’t ignore me forever.”

  “I don’t see why not,” I said. “Now hush. The copilot’s about to be murdered and I don’t want to miss it.”

  “The copilot?” DJ said. “But then who lands the plane?”

  “I’ll give you three guesses, but you won’t need them.”

  DJ peeled his attention from the show and turned to me. “You smell, Noa. Bad.”

  I stuck my nose in my armpit and breathed in. “I’m fragrant.” I turned up the volume to drown out whatever insults DJ might fling at me next.

  DJ got up, and I thought he was finally going to leave, but he blocked the screen instead. “I know this sucks, Noa, but you’re not the only person it’s happening to.”

  I avoided his gaze like he was Medusa. I’d be fine if I didn’t look directly into
his eyes. Because the truth was that I wanted to look at him. I wanted to lean into him for support. For friendship and warmth. I wanted to pull him down onto the couch with me and laugh with him about how bad Murder Your Darlings was. I wanted to leave with him and explore the galley. Sing silly songs while baking a cake. DJ had some kind of pull on me, and I didn’t quite understand it. I wasn’t sure I wanted to understand. I just wanted to embrace it. Embrace him. But I didn’t.

  “Do you want me to beg you to leave this room and stop watching this show? I will if that’s what it takes.”

  “I want you to leave me alone,” I said.

  DJ stared at, into, and through me, but I did not relent. I kept my eyes fixed firmly past him as if he wasn’t blocking my view. As if he wasn’t there at all. After a few seconds, DJ marched out of the room.

  I’d won another round in our pointless war, but I didn’t celebrate. I didn’t feel good about it. I wasn’t angry at DJ or Jenny. I was angry at everything. At the whole damn universe. I didn’t understand why DJ and Jenny weren’t sitting on the couch beside me. We were on a ship we didn’t know how to control, lost in space with no hope of finding home. We were never again going to see the people we loved, never going to get the chance to say goodbye. DJ was acting like I’d given up, but you can’t forfeit a game that you’ve already lost.

  Anastasia Darling was searching the plane for clues while the flight attendants attempted to keep the passengers calm, when the projector died.

  “What the hell?!” I felt around for the remote and tried turning the screen back on, but nothing worked. A moment later, DJ charged back into the room, took one look at the screen, and nodded.

  “Did you do this?”

  “You’re going to talk to me, Noa.” DJ stood at the edge of the couch with his arms folded across his broad chest.

  DJ finally had my attention, and I was going to make him regret it. “Who do you think you are? You’re not my mom. You’re not the captain of this busted ship. I don’t know you, and I don’t owe you anything.” I often slouched a little to avoid drawing attention to my height, but this time I stood tall.

  DJ was not cowed. He squared his shoulders and took the full brunt of my anger. “I’ll turn the screen back on when you agree to talk to me.”

  I didn’t care how cute his dimples were; I hated him right then. I wanted to punch him in the nose and then kick him while he was down, over and over until he hurt as badly as I did.

  “Stay if you want,” I said. “I’m leaving.” I headed for the door, but DJ blocked my path. I might have been taller, but he was a cement wall. “Move.”

  “No.”

  “Move!”

  DJ walked me backward, and I fell onto the couch. “Not until you talk to me,” he said.

  I was a ball of compressed rage, a coiled spring of anger. I bounced back and pushed DJ as hard as I could, screamed at him to get the hell out of my way. Spit flew from my mouth, and tears wetted my red-rimmed eyes. And in the face of my fury, DJ hardly moved a centimeter.

  “Why won’t you just leave me alone?” I sank onto the couch and buried my face in my hands.

  The couch squeaked when DJ sat beside me. “Because you promised me cake.”

  “Bake your own damn cake.”

  “I tried,” DJ said. “It didn’t go real well. And Jenny’s more useless in the kitchen than I am. But at least we found out the fire suppression systems work.”

  A high-pitched, angry laugh leaked out of me. “So that’s what this is? You don’t care about me, you’re just hungry?”

  “Can’t it be both?” DJ rested a hand on my shoulder, but I shook him off. “Do you think Jenny and I like being on this ship any more than you do?”

  “I don’t care about you or Jenny. I care about me.”

  “You’ve made that obvious,” DJ said.

  “Clearly I haven’t because you keep coming around.”

  DJ’s face hardened for a moment like he was going to yell, but he didn’t. He sighed and said, “I know this situation’s bad, but we’re never going to get out of it if we don’t work together.”

  “We’re never going to get out of it, period,” I said. None of this was DJ’s fault. I was the one who’d pushed him to reboot the computer. But if I’d kept my mouth shut and trusted his instincts, we’d just be in a different awful situation. We’d been screwed before we rebooted the computer, and we were screwed after. The only difference was the manner in which we were screwed.

  “Noa—”

  “What do you want from me, DJ?”

  “I want you to quit moping,” DJ said. “I want you to get off this couch and stop watching this silly program. I want you to take a shower. Please. You really do smell like day-old horse manure.”

  “And then what? Bake cakes and play starship with you and Jenny?” My hands were trembling. I couldn’t stop them. “We’re trapped, DJ! We’re going to die on this ship! I wish you had let me die in space so that I didn’t have to face the prospect of a long, slow death here.”

  Tears tracked down DJ’s cheeks. “Please don’t say that. I regret a lot of stuff, but rescuing you isn’t one.”

  DJ’s tears made me pause. I was that person. I’d made him cry. And why? Because I was pissed I was stuck on this ship and was determined to make everyone as miserable as I was? I felt like a prick, but instead of apologizing like a normal human being, I lashed out. I wanted him to fight me. I wanted DJ to feel as angry as I felt. “Give me time and I’ll change your mind.”

  DJ ignored my comment, refusing to take the bait. “If you and Jenny and I work together, we can learn how to fly Qriosity. We can stop the ship from jumping around. We can go home.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “But only if we all work together.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. “Please leave me alone.”

  I could tell DJ was still sitting beside me, but he was quiet for a few moments. I wondered what was going through his mind. Finally, he said, “You’re not the only one missing folks, Noa. Jenny’s got family she cares about. And I… I had someone too. Someone I cared about. I wish he was here instead of you, but he’s not.”

  Of all the things DJ had said, that one hurt. But it’s not like I didn’t deserve it. If our positions had been reversed, I wouldn’t have wanted me around either.

  The couch groaned as DJ stood. “When you were drifting in space, thinking you were gonna die, you made me promise not to leave you alone, and I didn’t.” DJ’s voice was soft. His anger gone. “And now I’m asking the same of you. Please don’t leave me alone, Noa. This ship needs you. I need you.”

  The door opened and then closed again. The projector powered back on, and the episode I’d been watching resumed right where it had cut off.

  TWO

  IT TOOK AN HOUR STANDING in the shower, letting the near-scalding water run over my head, to wash away the stink of despair that followed me around like a toxic cloud.

  Nothing had changed. We had still been abducted and dumped on a spaceship we didn’t know how to operate, we were still lost, and I was still salty about it. DJ would probably believe it was his little talk that convinced me to clean up, but it was actually a scene from Murder Your Darlings. Anastasia had been upset because the exchange student she’d had a crush on had been murdered, and she didn’t want to go to the Valentine’s Day dance alone. The advice Mrs. Darling had given Anastasia reminded me of something my mom had said to me after Grant Choi broke up with me in seventh grade.

  “What do life and a large sausage and mushroom pizza have in common?” she’d asked.

  “They’re both a little oily?”

  “You can’t finish either if you quit when things get rough.”

  “Is this your way of telling me you ordered pizza for dinner?”

  My mom grinned in the way she did when I was being a smart-ass. “Yes, but also that life goes on. Don’t let it go on without you, Noa.”

  My mom might have been thousands of light-years away, but she was s
till with me. She would always be with me, and I took comfort in that.

  I scrubbed and washed and rinsed. I brushed and flossed a week’s worth of Nutreesh gunk from between my teeth, shaved my patchy stubble, and tamed my wavy hair. Feeling somewhat more human, I raided the crew storage containers—which, thankfully, someone had unlocked—for clean underwear, a pair of jeans that mostly fit, and a hoodie. I planned to incinerate Nico’s onesie at the first opportunity.

  DJ was sitting at the table when I strolled into the galley. He couldn’t hide his surprise, but he kept his mouth shut. Jenny stood behind the counter, trying to cook. Her hair was piled on her head in a messy bun, and her face and clothes were smudged with flour.

  “Out,” I said.

  “I was making—”

  “A mess.” I pointed to the table and didn’t budge until she removed her apron, handed it to me, and left. I wasn’t sure what Jenny had been making, but I had everything I needed to whip up some pancakes.

  DJ and Jenny whispered amongst themselves while I cooked. I didn’t know what they were discussing, though I imagined it was me. I was jealous of the bond that they’d seemingly formed while I was hiding in the rec room. I’d wasted a week getting to know Anastasia Darling when I could have been getting to know the people I was probably going to spend the rest of my life with. It was enough to make me consider running back to my quarters and never leaving again. But I didn’t. I stayed and finished cooking.

  When I was done, I carried a plate stacked with soft, fluffy pancakes to the table and set it down in the center.

  “Dig in.” I caught DJ’s eye and added, “I’ll bake your cake later.”

  “You don’t have—”

  “You’re not the only one who keeps his promises, DJ.”

  Jenny hardly waited a second before grabbing a couple of pancakes. Then, to my horror, she unwrapped a Nutreesh bar and crumbled it on top before covering the whole mess with syrup. I might’ve puked in my mouth a little.

  “These are delicious, Noa,” DJ said.

  I shrugged. “They’re adequate. I’ll be able to do more when I’ve had a look inside that Freshie thing.”