A Complicated Love Story Set in Space

by Shaun David Hutchinson

  “So while you boys were making out, I was killing an alien monster that was trying to eat my face.” Jenny sat on a bench in the corner. She’d wound a bandage around her leg to stop the bleeding until she could get time in a MediQwik cuff, and she was covered in an algae-colored mucus. The odor wafting off her was like rotting meat mixed with spoiled milk. It was, quite possibly, the most vile smell that had ever assaulted my nose.

  “How did you manage to kill the alien?” I asked. I kept stealing glances at DJ, and I wanted to hold his hand, but the tubes and wires connected to the cuffs wouldn’t reach.

  “That was the easy part,” Jenny said. “I was hiding in the shuttle, and the monster was trying to get inside, so I opened the bay door and launched the shuttle.” She wrinkled her nose. “It’s not exactly like the planes my mom was teaching me to fly, but it was close enough. I only dinged the outside a little. I’m sure the damage is fixable.”

  “So you blew the alien out the airlock?” DJ asked.

  Jenny shook her head. “It clung to the shuttle and tried to use its nasty acid to burn through the hatch. So I flew a safe distance away and performed some extremely unsafe maneuvers. Eventually, it let go.” She was grinning, looking so proud of herself. And she had every right to be. I wouldn’t have had the nerve to do what she’d done. If Jenny had been trapped in Reactor Control with DJ, and I’d been the one running from the monster, I would have wound up alien food.

  “You’re amazing, Jenny,” I said.

  “It was nothing.” Jenny was actually blushing. I couldn’t remember ever seeing her embarrassed before. But I’d been serious in my praise. She had saved her life and ours.

  DJ motioned at Jenny’s clothes. “What is that all over you?”

  Jenny’s smile vanished. “The less said about it, the better. But the picture book was right. Everyone poops. Aliens too.”

  THE SCHOOL AT THE EDGE OF FOREVER

  NOW

  DJ LOOKED LIKE A FAIRY-TALE prince. His black tux was tailored perfectly, hugging his shoulders and his hips; his blond hair was brushed up and back into a stylish wave; his dimples were on display and causing trouble; and his blue eyes shone like binary stars, so bright they were visible from the other side of the galaxy. He stood outside the Beta Cephei High School gymnasium waiting for me. My prince. Which, I suppose, made me a princess.

  “What?” DJ asked. “Do I have something on me?” He checked his pristine white shirt for stains. “I haven’t been eating anything, and—”

  “You are so handsome.”

  DJ lowered his eyes and blushed a deep scarlet. “No… I mean, I guess I am. But not like you. You’re… look at you,” DJ stammered as he tried to string words together. It was adorable.

  I spun a graceful pirouette to give DJ the opportunity to absorb every exquisite detail of my blue suit. The jacket was cut higher than a regular tux, and the slacks were so tight that I could barely breathe, but I was definitely feeling cute.

  DJ caught my hand and pulled me to him. Wrapped his arms around me and kissed me like tomorrow was a dream and we were its dreamers.

  A cold metal appendage, belonging to a Teacher, wedged itself between our chests and forced us apart. In an effete mechanical voice, it said, “Please keep your genitals in your trousers,” before moving away to ruin the fun of other students who were trying to share a moment.

  When Teacher was far enough away that it probably couldn’t hear me, I collapsed against DJ’s chest, laughing. “Is this really happening?”

  “I think so?” DJ squeezed my hand. “Come on. Let’s go in. Jenny and Ty are waiting.” He led me to the gymnasium’s entrance and handed the Teacher guarding the doors our tickets.

  Teacher scanned the barcodes printed on the passes with its single, bulbous red eye. “Noa North?”

  “That’s me.” I clung to DJ’s arm, hardly able to believe that this was real.

  Teacher turned its cyclopean gaze to DJ. “Then you must be DJ Storm.”

  “I am.”

  Teacher stood aside and motioned for us to enter. As DJ pulled me into the gym, I said, “Wait. So we’re seriously not going to talk about the fact that your full name is DJ Storm?”

  THIRTEEN HOURS EARLIER

  JENNY’S MOUTH HUNG OPEN SO wide I could have counted her fillings, and her eyes bulged like a tree frog’s. Behind her, stars filled the viewport, same as always. The universe was beautiful and deadly and dreadfully empty. I didn’t know how many times the fold drive had engaged since our misadventure had begun—I was sure DJ could have told me if I’d cared enough to ask—but the view never changed.

  “Well?” Jenny said. “Are you going to tell me how it went or am I going to have to yank out your fingernails?” She dug a Nutreesh bar from her pocket to snack on, spilling more crumbs on her station.

  “It was nice.”

  “Nice?”

  “Do you want the play-by-play or something?”

  Jenny threw up her hands. “Yes! Why else would I be talking to you?”

  I leaned back and propped my feet on my console. DJ hated when I did that, but he was asleep and would never know. Jenny and I had stayed awake to talk. Also, the fold drive was scheduled to engage soon, and we figured we might as well stick around to monitor it. Not that it was necessary.

  It had been a few weeks since our alien invasion adventure, and life aboard Qriosity had returned to some semblance of normality. Jenny was still following clues, DJ had thrown himself into repairing the damage to the shuttle caused either by the alien trying to get inside or Jenny’s attempt to fly it, and I was baking my way through Mokatines and Murder: Eighty-Three Recipes Inspired by Murder Your Darlings. DJ and I had spent as much time together as we could while also doing our best not to desert Jenny. We’d tried to keep our dates a secret, but she somehow always knew and hounded me for details.

  “It was good,” I said. “Really good. Dinner was fancy. I had the best lobster bisque I’ve ever tasted in my life, DJ ordered an appetizer without knowing what it was and ended up eating fish eyeballs, the primo uomo two tables over was murdered during the entrée, and DJ and I shared tiramisu for dessert.”

  Watching Jenny clench her jaw so hard that she looked like she might crack her teeth was quite possibly as delicious as the tiramisu had been.

  “I don’t care about any of that,” she said. “Get to the good stuff.”

  I furrowed my brow in confusion. “I told you about dessert.”

  “The other good stuff.”

  “You don’t really expect me to kiss and tell, do you?”

  Jenny snorted. “I absolutely do.”

  “We walked around Bell’s Cove,” I said. “We sat on the pier and talked until the sun came up. I got cold and DJ gave me his jacket.” I painted the date in broad strokes for Jenny because the particulars belonged to me and DJ alone. The feel of his cheek under my thumb; the way he smiled after every bite like each forkful was a special gift just for him; the unholy screeching sound he called singing; and the way he refused to believe he couldn’t carry a tune. Every second I spent with DJ, my appreciation of him deepened. He was exactly who he appeared to be—courageous and thoughtful and kind—but he was also more. There were depths I would need a lifetime to explore.

  “How am I supposed to live vicariously through you when you’re courting like a couple of Puritans?” Jenny took out her anger on the last of her Nutreesh, chomping forcefully.

  “We’re taking things slowly—”

  “Glacially.”

  I was trying to keep in mind that DJ and I were lucky to have each other, but my patience with Jenny was wearing thin. “Sorry,” I said. “I’m not jumping into bed with DJ to keep you entertained. Our relationship isn’t for you.”

  Jenny hung her head, looking dejected. “I need something, Noa.”

  “What about Bell’s Cove? I’m sure you can steal Marco away from Anastasia for a little fun. I know it’s not real, but…” I let Jenny’s imagination fill in the blanks.
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  “Been there, tried to do that,” she said.

  “Marco’s choosy. You might have to—”

  Jenny cut me off. “Not what I mean. Snatching Anastasia’s boy from her was cake. He was making out with me thirty seconds after breaking up with her.”

  I had never seen this side of Jenny, and I was intrigued. “Then what’s the problem?”

  “Kissing is as far as it went,” she said. “That’s as far as it can ever go.” I must have looked confused, which I was, because she added, “Have you ever tried to get anyone from Bell’s Cove naked?”

  I laughed at first, thinking she was joking, but the angry glint in her eye told me she was not. “Wait. I have so many questions.”

  “There we were, me and Marco, in his room. His parents were gone, and I was ready to get some. But when I took off his pants, do you know what I found?”

  I shook my head.

  “Another pair of pants. Khakis, actually.”

  “Seriously?”

  Jenny looked like she was going to flip a table, thinking about it. “And when I took those off, more pants. Pants, shorts, pajama bottoms, capri pants. It was pants all the way down, Noa.”

  “Maybe it’s just a glitch with Marco’s program.”

  Jenny flared her nostrils. “Obviously, I hooked up with Anastasia, too. She’s a better kisser than Marco, but it was the same situation. Dresses under pantsuits under cute skirts and blouses. There’s just no way to get to the center of that Tootsie Pop.”

  I really did have questions, but I was afraid of the answers. Thankfully, Jenny kept talking. “I dug into the Mind’s Eye software and found the templates for the character models. They’re all rated ‘I’ for ‘I’m never getting past second base again.’ ”

  “Sex isn’t everything,” I said. “You could enjoy cuddling with Marco or Anastasia.”

  Jenny wound her hair around her finger. “I love a good cuddle, don’t get me wrong, but I also love sex. I get and appreciate that it isn’t always necessary for a healthy, fulfilling relationship, but it is for me.”

  This was quite possibly the strangest conversation Jenny and I had ever had, and the last thing we’d discussed had been aliens. “Maybe you can ask DJ to make changes to the models so that you can…” I couldn’t finish the sentence because there were so many things wrong with the suggestion. It wasn’t the idea of Jenny having sex with a simulation, though I tried to keep the mental image of Jenny having sex with anyone far from my mind. It was everything else. They might have been virtual characters, but they were virtual underage characters who were based on real people. How virtual were the characters? Could they consent? Did they have any type of free will? The characters populating Bell’s Cove were digital assets in a computer program, but that didn’t mean we could or should treat them like objects. It was possible that the actors had made the deliberate choice to prevent Mind’s Eye users from having sex with their characters, and I didn’t think I could allow DJ or Jenny to alter those parameters. Fortunately, Jenny didn’t seem keen on reprogramming the characters either.

  “Or,” Jenny said, “you and DJ could hurry up and get it on and then describe the entire encounter to me without omitting a single detail.”

  “That’s never going to happen, Jenny.”

  “But why?” she whined. “What if you let me watch you make out? I’ll sit quietly in a corner. You won’t even know I’m there.”

  It was bad enough knowing Qriosity and its ubiquitous cameras were there. And Jenny’s suggestion earned her a down-the-nose glare. Sometimes I didn’t know if I would have been friends with Jenny if we weren’t trapped on a spaceship together. Yet, I couldn’t imagine life aboard Qriosity without her.

  “Were you with anyone back on Earth?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

  Jenny shrugged. “I didn’t really do relationships. It was easier to not get attached, seeing as my parents kept us moving around all the time. Besides, people are messy, and I hate messy.”

  “Sex isn’t messy?”

  A slow grin spread across Jenny’s face. “It can be if that’s your thing.” Her smile faded. “I’m not saying I wish I was home, but I do miss parts of it. Other parts, not so much.” She laughed ruefully. “I certainly never thought this was what I’d be doing with my life.”

  “What did you think you’d be doing?”

  “I figured I’d graduate high school—become an assassin or go to college and apply to the FBI.”

  Of the many career paths Jenny might have taken, FBI was not the one I would have guessed. Assassin felt like a better fit. “You really wanted to be an FBI agent?”

  “I like solving puzzles.”

  “Then maybe you’re exactly where you belong.” I motioned around us. “Qriosity is one giant puzzle.”

  The ship began to vibrate, cutting short our conversation. The countdown clock on our screens hit two minutes, and Jenny and I slipped on our seat belts.

  There was something hauntingly beautiful about watching Qriosity tear a hole in the fabric of space and time. It shouldn’t have been possible, yet we did it every nineteen hours. The process was like getting on a bus in Seattle, sitting down, driving ten feet, and exiting in London or Portugal or the Antarctic. Jenny Perez had attempted to explain the science behind the fold drive to me, but it still looked like magic.

  When the countdown hit zero, a brief flash filled the viewport. It was over. The stars had changed position, but everything else looked the same. Just like always.

  “Um, Noa?” Jenny was staring at her console, her nostrils flared. “There’s something out there.”

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “The computer says there’s something out there.” Even Jenny sounded like she didn’t quite believe it. “It’s small and shaped like a dome, but it’s there.”

  “Can you put it on the viewport?”

  Jenny zoomed in on the object, allowing Qriosity’s sensors to resolve the image before enlarging it again. At first, I didn’t see anything. But as the unknown object grew in the center of the viewport, I realized Jenny was right. Whatever was out there looked sort of like a snow globe. There was green under the dome. And buildings.

  “Does that look like a football field?” Jenny asked.

  “Zoom in more,” I said, pointing at a section. “There’s something written on the side of that building.”

  Jenny continued enlarging the image, zeroing in on the writing. When it was finally large enough to read, I sat silently for a while, unable to process it.

  “I’m hallucinating, right?” Jenny asked.

  “If you are, then I am too.” I scrubbed my face with my hands. “We’d better wake DJ. He’s going to want to see this.”

  Though it defied explanation, written on the building in block letters were the words: BETA CEPHEI HIGH SCHOOL.

  TWELVE HOURS EARLIER

  “WHY IS THERE A HIGH school in the middle of space?” DJ must have jumped out of bed and sprinted to Ops the second Jenny and I had called him on the comms and told him we’d discovered something strange. When he’d arrived, his face was flushed and he was breathing heavily and he was only wearing his boxers. I’m not saying I wished he’d taken the time to get dressed, because I did enjoy looking at him, but it was distracting.

  Jenny shrugged. “Hell if I know. But we’re going to check it out, right?”

  “We have to,” I said. “There might be people down there who can tell us where we are. We could go home.” The idea of home no longer felt as distant as it used to. I still missed my mom and my friends and Mrs. Blum, but home was here, on board Qriosity too.

  DJ frowned out of one side of his mouth. “I don’t know. This could be a trap.”

  “Of course it could be a trap,” Jenny snapped. “But it’s also the first thing we’ve run into since you rebooted the computer and sent us jumping randomly through space.”

  DJ winced. It had been a while since anyone had brought that up. “How would we get there?”
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  “Shuttle,” Jenny said. “Duh. The computer says we can reach the school in a couple of hours.”

  “Are you sure you can fly it? I just finished repairing the damage from the last time you piloted it.”

  “Screw you, DJ,” Jenny said.

  I leaned against DJ and slipped my arm around his waist, stealing a bit of his warmth, and trying to defuse the tension. DJ’s concerns felt valid and real, but I understood Jenny’s frustration as well. She had been stuck on Qriosity with me and DJ for months, and we might continue to be her only companions for a long time. If there were real people in that snow globe, we couldn’t deprive her of the opportunity to talk to them.

  We spent an hour arguing back and forth, moving our conversation to the galley so we could eat. Jenny remained insistent that we go, and DJ continued advising caution. He seemed more wary than usual. I mostly sided with Jenny, but I didn’t want DJ to think we were ganging up on him.

  Eventually, though, after we’d run out of different ways to say the same things, I said, “We’ve got eighteen hours until the fold drive skips us away from here. I think going is worth the risk.”

  “But—” DJ said.

  “We should still be careful,” I continued. “But we either take the shuttle to the surface or we don’t. I vote we go.”

  Jenny raised her hand. “I’m with Noa.”

  DJ sighed and shrugged. “Looks like we’re heading back to school.”

  NINE HOURS EARLIER

  JENNY DIDN’T CRASH THE SHUTTLE. In fact, Jenny was a damned good pilot. We departed Qriosity without incident, flew to the high school in the middle of nowhere, and then Jenny set us down in a copse of what appeared to be fir trees at the edge of the football field.

  “Sorry for what I said earlier about your piloting,” DJ said as we were landing. “You’re really good.”

  “Apology accepted.”

  I was so anxious that I could hardly wait for the shuttle doors to open. The moment they did, I dashed out, fell to my knees on the grass, and laughed. “It’s real!”