Chapter Text
I awoke to darkness, which was not totally abnormal on account of not having opened my eyes. When I tried to open them however, it became a task of Herculean proportions. My first real thought was questioning whether or not I had pink eye or just a really fun night out. Since the rest of my body did not seem to be replying to my mental commands of movement, I figured the latter.
Or was it the former? Which was which? Is the former the first thing I said or the formerly said thing, therefore implying the last thing I said.
Doesn’t matter.
“Eye movement detected,” a profoundly robotic British robot voice said. “What is the cube root of 64?”
Is that my alarm clock? Am I one of those people who has such trouble waking up in the morning that they need to solve math problems to wake up?
It suddenly occurred to me that I didn’t actually know. My mind felt as if someone had driven a steam roller over the rough road of my mind, leaving nothing but a blank slate. God, now I was mixing my metaphors. No, simile. I, within my nonsensical ramblings, used “as.”
Oh hell. I’m a nerd of the worst proportions. I knew that because some part of my brain had already solved the math problem in addition to being some kind of grammar dork.
I tried, unsuccessfully, again to open my eyes.
“What is the cube root of 64?” the robot voice asked again.
Finally, I managed to peel my eyelids apart and I was… in a bag. Not in a bedroom. Not even on a couch, I was trapped in a bag.
Will the horrors never cease?
“What is the cube root of 64?”
I opened my mouth to answer. In cartoons there seems to be a moment when the protagonist finds an old skeleton, and that skeleton’s mouth falls open. At that moment, the skeleton’s jaw creaks like a door opening. Logically, one might think that such things could not happen, that is until they happen to you.
“Fffff–”
“Incorrect.”
Rude, I wasn’t even done trying yet.
“What is the cube root of 64?”
I forcefully wrestled my extremities under my command, as they should be, and unzipped the bag that was covering my face. I spared a brief look around the incredibly bright room and saw some sort of devious looking robot hovering around me before I shut my eyes again. “Ffffffooo—”
“Incorrect. What is the cube root of 64?”
I’ll unplug you, you robot piece of shit. Once I figure out how to talk again, we’re gonna exchange words.
“FFFFFOOOuuuur,” I said, feeling exceedingly proud of myself. My mouth still felt unused and my tongue maintained the tackiness of sleep, but I had managed to—
“Incorrect. What is the cube root—”
I yelled a rather undignified yell and used my noodle arm to bat futilely at the robot which had begun to pull the tubes out of my body. Oh yeah, there were tubes connected to my very unclothed body.
“What is the cube—”
“Four,” I finally managed as clearly as I could.
“Correct. What is–”
“Nope,” I said, rolling over and dropping very hard onto the cold ground. I was not going to be hassled by robots all day, thank you very much.
I managed to roll out of the reach of the robot. The other robot, I assumed that it was a different robot because its voice came from a speaker on the wall of the room, kept badgering me with questions. I covered my ears and huddled against the wall.
“Mary, stop,” said the voice of my savior. For a very brief moment, I had thought it was the voice of God, Jesus, Thor, or even Zeus because it came from high above. I then realized that there was a ladder in the corner of the room which led to a hatch on the ceiling, where a man’s head was craned down to look into the room. So, no, not the voice of God or Jesus, unless Jesus was a very white man who wore glasses and was blond.
Granted, he looked like the image of Jesus that my grandparents would hang on their wall.
Odd thing to remember but okay. I’m not gonna be mad that something came back.
“Oh, shoot. Oh, jeez,” he said, pulling his head out of the opening of the hatch. “You’re still uh… right. I put some clothes down there for you.” His hand reached down and pointed in a general direction.
I looked over and, sure enough, there was a neatly folded pile of clothes on the floor. While I would love to put clothes on, I wasn’t entirely certain that I could trust myself enough to actually be able to… put them on.
As if reading my mind, the man shouted down to me again. “There’s also a blanket down there, if you’re not feeling— anyway, just give me a yell and I’ll come down and… maybe we can make sense of some of this together.”
“Ominous,” I said, loud enough for that guy to hear.
He laughed in a way that made me feel like he hadn’t done that in a while. His laugh, though loud, bore the undercurrent of strain. I looked back over to the hatch and the guy draped his legs into the hatch. Each swung back and forth like a child.
Normally, when you or anyone wakes up in a bag on a table with robots yelling at them and no memory of how they got there, you’d err on the side of caution. Maybe I’d been kidnapped by that guy. It seemed like a pretty logical assumption to make, but for some reason, he seemed just as befuddled and lost as I felt.
I crawled over towards the blanket, managing to knock out most of the tubes that were still sticking in my body. The tubes that didn’t tumble off my body were ones that were in the delicate places that a person hopes never to see tubes. Why, for the love of god, didn’t the robot start with those ones?
Looking away, I less than gingerly pulled out the remaining tubes while mostly managing to withhold a scream.
“Fucking Christ!” I hollered, which is entirely different from screaming, thank you very much. “Why would you do that?” I said more quietly and entirely to myself.
The man upstairs, not to be mistaken with God, yelled down again. “You alright?”
I grabbed the blanket from the floor and huddled under it. “I’m fine. Just dumb, apparently. You can come down now.”
By the time I looked back up, Mr. Guy was halfway down the ladder, clattering along each step noisily. He jumped down the last few rungs and dusted himself off, as if the incredibly sterile environment of the room lent itself to dirtying him.
He stood up to full height and looked over at me. God, he looked so familiar, but I just couldn’t quite place how I knew him. It was like there was a memory just out of reach, but each time I grabbed it, it slipped away.
I narrowed my eyes until his features became more distinct. Mr. Guy was relatively tall but didn’t carry himself as if he were. He wore a bright yellow jumpsuit, much like the one that sat on the floor nearby. He looked pleasant enough but something about him screamed chaos in red fluorescent, blinking font. Maybe it was the way he shuffled on his feet, like standing still too long would burn through the soles of his shoes.
I nodded at him. “Good day,” I said. Formality seemed best until I knew what the hell was going on. No need to act more unhinged than I already had until we knew each other better.
“Hey, Captain Ellis,” the slightly familiar man said. He waved, remaining at a cautious distance as if I were a wild animal.
Oh, right. I guess that was my name, that seemed like something I probably should have known (I know, the understatement of the century). I looked over at the clothes on the floor. It was a jumpsuit with the name Capt. Mac Ellis embroidered on the tag.
Mac? Did I seem like a Mac? I wasn’t a man, which was probably why there wasn’t a k at the end of the name, but Mac?
“Mac?” I said with a laugh. “Like Mac and Me?”
I looked back over at the man, who politely smiled at me, humoring my bad joke. At his pitying look, I broke down and wept.
2021
“So, tell me, Captain Ellis, how did you feel when you found out that you were no longer the youngest person to have gone to space?”
The podcast bro, whose name I hadn’t bothered to learn, leaned forward and looked at me over his microphone.
I could have laughed. It was funny how often I got the question ever since Bezos had flown an eighteen-year-old into space. I was the youngest person to pilot a fun little trip to space, but yeah, my record was broken by the son of a very rich man a few months after I, a twenty- four-year-old, had done it. To say I was bitter was a bit of an understatement.
I had been coached for the very eventuality of this interview. I was told to handle the topic with grace and poise.
Fuck that.
“How did it feel to have the entirety of my academic qualifications and years of training completely undermined by a tourist’s flight to space? Yeah, well, I’d say that it was pretty bullshit. That’s just if I’m being honest and that’s what you want me to be, right? You know, what’s even the point of spending years of my life studying and training if some of the least qualified people are allowed to go without any thought to the repercussions.”
Behind the camera, because of course it was being filmed, a man spoke to Podcast Bro. “Should we cut?”
Podcast Bro shook his head as he looked at me with glee. I had just as well signed my death warrant and we both knew it. “Go on, Ms.–”
“It’s Captain Ellis, thank you. Hell, I may never fly again, but you can still call me by my title while I have it. What was I saying?”
“Something about the repercussions,” Podcast Bro supplied.
“Right, thank you. As I was saying, those little flights in their phallic rocket ships release more emissions than any person will release in a lifetime. So, by that logic, I guess we can all live in our cars with them running all the time. No need for biking anymore. Don’t recycle. Why don’t we just burn plastic while we’re at it? What does it matter anyway?”
“Huh, I see. And what is the difference between going to the International Space Station and these, as you put it, ‘tourist’s flight to space’?”
“Umm, you mean aside from actually going to learn about what lies beyond Earth. Is science not a good enough reason?” I said, getting more revved up as I spoke. The adrenaline flowed through me and I was half about to jump down someone’s throat if they tried me.
Podcast Bro backed off, putting up his hands in surrender. “What made you so… willing to speak up on this? Most people would just let this go under the radar. Maybe accept it gracefully.”
I laughed humorlessly. “I’m tired of bureaucracy. I’m tired of kissing up to the billionaire assholes like modern Bourgeois, Jeff–.”
Podcast Bro signaled for the man behind the cameras to turn them off. “I think we’re good,” he said.
I leaned back in my seat, the adrenaline suddenly dissipating leaving me with the feeling of mounting dread. “How much of that are you gonna actually use?”
He laughed, “Definitely the first bit. Not sure about all that enviro-bullshit. Some of it’s good.”
“Whatever,” I said, waving him off. I turned to go, but Podcast Bro called after me,
“Hey, Mackenzie, good luck. You’re fucking gonna need it.”
“I’ll be alright.”
The memory washed over me. To utilize my earlier simile, the memory served as the first pothole in the road of my mind.
I need a better metaphor.
“Are you okay?” the guy asked.
“Hmmm?” I hummed. The tears that streaked down my face had slowly abated, I had forgotten that I was crying. “Sorry. Just thinking about…” I gestured vaguely. “Life.”
“A memory?” the man whose name I still didn’t know said.
Ooohh, look at the nametag, idiot. Dr. R. Grace. What did the R stand for? Rasputin. Stupid bad joke.
“Yeah, a memory,” I replied. “Does that happen with the rest of the crew?”
“The crew? What do you–”
“We’re in space, right?”