Test Space

UNIVERSE D

There was no lighting in the control room. Fifty people sat at terminals in near total darkness, lit by the glow of a giant screen and their own monitors. The man in charge, young and dressed in aggressive business casual, continued to stare at the failure message on the screen. He did not turn when he issued orders.

“Resourcing, do we have anything similar? Another triplet we can plug in? I’d like to run another test before my next meeting.”

A woman responded, and there was some activity as the next triplet was loaded. Whatever that was. Danny still didn’t understand what was happening. The man, who people called Drew V, strode out of the room and nearly tripped over a table leg on his way out. The darkness of the room seemed to be an aesthetic choice, rather than a practical one.

Danny was curious about the lighting. Was it a power draw issue? Some kind of magnetic interference? He didn’t ask, though. It didn’t feel like the sort of place where you could ask questions. Especially not of his trainer, who was angrily setting up a computer for his new charge.

Danny watched the giant screen that occupied the entire far wall. It held a cluster of spheres, and a smaller cylinder to the side. The large shape had been full of item names for less than ten minutes before that stopped. Like the last triplet, the screen showed a central image of three bubbles, which had been bridged just a moment earlier. Above, another bubble, shown as a sphere of enormous size and greater detail, cut a harsh, jagged red line down to the trio. It made him uneasy, the character of the line. Though he remained unsure what exactly was happening here, he felt he knew enough to be uncomfortable.

Danny had applied to Occator on the advice of his parents and a professor, and included all his recommendation letters and transcripts, but he had expected to get an offer to be a janitor or something. Yes, he was a computer science major and a good student, but the rumors at school were that the good internships all went to the kids of executives. Now he was in this control room, staring at this screen, feeling like he had seen behind the curtain of the reality he lived in. But he didn’t understand what he was looking at. He didn’t have the context.

“Okay, we’re going to learn how to measure connections,” his trainer, a portly guy named Kevin grumbled. “Here’s the queue. They’re organized by most recent ping. You gotta scroll past the first two pages, senior staff are monitoring those. We’re looking at the little guys down here.”

Danny looked at the screen, blue text over a black screen. That had been another thing that he didn’t understand. In this sleek, futuristic room with its giant, curved screen, the terminals were all running software that looked fifty years old. Perhaps it was like a paperclip. The best design had already been done, so why modify it?

He returned his attention to the task at hand. The first column of data was some kind of ID sequence, letters and numbers with no spaces, with other columns labeled with acronyms or abbreviations Danny didn’t understand.

“How do you know which one to select?”

“I dunno, experience. Intuition.” Kevin had reached a page with large numbers in the “ping” column. Most of the ones he was looking at had smaller numbers in the TISE field.

“What’s TISE stand for?”

Kevin turned to glare at him. “I don’t know. Anyway, you see here, this one? I click on it, and it brings me to the target’s file. And you can see it has an okay affinity score with these two feeders here. That means we have a probable triplet. I’m going to click on them to see if they establish a connection.”

With two quick clicks, the two ID numbers, identified by Kevin as feeders, were highlighted in the list. Three dots blinking in succession displayed for a moment, before they disappeared and the two ID numbers were automatically deselected.

“Ah, see. Didn’t take. Alright, your turn.” With dramatic keystrokes to return to the main queue. With an equally dramatic shove away from the console, Kevin loudly rolled his chair backwards to lurk over Danny’s shoulder. Some other people working at their stations glanced in his direction, but returned to their work.

“I just... click on one of these? And I won’t break anything?”

“You’re in a test space,” Kevin said with a huff. “You won’t mess anything up.”

Danny looked up and down, not sure where to start. One target universe seemed promising. Intuition, Kevin had said. What was his intuition telling him now?

The selected ID opened and in the list at the bottom was one feeder with a high number, and a third with a much lower number. Maybe they balanced out? Danny wasn’t sure how that worked. He selected them and an alert popped up.

WARNING: Binary connection. Proceed?

“Uh, what should I do?”

Kevin rolled forward and frowned, but then shrugged. “Sure, let’s show you what happens.”

Without regard to personal space, Kevin reached across and stabbed a finger at the ENTER key. Immediately, the giant screen at the front of the control room switched to a pair of bubbles, a bright red line drawn down to their bond. Everyone else in the control room looked up. Some gasped.

“Oh shit,” Kevin whispered.

UNIVERSE A

Grace stared at her hand sticking to the bar top. She pressed it flat to the wood, then she lifted her hand a bit, watching the skin strain a bit, still connected to the surface. Attached, secure, maybe not the cleanest or nicest, but comfortable. And then, with a pull she watched her skin peel away from the wood. She bet it hurt on cellular level. Nerve endings too unimportant to register were busily lighting neurons she couldn’t perceive. None of it mattered, because she didn’t feel it.

It had taken three beers before the beer had tasted good. She could afford good stuff, but cheap beer was what she deserved. Chloe leaned over the bar top next to her, and motioned for a drink. Had Chloe been speaking, Grace wondered with alarm. She didn’t look annoyed, so maybe not. Chloe was the mission specialist on the Mars crew, a geologist and the doctor. And too smart to drink.

So am I, usually, Grace thought. Not tonight, though. Chloe would probably slowly sip the one she ordered so Grace didn’t feel alone. That was nice.

Charlie was across the bar, beating some guys at darts, flicking her blond hair before each set. The men were swallowing and sweating and smiling as they tried to stay in her orbit. Behind Grace were more friends, too. Edward and Perry were fixing the jukebox, because she had asked for music. How many electrical engineers would it take to fix a jukebox, she softly laughed to herself. She had friends all around her now. All geniuses, all fit, all happy, all better than her.

“So true.” Grace replied.

Had she spoken aloud? Oh well.

Jadyn walked in and everyone greeted him. He and his wife had a new baby at home, which meant hang out time was usually late and usually brief. He gave Grace a deliberate half hug and asked, “How you holding up, kid?”

The gentleness in his voice irritated her, but she smothered it as best as she could. “I’m good.”

Jadyn sniffed in Grace’s general direction. “Holy shit, girl. Are you drunk?” He laughed, looking for a partner. “Damn. Chloe, you ever see her drunk?

Chloe swirled her mixed drink. “Nope. We aren’t ready to process things.”

“What’s to process,” Grace belched. “I left him. Fuck him.”

Grace didn’t like the sound of her own voice. She swallowed some more of the beer to change it.

“Yeah, fuck that guy,” Jadyn agreed.

“I’m glad we don’t have to listen to his shitty conservative talking points, like it makes him edgy,” Chloe said.

Grace felt a flare of protective anger, which shifted to disgust at herself. The solution was another gulp of beer.

“What’s going to happen with your place?” Jadyn asked.

“His place now. She’s letting him have it,” Chloe said.

“What? No. That place is great!”

Charlie called from the across the bar, “She’d have to fumigate it, sage it, and bless it. Forget it.”

“ ‘sides, I’m going to space. What use is a condo with parking and high ceilings and good natural light. Which I never used, by the way.” Grace noted her words were slurring.

“The natural light?” Jadyn asked, confused.

Grace glared at her beer. “The parking.”

“Hold up. The ‘vette? You’ve been street parking the ‘vette this whole time?” Jadyn’s voice had reached a high pitch, and Chloe put a steadying hand on his arm.

“Don’t matter parking, er,” Grace said, swallowing, then trying the response again. “It doesn’t matter. I don't need parking in space.”

Chloe and Jadyn were silent.

“HMmm?” Grace mumbled.

“We didn’t want to tell you, with all this shit.” Chloe said.

Grace rolled her head towards Chloe, and the world swam in response. She narrowed her eyes to focus on her friend. “HmmmMMM?”

Jadyn cleared his throat. “They’re delaying the launch.”

Grace laughed, took another unwanted sip of her beer and then slammed her glass down too hard, frightening the bartender. She gestured an apology.

Charlie joined them, her defeated admirers left behind. “You told her?”

“Mmmm.” Grace replied. She should really stop drinking, she thought as she waved at the bartender, then wiggled her glass in the air, and then tapped the side at the full mark.

“We didn’t want to upset you,” Charlie explained.

“Not upset,” Grace shrugged, accepting her fresh beer. She pointed up. “Going up. Can’t stop me.”

Grace saw her friends look at one another in the mirror behind the rows of bottles. She stared at her own reflection. She looked blotchy and her hair was a mess. Who had told her long bangs would be easy to maintain? It was like having a houseplant. They needed constant attention. She tried to smooth them down, her palm heavy and damp from beer glass condensation.

“What are you going to do while we wait? Instrumentation training? Testing with the geeks? Revising the manuals?”

Grace shook her head. “Nope. Going up. I fly, it’s what I do. I’m a pilot, ‘member? Unlike some of you,” she motioned with a twisty flick of her wrist before counting out on her fingers. “I’m an engineer and a pilot and a biologist. Lots of things. And drunk.”

“They don’t really need pilots,” Chloe said.

Grace lifted her eyebrows dramatically as she poured the remnants of her old beer into her slightly depleted new beer. She slid the empty towards the bartender and nearly tipped over in her stool, but managed to correct it. “Management thinks they don’t need pilots. Always need pilots. Manual overrides. Descent vehicles. Steady under pressure.”

Her friends had the decency to not question her last point.

Perry and Edward asked for help tilting the jukebox on its side, and her friends left her alone. The first time she had been alone since she had texted Charlie. Originally, Grace wasn’t going to tell anyone about the breakup. But it occurred to her around hour two of her drive to the space center that her friends might be offended if she hadn’t told anyone. So she told the one most likely to tell everyone else.

She wished she could go for a drive now. Charlie had made her leave the Corvette, a 1965 fully restored beauty, at her place. She didn’t know why she had been so concerned. It’s not like she was going to get drunk. At least, it hadn’t been the plan. She didn’t drink. Usually.

Grace laid her head down on her arm, like she was a child in a particular boring class in school. It felt good, to lay like this. She burrowed her eyes into the warm, quiet darkness her body created. She wished there was music. Music would help, but the jukebox was still broken. She sang to herself,

Mary continued to praise

Johnny’s remarkable ways

To the ladies

And you know advertising pays.

She laughed to herself. Laughter was the best. It filled in the moments meant for crying.

The air shifted as someone approached. The stool beside her squeaked as whoever it was sat next to her at the bar.

He asked for a cider. Grace stayed where she was, hoping he hadn’t noticed her. Wild horses couldn’t pull her from the first bit of comfort she’d had in hours. Not that she had been uncomfortable. She was fine. She was free now. It was good to be free.

“How’s that?” the man asked, evidently at her. He had an attractive voice. Grace groaned internally. This was the last thing she needed.

“It’s good.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah. It’s not perfect,” she admitted, “but it’s home. My dark, sticky home.”

He laughed softly, then seemed to drink from his glass. He had a nice laugh. Grace frowned into her arm.

“You seem like someone who has higher standards than an unclean bar top.”

“Little do you know,” Grace mumbled.

She felt the light breeze of movement beside her, and heard the man’s glass set down on the wood beside her. The air had a tension, like he was thinking of what to say next. Whatever it was, she wasn’t interested.

Tomorrow, she was going to go to work. Work always helped convince people she was fine. Then she’d go to Jadyn’s and detail the Corvette at his place, then let him drive it around. He loved the Corvette. It’d feel good to make someone happy.

“Well,” the man said. She had forgotten he was there. “I think you deserve better, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

“Eh,” Grace replied noncommittally.

“I won’t disturb you anymore. I don’t know what got you here, but you’ll pull up. You’ll find the right signal.”

In the haze of her intoxication, Grace’s attention meandered over the words. It had been said in a clumsy way, like someone speaking in code who never spoke in code. After a moment of consideration, she lifted her head and blinked in the comparative brightness of the dim bar light. She turned to where the man had been and found no one. All that remained was a crumpled set of bills and his abandoned half full glass, sweating on the bar top. The bar’s main door swung shut, a figure just visible as it departed into the dark blue glow of the night.

Her friends returned, talking to one another.

“Did you see...?” Grace began, but they didn’t hear her.

Charlie was sighing. “Congress is going to debate the spending package next week. Maybe they can send us to DC so we can get a pause before they start doing cuts.” Chloe agreed.

The current of their conversation was too fast for Grace to grasp. She wanted to look out at the parking lot. And she had to pee. She glared at the bathroom around the far edge of the bar. If she got up to pee, she might as well check for the man and then go back to her place.

“They’re not going to give us more money. Not since the Mars sample fiasco.”

As they spoke, Grace looked at the glass of cider in the golden glow of the bar’s light. The Mars samples had been left on the surface over a decade ago, with no way to retrieve them. Three years ago, NASA’s collection robot had failed. And the next mission with a new robot exploded in the upper atmosphere. There was noise that a private contractor named Wright was going to retrieve samples. NASA, which had refused to engage with private spaceflight for decades, was humiliated.

“Got a call from Wright,” Grace said.

“I used to get recruiter calls, too,” Jadyn replied.

“Not recruiter. Some executive assistant. Wanted to meet in person at some fucking place, weird name, too fancy for tablecloths, can’t remember. Website advertised the chef’s name. I told them to kick rocks, I’m not a robot babysitter. Fuck that.”

Jadyn shook his head. “They want to do more crewed launches. But their rockets explode all the time. I’m not ’bout to get myself blown up on a livestream.”

“Pays well, though,” Chloe said.

Grace belched. “I’m going to SPACE. Not low earth orbit, taxi cabbing rich fucks in a tin can. Real space,” Grace said with finality. She slid with a bit of falling from her barstool, then set down some cash and grabbed her stuff. She was going to look for the guy in the parking lot.

“We’re leaving?” Chloe asked, then grabbed her own stuff. “Ok guys, I guess we’re leaving.”

Charlie rubbed Grace’s back. “We’ll hit the club tomorrow after work, ok? Dance this shit off. And you will raid the slutty side of my closet, not my boymode side, understood? Will you be there, Jadyn?”

Jadyn frowned and tried to think of what to say.

Grace shook her head then patted his shoulder. “No, no no. You have a baby. Sweet beautiful baby,” Grace swayed. Her eyes started to water for some reason. “You know, Greg hates babies. Hates them. Says mean shit when they go by.”

“I get not wanting a baby, but who the fuck hates babies?” Charlie said.

“People who want to be the babies hate babies,” Jadyn replied.

Grace laughed but her eyes were still stinging with tears. The friends watched her, waiting and kind. But no. She said thank you to the bartender, waived to the pair who had spent her entire time at the bar trying and failing to fix the jukebox. They waived back, still interested in their problem. Chloe guided her out the door into the cold fresh hair. They were alone. There was no sign of mystery bar guy.

That was ok. It felt good to breath in the temperature change. They were near the water, the marshy tang in the air could be stale but there was a breeze tonight. It was good. It was fresh. The large flat parking lot was only lightly populated. It had been a popular bar with NASA workers, but now nearly everything was automated.

Fewer workers, fewer afterwork beers, emptier parking lot, Grace thought. The whole industry was dying all around her, had been dying since she was a child and it had destroyed her family, and now here she was, the bleeding heart in the center.

The thought made her laugh. And then she threw up.