Binary Systems [Complete, Slice-of-Life Sci-Fi Romance]

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Marie: The hab layer? That's safe—as safe as you can be, on Mars.

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For the first time in days, Marie had the energy to consider self-upkeep.

It had always been something her mother found important. She harped on it constantly—Respect yourself. If you don't respect yourself, how can you respect everyone around you? If you don't know how to treat you, why would I think you know how to treat me?

She started with her fingernails. Low-hanging fruit. The nail polish was still next to her bed. She really liked this one—had taken the time to do it right. And it didn't feel like there was anything else pressing. People always said you made yourself look good to feel good.

Maybe there was a point to that.

Marie gathered her dirty clothes from around the hab. It took longer than expected. She was more winded than expected. She was tired. So tired.

The hated form of the spindle suit curled in the corner like a dead spider, waiting to clamp down on her joints and long bones and make everything artificially difficult. Moving. Breathing. Between that and the flu, and Gordon—she had not had a good week.

But today, she'd actually slept. It was a nice change. She had energy. A little. And before putting on the spindle, she was going to get some work done.

Laundry.

Gordon had always talked about laundry day, and it had been one of the strange Earth-isms that helped define their relationship. Why wouldn't you do laundry as you went?

Now she knew.

Because sometimes, you felt like an eighty-year-old woman. You were depressed. Your sleep was terrible. You had bad dreams. You woke up and didn't want to bend down and pick something up. Going anywhere with people sounded like hell, because it meant brushing your hair, brushing your teeth, putting on deodorant, washing yourself, smiling. It sounded like a lot of work.

Somewhere in that train of thought, she realized—probably for the first time—that she was depressed.

Which made sense. Complete sense.

She gave herself full permission to feel what she felt, and what she felt was miserable.

She picked up several days' laundry, including Gordon's bathrobe—which he'd left behind. Probably not on purpose. But maybe.

She didn't want to read into it.

It smelled like him.

She decided it got to skip laundry day. She considered putting it in a plastic bag to keep it fresh, but. . . no. That was too much. Way too much.

It could live next to her pillow.

Everything else went into the little wire mesh basket she'd used for the last twenty years. With that on her hip, she was out the door.

Marie stepped into the corridor and pulled her laundry crate behind her, wheels thunking softly over the floor seams. Bonestell's layout was old-school Dewey-style—block two, unit zero, Hall zero, mid-density housing, code 9.32. Each block was meant for extended families or cohort clusters, with a shared courtyard in the middle where the kids played under simulated skylight. Her hab overlooked the north rim of the court—mercifully, the complete opposite side from her parents. A few blocks made a unit, close enough to share air, water, laundry, and recycling. 002 had her parents, and her, now—but 002A, where Vincent and Adya lived, still had the fully-stocked fridge, and her childhood room. She'd always feel like it was home, a little bit.

Looking at Gordon's name on 002B made her heart ache.

Focus. You want to smell good. For when he—for yourself and your family. If he gets back it'll be a nice perk that he'll find you tolerable.

The outer hall was quieter this time of day, echoing faintly with the hum of air recyclers. As she pulled her crate toward the junction, the corridor widened. Rosemary bushes stood at measured intervals—planters tucked into the alcoves between bulkhead doors, just like always. Scraggly, flowering, faintly silvered at the leaf edges. The smell was soft and resinous. Clean.

She brushed her fingers over a branch without thinking. A little thank-you. For the founders who found time to make things beautiful. For her mother, who still watered the one near the court door. For herself, maybe, for holding the pieces together.

Up ahead, the hallway split—hubwards and orbital. She turned right, toward the shared utility ring. Laundry, recycling, atmosphere maintenance, and rec. Four doors, set like petals around a single junction node.

The utility rooms—and everything else—weren't spaced this way by accident.
When the hab was first being dug, all that rock had to go somewhere.
It went up.

Up the great vertical shaft above her head.

Of course, that was sealed now: layers of metal and compacted regolith, cladded in aluminum, air-tight. No air could escape. But looking up—toward the vaulted ceiling high above her, where another layer of insulation sealed them from the excavation shaft—Marie felt again the scale of the Endeavor.
With a capital E.
It deserved it.

She'd really hoped to be alone today.
She didn't feel like seeing people.
She didn't feel like having conversations.
It was nice to not be quarantined anymore—but the one thing quarantine had offered, that she had wanted, was quiet.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Space to feel what she felt without having to define it.
Because no one was asking.

Not even her.

She opened the laundry room.

Rows of washers and dryers greeted her.
And two boys.

She didn't remember their names. Possibly Wesley and Saul? Paul? Carl?

"Good morning, boys," she said. "You're up early."

She hadn't been asleep for very long herself. Just long enough.
Good sleep. Rare.

It wouldn't be the first time she trundled through this hour with a crate of laundry.

Maybe-Wesley looked to be about ten. His brother, a few years short of that.
They had a lot more laundry than she did.

"We were up late watching TV and we got caught," said the younger one.

"If you're gonna be up anyway, might as well be useful," mimicked his brother.

That didn't sit quite right with Marie.

Perhaps doing laundry was relatively harmless.
But still—

They were kids.

"I suppose you'd better get back to it," she said noncommittally.

It wasn't her business.

She turned away and started loading the washer with her work coveralls. Linens. Undergarments.

Towels, though—those went in a different washer.

She'd never understood, and would never understand, why her father insisted on putting towels in with everything else.

Towels were for hygiene.

You wiped your clean body with them.

Gross.

The first warning she had was a distant settling sound, like someone dropping a heavy weight in the next room, followed by a rapid arrhythmic ping ping ping ping-ping ping crash from above her.

Something in the shaft.

The raised square which served as a light switch by the door began to pulse around its edges with a bright amber.

The air in the room shook as the AI spoke:

"Emergency. There has been an atmospheric breach in your sector. Remain calm. Avoid private dwellings and rooms with minimal refill airflow. Remain calm. Help is on the way."

"Do we need to suit up?" asked one of the boys.

"No," his brother said—that would be Wesley. "This happens all the time. It's usually just a little cave-in from the side of the shaft," said Wesley wisely. "My mom told me."

Marie nodded. She was right, she allowed—but still. . .

Wait.

There was a hissing sound. She hadn't noticed it before because it was quiet. Perhaps it had been growing. She did notice the shirt in the younger boy's hand flutter in wind that had no right to be present—and then rip from his grasp and fly across the room.

She had just enough time to register that one of the three-meter panels was raised slightly from the others before it buckled with a sharp ping, cracking the glass on one of the washers.

What was a hiss became a roar.

The warped panel had opened an L-shaped void—ragged, angular—feeding directly into the excavation shaft behind the utility ring. A shaft that led straight up, hundreds of meters, to sealed bulkhead and sky.

The child was sliding across the floor. His feet didn't have enough grip on the aluminum surface to resist the pull.

He was going to die.

She knew. Every Martian knew the nightmare. A breach that size—too small to pass through cleanly, too large to block—was a death sentence.

He had bones—long bones, dense bones—bigger than the hole. They'd catch. They'd break. He had muscle, bulk, water, pressure. A body full of warmth and volume trying to squeeze through a space that wasn't meant for flesh.

He wouldn't fit.

He would tear.

He would rupture.

He would—

It was one of the worst deaths imaginable.

And she was not going to watch it happen.

She ran.

Marie launched herself forward and tackled the boy, throwing her whole weight into the motion. Her shoulder struck his ribs hard enough to knock the breath from him, and they both slid toward the row of dryers.

She kicked out with one foot, sending a wire laundry cart skidding across the floor toward the breach. It wasn't going to seal it, but it allowed her to kick off, made up for some of the lack of footing.

They tumbled behind the row of machines—bolted, stable, blessedly immobile.

Her arms wrapped tight around the child's chest. Her body curled around his. The wind howled.

How much time do I have left able to think? she wondered. The thought was bizarrely calm. The air was already thinning. Her fingers were tingling.

How long until I pass out?

How long until we both die?

Fifteen seconds. The math was easy—square room. Nothing like the brain-twisters she'd been given by her tutors. She would become unable to think in fifteen seconds.

HURRY, shouted the older kid. He was out in the hallway, on the other side of the airproof door. It would close, when the pressure was too low. Nobody could open it again either, until the rescue suits arrived.

Twelve seconds. The kid was curled into a ball and screaming. Not quite the disaster buddy she'd hoped for, but she'd make do.

She grabbed his shirt in one hand and hauled him, running as hard as she could. The vacuum deflected her course, but she was too far away now—it couldn't have her.

Ten seconds.

She hit the button to deactivate the interlock for HVAC—wouldn't want the rest of the block to asphyxiate. Minimize the damage. Key. Stupid thing was inside the room. She had to let go of the kid to get it. Why was the HVAC override inside the room? Because any room can be a panic room. You're locking the vacuum out, ideally. Dammit.

He screamed and clutched for her wrist. Her portable popped off her skin, magnets not up to a panicked child's fumbling, and clattered across the floor.

Damn it.

Nine seconds.

She smacked the control and took the kid's hand, hauling with all her weight.

"HIT IT HIT IT HIT IT" she yelled, running out the door.

The kid was heavy.

She stumbled. Reached out to catch herself.

SHUNK

Her finger was stuck in the door.

The gasket had caught it—the pain was immense. And the vacuum wasn't contained, either. Air hissed by her face.

That would save her a little time. Seconds.

But it wasn't closed yet. Perhaps she could open it.

The kids' running footfalls were fading as they gained distance from her. Good. If they'd looked back they'd have just gotten to die with her.

She reached for the override.

Too far away. That was kind of what she expected.

Air hissed.

Vision narrowed.

Fingers numbed.

She had a few seconds left, maybe.

She stared at the emergency panel, pulsing amber, useless to her now.

"Oh, Builder. Help me."

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Click.