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

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Marie: You have got to stop overthinking these things, Gordon. Sometimes it isn't about the numbers.

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Sol 506 FY 26, 18:00 Mars Time, Bonestell Crater Colony, Hab Layer, 9.32.002.B

Marie remembered the moment she realized Gordon was an optimist.

He'd done the math—in his head, between one sentence and another, she loved how he did that—and had come to the conclusion that, at peak usage, the gym might hold as many as 200 people.

She hadn't meant to laugh.

"That's cute," she told him. "It never cracks 130. Not even at rush."

"But it's for your health."

She'd grinned. "People quit sugar for their health. People cut salt, give up drinking. Doesn't mean they stick to it. End of the day, Martians are still people. Some of them were astronauts once. Some were scientists who barely made weight in October. We all got here different ways."

"And you?" he asked.

"Oh, I never miss a day."

"Really? Why?"

She looked him over, considering.

"I want you to like me."

He raised a brow.

"Not funny?" she asked, smirking.

"A little funny," he admitted. "I just thought—maybe—you're not jaded enough to be self-destructive."

"Maybe."

He paused. "Or maybe you'll age gracefully. Like Vera."

"Ha. No I won't."

She didn't even pause. "I like cheese too much."

He blinked. "Where do you get cheese?"

"Do you really want to know?"

He had thought he wanted to know. He was mistaken.

But.

Marie wasn't an optimist. And she was worried this wasn't going to work.

–––❖–––

Gordon nudged the clutch. The Mazda jerked forward a few inches—just enough to feel pointless. His boot slipped slightly as he brought it off the pedal, and he winced as the slushy, salted mess lining the roadside splattered under a delivery truck two cars ahead.

It was cold, but not scenic, more the kind of early-winter wetness that made everything look tired. Gray skies. Dirt-drenched snow piled along the shoulder like a forgotten chore. And somewhere ahead, blinking in quiet defiance, a construction zone: orange cones, a tangle of cables, a backhoe, currently empty.

Gordon watched a flagger in a neon-green vest wave traffic along at a glacial pace and wondered—what the hell was so urgent they had to dig up a lane in this weather? Water main, maybe. Something buried and broken and invisible. Something someone could point to in a report.

The car's engine gave its usual complaint—thrr-thrr-thrr-thrr-thrr—like it, too, didn't want to be here. Gordon revved it once. Then again. The third time, it caught: a guttural roar, followed by a grudging purr.

The q-link buzzed to life on the dash. Her name pulsed. Marie.

He thumbed the receive icon.

Her face blinked into view, grainy, a bit smeared by packet loss, but unmistakably her. Eyes tired. Skin sweat-streaked. He could hear the soft jingle of weights being racked in the background and the occasional rush of her breath. She'd been working out.

"Hey," she said. "I tried your portable."

"Hey," he answered, trying to sound lighter than he felt. "Got lost in a project, had to go to the electronics store. I'm on my way to Claire's to retrieve it."

"Bad day?"

He hesitated. "Sorry, I'm not giving you much to work with, am I? Long day."

A second or two of pause, as packet loss led to lag. The q-link wasn't meant for real-time calls, not really. It had been built for bulk file transfer using secure, loss-tolerant TCP/IP relays stretching between Earth and Mars. Real-time comms were a hack layered on top. Popular, yes. Functional, ish. Gordon had long ago learned to live with garbled syllables and awkward silences.

Still, her face stayed steady on the display. The video was holding, for now.

"I asked a guy if he could get me to Mars," he said. "He explained, nicely, actually, why that's not happening."

Marie exhaled, more from recognition than surprise.

Gordon flexed his jaw. "It's expensive. It's public. And nobody wants to be the one who goes around the UN for someone already on the UN's watchlist."

A pause. Traffic inched forward. The RX made a soft ticking sound under the hood—metal expanding against metal.

"Oh," he added. "And the UN? They're not going to speed anything up just because they're getting bad press. That would mean admitting they weren't doing everything they could before. And that would. . .upset Father."

Marie's voice came soft, delayed. "Why don't you call him Dad?"

He didn't answer right away. The Mazda's heat hadn't kicked in fully yet, and he could feel the cold seeping through the gearshift.

"Dads are people you can shoot hoops with," he said. "He'll never be my dad."

The silence crackled. He could hear her breathing still—faster now, not from emotion yet, but exertion. Then: the clink of a dumbbell being set down.

"So. . .where does that leave us?" she asked.

"Well," he said, slow, tired.

If he was being optimistic? They'd wait out the delay, and he'd go to Mars anyway. A year, maybe less.

He told her what he'd already told himself: they'll stall for nine months and try to look decisive at the end.

Marie leaned a little closer to the camera. The image glitched—her lips moving out of sync with her words.

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"I checked from my end," she said. "What if a freighter just happened to have a passenger named Smith?"

He smiled despite himself. "Flowers said 'Smith' would be duct-taped to the first cargo going Earthbound."

"So. . . that's a no?"

"That's Flowers letting me know he knows exactly who I am. And that he's not interested in pretending otherwise."

Another pause.

More clinking. Then the sound of weights being shoved into storage. Her breath had changed. Tightened. He didn't like it.

"If everyone played ball. . ." she began. "Would your father find out?"

"No," he said. "No way. But he'd put out a reward. And it wouldn't be everyone."

He looked away.

More silence. Less of the constructive kind. More of the we're going to break if we keep this up kind.

She filled it, softly: "Did you know there've been relationships that lasted ten years—virtually?"

That caught him off guard. He blinked. "No. I didn't. I thought that wasn't really possible."

Silence.

"I looked it up once," Gordon said. "The average is. . .three months. Maybe four, if you count the ones that fade without a breakup."

He shifted into first. The car crept forward a few yards. A bus merged in from the right and halted everything again.

"It drops hard after that," he added. "I'd have thought ten years meant someone forgot to cancel their profile."

Marie gave a soft sound that might have been a laugh or a snort. The audio didn't make it clear.

"Okay," she said. "I'll bite. What are the failure modes?"

He didn't hesitate. "Emotional disconnect. Partner replacement—someone local fills the same emotional niche. Life events. Stress. Grief. Changes in schedule. That kind of thing."

He said it like he'd rehearsed it. Because he had.

"You don't fight," he went on. "You don't even break up. You just stop syncing. Then one day someone forgets to reply."

Marie didn't say anything.

He filled the gap too quickly. "I'm not saying I want that. I'm just saying. . .it happens."

"It does," she admitted. "People have needs."

He shook his head slowly. "No. Actually, I don't think they do."

"Come on."

"I mean it," Gordon said. "People point to failures in monastic orders as proof of that. But the successes prove the opposite just as strongly."

The audio popped slightly as her connection adjusted.

"It's a logical fallacy," he continued. "Treating failure as disproof when counterexamples exist. The successes prove the concept just as much. It's just harder. Less convenient. More brittle under pressure."

She raised an eyebrow. Or at least, the video made it look like she did. Hard to tell: his connection stuttered, and her image glitched halfway into a frozen half-smile.

"So. . .we're monks now?" she asked, voice dry.

"I mean—" he glanced at the line of cars still backed up ahead, then back at her. "I'll video strip-trade whenever you want."

The corner of her mouth twitched. "You didn't just say that."

"I didn't say I like the idea."

"Of a trade?"

"Of a year."

"A year's a long time to not like the idea."

"Yeah," he said, and his voice went quiet. "I know."

There was a new sound in the background now, running water. Her workout had ended. The image on his screen didn't show anything below her collarbones. He hadn't seen her full body in days.

"I don't know if I'm comfortable with that," she said finally.

He blinked. "What—the stripping?"

She frowned.

"You say it like it isn't a big thing," she said. "But that's not. . .I don't think that's what I meant."

"I meant it sarcastically," he said. "Come to think of it. . . ."

"Gordon."

He looked up.

She was still blurry, but her voice had softened. That tone she used when she was pulling him back from one of his spirals.

"You know I want you," she said. "But not to objectify you, dear."

He nodded, suddenly ashamed of the joke. "Same here."

The RX's clutch let out a whimper. He didn't shift.

"And I'm wondering if that's one of the challenges," he added. "I mean—three months is a very short time for most relationships to collapse. Maybe we're missing something important."

"No. Probably not," she said.

Then, with a small breath: "My friend Vera once told me: availability is most of why people cheat."

He squinted at the screen. "That doesn't sound right."

"I think she meant it in hindsight. Not that access causes it, but that when people do cheat, availability is the most common factor. You can't always see intent, but you can track behavior."

"And that's what shows up."

She nodded.

"Every time," she said.

He thought about it. "Okay. Yeah. That makes more sense."

"It's retroactive framing," she said. "But it's a valid predictor. If behavior correlates, it tells you something about risk, even if it doesn't explain motive."

She was brushing her hair, now.

"Nobody's perfect," she said. "Not even Vera. But she's not wrong about this one."

Gordon gave a slow nod. "It's just a scary way to say: even good people can slide if the rails are greased."

"That's why I'm trying to de-grease the rails now."

He looked at her—really looked. Her face was a little flushed. Hair damp. Eyes ringed with unmistakable exhaustion.

"And I'm trying to be honest about where they go," he said quietly.

For a few long seconds, there was nothing but the hum of his heater fan and the distant jangle of her gym equipment settling.

"We're building this map," he said finally. "Carefully. Together."

He swallowed.

"But I keep looking at it and wondering. . .what if it doesn't lead anywhere good?"

Marie's voice was barely a whisper. "Then we keep walking. Or we fold the map and start over."

"Listen—" he stopped. Gripped the wheel. Then forced the words out.

"I don't want to fold up this map."

She blinked. The image froze again, then caught up a second later.

"What?" she said.

"I don't want to look at any other maps," he said. "Just this one. With you."

She didn't speak.

He felt suddenly too warm in the chest, too cold in the legs. The construction sign flashed in his peripheral vision—MERGE LEFT, indifferent to his confession.

"Marie," he said. "If it's hard. . .are you willing to let it be hard to be with me?"

She took a breath.

And then another.

"I think so," she said. Barely audible. Like she wasn't sure she was allowed to want that.

There was a sharp inhale from her side of the call.

Gordon heard it just before the image stuttered again, her face glitching, then reappearing.

He softened his voice. "I know it won't be perfect."

She didn't answer.

He tried again. "Our life on Mars. . .it felt perfect. You remember?"

She nodded, too fast.

"I know it wouldn't have stayed that way," he continued. "Eventually, my muscles would've gone soft, your hair would gray. Maybe we'd have kids and wrestle with that. Maybe we wouldn't, and we'd wrestle with that instead."

His voice cracked, just slightly.

"But dammit, Marie. . .I want to struggle with you. That was the point."

Her lips parted like she was going to say something. Then shut. The audio was quiet, punctuated by short, wet intakes of air.

Gordon froze.

She was crying.

Not silently, but she was trying to.

"I have to—" she gasped. Then again, sobbing hard now. "I have to talk to you later."

"Marie—"

"I can't do this." Her voice broke on the word can't.

"I really. . .I really can't do this right now."

Her image went out.

Just gone.

No goodbye.

The dashboard display flickered for a half-second, then offered him a cheerful, wholly unhelpful message: CALL ENDED.

For a long time, Gordon didn't move.

He stared at the screen like it might turn back on. Like maybe if he said her name loud enough, the connection would reboot and she'd be back, tears and all.

But the slush still lined the roadside.

The RX's heater clicked again as it pushed tepid air against his knees.

A car behind him honked. Just once. Just enough to remind him that the world was still turning.

He reached for the shifter. Didn't touch it.

His hand curled into a fist on his thigh.

"Fuck," he said.

It wasn't loud, but it was the only word for the moment..

He sat back in his seat, hands limp now, headlights bleeding dull yellow into the misted construction signs ahead.

Was that it?

Was this how it ended?