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

––––––

Claire: What do you think it's like, up there?
Harry: I'm thinking 'very long road trip, but you never get a break from one another and you have to pee in the vacuum cleaner'.

––––––

November 16th, 2090, about 8:57 pm MST, Solar Orbit

The dark sky stretched above him, the road beneath equally shadowed. The lights on the roadside twinkled in the distance, like the cat's-eyes on a highway—except these weren't reflectors. They were stars. A power beyond imagining, roaring like endless thundering waters, hydrogen curling out in a constant stream of fury.

Dark above. Dark below.

Gordon hurtled through emptiness with nothing to grab onto, nothing to slow him down. He had known the mechanics of torch ships since high school, but he had never truly thought about what they meant until now. If they cut the power, they wouldn't slow down. There were no brakes.

A cold shudder ran up his spine. His hands clenched the armrests instinctively, his heart rate ticking up. Was it rational? Maybe not. But there was something about the blackness on his monitor, the simulated window showing nothing but the void. One of those stars is Mars, he thought. But he couldn't tell which one.

The truth was, Gordon had never had a strong grasp of astronomy. He loved the concepts—black holes, nebulae, Saturn's rings, even the antiquated Pluto debate—but practical navigation? If someone asked him where another star was relative to Sol, he'd have no idea. He could estimate light-minutes from Earth to Mars but would need to round heavily before converting it to kilometers. If Martian citizenship had an entry exam as rigorous as those on Earth, he probably wouldn't qualify.

Fortunately, that's what the navigator was for. He wasn't expected to know any of this. A somewhat freeing thought—except for the fact that he was in the belly of a ship, accelerating at breakneck speed toward another planet.

He knew things about orbital mechanics in the way that a guy who plays trade simulation games knows things. He understood, conceptually, what happened if you entered an atmosphere at the wrong angle. He could visualize it. But unlike driving a car, where the physics could be scribbled on the back of an envelope, space was different. There was no "feel" for it. No friction. No rubber on pavement.

And even the experts didn't know everything. People were so clueless about certain things that they had built specialist AI just to handle them. Take fusion engines—how do they work? A handful of scientists could answer that. How do you sustain a fusion reaction without it fizzling out or going haywire? An even smaller handful.

If you reach the point where no one knows how something works, including the AI programmers, can you really say you trust it?

Gordon let out a slow breath. Somewhere behind him, Hiram was snoring—a rattling wheeze, subdued but persistent.

Once upon a time, the man had been powerfully overweight, and his snores had been thunderous. Now, they were merely annoying.

Marie, at least, didn't snore. He knew that because she had fallen asleep on a Q-Link call once, despite the egregious cost. She had been up until five in the morning, and exhaustion had finally claimed her. She had shut her eyes, and that was it—no sound. Peaceful.

Gordon knew he didn't snore, either—Harry had assured him. Back in high school, during coding sleepovers (which Marie had laughed at when he described), Harry had confirmed it. "One guy writes code, the other critiques, then they switch." Karen, who had been around at the time, had simply commented that it was just as well everyone thought they were gaming. Which, to be fair, they sometimes were. You had to take breaks.

He wondered what Harry was doing right now.

Then he realized—he could find out.

A grin pulled at his face. He was off Earth. He could be the one to make the call. The thought thrilled him for a moment—no brakes, nothing to hold onto, never slowing down, no no—off Earth, finally—before he opened the comms line.

"Hey, bud," came the chipper voice of his best male friend.

"Don't tell me you got cold feet."

"I am speaking to you from outer space," Gordon declared dramatically. "You know me. You could fry an egg on these feet."

Harry laughed. "So, what's it like, Mr. Rocket Man? Tell me all the details now while you still can."

"What do you mean?"

"Well," Harry said, "I've been told that a good man does not kiss and tell. So the last time I can expect you to give me all the details will be approximately two seconds before you land on Mars."

Gordon didn't shrug, but the idea of a shrug carried through in his voice. "Unfortunately, that probably holds true for the whole time I'm on Mars. Might as well be a non-disclosure agreement. Static on the camera. Sensor bars on the paper."

"You're gonna come home, and I'm gonna be like, 'What happened?' And you're gonna be like, 'The food was good. Can't tell you anything else. Secrets'."

Gordon smirked. "I told you, she'd have to kill you."

Harry chuckled. "I hope this is good for you."

"Good for me?"

Harry hesitated. "I dunno. If you don't like Mars, I hope this tells you that you don't like Mars. And if you do like it, I hope this tells you that you do like it. Either way—knowing is half the battle."

"Don't sound so sad, man," Gordon said.

"Oh, so now I'm sad?" Harry teased.

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

Gordon exhaled. "A friend growing up and going to live his best life? Sad? Never. We've had some good times."

"We really have," Harry agreed. "All good times end."

"Listen," Gordon added, "no matter how this goes, I am coming back to Earth after my visit."

"That's definite?"

"Yeah," Gordon confirmed. "My father said he'd never pay for a return trip himself, also. So that leaves me paying for it, which means I am going back to Earth after the visit's over. And that means—there's gonna be time for more hangouts. More memories. In and out of game."

"Tell me more about this out-of-game memory-making," Harry said.

"Well," Gordon mused, "they tell me that such a thing as a Jägerbomb exists, but I've never tried one."

Harry nodded. "That might be a memory. But remember the first rule of real estate: location, location, location."

Gordon smirked. "Oh? I'm sure we could find somewhere interesting to do it. Top of the—"

"Nope," Harry cut him off. "Not a chance."

Gordon laughed. "Okay, okay. What were you thinking?"

"Somewhere with good Mexican food. But—and this is the important part—not the compound. I am never drinking around your dad again."

Gordon perked up. "Oh? What did he do?"

Harry groaned. "Reminded me about the benefits of sobriety for the husbands of powerful women."

"Oof."

"Yeah. He did this on the bench outside, while we waited for an Uber."

Gordon winced. "That was very paternal of him."

Harry sighed. "Say what you want about him, but he cares about Claire."

Gordon exhaled. "That's probably a good note to end on."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," Gordon said. "Sitting here talking about my dad while listening to him snore? Feels like a waste of money."

"Heh. Well, I'd let you go, but actually, I had something a bit more serious I needed to talk to you about."

"That doesn't sound good."

"You been thinking about Marie?" Harry asked.

"Of course."

"And Karen?"

Gordon hesitated. "Also yeah."

"Still upset? Still get the urge to roam and murder monsters in the name of not feeling your feelings?"

"Hey."

"It was pretty obvious. Well?"

Gordon paused.

"Yeah. But not about what Karen did. Not exactly."

"I gather you were having some trouble being mad at Karen for that." The irony in his tone was palpable.

"That part…is confusing."

"Sounds like she pulled some strings to make things as clear as possible."

"Not…helping."

"Wow. You really can't be mad at a girl who shows you her ass, huh?"

"I'm confused about that, more than anything. But even with that, that came later. What I'm still stuck on is what Marie said before any of it happened. Why I was so mad at Marie in the first place. And I think it was three things: I was protective of Karen because she's been my friend forever. So that's one."

"Following."

Harry's voice was impassive, but Gordon heard the roar of a jet engine in the background. "Airport," Harry added. "Meeting Claire for lunch—anyway, you were saying? You were mad at Marie for saying Karen had feelings for you. But at the time that you got really big angry, you knew she did, and even what her birthday suit looked like, so that sounds like guilt to me."

"I was angry before, I just hadn't processed what I thought about it yet."

"Uh-huh. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, I guess. Shoot."

"Well, she said Karen had feelings for me, and at the time had no good reason to say that. Like it was fact."

Harry let that sit for a moment. "So you think she crossed a line, accusing you of entertaining the potential advances of someone who had feelings for you."

"In so many words—yes. Nothing had happened yet."

"That really sounds like she might have been uncomfortable with Karen's Karening. You have to admit she's touchy."

"But she's touchy to everybody."

"Not me. The woman has no taste at all."

"Gah. Look—there are two different issues, the preceding one where I was upset that Marie didn't trust me, and then the later one where she may have had a point about Karen but I was still mad at her about the earlier one and probably over-reacted."

"You think?" Harry took a deep breath. "What if she was just uncomfortable? Hear me out. She's like… I don't think this is likely, but it would make me very sad if it did happen, so I want you to put my vague worries to rest by reassuring me. And you're like 'how dare you, I have nothing to say on that topic, begone woman.' What does that look like?"

"I was being an asshole."

"Just … you're going to Mars. This is a rare opportunity. I'd hate for you to waste it by spending the whole time there mad at each other and not finding out what you're going to find out."

"So," Harry said, more gently now, "are you gonna tell her?"

"Tell her what?"

"That Karen crossed the Rubicon. Unveiled the Venus De Milo. Posed in Rococo."

"... you are a pain sometimes, Harry."

"The woman was volunteering to be your sherpa up her Twin Peaks, Gordon."

"Okay, Harry. You're a clever guy. Can we get to the point?"

"Marie was right on the money."

Gordon fell silent for a moment. Hiram began to snore from the first-class pod.

"Gordon? You telling her?"

"No, I'm not," he said defensively. "It's over. I'm leaving. Karen is staying. Whatever else she wanted to put on the table, she's my friend and I don't want to lose her just because she made a bad decision or two."

"Two?"

"Not really. Nevermind. Once I'm on Mars, it isn't really going to matter. And… so now, we're on Mars, she's on Earth, distance makes any closeness academic anyway. So then what, I tell Marie, so now Marie is hurt and never looks at me or Karen the same way, maybe tries to cut off Karen, Karen's hurt by being cut off, I lose my best friend and the closeness of my girlfriend, so we're all three sadder, and for what? It literally changes nothing at all for the good."

"So … damage control."

"I'm being responsible."

"You're deciding what she should and shouldn't know. That's control, Gordon."

"So I should throw away a lifelong friendship, hurt Marie, hurt Karen, and wreck what little normalcy I have left—for what? For the sake of performative moral clarity?"

"It's about trust."

Gordon's mouth twisted. "Well, I hope if she's got any peccadillos, she keeps them to herself too."

Harry snorted. "What, ex-lovers? Statistically speaking, the only other single guys on Mars were fifteen or younger. Unless she swings the other way, in which case… you'd still probably want to know."

"Harry."

"What?" Harry said cheerfully. "Just doing some demographic analysis."

"You're a creep."

"I care."

"Well. Have a good night," Gordon said, uncomfortable.

"Just think about it. You'll thank me later," Harry predicted.

And with that, the call ended, leaving Gordon alone with the hum of the ship, the blackness of the void, imagining the distant glow of a future on Mars.