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

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Marie: Should I warn him?
Jillian: No. If he can't hack this, he's not gonna last. Better to know.

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Sol 498 FY 26, 7:15 Mars Time, Bonestell Crater Colony, Hab Layer, 9.32.002.B

Gordon stood in the colony's Hab layer, looking at the airlock. They'd be going outside. Marswalk. He'd dreamed of this.

His breakfast gurgled in his belly. He'd been too keyed up to eat much..

The man from logistics—tight clipboard grip, tone like gravel—made it clear:

"You're not cleared to leave the hab layer without a pressure suit. No suit, no airlock access. No exceptions."

Gordon nodded once. "Right. That makes sense."

"Your father will be returning to the ship wearing the suit he arrived in. Yours, however, has been returned to logistics for cleaning and servicing: We will replace it with a Martian-style pressure suit."

"Got it," Gordon said.

Marie met him just outside the locker corridor, arms folded, one boot braced against the wall.

"You're going to look great in your suit," she encouraged him. "Text me after," she said. "I want to know how it goes."

"I'm sure it'll be fine," Gordon said.

"Lark's on duty today," she added. Her tone was hard to read. "If he gives you trouble, let me know."

That gave Gordon pause. ". . .That bad?"

Marie gave him a crooked smile. "He's an old softie, but that's toward me. You're the guy sniffing up after little Marie, the girl he taught atmospheric systems to."

He exhaled. "Okay."

"Text me. Promise?"

"I will."

A technician waved Gordon through a pressure-sealed door into the suit bay.

The air changed instantly—cooler, drier, and faintly medicinal. The room was full of hanging forms: soft, suspended shapes swaying gently on overhead tracks or racked in low bins. The light caught them just enough to reveal shimmering, translucent textures.

He stepped forward, frowning. The shapes looked like . . .alien fillet. Biological. Rounded, bulging in odd places, tapering in others. Translucent and wet. Some large through the hips, some narrow in the waist. The forms didn't look human exactly—until they did.

They were liners. Inside out.

The visible forms were the negative space of bodies—female torsos, curved spines, groin molds—abstracted in gel, clean but undeniably intimate. Their shapes were not stylized, not generic, not modest. They were people-shaped, stored on hooks, every discrete detail of their most personal physicalities on full display.

Gordon looked away. That had been an eyeful.

Then he heard someone behind him.

Ffffwwwt! Click. Thunk.

A man—lean, shadow-jawed, and wearing a maintenance vest with one corner snapped loose—was already halfway through cutting open a liner with a short utility blade. The movement was fast and practiced, more like gutting a fish than disassembling a life-support system.

The tag on his chest bore no name. Just a little black bird diving through a red triangle.

Gordon squinted. "You're. . .Lark?"

The man didn't look up immediately. He yanked free a slightly yellowed insert, held it up to the light, gave it a small grunt, and tossed it straight into a steel-lined bin. It landed with a slick slap. His hard eyes were an unusual color—tawny, a light amber-brown.

"Big one, aren't you?" Lark muttered, eyeing Gordon like he was lining up lumber at a salvage yard. "Pants off."

Gordon complied uneasily.

"Shirt too."

As Gordon did, Lark surveyed him critically, like a mechanic looking under the hood of a rusted scrapyard relic.

"Size four ought to do."

He reached over without ceremony and pulled a sealed cube from a drawer—4x4x8, pale green, trembling slightly under its own weight. He placed this on the counter.

Lark didn't hand him the liner right away. Instead, he stepped over to a metal tray and snapped on a fresh pair of gloves—powderless, matte gray, like they'd been used for everything from first aid to engine work.

"Got to swab you," he said, flatly. "Hygiene protocol. You share the liner laundry system, first you prove you won't make it a biohazard."

He gestured.

"Arms up."

Gordon obeyed.

Lark worked fast. Swab to the armpit, then a quick graze along the lower back, and—after a brief, unapologetic nod—a short wipe inside the inner thigh with the swab-on-a-stick.

"Relax," Lark muttered. "Nobody's looking at anything."

He dropped the swab into a reader dock on the wall. A light turned yellow.

Time passed. Lark stared at him impassively. "Doubles as an STI test," he commented. "Nothing to worry about, right?"

Gordon had time to feel flustered before the light changed again. Green.

"Good enough," Lark said. "No infections, no spores, no STIs. Mars thanks you for your hygiene."

Lark turned the liner in his hands, flipped it open at the hips, and pressed the gel cube into place with two quick motions. It slumped into the pouch like a wet brick, jiggling faintly as it settled.

"This'll keep your best bits where you want them," Lark said, his tone still casual—but slowed down a little. "Mechanical counter pressure suits–works by inflating the seams. Pressure locks in from the outside. System works fine, if everything is backed–but any little void between the suit and you will fill, the vacuum will see to that. Lymph, fat, blood, soft tissue. Gel liner keeps your exact shape. Minimal tissue migration."

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'Tissue migration' was a very bland way to say a very horrifying concept.

He gave the liner a little shake.

Gordon stared at it. The gel looked cold.

Lark waited a beat, then added with practiced indifference:

"First we got to get at the bits though. Take it all off."

Gordon hesitated.

Lark raised one eyebrow.

"Look, kid, nobody's looking who cares. Just strip. Socks too if you want to keep them clean. I'd turn around if I weren't about to have to look at you anyway. But here we are. Use this though–unless you'd like a free wax."

He didn't turn around. He did hand Gordon a small tub of creamy goop.

Reluctantly, he applied the ointment. This was something he'd rather not have done in front of a stranger.

Gordon stepped one foot in awkwardly.

The gel was already hardening.

Where his skin met it, the surface warmed—some sort of chemical reaction with his skin, going rapidly from a gel to a hard, thick putty like warmed candle-wax, barely shifting under pressure.. It resisted, adhering to his leg in places, molding before he was fully committed. It tugged at and pulled out short hairs with every move he made.

It was warming now. Not warm like comfort. Body temperature and getting hotter. Exothermic.

"It won't burn you," Lark noted idly. "You should lotion up after, though."

He braced one hand against the wall and stepped the other leg in.

The gel tightened as it was confined by the suit pants, spreading upward along his thighs, flowing into place. It bulged where it hadn't yet formed, pulled where it had, and stuck to him and the pants with equal attraction.

He had to shove himself into it. Actually shove. Physically displace two liters of semi-solid memory gel with the shape of his hips, his groin, his lower back. Slowly. Mechanically.

He grunted.

Behind him, Lark didn't look up from sealing a pack of gloves.

"Yeah, that's about right," the man muttered. "Told you. Not pleasant, but it'll hold your guts in when vacuum gets at you."

Gordon gave a strangled exhale. His spine pressed into the back curve of the liner, gel flowing into place along the small of his back. Hot, now, nearly scalding where the gel was thickest.

He gave one last pull—hauling the top edge up over his hips with effort—and the liner snapped into place with a squelch. Lark reached over and engaged the metal latch at the suit's waist, sinching it that little bit tighter shut.

"Hold still," Lark said. "Let it cook for five. Then we'll do your pits."

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The suit wasn't comfortable.

The gel still clung to him, pulling oddly when he flexed and moved. The seams pressed hard against his outer thighs, and he could feel the start of pressure bruises. He'd lost hair. The liner was stiffening now—just enough to keep shape between wearings.

But once the outer shell came on, something shifted.

The plates—wire-reinforced leather, matte black and grainy with age—wrapped around him with weight and purpose, covering the inflatable tubing and the high-wear areas at elbows and knees. Lark sealed each segment with broad steel-and-hide buttons, fastened over modular hose ports like he was bolting Gordon together. There was a CO₂ belt unit at his hip now, silent and heavy, waiting for vacuum.

It wasn't beautiful. It wasn't sleek.

But it was dignified.

Not like a uniform. More like armor built with the knowledge that someone would be working, sweating, and just generally living inside it for years at a time.

Gordon flexed his fingers, expecting spaceman gloves—bulky and cartoonish. What he had instead were thick leather work gloves, reinforced at the knuckles, with a single air tube running up the outer side of his pinkie.

Even the boots surprised him.

Not astronaut boots. Just industrial steel-toes, thick-soled, bolted to the bottom ring of the suit by a hinged clasp he hadn't noticed until Lark clicked it closed.

They weren't made to look futuristic. They were made for day to day work—just on Mars.

Gordon ran a hand along the sleeve. Nylon, leather, mesh-reinforced seams. The gloves looked like something you'd wear to weld fence posts. The boots were built to kick rocks, and drop tools onto.

"None of this is radiation-resistant," he said, half to himself.

Lark snorted. "No shit. You think we're suiting you up in gold foil?"

Gordon looked at him. "So what happens under direct sun?"

"You stay in the rover under direct sun," Lark said, tapping his temple with one gloved finger. "Rovers are lined. Suits aren't. You get caught out, you find cover."

Gordon flexed his fingers in the gloves again. They were stiff, but responsive. Functional. Ugly.

"Has anyone ever died in one of these?" he asked.

Lark didn't pause.

"Four. Out of ten thousand-ish on the planet."

Right. Seven colonies.

Gordon blinked. "Only four?"

Lark nodded once. "All of them tried customizing it."

There was no sarcasm. No humor. Just a flat statement of fact. Like a hammer hitting a countertop.

Lark finished checking the hose ports, then looked Gordon dead in the eye.

"Do not customize the suit."

Lark handed him the helmet without ceremony.

A dull, scratched dome with a heavy ring-seal and reinforced gasket mounts. The thing looked less like a sci-fi marvel and more like something you'd see bolted to a submarine.

"Always wear the mask."

He held up the inner facepiece—matte black, with two stubby filters and a chin strap like a fighter pilot's.

Gordon frowned. "Isn't that what the helmet's for?"

Lark gave him a look.

"Sure. Until you fall. And let's say you fall hard. And let's say, somehow, you don't die on impact. But your helmet poly gets a crack? Just a hairline? It leaks."

Lark snapped the inner mask into the helmet harness with a dull click. It didn't look high-tech. It looked like something cannibalized from a fighter jet—thick rubber, short filter stacks, tight jaw-seal.

"This here," he said, giving the mask a slight tug, "keeps you breathing long enough to tape up."

Gordon nodded.

Lark paused, then added—blunt, almost bored:

"Mask's got the radio in it, too."

That got Gordon's attention.

"So—what, the helmet doesn't—?"

"Nope. Antenna's in the mask. Mic's in the mask. You don't wear it? Can't nobody hear you scream."

Lark handed Gordon what looked like a brick.

No display. No interface. Just a block of matte metal, heavy enough to anchor a tent, with a stubby antenna and a recessed push-button panel on one side.

"Radio."

Gordon turned it over. It was solid—denser than it looked. He could feel the weight of the battery, the shielding. This wasn't a toy. It was a signal grenade.

Lark tapped the top of it.

"Punches right through the regolith," he said. "Which tells you how strong it is. Only way to call for help if there's a collapse or a landslide. Don't count on suit comms—those are for line of sight and q-link. And wifi."

Gordon looked up. "This goes where?"

"On you," Lark said. "Not your belt. Not the cart. Not your damn lunch bag. On you. If they have to dig, this is what they'll be pinging for."

He said it flatly.

"Keep it charged. Keep it close. Keep it quiet unless you're bleeding or buried."

Gordon nodded, slowly.

He clipped the radio to his harness. The D-ring had a matching bronze carabiner on the other side from his CO2 tank.

It didn't make him feel safe, but it did balance the weight nicely.

Lark handed him a final item—a small vacuum pouch, heat-sealed and unmarked.

"Rations. Just in case."

Gordon peeled it open.

Inside were crackers.

Not bars. Not paste. Just. . .crackers. Round, golden, with whole seeds baked in—sunflower, flax, maybe pumpkin. They looked like something from a health food store. Or an expensive picnic.

He blinked. "These are. . .kind of nice?"

Lark shrugged.

"Keeps well. Oils are good for your skin. Fiber keeps your gut talking. And if it ever comes to it—"

He paused, just long enough.

"They'll keep body and soul together for just that little bit longer."

Then he turned back to his tools, already done with him.