Only the Lonely

by Alastair Millar | Oct 16, 2024 | Story | 3 comments

Author: Alastair Millar

The Company had refused Karl’s request to have his wife join him on Mars again, he explained; this time because “the dependents’ travel budget was cut, and it’s run out for this budget cycle.” As usual, Accounts had the final say, and being just a manager, even one with the right to attend local board meetings, cut no ice. The sad fact was that even his generous salary wouldn’t support an interplanetary relocation without help; especially since he’d probably be rotated back dirtside in a few years’ time anyway. But he and Angela had hoped; oh, how they’d hoped.

So he’d ended up in Marvin’s, feeling sorry for himself, intending to get blissfully inebriated. That was when the pretty, leggy, tatooed blonde girl had slipped onto the floatseat beside him. She already had a drink, and when she struck up a conversation he was lonely enough to respond. Her name was Carol, she told him. It had taken him a good twenty minutes to realise she was a working girl, and by then he’d vented out his problems.

Amy Edwards of Security raised a weary eyebrow. She could already see how this was going to go.

“Maybe I can help,” the woman had said, gesturing around the dimly lit bar. “The girls here, you ask them their names, and they’ll tell you it’s ‘whatever you want’. But I can do far more for a proper gentleman like you. Whoever your fantasy is, you pay for the bodymods and I’m yours for however long we agree. Exclusive, guaranteed. Anyone you want. Your favourite sensie star? No problem. Your wife back home? Easy. I won’t judge. No strings, no questions, no complications, no comebacks. But no BDSM, okay? Too many men get their kicks out of mistreating their ex’s double, and it’s just plain disturbing, you know?”

He’d liked that she was still ordering her own drinks, and was just far enough from sober to take her proposal seriously. A last scruple had flashed a fin, and “Isn’t bodymodding illegal?” he’d asked.

“On Earth, sure,” came the reply. “But you’re not on Earth, honey. There’s a place here in town that does discreet work. A deposit now, tell me what you want, and meet me here tomorrow evening. You can be happy again. I promise. Think about it. And hey,” she winked, “why not put it on your entertainment chip, and have Accounts pick up the bill?”

Put like that, it had seemed like a no-brainer. He’d sat in Marvin’s for three hours the next evening, waiting, the nervousness in his gut slowly changing to an empty panic as the time passed. The morning after, he realised it was hopeless, and sent a report in to Security. Edwards had been at his apartment within the hour, trim in a smart uniform and pretty in a severe kind of way.

“You should have sent the money to a chaincode,” she sighed, closing her datapad, “then we’d have a hope of tracing it. As it is… I checked the survelliance footage, but I don’t think we’ll get a match. Too much facial baroquing for recognition. And by the way, bodymodding IS illegal here too. Chalk it up to experience. But look,” she winked, “if you’re in the mood for a drink and no strings attached, give me a call, okay? You’re not the only one up here who gets lonely.”

Karl looked up; perhaps, in spite of everything, something good might come out of his predicament. Suddenly, things didn’t seem so bad after all, and he smiled.

Failure’s Price

by Alastair Millar | Apr 20, 2024 | Story | 0 comments

Author: Alastair Millar

The planet was a blue dewdrop, shining defiantly against the blackness of the Void. It was hard to think of it as home, after twenty years struggling to make Sicyon viable; but all their efforts had been wasted, and they’d had no choice but to return. Ironically, the colony had suffered the same tectonic troubles as its ancient Greek namesake, and its society had similarly been forced to surrender to the inevitable.

Michael stood with several hundred others on the generation ship’s observation deck as it approached Earth. How Angela would be crying now, he thought. She’d loved the moral clarity of building a new homeworld, a place where their intended children could grow up free of pollution, of religious zealotry, of disdain for science. He smiled, remembering that she had been one of the first to move from the ship to the ground camp; she couldn’t wait to get her hands dirty.

When a tremor-induced rockslide had killed her during the planet’s cold season, they’d buried her on the ridge above the settlement, working fast to hack a grave through the ground-ice before they froze themselves. The sky had been so beautifully clear that day, as if trying to make up for his loss.

The spark had gone out of his life, but he persevered. Over time, others had been unable to face the hard choices needed, and had taken their own lives, but for years he had wanted – no, needed – to believe, until ultimately there was no more denying that the quakes were becoming both stronger and more frequent.

Four centuries of cryosleep, with two decades of hard work in the middle, and now the three thousand who survived were coming back to Earth – failures, all their attempts to fight geological instability stymied by an almost complete absence of manufacturing and refining capability.

Perhaps their descendants wouldn’t see them that way; perhaps they’d be seen as heroes, who’d survived against long odds. Maybe new technology, and a new group of idealists, would be sent to tame Sicyon instead. Possibly the problems that drove the settlers to leave Earth had been solved – they could hope, couldn’t they? Would it feel strange to be here, or would they come to feel like they belonged again? Or had this old world been permanently reshaped by climate change, it’s possibilities and population reduced, giving way to endless warfare over scarcer resources?

He knew that the uncertainty was eating the others; as people awoke and met old friends again, their worries were the main topic of conversation. It was a discussion he should be part of; but all he could think about was saying goodbye to her on a crisp Winter’s day, the blue sky fading down to white on the horizon, and air so frigid it sent spikes into his lungs.