Pilot, Part Two

There was a long silence, so Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker said: “Let’s do this,” thinking it probably would look more confident if she had written it down. She certainly didn’t feel confident, not with  hundreds of electrodes attached to her head and arms. She felt more like a Christmas tree than a captain. 

“Ready?” Johnathan Griggs asked. For some reason he hadn’t mentioned the fact that Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker had hit him in the mouth. Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker was perfectly content not to mention it either. 

Cypris glanced at the row of empty chairs beside her. She was the only one running simulations that day. Emily was taking something apart in the generator room, Conrad was under arrest because the customs rhinoceroses were still convinced that his still was an explosive device, and Reyes and Kareem was trying to find a loophole in Conrad’s sentencing. Kareem was convinced that if they told the customs puppet that the still was actually a still and not a whatever-they-had-called-it, Conrad would be let go. Reyes was just trying to find an exact estimate of the years they could take off of a life-sentence. Their efforts would be rendered moot later that day when Conrad walked into the canteen claiming he had decided he would fake his own death and assumed the identity of his long-lost identical twin. The story would circulate for several hours before someone realized that Conrad had just been released, and hadn’t actually hidden an entire bucket of ketchup in the cell or managed to steal the keys of the belt of one of the customs officers. Ironically, nobody doubted that Conrad could have hidden an entire bucket of ketchup in the cell and managed to steal the keys of the belt of one of the customs officers, if there had been a bucket of ketchup in the facility to hide, and if the cell door hadn’t been unlocked to begin with.   

“Ready?” Jonathan asked again. 

Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker stared at him for a moment before she said, “Yes.”

Jonathan threw the switch on the wall. Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker had decided some time ago that the sound the electrodes made when they sucked her backwards into simulated muck was very similar to the sound that raw meat sounded like when it passed through an atomic collider. Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker only knew what raw meat sounded like when it was passed through an atomic collider because she had passed raw meat through an atomic collider shortly before being kicked out of an A.C.R.O.N.Y.M. training camp because she had too many absences. The report card, interestingly, said nothing about passing raw meat through an atomic collider, probably because Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker had accidentally discovered the 120^th element by doing so. She suspected that nobody blamed her for the damage done to the collider because if they had, nobody could have taken credit for discovering Banananianium, or whatever they had decided to call it. 

Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker’s mind tended to wander to places she didn’t want to whenever she entered simulation. She tried to blink several times to see if her eyes were working. They didn’t move, that meant she wasn’t quite in simulation yet; her mind was still linked with her actual body. Then something twisted, shuddered, made a sound like Happy Birthday being sung backwards by a bison, and her mind went blank.

Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker blinked. She was standing in the middle of a street in front of a large crowd. There were cameras and microphones; the crowd might have been reporters, but most of them looked entirely ordinary. They were staring, and it took a moment for Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker to realize that they were staring at her. She paused and thought about what she was supposed to say, decided on what she was going to say, and said something entirely different. Whatever the crowd had been expecting, it wasn’t: “I have no idea what I’m doing here.”

“Cypris!” Jonathan admonished. “You can’t run simulations with a crowded mind!”

“Sorry?” Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker said/asked. 

“Let’s try this again.” 

Again the meat-and-atomic collider. Happy birthday; bison, big hairy ones; thanksgiving?

“Cypris! Clutter!”

“Sorry.”

“Again.”

Simulation slurped Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker backwards again. 

“Clutter!”

“I’m trying!”

And again. 

“Cypris…”

And again. 

“Goddammit Cypris.” Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker said. 

“Goddammit Cypris!” Jonathan Griggs agreed. Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker wished he hadn’t done so out loud. “Clear your mind.”

Emily appeared at the doorway. “Room for one more?”

“Yes.” Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker said gratefully, if selfishly; chances were, Emily would botch things worse than Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker would, and the blame would fall somewhat less squarely on her shoulders. 

“Hook in.” Griggs said.

“Screw you.” Emily replied, then hooked into the mess of electrodes.

“Ready?” Griggs asked. 

Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker nodded wearily. Emily just mouthed something about Jonathan’s mother that even Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker thought was horribly inappropriate.

Bison, birthday, definitely thanksgiving this time, raw meat, collider; whoosh. The simulation sucked at Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker’s hair and eyelashes. She didn’t thick her eyelashes were ‘voluminous’. Emily thought Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker read too many fashion magazines from the wrong century. 

Finally, Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker’s feet touched ground. She and Emily were standing above a crowd, at the top of a ladder, and beside the bulk of a massive landing ship. Someone was cheering; it might have been them. 

Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker climbed down the ladder shorty after Emily did. They both stopped at the podium. Emily nudged Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker toward the bristle of microphones and cameras that was standing ominously at the edge of the dais. 

“You’re better at this sort of thing.”

Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker stared at the lectern. Then she stepped up to it, clasped her hands over the edges, and spoke:

“We’re home. We’re back even though you never thought we’d be. It’s what we do though; we’re astronauts; our job is the job nobody thinks we can do, it’s the job that couldn’t possibly be more dangerous or more outlandish, it’s the job everyone hopes they don’t have to do, and it’s the job we do anyway.” 

Cheers at this. 

“We landed on a new planet just a month ago! That’s new. We didn’t name it after me, which I think is an excellent decision. Instead we named it Banananianium, mostly for no good reason, partially because we were feeling terribly homesick.”

Some laughing, not as much as Cypris would have hoped. 

“My name is Cypris Maricela Alta Tracker.”

Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker heard Emily pause. 

“I’m the captain of the best crew that ever went into the stars.” 

Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker heard Emily take a step forward.

“I just wish they were all here.”

“Cypris!” Griggs snapped. 

“What?”

“You just can’t focus can you? That’s not how it’s supposed to go!”

“Sorry!” 

Emily Hamilton sat up. “You botched that one.” 

“Shut up.” Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker said ruthlessly. “We’re done.” She told Jonathan Griggs. “Next time we do this, we have the full crew, got it? It’s not my fault I thought they were dead.”

Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker slumped away to her quarters and collapsed into bed. Unfortunately, she slept on the bottom bunk, and there was an inconvenient railing that tended to prevent collapsing into the bed. Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker swore and rubbed her head. Then she went to sleep by herself in a room designed for two people. 

Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker ate with the rest of the crew that morning. They didn’t talk much; the cereal was surprisingly adhesive, and there wasn’t really anything to say. At one point Conrad suggested that they could go into the city to eat ‘actual food’, but nobody listened attentively enough to hear him. 

“I wonder why we never go into the city anymore.” Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker said, hauling her mouth open. 

“Customs won’t let anyone out of the building.” Kareem said. “That might contribute.” 

“Why would they want us stuck in here though?” Emily asked. 

“Probably because we’d quit.” Conrad said. “Being an astronaut sucks.”

“Are we astronauts?” Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker asked. “We haven’t gone to space.” 

“We haven’t gone anywhere near space.” Kareem said. 

Reyes didn’t say anything. His teeth had fused. 

“I think we’re astronauts.” Emily said. “I hope we are anyways, otherwise my parents are right, and I’m unemployed.”

“I remember being unemployed.” Conrad said wistfully. 

“I thought you hated being unemployed.” 

“I thought you hated being married.” He replied. 

“Give it a rest.” Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker said. 

“Or What?”

“I’ll punch out your teeth.” Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker said, except what came out of her mouth was: “Please, give it a rest.”

“Why’d you get divorced?” Kareem said. “You’ve never said.”

“He was an asshole.” 

“So why’d you get married?”

“He was a really hot asshole.”

Everyone winced, including Cypris. 

“Did that sound the way I think it did?” 

A collective nod. 

“I’ll just excuse myself.” She said, and left quickly. 

Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker went into simulation and stared at the stars. Simulation was the only way to see stars, the clouds were too thick on earth. She tugged her gloves back on her hands; the suit was much larger than she was, and the gloves were in no way an exception. Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker glanced over her shoulder at the ship. It drifted like a loaf of bread, bloated, and encrusted in scientific equipment. 

She floated back towards it, struggling with the suit’s thrusters. Gimbaling would have helped, she decided. Her hands caught the airlock handle and she pulled herself up to it. She knocked on the glass. 

“Captain Tracker.” Someone said. A voice she really didn’t want to hear. A man’s voice, buttery smooth and rich and deep. She shivered, though the air in the suit was nicely climate controlled. “Let me get that.” The door swung open, Cypris drifted inside, and her ex drifted out from the bowels of the ship. 

Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker was torn from the simulation.

“Why the F-?“

“Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker! Come quick!” Kareem interrupted before she could jeopardize the PG-13 rating.

Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker staggered out from the simulation room, and down the hall to the atrium.

  The atrium was unforgivably self-absorbed. The chairs were plushy and velvet-ish. The artificial receptionist was pert, and obsequious. The chandelier hanging down from the center of the A.C.R.O.N.Y.M. Logo was bossy; it tinkled like a thousand crystal wine glasses, and three hundred bowls of caviar. Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker wasn’t sure what air freshener was being piped out of the ventilation system, but she suspected it was called money. Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker wasn’t in the least bit confused why the rest of the facility was such a hellhole; all the cash had gone into the atrium. All the cash came into the atrium too, she supposed; 
A.C.R.O.N.Y.M.’s biggest donors expected their waiting room to be nothing less than exorbitant. 

Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker passed three decanters, six ash trays, and an umbrella stand between the entrance to the atrium and the reception desk, where the rest of the crew was standing, amusing themselves with the mints. Two of them looked up. 

“What’s going on?” Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker asked. 

Emily very nearly laughed. Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford-Tracker very nearly kicked her legs out from under her. 

“Cypris.” Someone said. “What’s up?”

Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford turned very neatly, said “Jacob, I’m so glad you’re here,” and vomited extensively into the nearest umbrella stand. 

When she had recovered enough to swear, she turned again, and left the room at a very fast walk. Jacob Tracker followed her closely, and to his credit, silently. Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford tried not to listen to his footsteps; she was copiously aware of how seductive Jacob could make his footsteps. 

Finally, she stopped. Unfortunately, he spoke. “How have you been?”

Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford was very, very quiet when she told him to ram his head into the wall repeatedly and “don’t stop until you’re seeing two of me walking away”. 

Jacob laughed. Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford glared at him. That made him laugh harder. The harder Jacob laughed, the more Cypris wanted to remove his eyes. 

“How have you been?” He said again. 

“Excellent until you showed up.” She replied, barely vitriolically. 

Jacob had the presence of mind to look insulted. He frowned, which made Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford feel slightly less like she was bleeding. 

“I thought you left the planet.”

“Why would I do that? You’re still here.” 

“Romantic.” Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford, then sprinted back into the atrium to stare at magazines. 

“I know you’re not reading that.” Jacob told her.

“I don’t know if you’re real, but I’m hoping you are. I want it to hurt when I hit you.”

“I’m perfectly real, Maricela.” 

“You don’t get to call me that. My husband called me that.”

“I am your husband.” 

“Not anymore.” Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford said smugly. 

“You asked for a divorce, but I didn’t; I still love you.”

“You wanted children, I didn’t. And don’t use semicolons when you’re talking, it’s ingratiating.”

“I thought you liked it when I was ingratiating.”

“Only when it meant you were going to do laundry.”

“That’s not fair.” 

“Life’s not fair.” Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford said. 

“We were close once, what happened?” Jacob asked. 

“I remembered that close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.” 

“Funny.” Jacob said, pretending to be hurt. 

Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford swore at him lavishly, and tried not to stare at his eyes. They were excruciatingly distracting, and Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford didn’t want to be excruciatingly distracted, she wanted to be bitter and cutting. 

Jacob kissed her, and left before Cypris Maricela Alta Cranford could break his teeth. 

Conrad whistled. 

“Shut up.”