Since our recruitment to the mission, we have all been upgraded from candidate dorms to mission astronaut studio apartments. Which means a better view, private bathroom and my own little kitchenette. All meals are served in the canteen, but I can request to dine in due to mission preparations at any time. The food is even transported to my quarters by the suction tube, so I don't even have to leave my room to get it. Initially, when I had returned from G tolerance training, I was still feeling pretty sick, so I had decided to skip dinner. However, my body had quickly returned to normal, and I now felt like my good old self again, so I ordered a double serving of tonight's ratatouille.
The familiar thump of the tube announces that my dinner has arrived, and I slide open the rounded screen to get the hot plate out. I could have eaten by my table, but I am a responsible adult now, an actual mission astronaut, so I put the plate on my bed and throw myself on my sheets next to it.
I have to pick up my optiPlaque from the floor by the side of the bed. I might have accidentally tossed it when I had to turn off the ringing sound of my alarm this morning. It had not registered my hand gesture, which was meant to have deactivated the bell, so instead, it had met the floor and had stayed there all day. That thing and I are really struggling to get along. They had told me that it was not much different from the watch I keep on my wrist twenty-four hours a day, which, I am pretty convinced, has fused with my skin by now. The only difference between the two devices is supposedly its abilities to multitask, run computations, and its interactive photophoretic trap mainframe. And, minor detail, the plaque is not connected to me by a needle inserted into my vein, and it does not report my vitals to the central server every split second. So, I guess, it does not spy on me, which is a relief. Nonetheless, I have named my plaque the Stone of Secrets as it never seems to want to show me what I actually want to see. I've stopped by the tech department several times, insisting that the plaque was glitching, but, every time, they assured me that it was performing perfectly, and that I should read the manual if I had some issues. And yes, the manual is in fact also accessible as an optifile, which I will find in the plaque. Isn't that just great?
I tap it twice to activate it, and a beam of photon-emitting lasers engage the field of air directly above the black device. The volumetric images flicker at near unperceivable speed, and it can sometimes give me a headache if I think too much about it. A spherical collection of icons is displayed before me; the standard applications such as optitransmission, opticonference, recording, interactive music, general web, games, and so forth. I am sweeping my hand at it, rotating the menu multiple rounds before finally locating the optifile archive. I believe I click it, my finger passing through the trapped particles of light, which should, theoretically, let the device know that I intent to open the archive. Simple as that.
The sphere dissolves into the air, and a new image takes shape. A small cartoon girl is running on the spot, while the app loads. When it finishes after a couple seconds, she jumps with her arms raised above her little helmet-covered head.
"Space Run, woohoo!" the pitched voice excitedly announces, and the game launches.
"No, no, no," I mutter annoyed, mouth full of ratatouille, while pushing some buttons in the air to try to make my way back to the sphere.
"Multiplayer mode selected!" the tiny astronaut makes another jump of exhilaration, before a menu of names show up before me.
"Ugh, come on!" I yell and I punch the photophoretic animated astronaut.
"Requesting battle with Ida Pfeiffer," the girl giggles, as if she is purposefully mocking me.
"Shit," I panic and click the physical off button on the plaque, the only button I can actually rely on. If that request ever reaches Klum-Pfeiffer, I will have just committed social suicide. Not that I have much of a social life to sack. Anyways, Smugface can never know about this.
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Tellus | ONC 2020
Science FictionWhen Polaris was a little girl, she watched the first space probe reach the star system of Alpha Centauri. Growing up, she dreams of one day being able to travel to its planets, unravelling its mysteries. This goal becomes her life's purpose, and ev...
