2883

Furthest Snapshot

           Royal Valley was a beautiful and green city in the 29^th century, full of sleek glass skyscrapers, flying vehicles, and sometimes, colorful holographic billboards. It was a skyline that Millie, as a “lowly primitive from the distant past,” could stare at for hours and lose herself in, as she pondered how every building came to be and what used to be in each spot during older eras of her home’s long existence. Unfortunately, she had been stuck in a windowless office up in the regional “time police” part of the tower where a beloved amusement park existed in her time. Reports in the future were very involved.

           “Mm-hm, so, there’s one more thing you saw Mr. Colton doing in town while his nephew was at yet another sleepover… Those details help that day’s file,” Chief Wisence Hawthorn said as she tapped away at her desk’s holographic keyboard. “You have a very good memory, Ms. Vanbusen. Or you just burned all of your notes into your head after rereading them enough times. Good work regardless. Your childhood record-keeping almost rivals those of our laziest agents—that’s impressive, and actually a compliment.”

           “Uh. Wow. No wonder I’ve overheard some of your agents talking about how much they dread doing paperwork,” Millie replied tiredly. “We wouldn’t happen to be done for today, would we? I’ve been coming here every day for two weeks…”

           “Your involvement is almost over. You have to understand—the ‘Corathine-Colton time travel incident’ and the complicated, multiple-pass events that followed all require a larger investigation than is typical. But I promise, we’ll be done soon and ready to publish the finished report. I only need to talk to you two more times; five, at most. I know this is a lot for you, Vanbusen, but you being a witness to a large degree of the entire ordeal, and coming here as an era local, has really aided us with the circumstances and events our daemon did not record. Now, then…” the chief cleared her throat and put her fingers back on the glass of her desk, “let’s go back a bit and fill in some things about his time at The Flamingo, where your father worked as the landlord. What color was the tag on his door’s key, and can you remember if it was made of brass or nickel?”

           “Oh, man…” Millie groaned and tilted her head back and over her chair. As she stared at the dainty LED lights on the chief’s ceiling, she muttered, “You do know that most of your questions are about things that happened when I was a kid, right?”

           “Of course. The 1990s were when most of these incidents occurred.”

           “Such simpler times,” Millie said with a sigh. “If only I never spied on people…”

           Millie emerged onto the walkway outside of the department entrance, where she could look out at the serene indoor foliage, the tower-length glass façade containing all the plant life, and the birds that called the space home. The building’s architecture and fusion with nature had impressed her the first few times, but now she was getting tired of the place. Coming here day after day felt like something worse than work.

           “Hey, Mill. How’d it go this time?” her friend and roommate Nyra asked her.

           “Agh! Four hours today!” Millie threw her arms up in distress. “I can’t keep doing this, Nyra. I feel like I’m being punished for what other people did.” She rubbed her dry eyes. “I’m someone who didn’t even share my schoolyard findings about people, and now I’m being endlessly grilled by a committee of one. How do you do this?”

           Nyra shrugged and swatted away some of her pink dyed hair. “I mean, at least I’m getting paid by the hour when it’s my turn on the hot seat. Here,” she handed Millie a needed bottle of refreshing fizzy tea, “I feel for you, really. You didn’t ask to be here.”

           After several chugs, Millie wiped her mouth and scoffed, “I kind of did. I walked through some random time portal that showed up in my apartment, remember? But I’m guessing they would’ve dragged me to this here and now eventually, anyway.”

           “We can take it easy at my place tonight, yeah? Have a drone deliver a pizza, get a movie going on the holoprojector, chill out on the hover-couch…”

           Millie let out a snort and shook her head. “You know, you don’t need to add all these ‘cool futuristic whimsy’ descriptors to everything to remind me where I am. I had plenty of pizza-movie nights back home, and they were just fine without all that stuff.”

           Nyra smirked and leaned back against the railing in her confident-cool way that made Millie swear she was some distant descendant of Zach Pentino. “You miss home? Gotta imagine you’re homesick by now. You’ve been here, what, two months now?”

           “Oh, I got it bad. Which is weird in this case because I am home. It’s just that the time period… It makes me feel more distant than how I would be back in the 21^st but just on the other side of the world. Still…” Millie chugged the drink again to help her parched throat, “I’m gonna lose my memories of all this when I do go home, and I’m not ready to wake up from the dream yet. I haven’t seen nearly enough.”

           “Well… You don’t have to go all the way back yet, you know. Just getting a glance might help. Hey. Follow me—I can show you something you’ll probably like.”

           Used to being pulled around by Nyra in the unfamiliar dreamscape that was the city in the distant future, Millie followed her to the elevator, which they took up another three floors. This level of the building had a small lounge area that encircled a primary support pillar, accessible across a footbridge. Underneath its smattering of furniture was a reinforced glass floor that provided a bird’s-eye view of the enclosed forest below.

           “Hey, Nyra?” Millie said softly as they traversed the bridge. “You still haven’t told me just what you do, exactly. You must work somewhere in this building, right?”

           “Oh, just lowly time travel field stuff. Surveying, basically. Nothing worth talking about,” she replied, though Millie couldn’t help but feel like she was hiding something. “Okay, you’ll get a kick out of this. It’s a total space-time coincidence, but this little lounge is… Well, it’s more fun if I just show you. But don’t walk through the portal.”

           Millie watched her take out a blue quartz, which she used to create a temporal gateway on the support column itself. The moment it opened, the two started getting hit by the fresh yet ancient air from a steady breeze, and the sound of screams that quickly faded erupted somewhere underneath them. On the horizon was Royal Valley, looking how it did in the early 21^st century. Millie’s eyes opened wide, and Nyra had to pull her back when she stepped forward without thinking. They were somewhere very familiar.

           After Millie looked around a little more and saw the circular metal platform that formed the “floor” of the space beyond, she realized what she was inches away from.

           “This is… the UFO at the top of King Arcade’s drop tower,” she said over the wind and theme park noise. “Wow. I can see the whole city as I know it. What year…”

           “It’s 2021 on the other side. Still a world without you in it. People here have known about this for a while, and the bosses hate it. Best to keep it open for just a few seconds,” Nyra said and promptly closed the portal. “Crazy positioning, isn’t it?”

           “Y-yeah…” Millie murmured back. “Home feels like it’s just past a kind of veil.”

           “So, pretty cool, right?” Nyra asked as Millie took a needed seat on one of the couches. “I know you being here still stresses you out, to say nothing of all the ongoing questioning. It takes a long time to get used to such a faraway… er, time. But the chief should really be about done with you. Uh, just my hunch. I mean, how much more can there be to talk about, right? Do you… have any ideas what you want to do next?”

           “I don’t know,” Millie puffed out from the cushion, exhausted. “Sleep, I think.”

           The next morning, Millie woke up early after the pizza put her into a food coma the night prior. As always, she took a few minutes to simply remind herself where she was, before going over to Nyra’s guest room’s blinds and opening them to look at the morning sky traffic, weaving through the invisible air lanes between buildings. The sight belonged in sci-fi movies, not reality, so it still didn’t feel real to her. Nevertheless, the pair of slippers waiting for her and the solid glass loaner phone were things she could comprehend, and she was able to make it to the dining area in not too bad a daze.

           “Oh. Morning, Mill,” Nyra said after she shoveled in a spoonful of cereal and idly watched a movie on the hanging TV, which seemed to be some kind of tragic love set on a domed asteroid colony with beautiful terraformed landscapes. “You’re up early. Normally I’d be watching the news, but then I saw that this was playing.”

           “Um… what is it?” Millie replied sleepily as she fetched a necessity that even the distant future had yet to find a replacement for—a mug of coffee. “A sci-fi romance?”

           “Just romance. I mean, it was filmed on location.”

           “Right. I keep forgetting that.” Millie yawned and warmed up a fruit pastry.

           “On This Rock We Live and Die. It’s about ninety years old. Total slop, big budget and celebrities. But it made three billion, so it sticks around on classic movie channels. I was in a club in high school where we made fun of bad flicks and put our commentary online, and this was one of our first victims. Yeah, we were kind of… edgy? Is that what you’d call it? Anyway, happy Saturday. No interrogations today—first weekend off!”

           “Hooray…” Millie grumbled and sat at the table with her eyes partially closed. After a few bites of her microwaved breakfast, she noticed the way Nyra was smirking at her. “You… aren’t about to play a joke on the ‘cavewoman’ or something, are you…?”

           “No,” Nyra said with an eye roll. “I was thinking of some way to work this into a surprise for later, but I’m bad with patience. I wanna see your reaction now. So, screw it!”

           Nyra took out her own glass phone, which Millie had seldom seen her use as she seemed to do most of her socializing and internet stuff via her corneal augments. Nyra tapped its screen to activate the holographic display mode, and project what appeared to be a couple of e-tickets. Millie squinted, but couldn’t make out their text.

           “Contacts aren’t in yet,” she noted as she munched on her food. “I’m guessing those are plane tickets, though? Sure. I’m game for a change of scenery… Hawaii?”

           Nyra bit her lower lip and tried to stay composed as her answer came out in what was nearly an excited squeak, “Think… a little further away. Like… maybe… Callisto?”

           Still under the effects of morning brain, Millie took another bite and replied, “Callisto… Is that a name of a resort? In Hawaii? Sorry. Always wanted to visit.”

           Nyra shifted her tone to a very flat one. “No. It’s one of Jupiter’s moons.”

           “… What?!” Millie gasped, and choked on some crumbs that she had to flush down with gulps from a glass of water. Once she recovered, she exclaimed, “What the hell, Nyra?! I can’t go to space! I grew up in the 1990s, and I’m not an astronaut!”

           Nyra shrugged. “So? Hey, look, I got this pair of tickets from a flash sale at two in the morning. It was an impulse buy, but I figured you might see it as a cool reward for helping with the investigation, and I have enough vacation hours for the month we’ll be gone. Buuut, if you really don’t want to go, they’re fully refundable. It would be a shame, though; the Jupiter travel window only opens twice a year.”

           “Y-yes, get your money back! I mean, damn, that’s an insane idea.” Millie stared at the table and took another bite of the pastry. “Just crazy. Seriously…” she muttered as Nyra waited patiently opposite her. “Little timid me, spy of the playground, third-rate reporter at a dying newspaper… Going into deep space with my roommate after I stupidly stumbled through a time portal and got tossed in jail…” Millie looked up and swore she caught the last microsecond of a smile that Nyra tried to hide. “Nyra, no. It’s seriously impossible. Space is scary, vast, and cold, and it’s dangerous out there.”

           “I understand, Mill. I’ll just go ahead and get a refund. It’s not a problem.”

           “Yeah. You better. I… I mean… If you wanted to take me to low orbit for a few minutes, maybe I’d do that. O-or… the moon, at the very most. But some long journey, where you can’t even see Earth anymore, and I’m sure you have to sleep in a pod…”

           “We’re knocked out most of the way, actually. That can be pretty scary, too.”

           “Then you see my point. So… we’ll just stay here, on solid ground. And then I’ll go home soon. Back to my boring life…” Millie finally let out a long groan and dropped into her arms, where she mumbled barely audibly, “I… I think I actually want to go…”

           “Hm? What was that? Anyway, I’m about to return these, so…”

           “I said I want to go!” Millie blurted out. “I… I want to see Jupiter!”

           Nyra grinned. “Oh, good. Because the first training course is in a few hours.”

           Although Nyra had an old shuttle that she could pilot, she also owned an older purple convertible that was grounded and still moved on tires. For Millie, whose nerves were already shot after only thinking about what she had just gotten herself into, tried and trusted rubber wheels on asphalt were a fine way to travel today.

           After a half-hour on the road, Nyra pulled into the parking area for the space travel training center a few miles from the spaceport itself, which was just outside the city and surrounded by a reservoir and long stretches of plains. The sounds of rockets igniting after spacecraft were propelled up the mass-driver tower, that was named after the ancient Red Demon rollercoaster, were much more noticeable and impactful at this closer distance. Millie stared at a departing ship’s bright flame as it ascended into the upper atmosphere, feeling bewildered that she might be on one of them soon.

           “So, Mill, I know it doesn’t matter how many times I tell you how routine this kind of thing is,” Nyra said once they were walking towards the building, “but you’ll really get it once you see what kind of people show up at these sessions. Heck, the whole regimen is just six hours long, divided over three visits. Plus health exams. The G-forces on modern spacecraft are so mild that they’re barely a main concern anymore.”

           “You’re still sticking people in a metal tube, that has to remain airtight the whole way, and slingshotting them across space at thousands of miles an hour.”

           “Yeah, it’s pretty cool, isn’t it?” Nyra chuckled. “That’s not even stuff they focus on in the training. What you need the most practice with are airlock precautions, wearing spacesuits, getting around in low gravity on rough terrain, and understanding radiation.”

           “You make it sound like we’re actually going to… walk on Callisto’s surface.”

           “Well, duh. We’re not going all the way out there to stay in the hotel.”

           As another icy surge of adrenaline hit Millie, her stiff legs carried her into the lobby of the training center, where things became a bit of a blur as Nyra checked them into reception and they got their pictures taken against a starry backdrop. But despite her stupor, Millie took in enough information about her surroundings to realize that this wasn’t a government building. Rather, it was run by a “Stellar Tour Group.”

           “I don’t need to do any of this again myself, of course,” Nyra said as they got into a group gathering around one of the many doors in the main hall, this one with a sign featuring the moon’s name. “But it’s good exercise. And kind of fun, too.”

           The doors opened, and a hunky twenty-something guy with bright white teeth led the space-tourists-in-training into the simulation room. Inside, holo-projectors created a star field and emulated what the surface of Callisto would look like, complete with Jupiter, though it was surprisingly far away for Millie—who was still frazzled.

           “Hi, everyone!” the trainer said after glancing at his tablet. “You’re all shooting for Callisto, right? Luna is the next room over, so… Good, looks like you’re in the right place. Callisto is a typical icy moon, but with an unusually cratered surface. Being outside of Jupiter’s radiation belt, it’s also the safest Jovian satellite to visit. Yay! This first course is about destination training. Under all of that foam padding is a gravity plate simulating the local surface gravity, which is about 13% of ours. Lots of bouncing around and slow drops. The best way to learn is to do it, so go ahead and try to get to the other side!”

           Millie stood back and watched as an older couple, a few kids, and everyone in between got right onto the artificial lunar surface without hesitation, most of them quickly having fun with the whole thing. When Nyra did it, she effortlessly spun herself around during one of her very slow jumps to give Millie a wave of encouragement.

           “Mill, come on! Just remember how astronauts move on Earth’s moon!”

           After a sigh and a deep breath, Millie approached the large foam pad and first held a hand over it to test the weight shift. She then took a few reluctant steps forward as the trainer guy gave her a smile and a thumbs-up. The feeling of floating and the extra work it took to keep things under control did strange things to her sense of balance and made her feel inebriated, but she was becoming determined to not embarrass herself.

           “H-hey! I’m… I’m doing it, Nyra! Look at me! Heh,” Millie said as she bounced.

           “Proud of you, Mill—but watch your footing when you come back down—”

           That did not happen. She misjudged her descent angle and stumbled on impact, falling to the surface in slow motion… which made it worse, as it only drew things out further. But at least it gave her plenty of time to get her arms in front of her and avoid landing on her face. As Nyra bounced over to help her, while stifling a giggle, a young girl in the group was already making her return trip and prancing elegantly in low gravity.

           “Look at me, Mommy!” she said chirpily. “I’m really good at this! It’s so easy!”

           “Ugh,” Millie groaned from the floor. “Must be one of Marianne’s descendants.”

           “Don’t sweat it, Mill,” Nyra said, yanking her up. “This is a vacation, not Apollo.”

           Over the course of the rest of that first day, and the two Saturdays that followed, Millie began to relax a little and understand what Nyra meant with that remark; none of the tests were particularly difficult, and the fact that no one, not even the seniors, had dropped out by the last training day reassured her of just how established space tourism had become. With modern dampeners, the acceleration simulator only needed to reach 3G; no worse than a drop on King Arcade’s coaster. The mock shuttle cabin was only as bad as a windowless airplane, and Millie didn’t panic during her required ten minutes inside an EVA suit—the worst part was not being able to scratch an itch.

           The health screenings were the tough part by comparison. At the end of each training day, every passenger was subjected to a few more exams, in order to space them out. Blood draws, antibody tests, and bone density scans were the most invasive. Even so, Millie was able to remind herself that Earth’s early astronauts had it much tougher.

           A week after she and Nyra were cleared for travel following the final training day, the two showed up at the spaceport itself, one month after the tickets were purchased. One last pre-flight challenge remained: a complimentary haircut, done on-site at the station barbershop, which was full of busy employees shortening the hair of everyone heading out on one of the soon-to-depart cruises to other worlds.

           “I do not like that smell…” Millie sniffed as her barber gave her a major trim with a cutter that used a laser beam for fast and clean hair removal. “It’s like that time Jared came to school after burning off his eyebrows during some stunt in tenth grade. Burnt hair… Blech. Nyra, I never look good with a short cut. So, no pictures, okay?”

           “Yeah, right,” Nyra said from the next chair over as she got a much more modest adjustment to her sidecut. “No pics on Callisto just because of your hair… It’s a safety thing, Mill. A single loose, long strand could get stuck in your helmet seal and make it imperfect. They used to flat-out cancel your trip if you showed up with hair longer than regulation—whole reason they put these places right in the port. It’ll grow back.”

           “All done, sweetheart,” Millie’s ‘stylist’ said and removed the gown after only giving her a moment to glance at herself in the mirror. “Next lucky victim!”

           Millie rejoined Nyra at the entrance, where they grabbed their also-regulation travel bags that could sense if the allowable weight-per-passenger limit was exceeded.

           “Still feels so light,” Millie said. “I don’t even know what to do with six pounds.”

           “Meds, maybe a device or two, and other essentials is really all you need,” Nyra said and slung hers over a shoulder. “No reason to bring all those heavy clothes.”

           “Uh-huh. Each time you say that, I get a visual of everyone on the ship… Uh, never mind. Where do we get into the jumpsuit, coverall… whatevers, anyway?”

           “Changing rooms by the long-haul gate. After a decontamination shower. Don’t worry—it’s more luxurious than clinical. Does wonders for your skin, for a few days.”

           “S-shower? It’s not, like, in front of people, is it?” Millie fretted.

           “Of course, it is. We all do it together. In our utopian society, communal nudity is not only the norm, but also cele… brated…” Nyra lost her composure and let out a snorting laugh. “I’m so sorry, Mill, but the look on your face is… Ahem. You get a stall, don’t worry. The water feels normal, until it starts exfoliating all on its own and gets rid of dead skin, like magic. It’s really too bad the shower only stays on for two minutes.”

           Millie breathed out in relief, but Nyra’s attempt at humor also earned her an eye roll and a scowling glance. She did end up coming out of the showers feeling as clean and rejuvenated as she would after a visit to a spa, although the utilitarian flight suit was no match for a fluffy bathrobe. After a quick stop to a large, long-term locker room to drop off what they were leaving behind, the two got on the maglev tram that took passengers down a glass tunnel and into the shuttle launch facility. Millie couldn’t help but pick at and make adjustments to her one-piece outfit on the way.

           “This is moisture-wicking, isn’t it?” she complained. “I never really liked that feeling on my skin… And couldn’t they at least make these two-color, instead of just this grayish blue? Something more like a Starfleet uniform would’ve been cooler.”

           “Next you’ll be whining about the seats on a starship that’s taking you into deep space,” Nyra groaned, though light-heartedly. “I get it, though. You’re talking because you’re nervous. I think once we get on the orbital, you’ll start to get used to it.”

           Now more conscious of her chatter, Millie tried harder to keep her thoughts to herself. Meanwhile, the girl from training was a few spots ahead on the tram, kicking her legs about happily. She also skipped ahead of her folks all the way to the shuttle, proudly put her shoulder straps on by herself in the seat across the aisle, and even audibly recited the entire set of safety instructions given by the flight crew. In a way, Millie was glad she was present; it gave her an “enemy” to focus on instead of thoughts of exploding.

           The blastoff up the mass-driver tower and the rocket ignition that followed all dampened by G-diffusers, Millie steadily unclenched her jaw and her grip on the armrest as she realized just how gentle the flight felt. The windowless shuttle provided a video feed that she was transfixed by—so much that the space trivia and history Nyra spouted off in the seat next to her completely glanced off the entire way up. Within just an hour, they slowed for the approach to a large orbital station, where a pair of truly impressive spacecraft were waiting to ferry passengers to worlds far more distant than any earthly vacation destination Millie could ever know. Shortly before they docked, she noticed an even bigger platform coming over the horizon towards them that appeared to be moving faster than their space station, and notably had many long gold radiator arrays.

           “That’s TMB HQ,” Nyra said, her words now reaching Millie. “It’s in a lower orbit, so it’s speedier. Truly a wondrous structure… Er, not that I’ve been there.”

           Millie’s replies by this point were little more than simple murmurs and grunts, as the concept of simply being up this high was still overwhelming and humbling. But once the two had grabbed their bags and entered the station proper, she did feel awash in some familiarity that helped her feel anchored again. Everything kept in place with a comfortable level of artificial gravity, she looked around at the busy and fairly wide-open space with waiting areas, several shops and restaurants, a bar, a private lounge out of their price range, fake plants, flight information boards, TVs tuned to various channels, and even a miniature “Zen area” with real bamboo growing near a running fountain.

           “It’s… it’s a freaking airport,” Millie remarked, without checking her volume level. She looked around at everything, noticing how there were ten smaller gates for shuttles and four large ones for the starliners. “It’s literally just a terminal… in space.”

           “Well, what did you expect it to be?” Nyra said cheekily. “For better or worse, the concept lasted for centuries before the first station like this one was built in the 24^th, so, yeah, they’re going to use what works. And there are three others, all very similar.”

           “Mars, Ceres… Saturn flyby, leaving tomorrow… And there’s Callisto,” Millie said, reading off the display that listed all flights as currently on time. “This is so unreal.”

           “To be fair, it remains a little unreal for everyone their first time. It’s not like there’s no lasting wonder to it all for us, too. And Callisto is currently the furthest destination for surface tourism. But first, we’ve got three hours to kill. You hungry for lunch?”

           “Here we are, in what feels like a crazy-faraway era to me, on a space station, and I’m sure a lot of new dishes have been created over the centuries… and you’re eating a burger,” Millie commented about an hour later, at a restaurant that provided a sweeping vista view of both Earth and the moored starliner they’d be flying on. She took her next nervous nibble of a strange burrito-like thing that was filled with a mix of artificial meats and looked like an egg roll on the outside, adding, “And that’s your second meal, too…”

           Nyra shrugged. “Gotta fill up while I can. Space food isn’t much better than what you get on your time’s airplanes. Also, burgers have persisted for a reason. Besides,” she wiped her greasy fingers, “Royal Valley doesn’t have a SouthZest location. Normally, I only get to eat at one when I’m in LA. These price premiums are killing me, though.”

           “But not the food itself, apparently…” Millie looked around the venue again and noticed, to her slight annoyance, that the young girl who now seemed to always be nearby was sitting down at a table. Thinking about the preparations again, she asked, “I was wondering—were all those tests really necessary? There were so many of them.”

           “I know. It gets annoying after a while.” Nyra finished her drink and the last fry. “They check your immune system and any possible issues you might have because of your genetics, all that kinda stuff, but what they’re looking for the most are any changes to your first results, after spending time in lower gravity, radiation exposure, etcetera.”

           “Aw, man, does that mean we have to get tested again when we get back?” Millie muttered and fell back in her chair. “If we get back… I’m not convinced space travel is as safe as everyone makes it sound. It’s still dangerous, isn’t it?”

           “Eh, can be, but guess what they do if something does happen to the ship? Now, time travel doesn’t work in deep space; a quartz needs exact coordinates and a sense of direction to get the location on the other side accurate. That’s okay, though. The TMB will rewind time for us and fix what went wrong, or work with the tour group to provide a replacement ship, or at most, just cancel the flight before we even got to the station.”

           “Huh…” Millie pondered. “So… the fact that we’re already here means…”

           “Yep,” Nyra replied, then looked out at the ST Jupiter Sunrise, and its four huge fusion rockets and four attached tenders. “We make it home. Weird kind of reassurance, isn’t it? They don’t say just how many incidents they prevent. Probably for the best.”

           “It’s still creepy… that there might be versions of us that crash into a gas giant.”

           The next time Millie felt clearheaded and sharp, it was in one of the boarding lines for the ship, which were moving at a brisk pace even with five hundred passengers. Not totally surprisingly, that girl’s family was in the group let inside right away, as they were among the forty or so premiere passengers and got preferential treatment.

           “Somehow, I keep forgetting to ask something obvious,” Millie spoke up as the second-class line alongside them began moving. “How many times have you done this?”

           “Um, well, this specifically—just once, to Mars. My parents have been working there on engineering projects for the past ten years, so I visited one time. It’s… pretty boring, really. Not much more than a cold desert. Been to Luna a few times, too, though that’s just a four-hour shuttle flight that bypasses the stations. A few million people live there, so it doesn’t feel all that ‘exotic’ anymore. Point is, I’m a little seasoned.”

           “That sounds… fast, but not, like, warp-drive fast.”

           “We’re still working on that,” Nyra said with a knowing smile. “Fusion rockets are more efficient when they’re just providing continuous light acceleration, but there’s still the initial slingshot around Earth that can get a little intense.”

           “You mean… as intense as it got in the simulator? That wasn’t too bad, I guess.”

           “Look, Mill, I get it if it scares you. You can request to be put into the sleeping pod early if you’re worried. Some people just don’t want the full experience.”

           “Nyra, I just said I’m fine with… And you’re teasing me again,” she huffed as the economy line began to move and they shuffled forward. “Poking fun at the primitive.”

           “Don’t take it so personally,” Nyra replied with a light nudge. “You aren’t the first person from your era to pay us a visit. We haven’t put anyone in a museum, yet.”

           There was one last security check performed on their bags before they set foot in the umbilical, and Millie began trembling again as she followed the other passengers down the long extendable corridor, which was lit by calming colors that simulated an aurora and gave the sensation of transitioning from Earth to the rest of the universe. She nearly tripped on the way, and when Nyra helped steady her, she felt her friend’s pulse racing and her clammy skin. Concerned, she got Millie to slow down.

           “Mill, you doing okay?” she asked as others passed them. “It’s not too late to turn back. It’s only money it’ll cost me, and you still got to see the station.”

           “I’m fine,” Millie said and took deep breaths. “Just… need to pace myself.”

           The ship’s central airlock opened up on the economy-plus section, which looked pretty nice; about as spacious and comfortable as the business seating on a commercial plane from Millie’s century. She’d only get to imagine what things were like at the front, as they had to move to the right to go back into “coach.” Along the fuselage were long and narrow windows that looked pretty heavily reinforced, and as there weren’t any bins above, the ceiling could be kept fairly low. Otherwise, the interior looked similar enough to a big jetliner, and Millie felt that sense of familiarity returning again.

           “We really only spend, like, six hours total out here,” Nyra said as they entered the rearmost cabin, where the seats were equivalent to economy-plus. “And our sleeping quarters are pretty small—we also have to share them with two others. Other than that, I don’t fully get the point of paying for more, since you spend so little time awake on the voyage. I guess it’s just more of a vanity thing for wealthy travelers.”

           “The seats have tray tables…” Millie observed as they passed through.

           “Yeah, they give us a meal before the big sleep that’s designed to help our needs while we’re in stasis, and then again before we arrive; food to get us going again in that case. Other than that, we can watch movies, and people treat this area like a community space where they get to know their fellow voyagers. We also wait out here for our turn to get put under, since that takes crew supervision. Did you ever do much flying?”

           “Only a few times… Dad wasn’t a big traveler after he gave up his bike. And he didn’t really trust the airlines, either. But this? I can’t even imagine his reaction.”

           Past another open curtain, where the flying-wing-shaped spacecraft was wider, was the corridor with sleeper cabins on either side. Nyra quickly found their room near the first batch before they’d have to travel further down the tight hallway, and waved her hand in front of the automatic sliding door which opened silently. The tiny space beyond it was windowless and didn’t have room for anything other than four sleeping pods, the personal storage cubes along their sides, and a pair of bolted chairs.

           “This is us,” Nyra said, tossing her bag and provided soft shoes into a cubby. “Might as well get comfortable. It can take a little while to get settled, believe me.”

           Following Nyra’s lead, Millie also shoved in her bag of personal effects and let her toes feel as much freedom as they could while still socked. One of the older couples they remembered from training then joined them, looking quite excited about all this.

           “Hello!” the woman greeted them like an adventurous grandma, and went right for a handshake with Nyra. “I guess we’re roommates. So nice to meet you!”

           “This is our fifth trip out—can you believe that?” the man added with a smile. “Nothing like doing this kind of thing after you retire. Beats another boring ocean cruise any day. Have you ever been out to Jupiter? Oh, let me introduce us…”

           Millie heard a ringing in her ears, and zoned out some as she stood sheepishly behind the more sociable Nyra and let her do the talking. She got foggy-headed again, like she was stuck in a dream and slightly dissociated. She wanted to feel present and soak in every moment of the surreal yet commonplace experience, but it had proven difficult.

           The two soon took their seats in a pair along the starboard side, but Millie had to stop looking out at Earth as it had simply become too much to think about. On the seatback screens, the safety and instructional preflight video lasted even longer than those that played for airline passengers; at least fifteen minutes or so. The recorded crew discussed many more situations and rules, as well, but it was hard to absorb everything. The segment about the ferry ships doubling as escape craft stood out the most, although such an emergency would be highly unlikely—no doubt because of time travel, however unspoken that fact might’ve been. Was that even general knowledge? Millie wondered as she looked at Nyra, unsure. Finally, before the food arrived, there was slingshot to endure.

           It picked up very gradually in the first few minutes after the ship left dock. But once they were speeding above the other side of the Earth from where they had started, the rockets kicked into high gear and the starliner’s frame shuddered. A hush fell over all of the passengers, whether out of minor fear, reverence for the process, or because they simply didn’t want to speak over the noise. Eventually, the G-forces were too strong to easily talk regardless. But just when Millie thought the pressure against her may become unbearable, the rockets dropped down to minimal impulse, the rate of acceleration was reduced to perfectly tolerable levels, and the ship was officially flung out into space.

           “Whew, always a rush,” Nyra exhaled as they both loosened their grip on the poor abused armrests. “Well… congrats, Mill. You nearly circumnavigated the world in just a few minutes. You see our speed on the screen’s map? Twelve miles a second and rising.”

           “Great,” she squeaked out meekly. “I get nervous just going over sixty an hour.”

           Several hours later, Millie was still picking at the last of the food in her tray while Nyra’s sat empty and waited to be collected. There was a real avant-garde movie from the 28^th century playing on her screen, about a colony of space dogs that could float around in a vacuum and had formed a roving planet composed of dogs, or some such nonsense, but she only looked up at it on occasion and wasn’t wearing headphones.

           “You doing okay?” Nyra said after a small belch. “I know that stuff tastes weird, but if you don’t eat it, you could wake up from hyper-sleep with some bad cramping.”

           “It tastes like cafeteria food,” Millie said with a shrug. “I’m just still trying to wrap my head around this being real. Thirty of my years ago, I was sitting on playground plastic, reading books or writing spy notes on composition paper, and now look at me.”

           “That’s not too weird. Look, after I came down from the station I was named after, I was a kid at DTE, too. Only difference was, our playground was on the roof.”

           Millie had her last bite and relaxed in her seat, feeling close to drifting off. She took another tired peek out the narrow window to see that they had now nearly passed the moon. The lights from its three largest cities, each built inside craters, were all in the half that was in shadow and quite visible. Things still felt like little more than a dream.

           “I’m surprised you could eat even more after the restaurant…” she murmured.

           “Never been much of a problem for me.” Nyra looked around the cabin, and nudged Millie. “All right, come on. We’re among the last couple dozen still awake. Time to go to bed,” she said and pressed the screen’s call button. “Trust me, it feels great.”

           “But, Dad, I want to stay up late. Don’t make me get up early for school…”

           A flight attendant soon arrived to put the two down, and while wearing a smile she guided them back into the room where Millie looked at the sleep pod with a yawn.

           “Hm. That older couple isn’t here yet,” Nyra noted as the attendant worked the settings on Millie’s ‘bed’ to tailor the gas mix and cushion firmness just for her size and unique biology. “Guess they’re the ‘always enjoy every moment’ type.”

           “Nyra, sleep like this has always scared me in the movies,” Millie admitted. “Just something ominous about deep hibernation during long space travel, don’t you think?”

           “It’ll be fine,” Nyra said and helped her into the lit-up pod. As Millie tried to settle in and the glass capsule sealed around her, she added, “See you in twelve days.”

           The attendant began the gas flow, and Millie asked, “How long… does it…”

           Without even being aware of having fallen asleep, and after feeling no passage of time, Millie awoke what seemed like seconds later. Her pod’s cover was already up—something of a safety feature to keep startled-awakers from banging their heads on it—and other than stiff muscles and a strange feeling in her stomach, she felt all right.

           “Ah… Refreshing,” Nyra said in the pod next to her, stretching while the old folks, the veterans in the room, were already putting their shoes on. “Morning, sleepyhead. I was starting to wonder when you’d wake up. I’ve been awake almost an entire minute.”

           “That’s it…?” Millie mumbled back. “Are we really at Jupiter, just like that?”

           Grinning, the lady retiree replied, “It’s truly the best way to travel, isn’t it?”

           “Oh, man. Wow. I feel… I feel great,” Millie exclaimed and got her arms moving. “I don’t know what’s in that gas, or the stuff that wakes you up, but I’m at full throttle.”

           “Okay, pace yourself,” Nyra cautioned and handed Millie her shoes. “You might be in a bit of a manic mood for a little bit. The next meal will help calm you down again while we settle over the moon. If we see Jupiter, will you promise not to squeal?”

           “Yeah. I can do that. Sure,” Millie said, and put her shoes on the wrong feet.

           Following a correction, Nyra led her back to their seats where they had seemingly been just minutes ago. Most of the awake passengers in economy were already piling up on the starboard side for glimpses of the titanic world, and two things struck Millie as soon as she saw it outside, so large that it seemed like they were no longer moving.

           “It’s really bright and desaturated. And just as distant as in the sim,” she remarked, eyes glued to the glass. “How fast are we going? Did we slow down already?”

           “You have to know that astronomy photos play up the colors for dramatic effect. And yes, Callisto is far away from it. And the retro rockets started firing about two-thirds through the journey while we were snoozing, since the pods protect us from the harder deceleration. We’ll be in a stable orbit above Callisto in just a few more hours.”

           Millie was able to peel her eyes off the view long enough to look at Nyra and say, “You know your stuff. It used to take a room of NASA scientists to figure all this out.”

           “Pfft,” Nyra slid into her seat and buckled in real chill-like, “orbital mechanics is third grade ‘stuff’ these days. What’ll excite me is getting to see the hotel down there.”

           Feeling crowded by gas giant gawkers, Millie tried to relax as she squished herself into her seat to wait for breakfast, and quietly asked, “So… do they have a spa?”

           After another two hours of waking up and an energizing breakfast, the travel buddies were among those who boarded the third tender ship to depart the Jupiter Sunrise. Nyra was finally becoming genuinely, outwardly excited, while Millie remained reserved and more focused on simply trying to experience and take in everything.

           The large moon—one of the solar system’s few bigger than Earth’s—barely had any atmosphere, so the descent was very peaceful. While the ferry also lacked windows, across the curving ceiling was a panoramic video taken with a wide lens that showed the approaching lunar surface and every horizon, all at once. Callisto was a little on the dark side, having a lower albedo than many satellites, and it looked like the ferry would be landing near the current twilight belt between its sunlit and shadowed halves.

           “Mill, you see that little blotch of light, getting bigger?” Nyra whispered and pointed them out on the feed above their heads. “That’s Embla City, Callisto’s only major settlement. Founded in a crater with the same name a few miles wide, too small to be named until they started building in it. The moon’s features usually reference figures in Norse mythology, if I hadn’t mentioned that yet. I think about 50,000 live there.”

           “That many people, in one place on a distant moon?” Millie murmured back.

           “Well, you only find scientific outposts further out, so this is where you go if you want to get as far away from everything as you can. It’s still a shame, though; the pace of space exploration. We’ve only sent a few dozen probes to extrasolar planets. You should know what it’s like. Your kid self must’ve thought people would be on Mars by 2020.”

           “Heck, earlier than that…” Millie said, her eyes glazing over at the sight of the many craters that were coming in more clearly by the second. “How’s it… protected?”

           “The city? Same tech used on our moon: an array of beehive-shaped acrylic-glass, double-layered, with a few feet of water in between that’s good at diffusing cosmic rays and gives a repair margin in the event of a meteorite breach, as long as it’s kept warm.”

           “Because… it would help hold in atmosphere until it boiled off?”

           “Hey, you got it! See, this is one reason why I like meeting people from around the time horizon; most of you at least get it, even if the science hadn’t been realized yet.”

           “A lot of good sci-fi from our era, you know…” Millie looked at Nyra curiously. “How many of us have you met, exactly, anyway? Aren’t you just a ‘lowly’ field scout?”

           “Oh, pfft, you know… Work long enough, and you stumble into certain people.”

           Once the ferry landed in one of the bays outside the crater, the two grabbed their bags and headed down another long corridor to a security checkpoint. Along and inside the crater walls, things were made of metal, 3D-printed concrete, or compacted bricks of regolith; all very utilitarian. After they were past all of that and had taken a tram through a final tunnel, however, they arrived in a surprisingly lush and balmy city protected by a network of giant hexagons that held steady a thousand feet above everyone. The domed settlement was climate controlled, and the plants that covered every available space that wasn’t urban development kept the lunar soil healthy and provided some free oxygen.

           The vehicles, like the taxi that took the pair to the only current hotel on the moon, were all compact, and the roads were narrow what with space being a valuable commodity. Buildings were equally dainty, but as the city was all “indoors” already, they didn’t need to waste room on larger central heating systems. In fact, some of the squat office towers didn’t seem to have visible or at least active windows at all, and Millie saw from the automated two-seater taxi many workers doing their jobs in open-air spaces. They passed a movie theater, several parks, and families with their kids, many of whom must’ve been native-born. Humanity might not have been too expansive across the solar system yet, but when people did establish and build up a new home, they did it right.

           “It’s almost like… some giant live-in mall,” Millie commented without realizing.

           “I can see why you’d say that,” Nyra replied, equally fascinated and also taking in the sights. “Luna’s a lot like this, but its cities are on a bigger scale. The difference here is, this is all later-generation architecture. More material efficient, I’m guessing.”

           After a ten-minute ride, the taxi pulled into the hotel drop-off area behind and in front of many other yellow cabs. The three-story building, which was modular, blocky, and must’ve been made in 3D-printed segments, would have been stark white if not for the enormous mural that covered its front of Earth’s ocean and land animals, blending into one another. They’d seen similar artwork on other structures throughout the city.

           “Nice place. But does it just sit empty between tour visits?” Millie questioned as she and Nyra stepped out into the perfect and faintly breezy seventy-eight-degree air.

           “Probably,” Nyra replied, and their taxi shuffled forward without them. “But I don’t think it’d be vacant for long, since people are coming from Luna and Mars, too.”

           “Wow…” Millie said quietly and peeked into the hotel. “We’re on a Jovian moon.”

           Millie started to dissociate again almost as soon as they set foot into the lobby, which was basic and modest like most Callisto designs still had to be. They signed in, took an elevator to the second floor, got into their Manhattan hotel-sized room that did have a nice view of Embla, and after Millie checked out the ten TV channels on offer—one of which hosted locally-produced content—she checked out, too. Feeling a sort of advanced exhaustion mixed with melancholy, she drifted off on her bed next to the window with her shoes still on. She stirred only briefly when Nyra, after taking a shower, came over and helped her get under the covers as Millie sleepily took her contacts out.

           “… Nyra?” she said groggily an uncountable length of time later. She sat up in bed in the dark room and saw her travel buddy at the small desk, typing on her laptop-like device that projected a holographic screen. She then looked out the window to see that it was dark across the city, too. “Oh, no…” she groaned. “How long was I out?”

           “About twelve hours. Not uncommon for first-timers,” Nyra said and sipped at some coffee without taking her eyes off her work. “You woke up a few times, though.”

           “Ugh… Sorry. We come all the way out here, and I spend the first day asleep.”

           “Don’t worry about it.” Nyra turned her screen off and faced Millie. “I got most of the work I was gonna do finished, and explored the hotel and our surroundings.”

           “What time is it? Don’t tell me I missed the rest of the lunar day.”

           “Early morning, but that’s just the dimmable skylight. We will fall into night for the rest of our stay starting tomorrow, but that’s okay—makes for better viewing of the stars and Jupiter. Are you still feeling out of it, Mill? I know how overwhelming space travel can be. People don’t have to be from your era to experience hyper-sleep fatigue.”

           “I think it’s more than that.” Millie blinked a few times and reached over for her second pair of eyes that were in cleaning solution on the nightstand. “I mean, sure, I can ask questions like… why do we do all this? Why do we go places? What’s wrong with staying nice and comfy at home? But space, and other worlds, and the travel time… It’s just so vast, that I wonder how Royal Valley or Desert Tree can still exist somewhere in this huge universe. It feels like I could never go back to them. More than all that, I don’t get the sense that I belong here, or earned this journey. I’m too… insignificant?”

           “Mm. Deep stuff. Very deep.” Nyra pondered. “Maybe… we should see the city.”

           The dome had eased up on the dimming by the time they made it outside, letting in more of the distant sun’s light, and from the hotel they did something very everyday: they took a walk. The city wasn’t very large, after all. Still, within the crater was a fully functional community with a little bit of everything, from the founder’s park in its center all the way to the tall, dark, and rough rock that sheltered the town, which was coated in a layer of concrete and held supports for the massive glass dome above. At least a dozen of the towers reached all the way to the glass, since they doubled as load-bearing pillars.

           But anything else that wasn’t a megastructure appeared strikingly normal, if not a little Truman Show-esque. Millie and Nyra traversed sidewalks and crossed intersections with traffic lights. They passed by their fellow tourists, taking pictures of commonplace things in sheer amazement that they existed out here, too. There was a museum with exhibits covering Embla’s creation, an art gallery, several shopping centers, restaurants including a café with sandwiches where they had lunch, and fire and police stations.

           After another post-meal hour of walking and visual cataloging, there was an abrupt and brief shower created by the sprinklers between the glass hexagons, not even lasting long enough to make seeking cover necessary. Eventually, the pair ended up on the outskirts of town, away from the touristy stuff and closer to the crater walls where small painted cottages were crammed together; the equivalent of suburbs, it seemed.

           “I think I see some really light, wispy clouds way up there,” Nyra said as they crossed a street. “Isn’t it neat? Make any interior big enough, and it can form its own weather system.” She leaned up against a tree by a large fence. “See, Mill? It’s just another place, with people. Nothing’s all that different, even millions of miles away. Takes a little getting used to, but it’s not quite as existential…” she went quiet when a bell rang out.

           Millie got closer to the fence, and when elementary school-age children spilled out of the enclosed building’s doors and she saw the equipment across the grounds, she reacted a touch strangely. “It’s… it’s a school. And recess…” she gasped, and covered her mouth. Then she started laughing—the kind of laughter that came from the belly and quickly evolved into almost reveling hysterics. “Oh my God… Nyra! Are you seeing this? We wound up near a school playground, on Callisto! It's so whimsically banal. Like, full circle and grounded type stuff. We have this huge solar system and all these worlds, but know what? Kids still happen, and they need educating, and will want to have fun…”

           Nyra raised an eyebrow and gave the kids a glance. “I’m… glad you’re lightening up and finding this of all things so amusing. I think. But are you still feeling okay?”

           “No,” she said facetiously between her laughs. “I must have the…” she lowered her voice and wriggled her fingers, “space maaadneeeess…” She let out a snort and began to calm down a bit. “Come on, 90s-lover, you must’ve seen Red & Stimpy. Look, I can’t fully explain it, but something finally broke in me just now; I’m suddenly not drowning in awe. Seeing this is… Maybe it just reminded me that life is an absurdist comedy. Hoo. A random, unfeeling ball of ice, flying around a gas giant, and we put a playground on it.”

           “Well, if you put it like that…” Nyra joined her at the fence with her hands in her hotel-branded cotton coverall pockets. “Yeah, I guess I see it. Whatever helps you.”

           “Life is just people, Nyra, no matter where they go. And people, I can figure out.”

           Nyra simply smiled in response and gave her friend a nudge before adding, “We better not stay too much longer. The brats will wonder why we’re staring at them.”

           The two made the long return trek to the hotel after that, where, as if the cosmos also had a sense of humor, they walked into a small scene that seemingly put a cap on the trip despite it having five days to go. The girl who had been unknowingly hounding Millie since training was upset in the lobby, and being consoled by her parents.

           “What’s wrong, space cadet?” her luxury-jumpsuit-wearing mother asked her.

           “It’s not fair!” the child cried out and stomped her foot. “My team didn’t win the hotel games today because the other kids were bad and didn’t listen to me!”

           “Nice to know a lot of things stay the same, too,” Millie whispered to Nyra as they walked by the meltdown on the way to the lift. “People really do anchor us.”

           That evening before dinner, Nyra and Millie underwent final checks on their suits by the Stellar Tour Group operators and stepped into the airlock that led to the outside, natural terrain of Callisto. They were both nervous, but it was the normal kind of stress that came before any new experience, and by now Millie’s sense of floating out of her body and the dissociation felt like they’d been conquered. Once the air in the chamber cycled out along with all exterior sound, they could almost hear their heartbeats. The heavy bulkhead door slid open, and they took the first cautious steps out into a cratered landscape made up of regolith and ice so cold that it behaved like rock.

           “Amazing, isn’t it…?” Nyra’s voice murmured through Millie’s headset as the sun very slowly descended past the rugged lunar horizon. “Wooow. I’d never get used to this. Take it slow, Mill—remember, no gravity plating below us now. We’re lighter out here.”

           Sticking close to Nyra and watching her footing, Millie kept her pace slow as they ventured deeper into the marked “safe area” outside of Embla. There were other, braver adventurers further away, many of which had professional guides that showed them to hills, cliffs, and more craters, but the pair were just fine with keeping things basic today.

           “I thought there’d be more stars…” Millie said as she gazed up at Jupiter and the latest iteration of its Great Red Spot, about two-thirds of the giant planet in shadow.

           “Jupiter washes them out,” Nyra reminded. “We can return on the last day when there’s less light coming off it. And rent a photo drone to—Mill!” she exclaimed when she saw her stumbling like she had in the simulator. This time, she caught Millie before she hit the ground and helped her back up. “Damn, girl, careful! Even the smallest rocks can…” she trailed off when she saw the big smile inside the other glass bubble.

           “Did I fool ya?” Millie said wryly. “Sure sounds like I did.”

           “Okay, just for that, you’re going to hold my hand the rest of the way,” Nyra insisted and grabbed Millie’s thickly-covered paw. “Geez. I can’t take you anywhere.”

           Perfectly fine with just admiring the view in silence, they soon lost track of time. Somewhere out there was the pale blue dot they came from, and would soon return to.

           Nearly two years after that trip, Millie gave the framed image of her and Nyra on Callisto’s surface a glimpse as she packed a suitcase in the apartment they shared. It still felt unreal, like a dream from a past life, but the snapshot would remain as proof that it had happened. Their second vacation together was a little easier and more local, so she got to take luggage full of tropical wear; one thing she did not miss were those jumpsuits.

           “Hey, Mill?” Nyra said after knocking on the bedroom’s open door. “Bad news. I got a call from the chief, and it sounds urgent. Something about a situation in 2024.”

           “What? Come on… We’re only halfway done with our trip. Is the rest cancelled?”

           “I swear we’ll make it to Hawaii. This is why I didn’t want to take a breather back in town. Ugh.” She also looked at the photo on the dresser and smiled. “I miss Callisto.”

           “Me, too,” Millie sighed. “Hey, maybe we could start saving up for a return trip.”