Ilana set out early to catch her launch that day, mostly to get out of the house but also because she had no hope of sleeping. Not between her mother’s sobbing and the murmured comings and goings of neighbors offering their condolences.
As if Ilana had died instead of simply accepting a job in space.
Something millions of people had done with little thought for over a century, by the way. Not that Ilana’s mother had wanted to hear that argument. Her astrophobia had shut down any potential for rational discussion – another point her mother didn’t take well.
Today, Ilana would be the first person from her backwater locality to leave Earth.
And instead of celebrating, her mother mourned.
So Ilana grabbed her vacuum bag and left, even as she felt a tug of guilt for her silent exit. She couldn’t take the emotional grandstanding anymore.
She walked to the edge of town like she’d done thousands of times since she was a kid. She was familiar with this strange time of night. The witching hour, as her aunt called it – the deep, still trench of dark before the dawn. When Ilana got home at this hour she rarely had all of her wits about her, her vision and memories blurred with beer or smoke or the afterglow of sex.
The only things she ever really went into the city for anymore.
That morning Ilana entered a spotless, newly constructed autobus stop down the hill outside of her neighborhood. From there, she took a pre-dawn hoverbus out of the Tanasi Valley to the Atlanta regional hub. Then she boarded a larger shuttle to the Cape Canaveral Spaceport. Just as she’d originally planned – only 10 hours early.
The dawn started to bloom over her journey, casting the hills in soft pastel, ponds and lakes shining like gems catching the light. The view and the lightly occupied shuttle allowed Ilana to settle into a quiet peace. For the first time, she felt as if she were embarking on a new beginning rather than ending her life in every way she’d known.
She also felt more alone than she’d ever felt in her life. Unmoored from the bonds that had kept her afloat her entire lifetime. She wasn’t lost but she might as well be.
Hills and mountains opened up to the Atlantic Swamp, or what remained of the American Panhandle swallowed by the ocean and the gulf on either side. The water appeared stroked by a paintbrush where saltwater of varying densities refused to mix. Although the American Coalition had made efforts to purify the gulf of centuries of oil spills, parts of the water’s surface reflected a sickly green sheen, like a rainbow gone askew.
Ilana kept her sense of calm as she disembarked from the shuttle and onto the cavernous concourse floating above the bright blue ocean, protected from storms by its own atmospheric dome. Tufts of clouds rested along the horizon like flocks of sheep.
Every sight she saw was grander than the last. Every step forward validated the next.
She located her gate then printed a bowl of noodles from a concourse replicator, enjoying the view and scrolling through social to see the lives of her acquaintances carry on as usual. Nobody in her family had posted that morning. Even her mother had been quiet and she liked to share her breakfast spread. Then her sister Indigo’s newest post had popped up.
OMG! My sister is going into SPACE today! Who’s taking a trip to visit her with me??
That made Ilana chuckle. She was sure their mother was restricted from seeing it, otherwise Indigo would become the target of her wrath instead of Ilana. The only way Indigo would make it to space before she turned 18 would be if she ran away without telling anyone.
Which Ilana didn’t entirely put past the brilliant teen.
There Ilana sat, working through a cascade of feelings. Until she noticed that no one else was waiting at her gate. That seemed strange at… ten minutes before departure. There was no way she was the only person going to Luna.
Out of the corner of her smart contacts, a notification caught her eye. Then another.
A gate change. Every piece of communication tech she wore had tried to tell her as much, but she’d been so submerged in her thoughts she’d missed them all. She had audible announcements turned off, too, since she’d never needed it before.
She’d never gone far enough to need directions.
She didn’t even think. She grabbed her bag and ran full bore, weaving through the concourse crowd, ignoring their stares. Her new space boots were slowing her down – her legs and ass burned with each gasping leap she took.
She was going to miss her first flight into space.
And considering how she left things with her family the night before, going back home with her tail between her legs was not an option.
Technically, Ilana could just catch the next Lunar shuttle. All things considered, this was not the biggest deal in the galaxy. But messing up this first step felt like a failure Ilana couldn’t bear to make the foundation of her new life. “Trying to go and see the world when she couldn’t even see her own ass,” as her mother would say – one of those weird old colloquialisms that didn’t actually make any sense but made the person saying it feel superior.
The concourse was busier now but spacious enough that it didn’t feel crowded. Ilana had fully sacrificed dignity at the altar of speed, her hard steps echoing in the hall. She came to a halt at an intersection to gather her bearings.
An older woman reached out to her with a shaking hand. She looked just like the grannies and great-aunties in Ilana’s neighborhood, her face carved with deep wrinkles, her shoulders and silver hair loosely wrapped with a shawl.
“Young lady, could you lend me a hand?” She motioned to where her luggage stood next to a hovercart. “My son got caught up with the little ones at the cafe…”
Ilana could take the time to explain to the little old lady why she couldn’t help her, or she could just do the thing and move on.
She hoisted the luggage onto the cart one after the other – breathing heavy and lifting with her legs, not her back. She guessed from the heft of the bags and the woman’s simple garments that the family must live even deeper in the hills than hers. She wasn’t surprised they hadn’t heard of vacuum bags. She doubted they knew any better.
“Oh, thank you!” the woman started but Ilana was too far gone to hear the rest.
The departure countdown at the corner of her vision hit thirty seconds when Ilana was still six gates away. Heart pumping, she got to her destination with just four seconds to spare.
She stumbled through the gate as it scanned her identity and confirmed her ticket reservation. Like the rest of her journey, the fare had been free, subsidized by the Alliance.
Ilana folded over, clutching at her cramping side. She’d made it.
She caught her breath for a spell then straightened and continued up the flybridge. Despite being an agnostic, she couldn’t help but whisper one of her mother’s prayers as she took her first steps onto the space shuttle.
Superstition was still one hell of a drug, soothing her fluttering nerves as the shuttle doors chimed and closed behind her.
Next Part
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