Ashton Etrigan

Age: 28

Current Mass: 185 lbs/84 kg

Mental Status: Sleepy

Physical Status: N/A

⬨⬨⬨

Crunch! The sound of the off-brand cereal was loud and dry in my mouth. It probably didn’t help that I had nearly no milk to go with the almost-chocolate flavored flakes of dry wheat and sugar. I was sitting at a table in the kitchen, looking out at the world below the window where people and cars were starting to fill the streets, signaling the start of a new gods damned day. I then nearly dropped my spoon as the door to the kitchen slammed open. A chipper “Good morning!” was shoved right in my ear as my sister barged into the room. Her face wore an expression that seemed intent on forcing a bright day even if it had the audacity to be anything less than stellar. Her name was Emily Etrigan, my older sister. I managed to grumble out a “g'morning’” back at her between bites of cereal. It was way too early for me to be able to use proper words, and besides, I was busy shoveling spoonfuls of quote unquote ‘food’ down my throat.

“How’s your morning? Are we out of milk again? Alright, black coffee it is then!” Emily’s machine gun mouth fired off sentence after sentence at blistering speeds as she rummaged through cupboards and drawers to get a couple of mugs and spoons. Her mood was the usual energetic and positive wave of happiness it always was. It was baffling how she could force so much energy at this time in the morning, although to her this was more like the end of the day. In a matter of minutes she’d boiled some water, made two cups of coffee and sat down at the table. She slid one of the mugs over to me.

“Careful, it’s very hot,” she said before sipping her own mug gently.

“Thanks. How was your night?” I asked.

My sister worked as a night nurse over at the Andromeda, a hospital that only took in especially powerful people, like politicians, major business owners and all of their family members.

“It was good, no incidents tonight, but Mrs. Solomon had another episode. She’s okay, she just walked from her bed into the cafeteria and woke up trying to make herself a bowl of rice pudding. I walked her back to her bed and she told me I remind her of her granddaughter. She just got her college degree, isn’t that great? The granddaughter I mean, not Mrs. Solomon.”

She kept talking like that while I ate my breakfast and drank my cup of coffee. The sacred black liquid did its job and got me energized during our little conversation, although I would still need a shower and some fresh air before I really woke up. While my sister filled me in on her night I took the opportunity to inspect over the rim of my coffee mug. She looked tired. Emily was older than me by 4 years, but she managed to somehow look like a younger sister. She took excellent care of her long, sandy blonde hair, and spent an equal amount of time and effort to keep her skin smooth and soft. She was shorter than me, by a full foot, but you should never mention that to her face, or you’d suffer her version of a scolding, which included a guilt-trip about twice the length to the sun and back. Other than her height, she was pretty unremarkable, although many would call her pretty, or even beautiful when she made the effort with the right dress and makeup. The only thing betraying how she really felt was her eyes. Her light blue eyes were deep, and always filled with a spark of excitement about the world and everyone in it, but it could dim in the aftermath of a long night at the hospital. Even then mostly only I could see it, having known her for so long. Her name plate hung loose on her nurse’s uniform, and her name, Emily Etrigan, looked faded on the little metal plate. She smiled though, and was probably genuinely happy, although the dark lines beneath her eyelids told me she probably stayed longer than what was really necessary.

Emily loved her job. Loved helping people, fixing their issues and providing a stable structure of support during difficult times. It was the reason I was currently living in her apartment, drinking her coffee. “I see,” I said just to fill space as she took a breath between sentences. She kept talking about her patients and her tasks, the ones she liked and the ones that were challenging to her. I listened intently, not because I was interested in her job, but because I respected her.

Here I was, working a dead-end job I hated, living in my sister's apartment and doing my best to find meaning in my life, while she was working tirelessly night after night at a hospital for rich douchebags, without ever complaining about anything, even though I could see she was exhausted. I didn’t say it much, but I loved her alot, not just because she was my sister and gave me a place to live at the moment, but because she never gave in to adversity. Whenever I bitched about my own job, or my useless coworkers, she always managed to talk me out of whatever shitty mood I was in, and got me to admit that “Alright, it’s not really that bad, I just wish I could do something more important.”

I didn’t have a horrible job by any measure, and in all honesty I was pretty okay at it, it was just not exactly what I’d expected of myself. I was a store clerk for a pretty large tech company that sold everything from computer equipment and phone accessories to toys and simple robots for children. I considered it a mental torture chamber. It was my job to promote merchandise and sell customers items they absolutely didn’t need, and if someone needed help with a broken phone or something similar I had to help them even when their request was something stupid like “My alarm clock won’t play this specific song I like”, or “My child smashed my phone with a bowling ball, can you repair it?” Every day I got more depressed than the last, but I needed the money.

I felt like my life had stagnated after college. I started my major in astrophysics, and managed to get through the first two years, but then I fell behind during the exam period in the third year. It had been like that ever since childhood. I was gifted with a wide range of talents in many different fields, but after that talent carried me as far as it could and I actually had to work and study to achieve any kind of expertise, I would fail. I wasn’t able to just sit down and do something that required my full attention, even if the subject was something I was genuinely interested in. As soon as I was told I had to do something that would take more than a few hours I would struggle to even begin. When I should have been working on myself I was instead spending my time reading someone else’s work, listening to someone else’s music, or went and just ran until all my excess energy was spent. I knew I was wasting time, but it became an easy escape. It did have one benefit though. I got very skilled at doing several tasks, all at once, very quickly at night. Good for someone that lived an action-filled life, full of intrigue and drama. Not so much for an adult man with no real direction in his life.

I had wanted to study stars. I wanted to just sit in my own personal space where I could watch the night sky and marvel at the vastness of space. I could play music I enjoyed, or a podcast with voices that had just the right amount of enthusiasm to keep me active. There I could fill the space with things I enjoyed and people I liked, instead of having to tolerate the general public at a thematically colored electronics store. Instead what I had was no time for hobbies, no money to spend on interests, and worst of all, no useful skills or abilities to improve my situation as it was right now. I was a 28 year old store clerk with a ton of student debt and no future. If I went on like this I-

“Hey! Ash! Earth to Ashton, are you there?” Emily snapped her fingers in front of my face to get my attention. I let out a confused “huh?” and stared at her.

She hesitated for a second, then said “Don’t you have to go get ready? If you want to get a workout in before your shift starts you gotta get going.”

I thought I caught a twinge of concern in her voice, and I felt a little guilty for making her worry about me. She had enough on her plate.

“Yeah, you’re right. I’m gonna take a quick shower, then I’ll get going.” I stood from my seat and dumped my dishes in the sink, then headed into the bathroom. The first thing I saw as I stepped through the door was my own face in the mirror. I looked almost lethargic, but I chalked it up to not being much of a morning person.

That or the fact that I stayed up way past midnight last night to read about old nuclear reactors and how Lodestar Labs were creating a future where fossil fuels would be entirely obsolete. Good thing too, because there wasn’t much left in the world.

Nevertheless, I needed to freshen up. I undressed and turned on the shower, then waited for it to get hot. I didn’t have much time though, so I couldn’t wait very long. The mix of coffee and cold water hitting my skin had an electrifying effect, and I immediately felt more awake. I may have shrieked just a bit from the shock, but no one probably heard that. Then I heard Em’s laughter from out in the hall. I blushed.

I didn’t have much space to move in the shower. Not that it was tiny, I was just a lot bigger than my sister. I was pretty medium height, but several years of physical exercise had made me pretty broad shouldered and thick around the chest. I wasn’t a bodybuilder by any means, but I had found joy in the gym. Sometimes I felt like I should have become a soldier, or a security guard, just so I could get paid to work out.

I finished in the shower and turned the water off. A towel hung on the wall, and when I reached to grab it I got another look of myself in the mirror. My short black hair was slicked back away from my face, which now looked a lot better. As I dried it, my hair fell forward to its neutral, kinda spiky style. When I was younger I tried to keep it slicked back with hair gel and similar products, but it never stayed down for long so I eventually gave up.

I brushed my teeth, put on some moisturizer and got dressed. I heard a knock on the door. Emily stuck her head in as I was about to open the door. She looked me dead in the eyes, her pale blue against my dark purple.

“Oh, you’re dressed, good,” She shot off before I could complain about the intrusion on my privacy. She then ushered me out of the bathroom and into my bedroom to get my stuff.

“I packed your bag with some lunch, and I put some cash in there if you get hungry after work.” I smiled sheepishly at her over my shoulder.

“Thanks, Em,” I managed to say as I collected my things. She watched me walk around in the little storage room I used as a bedroom to pick up my stuff. I always kept a gym bag with a bunch of workout gear in it, ready to go whenever I wanted to hit the gym. Other than that my little bedroom had little in the way of space or decoration. I slept in a single bed, had a small closet for clothes and a tall wooden box where I kept my laptop computer. If I layed down on the floor I was just able to touch either wall width-wise if I stretched my arms out over my head.

The last thing I picked up from my room was my cell phone. It was old, practically an antique. It was shaped like a rectangular piece of glass and metal, with wires and circuit boards, and a screen you had to maneuver using old touch-based technology.

As soon as I walked out into the hall, Emily tossed her car keys at me and said “Here, just make sure not to slip.” I caught them as she followed up her last words “It rained last night and roads are slippery. I left her in the carpark, near the door. Anything else you need before I go to bed?”

I was surprised whenever Em let me borrow her car. She loved the old wreck of a car she’d bought over ten years ago now. It was a chunky red thing that barely passed the DMV safety inspections, but it was reliable, and cost her practically nothing on gas.

“No, I’m alright” I answered her. Emily yawned and asked yet another question. “Are you seeing Deimos today? Tell him I said hi, and that he should come over sometime. You need more social interactions.” I strapped on my bag and jingled the keys a little. I liked the sound. Then I looked back at her, blushing slightly, and said “Not at the gym, but he’s coming by at work later. He told me he needed to get some stuff fixed for the weekend. Something about big plans and a presentation. I’ll tell you at dinner tonight I guess.” Deimos was one of my closest childhood friends that I still saw on a regular basis. Even mom knew him on a first name basis, which put him on an entirely different level than any of my other friends. We’d stuck together through girlfriends, oversea trips and even some political elections. The guy was family to me. Em was probably correct about the social interactions thing, though. I was often bad at that. “I’ll tell him you said hi. He’ll probably answer something about your ass again though” I said. Deimos, in addition to being my friend, also found my sister insanely hot, and mentioned it at least once every time I saw him, to my eternal discomfort.

I walked through the apartment to get to the hall and front door. The place was designed like a rectangular horseshoe, with the living room in the middle, and bedrooms and kitchen on either side. Some news station was turned on and a sharp dressed man was on the screen, talking about some company doing something important. Many opinions by many people. To me it was just another rich guy exploiting his wealth for power. I turned it off and stepped outside. The very first thing I noticed was the brightness. I guess I’m not the best at lighting the apartment whenever I’m by myself, so my eyes were adjusted to pretty dim light still. I kept telling myself I didn’t need that much light because we had windows, and, you know… electricity isn’t free. So as I stepped out I was momentarily blinded by sunlight reflected in the snow around our building, and subsequently fell on my ass when my next step hit a patch of ice. Passersby could see me fumble around on the ground for an embarrassingly long time before I got my feet under me and managed to stand up. I got off the stupid ice patch and dug out an old pair of sunglasses. Sure, my eyes were already used to the light, but at this point it was more about hiding my face more than shielding my eyes from the treacherous rays from the sun.

The car was easy to find, it being a stark red splash of color amongst the otherwise gray and black background of other cars. Emily was a lot like that. She stood out from the crowd, always wearing a reassuring smile that shone like a beacon in an ocean of gray faces. She’d been like that ever since we lost our dad. He passed before I could form real memories, but Em was just old enough to have a connection to Argyle Etrigan, the everyman hero. He’d been some sort of lawyer, and the stories I’d heard from mom and Em were all about how he wanted to help people that had been screwed over by large corporations. One time he sued a power company for malignant disposal of radioactive waste that ended up poisoning the local community. He won, and the company was forced to pay a fortune in punitive damages, which eventually caused the company to go under. Lots of angry people after that. An investigation was launched against our dad, and they found some form of leverage used to disbar him, and revoked his license to practice law. I’m told he took his own life after that, and since then the Etrigan name hasn’t been looked upon very favorably. Nevertheless, Emily wanted to follow in dad's footsteps and help or be of support to as many people as she possibly could. Hence the nurse job, and one day, hopefully, a medical degree in pediatrics or something. Point is, she was a superhero to a lot of people, just like dad had been. Emily loved superhero culture. Not the cool things, like the powers, the costumes or the over-the-top villains. No, she liked superheroes for their relentless will to help everyone, those in need, the weak and the injured, and even those in opposition to themselves. She related to that, and did all that she could to embody that idea. Too bad it didn’t come with fortune and fame actual superheroes got. I had to forcibly end my train of thought, as I really needed to get going.

I got in the car and got my ass in gear. First stop was the gym. My planning app told me I had a 5-10 minute run as a warmup, then I was gonna do some fighting practice before I started lifting. Sorta all over the place, I know, but my brain liked a lot of variety. Deimos would slap my shoulder and tell me I needed to be more focused on specifics during workouts. Just running, or quick warmup and then only lifts, et cetera. He was the guy who got me started in my early twenties. He was a lot like a mentor to me back then, getting me out of my room and getting me to actually do things. I owed him a lot. Which is why this upcoming weekend was very important, but I’ll get to that later.

⬨⬨⬨

Due to the early hour, the gym was practically empty. I liked it that way. Less chance that someone hogged equipment, and more space to move in. My gym wasn’t small by any means, but it wasn’t a huge fancy one either. It was called Supernova, and had a ton of locations all around the city. Inside was a cute twenty-something brunette woman called Tyler, which yeah, a little weird, but you get used to it. She worked the counter, and was an omni-present employee at this gym. No matter what time it was I showed up, she was there, no matter the day. She always wore the same long-legged lifting tights, and a very, let’s say flattering, T-shirt with the gym logo on it. It was about eight in the morning, and I had managed to find a coffee stand right outside, so I was enjoying my second drink of the sacred black liquid as I entered the building. Tyler looked up from the counter and greeted me with her usual customer service smile. A smile I now remember relying on to get through the rough morning hours of my work days. It’s not like I was in love with her or anything, but she was absolutely my type. She looked good without being overwhelmingly beautiful, which meant I was able to have a normal conversation with her, and the way she spoke was always very genuine, without being overly familiar. She was close with her friends though. I’d seen her on multiple occasions laughing with people that might have been coworkers or friends from outside the gym. Tyler was what I assumed to be cool. She laughed hard, spoke with force and had strong opinions about her interests, which mostly consisted of athletics, fantasy videogames and raveparties. She was pretty chaotic. I liked that about her. She had short, messy hair, usually dyed in some fun color, this month being a dark blue that faded into black at her roots.

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I waved a hand at her and smiled. “Morning Tyler.”

“Hey Ash,” she said. “You want the usual?” I dropped the bag and leaned on the counter in front of her. It was wide, so it was still an appropriate amount of distance between us.

“Yes please.” The Usual was an order of some special healthy water and a pre-workout shake I ordered as part of my membership to the gym, that got me pumped up for my workouts. The water contained a blend of herbs and minerals that was supposed to help with blood flow, oxygen intake and hydration , and the shake was just a bunch of caffeine and amino acids that tasted of something like battery acid, but it did its job wonderfully. I would also have a protein shake waiting for me by the end of the workout, filled with stuff that was supposed to help me get stronger. I stifled a yawn as she turned around to get the shakes and bottles, and I got a good look at her as she bent down to pick up the different protein powders and pre-workout. I blushed and turned around quickly, pretending I didn’t see the pink string that peeked up from the rim of her tights. I wasn’t very good with stuff like that, or girls in general to be honest. I’d had a few girlfriends before, don’t get me wrong. It was just that I had no natural charm, or game of any kind, and all my relationships before happened in most part thanks to the other person pursuing me, rather than the other way around. I didn’t feel extremely comfortable trying to force a conversation with a stranger, no matter how attractive they were. I wasn’t great at social interactions in general. Which brings me back to the situation at hand, where Tylers pink underwear now filled my mind and made me feel like I was back in college, where the dorm halls were always full of sleepy half-dressed men,women and non-binary people. I was embarrassed then, and I was embarrassed now.

“Yo, dude!” I hear Tyler call from behind me. “Are you okay? I called your name like, three times.” I turned back around towards her. She was done fixing my water and shakes, and I was just standing there like a dumbass.

“Uhm, right, yes, I’m good, thank you!” I hurriedly said, and grabbed the bottles she’d set up. I must have looked like a tomato judging from the way I felt hot around my neck and ears. Tyler on the other hand looked oblivious to the visual stimulation she’d provided me with. She wore a slightly concerned look on her face that made her usually sharp features seem fragile, but if it was out of genuine concern for my well being or just her being polite to yet another customer, I wasn’t able to tell.

“Sorry, I just got distracted by eh… a text from Emily,” I hurriedly explained. A news report coming from a radio somewhere spoke about the unusually low temperature the city had experienced this past week, and I took the opportunity to make a plausible excuse.

“There was a lot of ice in the streets today, and Em let me borrow her car. She just asked if I got here safely.”

To be fair, it wasn’t a complete lie. I had slipped on the ice, and I was bound to get a text from Em sooner or later today, depending on when and how long she would sleep. I smiled reassuringly at Tyler, who shrugged and handed me my shakes and water. She gave me a smile back and a thumbs up as she wished me a good workout.

I turned and headed for the changing rooms, while Tyler turned up the radio, where the newscaster was now talking about some sort of new development in astrophysics. Something about a star that had gone missing from the night sky a couple of weeks ago, and how the government funded science team were struggling to find out what had happened. I knew about an old, famous scientist that could have solved it, but she went off-grid before I was even born. Some huge project that never went anywhere.

Whatever, I thought to myself. I had a workout to get through. The second my playlist started, my brain turned off and I started running.

⬨⬨⬨

“Heads up!”

I was at work, in my uniform, leaning against the counter and looking at my phone screen as a wad of fabric hit me and wrapped itself around my face! I extricated myself from the soft assault of what felt like freshly tumble dried clothes and looked straight into Deimos’ eyeball.

“Dude!” I nearly shouted the word as I jerked backwards from his face. He scoffed at me. “The Ashen Champion, brought down by a bundle of fabric! What a pity, I genuinely expected more from you considering you’ve been so consistent with your training for so long.”

Deimos said all this with a mischievous smirk and eyes that bore into mine. I glared back at him, as hard as I could manage. We stood like that, in silence, for a whole 3 seconds. Then we both burst out laughing at the dramatism of it all.

“Alright, you got me!” I told him, still laughing while unfolding the clothes so I could get a better look at them. Once I got it untangled I saw it was a nice three piece suit from some high class brand I was passingly familiar with.

The workday thus far had been unremarkable. After I finished at the gym I changed into my store uniform and drove over to the building I spent far too much of my time in. Matthew, a coworker, was on the opening shift and had taken care of most of the daily routines, so I didn’t have much to do once I arrived. That meant I had plenty of time to sit around and be bored until Deimos would arrive.

My store was located in a mall fifteen minutes away from my gym, or twenty minutes away from Em’s apartment. It was a medium sized store that could take maybe twelve to thirteen concurrent customers at a time, but the location inside the mall made it hard to find us, so we usually didn’t see more than three people at the same time. Most of my coworkers disliked the low amount of traffic, but I was alright with it personally. It let me spend time doing other, more interesting things. Before Deimos’ fabric based assault I was looking at a recipe for dinner that evening. It was my turn to cook, and I wanted to find something new and exciting that was also healthy and protein rich. I really enjoyed cooking for me and Emily.

My other duties at the store involved things like counting inventory, packing shipping orders, writing banking reports, and of course, making sales. My boss was obsessed with numbers. He was one of those guys that were super motivated by making customers buy more stuff than they wanted, as well as trying to get everyone to buy the most expensive version of a product when just the regular base version would work just as well. Naturally he wanted everyone else at the store to be just like him in that regard, and sure, it worked for one or two other guys, but I really hated that kind of behavior. I wasn’t a salesman. Talking to the customers to try and figure out exactly what it was they wanted, or trying to convince someone to buy something they didn’t really need made me feel uncomfortable. It felt to me like what running a marathon wrapped in barbed wire would feel to anyone else. This is why my mood had increased significantly when Deimos showed up and gave me something entirely new to think about. Such as why he’d thrown the very fancy suit I was currently inspecting at me.

“This suit looks very… expensive,” I told Deimos. “Should you be throwing clothes like these around?” I continued, looking concerned at him. He just grinned stupidly at me. I then finally realized he was clothed in an equally fancy and expensive looking suit of his own. “Alright, what is this for, and why are you wearing that? You’re making me nervous, man.”

Deimos opened his mouth and said with a chuckle, “I have rented us suits.”

He said it like it was the most normal thing in the world, however, this was about as far from normal as the two of us could get. Deimos and I usually wore some combination of a metal band T-shirt and jeans, or a loose fitting pair of sweatpants and tank top for the gym when we worked out together. He was very much not the suit-wearing, businessman looking person that stood on the other side of my sales counter.

I looked at him incredulously, mouth hanging slightly open. “Yes, I can see that…Why though?”

Deimos regarded me with a look so smug I briefly thought he’d asked Emily out on a date or something, but I was pretty sure she’d text me if that was the case.

“Ashton, my friend,” he stated theatrically.

“I am here to tell you I have in my possession two full three-day passes to the Lodestar Labs Science Convention at the Luxin City Expo! It’s this weekend, Friday to Sunday, and don’t worry about the cost, I got it covered. I’ve been making some new high ranking friends at work, and I convinced middle management to send me to the convention as a representative of Eleqwik Reaction to sign a partnership deal with Lodestar about whatever it is they’re unveiling, so long as I brought my new assistant along with me.”

It was at that time Deimos’ smug smile transformed into more of a sheepish grin, clearly hoping I wouldn’t get hung up on the fact that he’d just referred to me as his ‘assistant’. His last few words trailed off as he waited to see how I would react.

“Deimos,” I started casually, “there is no force on this planet powerful enough to stop me from walking through that Expo main gate, no person, no government, no God!”

By the end of it I was almost shouting, grinning from ear to ear, and I could see people outside the store look at me as they passed by to see what the crazy clerk was shouting about. I didn’t care. This was the best thing to happen to me in years. Of course I knew about the Convention. The event had been promoted on every surface in the entire country for months. It was supposed to present an end to the eternally expanding gap between the extremely wealthy and the dirt poor beneath them, by showcasing a device that presumably was able to generate vast amounts of clean energy with no cost.

“Fantastic, I knew I could count on you Ashton! I have everything planned out, from hotel to restaurants, what panels to attend, and I got us front row seats to the main event at the Astral Hall!” Deimos spoke with loud excitement. The Astral Hall was named after the once famous Doctor Melanie Astra, who developed the Andromeda Star Chart, a map of all the stars in our galaxy that still shone, even if they had in reality gone Nova, several thousand lightyears away.

I beamed back at Deimos. There were few people I felt this open with, and I genuinely enjoyed the social energy I got from being around him.

“That sounds awesome! I can’t believe a sleazebug like you managed something like this. Any other major events at the Expo you know about that haven’t been announced?” I asked him excitedly. He thought for a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t think so. I rented the suits as fast as I got the memo from my manager, and then I came straight here, so I haven’t been able to check any details yet. I got this though.” He pulled a holopic out of his wristphone and turned it towards me. It was an access badge for himself and one assistant, cleared for all floors and panels for the convention, as well as some special events, such as an after-party and a meet-and-greet with some business and science people. The badges spun lazily in the air, projected holographically from his wristphone. Asst. Ashton Etrigan was splashed across one of them with a picture of my face on the other side.

Deimos and I locked eyes.

“By the way, Deimos, if you refer to me as your assistant around anyone at the convention center, I am going to sidekick you so hard that any child you have will be born with an imprint of my foot in their face,” I said, completely deadpanned.

“Oh yeah?” He shot back quickly. “You’re really gonna disfigure your own nephews and nieces like that?”

I scowled hard at him and in a low voice told him “Keep your nasty hands off my sister, Deimos.” He answered with a quick “Nope!” and grinned.

I sighed loudly, but he just laughed at me. We kept talking about the convention and what we wanted to do and see there, all the while people went on with their lives around us.

⬨⬨⬨

When my shift ended Deimos left me with the fancy suit, and I drove home to cook dinner for me and Em. She was asleep when I got in, but woke up soon after the smells of food wafted into her bedroom. I was wearing earbuds, so I didn’t hear anything until Emily forcibly dug the little speaker out of my ear and said “That smells great!” just a few decibels louder than strictly necessary. I rubbed my ringing ear and snatched the little round earbud from her fingers. She grinned at me, feigning innocence as only she could after something like that. I sighed and let it go. Secretly I kind of enjoyed her playful personality. It kept me on my toes around the apartment, and to be honest, Emily’s overwhelming positivity made even the darkest days of my life bearable.

“Thank you, although I’d prefer it if you could just tap my shoulder like a regular person when you want my attention. Now, sit down, it’ll be done in about five minutes.”

I had made a meat mix bowl, with actual meat that I bought after my shift at work. It was expensive, but my excitement for the coming weekend affected my usually strict budget plans. The meat came from multiple sources, so I just fried it in oil and seasoned it with salt and black pepper. I tossed in some diced potatoes and boiled kale, and made the leftover grease from the frying pan into a sauce with some butter and flour.

“Okay Em, could you get us so- ah, you already got the plates, thank you. No no, I’ll serve today, don’t worry about anything.”

I served her a platter full of food, then got my own portion while she waited and watched, head resting in her hands.

“Thanks Ash, I really appreciate the effort. This is gonna make me last all the way through the night!” Emily smiled at me as she spoke. A soft, casual smile, without any expectations or motive. Just a genuine gesture of thanks. Then her eyes turned pointedly towards the real meat, and she said “Now, are you going to tell me what happened today? Did Tyler ask you on a date or something?”

I reddened slightly at the thought, then cleared my throat before answering her.

“Actually it’s because Deimos came by. Eleqwik is sending him to the Lodestar Convention, and he’s bringing me as his assi- uh, as his business partner!” Emily raised an eyebrow skeptically at me in response. “I see. And as his ‘business partner’ your job will be what exactly? Taking notes for him? Kissing his ass? Answering his phone?” She grinned at me then, acting oblivious to her own joke. I began protesting, but another idea formed in my head as my words transformed on my tongue.

“Actually, Deimos did mention something about that. Specifically that he looked forward to kissing the children you and he would have together, after you got married of course.” I stressed the word children to make sure Em got the idea. She almost choked on a bit of meat as I finished speaking, and started coughing until it turned into a wheezing laugh. She cleared her throat and said hoarsely “You may tell Deimos that if he wants to live past his thirties he would do well not to make such bold claims. When the Gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers.” I slapped her shoulder lightheartedly and said “I threatened him with immense physical violence if he ever decides to grow the balls he needs to ask you out.”

I held back my thoughts about her last comment though. It was something our mother used to say. Before she stopped speaking entirely.

We finished dinner and Emily did the dishes while I turned on the monitor in the living room. The streaming services we had were pretty good, but I was too excited about the next day to be able to pay attention to anything, so I just browsed until I found a videocast of the Andromeda Star Chart. There was a twenty six hour livestream of the holographic chart available at any time for any platform, where you could look at the Chart and see where we were currently located in space compared to the rest of our solar system and the living stars in the Andromeda Galaxy. The display was amazing to observe. The power in it, the vast oceans of potential hidden within those flickering lights. I wanted it. I wanted power. I wanted the ability to affect people and events around me, the skill to wield whatever force that allowed those at the top of society to just wave a hand, and change the course of history. That was political power though. My father had once had a different power, as a lawyer. A judicial power. He used his power to influence an honored judge of the law, as well as a panel of jury members. His power was taken from him by people with political power, but that too could be taken from them in turn. I only really trusted one kind of power, the only form of influence that couldn’t be taken away or hidden. I wanted personal power.

I turned the monitor off as I heard Emily getting ready to go to work. She saw me standing on the floor in the now dark living room, but said nothing. I looked out the window and realized I must have stood there for over an hour, just watching the Star Chart and rolling around in my own mind. I checked my phone screen. It said 11:07, just under two hours until midnight.

I heard Emily's voice, softly from beside me. “Don’t you think you should go to bed? You’ve had a long day, and if I understand correctly you’re gonna have a pretty long day tomorrow too, right? You know, at the Lodestar Labs Science Convention?”

I must have not been keeping a good poker face, because it was obvious she was trying to get me to think about other things. I let go of the tension in my body, then turned to Emily. I tried to smile. “You’re right, thanks for reminding me. I’m gonna go and lay out all the stuff I need to bring tomorrow, then I’ll sleep. I promise.”

I could see she was examining my face, but after not finding anything to argue about she let out a breath. “Alright, good. I’m probably not home before you go, so make sure you eat properly even though I’m not here. I bought some milk and oatmeal, and there’s a carton of cold coffee in the fridge, next to the milk, so you have no excuse!” She pointed a stiff finger at me before she turned and picked up her work bag. I gave her a tight hug before she left the apartment. We didn’t say goodbye, we just locked eyes for a second, and then the door closed between us.

I went to bed just a few minutes past midnight, which gave me exactly eight hours of blessed sleep before I had to wake up all over again. I lay down in my bed, eyes facing the small window, and the starry sky beyond the glass. Didn’t Fornax used to have 4 stars? I wondered before unconsciousness finally caught up to me.