Busy bodies hustled about the restaurant as Crystal sat quietly and alone. Too eager to continue waiting at home, she left early and grabbed a table. Bouncing between scrolling on her phone and tapping on the table, she continued to wait.

And eventually, Axel walked through the door and spotted her at the table for two. He hustled over and sat, "Sorry I'm late."

"No problem."

He actually put the napkin on his lap. "It's been a while, I heard you went to college."

"Yeah, it's a nice change."

"What? You don't like serving pizza?"

"All good things must come to an end," she leaned in and smiled. Never before had Axel asked her out of the blue like this. She was impressed as he even dressed up a little, his shirt and slacks matched, and he wore dress shoes. "The meteor put things in perspective. I started crying when day turned to night, and the phone lit up with alerts. So, I enrolled the day after it nearly crashed."

"Yeah, that was crazy. But, how long are you back for?" Axel said.

"Just for spring break. So, a week."

He smirked. "You mentioned change."

She turned her head a little, "Yeah?"

"Do you notice how some things don't change?"

"Like what?" Crystal said.

"The other day, I saw someone from one of our classes. I can't remember her name, though."

"Oh, I see old classmates all the time. What class was she in?"

"A girl in one of our science classes said a lot of weird stuff, and I think she graduated early."

"Oh, that's Stephanie. She's back in town?"

"That's her! Stephanie. Man, what a weird one she was."

"Yeah, she won the science fair, and I never saw her at any party. Not one. She's probably celibate." Crystal wasn't too fond of this conversation, but he was talkative and believed the subject would change.

"Huh. Do you remember any of that? What she said?"

She looked up. "Maybe if I have a few drinks."

***

After her second bottle, Crystal was going off. "And Miss Baker, fuck her for taking my calculator. Sorry for installing Tetris on it."

"I remember that! Fuck her!"

"Yeah! Fuck her!"

"She probably never took Stephanie's calculator."

"No, no one took her calculator. Or Adam Price, that little prick always tried to sit next to me. And Stephanie, all smart and shit. Winning awards and building particle accelerators."

That piqued his interest. "Building what now?"

"She's an idiot who shouldn't have graduated early. God, that irked me."

"How so?"

"One time." She burped. "She said she would go to my party. But then she went on about how radioactive material is in smoke detectors." She waved her hands in a sarcastic gesture. "She wanted to build a small particle accelerator that could fit in your palm. It was the weirdest shit I had ever heard. She probably went to an asylum instead. And then she didn't show up to the party. Adam Price did, and I don't even know how he found out about it."

Axel sat back in the chair and drank the rest of his ale. "Smoke detectors."

***

Red sand landed on the plate. These days, it was nothing out of the ordinary, just leftover sand from the Mars facility. He was in the suit, but the visor was up with his face exposing a smile, and he gave a thumbs up.

"Great," Stephanie said, grabbing a pulse oximeter off her desk. "Let's examine your oxygen levels." He stuck a finger out, she placed it in, and after a few moments, an indicator appeared. "Yup, your oxygen levels are satisfactory. Nice work."

He's gotten used to the small building on Mars. Even though he's getting praise, it was surprisingly easy to put together, considering gravity is weaker there, allowing less effort to lift tools and do manual labor.

"Here are the photos you asked for," Connor turned on his phone. The suit has no pockets, so he carried it on both trips.

Stephanie swiped through the photos of the small facility on Mars. The linear progress displayed Connor's efforts. After placing the initial metal floor, walls, and ceiling, months earlier, he did many more tasks. She saw a photo of the insulation. Swiping again, she saw the small ventilation system. Swiping through, she saw the red sandy surface with a few solar panels and a cord flowing into an outlet, lights on three of the four walls, and the terminal to send text messages back and forth. Then she saw the second room for pressurization to get outside, along with the extra tanks of oxygen and a few spare suits. And finally, the oxygen system, which is now operational for the building. Not only does it catch the tiny bits of oxygen on Mars, but it also creates its own and sends it into the ventilation system of the building. Connor gave it a quick test once a device Stephanie gave him signaled that it was okay to inhale.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

All in all, it took three months or about forty trips.

"I knew you were getting it done, but wow, it's nice to see it all come together," Stephanie said.

Stephanie's vision was coming to fruition. The room would block the view of Mars with no windows. Leaving the building would be a grand reveal. There would be no denying her technology and future.

He didn't realize she was taking his word for things. Walls went up, ventilation got installed, and everything was getting finished. It felt good that she had faith in him.

Joules circled him as he began taking the suit off, and then she headed to the stairs, where Teresa was sitting on the bottom step to get pets from Teresa. A light jacket and a nice purse sat on her skirt.

"What's going on here?" he said.

She perked up immediately. "What do you mean?

"You dressed up."

"That I did," Teresa said. "I'm ready when you are."

"The appointment isn't for another thirty minutes," Stephanie said.

"You sure?"

"Yup."

Standing up, she straightened her skirt and tugged on her unzipped jacket. "I'm going to send some emails."

"What's going on?" Connor asked Stephanie.

"Girl's night," Stephanie said. "We're going to a spa."

He nodded, "Oh, cool."

Resting her chin on her hand, she said, "Teresa never forgets. Someone with her I.Q. never does."

"Hmm?"

"She didn't forget what time we were leaving. She came down to make sure you saw her. Wink wink nudge nudge."

"Yeah," Connor turned to hide his face. "If you say so, I don't think I'll go down that path."

"I have a question for you, Connor."

He placed the suit in the usual corner. "Shoot."

"Would you want to forgive someone who learned their lesson? Or risk being with someone who hasn't learned yet? Or better yet, learn their lesson with someone else. It's just that you're not the one who needs to forgive them."

"I'm not sure."

"You forgave Neville and Christian."

"I really don't want to think about this right now." He grabbed his wallet and phone and got a car share ride. "I'm meeting some people at the reservoir for paddleboarding. I'll be home later."

"Why haven't you gotten your own car yet?" Stephanie asked.

"Feels silly."

"How so?"

"After traveling across the solar system, it's all rather silly."

Stephanie smiled.

***

"This is nice," Teresa said, "doing regular stuff."

"Yup," Stephanie's voice vibrated as the nail technician worked on her toes. "I'm going to do more physical labor so my nails get destroyed, and then we can come here more often." After a moment of silence, Stephanie asked what she wanted to ask for a while. "Would it be possible for you to leave Optimal? And join Connor and me?"

Without hesitation. "No. Even if they allowed it."

"Whoa, don't spend too much time thinking about it. Why not?"

"I'm the best," Teresa said, "why settle for less and work with others? And I'm still irked at how you escaped."

"Sorry, you feel that way about working with me. And I'm also sorry you saw that. I didn't have many options."

"It's fine. I'm mostly mad that you were able to do it. I feel so far behind you. It's all I've been thinking about," Teresa relaxed more as if saying it aloud helped her get some things off her chest. "Not the killing, just the accomplishment. When I surpass you, Optimal will regret finding me."

The two didn't mind talking openly about this. It was slow in the spa, and it's not like the technicians could comprehend everything.

"I see," Stephanie said. "Mr. Furyk won't give you up because he's your favorite."

"Really? He has favorites?"

Stockholm really has a hold on this girl, Stephanie thought. "Just one. And genuinely, I'll also extend my terms with Optimal to you."

"Optimal would really let me go?."

"Yes, you won't go back. It'll be fine."

"Thank you, but I still want to do this alone," Teresa said. "So, we're going downtown for shopping after this, right?"

"Yup."

The bells rang on the door as new clients came in. But it was an unusual set of clients. Teresa leaned up immediately, shocked, while Stephanie didn't seem to notice as Mr. Furyk walked up in front of her, right behind the technician working on her nails.

"A word," he said.

Stephanie got perturbed and rolled her eyes, "You can talk to me here."

"We can't discuss this in public. Rules are rules."

"Your rules, not mine," Stephanie said.

The men behind Mr. Furyk scattered around the room and grabbed the nail technicians by their arms. The wailing and screaming in multiple languages did not deter the men as they made the women leave the building, and security cameras were just as quick to get disabled.

As soon as it was Optimal only, Mr. Furyk held out a smoke detector. "From your house, directly above the plate."

Teresa's eyes widened. The Aeon Switch. Right there, right in front of her. The greatest invention in history and the reason she remained second. Never would she have guessed that it was in such a small container. Awesome. This entire time, it was right on the ceiling. Why didn't I think of that? She felt angry at Stephanie's tenacity in keeping it in plain sight.

Mr. Furyk turned it around, where they carefully opened it, and showed it to both of them. Teresa looked even more depressed at the discovery.

Stephanie didn't even look inside the smoke detector. "And?"

"And it's just a regular smoke detector," Mr. Furyk tossed it at her. And immediately, the smoke detector disappeared in front of Stephanie and reappeared behind Mr. Furyk, hitting him in the back of the head. He didn't flinch as it bounced off of him.

Holy shit... She just used it.

"Yeah, for radioactive material," Stephanie said.

"I'm done waiting. The president is done waiting. What is it, and where is it? Or suffer," Mr. Furyk said.

"And what can you possibly do?"

"I've given the order," Mr. Furyk said.

Stephanie rolled her eyes, "Yeah, okay."

A deep rumbling noise echoed in and out of the building. Womp, womp, womp.

The two girls' ears perked up.

"Last chance for them to turn around. I didn't want to expose our tech to the public. If you cooperate, that can be saved as well."

"Explain right now," Stephanie said.

The noise got louder as it flew overhead.

Mr. Furyk knew the one thing that could get her to change. "Connor."

Fear exuded from her eyes, and she lunged at Mr. Furyk.

[]~*