Chapter 2:

Asher wakes up late and is alone in bed. He can hear a voice he doesn’t recognize coming from upstairs. Did Ellie invite someone over?

He sits up and grabs the bedside tablet, punching in his outfit for the day: basketball shorts and a DY tshirt. Once he’s made his selection, a hangar releases the correct articles of clothing and a four legged robot carries them into a small cannon, which then shoots his outfit from the closet onto the bed, ready for him to put on.

“Who would’ve thought that 70 years from now the biggest problem we needed to solve was having to walk to the closet to get our clothes?” Asher thinks to himself. “We could’ve spent this ingenuity on the climate, hunger, pollution….”

Asher finishes getting dressed and taps the mirror button, which turns the tablets screen into a mirror. He tries to comb his short, bright red hair into something that doesn’t look like he just got out of bed, but it just keeps sticking up. He’s also finally starting to notice the hair beginning to form on his cheeks and above his lips. He can’t decide whether he’s happy to be transitioning now or mad at himself for not starting sooner than 25. The anxiety. The depression. The constant mental breakdowns. But at least he can look in the mirror and not see Ashley.

“I look good. I look pretty damn good.”

Asher strolls downstairs but stops halfway through. Maverick seems to have added more posters and frames to the wall recently. Almost all are diagrams and pictures of Venus and surrounding stars, but one newspaper clipping catches his eye.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

November 27th, 2063

“APPARENT LIFE DISCOVERED ON PLANET VENUS”

“According to a recent report from Satoshi Sakanaki, CEO of Sakanaki Time Travel, A recent trans-millenia leap revealed an irregularity on nearby planet Venus. As pictured above, there appear to be human-sized figures dotted around the planet, although they appear largely uncivilized.”

Asher frowns a bit. Was this old news already? Still, intrigue forced him to finish the article

To explain more, we sat down with Mr. Sakanaki and asked him what occured.

SAKANAKI: Basically, we were transporting a few dozen customers from the year 1999 to the year 2037. Usually this is a routine trip, however leaping across millennia, even by one year, always leaves the door open to complications.

INTERVIEWER: Can you explain what you mean by “complications”?

SAKANAKI: Of course. You see, the entire solar system operates within its own internal timing system, which has to be reset every thousandyears. Before this can happen, all areas of all planets must have advanced to 11:59 pm on December 31st of the final year of the century. Once regions advance to this point, time “freezes” in them until other regions have caught up. For instance, those living in New York in 1999 would experience a time freeze that would begin 3 hours earlier than California’s time freeze.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Asher nods, vaguely remembering a theory like this from metaphysics.

SAKANAKI: Whenever we travel through a time period that has these “freezes,” it’s possible for us to see things that are normally invisible to the human eye. Usually these are simple things, like being able to see gravity at work, the electromagnetic spectrum, being able to see things that would normally require a microscope, and so forth. What we saw on Venus, however, was unlike anything we’ve seen before.

INTERVIEWER: The report states that these human like figures could be observed for about 5 minutes, scattered around the planet aimlessly. How were they discovered and why are they undetectable now?

SAKANAKI: One of Sakanaki Time Travel’s coolest amenities is our onboard planetarium, which gives our customers a better understanding of the vast reaches of space they’re traveling through. The planetarium has a live view of every planet in our solar system as well as some beyond, and a customer who wishes to remain anonymous was looking at the Venus camera at just the right time. I also witnessed the creatures and called it into NASA, but after several satellite probes and tests, nothing was discovered and there’s no trace of the creatures now.

INTERVIEWER: Well Mr. Sakanaki we thank you for your time, and we’re sure our readers would be captivated if there are any updates!

The voice Asher could hear before grew louder and Asher went down to the living room to find Ellie watching an old Saturday Night Showdown episode, a pro wrestling TV show she had a hand in running at one point. She sees Asher enter the room and calls him to sit down.

“Look at this” Ellie says excitedly as she grabs the remote and rewinds to 16 minutes into the show.

The screen is taken up by a hulking, shirtless man with unnatural looking muscles. He’s wearing a black and red kilt, long black tights, and combat boots. His face is obscured behind his flowing black hair, haphazardly arranged into dreadlocks. Asher knew exactly who this was: Nero Sin Jr, son of the legendary wrestler that helped him escape his abusive household before they travelled to the future. Nero roughly grabs the microphone from the timid interviewer next to him and starts screaming into it

NERO: SO CRUSHER BARRY, I’M GONNA TELL YOU SOMETHING RIGHT NOW! I AM GOING TO GET IN THAT RING TONIGHT AND CLOTHESLINE YOU BACK TO THE 2010’S! YOU MAY HAVE DEFEATED A FEW MEASLY CHALLENGERS, BUT TONIGHT, I WILL MAKE YOU

DIE

FOR

YOUR

“……sins?” Asher asks, disappointed and confused to not hear the famous catchphrase as the feed cuts out. Maverick pauses the recording. She smooths her black and blue plaid skirt and walks up to the TV.

“So Ash, get this. This was the Christmas episode of Saturday Night Showdown in 2063. Just one month after these aliens were first discovered. The feed cut out during Nero’s promo, and I’m going to take it frame by frame from here.”

Asher sits up and leans forward on the couch, resting his hands on his knees, his blue eyes glued to the screen as he scours it for any changes.

The screen stays pitch black as a neon pink creature crawls into view. It appears to be 3 feet tall, and humanlike, outside of its head which is shaped like a triangle. It’s hands are circular with an indentation in the middle, but no fingers. It’s feet have two toes, not unlike a dinosaur. It has three eyes and a mouth, but no apparent nose or ears. It tries to stand up a few times unsuccessfully, possibly too young to walk. Without warning, a pink tentacle the same color as the creature appears on the left hand side of the screen, and uses it’s suction cup to yank the creature out of view. A fraction of a second later, the Showdown feed is restored and Nero Sin is making his ring entrance as if nothing unusual happened.

Ellie looks over at Asher and chuckles a bit. He’s now slumped back on the couch with a goofy grin on his face. Ellie knew her partner was skeptical of her stargazing but always wanted to see it pay off. Really, Asher just wanted to see Ellie get some wins after being all but exiled from the wrestling business after coming out. He had his share of setbacks after revealing his true identity, but nothing close to the physical and mental turmoil he had to watch her go through. He feels a sense of excitement and relief that he hasn’t felt since they first started dating.

“So….”

Asher asks timidly,

“What does this mean for our research Mavvy?”

Ellie wraps her arm around Asher’s shoulders and gently pulls him close. He instinctively nuzzles his head into her shoulder as she strokes his hair.

“It means a lot, baby. But you mean more to me.”

She lands a quick peck on her partner’s cheek as she continues,

“I’ve had a long night, can we take a nap before I tell you?”

Asher lifts his head up a bit in response to this and tosses a pillow towards the end of the couch.

“Say no more, darling, let’s get some rest.”

Ellie lays her head down on the pillow as Asher wraps a blanket and his arms around her. Sleep takes them both soon after.