Timeline - 4 days before Astraea, 09:45

“Ina, it has been too long.” I sat with my legs crossed at the grave of my beloved. The grass, what little remained of my small backyard, was overgrown and dying. There had once been flower beds under the windows of our home, they were a riot of colors, all shapes and sizes. Flowers I could never keep, but Ina was different. Plants thrived under her eyes, they flourished under her care. Sadly, those were also dead. I had a friend who worked in the Stone Masonry carve Ina’s headstone, made of a dark black marble. It was truly gorgeous. He had done a fine job, it looked like her, even down to the way her auburn hair flowed in the wind. He had captured every detail I could remember, everything she was in the picture I had given him to recreate. It was a simple scene, we were at a festival in the Saint Petersburg Plaza, she was looking at the statue of Catherine the Great, the wind blew, her hair bellowed in the wind, and the picture was perfect. She was my own personal Catherine.

“I regret that we cannot be together any longer.” I choked back a tear, no, I did not have time to cry. There was much work to be done yet. Time for crying would come later. I stood from the grass and laid a small bundle of flowers at the grave. She wasn’t buried here, of course. She was buried in the National Cemetery, for her work to advance the science of Chemistry in Russia. It was the one thing that Mother Russia had given her. The flowers were purchased from one of the small flower stalls nearby, one of the last bundles they had. I was late leaving work again, and it was shameful for me. Bah, regrets are a powerful thing. I needed to get my mind off of her. It had been six months since she passed away, and the pain was still too fresh. Perhaps having her memorial in the backyard was not such a smart thing after all, but I wanted to keep her close, and the grave yard where they buried her was too far away for frequent visits.

I went back inside, and shook my head at all I saw. The house was a mess, I hated cleaning. Ina was always so good at keeping after that. I would make a mess, she would clean it up. We had an understanding. We also had grumbling. But we made it work. I took a sip from the coffee I had made earlier, and forgotten about.

“Shit, tastes like week old engine oil. And not even high test.” I tossed the coffee cup into the sink harder than I intended. It shattered on impact, little chips flying in every direction.

“Ina, your coffee was always perfect.” I looked down and clenched my fists, caked with years of work, grime and oil. “This was not what was in my head. It is not what I intended.” The smell of multi-part oil and degreaser invaded my nostrils, and I was taken back to another time.

Ina had just started working for the National Laboratory’s Saint Petersburg branch shortly after attaining her doctorate in Chemistry. She started as a basic research assistant, working on a new type of oil that would last a near limitless time. She quickly advanced through the ranks, working harder and faster than anyone else, until she had taken a position as a Head Chemist in the Chemical Manipulation Department. Ina had always told me that working in the Chemical Plant would kill her; I had thought she was talking about it being the end of her career path, though I often said her genius would last forever. She once clarified that it would be due to the vials that were left open absent-mindedly, or the frequent spills due to careless laboratory technicians. I had not expected her to be so right.

The cancer took her within a year’s time. I watched my beloved Ina devolve from a gorgeous, intelligent woman into a bed-ridden husk of what she once was. There was nothing I could do. All of my knowledge and expertise, my absolute genius, was useless. Russia had withheld treatment towards the end, as a result of some perceived debt to society. After all, Socialized Medicine paid for Ina’s expensive chemo treatments - well, some of them. The medicine was too expensive for the insurance to pay for, and about halfway through, the medication was not covered at all. There were some situations where we had to seek alternative funding, and Ina no longer could work to cover the costs. Wasn’t the cost of having Ina for just a little longer in my life worth absolutely anything I could pay? Mother Russia, in her “Infinite Wisdom,” had taken Ina from me. One day, I knew I would get back at her.  Perhaps not in this lifetime, and perhaps not The Motherland herself, but I would fight back.

At the end, she held my hand, gave me the best smile she could afford, and told me she would see me in paradise. When Ina was pronounced dead, it wasn’t an hour before Osmark technologies , a virtual world where people would be able to find a new place to exist after the Astraea asteroid struck. It’s not as though we could have put her into the game before she died, the system wasn’t around yet, and the framework wasn’t stable. As luck would have it, or fate, or whatever you want to call the fickle bitch, Almez-Antev, the weapons developers I worked for, had connections and ins with Osmark Technologies. I pulled a few strings, made a few promises that I knew I would never be able to keep, and suddenly Ina and I were admitted to the program.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

I regretted making those promises, especially since I was expected to contribute to any future war effort within VGO, on behalf of the big wigs. It felt like a waste, all of the work I had done to renovate the basement to admit a pair of VGO capsules, and I had spent days and weeks working on it. I ran electrical, I adjusted network propensities, and I improved the layout. I even did some off the books excavation to expand our room. I looked at the watch on my wrist, the hands moving with flawless precision. One of my own designs, a small twinge of pride hit my heart, but bounced off the cold exterior. I still had a few hours before I needed to meet the deadline for my transition into VGO, and there was still that project for Almaz-Antev that needed finalizing. Namely the nuclear automata that would usher in the new age of people on Earth; tasked with cleaning, demolishing and rebuilding after the impact.

At one time, Almaz-Antev was the premier weapons manufacturing company for all of Russia. They had colluded with other nations, of course. There was nothing to be done for that. My weapons killed a lot of people, and there are regrets I will never be able to put aside. But now is not the time for regrets. Now is the time for action. “There is still time,” I said absentmindedly. “I will fix some of the mistakes I’ve made. First though, I must wash this mountain of dishes.” I set about to working on the broken coffee cup, gently placing the pieces in the waste bin. The noise from the city street outside my small house filtered through the cracked window, stuck open from the years of Saint Petersburg winters. I had promised Ina I would fix it, but always there was another important thing to be done. It got pushed back further and further, until there was no time left to fix the small things. “Ina, I am so sorry. I will fix the things that I can soon.” I pushed the anger and the pain back into its space and finished the dishes.

The six months since Ina had passed had been very challenging, and there was more than one time where I had completely fallen apart. I had lost considerable weight, simply from forgetting to eat, forgetting to sleep. I threw myself into my work, and Almaz-Antev was happy to see the improved work ethic. While Ina was sick, I was almost fired. That would have endangered everything Ina and I had worked so hard for. It would have voided our passes into VGO. Now hers was gone, and so was she. “No, I cannot fall back to this, the anger, the sadness. Always, it comes back to her being gone. I cannot focus on that now, there is so much to do before the morning.” I needed to work, I needed to get my mind off her.

Timeline - 4 days before Astraea, 16:52

In the evening, I retired to my basement workspace. I neglected to eat dinner, and as a result, found myself getting easily irritated. “Two more screws here,” I said. Talking to myself while working helped me to focus. It allowed me to make sure I didn’t miss any steps while making things. And this project was important. The radiation shielding needed to be perfect, both from inside and outside. “Will check the Geiger counter later, I don’t have time for this shit.” I set the machine core to the side, and changed my focus to another portion of the machinery: the converter. “This will need sturdier wiring. Perhaps dioxymethylene coating will suffice? No, too caustic. That definitely will eat through cables in a few decades. Something stronger, a polycarbon wrap?” I leaned against the table, both palms flat against it. “Ina would know what was best. She was the best chemical engineer in all of Russia.” I slapped my hands down hard, harder than I had thought, rattling the pieces all over the table. The machine core bounced off the table and smacked against the ground. The sound of crunching metal greeted my ears with a toothy smile. “God Dammit! Everything is going wrong!” I picked it up from the floor and cradled the broken core in my hands. “Well, it clearly isn’t strong enough yet.” I chuckled as I stared at the cracked and broken core.  “Back to the drawing board.” I shrugged as I tossed the prototype core into a pile of other garbage.

Several hours later, I ended up with a much improved core. It had significant resistance, and I was working on the last bolts. They needed to be sealed with a specific corrosion-resistant material, which I also had manufactured with Ina’s help. “Only last bolts, now. Then I can scan and send the schematics to Almaz-Antev, easy as cake. Is that how that goes? No, no, that is not the adage. English is ignorant.” I rolled my eyes as I picked up my wrench, hefting it in my hand. The weight felt good, it felt real. It kept my mind focused as I worked. Halfway through fastening the last bolt, which required a considerable amount of force, my hand slipped off the spanner, and raked my palm across the now-stripped bolt head. “Ahhh!” I shouted in agony as blood poured from my hand, my tool falling to the floor. “You stupid piece of shit!” I picked up the machine core and hurled it as hard as possible against one of the block walls in the basement. It smacked against the wall and fell to the floor. The clang of heavy metal resounded around the small room. “God dammit all!”. I stepped over to the medkit I kept in the basement and wrapped up my hand. “Another setback.” I headed over to the core on the ground, and picked it up. I turned it about in my hands and noticed that everything was still intact. “Huh, is much stronger. Eh, bolt is not in perfect position, but Almaz-Antev will not care, I am thinking. Project complete.”

I spent a few moments scanning the project blueprint into my computer, using my 3D scanner, and emailed it off to Almaz-Antev. Within seconds, I received a confirmation email. Along with a short commision at the end. “Godspeed, Vlad Nardoir.” That was it, then. Well, that and to see the grave of my lost beloved one last time.