Supernova

"That's the gist of it—you train for a week, then fit your suit and live in space for a year or so. However long you feel inclined to. If you want details, there are none. It's simple and cheap and gets you out of the house for a while." Cadet 27 had repeated this over and over while working for ASTA, iterated and re-iterated and choked out and butchered until the information had turned white-hot and melted into mental disarray, ashen as the great supernova suspended in the skies. The supernova that held the life-changing, Earthshaking choice to either shrivel into a neutron star or blast into an all-consuming black hole.

The Cadet smiled that mechanical smile seeming to be required by the government, that perfunctory, emotionless, unthinking reflex he had finally acquired over the years working for the Admiral of Space Travel and Administrations, or what the Cadets 'fondly' called ASTA. Cadet 27 was speaking to the tall, thin, wire of a man who longed to enlist in the ironically dubbed Homing Program.

The Cadet's armband blinked blue twice and he leaned in closer to the man, peered at him closely, towering over the man—even considering the enlister's height, Cadets always were taller than their inquires. "Say, I recognize your face," he uttered under his breath, "You're that debtor than dirtied this very entrance not a week ago…"

"Please," Watson pleaded, "My daughter and my sons are furious with me for not lavishing them with toys and rubbish that the other children have. My wife recently died working for the Window Smashers Institute, you know, that infernal dump used for excitement these days, and my debts have risen to—"

"Enough. I don't care. You only get trained if you have the thousand dollars. Get out; I don't want to even glimpse your bloody face again till you hold the money in your hands."

"But I said, my kids—"

"Do away with them! Lose responsibility. Just go." Cadet 27 irritably tapped his watch-screen, and the Automatic Arms reached down, plucked the man from the ground, and sucked him up the flue to his run-down home.

Watson stared, defeated, at the dirty mat covering the entryway, and slumped down onto the parched grass littering the loam the old-fashioned way. He had no income; no money to feed his hated children, let alone upgrade to what the plasma billboards plastered to every flat surface loudly declared—"Buy, Hoover's Hover Grass needs no trimming, only a feed twice a month to stay floating on thin air, floating without support, floating without means of magnetation, Hoover's Hover Grass, Hoover's…." He held his head with his forearm and wished for a way out. Anything, well, one thing, really, the Homing Program would free him from the gravitational pull of Earth. Even Mars, the rocky, icy planet that was now a second Earth—meaning nothing, its solitary beauty had been ruined, smashed to nanos with the greedy men who lived money, by advertisements and moving colors demonstrating the miraculous effects of this slimming poison or that straightening burn-iron—had eleven percent of Earth's gravity, enabling the extraterrestrial post-Earthmen to do as they pleased. Watson sighed. If only I had the money…

"Excuse me." Watson looked up at the sound of a voice; he had not willingly made good conversation with another man in years—"I need directions to the filling station." A down-to-Earth, well-dressed man was standing before him. Watson's heart sank. Just another non-being, a resources-sucker who needed food to live on, don't we all…

"Yes, it's just that way around the corner. There's another a block away—in both directions—and four more two blocks away, and even more three blocks away, and four, and—" The stranger cleared his throat and smiled.

"I agree. We're reducing the Earth into a giant consuming machine. All people do is eat, destroy things, and blast off to uncharted galaxies like deranged pre-novas." He rolled his eyes. "I hate those stations, but I can't get a bite to eat anyplace else…"

Watson's mouth dropped open, but he shut it quickly in consideration of embarrassment. "Yes, but I d-don't know why you d-didn't notice a station sooner; they're everywhere n-nowadays…" He was expecting a good conversation, but this—! A being whom understood, actually understood!, his way of thought. Watson hurriedly composed himself, he wanted to talk with this man a while longer. "You could step inside my humble home for a moment, we could have a drink, or something." Yes, 'or something.' Watson currently had no food on stock, let alone a beer or two. He mentally wished that he'd taken the Gun Manufactures job to raise some income, although guns were at the bottom of his personal favorites list.

The stranger chuckled. "No thank you. I'd love to make conversation, but considering your situation, I understand that we can't chat right now. How about we socialize later at my apartment…?"

Don't be asinine. You know that you'll never live up to it… "Of course. That would be… just fine." Watson burst into a spaceship takeoff inside; his mind was ablaze with bliss.

"Here's my call… Just tap in when you want to talk." The man handed Watson a heavy card and strode off cryptically down the block. Watson's ecstatic mind did not realize that the card was not plasma—it was real paper, something unheard of in this day and age—that the man knew of his low social position, and that he, an indebted man lower than a civil servant, was given an invitation to an obviously wealthy man's dressed-up, technogized, shined, and gadget-crammed home. Watson was not noticing anything, really, aside from the words neatly printed on the white card paper.

Damien Marten

Apartment F66, Staten Blvd.

231-565-9971

Of course I'll come. I'll tap in tomorrow and speak to him and see when's a good time to visit. There's no reason to ignore a chance like this….

"Yes, Mr. Marten, thank you." Watson loitered in front of a flickering public wall-screen, impatiently waiting for the call to transfer through. It seems things haven't changed since those ancient pre-novian books, he thought. Why, considering our higher level of knowledge, we haven't even reduced the filth, grime, and inconvenience while using public wall-screens, and—

"Ah, Watson, you've returned my card," the handsome man on the screen stated. "How… pleasant of you."

"Yes, I was wondering if you'd still be willing to—"

"Of course. Excuse me for a minute…" Marten was distracted with something not shown on the screen. He spoke to an imperceptible person: "Yes. Prepare the ships immediately. I have a guest, you see?" He turned back to Watson. "I'll boost you up now, Watson. See you in a few nanoseconds, eh?" He chuckled forcefully, and Watson barely had the time to prepare himself for the suction before he shimmered into flying sparkles, transformed into a stunning flicker on the smoggy wind that seemed unavoidable, somehow inexplicably companion to the great supernova change looming soon ahead.

Watson landed lightly on the balls of his feet on the thick imitation Persian carpet—a replica of a world long passed—in the apartment complex's foyer. He listened, and heard quiet, yet agitated chatter emulate from behind the tall, white door. The talking quickly stopped, and Marten himself strode out from the magnetized entrance. "Why, hello, Watson! It's simply wonderful that you decided to call at this moment. I have a flyover from Mars." He laughed heartily at his joke, all tension from the room seeming to be forgotten. "Well, follow in." He gestured and stepped back through the door, Watson on his heels.

"Admiral?" A short, slightly plump man with a slick white naval suit was sitting comfortably on the red chaise lounge. "Sir, this is Watson, that fellow I was telling you about."

Watson's eyes widened until they seemed to drop out of their sockets. His stuttering kicked in again, much to his humiliation. "H-hello, Ad-admiral." Was this the famed commander of the Space and Travel Administrations that had always been spoken about—no, not spoken, whispered under breath: the Name murmured in deserted alleyways and schoolyards and pubs, known to all mankind past the age of fifteen? It seemed so.

The Admiral was obviously familiar to this kind of behavior. He laughed openly. "Ah, Watson, how pleasurable to finally meet you!" He stood up, stretched out his arm, and Watson pumped his hand excitedly.

"Admiral, sir, you have no idea of—"

"I'm afraid I do, Watson. I'm afraid I do." He said, chortling. Well-to-do men seemed to acquire over the years a habit of interrupting others.

"Now, let's discuss a business prospect, shall we? Sirs, if you would sit down…" The three men took their seats on the sofas, Marten and the Admiral on one and Watson on the other, facing them. The two businessmen had a clear view of their victim, one man to each set of eyes and four eyes to a full peripheral vision. "Let us begin." Marten cleared his throat. "Watson, I've brought you here for two reasons. First of all, I do so believe that leaving your home, if you would even take the liberty of calling it a home, is the better option than staying here on Earth." Watson sat frozen, glued to the red leather chaise. "The other point is the simple conclusion to the first statement." He smiled a hostile smile. "The Admiral and I are personally assembling thousands of men worldwide that we would like to have participating in this program of ours. We're bringing those who have been cruelly refused the right to travel in space, and letting them explore the recesses of the universe on their own free will. Would you like to join?"

Watson was stunned. It started with a plain conversation, no more, and ended up in an invitation to travel in worlds beyond… "Of course!" He blurted. Then his dazed mind cleared and he thought of the expenses. "Oh… but I am, ah, short on change—"

"No, no, young lad, it's completely free of charge. All you have to do is to sign this contract here…" The Admiral withdrew a pen and a sheet with a short description and a ledger line printed on the bottom, and handed them across the low coffee table.

Watson stared at the page. "It's paper."

"Of course, nothing but the best, eh? Now come along, sign it."

Watson's hand moved with its own free will. It gripped the antique fountain pen and placed tip to paper, bleeding red ink onto the previously wiped clean slate. It slowly carved out his signature, letter by letter, taking care in the only two words Watson had ever been taught to write. Handwriting was no longer taught in learning facilities, as it was no longer a required part of the curriculum. Students only learned to sign their name, sign with styluses on digital contracts that allowed them to buy wall-screens, virtual toys, imitation landscapes…

"T-there." Watson's voice shook with finality. He had sealed it off. The chains broke from his wrists and his chest rose in freedom, freedom that he had never experienced before, freedom that tasted sweet on his tongue. Worried thoughts of children, death, wives, work, worlds left his body, never to be savored again. "There. I signed it. It's done."

The two men sitting across from him smiled in unison. "You're free to go. Hope you enjoyed your stay…" Marten lifted his hand to wave good-bye, but it moved ever-so-slowly, like a head turning underwater… The last Earth sight Watson glimpsed was an overpowering blackout, but it was not usual, the Earth bled not charcoal but blood, scarlet red blood…

That's the beauty in it, Watson, don't you see? Rid the Earth of men and save us from the impending danger that was bound to come anyways. Look, open your eyes, Watson, see the sky around you, drink it in drop by darkened drop, drink in its marvelous depth. Watson, Watson… Watson….

Watson drifted out into endless space, infinity, towards the fiery hot furnace that was the sun, the supernova. He clutched the white paper letter in his hand, the white letter that explained everything, crushing it to a memory. He floated out at light-speed, sauntered off like a spooked horse, tumbled down closer to the scorching depths, the killer, flaming, sweltering-hot belly that gives mankind the right to sip in the beautiful cold salt air of the sea, fell softly like an iron weight, magnetized with its own poles that attract to only one outlet, a singular star…