01.

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

America is present at the launch of his first exit ship. Its passenger roster boasts two hundred names, the two hundred brave and bold who risk their necks on this maiden voyage. He is so proud of them that he stands at the door and shakes their hands as they board. None of them really know who he is, except that he's some high-ranking official, but he exerts an air of such importance above and beyond any run-of-the-mill diplomat that they all leave with the feeling that they have just shaken the hand of a legend. It's quite a brash, upbeat legend, but the adjectives aren't so important as the noun in the long run.

He waits until the shuttle has gone from view, a silver ghost disappearing into the bright morning sky before turning to go. He gets as far as his parked car before he has to pause and look up again, as if he might still see that silver arrow. Of course he knows he will not. The brain and heart of him, the part that is as human as his pseudonym Alfred Jones, knows he won't. But that larger part, the part intimately connected with his land and his people and his culture, pulls his gaze upwards anyway. It takes him a few more moments before his people finally free his thoughts and body long enough for him to climb into his car and turn the key in the ignition.

It's only the first of many, he knows as he drives away from the lot. It's the first of many shuttles which will be built and readied and boarded and flown away, carrying his people into space. They will all go. They have no choice. It is either that or die on the planet when the asteroid impacts. But for now, he doesn't think about that. That time is too far in the future for him to worry about. For now, he is just proud.

Two weeks later, when the news of the shuttle's malfunction and destruction has reached Earth and the news networks, England comes to visit America. America is watching the news on the television, sitting almost uncharacteristically still.

England isn't there because of the destroyed shuttle, he tells America. There is diplomatic business that needs America's attention. But that never really gets touched upon, if it even existed. America supposes that next time all the boring paperwork will be filed and filled. This time, England spends most of his visit battering down the walls around America's emotions with uncanny ease. England's good at knocking down walls; America supposes that's because of all the years he and his people spent doing it to other people's castles and manor houses and whatever else they had over in Europe to knock down. America never had castles. And so England talks it out of him somehow, and he admits eventually that he is surprised how much the loss of that shuttle hurts him.

England tells him it's just his people's hurt and emotions bleeding through, and somehow the implication that none of those emotions are truly his offends America. And it frightens him a little, too, and he suddenly finds himself trying to sort his emotions into two groups: My emotions and their emotions. It doesn't work. He can't tell them apart. And so he snaps at England that he is just bummed out that his heroic shuttle mission failed, and clams up as much as he can after that.

NASA loses contact with the second shuttle two days after launch. They keep track of it on radar for as long as they are able, but the readings they receive from their life systems inside the shuttle are not encouraging. They give up that batch of spacefarers for dead two weeks after the launch. America still can't sort his emotions. He stops trying after a while and simply lets them exist, hard knots in the pit of his stomach and his chest and his throat, until the memories of them fade from the minds of his people and the next shuttle is launched.

This one continues on for longer, keeping in perfect contact until they pass out of range altogether. Once they pass out of range, they are to put themselves into suspended animation until such time as the ship's sensors discover a suitable planet they can land on. No one knows when that might be. It's more important to vacate Earth right now.

And so they do. Once the success of the third mission has been publicized, an influx of people sign up for transportation off-planet. America can no longer meet all the shuttles; he is busy with affairs of state, keeping the peace as his people flee.

One day, a day when America has almost lost count of the people who have left him, the shuttles which have flown away, his President suggests he board the next shuttle. America just shakes his head and says, flippantly, "Are you kidding? I know you still need me around! The hero does not run from danger." And he grins, which assures his President of his good humor, and the man just sighs because he knows the boisterous nation isn't going to be taken down any pegs by words he might offer.

America knows he's still needed by his nation; but more than that, he knows none of his other fellow nations have abandoned their world yet, and he swears he will not be one of the first to flee. It's not in his nature to run from things.

But over the years it begins to seem less like running and more like exploring. Shuttles take off nearly every day. Everything mankind has is being placed into this last desperate rush from Earth, ahead of a disaster they know they cannot avert. Nations band more closely together than they have for decades. America swears once to England that he actually saw Greece and Turkey having a prolonged civil discussion during a break in one of their world conferences. England laughs him off, but America knows his eyes did not deceive him. Things have grown serious, and everyone knows it.

His people dream of space now. Those who have not already signed up are scraping the money together to do so; the stars have never seemed so close, so bright, so inviting. Whole new plains to explore, America begins to think. The world is finite; when he was young he had roamed his country, exploring it, mapping it, fighting for and through it, making it his and his alone, and then opening it for the world to see and touch and be. It was the melting pot of everything good and bad that could possibly end up on his shore. But he has explored its cracks and crevices centuries ago, and now it is drawn on maps which you can buy for barely anything at convenience stores wherever there is a possibility of two tourists visiting separately. There is nothing left on this Earth to explore.

But out there, there is space. Wider than he can conceive and lighted by more stars than he might count, it can surely never be fully explored. And America is, at his heart, an explorer. Curious of what he has not seen, protective of that part of it which, having seen, he claims for his own, and always, deep down, hungering for more. America has grown bored.

But he holds back.

Early on, Sealand boards one of the shuttles along with his royal family, the only people who give him being. The shuttle is a British one, but America arrives to see it off, because, though his dealings with Sealand have been few, he feels he owes it to his little fellow country. Far, far back, through the press of the watching crowd who always come for the thrill of a shuttle's launch, America thinks he catches the flash of blond hair, the fleeting image of a green-eyed face, bushy eyebrows knit in a frown, eyes gleaming with just that tiny bit too much moisture. But America doesn't manage to push through the crowd fast enough; by the time he reaches that spot, England has vanished.

Sealand doesn't return. And the shuttles stream away, silver arrows pointing the way America wishes he could go.

They stream away forever, and the flow thins, and the ticket prices go down as fewer and fewer people remain to buy. And it's only when America learns that they're beginning to empty the museums, load their treasures onto the half-empty shuttles, that he begins to linger around the ticket booths in earnest.

He doesn't buy. Not right away. The ticket venders, capitalising on this frantic rush, begin to recognise his face, his odd hair, his bright smiles and energetic conversations he strikes up at the slightest provocation. They like him. It's hard not to. And they hope one day he'll buy from them.

One day, he does. He is watching one of the shuttles being loaded with cargo in preparation to launch, and he catches sight of guards carrying crates aboard. This isn't strictly unusual, except that, while there are only two crates, they are accompanied by a veritable entourage, guards and men in official uniforms alike.

America turns to the ticket vender. "Hey, dude. Any idea what they're putting on that ship?"

The vender glances over, memory and recollection flashing across his face. He tells the young man. "You're lucky to have caught it," he adds. "I'm sure that'll be worth something as a story to tell your kids."

The man is hard-pressed to see his prospective buyer's eyes behind the glasses, but there is a tightening about the corners of the mouth that's almost unmistakable. The blond head turns quickly, back to the ascending crates, and towards the ticket seller again, as if the young man doesn't quite know what he ought to do. Eventually, his gaze steadies and returns to the ticket booth. And, suddenly and at last, he reaches into his pocket and draws out his wallet.

"How much are the tickets again?"