I am floating.
I push off gently from my bunk and drift over to the window. Outside of the Quinlan IIV looms the infinite blackness of space. I gaze out, watching the stars. The ship's VOX AI notices my activity and turns on the lights in the small sleeping quarters where I float. My face is illuminated in the reflection on the window. It flickers there like a ghost in the darkness.
I look at the image before me. My hair, now more grey than blonde, is cut short for space travel. My face is lined. I've been looking very tired lately.
/\/\/
They said XY-4.4496 could support human life. The readings showed perfect atmospheric conditions. I had looked over the reports myself. The statistics were incredible. This planet was perfect. By this point of course space colonization was a booming industry. There were already human colonies all across the stars, (Thanks to a certain asshole called Jimmy Neutron,) but XY-4 was the first planet that showed genuinely perfect conditions to sustain human life.
As would be expected, the space industry went insane over the news. Plans began to be put into action to send a small scout team to the planet. And 9 months after the planet's discovery, here we are.
/\/\/
A red light flashes, and the AI informs me that the gravity generators are coming online. I lower myself down flat on the floor. The siren goes off once, and I feel the weight suddenly return to my body. I feel the insides of my stomach slosh. I stay there for a couple of minutes, letting my body adjust. Eventually I pull myself up and take a single step towards the door. My legs aren't used to taking weight again yet, but they should be fine before long.
Once I am fully adjusted, I walk down the corridor in the direction of the Quinlan's central canteen. We were adrift in space for a day while the ship's energy recharged, but now we are back on track and coming close to reaching our destination. I look out a viewing window to my left and see the stars streaking past. Faster-than-light travel. A product of Neutron's wonderful mind. The gravity generators, too. The ship itself is based on one of his designs. This whole world that I've made myself a part of has his finger prints all over it.
I left Jimmy when I was 26. 23 long years later and I can't get him out of my sight.
/\/\/
From the very start Jimmy Neutron was always there, casting his shadow across my future. Success always came his way. He always got exactly what he wanted. He was always the one in the right, the one who knew all the answers. This made those around him comfortable, because they knew they could rely on his perfect brain. And this only served to feed his own superiority complex. That's probably why he chose to only befriend idiots, like little Carl Wheezer, and that boy that ran away.
But I wasn't like other people. I wanted to find my own answers. When Jimmy came forward to the media years ago, the world worshipped him. A lot of other scientists all but gave up on their research, because Neutron knew it all, as always. I didn't give up. I held my ground and I worked hard to become who I am. I have shaped my own life and my own career with blood, sweat and tears. Nobody has heard from Jimmy Neutron in nearly two decades. But I'm still standing.
/\/\/
Morning, Dr Vortex, Alison says brightly as she sees me enter the canteen. She's quite young for this business, especially as Chief of Maintenance, but she's good at what she does. Whenever I look at her I can't help but be reminded a little too much of Libby Fairfax. Now that's someone I haven't seen in a long time. Sitting opposite her is Ricardez. We've been colleagues for a long time. Ever since that one unbelievably drunk night we spent together not long before we left Earth he's been desperate for my attention. Whenever we're in the same room I know exactly what he's thinking about.
I eat my meal in silence. A whole new world is waiting for me. I haven't felt like this in a long time. Since I was a child.
/\/\/
I remember the first time I left the Earth. Abandoning everything we knew, we were all so young, so lost, but yet so full of purpose. I wanted that feeling to last forever, the feeling of forging my own way through the stars. And I think it did. That moment as a young girl, drifting through the infinite abyss, that's what shaped everything. I guess I do have Jimmy to thank for that.
/\/\/
Everything is grey. The storm roars around us, and I can barely see the strange, foreign landscape through the dust and smoke. The reports on XY-4 must've been older than we'd thought. Our readings tell us that there are signs that some sort of organic life existed here once, but everything is long dead and gone. The soil itself is emitting high levels of radiation. Thunder booms continuously, and sparks light up the immense mountains of grey clouds that hurtle along the planet's surface. Ricardez's voice comes through to me, saying we should get back to the Quinlan. We've been searching for hours, looking for a break in the chaos. I don't want to give up. I will wander this place until I find something, anything. Maybe I'll die here.
The sun is only a dim yellow glow but it is about to start setting. There's not much time left. Ricardez's voice again. I don't listen to what he's saying. Instead I listen to what he isn't. There are breaks in his speech. I focus. I can hear white noise cutting through his words. Our communication systems are perfect. Impenetrable. Neutron designed them that way. Nothing on this planet could possibly be interfering with them. But yet I'm picking up a disruption.
The two of us stumble through the darkening wasteland, closing in. The interfering signal grows stronger. I'm running now.
And then there it is, right in front of me. At first I barely see it through the storm, and the thick layer of dirt, but miraculously the shape of the small spacecraft is still intact. It's been fossilized by the thick, toxic fumes in the air. Holy shit, says Ricardez. That's human. That's one of ours. He's right, it's definitely Neutron built. Yeah, I say, out of breath. Look how ancient it is. It's got to be an early model. This ship must have been what sent those reports on XY-4. The planet was probably still alive when it landed here however long ago. And here it is now, still trying to transmit.
/\/\/
We've gotten Alison over from the Quinlan to open up the fossil. As she works with her tools the setting sun begins to turn the grey world red. There, she says. After you. I step into the darkness and turn up the lights on my suit.
The cabin is extremely small. One man size. And there, in the ashy, grey dust is what I was dreading to find. Bones.
Cindy? Ricardez calls to me.
I can't speak. I can't breathe. The bones are so small.
These are the bones of a child.
/\/\/
I can still remember that day Sheen stopped showing up for school. I wasn't worried. It wasn't like it hadn't happened before. But then it was a week of no Sheen. Then a month. There was no trace of him. People blamed Jimmy, though I didn't understand why. I suppose he was an easy person to blame. Jimmy could always solve everyone's problems but he was usually the cause of them too.
Jimmy eventually stopped talking to anyone, even me. He stayed in his little hole underground. I tried to love him, truly. But how can you love something that has become so devoid of emotion? He became nothing but a brain, constantly thinking but never feeling. I latched onto the boy I knew, the boy I remembered, but he was long gone. For so many years I stayed by his side because I thought the boy I fell in love with was still there. I was lying to myself for so long. There's only so long you can go before your patience wears thin and snaps. I left Retroville, and I left all those memories and all those lies without ever looking back.
But even after I left him, I never seriously considered that he had anything to do with whatever happened to Sheen. Sheen obviously just ran away. He was a stupid kid and that's what stupid kids do.
I guess that was just another lie I told myself to stay happy.
/\/\/
The Earth approaches slowly. I am looking back towards the blackness. Everything is so quiet. I press myself against the glass so that all I see is black, and stars. So many stars.
I imagine I am that little girl again. And I imagine he is that little boy. I see him float over to me, the stars parting around him. Nerdtron, I whisper to him with a smile. He takes my hand and together we float, as if deep underwater. There is nothing around us but infinite space. Our young bodies are so small. His eyes are as blue as I remember in all my vivid memories. But they are so old. The oldest eyes I have ever seen. What does he feel? Does he feel anything at all? I don't know who he is anymore. I don't know what he is. Maybe I never did.