[Fiction] (Ran out of Steam) A Three Hour Tour

[Doctor Nova Madigan]

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Saturday morning:

Meghan "Girl Made of Titanium" Cutter loafed in her customary place on the sofa in the home she shared with Neil Preston and Nova "Flicker" Madigan. Pookums the cat loafed on the other end of the sofa, and Meghan idly teased him with her foot. Meghan glanced at the clock, noting that it was just a few minutes before the hour.

"Nova!" she shouted without getting up. "Aren't you ready yet? It's almost time!"

"We're not going to be late," Nova replied patiently as she ascended the basement stairs, "I'm just about ready now."

Nova crested the stairs and strode into the living room, wearing the grey-colored lightweight environmental suit which Long had custom-made for her a month earlier. She cradled the helmet in her arm. Meghan had never seen Nova in the suit, and her eyes widened slightly in amusement.

"Must suck, needing a space suit, I mean," Meghan teased.

"We don't really know for sure that you don't," Nova replied seriously, "I'm kind of worried about what'll happen to you when you hit hard vacuum."

Meghan shrugged as she rose from the sofa, after disentangling her foot from Pookum's grasp. "I figure it's a no-brainer. I don't depend on the environment in any way as it is, so what's so different about space?"

"In any case," Nova continued, "Our first jump will be to the upper atmosphere, way up in the mesosphere. I want to be sure that you and Danielle will really be okay out in space in nothing more than your underwear before we go on to interplanetary space where there's zero atmosphere and tons of lethal radiation, okay?"

"Fair enough," Meghan replied, making a token effort to conceal her opinion that Nova was being needlessly cautious.

Nova crouched on the floor and held her hand out for Meghan. "We're teleporting to the top of the big tower in Calgary," she explained. "It'll be windy. I'd rather not fall right off of it."

Meghan took Nova's hand but remained standing upright. She grinned impishly.

A moment later, the two of them materialized 190 meters above downtown Calgary, atop the Calgary Tower. The wind, while strong, did not blow hard enough to sweep them from the deck, and Nova relaxed and stood up straight.

[Magnum Opus]

Thirty Minutes Ago

Danielle stared down at the contents of her palm in disbelief. "Dad..."

"I would not hear of it, son." Her father patted her on the shoulder. The two of them stood on the porch of her parent's house. "Nudge nudge wink wink, say no more. I know what happens. My son, two girls, out in the depths of space... things happen."

She thought back to her time with Meghan, waist deep in the water. Memories of Meghan's fingers working their way inside her bathing suit sent tingles through her skin. "Yeah - but -"

"And when things happen, you be prepared. Like the Boy Scouts. You remember Boy Scouts, don't you?"

"No, I had Beavers."

Snickering could be heard through the kitchen window. Danielle rolled her eyes. "Not like that, Mom."

"Forget her. I do. Look. If you need it, use it, all right, son?"

"All right, Dad." She nodded, and gave her father a hug. "I'll take lots of pictures."

Without a further word, she took off, examining the foil packet in her hand. My dad gave me a condom. To stick on my...

I think I'd better start visiting that post-eruption therapist the doctors recommended.

Five Minutes Ago

"Okay. Here I am. Top of the Calgary tower, 191 meters straight up, they'll be here any minute." Knockout nodded to herself assuredly. "And I'm not going to screw it up. Nope."

She looks around for a few moments, tapping her foot on nothing at all as she floats.

"... wonder if I have time for a quick game..."

Now

As Nova and Meghan get their bearings, they notice Danielle floating a few dozen meters away, her back to them, wearing her blue, black and white outfit. She hums to herself, and judging by her posture is concentrating heavily on something she's holding in her hands.

"Uh huh, oh yeah. Now I'm picking you up... aaaaaaaand I'm throwing you into the Bottomless Pit™. Danielle 34, dipshit 2. What's that? I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am and how everything I do is great."

She has buds in her ears, and doesn't seem to hear the two novas behind her.

[Doctor Nova Madigan]

Nova looked at Meghan, and Meghan looked back at her at the same moment.

"What is she doing?" Nova asked.

"Let's find out," Meghan replied, quickly walking across the roof deck toward Danielle. Nova followed at a more sedate pace, taking in the Calgary skyline, such as it was, as she went.

From behind, Meghan put her hand on Danielle's shoulder. Meghan suddenly remembered the last time she'd done that, standing waist-deep in the sea on the beach at Ibizia, as if it had just happened a moment ago.

"Hi hi!" she said cheerfully, brushing aside those feelings for the moment.

[Magnum Opus]

Danielle starts, turning around. Around her neck is an expensive-looking camera that's stamped with several certification logos stating its fitness for interplanetary use. At her belt is a collection of pouches hitched on top of her normal eufiber 'belt.' In her hands is a small wireless OpNet game device.

"Oh! Sorry. Didn't hear you come up..." She plucks the buds out of her ears. "Hi again, Meghan." She gives the titanium girl a hug.

She looks past Meghan to Flicker. Okay. Whatever you do, don't say anything dumb. Don't say anything like 'hi, you're flickering.' Can you do that?

"You must be a nova. ... Nova, I mean. You must be Nova."

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh, I'm a moron and fuck me.

[Doctor Nova Madigan]

Meghan returned Danielle's hug, holding her close for a long moment.

She smells nice, she thought.

Nova watched with a bemused expression and arched eyebrows. She ignored Danielle's awkward stammering and smiled graciously.

"Indeed," she replied, "I'm Nova Madigan. Sometimes people call me Flicker, for obvious reasons." She spoke without irony. There had been a time when she would have said it with irony, but she'd moved beyond that.

"This is Danielle Waters," Meghan added, "but I'm sure you knew that already."

Nova extended her hand. "I didn't know your last name," she said to Danielle. "Good to meet you."

[Magnum Opus]

Danielle extends an arm and shakes Nova's carefully, timing it so that she doesn't miss the flickering hand on the wrong beat. "Glad to meet you face to face." She smiles. "I like your spacesuit."

Well, Meghan's glad to see me. I guess I can stop worrying so much about whether or not I bunged that one up.

Mmm. She's huggy today. It's nice.

"Hope you don't mind me bringing all this stuff. Some, er, people said I could keep this spaceworthy high-res camera if I took a couple samples for them."

"Did you want to eat first? Or are we going up now?"

[Doctor Nova Madigan]

"I don't eat," Meghan replied automatically.

"I had breakfast before coming," Nova replied after a pause, "but if you're hungry we could do that first."

Nova eyed Danielle's sophisticated camera and other gear. Tourist, she thought with amusement.

"As long as you're sure it'll hold up in space, bring whatever you want," Nova said affably.

[Magnum Opus]

Danielle puts her game system back in her belt with a eufiberic schlurp! noise. "Sorry, I got bored, and I figured I'd spank a few people in XWF. ... not literally. In the game. And I ate already. And I think that as long as I keep it inside the eufiber it'll be okay."

She grins, and giggles. "I just can't believe it. Outer space! How cool is that?"

[Doctor Nova Madigan]

"Very cool indeed," Nova said. "I'm still pretty new to space myself, and am very much in the 'holy fucking shit, I'm standing on the fucking moon' stage of my travels myself."

Nova hefted her helmet and looked at it thoughtfully. She watched her reflection appear and disappear in the mirrored face bowl while she continued to talk.

"We ought to work out a plan ahead of time," Nova said, "So that we're all expecting the same thing to happen and there's no surprises. First thing, no matter what, is a teleport to mid-air, way up in mesosphere. That's high enough that we'll know for sure if you two are really space-worthy, but not so high that it'll kill you instantly if you're not."

Meghan shrugged and looked at Danielle as if to say It's like she's our mom or something.

[Magnum Opus]

"That's fine by me. I haven't quite made it up that high." She smiles back at Meghan.

"Also, with no air, uh - how will we talk? I gather you have a radio in your thing there - do we communicate with that?"

[Doctor Nova Madigan]

Nova frowned.

"You," she said, indicating Meghan, "Can be heard so long as you keep physical contact with me. The sound transmits by vibration. By the same token, you should be able to talk to Danielle so long as you have solid contact with her head."

"Chalk one up for not being human," Meghan said smugly, crossing her arms.

Nova turned to Knockout.

"That is a problem, I guess," she said, "I mean, you're still pretty human-looking. I'll guess you still talk the normal way, by pushing air across your vocal cords, I mean. If that's the case, you won't actually be able to make sounds in a vacuum."

Nova frowned again, thoughtfully.

"You'll be able to hear me through bone conduction if you press your skull against the faceplate of my suit really hard, but I can't think of any way that you could be heard. Gestures, I guess?"

[Magnum Opus]

Damit, why didn't I think? Get a helmet from Utopia when I got the camera and agreed to take the samples...

"If you give me a second, I can zip off to a Staples and grab a notepad and pencil. Or, well... hmmm."

She holds up her palm, examining is as she selectively alters its color. "I can do one or two letters at a time."

[Doctor Nova Madigan]

"Up to you," Nova said. "I don't have all day but we can wait a few minutes. Be sure to get a pencil. A pen won't work."

"Wish we'd planned this in advance," Meghan quipped, sitting down cross-legged on the roof of the observation deck.

[Magnum Opus]

"Sorry." She shrugs and grins sheepishly. "My first time off-planet. I'll go get a pencil and paper."

She zips off in a blue blur.

A minute or so later, she returns with a pad of Vella paper and a mechanical pencil as well as a few sharpened regular ones. She stuffs them into a eufiberic pocket protector she forms on her chest.

"Ready to set sail! So to speak."

[Doctor Nova Madigan]

"Awesomeness," Meghan said, standing up.

"Okay then," Nova said, double-checking the gauges on her suit's left forearm. "First stop is the upper atmosphere, then off to the surface of the Moon. From there, we can go anywhere out to about the orbit of Saturn. Any requests?"

"I hear Venus is pretty," Meghan said hopefully.

"Pretty deadly," Nova replied, "We can orbit Venus, but I can't enter the atmosphere." Nova turned to Danielle. "Any places on your to-do list?"

[Magnum Opus]

"My to-do list? Well, some people would like it if I could take some samples of Phobos - one of the moons of Mars - as well as a couple on Mars itself, at the Hellas impact basin. They said something about uncommon minerals possibly being more common there..."

Maybe I'll find an alien ship. Oweeoweeooooo.

"They gave me a map. I dunno if that helps you, but if it's too much of a bother I can just fly there once I'm close enough."

[Doctor Nova Madigan]

"'Some people?'" Meghan asked, cocking her head at an angle. "Who are these people? They're making an awful lot of demands on you for your first trip into space, eh?"

Nova arched her eyebrows as she leaned closer for a look at the map.

"This is weird and really unexpected," she said, "but it shouldn't be a problem to go directly there." She tapped her forehead and winked. "My teleport-fu is strong. Yeah, we'll hit this right after we stomp around the Moon a little bit."

Nova pulled her helmet over her head and sealed it in place. She held her gloved hands out for Danielle and Meghan.

"Shall we?" she said loudly enough to be heard.

[Magnum Opus]

"Well, i was heading up anyway so it was just a coincidence of timing..."

Crap. Did I get hosed? All I really got was a camera. Granted, I was going up there anyway and I could have negotiated...

Maybe I should just tell them. I dunno. They don't sound like they'd really approve of me working at the Project...

Ah, put a sock in it, Danni, it's just a job.

She takes Flicker's flickering hand firmly, and sucks in a deep breath. "Ready. Let's do it."

Off we go into the wild blue yonder...

[Doctor Nova Madigan]

Nova concentrated on a point forty miles above where they stood, and a moment later they were there, suspended in mid-air. Countless stars glared sharply at them like backlit pinpricks in pure black velvet and the sun glared like an electric-arc welder. Immediately the trio began to plummet toward the earth. Flicker gripped Meghan's and Danielle's hands with all of her strength, fearful of losing contact with them. She looked them both over carefully as they fell in close formation, arm-in-arm.

Meghan appeared to be fine-- no, having an awesome time, she corrected herself, as did Danielle. The display on her suit's forearm continued to show all green lights, indicating that she too was ready for the vacuum of interplanetary space.

Good enough, Nova decided, pleased to see that she'd not hurt anyone yet. She shut out the increasing shriek of the thin upper atmosphere and focused her thoughts on the surface of the Moon. A moment later, the trio stood there, stock still, as if they'd not been falling at all.

"Momentum control," Nova explained. "I can do that when I teleport. Comes in handy."

"Holy fucking shit," Meghan said in quiet awe, letting go of Flicker's hand and slowly turning in a circle. "Meghan walks on the fucking Moon."

[Magnum Opus]

"...!"

Knockout tries to speak, finding it impossible. She looks at her two companions, trying to read their lips, and failing that, their expressions.

All right. Keep it together.

... the moon! Holy Jesus nipples, I'm on the moon!

She looks deep into the ground, making out hollow pockets and mineral deposits with her penetrating vision. She very carefully pushes off with her toes, trying not to zip off into space - she floats instead, managing to maintain control over her flying.

She turns her gaze skyward, at the empty space overhead, glittering with stars like diamonds on jeweller's velvet. And at the earth itself, looking calm and peaceful - a pale blue dot, as the saying went.

She gets the giggles. Feels like I could just about touch it! Or fly there. This is amazing.

She then notices that she's floating a bit too high off the ground, and carefully sets herself back down to Earth - or the Moon, rather.

[Mithril]

Meghan jumped after Knockout, and was startled at how quickly the lunar surface receded below her. In addition to the Moon's reduced gravity, which was only one-sixth of that on Earth, she'd also neglected to reset her weight after lowering it to three pounds back on Earth.

"Uh, guys?" she said, anxiously, forgetting that her voice would not carry in a vacuum. "Guys? Nova? Danielle?" She waved her arms frantically, to no avail. Danielle seemed to be fixated on gazing at the Earth which hung in the sky, and Nova was facing the other direction.

After a frighteningly long wait, she felt her momentum bleed away, and for a moment she hung as lightly as a feather before finally beginning her preposterously slow descent to the Lunar soil. Five hundred feet below, she could see Nova standing in place and staring up at her, her expression concealed behind the mirrored bowl of her helmet.

[Magnum Opus]

As fate would have it, Danielle glances and notices that Meghan has gone missing. Her sharp eyes pick out footprints, and she follows them up.

Wow, she can fly too! My powers suck.

Uh... she's not flying, it looks like.

She lifts off - too quickly, overshooting Meghan by several dozen feet. She rights herself and slowly comes face to face with the titanium girl.

"...!" she says, then groans. She points at Meghan, then at the ground, then at herself, then makes an arms-stretched-out flying pose.

I really have to learn sign language. Or semaphore.

Or bring a radio next time, dumbass.

[Mithril]

Meghan fell slowly toward the surface of the Moon, feet first, facing Danielle. She looked down at the dusty grey lunar soil and gauged her fall, then looked back to Danielle. Remembering what Nova had said about bone conduction, she reached out to Danielle and touched her cheek.

"I think I'll land okay," she said, willing the sound to resonate from her fingertips. For extra eerieness, she smiled with her lips together while she said it.

Below, with her feet firmly planted on the ground, Flicker looked up at Danielle and Meghan, her hands on her hips and her head craned upward.

"Crazy kids," she chuckled in amusement. She decided to let Meghan and Danielle sort out their descent by themselves. They're novas, she thought to herself, let them play around. Besides which, she reasoned, she needed to save her energy for teleporting all around the Solar System.

[Magnum Opus]

At the touch, Danielle's eyes open. Can she see into my mind?

... no, she's just... talking through her finger. That's neat actually. Wow.

Danielle slowly descends back to the moon with Meghan.

[Mithril]

As gently as a feather made of a super-light metal that modern science cannot completely describe, Meghan alighted on the Moon again, raising a small cloud of glittering selenic dust which quickly settled back into place.

"Ha ha, that was awesome!" she exulted, forgetting that neither Nova nor Danielle would hear her. She turned in a circle and looked for a fist-sized rock, and being on the Moon, had several to choose from. Meghan plucked it from the ground and hefted it in her hand. It was surprisingly lightweight, even moreso than pumice. Meghan grinned evilly and hurled it as far as she could.

After the rock disappeared over a nearby ridge, she lost interest in it. Meghan stooped and picked up two more rocks and trotted back to where Danielle and Nova stood.

[Magnum Opus]

Danielle follows the path of the rock, shielding her eyes. She whistles - or tries to, then gives up.

Good arm.

She turns back to the other two, and takes out her notepad. In mere seconds she scribbles out a note. THIS IS FUN! THANK YOU FOR HAVING ME ALONG. WHERE ON THE MOON ARE WE?

[Doctor Nova Madigan]

Nova accepted Danielle's handwritten note and scanned it. Using Danielle's pencil, she repied in flowing script:

No clue. I didn't pick a particular spot. It's all pretty much the same anyway. Is there anything you'd like to do, or are you ready to visit Phobos?

Flicker returned the notepad to Danielle. Meghan leaned over Danielle's shoulder, eavesdropping.

[Magnum Opus]

Danielle replies in chicken scratch, in contrast to Flicker's cursive script.

I'M READY IF YOU ARE.

You know? This is giving me an idea. If they still have the rover up here... maybe once I have my flying more under control, I can offer to bring it back! I bet they'd like it if someone brought it back. It's not doing any good where it is, anyway.

[Doctor Nova Madigan]

Meghan read along with Nova and Danielle, bobbing back and forth to follow their written exchange. To signal her agreement with the plan to depart, she made a thumbs-up gesture and took Nova's gloved hand. Nova took Danielle's hand into her other hand, and concentrated on the potato-shaped moon of Mars, Phobos.

A moment later, the trio appeared on the surface of Phobos. While the moon itself was an irregular potato-shaped accretion of uninteresting rock and grit, the sight in the sky took Nova's breath away. The planet Mars dominated the view, filling a full quarter of the sky with its angry red face.

"Would you look at that," Nova whispered.

"Uh huh," Meghan replied and nodded, her gaze also fixed on Mars. She'd picked up Nova's voice through her touch.

Coolest road trip ever, Meghan thought.

[Magnum Opus]

Danielle can't take her eyes off of the sight in the sky for a full minute - she just stares, slack-jawed.

I'm standing on Phobos. I'm looking right at Mars. This is amazing.

She tentatively reaches for her camera, then turns to the others and puts it back down again. She takes out her notepad and scribbles quickly, showing it to the other two women.

WE ARE SO SMALL BEFORE THIS.

[Doctor Nova Madigan]

Nova glanced and Danielle's note and nodded. She was reluctant to move from where she stood. The tiny moon's gravity was so feeble that she felt as if she would fall into the sky if she dared to jump at all.

Meghan had noticed the same thing, and just by arching her feet, had managed to drift free of the surface, tethered only by her grasp of Nova's hand.

"I don't think we're walking anywhere on this moon," Meghan said, waiting patiently for gravity to notice that she was not standing on the ground. She kept a nervous eye on Mars. She could not escape the unnerving sensation that she was about to fall toward Mars at any moment, so large did it loom in the otherwise starry sky.

Nova chuckled at Meghan and then turned-- slowly-- back to Danielle. She'd discovered that the tiniest motions translated into full-body movement unless she was careful to counterbalance with the opposite limb. The more she moved, the more contorted she became.

"You're right," she said very loudly while cradling Danielle's cheek in her palm. Bone conduction did the rest, so that her voice was faintly audible in Danielle's ear. "This really puts all the drama back on Earth into perspective-- makes it seem really trite."

[Magnum Opus]

More scribbling.

I CAN HOLD YOU TWO DOWN IF YOU WANT TO WALK HERE. I FLY DOWN JUST AS WELL AS UP.

Well, not really - not if all those divots in the field behind my house are any indicator. But what they don't know won't hurt them.

She's touching my cheek. It -

Get a hold of yourself, Danielle.