90 Minutes Above the Earth Read online

90 Minutes Above the Earth

  Ronan Frost

  Copyright 2012 Ronan Frost

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  I don't normally keep a diary but the thoughts of her that plague my mind must find some outlet. I need a confidant - all the better that you are mute, I don't need sounds of affirmation or opinion, and perhaps sharing my thoughts will lessen this aching loneliness.

  They took my life a month ago and left my soul an empty husk. I sit in my cubical, the rattle and gurgle of pipes driving me slowly insane. Although I am but a shadow of what the man I once was, a glimmer of hope has sparked some life into my pitiful existence.

  Where do I start? The reasons for me pounding the keyboard letter by letter, spilling my secret dreams, musings more than likely I will delete in the not-too-distant future? Do I start with her; her almond eyes, perfect in their innocence yet dancing with mischief, a quick smile teasing the corners of her soft lips. Ha! Two weeks ago I’d have laughed at such flowery sentiments, but not now. Her skin is white and smooth, her long hair a shimmering ribbon floating in zero-g. Her cheeks are high and rounded, her gaze having the intensity of the halcyon days of youth.

  I’ve gone too far already. I can’t stop my thoughts from leaping ahead. My story has already started to garble, even thought I’m sitting here tapping away at an ancient keyboard. If I tried to use a thought-link, imagine the incoherent mess then! At least this way I can sort my words, at the same time go through some cathartic process.

  So, I must start at the beginning for you, my dear faceless reader. Will these words ever leave this place, orbiting at 90 minutes around the earth? My name is unimportant. I used to be wealthy, popular, my life was full. I now admit I was a fool, I did not appreciate what I had. The peasants down on earth toil a lifetime for food and shelter, fighting neighbours and an oppressive government taking everything in taxes and returning little. We Dreamers live on satellites, far enough away to be out of harm’s reach (ha, well for the most part at least, a few rebel missiles occasionally find their way up here) yet close enough to be within a reasonable budget. As with any society there are strata, and orbit is no exception; above us are the six-hour orbiters, the wealthy and elite. Above them, the ruling class in geosynchronous. All of us flies buzzing the rotting husk of the world below.

  I'm one of the many thousand 90 minuters, and when in my sim pod I am transformed in my waking dreams into a dragon slaying warrior, a sniper crawling through dripping jungles, or a socialite partying with friends in New York, Tokyo and Mars. Depending on my mood my home overlooks a white flecked stormy sea or a tranquil mountain meadow. New scenarios come out every week, produced by a computer compiling and assimilating all the work of human creativeness to make better worlds than could ever be invented by human mind.

  I was a favourite of the old school; I tended to stay with those scenarios popular in my younger days. I built up quite a character, my life was really worth something. Sometimes in my virtual world I would just sit back in my couch before the full-length windows of my apartment, storm winds lashing rain against the glass, the ocean a wild tossing foam in the greyness. I would read over my stats and rankings and mull over a fine glass of wine.

  All that is nothing now. In the world of the Dreamers everything is stored on file, your entire life, your achievements, your accomplishments, everything you have worked for. All that has now gone in the blink of an eye. My life erased. Now here I am, the recessed sim-sockets in my skull itchy and unused, leaving me permanently in the real world. It’s my job to help the droids when their rotors get jammed in a rut or when their batteries short, or a million stupid things I could mention. Most of the time I brace myself against something solid in the zero-g and give them a good kick and off they go again. A few days ago I had to stick my hand up a drain plug that had blocked with a mat of hair and food scraps. God knows where it came from, and why the droid's attachments didn’t fit was frustrating to say the least, so guess who had to get down and dirty? The maintenance guy, that's right – ha! What has my life become?

  If it wasn’t for her I’m not sure where I would be now. Not suicide, I’m not that kind of guy, but I sure would be a miserable sod. I certainly wouldn’t be writing down my daily goings-on, this sort of stuff would not make good reading; today I cleaned a huge yellow lump of congealed phlegm from a breathing tube, then there were those two false alarms in pod bay 87, oh, and the scrubber droid on the second level is making the most god-awful racket whenever it rotates. No, why would I write that garbage down after dealing with an entire day of it?

  It's a different story describing her; I first saw her as she drifted past – and I mean that literally, this is zero-g. I was hunkered down working and the motion caught my eye. Fresh out of her pod and heading for the showers she had the dazed and unfocussed gaze of an early morning drunk after a long night. Not that I blame her, everyone tends to feel like that way after waking up from a long pod session. I was drawn by her incredible beauty; a simple beauty, casual, yet primal. Smoking hot!

  It was a few weeks until I saw her again; in the meantime I had all but forgotten that angelic face in the same manner as a dream slips from a waking mind, but in that moment everything came back and I was struck weak-kneed once again. I was working the food cart as it passed through the crowded dining hall. The wide space echoed with voices conversing as the shift of sixty Dreamers went through their mandatory awake phase, a time to exercise in manners other than the periodic twitches supplied to the body via interface jacks, a time to put some real food into the stomach, to work the real eyes and ears and fingers. Nobody liked it. It was simply time to fill between adventures and it was not uncommon to skip back into a pod ahead of schedule despite regulations.

  I let my eyes linger a little as I passed. She sat alone, sucking soup up through a straw, her hair in an elegant twist held together in some mysterious way that men have no idea how is achieved. She saw me looking and a smile twitched the corners of her mouth. I smiled guiltily and ducked my head, continuing to float the trolley along and out into the hanging smoke and grease of the kitchen.

  I saw her again today – I made sure I had an excuse to be in the kitchens again. This time, somehow, I summoned the courage to talk with her. As I passed, I made some dumb witticism about the food and she laughed politely. I lingered, my body language betraying my desire as I reluctantly half-turned and was about to head back to the kitchen.

  “Do you work here?” she asked.

  I smiled, inwardly joyous at this ticket to talk further. Her intense gaze held my own and I was first to drop my eyes.

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m out of the pods, for now.”

  I risked a glance to drink in her face. I saw her eyes were brown, the thin arcs of her eyebrows rising quizzically. “Really? I’m sorry to hear that.”

  I shrugged and attempted a grin, quickly delving into a less uncomfortable topic. “Which scenario have you just come from?” It felt strange to be asking this out of the sim; inside could bring up stats and display them in a window in mid-air, your public profile compiled carefully to show likes, dislikes, hobbies, star signs or whatever one felt noteworthy.

  I could see was caught out too, for her eyes flickered up and to my right, where my stat window would have been displayed if we were inside the sim. She saw that I noticed and we both laughed.

  She told me her name and I told her mine. She held out her hand and we shook, both grinning at the old-fashionedness of it all. Her hand was warm and small. She wore a low cut top, some slight bluish traces of acne around her chest reminding me that this was the real world, but somehow that blemish made her all the more desirable. I tore my gaze away from the swell of her breasts, pretending I didn’t h
ear the sound of my heart in my ears.

  “So, as I was saying, which scenario have you come from?”

  “I’m not sure if you know it, it’s kinda old and not too many people go there anymore – it’s called the Prince Rose Kingdom,” she said. “I can’t get enough of that! Have you been there?”

  “Oh for sure, of course I’ve been there, that’s a great one!” The common interest gave me heart and courage. “Do you mind if I have a seat…?”

  She smiled warmly and I took that as invitation to take the couch opposite, pulling the velcro belt loosely about my waist so I didn’t float away. As I did so she undid her hair and flicked it about and I caught a glimpse of the two silver coins of the embedded simplugs in the base of