Charon Sunrise (1/5)

Living in the shadow of Pluto

Ashleigh’s shift was almost over.

She had had to work on Nixday, when everyone else on Charon was spending time with their families or in their favorite sims. But Ashleigh was at the bottom of the totem pole at Rising Rocks. So she had to come in on Nixday and do all the baking so that the tourists would be able to eat fresh muffins and scones with their coffee when they would arrive the next day in the wee hours of the morning.

Tomorrow, Aurora, was the day of the week when the sun rose. The sunrise was an all-day event, and Aurora was consequently the busiest day of the week.

But baking this many muffins and scones ahead of time took a long time, and working alone for a full shift on the dark weekend was not Ashleigh’s idea of a dream job.

But she didn’t complain. She hummed to herself to pass the time as she moved back and forth from oven to dough board to display case.

She hummed in time to the sounds of her servos, all the little artificial motors that moved every part of her body. She began glazing a large batch of croissants, and the whining sounds of the servos in her arms established a rhythm that she began to sing to. She enjoyed synchronizing her words and her thoughts with the rhythm of those arms twisting back and forth dexterously.

Her arms didn’t have skin covering them; they were collections of bronze-colored struts and cables with plenty of gaps between that let the light pass through. The struts and cables were cross-connected to each other with little metal bars, and gave her arms the look of the skeletal structure of a ship or building.

She had opted to not have her arms or legs skinned because she couldn’t afford it. Instead she had coated the metal struts and cables with bronze and told herself that they had a beauty of their own, even while part of her was perpetually ashamed of them.

She swayed her hips a little back and forth on the downbeat of her song, and then began to softly sing an old folk ditty.

“Somewhere on Pluto’s icy heart

My true love fell into the sea

He never made it to my hearth

And now he waits for me”

A bell jingled as the front door opened. Ashleigh, startled, knocked the bowl of hot butter over.

“Oh, shit,” she said under her breath, and then called out cheerily, “Welcome in!”

There weren’t supposed to be customers this early! She glanced up at the clock. It had entered the last hour of her shift, during which the bakery-and-café was in fact open—she had heard the front door auto-unlock a few minutes ago—but no one ever came during the last hour of her Nixday shift. She had gotten quite accustomed to having these times to herself.

“What can I get for you?” she asked cheerily, mopping up the spilled butter and then throwing the towel into a chute for later. She glided over to the cash register to see her customer.

He had an organic body.

“I’d probably like something to eat and to drink. What do you recommend?” he was asking, but she was just staring at him.

He wasn’t the first organic she had seen, but they were definitely rare out here, even among tourists. In the middle of her blue-green glassy eyes, her black pupils widened like camera lenses, taking in more light, taking in more of this beautiful man that she beheld.

He was not beautiful—not by any Earther standards. But to Ashleigh, who had only seen a handful of organics in her life, and never one this close, he was a masterpiece. His body was meaty and thick compared to her own ethereal frame. She found his brown eyes so much more beautiful than hers in spite of—no, because of the fractal of their thousand imperfections. His asymmetric eyes, asymmetric cheeks! He was so rugged, so imperfect—she loved it! And the way he had a dimple just to the right of his mouth, and the thousand bristling black hairs of yesterday’s shave, and his worn leather jacket…a leather jacket? She wanted to touch it.

“Oh,” she said suddenly. “You wanted to know what I recommend, ha!”

Ashleigh arched her slender neck and twirled at her pony tail self-consciously.

“Sorry, it’s just that we don’t get a lot of customers in the early morning—you caught me off guard.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I can come back later…”

“No!” she yelled.

Calm the hell down, she told herself. Don’t scare him off!

“I mean,” she continued nonchalantly, “You don’t have to go. It’s nice to have someone around on dark mornings.”

They locked eyes, and for just a moment, it felt as if something passed between them. Then he looked back down at the menu.

“Okay, cool,” he said. “Um…what’s in the Riverman Croissant?”

“Salmon, cream cheese, dill, and a dash of our house spices, all locally sourced. I just made a fresh batch.”

“Awesome, yeah, it smells great in here. I’ll try that.”

“Okay. And to drink?”

He hesitated, and then asked, “Your coffee, is it also…locally sourced?”

She laughed. “No, we import all our coffee straight from Ganymede.”

“Okay good,” he said with a laugh. “I didn’t want to give offense or anything, but I can’t stand synth coffee; it doesn’t agree with me.”

“Yeah totally,” she said. “I get it.”

“I’ll have your dark roast.”

“Ok cool,” she said, and punched up his order at the cash register before turning away to get his croissant. The implant in his eye twinkled as it processed the payment request. When the payment came through on her end, her body’s internal system notified her, and in her mind’s eye, she opened the receipt so she could see what his name was.

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-------------------------- RISING ROCKS CAFE AND BOULANGERIE --------------------------

------------------- 5223 RYDER BLVD X, FERRYVILLE, CHARON 49938 -------------------

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&1.00................................................COFFEE

&2.00............................................RVM CRST

&0.32........................................................TAX

&0.99........................................................DCC

&4.31....................................................TOTAL

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FAVOR TRANSFER SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED

GRAVEN ALGEO

6566 **** **** **** *267

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Graven…what an interesting name.

He was talking. “Funny how, no matter how far we’ve come, some things still just aren’t the same. Synth salmon, synth cream cheese, dill…but still, for some reason, they just can’t get coffee right.”

“Yeah,” she said while handing him his croissant. “My dad works on one of the synth farms that makes coffee, actually.”

“Oh really—shit, I didn’t mean to give offense—”

“None taken,” she said, laughing. “Even my dad doesn’t drink synth coffee when he’s not at work!”

He chuckled at that.

After she handed him his drink, he sat at the bar that was next to the counter, and she returned to her croissants, only a few feet away.

“Biker or climber?” she asked.

“Biker,” he said, and then a smile appeared on his face. “Are those the only two options?”

She laughed, which was a light, glassy sound, like a trickling waterfall of glass beads.

“Seems like it. It gets pretty predictable after a while.”

After a moment of silence he said, “This been your job for a while?”

“Only job. All my life.”

“You’re from here then, I take it?”

“Born and raised. I’ve never left the Pluto-Charon system.”

“Hm,” he said. “I wonder what that must be like.”

She barked a laugh. Was he messing with her?

He, too, seemed to sense he had potentially misstepped. And he seemed one of those people that talked more when he got nervous.

“Really, I mean it,” he said. “I do wonder what it’s like. I’m a vagabond, myself. Can’t stay put. Been all over the Solar System. But oftentimes I think, maybe I’m the one missing out. I don’t know what it’s like to stay put for a while, to be known by others, have long-term relationships. I enjoy traveling, but I realize that I keep trading the long-term for the short-term. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to live some place for ten, twenty years, or even more—to have friends and family, people that really know me.”

She nodded.

They talked for a time about what it was like growing up here, about the area, the tourism, how to bake muffins and croissants and fold the butter in just so.

Abruptly, he blurted out, “I’m going on a low-G bike ride on the dunes at sunrise. Want to go with me? We could ride two-up,” he said.

“Oh,” she said. “Wow. That…”

Her mind raced. She had never rode a bike before. That did sound thrilling, to do that with a young man like him…but…did she dare?

“That actually sounds pretty exciting. But…I’m pretty tired. It’s coming up on the end of my shift, and I haven’t slept in a while,” she said.

“Okay,” he said, with a downcast eye. “Yeah.”

She felt the need to explain, for it seemed that he didn’t believe her.

“It’s a misnomer that if you get a robotic body, you don’t need sleep. The body doesn’t, sure, but the mind…just like an organic brain needs sleep…a simulation of an organic mind also needs sleep.”

“Oh,” he said, comprehending. “So even though your mind is digital…you can still get tired?”

“Oh yes,” she said, nodding as she put croissants into display cases.

“Huh,” he said. “Do you dream?”

“Of course!” she said. She laughed. “You haven’t met many people with robotic bodies, have you?”

“No, I’m from Earth,” he said.

I knew it, she thought. Too short and muscular to have been from Mars or one of the moons.

She kept thinking about whether to take up his offer as he continued to talk.

“Not that even on Earth there aren’t lots of opportunities. Actually I’ve had many opportunities on my travels to talk to people like you, I just…I’m actually normally quite afraid of asking people intimate questions like that. It’s just that you’re—”

He broke off, laughing.

“—sorry, I’m saying all this, and I just met you. But you just have a way of putting me at ease. I just feel like I could ask you anything and you’d be an open book.”

She locked eyes with him and gazed into his eyes, and in that moment she wanted him to read her, cover to cover, in a mad dash late at night, flying through the pages of a beautiful masterpiece that was also a thriller, like one of those books that she binge-read on a weekend that made her feel so less lonely, so much more beautiful, so cozy and safe and known.

He held her gaze.

“I’ll go,” she said.

Feedback

Were you able to follow what was happening? If not, did it confuse you or just intrigue you? Would you keep reading if you picked up this story in a Barnes & Noble?

Author Notes

I’ve spent a lot of time researching Pluto and its moon Charon recently. I’m planning on setting this story and the next few in this location and then jumping around to other spots in our Solar System.

What’s Inspiring Me

Jackie Hill Perry is my favorite female rapper. She writes straight from the heart, infusing personal experience seamlessly with hymns and gospel rap. Her album Crescendo speaks to my heart.

Book of the Week

This week I reviewed Queen of Sorcery, the second book in the Belgariad series, my latest fantasy series that I am greatly enjoying.

It’s an oldie but goodie classic hero’s quest tale complete with coming alive to one’s magic powers, a diverse world of cultures and characters, and a tone of archaic Biblical language. Read more here.

What’s Going on in My Life

Gretchen built me a new desk so I have a better workspace! Pics below.

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Until next week!