Breath of Life - Finish the Story #29

Metallic Kisses

[The first part of the story is provided by @f3nix:]

With the passage of time, the omnipresent buzz of the generators - and God knows what else in the bowels of that cathedral of circuits - had become like a second skin. Funny how the white noise coming from the racks was indifferent to him and could, at the same time, launch its messages in the most modulated and subtle of languages, in a perfect symbiosis. After months, Ethan was instantly aware when something in the monotonous chanting cracked, foretelling one of the increasingly frequent system errors. He was developing a third ear in place of a third eye.

He just smiled at the thought, his gaze fixed on the secondary pylons n. 6 and 11, the last still working in the experimental orbital station DDG-31/DD-936 Decatur, renamed "The Decaf".

Silence was a mute vowel screaming inside him. Always. React to the atrophic thinking. Dodge the anguish, sharp like the debris of that day. The slashed modules were like scenic elements for a cheap movie. All the modules except his one. Follow procedures, rituals, checklists. All this to not raise his gaze and stare, right in front of him, the hangover of so much pain.

Castaway. At some point, he had renamed the pylons Romeo & Juliet. For each orbital period, about 90 minutes, the two arms were almost touching each other. A fleeting kiss and again far away. From the beginning of the mission, he had liked to play the game of renaming equipment and modules with funny nicknames. He allowed himself a slow sigh.

The inclination of the station displayed the earth down there. He had promised never to look in that direction again but the mauve colour, so iridescent, so alive, so omnipresent, took him by surprise once again. He thought for a moment that it was.. beautiful.. and the remorse for that thought flooded him soon after. Ethan hid his face between his hands as the tears surfaced and many names knocked on his heart's door once again. Inside him, a spark of curiosity wondered if it was possible to locate one of the 19 towers between the mauve nanoparticles' clouds.

“Ethan, I suggest that you sleep in 30 minutes. I detect slightly high levels of cortisol, are…”

“Thank you. I was going right now, old scrap”. He replied to the metallic yet familiar voice through the speakers.

He suddenly suffocated all those idle musings, it was time to rest. According to Querquobad, tomorrow was going to be the day.

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Source: Pixabay

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Breath of Life

[This is my ending of the story:]

Ethan hoisted his hands along the corridor, naturally twirling through the gravity-free space of his metal den.

He had not rested much, but it did not matter. He would have had a lot of time to sleep later.

The calc unit was still spitting out the last parameters, which only confirmed what he had already elaborated in the interminable time of his forced solitude.

The closet creaking opened, letting Querquobad come out. He lazily rolled over himself just outside the aged door.

Ethan grabbed him, as he had done countless times, and put on his headset. Querquobad's crackling voice began to repeat sentences already heard dozens of times.

Querquobad was a biotechnology researcher, and according to Ethan, he had been dead for about eighty years.

He had left very exhaustive scientific observation records of the terminal phases of the self-replicating nanomachines diffusion, and complex instructions on what he called "AURYN Project", an extreme attempt to reverse the process of ecophagy.

After his extreme takeoff from tower number 19, Ethan had taken forty-two cycles to program that old space carcass according to Querquobad's instructions.

He had circumvented all the malfunctions and system crashes with the patience of a puzzle solver, listening and listening to the professor's croaking voice, memorizing even his pauses and aspirations.

Now, if the electronic gods of the "Decaf" assisted him, he would have launched AURYN.

His fingers danced on the geriatric hospital for obsolete hardware that constituted the control panel. In response, Romeo and Juliet began a slow, snappy dance, greeted by the sidereal groans of the space scrap.

A volley of crackles announced the inevitable system error, but Ethan bypassed it with a swift transition to the backup.

The pylons lined up between the protests, protruding their arms in a slow motion minuet for their only spectator.

Ethan, for a second, thought about how that cacophony of old joints, in the void outside the station, would seem a very silent and almost elegant choreography.

Now he could see, along the pylons fleeing perspective, the Earth that he had hidden from his gaze so much. He discovered that, in the trial hour, the pain caused by its vision had almost completely faded.

He held his breath. Almost distractedly, he sent the last command.

The telescopic arms of the pylons n. 6 and 11 blew their shining anti-nanite clouds into the atmosphere. The two dancers had concluded the number, the rain of spangles fell on the stage and on the audience.

Ethan closed his eyes, dreaming of seeing green and blue as he opened them, in the crystal sphere that was once the home of mankind.

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This is my entry for the week #29 of the awesome contest held by @f3nix: Finish the Story, the best way to earn Steem Basic Income Shares and STEEM.

Click the banner below for more information on the Finish the Story contest:

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Thank you for reading!

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