Playing The Odds, Redux
Apr. 19th, 2011 06:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
talonkarrdeWith ![[info]](https://files.livejournal.com/userhead/80)
joeymichaels, the weaver of tales, the master of fiction, the (expert) of (subject). Simply incredible, and this was an honor.
This intersection requires a bit of an explanation:
We decided to do something a little different with our entries. We worked from the same story synopsis and gave each other certain obstructions (like in the movie The Five Obstructions) that we had to work with in our story.
The synopsis we were working with was roughly: A major company plans to release a product or perform an action that could very well kill a whole lot of people, but determines its worth it because the amount of money they'll make is much, much more than the amount they can be sued for. One specific person at the company makes a fateful decision despite enormous personal stakes in the outcome.
His obstructions to me were as follows:
1) A cold beach must figure prominently in your story.
2) One character must be longing for home.
3) The story should be able to be filed under the Romance genre.
So, without further ado:
---
She found me there by the edge of the Kraken Mare, the liquid methane sloshing gently on the icy shore.
I had been staring out at the endless expanse, completely still, a statue in the pre-dawn darkness of Titan — not that it ever got lighter, even when Saturn wasn’t blocking the sun. I had my reasons for wanting to be alone, though I suppose she had her reasons for coming to find me.
I saw her on the suit display first, her little dot moving closer and closer to my dot, though I didn’t acknowledge her. I was hoping that she was doing some other research, or was just picking up a probe, or would just take the hint and go away. Mainly, I was hoping she wouldn’t ask me why I was here; she had always read me like an open book and I had been trying to avoid her.
No such luck.
“Clark?” she asked, once she took up a spot alongside me.
I went through a couple of responses in my head, some sarcastic, some heartfelt — some both — and then rejected them all, settling on a default, neutral, completely-ignoring-the-tone-of-her-voice response.
“I never really got used to the way the oceans here felt.” I said. “Probably because of the way that the methane rolls, it just doesn’t give me the same atmosphere. Plus there’s no sun beating down, just a distant globe of light that you don’t even need to shade your eyes to look at. It’s almost as small as the satellite.”
Silence for a moment, and then as usual, she cut right through all of the smoke.
“Look, Clark, you’ve been working here for five years now, and I’ve never seen you as depressed as you were these last couple of weeks. Is it the theft of supplies? Is it the meteorite problem? You’re ignoring your projects, you’re ignoring the other people on the team, you’re even ignoring — a lot of things, you know. It’s not like you, and I want to know why.”
I said nothing.
“What did I do, Clark? Why are you ignoring me?” she asked, plaintively.
“It’s not you! It was never you, you never did anything wrong. You were — are — one of the brightest parts of my life here, but—”
“Come on, Clark,” she said, and then took a step closer. “I always knew when things were bugging you, and the last time — when they stopped funding the research, last May, remember? We pulled through it together, looked for other funding with each other, wrote essays fighting for it together. I was there for you, supported everything you did as leader, didn’t I? And you were there for me, when I needed it. So stop trying to do it all by yourself, and let me in, please?”
She always knew the right thing to say, the one line that would break down all my defenses. And maybe, I was hoping for it a little, hoping that I wouldn’t have to bear the burden all by myself.
“They’re withdrawing funding—” I started, and waved her down before she could make the argument. “— to everything. Not just the scientific experiments, but the whole base. It’s not up to Horizon’s profit standards, partially because of the advances in terraforming they’ve been making on Mars lately. They don’t need much of the ice that we send them. Earth doesn’t need the silica from the core mines. The investment is now a net loss, and Horizon doesn’t want to send rockets here anymore, or do any sort of upkeep.”
“So they’re going to…” I could almost see the gears turning as she puzzled it out. “Titan’s mostly self-sufficient, though. What could they possibly do that would hurt us? We could just go off without them, forever. This is depressing, but not something that you would lose sleep over. So what’s the real problem?”
“NASA — twenty years ago, when this was first launched — promised that they would fund half of the investment. Because of the high danger, though, Horizon didn’t want to commit, and so the administration at the time, which strongly pushed for exploration, had NASA sneak in a clause into the contract that it would pay Horizon all of the money back in the case of catastrophic failure.”
At this point, I think, the puppet strings began to make themselves visible; she looked up, for a second, and then pointed at the satellite, wordlessly.
“Yup. The problem that we’ll have shortly is the satellite not getting any telemetry data, which means it’s going to let all the meteorites through. There’s a fierce wave in the next day or so, actually, which will crash through all of the structures we have up. And, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate, it turns out that where the base is located is one of the most popular places for meteorites to land; Horizon couldn’t have picked a better place…”
“…to be able to ‘accidentally’ wipe out the base.” She completed, looking horrified.
“And then merrily cash in their insurance payout and call it a day, yes.” I said, looking up at twinkling satellite. “They offered me a deal, that if I kept my mouth shut, I’d get a nice cut of the money — and more importantly, a permanent station back on Earth, in my hometown of Boulder, Colorado. A house, a job, everything I could want, and I’d never have to see this frozen hell again. It was a nice offer,” I said quietly.
“But?” she asked, coming over now to take my hand.
“But there were ten people out there whose lives have depended on me for these last few years that I couldn’t possibly let die. There was a sneaking suspicion in me that those who know too much don’t live very long. And there was a wonderful woman who I could never look in the eye again if I took the deal.” I finished, looking down, and away.
“So you told me — but why now?” she asked.
“Because the final preparations are complete. There’s an emergency dome set up, and it won’t be comfortable, but it will fit everyone until the rescue shuttle arrives. The power’s set up, and there are enough rations that we will live comfortably. No exercise equipment, though.”
“So that’s where the supplies have gone,” she said, shaking her head. “I wondered why you seemed less concerned about it than you should’ve been, but I just thought that it was due to the depression. Now I see—”
“I needed a lot of time alone to set everything up correctly, and I wanted to do it in a way that Horizon wouldn’t pick up from the camera. Still, though, I want to warn you that with the satellite not providing the defense net, the dome still might be punctured — we still might die.” And it was true, I knew; even though I had set it under an outcropping with a lot of protection, there was no guarantee we’d make it the six weeks before rescue.
“Even so,” she said, touching her helmet to mine. “I would rather take my chances with you, for as long as we could, than give up.”
I hug her, there, and whisper a promise that’s only meant for her ears; she smiles.
“Next time, though, you better tell me before everything’s set up, so I feel a bit less like a damsel in distress; I’m as capable as you were and could’ve helped, you know. But lead on, sir knight.”
And hand in hand, we head out to the hidden dome, as the first of the meteors starts to fall overhead.
This intersection requires a bit of an explanation:
We decided to do something a little different with our entries. We worked from the same story synopsis and gave each other certain obstructions (like in the movie The Five Obstructions) that we had to work with in our story.
The synopsis we were working with was roughly: A major company plans to release a product or perform an action that could very well kill a whole lot of people, but determines its worth it because the amount of money they'll make is much, much more than the amount they can be sued for. One specific person at the company makes a fateful decision despite enormous personal stakes in the outcome.
His obstructions to me were as follows:
1) A cold beach must figure prominently in your story.
2) One character must be longing for home.
3) The story should be able to be filed under the Romance genre.
So, without further ado:
---
She found me there by the edge of the Kraken Mare, the liquid methane sloshing gently on the icy shore.
I had been staring out at the endless expanse, completely still, a statue in the pre-dawn darkness of Titan — not that it ever got lighter, even when Saturn wasn’t blocking the sun. I had my reasons for wanting to be alone, though I suppose she had her reasons for coming to find me.
I saw her on the suit display first, her little dot moving closer and closer to my dot, though I didn’t acknowledge her. I was hoping that she was doing some other research, or was just picking up a probe, or would just take the hint and go away. Mainly, I was hoping she wouldn’t ask me why I was here; she had always read me like an open book and I had been trying to avoid her.
No such luck.
“Clark?” she asked, once she took up a spot alongside me.
I went through a couple of responses in my head, some sarcastic, some heartfelt — some both — and then rejected them all, settling on a default, neutral, completely-ignoring-the-tone-of-her-voice response.
“I never really got used to the way the oceans here felt.” I said. “Probably because of the way that the methane rolls, it just doesn’t give me the same atmosphere. Plus there’s no sun beating down, just a distant globe of light that you don’t even need to shade your eyes to look at. It’s almost as small as the satellite.”
Silence for a moment, and then as usual, she cut right through all of the smoke.
“Look, Clark, you’ve been working here for five years now, and I’ve never seen you as depressed as you were these last couple of weeks. Is it the theft of supplies? Is it the meteorite problem? You’re ignoring your projects, you’re ignoring the other people on the team, you’re even ignoring — a lot of things, you know. It’s not like you, and I want to know why.”
I said nothing.
“What did I do, Clark? Why are you ignoring me?” she asked, plaintively.
“It’s not you! It was never you, you never did anything wrong. You were — are — one of the brightest parts of my life here, but—”
“Come on, Clark,” she said, and then took a step closer. “I always knew when things were bugging you, and the last time — when they stopped funding the research, last May, remember? We pulled through it together, looked for other funding with each other, wrote essays fighting for it together. I was there for you, supported everything you did as leader, didn’t I? And you were there for me, when I needed it. So stop trying to do it all by yourself, and let me in, please?”
She always knew the right thing to say, the one line that would break down all my defenses. And maybe, I was hoping for it a little, hoping that I wouldn’t have to bear the burden all by myself.
“They’re withdrawing funding—” I started, and waved her down before she could make the argument. “— to everything. Not just the scientific experiments, but the whole base. It’s not up to Horizon’s profit standards, partially because of the advances in terraforming they’ve been making on Mars lately. They don’t need much of the ice that we send them. Earth doesn’t need the silica from the core mines. The investment is now a net loss, and Horizon doesn’t want to send rockets here anymore, or do any sort of upkeep.”
“So they’re going to…” I could almost see the gears turning as she puzzled it out. “Titan’s mostly self-sufficient, though. What could they possibly do that would hurt us? We could just go off without them, forever. This is depressing, but not something that you would lose sleep over. So what’s the real problem?”
“NASA — twenty years ago, when this was first launched — promised that they would fund half of the investment. Because of the high danger, though, Horizon didn’t want to commit, and so the administration at the time, which strongly pushed for exploration, had NASA sneak in a clause into the contract that it would pay Horizon all of the money back in the case of catastrophic failure.”
At this point, I think, the puppet strings began to make themselves visible; she looked up, for a second, and then pointed at the satellite, wordlessly.
“Yup. The problem that we’ll have shortly is the satellite not getting any telemetry data, which means it’s going to let all the meteorites through. There’s a fierce wave in the next day or so, actually, which will crash through all of the structures we have up. And, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate, it turns out that where the base is located is one of the most popular places for meteorites to land; Horizon couldn’t have picked a better place…”
“…to be able to ‘accidentally’ wipe out the base.” She completed, looking horrified.
“And then merrily cash in their insurance payout and call it a day, yes.” I said, looking up at twinkling satellite. “They offered me a deal, that if I kept my mouth shut, I’d get a nice cut of the money — and more importantly, a permanent station back on Earth, in my hometown of Boulder, Colorado. A house, a job, everything I could want, and I’d never have to see this frozen hell again. It was a nice offer,” I said quietly.
“But?” she asked, coming over now to take my hand.
“But there were ten people out there whose lives have depended on me for these last few years that I couldn’t possibly let die. There was a sneaking suspicion in me that those who know too much don’t live very long. And there was a wonderful woman who I could never look in the eye again if I took the deal.” I finished, looking down, and away.
“So you told me — but why now?” she asked.
“Because the final preparations are complete. There’s an emergency dome set up, and it won’t be comfortable, but it will fit everyone until the rescue shuttle arrives. The power’s set up, and there are enough rations that we will live comfortably. No exercise equipment, though.”
“So that’s where the supplies have gone,” she said, shaking her head. “I wondered why you seemed less concerned about it than you should’ve been, but I just thought that it was due to the depression. Now I see—”
“I needed a lot of time alone to set everything up correctly, and I wanted to do it in a way that Horizon wouldn’t pick up from the camera. Still, though, I want to warn you that with the satellite not providing the defense net, the dome still might be punctured — we still might die.” And it was true, I knew; even though I had set it under an outcropping with a lot of protection, there was no guarantee we’d make it the six weeks before rescue.
“Even so,” she said, touching her helmet to mine. “I would rather take my chances with you, for as long as we could, than give up.”
I hug her, there, and whisper a promise that’s only meant for her ears; she smiles.
“Next time, though, you better tell me before everything’s set up, so I feel a bit less like a damsel in distress; I’m as capable as you were and could’ve helped, you know. But lead on, sir knight.”
And hand in hand, we head out to the hidden dome, as the first of the meteors starts to fall overhead.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-04-19 10:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-21 09:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-19 11:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-21 09:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-22 04:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-20 12:32 am (UTC)Also, this is like the earliest I've ever seen you get an entry in. You should work with Joey more often :P
no subject
Date: 2011-04-21 09:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-20 10:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-21 09:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-21 03:05 am (UTC)Nicely done!
no subject
Date: 2011-04-21 09:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-21 03:54 am (UTC)Still, that first line -- It just makes you want to go "OMG! I'vegottoreadthis!"
You and Joey done good this week. =)
no subject
Date: 2011-04-21 09:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-21 09:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-21 07:13 pm (UTC)Well done!
no subject
Date: 2011-04-21 09:18 pm (UTC)Thanks! :D
no subject
Date: 2011-04-21 07:41 pm (UTC)I really liked this; it was beautiful and sad and made me want to shake my tiny fist at the injustice!
no subject
Date: 2011-04-21 09:18 pm (UTC)Cold beach somehow read as 'methane' and 'not on earth' to me. I'm weird.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-21 09:07 pm (UTC)It's neither here nor there, but the use of the name Clark and meteorites in the same story kept giving me images of Superman :D
no subject
Date: 2011-04-21 09:19 pm (UTC)Thank you <3!
no subject
Date: 2011-04-21 11:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-22 01:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-22 11:15 am (UTC)Man, this should be a book. I'd buy it. *reads again for good measure*
no subject
Date: 2011-04-23 12:02 pm (UTC)