A coin toss can never be truly random. We assign it randomness because of the limits of our perception. The second a coin leaves your thumb, no matter the extent of your knowledge, you rescind your ability to think into the future. For a moment, you are an animal, blind to the hands that give the coin a side, seeing it as a free being, rather than a subject of the laws of physics. You rely on the coin for its sovereignty, while the forces of the universe have full control over the outcome. This shortcoming of sentience lies at the core of exploitation. As long as an individual believes themselves to have autonomy, they limit their understanding to the piddling details of their lives, maintaining a blind spot to the larger picture and obscuring the people in control. As long as a person has their choice in guns, their choice in drugs, and their choice in residence, the rest of their choices can be made for them.
My Pohshek-34 spun quickly around my finger, the metal still cold from my last spacewalk. The safety was on, but the chambers were loaded with energy cells. My name is Czerra. I’ve been a bounty hunter in the Sol-Gliese system since I was born in a village in the Tharsis mountains of Mars in 2461[1]. This whole cluster- every planet, every country, every town- is a mess in its own special way, and I’ve experienced it first hand. The truth is that safety is a privilege granted to nobody. Robot, mutant, or human, someone out there is trying to kill you. All you can do is pray it's not me.
Today is big- it’s pretty rare that someone as far out as Jupiter hires me for a job. Given the extra fees for long distance travel, the average Jovian miner couldn’t afford me in a thousand lifetimes. It means one of two things: either I’m getting scammed or my client is a gas baron. Considering our meeting spot is on the Zwölfsterne and not some dinghy helium catcher in the lower atmosphere, I'm guessing it's the latter.
Approaching Exosphere. Core Distance: .15 Light Seconds
The Superstes’ computer does most of the work during long flights. Interplanetary travel takes a kind of precision the human brain just doesn’t have. Turning half an angle too far during a jump could send you flying past Lucina. Once you get close, though- when you can feel the atmosphere cradling your ship, beckoning the freemetal with its gravity- the true art of piloting reveals itself.
Once the Zwölfsterne comes into view, I switch off the automated navigation and put my hands in the controls. The massive ship looms miles over the clouds of Jupiter, just far out enough to avoid the hurricanes. The docking station and crew quarters are only a few stories tall, but almost half the length of Europa. The layers of condos and luxury restaurants lie atop a massive bulbous container of helium mined and ready for sale, stockpiled by the wealthy to maintain control of the market. Thousands and thousands of trunk-like tendrils connect the bulb to the planet’s rich atmosphere, fading out of view beneath the violent storms of Jupiter.
I carefully steer the ship close to the pristine ceramic walls of the Zwölfsterne, searching for the station the client told me to dock in. The blinding whiteness of the hull reflects back at me, almost taunting my polycarbonate armor. By the time I reached dock 29D, I was practically asleep, but I still managed to anchor and enter the client’s quarters.
I walk into the office, and find myself completely surrounded by thousands of textiles bound by fabric spines. This guy must be some kind of sapien historian- all the artifacts look pre-nuclear. I take a random piece off the shelf and attempt to read it, but none of it’s in Spatio, being instead written in some ancient alphabet I’d never seen. Flipping through the pages, I see diagrams of complex technology, maps of long dead nations, and, most strangely, a model of a star system with a single star and eight planets, as opposed to our binary system with 14 planets. Behind me, I hear footsteps softly approaching. My hand hovers over my holster as I slowly turn around, only to find a mutant in a flowing cloak. His face is covered in cancerous tumors that obscure his features, and his left arm splits at the elbow into a second ingrown forearm. A manual companion bot follows behind him carrying a large stack of bound textiles. The mutant waved his hand, and the bot sat down. “Welcome. You must be Czerra.” he said as he approached me. He extended his hand to bump my fist, a pretentious greeting I would normally decline, but he’s the client.
“In the flesh.” I respond snarkily, bumping his fist back. Now that the man was close to me, I recognized him. He was Xeger Elmin, a ridiculously rich energy cell producer well known for his violent acquisition of thousands of helium plants from native born Jovian farms.
“Czerra, you’ve been to Jupiter, yes?” he says. I attempt to respond, but he seems not to care. “You’ve seen how inefficient the Jovian helium catchers are. They create disgusting webs of barbaric collection networks, finely tuned to PURPOSEFULLY collect less than what is possible. All this, they do in the name of ‘protecting the planet’.” Xeger shudders after uttering those words. They seem, truly, to disgust him. “Now, normally these towns are not a problem. They’re too stupid to survive the hurricanes. However, the colony in West Gravibus has recently been joined by some sort of activist who provides hurricane shelters to the disadvantaged. This is a big problem for me. If the lower class are protected from the storms, they will never naturally abandon the land, forcing me to kill the citizens. If this activist were to… die in an accident- somehow- all the Jovians would have to emigrate somewhere else. It’s simple, really. The shelters all have makeshift energy tanks that’ll burst with the slightest explosive impact. I need you to go down there and destroy them all- it’ll look like they just malfunctioned. After this is done, and you KNOW he has passed, I will pay you.”
“Where am I supposed to get explosives from? I can’t move them off planet- all I’ve got is my revolver.” I was lying. It would be easy for me to smuggle some plasma explosives off Mars, they’re just expensive as hell.
Xeger sighed. “Yes. In the back. You can take five- any more, and it’s coming out of your pay.”
I rolled my eyes. The man is a weapons manufacturer, and all he can afford is five plasma rounds? Talk about cheap. “Alright, alright. Send my ship the coordinates and I can get it done within the day.”
I got out of there as soon as I got the explosives. The place was charming, yeah, but smelled like starmold. I hop in the Superstes and enter the coordinates.
Flight Path Calculated. Destination: West Gravibus
Emerging from the Zwölfsterne, I look below me and see endless clouds. The ship coasts, before I push my hands down at a sharp angle, tilting the ship forward, directly into the storms below.
The tempered glass of the cockpit heats up as it enters the atmosphere. My eyes dart between the altimeter and the storms ahead of me. Traveling on gas giants takes pinpoint accuracy. The altimeter plummets. Back at the cockpit, the precipitation batters the windows. The altimeter falls even faster, and I can feel the gravity from Jupiter’s liquid core increasing. Back and forth, altimeter, storm, altimeter, storm, altimeter, storm.
.1 Light Seconds from Core. Pull Up. Pull Up.
With all the strength in my arms, I shift the control panel up, leveling the ship out at just the right altitude. At least I hope. You can never be sure until you see-
The West Gravibus colony emerges from the infinite clouds. I pass by hundreds of helium catchers along the way to the shelter. Each one of them houses an entire family of bots scrounging the clouds for gaseous gold. The catchers contain a cryogenic distiller that removes the pure helium from the dusty air of Jupiter, and collects it in a bulb at the back of the ship, which is connected by rope to a central platform- if I follow the ropes, I should be able to find the shelter.
As impressively vast as West Gravibus is, I can’t stand it. Jupiter on its own is a shithole filled with poor bots ruled by the richest humans you can find. If I had my way, I’d be back on Mars, but having Xeger as a client is too good to pass up. I landed on the main platform, hand over my holster, and entered the shelter.
Forecasts said there wouldn’t be any hurricanes for the next week, so the shelter should be empty besides the owner. None of the lights inside were on, and dirt covered the furniture. Bright blue wallpaper lined the left side of the room, leading to a long hallway with a glow at the end of it. It must be the energy reserves. Sneaking through the hallway, I eventually reached the energy room. It was completely empty and pitch black, aside from the dull blue glow coming from the reserves. I reached into my pockets, and placed a single plasma explosive on each of the four reserves. Just like that- I guess not every trip to Jupiter has to be a 4 day bender. I got up, and quickly made my way to the entrance of the shelter. Just before I reached the exit, I heard a door behind my whirr open. I reach for my gun and quickly point it at the noise. In front of me was a robot. A very young robot- his eyes glowed and his metallic body shined. He stares at me, as if he had never seen a gun before. Out of the tense silence, his voice echoes.
“Who are you?”
Footnote 1: 2461 PF, or Post Fusion. The fusion happened in 84329 AD, meaning Czerra was born in 86790.
The ultimate failure of civilization was its never ending quest to sustain itself. Despite its constant warring, prejudice, and hatred, the core of humanity was always a mission of advancement. By 2400, the primitive concepts of borders and property had vanished. Sprawling cities across every continent grew so high they grazed the kingdom of heaven, establishing the newly unified Earth as a force paralleling the ancient residences of Olympus and Takamagahara.
There was little left for this entity to conquer, except for the climate. Global warming was avoided long ago with the harnessing of nuclear fusion, but the weather remained. Typhoons, hurricanes, blizzards, and floods were the only reminder to humanity that Mother Earth was still more powerful than them. In 2434, Dr. Kubrick Eichenwald made the discovery that broke the threshold for controlling the climate, and a mere four months later, the Universal Planetary Group launched its weather machine. The thousands of equations and proofs had been checked and rechecked as many times as possible- the math worked out. Despite this, the forces of God outstretched their hand and put civilization in its place.
Within minutes of the weather machine’s activation, the globe cooled to levels unparalleled in history. Lightning storms and tornadoes ravaged major cities, leaving billions dead and the world government in shambles. Some say the weather machine remains in orbit to this day, maintaining the punishment of mankind.
As of today, it has been 90 years since civilization was destroyed. The survivors of this disaster- an estimated 200,000- have moved to and settled places formerly seen as uninhabitable. The deserts of the world, untouched because of their lack of precipitation, have become a safe haven for the survivors of this disaster. The Alvord desert, while small, is the only remaining livable area of the pacific northwest. This is where me and my tribe, the Selwels, live, closely protecting one of three major hot springs in the desert. My name is Kint, and, like my father before me, I am the language expert of my tribe. As such, it is my job to live alongside our leader, Culik, and assist him by translating and writing logs detailing our activities. The following is a recounting of the worst week in our tribe’s history.
When I woke up today, Culik was already awake. He stands at the end of the tent, his long black locs settled behind his shoulders and his eyes gazing out upon the open desert. As I rise from bed, he turns to me, grinning widely.
“Get enough sleep, Kint?” he sternly, yet considerately, asks.
“Yes, sir.” I respond, shaking the sand out of my blanket. “What has you up this early?”
“It’s time for you and me to run a little experiment.” He reaches over to the table, lifting up a glass of clean water. “The only reason we have this water is because of a delicate arrangement of veins beneath our feet, constantly at war with its rocky flesh.” He saunters towards me before placing his hand on my shoulder. “When’s the last time you read up on hydrogeology?”
“Just last week.”
“Good. Great.” He says, removing his iron grip from my shoulder. “Then we’re going to the spring. It’s time for a checkup”
The first part of the village we pass after leaving Culik’s tent is Ishka circle. The Ishka are not strong, nor intelligent, but harbor the most important trait for life in the desert: endurance. Every week, they rotate between themselves on shifts, spending days in the wastes spotting, identifying, and preserving wildlife. It is said that the eyes of the Ishka have adapted from decades of sand-searching, developing a thin light-resistant film in response to the blinding sun reflecting off the dunes. The Ishka are content, which is why they form a wall around Culik's tent, separating him from the masses. As Culik passes, some greet him, some bow, but most remain silent, in idle respect of his position. “Do you know why I love the Ishka?” Culik says, quizzing me.
“Without them, we'd have no way to preserve Alvord.” I smartly respond.
“No. They're always off camp, so their wives get lonely and come to me.” He says before bursting into a fit of laughter so loud I'm sure the whole camp could hear it. He then looks to me, waiting for approval.
“Ha.” I unconvincingly laugh. He sneers, playfully hitting me on the shoulder to tell me it was time to leave.
As soon as Culik lifted the cloth screen separating the Ishka from the rest of the Selwel, the campgrounds immediately shifted focus to him. It’s the same deal every day- the moment Culik emerges, everyone’s gripes emerge alongside him. The sheer quantity of yelling makes each argument meld into an unintelligible blob of anger and struggle. It’s not their fault, constant starvation will decay anybody’s sense of manners. Culik’s silence as he passes through is almost as loud as the yelling itself. His job is difficult, and one that desensitizes him to the hellish conditions he sees every day. I admire him for it- if you had been through what he had, making the sacrifices he had to, you would be just as numb.
We move past the struggling masses, Culik not offering so much as a glance at his people. I look out over the crowd behind us as we get closer to the edge of camp. A mother holds her starving child, crying out for food knowing full well this place had none for her. A young man covered in dirt yells in our direction, spitting in violent anger the same amount of water he begs for. A family sobs, mourning one of many Ishka men lost to the desert. Above them all, an avocet flies, almost mocking the Selwel for being unadapted to the sands of Alvord.
Behind us, the Selwel population shrinks as we enter the wastes. Ahead of us, the cracks of the playa beds seem to never end. If not for Culik's expertise in desert navigation, we would surely be taken by the dunes this far out. Culik walks along the shattered grounds with strength and vigilance, while I trail behind him carrying our water supplies on my back. The spring is about 10 miles west of the campground, and given current gust front conditions, the likelihood of sand storms, and playa moisture, it should take us-
“The desert is beautiful today, Kint.” Culik interrupts as I attempt to log our travel time. “It's beautiful every day. Wish someone other than an Ishka could see that.” While Culik appears strong and unemotional, few besides me know what kind of man he truly is. He loves the desert like a family member- it's in his blood. While most of the Selwel descend from European frontiersmen, distasteful of the desert and doubtful of its resourcefulness, Culik's patrilineage tracks back to the Klamath tribe. The average Selwel came to Alvord as refugees, reluctantly accepting the desert as their only option. Culik, and the generations before him, have always called Alvord their home.
Culik's father, named Steinash after the Klamath term for endurance, was born in 2415, over 400 years after the American government terminated the recognition of his tribe. Culik often says that if not for his father, the first settlements in Alvord would never have been able to survive. When thousands of refugees descended upon his home in 2434, Steinash chose to show them the ways of the desert. Not out of a desire for power, but out of love for humanity. This love extended past his leadership and into his role as a father for Culik.
Steinash chose to father his only child at the age of 78, during the last years of his tenure as leader. Steinash, in the truest sense of the word, loved Culik. In every action he took as leader, he thought of Culik and his future. To the same degree, Culik loved his father. Steinash was the only companion Culik had, and he sought his father's approval in everything he did. This only made Steinash's eventual passing in 2500 even more heartbreaking. At the fragile age of seven, Culik had to assume his role as leader of the Selwel. Culik's only remaining connection to his father was the dunes, and the lessons he was taught about it. It is for this reason that the villagers say Culik only holds love for one thing: the desert.
By the time the sun set, we had reached the spring. Culik sets down his backpack and sits down next to the steaming water. I put down our supplies and begin to set up the titration, before Culik interrupts me. “Too late now to be doing that. Gonna have to set up camp no matter what, so we'll test in the morning.” He pats the spot next to him. “Sit, Kint. You can relax. No more work to do tonight.” I sit next to him and stare into the water, watching it move and swirl with the adjustment of the mineral beds. It smells of sulfur, I can feel the sand creeping over my skin, and the hot air from the spring attacks my face. Despite this, I feel comfort.
My eyes remain locked on the spring, but I can feel Culik's gaze piercing through me. His breath hits my neck, steady and warm. I turn towards him and see him staring at me. It's not the same kind of stare he gives the villagers as he passes through them, or the kind he gives an Ishka upon returning. It's a stare lined with emotion and care, like the kind he watches over the dunes with. “You're sweating.” he says to me. He lifts up his left hand and wipes the water off my forehead gently. His skin, roughed from living with the sand, brushes against mine. It's painful, but I don't say anything. I just look at him. We lock eyes for a second, before he turns back to the spring, stoically watching, as he always does. “Set up the tent. Time we went to bed.” he tells me. “Yes, sir.” I respond.
As I pitch the tent and put down our sleeping bags, I look at Culik once more. I could not think of anyone better to be our leader.
X was alone. If he didn’t like it, he would’ve never become a wanderer. He told himself the stars that litter the empty space around him are enough company. Someone lucky enough to be able to explore galaxies as a job should never long for anything more than what he has. People back home would constantly tell X how much they wished they could be wanderers like him- the children would confide in him, telling him about their aspirations of space travel, and he would always tell them to follow their dreams. Despite this, X could recall the waves of sadness he felt every time his boss gave him a new assignment. He could remind himself how grateful he should be, but he could never stop yearning for someone to understand him. In the end, it didn’t matter- he can push those thoughts out with the awe that comes with space travel.
This month’s job was an average search-and-survey mission to a system a few lightyears away. The core of Planet 4 had registered as overactive since last week, and Destrike was getting worried about their cobalt mines. All X had to do was visit the planet, get close to the core, and plant a dampening spike, giving Destrike access to restabilization tools. It was no different than X’s trip to Post-Jupiter last year. According to his files, Planet 4 was a Venus-sized body covered in basalt- its sulfur rich atmosphere reportedly prevented the birth of life on its surface. While dense overall, its mantle was abnormally light due to the extensive cave systems present almost as deep as its core. This made X’s job easier, as there was no need to dig a pit for the dampening spike. All he had to do was find a fissure in the caves.
The moment X’s ship broke through the thermosphere, he collected an atmospheric sample. It took only a few seconds for the ship to finish its analysis, spitting out a Destrike survey form into X’s lap. 93% Sulfur dioxide, 3.4% Cobalt, just like the file. The 3.6% discrepancy was to be expected- X’s spectroscope was bought used, after all. Landing softly in the middle of a large plateau, Planet 4’s surface was calm. X stopped for a moment to look out upon the empty planes of jutting rocks. X was alone. If he wasn’t okay with that, he would’ve never become a wanderer. Once his ship’s computer had adequately mapped out the cave next to him, X exited, stepping down onto the barren wastes he would be spending the next few days on. As X descended through the winding cave tunnels, he felt the air shift, becoming colder, less dense, and changing from a clear sheen to a pale yellow. It smelt something like a mix of bleach and chlorine, reminding him of the eerily pasteurized halls of WNDR headquarters. It was awful. He wanted to get it over with as fast as he could.
Picking up the pace, X went deeper- 2,000 feet, 4,000 feet, 6,000 feet- and the smell got even stronger. 8,000 feet, 10,000 feet, 12,000 feet- he thought he could hear the voice of his younger sister, but X was alone, so the gas must be getting to him. At 13,654 feet, he finally found the fissure. It was small, but identifiable by a soft glow emitted alongside the yellow gas that filled the caves. As he prepared to place the dampening spike, he became distracted by the fissure. It hummed with a frequency that made X feel comfortable, like a lullaby soothing him back to infancy. His hand slowly hovered towards the fissure, drawn to its warm embrace. Finally, he touched it. An energy coursed through X’s veins, shooting him back and paralyzing him for a second.
Before he was able to realize what had happened, he began to feel himself leaving his own body. He was whisked away from his physical form and began rising upward. He ascended past the fissure, past the tunnels, and past the atmosphere before finally stopping a few hundred miles above the surface. He gazed upon the planet’s craters, its mountain ranges, and its valleys. Every divot on the surface of this great rock suddenly became beautiful to X. Nothing about Planet 4 had changed, but everything about X did. Staring deep into the boundless surface of Planet 4, X felt it stare back. He descended from the sky, feeling its warm embrace in the gaseous particles that surrounded him. Suddenly, X was back in his body. He felt whole. As he came to his senses, he saw that he was no longer in its cavernous mantle, but its core, beneath the fissure he found. Before him lay a ball of molten potassium, constantly shifting in form, covered entirely with the yellow gas he found exiting the fissure. As he admired its intricacy, he came to the realization that it was not a mere planet: they were alive, and they were Planet 4.
“You are beautiful.”
X did not respond. He froze in place, unable to shift his gaze away from the beauty he saw.
“You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”
X wasn’t sure how to respond. It was the first voice he had heard since his boss sent him away, and it was complimenting him. “Thank you.” he said shakily, suppressing the love poetry that he had already written for them in his head.
“Are you one of the machines sent here to dig up my flesh?” the planet asked X. X shook his head- this made sense. He may have moved like the machines, but something within him was different. He had a cave system within him full of fluid, just like them. His damaged skin and faded scars mirrored the wounds they bore from shifting plates and meteorites. Most beautiful of all, a drum played from deep inside his flesh, pumping energy throughout his body. The planet could understand him.
“I think I am in love with you.” said X in a semi-conscious fit of passion.
“You think a lot of things. It hurts you often.” the planet replied. They saw this fact in the machinations of X’s brain- the planet could tell exactly how he felt based on the electrical currents running through him. “You are sick. Something is wrong with you. Why did you come here, alone, instead of getting help?”
X was shocked by what they said. He never said anything about his feelings- they just knew. It made him feel, for once in his life, seen. He knew what they said was true, but denied it anyway.
“I’m fine. I came here because I’m okay being alone. I have myself.” X said.
“Do you? It seems like, out of everything in your grasp, your self is the only thing you lack. You desire connection, yet run from every instance of it.”
X felt his eyes begin to water. The last time he cried was when he left his parents for his first assignment. He tried to articulate how he felt, the painful adoration he held towards the planet, but he lacked the words to do so. For every elaborate quatrain about Planet 4’s intricate beauty in X’s mind, an unintelligible jumble of noises and breaths came out. “I think you are me.” he declared.
“I only see you. I will always be me, and you will always be you. It is because I understand you that you believe us to be the same.” The planet lifted X from his feet, bringing him closer to the amalgamation of metal and gas. X looked deep within them and saw intricate rivers of metal shifting and swapping places with the gas. He may not have been able to comprehend the orb, but he saw beauty in it. It was unlike anything he had ever felt on his travels. X was not alone. He was connected to something. For once, he did not want to wander. He saw himself staying here, slowly becoming closer and closer with the planet. He was happy with them.
“I don’t want to leave here. You’re the only thing I could ever need. I want you to know things about me I don’t know about myself. I want you to understand every aspect of me so deeply that I need not speak. We could just exist together.” X professed to them. As he spoke, his eyes continued watering, and became bloodshot. He could have continued describing everything he felt about them, but his lungs began contracting. It became harder to speak. Something was terribly wrong about these tunnels. He pulled out a personal spectrometer and hastily collected a sample of the gas that orbited the core. The screen flashed with the results: 19F. The yellowish gas that the tunnels of Planet 4 were filled with was fluorine.
X began sweating, looking back on the dampening spike he brought with him. “You’re distressed. What’s wrong?” the planet asked X. X did not respond. He watched as the core continued spewing fluorine, understanding that any of this gas reaching the surface would ignite the sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere and destroy the planet.
“You’re still with me, right?”
“Yes.” the planet replied. “I want you to tell me what you are thinking.”
X looked away from the core. “I’m thinking about you.” X was not lying. The only thing on his mind was them. “I’m thinking about all the things I want to talk to you about.”
“We will talk about all of them.”
X picked the dampening spike up from off the ground, and walked towards the core. “I’m thinking about how much I want to explore you”
“You have seen only a fraction of my surface. I cannot wait to show you who I am.”
X placed the dampening spike on the core. “I’m thinking about how much I love you.”
“I love you too. You amaze me. But, you are still distressed. Please, tell me what you’re feeling- what you’re thinking.”
“I will.” X said, prepping the spike for deployment. “I will tell you everything.”
“You can tell me everything. I will listen. I will be there for you.” the core said, embracing X in their core.
“I love you.”
X activated the spike, stabilizing the core and extracting all remaining fluorine from the planet’s veins. Suddenly, Planet 4 was a wasteland again. There was no warmth, and Destrike paid X for a job well done. X boarded his ship and went on to the next mission.
X was alone. He didn’t like it, but he was a wanderer. Alvord Days
Unfinished / Last edited March 18, 2024 / A post-apocalyptic gay romance
April 12th, 2524
Planet 4
Finished / Last edited December 24, 2023 / A far-future love story between a planet and a man