Displacement Zero - A Character-Focused SciFi Novel

The next morning, Aurelie arrived to work at 09:15. DesUas and Alvedo both gaped at her as she strolled in, sans caffeinated beverage. Then DesUas turned to Alvedo, glare accusatory.

“Did you drug her yesterday?” He snorted and shook his head. “She is late. She is uncaffeinated! What did you do?” The Aredbyne blinked as the stylus bounced off the side of her head, and relaxed back into her chair. “Okay, never mind, she’s fine. But really, what’s this about?” Aurelie shrugged.

“I slept like the dead last night. Yesterday did a number on me and I guess my body needed to recover. And maybe all that sleep is why I don’t feel like I need my caffeinated beverage this morning; I’ll probably get it later, I’m just good for now.”

“Actually eating enough calories probably helps too, as your body can get energy from them rather than stimulants.” Aurelie rolled her eyes at Alvedo but conceded the point.

“Yeah, I woke up hungry this morning- that’s why I was late. I didn’t have any food in the barracks, and I ended up stuck in a long line at a Human food emporium. It was worth it though- I got something called a breakfast bagel and it was amazing.” Both co-workers nodded, looking dazed and slightly awestruck. Aurelie sat down at her desk, considered the metaphorical mound of work she had been successfully failing to do the past few days, and decided against it completing any of it. Instead, she jumped back to her feet and headed out the office.

#

Aurelie had never had a great relationship with her body. By Human standards, it was aesthetically fine: she had all the necessary limbs and digits, everything was in supposedly pleasing ratios, and her face and frame were both very symmetrical- something she had been told was highly important in both her study modules and the Human media she consumed. The problem was, her body was entirely too Human, with all the foibles that this state of being brought. She wasn’t particularly strong, or fast, or resilient. She couldn’t survive the vacuum of space, or really, anything but a carefully composed air balance which resulted in her wearing a gas tank in three quarters of the Displacement Home. Similarly, she always had to wear thermally regulated clothing, as her body could only cope with a very narrow 30K range of temperatures and the cool 276K that the Displacement Home operated at was entirely too low for a juvenile Human to continually sustain.

Humans just weren’t hyperbolic, in any way. They were never the most or the least of anything, the best or the worst. As far as the various races went, Humans were the middle child: overlooked and underwhelming. Looking in the mirror, she’d never wanted to dip her eyes below her jaw line: her face was her mother’s face, and she could never be upset that she had inherited that. Her body, however, would never be anything but Human; and that had just never felt good enough.

Scrubbed clean and polished smooth, but still bruised from the events of the day before, Aurelie was now questioning this. The spa had made her feel like her body was worth something- treating it with kindness and care, rather than just evaluating it based on what it could and couldn’t achieve, felt good. The scrapes and bruises, too, were strangely empowering: she was the one who had saved the situation. It felt like gloating to even think it, but DesUas had been helpless. Jeffereenee had been helpless. She, Aurelie Jane, was the hero of the day.

She was competent. She was capable. And, catching sight of her elaborate hairstyle in a reflective surface as she walked, she looked good too. For the first time in her life, Aurelie grinned at her reflection. Feeling bold, she blew a kiss to an Aredbyne passing the other way, and had to smother her laughter at the other’s expression.

Something inside seemed to whisper stand up straight, Aurelie; today is going to be a good day.

#

Aurelie knocked, and waited for the answering call, before swinging open the top half of the stable door. Sam was sprawled out on the floor, surrounded by current events programs from various universes.

“Hey Aurelie!” He grinned when he realised who it was. “What’s the situation? Am I going to be moved soon?”

She clicked her headset into speaker mode.

“No information yet, I’m afraid. I just thought I’d make a bit of a social call; I figure it must get pretty lonely cooped up in here by yourself.” He shrugged, and Aurelie considered just how similar Chitinous Farer body language was to Humans. It was bizarre.

“Yeah, it’s pretty lonely. I can talk to people online, but I don’t have any friends here, and I’m a bit… really… I’m really homesick. This whole thing sucks, I’m trying to make the best of it, but it’s awful. To just… never see anyone again. Just like that. Fuck. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t swear.”

“Swear as much as you want, it doesn’t bother me.” She gave him a long look, realising it may be helpful in a way for him to know he wasn’t the only one unable to go home. Shutting the door behind her, she settled down next to him on the bulbous protrusion and explained the events of the past few days. His brow creased.

“So, you really want to get home?” He asked. She smiled, humourless.

“Of course I do, Sam. Don’t you know anything about Humans?” He smiled back ruefully and shook his head. “We’re social creatures. ‘Obsessed with narrative’ is how a lot of races describe us. Pretty similar to Chitinous Farers in that regard.”

“We only found out about Humans maybe 3 rotes ago,” He mumbled, picking at a loose thread. Aurelie quickly converted in her head- 3 rotes was around 7 Human months. “Before then, we were just chilling, doing as you do, and then one day we received radio signals. A few days later, a load of aliens beamed down.” She blinked and then had to suppress a laugh: she’d never heard the A-word used so casually before, but the kid probably didn’t know any better. “My brother had just had a huge fight with, well, basically our entire community. He left with the aliens, said he and the Humans were going to be time travellers.”

“The other race was probably Aredbynes,” said Aurelie, thinking back to her reading, “or Rzzhyians, who could have set up the string highway. Humans aren’t much good at getting around.” Sam frowned.

“No, they were definitely Humans like you. A few days ago, from my perspective at least- how many years ago was it now? Wait, no, it doesn’t work like that does it?” Aurelie shook her head, and he shrugged again and continued. “Well, a day or two before you found me another group of Humans arrived. They had two Space Hoppers with them; I decided I would get my brother back, so I stole one.” He laughed humourlessly. “Yeah, that went really well. Now I guess my family’s lost me too; and I didn’t even manage to find him.”

“I’m sorry about your brother, Sam, and about everything else that’s happened.” She paused, but he didn’t meet her gaze. “If you want, I could see if I can find out anything about him or about that trip? I’ve been researching Hominus G.”

“Because it’s also your universe?”

“Yeah. Because I’m trying to get home.” The last bit came out closer to a whisper, and she had to swallow past the lump in her throat.

He smiled, then tipped his head back, eyes half closed. For a few moments he seemed lost in thought.

“You know, it could have been your parents on one of those shuttles that came by,” he mused.

Aurelie could have gotten whiplash from how fast she spun to face him; he peered up at her from his relaxed position.

“What?” The urgency in her tone made him blink.

“Well yeah, if there was only like six rotes of time travel before the universe collapsed, we probably came from the same time period, right? I’ve been doing some reading too, you know. I may not get the interdimensional time stuff, but within a universe it seems pretty straightforward to me. If there were only six rotes of time travel before it collapsed, then you must have been displaced in that time, right?”

Aurelie leapt to her feet and pulled him into a tight hug.

“Sam, holy- you’re a genius!” He grinned as she spun him around. “Oh sentient being. Oh my- this changes everything.”

“Does it?”

“It means I don’t have go to back again- maybe. I could see if I can do the equation with that, that’s a really narrow time period. Fourteen months- fourteen months is no time at all! I need to tell the others. I’m sorry Sam, I have to go, you understand.” She started to dash for the door, but then hesitated. “Do you want to come? You’re not under arrest anymore, not really- they’re pretty lenient on people who get displaced. I can show you around the office?”

He was out the door almost before the question was out of her mouth, eyes wide as he trailed after her, questions flying a mile a minute.

“What kind of creature sits in a chair like that? Is that a rocket ship? Are we breathing real air? We’re not on a planet, right? Is this real gravity? Who drives the ship? Woah, who’s this?”

They’d rounded a corner straight into Cora and a dust-smeared Alvedo, who were making a poor show of looking nonchalant. Sam flinched back, eyeing Alvedo’s rows of teeth with a mix of fascination and horror. Alvedo returned the stare, before swivelling his angler-fish gaze onto Aurelie.

“Hi, Aurelie- we were just looking for you! We wanted to ask for some help with… a work task. For that case that we’re working on.” He glanced back at Sam. “For work.”

“Alvedo, he’s can’t understand you, he doesn’t have a headset.” Aurelie looked between him and Cora, who was eyeing Sam with mounting confusion. She wanted to tell Alvedo, but she didn’t want Cora involved- especially not after the incident in the supply closet the day before. “While I am curious as to why you look like you’ve rolled in a lint trap, I’m also a bit preoccupied.”

“It’s really important, Aurelie.” It probably wasn’t pleasant to grit three rows of teeth, but Alvedo was certainly trying.

“Yeah, so is this, so you’ll just have to wait,” she snapped.

“Is the Farer’s brother helping you find displacement zero or something?” Cora cut in. She took in their expressions. “What?”

“You’re right.” Alvedo turned his gaze back to Sam. “I recognise him from the pictures on [Micky]’s desk.”

There was a long pause, Aurelie turning the words over in her head. Then, for the second time day, the positive implications body slammed into her like a huge but beloved pet.

“I knew it!” She crowed. “I knew I’d seen him before!” She did a small jig, then grabbed Sam’s arm. “Oh man, we have to go. Right now.” Alvedo raised a hand in protest. “I’ll find you later, okay, geez. Sam, follow me.”

“What’s going on?”

“Now!”

#

One department over, she gently knocked on the door frame, trying to contain her excitement. The office workers looked up from their desks, and frowned in unison.

“I already told you,” said Bob, “the answer is no. Stop bothering us.”

“Wasn’t looking for you.” Aurelie briefly pictured yanking one of his antennae off, but let the satisfying image go. Right now, it wasn’t about her. “Micky, can you come out here quickly please? I need to show you something.”

Micky leaned back nervously, and Aurelie briefly wondered what sort of image she conveyed to her colleagues: freshly groomed, plucked and braided but still covered in bruises and with a manic gleam in her eye.

“Is it anything to do with your displacement number?”

“No, it’s not.” There was a long pause “I promise, it’s nothing to do with me at all. But it’s something you’ll like, okay?”

“Don’t trust her,” said Bob, apparently determined to ruin her mood. Aurelie rounded on him.

“Didn’t you say you had super important work to focus on? Want to do that instead of bothering me? I’m not going to kidnap him or anything. I’m trying to do something nice, so shut your mandibles and focus on the screen.” Turning back to Micky, she was surprised to see him failing to hide a smile- Chitinous Farers weren’t very expressive, and generally careful at concealing their emotions. Bob clearly saw it too, and sullenly returned to his work. Aurelie gestured, and Micky followed.

“What exactly is this about?” He began, but was cut off as Sam collided into him at top speed. “Oh my. Oh, Mother Moth. Brother? Is this really you?”

They both burst into tears and began speaking rapidly over each other.

“-thought I’d never see you-“

“-tried to follow but I got lost-“

“-little brother that’s not how time works-“

As they continued to cry ever harder the sentences became increasingly jumbled, until even her translation headset couldn’t keep up and all she could hear were rapid fire click and whistles with the occasional word coming through.

“-parents-“

“-job-“

“-missed you-“

“-how long-“

Congratulating herself, Aurelie turned to go. She, probably more than most, understood the importance of this, and for once she was going to be mature and tactful rather than hovering awkwardly. But before she could take more than a few steps, an arm shot out and pulled her into a hug.

“Thank you,” said a voice, raw with emotion, and she was surprised to realise it was Micky, not Sam. He held her at arm’s length and then pulled her in even tighter, and she awkwardly patted his shoulder (there was no way she was going anywhere near his antennae right now) as he wept onto hers. “Thank you so much. You’ve brought my brother back.”

She smiled, more gently this time, and stepped back so that she could look at the pair of them.

“It’s the better part of the job. With everything that’s been going on, it’s good to see something turn out positive.” He pulled her in for a third hug, Sam joining this time, and then she left them to catch up.

#

Aurelie found them lurking near the store cupboard she had sheltered in the day before, Alvedo twitchy and nervous, Cora chewing gum and looking bored. Before she could manage so much as a greeting, they grabbed her and shoved her into the closet, barricading the door behind them.

Aurelie would have protested, but any words fled once she realised she was pressed against Cora.

“As you know, we have been conducting an investigation,” began Alvedo, flexing and relaxing four hands nervously. He must have caught her confused expression. “Into the maintenance of the SC?”

“Oh, right, that.” Aurelie tried to focus her attention on him, but couldn’t find a place for her hand which wasn’t part of Cora’s body. Panicking, she shoved said hand into her armpit and nodded. “You said you would.”

“Well, we’ve hit a snag- there is an additional layer of security to access the relevant file drive, and as neither of us are management we can’t get in. Luckily, Cora is on good terms with the Chitinous Farers, and we all know how they like to gossip- so we were able to come up with a plan.”

Cora’s body and Aurelie’s face were both very, very warm.

“Alvedo, the point, please.”

“H13 keeps all its login details in a cellulose ledger,” huffed Cora.

There were a number of alien races capable of spontaneous combustion, some more intentionally and with fewer lethal side effects than others. While Aurelie had heard stories of it happening to Humans, she could now definitely say that this was not possible; if it was, the moment Cora’s warm breath had touched her ear, it would have all been over. No displacement zero, no finding home, just a pile of smouldering ashes in a supply closet at the Bureau and a warning plaque about the dangers of pretty girls.

Thankfully, Cora seemed to take her silence as a prompt to elaborate.

“The ledger’s a massive security risk, really, because H13 also prefers to send physical memos and will take meeting minutes in there as well. It’s just not very tech savvy. But it’s kept in a locked drawer in its office, and H13 called in sick today, so we need you to get it and find the login details.”

This, finally, broke through.

“You want me to break into H13’s office? And steal sensitive information from, not just my employer, but what amounts to the government of this universe?” Aurelie paused, thinking. “H13 is non-corporeal, how is it writing notes?”

“It’s rude to ask about others’ physiology,” grumbled Cora, which Aurelie was certain translated to ‘I’ve no idea either’. “And it’s not really stealing if nothing is missing, now, is it?”

“When it comes to information I’m fairly certain it is.”

The two women scowled at each other. To Aurelie’s surprise, Cora broke first, ducking her head to look back at Alvedo. The smaller individual sighed.

“Please, Aurelie? I know it’s been a rough few days, but I really think that this is important. And we can’t do this without you- we’ve already tried.” Aurelie hesitated.

“I’ll owe you,” murmured Cora, looking up at Aurelie from under her long lashes.

Damn. Fine.

“What do you need me to do?”

#

The HVAC piping of the office building varied in size wildly, depending on the race of the technician who had installed it. From the supply closet to H13’s locked office, the majority of the tunnel was spacious, tall enough that Aurelie could crab walk awkwardly through it and only feel a little cramped. While in theory it would have been easier to crawl on her hands and knees, the aching wounds from the day before quickly ruled that out.

The route was also surprisingly straightforward: follow the smear in the dust left by Alvedo when he had attempted this a few hours before. Though he was physically smaller than Aurelie in near every dimension, she immediately saw the issue when she reached the last stretch: the final 20 or so metres were through a tunnel the shape of a letterbox, wide and narrow. Alvedo’s upper set of arms were offset roughly 30 degrees from his lower set, leaving him not flat enough to fit through.

Dropping to a belly crawl, Aurelie thought over the kind of favours she could ask from Cora once this was over. Access to her caffeinated beverage code for a year? Filing all her reports for a month?

Telling the other Humans she wasn’t so weird after all?

“Well, I wouldn’t want to force her to lie,” she muttered as she slid, her words bouncing off the metal and echoing back at her. Lie, lie, lie. Why should she try to pretend to be someone she wasn’t? Her entire life, Humans had been nothing but trouble- both their presence and their absence. There was no point in trying with them.

Lifting the grate up and into the tunnel, Aurelie peered out, taking a quick, upside-down scan of the office before slipping in. The carpeted floor silenced her landing, and she dropped to a crouch. The room was dark, the screen dead, and Aurelie grimaced at the patch of dried blood she’d left on the chair the day before. Through the frosted glass she could see the silhouette of H13’s stick-like receptionist, tapping away at the computer.

Ok- she had to be sneaky. No more thinking about asking Cora for favours. No more wondering if a kiss counted as a favour.

She froze at that though, then pressed the balls of her hands against her eyes, trying to banish the image. Focus, Aurelie, focus!

The filing cabinet was locked; mentally cursing her superiors for showing at least the slightest bit of competence, Aurelie carefully teased a pin out of her freshly braided hair and inserted it into the keyhole. With only a small amount of jiggling, and a few swear words, it clicked and the drawer slid open.

The cellulose ledger sat atop a pile of other papers, helpfully labelled ‘PRIVATE INFORMATION – DO NOT READ’ in red block capitals. Aurelie snorted, scooped it up, then paused when underneath she saw a narrow folder marked ‘Jane, Aurelie.’ Her hand hovered, ready to scoop it up.

But if they realised it was missing, that would be a clear indication of who took the ledger.

“Just quickly,” she whispered to herself, and flipped the binder open.

Inside was a photo of her when she’d first joined the Space Time Bureau. Her breath caught- though she knew it was herself, all she could see was her mother smiling nervously from the paper. What strange cruelty had made them look so alike? Beyond that, though, was just page after page of citations for her weight, her caffeine intake, and for not taking her rest periods. She shook her head and flipped it shut- what had she expected?

A scrape of a chair against cheap linoleum made her heart stutter, and her eyes flicked to the frosted glass: H13’s secretary was standing up. Pushing the drawer shut, Aurelie silently swore, casting her eyes around the room. There was little furniture, and nowhere to hide. Finally, her eyes came to rest on the screen where H13 normally displayed. It was large, propped up approximately a metre off the ground by a stand, and in the centre of the room.

Aurelie dove behind it as the door opened, pulling one leg up and positioning the other as close as possible to the stand.

Surely this couldn’t work.

From behind the screen, she heard the receptionist walk to the filing cabinet and pull the top drawer open. Aurelie’s heart was in her throat- she would notice the empty ledger, she would raise the alarm, she would sense that something was wrong.

Just in time, Aurelie remembered to turn the volume of her translation headset right down.

“Is it really that hard to remember to lock it?” the receptionist huffed, pulling something out and slamming it shut. “I’m a giant mass of atoms, I don’t understand how the corporeal world works.”

Given that H13 didn’t have a screen reader, the falsetto was especially scathing.

There was the sound of the drawer being locked, and then the main office door shut just in time to mask the sound of Aurelie toppling over. She gave herself 20 seconds to lie there and silently giggle- it was that, or enter a state of shock- before she climbed back up on the desk, through the grate, and made her way back along the HVAC system. By the time she reached Cora’s desk, the giggles had worn off and her energy was crashing; she was bruised, scabbed, her fresh grooming was covered in an even fresher layer of dust, and she hadn’t even had a chance to tell her friends about Sam’s realisation.

“Great work, Aurelie!” Cora beamed up at her, hushed but excited. On any other day-even earlier that same day- Aurelie would have been doing backflips. Now, however, she just felt spent. She saw that Cora’s smile slipped slightly when she nodded and left without saying anything; she was sure she’d regret it later. For now, though, all she wanted was some caffeinated beverage and some time to think.

#

Two cups of caffeinated beverage, a wipe down with the paper towels in the office restroom, and a half hour to think later, Aurelie was back in the office.

“Okay, so here’s the thing,” she explained to DesUas and Alvedo, gesturing to her rough diagram. “I have two time-space locations and their corresponding displacement numbers. I know the approximate time I must have come from- in the final year of Hominus G, as it was 14 months and 16 days after the invention of the Space-Time Machine that the universe collapsed. So, I must have been sent at some point in those 14 months and 16 Human days. Now, I can also approximate my location: Humans didn’t have access to Stringways until nine months before the collapse, when Dr Enfendore encountered the Rzzhyian on one of his trips and brought some of them back. I would have been born before that point, and so before then Humans had not yet managed to leave their spiral galaxy, which they called the milky way. Therefore, I have an approximate location too.”

“Very approximate,” muttered DesUas.

“But perhaps enough to work with without me having to go back for another number.”

“You’re making some pretty big assumptions there, Aurelie,” said Alvedo, looking concerned. “What if you didn’t go straight from Hominus G to your Displacement Home? What if you were kidnapped from an earlier point in the sequential timestream before time travel was invented? Or if you were born only two days before the collapse and then spent three years in another universe?”

“Then I’ll never find home, I guess. Unless I can find people who knew my parents and know where they would have gone. Or find my family before I was even born. I guess I’ll use my displacement number to see when I get to the universe whether or not I’ll have to wait. I can spend three years dicking around in my home universe if need be, I’m sure the settlement that produced me would be fun to hang out with.”

“Even if this isn’t too vague, how are you going to get there?” he pressed. “Your code has been revoked, you can’t operate a Space-Time Machine.”

Aurelie half smiled and shrugged.

“Probably do something illegal. I have a nearly clean record- I know, I’ve seen it- except for yesterday I’ve barely done anything wrong-“

“Except show up too early and refuse to take time off, which may be actually help your case,” pointed out DesUas.

“Exactly. So, what, will they fire me? I don’t know, probably not. If I can time it right, they’ll forget everything because of the maintenance. And like they said, they’re super loathe to tamper with anything in that universe, so maybe they won’t even bother bringing me back.” She sighed. “Besides, either I’ll be saving my parents from their death at the hands of the end of the universe, or I can just travel with them to whatever universe they’re going to. I don’t need to have much of an effect on anything. The most difficult thing is going to be finding a suitable window.”

“I can help with that.”

Micky leaned against the doorway and smiled at the three of them before glancing over his shoulder.

“Can I come in?” He shut the door behind him. “So, after everything with [whistle sounds for Sam], I figured the least I could do is help you with finding displacement zero. [Sam] told me what you’ve got: two numbers, a three year window and an approximate location, right?”

“Very approximate,” said Alvedo.

“Galaxy sized,” added DesUas. Aurelie glared at them both, but Micky just nodded.

“It’s enough, I can work with that. Finding the window is going to be a lot harder, because of the length of the universe, and because of the… maintenance that’s happening in a few days.”

“Is it going to disrupt a lot of things?” asked Alvedo. Micky nodded again.

“We need to get Aurelie out before then, even if it means she has to wait a few decades to reach the correct time. Or, if you don’t mind taking a few risks, we can send you stream jumping; though, that would be a lot of risks.” His smile dropped. “I could do my best, but I won’t pretend I’m confident in my abilities on that front.”

“Don’t worry,” said Aurelie, “we can burn that bridge when we get to it. What do you need from me for now?”

“Your Space-Time coordinates and the corresponding displacement numbers from your two trips to the universe. And then the coordinates of all the Human settlements throughout the galaxy at that time- if I’m not mistaken, there were several hundred, but they were all very dispersed. Right?” Aurelie nodded.

“Right; for the most part they’re discrete entities, expanding outwards like a firework.”

“Okay, good, that makes it easier on my end. Send me all that, and I should have it for you by the end of your next shift. I’ll get it done as quickly as possible, to help find the window.”

“Won’t you get in trouble for this?” asked Alvedo, concerned. “They’re very secretive about the window data.” Micky’s expression sobered.

“Before a few hours ago, it had been ten Human years since I saw my little brother. I think all the races in this room can agree, that’s a long time. A really long time for a Chitinous Farer. And despite trying to remake myself into a good citizen, and following the crowd at the office, and trying to please Moth-damned [Bob],”

Screw Bob, Aurelie mentally agreed,

“I’m not good at going along with what I’m meant to do. Especially, especially not when I owe something like what I owe to Aurelie.” She felt her cheeks and neck start to redden. “She brought my brother back to me, just in time, because if it wasn’t before the maintenance then I would never have seen him again. Besides,” He shrugged, and seemed to force himself back into a relaxed persona, “it’s not like it’s going to matter soon anyway.”

“Are you quitting the Bureau?” asked DesUas. He paused, then nodded.

“Yeah. Yeah, after maintenance I’ll definitely be seeking alternate employment.” Aurelie was going to ask further, but he glanced at the notes on her screen and snorted. “Is that where [Sam] ended up?” They nodded. “Absolute moron, I swear sometimes. Trust him to need rescuing 2 hours away from the capital city.” He snorted again, shook his head, and headed out.

Lacking an avenue through which to continue pursuing her plan, Aurelie was forced to content herself with doing actual work while she waited for Micky to run the numbers. She knew the rough process, even if she would never be able to do it herself- it was far beyond Human math abilities, or indeed the mathematical capabilities of nearly every sentient race in addition to every artificial intelligence yet invented. Unfortunately for them, the Chitinous Farers weren’t nearly as good with technology and coding as they were with crunching numbers (Alvedo was convinced it was a conspiracy to avoid taking on more responsibility, but she’d seen Rita try to navigate an automatic lock once and could absolutely believe it).

After the numbers had been run through the formula- which Aurelie had looked up once, and which had taken her close to seven minutes of scrolling on her largest screen to reach the end of- Micky would enter the desired time frame into the system and it would search for the next nearest standard time unit on either side in which she could travel the universe. If she was lucky, it might be within days of when she was displaced. If she was unlucky, she could be staring down the barrel of months, years, even decades before she was born.

And it has to be before the maintenance period Aurelie thought, mood souring again. Normally, she could wait in the SC for a better time intersect- a few weeks or months to get a few decades closer was an obvious swap, but the timing of the maintenance period only left her a few days. The odds weren’t great.