How I Wish I Could Stay Longer, How I Wish I’d Never Gone

As the planet flew away from him, Remi couldn’t help but feel like he was meant to be sadder. If he died up in space, if he never came back to Terra, if he never got to see Alan ever again, wouldn’t that be a tragedy?

Would it be any more of a tragedy than living the rest of his life on Terra?

He turned away from the window, forcing himself to stop looking at the slowly shrinking blue planet. Allegedly, the flight was going to take two weeks, assuming there wasn’t any unexpected issues, but there were cryosleep pods if he needed them. Of course, he was ‘strongly encouraged’ to spend the time reviewing mission details, scientific analyses of Olten’s flora, fauna, and unique minerals, summaries of the major players on the planet, and so on.

Homework. Remi had not missed it.

The cabin he was sequestered in was a uniform 10 feet by 10 feet, with a window out towards space, and a door to the hall. He was only allowed to leave the room under emergencies, or to use the cryosleep pod, and otherwise was just meant to get used to living in here. A light in the center of the ceiling would mimic the day/night cycle of Olten, to help him adapt faster, and the room’s tiled corner could swap between a toilet, shower, and kitchenette as needed.

He was sure there was history behind the decision to keep passengers isolated from each other, and not a particularly pleasant one. But Remi’s primary problem with all of this is how much time it left for him to be alone, truly alone, with his thoughts.

Remi found it very easy to get lost in physical monotony; when getting back to his apartment on public transit, or carrying heavy objects too and from storage at work, or running laps around Lockdown Park, he didn’t have to think about things. He could focus on how the smell of street food filled the subway tunnels, or how his lungs burned from exertion, or how he needed to step around broken glass without slowing down his run.

But now, as he sat on his bed, all he could do was stare down at his hands, and how uncomfortable and unfamiliar his body felt. He reached out, and gestured towards the open duffel bag across the room, pulling on it with his psionic powers. The duffel bag jerked, moving a few inches, then stopped entirely, leaving Remi with a headache. No matter how powerful his fantasies made him feel, in practice it seemed that his nascent psionic powers were nothing more than a parlor trick. At least without Slyten.

At the crux of it, that’s why he was here. Unlike other explorers, Remi didn’t have extensive scientific knowledge, or experience charting unfamiliar or hostile places, or practical ‘military’ training. He didn’t have connections, or bureaucratic skills, and he suspected that negotiating with The Triumvirate would take a lot more than his pleasant customer service voice. The AOSE was very clear about why they wanted Remi; on all of his paperwork, and on the little badge they gave him to wear, was the simple title Slyten Specialist.

Yet, for someone with incredible psionic capabilities, Remi felt utterly unable to control his own thoughts. Without realizing it, he found himself staring out the window again, at the tiny blue dot off in the distance, already millions of miles away, and thinking about everything he was leaving behind. Or how little he was leaving behind. He kept replaying the last argument he’d had with Alan, and the half a dozen conversations that had led up to that point in the preceding weeks. His ex had always pretended to be sympathetic and understanding, capable of putting Remi’s needs first in times of crisis, but it was just bullshit.

“All of this is bullshit,” he muttered to himself, and squeezed his eyes shut. He hated his voice. He hated so much about every last bit of himself. And he refused to let that stay true. One way or another, he was going to get his perfect body back someday, by self love or by medication and surgery. The fact that Alan wasn’t willing to stick around for that journey was his loss.

Remi opened his eyes, and looked across the room again, until his eyes settled on the stack of papers placed neatly on the desk in the corner. Once again, he gestured, reaching out physically in order to properly accompany and aim the telekinetic reach as well. The top several papers lifted up into the air, and flew over to him, arriving in his hand in moments. With another sigh, he started to read through them, trying to focus on the words and not the memories that danced in the back of his mind.

The Triumvirate was formed four years ago, after the Battle for Argent Point, where Glitch assisted the Guardians in reclaiming a Precursor fortress from the Abomination forces.

The AOSE’s naming conventions were awful. They really should’ve sent a poet, rather than scientists and mercenaries, who were perfectly willing to just use a translated noun to describe the groups involved in Olten’s cosmic war. It made reading dry mission information even harder than it would typically be.

The Triumvirate is made up of Glitch, a Guardian tactician named Kan, and the Oltenen Emissary who now goes by the name Bril.

Remi’s brow furrowed. Some of the details of Olten’s war and politics were public knowledge, but the AOSE and government had definitely kept that last bit quiet. The death of President Myers, and the events proceeding it, was subject to a nearly endless array of conspiracy theories with varying degrees of backing. The general understanding, however, was that the extraction of resources from Olten had incurred the wrath of its inhabitants, and one of them had traveled to Terra to kill the president.

The assassination itself, and the precise motivation, and who benefited from it, and why it didn’t stop the AOSE from continuing to extract Slyten from Olten, was a lot more ambiguous however. The fact that the entity who killed the former president was actively working with the current government felt like it’d be a little bit newsworthy, which would also explain why Remi had been granted a security clearance before being shot into space.

''The Abominations no longer pose a direct risk to further AOSE operations, although the Triumvirate still intends to continue their war until their foe is no more. Current estimations suggest this will likely happen within the next three months.''

The more he read, the less he felt like they were the good guys. Maybe that was an argument against reading. He put the pages back down, and fully laid back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Counting each tile, and the corners where they connected to each other. It was going to be a long two weeks, wasn’t it?