AlexMcGilvery Array - Nano Bytes

But in the past few years, there’s been a sudden glut of people with advanced degrees in all fields. Gaining a professorial position, let alone tenure, has become all by impossible. My choice was clear. Either sign up for endless postdocs or take a job with Interplanetary Mining, Incorporated. Now I’m their lead Geotechnical Engineer on the second largest near-Earth object in rotation around the sun.

The site is rich in precious ores needed back on Earth. They’re used in the manufacturing of everything from consumer goods to the space shuttle that brought me here. Interplanetary has already finished the first phase of mining consisting of removing the large piles of ore and stones from the asteroid's surface. Now they’re ready for phase two: underground mining. And that's why they need me.

When I arrived, I was assigned a crew of mine engineers and monitoring technicians. Their job was to map the mining shafts, cataloging the types of rock and amount and type of ores found within. My job is to oversee their operations. And so I have to maintain professional distance. I can’t be a part of their gossip or the ghost stories they like to tell about the asteroid.

Karen, a gruff forty–something woman who serves as my administrative assistant, comes lumbering towards me. I’m sitting at a wobbly table on my own as my subordinates file in. For them, this was a weekly ritual: bar night. It’s only open once a week to curtail the alcoholism that plagued the station in its early days. At least, that’s what Karen had told me. There was nothing to do on Eros 433 back then, she said, so most people would spend every one of their off–duty hours in the bar. Since then, Interplanetary added a shiny new gym, a dry lounge with pool and ping pong tables, a library and a movie screening room complete with massage chairs. But every Friday night from quitting time to five a. m., the bar is packed. It’s a dimly lit, wood paneled room that shines from the grease of pub food. At the back, there’s a long bar with a brass rail. The rest of the room is crowded with broken chairs and crooked tables. There’s a dart board on one wall.

She sits down heavily across from me. «You heard?»

«The new arrival? Yeah, I heard.»

«Sure to god we’ll miss Aggie, but this one’s young and from what I’ve heard, he’s hungry.»

«Guess that’s good,” I agree in the telegraphic speech that everyone here seems to favor.

«None too hard on the eyes I hear.»

«Okay.»

She smiles at me conspiratorially. «Finally someone for you.»

I inwardly groan as she winks. But I get what she’s saying. Ever since I arrived a month ago, I’ve been isolated. Aggie — a Brazilian man who’s real name was Agamemnon and who was the station’s IT department, was the only worker on the station who was had the same level of education as me. But he was close to retirement. We didn’t have much in common. Add to that the fact that he was constantly solving issues with the AI and data systems, and that I know next to nothing about the workings of computers. Most of the time we’d only exchange a friendly nod of recognition.

But now Aggie was gone for good, back to Earth to enjoy the gobs of money he’s accumulated here after working for a couple decades and having nothing to spend it all on. After all, it’s not as if there’s anything on this rock except the mining station. Now the only person who’s not my subordinate at the station hierarchy was Grayson, the station director who is everyone’s boss and the corporate representative for Interplanetary. And I don’t exactly enjoy talking to him.

She leaves to find her first drink. I fiddle with my glass filled with rum and coke, pretending that I don’t see how every one of the mine workers barely notice me on their way to the bar. I watch as the ice cubes slowly melt into the coke, and wonder where I’d be now if I had only stayed on Earth. Two years and eleven months. That’s how much longer I’m contractually obliged to stay on this tiny rock spinning around the sun. Where did I get the guts to just leave my life on Earth and come here? I know the answer all too well. It wasn’t guts. It was running away from my problems. I raise the glass to my lips, downing the rest of the drink in a single gulp.

«This seat taken?» As I lower the glass, I see that someone’s come over to my table. The first thing I notice about him is that he’s smiling — a sideways smile that is immediately disarming. The second thing I realize is that, like everyone here, he has an accent. But I can’t place it.

I shake my head and gesture to the empty seat across from me. I don’t recognize him from the station. «You must be the new guy,” I say.

He places his pint of ale down on the table and another rum and coke in front of me. «Is it that obvious?»

«Other than being a new face, no one else would dare approach me like this. Afraid to get a bad evaluation, I think.»

«Even if you were my boss, I couldn’t just let you drink alone, could I?»

I find out that his name is Stephan Lavoie and that he grew up outside Paris, in some little town that no one’s ever heard of.

«And your name?»

No reason for me to act coy when the IT guy is destined to be my only friend. «It’s Willow. Willow Mason. And so what brings you here?» I ask the inevitable question.

«Adventure. Stay for three years; go back to Earth changed by the experience. Isn’t that what everyone wants here?»

«Not everyone. Some people stay their whole lives.»

«But not you, I think?»

I look down into my drink. I’m not sure how much to tell him.

«You didn’t come here for the adventure?»

«It was more of a perfect timing thing.»

«What do you mean?»

«Buy me one more drink and I’ll tell you?»

I’m true to my word. I tell him the whole story.

Anders and I were over. Long over, only neither of us wanted to admit it. He’d supported me emotionally through school. From the time we were both 18, he'd been there. And I did the same for him, while he went through pre–law and law school. But I’d changed in all that time. He’d changed. And I knew we were headed in different directions.

And then there was the fact that I couldn't find a job on Earth. When I told him I found an off-Earth position, it began the biggest fight that we’d ever had.

«What am I supposed to do?» Anders asked. «While you're up there in space, what am I supposed to do? Wait for you?»

«You could come with me.»

«And what? Give up my job?» Anders was on track to become a partner at his firm. Everyone knew that law was still an Earth–bound career. If anyone working on a near-Earth asteroid needed a lawyer, they just went back home.

So when they offered me the job, it seemed like the perfect way to end what had already passed its expiry date. But Anders wasn't going to let me go without a fight. Or at least without getting the last word in. We didn't part on good terms.

«Most people would get a haircut, dye their hair, or get a tattoo to mark the end of a relationship,” I explain to Stephan. «That's most people's idea of radically marking a break–up. But not me, that wasn't radical enough for me. I had to leave Earth.»

«That’s unpleasant.»

«Sorry to bring you down.»

«It’s not that. It’s just that it makes me feel sad. I’m sorry that’s why you’re here.»

«No worries. After all, it’s not all bad.» I try to put a brave face on it. But then he smiles at me, and suddenly I feel as though I might be right. It’s not all bad up here.

Over the next few months, we start a new habit. Every day at one o’clock p. m., we meet in the stark management lunchroom. At least, 1:00 is what the red LED numbers on wall say. There’s not really daytime here, not in the same way as on Earth. The planetoid’s rotation around its axis is just over five hours, so that it feels like the sun is forever rising and setting, and then rising and setting again. The near constant glare of them, contrasted against the blackness of space, is irritating during the imposed Earth hours of our workday.