I. Quietly Flowing Along
Mia Rogers was to him, a rigid approximation of perfection, and thus their romance started badly. His own talent, to see everything and focus in on the flaws, was itself a misfortune.
No one ever knew where he came from or much about his past. His parents and family agreed to keep the matter quiet.
He had showed up on the scene, born of himself really, with little doubt, at twenty-five. He had made himself quite a dashing—albeit tragic figure. He claimed that his mother was a brilliant woman who died in childbirth and his father a celebrated scientist, who being remarkably elusive, shunned contact with the world. He told stories of his unique childhood growing up amid the stacks of his father’s library and relying on the kindness of servants. His own self-given name, Malik, revealed his driving need to be sovereign.
Malik went further. He announced with firm conviction, that only a man who is capable of absolute reason could be trusted—and that he was one such man. He proclaimed that no woman could be, by sheer force of nature, trusted… as he found all of them unreasonable.
Malik, a slender, arrogant bottle blonde with fierce black eyes, stated that he would avoid the nonsense of marriage all together and would seek only to marry his promising career in Theoretical Physics.
This unyielding position had made his romantic life quite hectic and littered with the carcasses of impossible romances.
Mia Rogers on the other hand was nothing if she was not real. Born to adversity she never hid behind her low start. Her mother, an Australian prostitute known for her unique talents, kept life interesting for young Mia. Her mother called herself Magdalene (good for those tortured religious clients), but was really named Kitty. Mia always knew her father was one of many, and her mother joked that she had been “collectively” conceived.
Mia was an odd child. She lost herself in books about the stars and the Universe, just as her mother was losing herself in the carnality of man in the next room. This intermingling of mind and flesh was not lost on the young child, who found that men tended to really be simple beings driven by the oddest needs and desires—a waste of time to her mind.
That was just the beginning. Mia was gifted with a knack for calculation. She could spend hours carrying out the long division of irrational numbers into the hundreds of places… even after Pi had been discovered out to the ten-thousandth place, Mia still wanted to prove it to herself. Her mother pointed to the child's perfections to all who would listen and though flamboyant and wanton herself, she still demonstrated all the foolish fondness of a doting mother.
Mia took all of her experiences and sense of her “collective” genetics and grew to become a curvaceous—yet deadly serious icy blonde. Challenged by her past, haunted by her desire to never be like her mother, she became careful and reserved about friendships and desperately staunch about not getting involved in the affairs of men.
When Mia was fourteen her mother came to a bad end. Kitty had taken on one of the religious fanatics who so adored (and abhorred) her and lost. She had been the one crucified. Mia, sadden by the death of her unconventional, yet loving, mother was soon shuffled off to boarding school—and very much alone.
To say that Mia and Malik’s backgrounds were different would be an understatement.
The fact that these two actually fell in love was a wonderful example of the power of raw human emotion triumphing over reason—on both their parts.
II. Slowly Rocking
It was the age of the Journey Walkers. With the colonization of Europa’s interior underway the need for the brave souls to make the trip was ever apparent. The Drillers had long finished Phase I of the colonization, boring the long shuttle tunnels into the interior of the moon. The Oxygenation plant had already been completed and was generating enough breathable air now to support a thousand pilgrims. These pilgrims or Journey Walkers, as they were coined in the digital press, were like reality stars of the early Millennium. Of the very numerous applicants, who returned submissions— eager for to become the next Journey Walkers, only a few select were chosen.
The first Journey Walkers had gone out twenty years before. They had started by building a small compound and relied on carried in oxygen generators. Gradually the size of the compounds increased. The technique of generating oxygen from the ice on the surface and from the liquid water of Europa’s inner layers became more advanced and the colony began to be able to sustain more life.
It was great news when an announcement came over the digital airways that a new crop of Journey Walkers had been chosen. Forty brave souls were to be trained and prepared for the voyage and among them were Mia and Malik.
The recruits were to spend a month preparing their bodies and minds for the long trip. Mia was unfazed at the process. Long days and even longer nights had made her used to the solitude. She was not a fearful sort and one who needed little human company. Malik on the other hand had trouble with long silences and often would speak out loud to himself when alone as a comfort.
Malik had an odd way about him. He would put his body on the ground almost as if it was a question. There was a mechanical swing to his neck, almost like he was trying to see both directions at once. While only 30 at the time of the Journey walk, he appeared neither young nor old. He lived life like he had been awake and conscious for thirty years straight—there was a far off look in his eyes.
By the time the psychologists interrogated him, to check his sanity for the voyage, it was plain enough that he held an inflated sense of self and was certain he was superior to all. But his IQ put him in the genius range and this pushed the Doctors over the line and they allowed him his peculiarities.
At the time of the Journey Walk, Mia was only twenty-two. She had already completed her doctorate and been doing research into the Peptide Theory of Astral Travel. In the early millennium, the theory had held that it was the very peptides in the human cell that held the key to memory and emotion and using this foundation Mia and her research team were attempting to show that Astral Projection could be accomplished by having one’s cells in two locations and the “mind” could travel from one to the other. She had come up with the idea while reading a cheesy romance novel where the two lovers were star crossed twin flames living across the Galaxy from each other and were able to project themselves to where the other was in their dreams and they could even give specific details about the events that they otherwise could not have known.
Mia and Malik met innocently enough. They were in the debriefing room and when asked if there were any questions, Malik proceeded to undertake a monologue of pedantic proportions. She, more reserved and definitely less loquacious, looked at him in horrific fascination. While her mind reeled at his audacity, her heart beat faster and she noticed a dewy drop of sweat forming on her upper lip. Ever the scientist, she checked her pulse—and it definitely quickened when she gazed at him.
III. Nearly Stationary
To be continued…
IV. Simultaneous Quodlibet
To be continued…
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