Chapter 2.6

  Thirty minutes later, Foster and Justine exited an unusually narrow tunnel and stepped onto a decent sized octangle-shaped platform. Looming over the open space was a gigantic section of metal pipe that could have come right off an oil derrick. With a height of about 2 meters from the floor, the cylindrical pipeline dwarfed everything in the room.

  “This is where you want to kiss me?” Out of curiosity, Justine reached up and touched the surface of the conduit before instantly pulling her hand back in a wounded manner. “Jesus, Foster! The thing’s as cold as ice!”

  “Colder actually.”

  “Foster?!” In a way few people could, Justine stared a hole straight through the middle of the scientist’s metaphorical forehead. “Are you being serious right now?”

  “Sorry. Are you ok?” He moved forward in one step and took hold of her hand. Together, they watched her skin turn slightly red and begin to blister from the ice burn. “Be careful. That pipe is directly opens up on the outside of the ship.”

  Slowly, he turned her hand over to examine the injury from every possible angle. And almost instantly, Justine could see what the Madman of Wilson was doing. “I’ll try and give you the benefit of the doubt and say that you’re not pretending to be concerned for my sake.”

  “Not pretending?”

  “Yes.” Justine said with only the slightest hint of disbelief in her voice. “Not pretending, Foster. Because the other option would be a little unromantic.”

  Foster turned her hand over one more time before he responded to her veiled accusation. “Can’t it be both?”

  “It can be both.” She slowly pulled her hand away from him but kept it close enough for both to watch what happened next. “But taking this opportunity to calculate my healing factor doesn’t exactly send my heart all a flutter.”

  “Noted.” He said flatly but with a hint of actual charisma. “Next time I’ll warn you when I want to use the scientific method. And if it makes you feel any better, it’s not like you’re the only one I’ve put through this little experiment.”

  “Joseph?”

  “No way.” Foster laughed at the idea of the deputy crawling around these tunnels for hours. “No, he’s cut himself plenty of times at his little work desk to get all the data I need on him.”

  Justine nodded at first then gave her ‘would be’ boyfriend a discerning look. “How many times, Foster?”

  "How many times what?"

  Instead of answering, she just stared at him for what felt like an eternity but was closer to twenty seconds in reality.

  “I feel divulging that would make me look obsessive." He answered. "So, I’ll just say more than once and leave it at that.”

  “Fine,” she said begrudgingly. “As long as you know that.”

  With that out of the way, they waited patiently for the damage to Justine’s skin to slowly start to reverse. First, her skin’s original color faded back into existence from an angry red. Then, the multiple tiny blisters receded back below the surface of her skin. The whole experience was unsettling and awesome at the same time.

  Until eventually, like a slower version of Wolverine’s healing ability, everything returned to normal. And yet...

  “You couldn’t have done anything about the pain?”

  “Pain?” Foster did some quick calculations in his mind, and he quickly came up with a number that matched his own personal experiments. And, if he was honest, a number that both satisfied his curiosity and made some of his future plans all the more possible. “Do you know that your body just healed a wound in a minute and a half that would normally take a couple of days of constant care?”

  “That’s awesome,” she rubbed her perfectly normal fingers together as a test. “But it still hurt like a mother fucker.”

  “You know.” He cocked his head to one side in disbelief of her flippant regard for this scientific miracle. “This kind of mysterious reaction doesn’t bode well for any future relationship we might have.”

  “Foster,” she smiled as the pain completely faded away. “I’m both a complicated and wonderous creature. I’m sure you can solve any kind of mystery I might throw your way. After all, that’s kind of your thing.”

  “I guess it is my thing.” For the briefest moment, he genuinely smiled and it appeared the scientist was finally going to throw caution to the wind and make his proverbial move. But at the last minute, he stopped short.

  Disappointed but hopeful, she took in her initial surroundings. “I thought you said you were looking for the most romantic place on this ship?”

  “I was.” He smiled again. Only this time, it was that stupid grin. “And I did.”

  “Foster,” Justine finished her initial sweep of the very plain, mechanical looking room and sighed. “I know you might find something like this romantic. But I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “Ah, Justine. You’re just not giving it a fair shake.”

  “A fair shake?” Again, she looked around and tried to imagine how anyone could find such a drab, boring place romantic. She couldn’t. “What is this place anyway?”

  “It’s the ship’s refueling platform.”

  Foster pulled down a lever on the wall closest to the outside of the ship. As he did, a series of hisses and whines began to emanate from somewhere inside the reinforced bulkhead. As they continued, two pieces of metal about three feet tall and four feet wide began to retract from one another.

  As they did, Justine was treated to a sight she had been longing to see ever since she saw her first sci-fi show at the age of five. A view of space through an actual window.

  “My god, Foster.” She drew closer to the clear partition but stopped short of pressing her nose up against it. “Is this a straight shot into the void? No cameras or anything?”

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  “No cameras.” Seeing her apprehension, he placed his own hand against the space window to show her it was safe. “The material is like the transportation tube on the space station. So, it doesn’t conduct temperature like the pipe does.”

  “Ok,” sensing some more space magic bullshit, she tentatively placed her hand against the clear space window. And just like he said, the temperature was negligible to her own. At least until she saw the view, and her face lit up with sheer joy. “I must admit. This view is definitely romantic.”

  “Really,” Foster pulled out one of his cell phones and tapped the screen to bring the device to life. He stared at a countdown timer that was currently running. The program still had 75 more seconds until it hit zero. “If this view was all I needed to achieve an optimal romantic status, I would have brought you here yesterday.”

  Still entranced by the sight of space whipping past a window on a starship, Justine only half turned her head to ask, “What do you mean this view?”

  “Well,” Foster waited for the last seconds on his timer to expire before joining her by the window. “Unlike your precious science fiction shows, looking out a window into real space can be less than picturesque. I mean. It’s not like stars are really flying by every time someone looks out the window.”

  “I know that.” Justine turned her head fully to continue their conversation. “They only do that to make space travel more exciting.”

  “And I’m not knocking the artistic choice.” Slowly, he raised his hand and placed it beneath her chin. “But I thought you might want to see something truly spectacular for your first gander into moving space.”

  Then, as gentle as he could, he slowly rotated her face back to the right-hand corner of the view port. And once her eyes reached their intended target, she couldn’t help but let an astonished gasp escape her lips. “Oh my God.”

  “Maybe,” Foster said with a chuckle as a reddish/gold nebula started to creep into view. To say that this collection of galactic gases and dust was anything short of awe-inspiring would be a disservice to the word grand. “But according to the ship’s star charts, this particular nebula has only been around for about 5 million years.”

  “How can we even see that with the naked eye?” The astonished FBI agent asked as she focused intently on the swirling mix of vibrant colors. “We must be thousands of light years away.”

  “About 5 actually.” Foster tapped on the partition and a familiar blue reticule appeared. “That’s why I used a little WOW spray to enhance the proceedings.”

  Winking, the normally awkward scientist placed two fingers over the pulsing reticle and pulled them apart. Instantly, a new view of the golden nebula appeared that would make the most detailed image from the Hubble telescope look like a child’s Crayola drawing.

  Stunned, she watched silently as the golden mass of swirling gases and baby stars filled almost the entire transparent partition. It silently undulated back and forth like a dream in her mind. And the view of the young stellar nursery was almost too much for her senses to comprehend.

  “Foster,” she stepped toward him and reached out to place her arms over his shoulders. Reluctantly, she turned away from one of her ‘dreams come true’ and smiled sweetly. “I don’t know if this would work on every woman. But it sure does work for me.”

  “Good,” accepting her invitation, he leaned in until his lips were mere inches away from hers. “Because you’re the only person I was worried about it working for.”

  At his simple admission, she took in a quick breath of air before letting it catch in her throat. Caught off guard by her emotions, she instinctively held her breath before eventually letting it out after a couple of seconds of awkward staring.

  Feeling the heat coming off her trembling body, he leaned in close enough to feel the slight exhalations of warm breath hitting his face. Time, in that instance, seemed to stand still. And unlike before, when their kisses were hurried and without forethought, this embrace was longingly anticipated by both. So anticipated, the whole affair slowed down to a crawl.

  After a second of just hanging there, the ever-proactive FBI agent made her move.

  “Foster,” Justine was practically whispering at this point. “We should kiss now.”

  “Oh,” Foster chirped, sounding very much like a hung-up computer being rebooted by an angry IT worker. Eventually, after a comical look of not understanding flashed on and off, his brain restarted and the scientist did what he set out there to do. “Got it.”

  With that, the golden nebula he had waited over a day for slowly passed behind them in the refueling port window. And Foster’s and Justine’s first real kiss was enshrined for all time amidst the backdrop of one of the most breathtaking views in all the known universe.

  Back in the engine room, Joseph and Hoover watched as a live feed of the two lovebirds was displayed on a tiny screen used for measuring the engine’s thermal levels. This spying went on for only a couple of seconds before the deputy unceremoniously hit the off switch.

  “You know I could just turn that back on.” Hoover squawked in the deputy’s ear.

  “You could.” Joseph returned to his project without giving a second look at the ancient monitor. “But you won’t.”

  “And why not?”

  “One, you don’t need the screen to spy on them. You’re just doing this to annoy me.”

  “True,” he said sheepishly. “But that’s not a reason to stop either endeavor.”

  “No, to you it probably isn’t.” Joseph turned back to the blank screen and tried hard not to remember his own past actions with the female persuasion. Escpecially the one that occurred on Solon. “But he’s your friend. And friends shouldn’t spy on their friends in such indelicate circumstances.”

  “You’re talking about the bro code? Right?”

  “Yes,” Joseph laughed at the AI’s use of an early 2000’s cult reference point. “I guess I am.”

  “Well, for your information. If I was classifying Foster in the familial sense, he would be closer to my father than my brother. So, the bro code wouldn’t really apply.”

  “Hoover,” Joseph turned up his nose at the AI’s explanation of the current circumstances. “That makes spying on them even worse.”

  “Probably,” the tablet’s emitters fired up and a picture of Justine at her FBI graduation ceremony morphed into being. “I still can’t believe she’s who he fell in love with.”

  “Love might be a strong word at this point in their relationship, Hoover.” The deputy stared at the picture of the young, wide-eyed cadet. She looked tailor made to be the prototypical federal agent. All go, no quit. “I would say they just really like each other.”

  “He risked his life for her, Joseph.” The picture morphed into a looped relay of a football player jumping over ten other football players to score a touchdown. “I think that pushes his feelings for her over the goal line of like and into the endzone of love.”

  “Big sports fan?”

  “Not really,” the AI said flatly. “But Foster and his friends liked watching football in the common room. So, I figured I should at least have a passing knowledge of the game.”

  “Passing knowledge?” Joseph knew the term passing knowledge could not and would not apply to Hoover. “How many games did you actually watch?”

  “Just a few.”

  “Define a few?”

  “Everything in the NFL Films video vault.”

  “Of course you did.” Joseph put the last few screws into the device he’d been working on for almost a week straight. And it was a good thing too. Because without this little device, this ship was not going to be refueled anywhere. “Still, relationships built on extreme circumstances are destined to fail.”

  “Is that from personal experience or from some movie?”

  “Both.”

  “You know.” Hoover started down a road that the rest of the small crew had avoided. “You still haven’t really told us why you committed murder back on your home planet?”

  “I haven’t?”

  “No,” Hoover responded quickly. “You haven’t.”

  “Hoover,” The deputy looked up to the engine room’s ceiling and toward the flight deck above his head. “What happened to me thirty years ago was multiple lifetimes ago for the people on Solon. No one there probably even remembers what I did or even my name.”

  “So, you don’t think what happened back then holds any bearing on our current little trip down memory lane?”

  “No way.” Joseph’s face screwed up like he’d just eaten a fresh lemon. “What I did back then was both stupid and against the arbiter’s law. That’s it. Nothing else.”

  “Still, you never know when something might rear up and bite you in the ass.”

  “That might be true.” Joseph thought back to the day the Arbiters arrived to pronounce their judgment. Back to when a selfish choice cost him everything. “But I know this, Hoover. No one alive on Solon remembers the stupid mistake I made back then. Let alone care enough for it to matter to us.”

  Hoover didn’t respond to the alien’s seemingly steadfast words. He just thought back to a phrase Justine probably had embroidered on a pillow somewhere in her geek filled apartment.

  Only an idiot deals in absolutes.