Welcome to Listen To The Signal, short science fiction stories in audio, written and narrated by Rob Dircks. 

Hey, Rob here. I don’t have a lot of background for this story, but here’s how it started: I was talking to a friend, and she mentioned going on vacation somewhere super hot, and she said “It’s like one inch from the Sun.” And I immediately thought, “Oh my God, that’s the perfect title for a story.”  So this popped out, and at the end I have a question for you. Also, it is not lost on me that I coincidentally finished this story a year later exactly when the fires are raging out in California. I was going to postpone it, but then I thought, you know, this might be the right time to explore themes and questions like this. I don’t know. But here it is…

“Press the button.” 

“I don’t know if I can.” 

“Press it.” 

“I don’t know. Give me a second.” 

“Here, let me help you.” And Kim reached over and grabbed Michael’s finger and used it to press the button. 

“There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”  She smiled, though he knew her stomach was churning just like his. They were trained to eliminate all emotion at times like this. But everyone in service knew the secret: just being human meant your emotions were tied to you like an anchor, embedded into every atom, dragging you down, keeping you from moving forward, from doing your job, from being truly free, and you had to fight them like hell when it really mattered. But emotions were also responsible for love, right? And love made the world go round, or at least it did until five seconds ago when he – no they – pressed the button. 

For exactly five seconds ago, Admirals Michael Hedges and Kimberly Williams had launched The Net: a vast graphene microfilament array the size of Texas, impregnated with nano-mirrors and sulfur trioxide molecules, currently shooting into geosynchronous orbit, hovering between Earth and the Sun. It was, they said anyway, safer than just spraying aerosols into the stratosphere and seeing what happened. If it failed, the array could be retracted using satellites and shuttles, and we could try something else. 

Something else. Ha. 

Like we had time. 

If it failed… that was it. Love would no longer make the world go round. Something else would have to take over. Not that that mattered either. Because if the world goes round but there’s no one to feel it, does it even happen? 

“Hey. Michael. I know that look. Stop.” 

“What? I’m just counting.” 

“Let the computers count. Come on. We’ve done our job. Let’s celebrate.” 

“I’ll celebrate in nine months.” He knew his stomach wouldn’t unclench until March 20, two hundred and seventy-three days from this moment, the day they said we’d know if the cooling would work. Whether we would achieve a new equilibrium. Can a stomach stay clenched that long? What kind of havoc would that wreak on his digestive tract?

“Michael Edgar Hedges. As Co-Admiral, I command you to relax. What are you going to do – stay constipated for two hundred and seventy-three days?” 

“I was wondering that exact thing. How’d you know?” 

She laughed. “It’s called being married to you for seven years. Come on. Grab your case. Let’s go.” 

It was fairly cool when they stepped outside – only eighty-three degrees. Michael looked up at the moon, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead, and thought for a moment about that word, cool. How the meaning had changed over his lifetime. When he was a kid, being cool meant putting on a sweater. Goosebumps. When was the last time he had goosebumps outside? 

“Hey, hon. Do we own any sweaters?” 

Kim squinted. “What’s with you?” 

“It’s just, I’m thinking about what we’re doing, and if it works, we’ll have to buy some sweaters.” 

“Wow. That was actually sort of optimistic. I’m proud of you.” She nudged his arm with her elbow, and grabbed his hand as they walked along the promenade to their car. “Keep that up for two hundred and seventy-three days and you might just stay regular.” He chuckled, and when he chuckled it always made her chuckle, and soon they were in their car giggling and elbowing each other like a couple of school kids in the back of the bus. “I can’t believe they let us get married.” 

“I know, right?” 

It was a bit unbelievable, Mister and Mrs. Admirals Hedges and Williams. Even with all the changes, and the loosening of rules, and the incentives to copulate and reproduce as much as possible to keep the world population chugging along, it was still unheard of for two top-ranking officers to get hitched AND serve alongside each other. But they had served together in the Final War, or at least the one they were calling the Final War, and between them saved an entire city ship from destruction, so no one on the planet would’ve raised their hand when the President presided over their marriage ceremony and asked if anyone had any reservations. You could have heard a mouse fart when he looked around, daring anyone to speak. 

They were on that very same city ship now, driving along the main highway. It had become their home, the thirty-six-square-mile mobile military base, Proxima Three Five One. That was its official name, but everyone here called it Niceberg. Goofy as hell, but an apt nickname, as there was kind of a silly vibe among the permanent residents, like they were bohemian pirates or antarctic explorers, although on a typical day one would be hard pressed to even sense the massive vessel’s forward motion. It would be like standing in the middle of Oklahoma and trying to feel the Earth whipping around the Sun.

Niceberg was a marvel. Technically, it was a military base, with three airfields, seventeen missile silos, innumerable weapons stockpiles, and the third-largest population of active duty servicemen in the world. The ammunition here could blow up the Earth ten times over. But Niceberg had civilians aboard, too, forty-two thousand and fast growing, at first supporting the war efforts, but now in the post-war it was not-so-slowly becoming a mini-world of its own, almost completely self-sufficient. Of course, you wouldn’t find a local avocado, but the cattle here made for excellent beef, there was enough wheat for bread and beer, and their particular variety of the Nebbiolo grape, adapting to different climates as Niceberg traversed the globe, was sought from Europe to Australia. Apparently each climate change in their journey made the flavor notes of the grape more complex, creating a profile that was unmatched. The government even allowed the locals to convert two of the missile silos to wine storage, creating the very first mobile agricultural industry, and the very first net-positive mobile economy. 

Kim welcomed the change. It had been a long war, many had died, and the world had bigger fish to fry than squabbling over imaginary boundaries and dwindling resources. It seemed humanity had finally, after eons of fighting, finally woken up to the simple truth: we were all in this together. Of course, it took their quite sudden, communal realization that we were utterly, truly fucked if the globe continued to heat up. What would be the point of annexing new territory if it was a barren desert devoid of life? 

She welcomed the change not just for the greater good, but if she was being really honest, for her own personal good, too. The fighting had worn her out, she wasn’t getting younger, and after seven years of marriage, the word “family” had been randomly finding itself in conversation, and in her waking thoughts, and even in her dreams. And if it was going to happen, best to happen in a peaceful world. 

But all those thoughts, conscious or subconscious, were pointless if the world wasn’t habitable anyway. So she stuffed the thoughts down deep into her belly, out of the way. In two hundred and seventy-three days, she’d let them resurface. But not now. For now, for the next nine months, she’d keep her fingers crossed, and live in the moment. And laugh in the back of the bus, and giggle and make out like a couple of teenagers. 

And make out they did. 

And fourteen days later she missed her period. 

It was probably no big deal. She’d missed her period before. But her birth control discipline wasn’t exactly on point, and Michael had no discipline at all, so the possibility was there. She didn’t want to flirt with that insanity at the moment, though, so she deleted the app on her comm that could tell in four seconds from the chemicals on your thumb if you were pregnant. 

Michael caught her pacing. “Hey. I thought I was the nervous one. It’s only Day 18. What’s up? What’s so interesting on your comm?” 

“Nothing.” She shoved it back in her pocket. “What’s for lunch? I’m starving.” 

Michael had decided on Day Two he needed a distraction, or he was going to go batty. He’d always been the one to cook for the two of them – though the word “cook” would always be in air quotes – so he took out their pots and pans and his tablet and got to work in earnest. He was a perfectionist, but if he was being honest, his best efforts with food could be generously called “serviceable.” He emptied the frying pan onto a plate in front of her. “Omelette. Asparagus and feta. Not burnt.” 

“Bravo, love.” And she scarfed down the eggs like it was her last meal. 

“Woah, woah, hold on, you didn’t tell me this was a race, I didn’t start my stopwatch. And… you’re done.” He laughed, while burning his own omelette, and didn’t bother putting it on his plate at all. “Shit. Whoops. Next time.” He turned, stood above her, wiping a crumb of cheese from the corner of her mouth. “Who needs food? All we need is love, right babe?” Kissed her forehead.

“No. I need food. I need much food. Feed me more.” 

They both laughed, and Michael shuffled over to the couch and plopped down. “What are you, pregnant?” 

It was a joke. 

But all the energy in the room compressed into a thin, laser line between their eyes. The seagulls outside stopped squawking. Not a single car passed. The sizzling omelette stopped sizzling. The silence was absolute.

Michael spoke slowly. “I said, completely joking, ‘What are you, pregnant?’ To which you’re supposed to laugh and reply, ‘Of course not, you idiot.’” 

She forced a laugh. “Of course not, you idiot.”

“Okay. Whew, glad that’s out of the way.” 

But it wasn’t out of the way. It was there, still, hanging between them. Unmoving. Kim stared him down. “What?”

Michael leaned forward. “You know the world might be ending, right?” 

Kim reacted before her brain could catch up and stop her, grabbing her empty plate and flinging it against the wall, shattering it to pieces. She screamed “And that’s my fault?!” and stormed into their bedroom, slamming the door.  

For the next two days, the entire weekend, not a word was spoken. Michael did not see Kim at all. Just her hand, reaching out to take the meals he left on the little stool next to the bedroom door. The notes saying sorry a thousand different ways remained unread.

On Monday morning she emerged. Dressed for work. They stood facing each other at the kitchen island, knowing that the work week meant twelve hours a day in close proximity. There was no way around it. 

Michael made the first move. “We’re going to have to talk at some point. I saw you took in one of my thousand notes. Did you read it?” 

“I ran out of toilet paper. Needed backup.” 

“Ouch.” 

She smiled, despite herself. Two days was a long time to be pissed at Michael, the longest she’d gone in their nine years together, and all that isolation did was make her miss his embrace and his smile even more, instead of fueling her rage at him for saying the worst possible thing ever at the worst possible time ever. The one note she read had melted her too. It read: 

Violets are blue, 
Roses are red, 
I deserve the couch,
But I’m dreaming of bed. 
(Apology poem number five hundred and four)

She reached into her pocket, pulled out her comm, and placed the glass rectangle between them on the counter. They looked down at it for a very long minute. “I don’t know what’s about to happen, Michael. If we’re about to bring a new life into a dying world, or if we’re all saved and a new life is exactly what the world needs. Or if it’s nothing, and we can just go back to waiting for the worst or the best like everyone else.” 

“None of those scenarios is easy. But…” he smoothed a stray hair behind her ear, “…when have we ever been about easy?”

Kim re-downloaded the app and opened it. Her thumb hovered above the button. “I don’t know if I can…” 

“Here, let me help you.” And Michael reached over and took Kim’s finger and used it to press the button. 

———

I hope you enjoyed that short story. And here’s my question: this was meant to be a much longer story, but when I accidentally bookended it with the pressing the button thing again, I though, “Hey, that’s a nice place to stop.” So… do you want to hear more about this story? Or is it just right the way it is, keeping it mysterious and up to you to imagine how it works out? Please shoot me an email and let me know. 

And thank you again for tuning in to Listen To The Signal. I’m Rob Dircks, author of the Where the Hell is Tesla? science fiction series, The Wrong Unit, and the Number One Audible bestselling You’re Going to Mars!

You can buy Volume 1 of the collected Listen To The Signal stories on Audible and Amazon, find my other books there too, and get in touch with me at ListenToTheSignal.com or RobDircks.com. 

Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!) https://uppbeat.io/t/ambient-boy/ocean-wave License code: 2Z5YOTWAYL4DGYL9