Chapter 3

Atarah remembers the day she thought she had lost Jabin forever. Jabin was up at the orbital construction site of the Cecilia Payne with his dad. The site located at the L4 Lagrange point was called simply “Station”, though the real name was Valya Station or Valentina Tereshkova Station after the first woman to go into space.

Jabin had just sent a message to Atarah saying that their work was nearing completion and they were testing the plasma engines one-by-one. 14 year old Atarah had gone with her mom to the NearSide telescope to assist with re-instrumentation. They were in a lunar rover just pulling up at the station when a bright blue-white light lit the sky. The light faded slowly into an expanding red ball.

“Mom, look!” she cried out, “What’s that?”

“Oh God!” her mother replied.

Naarah knew right away what it was, but so did Atarah.

“An atomic!” she was getting frantic.

Her mom finished docking to the telescope station airlock, with Atarah hurrying through the lock into the station as quickly as she could. She was headed straight for the control room where the communications equipment was. She bounded through the tunnel using her hands to push off the ceiling and walls as she leaped too hard in the lunar gravity.

When Naarah had finished with the rover and reached the underground control room, the radio was alive with traffic. Atarah had pulled up the data holodisplays and was trying to open a video channel to Valya Station and Jabin. She switched to just text messaging after several failed attempts at getting a video channel.

Naarah was looking at the other communications happening as Atarah kept franticly sending messages to Jabin with no reply. Tears ran down Atarah’s face as Naarah held her daughter.

“Mom ... I can’t raise him...” her voice cracked with stress.

“Hold on Atarah. The data news shows that a Blue Ion test site was involved, not the Station.”

Atarah held her breath as she looked at the reports her mother was showing her. Naarah looked at one of the newest reports; Blue Ion had been testing an antimatter engine that obviously did not go as planned. She found that the test site wasn’t at the Station, but wasn’t terribly far away either.

Atarah saw the report, “The gamma...” her voice cracked.

She knew that a matter-antimatter explosion generated considerable radiation, including hard gamma rays. Too much could be quite lethal. Naarah immediately began swinging the smaller asteroid search telescope towards the L4 location.

Atarah’s eyes were flitting back and forth between the telescopic display and the data feeds. Voice and video traffic had saturated the available bandwidth, so she hoped for a text only message. Atarah saw a report that at least two Blue Ion engineers were killed. The reports were still focused on the engine test site and barely mentioned the Station.

The telescope finished slewing and focusing onto Valya Station. The Cecilia Payne was there, quietly floating in space. No activity could be seen, but image resolution down to a human or droid size object was not possible at this distance. But at least this confirmed that the ship was intact and not involved.

Atarah’s eyes were too full of tears to see the text message arrive. Naarah saw it first.

“They’re safe!”

Atarah wiped her eyes yet again as she read the message. It wasn’t heavy on details other than that by luck Jabin and his father had been in the shielded Drive pod and the ship had happened to have been facing Shield first toward the blast.

Eventually, it was discovered that the antimatter engine had a completely unexpected containment breach, causing the explosion, two were killed and several more had to be sent back to Earth for radiation treatments. A dozen droids were destroyed and electronics modules on the construction bays surrounding the Cecilia were damaged. The ship had survived; Pilot had isolated the damaged devices, mainly imagers and external electronics. Jabin said there were several debris impacts on the Shield, but nothing big. Their radiation exposure was high but not serious. Space Track was able to determine that the matter-antimatter annihilation of just one gram had vaporized nearly the entire test platform, leaving only a small amount of debris hurdling away as dangerous ‘space junk’. The lunar geophysical station noted that there were three detectable impacts onto the Moon, none causing damage.

But none of this was of interest to Atarah. Her focus was entirely on waiting at Armstrong City’s landing station for her Jabin to return. And of course, she completely embarrassed him in front of their parents and all the others waiting nearby by leaping into his arms wrapping her arms and legs around him, nearly knocking him over. Her kisses didn’t stop until he had carried her from the terminal into the tunnel connecting to the City proper.

She wouldn’t even leave him that night, staying over with Jabin at his parent’s apartment, though they required Jabin to sleep out in the main room while she took his room. They knew Atarah was too emotional to allow the two of them to sleep together before their mating day. Love making would come soon enough. As it was, Jabin had to sit on the floor beside her bed until her eyes became too heavy with sleep and closed.

He watched her face soften and breathing deepened. He knew they would soon be mated.

Repairs to the Cecilia Payne were of little consequence, though the impact of the antimatter engine test failure would affect Blue Ion for years to come. They moved their entire operation to an L5 Lagrange location at great expense and some consternation to a few long duration scientific satellites located near that region, quelled only slightly as Blue Ion had to pay significant insurance payouts for any impacts to those missions.

Memorials were held at the Blue Ion headquarters on both the Moon and Earth for the two that perished in the fireball. Extra testing was performed on the Cecilia, but the technology used on it was not the same, being standard fusion/plasma instead of pure antimatter/matter propulsion.

The scientists and engineers working on the antimatter engine eventually discovered the complex set of circumstances that led to the failure and began again the long process of rebuilding and retesting.

But Atarah was glad that Jabin had to finish School work here at Armstrong and not go back to the Cecilia until they both were to leave in a year and a half’s time. And more importantly, their mating day was rapidly approaching, only weeks away now.

At their Mating night, Jabin pulled on the left tear point of Atarah’s thin remaining mating clothing covering her hip at her pelvic bone. It separated, again like tissue paper. The left side represented purity. Her purity of love for him. He pulled the right tear point, representing her desire for him. Then with both hands, he pulled away her thin panty, the gusset sticking to her for a moment, representing giving her sex to him. Other teens had snickered when told about this part, while he felt it an honor that a girl would give herself to him this way.

Tonight would be their first physical love making, no BCI were allowed. But he remembered that time back when he had discovered how to turn on full access on his, and her, BCI.

Every night, she would receive and accept his request in her head as she lay in bed. They would lie dreamlike together in their thoughts, though physically separated, as they drifted off to sleep.

But this time it was different. Strong. Feelings rushed in. Powerful. High level access. This was as strong as School lessons. Stronger ... raw emotions. She felt love, desires, breathing. She panicked at first, but felt him soothe her. She sensed something else, lust. Lust for her. Her belly tingled. Her breathing increased to breathless pants. He was doing something. Stroking himself. She touched herself in response and she felt him react. They were sharing their uninhibited physical desires. Erotic desires echoed back and forth between the two youths. She caressed herself more, touching her breasts and then down between her legs. She explored her clit and slid her fingertips into her moistness. Waves of sexually charged emotions rolled and crashed between the two.

She felt him heat, desire building. He wanted to enter her. She wanted him inside her. Her brain seethed with sexual energy coming from between her legs and from his mind. He jerked himself faster as her fingers rubbed herself in near unison. They were one, connected. Having sex without touching each other. Craving built. Her hips bucked to his thoughts. She felt him as he exploded; his mind burning causing her own orgasm to erupt, pulsing and echoing like bells in a cathedral as they shared in each other’s ecstasy. Her body shook as their minds rippled with their afterglow. She felt kisses in her mind. She groaned wanting him physically.

A week went by since that virtual sex encounter. School lessons had become more complex and separated her from him. Atomic physics and quantum mechanics were hard. The lessons, fed by BCI, gave her migraines. Her mother comforted her and gave her medicines both physical and virtual; light calming emotions, just at the lowest level of sensation. Like a massage of hand and stone and smell. She never told her mother about the full open channel she had with Jabin. It too, had given her a migraine that she had to tough through on her own.

Then came the hit.

Jabin had discovered something else available on full access connections. Atarah felt a connect request from Jabin. She accepted and her mind exploded in raw sexual energy. Fucking, hot, horny, penetrating, thrusting, tits being sucked, dicks penetrating cunts, pumping.

He had tapped a hard porn mem recording. Her eyes shut tight as waves of mental sex burned her brain. She felt licking, sucking, screwing hard. Her whole body bounced under mental thrusts into her. She was being fucked hard, raped, sexed so bad it hurt. She felt herself sucking fat dicks while being fucked in the ass. She was bound by ropes and handcuffs, tight, choking, pain mixed with pleasure. She felt someone licking her pussy and then thrusting a vibrator into her. Her mind was inundated as amplified uninhibited adult orgasm poured into her 13 year old brain, her body exploded in orgasm of its own.

She screamed.

When she woke, she was in the clinic, her mom beside her. The doctors had figured out what had happened. They gave her a memory attenuator through her BCI and an IV sedative to make her sleep as the hard core sex memories were reduced to just vague murmurs. After she was sent home, she pleaded with her mom that it was a mistake and not to punish Jabin. He just didn’t realize.

Jabin’s mom had cyber support update the security protections and locked Jabin’s BCI to only work with School. Atarah’s BCI was also tightly locked down. Jabin had also suffered an emotional hit from the intensity of the raw porn mem and had received memory attenuators as well. The two of them were given stern warnings about the dangers of addiction to drug and porn mem recordings. They were taken to a small ward in the hospital where young men and women lay in beds, sometimes jerking in obvious sexual ways as their minds resisted the memory attenuators and replayed the memories over and over in their head.

The two teens were forbidden to see or communicate for a month. It was the hardest month in Atarah’s life.

Armstrong City’s AI was ubiquitous and constantly monitoring and maintaining all the systems in the city. It was a critical component, heavily redundant and self-programming. Everyone used it, even if they didn’t realize it, such as with BCI usage. It controlled all systems, including everything from simple message or voice communications to the complexity of regulating the life support systems for the entire population.

It would dispatch repair droids for equipment issues, maintain the hydroponics, manage logistics for supplies, food, water, and all other essentials and even run the replication printers.

But early on, the AI had been established to not interfere with day-to-day human lives, including not “spying” on BCI activities, even if the activities were illegal. Only if something was considered truly dangerous (such as someone replicating a weapon or bomb, or seriously talking about suicide or murder) would the AI contact the appropriate persons. It itself would not take direct action against a human, even to stop a crime, unless specifically requested by authorized persons, unless others were in immediate danger. In the thirty years of operation, it had never had to take drastic action.

Though, it did generate reports on compatibility and stability of individuals, again for authorized persons, (such as parents of children, as well as security or medical personnel).

Armie, the AI’s nickname was like a benevolent All Seeing Eye.

In their mating bed, Jabin saw Atarah’s sex for real for the first time, uncovered, unveiled. She smiled at him, but her eyelids were so heavy. The bed was so soft. She had been awake all night with nervous energy. Here they were, finally, after nearly two years. They could make love physically. They were about to make love. He sat on his knees just looking at her body, now completely exposed to him. He was supposed to undress himself similarly at the tear strips as she watched, but her eyes were closed. Her face was softening. Her breathing calming. She was fast asleep, on their mating night. He smiled and lay down beside her, covering the both of them with a blanket.

Late one night, young Atarah was lying on top of a storage building that reached to just under the roof of the dome, one of her favorite spots. She would lay there staring out through the transparent city dome wondering about the vastness of space above her. Even after several centuries, humanity had yet to find definitive proof of intelligence on other worlds. As her Teacher suggested, ‘Space is really, really big and we are really, really small’. Though she and most others had no doubt that it was out there, it was just hard to find. Particularly, since life, microbial life that is, had been found on Mars and Europa. Even several other moons had all the building blocks and just hadn’t been explored thoroughly.

After yet another lesson on quantum mechanics earlier that day, with its mathematics that always made her head ache afterwards, she had learned about multiverse theories, many now becoming a core part of astrophysics in the quantum realm. She laid there on the roof wondering if there was another Atarah also lying in some other universe, staring up and thinking similarly.

Suddenly, a flash appeared off in her peripheral vision, like a flashbulb in the distance. Then a low booming sound filtered across the dome, like the sound of a fingertip that lightly tapped a kettle drum. A micrometeoroid, likely no bigger than a grain of sand, had impacted the dome and flashed into heat and light. No danger to them inside the dome and very rare, it excited her, this being her first to actually observe.

Atarah’s thoughts turned to that little dust grain. Probably from a comet that had passed the orbit of the Earth and Moon millennia ago. Prior to that, it had ridden endlessly as a part of the comet since the birth of the Solar System. Now only to collide with her here billions of years later and flash into atoms as it impacted at many dozens of kilometers per second. Gone. She felt herself adrift in the universe, waiting for what?

Teens all roamed the halls and streets of Armstrong City at night. Even after being Mated, Atarah did so, sometimes with Jabin, but many times alone. She liked the freedom. They still lived at home and would continue to do so until they finished School and started their own way, usually around age 18 or 19.