Mew loved her mother but she was always closer to her father. Her
brother had their mother’s passion for social work and activism. Mew loved her
father’s stories, she had read all his books half a dozen times by the time she
graduated high school.
She knew her father had high hopes that she would become a writer
herself, but she didn’t have the same passion for writing that she did for
reading. By the time she was two years into her post high school education she
really didn’t have a passion for anything the way the rest of her family did.
It wasn’t until she took a low orbit trip for a college class
where she saw her home from space for the first time with her own eyes that she
knew she was going to work in space somehow. She switched majors and went
straight into the flight academy, got her assignment and while she could have
taken almost any job available she chose to work on the satellite repair and
recycling station. So while she kept in touch, she hadn’t been home much in the
last ten years.
So she and her father had a lot to catch up on, more accurately
she had a lot to tell him about and he mostly talked about his most recent
book, how the house was holding up, and the fact that he was thinking about
getting a pet, an idea he was now very serious about considering the status of
the planet. Their conversation lasted for days. They talked about her mother,
her childhood, she walked her father through the night that Rusty and Toll went
through the ring and everything that happened after that. They talked about his
life growing up and he told her for the tenth time how he met her mother and
how they fell in love. They had all the conversations they had missed over the
last decade and they tried to have as many as they could before something took
her away again.
That something turned out to be representatives from the senate.
They arrived ten days after Eamon left. There were two of them. One short and
rail thin, the other taller but equally as wide. Mew saw the insignia on the
thin one’s briefcase and let them into the house.
“How can I help you gentlemen?” She asked as she led them to the
dining room table.
The thin one spoke first. “The senate has voted to take all ships
that wish to leave the planet through the ring.” Mew sat on the far side of the
table and wave at two empty chairs for her guests. They sat and the thin one
continued. “After a little investigation it appears that your friends deleted
almost all the information we had on the ring and its control system.” The thin
one placed the briefcase on the table and opened it. He pulled out a file
folder and handed it to Mew. She found it filled with a picture of the ring
control, a single picture that labeled each button on the case and four
pictures that showed basic menu layouts.
She looked up from the photos. “And you’re here because?” She asked.
The wider gentlemen finally spoke. “You worked with the escapee’s
for nearly a year. Did you know anything about what they were planning, or do
you know if they had any backups for the information they destroyed?” He asked.
She shook her head. “If they had any backups that they didn’t take
with them they would have been on the station and that’s inside their
collective consciousness stuff.” She said.
The gentlemen nodded. “We have a team working on the two controls
we have left, but they are both very old, and the senate formally requests that
you accompany us back to the location where they are working and oversee and
test their work. We need to access the ring as soon as possible and you are the
last living person that has seen it work.
Mew wanted to tell them to leave but she looked up at her father
who was standing in the kitchen. He was all smiles and mouthed “go” at her.
She sighed heavily and nodded her consent. “Let me pack some
stuff.” She said.
