“Second place is the first loser” – Dale Earnhardt-Dale Earnhardt
“18.7, good!”
Good? Like he was going to top that? I dropped my racket. “Alright, your turn,” I shouted, running toward him.
Chris handed over the speed gun and jogged to the baseline. I crouched down at the net. “Go!”
The ball whizzed by.
“19.1, alright!” I put more enthusiasm in the call than I felt. Damn, he beat me.
“Yes, I win! Let’s do 25 more each and hit the showers. If we can both bump up to 20mph—Di, we’ve got this thing, no question,” he said, shaking his shoulders out while hopping in place. He was right, of course.
We were training for the pickleball doubles tournament next month. We came to the court every morning at 5am—before the club opened, before anyone else showed up. We were done by six, on our way back home by 6:20. No one knew we were training this hard, which was the angle we were working: show up to the tournament, run a few balls into the net during warmup like a pair of idiots, then whip out our serves and clean up the court.
The Platinum Pickle trophy was ours.
“Meet you at the car in 15?” He asked on our way to the locker rooms.
“I’ll be there in 13,” I answered. I saw the look in his eyes, why I loved him so much: it was on.
6:17am, we were hustling to get the car doors shut. My ass was on the passenger seat, hands raised in triumph when the cellphone rang.
“Chester.”
“Di, I’m calling in that favor.” It was the editor for Hot Ticket, the travel writing mag that was in every seat pocket of every international plane. It was the steadiest gig I’ve ever had, the biggest paycheck I’ve ever earned. My bread, my butter, my Tibet Entry Permit fees, my mountaineering license to climb Chomalungma, the highest peak in the world.
Shit.
“Chester, I said ‘whenever’ and I meant it. Make your ‘whenever’ late June, and I’ll give you my account of climbing Mt. Everest along with whatever you’re asking for today.”
“I’d like to accommodate you of course, but I don’t have time to wait around for your fingertips to thaw out. I need this yesterday.”
“Chester…please. This is a significant trip for Chris and me. We’ve been training for eight years now.” I also suspected that Chris was going to propose—probably base camp or camp one, definitely before the death zone.
“I don’t want to have to remind you of how I covered your ass with the Mona Lisa misunderstanding and got you out of Paris, but I will if I have to. Besides, nobody is going to care about who gets on top of that old hump in the next six months—it’s all about the Solar System, and that, honey, is where you are going.”
“No, you don’t have to remind me, but I’m serious. You know I do good work. Let me do this climb and I’ll keep it generic enough so you can run it whenever you like—date it for next year if you have to.”
“Di, you know I support your climaxing, oops, I mean summiting needs, but this job can’t wait. The Lion’s Head is crowning into our solar system, and a peek of that is what I need from you.”
Chris squeezed my knee sympathetically as he drove. The neighborhood blurred by as the gears in my head were spinning faster and faster. There had to be a way.
“How about I interview the scientists tracking the asteroid? All the excitement of discovery, its trajectory so close to Earth…I’ll even interview a few of the solar cruise ship captains — get what it was like before the Lion’s Head, how traffic and interest has changed since its arrival.”
“How about you don’t pitch your editor when he is handing you a cover story on a platter? Solar cruising is the hottest ticket in town and hot tickets are what we’re all about. The government has commandeered most ships for official use and there are tolls on all the shipping lanes, but I was able to book you on what might very well be the last independent liner. I emailed you the ticket, should be in your inbox.”
His tone said he wasn’t asking. I knew when to stand down. I’d find another way. I couldn’t really keep the disappointment from my voice, though. “Thanks, Chester, I can’t wait.”
“That’s my firsthand story girl! Sorry about the ship, but it was slim pickings, and we need to beat Vagabondage.”
Sorry about the ship? What was it, a refueler with one window? “Gotcha,” I sighed.
“Ping me when you’re onboard and we can start running this as installments. Don’t sound so down—I’m picturing a Data Journalism award and then all the articles collected into one volume for the Pulitzer.”
That perked me up. “Will do, boss,” I answered.
Chris barely waited for me to disconnect. “Babe, we gotta do this trip.”
“I know, I know. Worst case, you go on ahead to Kathmandu and arrange the guide and Sherpa crew. I’m going have to go up to this cruise ship and call Chester from there—make it seem like I’m staying for the whole ride. I can write the thing now and talk someone up there into sending articles down to the magazine once a week.”
“Risky,” he said, turning into our driveway.
“I’ve done it before. Cairo before we ran the Zombie Mud Run, Galway before we won tandems in the Underwater Bike Race.”
“Hmm, good point. Still, those were places and races on Earth. This is, you know, space…”
“Chris, I want to climb Everest with you.” I looked into his eyes. He had to know what I was saying—yes to the unasked question.
“I want to climb it with you, too—it’s the adventure of a lifetime. But, you know…we don’t have to climb all of it together…”
What was he talking about? I wasn’t going to fly in, climb already in progress and hire a Sherpa to haul my ass over the ice falls trying to catch up with him. I mean, not unless I had to. “Go on.”
“How about we climb Camp 3 to summit together.”
So he was waiting for the death zone to pop the question.
“And before that?”
“Before that…we race.”
It was on.
***
The ticket was there just like Chester said. I looked at the booking and was pleasantly surprised: a first class cabin aboard Kitty Karol. I didn’t recognize the name, but I hadn’t expected to. Since The Lion’s Head asteroid had been spotted in the night sky, solar system cruises had become the most sought after ticket in the galaxy. Chester could have booked me a broom closet on the sanitation service trawler for all I cared, I wasn’t actually going to stay up there—good thing, too, because I was highly allergic to cats. I just needed a flat surface to sit my laptop on for 30 minutes, a handshake from the captain to agree to send the articles to Chester, and then I was turning right back around to Earth.
I wrote my three step plan out on a stickie:
1. Call and make an appointment with the captain
2. Go up to the ship, explain how I wanted to promote their particular line
3. Convince them to send an article down once a week
Do that, and I would be landing in Katmandu 10 days before Chris. I would be clearing the rhododendron forest before he finished pulling up his hiking socks.
This was a win for the cruise, a win for Chester, a win for me: win-win-win.
I liked winning.
“Kitty Karol.”
“Hi there, I’m a reporter for Hot Ticket and I’m hoping to schedule a meeting with the captain for a profile story we’re running.
“Di, is this you?”
“What? Who is this?”
“It’s me, Lina, CEO of Karol Liners. We met-”
“Two years ago when you let me hop a ride to the Caribbean for the killer jellyfish! Of course, sorry, I just didn’t recognize the name from my ticket-”
“We had to team up with Meow-Meow Kitty since all our ships have been commandeered by the Defense Department. The government is forcing different cruise companies to bunk in together. We got off lucky—have you heard about Proud Brony Boys?”
“What the hell? Don’t even tell me what that combines. Maybe that should be the angle of my story.”
“The government rebranding itself as pirates of the solar system? It’s a hell of a story, but it will never run. Anyway, I’m not just the secretary, I’m also the captain. Did you say something about making a date?
Oh, damn. Being a travel writer calls on many different skills. I’m pretty good at reading emotions even if I don’t understand the language. Lina was oh, I’d say mid-50s, tall, dirty blonde hair in a stylized tousle, piercing green eyes, usually dressed in club leathers and spiky heels. She ran a lesbian cruise line like a chicken hawk let loose in a hen house. Eight years ago, when Chris and I had first started dating, Chester needed to beat Scuba Baby for a death by stinging jellyfish story. Karol Liners was the only ship in the Carribbean, thus my only chance. That story opened the world of travel writing to me.
Is it possible I led Lina on at the time? Maybe.
Did I correct her when she referred to Chris as “she”? Maybe not.
“Yeah, I’m calling to set up a date…to talk to you about running a story. Do you think you could find some time? I’m on a tight deadline.” I was a little rusty at this flirting thing.
“It’s tight for us all with this thing whizzing by. Why don’t you come up, say, tomorrow at 11am and I’ll see if I can loosen you up a little?”
“Oh, Lina, thank you so much! I really appreciate you letting me have this opportunity.”
Letting me have this opportunity? What the hell was wrong with me—I sounded like I was applying for a job.
“Your welcome. A word of advice: use a Satellite of Love shuttle, not a Space Oddity—they’re slow as hell.”
***
“You got up here fast!” She had waited by the shuttle entrance and was all over me as soon as I stepped onto Kitty Karol. Her lipstick looked fresh and the eyeliner had recently been touched up. I had gone for a femme sporty look: headband to keep my shoulder length red hair back, cropped yoga top, black joggers, black sneakers. I needed to keep her attention without seeming like I had dressed for a date. I needed all the black to help keep the cat hair off: the lint brush was in my purse.
“Good shuttle advice—Space Oddity is still clearing orbit. Listen, I won’t take much of your time—I can only imagine how much pressure this merger must be putting on you.”
“Well, sometimes I like a little pressure.” She smiled demurely, running her fingers through her hair.
Thank goodness we were in public.
“So, Chester, my editor, wants a story about people coming up to see the asteroid. The thing is, Chris—you remember Chris, and I are climbing Everest together. Lina, this trip means so much-”
“Chris is still in the picture? Wow, I guess you don’t mind settling.”
I swallowed and kept going. “I’ve already written a profile of Karol Liners, but I’d like an interview with you—make sure the piece includes a close-up of the captain, her world. I could use some pointers about how to include Meow-Meow Kitty, and then the whole story is done. I roughed out eight installments. Once we talk, I can spend an hour tightening up the prose, then I’d just need to connect my laptop to this public kiosk before I leave today. All you’ll need to do is hit this button,” her eyebrows shot up. I ignored it and showed her the interface—couldn’t have been simpler, “And that will release each one to Chester at weekly intervals—just the length of your cruise.”
“The thing is, Di, Meow-Meow Kitty has spyware and malware on everything. You’ll need a secure connection for the kind of thing you’re talking about. Come up to my cabin, my computer is off their grid. We can go over this weekly release idea.”
Shit.
Well, what was I going to do?
I sneezed.
“Oh no, I’m a little allergic to cat hair.”
“Don’t even worry about it! The only actual cat allowed onboard is Miss Fiddles, Felix the pilot’s cat. Everyone else just talks about their cats and shares videos.”
“Great,” I said, “let’s go.”
Her cabin made the Waldorf Astoria look like an abandoned subway station. The disco balls and string lights put Studio 54 to shame. The sunken hot tub was surrounded by speakers and lights and several dance floors, enough space to host a rave. I couldn’t believe it.
“Wow, this is amazing!”
“Oh, you should see my real cabin—this is just the stuff I could cram into 5,000 square feet. I didn’t realize that this whole government ‘serve your country’ thing meant captains had to start living like pilgrims on the Mayflower. I had to combine my mani/pedi station with the wet bar. They say it’s only temporary.”
“You do nice work.”
“Yes, I do. Maybe you’ll find out sometime—if you and your Chris are open to that sort of thing. Hell, bring her along, I’m inclusive.”
Not that inclusive, I thought. “So you have a private computer?”
“Right, let me show you.” Lina took me to Chinese Qing Dynasty 19th century Shanxi cabinet and opened the black lacquer doors to reveal a 40” screen. She pushed a button and her computer sprung to life.
“That’s your desktop—no password?”
“I’m safe, I don’t need protection. No one comes up here without my invitation.” There was an edge to her flirting tone.
“Ok, so I can just slide this in…” I connect my laptop.
“Oh, yes, slide that in,” she purred.
“And it’s the same system as what I described down in your entrance area. Everything’s already done, you just need to send one article a week—they’re all numbered.”
“Shouldn’t be too hard.”
A neon cat paw with bloody scratch marks flashed across the screen.
“What does that mean?”
“Must’ve been something on your machine—mine’s clean.”
“Oh, well, ok, as I was saying, just hit this button and another installment will head down to Chester.”
The neon cat paw flashed up again and then the whole system froze.
“I don’t have anything like this on my machine,” I said turning to her, “you sure this isn’t the spyware you mentioned?”
“I told you this is all private up here,” the breathiness in her voice was gone, leaving just sharp nails.
“Well, no worries, these things happen. Let me just restart, that should take care of it.” I reached ‘round the back and hit the power.
We stood there for a moment, not saying anything.
Then the computer booted back up and the screen turned on. A hissing cat face took up the whole screen, then cat photos popped up at lightening speed and the speakers screeched out a high pitched alarm.
“Well now look what you’ve done!” Lina’s eyes flashed.
With flirting over, I was getting a glimpse at the real predator beneath that smooth veneer.
“Me? My computer was working just fine until I hooked it into your unprotected circuit.”
“My computer was perfect until you came along with that cheap little box. Who knows what other systems you pimped that thing out to.” Her was stomping about and waving her hands. Her hair had gone from calculated bedhead to snarled mop.
We stood there yelling nonsense at each other until I threw my hands up in frustration and left the dance hall. She was still hurling accusations when I slammed the front door. What a wasted trip. I went back down to the embarkation area and hopped on one of the public displays to book a shuttle and get the hell out of there.
Meow-Meow Kitty had rigged all their public terminals to show only cat-centric events: cat trivia, raffles for cat toys, the schedule for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof staged in a cat playhouse, competition for best owner/cat photos. There was no external browser for me to see a shuttle schedule and get a ticket. Bullshit, I wasn’t having it.
Lina was going to come and at any moment and pounce on me, really get her claws in, maybe even threaten to call Chester. I pulled a cable out of my bag and hooked my laptop into the back of a display. I could boost into their connection then use my machine to make the arrangements.
That neon cat paw with bloody scratch marks appeared on my screen and disappeared. Crap, this race was on now. I pulled up a Satellite of Love schedule, but they were booked solid. Same with Space Oddity, Moonage, and Lady Starlust. Fantastic Voyage had one seat left. After I entered my credit card, the processing wheel just spun without confirming my seat.
Standing there and waiting was killing me. Literally. Miss Fiddles walked by and set off a round of wheezing. My throat felt scratchy.
I pulled up the Space Skype app and connected with Proud Brony Boys to see if maybe they would like a high profile, fawning endorsement of their cruise.
“Hey Kitty Karol, what’s up?” A bored voice said as a bearded face filled the screen. I wasn’t sure if he was all far-right or all quarter pony. Or how to tell the difference.
“Hi, this is Di from Hot Ticket, I’m looking to do a story-”
“Hot Ticket! I loved your article on the Kentucky Pony Show! What can I do for you, Pegasister?” He shook his head in excitement.
Ahh, Brony. I gave him my high profile cover story pitch, and he was stomping the ground with excitement by the time I finished.
“I’m sending over our shuttle-to-shuttle cabriolet right now, see you in 20!”
“I’m pulling up the reins on that, Seabiscuit. Go back to your stable,” a deep voice said behind him. The bearded face was replaced by another bearded face, this one sour and angry.
“Hi there,” I said, “this is Di from Hot-”
He held his hand up. “Stop right there. I see you’re on Kitty Karol’s connection. That ship is now in quarantine. No one leaves, no one boards.”
“Wow, you run a tight ship,” I was stalling for time—I needed out of here.
“Teach, control, reinforce, refine. It’s the only way to deal with these mules.” His eyes took on the screen stare of someone looking at something else with the camera on. “We’re showing symptoms of your virus, I’m ending this call now, we’re on antivirals here on out.” His thumb grew huge in the camera for a moment.
Then the screen went black.
I looked around in desperation. The lobby was starting to fill for the pre-show cocktails. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was starting in 20 minutes. I needed to call Chester.
“Excuse me,” I said, approaching a staff member wearing cat ears. “I’m looking for a quiet place to make a call…”
“Yes, ma’am. You are welcome to use any of our sound-proofed privacy booths. He pointed to a row of large plastic boxes outside the theater entrance.
“Are those-”
“Human-sized enclosed kitty litter boxes, yes.”
The kitty litter box had a comfy recliner in the middle, but the floor was scattered with lemon scented kitty litter that made my nose itch in a new way. I crunched across and took a seat.
“Chester.”
“How’s it going, Di?”
I worked to keep the desperation from my voice. “Kitty Karol is having a bit of a computer issue. Can I send you a few installments now in case the whole system shuts down?”
“I’ll take the first one, that will be a good idyllic lead-in to how things are shaping up up there.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s not just Kitty Karol with the computer problem. The news is reporting that the Proud Brony Boys cruise has lost steering capabilities and is drifting dangerously close to the Lion’s Head.”
What? “I was just talking with them!”
“Ooh, make notes now before you forget. When it crashes, we’ll have the exclusive.”
“Chester, I need to get off of this ship!” I was willing to spill the whole plot to him if he could send up a private shuttle and get me back to Earth. I hit “send” on the first story.
“Ha, nice cat image—what are those, bloody claws? That will be some good foreshadowing.”
He had no idea.
“Chester, I never meant to stay up here, I was-”
“Di? Di? Can you hear me…something’s happening to our connection. I’m putting this story out right now, we need to scoop-” the line went dead.
“Chester? Chester?” It was no use.
I sat there. Frustrated. Bored. Angry. Sleepy. Asleep.
The gasping noise woke me up. It was coming from me. Miss Fiddles was on my head, kneading her paws into my scalp. I shoved her off and sat up, coughing. I could feel eyes swelling shut, my nose itching, my throat closing. I felt like I was coming out of my skin. I jumped up, and skidded on the litter, twisting my ankle. That, too, began to swell.
Then my cellphone rang.
I approximated a leap toward it—more like an enthusiastic hobble, and pulled up the call.
“Babe.”
“Chris! Oh, it’s so good to hear your voice!”
“Sweetie, where are you? Are you crying?”
“I’m still on Kitty Karol—I can’t get a shuttle off of here. My allergies are kicking in and I didn’t bring any meds with me—I never thought I’d be up here this long. I didn’t think cats could come to space.”
“Oh, Babe, I wish I could send you up your inhaler. Things are pretty bad here—there’s a computer virus pandemic sweeping the globe. Thank goodness I’m already on the mountain. No planes, no shuttles, no control.”
“How did this start?”
“Last news I heard was that it looks like some kind of cat image. There aren’t any more shuttles going up from Earth, but you might be able to get one down.”
“OK, I’m going to go to the bridge and see what I can find out.”
“Call me, I’ll be climbing.”
I felt that itch of competition, but what could I do from here? I crawled out of the kitty litter box and tried to figure out where the bridge would be.
Miss Fiddles followed me out, rubbed against me and kept going.
She was Felix the pilot’s cat. Good enough clue for this sleuth: I followed her.
It was chaos on the bridge. The crew was shouting out numbers, coordinates, estimates, contingencies. The asteroid was seconds away from hitting us.
The impact shook a filling out of one of my back molars. Felix the pilot lunged at the controls and tried to even it out, but it was too late. Kitty Karol caromed off of Lion’s Head and went into a tailspin. We were falling out of orbit, and the asteroid was right behind us.
The Earth was getting bigger and bigger.
We were going to crash.
“Impact in 5 minutes.”
The ship shook and shimmied through reentry. The browns started to look like land, the blue slabs like oceans.
“Where are we going?” I cried.
“I can’t control the landing,” Felix yelled, punching his keyboard.
A mountain range loomed on the horizon.
I called Chris. Oh, to hear his voice one more time before the end.
There was the sound of wind in the background.
“Chris, Chris…where are you now?
“Just left camp 3. I’m so sorry, Sweetie, there’s a storm coming and we’re going to have to turn around tomorrow. I couldn’t wait—I thought one of us should make it to the top. I’ll be at the summit within the hour.”
The Himalayas loomed. Everest’s wind-ravaged peak roared up at me.
“Impact in 20, 19, 18…”
“Within the hour? Chris, Chris, I love you. Can you hear me?”
“I hear you. I love you.”
“Can you see the blazing meteor above you?”
“I see it.”
“That’s me—I’m hitting the Everest summit in 5 seconds. Yes,” I yelled as we plunged into the peak, “I WIN!”