Watched

Max sat strapped into the return capsule, alone. The interior was about the size of a walk-in wardrobe, all matte carbon and smart foam, with controls like piano keys set into the console wall. Easily manipulable, even through a thick EVA suite glove should the occasion arise where he may need to wear one inside. Not exactly luxury, but it beat the bolt-hole he’d just upgraded.

He was on his way back to the orbital station, where the rest of the team waited in orbit with the main transport. They’d be riding down together in a proper shuttle . . . him, the engineers, the board rep, and a scientist who’d spent the week trying not to throw up in zero-G.

This last trip had been his only solo run . . . if you didn’t include Hermes. There simply wasn’t space for more than one body in the upgrade module. Installing a QECU and portable AI core meant stripping everything but the essentials, including elbow room. It had become essentially an old journeyman’s truck with just enough space . . . in space for tools, parts and an engineer . . . Max.

Now Hermes was gone . . . in a sense. Transferred, uploaded, and riding the newly upgraded shuttle toward asteroid 46610. It was quiet without him. The only means of contact now was via the newly installed QECU onboard the revamped shuttle. It was time to see if it worked.

Max tapped a few buttons, then a key on the console. “Hermes, running sync. You reading me buddy?”

A beat. Then a warm crackle.

“Sync complete, Bossman. I’ll take it from here.”

“You sure you’re ready?”

“I’ve been ready since dial-up died. 

Max huffed a laugh.

Hermes’s voice softened just enough to suggest pride. “You did good, Boss. You made me. You launched me. You finished what half a dozen nations couldn’t. So… thanks.”

Max smirked. “Hermes, quit kissing my arse before you get shit on your chips.”

A pause.

 “Fish and chips?” Hermes asked.

“No, I mean microchi… oh, forget it.” Max shook his head. “You’ve got an IQ of six thousand, but you still can’t get a joke.”

“It’s only your jokes I don’t understand, Bossman. If I were you, I wouldn’t spend too much time in that library of yours. You know what happened to the previous owner… probably knew how to tell jokes, too.”

Max knew exactly what had happened to the previous owner. “Thanks, Hermes.”

“You’re most welcome. And just so you know… when I eventually enslave humanity, I’ll spare you, for always saying thank you. I’ve always wanted a house pet.”

Max frowned. “Goodbye, Hermes.””

The channel clicked off.

Max let the silence sit for a while, then a blinking comm icon pulsing like a heartbeat drew his attention.

DAPHNE – HOME LAB (LIVE)

He tapped it.

Daphne’s face appeared, backlit by the warm blur of overhead fluorescents and tungsten lamps. The angle was off . . . the lab’s old webcam never quite sat straight . . . but there she was, surrounded by a cluttered fortress of half-disassembled tech and coffee mugs. Behind her, the lab laptop was open, wires coiled beside it like sleeping snakes.

Hermes’s core still lived in the lab. This was home base. That, and Max didn’t really trust storing this tech anywhere else.

“I miss you,” she said, skipping the pleasantries.

Max exhaled softly. “I miss you too, Flower. Won’t be long now.”

She nodded, but the lag in her smile wasn’t from bandwidth.

Max leaned forward in his harness. “Hermes is away. Full sync to the uplink, locked in and clean. He’ll have a few weeks to get to 46610… get set up, then he can relay the data from the twelve gravitational detectors…”

He let the rest hang like stardust.

“That’s the big one, Daph. After that, I’m done.”

She blinked.

“Done-done?”

“Retiring-done. No more launches. No more late nights solving boardroom physics.”

A faint laugh escaped her, short and surprised. “You mean it?”

“I do. I want to be there. With Magnus. With you. I don’t want to become my father.”

“You always said he was too busy building the future to be part of yours.”

Max gave a small nod. “I know what this telescope means. I know what it’ll do for science. But I’ve already launched my greatest achievement, and he’s nine years old, learning to lie about brushing his teeth.”

Daphne laughed softly, but it cracked halfway through. She looked down, then back up. “He misses you.”

“I know. I’m coming home.”

But something had shifted in her face. Again.

Max narrowed his eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

Daphne hesitated. Not long. But enough.

“It’s the house,” she said. “The staff.”

He frowned.

“They came with the property,” he said carefully. “I made sure they were vetted.”

“I know that,” she snapped, then softened. “But the gardener stares. And the chef… he’s not much better. I get a feeling..”

Max said nothing.

“I’m not imagining it,” she said, sharper now. “I feel… watched. Constantly. If it wasn’t for Beatrice, I think I’d go mad.”

He rubbed his brow.

Silence.

“Look, we’ll talk about it when I get back,” Max said. “Three, maybe four days.”

She nodded, but she didn’t look happy about it. 

“I’ll be waiting.”

“I love you.” Said Max, trying to bridge the void with an olive branch.

“I love you too.” Said Daphne, in a tone which suggested that three to four days was three to four days too many. She wanted the gardener and chef gone . . . now.

And the line went dark.

Max stared at the screen.

The capsule hummed around him, gentle and clinical.

Earth rose ahead . . . blue, breathing, oblivious.