Pulvirenti Giorgio - Proxima B

“Come on, my friend, admit it! You may have done some nice blonde girls!”

Michael glanced at him almost threateningly. Sten realized that he would rather give it a rest and devote himself to the wiping of some glasses with a tea towel before putting them back in place.

“Do you mind if I stay here a little longer?” the man asked him. His expression was getting sadder.

Sten looked at him carefully, and then he replied, “You know I’d never kick you off, Mr. Stateman… You’re my best customer!”

Michael outlined some kind of smile and raised his glass, which meant that he was asking for some more whiskey.

“Actually, I did meet a nice blonde…,” he said while he was looking for Sten’s gaze.

“Did you? Who was she?” the barman asked him.

“She was a doctor in Washington… I was there for a lecture,” he answered.

Sten started to look at Michael just like he used to do after his tenth glass.

“I was asked to be the pilot of a spaceship that is going to take part in a mission of colonization of another planet in order to save the Earth,” Michael confessed. His speech caught the attention of the five men playing pool. Sten laid the tea towel and approached the ex-pilot, pulling the glass off the counter.

“So, you should save the Earth, shouldn’t you? Very good, Mr. Stateman!” Stan said; he smiled almost mockingly at Michael while he was exchanging a few glances with the pool players that began to come towards the counter.

“I dare say that we already scored today…,” the counterman said finally while beginning to wash the glass in which the man had gulped down his whiskey.

“So, tell me: what’s with the mission, bro?”

One of the five men, a colored one, went next to Michael and put a hand on his shoulder, as if he, who did not believe anything he said either, wanted to mock him, especially given the condition in which the ex-Marine was.

“And to think that I was bothering about dying here on Earth while this hero is going to save us all!” a man mumbled snootily. He and other men were surrounding Michael, who was still sitting comfortably on his stool. Sten had already realized how things would go on, so he tried to handle the situation.

“Boys, let it alone!” he said, but another big guy motioned for silence.

“So, big man… If you can’t save yourself, how could you save mankind?”

As soon as the man uttered these words, Michael swung around abruptly, hitting him with his violent fist right in the face, which made him almost fall off the stool.

A fight broke out among the five men and Michael. Kick after kick, punch after punch, Michael could do nothing but watch that show that was nothing short of poor while the remaining people were about to leave that place hastily. Apparently, Michael was doomed, since he was fighting alone against five petty thugs. Instead, he made it. He hurled the stool at two of them, who were floored and left lying stunned on the ground. Then he floored two other men by hurling two glasses at them right in the face. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the four men that he had hit moving in front with difficulty towards the exit of the pub. There was still another man and that is the first who had hit him. Given that Michael was hardly lucid anymore, the man choked him out, which made his head slam against the counter, stunning him.

“Here is your mission!” he exclaimed. He was convinced that he had knocked Michael out. So, he could walk towards the exit and join his accomplices. But the ex-Marine got back to his feet, all of a sudden; he grabbed one of the wooden cues and used it to hit the man’s neck from behind. The man felt he was attacked, so he tried to set himself free by kicking back at Michael that was therefore obliged to ease the grip. As they faced each other, Michael used one of his knees to break the cue into two pieces, whose ends were now pointed.

“Let’s go, son of a bitch, come close!” Michael mumbled through split lips. He pointed the sharp cue at the colored man.

He was about to attack him, when the man stopped him.

“NO! DON’T MOVE! OKAY!”

He was still speaking when he beckoned the four other men to leave. Finally, he said, “Let’s quit… He’s mad…”

The five men left the place, leaving Michael, who was holding what remained of the cue in his hand, and Sten, who had watched everything without saying a word, alone. Michael threw the pieces of wood on the floor once they were alone. Then he turned to the counterman. Disorder was all around.

“Sorry, Sten, sorry…”

While he was trying to apologize for what he had done, he put one hundred dollars on the counter, trying to repair the damage done in the pub. They glanced at each other one more time, and then Michael left the premises.

San Diego, California.

Amelia was in her now familiar operating theater with her team. She was struggling with yet another case of acute myocarditis in a relatively young patient. Unfortunately, it was a rather widespread pathology caused by Polytected Heartimus virus that had been gripping the global population, especially the people aged between 20 and 35, for almost ten years. According to scientists, the strain of the virus came from inadequate hygiene in most of the citizens. Thankfully, this pathology could be treated with a heart surgery that, however, most of the times could not keep the virus from spreading. That morning it was more difficult than usual for the doctor to work due to lack of concentration.

“Doctor, is anything okay?” Sady asked her. Sady was the third member of her team.

“Yes, it is, Sady. I’m only a bit tired… We’re almost done. Open the fourth arm,” Amelia answered.

Jenny kept on looking at her friend. She knew her well and she knew that there was something odd about her.

After about fifteen minutes, the surgery was successful as usual. Amelia took off her surgical mask and left the room without saying anything beneath the gazes of the rest of the members of the team.

Once she was in the corridor, she heard someone calling her from behind.

“Wait, Amelia!”

It was Jenny, who was walking fast. Finally, she caught up with her.

“Is anything okay?” the woman asked her.

“Yes, everything is okay…,” Amelia answered in a tone that sounded anything but sincere.

“I know you too well not to see that there is something wrong with you,” the woman made it clear. Then she kept on saying, “What about going grabbing something tonight?”

Amelia waited a few seconds before answering. Then she said, “Well, I don’t know…” Her tone was a bit undecided.

“It’ll be good for you to go out for a while,” her friend kept on saying.

“That’s okay. I am picking you up at 9 o’ clock if you don’t mind,” she said.

“Very good! See you tonight!”

The two friends said their goodbyes. Amelia started to walk through the hallway to reach her room.

That same evening the two friends met at one of the most fashionable Chinese restaurants in San Diego. They were sitting facing each other while having sushi and spring rolls.

“…Many more young people than older people will be going under the knife,” Jenny said before sipping some white wine, and then she looked at Amelia. “You were telling me about the lecture,” she kept on saying.

The woman’s expression changed as soon as she heard her colleague utter that sentence and she, too, drank a little white wine to take the edge off.

“So, who is that famous doctor that should hold that lecture?” Jenny asked once again.

“Actually, I lied to you…,” Amelia answered.

“What do you mean?” her friend asked her straightaway.

“It wasn’t an Australian doctor’s lecture, but the lecture of the American government in collaboration with NASA!”

Jenny frowned.

“You lost me, Amelia…,” she said.

“In short, a mission to take some groups of people on another planet beyond the Solar System in order to colonize it,” Amelia said.

Once these words were uttered, Amelia felt like she had just set herself free from a burden. Jenny did not say anything for a few seconds.

“Many professionals are being recruited. I have been selected as surgeon in order to start a new medical center on Proxima B!” the doctor added while Jenny kept on looking at her.

“Well, hell, Amelia, this is a fantastic piece of news!” her friend exclaimed suddenly. Then she added, “That’s why you’ve been so mysterious in these last days… And why haven’t you said anything about it before?”

“Well, actually, only Mr. McKenzie knew about it. And now you know it too,” Amelia pointed out while starting eating some pieces of fish again. Her gaze was still a bit lost anyway.

“I don’t know what the problem is,” Jenny wondered.

“I still haven’t decided whether to accept or not, and I have to do that in four days from today,” Amelia revealed. “Then,” she concluded, “I’ll have to appear before the seat of New NASA Corporate in Washington again.”

Jenny stopped a little longer this time. The two women had been friends for a long time, and Jenny had always agreed to be Amelia’s vice without ever holding anything against her. However, this could be the right occasion to take over from Amelia as the person in charge of the head of the team, far be it from her to rub her friend’s nose in it.

“If I had such a chance, I wouldn’t let it pass me by, not at all,” Jenny pointed out almost sarcastically. Her tone caught Amelia’s attention.

“The fact is that you’ll have to change your life totally, you know… I shall leave Earth forever, I shall abandon…,” she answered.

Jenny interrupted her friend abruptly, asking him, “What? What should you abandon?”

“Don’t you know that we are like sisters and that I always tell you what I think in a heartbeat? It’s a unique chance, Amelia! You’ll be a woman that’ll make history! Your nearest and dearest are not so many, apart from me and Thomas.”

Amelia pondered those words for a while. Jenny put the glass of wine on the table and put her hand on her friend’s hand.

“I’ve always admired you, Amelia. For everything. And you know it. But you don’t know how much envious I am of you right now... but this feeling is overwhelmed by the fondness and the respect that lead me to tell you to just accept this mission. There’s a reason why you have been chosen: because you’re the best! You have to go! You should go!”

While Amelia was listening to Jenny’s words, she put her other hand on her friend’s hand and indulged in a sincere smile.

Chicago, Illinois.

It was late March and the evening in Chicago was pretty fresh for that period. Jerry was in his bedroom and, even though it was way after 9:00, he had not had his supper yet. His mother’s voice resounded through the corridor of the flat on the seventh floor of the building on Albany Ave, recalling his name.

“Mom, I told you I’m not hungry!” the boy answered, shouting at her for the umpteenth time, which rendered him almost impatient.

Jerry was lying on his three-quarter bed while turning a letter over and over in his hand. It was a special letter for him. He had written it after the lecture in Washington and it had to be handed over to Isabel. When? How? He did not know it yet. He read it again, for the umpteenth time, looking for the slightest mistake, but his attention was seemingly distorted by other thoughts at that moment, namely the project called For the benefit of all! in which he had decided to take part. He still could not believe what had been proposed to him during the lecture. He had not showed any hesitation, since that mission was a chance that he or any other young biologist that was passionate about astronomy as well could not let pass by. There were two other issues to deal with, though, namely his mother and Isabel. He had not had the opportunity (or, rather, he had not been brave enough) to tell his mother, Francesca, about his decision; she thought that her son had gone in Washington for an internship that the University of Chicago had organized. His days were going by and maybe the time to broach the subject with his mother had come. As for Isabel, he had arranged to ask her on a date after work so that he could deliver the letter to her and tell her anything. Or at least that was his plan. But first he had to face his mother. Finally, he plucked up his courage and left his room. He knew that she used to take her seat in the armchair and watch one of her favorite TV series after suppertime. He walked through the tiny hallway and saw her sitting there. She was calm and relaxed. The right moment to tell her everything had come.