<< BACK TO RS001 LOG ================================================================================ SHIP: 扬子江重型运输舰-17 [Yángzǐjiāng Heavy Carrier 17] TERM: PRI-140-020 USER: kai.youngblood ================================================================================ I was up late last night looking through the programs available on my private terminal. Buried in there, I saw that we can queue up messages to be sent out through the QEC directly. I don't know anyone else who would find this interesting. What with things like "time debt" and other quantum-related curiousities, I doubt it's likely that anyone who might be reading this is in any position to write back. There's a good chance nobody will ever read this at all. It's amazing to me. Here I am, typing at a computer terminal, sending messages via quantum entanglement instantaniously across distances that are meaningful even at a cosmic scale. We've achieved so many things our ancestors couldn't even comprehend. But I'm still so human, still basically the same as the caveman looking into the fire on a cold night: alone and afraid. I've been thinking about my mom a lot lately. She had her flaws. And I wasn't even the one to receive the worst of her. She lived in a fantasy world, superstitious to the point of delusion. She was so intent on building her own little universe in her mind that when the real world managed to penetrate into her reality, she couldn't even see it for the beautiful, magical place that it is. It just looked scary to her, and she would retreat even deeper. But that world that she created, she let us in. And it was, really, a nice place to be. When we were kids, sometimes she would let us skip school, and we would find a park or a corner of the library, or some path. And we would pretend that time wasn't moving, and nothing would ever change. I would be a kid forever, and the world was a gentle place, and my mom would always be there for me. A couple nights ago, I couldn't sleep and I went wandering the halls. Ended up taking a maintenance assignment even though I was off duty. It wasn't anything major, just a bad pressure sensor. I had to suit up, though, in case it wasn't just a problem with the sensor. Even though I knew it wasn't a big deal, seeing the airlock close behind me when I entered the hull almost drove me into a panic. I was cut off, alone. I was still there, but I had nobody to tell. And if there really was a hull breach somewhere, and it turned out bad? I would die floating in space. Alone and afraid.