1THE GUY ON THE TARMAC
Seethat guy in the picture? The handsome one with the bent posterboard sign, who looks like he might want to throw up? That guy hasno ideaabout the adventure he’s fifteen minutes from embarking on.
Maybe everything that happened before the picture should have clued him in, but he’s not always quick on the uptake.Hethought there would be a little paperwork to do, and a small misunderstanding to clear up. Then he’d head to that tarmac with a free pair of his-and-hers gold rings in his pocket, ready to do his duty for his country. His species, even, and who doesn’t want to say,I got married to save the human race?
He was prepared to stand on that runway and pretend to fall in love with a stranger on first sight, then make them feel like the most important soul in his world. By his reckoning, he would live a simple, largely peaceful life. Not the life he expected as a boy, but a good one all the same. Likely, he’d end up a widower in one of the not-peaceful parts. He’d accepted that as much as person can when it comes to that sort of thing. It was part of what he signed up for, and he knew it.
God, was he ever wrong. Nothing is going to go down like that nervous bastard in the picture thinks it will. Especially that bit where he thinks he’ll pretend to fall in love. That whole charade will be a total bust.
That guy is me. Sebastian Hendrick. The man with the accidental husband.
* * *
A lot of people get that wrong.I’mnot the accidental husband.Ialways meant to be a husband. I signed up for it! On purpose! But when I filled out the paperwork, I selected the “heterosexual” box like any other son raised in an oppressively conservative executive’s home. You check “heterosexual”, you ignore the existence of the “bisexual”, “asexual”, “demisexual”, and “pansexual” boxes entirely, and if you don’t shoot a prim frown at the “homosexual” box as you scroll by it, you’re disowned forever.
Nevermind that I’d get disowned for filling out the paperwork at all, and really, let’s ignore the fact that I’d already been disowned years before. That frown has to happen, or the spirits of your dead ancestors will shame you from beyond the grave.
I expected to be a husband, is the point here, but I meant to have awife. What I received was an accidental husband who may not have been an accident at all, an awakening, and an adventure I could never have foreseen. Not even if I were quicker on the uptake.
2AS ABOVE, SO BELOW, OR, WHY YOU REALLY DO CARE ABOUT MARS
Once,while I rode the bus to work, I spoke to an older gentleman who “didn’t know why folks were worked up over all that space stuff”.
Because I am a thoughtful, empathetic man, or maybe because he wouldn’t shut his yapper and let me listen to my audiobook, I inquired further. It turns out that my man there changed the channel every time “that space stuff” came on, because, and I quote, “we have enough problems right here on Earth, don’t we?” Russia’s threats and sorties, the negotiations with China, the persistent and terrifying issue with North Korea, those were what he wanted to hear about, and not the war on Mars. This shameless ignorance left me too stunned to respond.
He took my silence as interest and kept talking. It was the longest bus rideever.
I bought a lemon of a used car the next week. It was worth it.
That conversation did make me think, though, and I did a little informal research on the subject. I found out Mister No Space Stuff isn’t alone. There are a discouraging number of people who do not know, or who simply fail to understand, how “that space stuff” connects to the conflicts on Earth.
Not all of them are channel-changers, either. They’re people who lost faith after the election scandals. Or the doctoring of the lunar colony reports. Or the coverage of the disastrous peace negotiations thatstartedthe Red Planet Conflict. Or maybe, my God, the treason convictions.
The gist of this digression is: Too many people have no idea what is happening in our solar system today. So I’m going to tell this story as though you know nothing about the big picture.
All that space stuff matters more than the old man on the bus knew. It especially mattered to that guy on the tarmac. You know, the one with the bent posterboard sign, who stood out there and waited to fall in love with a stranger matchmade especially for him by Mail Call Mates.
* * *
I signed up for Mail Call Mates three months after the most devastating break-up I’d experienced in three decades of life.
Until then, the honor of Worst Breakup had gone to the night of my junior prom, when Katey Pulaska dumped me next to the dance floor speakers. (Which were playing loud music at the time, so when she said she was breaking up with me, I had to ask her to repeat herself – yikes.) She immediately went off to dance with the captain of the lacrosse team, who was one-hundred-percent less nerdy than high school me.
He also had less homework, since he hadn’t loaded his course schedule with AP and college-credit classes like I had. This probably contributed to the end of that relationship. Note to past me: your gorgeous high school girlfriend does not want to spend Friday nights talking about chemistry equations. She’s looking for a different kind of chemistry entirely.
But I’d never proposed to Katey Pulaska, which meant, I hadn’t needed to endure the unique and exquisite humiliation of returning an engagement ring to a jewelry store. The clerk remembered me. Humiliation and broken hearts go together like lemon juice and glass shards, let me tell you.
That not-quite-chocolate-and-peanut-butter emotional parfait did wake me up, though. Thirty-two and newly single. No chance for a military posting. A bustling career teaching high school history. With that career came all the attendant perks, such as a ten-year-old Subaru and a small house that needed its sewer connections re-plumbed. My life had coasted into a dead end on the momentum of my past ambitions and rolled to a stop.
I could continue as a citizen of Ennuiville, or I could dredge up some of the patriotism I’d once felt and do my part to help. Maybe I couldn’t serve on the frontlines anymore. That didn’t mean I couldn’t serve the ones who did.
Mail Call Mates was, and still is, the only matchmaking organization endorsed by the United States Armed Forces. The service began its life as the Homefront Heroes Match Service, but with an official military contract came a top-down rebranding. They’d already been the biggest of the match services, and the endorsement (plus the quiet buyouts of the other services) ushered them straight to the top of the heap.
Of course the military endorsed them. They had to dosomethingafter the population forecast leaked and the problems with troop morale came to light. And, credit where credit is earned, the program they put into place has worked better than it had any right to. That’s largely down to the glorious tech heads who birthed the proprietary machine learning system used at Mail Call Mates.
Is M4-CH+M4-KR a true artificial intelligence? My degree isn’t in that field, and I’m under a non-disclosure agreement anyway, so I can’t say. Neither will Mail Call Mates. There’s speculation, though. Heaps of it. A little time with a search engine will net you some interesting results if you’re curious.
My unofficial opinion? It wouldn’t surprise me. Not one iota.