Lopsided Tenancy

PAVEL: Put that on the safety poster.

18:56:54 UTC — Station systems event

EXTERNAL ANTENNA: DOWN EXTERIOR ACCESS: LOCKED PERSONNEL COUNTER: 4 / 4

18:57:08 UTC — Group text, PARK / HALDANE / SARAN / NOVÁK

HYEJIN: I am angry. I am also glad you are inside.

HYEJIN: Was that a safety instruction or a rejection?

MAURA: Safety instruction. Not rejection. I refuse any emotional decision made while a roof tries to remove us.

IVO: Record amended: me too.

PAVEL: Soup improves decisions. This kitchen holds peer-reviewed evidence.

HYEJIN: My check-in: I want a date with both of you after this. I want kisses, if everyone asks. I want work to stay work when it needs to be work. I can stop at any moment.

MAURA: I want that. I can stop at any moment. Either of you can too. No crisis turns a yes into an obligation, or a no into a discussion.

IVO: I want both of you, an ordinary future, and fewer roof-based metaphors. I can stop at any moment. A pause needs no defence.

HYEJIN: Accepted.

MAURA: I want to say it aloud after the generator settles.

HYEJIN: Yes.

IVO: Yes. The generator currently believes it is the protagonist.

18:57:46 UTC — Park handset, unsent text

The corridor smells of wet wool, hot metal, and Pavel’s scorched coffee. Maura’s glove has split at the thumb. I want to inspect it. I want to tell her I was afraid. Instead, I type like an instrument with a cracked display.

Draft not sent.

18:58:39 UTC — Voice memo, CHECK-IN / AUTO-SAVED

[Metal ticks in the walls. The generator’s uneven note evens out.]

MAURA: This is my record. I want a relationship with both of you, if it remains freely wanted by all three of us. I want dates, kisses, and clear questions before touch. I want you to tell me if I make protection sound like abandonment. I can stop at any moment. You can stop at any moment.

HYEJIN: I want both of you. I want us to go slowly enough that our work stays clean and our lives feel like ours. I want the right to revise this. I can stop at any moment, and I want either of you to stop without having to persuade me.

IVO: I want both of you too. I want breakfast, bad films, reports filed on time, and kisses we ask for. I can stop at any moment. Nobody owes the others a reason.

PAVEL: [from somewhere near the galley] Marvellous. You have made consent sound like a safety briefing, which is frankly the hottest competent thing any of you has done.

[Three people laugh.]

MAURA: Are we agreed that none of this started because we were scared?

HYEJIN: Agreed.

IVO: Agreed.

18:59:12 UTC — Power-management log

GENERATOR BUS A: STABLE HEATING LOOP: RESTORED EXTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS: FAILED INTERNAL NETWORK: AVAILABLE

18:59:28 UTC — Group text

MAURA: Equipment bay. I need to verify the relays.

HYEJIN: May I come?

IVO: I am already there, allegedly working.

MAURA: Please.

19:00:06 UTC — Equipment-bay recorder

[The ventilation fan turns. “Pink + White” by Frank Ocean begins quietly from Ivo’s phone.]

[The latch clicks. Hyejin enters holding Maura’s spanner. Maura has a hand at Ivo’s sleeve.]

IVO: Yes.

[Maura kisses Ivo. It lasts only a moment before Ivo bumps the tool trolley with their hip. The wrench rolls beneath a cabinet.]

IVO: That was deliberate equipment testing.

MAURA: Of course it was.

HYEJIN: I brought the spanner. I appear to have arrived for a very specific maintenance task.

IVO: Very technical.

MAURA: Hyejin, do you want to?

HYEJIN: Yes. May I kiss you both?

MAURA: Yes.

IVO: Very yes.

[Hyejin kisses Maura, then Ivo. They laugh again, close enough to be ridiculous and still fully dressed in station layers.]

PAVEL: [intercom] If the equipment is verified, private quarters exist. You are all over thirty. Use doors.

MAURA: Private quarters?

HYEJIN: Yes. And anyone may stop at any moment.

IVO: Yes. Dry socks first; new decisions later.

MAURA: Agreed.

[Bootsteps leave the bay. The recording fades to the ventilation fan and “Pink + White” by Frank Ocean.]

14 September — Records clerk closing entry

Chronology supplied to the safety inquiry. Archive retained in its recovered lopsided order. The encrypted agreement returned unopened to the safe. Its signatories were better at stating terms than Morrow Station software was at keeping time. — E. Soto

14 September, 07:12 UTC — Galley maintenance log, Novák

MUGS, CERAMIC / GALLEY INVENTORY: 3 absent. Cause: not recorded.

PAVEL: “Congratulations, idiots. File the paperwork before you invent a fourth weather emergency.”