Mark F Hunt
by Mark F Hunt
Emily slowed in the hatchway, one hand still lazily hooked around the frame as if she’d forgotten whether she meant to enter or retreat. The engineering deck glowed low and amber, like it always did when Mike was in one of his moods. The lights were dimmed, the systems whispering instead of humming. The quantum flux array pulsed like a slow, patient heartbeat. And he was exactly where she’d expected to find him: cross-legged on the grated floor panels beside the core, sleeves rolled and grease smeared along his knuckles like ink stains he’d stopped bothering to wash off.
“…orbiting slow, out the viewport,” the AI murmured, its voice soft and almost human. The sound threaded through the deck speakers like breath across glass. “…I keep circling but you don’t come back around…”
Mike didn’t look up. He never did during these sessions. He just leaned back against the warm housing of the core with his eyes half closed, listening like the ship itself was confessing something personal. Emily’s brow furrowed.
“…it’s a cruel solar cycle…” the AI continued gently. “…we cool, and then we heat up again…”
Emily’s eyes widened. “Oh you have got to be kidding me.”
Mike’s gaze flicked up, slow and deliberate, like he’d known she was there the entire time and had simply been waiting for her to interrupt.
“You’re standing in the doorway again,” he said. “It’s unsettling.”
“That is Baylor Drift,” Emily said, pushing off the frame and striding in, pointing accusingly at the nearest speaker like it had personally offended her. “That is Cruel Solar Cycle. That is…” she gestured wildly, searching for the right level of outrage. “That is a club track. That’s not poetry, Mike.”
The AI paused. “Would you like me to adjust the tonal framing?” it asked politely.
“No,” Mike said, calm as a vacuum. “Continue.”
“Yes, continue!” Emily snapped at the same time.
The AI hesitated then resumed, now sounding faintly uncertain.
“…hang the stars low in the glow of the supernova we’re causing…”
Emily dragged a hand down her face. “I have heard this song drunk in six different systems. There were lights, Mike. There were bad decisions.”
“Still poetry,” he said.
“It has a bass drop.”
“It had a bass drop.”
“That doesn’t make it better!”
Mike tilted his head slightly, studying her now with that quiet, dissecting attention he reserved for broken systems and unpredictable people.
“You recognized it immediately.”
“Because it’s everywhere.” Emily threw her hands up. “It’s like… galactic background noise at this point. You can’t just,” she gestured again, helpless, “you can’t just rebrand it as art because the AI reads it like it’s about to cry.”
The AI, obligingly: “I can increase emotional resonance if-“
“Do not,” Emily and Mike said in unison.
Silence. Emily blinked at him. Mike didn’t react.
“Okay that was unsettling,” she muttered.
He shifted slightly, resting his head back against the core casing. “It is about orbital decay,” he said. “Metaphorically.”
“It is about a guy who ghosted someone after a six-week station fling,” Emily shot back.
“Same thing.”
She stared at him. He stared back. Somewhere between them, the engine let out a soft ticking sound as it cooled, like it was trying very hard not to laugh.
Emily huffed and dropped down onto the floor next to him, mirroring his posture without realizing it.
“You’re impossible,” she said, though there was less heat in it now.
“You’re loud.”
“You love that about me.”
Mike didn’t answer.
The AI, helpfully: “…you love that about-“
“Stop.” Mike said.
Silence settled again, softer this time. The kind that didn’t demand filling. Emily leaned back on her hands, looking up at the exposed conduits overhead.
“You’ve been feeding it songs, haven’t you?”
“Data is data.”
“You’re turning the ship into a sad girl playlist.”
“It’s already a failing system held together by unresolved tension,” Mike said. “It fits.”
Emily let out a short laugh despite herself. “Wow. Didn’t know you did self-awareness.”
“I don’t,” he said. “I do pattern recognition.”
She glanced at him sideways. “So what, you just sit down here and have the AI read you breakup lyrics like it’s ancient literature?”
“Sometimes,” he said.
“That is…” She searched for the right word, then gave up. “Deeply concerning.”
There was another pause, then then Mike spoke. “Play the next piece.”
Emily groaned. “Oh no, absolutely not.”
“…sun spots of ice, twin moons like eyes…”
Emily froze. “Okay, that one’s actually…” she stopped, squinting. “Wait. Is that also…?”
Mike’s mouth barely twitched. “Yes.”
Emily pointed at him, scandalized. “You are unbelievable.”
“And you’re still listening.”
She opened her mouth to argue, but then didn’t. Because she was.
The engine hummed. The ship breathed. And somewhere between a pop song and a poem, something warm and fragile settled into the space between them, like a gravity neither of them had agreed to but neither quite resisted.
“…it’s just a cruel solar cycle…” the AI whispered again, softer now, as if it understood the weight of it.
Emily leaned her head back against the metal wall, exhaling slowly.
“Don’t tell anyone about this,” she muttered.
Mike closed his eyes. “Who would believe them.”
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