And so together we think about the future like it’s already there. Thing is she’s at the other side of the universe next to ours and we twiddle our thumbs aching for the next run.

I’ve come to grow familiar with the pain. You’d know it, like an automatic reflex. Like breathing, only this one has fangs.

“Billy?” she asked. It took en entire week to decode it. Hilarious little freaking D.

I got friends to assemble hover crafts to time the exit of the stars, that five-second window before dawn turns to morning, that’s when the message slips through.

Faith, a good man once said, makes the eye sharper. It does, really. Faith. Such a fleeting concept. And yet this is all that holds this entire enterprise. This, this great big section I sequestered from the labs. It took years, years, to plan it, to make it, and then to defend it to a world that does not believe in love.

Love.

That’s a whole other ball game.

“656-334-989,” I programmed the pod to reply. It will take another week for that message to get to her.

I’ve named five stars after her all the time I was here. One for each nick name. Midnight Sparkle, Lira, Jumping-J, Hannah, Da-Xia. These were her names and more. I’ve called her everything I can.

How does love survive this, really? How? To not see each other, to not hold each other’s hand? To have time and space and the very science of our lives conspiring, in a dark cosmic alley, to keep us apart.

Every day I think about this. But still I work. Still I help the humanity this side of the galaxy grow into upright citizens: respectful, knowledgeable, discerning.

One day, the numbers mean, one day I’ll crack the code.