Crossroads with Half the Information Read online

  Crossroads with Half the Information

  Topaz Hauyn

  Crossroads with Half the Information

  Introduction

  Lottery Win: The Third Set of Doors

  The Griffin’s Wedding Ring

  Love as a Christmas Present

  The Flower on the Mountain Top

  Love against all Rules

  More Titles of Topaz Hauyn

  About the Author

  Newsletter

  Impressum

  Introduction

  Write what you like to read. That's a common phrase dished out to writers and authors alike.

  Now I love reading about strong woman, facing tough decisions. Those are the stories I can stay up all night for to read, knowing the next day will be hard on me, with the lack of sleep. No matter what, I read on.

  With my love for female characters in stories came the idea to write some myself and explore new worlds. Superheroes would have been a sure choice, but I wanted women from daily life. Real women who weren't gifted with super powers or billions on their bank account. Woman working a day job, women who lost their family and history, women who got a once-in-a-lifetime chance and women who headed out to challenge themselves.

  Those women face decisions all day. Usually, they have all the information they need at hand. Each one is competent in her life. What will they do, when thrown out of their comfort zone, thrown out of their world and time? On what will they decide when they lack information and the Internet connection to get them?

  Let's have a sneak peak.

  »Lottery Win: A Walk through the Third Pair of Doors« starts right on Earth, a bit into the future. Mankind invented a new way to travel from planet to planet in the solar system. A pair of doors. Step in on one side, step out on the other side. Travel with light speed and without all the training needed to steer a rocket. How's that sound? Great, right? Especially, given the chance to be the first person who uses a new pair of doors. An honor and a once-in-a-lifetime chance for a non-rich person. Real people know when it's safer to step back, don't they, Rita?

  In »The Griffin's Wedding Ring« I sent the character into a different world. With a different set of problems there. Have you ever imagined being married to a Griffin? There aren't any Griffins in this world. Yet, there are mysterious rings, stories, pieces dug out by archaeologist's nobody have a clue about. So, thanks to a ring, put on the finger, the character is pulled into another world. One where wearing this ring means being married to the Griffin shifter heir. No Internet and no known way back. Trust your feelings, Isabella!

  Floating along »Love as a Christmas Present« and the try to escape that interim state in front of the clock. The price? Memories. All of them. A sweet love story crossing times and opening fresh views on old family stories right before Christmas. Will you remember everything, Elinéora? A love story across times.

  »The Flower on the Mountain Top«: Enjoy the view from a snow covered mountain top. The highest point in the mountains. Challenge yourself by climbing up. Until you look down. Between your feet, on the tiny little spot grows a blue flower. It hadn't been there minutes ago. Climbing down, everything switches from a snowy, cold climbing tour into the future world with strange clothed people and different climate. Will you climb up again and hope everything gets back to normal, Lilianna?

  »Love Against all Rules« plays out on a generation ship far in the future. Yet, the fact, that people develop feelings for each other, still comes up. A story as old as the universe, kept apart by contracts signed generation ago on Earth. Surely, others had the question before: How can passengers and crew find a way to make their love work, live together and not violate the contracts needed to stay alive? What's important, Lisbeth? Romance at its best.

  Writing all five stories was fun to me, because each one explores a new world with little information besides a gut feeling and the knowledge the woman already has. In her brain and in her heart.

  This genre-spanning short story collection follows five strong women who can't use an Internet research before deciding. All stories were written for first publication in this collection.

  Have fun reading.

  Topaz Hauyn February 2021

  Lottery Win: The Third Set of Doors

  Rita sat, or rather laid, in the plastic chair with the rounded form that forced her to half sit half lay. Which was a good thing, for the gray beige suite she wore was heavy, and it was relaxing to lose some weight by not having to sit upright during the waiting period.

  Her gaze lingered on the point where the cream colored wall met the also cream colored ceiling of the vast room. A conference room remodeled into a waiting room for future tourists coming after her. The wall and ceiling formed a connection of two things, creating something new. A corner. A meaning. The corner created the shape of the building. It felt similar to her situation. Like her connection to the suit and the rounded plastic chair. They formed a unit of waiting in the vast room. Or like she was going to connect Phobos, one of the Mars moons to Earth. Without waiting. She would be the first living being to use those doors. In a commercial way.

  Scientists and astronauts had already used similar ones for their research. No civilians were allowed there. But space tourism was a growing branch in the tourism industry. One she would help to grow by going to Phobos today.

  Rita smiled. She had never been part of something big. She had always been a wheel in a larger process. This was fun. And even waiting was worth it. Especially given the reward she got for undergoing the first human test of the new travel route.

  Low whispers filled the room. Quick steps, from the people working here, tapped past her. The whispers faded away as doors were closed.

  Probably some last minute discussions at their side of the door.

  Rita didn’t mind. She couldn’t look at the people walking past her, thanks to the inflexible helmet she already wore.

  She didn’t care about them. She would never again see any of them, for normally she would have never become a space tourist. Her pay was fine, but leagues away from the prices for a trip with the space travel agency for holidays in the solar system.

  Instead, she breathed slowly and evenly. The air was filtered and without any scent beyond a trace of metal. She let her mind wander, thinking about the final helm that would also shield her face and connect her to the oxygen tanks that had to be added as well. Or something in that direction.

  She knew how the people around her looked like, from all the briefings and upfront discussions. Everyone passing through wore gray beige suits, hair nets and usually some touch computers in their hands to work while tiptoeing through the hall.

  She also knew that she would be left alone in the room. Then the connection would be established. Her job was to press down the door handle, push the door open and step through. On the other side, she needed to pull the door close behind her. After that the welcome group would enter the room and help her shed the suit and replace it with something more flexible and suitable. She would stay a few hours to enjoy the sight and then return the same way.

  Simple enough.

  The door, she was going to step through, was behind the third double door on the end of the hall. There were two more double doors next to that door. Behind the first one was the door to the Moon, behind the second one the door to Mars.

  Rita liked the moment of waiting. Waiting meant, she must not walk in the heavy boots. Yet. So, waiting, in her book, meant a great time.

  Well, not generally. Usually she hated waiting, but this time, she liked it. Somehow, she felt better waiting here, already wearing her travel suit, than standing in front of the door. Sure, she had volunteered to test th
e door by buying the lottery ticket. Yet, if waiting could be made more comfortable she preferred it.

  First, they would perform a final test. They would let a robot walk through the door.

  “Following the protocols and guidelines to make security happy”, had Linda Maye said.

  Linda Maye was Rita’s contact person in this experiment. She was responsible for everything Rita needed to know or materials to get.

  After the robot, Rita would be the first person to use the new pair of doors to the neighboring planet’s moon Phobos.

  Rita remembered how Carolyn, her best friend had cheered for her, when she got the message: “Congratulations. You’ve been selected to be the First.”

  Receiving that message seemed like decades ago, although it had been only two weeks.

  Carolyn had cried and laughed and danced around the room.

  Rita herself had only stared at the letters in front of her. Still, sitting here, despite wearing that heavy, tight travel suite, she couldn’t believe it was real.

  But it was.

  Even her supervisor at work had granted her a two week paid leave. Something he had never granted anyone before. A paid leave beyond the legal minimum number of paid holidays per year?

  Impossible. Until last week.

  He had said something about “honor and good marketing” and had wished her well.

  The travel agency for holidays in the solar system hadn’t seen fit to train their test people for too long. They even explained why. First, each day cost them money. Second, better trained people didn’t yield better results. After all, everything that was expected from her was to open a door, walk through, and close it behind her. No more, no less. Third, the more people knew about risks and what might go wrong, the more dropped out before their time to walk came.

  Like the woman who was supposed to go first had done.

  The risks were something Rita hadn’t thought about too much.

  She lived her life. Walked down the street each day, always risking of being killed by a car accident. She ate fast food, always with the risk of a heart attack. Why not test a new pair of travel doors?

  Now all her worries came back. Probably the people from the travel agency had been right to keep the training short. Thinking too much over a single point just promised headaches and a sinking feeling in her belly. Or maybe she was only hungry. Breakfast had been early today. Then she had had her kick-off meeting and donned the heavy suit.

  She pushed the thoughts away. The trip would be great. She even had a camera in her backpack, sitting at her lap, to shoot a picture or two from Mars, and Earth, if she could see it in the sky as a black spot against the sun.

  Her body ached. She wanted to stretch out and walk around.

  She had been sitting here for too long. Waiting in this half laying seat, listening to the steps of the workers passin by and walking faster by each passing hour. Probably they had an extra loop in their protocol that took longer than estimated. She was used to estimations leaning towards too optimistic.

  At her work place she doubled each estimation for delivery times she got, before communicating them to her customers. Early delivery made for happier customers and most times, the extra time was just enough to deliver in time. Customs were a pain and always took longer than they should.

  Linda Maye would come and get her, when everything was ready.

  Rita thought about what she had learned about the door pairs. She knew, from the news and the briefings, that her door was the third pair of doors for commercial use from Earth to another planet or moon in their solar system.

  The first pairs were all set up in rooms of a space agency. For space agency use only. The first one being used about two decades ago. She had been in elementary school back then. The headlines had been very big letters, celebrating the reduction in time, material and cost for the travel to the Moon as a major break-through in the field. Shortly after, the travel agency for space tourism in the solar system had been founded and built a pair of doors for commercial use from Earth to the Moon and back.

  Since then, they sold trips to the Moon to everybody who could walk and pay the price. They even built a hotel on the other side of that door for weekend trips. One she would get as well, as her payment, after returning from Phobos.

  Two space travels in one lottery win. She was lucky beyond words.

  Rita had never been on the Moon, but she had heard many stories and saw some documentations and ads, showing the sight from the Moon to the Earth.

  How would the sight be from the Mars moon? They had chosen Phobos for the third pair of doors.

  They had also adressed all her questions. Everything was safe. Linda Maye had told her that at the end of each talk they had.

  For each pair of commercially used doors, there was first at least one set of doors built by a space agency. Researchers were first on every planet, moon, asteroid or whatever was flying around in the solar system. Business was only ever allowed to follow afterwards.

  More people ran past her with louder steps.

  Rita even heard the rubber of the shoes squeak on the floor, as the person stopped. Probably to open the door at the end of the vast room she sat in. Waiting some more.

  She remembered the headlines for the second pair of doors, reducing travel time between Earth and Mars to a step through a door. Or at least that was what the advertising said.

  Only people planning to emigrate to Mars were allowed to buy a ticket to use the door. She didn’t know the reasons. But they had long waiting lists and lead times. For reasons Rita didn’t care about, the luggage one couldn’t carry had to be sent by traditional rocket science. And one couldn’t use the doors as often as one wanted. Something about space sickness. Whatever. Waiting for the luggage took time, although it was easier to send luggage than people via rockets.

  Well. She didn’t need much luggage.

  Her backpack with a book about basic rules on Phobos, her ID cards and the camera was enough. She had always lived with little, getting no fun from dusting objects. Her Earth clothes stayed behind. They would be of no use on Phobos. The people of the travel agency had assured her, that there would be the right clothes and amenities on Phobos waiting for her. Obviously they already spent some years building and preparing the third pair of doors. Only the woman they had had on the payroll for the first human test quit a few weeks back.

  Which led to the lottery.

  Rita remembered hearing the first time of the door lottery.

  A joke had been her first thought.

  A scam her second.

  Until more and more people had talked about buying a lottery ticket, only to complain, they couldn’t because of their gender, height or age.

  The travel agency for holidays in the solar system had looked for a woman in her twenties no larger or smaller than average size. Similar parameters like the first woman, so the clothes they already made and delivered would fit.

  She didn’t question these parameters. She was lucky to get the chance at a weekend on the Moon. Walking through another pair of doors first as payment, or as she secretly thought, added bonus, was fine with her. And the ticket had been cheaper than a cup of coffee to-go.

  Rita smiled.

  The suit fit her perfectly. It was warm and comfortable. She could flex her fist with effort. Like pressing together an apple or a carrot.

  She wasn’t strong enough to do so without the suit, but it felt similar. Add to that the softness of the fabric, and she felt like being snuggled into a perfectly fitting soft blanket. They had said, flexing her hand and walking would be perfectly easy on Phobos thanks to some environmental parameters. What she could do was enough to open the door on the side of Earth and close it on Phobos’ side.

  She tapped with her foot on the floor.

  Once.

  The boot was too heavy for a rhythmic tapping.

  But the effect was fantastic. A loud stomp echoed through the vast hall and bounced back from the wall and ceiling.
Probably from the corner, she still looked at, as well. After some more echoing it sounded faintly similar to a huge applause.

  A door opened and closed with a low sound. A breeze of cooler air brushed over her face and brought with it the smell of fried food. Probably fried potatoes. She wanted a portion of the food. Her stomach rumbled accordingly and her mouth watered at the thought of chewing salty fried potatoes and tasting the soft inside. Waiting for so long had made her even hungrier.

  “Mrs. Rita Little”, said the voice of Linda Maye, her personal contact, since she got here. “We’re ready. Let me help you get up. Everything is checked and secure.”

  Some motor started and hummed. The rounded plastic chair straightened and pushed her upwards and forwards until she stood.

  Rita waved clumsily with her arms to gain her balance. Her backpack rolled from her lap and fell on the floor.

  Linda Maye stepped in front of her and in her sight. The suite hindered Rita to turn her head to the sides. A security measure for the walk-through, they had explained to her.

  “We are sorry for the delay. Security found some issues with the robot they wanted to invest further.”

  Linda rolled her eyes and pushed up her glasses with the lilac frame. She didn’t carry a touchpad with her. She opened her hands and waved dismissively.

  “They always do. Just to annoy us. But finally, they were satisfied and left. Come on. Let’s go. Your welcome team is waiting for you on Phobos.”

  Linda Maye smiled that commercial smile she had shown from the first moment Rita met her. Sometimes she thought Linda might be a good robot with all her superficial smiling.

  Linda Maye waved at someone behind Rita.

  Rita heard more steps, then felt hands under her arms.

  “They’ll help you walk to the door”, said Linda Maye as if Rita might have forgotten everything they told her about the procedure.

  “Hang my backpack over my shoulder please”, said Rita.

  Linda Maye waited for it, then turned around and led the way. Her suite didn’t fit as perfect as Rita’s did. There were wrinkles and corners that stuck out everywhere.