Grounded in Time

Upon entering his space-container-turned-home, Karl let the door close behind him with a controlled thud, a soft crackling sound in the air disappearing almost as soon as it started. His movement was mechanical, pure muscle memory guiding his hands to drop his jacket on the overturned bucket in the corner he'd repurposed into a stool he could sit on to put on his shoes every morning. The metal bucket had been covered with a thick lining of sponge and textile anyway, like most everything that wasn't made of plastic on this planet, so as not to provoke the currents and shock oneself to death.

Like every single day for the last ten years, Karl went through the motions of coming home after work to the same old empty container, the same shower with its deionized water system, so as to remove the conductive nature of it, the same rotation of rations the planet would receive from Earth, the quality of which depended on the quality and quantity of their geobattery deliveries.

There were very few signs that Karl had ever shared the space with anyone else, of either human or creature nature, but they were there. When he walked past the small colorful toy spring on the floor in the corner, it didn't hurt anymore to see it. Like the hair tie lying on the nightstand or the empty fluffy picture frame on his desk, they were relics of a past Karl didn't want to ever look at too closely again.

A familiar buzzing sound had Karl mute the news program he was watching while eating at his work desk. Alex was calling him again, the third time that week. With a tap on the bottom right of the screen, Karl answered the call.

"Yes, I packed everything up neatly and ready for transport, like I did the last few times you called me, like I've done for the last 10 years." Karl said, still half chewing on his meal, his tone a mixture of slight annoyance at being disturbed and forced patience for his only friend on the planet.

"Except for that one time." Alex's face appeared on the screen with a slight delay and his freckled face donned a playful smile that caused Karl's otherwise tired countenance to lighten up somewhat.

"You know the rations had spoiled because of that generator, Alex. And thanks for reminding me just as I'm eating."

Alex let out a quiet laugh. "All I know is that your sensitive old man stomach led to me having to work a double shift, so I'd rather make sure from now on, if you don't mind."

"I do mind. But that won't stop you, will it? And who are you calling old?" Karl smiled and he almost looked like a different person. Like that was something he hadn't done in a while and his face muscles had forgotten how it worked.

To say that Karl was lonely would be like saying that water is wet. It went without saying, but few realized the depth of it. It had been 10 years since he'd landed on the planet on a 15-year contract. He had been a rather young, but successful geology professor back on Earth, whose dreams of helping to revolutionize the energetic industry had led him here.

The studies had shown that the planet is unusually electrically charged and that everything that conducted electricity amplified the currents fivefold. Under certain conditions and mixtures of certain natural metals, the currents affecting the entire planet led to these metals combining into what geologists called 'geobatteries'. Natural amalgamations of metal produced by electricity and acting like storage for said electricity. These natural batteries had been found on Earth before, but were too rare and difficult to harvest to really make a difference for the global industrial chains, and required perfect conditions that were near impossible to reproduce in a lab.

That is why, when Hephaestos-7 was found to be so full of these batteries, that the planet looked as if a child with a bedazzler had been set loose on it, studies were cut short and expeditions were organized to start harvesting as soon as possible.

Karl was among the first transports to land on the planet. His girlfriend at the time, Mia, had followed him, bringing along their cat, Percy. Mia had shared Karl's hope that they could help change the world by providing it with a clean, natural energy source and, in time, drastically reduce pollution sources. Cleaner energy meant a cleaner life. And for the first few weeks, everything was perfect.

It was an odd sensation, a constant tingling in their fingers and the tips of their noses, like being surrounded by constant static. Percy would sometimes flinch when Karl touched him, but didn't seem too bothered by it. Holding hands with Mia, or sleeping next to her at night, almost made a buzzing sound and it was like their entire bodies hummed. Mia had joked that it almost seemed like magic.

The pain took a while to make itself noticed, but when it did, they realized that Percy was hiding more and more, and seemed to actively avoid being near or touched by them. They started waking up in the middle of the night with a feeling akin to restless leg syndrome, except that this feeling took over every inch of their body. Kisses were becoming rarer, because it made their lips go numb and painful.

When Mia started talking about maybe going back home, it made Karl's stomach drop. He couldn't go home. He had a contract and a life goal to fulfill. He would stick it out until the end of those 15 years, he had to.

Mia had loved Karl, and Karl loved her. But as much as every fiber of his being had wanted her to stay, he knew things would only get worse. Transports started being organized for back to Earth and in four months after the first landings, more than half of the H-7 population had fled back home. Mia and Percy were among those who left. Shifts had to be organized in harvesting areas, because even being in the same enclosed dome had become too painful for the workers.

But Karl stayed.

Such was that Karl had not been in the same room with another human being or creature for nine years. He'd gotten used to it, he spoke to various colleagues on H-7 on a regular basis about work and findings, but Alex was a newer addition to the team. He still had his sense of humor and the lust for life that one only has when he has something to look forward to. And while Karl was two-thirds into his contract by now, it felt to him like time had stood still. His room seemed to tell the same story.

Karl's smile made Alex visibly happy. They spent the next few minutes chatting mostly about work, until Alex's shift was about to start and he cracked another joke about going to pick up Karl's slack, but that wasn't enough to provoke another reaction from his older colleague. Karl knew he would try again tomorrow.

The call ended and Karl stared at the screen, muted news playing in the background still, his half-eaten rations lying cold on the desk in front of him. The interaction with Alex had made him feel odd. He felt exhausted, like the chat had required all the social energy he had accumulated over the past years. But he also felt… a little more optimistic. For the first time in years, he looked at the calendar and noticed the year, and did the math. Four years, six months and twelve days left of his contract.

Nine years, two months, seven days since Mia and Percy had left. Was Percy still alive? Did Mia still hate Karl? Would he try to find them when he went back home, or would he accept that 15 years were a few too many to dare to seek out the past?

These thoughts made him almost visibly recoil from that spark of joy that had infected him just moments before. He was sure that he knew the answers to those questions, and they weren't making him especially cheerful.

With a sigh, Karl turned off the news from Earth just as they were showing how the geobatteries were now the sole electricity provider for New York, a city known for its enormous energetic demand. That probably should have made him feel happy, or at least feel something, but as he lay down on his bed and stared at the hair tie on the nightstand on the other side of him as if seeing it for the very first time, all he felt was tired.

Four years, six months and twelve days until time would maybe start moving for him again.