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lives and writes in Portland, Oregon. Find him on Twitter @danielwilsonPDX .

NPC
Charles Yu
    Moon base six is visible in the distance, but you keep your eyes down. You keep them trained on the ground, in the patch in front of you. You have your sensor and your collection tool and you’re going to find iridium. There. There’s some iridium. Awesome. The tool hoovers it up. Cha-ching.
    —
    Moon base six over there. Close but far. Eyes down, like always, fixed on the iridium patch. You have your sensor, your collection thingy. Iridium is so rare. Really, really rare. You’d be lucky if you—oh wait. The sensor is saying you got some. Cha-ching.
    —
    You warm up your Lean Cuisine in the break room. Pasta primavera and a can of Sprite Zero. Oh shit, Carla’s here. You try to hand-comb your hair a little. She smiles. Oh shit oh shit. She’s having a Cup Noodles and a Dr Pepper. You move your iridium collection tool off the table on the off chance she wants to sit across from you. She says don’t worry about it and your stomach drops a foot. And then she comes around the table and sits right next to you. Oh shit oh shit oh shit. You talk for seventeen whole minutes, the rest of your lunch break. As you’re putting your bio-suit back on, you notice you are lightly sweating. It feels good.
    —
    Moon base six. What, maybe one fifty, two hundred yards away? You could get there in thirty seconds. Flat-out sprint. You could do it. You’ve seen fast, watched them do it. You know it can be done. You’re not sure why, but you feel it—there’s more to it than just this. You have big things ahead of you.
    Cha-
chung
. Iridium. Big piece. It’s been a good week.
    —
    Is Carla seeing anyone? You ask around a little. Mixed messages, but bottom line what you are hearing is that she’s available. You have no chance. But. Hmm. You never know.
    —
    Moon base six. You do the work. The day goes fast. You keep your eyes down, but your head is in the stars. Iridium, schmiridium. Carla carla carla.
    —
    Plasma rains down on the surface of the planet, melting almost everything into molten death. In other words, it’s Tuesday. This week, though, you’re standing right here, in the crease.
Stay away from the crease. Far far away.
That’s what they teach you in training. They never explain why, but you know better. Stuff happens in the crease. Weird stuff. You can always get iridium there. You hoover it all up, leave for a few minutes, come back, and there it is. So, no. You’re not going to stay away from the crease. What do they think, you’re an idiot?
    Apparently, you are an idiot.
    Because this Tuesday, when the plasma rains down, melting everything, molten death, blah blah blah, et cetera, you’re standing in the crease when it happens. There is so much iridium coating your bio-suit, it’s fusing into a protective layer, shielding you.
    The whole of creation seems to be falling down from above, raining down on your head, and you’re in your suit, feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. Tingly. You check your body parts, which seem intact. Fine. More than fine, in fact.
    You seem to have been…changed.
    —
    Moon base six. Right there. Now there’s a whole mess of activity. Preparations being made, fanfare, all kinds of official-looking window dressing going up. There is literally a red carpet being rolled out toward the landing dock. Rumor has it CENTCOM Council is coming to investigate the incident. The Incident. That’s what they’re calling it. That’s not what you’d call it, though. You don’t know what you’d call it yet.
    —
    There’s that dude. He’s right there. In the middle. Of everything. At all times. Did he just grab his junk? He just grabbed his junk.
    Get back to your iridium mining, someone says. You look up and see a CENTCOM noncommissioned officer, about five feet above you, riding one of those hover pads. You wonder if he realizes how much of a tool he is, balancing on that thing. You wish you could