The stars still glitter. We’re still working, tinkering away with parts, when—

  “Roger.”

  “Yes, Mr. Wolfgang?”

  “Did you just feel a breeze?”

  “A breeze?”

  “This space air feels breezy.”

  “I am not designed for weather observation, Mr. Wolfgang. I simply am not equipped with the mechanical instruments necessary to detect weather—”

  “Got it, tin can. Not your thing. The space air feels different.” Then it dawns on me. “Has there always been air in space?”

  “Yes, but only in certain sections.”

  “No … No, I was told growing up that there was no air in space. Wasn’t I?”

  My mind scrambles around like a scared chicken trying to find a place to hide, trying to find the refuge of real memories.

  “Mr. Wolfgang?”

  “Huh?”

  “Could you hand me a neutrino capacitor?”

  “What size?”

  “Ten centimeters. It’s just a backup for the photonic data conduit.”

  “Don’t you need a gravitic cooling sink if you’re going to use such a small capacitor for the photonic processors? The capacitor will surely overheat running that much energy through it.”

  “Mr. Wolfgang, how do you know that?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m right, aren’t I?”

  “Yes, which is why we were going to use a neutronium synaptic array. That will be far more efficient.”

  “Of course! A neutronium synaptic array! Why didn’t I think of that?”

  Another cool breeze coaxes my skin to pimple.

  “Roger, stop.”

  “What?”

  “Get everything to an asteroid. I’m going to build a shelter.”

  “What? Why?”

  “There’s a storm coming.”

  [ AS THE SPACE WINDS BLOW ]

  “Pass the mallet,” I say.

  “How can you tell there is a storm coming, Mr. Wolfgang?” asks Roger as he hands me the hefty mallet I made for driving stakes. We’re inside one of the two small domes I made out of crystarium, adamantium bowls that I’m nailing to an asteroid.

  Tink.

  “Gut instinct.”

  Tink.

  “What?”

  Tink.

  “I can just feel it in my gut, and my gut’s never wrong, tin can.”

  I’ve already finished nailing down the first dome from the outside. Underneath, we stored all of our tools along with the parts and pieces for the computer and satellite.

  The second dome? That’s for me, Roger, a few spare pieces of crystarium, and our guns, which we stuffed into a safe. I hammer away at the last stake.

  “That should do it,” I say. I let out a sigh, my human instinct for shelter calmed at last.

  “I am still perplexed by your sudden increase in intellect, Mr. Wolfgang.”

  “I’m still perplexed by a lot more than that, but just trust me.”

  “Very well, Mr. Wolfgang. Space storms are not an unheard-of phenomenon.”

  How do I know what one is? Where? Where do I remember it from?

  The domes aren’t much bigger than igloos, but they’re comfortable enough. I open the hatch at the top of ours and peek out with a tentacle eye, looking in all directions for any sign of trouble.

  “You know, Roger, we got all this together a lot faster than I imagined we would. I feel like I’ve really gotten the hang of this transmutation thing.”

  “Indeed, Mr. Wolfgang. How long until the storm?”

  “Can’t say.”

  “What about your gut?”

  “What about it?”

  “What does it say?”

  “Doesn’t work like that. It’s not really specific.”

  “What a strange feature for a biological organism to have.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A stomach that tells them things? Like a second brain? I have heard of such features amongst the yog, but I can not—”

  “It’s called instinct. All organisms have it. On Earth at least.”

  “Instinct.”

  Hours pass by. Space is as calm as pond water.

  “I swear. I swear I felt a storm coming.”

  “Perhaps it was not instinct but imagination, Mr. Wolfgang.”

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  “Now you’ve got me wondering how much those two are tied together.”

  “Once we’ve built the computer, I could search the extranet for information, then install and process it for you.”

  “Sounds great, tin can. Wait ‘til the café's up though.”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Wolfgang. Setting a reminder now.”

  “How is it still so calm out there?”

  More time. Still as calm and gentle as a sleeping baby.

  “Mr. Wolfgang?”

  “What?”

  “Does your gut still say that it senses a storm coming?”

  I don’t answer. The question really gets my goat, but I can’t be mad at Roger. I should be relieved, even. I should be glad there’s no storm. Instead, I’m just bitter that I wasted our time and panicked over nothing. But I refuse to betray my gut like that. Not again.

  “Mr. Wolfgang?”

  “What?!”

  “Are you familiar with yog psychosis?”

  “No.” But I am. I don’t know how, but I am. And that bothers me. “Sounds like some kind of space flu.”

  “Not at all. When a yog has overextended himself, such as working too hard or overusing his psychic powers, it is often the case that madness will seep into his mind and cause him to act erratically.”

  He’s calling me crazy.

  “So? What’s your point, tin can?”

  I play dumb, too frustrated to engage with him.

  I swear I felt a storm coming. That calm, cool breeze that comes before it starts pissing buckets.

  “Well… I think you might need to rest, Mr. Wolfgang.”

  “Wouldn’t be a bad idea, I guess.”

  “Just close your eyes and take a good, long sleep in here. Everything will be waiting when you have awakened.”

  I can’t sleep, though. Not like this. Not with the biggest storm of my life coming. It’ll ruin everything. It could kill both of us!

  What am I thinking? I don’t even know what a space storm is like. I just know they exist and that I felt one coming. How, though? How?

  Another cool breeze blows by, fluttering around my exposed eye.

  “No! I really did feel something, Roger. I just felt it again.”

  “Another breeze?”

  “Don’t get snarky with me just because you can’t feel a cool rush of wind, tin can.”

  “I worry about you, Mr. Wolfgang.”

  “I promise! There’s a storm coming. I’m sure of it.”

  It doesn’t come. Roger continues to sit quietly while I peep out of the hatch, scanning in all directions. Dreariness soaks my eyes, all of them, my lids sinking down to close, to welcome the dark embrace preceding dreams. I rip them back open in a panic; for half a moment, I was in Italy again, pulling security on the line in the dead of night, fearing the tromp of foreign boots.

  No. No, you’re not there, Jack. You’re here in a dome waiting to ride out a storm.

  Was I ever there? Was that ever real?

  I’m too tired to think about that seriously.

  “Roger, do you have any idea what I’m getting smarter?” I ask, trying to ground myself and trying to keep my mind off of things too strange to wonder.

  “No. But…”

  “But what?”

  “Well…”

  “‘Well’ what?”

  “Maybe you have known these things all along. Maybe all along, you have been suffering from yog psychosis.”

  “What?”

  “Maybe this Earth that you keep speaking of and this life you used to live aren’t real?”

  I’m about to play kick the can with the toaster head when I see it—

  “There!”

  “What is it, Mr. Wolfgang?” asks Roger with an utter lack of sincerity, like he’s talking to nutcase that he’s gotten sick.

  “A pink bolt of lightning. Way in the distance!”

  “Okay, Mr. Wolfgang.”

  “Roger, if you don’t shut up with the sarcasm, I’m tossing you out.”

  “That is something a yog with psychosis would threaten.”

  “Come here!”

  “Beep!”

  Groooogh! roars a peal of thunder.

  “I told you! I told you! You didn’t believe me, but I told you!”

  “Well, I am as shocked as a lightning rod.”

  “Hey, not bad, tin can. Really picking up the whole relaxed speech thing.”

  “I was beginning to think for certain that you had imagined another life as an imaginary species on a made-up planet. I guess you really were a private investigator.”

  “You even had me convinced I was going crazy. For a second there, at least.”

  “Mind if I take a look at the storm, Mr. Wolfgang?”

  “Climb on up, buddy.”

  He reaches up to the rim of the dome and pulls himself over, sticking his toaster head out of the hole. He stares into space with his headlight eyes.

  “Mr. Wolfgang.”

  “What’s up, tin can?”

  “There’s nothing there.”

  “Sure, not right now there isn’t, but you heard the thunder. There’s really a storm out there.”

  “Sometimes, when yog psychosis is severe enough, a yog can create psychic phenomena just by hoping for them.”

  “Roger, you’ve got to stop. You really are driving me crazy with that.”

  “I have seen this before, Mr. Wolfgang.”

  “Look, I’ll get some sleep,” I yawn, “if it’ll make you feel better.”

  “Rest, Mr. Wolfgang.”

  I can’t. I try, but fear keeps me restless.

  Maybe it’s not a storm. Maybe it’s something else. Something’s out there! Something’s definitely out there, and it’s coming for us.

  “If it’s not a space storm, what could it be, Roger?”

  “Well—”

  “Besides psychosis!”

  “I suppose there could be a greater yog out there increasing your anxiety levels. Space is vast, and I only have access to the information I stored before my master threw me out.”

  “Threw you out?”

  “Oh, I have never explained my past to you.”

  “No. Is it boring?”

  “I found it exciting.”

  “Will it keep me awake?”

  “On the edge of your seat, even.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened?”

  “Many years ago, I was built and designed to serve my yog master. We flew through space in his starship as he conquered worlds, expanding his cult and therefore his power and influence. Eventually, he said he had enough knowledge to build a better version of me, so he threw me out with the garbage.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Quite the harrowing tale, if I do say so myself.”

  “That’s not how I’d use the word harrowing.”

  “I mean, imagine your creator thinking so little of you as to just toss you into the vast emptiness of space with the rest of the refuse.”

  “Well, when you put it like that… How’d you end up on that asteroid? Is that the exciting part of the story?”

  “I just drifted there.”

  “I guess not.”

  “I was so excited to finally land somewhere, I never once thought about leaving until you came along, Mr. Wolfgang.”

  “Well, I understand that feeling.”

  “I have had a most excellent time helping you. I feel as though I have regained something I lost, but it is better than the original thing that I lost.”

  “What was your master like?”

  “I am not programmed to speak ill of him.”

  “That bad?”

  “I can not say.”

  “You’re programmed to tell the truth, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just do that then.”

  “He was great and powerful, and you remind me much of him, though you are incredibly kind and merciful, and I have enjoyed my time with you. I look forward to finishing and running the café together, and I hope that many are able to see your kindness as you run your business just as you are: an organism with a kind heart that beats for others more than himself.”

  “Roger…”

  “Yes, Mr. Wolfgang.”

  “Thanks.”

  I blink back a tear or two in each of my eyes.

  “Maybe if we trade places, it will help you rest, Mr. Wolfgang. I see you are blinking away sleep. Based on my knowledge, this is a tell-tale sign of drowsiness in organic beings.”

  “Yeah,” I sniff, trying to hide my eyes from him. “Just getting real sleepy. You keep watch.”

  “Anything to help, Mr. Wolfgang.”

  I settle down in the darkness. Roger pulls himself up to the hatch. I shut my eyes and let sleep take the wheel.

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