The Shrooms

Final Checks

(Woman) Her voyage to see the other world begins tonight. She needs to sneak off to meet a good friend for one last item on her list. It's one in the morning, she waits in the local park inside the men's bathroom which has a broken lock the state refuses to fix. The friend shows up wearing a night onesie littered with black and white polka dots. The friend gives her the bag then departs.

    She's excited to be back home. List complete, ship ready for deployment, time to leave. She puts the bag on the ship in her backyard. The ship is small only fit for one. She's intelligent and resourceful, the best combination for greatness in her case. All the studying of the universe, watching programs, taking classes from NASA space force, and reading countless books from all points in history prepared her for this. And she knew this was her purpose.

    She sits in the single-seat ship buckling up. Checks the vitals of the equipment, good signs. Lacking the billion-dollar funding space programs have, scavenging was her only option. Engines from BMW's and Harley motorcycles, vending machine plates and coils, wires from gaming consoles, nuts, and bolts from kitchen appliances and some stolen goods she isn't too proud of but motivation causes people to cross boundaries. It all came together nicely, not pretty and very dangerous. A risk she's willing to take because she repeats a song lyric "Find your purpose or you wasting air." She lives by that which is why she takes off tonight into the vast space.

(Prince) The day for him is now. His parents supplying him with the necessary monetary support for his cause. His royal status doesn't mean much to him but it does to everyone else. News of the prince wanting to meet with lesser beings spreads like untreated mold. His parents tried talking him out of it but they eventually came around realizing their son has no other passions and spoiling made him lack skills to be great. He now lives off his curiosity and fearlessness to tread the unknown.

    He talks to the mechanics of the ship. They inform him it's good to go providing him with a manual just in case he forgot what the many classes have taught him. They also prepared his luggage stocked with the finest foods and tools for every situation. He argued there would be no need for weaponry but his father, the King, insisted and the queen agreed. They always had a slight disdain toward their son but morals can't allow them to send him unprepared, just in case. The reason the companion, Quake, was required as well.

    Quake was sent on a secret task by him to retrieve a box. Quake completes it and they take off in the massive ship. Crafted by the finest hands of the planet, mechanics from the smartest brains. As royalty does, one of the best fashion designers stitched a suit for him and Quake from materials appropriate for space travel. The lift-off is televised. Watching take-offs to other planets isn't new to the people standing below waving to the decreasingly size ship, but their prince being involved is a spectacle to witness.