Story 4: First Contact (Dr. Isaac Thoma)
2095, Milky Way, unexplored area
Space really was beautiful, regardless of it you simply let yourself drift in it, or were viewing it through the twisted spatial folds of an [Alcubierre Bubble].
Right now, Isaac was doing the latter, hurtling himself across the universe at velocities that exceeded the speed of light by several orders of magnitude, technically. The math flew over his head anytime he wasn’t fully immersing himself in his cognition and science-boosting [Skills], but apparently there was some weirdness that technically let you stay below the limit while still speeding through the universe far faster than a mere three-hundred-thousand kilometers a second by warping space around yourself.
Elena was also in the general area, cosmically speaking, exploring another world. They’d come out to explore the universe together, yes, but they’d long since learned that just because they could spend every second of every day within an arms reach of each other, or even closer than that, that didn’t mean that they should.
They’d had their day jobs (which they likewise only did because they wanted to, not because they had to), their own hobbies, and since they barely needed to sleep, they could spend all night doing whatever the hell they wanted to do with and to each other.
And even light years away from the sun, free from the embrace of a planetary gravity well, they still made sure to do some stuff separately.
That kind of “ritualistic” separation might have sounded weird to most, and might have broken some couples up in a matter of days, but it was how their relationship worked.
For over fifty years, and likely would for at least fifty more, hopefully longer.
Of course, having a life expectancy that most pre-System civilizations would equate to outright immortality meant that there was no real urgency for “advancing” their relationship. Marriage, possibly even kids … not something they were opposed to in the slightest, in fact, they’d even talked about it a few times positively, but ultimately, it hadn’t gone anywhere.