The closet she found herself in was a bog-standard janitor’s closet full of chemical bottles, mops, and some vacuums. Empty, aside from the two newest occupants, herself and Sirius.

The absolute mundanity of it made her laugh. Uncontrollably. Then suddenly she was sobbing. And she couldn’t stop it. Shaky breaths fogged up the lenses of her respirator, washing everything into a blurry nothingness with each exhale.

When Solaris could finally catch her breath, she clenched her fingers into fists and forced herself to take a deep breath. Time for some answers. Just where were they?

The gravity was the first thing she noticed – far too low for Earth, or even Mars. But familiar. She’d been somewhere like this before. The sudden lightness made her feel kind of dizzy.

Frustrated with the fogging, and needing a better look anyways, Solaris took her respirator off, slowly. She wasn’t sure if she could trust the atmosphere here, especially not after suddenly materializing here from Earth under the weirdest of circumstances. This could be some sort of hallucination or trick. Felt real enough.

She risked breathing in, and to her relief the air was good – if not a bit stale. The room and its contents were old, some pieces even covered in a thick layer of dust that floated and fell slowly as if through a thick liquid when disturbed. There was a faint smell of something familiar, something gunpowder-y. This had to be one of the lunar colonies. But which? A sound from the other side of the room startled her out of her thoughts.

Sirius sat on the floor, gun still in hand, and he looked around cautiously. He seemed just as surprised as she was. He’d already removed his respirator and she could see that he was paler than she’d last seen him. Solaris wasn’t sure what he had done back at the Henge – or the Gate, as he called it – but unless this was some weird form of afterlife no one had anticipated, they had just travelled millions of miles in what felt like an instant.

How instant was it? Was the first question precipitating out of many. Her hands shook as she pulled her Comm out. If only she could remember around what time they had gotten to the Henge, everything had been such a blur…

The monitor showed nothing. Nothing that made sense. Whatever force that had brought them here had bricked the device. Something in the back of her mind told her that the energy involved in their transit had to have some sort of effect on electrical circuits. That meant it could be observed. What that meant to science was groundbreaking and she intended to follow up on the details of how it all worked, but right now she was in a janitor’s closet somewhere on the moon, there was a strange man with a hole in his leg, and her boss had just tried to kill her. All of these seemed much more pressing.

Shaking herself out of her head, Solaris stood and immediately felt herself lose contact with the ground. She was too used to standing up on Earth. Gritting her teeth in frustration she waited for her feet to hit the ground again before very carefully walking across the room to where Sirius was already standing.

“Well…fuck…”, he said as he glanced around the space and did an odd movement swaying from side to side a bit. “Feels like the Moon”, he pronounced, “’least there’s air here”.

“Moon or not, you probably shouldn’t be standing on that leg. You’ll make it worse”, Solaris warned.

Sirius looked down at his leg, as if surprised to see that the bullet wound was still there.

“Grav’s low enough here that it won’t be a problem”, he said after a moment, “Nothing I can’t fix myself”.

He checked his pistol again, then tucked it into a pocket. Solaris let herself relax a little, it seemed like he wasn’t planning on shooting her, so far. He’d been giving an awful lot of mixed signals about that lately. She wondered if he had been bluffing the whole time – he didn’t seem like the type who enjoyed killing, but maybe that was her optimism speaking too loudly.

Sirius went over to an array of lockers by the door and appeared to be testing the doors on each one.

“What are you doing?” Solaris asked.

“With any luck one of these is gonna be unlocked. Might be something useful inside”, he said as one of the lockers clicked open. Sirius dug around inside and pulled out a wrinkled jumpsuit and held it out to determine its size and nodded, “Close enough”.

“That’s stealing”, Solaris admonished.

“I prefer to call it long-term borrowing”, Sirius shrugged, “Dunno about you, but I’d rather not be walking around wherever the fuck we are with blood all over me. Draws attention”.

Solaris hummed with disapproval but decided not to press the issue further.

“I’ll step outside then while you clean up. Maybe I can help us figure out where we are”.

“Sounds good”, Sirius said, already pulling his old shirt off. Solaris turned quickly to avoid seeing anything she shouldn’t and headed out the door.

The closet led out to a larger hallway which looked exactly like every other hallway in the lunar bases. A low arched ceiling supported the tons of lunar rock and dust overhead, and for some reason they had decided to paint everything tones of grey, as if the moon itself wasn’t grey enough.

Solaris wondered how long it would take for Murphy to call the university and tell them she’d disappeared into a flash of light with a madman who’d just shot four of their employees. What would her parents say? Or do? More importantly, what would she say to them when they found out she was alive?

A few people passed by but were by and large unconcerned by her presence. The moon was only sparsely populated nowadays. Before, it had been full of life, the halls always filled by workers, residents, and tourists. Solaris had never experienced this; she’d only seen the pictures of massively crowded hallways when she learned about the pre-war history in school. After the war and Earth’s self-destruction just about everyone left. It was too depressing to constantly see the husk that was once a blue marble. Only the barest minimum remained, most to keep the stations operational but there was a dwindling number of those too stubborn to leave that made up the rest of the lunar population.

They arrived in a sort of common area with wall screens playing a few newscasts and a few sad-looking greenspaces that appeared to be suffering from a combination of under-watering and poor air quality. On any other day it would be concerning, but Solaris had other things on her mind. Something on the wall-screens caught her eye, her father. Immediately, she could tell something was wrong.

He looked older. A lot older. Last time she’d seen him, his jet-black hair had only been slightly greying at the edges. It had been something he’d hidden with carefully applied dye. Now, in this image, her father’s hair had shocks of white that he hadn’t bothered to hide. The crow’s feet around his eyes had deepened and he was noticeably thinner. Compared to last time she saw him he looked like an entirely different man. What had happened?

She turned her attention to the subtitles, wishing they’d scroll by faster so she could read what was going on more effectively. His nametag listed him as the president of the Martian United Planetary Congress but that was wrong, wasn’t it? The elections weren’t for another 4 months, so why was he listed as the president and not merely as a candidate? This was a mistake that several million people would notice -that they would be affected by- so why wasn’t the newscast being pulled off air?

As she pondered, a date rolled by, and she almost missed it – maybe she had. What she thought it said made no sense. She watched more closely to see if it would repeat. It did.

The day had changed, it was now the 16th. They had lost a full day. Then the month. It was now February. That was weird. Had they gone back or forward in time? Then the year scrolled by and answered that question. It was 3076. They’d gone forward. If the date was accurate, they had lost a lot more than a day. Six months and a day. Exactly.

Solaris turned to go find Sirius. This was important. She needed to tell him. She retraced her steps only for her attention to be caught by some movement in the periphery. It was Sirius, waving awkwardly.

Sirius had settled into a poorly lit section of wall and was watching the common area closely. He looked like he was trying to disappear into that part of the wall. If he hadn’t waved, she might not have noticed him. It was surprising how well this tall man could blend in.

“Hey, you need to look at this”, she called, trying to keep her voice steady.

He came out from his hiding place and studied the screen. I wonder if he recognizes my father’s last name, she thought, would he make the same connection everyone else does?

Instead, he asked, “What am I supposed to be seeing here?” He looked inattentive, like the goings-on of the common area were more concerning.

“Look at the date, it’ll flash by again, notice anything weird?” She said as she pointed to the info text.

Sirius looked annoyed, “For me, everything is weird. Why are you asking me?”

“I…really…want to be wrong about this, but I think I’m beginning to understand your situation better”, she paused to gather her thoughts, keep the fear that was slowly creeping in from showing in her voice, “a lot better”.

“What do you mean by that?”

“That ‘jump’ just cost us six months…and a day…maybe”, she said as the interview with her father, the now President Khorana, concluded.

“So?” Sirius just shrugged. His body language was unbothered, but his expression was hard to read.

Solaris felt a brief flash of anger, Sirius wasn’t understanding the weight of what was happening. She had lost six months of her life. Six months. Gone. Six months that she could have been working, developing her research, and six months that her friends and family had gone without answers. Her life was in shreds, so, why couldn’t he be more understanding? But…of course. She’d only lost half a year. He’d lost 70, what was another six months on top of that?

But…six months?

What was she expected to do now? What could she do?

Solaris walked to one of the benches in the little greenspace, but rather than sit down, she kept walking. It was like she couldn’t control her feet anymore, her body automatically responding to some need to get away, as if physical distance was a sufficient substitute for emotional distance. Anything to keep her from thinking too hard about the reality of her situation. From across the room, she heard Sirius say something, but that wasn’t important now. What was important was putting her life back together, but how?

What would her university say when she showed up out of the blue after so long? Who sat in her office now? Which of her grad students had stayed on? Was her research even relevant now, or had someone else finished the work? Were her credentials even valid now? She would have some catching up to do. And her family. What would they say?

She bumped into someone who shoved her roughly aside. She should have been paying attention to where she was walking.

“Watch where you’re going, dumbass!” The man she had bumped into appeared drunk, but his posture was aggressive. He was looking for a fight. Behind him were three equally inebriated men, similar postures. Solaris wondered exactly how badly she had fucked up.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t see you!” she said, raising her hands both in defense and placation.

The man she ran into approached, still posturing but not committed to escalation yet. She heard footsteps behind her, and the lead man’s attention turned to their source. The way he squared his shoulders in response told her he felt threatened. They were a spacefaring civilization, and yet, people still acted like animals.

“Is everything alright?” She heard Sirius ask.

She turned to see him approaching the group slowly. There was something familiar about his posture, the cautious way he carried himself, and she briefly remembered a ghost she saw a long time ago.

Solaris turned to leave, but found her arm caught by the man she’d run into.

“I know you”, he slurred.

“You must be mistaken, I’m sorry for bumping into you, but I’m not who you think I am”, she tugged at her arm.

“I don’t make mistakes”, the leader insisted, and his followers closed ranks behind him.

“Just let the doc go, and we’ll be on our way”, Sirius asked, he’d gotten close enough to be just out of immediate reach of the group. He kept his hands up in a placating manner, but Solaris could tell they were hovering close to the flightsuit pocket he’d stashed his gun in.

“What are you going to do about it, Spacer?” one of the followers challenged.

“Yeah, what’s she to you, huh?” the leader followed-up, then everything happened really fast.

Solaris remembered that the leader shoved Sirius and remembered the sound of a pistol clattering against the ground. Then everything went silent.

Too silent for too long.

She remembered it clearly, the expressions on everyone’s face. The short moment of shock that flashed across everyone’s faces which was then erased as the involved parties sprang into action. What happened next wasn’t clear, wasn’t important, she just remembered hearing gunshots.

Her next clear memory saw Sirius on the ground blood spreading from underneath his head, she could see bits of bone and muscle, the white and red scattered on the muted concourse floor.

Somebody was screaming and it sounded a lot like her.