New Year's Eve, 2084 - Stephanie Day is 24, Justin Kim is 23, Sophie Phoenix is 61.
Soundtrack: "Drown," by Smashing Pumpkins.
Plenty of people are hosting New Year's parties this year, every year, all over the world. Aunt Sophie is hosting the usual party, and Stephanie's parents will be there, but instead Stephanie is here with Justin's parents. Because Justin's mom makes regular platters of food, sausage rolls in biscuits from the grocery store, nothing imported, nothing strange and gourmet like her Aunt Sophie serves. Stephanie is here because Aunt Sophie's house is always too crowded and noisy, because Corbin has a date which left Justin alone. She considered that they could spend New Year's in the quiet of her empty house, but she decided against it. Alone has grown on her, grown into her bones. But not tonight. She knows Justin doesn't like that much quiet.
Stephanie wonders how they're celebrating on base, or if they're even celebrating at all. Out there, tonight is just another date, a point on a calendar that's only significant to us because we make it so. Outside the Earth's spinning clock, a year means nothing. Out there, their ships whiz through the blackness and time is irrelevant except to their little electronic clocks, keeping home time like nostalgia.
