This was the first time since joining the crew of Hopestar that Rin stepped out of the ship on Earth. They visited two times at the start of the year, and then spent over seven months doing loops at the edge of SOI on a big cargo contract. Now, they were back at the heart of SOI, back in Bogota, where it all began.

Andrew left right away, just as he said he would, so when Rin arrived on the Seventh deck after shutting down all the cockpit systems, the library was empty and locked. He returned to the crew deck and managed to get some sleep (they arrived in Bogota at 3 am local time). Finally, at 10 am, he received a text and disembarked. 

Halfway to the port central hub, Rin cursed, realising he didn’t think about what he was wearing. A security guard gave him a stink eye because of large Hopestar logos on the back and shoulders of his jacket. As he stepped into an empty lift pod, he pulled the jacket off, turned it inside out, and tucked it under the strap of his hip bag. Luckily, his long sleeve shirt was plain white without anything to distinguish it as standard Hopestar clothing (back in his Care Home days, even his underwear was branded). 

The light rail ride to the central hub took him another 15 minutes, mostly because one of the moving steps machines was out of operation and people crowded next to the other one, blocking the corridor. Rin shimmied close to the wall and took the stairs. When he stepped into the main atrium, the sun was illuminating a transparent bioglobe in the middle: three birch trees surrounded by small bushes and weeds. He knew the public info packet explained that this was part of a symbolic exchange between Pan-Am Flight Academy, based in Chicago, and Bogota – their dedicated spaceport; a corresponding bioglobe with palms, a red mangrove tree, and orchids stood in the middle of PAFA central building. Technically, PAFA was located closer to Orlando, but it was such a busy spaceport, regular training flights would wreak total havoc on incoming and outgoing traffic.

This is why it made perfect sense to hold the annual academy reunion at the Bogota spaceport. To all of the graduates, it was a part of their alma mater, and for those like Rin - a second home. He would probably never be able (or want) to attend one of those if not for this year’s organiser.

“Rin!” He spun around and searched frantically through the crowd, a smile tugging at his lips. There she stood, on the decorative steps leading into one of the shopping passages, her dress impossibly white and puffy, her curly red hair falling in fluffy waves over her shoulders and down her back. Maggie.

They met each other in the middle of the skybridge and tried to crush one another with hugs. It’s been so long, too long since they’ve last seen each other. In Rin’s case – in previous life. She was still a bit taller than him, still covered in freckles, her hair still smelling of nice shampoo. They haven’t been dating for many years now, but he remembered that side of her even now. She was the only person he ever knew so completely, body and soul. 

Maggie pulled away, her eyes wet, and pressed her hands to his cheeks. “Look at you!!! You look so different now! Did you cut your hair?”

Rin smiled, feeling his own tears sting his eyes. “You haven’t changed a bit.” 

She laughed and pushed him gently in the chest. “Smooth talker.” Then she couldn’t contain her excitement and hugged him again. “I am so glad you are here! I want to hear everything about what’s been going on!”

“I wrote you letters with everything that’s been going on.” This was a lie. He never wrote about who Andrew really was to him.

“Well, prepare yourself to repeat it out loud, because I need to hear it from you!”

They started walking to the shopping passage Maggie waited for him in, still half hugging. Rin’s mood peaked and started slowly going down. “You know I won’t be able to. Remember, that I want to keep my employment a secret.”

She nodded, her face turning serious. “Of course. I made sure the venue doesn’t do passive ID scans. Took me some time to convince the others: I had to pretend I attended parties here and loved it to bits.” Then, after a pause “I did go there, once. I didn’t find it that different from popular lounges.”

Thinking about this stuff made Rin’s jaw lock painfully. He never had to think about ID scanners in public places. He wasn’t a target for them before. Maggie still wasn’t. Yet, she was the one who offered to find a venue that Rin would have no trouble in. With ID scanners, even if he would be allowed to attend, the personnel could out him in front of the rest of the graduates. Just the idea that he needed to consider such things made Rin’s blood boil.

‘Kachevo’ was a lounge cafe during the day and a dance club at night. The name sounded like something from Far-Galactic, but Rin couldn’t really place the meaning. It was surprisingly close to the main atrium, its entrance bright and adorned fashionably. (At least, fashionably for the last year. When one lived on a spaceship, it was hard to keep up with fashion trends. It could be distasteful now, for all he knew.) Inside, half of the big open space and two bars were reserved for the PAFA reunion event. A couple dozen people in assorted branded pilot jackets and casual clothes were already mingling around the tables with finger food and soft drink decanters or were seating on recliners and bean bags in groups. All in all, it didn’t look like a ‘no ID scans’ place. Rin scolded himself for this thought: this was a prejudice that he should have let go of months ago.

The event ‘security’ consisted of one bored young woman with a list on her interface. She recognised Maggie and let them pass through without asking any questions. Two guys after them had to present their IDs. 

Not everyone graduating from PAFA was a pilot. Maggie finished the Flight Control faculty, so she and Rin never actually shared classes and instead met on the students dating board. Part of her degree was in diplomatic relations, while other graduates were also navigators, engineers, atmospheric craft operators, space infrastructure planners, and so many more less known professions required for connecting celestial bodies together in Human SOI.

It didn’t take him long to find familiar faces: a loud group of pilots sitting in a circle and laughing about something amusing, one of them talking loudly while articulating a bit too much.

“I need to talk to several people and make sure brunch will be served on time. Are you okay staying on your own for now?” Maggie leaned forward into his field of view, her expression playfully guilty.

Rin smiled, despite the unpleasant tugging sensation in his gut. “Of course. I’ll just go say hi to my classmates.” 

She gave his arm an encouraging squeeze and hurried away into the crowd.

“Richard!” Delsato, the loud guy, shot up to his feet as he saw him approach. Delsato was one of those people whose main drive was being part of every activity around him. He was acquainted with absolutely everyone on the faculty and those a year ahead and behind him. He received good marks not for his knowledge but for having good relationships with professors. And in automatic tests, he could somehow find a way to get help from the students nearby. Now, he was the centre of attention for the graduates around him due to being the only one in a SpaceShuttle uniform.

A pang of envy shot through Rin’s chest. SpaceShuttle just a year after graduation? This didn’t sound possible. Especially, for a guy who failed his manual flight test twice back in his 4-th year. Surely, the biggest, richest, most famous space-faring company in the SOI had higher standards? Then again, Delsato could talk his way into anything. It shouldn’t be that surprising.

Others got up to shake his hand in greeting. Mbowe, Boiko, Raynault, Sitepu, J- Johnson? Or was it Johnes? Rin barely interacted with the guy before and couldn’t remember his name. But he was happy to see the others even if they were not friends. Thinking of that, did he even have friends back at the academy? No one in his class, but there were a couple people on campus he used to hang out with. None of them contacted him since graduation. And he didn’t know how to write first. ‘Hi, I didn’t keep in touch because I am now stamped’. His classmates all had different jackets with small companies logos, and Johnson/Johnes was dressed casually.

“I see you haven’t stopped talking since the moment we’ve parted after the graduation ceremony.” Rin said with a smile. 

“He talked his way into SpaceShuttle, and has been giving us the story for the past half an hour.” Raynault sat back down and sipped from his tall glass. “I still say he bought the jacket second-hand and is bullshitting all of us.”

“Oh, this is bullshit, but I do believe him.” Mbowe grumbled. His patches belonged to a small company under the Comet umbrella. Comet was SpaceShuttle’s main rival on the market, and it wasn’t surprising someone like Mbowe landed himself such a sweet gig.

Delsato grinned toothily. “Don’t be grumpy, guys! I’m just lucky this way!” He pulled Rin down into one of the bean bags. “Now, the smart boy is here! How’s it been?”

Rin put a hand on his folded jacket just to make sure it was still inside out and unidentifiable. He looked at the friendly faces around and smiled, even though a sense of dread started slowly creeping up his spine. 

“Really busy. This is my first long leave since I started.”

“Shit, really?” Delsato slapped him on the back. “Do you haul cargo or something?!”

“No, it’s a private passenger ship.”

Sitepu raised an eyebrow. “No way, you, on sightseeing tours?”

“No-no, it’s a full size passenger liner.”

The others stared. Technically, none of them had qualifications to fly anything larger than a Comet Piercer, and Hopestar could fit two of those if you took all the cabins out. Rin hoped others would assume he got additional training.

Mbowe chuckled. “You always tried to grab extra classes. You should have been the one hired to SpaceShuttle.”

Everyone chuckled and raised their glasses in agreement while Delsato rolled his eyes with a smirk. Rin pondered this. If he didn’t get a stamp, could he have landed a place in SpaceShuttle? That sounded impossible, but a subsidiary under Comet, like Mbowe? Most definitely. And then in three to five years, a promotion to the main company…

He used to be ambitious. Now, sitting here and thinking about that, Rin felt drained. What was the point of thinking about ‘what if’s when he could never get them. Or get them in a decade, somehow, if he quit Hopestar and managed to get the top notch medical treatment. Which had no guarantee to work. And that would mean leaving Andrew behind, a secret in a locked closet, never to be discovered by anyone.

Delsato brought everyone’s attention to himself again, and the conversation moved on. More people joined in, Boiko excused himself and left, Maggie squeezed herself by Rin’s side and started talking about her apprenticeship at the Foreign Relations office. They could’ve passed for a couple, being this close, practically cuddling, but there was nothing romantic between them anymore. Rin would’ve loved to spend the rest of the day just by her side.

Everything went wrong after brunch. Rin got up to grab himself a plate and left his hip bag and jacket behind. As he returned, Delsato was giving Maggie his SpaceShuttle jacket to try out. It looked impossibly big on her, and Raynault couldn’t stop laughing, while choking on his food.

“Yeah, you need to steal a jacket from someone closer to your size. Like this one!”

It felt like the time slowed down as Delsato reached over, grabbed Rin’s jacket, unfolded it, and threw it around his shoulders. He laughed, because it was impossibly small, not even noticing the logos etched on grey simulated leather.

Everyone else went quiet. Maggie’s face paled, as she realised what was about to happen. Others stared at the logos, wrapping their brains around the meaning behind them. Raynault was the first one to look over and stare at Rin.

“What?” Delsato frowned at the reaction and pulled the jacket off to inspect it. After a moment, he asked. “What does this mean?”

If only everyone could be as clueless as him. 

Rin put his plate down at the nearest table and hurried over. He picked up his bag and pulled the jacket out of Delsato’s hands with a bit more force than he should have. 

Maggie’s lips trembled. “Rin…”

He didn’t want to talk about it. Everyone stared at him like he just revealed himself being two Gemi in a long jacket.

“A private passenger ship, huh?” Raynault said, an unpleasant smirk on his lips. “That’s an understatement.”

“Drop it.” Mbowe kicked his shin. He met Rin’s eye and didn’t look away, something serious and yet reassuring in his gaze.

Rin had no time to decrypt the meaning of it. He started walking out of the lounge. Perhaps, if he left fast enough, no one else would recognise the jacket in his hands. He was just a few steps away from the ‘security’ woman when Johnson/Johnes explained to Delsato: “This is a Hopestar logo.”

And Delsato, the fucking idiot that he was, yelped “HOPESTAR?!” loud enough to attract the attention of everyone around. The ‘security’ woman stared at Rin, and so he stopped.

“You are a pilot on Hopestar?!” Delsato demanded, still loud. “Are you stamped?!”

Maggie let out an angry huff and dropped his SpaceShuttle jacket to the floor. “Shut up! It’s a medi stamp!”

It was nice that she tried to stand up for him, but it didn’t feel good. And suddenly, the dread and anxiety were gone. Rin turned around and slowly put the jacket on. He met Delsato’s gaze. “Maggie, don’t. Why does it matter when they already made up their minds about me? And it would be a half truth anyways. I may have joined the Hopestar crew because of a medical condition, but I am staying because of a man I have feelings for.”

Someone outside their circle said ‘eww’, and everyone looked uncomfortable, except for Maggie who was surprised and Mbowe who stared at his glass.

And in the silence of it, Raynault voiced what most of the crowd was probably thinking: “Ugh, just fuck off already.”