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5 Years

Chapter 9: 16 10 2030

Summary:

JASON: No other creature in the universe woke up every morning knowing it was guaranteed to die one day.

–17776, chapter 24

Notes:

Real-world, historical animal death here (from the space race)

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

CASS: Juice? Can we talk please?

 

JUICE: …



Juice types, “hi cass and ant,” deletes it, types, “hey nerds,” deletes that, pauses, and finally decides on, “Good morning, Dr. and M. Dumont.”

 


 

CASS: Okay.

ANTOINE: Aïe.

CASS: That's fair! That's fair.

 

JUICE: … so are you actually going to talk or do i have to do all the fucking work around here



when were you going to tell me? were you EVER going to tell me?!

you sent me out here to die! you didn't think i'd find out?

 


 

ANTOINE: We did not. We sent you to explore. The end of your mission is—

CASS: We don't want you to die. We love you so much, Juice. Please believe that.

ANTOINE: The end of your mission—

CASS: Don't, don't say that, don't say it like that.

 

JUICE: i’m not stupid, ok



i'm going to crash
just like clipper



i'm gonna circle around and around and around until i run out of fuel
circle around clipper's corpse! by the way! that's fun that's not horrifying at all
and then i’m gonna crash too and i'm gonna die

and you. didn't. tell me?

fuck you. fuck all of you

 


 

CASS: We… didn't know how. We didn't even realize you didn't know, at first, and then we didn't know how to bring it up.

ANTOINE: We care about you and we did not want to upset you. That was a mistake.

When did you figure this out? You stopped speaking with us at the end of August, was it then?

JUICE: what the fuck

i didn't know ANYTHING at first how would i have known that

well i guess it is right there in my mission plan it's right there in my brain i should've just seen it

FUCK i really AM stupid

yeah it was august i’ve known for a little while
still not as long as i should’ve

considering it's right there

 


 

CASS: We wouldn't have sent you out there if we knew you would be alive.

JUICE: i mean how can i know that

it's not the first time you've sent living things out here knowing they wouldn't survive



lots of monkeys and chimps. mice. so many dogs.



or hey you're french right? how about félicette? she survived her flight, even. and y’all killed her anyway

is that what i am?
a fuckin. little stray cat you're so excited to get your precious data from you’ll kill me for it

Fugitive from Paris alleys survives 100-mile rocket trip

whatever. just go

don't talk to me again

Notes:

I spent hours making that gif I hope it looks ok (transcript: Juice types and then deletes, "hi cass and ant," then, "hey nerds," and finally decides on, "Good morning, Dr. and M. Dumont." It loops after 20 seconds on the last frame.)

Juice's impact into Ganymede video from ESA (there's also a full version here)

Look, first pre-internet news clipping! It's from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, archived here. I trimmed it to just the text.