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Out the front windows of the cockpit of the cargo ship, streaks of pseduo-starlight race past as the ship and its crew of one take the long, loping curve of Route 7077 past the Dogstars on towards Double E. A neighborhood delivery, not even ten lies from home, but that's what pays the bills.
Johnny popped a mint into her mouth, shoving the roll back into the breast pocket of her jumpsuit before collapsing in the captain's chair and putting her feet up on the eternally-vacant co-captain's chair with a loud sigh. Her jaws worked, playing counterpoint to the low hum of the aircon and the cockpit computers with a pop and crunch as she crushed the mint between her molars, like a hyena working an antelope's thighbone.
A second sigh followed, also feminine, but this one synthetically modulated and emanating from the PA speakers in the deckhead and console instead of the human. Johnny rolled her eyes and prepared for the expected gripe, same as she'd heard a thousand times.
"C'mon, babe, can it be only one crass biological habit at a time for once?"
Johnny looked up at the speaker grille and microcamera pointing down at her. "Fuck off, Frankie, you should at least thank me, I finally figured out where that short in the stateroom wiring was." She shook her head. "The fucking closet light."
Frankie's voice from the speakers was chiding. "Well, perhaps if you ever went in there, maybe dressed nice for once, you'd have noticed it earlier."
Johnny did not dignify this suggestion with anything further than a snort.
Frankie brought her tone down a bit further. "Honestly, Johnny, you need to get out more. Make new friends. Get laid."
Johnny folded her arms across her middle. "Says the one who's floating in hard vacuum. I can't imagine you get much action down at the depot," she retorted, glumly.
Frankie didn't respond for a second, as if she couldn't believe what she just heard. "...babe. I'm on the internet. I'm on the internet all hours. And my aetheroconsciousness gets direct neural stimulation. I'm getting laid at least daily, in ways that you can't possibly imagine. I could having a three-way with a pair of cross-dressing mutant twins from Kyoto as we speak."
"I'm remembering why we divorced."
"I'm just trying to help."
"You're not my mom, Frankie."
"No, I care about you a lot more than she does."
Johnny's face darkened. "Fuck you."
Frankie didn't back down. "No, fuck you, Johnny. I'm probably the only thing in ten fucking parsecs that cares if you live or die and I don't want to see you ruin your whole fucking life on some kind of self-denial trip."
Johnny could have taken this in the spirit it was meant, but she was feeling petulant. She reached for the shop radio clipped to her toolbelt, punched a code sequence in without looking and looked smugly into the camera for Frankie to see.
"Oh, Frankieeeeeeeee..." Johnny said, as the fist-sized device began chuntering out a bizarre sound, like a gas leak having an argument with a pulsed radar array.
"No," said Frankie, half in denial, half in revulsion.
Johnny began to sing---if it could be called that---along with the haunted voice that joined the pulsar-leak combo on her radio: "Frankie Teardrop...twenty-year-old Frankie..."
"Fucking no, you turn that off right now, Johnny. You're not doing this again."
"He's married, he's got a kid..."
"I'll turn off my audio inputs." Frankie sounded shaken by this turn of events.
"...an' he's workin' in a factory..."
"JOHNNY!" Frankie yelled, almost wailing.
"WHAT?!" Johnny yelled back, punching the stop button on the music.
Frankie sighed. "I'm sorry. I overstepped my bounds. I shouldn't interfere with your life choices. But you absolutely have to admit you're being an asshole."
Johnny rubbed her eyes. "You're right, I am. And you didn't. I'm just tired."
"We're both tired. You should get a shower and take a sleep cycle. We can watch the new episode of Karplusian Chef School when you get done."
Johnny raked her fingers through her hair, then stood up, nodding, unzipping her jumpsuit and stepping out of it, leaving a trail of clothing behind her as she made her way to the head. "Yeah," she said, "That sounds nice."
Frankie dimmed the lights as Johnny left the cockpit.
"I absolutely need to find that girl some adventure in her life," the ship mused to no-one in particular.
It might be said, however, considering what events would follow, that the universe was listening.