This is a work of fiction.
Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously.
Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Circular Horizon by Bokerah Brumley
Copyright © 2016 Bokerah Brumley
www.bokerah.com
All rights are reserved, including the right to reproduce this book
or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

“He stretcheth out the north over the empty place,
and hangeth the earth upon nothing.”
Job 26:7 KJV

Houston, Texas
1 July 2051 

The screen on the wall displayed a long message. The scrolling words were accompanied by a notification alarm that repeated every sixty seconds. An LED flashed in the corner of the room. 

“Go away.” Abel Onizuka groaned and rolled over.

It wasn’t until two frenzied voices called his name while a thunderstorm of fists pounded on his door that he woke up.

“What?” Abel rasped. A crumpled piece of paper was tucked in his hand. He’d been up all night reading and re-reading the email. The simplicity of her heartfelt words had struck a chord in Abel’s heart. 

“And more than that,” she’d written. “He’s listening, waiting to answer with his best.”

Abel sat up like Frankenstein after a night of pillaging and let the note fall to the floor. His shorts were turned nearly half way around his body, his white t-shirt was only half on, and one sock had slipped from his foot. Jet lag was getting worse with age. This better be good. His body ached like he’d been wrestling a giant.

He noticed the woman speaking into the communication unit. Her face was pinched. She might be yelling into the mic. Probably a good idea he muted it before he’d fallen into the assigned room at curfew.

But people were still pounding on the hotel room door.

“Yeah,” Abel barked. He made a fist and squinted at the side table until he spied the button marked with a door. He slammed his hand into it. When the door swung open, two young people, wearing identical black jumpsuits, fell into the room. 

“Mr. Onizuka?” The young woman was the first to recover. She did half a push up and jumped to her feet. Her blond ponytail swung wildly behind her head.

“What?” He pushed his right arm through the T-shirt neck and grumbled as he pulled it back out. Another wild stab and he got the right hole. He tugged on the bottom hem of the T-shirt. They usually let him sleep until his shift began. Jarvis had gone and gotten rule-crazy again.

“There’s a problem in mission control,” the buzz-headed young man answered. He pushed upward on his glasses.

“There’s always a problem.” He yawned and scrubbed his hands across his eyes, and his callouses scraped against his cheeks.

The two had made it to their feet – interns by the look of them. The nervous twitching, hand-wringing hovering irritated him, so he glowered at them from the edge of the bed. It was too early to read the titles on their nametags from across the room. 

Java might make this bearable – an IV full of it.

The woman glanced from her babbling co-worker to Abel. “But Mr. Onizuka,” she interjected. “It’s Mae.”

The rush of adrenaline obliterated the cobwebs in his mind. He scooped up his pants and beat them both out the door, all thoughts of coffee forgotten.

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