I used the money I earned to buy myself laser surgery for my eyes. Which was something my parents couldn't afford — trying to raise three kids on one teacher's salary as my mother finished up her master's degree.
With beyond perfect 20/10 vision, I walked into the Navy recruiter's office and was told, sorry kid, LASIK was an automatic disqualifier.
They changed the rule later, but it was too late for me. Uncle Sam wanted no part in making my dream a reality. I'd never be a guy like Bennet, a Real American Hero™.
Dejected and rejected, I decided I'd find other ways to take to the sky. I studied engineering and aeronautics in college and found that as a student you could get cheap pilot training.
I learned how to fly fixed wing, rotary, single engine, multi-engine and even no-engine in gliders and a hot air balloon. One summer, a couple of my flight school pals and I even took a trip to Russia and got to take control of MiGs. I did a crash course in Russian, afraid I'd try to change the air conditioner and end up ejecting myself over Siberia.
To pay for it all, I spent my spare time volunteering for medical studies where they poked me with different chemicals as I sat around playing flight simulators.
When it came time to graduate, my friends all went into commercial aviation. I didn't. Flying a jumbo jet wasn't the same as going to the stars. So I took a job as a science teacher in my mom's school district.
The same week classes started, iCosmos, the private space company with its own fleet of rockets, announced they were accepting applications for astronauts.
I pissed my mom off when I turned in my school resignation after iCosmos hired me. Although, it wasn't as an astronaut at first. They had plenty of former NASA people, like Bennet, who'd gone through their program to choose from.
When the recruiter read the part on my resume about working for various pharmaceutical companies, you should have seen the fiendish look in her eyes when I explained I'd basically been a medical guinea pig.
"Oh, we need those too," she replied.
"Will it help me be an astronaut?" I asked.
"Sure, why not?" she answered in that Northern Californian, non-response.
It didn't matter. Being a test monkey stuck at the bottom of a swimming pool for ten hours in a leaking spacesuit, or finding out what happens when your cockpit chair snaps loose as the capsule goes rolling sideways down a hill, was a lot closer to being an astronaut than flying complaining tourists and neurotic flight attendants on the same route over and over.
The day they finally accepted me into the iCosmos astronaut program, after nearly killing me on Earth nine ways from Sunday, was the second happiest day of my life.
The happiest was today, when I got the call. That all came to a fiery reentry when I saw Bennet, the man who taught The Most Interesting Man in the World how to be interesting, stick a gun into his pocket.
Man up, David. Go talk to him.
Worst case scenario and he actually is crazy?
He'll just shoot me here on Earth instead of 200 miles up.
2
Glitter Menace
Acting as casually as I can, I finish sliding my chest unit into place and make sure all the lights are green. I double-check it, even though half a dozen people will take a look before I get into the capsule. Spaceflight is supposed to be routine now, but not that routine.
"What's up, Dixon?" asks Bennet, looking up at me from his wrist display.
"You know, suicide pills are a lot easier to pack," I say in the weakest possible way as I point to the pouch with the gun.
He glances past me and sees the mirror. "Watching me suit up? I didn't know you were into that."
This kind of locker room trash talk is a bit out of place for Bennet, not to mention the fact his son is openly gay and a Republican US Senator elected in no small part because of his father's support.
He's clearly trying to avoid the topic.
I press on. "Seriously. Is that some new SOP I don't know about?"
Bennet takes his time as he examines his readout then walks up to me, standing toe-to-toe, our chest units almost touching.
"Dixon, there are things you need to know and things you do not need to know. I do not have time to tell you all the things you need to know. What I can tell you is that what you thought you saw doesn't exist in your world. Understand? But I'll humor you and tell you that because of certain security requirements for our payload, I'm required to take certain precautions."
He gives me a friendly clap on the shoulder and smiles. "Don't worry, son."
I've seen the cargo manifest. We're just bringing standard supplies to the US-iCosmos Space Station. There are no military or spy agency payloads I'm aware of.
But would I know? A line item that says 35 x 55 x 20 cm box weighing 2.4 kilograms listed as "Replacement carbon dioxide sensor monitor" could be some NRO long-range LiDAR sensor designed to scan foreign satellites or something or other.
"I'm proud of you, Dixon. This is what it's all about. You're going do to fine."
That's the Halston Bennet I know, the man who trained me and dozens of others in the iCosmos program — the guy we secretly try to emulate.
"Gentlemen, you all set?" says Stephanie Peterson as she enters our locker section. Technically part of the cargo, she's a NASA astronaut we're taking to the Station.
An athletic, imposing former Air Force pilot, she's also the man I want to be when I grow up.
"I was just explaining to Yoga Boy how things are going to be."
"You just do whatever Halsy tells you." She gives me a wink.
I want to ask her if she knows about "Halsy's" gun. But by the informal way those two talk to each other, I get the feeling that if he's up to something she'd either know, or be in on it.
Yoga Boy. Ugh. Bennet once caught me doing some stretches before a pool dive and never let it go.
He's a great instructor but never lets you forget who the real men are — the men and women who served in the military and were part of NASA's astronaut program. They were accepted from the best and the brightest. The twee poseurs like myself are just pretenders.
"Astronauts to the press room," Renata calls to us from the door.
"Let's go, Dixon," says Bennet as he gives me a friendly pat on the back. "Time to tell them what it feels like to be about to have your space cherry popped."
It's disorienting the way he just can switch right into the avuncular instructor whose calm voice walked me through my underwater and zero-g training on our 727 Vomit Comet jet.
It's hard to call it a "press room" when at the moment it's a mostly empty auditorium with just twelve internet bloggers.
On a real mission, something besides a FedEx run, the room would be full. Today we get anyone with more than ten Twitter followers and nothing better to do until their parents come home.
It's kind of embarrassing and nothing like the newsreel footage I grew up watching of astronaut press conferences.
Vin Amin, the CEO of our company, insists that we do this before every launch.
"Watch out for that one," Peterson whispers to me, singling out a girl in crutches wearing a glitter-speckled t-shirt and purple streaks in her hair. She looks to be between nineteen and twenty-five.
I pretend everything is totally cool and my hero didn't just emasculate me moments before the most important day of my life. "I'll be careful."
"No, seriously. She once asked the NASA director a question about a contractor funding overrun that he didn't have the answer for. It nearly cost him his job and killed the program."