Chapter 4

April 2150

Dr. Hoshiyume Takahashi was a wreck.

But that hadn't always been the case.

Since he had been a child, he had been fascinated with starships. If he had to, he would blame his grandfather for this. He had been the one who got Takahashi his first Do-it-yourself model of a starship from an old movie. That was what had probably started his fascination for everything that had to do with starships.

It had been just the attempt of a grandfather to connect with his youngest grandchild but it had lit a spark in him that with time would grow into a bonfire.

While his parents had difficulties relating to their youngest child and thus favored Takahashi's older siblings, even if it had been just subconsciously, his grandfather had no such problems. He had recognized the passion that his grandson radiated and did his best to nurture that fire, knowing, as only a grandfather could, that he would be special. It took some time but he could save enough money to pay for a trip to one of the few starship yards that had existed in the early 22nd century.

With time Takahashi's collection of starship models grew but his interest didn't stop there. Anything that had to do with starships, be it books, movies or video games, caught his interest.

Nevertheless, as it was the case for every child, he soon grew up to become a young adult but his passion never waned.

He went to university to study engineering with a focus on starships and all subjects he thought would become useful for him in his endeavor to one day create the greatest starship in human history.

At the end of his education, he was known as one of the brightest minds in the field of starship-engineering and an expert in mathematics, physics, and electronics.

He was lauded as a genius.

And now, at 32 years of age.

Dr. Hoshiyume Takahashi was a wreck.

It had started slowly and hadn't been more than a little annoyance to him at the beginning. Funds slowly became less and he had been told the equipment that he had ordered would take some time to acquire.

That was the answer he would be told again and again until they cut all his funds.

They reasoned that his research would take decades to show the first results and that the funds they had previously forwarded to him, could be better used for other projects.

'Idiots! All of them!' had Takahashi cursed. They just couldn't see what he did! Of course, it would take time to see results, after all, he was laying the foundation for humanity to conquer Faster-than-Light travel! That wasn't something that happened from one day to the other.

Just a very small minority of his colleagues could even understand his vision, the others called his research ludicrous, impossible or that it would take humanity hundreds of years to start being able to do this.

For Takahashi the case was clear, they had no ambition and their sight too narrow, so they tried to depict him as a madman to bring him down and make themselves feel better in their mediocrity.

The sad thing was that it was working, after he had left the research team he had belonged to, he had tried to find a new place but nobody wanted him. No governmental funded research team nor any company in the private sector.

It got even worse after somebody had leaked his fascination with fictional spaceships and the so-called experts started to mock him as a dreamer who had lost touch with reality and some more derogatory names behind closed doors.

He had no problem with being called a dreamer because that was what he was, someone with a dream and trying to make it true.

But it still hurt. To know that even fellow experts discredited his research.

It seemed like they had lost the ability to dream, to want more.

And not just the researchers that worked on the advancement of starship technology, no, it seemed like all of humanity began slowly losing its ambition and was becoming complacent.

The scientific discoveries in the last twenty years were minimal at best and the advancement of already existing technology was slow.

Until something truly shocking happened, Takahashi feared that humanity would take much longer to leave its solar system than otherwise.

But what did he care? After all,

Dr. Hoshiyume Takahashi was a wreck.

He had started to isolate himself from the world and the scientific society that mocked him and even started to laugh openly at him.

That had been four years ago.

Since then, he had only left his apartment in Hokkaido only to buy food and other necessities. Distancing himself from everyone he knew, even his own family, a strained relationship between them ever since his grandfather had died in his sleep.

Money was no big problem, he still got some from the patent that belonged to him, a pretty small one in his opinion that he had applied for on the side, a method to increase the output of starship-engines by 4%.

Nothing too incredible in his mind.

It paid his bills but wasn't enough to even begin to fund one of his ideas.

Without options, Takahashi turned to pure theory. He created designs and theories about FTL-travel and the needed engines, about shielding and possible weapons. Nothing was safe from his theories.

Nonetheless, without funds, his theories would just stay that, theories.

His mind returned to his happy childhood and teenage days when he would play games and read books and dream about the future.

He had been happy then.

So he tried to return to them.

Book after book, game after game, Takahashi tried to forget the cruel world outside his apartment that hurt him so and had mocked his dreams.

They had said that he was losing touch with reality, then it had been ludicrous but now? It was starting to become true.

After four years there were only his books, his games, and his theories, nothing more.

It was a lonely life.

His appearance and apartment started to reflect it.

Trash started to litter his rooms, some of his research between the mountains of cartons of takeaway food.

His black hair had grown somewhat wild since it had been some time that he had visited a barber and even his hygiene was affected by his mindset.

The last time he had taken a bath was months back, he made do with showering and even that was infrequently.

After all, bathing scared him.

It had begun two years back when he took one and his mind started to wander while he relaxed. He thought about his life until now and the conclusion was depressing. Then he asked himself why he should continue and not end it here.

The first time the thought had scared him senseless, never had he thought that he would ever consider such an idea.

In the next two weeks, he tried to go out more often, to find motivation again.

It worked.

For a time.

After that, every time he took a bath, the thought about ending it all came and every time he considered it longer before dismissing it.

But he knew that it wouldn't always stay this way.

The idea became more alluring day by day.

What was there to lose?

After all,

Dr. Hoshiyume Takahashi was a wreck.

Then that day came.

The day that lit the fire of his passion once more.

It was the day he showed up at Takahashi's doorstep.

Oscar Denebren.

The man who gave him purpose again and got him out of his depression.

For Takahashi, it had started like any other day until the doorbell rang around midday.

He had been surprised, the only one who ever came to his apartment had been the postman when Takahashi had ordered something, and he was sure that he hadn't.

Curiosity piked, he opened the door and saw a man in an expensive-looking suit standing there.

The man introduced himself as Oscar Denebren and after he asked if he was speaking to Takahashi, which was answered by a short nod, he asked if he could come in.

Takahashi realized soon that while he asked it was more like a demand.

So he did the only sensible thing.

He let Mr. Denebren in his apartment.

In his living room, Denebren took one of the free and relatively clean places to sit, not batting an eye at the state the apartment was in, nor had he at Takahashi's appearance.

Intrigued Takahashi sat down as well and waited for Denebren to start talking.

And talking he did.

He spoke of events that had happened in the last two years that Takahashi in his isolation completely missed, cursing himself for ignoring any kind of news, thinking they would only talk about useless things anyway. Alien ruins on Mars? A new element that in combination with an alien artifact at the edge of the solar system that made FTL possible?

Within a few minutes, Denebren had shattered every expectation that Takahashi had and something inside of him was starting to rear its head again. A feeling that he thought was long gone.

For the next thirty minutes, Takahashi stayed silent and just listened while Denebren talked. And the things he was talking about! More than once Takahashi thought he was dreaming or had gone completely mad.

The offer Denebren made was everything Takahashi had ever wanted. He had offered Takahashi to become the head of the R&D team that Denebren was assembling to research how to make starships better and to develop new technologies that could improve on them even further. He would get to work with the research teams that this Alliance had and his funding would be nearly unlimited!

All those theories he could test, all these projects he could realize!

Even his work on FTL-travel could continue, Mr. Denebren even insisting on it. Saying that until humanity would be able to build one of this so-called mass relays themselves, that it would be idiotic and naive to rely on an alien technology that they didn't understand completely. If those relays got damaged they couldn't even repair them and would be trapped in whatever system they were in, unable to do anything.

After Denebren had finished, he said that he would give Takahashi some time to think about the offer and prepared to go.

Before Denebren was even standing, Takahashi had said yes.

What was there to think about? It was everything that he had ever wanted.

Denebren just smiled and sat back down. Remembering his manners, Takahashi offered his new boss to make some tea which was thankfully accepted by him.

Over more than a few cups of tea, they talked. About the details of Takahashi's new responsibilities and oppertunities, about the ideas and theories that he had composed during his self-imposed isolation and about starships appeared in various movies and videogames, something Takahashi truly enjoyed. Here, there was someone who didn't think that the inspiration he got from media was ridiculous, saying that an idea was always just fiction until it was realized by an ambitious person.

They talked until the early hours of the evening, not realizing how much time had gone by.

Mr. Denebren bid Takahashi farewell and closed the door behind him, not without telling him that he would be expected in three days at his new workplace and that somebody would pick him up and bring him there.

Then there was silence in the apartment.

Everything that had just happened still felt like a dream to Takahashi but the datapad in his hands, that Mr. Denebren left him, was saying differently.

On it was the contract displayed that both of them had signed, a contract that gave Takahashi purpose again and had brought the fire in him, that had been in him since the day he got that model from his grandfather, back to life and stoked it so that it burned even brighter than ever before.

Minutes went by until he could tear his gaze away from the signatures that told him this was real and he saw himself in one of the few mirrors in his apartment.

At first, he couldn't recognize the person looking back at him until he realized that it was his own reflection.

This scruffy appearance had to go,

after all,

Dr. Hoshiyume Takahasi wasn't going to be a wreck anymore.