12+  If you thought about it, the process for selecting the first matter transference test pilot was archaic, although Mae considered it a lucky omen when she drew the Blue 15 raffle ticket. Blue, not pink, was her favourite colour as a girl, and at 15, Mae had decided she wanted to become an astronaut.

However, thinking about things was not supposed to happen during matter transference. Scientists couldn't predict what it would feel like, but the disassembly, transfer and reassembly of a test pilot's atoms occurred at the speed of light, so in theory, there was no time for thoughts.

Yet here was Mae recalling that morning when she, Yuri and fellow leaders of the test pilots pack had drawn raffle tickets before listening to the program director's speech.

"Because of the inherent risks," he had explained, "we are letting providence choose who among you will follow in Neil Armstrong's footsteps and be the first human to travel via matter transference."

Despite a distinguished Air Force career, Mae had held onto her adolescent dream of becoming an astronaut, and the call for test pilots for the matter transference program seemed like her best chance of achieving that goal. The training was physically and mentally challenging, but Mae enjoyed pitting herself against her fellow candidates, especially Yuri.

"We are twin souls in the universe," Yuri whispered to her in bed one night.

"Well, this soul's travelling into the universe before you," Mae replied with a laugh and a kiss.

Like the early astronauts, the test pilots wouldn't "pilot" the matter transference beam. They were simply going along for the ride but still needed to learn the mechanics and physics behind the science.

"A trained chimpanzee could do this job," Yuri complained after another long training session.

"It's against the law to use lab animals nowadays," Mae reminded him, adding with a laugh, "but not human guinea pigs."

Besides having unexpected time to think, Mae had noticed a tingling sensation during matter disassembly followed by darkness and near silence, broken only by the faint hum of the universe's cosmic background radiation. It was like being suspended in a flotation tank with the lid closed and lights and music turned off—relaxing but lonely.

"I wish you weren't going, Mae," Yuri confessed on their last night together. "Scientists are expressing doubts about the safety."

"Don't worry," she reassured him with a kiss. "I'll be back in the blink of an eye."

But Mae had spent more than a blink reflecting on her memories. The test pilot training had covered Einstein's time dilation. How long had her atoms been travelling at the speed of light? How long did that equate to on Earth? Hours, days, years? Or longer?

Mae felt a tingling again. Was she being reassembled? However, this time was different, and she sensed another presence.

"I came looking for you," Yuri said.

"I hoped you would," Mae replied, and their atoms swirled like twin souls dancing to the hum of the universe.

© 2024 Robert Fairhead

Thanks to Dmitry Belyakov for sharing the evocative image of a nebula swirling in the universe on Pixabay.

I wrote Twin Souls in the Universe, originally titled The Hum of the Universe, for the Australian Writers' Centre's August 2024 Furious Fiction writing challenge. Their brief for the 500-word story was:

• It had to take place UP IN THE AIR.
• The first sentence had to include a COLOUR and a NUMBER.
• It had to contain the words DOUBT, PACK and SILENCE (longer variations with the core spelling were permitted).

Expanding on the first point, characters could not stand on solid ground or in/on water at any point in the story, including in a building or tower attached to the ground, up a tree, or on a boat, etc. They could also be in space but couldn't set foot on the moon or another planet.

Being a Star Trek fan, this last line about space had me thinking of transporter malfunctions, with Scotty unable to "beam up" and reassemble Captain Kirk. Thus, my story about the first test pilot trial of the matter transference program was born.

Three items of deeper insight for readers:

1. The main character in my story, Mae, is UP IN THE AIR at all times, although she reflects on things that happened on the ground. Perhaps this broke the criteria because my story wasn't showcased or longlisted for August. More likely, the other stories were better than mine.
2. I wanted my two central characters to pay homage to the pioneers of space travel, hence, Yuri, for the Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin (of course!). I planned to name my female character Sally after the first American female astronaut, Sally Ride. But as I explained in the "What's in a Name?" blog post, I'd already used Sally twice (for August 2021 and 2023's Furious Fictions!), so I renamed her Mae, after Mae Jemison, the first African-American woman to travel into space.
3. The story was originally titled The Hum of the Universe because it had a different ending. After Yuri said, "I came looking for you", Mae replied, "I hoped you would", and suddenly she heard the hum of the universe. The line was a callback to the silence and loneliness her atoms had experienced. But the day after submitting the story, I realised I'd used the wrong callback. So, when I shared it on Tall And True, along with other edits to tighten the narrative, I changed the last line to … and their atoms swirled like twin souls in the universe. And I changed the title!

I hope you enjoyed Mae and Yuri's journey in the universe as much as I enjoyed writing and editing it. You might like You Have Been Warned, another speculative fiction story I wrote for the Not Quite Write Prize. I also narrated this story for my Tall And True Short Reads podcast.

September 2024 podcast update: I made a few more tweaks to the story when drafting the script for it as Episode 100 of Tall And True Short Reads, including the last line, which now reads ... and their atoms swirled like twin souls dancing to the hum of the universe.