"The Crying of GSC 035-49"

“Isn’t it lucky,” Zipper supposed some time later, “That your arm healed up just in time for the trip?”

Magenta Sue muttered something inaudible. Nat sipped from a milkshake she brought along for the journey.

After much convincing, hemming, hawing, a trip to the emergency room, apologies, several parties, convincing, hemming, and hawing again - Zipper Chute and the Dime Boys finally embarked upon their worldwide vision quest.

Their first step out of the private womb in particular and the Bronx-12 in general was a trip up to the former Bridgeport, Connecticut. If you recall, Bridgeport had been destroyed in a freak (deliberate?) industrial accident during Big Dig 3: Dig Harder. The construction companies used the ruined city as a dumping ground, and all of sudden there were huge piles of dirt in the former Bridgeport, turning into hills and mountains, grass growing, flora and fauna appearing, ecosystems thriving, which meant that this was the perfect place to throw up a parking lot! Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed - Bridgeport would be transformed into a national park, while Springfield, Massachusetts became the parking lot (which everyone considered to be a great improvement for the city, nyuk nyuk nyuk!)

Zipper and friends had never gone hiking before. They spent hours researching the best gear, planning the route out, studying the Bridgeport wildlife. Once Sue's arm was ready - the trio officially embarked on their travels!

They arrived at Mount Bridgeport in the morning. By nightfall, they reached their destination - an onsen on a mountain ridge. And it was just in time too, ‘cuz when the innkeeper showed them to their rooms, Zipper immediately projectile-vomited into the toilet.

“Good Lord,” Zipper huffed out, hyperventilating from this newfound experience called “exertion”. “You’re ‘sposed to see nature…while hiking…but I was too busy…focusing on putting one foot in front of the other…never thought we’d get to the end…how high did we climb…must’ve been miles…”

“A thousand feet,” answered Sue, washing her face at the sink.

“And people…do this for fun…this must’ve been how Jesus felt…wandering the desert for forty days and nights…’course, a desert is flat, mind you…”

Zipper rinsed her mouth out with the bidet, gurgled, spat. “Ooh boy.”

But there was no rest for weary. Once Zipper was somewhat lucid again, Sue immediately hauled her away, out of their green-tatami room, out the back of the inn, where they arrived at the-

“Hot springs!” exhaled Sue.

Zipper scratched her head. “The wha?”

“It’s an onsen, yanno?” Sue waved her arms. “Outdoor heated communal bath. Just look at the way the rocks are arranged ‘round the water, as if nature itself deposited them there, and those greenish-brown hues of the bamboo walls, the doink-doink of the shishi-odoshi. The whole scene’s so elegant, so functional yet graceful, stylish yet defined, pure Japonisme, like Zen gardens, pagoda masts, schoolgirl series with neo-cell animation…”

Zipper merely scoffed, having stopped paying attention seven words in. “Communal? I told ya before, but I ain’t getting naked with you, Sue.”

Sue frowned. “I asked you under different circumstances last time! And what’s wrong with getting naked at an onsen? You don’t see Nat complaining.”

Nat was already in the water, goggles over the eyes, bamboo shoot as a snorkel.

A sighing Zipper ended up getting into the water after all, shielding herself using a strategically-placed cloud of rising steam. Once she was in, she supposed it wasn’t all that bad. The water was absolutely soothing, the slow rush out of a bamboo spout lulling her to a hypnotic trance of warm calmness, and even Sue melted into silence.

Zipper’s apartment was quiet, see, ‘cuz A-Polymer was soundproof, but this was an entirely different kind of silence - there was no noise to block out to begin with. All Zipper could hear was the stream of water, the doink-doink, the songs of crickets, and the closest equivalent to a geisha with her shamisen - Nat Cool on the harmonica, playing a slow love song.

All was peaceful.

Even the night sky was beautiful. Zipper’s eyes widened at the sight.

“Gee whiz…that’s three whole stars in the sky.”

Sue glanced up. “Oh yeah, would ya look at that. I had a Five-Sense-Experience the other day of drifting through the Pillars of Creation. Hundreds of millions of stars.”

“Yeah, but I’m seeing these three stars with my own two eyes.” Zipper slumped lower in the water, auburn hair fanning out behind her. “I ain’t never seen stars before. Too much light in the city.”

She tried to make out one of them constellation thingies - the bucket for that ol’ Big Dipper, maybe?

“Think these stars got names?” she asked.

Sue’s eyes flashed as she searched the Hypernet. “They only got scientific names. Lots of letters, numbers, dashes. If they were important, they’d be named after Greek gods or celebrities or something like that.”

“Just ‘cuz they don’t got names, that don’t mean they’re not important.”

“Only humans can say if something’s important,” answered Sue. “Nature doesn’t care. Nature just is.”

And so it was. Perhaps everything just is, and it’s Man who puts time to things, places importance upon them, divides them by names, separates good from evil and useful from useless.

Why divide anything, though? Zipper wondered. You can’t divide the doink-doink from the water’s warmth, the steam from the stars, the comfort from the friendship. It all came together, one big scene, no part out of place. Zipper sighed in content, gazing at the stars.

They began going out.

“H-Hey!” Zipper protested as one-by-one, the stars blinked out of existence. All that remained was the empty black void.

“Oh yeah,” Sue recalled. “There was a Dysoning scheduled for tonight. Usually I see them on the livestreams, but seeing them in-person is pretty neat-o.”

“What? No, not neat-o!”

“Oh c’mon, we’ve even watched the livestreams together on the Hypernet in the past.”

Zipper found herself fuming. Sure, putting up A-Polymer dyson spheres ‘round stars were important, as was the A-Polyermization of planets. The energy and resources gained there provided humanity with everything they could possibly need. And it was a cool spectacle to see from the comfort of your home, too - either feed of the sphere closing ‘round the star filmed from the system itself, or feeds from Earth, where the most creative Dyson engineers would time the ensnarement of stars just right so their light stopped reaching Earth at the exact same moment, such as the famed Dyson-ing of the quintuple EPIC 212651213 star system by starship captain Amadeus Lawrence some time ago.

“It’s different seeing it like this,” Zipper said. “Just ‘cuz the stars don’t got names, that doesn’t mean we can just go and cover them with A-Polymer forever.”

"Why not? We’re turning the great cosmic nothingness into something ordered and organized. And besides, there's like two hundred billion in the Milky Way alone." 

"Ugh...I dunno. Nobody will get to ever see stars at this onsen ever again. It's little things like that, maybe..."

Sue shrugged and flagged down a roving wheeled bot for a soda.

Nat played Auld Lang Syne on her harmonica, saluting in the direction of the sacrificed stars.

Zipper slipped further into the water, blowing into it when it reached her lips, watching the ripples spread. Pretty neat-o, indeed.