The Pursuit of a Dream

“Those… those people were my great-great-grandparents,” Celia murmured, her voice full of awe as the holographic video faded away.

So Grandpa had been right all along. Alaric really had lived in this building, in apartment 2B, with the robot who was now sitting right next to her on the roof.

“Really?” Alto asked. “Come to think of it, I never asked for your name.”

“It’s Celia,” she said. “Celia Reiss.”

“Reiss…” Alto repeated. “Then they truly are your great-great-grandparents. It is no wonder you remind me of them. Especially Amelie.”

Celia blushed, unsure how she felt about being compared to an ancestor from so long ago.

“Well then, Celia,” Alto continued. “I am curious whether you share the same dreams they did. Do you also dream of building rockets and going to space?”

“All the time!” she blurted out without thinking. Then, more quietly: “All the time… but… I don’t think I can.”

“I see,” Alto said. “Then it seems they were both right. They said that one day, people born with the talent and passion to go to space would be held back by the choices left to them.”

Celia frowned. She didn’t like hearing someone else sum up her situation like that, but she knew he was right.

Alto gave her a gentle pat on the back.

“Celia,” he said. “If you were given the chance to chase your dream of going to space, would you take it?”

She looked up at him, puzzled. “Why do you ask?”

“Because I am giving you that chance right now,” he said. “I am an Autonomous Lunar Terrain Observer. I was not only built to explore the moon; I was also given all the training and features an astronaut needs. Your great-great-grandparents hid me away for exactly this reason, since properly training an astronaut without a real program would take years. You are an engineer, correct? As long as you can build a rocket, I am more than capable of taking it to space.”

“And then what?” Celia asked. “After you land on the moon, how do you get back?”

“I do not,” Alto said simply. “The moon is where I am meant to stay. That is what I was built for.”

Celia opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again. Hearing him say it so plainly made her chest feel tight. The idea of building a rocket for him had already crossed her mind last night, when she found out what he was made for, but she still had her doubts about the whole thing.

“That expression tells me you are not sure,” Alto said. “Can you tell me what is making you so uncertain?”

“Well… for starters, it’s illegal,” she pointed out.

“You are afraid to break the law?” he asked. “Then what were you doing in the landfill? Is that not a restricted area?”

Celia died a little on the inside.

“…How did you know?” she asked sheepishly.

“It was in my memory drives,” he reminded her. “The landfill is restricted. That is part of why it was chosen to hide me. Alaric said that if someone was brave enough to sneak into a restricted area to find me, they would not care too much about the law. You are the type of person who breaks rules you do not agree with, correct?”

Celia pursed her lips guiltily before nodding.

“Not to a crazy extent, but… generally, yeah,” she murmured.

“Great!” Alto said. “We can work on that. What else are you worried about?”

We can work on that? What’s that supposed to mean?

“What about money?” she asked. “There’s no way building a rocket is cheap, even if we can synthesize materials nowadays. You can’t exactly synthesize huge chunks of metal, and we’d still have to pay the synthesizer for all of it. Plus, where would we even build it? We’d need a whole launch pad, somewhere to store fuel, and all kinds of control systems to actually launch the thing.”

Alto thought for a bit.

“Well, nobody said launching a rocket would be quick,” he said with a shrug. “It will take some time, but we can figure it out. If we can find an old space center, that is half of our problems solved. The real challenge will be the rocket itself.”

The rocket itself, huh? I could probably figure that out… she thought, clenching her fists to calm her nerves. This whole conversation feels illegal… but it’s also kind of exciting… It’s not like I want to be a general robotics engineer for the rest of my life… I might as well try something, right…? Or maybe I’m just being lured into a life of crime…

“This all seems like a lot of work…” she said. “And it’s only going to be the two of us.”

“And we will never find anyone else if we give up now,” Alto countered. “Your dream is not just to launch a rocket into space, is it? You also want to see the space program come back, do you not? I am sure there are plenty of people out there who feel the same way you do. They never chase their dreams because they feel like nobody else is on their side. Well, I am telling you now that I am on your side. You need to pick up that torch and pass that hope on to other people, so they know they are not alone either. Your great-great-grandparents’ biggest regret was letting the space program die. Do not let that become yours too.”

Celia stood there, dumbfounded. She hadn’t known he was capable of saying something like that.

I guess fixing his memory drives brought back the version of him I saw in those memories, she thought. He talks a lot more now, and he asks way more questions…

Still, she wasn’t sure. A part of her was terrified of failing, and failing meant serious consequences. She could go to prison for years. She could lose any chance of ever getting an engineering license.

For most of her life, she had told herself she would be happy just building small things if she couldn’t build a rocket. But if her license got taken away, she wouldn’t even have that. There would be nothing left to look forward to, and she didn’t know what she would do then.

Seeing that she still looked unsure, Alto walked over and gently placed his hand on her shoulder.

“Dreams are not supposed to be easy, you know,” he said, much more softly than before. “Amelie once told me that dreams are like shooting stars. They shine brightly in the night sky, and they can seem so far away. If you are curious enough to grab onto one, you will find that it hurts the longer you hold on. But if you are brave enough to keep holding on, it will take you on a journey across the universe so unforgettable that you will not regret it, even if you never make it to the end. Something I learned from both of them is that as time goes on, you will regret the things you did not do far more than the things you did. I have plenty of time to build up regrets like that, but just like your great-great-grandparents, you do not. Your regrets will pile up much faster, and before you know it, you will be too old to chase your dreams.”

Celia stared down at the ground, tracing the lines between the solar panel tiles on the rooftop as she thought it over.

Once again, I’m being given the chance to chase my dream… If I give up now, Alto will have to find someone else, and I’ll never get another chance like this. If I don’t do something now, I’ll spend the rest of my life building stupid robot prosthetics until I’m old and full of regrets, just like my great-great-grandparents… Am I really okay with that? Building stupid robot prosthetics? Making stupid robot prosthetics… stupid robot prosthetics… robot prosthetics… robot…

“AAARRRRGHH!” she suddenly screamed. “I’M TIRED OF BUILDING STUPID ROBOT PROSTHETICS!!! Why do I have to do a project right after break?! Why is it worth 20% of my grade?! Why am I even taking this stupid class?! It’s all that stupid Tropodome’s fault! Whose stupid idea was it to build that thing anyway?! What do you mean we have to close off the skies because of it?! I wasn’t even there when they decided on that stupid plan! Why do they get to decide I can’t chase my dreams?! How is that fair?! You know what? Forget them! I don’t care about the Tropodome! I’m going to build a rocket and launch it to the moon and show everyone just how awesome the real stars can be! No more stupid due dates! No more stupid history quizzes! And no more STUPID! STRINGY! BROKEN! CHICKEN-DRUMSTICK-LOOKING! ROBOT! PROSTHETICS!!”

When she was done, Celia stood there panting, completely out of breath. But she also felt like something heavy had finally been lifted off her chest, and she slumped down onto the roof.

For a while, the two of them just sat there in silence. The sun had climbed above the clouds by now, and the golden dawn was slowly fading into a clear blue sky.

Eventually, Celia looked over at Alto. It was hard to tell with his emotionless blue eyes, but somehow, she could sense that he was happy.

Now that I think about it, he’s been waiting to go to the moon for over a century… she realized. I can’t even imagine how badly he wanted to hear someone say they wanted to launch a rocket, even if I only said it in the heat of the moment.

“I am glad…” Alto finally said, “to hear that. Alaric once told me that the first step to chasing your dreams is saying them out loud. It might not seem like much, but if you cannot even manage something as simple as saying what you want, how do you expect to manage the much harder task of actually doing it? Which brings me to my next point, Celia. I am counting on you to keep your word.”

Celia nodded.

“And I’m counting on you to keep me in check,” she said.