Head In The Stars

"Why didn't you ask him to stay for dinner?" asked Millie. She was picking out which pieces of mantou she wanted steamed for dinner. I bought a stash while we were out shopping.

"Oh, I didn't know you were so eager to share you mantou."

Millie jumped and glared at me.

"Since you're being so generous, can I have some?" I asked.

Millie seemed to inflate like a pufferfish, then… "You can have one."

I was not expecting that.

I chuckled. "That's alright. You can have all of them."

The little girl breathed a big sigh of relief and went back to selecting her dinner.

We were at a camping site just a few minutes walk away from the parking lot. With the station now off limits, that meant that if I wanted to eat hot food I either had to buy it or find a free to use cooking stove. With the camping site so close it was a no-brainer.

It was summer, but this place wasn't too popular, so Millie and I were the only people there.

Millie, with mantou in hand, began to walk around to the different firepits. I'd given her the task of picking which one to used, a task she was taking very seriously.

I pulled out my rechargeable lantern, flicked it on, then hung it on the open boot door of the van. The light spilled out over the 'dining table', a piece of wood I'd weighed down on one side in the van and put a fold-out chair under the other. The chair was a little low, so the 'table' slanted to one side, but it was good enough.

"Found one yet?" I called out to Millie as I gathered the skewers and lighter.

I waited a few moments.

"This one!" announced Millie and I went over. "It's the cutest."

An important criterion to be sure. I looked at the firepit.

It wasn't… not cute?

"Go get the tray on the table," I told Millie. She nodded and went while I got things started.

When she returned she wasn't just carrying the tray. She was also carrying my guitar.

"Hey, where'd you get that from?" I'm embarrassed to admit that I was oddly angry about this.

"It's always hanging on the roof above the curtains," Millie said with a pout. "Don't you want to play it? I thought people always play guitars over campfires." She held the guitar like she was playing and used a hand to strum the strings.

Twang!

She jumped and nearly dropped the instrument, but I caught it in time. One of the strings had snapped.

I set the guitar down next to me then took the tray from Millie. I knew I shouldn't be getting angry with her. It had nothing to do with her afterall.

"I haven't played in a long time," I said without looking at her.

"Sorry."

"It's fine. Strings break." I held out a skewer to her. "Put your mantou on this."

Millie took it and we sat down to cook dinner.

--

The night was quiet, perhaps too quiet and I found my hand straying to rest on the neck of my guitar and that space where the string had been. Luckily Millie was absorbed in her book and didn't notice.

I withdrew my hand and poked at the fire. We'd finished eating but we both seemed reluctant to leave the flickering warmth.

"Figure out anything from your book?" I asked.

"I think... I should be able to use a radar dish to send a message to my people," said Millie. Was she choosing to ignore that she came from an orphanage or was it irrelevant?

"Really? Like the one at the station then?"

"Only if it has a 'send' mode. Kai didn't go into the details."

I sat back. "The system up there works by sending out radio waves and measuring how long it takes for them to bounce back, kinda like how bats or dolphins use echolocation, so it should have a 'send' mode."

"Oh!" Millie sounded excited.

"But I'm not sure if it'll be powerful enough for what you want to do. It's pretty old."

Millie nodded thoughtfully. "Power is a legitimate concern. That's one of the things experts argue about a lot when it comes to SETI."

"Setty?" What was that? A cute animal?

"The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence," explained Millie.

"Oh." Alien fanatics. I should have known.

I was about to ask more when I felt something cold hit my face. I looked up then suddenly realised why no one was at the camp site.

It was raining. I should have checked the weather beforehand. The irony.

"Quick. Grab the tray," I said.

--

The rain hammered down on the roof of the van making it feel more like we were hiding in a small tin can. The boot was open a crack to let in more air and I watched the water cascade down off of it like a waterfall.

"I think something bit me..." she muttered, scratching her arm. "I'm itchy."

"Camping not as fun as you expected?" I asked.

Millie shook her head sadly. "I want a shower," she said.

"...Me too."

We both stared mournfully out at the rain.

Millie poked me. "What do you normally do?" she asked.

"I use the one up at the station."

"What about when it's closed?"

I leaned against the inner wall of the van with a sigh. "This is the first time it's happened."

"You don't have a backup plan?!" Millie sounded both outraged and shocked.

"During the summer I can go to a swimming pool, but they'd be closed right now too..."

Millie sighed then leaned against the opposite wall.

"What about you ask that nice boy if we can stay with him?" she asked after a while.

I looked at her. "Nice boy?"

"You know," she said. "Officer Aron."

"What?!"

Millie grimaced. "What, he's so nice to you. I'm sure he'd be fine with helping you out."

I shook my head. "I can't just casually impose on someone like that..." I muttered. But what was the point in trying to reason with Millie?

"What about a parent?" Millie asked. "Have you got a spare?"

I didn't reply.

"Think about the warm shower!"

I still didn't reply but she'd found my weakness.

I stuck a hand out through the crack in the door. The rain was coming down harder than earlier. If Millie got sick, would Claire arrest me for child abuse?

"...Fine. I'll call him tomorrow."

--

Tomorrow came and my ploy to see if Millie would forget what I said failed.

"How long have you had this van?" asked Aron.

"About three, four years or so," I answered.

"Really? Feels newer."

"I redid the interior last year," I said. I nodded toward the back of the van where Millie sat safely strapped to the side. "The platform and panelling's new."

"Still. You must really look after it."

We were on the main road at the foot of the mountain. Aron was driving. He said there were some tricky turns on the way to our destination not that I needed any convincing. I didn't especially like driving.

"Hey, Aron, have you ever chased a bad guy?" Millie asked. She was side-on to the passenger seat and bounced her hand on top of my headrest as she spoke.

"Of course," replied Aron. He slowed and stopped at a red light.

"What happened?" asked Millie. She was almost excited as when she talked about aliens.

"After we cornered him in an alley, he pulled out a knife," said Aron. "So we let him go."

"Wah…?"

I glanced back and caught Millie's displeased expression.

"No matter what," said Aron, "knives are very dangerous and can kill. Risking your life to save someone is one thing, but risking your life to retrieve a stolen bag or something is another." He had a bit of a teacher's tone going on as he said this.

"I hadn't thought of that…" Millie leaned against my headrest with her chin on her arm.

"Afterwards, we had the guy followed and arrested him when he met up with his gang. We managed to get the whole group in one day."

"Oh! Very productive!" Millie said approvingly.

"Thank you."

Millie patted me on the head.

"Aron's quite smart actually," she said in a lowered voice though I was sure Aron could hear her.

"Oh really?" I said. "I hadn't noticed."

Aron feigned a pang of pain. "Right in the heart."

"You're so mean!" said Millie, bonking me on the head. "Don't worry, Aron, I'm on your side."

I sighed dramatically and made a show of rubbing my head.

We were on a normal, non-mountain road now and I watched as we merged into the slow flow of morning traffic. Beside me, Aron and Millie chatted and I was somewhat surprised to find that they got along really well. Or at least, Millie didn't seem hellbent on bullying Aron at any opportunity.

I may come off as sounding jealous, but I really wasn't. I didn't really mind all of Millie's ribbing and actually found it quite fun a lot of the time if a little tiring. But now with Aron in the picture I suddenly found myself able to rest a little. It was nice.

Aron slowed, indicated, then turned into a smaller backstreet. A middle-aged woman on an electric bike zoomed past us, making me jump. I tended to avoid the truly dense areas of the city and had forgotten just how chaotic it got.

We drove on for a few more metres then, after pausing to let a few more electric bikes pass, turned into a non-descript parking lot. At least that's what I'd call it. About half of it was occupied by stacked shipping containers that looked to have been converted into... offices? Living quarters? It was hard to tell. The rest of the space had a wide assortment of cars and bicycles and motorcycles.

Aron stopped then backed neatly into a parking slot between the wall, a pole and a rack of bicycles. I'd never attempt such a tricky maneuver myself but Aron seemed to not find it difficult at all. When it came to machinery, he didn't seem to find many things difficult.

Millie was the first to jump out of the van and she ran forward, looked around, then ran back again. "Where are the police cars?" she asked Aron.

"In the other parking lot," replied Aron as he locked the van and handed me the keys. "This one is just for civilian vehicles."

"What about the armored trucks?" asked Millie.

"My station doesn't have those," replied Aron.

"And the giant mecha?" I asked.

"Out for maintenance."

Millie gave me and Aron a suspicious look.