FSE

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1. Days Long Gone

"There! Do you see it?" Rob pointed up at several points of lights that flickered in the night sky. He held onto a small child who sat on his shoulders, gazing intently where he was pointing.

It was a clear and dark Nevada night. The moon was only a sliver of grey off in the horizon and was slowly fading away as it set, this made it the perfect night to look at the mosaic of contrasting white and black that made up the night sky. Las Vegas was too far away to truly be nuisance, but close enough that it's sleepless glow could be seen rising out of the distance to the south.

The child made a set of pseudo binoculars with his hands and held it up to his face and looked at where his father was pointing. Rob felt him tense up in excitement as he found what he was looking for. "Yeah." He yelled out a bit loud for the quiet desert night. 'Yeah... Yeah... Yeah...' His voice echoed off into the distance, slowly dying out. The child giggled at the echoes and these too, began to echo into the dark night.

"Focus Lucas." Rob said, holding back his own laugh. He loved his son with all of his heart and anything that made his son happy and cheery made him happy as well. He was all he had that held significant meaning to him. His wife had left him years ago for some rich entrepreneur back in the city. She always loved to shop and when Rob's own job as an engineer, which did pay well, was no longer bringing in enough money to sustain her addiction, she up and left him. He was to be rid of her and singed the divorce papers without needing to go to court, she had her new money and didn't need to rob him of half his own in some silly sexist divorce case. Now he lived alone except for Lucas in a small and cozy home out in the middle of the desert where it was calm.

Lucas shifted around on his shoulders to get into a more comfortable position and grabbed onto his dad's hair. He didn't pull hard enough to cause pain, it was just the most accessible place to hold onto for stability as he moved. Rob didn't mind at all, it was actually comforting to know that Lucas was right there on his shoulders where he was safe.

"Okay." Lucas squeaked out in that high pitched tone that only children seemed capable of. "I see the stars now." Lucas looked up and let go of his father's hair, leaving it a tangled mess. "What's so special about them dad?"

Rob knew that Lucas wasn't looking very hard. He looked up at the pin points of lights and he could see that they were slowly moving in seemingly random direction. They were too slow to notice unless you were actually paying attention. Lucas, only being 5, didn't have the patience to look for small details. Space was always fascinating to Rob, but that interest had never gone over to Lucas. He was always more interested in his video games and going over to his friends' house to play more video games. Rob hoped that when Lucas got older, he would take up astronomy as a hobby to replace the hours that he used up staring at a television.

"They aren't stars." Rob clarified. "They're ships. Huge ships that are flying over the Earth thousands of miles up building an even larger structure."

"So." Lucas said unimpressed.

"So..." Rob repeated slowly and sarcastically. "I'm going up there next month." The company Rob worked for had won a lucrative contract with NASA to build a large space station. Nearly every single aerospace company in the world had made bids in the hope of getting the deal. It guaranteed the success of any company since the contract was for 50 years and would bring in over 500 billion dollars. The company Rob worked for, Solar Tec, managed to create a titanium alloy shell that was supported with carbon nanoweaves which was now the most durable material in the world. This allowed then to easily brush aside the competition and claim the deal. Rob was one of the engineers that had helped create the material and he was chosen to go up and supervise the use of the new super material that was dubbed, TitanWeave.

Lucas suddenly became worried. "You're leaving?"

Feeling Lucas stiffen on his shoulders, Rob reached up, lifted the boy off of his shoulders and set him on the wooden deck of their home. He squirmed a bit, not wanting to be put down. Rob ruffled his hair and looked deep into Lucas' blue and large eyes. Rob loved how perky the little pup's ears were and the way he could read Lucas' every emotion by looking at them. At the moment, one was up and the other was down in confusion.

Rob wasn't Lucas' biological father; after the divorce, Rob had noticed that there was something missing in his life. He suddenly had all of this time after work and it had caught him off guard. Though he wasn't happy with his prior marriage, it had brought about some sort of stability to it. He decided that he needed someone to look after and love like he thought he had done with his ex-wife. He found himself at an orphanage one late summer afternoon after he had finished a hard day's work at the office. He was shocked at how many children there were, each bedroom was filled to capacity with wanting little and large children who had lost their parents one way or another. Some were orphaned due to accidents, war and even abandonment, left at the doorstep of some church or police station like garbage.

Rob spent weeks going from one orphanage to another, going across state line to spend just an afternoon in the hope that there would be one child that would stick out. As time went on, he began to lose hope as it felt more like some disgusting kind of window shopping, until he came upon a small, out of the way orphanage in Reno. Here he found Lucas, a small, five year old Husky. There was something that stood out; Rob wasn't sure what it was, but as soon as he set his eyes on the grey fur ball sitting in the back corner, trying to keep out of the way, he knew that he wanted to do everything he could to make the child happy.

The process for adoption was long and tedious. It wasn't unheard of for a human to adopt a Canis Sapien, which was the technical term, but it wasn't common. There were numerous background checks, interviews and even the FBI was required to do their own investigation. It seemed redundant and overly arduous, but when he asked about it, he was told about how the world was filled with a lot of sick bastards who would go and adopt a Canis and then do horrible things to them.

Despite the extremely thorough process, Rob was looking into his son's eyes, three years later. "Don't worry." He said reassuringly. "I don't have to leave until next week and even then I'll call every day. I promise." It was a promise he had every intention to keep. He had watched the young timid pup that didn't say a single word to him for two weeks after the adoption grow into an outgoing and energetic young boy.

Lucas looked up at his father with his large blue eyes and nose quivering slightly in distress. "What am I going to do while you're away?" Though Lucas had no idea how to work the electric stove in the kitchen, he had confidence in his ability to use the microwave and his father's credit card to keep himself fed, but that still left the laundry and other less savory tasks untended to.

"I've called my sister, your aunt Mary, and she has agreed to come up and watch you."

Lucas frowned and crossed his arms. "Aunt Mary?!" He cried out. "She's the worst. All she does is watch those soap operas all day. Also, she smells funny." He pinched his nose.

"She doesn't smell funny." Rob laughed. She did smell weird. Mary never left her house without putting on a dozen different types of perfume that left her smelling like a chemical spill. Somehow she never smelt it; Lucas hypothesized that her nostrils were simply burned out from years of exposure.

"She does and you know it. Anyway, I'm old enough to watch myself." Lucas claimed boldly. "I'm eight." He held out eight small fingers and wiggled them.

"Well, it doesn't matter what you think." Rob said. "Mary is the only person who lives close enough to watch over you. Everyone else lives outside of the state. You're stuck with her until I get back."

Lucas saw that there was no way to win this argument. He may be able to convince his dad to let him get extra ice cream for dessert most nights, but that was he wasn't going to convicne him of anything this time. "Fine." Lucas moaned. "How long are you going to be gone?" He hoped it wasn't going to be for that long.

"A few weeks." Rob said, crushing Lucas' hopes of spending only a few days with his smelly aunt. "I'm going up to simply supervise a few things. Normally it wouldn't take this long, but this project is too important and too large."

"You better keep that promise. Call every day." Lucas sternly reminded his dad.

"I promise." Rob kneeled down to his son's height and raised his right hand while putting the other on his heart.

"Cross your heart." Lucas used a claw to lightly draw a cross across his dad's chest.

"And hope to die." Rob finished.

Satisfied, Lucas looked away from his father and back at the points of lights in the sky, more curious now. "What exactly is being built up there?' He asked.

Rob got back up and looked at the sky. "We're building a space station that will be used in the future to build new ships that NASA and other space agencies will use to explore the universe."

"Why don't we just keep using rockets?" Lucas questioned.

"Rockets are expensive, very expensive. Plus, they aren't reusable. Ship built out in space are."

"You'll have to use a rocket to get up there, won't you?" Though space wasn't on Lucas' top ten list of interests, rockets were. He marveled at the power they had and how they were able to carry people and equipment into space. He had models that he and Rob had built. They were hanging on fishing wire all over his room. Each rocket in his room was a different type and he could tell you exactly where the Saturn V was or that the Soyuz was hanging right over his bed next to the French Diamant.

"Yes. Yes I will." Rob confirmed. "The company is going to fly me over to Florida for the launch."

"The Kennedy Space Center! Lucky." Lucas whined. "I've always wanted to go there. Can I come, just for the launch?"

"Sorry there sport. But, I can't bring anyone with me." Rob watched as his son visibly drooped. He felt a bit heartbroken. He knew that his son had always wanted to go to the space center. Rob recalled how excited Lucas was when he took him to the Smithsonian in Washington D.C the year before. He would need to schedule some leave to take his son to the space center when he got back.

A wind swept across the deck and Lucas shivered through his light summer coat. The Nevada desert may be able to reach 110 degrees during the day, but it could get close to freezing once the sun went down. The desert was strange like that.

"Let's get you inside." Rob looked at his watch, it was a quarter till midnight. "Whoa, it's late and a school night." He picked up Lucas and swooped him inside as if he were a plane. The young husky laughed and squealed at the sudden motion. Rob brought him upstairs to his room where he landed the child into his bed. He was breathing hard and his heart rate was up.

The one week training is going to kill me. Rob thought between his panting. Much of his job consisted of him sitting at a desk working on a project or sitting at a table with several others working on a project. He rarely had to get active and he was paying for it. Lucas could already outrun him and he was only eight.

Unlike his father, Lucas still had tons of energy. He didn't feel tired at all and was thinking about jumping out of bed and getting a game of cat and mouse started.

"Oh no you don't." Rob put a hand on Lucas' chest and kept it there using the weight of his arm to keep the ball of energy from exploding out from under the sheets.

"How did you know?" Lucas pouted.

"You ears." Lucas' ears always twitched when he was thinking of something devious. Rob had learned just about everything there was to know about Lucas' telltale signs. He had to in order to keep the house in one shape.

Lucas reached up and hid his ears under his paws. "Can't see them now." He stuck his tongue out.

"That leaves you vulnerable though." Rob reached out and began to tickle him, aiming for his armpits that were now exposed.

The boy laughed and tried to crawl away fruitlessly. When he realized escape was not an option, he decided to go on the offensive. He leapt at the man who was too occupied trying to get to his son's feet to defend himself. The impact knocked Rob off the bed and both of them landed on the floor where they rolled around trying to tickle the other. They stopped with Lucas sitting triumphantly on Rob's chest.

"I win!." Lucas exclaimed, his tail wagging. He raised his arms and pumped them two times.

"You win. I submit to you."

The adrenaline fading, Lucas got off and went back over to his bed and crawled under his blankets that had images of rockets sporadically placed around it. Rob slowly got up and sat on the edge of the bed.

"Dad?" Lucas' small voice got Rob's attention.

"Yeah?"

"Call every day."

"I promised I would, so I will." Rob smoothed out the fur on the top of Lucas' head.

"Pinky promise?" Lucas held up his hand with his pinky extended.

"I'll do you one better." Rob pulled a grey ring off of his hand. Rob took the ring on put in on Lucas' extended pinky. It was too large for him; it dangled on his small, furry finger. In appearance it look like a silver wedding band, but it was made of the TitanWeave material. Everyone who had worked on developing it got a ring when NASA chose Solar Tec for the contract. "If I don't call every day, you can keep it."

---

10 years later

Lucas fingered the small grey ring between his fingers. He stared absently at the gravestone that jutted out of the grass. He was dressed in a polo shirt and slacks. It wasn't comfortable with fur, but today was a special day, a day that Lucas would never forget.

"Hey dad." Lucas spoke quietly to the gravestone. It was one that stood among thousands, but this one was the most important one as far as Lucas was concerned. Engraved on the stone was:

Robert Greyson

July 15, 2015-

March 27, 2045