It took her days to tap the numbers on the computer.

It’s not that she couldn’t remember them, she actually remembered everything that happened that day, but she was lost. Momo had a human contact. It was brief, strange and not how she thought it would be. She had fantasized about it so many times and it never got into her mind that it could just be : empty. It was empty. She thought about an amazing encounter, happiness, joy to find out about another human being living the same life as her but Mina broke that dream. But not only Mina, what she thought was the truth : her everlasting loneliness inside this metallic cage, became a mess. She was supposed to be alone on space, living with robots, receiving information from earth without an exact precision. But now, what is reality ?

Mina, that’s what the robotic voice said. She knew what it meant in Japanese, she had a little memory about her native language before being thrown back to Korea and then to space as a child. It suited her she thought. She also bet that Mina was doing an amazing job by saving the earth.

That’s exactly how she spent the next days : thinking about how mysterious that black haired girl was and how miserable she looked like.

“Two hundred, forty four, one point five” She wrote every number, one by one, while eating a piece of bread that she just received inside a box. A robotic voice told her to have a nice meal and closed the passage that looked like an air conditioning thing.

She pushed the enter button, eyes glued on the screen, hands sweaty and dirty because of the food and she waited.

It became dark, for long minutes. Momo thought she typed the code wrong but soon, numbers appeared with what looked like a game. A game with spaceships. Kill the alien, was the title and underneath it : scores. She couldn’t understand why she was given the code of a silly game, she already had plenty on her computer, and way better than those. But it only took her a second to understand : there weren’t names next to the scores, but phrases.

Before she could read the first one, the screen went black. She typed again the code, but there were no scores anymore, nothing.

“No, what!” She put her hands on the computer, shaking it without gaining anything in return. She sighed. She fell back on her chair, eyes closed and felt miserable. Once again, she felt like a looser and thinking about Mina, wasn’t helping at all. She was the only thing she could think about : would they meet again ?

They were on live once again.

This week they had to bake a cake. If people found it funny how they struggle at every mission, each clueless participant couldn’t find the point by doing this mission. Jeongyeon made a mess. The whole room was full of flour, water, eggs. Kyungsoo, Chaeyoung and Mina were cooking perfectly, each gram being weighed. Jaebum was struggling, giving up, swearing with the few words he got from a dictionary and eventually coming up with something.. tasteless.

“Two eggs..” Momo wasn’t better than Jaebum. It was her first time cooking a cake. She had a natural talent to cook anything else, she already had the chance to do so. They were mostly fed by robots but from time to time, they could cook something with special material coming from the weird “air conditioning thing”. It took her more time than the other contestants to make it. She put it back inside the metal box, closed it and waited. She had nothing to do to kill time but an idea came up to her : the code. The world was focusing on Jimin, dancing alone inside his room with old songs and no cameras were focusing on her anymore. She typed the code, the game came back after a few minutes. Her heart skipped a beat.

Read faster.

It’s Mina.

We can talk here.

No one can see.

Us.

That’s what was written next to the scores. Momo’s mouth was wide open and the screen went black once again. She wanted to tap and shake the computer for it to work again but she restrained herself.

What was going on ?

Her hands were shaking. No one could see them ? What does that mean ? It took her minute to find something to say. She started to play, game after game, writing phrases after phrases, till it looked like something completely messy but understandable.

Who can’t see us ?

I don’t understand.

Please tell me more.

Of course Mina knew something she didn’t. But what ? She couldn’t concentrate on the mission anymore. This didn’t go unnoticed.

“Please zoom on Momo computer, camera number 3” Someone asked on earth. It was the chief of the channel. One of the employees zoomed with the camera but there was nothing but a black screen and a confused Momo. Something was wrong. The chief could tell by her expression, something was bothering her and Momo was rarely bothered.

“Can someone intrude inside her computer ? Maybe it stopped working.” He asked while one of the employees typed codes on his own screen. He turned his young face towards the chief, shaking negatively his head.

“It works perfectly and there’s nothing weird about it chief !” It made the big boss sigh, maybe it was nothing. Humans can be weird sometimes, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from Momo’s camera. Something was going on inside her head, he knew her by heart, just like each contestant since their first days on space.

“Put the camera back on Chaeyoung, she’s talking about something funny, thank you.” He patted his employee’s shoulder before walking away, tired. He had to find new missions to entertain the world, the audience was still incredible but slowly dropping since the last episode.

The contestants had to meet again.

The cake was baked. It was delicious.

The next days were happier for everyone, they received gifts from earth, good news also. But there were still no new encounter between them. Space looked suddenly so lonely without human contact, now that they had the chance to experience it… or was it a misfortune?

Momo was on her bed, playing with a rubik’s cube. She could do it and undo it within seconds, without even looking. It took her over two months to become a master of putting colors together. She had time to lose and it was her little satisfaction. She was thinking about Mina’s words a lot. They exchanged some words, not a lot though.

We are being watched.

I don’t know why.

But I found out about it.

Three years ago.

When Momo learned about it, in the middle of the night, it made her crazy. She wanted to cry. She thought they had a little privacy but all was a lie. She couldn’t understand it, it was pure fiction. She asked more about it, Mina was kinda slow to answer and it got into her nerves to be clueless. She couldn’t sleep, she looked discreetly for the cameras inside her room, in the little living room, inside the toilets but she found nothing. She started to wear hoodies, to change herself under her sheets, she became paranoid.

I built this game.

It can’t be seen, it has.

A reset program.

It vanishes from.

The server very quickly.

Mina was smart.

Momo felt really bad.

She stopped commenting on her live journal, she started to find it useless. If they already knew everything about her, why would she waste her time talking about herself and what she’s doing.

Don’t act different.

They will find out.

Please be careful.

Mina’s words were never intimate. Momo felt like talking to a robot. Was it human contact ? Was it even really Mina talking to her? She was so disappointed yet she could perfectly remember how her heart beat faster when she saw Mina. Her face was so beautiful, perfect with moles. Her voice melodic, like a high quality robot. It was made to please. She was charmed, but something was missing : warmth. This feeling was almost foreign and it could have been if she had never read a book.

Can you remember your life before ?

This was Momo’s first personal question to Mina. It went unanswered. By this time, she started to act a little more normal but she couldn’t sleep better.

Everything started to be even more confusing the second time they met. The same door opened, Momo barely had the time to proceed that Mina was inside her room. She opened but nothing came out. Mina was still looking amazingly gorgeous wearing a white skirt with a black T-shirt.

Mina was looking at her. It was too much, they had to break the silence. The robot said nothing, they had no mission, only three minutes. One minute was already sent to trash.

“Are we going to talk or just stare at each other ?” Momo tried to get somewhere with her barely audible voice. She swallowed when Mina reached for her hand. A shiver ran down her spine while she felt her skin burning under Mina’s touch. Their fingers graze, their eyes never leaving each other.

“You color your hair ?” First question. Mina wanted to know something, it was unexpected. Momo nodded. She had products to do so, she said years ago via her personal camera that she would like to test blonde hair and she just never changed since then.

“How far are you on the research ?” Momo took a while to understand what she meant by “research” but it clicked when Mina made one last step towards her.

“I recently found a bacteria that kills the contamination on the brain, I guess the next step is about how to make it flexible for the body.” This answer got Mina thinking. Momo caught her sharp intake and they had no time anymore. 20 seconds. Mina started to walk away, their hands losing the contact and Momo felt empty. It wasn’t enough. She saw for the last time of the day Mina’s slender back before the door closed.

It was useless. A useless conversation but she won’t forget that contact. Mina’s hands weren’t neither warm, neither cold. It was like hers but softer. She closed her eyes and took the best decision she could ever have made that day - talk to her virtual journal. She explained her new encounter, faked happiness, faked smiles and stopped the record. She acted happy, she tried her best but locked herself inside the bathroom. It would be insane if they hid cameras there isn’t it ?

“They met, that’s all ?” The chief was sitting on his expensive sofa, his wife giving him a little massage. He was tense and tired.

“If we give them more time maybe it would be more interesting, should we give them missions to resolve together ?” He asked with a soft voice. His beautiful blonde wife, who was nothing more but Russian, shrugged.

“You should give the channel a break. A month and comeback with something big.” At this, the chief nodded. It was a brilliant idea. The world would miss them but they had to promote it well, to find an incredible idea.

It was night time. The cameras weren’t filming the contestants but he was dying to know what was happening at this hour. He was curious about many things, just as much as Onew, Jaebum, every little human on this cage in the middle of space but he never crossed the line. The rules were strict. His wife went to bed while he stayed alone looking at nothing but the black screen of his television. How much he wished to understand more about those people on space, were they doing fine ? Or was it a façade. They knew a lot, but it was never enough. This was the only common feeling he shared with them : curiosity.

And curiosity it’s something that Jimin had.

His curiosity led him to a game.

Why are we doing.

The exact same thing.

How did you.

Manage to find years.

Ago the bacteria-

“Holy .”