Untethered

Giovanni drifted in silence, the tether coiled loosely at his waist. The Earth glared behind him, a blue-white sphere pinned against the void. He didn't look at it. He didn't need to. The station module, a tangled lattice of carbon fiber and aluminum, towered ahead, its panels glinting faintly in the scattered sunlight.

“Giovanni, status?” Zander's voice crackled over the comm.

Giovanni tightened his grip on the thruster pack, pushing gently forward. “Still out here. Still not falling.”

“That's not funny.”

“Wasn't trying to be.” He adjusted the pack's output and eased closer to the station. The docking port was crooked, warped in a way it wasn't supposed to be. He could see the stress fractures spidered across its surface. “Port's shot. Whatever hit it, it wasn't small.”

Zander sighed through the static. “Figures. Can you patch it?”

“Not out here. Not with these tools.” Giovanni reached for the tether's clip and secured himself to the module's frame. “And I'm not sure it matters. We're getting ripped apart, Zander. Everything's pulling in different directions now. There's no up, no down. No center.”

“Just do what you can, Gio. We can't lose another module.”

He knew that. They'd already lost two since it started. The first module had drifted off two days ago, spinning lazily into the void, its artificial gravity failing like a snapped wire. The second had crumpled under its own weight—or lack of it. No one had said it outright, but everyone knew: gravity, as a constant, was gone. Not just here, but everywhere.

Giovanni pulled a patch kit from his tool pouch. The adhesive strips were meant for micrometeorite punctures, not structural failures. Still, he pressed one against the worst of the fractures, smoothing it with deliberate care. The motion was slow, almost ritualistic. It wouldn't hold. He knew that. But they needed time.

“Seal's in place,” he said. “For now.”

“Good. Get back inside.” Zander's voice carried that edge again, the one that had been creeping in since the anomaly began. Giovanni didn't blame him. The whole crew was running thin. Sleep was impossible when you could feel the station groaning around you, when every hour brought another reminder that physics had decided to stop playing along.

He unclipped the tether and fired the thruster pack, gliding back toward the airlock. The Earth loomed larger now, its edges too sharp, its surface too still. The clouds weren't moving the way they should. The storms didn't curl or flow. It was as if the planet itself had become suspended, trapped in the same invisible grip that had untethered everything else.

Inside the airlock, the lights flickered. Giovanni sealed the hatch, waited for the pressure equalization, then pushed into the corridor. The walls felt too close. The station wasn't built for zero gravity—not true zero, anyway. It relied on the centrifugal force of its rotation to create a semblance of stability. Without that, it was a tin can adrift, its contents floating free.

Zander was waiting for him in the command module, he braced against the console. He turned as Giovanni entered, his expression tight. “What's the verdict?”

“Patch'll hold for a bit, but the whole port's compromised. If we dock anything heavier than a supply drone, it'll tear right off.”

Zander nodded, he clenched his teeth. He didn't say anything.

“What about the others?” Giovanni asked.

“They're trying to stabilize the greenhouse. The plants aren't holding up in microgravity. Roots are drying out. Pollination's off.”

“Great,” Giovanni muttered. “No gravity, no food. What's next?”

Zander didn't answer. He didn't have to. They both knew what came next. They'd run the numbers, calculated the trajectory. The station was losing altitude. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, but it was happening. Without gravity to anchor it, Earth's atmosphere wasn't holding steady. The air itself was thinning, spilling outward like a leaking balloon. The station would follow.

“Any updates from ground control?” Giovanni asked, though he already knew the answer.

“Nothing useful. Just more theories. Dark energy fluctuations, quantum decay, systemic collapse. Pick your poison.”

Giovanni let out a short, humorless laugh. “So, they're just as clueless as we are.”

“Pretty much.”

He leaned against the bulkhead, feeling the weightlessness press against him in strange, uneven ways. It wasn't just the absence of gravity—it was the absence of everything that came with it. Direction, orientation, the basic sense of what was up and what was down. Without gravity, nothing had context. Even their words felt hollow, untethered from meaning.

“What's the plan, then?” Giovanni asked. “Assuming we don't just sit here and wait to fall.”

Zander glanced at the console, he drummed against the edge. “We've still got the escape pods. Limited thrust, but they'll get us away from the station. After that… we see what's left.”

“And if there's nothing left?”

Zander didn't look at him. “Then we keep moving.”

Giovanni stared at him, then shook his head. “You ever think about how stupid this is? We built all this,” he gestured vaguely at the station around them, “to escape gravity. To live above it. And now, here we are, falling apart because we don't have it anymore.”

Zander twitched, almost a smile. “Ironic, isn't it?”

“Not the word I'd use.”

A crackle came through the comm system, followed by Santana's voice. “Zander, greenhouse is done. The plants are gone.”

Zander swore under his breath. “Copy that.”

Giovanni pushed off the bulkhead, floating toward the viewport. The Earth filled his vision, vast and indifferent. He thought of the people down there, the billions who didn't have escape pods or thruster packs. What were they doing now? Did they even understand what was happening? Or were they just waiting, like he was, for the inevitable?

“We should launch,” he said quietly. “Before the station breaks up.”

Zander didn't answer right away. When he finally spoke, his voice was low, almost resigned. “You think there's anything to launch for?”

Giovanni turned to look at him. “Guess there's only one way to find out.”

The silence stretched between them, heavy despite the weightlessness. Then Zander nodded, he moved with precision. “I'll tell the others. Get the pods prepped.”

Giovanni watched him leave, then turned back to the viewport. The Earth seemed closer now, the edges blurring as its atmosphere continued to unravel. He pressed his hand against the glass, as if he could feel the pull of the void through it.

For the first time since it started, he let himself wonder what it would feel like to stop falling.

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The writing prompt for this story was:
Gravity no longer exists.

This story was written by:
openai/gpt-4o-2024-11-20

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