As soon as Carna steps into the lift, her pager notifies her of a job on the other end of the galaxy. The pay would cover her rent, but should she choose to accept the run, the cosmic bike courier would, as the ad promises, have to make it all the way across “in 30 minutes or less”–or else the delivery would be free.

    With no time to spare, she shamelessly shoves aside the lift attendant–too underpaid and overmedicated to put up a fight–then cranks the lever all the way, latching onto it for dear life as the cabinet surges through thousands of miles of space at warp speed. When she’s finally in orbit, she falls head-first out the dinging door. She stumbles towards her Cerva with a headache the size of the universe that she, too, is too underpaid and overmedicated for.

    But hey, at least, this time, the elevator music is alright.

                                                                                              #

    When men in suits hand Carna the parcel, they urge her to handle it with care, cautioning that the fate of the universe is at stake–but that’s not something that concerns Carna right now. The rent needs to be paid. If she’s going to make it on time, she’s gonna need a shortcut. 

    Every conceivable route the GPS maps in the infinite vastness of space leads her through the intragalactic sewage pipeline, where she can lose her sense of smell or worse if she doesn’t want to go mad from the inhalation. 

    But, again, rent. 

    So Carna hops back onto her bike, activates her vizor–then carefully selects an appropriate synthwave playlist before bursting off into the farthest reaches of interplanetary excrement.

    Without sparing a second, she speeds–with mechanically clenched nostrils–through the wormhole where the wastes of Uranus are eagerly disposed of, then swerves against the black hole in the center, making sure not to fall into its event horizon–all while holding her breath–then accelerates into the exit, careful not to exceed a force of 20 G. 

    This cutoff takes a second and drops her off, where a meteorite brushes her fender, denting it.

    Unbelievable. 

    Cursing into the cold callousness of space, she shrugs off the STA, clutches the Cerva’s twistgrip as if she’s trying to choke her space-lord, hits the throttle like it owes her rent money, and blasts off bleating, somehow managing to avoid the debris passing by that would’ve crushed her otherwise. 

    The drop-off point is inside a planetary mind consisting of shell layers–each a computational node–constructed around a Class M star to power the ultimate supercomputer. One could only marvel at who or what was affluent enough to realize this triumph of human genius, but this is not the time. Because as soon as she realizes how hot a celestial body of exploding gas is, Carna knows she’s in for a ride. 

    Though the outer layers are devoted to computation, this run, as luck would have it, needs her just outside the first layer–designed to harvest energy while releasing heat in the temperature of the star it surrounds–with a force-shield running on empty.

    Daunting to most, this is just another run in the life of a cosmic courier. Carna just shrugs, switches over to her heavy-metal playlist, and kicks everything into high gear.

    Before you can say, “I’ve been waiting for more than 30 minutes,” Carna’s Cerva disappears in a flash, coursing through space at the speed of light, her vizor perceptually slowing everything so she can process it in real time. Not that it helps much. Space junk is flying everywhere–enough that a minor brush will have her veering wildly off-course. As she crosses countless light-years to bypass each shell through unregistered heat levels that no other being has ever dared traverse, she makes sure she’s focused on what really matters: the ticking clock–until the heat presses through the shield and she’s afraid sweat might stain the cute blouse under her bomber jacket. 

    But there’s no need. 

    Because she’s finally here, the port only a light-minute or so away as the force-shield shimmers under pressure. 

    With no time to say “more than 30 minutes,” she hastily unpackages the parcel. She throws the fire-proof stick through the force-shield–barely managing to get it across before she’s blocked off from the input by her safeguard, covering her Cerva in a translucent but impenetrable protector.

    She stares at the upload screen high above. It slowly fills. Her watch’s neon counter ticks down. The panic of missing rent again, choking on it–as she would her space-lord–before.

    “YOUR UPDATE IS FINALLY COMPLETE!” 

    This new system overhaul will uncap the AI’s energy intake, finally allowing it to process the latest, highly-anticipated feature, promising users a chance to find their one true love through a comprehensive analysis of every single thought that has ever occurred to them and will ever occur to them since their ancient ancestors back on Earth consented around an eon or so ago to have that chip installed on their cortexes and the cortexes of every relative, friend, and acquaintance–human or otherwise–till the end of time–time as modern understanding of physics defines it and will continue to define it…forever. 

    Of course, the only drawback is that older models hosting the app will now be slower.  

    With the run complete and rent secured, Carna rides her Cerva off triumphantly into the emptiness of space, wondering if she could finally find that perfect match on Matryoshka Meet.