Chapter 1

As Luis waited in the conference room, all he could think of was how his life was going to change. 2 years ago, he had been a happy young adult, with not a worry in the world.

Now, he felt a lot older than his 26 years of age. Not that he was unhappy. He was thrilled with what had happened in his life. He looked around the room, looking at all of the empty chairs that would soon be full of people, waiting to hear what he had to say. He looked down, and skimmed his notes, wanting to make sure he didn’t leave anything out.

“Look at you!”

Suddenly, a voice made him look up. Rosa, one of his oldest friends in the world, had arrived. Luis got up, smiling, and went to give her a hug; he was very happy Rosa had agreed to be a part of this. “Thanks for coming” he said, as he showed her her seat. “I really appreciate you coming.”

“Well,” Rosa said, as she settled into her seat, “you have me all curious about this “project” you have going.”

Luis smiled “I’m sure you’re not going to want to miss it.”

The door opened again, and more people came in. Luis knew most of them.
In the crowd was his childhood friend, Paloma, his sister, Gina, Rosa’s best friend, Perla, and others. The room soon got loud, with people talking to each other. Luis had started to go around the room to say hi to everyone, but he soon stopped; everyone wanted to know what the meeting was about, and he didn’t want to spoil anything… he wanted them to find out at the same time.

When everyone had arrived, he tapped his pen on the table. The room got quiet after a little while. Luis looked around at all the familiar faces, and he didn’t feel nervous at all…he felt comfortable.

” I want to thank everyone for giving me a few moments of your time today” he said, looking around the full room “I’ll try to be as clear as I can, and if you have any questions, feel free to stop me along the way.”

Luis paused to take a breath, and then continued

“Before I tell you why I called each and everyone of you here to this place today, I want us to take a look at what’s happening in the world today”

Behind Luis, a screen came down, and pictures started to flash across the screen

“We are at the beginning of w.w.3. About half of the nations of this world are about to go to war with each other. Already, a city in Florida has had the first nuclear attack, and there are fears that it can happen again. The crime rate has sky rocketed all over the world, and in Europe, about 10,000 people die daily due to the new outbreak of leprosy. The first case has been reported in New York, and as I speak to you, the once BIG apple is becoming a deserted ghost town. “

“The new ice age has also started. Due to global warming, there has been floods in of the west and east coasts of the united states, and latin america. Along with that, the ozone layer is now creating acid rain, killing and damaging more and more of the worlds remaining forests. If the ice melting in the south and North Pole doesn’t slow down soon, all of central america will be under water in less than 5 years”

Luis looked around at the crowd. They where all silent looking at the pictures and facts that where flashing on the screen

When the presentation ended, the silence remained. “Any questions?” luis asked, looking at all the quiet faces

“Is that why you asked us to come?” some one in the back called out after a few seconds of silence “….to give us a history lesson?

Luis smiled.

“No” he said, looking towards the back of the crowd “I’m not here to be your history teacher”
“I wanted to share this with you before I told you about why I asked you all to come here today.”

Luis paused

“The building you are sitting in is owned by NASA. 2 years ago, NASA contacted me about working with them on a special project they where planning. At first, I was very reluctant to join. I mean, I’m not an astronaut. I’m a customer service representative. I didn’t have a clue on why NASA would want me in their project. Soon, i found out that they did not just want me to participate in the project, they wanted me to lead it. And after 2 years of working on it, I am ready to share it with you.

Everyone seemed to change position in their seats, anxious to hear what was coming next.

“Recently, there was a breakout in cell technology, which has opened the doors of space to NASA. With this new technology, we are now able to navigate at the speed of light, and create shape shifting space crafts, making life in space now more realistic than ever before.”

Luis looked around the room, at the sikent faces.

“Does anyone have any questions so far?”

Rosa raised her hand and spoke

“If this breakthrough in science and space was so great, why hasn’t it been announced yet?”

“Good question. The answer is that the information was kept private due to this private project. Releasing the news too soon would have overshadowed this project. However, the new technology will be released when this project is announced.”

Paloma waived her hand.

“Well, tell us already” she said, smiling

Luis cleared his throat.

“NASA has discovered a solar system just beyond our milky way, called the Ka solar system. Within this system, lies a group of planets, very much like the ones in our system. With our new technology, we have sent a rover into this solar system, and we have discovered 3 of the 9 planets can sustain life. One of them, the largest one, is twice the size of earth. Here are some of the images the rover transmitted to us”

The screen behind Luis started flashing photographs. Luis kept his back to the screen, not looking at the photos, but wanting to see the reaction of everyone. There wasn’t much to see. The crowd sat motionless, looking at the screen. After the last photograph ended, the room stayed silent. After a couple of seconds, everyone seemed to come alive. A murmur filled the room, as people talked to each other.

“Those can’t be real photographs”

A voice rose above the murmuring. Some people looked around to see who had said what most of them where thinking. A young lady stood up, looking a bit nervous about being the center of attention.

“They…they can’t” she repeated, looking at Luis

“Those look like photographs taken here.”

“Here?” Luis said, smiling

“You’re telling me there are huge deserts and tropical forests in the United States?”

The girl blushed

“Well…I didn’t mean HERE…I meant on earth”
Luis nodded

“I know this is something that’s hard to believe. I know, it takes a while for it to sink all in. Who would have thought that just outside our solar system would be an untouched paradise, waiting to be discovered?

“But believe me, that is real. This place exists. And today, all of us are going to be given the oportunity to claim it.”

“The united states goverment has authorized project petra. Its all very simple. We now have the technology to reach the Ka solar system. And that’s what we want to do.”

The doors to the conference room opened, and a handful of people came in carrying binders

“Each of these binders contain more detailed information. We will go ahead and hand them out to you, and we will take a 1 hour break to give you the oportunity to read them at your own pace. You are welcome to stay here, or go down to the patio area on the 2nd floor. We will resume again in one hour. Thank you”

Luis turned and walked out of the conference room.
He could hear people talking, and getting up. He hoped they would all come back in an hour. Luis walked into a private room next to the conference room where he had been. Even though the room had large windows, the room had little light coming in. He walked over to the windows and looked up at the rainy sky.

Due to the changing climate, it now rained almost daily. But he didn’t mind.

Chapter 2

The hour went by fast. Luis was relieved to see that almost everyone was waiting for him in the conference room when he walked in; he took this as a good sign.

He smiled at the crowd
“Thank you for coming back. Does anyone have any questions?”

A wave of hands went up in the air. Luis pointed to a young man in the fron row.

“Let me get this straight,” he said, shifting position in his seat, “this binder is saying that NASA is planning on sending a crew to this solar system to start a new civilization?”

“Yes and no” Luis said, walking towards the center of the room, “Yes, NASA wants to send a crew to this solar system, but I really wouldn’t say ‘to start a new civilization’.
What we are technically doing is saving us from ourselves. Before the damage gets to great, before its too late, were getting this oportunity to have a fresh beginning. A new life.”

“Look around you. We are young people, in an aging world. We have the opportunity to live in a new world”

Luis’ sister, Gina, stood up

“I understand what you’re saying”
She said, looking at luis

“But why US? Why are you telling us, this group, in this room all this?”

Luis smiled

“Good question, sis” he said
“Why am I telling you all this? To you? Well, in order for this mission to be a success, we need the best. And we have it. Right here, in this room, are people with different kinds of strengths. We will need everyone to help us succeed.”

“Why does it say ‘one way mission?’ ” someone called out from the left

“Once were on route, we cannot turn back. Once we depart, we cannot return. We will not be returning to earth.”

“Please think about this opportunity. You are welcome to take your binders with you. We will be having another meeting next week. If you decide to take this opportunity and join us, please be here.”

Luis smiled at the crowd “have a good afternoon”

Everyone seemed to get up at the same time. Some of them just stood there, and talked to each other, others just looked at their binder.

Luis walked out of the room without looking back. He was sure his friends wanted to talk to him, but he wanted to give them some time to digest everything.

He was sure they would all be back in a week.

The week seemed to drag on and on for ever.

Luis had time to do more than he wanted.
His directors had given him a launch date, and he was surprised to hear that. There was so much to do, and so little time.
still, with the weather getting worse by the day, he understood that they needed to move at fast.

Finally, the day arrived.

Luis tried his hardest to sleep in late, but he failed. He was up and running at 7am, making sure everything was ready for the meeting.

At around 11am, he got a page to his phone saying:

“People are arriving”

He thought this was a good sign, since the meeting wasn’t supposed to start until 11:30am.

He made his way down to the Conference room, carrying with him some binders he would be handing out soon. Suddenly, he realized that his stomach was in knots. Butterflies where going crazy inside of him, and he suddenly realized why:

He was suddenly afraid no one would want to go.

He stopped outside the conference room to get a hold of himself. Faintly, he could hear voices behind the door, so he knew, that at lease SOMEONE had come back.

Taking a deep breath, he pushed the doors open.

The first person he saw was Paloma.

She was sitting on top of a table, with her legs dangling down the side. Next to her, was a someone Luis had only seen in pictures before.

“Chris?” he asked, smiling as he got closer to them

“Luigi!” Paloma and Chris both got up at the same time.

“You have no idea how glad I am to see you” Luis told her.
“and you must be Chris said” trying to free his hand to shake Chris’ hand.

“Yes, nice to meet you!” Chris shook Luis’ hand enthusiastically.
“Paloma has told me so much about you” he continued,
“And this project that you’re doing… its great!”

Luis smiled. He was glad that there was at least one enthusiastic person in the room besides him.

“I’d love to stay and chat, but I have to go get ready”
Luis said, still juggling the binders,
“Find me after the meeting, and we’ll talk some more”

“Sure,” Paloma said, reaching out and helping Luis with a binder.
“And let me just tell you, I love this project, and Id love to join it”

“Thanks. I’m happy to hear that”

After Luis was able to put the binders down at the front table, he took a good look around the room. It was about half full. Looking down at his watch he saw that they had about 15 minutes left before the meeting was supposed to start.
Just chill, he told himself, they’ll all arrive

“Hey you!”

He felt someone tap him in the back.

Before he turned around, he knew who it was.

“Sis!”

He turned around, and there was his sister, Gina.
She was the one person Luis wasn’t sure he would see there today. First of all, because she was young, and because their parents where really overprotective when it came to her.
But there she was, wearing her favorite sweatshirt in the world.

“What did Dad say?” he asked her, looking at her

“Oh, you know dad”, Gina said, shrugging. “He put up a big fight for a couple of days, but then he realized that this is good. This is a new start, and its actually a privilege to be a part of it.” She sighed.
“just don’t stand too close to him for the next couple of days. He might bite.”

Luis smiled. “I’m glad you’re here, and thanks for the warning.”

Gina waved at someone in the crowd and went to sit down.

Luis looked around the room. The room was definitely filling up, making Luis feel better. He tried looking for someone in the crowd, but it wasn’t easy. Everyone kept moving around.
At exactly 11:25, the lights dimmed in the room, making everyone rush to find a seat. It took everyone about 5 minutes to get settled in, and while they where all moving around, Luis tried to find Rosa in the crowd.

But she was either not in there, or she was hiding from him.

Once everyone got quiet, he took a deep breath, and began his speech.

“I want to thank everyone for being here today.
I’m happy to see that many of you have returned, to take a part in this wonderful opportunity that has been given to us. I know that the magnitude of the project is huge, but I’m sure we will all be ready to embark in this adventure when the time comes.”

Luis paused.

Someone was making their way into the room, looking for a seat. Luis could recognize that hair from anywhere. He smiled.
Rosa had arrived.

He continued with his speech.

“Let me start with the simple things, and then I will get more and more detailed with everything. Feel free to take notes.

First of all… our goal, our mission is to start a new civilization in the Ka Solar System, located outside of our Milky Way.
We will be landing on the 7th planet in this solar system, called Petra”

Luis looked around the room.

“That’s our future planets name, ladies and gentlemen… Petra”

“We are now going to split up in smaller groups, and go into different conference rooms. Each group will have someone to answer any questions, and to explain what the next steps will be.”

“Please look at the lists posted by the entrance, and go to the conference room you have been assigned to. We will all meet back here in 2 hours”

The crowd got up, and started moving towards the door. Obviously, this created a human stampede, as they all tried to get to the door. Luis didn’t interfere. He took his folder, and made his way out of the room, and headed on over to his conference room.

He couldn’t wait to talk to his group.

How cool was this??
Totally.

I still couldn’t believe this was happening. I mean, one minute, I’m in Missouri, trying out my new job, and getting ready for more school, and the next moment, I’m scheduled to leave the planet next fall. Is that weird, or what?

Still, its pretty darn cool.

But I feel a bit weird about showing up today with Chris. I hope Luis knows I didn’t invite him. Its not my fault he chased me here. Oh well.

As I try to get to the entrance to see where I’m suppose to go, I end up leaving Chris behind. What a slowpoke! After some pushing and shoving, I finally get to the entrance, and see the lists.
Now, I have to find my name, which is easier said than done. Thankfully, the list is alphabetized, so I quickly look for the H’s.

Herandez…Hernesto…Horozco…Herrera! Finally, I find my name. The words CONFERENCE ROOM 1 are typed next to it, so I’m guessing that’s where I’m expected. I turn around, and look around for Chris. He is nowhere to be found. I decide that this is a blessing, because he wasn’t supposed to be with me anyways. So I duck, and start making my way out of the crowd.

Hmmm…Conference room 1. I’ve gone past conference room 2, 3, 4, and 5, but I can’t seem to find the one I’m supposed to go to.
I look up to see an Official looking Man standing in the corner. I decide its time for me to ask for directions.

“Hey, excuse me, can you tell me where conference room one is at?”
I try to look as lost as possible. Maybe he’ll feel sad and help me find it.

“Are you one of the Directors?”
The man looks at me, looking surprised.

“Directors?” I have no idea what this man is talking about. “No. I was told to go to Conference room 1, and that’s where I’m trying to get to.”

The man smiles. He looks less official, and a bit more normal.
“Conference Room one is one level above us.” He says, pointing at some elevators down the hall.

“Thanks” I speed up towards the elevators. I hope I’m not late.

Looking around me, everyone seems ecstatic.
And yet, I don’t. Don’t get me wrong. I love this. Starting over again, In a beautiful place. But Its killing my dad. He’s having a hard time letting me go, and I’m feeling like crap too.

How come something great feels like this? Like something is rotting inside. Still, I can’t let this get me down.

I start making my way down to the front of the room, where the list of names are at. I see Luis’ friend, Paloma, rush by me, almost making me lose my balance. Behind her, a guy seems to be trying to keep up with her, but he ends up losing sight of her. I try to stay on the right side of the crowd, because I figure the list has to be alphabetized, so my name should be somewhere on the right.

Why, oh why did Luis make us all get up at once. He should have dismissed people by table, or by last name, or whatever.

I smile to myself. I’m used to being his Assistant, and now, I cant stop thinking like one. Oh Well.
I finally get up to the list of names, and I see that I’m supposed to go to Conference Room 1. Where is that? There’s no map, and I can tell the building is huge.

Looking around, I see that everyone is starting to scatter to their assigned places. I try to find a familiar face, but I see no one. I walk to the main door, along with some people, and finally, I see it. A large map of the building Is located by the front door. It takes me a second to be able to understand it, due to its various 3D parts, and so much information on it. Whatever happened to those simple maps that said: Bathrooms, Floor 2. Offices, Floor 3. Cafeteria, Floor 1

Like I always say, Less is sometimes better.
After scratching my head, and looking at the map from various angles, I see it: Conference Room 1: Second Floor. I look around me, and I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one not understanding the map. There’s some people around me, looking more confused than I was. Whew! I guess I’m not the only slow one on location!

I see an elevator sign across the room, and hurry to it. I don’t want to be the last person to walk into conference room 1.

My hair is soooooooo not working with me today. First of all, It just LOOKED wrong when I got up this morning. Then, when I got in the shower, I realized I was out of shampoo. I tried using more conditioner, but it didn’t help. Now my hair looked limp and shiny.

No volume whatsoever.

Then, I get to my car, and see a flat tire. Thank goodness George was still home. It took him about 45 minutes, but he finally got the lousy tire on. By the time I got on the freeway, I knew one thing for sure:

I was late.



Once all of his friends had walked into his room, and they had all talked for a little bit, the room got quiet again.

Luis looked around, smiling. He didn’t say a word.

“Well?” Rosa said, moving around in her seat.

“Spill the beans, Luis” Gina said.

“Ok” Luis, said, still smiling.
“Ok, well, here’s the scoop…
“As you know, this is a lot of responsibility. And so, I was asked to choose some people from our group that we could hand the responsibility to. In this world, they are called bosses, managers, etc… Aboard our ship, you will be called Directors.”

Everyone looked at each other. Luis could see Gina raising her eyebrows. He knew she liked the sound of herself being called a director.

“Let me start with telling you what I’m going to be doing.”
Luis sat back in his chair.

“My official title is Captian and Executive Director. I know those are two titles, but they gave them to me, and that’s the way we’re going to keep them. To keep it simple, and not confuse anyone, I have decided to just be called Captain.”

“So you’ll be driving the ship?” Paloma asked, looking worried.
“Oh no! That doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll be driving. But I’ll be in charge. Once we get to Petra, we will set up a democratic government, and we will all vote, and choose our leader, like we do here. So don’t worry, I wont be captain forever.”

“That’s a relief” Rosa said, smiling

“Believe me, I know” Luis said.

They all laughed.

Luis looked at Rosa.

“I know that you’re an Architect, Rosa, so that’s why I’m hoping you will accept the title of Director of Design and Protocol.

“And what are my duties?” Rosa looked confused.

“I don’t have much information to give you, but I know you will be involved with the design of the ship, and with making sure all of the rules that are set are followed.”

“Gina, your title will be Director of Research and Motion. You will be in charge of all of the research that we will need to make during our trip to Petra. Besides that, you will supervise our security system in the ship, and once we get to Petra.”

“And Paloma,” Luis smiled at her.

“I know you’re a very logical person. That’s one of the things that I admire of you the most. So, logically, your title will be Director of Logistics. You will be working with all of the other departments, to keep us on track, making the right choices.”

“All of you,” Luis said, looking at them, “Will have a department of about 50 people to work with.”

“I won’t mind that,” Paloma said. “Imagine, being boss of 50 people!”

“You think that’s going to be fun?” Luis said,
“Imagine me. I get to be the boss to 10,000 people.”

“Hey, speaking of that,” Rosa said, sitting up in her seat,
“How are we going to keep track of everyone in the ship? I mean, if it’s 10,000 people, I’m guessing its going to be a huge ship.”

Luis nodded.

“You have no idea how huge the ship will be. I’m going to be amazed myself. So, to keep everyone in order, and accounted for, I’m going to copy what Israel did with its tribes.”

Gina and Paloma nodded, but Rosa looked confused. Luis explained it to her.

“In the Bible, Israel grows to be a huge, and stong nation. So they divide all of the people into 12 tribes…which where the 12 sons of Jacob.”

“Oh…” Rosa nodded.

“So, that would mean 12 groups, with each group having about 830 people. Of course, we wont name the tribes the same way they are named in the bible. We will have plenty of time later on to think of names.”

Luis paused to take a breath.
“Anyone too confused yet?”

Rosa smiled.
“You know you cant throw anything at me that I can’t catch”

“I do hope we’ll learn more about the ship and get more general information before we board the ship” Gina said.

Paloma looked ready to go.
“Since I’m the logical one, I should be asking more questions.”
She smiled.
“But I’m too excited.”

Luis was glad to hear this from his friends. He took out some papers from his folder.

“Well, as soon as we sign these papers, you will be officially hired by NASA.
For the next few months, we’ll be working like crazy, all of us being trained for our jobs. And come next fall, off we will go.”

Gina smiled, looking like she was daydreaming.

“This is, like, going to be the best road-trip ever!”

Everyone laughed. It WAS going to be the trip of a life time.

A week after being hired by NASA, I still couldn’t believe it. I am now making more money than I ever imagined; which was not going to do me any good, since I didn’t think my future planet Petra offered any shopping Malls.

Still, I could enjoy it while I was here.

A day after I signed my papers, and was officially hired by NASA, they deposited $30,000 into my bank account. I guess they didn’t need it for research. Anyway, I wasn’t going to argue with them. If they where feeling generous, why not? So I did what any girl my age would do. I went on a shopping spree.

Still, I had little time for myself. NASA had us going to classes, and meetings, and conferences almost daily, I was barely having time to eat breakfast, much less to spend my money. But I was glad to be busy. I was feeling a bit sorry for my brain, because there was so much information NASA was trying to cram in there, I thought it would explode.

But it didn’t.

After a few days of going to meetings, and seminars, and classes, I finally got the hang of what I was supposed to do. My title was Director of Research and Motion, but for a while, I had no clue what that meant. And Luis was so busy himself, that he didn’t have time to explain it to me. But thank goodness for Teachers.

Basically, my job was to do research. There was a lot about the Petra we still didn’t know, and I, along with my department, where responsible for getting the information we needed.

Every day, we got more and more information. What the climate was year-round, the maps of the sea, and the of the land, what kind of vegetation we where going to have, etc… And not only that, I was also supposed to plan.

Plan where we where going to live, what materials we needed to house us, how much we would need, what kind of clothing we should have…
And then there was the whole Food deal. Not only was I in charge of the Food we would be taking, but I was supposed to plan out how many seeds of this, and of that we needed to plant when we got there. And believe me, that’s complicated.

I’m starting to think I don’t get paid enough to do this.

Still, its do-able. I met the people in my department the other day, and they are all incredibly smart, and talented. So that takes the pressure off a little. But I still wake up suddenly in the middle of the night thinking ‘strawberries! Don’t forget strawberries!!’

What if we got all the way to Petra, and I realize I forgot the strawberry seeds to plant? I would so die of embarrassment.

But that’s just me, being me. I know we will be ok. Paloma is lending me a hand, and I totally appreciate it. She’s in the Logistics department, and she’s a total champion with numbers and figures. She very generously took on the job to calculate how much of what we need to take, to get us going for 5 years in Petra. I’m so happy she’s on board with this.

And Rosa is being great too. She’s promised to design a special place for all the seeds, and a storage for the food. That also helps a lot.

I’m happy with this team. We’ve got each other’s back.

Numbers, numbers numbers.

That’s all I talk about, think about, and even dream about these days.

Being hired by NASA totally, totally rocked my world. I love numbers, and boy, are they giving me numbers. We’ve been working with them for a week now, and i have seen more numbers than I ever dreamed of, and its just great!!

What’s also super is that my department is not actually a department of its own, but it takes part in almost all of the departments. So I’m getting information from everyone. I am so going to be the know-it-all of the ship.

I’ve offered to help Gina with her Research and planning. If I where to compare both of jobs, I would say hers is harder at the moment. All I have to do is be logical, and give my advice. And have alternate plans. If plan A doesn’t work, I need to have a Plan B, and a Plan C ready. Which is hard work, don’t get me wrong.

But poor Gina. She has to plan. And she has to be very, VERY careful with her planning, because once we leave, we LEAVE. We can’t be cruising by the moon, and go “Oh, I forgot the salt. Lets go back”.

So I understand the pressure she’s in.

And then there’s the whole animal thing. But I wont get into that. Its way too complicated.

I’ll just keep on thinking of numbers. And while I’m thinking of them, I need to go check my bank account. Gina was telling me she got a GENEROUS deposit from NASA the other day. I haven’t had time to go check my account.

But that will be fun. I hope I’ll see more numbers…

…and more numbers…and more numbers…

I feel like I’m back in college… with Raymond sitting behind me….
But that’s another story.

What I WAS trying to say was, I feel like I’m back in college, getting my Architects degree. Seriously, NASA needs to have some kind of student program. I am learning SO much!

I still feel weird getting called Director. Maybe its because I don’t feel I’m actually directing anything yet. I’ve met my department, and I’m really happy with them. They all remind me of me. They are dedicated, loyal, and strong willed. I know Luis was one of the ones who chose this group for me, and I’ve been texting him “THANK YOU” for a day or two now, but he hasn’t responded. I know he’s busy, just like me.

NASA also presented me yesterday with my own studio. I asked the secretary who showed it to me why I got one, and she said that I would be needing space to work. It seems they are bringing a model of the spaceship for me to see next week. I can’t wait. Meanwhile, I’m trying to catch some episodes of Star Trek.

So, while I learn about designing, and building, (again) I’m getting piles and piles of Law books delivered to my studio. Since I’m also Director Of Protocol, I guess they expect me to learn all these laws.

Well, I’ll do my best. I always wanted to be like Judge Judy.

I love animals. I do.

I’ve always had a dream that I’ll move to a farm one day, and just get all kinds of animals, and just let them run crazy. Ok, maybe just chickens, and birds. Not pigs, or horses. Maybe fish, too.

But when Richard (He’s my boss) told me that besides having 10,000 humans on board, we would also be carrying about 5000 different kinds of animals too, I suddenly was glad I never moved to a farm.

I’m debating whether I should change my name to Noah.

I was sitting in my office when Richard told me, and believe me, I was glad I was sitting down. Richard apologized about a million times, but I honestly wasn’t that surprised. I mean, it was just logical to take animals with us.

I think Paloma knows about the animals too. Her department is in charge of thinking of a way that we can carry all these animals on the ship, without them killing each other, or us. I’m trying to look at the positive side of this. Maybe Paloma can think of more good reasons I should be happier.

And no, I won’t change my name. Noah reminds me of an old Spanish song.

Noah, Noah! Noah, Noah!

I’ve come to a decision.

They really DON’T pay me enough for what I’m doing.
But I don’t care. I’m having fun.

I was told I now have to do some more research, on transporting animals. At first I didn’t get it, until I realized that they meant how to transport animals ON our ship. What kind of cages to get, how to keep them clean, etc…

Google.com is currently my new best friend.

Still, they’ve elected me and my department to go to the San Diego Zoo, to personally go pick the animals. That means I have to do more research and learn about animal health, and animal handling. So I’m guessing I’m also going to be named the official Vet of the Spaceship.

Fun.

Actually, Luis has asked NASA to add at least 30 vets to the crew of the ship. They are also talking about creating a department, complete with a Director and 50 workers, specifically for the animals. That was Paloma’s Idea, and it’s a very good one.

Meanwhile, our trip has finally been made public. Its all over the news, and it seems that the entire world is trying to get a seat on our flight. All of our pictures have peen also posted, and I’ve gotten calls from complete strangers pretending to be my friends, just trying to get a seat. Family too.
Its also impossible to go out. Its almost like being a celebrity. But its not fun. I had a crying woman come up to me at Starbucks the other day, with her 2 year old, begging me to take him with me.

Its sad how everyone is desperate to get off this planet.

Zoo day is here.

I got together with Luis yesterday, and got to meet the five vets that will be coming with me to the Zoo. I was looking forward to the long drive, but I guess NASA doesn’t believe in driving. So we flew. Besides, I better get used to being in the air, since in less than a year, I will be in the air for a very long time. The Vets are nice, and they’re giving me more information than I want. I invited Paloma along for the ride, and I’m glad she accepted.

I’m going to want someone logical there with me. In case I lose my head.

Chapter 3

Gina had never been to the San Diego Zoo. Paloma had gone there once, with her brothers, when she was about 5 years old. But she was sure the Zoo was a lot bigger now.

They where expecting a bus to pick them up from the airport, so they where surprised when a black limo pulled up to them. But they didn’t mind too much.

Gina giggled as she got on the limo.
“I feel like I’m going to the prom”

“So do I” Paloma said, “or maybe to some ball.”

The limo was well equipped. And the leather felt good to sit on. That reminded Gina of something.
“Hey, so did you check your bank account?”

Paloma smiled “Yes I did. Thank you for telling me.”

Gina smiled. She had already spent about $5000 of her money, mostly on purses and shoes. She was hoping that since she was a Director, she would be able to take as much clothe as she wanted with her.

“I’m going to leave it all to my mom and my brothers” Paloma continued, looking out the window. “They’ll need it more than I will.”

Gina paused. She really hadn’t thought about leaving the money to someone, mostly because her family was well off, and they really didn’t need it. So she just smiled. “That’s very nice of you” she said, also looking out the window.

After a 10 minute drive, they got to the Zoo. Gina was expecting to see a big entrance, with signs, and balloons, and little kids with their parents going inside. Instead, they stopped behind a long, low building. Paloma could hear the far away murmur of the crowds, so she knew they weren’t that far away from the main entrance.

A man dressed in green clothes was standing by one of the doors of the building. As they got off, he smiled, and walked up to them.

“Welcome to the San Diego Zoo,” He said, flashing a perfect set of white teeth at them. Gina instantly liked him. She loved white teeth.

“My name is Leon, and I’ll be your guide today.” Leon shook both of their hands, Paloma noticed his hands where cold.

“Is the temperature controlled inside?” she asked Leon as they walked to the door.

“Yes,” he said. “You must have noticed my cold hands”

“Yes, I did.”

Gina was glad she was wearing a sweater. They walked inside, and found themselves in a dark long hallway.

“Where are we?” Gina said, looking around.
“This is the reptile area” Leon said, as he closed the door.
“They need to be kept at a certain temperature, and the tend to like the dark more.”

Neither Gina nor Paloma where too excited to hear that.

“So, will you have any helpers?” Leon said, looking at both of them.

“Yes, the Vets should be right behind us.”
Gina said, starting to feel a bit cold.

“Actually, the vets have been re-routed to the Mammal Building. We’re just here to fill out some paper work.” Paloma said. She looked at Gina.
“At least, that’s what I was told.”

“You’re probably right.” Gina said.

“Well, the office is down this way” Leon said, leading them down the hall.

“Great. Lets get this done” Gina said under her breath. She didn’t even want to ask what was inside of that building with her.



After the papers where signed, Leon got a go-cart, and they rode on over to the Mammal building. While they where driving, Paloma and Gina went over their plans. Gina was a bit confused about what they where going to do, so Paloma put it in simple words,

“We’re here to basically choose the animals. We need healthy ones, pairs, or, if they are small, we can take up to four of them. The vets are here to help us choose the right animals, and to make sure we take females and males.”

Gina finally understood what they where doing.

There where about a dozen huge trucks parked by the Mammal Building, all of them with the shiny NASA logo on them. The 5 vets they had met before where all there, looking ready for action. Suddenly, with Leon there, and the vets looking at her, Gina felt shy. Paloma took one look at her, and she seemed to understand how she was feeling. So she took the lead.

“Thanks for waiting for us” she told the vets, as they got off the go-cart.
“We will go ahead with the animal inspections. Do any of you have any questions?”

“Once we’ve chosen the most suitable pair, and they have been sedated, who do we contact?” One of the vets asked.

“Good question.” Paloma opened her suitcase, and gave each of the vets a radio. Just page us, and we will send a crew your way, to move the animals to the carriers.”

All the vets nodded, and they took off. Leon then took them inside the Mammal building. They where in charge of selecting some animals themselves and Paloma felt ready.

She took a look at Gina, and they both smiled at each other.

I was starting to like my Studio. But it wasn’t like any studios I had ever been in. First of all, it was HUGE. The main room alone was bigger than my apartment. Then, I had a private office, and to my absolute joy, I had a private room with a futon, and a large bathroom. What more could I ask for?

The model of the space ship is supposed to arrive tomorrow, so I am definitely excited. I’ve spent the last few days getting to know the people in my department. They are a great, talented group.

Little, by little, I’m also learning about laws. What a weird combination. Design and Laws. But I like learning new things, so I welcome all this knowledge that I’m being offered.

My hair, on the other hand, is not liking me at the moment. Its all over the place, and I haven’t had time to pay attention to it. I just wash it, and wash it, and dry it, and just leave it there. I just hope it doesn’t fall off.

I went to visit the Animal Relocation Center, where they are keeping all the animals they brought from the Zoo. Gina and Paloma handled that job, and they did it well. I’m glad they didn’t involve me. I’m really, really glad.

Don’t get me wrong. I love animals, but from a distance. It is now official that NASA will be putting together an Animal Care Department. They haven’t named a Director for that yet, but I know Luis is going crazy trying to find someone.

We have a meeting at Luis’ apartment tomorrow. And when I say apartment, I mean his office. He actually has an apartment in his office. And when I say Apartment, I actually mean House. I saw the layout for it the other day, and its huge. But he deserves it.

I spoke to my mom yesterday. She called me when she saw my picture in the newspaper. I really didn’t want her to find out that way, but that’s how the media is. They don’t respect my privacy. We ended up talking for about 4 hours. She cried, and so did I. She doesn’t seem to understand that this is a chance at a new beginning. She seems to think NASA is just involving us in a weird experiment. I hope things between us get better.

I don’t want to leave earth knowing that my mom is mad at me.

I survived the animals. And what was more amazing is that I had fun!
But I’m thankful Paloma was there. We both had a good time.

I also liked the Animal Relocation Center, or ARC, as some people where calling it. My main concern was the animals well being, and they where being looked after with the most care. PETA had joined us, and they where running around like crazy, attending to the animals every need.

They sure do have a passion when it comes to animals. Its amazing. Just don’t mention stopping by KFC after work. They will lecture you until you literally lose your appetite. Meanwhile, I was starting to get a hang of what my job was. I was also trying to meet more and more of my department. So far, I didn’t even know their names. But I know I’ll have plenty of time for that.

Meanwhile, my first shipment of seeds arrived yesterday. They are now in the basement of the NASA building, frozen away for us to use when we get to Petra. I’m also expecting another shipment to arrive tomorrow. I won’t be able to see it come in, because we have a meeting with Luis in his office.

Its about time. I feel like I haven’t seen my brother in years.

Now that the animals where safely in their ARC, I felt much better. This was our first big assignment that me and Gina both handled, and I was proud of how well it had gone. We had Zero problems. And I saw Leon wink at Gina before we left.

So everything was a win-win situation. 

Now, It was my turn to start planning how to keep these animals alive. I gave a lecture this morning to Luis and his management. I was surprised when THEY looked surprised when I told them we needed a lot more food than we had planned. I mean, what where we supposed to feed the animals?

So now, we had more, and more food coming. I’m honestly thinking that we are going to be crammed into that ship. Seriously.

Besides the meeting we have with Luis soon, We are also scheduled to start training with the NASA astronauts next week. That should be a bit fun. Gina was telling me she’s got a weak stomach, so I bet she’ll be the one to toss her lunch.

But we’ll just have to wait and see.

Chapter 4

Luis sat down on his chair. He was feeling tiered, but happy.
The days seem to pass in a flash these days, and oh, there was so much to do, and so little time. Still, they where advancing right along.

The time was 4:15pm, and he had scheduled a meeting with his Directors at 4:30pm. He looked over at the counter on his right. There was a platter full of cookies, and next to it, a box full of coffee drinks. He knew that he and his friends would need that later.

His office door slid open, and in walked Gina, carrying a small box.

“I had some coffee cake made for us” She said, setting the cake down next to the cookies. “I thought we might get hungry or something.”

“Thanks” Luis answered, suddenly feeling hungry for coffee cake.

Gina turned around, and stood in front of his desk.

“This is not a formal meeting right? Because I’m not dressed properly if it’s a formal meeting.” She looked down, inspecting her light cream sweater and kaki skirt.

“Don’t worry about it,” Luis said.
“Im wearing a sweatshirt. So, no its not a formal meeting.”

“Good.” Gina sat down.

“How are the animals doing?”

Gina smiled. “And when you say ‘animals’, you’re referring to the actual animals, right? Not the annoying PETA people?”

“Yes, the actual animals.” Luis laughed.
“If I was referring to the PETA people, I would say ‘how are the ANNOYING animals doing?”

They both laughed.

“They are fine” Gina continued.
“Both of them, PETA and the animals are fine. I’m actually getting used to PETA bossing me around now, when I’M the one who’s supposed to be bossing them around. And the ARC is great. I’m sure you’ve gone to see it.”

“Yes, I’ve gone twice. They’ve done a great job.”

Gina remembered something she wanted to ask him.
“Have you picked a Director for the Animal Department yet?”

Luis frowned.
“No, not yet. But it needs to be done soon. Next week, at the latest.”

The door opened again, and in walked Rosa, followed by Paloma. They both had food in their hands. Rosa had chocolate covered cherries, and Paloma had fruit dipped in chocolate.

Luis smiled.
“It looks like we’ll be pigging out, as well as having a meeting this afternoon.”

“Who said you can’t have everything?” Paloma said, laughing.



After they had settled in, and chatted for a bit, Luis thought he better start the meeting.

“First of all,” he looked at his 3 friends, “I want to say that you three have been doing a great job. My superiors, as well as everyone in NASA is happy with all of you for the great job you’re doing.”

He looked at Gina and Paloma.
“You two handled the Animal Relocation very nicely. Not only was there no problems whatsoever, but you managed to even get good comments from PETA, and that’s a miracle by itself. And Rosa, I know you haven’t had a whole lot to do, but to just study, and study, but believe me, when the model of the spaceship arrives next week, you will be beyond busy. So just hang tight, ok?”

“No problem” Rosa said. “I’m ready to get my hands on that spaceship model.”

“Great. Now…” Luis looked at his notes, “I’m supposed to get a small report from each of you. This will become something that we do every week. So…”
He looked at the three of them, “Who wants to begin?”

No one spoke. Then the three of them started talking at once.
That made them all laugh.

“I’ll go first.” Gina said, after she stopped laughing.
“The shipments of the seeds have been arriving daily, and there hasn’t been any problem with them. They have all been frozen, and put into the cargo place in the basement. The last shipment is probably arriving as we speak, and after I finish here I will go make sure it’s the correct one. Paloma and I have been working closely to make sure we don’t miss anything.

Besides that, the animals are currently well taken care of, and Paloma and myself have a meeting with PETA tomorrow, to go over what food we should be planning to order for the animals. This is a tricky thing to do, since we really don’t want to take more than necessary, but we really need to have what we need. My research tells me that once we get to Petra its going to take us a minimum of 3 years to have our first harvest there, and we’re going to need enough food to keep those animals going for that amount of time.”

Luis nodded, and made some notes on his notepad.
“What time is your meeting with PETA tomorrow?”

Gina looked at Paloma.
“Its at 3pm, I believe” Paloma said, looking at her notes.
“But I’ll go ahead and send you an email confirming the time.”

“Thanks. Ok Rosa, your turn” They all turned to Rosa

“I don’t have too much to report on the Design of the Ship, mainly because I haven’t started working on it. What I have been doing is drawing up some sketches of what I imagine some of the rooms should look like. Once I have the model in front of me, I will be able to adjust whatever needs to be adjusted. I was also informed that I will be designing the Animal Relocation Center that we will have on board the ship, so I will go ahead and start drawing up some sketches of that.”

“You might want to get together with Paloma and Gina when you’re doing that” Luis said. “They might have a preference on where they want things, and stuff like that.”

“Sure, I’ll schedule a meeting when I’m ready to start drawing up that part of the ship.” Rosa made a note on her notepad, and then continued.
“As far as my Protocol duties go, I’ve learned so much, its crazy. But I think we will have all we need. With the help of the Legal Department, I have started to write up some basic laws that we will need during our trip. Once the 10,000 people are chosen, we will get these laws to them, and have them all sign consent forms.”

Rosa felt her throat was now dry from all that talking. She took a sip of water. “That’s all I have to report.”

“Good… good…” Luis was writing more on his notepad.
“And last but not least, your turn Paloma”

Paloma smiled.
“Well, Gina gave part of my report today, since I’ve been working with her during these past few days. Other than that, well, we’ve just been running various tests, and just getting some logistics done. We need to make sure we don’t forget anything, and that we have a plan A, B, and C for anything that might happen during our flight. That’s all I’m doing at the moment.”

The room got quiet. All you could hear was them chewing.

Luis sat up on his chair.
“Please remember that we have our health tests to take soon.” He said, making sure they all wrote that down on their notes.

“Now, the other main thing that I want to talk to the three of you is this”
He got up, and walked over to the window next to his desk.
Four boxes stood there, stacked on each other.

“These boxes are full of names of people that have passed the test and inspection, and that are eligible to join our crew.”
He gave each of the girls a box, and kept one.
“There is about 5000 flash cards in each of these boxes. Each flash card has a photo, and general information of a person. Out of the 5000, we need to choose 1000.”

Rosa looked confused.
“But, if they all passed the test, why are we still choosing more? Can’t they all join?”

Luis smiled, but looked a little sad.
“More than one million applications to join our crew have come in from young people from all over the world. And yes, most of them could qualify to join. But our ship will hold 50,000 and ONLY that, so we’re going to turn down a lot of people.

“But if these all qualified, how are we supposed to choose 1000 out of the 5000? Do we just randomly pick?” Rosa asked, still looking confused.

Luis opened his box, and pulled out a flash card.

“These where the first batch of people chosen. I just want you guys to look through them, and just trust your gut, and choose some.”
Luis looked over at Gina
“and please, lets choose them by what we read of them, not by how cute they are.”

Gina looked embarrassed.
“Why do you look at me when you say that?”

Luis smiled
“Who should I be looking at?”

Gina turned red.
“Uh… Me, I guess.”

They all laughed.

Choosing people you don’t know is really hard. I have no clue who to choose.
I mean, if I was choosing by looks, I would be done by now, but since I cant base my choices on that, I haven’t even chosen one person.

Paloma, on the other hand, logically chose the smartest, healthiest, and most stable people. She didn’t sweat over any of it. Maybe I’ll ask her to do my box for me.

My dad called me last night, to ask me what my plans for Christmas are. I asked Luis about it the other day, and I found out that we are getting a whole week off. Its amazing. But I guess thy want us to spend time with our families. You know, since it will be the last Christmas we spend here on Earth.

I saw Zeke the other day while I was visiting the ARC. He still has that charming smile, and those perfectly white teeth. I would so choose him if he was coming along on our trip.

There I go again, choosing people because of their looks.

When will I ever learn???

The spaceship is here, and I’m amazed.
Its not the way I had imagined it, but I loved it the minute I saw it.

The central part is a long cylinder, in a standing position, which makes up about half of the ship. Inside, there are 100 levels. So, I’m guessing that when I see it in real life, the cylinder will look like one of the World Trade Center Towers. (When they where up and actually existed, that is…)

That sounds huge.
But if they plan to fit 50,000 people in this thing, it BETTER be. I will not share my room with anyone.

No bunk-beds whatsoever.

Then, there are 4 “V” Shaped towers attached to the Standing Cylinder.
Below these, there are also four entry ways, for other small spaceships to fly in, and dock themselves inside. (I don’t know why they would have these entryways, since we’re not expecting any company, but I guess they just made them just in case.)

Overall, I love the ship. If I look at it from above, it looks like a flower.
I almost died when I got to meet the ship designer. His name was Raul Hernandez, and he was amazing. He gave me some ideas of what I could create, and I can’t wait to try them out.

Life is good!

Chris called the other day. He’s gone back to Florida, but he keeps calling and calling. I think I have more than 20 voice mails from him, and since my voicemail machine makes me hear the messages before I can erase them, I’m not even going to try.

I finally answered his call the other day, and for a while, all he did was gush about how he missed me, and this and that, and how he had immediately signed up to be part of the crew, and how he was waiting to get response, and that he had seen me in the news, and that he was telling everyone that he knew me personally, and blah, blah, blah.

I honestly don’t know what his problem is.

Did he not remember we where over? HE was the one who had walked away, and for a while, I had been the one chasing him, asking him to reconsider.

Karma has a way of turning around and biting you in the butt.

Anyways, I just kind of “Yea’d” and “aha’d” my way through our conversation. When he told me he was planning on flying in for Christmas, I told him I’d be in Europe, taking some Astronaut Classes there.

I hope he believed that.

I saw the picture of the ship, and the first thing I thought was;

I am soooooo going to get lost in that thing.

Just the Cylinder alone is 100 floors. But its going to be beautiful.
The model is in Rosa’s studio, and there’s usually a crowd of people there, just looking at it. Rosa discovered that if you look at the ship from a certain angle, it looks like a flower. And then there are the towers attached to the Cylinder. They are beautiful, with skylights…

I’m sure these things will have names later on, but for now, they are just called cylinder and towers.

Still, I’m in love with the ship. And from the size its going to be, I am now sure we will all fit. And have plenty of space.

Seeing the ship has been probably the happiest thing I’ve done in a few days.
The Australia Earthquake is on everyone’s minds, including mine, and its depressing. My dad is also acting up. He called the other day, and told me that he wants Isabel, my older sister, to come with me on the trip.

I don’t even know if Isabel wants to come or not, but I’m thinking he’s making her.

Why, Oh Why cant he just let me go.

I have to talk to Luis about this. I don’t think Isabel has signed on to be a part of the crew yet, and it might be too late. We have received about 2 million applications now, and I think they will stop receiving new applications soon. There’s no use in doing that, when we’re not even going to be taking half of the 2 million we’ve gotten already.

I just hope its not too late for Isabel to join.
She would be a great addition to the crew. And yes, I know my dad would make her keep an eye on me.

But oh well. You cant have everything in life.

I’m in pain.
Not a lot of pain, just little aches.

Without any warning NASA rounded up all of us directors, and shipped us to some private hospital in LA to get us checked up.

I think we where all expecting this to happen, but not so suddenly.

For two days, all I did was run, and run, and had CAT and MRI scans, and took deep breaths, and peed in cups. We can say that was the good part of the check up. Then came the shots.

We got vaccines for almost any imaginable illness on the planet. My arms, and nalgas are as sore as they have ever been. And the side effects that come with the shots aren’t too great either. I had some dizziness the day after, and then for some reason, I got real cold.

The doctor told me that the vaccine was making its way around my blood system, which was making me feel cold.

Poor Gina kept throwing up. And Luis got the hiccups. Don’t ask why.
Rosa seemed to be the one that was immune to the side effects. I guess some people get all the luck.

Now all we have to do is wait for our results.
Lets hope those don’t come with any side effects

My mom called and said she wanted to come down from Palm Springs for the holidays. I don’t really think it’s a good idea, but at the same time, this is the last holiday season I’ll be spending here, so I guess she better come down. I know she still doesn’t want me to leave, but I guess we’ll talk about that when the time comes. I just hope it doesn’t happen before the holiday season. I don’t want to ruin my last holiday here on Earth.

Meanwhile, there was a 10.9 meter Earthquake off the shores of Australia today. They haven’t announced much to the public, but I know its bad.

Actually, bad doesn’t start to explain it. Its horrible.

Since I work for NASA, we got to see the aerial images first.
Australia was now half covered in water.

I’m guessing that about 80% of the people that died probably drowned.
And not only that, one of the Imaging Technicians said that since there where constant tremors still happening, it was likely that the bodies of the dead would just float away into the ocean.

Bodies floating in the ocean.
That’s not something I want to imagine ever again.

I know this is going to sound bad, but I don’t mean It in a bad way:

I’m glad the Earthquake was big.

Not because I like the idea of Australia being half underwater, or because I wanted all those people to drown. But the earthquake took away all of the media attention we where getting, and that’s a blessing in disguise.

I was surprised to walk out of building today, and not find any news vans parked out front, or find a crowd of supporters or protesters across the street, yelling at us, or cheering us on.

I was glad I had stopped getting emails from various news stations, asking for interviews, and for this, and for that.

But I’m sorry it took an epic earthquake to take the attention from us.
I feel horrible for all those people.

Other than that, things are running smoothly here.
Rosa is busier than I am at the moment, designing this and designing that. My boss, Richard, is very impressed with her, and that means he’s happy with me.

My worst nightmare has come true.

Ok, I take it back. Maybe its not my worst nightmare. But at this very
moment, it feels like it is.

I got a message from chris saying he was at the airport, and he needed
to be picked up.
Why, oh why is he doing this to me?

I sent one of the guys in my department to get him, and to drop him off
in a hotel.

I don’t want him here.

We got our health tests back today.
Basically, they want me to get fatter.

No, maybe not fatter, but the doctor said I needed to gain like 5 more
pounds. He said that at my current age, and heith, I was a bit
underweight. So now I’m thinking what I can pig out on, to get those
pounds on. Maybe ill just add more and more butter to my bread. Or eat a
pint of rocky road ice cream.

Everything else was good. Since I wear glasses, the doctor recomended I
get the laser surgery before the trip. Luis also got told the same
thing. I guess its obvious, since we don’t expect to find any
lenscrafters in Petra.

Luis keeps looking at me funny. I know what look he’s giving me. Its the
“I-know-something-but-i-dont-know-if-i-should-tell-you” look. I’m going
to have to corner him soon, and get it out of him.

Speaking of him, I gave him Isabel’s application, and he turned it in.
Now we just have to wait and see if she passed the tests.

I hope she does. I don’t want my dad freaking out anymore.

Chapter 5

The room was full of people, and noisy.
Luis wanted to get this over as soon as possible. Besides having a headache, he wanted to go back to his office and work more. He was afraid he was becoming a workaholic.
The NASA committee was there, along with his boss, Richard.
Luis looked around. He spotted Gina, and Rosa sitting with their departments, but he couldn’t see Paloma anywhere. He looked down at his watch, and he saw that it was noon. The meeting was about to start. Richard got up, and walked over to the podium. “I would like to thank everyone for being here today”
he said, looking at the large crowd.
“We asked all of the departments to be here today, first of all, to tell you what a wonderful job you are doing, and to give you some updates on our project.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Luis saw Paloma trying to sneak up to her seat without being seen. That only made her look more obvious.
Richard continued
“I’d like to ask our Executive Director to give us some updates.”
Luis got his folder, and stood up. He wasn’t expecting anything, so he was surprised when the crowd started clapping. Hmmm, he thought to himself.
I guess I must be popular
He shook Richard’s hand, and put his folder on the podium. He was anxious to give his report.
“I’d like to thank all of you for being here today. As the day gets closer to our departure, I want to thank you all for your hard work. I am proud to be leading such a wonderful group of people.”
Luis looked at his directors.
“I’d also like to personally thank all of my directors, for doing a phenomenal job. Why don’t we all give them a hand?”
Everyone started clapping again. Rosa looked all embarrassed that her department stood up for her while they where clapping.
Once the clapping died down, Luis continued.
“We will be adding some important people to our crew today, and I would like to personally introduce them to you. First of all, as you all know, we have been looking for a Director of Animal Control. This was not an easy position to fill. Taking care of all the animals that are currently at our ARC is a huge task. However, we are happy to say we have found the person for the job. He spent the last 5 years researching wild animals, and animal behavior in both Europe and Australia . Last year, he discovered 2 new species in the Amazon Jungle. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you, Danny Duquette. Lets give him a warm welcome.”
The crowd started clapping, and Danny Becerra, looking a bit shy, stood up from the back of the platform. Instead of looking at him, Luis looked at Gina. He knew she was going to have a major issue with this.
Sure enough, Gina was giving Luis a “You-Are-Dead!” look.
Danny got to the Podium, and Luis shook his hand. In all honesty, Luis had decided to give him the job because of his credentials. He was the best there was, and he had passed all the tests with no problems. Gina would have to understand that this choice was not personal.

Danny took his spot on the podium.
“I want to thank everyone for this warm welcome. I’ve been here for a few days now, and I feel like I’m home. Thank you all for making me feel at home.”

Danny took one final look at the crowd, smiled, and walked back to his seat.
“Now,” Luis said, walking back to the podium, “I want to introduce you to someone whom I’ve know personally for a long time. When NASA informed me I needed to look for someone to take the helm of our Health Department, I knew exactly who to look for. Thankfully, she was available, and now, she is part of our crew. Please help me welcome our Director of Health and Information, RoseMary Trevino.”
The crowd clapped again, and RoseMary, looking as chic as always, graciously stood up, and walked to the podium. “Thank you!” she said, waving at the crowd. “I want to say what a great pleasure, and honor it is to be joining such a talented group.” she paused.
“You know, Life is funny sometimes. 2 weeks ago, I was planning on moving to Europe , permanently. Now, I will be moving, but to a brand new planet. Its amazing what we will be accomplishing, and I’m happy and excited to be part of this adventure. Thank you all, and bon voyage!”
The crowd clapped again, and for a while, you could hear everyone chattering away. Rosie’s speech had gotten all of them excited.

Luis took his place by the podium again. The last person he was going to present was the one he was worried about. He wasn’t worried about the person, he was worried about the reaction he was going to get. Especially from Rosa . He looked over at her before he started talking. She saw him looking at her, and she gave him a thumbs up.
Luis hoped she wouldn’t be giving him a different hand gesture in a few moments.
“As you all know, we have our spaceship Model now available. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend you stop by Director Chavez’s office to take a look at it. Due to the spaceships size, however, we found that we would need to spread out the responsibilities a bit more. Don’t get me wrong, I know Director Chavez can handle it all. She has done a great job so far. Still, its always good to have an extra set of hands. So, after some planning, we will be making the following changes:
“Director Chavez’s new official title will be Executive Architect And Director of Protocol. She will still have the last word on all designs, all aspects of the ship, and she will still be the Director of Protocol”
From her seat, Rosa felt relieved. She was glad they had upgraded her title, and had hired an additional Designer. Even though she was a great designer, she wanted to have more free time to do all her other duties right. She wondered who they had hired as the Director of Design.
Back on the podium, Luis cleared his throat, and gave Rosa one last smile. He hoped she wouldn’t kill him. He looked over at Gina. She was still giving him the “You-Are-Dead” look. He took a deep breath.
“Please welcome our new Director of Design, Raymond Contreras”

Luis looked at Rosa . She was still smiling, but now the smile looked like it was frozen on her face. Everyone was clapping around her, but she just sat there, smiling.
Luis handed over the podium to Raymond. He was taller than Luis, so he had to adjust the microphone.
“Thank you everyone, for that welcome.” Raymond said.
“I just want to say its great to be here, to be part of this. This journey we will be embarking on is something that happens once in lifetime, and I’m happy to join you.”
Raymond looked over to where Rosa was sitting.
Luis tried to see Rosa ’s face, but he couldn’t see it.
“I am also happy to be working with a former classmate of mine, whom I also consider a great friend. Director Sanchez, I look forward to working with you”
The Crowd clapped, and Raymond smiled. Luis stretched his neck to see Rosa ’s reaction. He saw that she was smiling a little, and she waved to Raymond.
Well, Luis thought, at least she wasn’t holding up her middle finger.
Luis was glad when the meeting was over. But now, he had a meeting with his Directors, and he was hoping no blood would be shed.

I know Luis thinks I’m mad at him. And I guess I could be.
But I’m not. I’m not really sure what I’m feeling at the moment.
Yes, Raymond and I had more than a professional relationship at one point, but I wasn’t going to let that get in my way. I was surprised he was the one Luis chose, but at the same time, I was glad. I knew Raymond was a good Designer. I knew how much I could expect from him, and how much I could push him.
In other words, I didn’t have to spend any time getting to know him.
I already did.
I better tell Luis that I’m not mad soon. He looks like he expects me to tear his balls off and wear them for earrings.
Gina, on the other hand, looks madder than anyone.

I wonder why?



Gina was making her way down to Luis’ office, trying to keep her cool. She had gone to her office after the meeting in the conference room, and she had splashed cold water on her face.
Then she had sat down for a while.
‘Why are you mad?’ she tried to ask herself. She didn’t know who to point her anger to.
She admitted that she was mad at Luis, mainly because he hadn’t told her anything about what he was planning to do. Why would he do that? Why couldn’t he just mention to her, ‘Hey, remember your old boyfriend? Yeah, the one who dumped you? Guess what? I’m going to hire him!’
Then of course, if he HAD told her, she would have tried to stop that from happening. So then, she asked herself, why did she not want Danny there?
After asking herself that, she realized she still cared about him. When she realized that, she decided she was mad, but mostly at herself. She couldn’t believe that she was feeling all this over him.
After she had calmed down a bit, she dried her face, made sure her hair was style was still in place, and headed on over to her meeting with the Directors.

She was halfway down the hall, when Danny turned a corner, and started walking towards her.
Gina turned right, and opened the first door she saw.
“Hey,” She heard Danny call behind her.
Gina had no idea what room she was in. She quickly looked around, trying to figure out where she was. She seemed to be in a storage room, that was stacked full of boxes, with a Red Cross on them. medical supplies… she thought.
Before she could see if there was another exit, the door opened, and in walked Danny.
“You know, you don’t have to run away from me. ” he said, smiling”Its not like I’m carrying a disease, or anything”
Gina turned around to look at him. She forced herself to smile
“I’m not running from you” she said, trying to make up an excuse for being in this room. “There’s a bunny at the ARC that’s sick, so I needed to get him some medication”
“A bunny?” Danny’s smile got bigger. “And why would you be looking for medication for the ‘bunny’ here, and not inside the ARC?”
Gina wanted to kick herself. She had forgotten that Danny was the Director of the Animals, so he knew all these things.
“And besides,” Danny continued. “I’m in charge of keeping those ‘bunnies’ alive. As of this morning, all animals where 100% healthy.”
Gina decided not to argue with him anymore.
“Ok, fine, I was avoiding you. Is that what you want to hear?”
Before Danny could answer, the door suddenly opened again, and there stood RoseMary, with a clipboard in her hand. They three of them stared at each other for a few seconds, all of them trying to think of what to say.
RoseMary found her tongue first.
“Uh….I was going to take a quick inventory count before our meeting,” she said, trying not to look at Gina and Danny,
“But…it looks like you guys need the room more than I do” RoseMary started to close the door, but Gina moved past Danny, and opened it.
“No, I was just leaving”
Gina walked out of the room, and hurried down the hall.
“Gina, wait” Danny tried to follow her, but RoseMary got between him and the door.
“Just give her some space, Danny” she said, trying to keep him from passing her.
Danny looked at RoseMary.
“I thought you where our Doctor, not our personal counselor”
RoseMary didn’t move. “You know Gina is an old friend of mine. And you’re just the guy that dumped her for a trip to Europe.”
She turned around, leaving him inside the room.





Luis took a look at his Directors.
Rosa seemed to have cooled down, and Luis was glad. He didn’t was glad someone wasn’t mad at him. Gina had also seemed to cool down a bit, but she didn’t seem to want to talk to anyone. her head was buried in her notes, and she was barely answering when she was spoken to.
Luis knew he had to talk to her in private.
RoseMary also looked a bit miffed, but Luis couldn’t tell who she was miffed with. Danny was looking pretty normal, but he wouldn’t look at Gina, or at RoseMary
The only people that looked normal where Paloma, and Raymond.
Luis tried to ignore all the tension in the room, and just started talking. “Thank you all for coming to this follow up meeting.” He said, trying to sound sorry for making them come to another meeting.
“I know that we’ve been in a long meeting already today, so I promise to keep this as short as possible.”
He looked over at the new Directors.
“I know we all got to meet RoseMary, Danny, and Raymond already, but I wanted to go into detail as to what your duties will be. Lets start with Raymond.”

Raymond smiled. Luis saw him and Rosa look at each other, and they both smiled. That made Luis feel better. Maybe he was going to be able to keep his balls, after all.
“Raymond, as the Director of Design, you will be in charge of coming up with whatever designs Our Executive Architect needs. You will be given a group of people to work with, and together, you will assist Rosa in whatever she needs.”
Raymond was taking notes on his book.
Rosa thought he looked like he was back in 4th grade. That made her smile.
Luis leaned forward. “Do you have any questions, Raymond?”
Raymond nodded. “I know my office wont be ready for a couple of days, but I would still like to see the blueprints of the ship as soon as possible.”
Luis looked at Rosa.
“Can you make sure he gets them?” he asked her.
Rosa nodded. “I’ll have a copy delivered to him by this afternoon” she made a note on her paper.
“Good.” Luis looked at his notes. “As of right now, Raymond, those are your duties. We might add some more as we get closer to the actual launch of the ship. But if you at any moment feel overloaded, just let me know, or talk to Rosa”
“Thanks.”
Raymond looked at Rosa , and they both smiled again.

“Danny,” Luis said, turning his attention to him, “As I’ve already told you, you’re the Director of Animal Control. You are in charge of keeping those animals as healthy as possible. With all of your experience, I think you are the correct person for the job. You will need to work with Paloma, who’s in charge of logistics, and with Gina, who will be in charge of ordering the food you will need to feed your animals.”
Luis paused.
“Any questions?”
Gina looked like she wanted to say something, but she kept her mouth closed.
“You don’t have to worry about anything” Danny said, sitting up”I’ve got everything under control.”
RoseMary whispered something under her breath.
Luis looked at her.
“Did you say something?”
RoseMary smiled.
“No, I’m just thinking out loud. That’s all.”
Luis smiled.
“Well, that brings us to RoseMary, our Director of Health and Information.”
Luis looked at his notes, then back at RoseMary.

“Besides being head chief of our 2 hospitals aboard our ship, she will be in charge of all heath issues we might encounter. In the next couple of weeks, she will be hiring all of our Hospital staff.”
Luis smiled.
“Be nice to her, because she’ll be the one who will end up giving you shots if you ever need them.”
Danny snorted, then looked guilty for snorting.
“Sorry” he said, turning red.
Paloma was also starting to get red, and Luis finally saw that it was because she wanted to laugh, and she was holding it in.
Finally, Rosa laughed, and everyone else started to laugh with her.
Danny turned a weird shade of purple.
Luis felt relieved. The tension seemed to break in the room, and he could tell that they all felt it.
Gina laughed the hardest.
Which then lead to her starting to choke.
This led to RoseMary having to rub her back, and give her water.
Luis felt better. He knew that they where a good team…
as long as they worked together.

I officially had a stalker.
But not the “I-want-to-skin-you-alive” kind.
He was more the “I-want-to-annoy-you-until-you-drop-dead” type.
Yes, you guessed it. Chris was back.
He called me day and night. He actually left petals of red flowers on my car. THAT totally backfired when it started raining after he did it. By the time I got to my car, the water had dried in the sun, and all I found on my car was dried red muck all over it.
I should make him pay for the carwash.
Finally, I couldn’t take it any more. I needed to complain to someone, so I chose poor, innocent Gina to go dump my problems on. After I had complained and complained to her for about half an hour, I finally stopped, and asked her advice.
That’s when I realized she was also having boy problems at the moment. She didn’t tell me with who, but I’m guessing it’s the Director of Animal Control….I forgot his name.

Oh well. I’ll call him McVet.

So, yeah, she’s having issues with McVet, and so she couldn’t give me advice. All she could say was “boys…boys and their stupid penuses….” That’s all she would say.
I do NOT want to know what she meant.
So I did what any sane person would do.
I thanked her for listening, and then I ran the other way.

I’m running out of ideas.
I’ve tried calling her, emailing her, and finally, following her around.
Gina is a champion at giving me the silent treatment.
I seriously don’t know what she thinks I’m going to say.Then again, I know its probably my fault why she’s acting this way.

No… actually, I take that back.
I don’t think I did anything wrong.
Yes, we had a great relationship going, but when the opportunity came to study at the Geological European Academy, I had to take it.
Did she understand that?She said she did.
Did she tell me how she really felt? No.
I thought she’d wait for me.
But a year after I was gone, she started with this whole thing about
“amor de lejos, amor de pendejos” and she stopped writing after that.

Is it my fault she never told me how she really felt?
I’m not Walter Mercado. I don’t read minds.
And now, all I wanted to do is say sorry, and she was running away from me like I had murdered someone. Or like I had a contagious disease.
And worse, I felt guilty.
Why did I feel guilty, when my conscience was clean?
I better just focus on my job.

The Holidays had arrived.

Luis decided to skip the holidays. they had arrived at the 20o day mark, before blast off, and there was still a lot to do.
He was planning on driving to Arizona during the holidays, to take a look at their Spaceship. It was being built in the desert outside of Tucson.
He also planned to take the time to think of what to give to his Directors for Christmas. He wanted to give them something special. They all deserved it.

Gina was reluctant to spend the Holidays at her parents place. Her Dad still had a hard time talking to her, and she was afraid she would spend her last Christmas on Earth listening to his lectures. She was glad her mom would be there. And she wanted to spend time with her sisters, and little brother. Her sister Vanessa would be flying in from Nebraska , and Gina knew they had a lot to catch up on. She was hoping she would have Isabel’s test results back, but she hadn’t gotten them. That made her nervous.

Rosa had two choices for the Holidays. She could either just go home, and spend it with her sisters, or go down to Palm Springs , CA , to spend it with her mom. Finally, she loaded up her sisters in a rental car she borrowed from NASA, and headed down to Palm Springs . She knew she needed to talk
to her Mom, and make things right with her again. She noticed the new deposit NASA had made on her bank Account, and as soon as she got to Palm Springs, she took her sisters shopping. She wanted to give them as much as she could.


Paloma didn’t know what to do. She could fly to Missouri for the Holidays, or like Luis, completely skip the holidays. She decided to let her logical mind make the choice, and after her mind thought it over, she decided to skip the holiday. Instead, she took all the money NASA had deposited in the bank, split it 3 ways, and sent it to her mom and 2 brothers. She was hoping she could go with Luis to see the Spaceship. As for Chris, he had returned to Florida . She hoped he’d stay there for a while.



Danny decided to enjoy the Holiday season. He booked a flight for himself and some of his buddies to NYC, for a week of fun in the City. He had decided he wasn’t going to mope around, feeling guilty about Gina. If she wanted to avoid him; fine. The spaceship was big enough for them to live in, and not have to see each other ever.



RoseMary flew home for the holidays. Even though she was excited about their trip, she knew it was going to be hard to leave her family behind. She tried not to think about it too much. If she did, her eyes would just water, and she would start wailing. Instead, she thought of the $500,000 dollars that NASA had deposited in her bank account. She was planning on spending as much as she could on her little brothers and sister. And if there was anything left in the end, she would buy herself a one pair of shoes…or maybe a dozen. And some new scrubs. in every color of the rainbow.



Raymond had no plans. He had already said his goodbyes to his family, and he didn’t to spoil their holidays. He thought about asking Rosa if he could join her for the Holidays, but after talking to Luis, he decided not to. He knew Rosa had to make peace with her mom and family, and he didn’t want to be in the way. Besides, there was a lot to learn. He scheduled daily Astronaut classes for the week. And he spend his days designing. He had a great idea for the main floor of the Ship. He hoped he could finish in time.


The holidays, are over, and the pace around here is picking up.
The ship was completed yesterday. I was amazed at how fast they did it. I got to say it, this new Director of Design is good. He and Rosa make a good team.
We will be going tomorrow to see it. Luis and Paloma saw it over the holidays, but we will all be driving up tomorrow to see the finished model. Also, they finally have a name for the spaceship. At the moment, they are keeping it a secret, but tomorrow; they will make it public to everyone.
I’m trying not to think of my personal life at the moment. Work is a lot more interesting, and it keeps me busy.
Luis always says ‘busy hands are happy hands’ and I’m going to make that my quote for every day. So at the moment, Danny is not Danny. He is just Director Duquette.
Let’s hope it stays that way

I’m exhausted. First the holidays. That was a disaster.
My mother is still mad at me. And for the last 2 weeks, I’ve been living in a trailer home, in the desert.I’ve worn a construction hat more than I ever want to wear one in my life. But I’m content.
The work me and Raymond have done is impeccable. Luis is sooooo going to pee his pants.I’m proud of that, and that takes away from my exhaustion…a little, anyway.
I do not know the name of the spaceship yet, and the suspense is killing me. That is the one thing I did not design on the ship: The big plaque that will be on the side of the ship.
Luis decided to do that himself, since no one is supposed to know the name of the ship until tomorrow. Since he is also a designer himself, I’m not too worried.
Let’s just hope he used the same fonts on all the letters
Me and Raymond are doing ok. We’re keeping everything professional. That’s good so far, but at some point, I think I want things to get a tad bit more personal. But I’m sure as hell not going to be the one to make the first move. He needs to.
Because shy guys are SOOOO last century.
Chapter 6
The morning sun was strong, and the wind made the sand go everywhere. Paloma thought it was the perfect morning to see the perfect spaceship. The drive up to Tucson took a while. Paloma thought they looked a bit ridiculous, driving in the middle of the desert in two long limos. Along with her, Gina, RoseMary and Luis where keeping her company.
They had all chatted for the first hour, but now, they where all bored.
Paloma looked down at her Ipod. “Underneath Your Clothes” was playing by Shakira. That made her smile. Luis was always telling her how much she looked like Shakira. Paloma didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
Gina started talking to her, but since the Ipod was on, she missed the beginning of what she said. Paloma took the earphones off.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“Did you have any more trouble with Chris?” Gina asked.
Paloma rolled her eyes.
”No. I spoke to security, and they have denied him entry to our building. And I changed my phone number.” Paloma paused.
”But knowing my luck, he’ll pass all his tests, and be admitted into the program.”
RoseMary hadn’t heard about all this before.
“Awww,” She said, smiling.
“Do you have a stalker?”

“More like an Annoyer” Paloma answered.

Luis’ phone rang. He looked at it, and sat up.
“Ok, you guys, where about to get there.”
He looked at them.
“Make sure you have your ID tags on the outside of your jackets”

They all looked down, making sure their tags showed. Gina looked out the window, and realized they where heading towards a large round building that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere.

“Why would NASA want to have a large building in the middle of nowhere?”
She asked, looking at her group.

Luis smiled at her.
“That’s not a building.” He said as the limo came to a stop.

“That’s part of our spaceship.”



Danny wasn’t expecting the media to be there. But the first thing he saw when he got off the limo where flashes of light.

”Gosh,” he murmured under his breath. “I would of worn my good clothes if I knew they where going to be here.”

He looked down at his faded jeans, and his GAP shirt. At least he was wearing a good Label. Gina would be proud of him. That is, he thought, if she was speaking to him.
He pushed the thought away from his mind.
He looked up and took a good look at what he had thought had been a building. Raymond had said it was actually the base of the spaceship.

Looking at it, Danny had no idea how they where going to make that huge thing fly off the ground. And the ship didn’t even have its 4 additional “wings” attached to it yet. Well, Danny thought, my job is to keep the animals alive, not worry about how the ship will fly. So he just admired the ship. It was beautiful.



Luis ignored all the media that was parked outside of the grounds.
He made sure that all of his Directors got off the limos, and he gathered them around in a circle. He had to keep his mouth covered while he talked.

He didn’t want to choke on sand.

“Ok, we need to move a bit fast, since we’re behind schedule.”
He looked over at Rosa and Raymond who where in the center of the circle they where making.
“Do you guys have a tour planned out for us?”

Rosa nodded.
”I will giving you the tour of the main base, and then Raymond will give the tours of the wings.”

Luis nodded.
“Good. Ok then Rosa, Lead us on.”

Rosa smiled. She couldn’t wait to give them a tour.

”Ok,” She said, looking at them.
“Follow me.”

They all walked together towards the entrance.

Gina was still having a hard time believing they where staring at the spaceship. It looked like a beautiful, round, glass building you might find in New York.

She just hoped she could get a map of the spaceship.
She had a tendency of getting lost. And she wanted to know where she could hide, if she bumped into Danny again.

COUNTDOWN: 100 days to liftoff

We’ve hit the 100 day mark, and time is running out. The ship is finished, and its being stocked with everything under the sun.
The ARC will be moved to the actual ship in a week. That means McVet is going crazy at the moment. I’ve gotten to work with him, and he’s honestly a decent guy. Then again, I don’t know what happened between him and Gina, so I can’t judge.

Anyways, The week after next we’re going to be embarking on a 2 week tour all around the US, basically just doing interviews. We’re going to be on Oprah! I can’t wait for that one. And Cristina, too.

The first 10,000 people who will be on the ship have been chosen. The next 40,000 will be announced all at once.

I haven’t heard from Chris, and I don’t know if that’s good news or bad news. All of the names of the people who are accepted into the program are in a file in our computers, and I’ve checked it once or twice for his name; so far, no matches.

Interview in VOUGE MAGAZINE
with Gina Castellanos, Director of Research and Motion

VOUGE: So, tell us. What was your first thought when you heard about this one way mission?

GINA CASTELLANOS: It was hard to believe. Sometimes it still is. But I feel privileged to be a part of it. Its something that doesn’t happen every day.

V: What is the one thing that you will miss?

GC: I’ll definitely miss my family. But other than that, I don’t think there will be other things that I’ll miss. We’re taking a lot of things with us.

V: What’s a regular day like, for you?

GC: I get up at around 6am, grab a quick breakfast, and then head on over to my office, which is located below my apartment. My main duty at the moment is to make sure we don’t forget anything we might need. Other than that, I also help other departments in anything they might need. I have lunch at around 1pm, and then we have a daily meeting with the Directors at around 3pm. Still, since we’re officially in countdown mode, my schedule changes daily.

V: Now that you’re famous , what-

GC I’m famous?! (Laughs out loud)

V: Yes! Your name was googled about 23,000 times last week. That’s a record. And People Magazine named you one of the Sexiest Women Alive, along with some of your Directors.

GC: Right now, my main focus is on my work. But I appreciate being called one of the sexiest women alive. I’m flattered.

V: Are you dating someone at the moment?

GC: (Laughs again)

V: Are you?

GC: At the moment, I’m not. And I’m not looking to start a relationship.

V: Any last words for the rest of us, stuck here on Earth?

GC: Love your planet, and it will love you back. Its that simple.

PLAYGIRL INTERVIEW with Danny Duquette, Director of Animal Control

PLAYGIRL: So answer the question all the single ladies in America want to know… are you single?

DANNY DUQUETTE: (laughs) Is that really what they’re asking?

P: Yes.

DD: Well, no, I’m single at the moment. I’ve got to focus on my job.

P: Ok, now that we got that out of the way, lets talk about you.
Did you ever imagine this happening to you?

DD: Not in a million years. I feel blessed to be a part of this great moment in the history of the human race. Its incredible, and I’m ready for the adventure to start.

P: So you won’t be coming back, huh?

DD: Nope. Will you miss me? (laughs)

P: We will. That’s why you need to pose for us.

DD: (still laughing) Oh no! I told you, I would only do an interview. I’m keeping all my clothes on.

P: Come on! You’re going to leave us hanging?

DD: I can’t pose naked! NASA would fire me!

P: Ok, well, at least we tried. So, what are your plans when you get to your new planet. What’s the name of it, again?

DD: Petra. Our main goal is to just live there. And be peaceful. And take care of the planet.

P: Do you think we haven’t taken enough care of Earth?

DD: No, I don’t think, I know. Look what happened to Australia. Its still covered in water. Central America is about to be covered in water. The Ozone layer is failing. The North Pole is melting. And even as this happens, the world is having WW3, like its nothing. War is not going to fix Earth. Its only going to destroy it faster.

P: Do you know that there are some religious groups who are against what you are doing?

DD: Yes, I’ve heard about it. But we’re not claiming to be greater than God. We don’t believe we’re God. And since God is omnipresent and universal, he’ll be waiting for us at Petra.

P: Ok, well, we have to ask one last time… just one photo??

DD: (laughs) Fine; But not in my birthday suit.



Rosa was sitting at her desk, writing last minute instructions to her department head when Gina burst into the room.

“Uh…Hi” Rosa said, looking at Gina.
For a second, she had the urge to call security.

“Ok, here’s the thing” Gina said, standing in front of her.
“Me and you…well, we don’t really don’t know each other too well, although we’ve been working for a while now.
And I’m having a problem.
I can’t go ask RoseMary, or Paloma, or Luis, because they are all supervising the Animals being moved to the spaceship. So for right now, in this second, I need you to act like you’re my best friend, because I’m having an issue, and you’re the only one who I can talk to.”

Gina finally ran out of breath, which made her finally stop talking.

Rosa didn’t know what to do.
She just hoped Gina wouldn’t have a mental breakdown or anything like that.
“Ok, just calm down” Rosa said, moving from her desk and getting her a chair.

“Just breathe”

Gina sat down,
“So can you? Please? Just help me for a second?”

Rosa smiled. “Yes, I’ll be your best friend if you need me to be. And, if you didn’t know this, I’m a good listener. So what’s up?

Gina put a magazine on the desk.
“I need you to look at this.” She said, not even looking at the magazine.

“Playgirl Magazine?” Rosa was now confused.
“You want me to look inside a Playgirl magazine?”

Gina was still not looking at the magazine. She had her eyes fixed on the ceiling fan above the desk. “Look who’s in the cover”

Rosa picked up the magazine to get a better view.
She smiled. On the cover, flashing his pearly white teeth, was Danny Duquette. In big letters next to him, the magazine announced:

THE SEXIEST ASTRONAUT BEARS IT ALL

Rosa looked at Gina.
“Ok, so Its Danny. What do you want me to do?”

Gina looked down, and looked at Rosa
“Look inside”

“Uh, Gina, I’m not understanding you. You know this is a Playgirl magazine?”

Gina turned red. “Yes.”
“And you know what kind of pictures are in a playgirl magazine?”

Gina now looked like a red balloon. “Yes.”

Rosa was hoping Gina would say something more than YES.
Finally, all Rosa could do was laugh.
“I’m sorry, Gina, I just don’t know what you’re asking me to do here”

Gina was just sitting there, still blushing.

Rosa rolled her eyes.
“Come on, Gina… come on… use your words… remember? Use your words….”

That seemed to wake Gina up.
“pleasejustlookinsideandtellmeifhetookoffhisclothes”
she said, without pausing

Rosa caught on.
“Oh, so you want to see if he’s naked?”

Gina started blushing again. “No!”

Rosa smiled.
“So you don’t want to see if he’s showing the good stuff, but you want ME to see it?”

Gina looked hopeful. “Yes. Please?”

Rosa rolled her eyes again. Personally, she really didn’t care if Danny had posed with or without clothes, although she thought it would be so unprofessional of him to do it if he had. She leafed through the magazine, trying not to to focus on anything. Finally, she found his interview. And yes, he had posed, but fully clothed, surrounded by animals. Rosa actually thought the picture was cute.

She put down the magazine, and stood up.
“You don’t have to worry” she told Gina
“When they said he BARES IT ALL, they probably meant he bared his “soul” in the interview. Its just false advertising.”
Rosa smiled.
“So don’t worry, or Director of Animal Control managed to get an interview with Playgirl, while keeping it all in.”

Gina looked drained. She didn’t know why the thought of him posing for Playgirl had bugged her so much.

Rosa smiled at her.
“So, how about we go get some coffee, and we can chat. I’ll pretend you’re Luis, and you can pretend I’m RoseMary or Paloma.”
That made Gina laugh. They both started to walk toward the door.

“Hey, don’t forget your magazine” Rosa said, pointing at in on her desk.
“I don’t want anyone thinking I buy that”

Gina smiled. She picked up the magazine, took one last look at Danny’s picture on the covered, and then walked over to the shredder, and threw it in.

She really didn’t care to read his interview.
As long as he hadn’t posed without clothes, it was ok.

COUNTDOWN: 89 days to Liftoff

I, like, totally beat everyone.
I have officially moved into the spaceship!
My actual apartment is located right above the main hospital of the ship, located on the 50th floor. I like it that its so centralized.

The hospital itself takes up 6 floors. From the 50th floor to the 56th.

The main floor is where the lobby, non-emergency care, cafeteria, and registration is located.

2nd floor, we have Pediatrics, Women’s Health Services, and 4 main operating rooms.

3rd Floor we have General Health department, Patient rooms, 6 more operating rooms, and a gym.

4th floor, we have the psychological wing, and physical therapy. I hope we don’t get to use this floor too much.

And finally, on the 5th floor, when you get off the elevator, you will find a records department. Hiding behind this, is my Apartment. I have one private entry, which is located at the main lobby, which I think is cool. My apartment itself is wonderful. It has everything I could ask for: a large living room, dining room, office, guest room, kitchen, and even a viewing room, in which I can view every inch of the hospital, including the patient rooms.

Then, there’s the master bedroom. I was asked what colors I wanted by the design department, and I asked for kaki, and light brown colors.

Well, they not only got the colors I wanted, but they went ahead and did everything in a certain theme, to go with my colors…and I even have windows, where I’ll be able to literally, see the stars.

I love my job!

COUNTDOWN: 75 DAYS TO LIFTOFF

I was the second person to officially move into the Spaceship.

Our new Director of Health, RoseMary, moved in first, because she needed to train her department aboard the ship. Now that she’s settled into her area, its my departments turn to move in.

I can’t wait to get inside, and start working.

However, Luis keeps telling us to spend as much time OUTSIDE of the ship, because once we take off, we’ll be stuck inside of it for 2 years.

I tried to take his advice.

I invited my mom and my sisters over for a weekend. I plan to take them down to Vegas, and just have fun with them. Things are starting to get better with my mom, but I hope they get a lot better before we leave.

Gina tried to stay calm.

Luis had called her into his office, and she had an idea of why.
Isabel’s tests where finally back.

Gina tried to stay calm, as she waited for Luis to finish an appointment he had. The day had been mostly cloudy, and that didn’t help Gina’s mood.
She tried to hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. The best being that Isabel had gotten accepted, and the worst being that she hadn’t.

Gina tried to think of what her dad might do if Isabel wouldn’t be able to go.
He might try to literally force her not to go, or he might just continue giving her the silent treatment until she left.

Gina kinda wished her dad would just yell at her, get it all out, and be done with it.

RoseMary came in through the door, catching Gina by surprise.

“Hi” Gina said, trying to look calm.

“Hey” RoseMary said, sitting down next to her.

Gina was now confused. “Do you have an appointment with Luis?”

RoseMary nodded. “Yes, at 3pm”

“So do I” Gina said, now feeling more confused.
“That’s—“
Before she could finish, the door opened, and out walked Rosa, and Raymond. They nodded at Gina and RoseMary, and walked off.

RoseMary looked at them until they had left.
“You know” she said, turning to Gina,
“It seems that those two have something going on”

Gina really didn’t care.
She got up, and walked into the office.

“Hey, wait,” RoseMary said, following her.

Luis was sitting behind his desk, writing on some papers. He smiled when Gina and RoseMary walked into the room.

“Thank you for coming ladies” He said, as he gestured for them to sit down.

Gina remained standing. “I thought I had a meeting with you right now,” she asked, giving Luis look.

Luis nodded. “We do.”

Gina pointed at RoseMary
“But she says she has one too”

RoseMary sat down, and looked over at Gina.
“You know, Gina, I have a name. Please use it,”

Gina blushed. She looked at RoseMary.
“I’m not trying to be rude, Rose. Its just that I’ve been waiting for this meeting for a while now, and I really need to have it, so please”

Luis raised his hands and interrupted her.
“Gina, I asked both of you to be here. RoseMary has the results of your sister.” Luis pointed at the folder RoseMary had in her hands. RoseMary smiled, and kind of waved it at Gina.

That made Gina blush more. She finally sat down.

Luis looked at her.
“I usually wouldn’t ask Rose to be here,” he said, looking at Gina,
“but I need her to be here for a very special reason. Is that ok with you?”

Gina looked over at RoseMary. “I’m sorry Rose, I didn’t mean to be rude.

Rose smiled back.
“I’ve been giving shots all day to our first 10,000 crew members. I’ve had to see butt cracks, annoying people, crybabies…so don’t worry. I can take it.”

They all laughed at that.

“Gina,” Luis continued, “How old is Isabel?”

For a few seconds, Gina had to think. “She’s twenty nine.”

Luis nodded. He already knew that, but he wanted her to make sure she knew. “Yes, well, you know that the cut off age for our mission is thirty, so technically, Isabel is still eligible to join the crew.”

Gina exhaled. “Thank God.”

Luis smiled. “She also passed all her tests, so there’s no problem there. However, we did find something…hmmm…interesting.”
Luis looked over at RoseMary
“Do you want to take it from here?”

RoseMary turned to Gina.
“Do you know your sister is about 12 weeks pregnant?” she asked her, pulling out an ultrasound out of her folder. She handed it to Gina.

Gina couldn’t believe it.
“She’s what??”

“Pregnant” both Luis and RoseMary said at the same time.

Gina looked like she didn’t know whether to laugh, or to cry. Finally, she just took a deep breath. “What does that mean?”

Luis looked at RoseMary. RoseMary leaned over to Gina, and put her hand on top of Gina’s. “That means,” RoseMary said, smiling. “That you’re going to be the very first aunt of Petra.

Gina stood up, and gave both Luis and RoseMary a hug.
They all laughed, and for a second, Luis thought they must have looked like 5 year olds.

“So Isabel has been accepted?” Gina asked them.

“Yes she has, and she’s going to be one of the first mom’s in our future planet.” Luis answered.

“I will go ahead and plan out a plan for her, so she and the baby can both be as healthy as possible” RoseMary added.

Gina didn’t know what to feel. She felt so relieved and happy, she thought she might explode. Without saying anything more, she happily bounded out of Luis’ office, wanting to go call her sister, and her dad.

Life was good!

NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE:

ATTIKA: Salvation or Death?

By; Joseph McAllister

As the day grows nearer for the spaceship Attika to take flight, loaded with 50,000 passangers, hundreds of animals, and thousands of pounds of food, everyone in the world keeps asking themselves: Will this mission be their salvation, or their death?

Headed to solar system more than 70 thousand light years away, this mission is either going to be a huge step for humanity, or a hard fall.
For years, NASA has worked countless hours, and invested more than 2 trillion dollars in this mission, hoping to be able to send this spaceship to another planet, claimed to be better than Earth.

Yet, many ask themselves, why so far? If we can dream of sending so many people so far away, why can’t we send them to the moon, and have them pitch a tent there? And another question is,
Why are we doing this?

When asked what the purpose of the mission was, Captian Luis Lopez simply answered, ‘To keep our race alive’.

Which leads us to ask another question: Since when do we NEED to be kept alive?

Ask this to NASA, and they’ll start giving you facts and statistics. The Ice cap is melting. The Ozone layer has so many holes, it looks like a colander. The earthquake in Australia. How all of Central America will be underwater in less than 5 years.

Some of that might be true, but who knows? Humans make mistakes, and yes, we have made mistakes on our planet. But why run? Why not stay and fix it?

The people seem to be split up in half when it comes to Attika and this mission. Half of them want to be aboard that ship, half of them are holding rallies, and protesting, asking why the government has wasted 2 trillion dollars on a piece of junk.

Believers or not, everyone is getting ready to see the launch.

Some say it will be a day that will change the world forever, other’s think it’s going to blow up in the sky.

Still, if what NASA says is do-able is actually accomplishable, these 50,000 people on board will have really found their salvation.

A new plantet.
Who is lucky enough to start off with that?

The only new places on Earth are Antarctica, and the North Pole…
and no one wants those.

No matter what, all eyes will be on Attika on September 27.

P

The final 40,000 people have been chosen, and they are currently training away.
I haven’t had a chance to go see if a certain Christian is within those 40,000, but oh well. I guess I’ll find out soon enough.
Gina just told me her sister will be coming along on this trip. That’s pretty cool.
When I first signed on, I thought about bringing MY brother along, but it just seemed way too complicated to figure out. He’s married, has a kid, and besides, I think he’s too old.
As our lift off day gets closer and closer, I seem to get more nervous, and nervous. It seems the entire world has their eyes on us, and that’s pretty scary. It is now impossible to go out alone. The media is outside 24/7 and I made the error of trying to go out once, and I just ended up getting mobbed.

So now, I get my laundry and shopping done for me. That’s pretty nice, though.
I’ve been working with Danny, trying to get the animals settled into their Wing. They all seem to be happy, and so far, none have gotten sick. I’ve got to hand it to Danny, who is just amazing with those animals.
I don’t know why Gina seems to foam at the mouth every time she sees him.
Weird.
I’ve also made a new friend: Rosemary
I used to know her a long, long time ago, when she used to play with barbies. Its great to see her al grown up, and in charge of the Health Department. We had lunch together the other day, to catch up on things.
Besides that, everything has been hectic, and fast. I haven’t moved into Attika yet, and I’m looking forward to doing so. I’ve heard all of the Director’s rooms are amazing, and I hope mine is too. Tomorrow, I’ll be seeing all of the directors, at our fitting.
Yes, a fitting. It seems we’re going to have uniforms.
Now THAT sucks.

Chapter ??

It was time for another Board Meeting. Luis looked at his watch. It was 5 until 1pm, and no one had showed up yet.

He took a sip of coffee, and looked down at this notes. Outside, the day was getting colder, and colder. He actually had seen some Ice rain that morning, which was something that usually never happened.
His door opened, and it seemed that all of the Directors had arrived at the same time. RoseMary came in first, followed by Paloma, Gina, Rosa, Danny, and Raymond.
They where all chit chatting with each other, carrying notebooks.
Luis smiled. He was proud of his team.
Finally, they all settled down, and took their places around the table. Gina seemed to be the most jumpy of all of them, and Luis wondered how many Red Bulls she had consumed already.

He made a mental note to check the inventory list for ‘Red Bulls’, and make sure they weren’t bringing a million cases with them.

“Ok,” he said, looking at them.
“You guys know the drill. Who wants to go first?”

Paloma didn’t wait. She stood up, opened her notebook, and passed some papers around.

“I’m happy to report that everything is up to date and going strong in my department. All of our data is up to date, and our main job is to keep all of the crew in order. The final list which includes all of their information is still not available, but it should be available soon.” Paloma looked at Gina. “I’ll let Gina talk about that more. Other than that, everything is fine.” Paloma paused, and looked at everyone. “Does anyone have any questions?”

Everyone looked satisfied with Palomas report.
After she sat down, Gina stood up.

“I might as well go, since what Paloma was talking about has to do with my department.”
She paused to take a sip of Red Bull. “Like she was saying, All of the directors will be receiving a list of all of the crew on board. All 50,000 of them. As you know, a list containing all of their names, ages, and personal information would be pretty huge, so I’ve designed another way to get all this information to all of you.”

Gina reached under the table, and pulled out a bag. From this bag, she pulled out a small device, which looked like a Palm Pilot, only a little bigger.

“I call these K.I.D. That stands for Kinetic Information Device. They include all of the names of the crew, photos of them, their personal information, and their test answers and scores. I know some of us are more computer literate than others, so I designed all of this to run on the Microsoft Access program. Its very simple. Besides doing that, a KID has all the basic features any gadget has. We can email, contact each other, and create and share our calendars too.”

Danny smiled. “Don’t tell me it takes Polaroid’s too.”

Everyone laughed, except for Gina.
She looked at him, not smiling. “No. just a 12.0 Pixel camera”

Everyone looked pretty impressed, except for Danny. He was still smiling about his joke.

Gina took out 6 other KID’s and passed them out. Luis saw that each one had their name, and title engraved in each one, along with a leather case.

“Thank you, G” he said, admiring his new gadget. “This was really nice of you”

All the other directors thanked her as well.

Gina smiled.
“I’m glad you all like them. Now, back to my report. We are in the process of dividing the crew into 12 main groups, or tribes if you want to call it that, so that we can be a bit more organized. Once we have the groups divided, we’re going to need leaders for these groups. I don’t think us Directors should get involved in that, but if you would like to nominate someone, please let me know. That’s all I have to report at the moment.”

She sat down, but Danny raised his hand.
“Can I ask a question?” he said, looking at Gina

Gina looked like she was insulted by him talking to her.
”What?” she asked, trying to sound annoyed.

“Why are these things called Kinetic Information Devices? I mean, I get why they’re called Information Devices, but why Kinetic.?”

Luis raised his eyebrows. “Good question, Danny.”
All of the directors looked at Gina.
She looked pretty impressed too, by his question. But she didn’t show it.

“Its called Kinetic because it uses Kinetic Energy to stay charged. You’ll never need to plug it in at night to recharge it.”

That made them look at their KID’s and like them even more.

“Well,” Luis said, looking at his KID, “I think we all now have something new to play with”

That made Danny snort for no particular reason.
Luis could see RoseMary giving him a LOOK.

“Who’s up next?”

Rosa stood up, and smiled at everyone. “I guess I can” she said, looking a bit shy.
“How is everyone liking their rooms?” she asked, looking at them all.

RoseMary was the first one to speak.
“Girl, you blew me away. My whole apartment looks like it was pulled out of a chic New York City loft somewhere.”

Gina nodded. “And thank you for making my apartment in the colors I requested”
she said.

Luis smiled. He knew Gina liked Black and White.
He thought her apartment must look like a Zebra had blown up inside.

After Rosa saw that everyone was happy with their current apartments, she turned to Gina. “Hey, can these KID’s download new programs?”

Gina nodded.

“Well then, I’d like to upload a program I’ve created to your KID’s. Its called ZONE A.
In it, you will find a map of Attika, top to bottom, and of the 4 Wings. You can also capture streaming video of all of the cameras of the ship.”

We will be having a choir practice tomorrow at 7:30pm for Missions Conference.

See you all there!

Oh, and If you haven’t heard, we need to keep Sis. Gina Castellanos in our prayers.
She is going through some serious health issues, and we need to pray that God touches her.
She was originally at Doctors Medical Center, but has been transferred to Memorial Medical Center.

If you want more information on her room number, or if you’d like to go visit her, please email me at llopez@galloarts.org

God Bless!

I’m excited to see what Martha Munizzi will bring to the Gallo Center For The Arts this saturday with her concert. From all the songs I’ve heard from her, I know that she has an amazing voice.

Also, I was speaking to Bro. Garza the other day, and he mentioned that she was originally from the United Pentecostal Church, before branching out into more…I guess you can say “Liberal” denominations…

If anyone is interested in going, there are seats left!
Contact me, or call the Gallo Center For The Arts at (209) 338-2100

See you all there!

Well, we’re back from Camp 2008, and as always, we wheren’t dissapointed.

I cant try to explain it, because everything that happened was amazing. Lets just say that if you missed it, well… try your hardest to go next year! Its so worth it!

Here are some pictures that I took during our 3 days there. Enjoy!

Lodgepole, our Cabin

During our Morning Service

Group Picture Time!

 

Church Tug-Of-War

Church Tug-Of-War. We beat them!!

Award Winners

The Modesto Group...most of them

Mendez Family

Espinoza Family

The Woodland, Ca Group.

 

Me and my mom at Yosemite after Camp

Its that time of the year again!

Family Camp is right around the corner, and we’re all getting ready for it.
I’m excited about this years camp, because we will be having many branch churches coming with us!

Oakland, Manteca, Tracy, Salida, Woodland and us.
That’s going to be one big Party!

We will be having music practice on Moday, September 1st at 7:30pm with the Ensemble, and Choir Practice on Wednesday, September 3rd, at 7:30pm.

Here are some pictures of our past years at camp. Enjoy!!

The Girls at Camp

Posing with Half Dome

Having Fun Last Year. Pull, Pull!

The Group Last Year

Some of our Wonderful Preachers and Pastors

Here are a few pictures that i’ve kept over the years of the combined choir singing together.

How time flies!!

In Red and Black

During Practice

Sunday Practice

Our first Choir, back in the early 90

The Choral during a Song

Our Charming Altos

Our Great Sopranos

And there’s many more, but i’ve got to go now. More later!

L

These songs are the ones we currently are considering to sing for missions conference. Still, they’re not set in stone, and they can change. If they do, we’ll update you.

Mi Anhelo Es Ser Mas Como Tu

Verse 1:
El Senor murio por ti, por mi en la cruz
Su sangre derramo por darte a ti
Su incomparable amor su imenza paz
Pago el precio de la humanidad
El te ofrece salvacion

Para poder llegar a el
para poder vivir en santidad
Pues todo lo que soy
Es nada sin El
Decide darte a el y el pondra
Su paz, su amor en ti

Verse 2: (Choir)
Te alabo por siempre Senor
Extiendo mis manos a ti
Te ofresco hoy a ti mi cancion
Toda honra Y Gloria te doy

Chorus:
Derrama tu poder, y gloria en mi
Moldeame para ser como tu
Senor Jesus, me rindo a ti
Mi anhelo es ser mas como tu

Bridge:
Mi anhelo es (Sopranos)
Ser mas (Tenors)
Como Tu (Altos)

Fuerte Dios

El es fuerte Dios
Todopoderoso Dios
El es fuerte Dios
Todopoderoso Dios, Si!

El es fuerte Dios
Todopoderoso Dios
El es fuerte DIos
Fuerte! Fuerte!

Nuestra lucha es contra potestad
No hay nada que temer
En el hay poder
Tinieblas no prevaleceran
Pues tenemos autoridad
En su nombre hay poder
La victoria esta en el

Poderoso fuerte en batalla
Rey de Reyes su nombre es digno
Santo, Digno de Gloria
Fuerte Dios, el es Fuerte Dios

Poderoso…
Rey de Reyes…
Santo…
La victoria esta en El!

Well, having a “bilingual service” with only one week to prepare might seem like a recipe for disaster, but it all turned out great, Thank God.

The service was amazing, Our spanish choir did great, (although when i looked up at them I saw a bunch of sopranos standing on the Alto side. Hmmmm…)

Anyways, here’s a picture of the event:

The Spanish Combined Choir singing

Also, from where i was sitting, i was able to snap another great picture:

Panchito

He pulled ears all night

Anyways, today is our first practice for Missions Conference. I’m a little glad that they moved the dates back to October, because that gives us more breathing room. Anyways, I will see you all there tonight at 7:30pm. 

God Bless!

L

Well, Fall is here.

You can tell by all the halloween merchandise that is slowly creeping into the stores; and most importantly, Missions Conference is back!

Here’s the latest news on that:

As you all know, Missions Conference usually falls on October, but this year, due to conflicts in schedules, it was rescheduled for September 26, 27, and 28th.

Which is also my birthday weekend (25th birtday)

Anyways, i was totally resigned to not having an actual birthday weekend, since we are so busy during that time.

Still….

We got good news the other day, when we where told that Missions Conference has been rescheduled back to October.

Horray!!

I’ll soon post some dates for Choir Practices. Meanwhile, the first practice is on MONDAY, August 25th at 7pm. See you all There!

Luis

Well, we all survived May!
That was one BUSY month! We had trips to Delano, CA, the “Extraordinary” Wednesday service at Revival Center, and finally, the Combined Service, which we where also asked to play for the service, as well as the usual 2 choir songs.

WHEW!! I think its time for a vacation….

Anyways, June is looking like its going to be a quieter month, but then again, that can change any time. For example, we where recently told about another service coming up in New London. Bro. Joel (the pastor from our Salida branch Church) stopped me at our monthly Yard Sale the other day and asked me if we could play for the service, as well as have the choir sing. Unfortunetly, that trip to New London also falls during Graduation week, so i really don’t think i’d be able to get the choir going with less than one week left until this saturday. And with 10% of the church family on vacation, I don’t think we’ll be able to. I feel bad for Bro. Joel, who says he doesn’t have anyone else to play. I honestly would go, and sing by myself if I had to, but that day (June 7th) is also the day we will be having an awards Ceremony at my work, and I promised Ian, our House Manager, that i’d take pictures of the ceremony.

So, that’s one thing that’s happened so far in June.
We have our Drama Department Yard Sales scheduled for the 13th and 14th of this month, at church.
All money will be used for the Drama Department’s summer production of “The Fire Still Falls”

I cant wait for THAT!!