A log for the Time Capsule

March 5th, 2050, Joanne Folds residence 6:24 am

This morning, I woke up, made some coffee then exited the bomb shelter. It’s a perfect day, the temperature is a wonderful 78 degrees with a slight breeze in the air, thanks to the shield around the Earth and industrial fans creating a gentle breeze. On the ham radio I hear scientists almost have a fix for climate change, but they’ve been saying that for years.

The war ended 18 years ago, and I was born 14 years prior. I won’t get into that though, that’ll be my next story. Today, I’m helping my neighbors finish their house. Everyone is helping to rebuild our little part of the country which has made us closer. We’re going to build mine last because I’m the only one on the block with a bomb shelter to sleep in. I took out my long-range telescope to look up at the sky, the space station was visible and thought about my husband who’s up there helping add modules to it as well as build new stations, some for housing and some for scientific and mechanical exploration, there is also a station for our drilling machines which has a warehouse module connected to it.

My husband Scott and I video call every evening after work and on weekends he takes a shuttle down to Earth so we can spend the weekend together.

“Hey Joanne, you hungry? I made eggs, bacon, and toast.

“I’ll be there in a minute; I just want to finish this part of the log.”

Val gave me a thumbs up.

Where was I? Oh yeah.

Val and Mark have been keeping me busy, and I’m happy for that. Their house is almost done, just some painting done for the most part. I’m hungry, I’ll stop the log here and write more after work.

6:57 pm

We’re finished and the house looks great, now it just has to be furnished. The bots will bring their stuff tomorrow bright and early, and after we’re done, I’ll move on to the next job.

“Hey, wanna go into town and get dinner and some drinks?” Val asks.

“Oh yeah, that sounds good, and tomorrow is Friday!” I smile and jump in the air.

“What plans do you and Scott have?”

“He said he has something planned but won’t tell me. I hate surprises but he sure loves giving them to me, so I indulge him.”

Val laughed.

“I’m going to take a shower and I’ll be over in say 30-40 minutes?” Giving her a hug.

“Sure, sounds good.”

“Thanks for helpin’ Val, we really appreciate it.” Scott yells from the door.

“Any time Scott, you know you guys are my second family.”

I walked down the ladder into my shelter and took a nice hot shower, then got ready for the night.

We went to the local eatery, which is actually a tent with a couple of grills and some propane burners. The restaurant is being built, I think I’ll help with this next. Chef Max can do amazing things with what he has, but he deserves a proper kitchen. I ordered a steak which parts were grown by LaMeats Labs with a baked potato and mixed vegetables, grown locally and a glass of red wine made by Mister and Misses Davis in their vineyard. It was a very enjoyable evening. We kept the conversation light and didn’t talk about work.

After dinner we took a walk around the town to see how it was coming along. There was a Raman restaurant that looked almost done on the outside, there was a Mexican one being built and a bakery across the street. There were also some shops, a small beer refinery, and a coffee place that will be called Brew it up. Houses were coming along nicely as well. Work is going so much faster with the help of the robots; we have a crew building them a place of their own. It’ll have synthetic oil baths, and a nice place where they can fix, upgrade and a training room where they can test them. We haven’t told them, we want to keep it a surprise, it looks very generic on the outside for now. Some bots asked if they could help but we told them we have it. The town wants this to be a surprise for them for all the help they’ve given us.

As we were walking, we saw one of our favorite robots.

“Hey Jasper, how’s it going?” I asked

“Everything is going good, my new arms are almost done, just have to paint them.”

“I can’t wait to see them, I love your artwork, I bet they’ll look awesome.”

“Why don’t you guys come over and see them?”

“Scott has a surprise for me, so maybe, if not maybe before his launch back to the station.”

“We’d love to come.” Val answered.

“That would be great, maybe we can play a game or something.”

“Sounds good.”

“Hey, I’ll see you guys later, I have a date.” Jasper said.

“Ooooh, you’ll have to tell us about them. Have fun.” I lightly punched him in the arm.

“Will do.”

Then we walked off.

After our walk I went home and had my video chat with Scott. He took me for a tour of the new section of the space station that was almost done, they try and make every new area look different and this one looked really nice, someone started a mural on the wall with trees and people walking around. The cabins are a good size, with bedroom(s), living room, and a kitchen. This module will house 35 thousand people and the space station houses over one million people. The station has all the amenities, a gym, stores, restaurants and Scott told me they’re working on a club. The unit he showed me was huge with beige walls, it was empty otherwise.

“Looks nice Hun.”

“Thanks, babe. The club is going to have everything, two bars, a retractable stage for live bands and a huge area for dancing. Maybe when it’s done, we can see a band or go dancing?” He winked and smiled at me.

“I’d so love that.” I smiled. After we said good night, I was so exhausted I just went to sleep.

The next morning, I woke up and Val and Marks stuff was already there. I went to help them move in, Linal and Merv the moving bots said they wanted to help which was nice. First, we put the appliances in and then the furniture. With the help we got it took no time getting everything moved in. We the bots and I helped set things up when we were done it looked nice and cozy.

After work, I put on my nice red dress, did my hair and then waited for Mark. When I heard the shuttle coming, I went outside to greet him. He he exited the shuttle, but it just landed and didn’t autopilot itself to Calgrove towers underground shuttle bay. I guess wherever we’re doing we’ll need a shuttle.

Mark took my hand and led me in, buckled, then blindfolded me, I could feel us lift off. The ride took about 10 minutes then we docked, and he walked me to our destination then removed the blindfold. It was a home in the space station, it looked like the same one he showed me the night before except now it had a dining table with a beautiful candlelit dinner on it and soft music playing. I started to cry; it was so romantic.

“You like it?”

“Yes, very much, I love it.”

“Well, it’s ours.”

I just stood there and stared at him, then looked at the cabin and started to cry again.

“Wow, this is amazing.” I smiled and tackled him to the floor and gave him a passionate kiss. “But what about our house on the surface?

“We can keep that too. You can come up here for the weekends and have a nice quiet time just the two of us, and after everything is done down on the surface, we can stay here or go to the surface anytime we want. The module is big enough for company too. He took me on a full tour, it was big, three bedrooms, three bathrooms, a big jacuzzi in the master bathroom and a beautiful kitchen.

“It looks like a captains cabin.” I commented

“Well, this is a penthouse which is above the regular cabins. The cabins below us are a decent size, there are up to three bedrooms, a small kitchen and one and a half bathrooms. Most are one and two bedrooms.

The company really treats their employees well, they’ve been gracious. Mark told me he had one more surprise but that it would have to wait till after the weekend. I sighed and asked if he could give me a hint, but he was good at keeping a secret.

He told me he wanted us to pick the color we want and decorate it together.

I was stunned and happy, this was a great surprise, he told me he knew about this for a year. Now I had to wait to find out what his next surprise was going to be. It really killed me.

Mark showed me around the station, some of it wasn’t done yet like the gym. There was a really nice restaurant where we ate the next evening, actually he told me the food from that night came from there and it was delicious. We had salmon with capers, asparagus and mashed potatoes, a nice white wine and for dessert my favorite chocolate cherry cheesecake. I was stuffed.

On Sunday I didn’t want to leave, I just wanted to stay in his arms, but we had to go to work. Mark walked me to the shuttle, and put on my safety harness, then he blindfolded me again then we flew down to the surface. When we exited, he took the blindfold off and it was a house on our property. I started to cry yet again, it was so beautiful. Val and Mark were there, smiling, Val gave me a big hug.

“There were so many times I almost told you.” Val put her arm around my shoulders.

“How long have you known?

“A couple of months, Mark told us about the cabin on the station and that he was going to take you up there. While you were there the house was flown and hooked everything up.”

“It was prebuilt in modules like the space station, so it was easy to transport.” Mark said

I just stood there in shock. We got two houses in just a few days, and they’re both amazing. The setup of this house was almost like our old one, but a two story and bigger, it has a pool in the back yard with a shield that covers it to keep it warm in the cooler months and best, yet the shield could be blacked out, so we have some privacy.

You may be wondering “why didn’t you build all of the buildings up there and send them down.” Well, they’d need a lot of room to build so many houses and buildings in space so it’s easier to just build them down on the surface, plus it keeps us folks busy, which is nice. I get great joy helping people, I get to make new friends plus I love working with my hands.

Mark stayed for breakfast then he had to go to work. I’m so lucky to have so many good people around me and to have such a great husband. I gave him a big kiss and watched him take off. For the rest of the day, I had a big smile on my face, and when I went home that night I slept like a baby in my nice new bed.