The Last Customer on Europa

How it begins

The last order arrived after June had unplugged the coffee machine.

Two soups. One bread. No onions.

She looked at the empty diner. Four stools stood upside down on the counter. The fifth had a cracked seat, which she had meant to repair for seventeen years and now, apparently, never would.

"Did you order lunch?" she asked.

Victor lay beneath the till with a diagnostic lamp between his teeth. He removed it before answering.

"I ordered a refund on my transport allowance. Does that count?"

"Only if you want it with bread."

The printer clicked again. Collection: outer hatch.

June moved to the window. Beyond the dome, Europa shone blue beneath Jupiter's enormous striped face. The road lights were already dark. She could just make out the tracks left by the evacuation crawler, running straight toward the shuttle port before disappearing into the ice haze.

Nothing moved outside her hatch.

"Probably a queued ticket," Victor said. "The network is closing in sections."

She checked the time stamp. Three minutes ago.

"It's paid."

That brought him out from under the counter. Money had become strangely theoretical during the final week. Everyone possessed credits; nobody possessed anywhere left to spend them.

He took the ticket and held it beneath his lamp.

"This account prefix is old."

"Everything here is old."

"Before the dome was built."

June reached for the coffee plug. She had spent her adult life feeding people whose names she did not know. Geologists, cable crews, accountants pretending to be explorers. Some had come back every week. Some had gone outside once and remained only as unpaid tabs she could not bring herself to erase.

"No onions," she said.

Victor looked up.

"The drilling crews used to ask for that. Onions made the suit filters smell."

The outer hatch indicator changed from white to amber.

Someone had pressed the collection bell.

June switched on the soup warmer and watched the door.