Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
January 8th, 1990 — Cape Canaveral, FL 12:08 PM, EST
Walking on the moon had been a dream of Shelby's since she was a young girl. Since as long as she could remember, the redhead would look up at the sky and know that she would walk on the moon one day. There was just a feeling there, that deep in her gut, she knew she'd walk on the moon.
Tenacity would be going to the moon in a year's time, Shelby knew that much. What she didn't know is if she'd be going with it.
There were ten individuals in Dr. Feldstein's team, excluding himself. Four astronauts, along with Joe himself, would be headed to the moon. Shelby was hell-bent on being one of those four.
She knew she was the best of the best, but so were the other nine NASA employees that she worked with every day. Besides, Shelby didn't even know if the astronauts they would be choosing would be on Dr. Feldstein's team or not.
Though NASA had halted sending manned vessels to the moon in the early 70s, they'd received word that the Soviets, despite their crumbling country, were looking to send humans to the moon. They'd never done it before, and even though the US already had, NASA was going to beat the Soviets to the punch once again.
NASA had put together a board of higher-ups to select the four individuals that would become American heroes, and the choosing process was long and tedious. Shelby had submitted her application of interest months ago, along with everyone else that was interested in walking on the moon.
No one had heard back yet, Shelby knew that for sure. But, as she was sitting in the break room, enjoying her lunch of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a strawberry yogurt, she couldn't help to eavesdrop on the conversation between two of her co-workers.
"Yeah, I'm excited. I've barely been out of the country, so going to freaking space? That's going to be amazing."
Shelby turned around, noticing that it was a man named Kevin Lawrence that was doing the talking.
Shelby didn't get along with Kevin. He was a condescending misogynist, and Shelby didn't care to interact with men of that type.
The old Shelby, the one that punched assholes like him in the face, would have said something. But, Shelby didn't want to jeopardize her job. If she was meant to be on that trip to the moon, she would be. Creating a disturbance and ending up in Human Resources would not help her case, and she knew that.
Thankfully, just as she was shoving another spoonful of yogurt into her mouth to prevent herself from saying anything, Adam Mitchell walked over, setting his lunch down across the table from Shelby.
He could tell something was up with the redhead, so he reached into his lunch bag and pulled out a Twix bar. "Halvsies?" He asked, his signature grin flashing over his face.
