Alfred watched it just like everybody else.  He’d never admit to that, but he did.  He even watched it with awe, sitting up on his rooftop, arms wrapped around his knees, head tilted back to the sky enough for his neck to creak.  He brought popsicles up with him, but he didn’t end up eating any.

There were less stars nowadays than there used to be.  Back when he was a colony, he remembered the night sky being completely covered in them, like millions of tiny white bugs scattered across an endless blacktop.  But as the years went by and the people came and went, those stars were starting to gradually diminish.  The light from cities and highways and cars and billboards outshone them, one by one.  It was like the stars were falling from the sky and settling in clusters across the continent: the yellow, blue, white stars of New York skyscrapers; the neon flashing stars of Los Vegas casinos.  Capitalism at its finest.  But there were still just enough stars left in the sky for it to be quite a sight sitting there on his rooftop in a chill that made him hug his bomber‘s jacket just a little bit closer.  

And then, right on schedule, one of those stars moved.

Sputnik was a really funny name in Alfred‘s opinion.  He'd laughed when his boss first told him about it.  Sputnik.  It just sounded funny.

But he had to admit, it looked pretty cool inching across the sky like that.  It would be cooler if it moved faster, but when he thought about it, that thing was in space.  Really in space.  And that was enough to keep his eyes glued to it, for him to forget the popsicles, even though they were blue ones and blue was the all-time best flavor.

Some small part of his brain behind the awe fidgeted and brooded.  That part would take over once the show was finished for the night, and would keep him awake until the early morning thinking about it.  There was a niggling fact that he just couldn’t avoid: Ivan had beaten him.

Technology was one of Alfred’s prides, alongside heroism, toughness, and general awesome-ocity.  But he had always been tied to the Earth, to the lights of the cities and cars and other grounded machines.  Even his planes could only go so high.

But Ivan had done what he couldn’t.  Instead of simply taking stars away, Ivan had added another.

And Alfred, although he would never admit it, was jealous.