The success of my TEDTalk calls for a celebration, and I can't imagine celebrating with anyone other than my childhood best friend, Nakomi. Nakomi has made us reservations at one of the most popular restaurants in Portland, Oregon, called simply The Coast. The two of us plan to get a few tapas and some nutrient-fortified champagne. The restaurant charges over double for a nutrient-fortified champagne compared to a regular champagne, but they know that people like Nakomi and I order the drinks in lieu of main courses.

When I get to the restaurant, Nakomi's already sitting at a table for two by the window. The window reveals a gorgeous view of the coastline merging with the starry night sky. Only, it isn't actually a window, and it isn't actually the coast (Portland isn't even on the coast)—it's a screen portraying images of a beautiful coastline and a beautiful sky, an image that might not even belong to Oregon. Heck, it might not even be real, but rather an artist's rendition. Oregon's true coast, like California's coast, is becoming increasingly polluted. Black tar dots the beaches, toxic algae blooms color the seas, and noxious materials that have been secretly dumped into the oceans over time continue to seep into the sands with each wave. No one goes swimming or surfing anymore, and those who do are just begging for an illness, or worse, a terminal disease, and, unfortunately, we still haven't come up with a cure for cancer. As my legs bring me closer to our table for two, I gaze out at the fake scenery longingly, wondering if my colony on Mars will have fake, immersive scenes like this to help me remember and cherish the beauties of Earth's past. Maybe they won't. Maybe I'll be stuck looking at the red expanse or at the inside of the colony, neither of which sounds very aesthetically pleasing. Maybe I should have thought about this more before I signed on for Goby's trip.

Nakomi jumps up to embrace me as I approach my chair, squeezing me extra hard for several moments before releasing me. I notice she has already ordered each of us a flute of nutrient-fortified champagne; hers sits half-empty on the table.

"You couldn't wait for me, huh?"

"Of course I couldn't wait! I'm frazzled and depressed. Izzy, do you realize you're leaving me in 86 days? Off to the final frontier. Boldly going where no man has gone before and all that jazz."

The two of us sit, as I arrange my cloth napkin on my lap."Nakomi, I'm going to Mars, not to a new galaxy. 147 people already live there, including men. Many men have gone there before."

"I know. I just...I'm gonna miss you." Nakomi pouts like I'm betraying her, but I won't give in to guilt. She must know that, because her pout turns into a smile. "How was your TEDTalk?" she asks, daintily sipping her champagne.

"So great. I didn't screw up once. And to think I thought public speaking was not my forte."

"I've put together a bucket list for us."

The sudden change of subject means that Nakomi doesn't really care all that much about my talk (she's already had her own TEDTalk, which I didn't attend in person and which we also celebrated once she'd flown home). With the introduction of the new subject, instant reluctance sets into my stomach. "A bucket list?"

"A list of things the two of us need to do together before you leave!"

Nakomi and I used to be "attached at the hip," as my mother would say. Then, our careers got in the way, and like most adults, we grew apart. Well, not exactly. We stayed close, but we just didn't spend nearly as much time together as we would have liked.

Now, the two of us are still as busy as ever, but we have more flexibility. We aren't answering to other people. We are answering to ourselves.

Which means I have no excuse to decline her request to complete a bucket list.

"What's first on the list?" I ask, trying to disguise my unwillingness as eagerness.

"Well, you haven't tried my drug yet," she tells me.

I grimace. With how well drug centers—particularly psychedelic drug centers—have flourished in the US since the legalization of all drugs in 2033, Nakomi's work as a psychopharmacologist has garnered her considerable fame (and her first TEDTalk). She extracted various forms of DMT from various plants (too many to name) and animals (toads, newts, sea sponges, salamanders, to name a few), and combined them with another drug patented by her company, synthesizing a completely new molecule. When injected, the molecule stimulates the secretion of more human DMT from the human spine, and the psychoactive effects are reported as being much sharper and more intense than other, naturally occurring forms of DMT.

Her company calls the drug Vivectica ™ and promotes it as a form of psyche-therapy when used at a drug center with the supervision of a medically-licensed guide (psychiatrists join these sessions with their patients, too, although their sessions are designated as official psychotherapy sessions since they have higher medical accreditation). Although drugs aren't legal outside of centers, they aren't criminalized, either, and they still make their way into the hands of many teenagers, where their pop-culture designation is "Journey to Inner Space."

It's true I'd never tried her drug. There's a simple reason for that. "I'm scared," I confess.

Nakomi's look is skeptical. "You're about to go into outer space. Nothing could be scarier than that."

"You and I have different fears, different tolerances," I tell her, finishing the last sip of my first nutrient-fortified champagne. "Well, that was delicious," I say, although I can't really tell if I feel any fuller from it than I would from a normal champagne. If humans could turn champagne into meals, nutrient-fortified meal replacements would exist, and there might not be a need for Belvin grasshoppers on Mars. Food scientists still struggle to make nutrient supplements whose nutrients are completely absorbed during the body's digestion process, and nothing invented thus far has given humans the caloric volume they need to make them a true replacement for food. The Belvin grasshopper provides lots of calories, lots of macronutrients, lots of food.

Nakomi holds her hand up, and a waiter comes over. "Two regular champagnes, please. I think we've been fortified with enough nutrients." She must not be sold on the nutrient-fortified champagne, either.

"Would you like to order?" the waiter asks.

"Sure," I say. "We're just getting some tapas. First: the mimic sashimi with citrus peel and macadamia oil."

"Good call," Nakomi says. "Their mimic sashimi is so good. You can't even tell it's fake!" The waiter nods like they haven't heard that before, waiting patiently for Nakomi to order. She studies the menu for a few seconds before saying, "We'll also have the mini teriyaki mushroom sliders with farmed sea grass."

"Anything else?"

"If we get hungry, we'll order more," Nakomi says, not rudely.

The waiter nods politely and leaves the table to fetch our drinks, leaving Nakomi and I alone again.

The look she gives me right then is pointed. "We're doing it. It's bucket list item number one! Come on, Izzy, a guide will be there, it will be totally safe, and you'll finally get to experience the culmination of my life's work."

I can feel my resolve being weakened. "How is it fair that I 'have' to experience the culmination of your life's work, but you don't 'have' to do the same?"

Nakomi's response comes like lightning. "Well, it's not like I've been extended a personal invitation to Mars by Gordon Goby. And I have tasted a Belvin grasshopper. I ate one whole, if you'll remember. You made me." Shuddering here, she sticks her tongue out.

The waiter comes back over with our drinks, and Nakomi snatches the new flute and takes a drink, like she's washing down the taste of bug. So dramatic. "Thank you," she tells the waiter gratefully, and they leave again. "And you know I'm going to dutifully read all of your published logs," she continues, "And I'll send you video messages, and make sure that my personal care packages get on all the shipments to your colony, however frequently those happen, and...and..." she starts to tear up. "I'll do everything I can to maintain our long-distance friendship, since you're leaving me."

"Alright! Alright! I'll do your bucket list. You tried my bug; I'll try your drug."

She grasps my hand. "Thank you, Izzy. You're going to love it. Our experience is going to be out of this world."

subchapter | consciousness

Consciousness, the ability to be aware of and perceive surroundings, is one of life's great mysteries, one for which humans have no good explanation. Although we've come up with scientific explanations for our complicated brain processes, we have no good explanations for the subjective experience of living these processes from inside ourselves. We can't adequately explain why the brain can manage the complex experiences of feeling and thinking. We can't explain why different living creatures seem to have different levels of consciousness, with humans having the highest.

Consciousness can be altered by chemicals, some that occur naturally in the brain, some that are ingested or injected, some that are synthesized. We understand some of this, but we are missing so many vital pieces of information. For example, why can consciousness be extinguished with anesthesia? We can come up with explanations for which portions of the brain are being manipulated when consciousness is extinguished, but it still doesn't give us the answers to deeper questions involving the reasons why someone's sense of time, space, and self can just stop, to resume hours later with them completely lacking awareness that any extinguishment has occurred. And why can consciousness be enhanced or distorted by other drugs? For example, why can Absinthe enhance one's ability to experience sounds, smells, and tactile sensations? Why do so many salvia users report experiencing a total loss of self during their trips? Why do so many DMT users report traveling out of this world to other realms and making contact with other sentient, hyper-intelligent beings? Is our mind solely responsible for creating our consciousness, or, as many religions believe, is consciousness an aspect of the spirit, something that will live on after death? Can we create artificial consciousness?

Several branches of science continue to give us explanations for what consciousness is, why it does what it does, and why we can manipulate it. But all the explanations seem to fall short.