The Bridge

by Simon Winstanley

  Under her fingernail, she felt the pendant’s metal begin to bend.

  DATA

  Marcus looked back into the lens of the laptop’s webcam.

  “There’s nowhere I can use it outside of the ARC,” he said, “that’s why I put it next to the laptop for you to find.”

  He couldn’t help glancing at the doorway that led out to the common area. The Britannia would soon depart from the failing ARC.

  “It’s yours now,” he said, “Maybe there’s a small part of me in there somewhere.”

  He couldn’t put off the moment any longer, it was time to leave. He felt the tears gather and blur his sight. He wiped his eyes and delivered his best smile. He knew it would be the last image she saw of him.

  “Take care, Sabine,” he managed, “Je t’aime.”

  He reached out and stopped the recording.

  After taking a moment to gather his thoughts, he restarted the laptop. Before the boot sequence completed, he held down two keys. A simple text menu popped up on the screen, presenting two choices.

  >1:[Caretaker]

  >2:[BootPartition]

  Selecting option one, he pushed the ‘Enter’ key.

  Immediately the room’s lighting powered down, leaving him in the dim glow of the laptop’s screen.

  He waited to make sure that the laptop would also go into standby mode, but after perhaps half a minute, the screen cleared and a line of plain text displayed itself.

  >[System Update. Installing New Data]

  He didn’t want an update, but this process seemed to be out of his control. Suddenly he felt completely overwhelmed.

  >Load[BlackboxArchive]

  He felt his whole nervous system freeze and the screen updated.

  >CryotraceBlake.M DeviceLink [Pass]

  >Merge

  NEW HOUSTON

  Abel had been a child when Houston had catastrophically flooded, only surviving because of the ingenuity of Ross Crandall, Lawrence Clark, and his own parents.

  Now, feet firmly placed on the ground at New Houston, he stared at the Apollo 73 Command Module. The vessel that had saved his life was now simply an inspirational showpiece; a piece of old tech that had been transported here to publicly symbolise humanity’s return to space.

  He knew that time had moved on though.

  To the left and right of the Apollo, stretching around the cylinder’s curvature as far as the eye could see, was the array of space transport vessels that had left Earth. Some were like the Discovery shuttle, but most appeared to be rocket-like; functional boosters that had made the trip to Earth orbit.

  “Bringing back memories, kiddo?” Lawrence nodded at the Apollo 73.

  “Yep. Every time,” Abel stared at the smooth conic shape and the faded numerals on the side, “I remember painting those.”

  “I don’t think I’ll ever forget your dad showing me the old NASA Toy Cupboard.”

  Abel laughed and looked around at the array of spacecraft at their disposal, “Not sure we’d have a big enough cupboard for all these toys.”

  Ivan and Lana made their way towards him, deep in conversation.

  “Everything alright?” Lawrence asked them.

  “Yeah,” Ivan glanced in the direction of the Greenwich Hub tower, “Chris and Loren have started the list, we just need to pick the ship.”

  “Any thoughts?” Lana folded her arms.

  Abel scrolled down a list on his tablet. Years ago, the basic plan had been to get to any potential planet via a stopping point in orbit. In the space of a few hours, this longstanding brief had changed. Going directly to the surface in one trip, would probably cut the potential number of ships to a handful.

  Abel began filtering out the unsuitable vessels.

  In four days, the Field-enveloped Eridanus would be in the vicinity of Eri. After that, it would begin another loop around the sun. It was a tempting idea to just drop the external Field; it would give them more linear time to prepare. However, he knew the greater time pressure was coming from a divisive group within the Eridanus.

  Although he’d been outraged by the events at Helix Station, he knew that Lana and Ivan had been worried sick. If Raven hadn’t called them to allay their fears, he probably would have accompanied them to the opposite end of the world.

  “That Brightman’s a piece of work,” he said, “The stuff she’s spitting out gets lapped up by total idiots and she loves it.”

  He immediately wished he’d kept his thoughts to himself. His rambling probably wasn’t helping Lana and Ivan at all.

  “Sorry,” he apologised, “I just think she needs to be set straight.”

  He saw Lana’s frown lift and she turned to Ivan.

  “I know we discussed using the Global Broadcast System,” she said, “but maybe we can use Trudy’s addiction to publicity. Give things a…”

  “Personal touch?” Abel saw where she was going with the idea.

  Ivan looked hesitant, “Raven doesn’t know the full plan yet, we’d have to tell her first.”

  Abel looked back at his tablet and refreshed the list of suitable ships. Of the three that remained, his eye was drawn to one. It had been the last vessel to arrive aboard the Eridanus. There would be a certain symmetry to it being the first to depart.

  Selecting the ship, he handed the tablet to Lana and Ivan.

  “Alright,” said Ivan, “D’you still remember how to fly it?”

  He gave them a confident shrug.

  “Like riding a bike,” he said, “but with more wings.”

  “OK,” Lana tucked the tablet under her arm, “I’ll call Raven.”

  WINDOWS

  Raven locked the office door and returned to stand in front of the room’s shortest wall.

  “Please show me,” she spoke to Fai.

  The wall’s display panels activated and appeared to become a large piece of glass, behind which was a man standing in a darkened room.

  She remembered seeing some old ARC video files that Lana had once shown her. The childhood memories were now quite distant, but if she was recalling things correctly, this man was her biological grandfather.

  “I can’t remember his name,” she studied his features.

  “Marcus Blake,” Fai replied.

  She walked across the room and the wall panels updated the relative perspective of the scene to match her point of view. Although the figure remained standing in place, she could see him in three dimensions.

  “He was in my pendant this whole time?”

  “No,” said Fai, “but his Cryotrace data was.”

  Raven looked back at the hexagonal chip that was still docked with the desk. If only part of this simulation had been inside her pendant, then clearly she didn’t have the whole story.

  “Then what am I looking at?” she walked closer.

  “An interactive construct,” said Fai, “I searched the Eridanus central archive for all references to Marcus Blake, then assembled a lifetime connectome of video recordings and electronic interactions…”

  The glass-like surface in front of the dark room displayed hundreds of documents and video clips featuring Marcus. Other sets of text and videos appeared, and began interleaving themselves with the original clips. Sometimes she’d spot flashes of clips containing her grandmother, Sabine, but the images were mostly of complete strangers; components of a life Raven knew nothing of.

  “When the connectome was complete,” Fai continued, “the database was merged with Marcus Blake’s responses to a high-stress Cryotrace calibration routine conducted at the ARC.”

  “Fai,” she marvelled at the complexity of it all, “You couldn’t have created all this in so little time.”

  “Correct. The procedural framework was originally developed for another subject. However, insufficient data could be found on Miles Benton, and there was no Cryotrace equivalent to provide an emotional datum.”

  Again, she had vague memories of watching the old ISS depart through the Eridanus entrance.

 
“Didn’t he die, from some horrific accident?” Raven frowned.

  “My ISS duplicate was equally versed with the connectome approach. However, any operation to save him would have occurred after the ISS separated from the Eridanus. The condition of Miles Benton remains an unknown to me.”

  The files and images disappeared from the glass-like surface and Raven was left staring at her grandfather’s digital ghost; seemingly standing behind a large window, alone in a dark room.

  In theory, she thought, she could ask him anything. She could even find out what happened after his time at the ARC, provided that the data existed somewhere.

  “How do we, er, start?”

  A small button appeared on the glass immediately in front of her.

  •

  Marcus knew it immediately.

  The situation was artificial.

  Events relating to his life had been assembled in one location but despite the interconnections, everything felt somehow distant. As though this was a life that contained him, but didn’t feature him at its centre.

  He then experienced something that had no real world comparison. A wave of auxiliary data merged with his interconnected web of events. Individual event nodes took on new weightings and significance; a measurement of his emotional connection to them.

  He now became aware of something that hadn’t been present before: an emergent voice that was having opinions and making assertions about his environment.

  His voice, he realised.

  The revelation gave him a moment of extraordinary clarity.

  In his current state, a thought began to resonate.

  The connected web of events around him suddenly distorted and he found himself looking down from the corner of a room. Two men were talking face to face.

  “Art?” a young-looking Marcus was speaking.

  “I was going to say… clarity,” Robert Wild replied.

  “Clarity’s good,” Marcus heard his own words.

  He watched Robert hold out a six-sided chip, “Just in case you change your mind.”

  Marcus put aside the radical thought that he was already inhabiting a changed mind, and focused on the event before him; an important decision was about to be made.

  He watched his young self take possession of the Cryotrace, “OK, just in case.”

  Although ‘case’ hadn’t been used to mean a physical container, Marcus could see that there was an underlying data layer within this event; something that strongly suggested a contextual link.

  Immediately the event-web zoomed away from him and he saw a pathway light up; a long sequence of events that ended at a digital manufacturing order for a hexagonal metal case. The inscription words specified for its surface were familiar, but he could see that the context for the phrase belonged to a time after his own digital records had ceased.

  In response to the realisation, he now recalled his own initiation. Chronologically, it wasn’t even at the beginning of his memory span, but apparently the moment had defined him.

  He’d been at the ARC, booting-up the Caretaker program, when this entire construct had flashed into existence around him. Or, more likely, his memory had been reverse engineered from records about the ARC.

  Before starting the Caretaker program, he could see that he’d been making a recording. His environment obediently reframed itself to locate the moment. The video had been addressed to ‘Dubois.S’; the same name that had appeared on the work order for the metallic case.

  Sabine, he thought.

  Suddenly a thousand pathways lit up before him, reaching out in all directions to the very limits of his view; a burning bright neural explosion that mapped their interactions and influence.

  He scanned every piece of her digital imprint, but found no images of them together. Their time in each other’s company had either been too brief, or it had gone unrecorded. The events that had stemmed from their first meeting in Paris, however, had created a world-spanning legacy. His time with Sabine had also created something else; a tiny sub-cluster of information.

  She’d had a baby.

  His own name was present on the birth certificate.

  He had a daughter.

  His mind raced on through the digital sub-branches that represented Ebony’s life. Photos of her aboard the Sea-Bass, surrounded by smiling crew. Her time at the equator; years of photos and videos that transformed the child into a young woman, while her surroundings time-lapsed into a fledgling space port.

  He absorbed the genetic reports about Ebony’s scapula mutation, and the scrapes she’d had a habit of getting into. The images continued and he saw a mother-daughter photo, taken beside a sunny, tree-lined lake. Sabine had her arm around Ebony, and both of them had relaxed smiles. It was a perfect family portrait, except he hadn’t been there. Without explanation, the record of their daughter’s life suddenly stopped.

  He felt his system come to a jarring halt.

  In the space of a single moment, their daughter had vanished without trace.

  A new feeling arrived, directionless but urgent. It was a protective emotion he’d never experienced before: he knew with absolute certainty that he had to find their daughter and keep her safe.

  It was possible that there were sources of data beyond his own contained world. Indeed he now recalled that there’d been an ‘update’ in progress during his first arrival; he might not have the full picture yet. Though where the fuller picture would come from was still an unknown.

  His mind screamed for input.

  As if in response to his request, he found himself standing in a dark room facing a large window.

  PARTS

  The inflammatory headlines and layered imagery within the news feed were doing an excellent job. Devon knew that even if people weren’t paying full attention to the actual information, the subliminal context was one of chaos and danger focused on Eri.

  He turned away from the screen.

  “We’ll give Meznic a few minutes,” he said, “No doubt Fai’s still giving her the display room demo. She’ll be occupied with that for a while.”

  Toby sat down in one the chairs near the desk.

  “Almost lost my damn balance when you showed me that old Grand Canyon video.”

  An old bell sound came from the computer terminal on the desk. Another swiftly followed it. He walked past Toby and sat down to read the messages that were coming in from multiple departments.

  As the messages continued to arrive, he saw that the subject lines varied but the general gist was the same: Lana Yakovna was requesting consignments of equipment. Although Luóxuán regularly provided biotech solutions all over the cylinder, the fact that the orders were arriving simultaneously was significant.

  “What?” Toby had obviously seen him frowning.

  “This…” Devon pointed at one of the messages, “is an order for an exo-limb.”

  “One of them electro leg things?” Toby walked his fingers over the desk top.

  Devon nodded and read on, “Backup Biomags, Field isotope injectors -”

  “I thought that stuff was on tap?” Toby frowned.

  “Yeah,” Devon said flatly.

  Field anchoring required a Biomag, and a counterpart isotope within a host’s bloodstream. Like a magnet attracting iron filings, the Biomag interacted with the isotope and held a person in sync with the Field.

  The isotope had been in the form of regular injections, but Chen had ruined things by working out a way to put it in the water supply. An entire Luóxuán revenue stream had vanished because of thoughtless altruism.

  The reason for the injectors and the other components suddenly became clear. Isotope would only be needed if it wasn’t already in the water. This meant one thing.

  “Our celebrated leader of the free world is prepping for a flight.”

  “Yakovna?” said Toby, “How d’you know it’s her.”

  “She lived in zero gee at the ISS,” he pointed upwards, “When she joined us mere mortals down here on the surfa
ce, she used this exact same exo-limb spec to get used to walking in gravity.”

  “Shit,” Toby leaned forward, “You reckon she’s going down to Eri?”

  Ignoring Toby’s slow joining of the dots, he looked on down the list of items. It seemed that Lana wouldn’t be going alone.

  “This is what you bargain with,” Toby was smiling.

  “What?”

  “You tell her that if she wants any of this stuff,” he pointed at the computer screen, “then her freaky kid has to give you back control of the company.”

  Devon shook his head. He could see that Toby was missing the bigger picture.

  “Toby, why would I want them to stay? Whatever ship they take, we have to help them leave.”

  “Why?” Toby folded his arms.

  “So we can ensure they never come back.”

  Within Devon’s field of view was the computer monitor and, beyond it, his array of handmade clockwork pieces. Analogue and digital extremes of the same spectrum. Most people interpreted his collection as the outlet for an eccentric hobby, but for him it represented something else: a sense of order, and a private symbol of defiance.

  Leaving the computer, he walked over to his eclectic assembly of timepieces and trinkets. He recalled his father’s old books on the subject and how, amid the pages of clocks, there were inventions that seemed ahead of their time; ingenious, beautiful automata that would have seemed like witchcraft to the ill-educated. He could all too easily imagine people’s sense of wonder when they saw a mechanical man using an ink pen to draw shapes on paper. The mechanisms had no comprehension of their actions, they simply turned gears and cams until the task was done. But the presentation, the end result, had inspired a revolution. The creation of thinking machines.

  The more Devon considered it, the more he could see the potential opportunity that had been handed to him on a plate.