AfterLife

by BL Craig

  “Pretty much.”

  “We have to tell somebody.”

  “Who? The living don’t want to hear it, even if we could get around AfterLife to tell them. The living have been coddled and cared for by the dead for so long. They can’t function without us.”

  “We have to stop AfterLife. We have to do something.”

  “Yes. Yes we do, but ‘what’ is the question we’ve been wrestling with for centuries.”

  * * *

  …

  * * *

  Elva took in the damage done to the ship during the attack. There were still three corvettes attached to the hull. Tesla and Edison were destroyed. She was surprised to find that Freeman, after a few repairs, would be fine. Mead had been lost at some point during the escape. And of course, there was a construction ship three times the mass of the Tilly attached to her ship. Overall, they’d gotten off extremely lightly. The biggest hit was the communications array, without which they would need to be right on top of another ship in order to communicate.

  The imaging coming in from Tesla’s data dump was less heartening. The Rannit were clearly planning an invasion of Mirada. A more motley fleet of ships she had never seen, nor a larger. There was little consistency between the vessels, and few looked like military ships. If they were retrofitting commercial and private vessels for war, that would at least buy the Navy some time to prepare.

  She had no idea what Rannit military strategy was like. What she saw did not match any offensive organization she had studied. But why would they be amassing so many ships, if not to invade?

  * * *

  …

  * * *

  “Overall, you look ok. Well, you look like shit, but you’ll be ok,” said Sarah, setting down the nexus. “Wanna hear the good news?”

  “You’re going to hack my NCM?”

  “Such a smart boy,” she said, pinching his cheek and grinning like an idiot.

  “But doctor, am I going to be able to play the piano when you’re done?” he said in a comic voice.

  “Not unless you could before,” she said, ruining the old joke. “I’m going to put you out for this unless you really don’t want me to. It’s usually easier on people to wake up from the changes instead of experiencing them as they happen. You’ll also need a good, long, real sleep afterwards anyway. Are you OK with that?”

  “Will I dream?”

  “Oh, yes. Probably some really trippy dreams at that.”

  “OK, but if I talk in my sleep you can’t hold me responsible for what I say.”

  “Deal,” she said. She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead as he drifted off.

  * * *

  …

  * * *

  Sarah carried the unconscious William back to his room and tucked him into the bed. She could hear the sound of John bellowing from the direction of the Captain’s office. Clearly, he had learned about the hack. She left William’s room and headed in the direction of the ruckus.

  When she rounded the corner, she could see Addy and Alex standing outside the door. John must be inside.

  “This is madness,” he shouted. “He can’t be trusted. Have you all forgotten what he did? He killed all those people and then he lies about it to our faces?”

  “William is not lying. He was prepared to die to save us. He deserves to know,” Sarah heard the Captain as she approached the door.

  “I’m not saying he’s a coward. You can be physically brave and still be a moral coward, he cannot be trusted. We still don’t know why he is here.

  “It’s done, John.” She looked past him at Sarah. “How is he doing?”

  John turned and looked at her, his face a combination of rage and shock.

  “He’ll be OK. He’s sleeping right now. I’ll check up on him in a couple of hours.”

  “Good,” said the Captain. Before John could resume his tirade, the Captain cut him off. “Brooks, go see what you can do to cobble together some communications for us. Without the array, we’re severely hampered.”

  The engineer gritted his teeth and walked away, the anger evident in his posture.

  “Thank you all. Please check over your areas and add any damage we missed in the initial scan to the reports. Alex, make sure to disable those nasty self-destructs you set on our VIs and systems.”

  Sarah followed Addy heading for the lower decks and their workspaces. As they left, she heard Alex say, “Captain. I need to share some information with you.”

  * * *

  …

  * * *

  William woke up in his room. There was a horrible taste in his mouth, he had a headache, and he smelled terrible. It was amazing. He stood up and felt the coarse, cheap AfterLife blanket on his skin. He put his feet on the floor, standing cautiously. He felt the twinge in his ankle from when he’d jumped off the top of some monkey bars as a teenager. So much for the Elixir repairing all of his old injuries. The past several hours ran through his head. The tiny Rannit pounding on the engine room door. He swallowed hard. Not now. Later. He would deal with that later.

  He moved into the bathroom and turned the water in the shower on full blast, stepping in without waiting for the temperature to change. The cold water made him gasp. He laughed, jumping back as the spray turned hotter. He turned it up to nearly scalding. He reveled in the sensations. The smell of the soap and the slick lather of it against his body. The feel of his fingertips massaging his scalp. That bit was a little strange, as his frostbitten fingertips were still numb. He shaved his nascent beard and rubbed his hands over his smooth jawline, the once-again sensitive nerves on the palms of his hands picking up tiny hairs he had missed. He ignored the polite request from the shower that he conserve ship supplies and kindly wrap it up. He ignored the less polite command that he get out of the shower now. When the bathroom program threatened to turn off the water, he used his fancy Captain-granted permissions to tell it to bugger off and keep pouring down that glorious water. He only relented when his fingers pruned up, creating fjord like ridges.

  The towel, unlike his scratchy synth wool blanket, was soft and fluffy. He wiped himself down and toweled his hair dry. Reanimate skin and nails grew slower, no doubt due to the Elixir, but he definitely needed a haircut.

  He returned to his room, curling his toes on the decking and reaching out to brush the walls as he went. He changed into clothes and set out to explore with his returned senses.

  Once out of his bland room, he noticed the colors. No longer drab and desaturated, the world was full of color. One of Sarah’s paintings he passed was alive with reds and greens and yellow. He decided to return to all of his favorite Sarah paintings to see them in their full glory.

  He started noticing more subtle pieces. The AfterLife logo, the circular image of a phoenix rising from the flames, could be found all over the ship. Nearly everything on board had been made or packaged by AfterLife. Many of the logos on more permanent surfaces had been tweaked subtly. In one he found near the tiny laundry facility, the flickering red and orange flames had just the barest hint of shadows within, comprised of mountains of tiny skulls. How it was accomplished he did not know, but it reminded him of drawing in dust on a dirty window. Sometimes the changes were obvious and silly: a single google eye in the phoenix head, a leering grin added to the beak, intricately drawn feathers added to the stylized logo.

  He walked around, rubber-necking, not wanting to miss any detail.

  * * *

  …

  * * *

  Sarah went to Williams cabin several hours later to check on him but he was not there. She found him in the mess, sitting on a table, with his bare toes drifting over the floor, gazing at the nebula painting. He looked at the painting with its bright yellows and oranges, head tilted slightly. It was not a particularly good painting—skilled, but not creative like the others. That was, of course, the point. She had been mocking the type of art one found in a survey ship mess. His slight smile and focused gaze on the schlocky painting made her feel
self-conscious.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” She asked from the door. Her head was tilted slightly her lips quirked into a small lopsided smile.

  He looked at the painting as he spoke, “I dreamed you and I were penguins that could fly but not swim. We could fly all around the world, but we were sad because we couldn’t dive into the ocean anymore.”

  She walked in and sat next to him on the table, legs swinging.

  “You know how I ended up here,” he said softly.

  “Yes.”

  “There’s more to it.”

  “Do you want to tell me?”

  He paused for a long moment.

  “I had a sister. Her name was Sophie.”

  * * *

  …

  * * *

  William could not remember a time when he did not know his purpose. His sole reason for existing. William was designed to save Sophie. He could not recall his parents ever sitting him down and telling him the details of his conception. These were simply a few of the foundational facts of the world, his world. The sky was blue, the sun of Eden was red, birds flew, fish swam, and William existed to save Sophie.

  William knew other things. He had been created through gene editing. He was not to tell anyone that fact, or Mom and Dad would get in trouble. Mom had not wanted William. Dad wanted William, because Dad needed Sophie. Sophie loved William.

  “Little Whip-poor-William, where are you?” She would call out, rolling her chair through the house. “Are you in the kitchen? Are you in the bedroom? Are you hiding in the laundry basket?” When she found his hiding spot, he would jump into her lap. She was hardly bigger than him, despite the five years longer she had to grow. She would fuss over his hair and ask him, “Have I ever told you the story of how I fell in love with you, Little Whip-poor -William?”

  “Yes,” William would say. “Tell it again!”

  “Well, you were in Mommy’s tummy for months and months! You would kick mommy, ‘BAM’ right in the tummy and she was cranky.” Sophie would tickle him in the tummy at this part.

  “I thought, ‘I do not like this baby. This baby is mean to mommy!’” I knew that when you finally came out, I was going to tell you what a wicked little boy you were to kick Mommy and make her cranky. Oh yes! This little boy was going to get a piece of my mind!” She waggled a finger in his face.

  “And then you came, and Daddy said, ‘Do you want to hold your little brother?’ I said, ‘Yes!’ I was going to give you a big sister talking to and let you know just what I thought. So, Daddy handed you to me, wrapped in this little blanket. Your face was wrinkled and squished up and red. ‘Yuck!’ I thought, what an ugly little troll.” She made her best hideous troll face.

  “I leaned over you to whisper that you were a very bad baby. Just then, right before I said anything, you opened your eyes, such beautiful blue eyes, and you pulled this chubby little baby arm out of the blanket and you grabbed my finger and wouldn’t let go.”

  He grabbed her finger and giggled.

  “And I was totally in love. I named you Whip-poor-William because you squeaked and shrieked every time I touched your tummy.” She tickled him and he squealed gleefully.

  He and Sophie would go to the doctor a lot. He got very good at taking shots and blood draws. Mommy was cross when he cried, but Sophie made funny faces and distracted him. He would pet her hair when it was her turn for needles. Sometimes they put William and Sophie to sleep and he would wake up feeling groggy, with bandages and sore spots. But Sophie would feel better.

  But Sophie stopped feeling better. Mom and Dad fought. Dad wanted to go to Earth and try more treatments. Mom said no. When they started yelling at one another, Sophie would take William to the big picture window to watch the birds.

  Sometimes when Sophie felt very bad, she would tell William to go away. She tried not to snap at him, but she hurt a lot. William would hide in the closet those times with the stuffed ostrich Sophie had given him. Mom and Dad would not let them have a pet, just the stuffed animals. It was too much responsibility to have a pet, they said. Sophie was too weak. William could not save Sophie. How could they care for a puppy?

  * * *

  …

  * * *

  Sarah listened to the story of William’s childhood and ached for him. He spoke matter-of-factly, calmly, but his hands gripped the table tightly, knuckles white.

  “Anyway, Mom left, Sophie died, and it was just Dad and me. He’d taken out a lot of loans for the gene editing, and extra treatments for Sophie that weren’t covered by standard medical, because, you know,” his voice broke. “She was fucking dying no matter what we did and prolonging it was just fucking cruel. It was cruel for everyone.

  “I was 8 and she was 13 when she died. We moved to a new town and a new school, where no one knew about Sophie. We never talked about her. After that, Dad pretty much checked out. So, I carried on and tried to do what Sophie would have wanted, you know. She would have wanted me to be happy. So, I tried that. Made friends, did good in school, fell in love with a great girl. Well, you know the rest.”

  She thought for a moment and sighed. “You can’t save everyone, you know.”

  “It would be nice to be able to save someone,” he said with tired frustration.

  “You saved us. That’s not nothing.”

  “That was more you than me,” he said.

  She shook her head. "It was all of us.” At some point during the story, she had put her hand lightly on his. His hand shifted and she started to pull hers away, but he grabbed it and held it in his own. She leaned against his shoulder. They sat that way for a while.

  “William.” She said his name almost as a question. He turned his face brushed his cheek against her hair. “Perhaps this is terrible timing, but would you like to come to bed with me?” She looked up and he looked back at her with a wan smile.

  “Yes, I would like that very much.” He leaned down and kissed her, first soft and tender, then with passion.

  * * *

  …

  * * *

  They lay, limbs tangled together, on the single-sized bunk in Sarah’s cabin. William silently delighted in the closeness of her, skin to skin. The sex had been urgent and precipitous, but very satisfying. He was fairly certain he had not embarrassed himself in the mad flinging of clothing and inevitable awkwardness of two bodies unaccustomed to one another. He was grateful for the tiny bed and the excuse it gave for staying in her arms afterwards. His right hand was tucked under her at an awkward angle and rapidly falling asleep. He didn’t care. He traced little figure eights in the hollow above her collar bone and lightly kissed her shoulder. Up close, the watermark on her skin looked like the tiny branches and limbs of a jungle canopy, hiding mysteries.

  He said, “I’ve never seen the inside of your room.” It was decorated eclectically. A rack clearly purloined from the bio lab had been painted, decorated, and repurposed to hold keepsakes and a small collection of real paper books. The walls hosted creatively framed prints of famous art. He recognized a few of the pieces. The bed was covered in something his grandmother had called a crazy quilt, stitched together from odd bits of fabric, the AfterLife uniform blue and gray well represented. “Why not your own paintings?”

  “I like these better.”

  “I love your paintings.”

  “Well, there’s a reason for that,” she chuckled.

  “I take it the reason is not my exceptional taste?”

  “Sort of,” she said, “They’re all copies. Not exact copies, but heavily inspired by other, much more talented artists. I have a whole gallery of side-by-sides. I told you, I’m not a real artist, just a reasonably skilled hack.”

  “You,” he kissed her shoulder. “Are not,” he kissed her neck. “A hack.” He kissed her jaw.

  “Hmm, well, we can agree to disagree.”

  “You know,” he was brushing his nose around the edge of her ear. “I was pretty sure you only liked women. I am so pleased to be wrong.”

>   “I mostly like women,” she ran her own hand along his spine, “but I have been known to enjoy the company of the occasional man.”

  “Never have I been so honored to be occasional.” He found what he had been searching for. She jumped and giggled as he softly touched the small of her back.

  “No tickling!” She swatted at his arm.

  “Such violence!” he protested.

  She ignored him, “I dated a lovely man in grad school. Paul. He was an honest-to-god poet.”

  “Was he any good?” William asked.

  “Oh, yes. His poems were actually really funny, in a sad, the universe is terribly unfair, kind of way. He had trouble getting his work taken seriously, though, because it was funny.”

  “What happened?”

  “Oh, we were just heading different ways in life. Then I met Rachel.” She did a little shrug. “After that I was sewn up and owned quite thoroughly.”

  “What was she like?” he asked.

  “Talented. I mean, insanely talented. She taught me to draw, really draw, and paint, but she was a sculptor. She would take the craziest pieces of junk and make beauty, just sheer beauty. She was funny. A fantastic cook. I hated cooking. But she was an absolute slob. Oh my god. I mean not just messy and disorganized, but a gross slob. Once I found a knife covered in peanut butter in a half full glass of water behind a potted plant. That sort of thing.”

  William laughed. He could picture tidy, organized Sarah holding the offending water glass between two fingers, a wrinkled sneer on her face.

  “It wasn’t funny.” She poked him forcefully in the arm.

  “Ow! I have delicate skin, I’ll have you know,” he said in mock ire. “If you want the rest of the crew to think you’ve been abusing me, just keep that up.”