Reentry

by Peter Cawdron

  “Where is everyone?”

  We walk down a corridor and through another stiff, unyielding door onto the bridge. Rain taps lightly at the windows. There is no crew. The entire ship is automated. I sit Jianyu in a large leather chair looking out across the massive deck of the tanker and check the adjacent rooms.

  On either side of the bridge, there are smaller navigation and control rooms cantilevered out over the ocean, affording a view along the hull of the tanker. The dials are old analog gauges with thin needles flickering slightly. Entire panels are covered in large, robust switches and buttons, the kind that take an effort to push. They glow in soft reds, greens, and yellows. Each of them has a clearly marked purpose—bilge override, aft-tank pressure relief, fire suppression, rudder prop. I’m surprised. The vast wall panel is the kind of thing that, these days, is replaced by a single digital control panel. At a guess, these side rooms are used by a harbor pilot bringing the ship into dock or engineers when offloading crude oil.

  “Did you find anyone?” Jianyu asks as I walk back onto the bridge.

  “No.”

  The computers on the bridge are old, with several being dedicated to showing only navigation plots and radar images. There’s even a green-screen computer terminal, the kind that predates desktops and laptops. The glass on the screen is slightly rounded, and the text is chunky, comprised of coarse dots rather than smooth letters. Occasionally, indecipherable letters and numbers scroll past, then a blinking cursor sits idle, waiting for the ghosts to continue their work.

  As much as I’d like to talk to the A.I., if that’s even possible, I suspect I understand its strategy. Back in the hospital, hiding required staying low-tech and avoiding anything that would attract attention. Here on the tanker, we’ve been whisked away into the kind of aging computer environment that would be overlooked by those hunting for us. I have no doubt the U.S. military understands both the ability and limits of the A.I. and has probably discounted dumb systems like this coming into play. I suspect the A.I. is probably running multiple operations to mislead and misdirect the military while sending us off on this tanker, but I wonder if it’s the wrong strategy. Is Jianyu a threat now that he’s back in human form? Wouldn’t it serve to defuse tensions if he could talk to the public, perhaps even address the Senate as I did? As much as I’d like to believe that, I know I’m being naive. We humans are nothing if not irrational and emotional, especially when we think we’re being logical. Right now, the U.S. public wants revenge, not reason.

  I strap Jianyu in with a seat belt. The waves are picking up, being raised by the storm, and as mighty as this tanker is, it’s rocking with the swell. Seems the weather out here can get pretty rough.

  “I’m going to check out the other decks.”

  “Be careful,” he says.

  “Of what? We’re on the Mary Celeste. What could possibly go wrong?”

  Whitecaps stretch toward the empty horizon, giving perspective to the angry sea. Dark clouds loom overhead. The wind picks up, howling outside.

  There’s a heavy-duty flashlight sitting in a charging station on the wall. I take it and turn it on. The strength of the beam is blinding, but as the sun is low on the horizon, I’m going to need it.

  “I’ll be back soon.”

  Jianyu tries to turn to face me, but he can’t.

  “Relax. I’ll be fine.”

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Anything. People. Food. Water. Blankets. Anything that could be useful.”

  With his back to me, he nods.

  I slip into the corridor, closing the door behind me.

  The deck of the tanker is easily ten stories below us. This ship is a relic of a bygone era when a crew of roughly a hundred was needed to transport millions of barrels of oil—not in literal barrels anymore, and I’m not sure what the conversion would be into tons, but the sheer amount of fuel in the hold would be staggering. Seagulls drift on the wind, never straying too far from the ship, following along as it plows through the tempest.

  A set of stairs leads down to the next floor. I find a mess hall at one end. The shelves are almost bare, but someone had an obsession with junk food. There’s at least five large boxes full of Pringles tubes, so I liberate a few, tucking them under my arm. The taps in the kitchen work, so I fill a bottle with water. With my arms full, I make my way back to the bridge.

  “I hope you like potatoes,” I say, opening the door. Jianyu’s asleep. He’s slouched in the seat, with his transparent head on the leather back, snoring softly. I tuck his thin foil survival blanket around him, trying to make him more comfortable.

  The ship is starting to rock. The ocean swell is building. In the distance, I watch as the bow rises and falls, sending white spray racing out across the waves. The rain is heavy. I sit in another chair, munching on potato chips and sipping water, wondering what the future holds.

  I’m worried. The soldiers who rushed into the empty wing of the hospital will have no doubt come across the original hard drives from Mars. Once Congress realizes it was duped and that it destroyed a bunch of fakes, there will be hell to pay. I imagine anyone even remotely involved will be court-martialed.

  What will they make of Jianyu? I wonder what records were kept. Were there any images? X-rays? Scans? What will they be able to deduce from the equipment used? Will they find that crazy outer casing with all the electrodes? The medical staff are not soldiers; they’re not going to be able to withstand interrogation, nor should they. Will they be afforded civil rights and representation by a lawyer? Or will they be arrested on some vague notion of aiding and abetting the enemy? They’ll talk. They have to—if only for their own sanity.

  What will Congress conclude about us? They’ll never believe Jianyu has been resurrected. They’ll think they’re dealing with an artificial intelligence on the run in a human body. What lengths will they go to in order to catch us and bring us to what they think of as justice? The prospect of being hunted by the world’s most powerful army doesn’t exactly inspire me with confidence.

  Somehow, with all these thoughts bouncing around in my head, I fall asleep.

  I wake to the sound of banging. It takes me a moment to realize it’s the door to the bridge swinging in time with the ship as it rocks in the storm. Lightning ripples through the clouds. It’s difficult to tell what time it is. It’s still dark outside, but there’s a soft glow low on the horizon, fighting the gloom. At a guess, we’re in either the nautical or astronomical dawn, roughly an hour or so before sunrise.

  Spotlights ripple across the tanker, flashing over the windows on the bridge, and my heart races.

  “Jai?”

  Jianyu wakes, squinting as the bright light passes again across the sloping windows of the bridge.

  I creep forward out of my chair and peer out over the vast ship. Black shapes move among the pipes and machinery lining the deck. Soldiers.

  A warship looms to the right, on the starboard side of the tanker. Its sharp bow cuts through the waves like a knife, throwing out whitewater. Several small Zodiac inflatables buzz along beside the tanker, kicking up their own wake in a stream of white disappearing behind them. Soldiers climb rope ladders thrown over the railing. They’re moving in bands of four or five, searching the ship.

  Jai’s on his feet, peering over the deck beside me. Behind us, the door to the bridge bangs again, hitting with the percussion of a kettle drum, causing me to jump. The swell within the storm is strengthening. I spread my legs wide, keeping my balance as the massive ship rocks with the waves.

  “We need to go.”

  “Where?”

  A tube of Pringles rolls across the floor, bumping into my shoes.

  There are voices outside in the corridor. They’re faint, with just a crackle of electronic noise. I leave Jianyu holding on to the navigation console and peer out of the door on an angle. There are several soldiers in the hallway. Black boots, black pants, black vests, black balaclavas, black helmets, black guns—to me, in that in
stance, they’re more inhuman than the A.I. They have night-vision goggles lowered, peering into the navigation lookout set on the side of the bridge. We’re next.

  As good as their infrared goggles are, they give the soldiers tunnel vision, blocking their peripheral vision, buying us seconds, but as soon as they step in here, we’re going to glow like ghosts. There’s nowhere to hide. The bridge is an open room stretching the width of the ship. There are numerous workstations and consoles, but nothing above waist height. We could crawl beneath one, but they’d spot us easily. We might be able to hide in the shadows from anyone casually peering in, but those infrared night-vision goggles are going to pick up our body heat in a violent burst of white.

  Jianyu walks up behind me with his survival blanket wrapped around his shoulders. The foil flexes, crinkling with his motion and making a sound not unlike the rain on the windows.

  “I’m sorry.”

  I step back from the hatch. There’s no escape. Not this time. Light reflects off his blanket as a spotlight again ripples across the outside of the ship. The underside of his foil blanket is similar to polished gold, reflecting his body heat back at him and keeping him warm, while the outer layer is silvery, reflecting the light like a thousand crinkled mirrors.

  “Quick.” I drag him to the front of the bridge. “Under here.”

  “But they’ll see us.”

  “With their eyes, yes, but not with those goggles.”

  We duck beneath the panel. I pull his foil blanket from him, pushing it out in front of us. To anyone without night-vision goggles, our feeble attempt at hiding is comical. Jai collapses against the underside of the console. I reach around him, tucking the blanket around his body. Foil ripples as we move, crinkling with each attempt to pin it in place around our bodies. It sounds like we’re hiding in a bag of potato chips, but it’s important to prevent leakage. Right now, our own body heat is the enemy. I fold part of the blanket, sitting on it with my knees pulled up to my chest.

  “Liz.”

  “Shhhh.” I pull him close and try to stay still so as to not make any noise. Breathing alone causes the foil to flex. Although I’m sitting in darkness, I need to picture myself holding a bright flashlight beneath a blanket. I’ve got to be absolutely sure there’s no light leaking around the edges, as they’ll see infrared light streaming out of any gaps as a bright streak of white light.

  Boots thump down the hallway. The door swings open with a thud. Soldiers come rushing in, fanning out. My only sense is hearing. Sound paints a picture for me. I can hear the soldiers moving between the workstations. Boots come within inches of my feet. It is as though I can feel the soldier standing in front of us. I pull my legs in tight, grimacing with the sound of the foil flexing.

  There’s silence. Has the soldier moved? I don’t think so. I’m sure he’s still standing in front of us. Has he seen us? Has the thinnest sliver of heat seeped out from around the foil survival blanket? Boots scuff on the ground. Someone walks up to him. The soft crackle of a radio sounds. I’m shaking.

  Finally, boots sound on the floor, moving away from us. The door to the bridge continues to bang every few minutes, but I dare not move. Slowly, dawn breaks. The bridge lightens. I peer from behind the foil blanket and the bridge is clear.

  Jianyu pushes the blanket away, struggling to get to his feet. He moves with the ache and strain of an old man even though he’s in the body of someone in his twenties. I help him to the leather chair.

  “Easy.”

  Without exposing myself, I peer around the corner of the window. Black inflatables race along beside the warship cruising along our starboard side. Cranes pick the boats out of the water. Slowly, the warship pulls away and the tanker sails on. Even so, I’m nervous for the best part of an hour, wondering if there are still troops onboard, half expecting them to come back onto the bridge.

  The storm lifts. Sunlight streams in through the windows.

  “If they’d come in here just twenty minutes later, they’d have found us.”

  Jianyu looks pale. “We got lucky. But luck never holds.”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  “Where are we going?” Seems like an obvious question, but until Jianyu raised it, I hadn’t considered our course, or our destination. It was enough to be free.

  “Ah. South.” The sun is rising on the port side of the ship, so we’re sailing south, somewhere off the coast of North America.

  “Why?”

  I shrug. I grab the medical bag by the door, noticing several tubes of Pringles are missing. I smile, hoping the soldiers don’t think about their plunder in too much detail. Inside the bag, there’s a printout showing a number of exercises for Jianyu, including stretches. From what I can tell, they were designed to help stroke victims restore their range of motion.

  I smile. “You, my friend, are going to hate me.”

  He looks confused. He figures it out soon enough. I’m a bit OCD when it comes to exercise. Given our time in outer space, it’s understandable as up there, in orbit and on Mars, a strict exercise regime was critical to good health. I hope he doesn’t get angry with me for putting him through his paces several times over the next few hours, demanding more of him in each session.

  By the time the sun sets, he’s walking without stabbing at the ground and starting to regain some fine motor skills. We sit and talk, watching the sun dip into the Atlantic.

  “What’s it like?” I ask. “Being in a new body?”

  “Strange. He’s shorter than me. I feel like I’m tripping on stairs when I walk, or kicking a curb.” I’m silent, wanting to hear more. “It feels as though there are hundreds of pins and needles poking at my arms. Not in a painful way, but it’s annoying. Distracting. Makes it difficult to think clearly. Everything’s different. Colors.”

  “Colors?” I ask. “They’re different?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “Some are more intense. Some less. Shades. It’s hard to explain. Like . . . Like going into a store and seeing a bunch of televisions with slightly different color settings. By themselves, each television looks fine, but when compared, there are subtle differences in tone, contrast, depth, clarity.”

  “Huh? What about sound or smell?”

  “Oh, you smell.” The reaction on my face must speak volumes. “Not in a bad way. In a way I remember. Your smell is—”

  “I have a smell?” The idea of having a distinct smell is a little insulting. To be fair, there was no provision for deodorant on Mars.

  “I like your smell.”

  “You better,” I reply playfully.

  He relaxes, letting his arms and fingers hang. It’s as though rudimentary movements take a colossal effort. “I feel alien. Nothing is the same. The width of this chest, the length of the upper arms, forearms, fingers.” Jianyu lifts his left hand before his face, slowly flexing his fingers. “The texture, skin tone, creases, veins, even the length of bone between each knuckle, they’re all different. Nothing is the same.”

  “And that bothers you?”

  “It feels—uncanny. Like a dream.”

  “Well, I like it.”

  He smiles.

  I change his bandages, noticing that the swelling and red tinge around the plastic skullcap are slowly fading. After gently rubbing antibiotic cream on his wound, I wind a fresh bandage around his head.

  “I’m bald.”

  “Uh, yeah.” I try not to laugh. “You’re not growing any hair out of that thing.”

  “I need a hat.”

  I nod, knowing what he means. Neither of us have any idea what sunlight will do to exposed brain tissue, but given the damage the sun can do to the skin, it’s a fair bet it won’t be good. Jianyu tires as night falls. He curls up in the wide leather seat, resting his head on the armrest, and drifts off to sleep.

  25

  The Devil

  I’m bored. I sit staring out the vast windows, watching the monotony of the sea. Whitecaps reach into the distance. Cl
ouds dot the sky. The sun sets, slowly submerging the world in darkness.

  The cursor on the green-screen terminal flashes. It’s been blinking the whole time we’ve been onboard, but it’s only now I’ve realized it’s awaiting input. This is old-school computing. No windows or computer mouse, just plain text. I shift over to the navigation console and sit in front of the screen, wondering, Should I?

  I type on the clunky keyboard, surprised by the spring rebounding with each key press. The sound is almost a chatter, as though this ancient computer has a voice of its own.

  “Hello?”

  I swear my finger didn’t leave the Enter key before the response came and the screen scrolled slightly to adjust to a new line.

  ::Hello, Liz.

  My fingers tremble as I type, Who is this?

  I’m shaking, but I’m not sure why. I think it’s the sudden realization I’m communicating with a nonhuman intelligence. I might as well be talking to an alien. Saliva dripping from the snarling mouth of a xenomorph would be less intimidating than an incorporeal mind thousands of times more intelligent than my own, and one with instant access to the sum total of all human knowledge. I’m horribly out of my depth.

  My heart stops with the reply.

  ::Lucifer.

  That one word screams at me, leaving me cold. A bitter, metallic taste forms in my mouth, and suddenly I’m acutely aware of the sounds around me—the howl of the wind, the creak of the deck, the crash of waves, the dull drone of the engine, the quickened tempo of my own breathing and my madly beating heart.

  ::It was a joke.

  Rather than popping up as a single line, each reply appears character by character, as though I’m watching someone on the other side of the screen typing in response.

  ::Or at least, it was supposed to be.

  There’s a rhythm, a cadence to each message, almost an accent. I feel as though I can read some of the personality behind the reply. Resignation, disappointment.

  A lump forms in my throat. My mouth goes dry.

  ::You think I’m a monster, don’t you?