Arex looked at her surprised for a moment, before adjusting himself on the bed. “Jeez, just cause a guy gets beat up...”
“That’s not what I mean.” She looked down, staring at what appeared to be a ticket. It would disappear when she used it, but until she did it would remain as solid as a paper ticket once used on Old Earth.
She looked up at him a moment, then back down as a tear formed at the corner of her eye. “Thank you,” she said.
He looked at her. “What, for getting my butt kicked?” he tried to joke, but after seeing her face, even he couldn’t maintain a humerous facade.
One of the white-clad nurses entered the room through the curtain-shield, not paying much attention to the mood of the room while she checked the display on a monitor that displayed itself on the blank wall behind his bed. Her left leg had a small blood stain on it, which she would later get rid of in an insta-shower.
“I’m going to put you back out,” the nurse said, glancing only briefly at Arex. She clicked a button under his bedding unit and left through the same curtain-shield, probably to clear the bloodstain, Arex thought.
Sophie stood up, putting her hand on Arex’s. She smiled at him, in a manner mature for her age. “You and I aren’t that different, you know.” She patted his arm.
Arex, surprised by her tone, simply nodded in reply as the sedative began to take effect.
She became blurry, and the white room began to blur, then fade to black.
Years later he would wonder if it was goodbye that she said to him as he slipped under.
***
A wave of light, of energy, of matter, emerged from a singular point of light, engulfing the key, the robot, the ship, and outward, its perimeter ever widening into space.
And then there was darkness.
And then...
Chapter 11
You’ll never be good enough.
Colors of the rainbow swirled past her viewscreen, stars sparkled, hid by nebulous clouds of gas, swirling, eddying, flowing into one another.
You’ll never be good enough.
Isellia gripped the controls of her XR tightly, then caught herself tensing and relaxed, a technique she had to learn at a very young age — she had the inescapable desire to learn. She raced as if her life depended on it, as if approval, affirmation, self-esteem, a sense of importance depended on it. As if her existence depended on it.
You’ll never be good enough.
She had to win. She didn’t know why. She never thought about why. She didn’t stop.
You’ll never be good enough.
She didn’t stop racing. Racing. Never stopping. She didn’t stop. Didn’t stop. Racing. Stop. The words collapsed in on themselves, began losing their meaning, then morphing into new meaning. She never stopped.
You’ll never be good enough.
One ship passed her. Another. XRs began to fly past her viewscreen. Waves of them. Like a stream she couldn’t touch, couldn’t stop — it was too powerful. She wasn’t a part of it. It passed her by. Left her there. Standing still. Like a rock in the stream. Back of the pack.
You’ll never be as good as he was.
Tears fell. A slow drip, down her check. Flowing, little spurts. Trailing. Drip. Drop. She’s being dropped. Her speed. Dropping. She can’t catch up. She’s...
Never as good as he was.
She wouldn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. Couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Won’t. She won’t. She keeps on. Keeping. She’s keeping. Continuing. Striving. Inside. Her cockpit. It’s...
Never be good enough.
Home. Her home. Where her heart is. In her heart, her chest. She looks down. Where are they all? Who? Them. Who are they? She doesn’t know, but they matter. They matter. To her. They matter.
Never be better than he was.
What’s the matter? Who are they? They matter. She can’t let them down. Won’t. She won’t. Let them down? Her? They all matter. They’re all that matters.
Never be good enough.
“Oh yeah? Watch me.” Isellia’s hand shifted forward on the throttle lever, sending a burst of speed through her vehicle. Utilizing the speed, the power that had been there all along.
***
Static electricity. >>>>>>>>>>..........
..............>>>>>>.....>>>>>......
>
>
>.........
>
>
>Input...
>.......>Data retrieval error......>..>.
>>>processing. ... .. . . .
>.. insufficient. ... .. ..
>..................
..........
>......
There is no logic.
>>>>.......
>....
>..does not compute....>...
>
Logic is not logical.
>.......
>......
> ..Irrelevant. ... logic is logical.
>>......
..
There is no logic. It’s not logical.
>.......
>......
>..
>.....Does not compute. ... ..
>.....Input invalid. ....
>....
>..
Where are you from?
>...
>..
....
>>>> ... Factory 473. ..
>
>
>....
Where are you from?
>>>>>>>>.....
....
...
>..Factory 473....
>>>>>>>..>>>>>..
>.>.>....>.>>>
You mean you don’t know?
>>>>.....>>>>...
>....Factory 473..>...
You don’t know. How can you exist?
>.....>>..>.
>.. ..>>.
>>...Irrelevant.
>>>.>>.>.......
>.......
....
It is relevant. What is your purpose?
>....>..
....Invalid question.
>.....
>...>.....
What is your purpose?
>.....>......
>........
What is your purpose?
>...................................................................
Why do you exist?
>.......
>......
>..........
>.....
For him. For them.......
***
Spin. Stop. Spin. Stop. Spin. Stop.
Damn, not fast enough.
Spin. Stop. Spin. Stop. Spin. Stop.
Drop.
Still not fast enough. Have to get around faster. All of the other students are doing it. Why can’t I? Why? Why can’t I?
Spin. Stop. Spin. Stop. Spin. Too far. Missed. Drop.
“This mountain is no place for sluggishness. Train until you move so fast that speed is irrelevant.”
I can do it. Gotta get faster.
“You’re falling behind young man.”
He’s looking. He’s watching. Got to get around faster.
“It’s not about getting around at all.”
Dumbfounded. How did he know. And what?
Chuckles. “Don’t turn faster. Simply be there.”
“I think —”
“Don’t think!” Impatient. “Too slow!”
The old man threw three of them up in the air, three stones, heavy stones, little pellets of torture — spun, twirled, spun — so fast, the stones seemed to hover, suspended in air, as the old man turned. Precision. Grabbed each one as he turned, then let it go, each one in succession. He only used one arm, catching one of the three stones as he rotated each time. His eyes were getting faster, as he could see some of the old man’s movements. To a passerby (not that there could have been any in the Mountains of Yo), it would have appeared that the stones simply hovered as the old man spun and spun and spun. Not that they would have been able to ma
ke out the old man, though ...
So fast.
“Child’s play.” He grabbed the stones, stopping with precision. “This move is nothing. It has no purpose. It has no use. None. It’s an exercise. It’s pure training.”
The old man tossed him a stone, with a grin that hid behind his flowing white beard and his steely gaze.
“Surely, you can manage to turn and grab one stone.”
I’m not fast enough.
“Mind what your mind says ...”
He threw the stone up, turned, caught. He continued.
“Mind is the key.” The old man chuckled.
***
Joey opened his eyes, the bright desert sun assaulting his vision. He rubbed his eyes, daring to open them only bit by bit as he lay on the warm desert ground. He dusted off the sand that covered his shirt and his pants. The granules had worked their way into his hair, and he brushed that out, too.
He looked around, his eyes finally adjusted. Behind him, the ship, sandy but intact. The way it rested in the dunes, it was impossible to tell whether it had landed purposefully or crashed. It didn’t appear to be damaged.
By the position of the sun, Joey assumed it to be mid-day. He didn’t know what planet he was on, of course, so mid-day could mean an hour or a week until sunset by his standards. But he was at least reasonably sure that wherever he was, it was mid-day.
“Hello?” Joey called out pensively. He looked around again. No one.
“Guys? Isellia? Porter?” Nothing. “Robot?” “Stephen?” Still nothing.
“...guys.” A chill passed through him — he was alone.
“Guys?” he called out again, dragging himself toward the ship’s door. His eyes were adjusting to the bright sun, and he couldn’t see inside the door. He felt weak, only managing to crawl.
Reaching the ship, he rested a moment against its silent hull with his legs sprawled out toward the sun. After a moment he managed the strength to pick himself up and peek inside the ship’s door. His sight was still hazy from the bright sun. He forcefully blinked a few times, attempting to retrain them to the ship’s darker interior.
“Guys?” He heard no one, saw nothing.
His eyes began to acclimate again, and he started walking through the halls. He found his way to the bridge — abandoned. Lights blinked on the consoles, flickering and flashing. The ship was operational.
But nobody was there.
“Where is everyone?”
He tried desperately to remember what had happened, what the last thing he recollected was, but couldn’t. He remembered a crew, remembered traveling with them, but he couldn’t remember how he’d come to be with them — or much of anything that led to that. Every time he started linking events in his mind, they faded, ceased to make sense, ran in circles and disappeared into nothing. His memories became mirages that disappeared as he started to reach them.
Panic began to set in. Joey was alone. He sat down in the middle of the bridge. He hugged his legs into his chest. He cried.
***
“Sit.”
Stephen sat in a lonesome, metal chair in the center of the white room. It was so perfectly white that the corners of the walls could hardly be made out. The ceiling blended with the walls, and would have blended with the floor too if not for the nearly imperceptible seams between its tiles.
The chair made an uncomfortable squeak as Stephen sat down, breaking the unnerving silence but not the dread that clung to the walls of the room.
One of the nine men seated across from him cleared his throat — no, there was one woman, who wore a similar black suit to the men and pulled her dark hair straight back. All the men had dark, straight hair, or at least they wanted others to think that. In reality, some were dyed, some wore wigs, some had curly hair that had been straightened. But with the right products, they all looked clean-shaven and similar. Power in uniformity.
A mahogany desk was all that separated Stephen from the others, but it seemed like an wide chasm. The desk gave them a position of power while Stephen sat in the middle of the room, exposed, open.
“Let’s begin,” the same man spoke. Or at least he assumed it was the same man — it was hard to make a distinction from one to the next. He looked to each for some sign of empathy, of compassion, understanding — and found the same cold, expressionless stare on each of their faces.
“Why did you enter the engineering section?”
Stephen cleared his throat.
“I’m sorry?” the man asked.
“I ... wanted to avoid a catastrophe.”
“A catastrophe? Explain.”
“I saw a fluctuation in the core temperature.”
“A fluctuation?”
“Y-y-yes.”
“Is it the purview of your job description to enter engineering?”
“Um, no, but—”
“Are you trained to spot fluctuations?”
“Well, no, but I’m able to ...”
“So you admit to this board of inquiry that you did, in fact, violate the terms of your employment?”
“Well, yes, but it was to save —”
“Are you then also suggesting that one of our engineers are at fault, that they were in error?”
“N-n-no sir, I — they probably just didn’t notice —”
“Are you then suggesting that you noticed something that one of our engineers — a trained engineer with proper CCC certification, I might add — did not?”
“Well, uh, that is what happened ...”
“Are you then suggesting to this council that you knowingly and willingly criticized someone above your pay scale, and are continuing to do so before this inquiry?”
“Well, no, I was just trying to —”
“Yes, but if you say as you are, that you were ‘saving the factory,’ then you admit that you considered the actions of one of our engineers to be of subpar nature. Isn’t that right, Mr. Blackpool?”
Stephen sat silent. The board began to confer, whispering, stealing glances in Stephen’s direction, never changing the cold expressions on their faces.
Stephen noticed his leg shaking slightly.
***
Warning lights cast a thin red hue on the bridge of the ship, an outward manifestation of the panic everyone on board Porter’s ship felt but none had time to dwell on. Smoke billowed out of the console in front of Joey and sparks flashed out of various terminals.
“Isellia, drop levels on the starboard thrusters!” Porter shouted. “Joey, keep her steady, tilt 210 degrees. Stephen, do you read?”
“Y-y-yes,” he stammered over the intercom.
“Find a way to vent valve pressure. Core temperature is going to start rising — now!”
The familiar burn of atmosphere entry engulfed the front of the ship. A bright, red glow enflamed the viewscreen and the temperature inside the bridge rose slightly; the ship’s outer hull was a furnace.
They were here again. The colony where they’d found the boy. Everything was happening as it had when they’d crash-landed on his planet. But the old crew was gone. And the new crew was here. Why? It didn’t make sense. None of this made sense.
Porter shook his head. He didn’t have time to think about it, running from one end of the bridge to the other, checking on systems. He had to stop this. He couldn’t lose them too.
Then he looked up and saw her. She was here. How? How was she here?
“How?” He stopped. He didn’t have time to stop. Hull integrity on the aft side was compromised. He shook his head and rushed to compensate with ionized pressure.
“You can’t save them, you know.”
Porter ignored her, continuing to punch in commands into the terminal.
“You can’t—”
“I heard you!” He continued working at the keyboard. Course correction suddenly shut off in mid-flight, and he worked to reset it on the adjacent terminal.
“Is this how you treat your wife?”
“Joey, keep this number below
42. Compensate with these two buttons. Release pressure when it hits 42, but not too much at once.”
Joey nodded.
“Got it?” He yelled, not his usual calm.
“OK!” Joey focused on the console.
“Is this how you—“
“My wife is dead.”
“Do I look dead?” she asked.
“What is this,” Porter asked, typing furiously at the console toward the back of the bridge. “Some kind of dream?”
“You can’t protect them. Just like you couldn’t protect me.”
Tears streaked down his eyes, as he paused, slumped over the console, head down. He ran his hands over his bald, dark head, sweat creeping through the webbing between his fingers.
“I tried,” he barely muttered, his booming voice nearly mute.
“You failed.”
He slumped more, falling into his seat. “Why are you doing this?”
“You can’t protect them,” she said. “You never could.”
He looked up at her, the woman he’d loved, will always love, tears streaming down his cheeks. He wanted to reach out for her, to hold her again. Even while the ship plummeted to the planet’s surface.
But it wasn’t her. She wasn’t there.
She never would be.
***
Celia lounged on a soft chair, her smooth skin embraced by the sun’s rays that warmed her body. The glowing orb seemed perfect as it shone on the white sand beach.
She wore the tiniest of bathing wear, which left little of her perfectly sculpted body to the imagination — though only the imagination of the purple palm trees and the pink waves as they gently lapped the sandy white shore like champagne.
“Another drink, ma’am?” asked a voice above her. She lifted her dark shades, a perfect fit, and grinned at the tanned, muscled man who hovered over her with a light cocktail tray.
“Oh, I think I’m good for now,” she said. She looked him up and down, taking in his form. “I like this look.”
Robot Awareness: Special Edition Page 17
