‘I spoke to Hugo,’ I say.
Dad grunts. I wait for a moment or two then continue. ‘I’ve got a job for Cassie Meek.’
At this he lowers his spanner and looks at me. ‘Cassie Meek from school?’
‘It’s a sim of Matthew.’
‘Her brother?’
I nod.
‘Is that ethical? Given you know her?’
‘It came to me by accident. I wanted to do it.’
‘Does Cassie know you’re doing it?’
I shake my head.
‘You have to send it back.’
‘No,’ I say, ‘I can’t. Anyway it’s too late, it’s nearly finished.’
‘It’s exploitative.’
‘No-one makes people buy them.’
‘That’s not the point. It’s preying on people, taking their money when they’re vulnerable.’
‘It makes them happy.’
‘Bullshit. It’s wrong.’ He is angry now. ‘And if it’s so okay, why haven’t you told her you’re working on it, messing around with her memories?’
I start to answer but I can’t find the words, so instead we stand there staring at each other, the turbine creaking gently beside us, until finally I turn around and walk back to the house. As I reach the door he calls out, ‘Dylan, wait!’ but I ignore him and go inside.
It takes two more days to finish Matthew’s sim. As always there are patches when I lose myself in the task, certain the work I’m doing is good, or better than good, but this time those moments are shadowed by something else, a feeling more like anger. Or shame.
Once I’m done I send the files back. Usually that’s the end of it, but today I make sure I keep a copy of the master code so I can continue to access the system. And then, finally, I go to bed, and sleep.
It’s still early when I wake, but already hot outside. In his bedroom Dad is still sleeping; as I leave I pause outside his room, pull the door shut as quietly as I can.
Normally I’d ride my bike to the station but this morning I decide to walk. Back before things started to go topsy, this area was laid out as a kind of satellite suburb. Things must have gone wrong, and although some of the houses were finished a lot of them were left empty.
After Dad lost his job at the solar farm we needed somewhere to live, and this place had the advantage of being cheap. It wasn’t terrible either, at least when I was younger, even if we were always being warned not to play in the empty buildings. But since the pandemic and New York and all the rest of it, people have been leaving, heading back to the city or further out in search of somewhere they could grow things.
By the time I reach the station it’s 9:30 and the sun is so bright it makes my eyes hurt. Taking a seat I stare at the water of the gulf to the west, still and shimmering in the morning light, its shattering blue tinged here and there with the rusty blotches of algae blooms, and try to distract myself from what lies ahead.
Everybody knew by then that the incubation period was approximately seventy-two hours, which meant we had three days to wait before we knew whether Mum was infected, three days that passed impossibly slowly. With all of us in the house it was impossible to quarantine her completely, but we did our best, using separate bathrooms and only talking through the door.
On the third night I lay awake for a long time, listening for her cough or a cry. I knew that if she made it through the night the odds were good that she had avoided infection. Eventually I heard her turn off her light, and some time after that I fell asleep, but a few hours later I woke to the sound of coughing. In the hall the door to the spare room was open, and inside Dad was kneeling by her bed, a mask and gloves on, one hand on her forehead.
The address Cassie gave when she signed up is in one of the southern suburbs. I don’t know the area but I don’t know the city well anyway, so that’s not saying much. Thankfully the train line passes through it, so once I’ve done the two-hour stop-start from our place I set off to walk the last kilometre or so.
The houses and flats are run-down, the wide streets mostly empty. Here and there on the corners people have posted pictures of the dead and left flowers or toys; with the naked eye they look shabby and faded, sheets of curling paper shifting in the wind, but with lenses on they’re almost overwhelming, the videos and photos tagged to them creating shifting, entreating jumbles of voices and faces, all moving and laughing and talking, oblivious to what is coming for them.
Cassie’s place is in an old block of flats, a cream-brick building from the twentieth century. There’s no security so I just walk up and knock on her door.
She looks the same and different. Her hair is longer, and her arms and face are tanned, as if she has been working outdoors. But she also seems older, and somehow very far away from the Cassie I knew. Perhaps I look different as well because she doesn’t seem to recognise me. Then her mouth opens.
‘Dylan? What are you doing here?’
I remember how we were when we were together. It seems so long ago.
‘Can I come in?’ I ask.
She leads me into the living room. Some of the furniture is new but I recognise a couple of things from her mum’s house. I can see she is flustered, uncertain why I’m here.
‘How did you find me?’ she asks.
‘It’s a long story.’
‘How have you been?’
‘Okay.’
‘And your parents?’
‘Dad’s okay. Mum . . .’
When I don’t finish she touches my hand. ‘Oh Dylan,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Thank you,’ I say. For a moment neither of us speaks, then I ask if I can sit down.
‘Of course,’ she says, ‘please.’
I ask her questions then. About what she’s doing, where she’s been. Her Mum and Matthew came down with the virus early on, and soon afterwards she got sick as well. By the time she was well enough to know what was happening they were both gone, so she decided to stay on and work at the hospital with some of the other survivors. After that she picked up a job in one of the gardens, which is where she’s been ever since. Although she doesn’t say so I think there must be a boyfriend.
Despite this, we seem to fall straight back into the way we were when we were together. It’s been three years since we saw each other, and it’s pretty clear we’ve both changed, but it’s still there, that bond.
It’s only after I’ve been there half an hour that I tell her why I’ve come.
‘I’ve got a job too,’ I say.
She smiles. ‘Really?’
‘Making sims,’ I reply.
It takes a moment for what I’ve said to register. Then she looks away.
‘Oh,’ she says. Then, more quietly, ‘Oh.’
‘There’s nothing to be ashamed of.’
‘It was stupid,’ she says, still not looking at me.
‘You miss him,’ I say. ‘Why is it stupid to want to remember him?’
‘I can’t really afford it,’ she says. ‘It was a subscription deal.’
Most of the sim purchase plans are subscription-based, but I don’t tell her that.
‘You don’t know what it’s been like, not having him.’ She shudders, as if she is about to cry. ‘And before you say it, I know it’s dumb. He was just a kid, just one kid, and so many people lost loved ones. But it’s like I can’t get past it. Sometimes it’s all I think about. Having him here. The way he was.’
‘I understand,’ I say. I touch her arm and she turns to look at me.
‘Do you?’
‘Really.’
‘Have you made one of your mum?’
I begin to tell her that Dad won’t let me, but then I realise it’s more than that. Why won’t I make a sim of Mum? I could do a good one, after all, so good it would be hard to tell it wasn’t real. I could program it myself, give it all her little tics, all her memories. And I’m not vain enough to think I’d be able to resist believing it was real a lot of the time, accepting it as a person. But in the end it wou
ldn’t be her, it would be a copy, and somehow that would be even worse than her being gone.
‘Because we can’t go back,’ I say at last.
She nods. ‘Are you here to tell me you cancelled my order?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘The opposite, in fact. I brought it so you could see it.’
Mum died less than twenty-four hours after she got sick. It all happened so quickly she barely woke up again. Despite the risk Dad and I stayed to the end, holding her hand, trying to keep her fever down. For a while we thought we might get lucky, that she might be one of those who pulled through, but she grew weaker and weaker, until she slipped away just before dusk.
The quarantine regs required people to place the dead out for collection but the trucks had stopped coming weeks before, so the next morning Dad went out and dug a grave under the old gum at the back of the house, driving the shovel into the ground over and over. And when he was done we wrapped her in a sheet and carried her out there together. I don’t think either of us knew what to say, and so we just knelt there next to each other, Dad’s arm around my shoulders. It seemed impossible to me that she was in that hole, that she was gone.
Seated next to each other on the sofa Cassie and I activate our lenses. I enter the master code to access Semblance’s systems and the sim appears in front of us. He is wearing a Batman outfit, just like he used to, and in one hand he clutches a toy dinosaur. He lifts the dinosaur and roars. Cassie gives a little gasp.
‘Is he old enough?’ I ask, and she nods quickly, fiercely.
‘Can I talk to him?’
‘Of course.’
Leaning forward she clasps her hands together. ‘Matthew?’
He turns to face her.
‘Do you recognise me?’ she asks.
‘Of course,’ he says, rolling his eyes. ‘You’re Cassie.’
‘That’s right,’ she says in a trembling voice. ‘I’m Cassie.’
She looks at me. ‘Is he real? On the inside?’
I nod. ‘He thinks he is.’
She turns back to the sim, her hands tight in her lap. He stands watching her. Then he grins.
‘You want to see my dinosaur fly?’ he asks.
Cassie nods. ‘Sure,’ she says. ‘I’d like that.’
The sim grins delightedly and lifts the hand holding the dinosaur high. Then with a roar he turns and spins away.
Next to me Cassie sits very still, her eyes full of tears. ‘Look at him,’ she says. ‘He’s so happy.’
I take her hand. On the other side of the room the sim roars again, and whirling the dinosaur ahead of him charges out of sight around the corner.
1
Sometimes at night the sky so deep he thinks he might fall, tumble upwards into that cold immensity of space, of time. The feeling like vertigo.
Like flight.
2
Lifting his eyes to the window he realises it has grown dark. Last time he looked it was still dusk, the sky fading orange and red, but now all that is visible is blackness, the reflected image of the hospital room. Surprised, he wonders how long it is since he last looked up: ordinarily he would know instinctively, but in these past days and hours space and time seem to have altered, the world contracting until it is only this room, the sound of her breath, the minutes stretching out to infinity, asymptotic. Catching his image in the glass he is struck by the realisation that this is how we live as well, our movement towards those around us like a long arc growing ever closer but never touching, the desire to tell her sharp, like grief. In the bed beside him she breathes in again, the air rasping in her throat; reaching out he takes her hand, closes it in his.
3
In the car park beside the main building he stops and climbs out into the heat, the taste of dust thick in his mouth. Blinking against the brightness he looks around, taking in the familiar bulk of the control centre, the low line of the residential units and common area off to the east. Even close up they are deserted, their prefab structures bleached and battered by the sun.
On the far side of the car park the door to the control centre swings open and the figure of Jin emerges, his wide-boned face obscured behind dark lenses.
‘Noah!’ he calls out as he jogs over. ‘You’re late!’
Noah shuffles his feet and looks at the ground. ‘The plane was late.’
Jin laughs. ‘We know. We checked.’ He gestures towards the building. ‘Shall we get inside?’
After the heat of the car park the cool of the air-conditioned interior is restful, almost soporific.
‘Do you want to head over to your unit and dump your bag? Or shall we go through to the control room?’
‘The control room,’ Noah says. ‘I want to get started.’
As they step into the room several others look around or wave in greeting. Awkwardly Noah waves back, relieved to see that the technician he has always found most difficult is absent. Jin is explaining the arrangements for that evening’s scans while he directs Noah to the desk he has been assigned, but Noah’s mind is already elsewhere.
As a student he learned to love the control rooms of observatories. The first time he entered one he felt as if he were stepping into a hallowed space, a place in which it was possible to lose himself in communion with the beyond. In time he learned to love them for other things as well – their quiet, their solitude and order, the sense that those around him were united by a shared fascination with the stars, meaning he didn’t have to explain himself or answer questions. Even now he finds something calming about control rooms, about knowing he is connected to the silent immensity of the sky.
‘You’re sorted then?’ Jin asks.
Noah gives a tight nod and Jin smiles.
‘It’s good to have you back, Noah.’
4
It is five years since he first came here. On that visit he flew from Sydney to Perth then took a solar glider up the coast to Exmouth. He had planned to read but found he couldn’t. Instead he sat by the window watching the land unspool beneath him, the seemingly endless patchwork of red and grey and dirty green, scarred here and there by the pale spread of salt and floodlines.
He had been outside the city before, of course. But it wasn’t until the glider landed and he walked out of the tiny terminal that it really came home to him how far away he was from everywhere else. As his car angled itself out onto the highway and began the long drive north, the emptiness almost palpable. From the plane, thunderclouds had been visible over the Indian Ocean, their massing bulk limning the horizon; now they fed in across the land in front of him, light falling through them in broken shafts, a reminder that the landscape was so immense the motion of entire weather systems was visible.
Half a century ago this region had been sustained by mines, vast operations serviced by teams of workers based in Perth and elsewhere who flew in and out on long rotations. But as the world’s economies shuddered and cracked through the twenties and thirties, the demand for minerals dried up and one by one the mines closed. In places along the coast their remnants are still visible, vast machines and pits, rusting facilities hugging the bays, already half subsumed into the contours of the land.
That first day, he drove for four hours, the road unfurling hypnotically in front of him, the skeletal remains of the trees that dotted the valleys and declivities moving by in silence. Only when he turned onto the side road to the array did the land begin to rise, its undulations dotted here and there with low trees and broken reefs of rock until he reached the red earth of the plateau.
When he opened the gate he found himself staring out at the serried lines of white antenna dishes that made up the array spreading off into the distance. The day was almost windless, the space so quiet he could hear himself breathe. And for a second he felt himself give way to that silence, lost in something so much larger than himself it was impossible to comprehend.
5
The call from Adam comes late. Noah is at home alone, so absorbed in his work that for a second or two he considers n
ot answering. When he picks up, Adam’s face appears in one of his overlays.
‘Noah?’ he says. ‘Are you at home? We need to talk.’
‘About what?’
A moment passes. Then Adam says, ‘It’s your mother. She’s alive.’
6
Noah is in the kitchen behind the control room when he receives an alert from the array’s system. It is late, well after one, and the only people still in attendance are him and Jin. He calls up the data, assuming it will be another of the mildly anomalous signals they detect from time to time, his body tensing as it unfurls in his overlays, his preconscious brain recognising that the scattering of pulses is too structured to be natural before his conscious mind has fully comprehended what he is looking at.
‘Where is it from?’ he asks.
The system gives him the coordinates. Although he does not need to, Noah pulls up the reference, confirms his memory is correct. In Sagittarius, just south of the galactic equator.
His hand shaking he hurries back into the control room and pulls the data up on his screen. Represented graphically the signal is unmistakeable; at the sight of it he goes still inside. ‘Sound on,’ he says, and all at once the room fills with a shriek of what seems static or concentrated distortion, a long burst that continues for ten seconds, fifteen, before disappearing and beginning again.
‘Is this live?’ he asks, and the system tells him it is. ‘Is it recording?’ Again the system confirms it is. On the other side of the control room Jin has risen to his feet.
‘Is that . . . ?’ he asks, but Noah doesn’t answer, just sits staring at his screen.
7
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