Blue Arrow

by Stan C. Smith

  “We’re out of butter,” I said.

  Romulus took a standing jump and landed on the table next to my porridge. Roobots are about the size of housecats and just as agile. He scratched at his belly with a clawed paw and suddenly pushed the paw right through the skin into his abdomen. The paw came back out holding a chunk of glistening flesh. I closed my eyes for a moment and shook my head. Someday, someone should program the damn things to generate materials in a more visually appealing way. But within seconds, the chunk of flesh faded to gray and then more gradually transformed into about a dessert spoon of butter.

  “Go on, drop it in the bowl.”

  The butter plopped onto the porridge and began to melt. I scratched the back of his head. “Thanks, love. I’m going to need my pain meds today. Do you mind?”

  Romulus started to scratch his belly again.

  “You don’t have to make them. I have some in the bathroom.”

  He hopped to the floor and bounded off to the bathroom. The pain pills are the only meds I take now. Disease and disorders may be prevented, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get sore hiking the Blue Arrow track.

  After breakfast I changed into the blouse and hiking shorts I had carefully prepared the night before. I paused to stare at myself in the mirror, something I rarely do, but this day was exceptional. I’m ninety-two, but I stopped aging nine years ago so the face of an eighty-three-year-old woman stared back at me. Granted, I am a young eighty-three. Age spots are gone. Skin is fairly tight, but not without wrinkles. Silver hair. Eyes that sparkle but don’t hide a lifetime of experiences. I could pass for a healthy seventy, but no one would doubt me if I told them my real age. Not any more.

  I slung a small pack onto my shoulders and walked north on the Esplanade with Romulus at my heels. I walked past my shop—my own beach shop—without going in. The girls could handle things, and I didn’t want to get distracted. Mount Whitfield Park is five kilometers from the house, an hour’s walk. I quickly got into a rhythm, enjoying the sensation of my powered titanium endoskeleton working in tandem with the bone and muscle it is fused to. Whereas my exoskeleton of nine years past was an imposing monstrosity, my new endoskeleton is not even visible to onlookers. Its structure is formed in the exact size and shape of the original bones it has replaced, including its embedded lamotelofiber tendons and forever-powered nano-motors. It provides a powered boost when I need it, and it forces me to work enough to stay fit.

  I don’t mind that certain parts of me have been modified. And I don’t mind that the Lamotelokhai’s mysterious particles have halted my aging, in spite of what I had told Peter nine years ago. In fact, sometimes I wish it had happened much earlier. I am ninety-two, living in a body that stopped aging at eighty-three. If the artifact had been found when I was sixty, I would have stopped aging at sixty. For that matter, if only I had gone with Peter on his adventure to New Guinea when we were both forty-one…

  But of course that’s not what happened.

  The pleasant weather apparently had enticed others to Mount Whitfield. When I started up the Red Arrow track, numerous hikers and runners were coming and going, many of them followed by roobots paired to their physiological systems, monitoring their conditions and needs.

  The Red Arrow was a breeze. The Blue Arrow tested my joints and endoskeleton. But I was damned determined. Because it was Yonks Day. Because it was this particular Yonks Day. Halfway around the Blue Arrow circuit, I paused to watch a nearly silent helicopter pass over me just above the treetops. I sighed and shook my head. Shortly after that, a steep side trail took me up twenty-five more meters in altitude to the top of Lumley Hill.

  A crowd of people had gathered there. A few were curious hikers. Others were friends, some who looked like they could not have walked there without help. Powered endoskeletons, I suppose, although none of them had ever mentioned they’d had one installed. I stood up as straight as I could and walked to the center of the gathering, careful to avoid kicking anyone’s roobot.

  I stopped when I was at Peter’s side.

  “You’re only slightly late, Mrs. I-want-to-do-everything-by-myself Wooley.”

  I patted my thigh. “I’m in tip-top shape, Mr. I’m-too-busy-to-walk-so-drop-me-off-with-a-helicopter Wooley.”

  For a moment, we stared out at the view of north Cairns and the blue-green water of the Coral Sea. But the crowd’s presence made it hard to relax, so we faced each other and joined hands. It was to be a renewal, and we had opted to do our vows without an officiant, so we could start the ceremony whenever we wanted. I was to go first, and I was ready.

  “Peter, when we first joined hearts and hands sixty-three years ago, we did not know where life would take us. You promised to love, honor, and cherish me through all things. Our life together has brought both wonderful blessings and difficult challenges. But here you are today, having fulfilled your original vows in wondrous ways I could never have imagined. I have loved you always, and I have always needed you. Much more than you have needed me, I fear. Ninety-two years have passed since you and I entered this world, only months apart. Due to a wondrous and somewhat cruel miracle, the people here today see a man of forty-one years and a woman of eighty-three years. What they don’t see are two minds that have together experienced the wonders of every day that has passed, growing ever more intertwined and attuned.

  “Peter, as you reflect back over all the years as my husband, do you now wish to reaffirm the vows you took sixty-three years ago?”

  He smiled. “Yes, Rose, I do.”

  “Then I will love, honor, and cherish you forever,” I said. I then eagerly waited.

  He gripped my hands tighter. “Rose, on our wedding day those many years ago, I made a choice. I chose you to be my wife. I thought then that such a decision, once made, was final and irrevocable. Now I know that choosing a life partner is not a one-time decision but an ongoing process. Many times in the years since, I have chosen you again. As you have chosen me. A marriage lasts only so long as both partners desire each other above all others.”

  Peter took a small step closer to me.

  “On our wedding day, and in the sixty-three years since, I made promises. Some of them I kept, some I did not. But today is a new beginning. My vows to you are based upon something you have taught me. It is something I could never have learned on my own. You taught me that love and compassion are not one and the same. Compassion is when we devote ourselves to helping others because we want them to be healthy and happy. Love involves compassion, but love is much more internal. Love is when a person has a deep and undeniable need to be with another. So there is an element of love that is self-serving. In fact, it is the most powerful element. Oddly, we are often taught to mask this element, as it is construed as selfish. But you, Rose, have always seen it for what it is, and you have taught me to open my eyes to it.

  “So these are my vows from this day forward. I will be at your side, not only because I wish to take care of you, but because I also wish to take care of me. I will strive to make myself happy, because my happiness is inextricably linked to yours. There cannot be one without the other. I will love you, not only because you need me, but because I also need you. And this need I have for you is elemental. I cannot exist without you.” He pulled my hands to his chest. “I will desire you above all others. I will desire your mind, because it stimulates mine. I will desire your body, because it satisfies mine. I will be your best friend—with benefits.”

  A twitter of laughter came from the crowd around us.

  He went on. “If we live to be a thousand—which now seems entirely possible—I will be at your side for the entire journey. Rose, as you reflect back on the years as my wife, do you now wish to reaffirm the vows you took sixty-three years ago?”

  I disengaged one of my hands and wiped both my cheeks. “I do, Peter.”

  “Then I will love, honor, and cherish you forever.”

  Peter fished a small box out of his pocket, held it in
front of me, and opened it. I saw the contents and inhaled sharply. It must have cost a fortune. In the box were two lumps of Lamoteloplast—at least six grams total. Unlike the substance roobots generate to assist their owners, which can only be modified in limited ways by the roobots themselves, Lamoteloplast is completely responsive to the very specific thought patterns of a person—one specific person only. Gingerly, Peter pulled one of the gray masses from the box. He took my left hand and removed the ring he had given me in this same location exactly fifty years ago. He then molded the clay-like Lamoteloplast around my ring finger.

  I looked at him questioningly.

  “Go ahead,” he said. “That one’s linked to you. Remember when we both went to the Lamo-interface lab in Brisbane to be wave-patterned?”

  Of course I did, because my memory was now perfect. “This is why you wanted me to do that?”

  He smirked. “Surprise!”

  I gazed at the clay around my finger for a moment and then visualized in my mind what I wanted. The substance shifted its shape into a thin gold band with a large lavender-tinted diamond. I frowned. This ring was just a more imposing version of my other one. It wasn’t right for the occasion.

  “You can change it any time you want to,” Peter said.

  But I wanted it to be perfect at that moment, on that day. I formed another vision. The ring’s band widened, and the diamond receded into the band, broke apart, and formed an elegant inlay depicting a long, wispy feather. I held it out for Peter to see.

  “A feather?”

  “A cassowary feather,” I said. “It’s a feather from Blue Arrow.”

  He smiled and pressed his portion of Lamoteloplast to his finger. A moment later it looked just like mine.

  I hope you’ve enjoyed reading Blue Arrow.

  If you are intrigued by this novella and want to know the whole story of the Lamotelokhai, please check out my novels in the Diffusion series (Savage, Diffusion, Infusion, and the upcoming Profusion).

  https://www.amazon.com/author/stancsmith

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  Stan C. Smith