by J P Waters
“Well I’m telling you now. Hypothermia saved my brain cells, but if it hadn’t been for another soldier, I’d be dead. It’s not something I’m proud of.”
“You still should have told me.”
“It wouldn’t have changed where we are now. I promised myself that if I could just make it through the rest of my tour, I would never leave Earth again.”
“So, it was Earth that kept you going?”
“That and you, Olie,” Jayson replied. “You arrived at the ground station. I might have lost my mind if it wasn’t for you. You reminded me there was a reason to hang on.”
Olie thought back to that confident, sure-of-himself man that she had met on Mars. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “I didn’t do anything.”
“You didn’t have to. You saved me by just being you.”
“I didn’t know I was saving you from PTSD, and I don’t understand why you didn’t tell me what happened. Maybe I could have helped.”
“Olie, I care about you, but when we were up there you were so locked in on the goals of our unit. I didn’t really get to know you until we got back down to Earth. By that time, it just felt it wasn’t worth bringing up, and then… well you know.
“I still think you’re making a mistake limiting yourself like this, Jayson. There’s plenty of opportunity away from Earth.”
“I don’t like having the fear, Olie, but I have it. I’m just trying to live it.”
“But you made it. That’s your story. Your story isn’t that you passed out, it’s that you survived. You’re a survivor, Jayson. You have to use that.”
“I do,” he said.
“How? By growing potatoes?”
“They are more than just potatoes. You know that. Being able to grow something besides lab grown soybeans is important, Olie. It could save lives. Someone saved my life, and I’m paying it forward.”
“I know it’s important to you, but if you could let it go, we could both get back out there. Off Earth.”
“That’s not true, and you know it,” said Jayson. “It’s your wanderlust that came between us, not my research.”
“You have to go back out there, Jayson. You have to get it back.”
“Get what back?”
“Whatever it is you lost.”
“It’s gone, Olie. It’s gone. And so are you.”
Chapter Seventeen
Olie dreamed of Mars that night. She was walking across the red dirt in nothing but her fatigues, but as she moved it felt as though she were submerged in water. Her hair floated around her head, and her arms drifted by her side. Over her shoulder she could see a dormant volcano and the lights of a distant ground station. When she looked forward again, she saw a man in a black space suit tumbling slowly along the plain. He was toppling end-over-end as if a gale was pushing him across the landscape like a tumbleweed. Olie grabbed hold of the tumbling astronaut and pinned him to the ground. His mask was covered in dirt, and once she wiped it away she saw Jayson’s frozen, lifeless face.
Olie gasped for breath as she sat up in bed. Struggling to regain her bearings, she looked out the window and saw the reflection of the moon shimmering on the sea. She needed water. Walking past Gerry’s illuminated terrarium, Olie went to the kitchen and opened the cold unit. She drank deeply from a tube of water before shaking her head and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She was still processing. That dream had been one of the most vivid she’d ever had.
Olie knew as much about flash freezing as anyone else in the Martian Airforce. She’d been trained to jack in on a vehicle or to release the freeze valve on an exosuit if she ever got stranded. The idea was that, if you were running out of oxygen, you could flash freeze your system to reduce intake. Essentially you put yourself in a coma, and if no one found you there was no guarantee you’d ever come out. Jayson wasn’t the only one to be traumatized by the experience.
Unable to fall back asleep, Olie searched the telesphere for a minidoc on flash freezing. Onscreen, recovering soldiers were suspended in warming tanks before moving on to robotic rehabilitation therapy. Each soldier’s neck and limbs were hooked into a suit that slowly re-awakened the body from its advanced hypothermic state.
Hypersleep was a common practice in space travel, but flash freeze occurred so rapidly—and in such volatile environments—that there was never any guarantee it would go correctly. One soldier dressed in red and black fatigues described pressing the button as a near-suicidal act. Some of the soldiers who experienced it wondered if death would have been preferable. Many of the soldiers put through the ordeal were discharged shortly afterward due to complications. Jayson had been one of the lucky ones—or maybe unlucky.
It looked terrible, and Olie felt for Jayson that he had been through it. It also hurt that he’d never felt comfortable telling her about it. But one thing was certain—Jayson had been one hell of a soldier. He’d finished his tour on Mars without seeming the least bit affected. Even his lover hadn’t been able to see the pain inside.
It was three o’clock in the morning, and Olie was supposed to be striking with the DWU in a few hours. No point in trying to go back to sleep. Olie commanded the telesphere to run the evening’s adnews. A broadcaster was on location at a nearby island describing the gruesome details of another murder. Then the visuals shifted to an area near the SeaCrest facility, where a jogger had been found murdered right around the same time the other victim was discovered over an hour away.
“At this time, it appears that we are dealing with a serial killer,” a representative from the police force said to a room full of cameras. Reporters began to ask him questions, but the gray-haired man shook his head, cutting them off. “I have nothing more to add at this time.”
Unnerved, Olie asked her telesphere to show her the hallway as well as any public cameras available throughout her apartment complex. She watched images of the stairwell, the hallway outside her apartment, the parking lot where her bike was parked, and the glass elevator, wondering what kind of sicko would go around harvesting organs - and how they did so with such minimal blood loss.
Olie couldn’t fathom the pain Dim must have gone through, but at least the attack had been interrupted. Marguerite was able to say goodbye to a body and not a husk. She’d been able to do that much.
Chapter Eighteen
When Olie arrived at the plant to strike, she was amazed at the size of the crowd. She parked her bike away from the crowd and she took her place among a thousand or so strikers directly in front of the SeaCrest desalination plant. The union members were wearing their overalls and were surrounded by several security droids. Whether the droids were there for the protection or observation of the striking employees, Olie wasn’t sure. Overhead, drones projected the desalination union’s slogans as the men and women chanted them: “No wage, no water! No wage, no water!”
Shading her eyes from the blazing sun, Olie peered around at the scene in front of her. With the SeaCrest building looming like a giant above the chanting crowd, she had mixed feelings about this strike. She wondered if Dim hadn’t died if she would be there at all. She stared up at the massive grey structure and her thoughts turned to Dim. Olie fought back tears and began chanting along with her coworkers until Aaron ran up to her.
“Is this what you were expecting?”
Olie frowned. “I don’t think I knew what to expect. It’s more people than I thought I would see. This has to be more than half the workers in the whole plant.”
“I just hope this is the right choice. I’ve got a family to provide for,” he said, wiping beads of sweat away from his forehead.
“I think we’re doing what needs to be done.” said Olie. “I mean, how much time do you actually get to spend with them the way things are now?”
“I’ll be around plenty if I’m unemployed.”
“I think the union knows what it's doing. Dim believed in it.” Olie reassured her coworker.
“I sure hope he was right.” Said Aaron under
his breath.
The pair returned to chanting, stopping only when the crowd collectively turned to notice a massive semi-trailer rolling into the parking lot. It had a sleek, white cab with a digital screen on the cargo container displaying the words Cerebral Bionics in royal blue. A smaller slogan underneath read Universal AI Integration. The semi approached, turned, and began to back into the SeaCrest entrance. As security droids pushed the strikers back, Sebanic began pouring out of the semi and through the security gate. The Sebanic walked camly out of the semi trailer, taking direction from various SeaCrest employees. Olie could see that Colin Matthews, the middle-aged HR representative who had offered her his perfunctory condolences after Dim’s death, was guiding them, smartglass in hand.
For the first handful of minutes, the chanting stopped as the crowd looked through the gate at the flow of Sebanic. It didn’t take long for the crowd to understand what was happening, and the crowd went from silent to roaring with anger. The Sebanic were temps—or maybe even permanent replacements. A few strikers picked up rocks and threw them over the fence. A few rocks connected, but the Sebanic marched on as if they hadn’t noticed. It would take a lot more than that to break through their top-of-the-line components.
As the fervor of the crowd started to pick up, Aaron and Jeni ran over to Olie.
“See! See? I knew they’d do something like this,” said Aaron.
“Those bastards,” Jeni growled.
“They can’t do our jobs at the same levels, though, can they?” Olie said. “We’re highly trained. SeaCrest will realize it and and they’ll back down.”
Aaron shook his head.
“At the very least, somebody has to service them,” Olie went on.
“That can be done remotely.”
“Their techs are remote?” asked Olie.
Jeni nodded.
Olie looked at the last of the Sebanic disappearing into the front offices. “How could the union not see this coming?” She asked.
“They considered it, but so far they’ve only seen this done in extreme cases,” Jeni replied. “They thought for sure it’d be too expensive.”
“Apparently less expensive than giving us our raise,” said Aaron.
“This is bullshit!”
As she spoke, Olie’s band buzzed and she looked down at the message she’d received. Aaron and Jeni checked their wrists a moment later, then they heard a cacophony of dings and buzzes and alerts as everyone in the crowd got the same notifications within seconds of each other. Olie looked and saw the entire crowd checking their bands almost in unison.
“It’s from the SeaCrest,” Olie said, stunned. “We’ve all been terminated.”
“What the hell? Already?”
“And they’ve enrolled us in base income,” said Jeni.
“I can’t live off that,” said Aaron. “I knew this was gonna happen. I knew we shouldn’t have gone on strike.”
Olie peered through the fences at the now-sealed doors. “It may not have mattered. Think about how quickly this went… they must have planned this. How could you secure so many high end Sebanic so quickly? This deal must have been in the works for months. We just gave them an excuse to speed things up.
“I don’t know, Olie. Maybe if we’d kept our mouths shut, we’d still have our jobs.” Aaron was panicking.
“Olie’s right. Maybe for another month or two, but if they had the resources this was bound to happen. So many other industries have been flirting with going full AI, so why wouldn’t ours? And it’s not like the city or state will step in—they need the water. I bet you they had this going before the DWU even contacted the board,” said Jeni.
“That’s the dream of AI, isn’t it?” said Olie. “They work so we can be free.”
“Free my ass. They work, I’m raising kids on basic. That’s not freedom. Shit!” Aaron said, defeated. “Sorry, but I need to go call my wife.”
Jeni crossed her arms as her coworker walked away.
“I was close to retirement anyway, but I feel for the both of you. What will you do, Olie?”
“I don’t know, Jeni. I really don’t know.”
Olie watched the strikers begin to disperse. Olie left long before they were all gone. What would Dim have thought? Dim was a fighter—he’d have known what to do. Olie was a fighter too—a soldier—but without her friend to rely on, she felt lost. And now the job that had connected them was gone.
Chapter Nineteen
Olie wasn’t looking forward to explaining her newfound unemployment to Jayson, but they had agreed to meet and discuss what should be done with Gerry. In a way, the creature was a welcome distraction. The base income she’d been enrolled in would cover most—if not all—of her expenses, but she was worried that the conditions of her departure would make finding a new job more difficult.
The sun was setting when Jayson arrived at the apartment, his Seba in tow.
“I hope it’s okay I brought Mona along. She was helping me at work, and I didn’t have time to stop by the house.”
Olie glanced at the blonde cyborg and shrugged her off. She already felt uncomfortable around Mona, and the fact that Sebanic had just taken her job wasn’t helping.
“I’m going to have a drink. Do you either one of you need anything?” Olie said before pausing and turning to Mona. “Mona, do you drink?”
“I can, if it makes you more comfortable.”
Olie turned to Jayson with a frustrated look on her face.
“She doesn’t,” he said.
Olie led the group to the living room and sat down before cracking a tube open.
Jayson nodded toward Mona. “Sorry about this, but it seemed like you wanted me to hurry over.”
“It’s all right,” said Olie. “It’s not like I warned you.”
“About what?”
“I was replaced by Sebanic at the plant today.”
“What?”
“They let us go after a truckload of them were dropped off at the facility.”
“Second generation,” interjected Mona.
“Excuse me?” said Olie.
“Oh, they were most likely second generation Sebanic. They were scheduled to enter the workforce later this year. Sounds like they’ve started early.”
“Are you okay?” Jayson asked.
“As much as I can be. Does the world even need people like me to work on AI droids? I mean, do I need to learn how to work on a Seba?”
“Sebanic are capable of self-recovery and repair in all but the most extreme circumstances,” said Mona.
Olie gave Jayson a frustrated look.
“Don’t worry.” Jayson said. “Droids will still be around for a long time.”
“I doubt it. Pretty soon the army will be all Sebanic too.”
“Sebanic can be used for some military purposes, but we cannot harm civilians.”
“See?” said Olie. “It’s just a matter of time.”
“We do not harm humans. It is expressly forbidden.”
“But what if they hurt you first?” Olie asked.
“We turn the other cheek,” Mona replied, turning her head while keeping her eyes on Olie.
“Well, that’s better than eye for an eye,” said Jayson.
“Does she even know what she’s saying?” Olie asked.
Mona nodded curtly. “Yes, I am capable of processing and comprehending characteristic modes of expression such as idioms.”
Jayson nodded and held a hand out to the Seba, a gesture for Mona to ease off.
He turned his attention back to Olie. “Hey, I know things are raw right now, but I came over to talk about Gerry, not to listen to you attack my assistant.”
“Oh wow, your assistant.”
Jayson stood up to leave. “That’s not fair. Come on, Mona. Olie needs some time to cool off.”
“No, no, I’m sorry,” Olie rushed to sit them back down. “I’m just… I dunno. Look, maybe she can help. You’re right, this is about Gerry.”
Jayson sat dow
n, but his expression of frustration stayed while Mona remained standing. Whether that was a sign of disapproval or simply her preferred resting position, Olie couldn’t tell.
“Mona, you’re sure he’s an unknown species?” Olie asked, hoping to foster some goodwill by looping the Seba in.
Mona approached Gerry’s terrarium. “My initial analysis has not changed. This creature does not fall under the category of any known taxonomic rank.”
“Let’s start with what we do know, then,” Jayson suggested. “We know it’s a carnivore.”
“Really? And how’s that?” Olie asked, incensed. “I’ve mostly fed him veggies and soy.”
“It tried to eat your finger, Olie.”
“That was probably self-defense! We know it eats veggies, and we know it bit me… once. That doesn’t mean it’s a carnivore.”
“Okay, omnivore then, but with aggressive tendencies,” said Jayson, his tone growing increasingly combative.
This was going nowhere. What Olie had hoped would be a productive evening was quickly becoming one more excuse to argue. If Olie had to put up with Mona, though, Jayson could endure Gerry.
“Now you’re the one not being fair. Here, watch.”
Olie stood and reached inside the terrarium to take hold of the balled-up creature. He unfurled to look up at her, prodding the air as he sniffed the environment around him.
“He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“Mona,” Jayson said in a firm tone, “would you try to take it out of her hand?”
Mona stepped forward and began to stretch out her hand. When she was a few inches away from having the animal in her grasp, Gerry spun and leapt towards Mona. In the flash of an eye, the little animal latched onto Mona’s side with all five appendages, in an apparent attempt to burrow through her clothing. Olie could see Gerry holding on tight and pulsating as he attacked Mona.
“Shit!” cried Jayson.
Without thinking, Olie grabbed Gerry and started pulling him off. He was latched on tight, but in a rush of adrenaline she was able to wrench him off the Seba before thrusting him back into his terrarium and slamming the cover on top.
