THE SLEEP OF REASON

THE SLEEP OF REASON 30 MINUTE READ

Rok was beginning to dread the sight of Mars. She assisted in plotting the ship’s course without saying anything about it, setting it to avoid collisions with other ships’ travel routes by habit, amending minutiae in accordance with Ennig’s piloting. But she knew on at least one parallel-processing track she was correlating the rusty little planet with frustrating developments in her life. Another processing track kept up her end of a stilted, confusing conversation.

“Hey,” Ennig said, leaning over Kelly’s seat as he examined her newly-marked back, “I had a dream where I was on This End Up as it broke apart in a black hole, then woke up with a ceiling tile in my pocket.”

Rok’s fists clenched over the controls even as other parts of her mind continued her work. “Someone is. Messing with us. Crossing the line from. Psychic to physical. Distorting… reality, almost.”

“I was in a cave,” Kelly said, gesturing loosely as she described a scene from a dream, “made of flesh, full of blades…”

“We need Hal for this shit,” Ennig muttered. Rok nodded as her eyes traced the slow arc of a merchant freighter across their flight path.

“Yes, we need Hal,” Kelly hissed, a touch vehemently. Then she shook her head and raised her hands again. “The cave led to a nice little study, where Three Rivers was waiting. Past that? A dark room where I… talked to God.”

Rok watched Ennig out of the corner of her eye as he made his uncomfortable “someone is talking about religion and I don’t know how to tell them my people worshipped stars” face, which she’d come to uniquely recognize while supervising his dates.

“Then I found my room,” Kelly said, tone shaken, trailing off a little as she picked apart her thoughts. “The one in MR-6— Fulcrum. Before they… I had a photo. Yeah. Me, Zahara, Magellan.”

Kelly’s hands dropped to rest in her lap. The motion flexed the skin of her back, bared by her rucked-up shirt, and made the lines of the star chart now inked into it roll and shift. She sighed. “As soon as I touched the photo, me and my little team, I woke up. On the van.”

“Damn, all I got was the ship,” Ennig said, finishing up his digital imaging of the chart, “with a kid with scars who said mystery shit.”

Rok frowned as a fourth parallel-processing track activated, perusing her personal catalogue of information on prophecy, pre-cognition, hallucinations, and mind-altering conditions. There wasn’t a lot. What little she did know wasn’t very pleasant. The significance of dreaming kept registering. She suppressed a wave of irritation, then fear.

“Maybe I should try. Going to sleep again,” she offered. She thought of the Tower and how her resistance to psychic influences helped double-check Hal’s perceptions. She still cringed a little. “But the dream generation. Isn’t hugely pleasant.”

“If you’re sure, Rok.” Ennig raised his eyebrows as she stepped over to Kelly’s station, apparently catching the cringe. “If you wanna try.”

Kelly shrugged her shirt down and got back to work on monitoring communications. “Could just be some kind of psychic residue from the TEF almost killing us, fucking with us. Either way, that… map, that’s a little too real to just say ‘no’ to.”

Rok rubbed at her temples, weighing her options. She looked over at the bloodied and slumbering Huang. Competing signals of interest and hesitation registered at the same time, snarling her processing further. “I don’t know that it would be. Very useful. My dreams are a by-product of concentrated defragmentation. I mostly see fragments of memories. As they’re relocated for the preservation of system efficiency. I don’t know that I could experience. Anything prophetic. And I am… scared to try.”

“Whatever you’re comfortable with, Rok,” Ennig said. He stepped into her space and slipped an arm around her waist. “I can wake you up if you need it.”

Rok tipped her head towards the captain’s chair and they made their way back up the little platform it sat on.

“I know you will,” she murmured. “That’s. Not what I’m worried about. I’m more concerned I’ll be. Absent. When you need me.”

Ennig looked confused for a second before understanding dawned on his face. He squeezed her a little tighter, and another idle processing track started musing about why increased compression of the body was reassuring in this armature, rather than alarming. “We pulled this off, Rok. Nobody got badly shot, and nobody else is gonna get shot before we get to Mars. Least of all me. I’ve had enough near-death experiences, thanks.”

“You say that,” Rok grumbled, “but. Somehow. You keep getting in the way of. All these bullets and space rays.”

Ennig eased himself into the broad captain’s seat and Rok adopted a now familiar posture from his most recent time in a hospital bed: sprawled over him, strategically avoiding his many and varied injuries. He rolled his eyes.

“You say that like I go out looking for them,” he groused as she hooked her legs over the side of the chair and he pulled up the captain’s screen to check on their progress. He looked down as Rok curled up. “Wait, you’re sleeping here?”

“Yep,” Rok said, stripping off her shoulder holster to be more comfortable.

“So the plan is, what, lay on me to catch bullets until I give you a shake?” Ennig teased. He shifted a little so her elbow wasn’t jabbing him in the stomach. “You’re lucky you’re so… weirdly small, now. Where’d you find this armature, again?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Rok mumbled, halting and storing the data of her thought processes one-by-one. “Don’t even. Worry.”

“I already know you killed someone for it,” Ennig said. Against her clear instructions, he sounded worried. “What could be worse?”

“I am sleeping now,” Rok declared.

“People don’t say ‘I AM SLEEPING NOW’ when they’re actually sleeping,” he pointed out, making his voice lower and slower as he quoted her. It sounded more like the Nemesis than her current armature. Rok hid her face in his shirt to keep from showing how funny she found the complete non-evolution of his “I’M ROK AND I DON’T KNOW HOW HUMAN THINGS WORK” impression.

“I am sleeping now, though,” she said. She closed her eyes and felt the warm weight of his hand come up to card through her hair. External stimulus detection slowly faded.

“Yeah, and I’ve got you,” Ennig said. “See you in five, okay?”

Vocal processing was already offline. Rok hummed deeply. Then she was gone.

>SYSTEM INTERVAL INTENSIVE DEFRAGMENTATION IN PROGRESS. WARNING: SYSTEM SWEEP HAS LOCATED DELETED FILE FRAGMENTS. SEE MANUFACTURER FOR FINAL SYSTEM PURGE INSTRUCTIONS. DEFRAGMENTATION WILL BEGIN…

>RELOCATING FILE FRAGMENTS TAGGED “SLEEP,” STANDBY…

“God, I need some—” / —her face, blank while resting, so deeply— / —the eventual conclusion is that loss of consciousness results in a less productive type of—/ “…not sure you were even awake. My, what an exciting time that was.” / —optimal temperature range for the induction of REM— /

“—sleep,” Hal said. She stared down at her spoon and they both watched it slowly, arduously make a half-turn in her tea before shuddering to a stop. Hal pinched the bridge of her nose. “I find myself looking at it at times, often when I am first waking up. I think it had more utility than decoration.”

“POTENTIALLY RELEVANT ENTRY: MANDALA,” Rok said. She startled a little at the loudness of her own voice. The thought continued from her speakers on its own. “A SPIRITUAL AND RITUAL SYMBOL REPRESENTING THE UNIVERSE. IN VARIOUS TRADITIONS. MANDALAS ARE EMPLOYED FOR FOCUSING ATTENTION OF PRACTITIONERS AND ADEPTS. AS A SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE TOOL. AND AS AN AID TO MEDITATION AND TRANCE INDUCTION.”

“You think the patterns were used for those purposes?” Hal asked, interest piqued, as she traced a finger over the fragile fabric spread on the table between them. She leaned forward. “Perhaps, given enough focus on the tapestry’s weave, there might be—”

“HAL,” Rok asked, suddenly, cutting the woman off. “DO YOU THINK. I CAN DREAM?”

Hal wrinkled her nose at the change of script. She lifted her mug to take a sip. “I do not know, Rok. You would be the foremost expert on you.”

“I TOLD. DESIGNATION: DANE. THAT I COULD,” Rok said. Her manipulation claws tangled together in front of her as she parsed the anxiety out. “BUT I WORRY. IT WAS A HALF-TRUTH. THAT I CANNOT DREAM THE WAY HUMANS DO. AND USE THE FRAGMENTS OF MY MEMORIES. WHICH I AM ACCUSTOMED TO REVIEWING. AS A BASIS FOR NEW SCENARIOS AND REVELATIONS.”

“You have told me before that AI are typically designed to have the same capacity for intelligence and personality as human beings,” Hal observed. “The key difference is in programming. Have you considered that humans have been programmed by their brain chemistry, in a way, to dream? And, given that, you too could learn to experience the phenomenon, given sufficient time for your mind to adapt?”

“THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN… WAIT. WHY DID YOU SAY. ‘THEIR BRAIN CHEMISTRY’?” Rok asked. Hal snorted and sipped her tea. Rok’s lamp, reflected on her amused face, shifted from a confused gray to a powder blue of embarrassment. “OH. I’M DREAMING RIGHT NOW. AREN’T I? AND HAVE BEEN. THE ENTIRE TIME.”

“It seems an existing conversation on a relevant topic was the catalyst needed to transition from memory review to dreaming,” Hal said. She poured her mug out on the table. Rok tried to think of something sufficiently dream-like and strange. She couldn’t seem to manage it in time, so all that fell out of the mug were dry sticks of cinnamon. Rok felt embarrassed at her own lack of imagination.

“Although, considering the investment in and control over the situation you have,” Hal remarked, raising her eyebrows the faintest degree, “I would classify this as more lucid dreaming than true, chaotic dreaming.”

“YOU’RE NOT ACTUALLY. HAL,” Rok surmised. “YOU’RE ME. PRETENDING TO BE HAL. IN MY OWN MIND. FOR THE PURPOSE OF THIS DREAM SCENARIO.”

Hal smiled and raised her hand in a familiar but uncharacteristic way as she quoted, “‘Male fantasies, male fantasies…’”

Rok skipped ahead to the relevant part of the verse. “‘…PEERING THROUGH THE KEYHOLE IN YOUR OWN HEAD. IF NOWHERE ELSE. YOU ARE A WOMAN WITH A MAN INSIDE WATCHING A WOMAN.’ QUOTED FROM DESIGNATION: MARGARET ATWOOD’S A ROBBER BRIDE. IT’S NOT EXACTLY. APPROPRIATE FOR THIS SPECIFIC SCENARIO.”

“You bring it up more because you are cross-referencing the concept of layered identity,” Hal explained, voice cracking as some of the depth of Androktones-006’s slipped through. “The idea of… PLAYING PARTS FOR YOURSELF. EVEN IF YOU DON’T MEAN TO.”

Rok stepped back from the worn mess table in This End Up with a feeling of unease as Hal’s eyes began to glow, not with the familiar silver of her psychic strain, but a dark, dangerous red. The walls of the mess shuddered and shifted.

“I DO NOT THINK I WANT TO BE. AWARE OF MY OWN PART IN THE DREAM. TO THIS EXTENT,” Rok said. Hal’s head cocked to the side with an unnatural sharpness. She gave Rok a thin smile.

“Then do what you do best,” she whispered, in a different voice altogether, “throw yourself into your human pretending completely.”

Rok bristled. “WHAT DOES THAT—”

>RELOCATING FILES TAGGED “HUMAN,” STANDBY…

“To err is—” / —kind, the idea of a renewed Manifest Destiny in the wake of—/ “It causes entropy of any molecule or substance they choose. Including human DNA.” / — certain viable atmospheres to promote the expansion of— / “Trans—” /

“-humanism, I mean,” Kelly mumbled, attention on the delicate inner-workings of her arm. Her hidden blade was extended to expose the mechanism that fired it. She examined it with a narrow beam of white LED light, looking for damage and potential mechanical problems. “I’m not super invested in the philosophy. I just needed my body to work right, for once.”

“Armblades aren’t an essential human body part. In my. Admittedly limited experience,” Rok said. She leaned back in the plastic hospital room chair and put her feet up on the coffin still at an angle beneath the foot of Ennig’s bed. “You don’t worry you’re. Giving up something important. With how far you’re crossing the line between. Human and machine?”

“Do you?” Kelly asked. Her eyes were unnaturally clear and crisp in color when she looked up at Rok. Rok crossed her arms over her chest, interesting herself in the way the ruined floral pattern on her shirt shivered and twisted at the movement.

“I don’t want. To give anything up,” Rok said. “I don’t want to be. Human. I just. Enjoy these experiences.”

“In the real world, you have to give things up,” Kelly said, clicking her penlight off and flexing her forearm to retract the armblade. Her tone edged on vicious. “You give up things that really matter, sometimes for no good reason— just because the timing doesn’t work out. Do you really think you can get out of all this shit without having parts of you cut away? Without losing anyone else?”

“I will fight and kill. For all of it,” Rok hissed, leaning forward over the hospital bed. “Wearing synthskin now. Doesn’t mean I reject standing for battle. No matter where I have to acquire blades.”

“You should bring Hal back for this, you like listening to her,” Kelly said. She flicked a hand at the man sleeping in the bed between them. “Or him. You haven’t trusted me since Terra Magna, no matter what you say, because you still don’t understand how I could just leave.”

“That’s not. True,” Rok protested. “I told you. That I value freedom in choice. And—”

Kelly sat back and shook her head. She draped herself again in the long, cordite-smelling fabric she’d been wearing when she rejoined the crew on Mars. “You’ve never understood that you don’t have to stand your ground and die for people, especially not people who do things that twist you up inside. Solange. Your mother. Now this broken-down man who can’t seem to point his ship in a direction that’s sane or safe.”

“You wouldn’t stand and die. For Hal?” Rok asked. Kelly’s expression turned somber.

“Maybe I’m just tired of having to measure all my relationships in death,” she said. “I just want one day where the stakes aren’t that insane. When it’s not too dangerous or too late to have a moment with someone important.”

Rok reached out with soot-blackened hands for the one Kelly had just cleaned and inspected. “I’m. So sor—”

>RELOCATING FILE FRAGMENTS TAGGED “LOVE,” STANDBY…

When the chemicals associated with— / “I’ve seen the ring. It’s basically a wingnut.” / — a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes that range from interpersonal— / “—never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t know how to replenish its source.” / Her thumb grazed the satin finish of the strap— /

The sun set heavy and blue in the sky. The atmosphere of the planetoid lent its descent back into the blackness a plush, purple tinge. Marpesia lounged on a sundeck chair, cocktail idly hanging between two fingers of her outflung right hand, gauzy cover-up shifting in the slight wind.

“NO. I DON’T WANT TO DO. THIS ONE,” Rok said. Marpesia laughed.

“Really, Oh-Oh-Four?” she asked. “Before Johnny-come-lately, I was your one-and-only. You’re hurting my feelings now, baby.”

“YOU NEVER CALLED ME. ‘BABY,’” Rok said, manipulation claw curling against the glass of the open window wall with a slight screech. “ONLY HYLA. AND EVEN THEN. ONLY AS A JOKE.”

“That should worry you, since I’m the person your mind went to on the topic of love,” Marpesia observed. She leaned around the back of the chair and slid her sunglasses down her nose to look at Rok. “Why don’t you slip into something a little more comfortable?”

“THERE IS NOTHING. MORE COMFORTABLE,” Rok said. Marpesia made an aggravated noise.

“Quieter, then.”

Rok stepped forward. The bare foot of the Echo curled its toes against the heated tiles of the sundeck as she stepped over the threshold from Marpesia’s suite. The skin of the foot was darker than she was used to seeing now. Marpesia’s eyebrows climbed.

“I guess that is the Echo you knew while I was alive,” she mused. She sloshed the cocktail in the direction of a cushion on the ground next to the chair. “Sit?”

Marpesia’s orders were comforting in their familiarity. Rok, identical to the woman except for her simpler outfit, knelt on the cushion. Marpesia brought her cocktail up and took a sip. She was the picture of relaxation in her white swimsuit with the crescent-shaped cutouts.

“You’re understanding a lot all of a sudden,” Marpesia observed. Rok laid her head in the woman’s lap.

“A few things,” she agreed. “New experiences illuminate the old. New emotional situations. Provide explanations for old mistakes.”

“Yet you’re so reluctant to admit you were in love with me,” Marpesia chided. “You didn’t even want to come say ‘hi.’”

Rok closed her eyes. She could still see the scene. “I know that all of this. Is a construction of my mind. Generated for the processing of. And extrapolation from. Pieces of memory found and relocated during defragmentation. Perhaps. I don’t think this will be. A productive conversation.”

“You didn’t want to think that meta,” Marpesia reminded her, tapping Rok’s forehead with the base of her cocktail glass. Her eyes blinked open again. She found Marpesia looking down at her with… facial recognition software returned: indulgence, amusement, profound pity. “What did you want from me, Oh-Oh-Four? Did you want me to kiss me? Be me? Have me tell you that you were special?”

“I don’t know,” Rok said. “Not then and not now. I think I just. Wanted you.”

Marpesia leaned back and took another sip of her cocktail. The blue sun was reflected in her sunglasses as she slid them back into place. “You think you know what you want any better now?”

“Probably not,” Rok conceded. “But I’m beginning to think that’s not a unique situation. In the universe at large. And things aren’t one-sided. This time. I have someone to. Work it out with.”

“It would’ve been better if you had no capacity for emotion,” Marpesia said over the rim of her glass. “If you’d taken after your mother.”

“What?” Rok whispered. Marpesia tossed her head.

“I’m just saying! You’re attracted to borderline-alcoholic, validation-desperate, tech-obsessed, maladjusted loners,” Marpesia rattled off, then added, “with daddy issues. Can’t forget those. You’ve got a type, and it nearly killed you the first time.”

“There are,” Rok said, closing her eyes again. “Worse things to die from.”

Marpesia didn’t say anything for a while. Just sipped her drink as Rok felt the radiant warmth of the sun slide further and further down her back. Then, “Do you ever think that the bonds you form are made less through earnest emotional connection, and more formed as a self-preservation mechanism against your intense, irrational fear of being alone?”

“Obviously. I do,” Rok murmured. “Because you never talked like that. And how is it an irrational fear. Considering. What happened to you?”

“Rude,” Marpesia said. She set her empty glass beside the deck chair and stretched. “Well, considering your penchant for picking up strays, you won’t have to worry about being alone, ever. For better or worse.”

“What do you mean. By that?” Rok asked, leaning back and opening her eyes again. Marpesia laid a hand, still cold from her chilled glass, against the side of her face.

“It doesn’t hurt when they’re already gone, baby,” she whispered.

>RELOCATING FILE FRAGMENTS TAGGED “FAMILY,” STANDBY…

…a group of people affiliated either by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence… / “Are you looking, Four?” / —metaphorically to create more inclusive categories such as— / “INTERNAL LOGIC DETECTS THIS MAY BE A RECIPROCAL ACTIVITY. SMALLFRAME.” /

“Stay quiet, okay?” Ellie said, tugging up the zipper. “Nobody has talking backpacks. Well, one time there was a fad, but eventually…”

“ᴏʜ ɢᴏᴏᴅ. ɪ’ᴍ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ sǫᴜᴀᴡᴋʙᴏx. ᴀʀᴇɴ’ᴛ ɪ?” Rok asked, frustrated.

“I mean, I guess you could be in anything you wanted,” Ellie said, “but you’d probably wreck my backpack.”

“ʏᴏᴜ ᴀsᴋᴇᴅ ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ. ᴍʏ sɪsᴛᴇʀs, ᴏɴᴄᴇ,” Rok said, voice small and tinny through the armature’s terrible speakers. “ɪғ ᴡᴇ ᴄᴀɴ ᴊᴜsᴛ. ᴄᴜᴛ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ᴄʜᴀsᴇ. ʜᴇʀᴇ.”

“You’re bad at dreaming,” Ellie pointed out. She glanced around the cargo bay of This End Up before sitting down behind a crate, the backpack with Rok’s squawkbox in it cradled in her lap. “Yeah, I did. And you deflected! Just because we were floating in the void of space doesn’t give you an excuse.”

“ᴡʜʏ ᴅɪᴅ ʏᴏᴜ ᴀsᴋ?” Rok asked. Ellie hummed in thought.

“Because I’m an emotionally confused, love-starved little ball of poor impulse control, looking for information that could make it easier for me to make a place for myself on the ship and in your protection?” she suggested. Rok let out a garbled sigh and whacked Ellie in the uniform tie with one of her manipulation arms.

“ᴛᴏᴏ ᴅᴇᴇᴘ. ᴘʀᴏᴊᴇᴄᴛɪɴɢ ᴍʏ ᴏᴡɴ ᴛʜᴇᴏʀɪᴇs.” Rok tapped the tie. “ᴛʀʏ ᴀɢᴀɪɴ.”

“Because I’m nosy and don’t want to talk about myself?” Ellie suggested. She blew her bangs out of her eyes with a huff. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter because you never told me about them, so I went ahead and assumed they were way cooler than you.”

“ɪ ᴅɪᴅɴ’ᴛ ᴛᴇʟʟ ʏᴏᴜ ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ᴛʜᴇᴍ. ʙᴇᴄᴀᴜsᴇ ɪ ᴅɪᴅɴ’ᴛ ᴡᴀɴᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴄᴏᴍᴘᴀʀɪɴɢ ʏᴏᴜʀsᴇʟғ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇᴍ,” Rok said. Her manipulation arm gave Ellie’s tie a little tug to straighten it back out. “ɴᴏ ᴏɴᴇ ᴄᴀɴ ᴍᴇᴀsᴜʀᴇ ᴜᴘ. ᴛᴏ ᴡʜᴀᴛ sᴏᴍᴇ ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇᴍ ᴡᴇʀᴇ. ᴀɴᴅ ɴᴏ ᴏɴᴇ ᴄᴀɴ ɢᴏ ᴀs ʟᴏᴡ. ᴀs ᴏᴛʜᴇʀs. ᴛʜᴇʏ ᴡᴇʀᴇɴ’ᴛ ʜᴜᴍᴀɴ. ᴛʜᴇʏ ᴡᴇʀᴇɴ’ᴛ ᴇᴠᴇɴ ғᴜʟʟʏ-ʀᴇᴀʟɪᴢᴇᴅ ᴘᴇᴏᴘʟᴇ. ᴛʜᴇʏ’ʀᴇ ᴊᴜsᴛ ʟᴏɴɢ sʜᴀᴅᴏᴡs. ғᴀʟʟɪɴɢ ᴏᴠᴇʀ ᴀʟᴍᴏsᴛ ᴇᴠᴇʀʏᴛʜɪɴɢ ɪɴ ᴍʏ ʟɪғᴇ. ᴏᴠᴇʀ ᴍᴇ. ɪ ᴅɪᴅɴ’ᴛ ᴡᴀɴᴛ ᴛʜᴇᴍ. ғᴀʟʟɪɴɢ ᴏᴠᴇʀ ʏᴏᴜ.”

“Why would I think to compare myself to your long-dead robot-shadow-sisters?” Ellie asked. She amused herself while they talked by zipping and unzipping the sides of the backpack, threatening darkness and then pushing it back, threatening isolation and then opening Rok’s view back up. “Seems like you’re projecting again, Dr. Rok.”

“ɪ ᴅᴏɴ’ᴛ ᴋɴᴏᴡ. ᴛʜᴀᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴏᴜʟᴅ. ʙᴜᴛ ɪ ᴅɪᴅ. sᴏᴍᴇᴛɪᴍᴇs,” Rok admitted. “ʏᴏᴜ’ʀᴇ ᴀ ᴛʀᴜᴇʀ sɪsᴛᴇʀ ᴛᴏ ᴍᴇ. ɪɴ ᴀʟʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʟɪᴛᴛʟᴇ, ᴘᴏɪɴᴛʟᴇss ᴡᴀʏs. ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴍᴀᴛᴛᴇʀ. ʙᴜᴛ ʙᴀᴅ ᴛʜɪɴɢs ʜᴀᴘᴘᴇɴ ɪɴ ᴍʏ ғᴀᴍɪʟʏ.”

“Bad things happen in everyone’s family, Rok,” Ellie said, with that expression she got sometimes that was too distant, too cold for her age. She pasted over it with a smile. “Would it be so bad to call me a sister?”

“ɪ ᴡᴀɴᴛ ᴛᴏ sᴀʏ ‘ʏᴇs,’” Rok said. “ʙᴜᴛ ᴇᴠᴇʀʏ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ɪ ᴛʜɪɴᴋ ɪ ᴋɴᴏᴡ. ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴏʀsᴛ ᴛʜɪɴɢ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴄᴏᴜʟᴅ ʜᴀᴘᴘᴇɴ. sᴏᴍᴇ ɴᴇᴡ, ᴛᴇʀʀɪʙʟᴇ ᴛʜɪɴɢ ʜᴀᴘᴘᴇɴs. sᴏ. ɪ ᴅᴏɴ’ᴛ ᴋɴᴏᴡ.”

“Welcome to being alive,” Ellie joked. Her teal hair hung around her face in curtains as she looked down on Rok. “In between all the fun, good music, and girls, there’s always the—”

>RELOCATING FILE FRAGMENTS TAGGED “FEAR,” STANDBY…

“UNIT ZERO-ZERO-FOUR. SECURITY PROTOCOLS DEMAND VIGILANCE. BE AWARE OF NETWORKED THREATS.” / …induced by perceived danger or threat that occurs… / “…code phrase: ‘a short stop at—’” / …shots fired on the European-bound magrail this afternoon as… /

“Oops,” Ennig said. He spread his hands over the growing stain on the front of his vest, the cordite-singed hole right in the middle, as if to say, “what’re you gonna do?” When he grinned he had blood in his teeth. His back was to the main console of This End Up, and outside the bridge windows Rok could see parts of the ship torn off and pulled away towards the event horizon of a point darker than dark. A hole in the void of space.

“Don’t you. ‘Oops’ me,” Rok hissed, crouching next to him. “I hadn’t thought about. Black holes. For a few weeks at least. Before you told me. About your damn dream.”

“That’s fear, right there,” Ennig mused. Blood ran from the corner of his mouth as Rok pressed her hands to the hole in his gut. “I remember, urgh… used t’hear stories from the old-timers back home. Stories of holes in the ocean that’d just—”

He feebly raised a hand just to snatch it back in. “—fwwt, gone, down to the bottom. Y’think there’s a bottom of space, love? Or does it all just stop being?”

“Stop talking,” Rok said. Her voice shook as more blood sluiced between her fingers and down her wrists. “You’re. Making a big mess. Ennig.”

“Why’s it worse that it’s me?” he asked, tilting his head in a lazy arc to look at her, eyes unfocused. “It could be this, or it could be in bed, hundred-some years from now. Why’s it so bad that it’s me?”

“I told you,” Rok said. She knew there were no bandages, no Lazarus Patches, no Hail Mary psychics to be found on the ship. How she knew, she didn’t know. It was down to her. Ennig coughed and she could hear the rattling of the fluid in his lungs.

“No,” he said. “Y’didn’t. Think… think we’re both too embarrassed that it took this long to figure it out. Now we’re just pretending we’ve been in on it since the start. Hard to do that— still out, trying to do declarations.”

“I love you,” she said, but it was to the bullet wound as she tried to staunch it. Less blood was coming out. She wanted to believe it was because, through sheer force of will, she’d made it disappear. She knew it was more likely related to the volume of blood remaining in his body.

“It’s nice, huh?” he mumbled. “Like a little high, all the time. What’dya think you’ll actually miss, though? Me, or the feeling?”

“Does it fucking matter?” she growled, sliding down to brace herself in the pool of blood on the floor.

“It matters to you,” Ennig pointed out. His face was paper white against the darkness of the bridge windows. A smudge of blood on his cheek stood out like an ancient wax seal. “Else I wouldn’t be asking, on account of I’m a mental construct, and all.”

“You,” Rok decided, after a moment spent staring at her own face, her new face, in the pool. “Because it hurts as much. To think about you never. Smiling again. As it does. To think about you never smiling at me. Again.”

“See? There you go,” Ennig said. He summoned a thin smile as he reached into his vest with shaking hands. Rok helped him fish out a cigarette and light it. “Doesn’t have to be complicated. You didn’t have to cook up all this disaster, like you don’t have enough to work with from our actual, day-to-day fuck-ups.”

“Better to be swallowed by. A black hole,” Rok muttered, giving up and sitting down in the blood with him, shoulder-to-shoulder. “Than. Deal with our actual. And immediate problems.”

“A-fucking-men,” Ennig agreed. Smoke puffed out of his nose as he talked. “How is it that both of us are gonna end up doing ‘meet-the-parents’ with a gun up?”

Ennig and Hippolyta in the same room. Rok’s breath froze in her chest, lungs locked up. Function error. Harder to solve in autonomous hardware. It wasn’t under her control. “No.”

“‘No,’ what, love?” Ennig muttered around his cigarette. His lips were turning blue.

“No,” Rok gasped. “She can’t. She can’t see you. It’s not safe, she—”

>RELOCATING FILE FRAGMENTS TAGGED “MOTHER,” STANDBY…

—women who inhabit or perform the role of bearing some relation to their children, who— / “—rank: sub-commander. Acknowledge designation: Hippolyta. Acknowledge sub-designation—” / …the skin pulled taut to bone, the eyes bulging from the lack of atmosphere… / “—into the wrong hands. Your mother—” /

“-hood, but I was just like, ‘why the fuck not’?” Huang said, snapping her wallet closed and tucking away her pictures and military ID. She grinned at Rok. “You’re welcome, by the way. Trust me, this could’ve been a lot worse, and I don’t think you’re ready to go digging in that hole yet.”

Huang took a second look at Rok as she finished speaking. Her skin seemed to buzz and gain edges. A crackle of noise came from somewhere behind them, maybe a different car on the train. Her smile turned placid.

“Or, I don’t know,” she whispered, “maybe you are?”

“No. No, thank you,” Rok said. “Hello, Sergeant Huang.”

“Hello, AI-girl,” Huang said, skin resolving into human smoothness. She leaned back in her seat and shoved her wallet in her pocket. “I can’t believe you have so many secrets to sit on with how fucking badly you handled trying to pretend to be human. I mean, seriously.”

“I’m not enjoying. That,” Rok said as she leaned over to peer out the car window. She knew they were in the ocean, now, but with no lights on the exterior of the car they might as well have been in the inky blackness of deserted system space. “It’s better when people know. I don’t like pretending to know things. I like to learn them.”

Something was moving in the darkness outside. Something large. The train traveled at hundreds of miles per hour, yet the shape in the darkness moved alongside it with a slowness and fluidity that was impossible. Huang leaned forward with her elbows on her knees.

“Let me teach you something, then,” Huang suggested, “about motherhood, since you apparently want to know. You give up part of yourself, when you go from one person in the galaxy to one-plus-one.”

“AI birth involves no net loss. Of mass or intelligence.” Rok traced her fingers down the glass of the window, framing the shape in the darkness with her thumb and forefinger. “In theory. It’s a light-speed programming session. In which the birthing intelligence. Often leaves personal. Distorting. Touches. On a blank slate of protoneural composite and quantum-sensitive substrate.”

“If you could’ve handed me a baby doll and asked me to code it to say ‘mama,’ I would’ve done it in a heartbeat over shoving a football-sized living creature out of my—” Huang was interrupted as a strategic arrival of the coffee cart covered Rok’s revulsion at human biological processes and let her skip ahead to the next thought. “Anyway, oof, that smells amazing… Anyway! That’s not the point.

“The point is,” Huang continued, as she cracked open a pack of creamer and let it stream into her cup of coffee, “it doesn’t matter how you become a mother. You lose a part of your identity in the process. You give up being a singular person and face a world where you’re suddenly in charge of some new, dumbass person who doesn’t know how to take a shit or brush their teeth or why you root for the TC goons and not the Feds during the yearly negotiations-slash-basketball-grudge-match.”

“None of those things apply. To me,” Rok pointed out, watching with interest as the cream bloomed in the dark coffee before disappearing into the lighter brown of the whole. Huang squinted at her.

“Not even brushing teeth?” she asked.

“Auto-sanitation. Every hour,” Rok said, baring her teeth. “I chose. The cinnamon-flavored cleanser. My life is spicy now.”

Huang shook her head over her cup as she took a drink. “That thing is so weird.”

“It is,” Rok agreed. She looked back out into the darkness of the ocean but the shape from before had disappeared. That was much more unsettling than when she’d been watching it pace the train. “What I gather of your point is. Hippolyta gave something up to make me. To make all of us?”

“And to make this next generation, part of which sent you off on this fool’s errand,” Huang said. She held up two fingers and ticked off points on them. “There’s two reasons you become a mother: because you want to, or because you have no other option.”

“Marpesia commissioned us. The first time,” Rok said. “But now, she’s made more on her own. If there’s sacrifice involved. There has to be a reason why.”

Huang raised her cup in acknowledgement. “You have to look past your fear to the person you’re so terrified of. If you want to fight her, if you want to protect anyone, you’ve got to start thinking tactically instead of reactively.”

“That’s… actually helpful.” Rok looked over at Huang in confusion. “Is this how. It normally works?”

“What? Having a competent CO, or having a mother?” Huang suggested. She scoffed before she took her next sip. “No. There’s no one way to command or parent, to do it right. I’m not even me. I’m just you with my face and attitude slapped on. So, really, you’re just listening to your own advice for once.”

“That’s scary,” Rok mused. Huang laughed.

“Having ability to command, or be a mother?” she asked. She waved a hand before Rok could respond. “Never mind. Here’s another choice alert from internal systems, by-the-by: proximity alarm. Hope you got enough out of this, because—”

“—Rok!”

Rok’s eyes snapped open at a sharp movement of her armature from an outside force. Automatic response suppression programming kept her from pulling a weapon. Ennig looked down at her in concern. The figures on the captain’s screen were the same as they had been when she dropped off.

“What is it?” Rok slurred. Fine muscle control was still coming back online. Frustrating.

“Uh, sorry,” Ennig said, dropping into a low tone as Kelly looked over in confusion, then back down to her work. “I know I said five, but your face was just…”

“It’s fine,” Rok muttered, sitting up. She rubbed at the tense synthetic muscles around her mouth and eyes. “It’s. Yeah, it’s fine.”

“Nope, no, I can’t do that from you,” Ennig said. At Rok’s confused look he shoved a hand through his hair in frustration, messing it up even more. “‘Fine’ never means fine. We’re partners, Rok, you’ve never done girlfriend doublespeak with me before and I really don’t want you to start now that we’re actually, well… Just, tell me what happened?”

“I love you,” Rok said. Ennig coughed and sputtered, looking thrown.

“Uh, yeah, me too,” he said. Then, after taking a second to collect himself, he reached for her hand and squeezed it. Facial recognition returned: embarrassment at his previous actions, hesitation, fondness. “Yeah, we never said anything, huh? I… love you too, Rok.”

“Good,” she said. “That’s item one.”

Ennig’s eyebrows shot up. “There’s a list?”

“There’s a list,” Rok confirmed. She slid out of his lap and down the small steps of the captain’s chair to the floor of the bridge, striding for the gunnery position she’d claimed earlier. “Items two through seventeen. Mostly involve readying weapons systems. Item eighteen will be finding something. To yell at designation: Madeline for. By her request.”

“Did you actually get to dream, or did you just open the memo feature?” Ennig joked, following her down and standing next to her as she pulled up system details and calibrations. “Also, no creepy children?”

“No. I experienced no external psychic influence or messaging. But still. It was an educational experience,” Rok said as she pulled up the schematics on the Gallipolli’s spinal beam cannon, pinpointing the differences in what she remembered from manufacturing before the Scream and modern specs. “Item nineteen. Involves a sincere apology. Item twenty could involve. Embroidery. I’ll keep you posted.”

“Anything I can help with?” Ennig asked. Rok swiveled to face him.

“Be prepared,” she warned. “We have to be prepared. For anything. And you cannot let me falter.”

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 10/14/2016 | REHOSTED 2/27/2024