Michael Siemsen: Exigency

How fortunate was she, Minnie thought, having found love on a journey she expected to live out alone? And how sad was it for John Li, who came with his wife—the person he believed he’d share the rest of his life with—to end up alone, and with no way home? Perhaps Minnie could forgive him a yank or two as he watched those vids of him and Aether.

“He’s not like that!”

BS. He’s got vids.

Minnie’s dulling thoughts shifted to the surface, to Threck City, the stirring architecture, the grand harbor, their Thinkers and artists, their theories about the stars and mathematics, the Fishers out at sea riding on behemoth afvriks trained as fishing boats. She imagined life in the city, and, despite Aether’s absence, eventually fell asleep.

John Li reclined in his office chair, perusing the incoming pod’s inventory. Scrolling past the usuals—supplements, meds, power cells—to the extras section, he quickly scanned for the object of his interest: fone upgrades.

John’s fone had been giving him persistent pain for months. Pablo had pulled it out and run diagnostics but found nothing wrong. John remembered the look on Angela’s face when she entered sick bay and saw John’s hollow right eye socket. He’d watched with his left eye, the real one, as she blinked and rubbed her own fone eye. It seemed that despite their complete dependence on the technology, not many liked to be reminded of their implants, or the amputated bio eye they’d replaced.

“I think it’s in your housing,” Pablo had said. “Not the fone itself. Don’t see any physio problems. Maybe a firmware upgrade will alleviate though… whenever they come…”

John had nodded and thanked him. Pablo didn’t think it a critical issue because John didn’t convey it as such. “Some occasional pulsing behind the cavity,” John had described.

“How bad? Would you consider it debilitating? When it’s at its worst?”

John had forced a convincing laugh. “Not remotely. Just something I thought I’d put on your radar.” Would it have helped to describe the pain as that of a thumb pressing in on the fone, harder and deeper? The sensation of building pressure, ever threatening to burst?

John had had to live with the consequences of downplaying his pain, not the least of which was a lack of meds. Without a reportable override, Pablo was the only one who could program adjustments to crewmembers’ water.

The throbbing behind John’s fone continued as he used the source of his pain to drill down into the pod’s tech manifest. He held his breath as it popped into view before him, virtually hovering in the air a dozen centimeters away.

Brand: LEN Model: LEFONE 8.5 SW: 5.366 FW: 5.30

Image: NS23-9 QTY: 12

Their current software and firmware were in the 3s, so he looked forward to whatever improvements two generations had to offer.

He switched back to the medical supplies in search of ocular housings, but found none. The chances had been slim, anyway. Adult housings were considered permanent, and new fones were expected to be backwards compatible all the way to the original 21 stCentury housings. Not many people were willing to take the risk, or invest in the surgery required. Once your housing was installed, replacing a fone could technically be done by yourself in a mirror, albeit unsanitary.

On Earth, while the vast majority preferred a perfect color match (rendering an implanted fone indistinguishable from a bio eye), others opted for bold-colored irises, wearing matched contact lenses over their bio eye. Kids used them as fashion accessories, choosing fones not for quality or functionality, but for the special gimmicks the off-brands used to entice them, such as animated color-shifting irises, or shocking, full coloration such as all black or all red. Before entering training, John remembered seeing a teenager at the airport with a repeating message scrolling across his fone eye: JAX, MEDZ, SONDZ—a possibly ironic update to “sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll.”

27 years later, he couldn’t imagine what gimmicks the manufacturers and modders had come up with since. He was excited, however, to learn what functional enhancements had been achieved 20 years ago, back when the incoming pod launched from Earth.

Upgrades brought not only augmented software, but also typically included higher resolution pic and vid capability, greater magnification in binoc mode, occasionally new visual spectrums beyond the standard thermo, infra, kinetic, and mag. New versions of ear modules were rarely released, as they too required a surgical installation.

John flicked through his contacts to Qin and selected VOICE. The receiver in his ear activated.

“Hey, what’s your best guess on when the pod will be ready for unloading?”

Qin replied, “We don’t even have visual yet, but Ish has established control. Ish?… She says it’s still decelerating… maybe a few hours before docking.”

“Great, thanks. How’s she doing with those controls? Comfortable?”

“Totally.”

John flipped to his calendar and sent an open appointment request to Pablo, flagging “asap” for the time.

Less than a minute later, John received an acceptance M for tomorrow, 0900. Pablo had included a note:

PABLO: That housing still bothering you?

JOHN: Often enough to make me cut in line like a jerk. But anytime in the next week is fine, really.

Why? John rebuked himself. Why is it fine? Why can’t you just say “I need this.”?

Aether had put up with it as long as she could, among other issues. How many times had he told her “whatever you want” after she specifically asked him to never utter those words again? When it came to the mission, or to a task at hand, he led without hesitation. But if it had to do with him—something personal—there was a sort of block there.

PABLO: We’ll do it tomorrow. My first open slot. You will be the guinea pig. I just read the upgrades are 2 generations newer!

Thank you, thank you, thank you! John shouted in his head, but replied with a nonchalant:

JOHN: Whatever works… Thanks!

John shut off his fone and Optical Pass-Through engaged. Everyone was required to shut down into OPT for at least 4 hours a day, but John knew that many slept with their fones still on. It wasn’t healthy. He wished he could force a settings change in everybody’s devices, but that would only further outrage those with whom his relationship was often precarious. With the amount of complaints Aether received from disgruntled crewmembers, it was a wonder how John managed reelection to a second term as mission commander. He supposed that, when it came to elections, he was the known quantity, or the most desirable of the undesirables.

The least undesirable?

With his fone off, the pain had subsided a small amount. These reprieves were his primary source of optimism when it came to the upgrade. Likewise, when Pablo had removed the fone, John’s discomfort vanished entirely.

He leaned the recliner farther back and closed his eyelids. Somehow the pain felt more bearable knowing this could be the last time he’d have to sleep with it.

The piercing blare of the emergency alarm plucked Minnie from her dream.

A drill at this hour? What a hole!

The room lurched beneath her, followed by a violent vibration. Yellow and green lights strobed above her bed. She clung to a handhold and tried to open the hatch, but the actuator didn’t respond. Rotation shift. The personal quarters cylinder was slowing down. They’d lose gravity soon.