Lydia Netzer - Shine Shine Shine

Inside the cargo module, the Hera clicked and buzzed. She was cutting the pieces for the comm unit, meticulous work that she carried out meticulously. Maxon knew that her work would be perfect, but it was taking a long time. Meteor strikes, like thunderstorms, like meiosis, were unpredictable. Meteor strikes did not exist between lines of code, or in a laboratory setting, or in Maxon’s brain, usually. But the one meteor strike he had experienced was a recognition of the value of meteor strikes. He noted and wondered at the sight of the moon, where there was not one spot, not one square mile unmarred by the scar from a meteor. It was the home of random. It was defined by it.

Maxon turned his head to the moon’s horizon and saw a sliver of blue emerging, a sliver of white and blue. The Earth was rising.

“This is something not a lot of people have seen,” he said to Bubber. “You should pay attention to this sight of an Earthrise.”

“Okay,” said Bubber.

They gazed at the Earth, so very small, the swirls and spirals of clouds twisted over the surface of blue and gold. Outer shape such a perfect curve, and yet all over it, a mess of vapor. Maxon looked down at the moon and thought, The marks of meteors are circles too. The most random, unpredictable, powerful event in the history of life, and it leaves a mark like a ripple in a pond.

“Dad,” said Bubber. “Are we running out of time?”

“Yes,” said Maxon. “I really don’t think there’s enough time.”

“What will run out first?”

“The air,” said Maxon. “I’ll run out of air.”

“Tell the robot to hurry up,” said Bubber.

“It can’t,” said Maxon. “Anyway, hurrying up will make a bad result.”

“Can you go back and get more air?” asked Bubber.

“I could,” said Maxon, “but I don’t want to leave her.”

The Hera unit clicked and whirred, now welding without sparks.

“Why don’t you just bring her back to the rocket? She doesn’t need a space suit.”

Maxon sniffed. He looked at the Earth, now full, just over the lunar horizon. It was a beautiful sight, so messy and perfect. He thought about the real Bubber, back at home. Maybe sitting in school with a blue pencil in his hand, maybe listening to his iPod and tapping his toe, driving Sunny crazy.

“Son, you’re a fucking genius,” he said. And he fired up his jetpack.

Soon, the four of them were headed back to the rocket together. Maxon in his jetpack, gently shepherding the Hera with the growing comm unit inside her. Bubber drifting off beneath him, hanging on to one shoe. A walk in the park. A trip to the ice-cream store.

“Dad,” said Bubber.

“Yes,” Maxon answered.

“Will I be able to go on the rocket?”

“Probably not. I don’t think I will still be hallucinating on the rocket.”

Maxon looked down at Bubber and realized that already the image was fading, the tiny space suit winking off and on, like a holograph. They were together for just one more minute. The Hera unit and Maxon, and the child Bubber and the nascent comm unit. Like a family.

“Well, I want to come back to space with you sometime,” said Bubber. “I like it. I didn’t get to go on the moon or anything, and I really want to.”

“Oh, you will,” Maxon reassured him. “You will be on the moon. You’re made for it, buddy. You’re made for it.”

Maxon clicked on his radio and immediately heard Phillips in his head, in midsentence.

“—the fuck are you doing?! You have got three and a half minutes of air left in that tank, Dr. Mann, do you hear me? Turn on your fucking radio!”

“It’s on, Phillips,” said Maxon. “I’ll be back in five.”

The image of Bubber was drifting ahead, out of Maxon’s reach.

“Wait up, bud,” he croaked.

“I know, Dad,” said Bubber. “But you have to hurry now. So match your speed to the speed of your companion. You know. It is a rule. Rate sub-robot equals rate sub-human. Otherwise, the robot is always going to win.”

“Wait, Bubber,” said Maxon, seeing black rings around his vision, like a mist descending from all points. “Synchronizing speed can only occur when the robot accelerates by an amount equal to the companion’s current speed minus the robot’s current speed.”

Bubber was out of reach, floating away from him. He blinked his eyes, trying to see clearly, trying to hold on. And he felt the most overwhelming sorrow, that in the end he had not managed it at all. He felt a hot stab of regret: for leaving the family, for going up in the rocket, for being susceptible to meteors and for the needs of his body. If it was possible for him to fail, he should never have come in the first place, should never have left her there alone, wanting him, waiting for the way their bodies seared together like two wounds healing. What arrogant faith had brought him here, prepared to break the future with his own head, incognizant of any possibility of failure? It was only when he was running out of air, his lungs pulling on nothing, his mouth open like some ghastly animal, that he realized it. I am really human, he thought. I regret. This is what it’s like to be human, and die. In a way, it was a tragedy. But in a way, it was a huge relief to finally know, he was not a robot after all.

He found that he could not see. He found that he was crying. By the time the hiss of air filled the airlock and Phillips clicked Maxon’s helmet open, he had already blacked out.

A COUPLE OF MONTHS before the rocket went off, they had such a bad fight. She was anticipating his departure. He knew, from what Emma had taught him, that Sunny would express worry for him in different ways. He watched her express the worry by checking many times with many different types of questions whether he was scientifically prepared or physically prepared for a week in space. Now he watched her express the worry by arguing with him. He was prepared to engage in an argument over something inconsequential.

He had been told the argument would be about something stupid like what kind of tea he had been supposed to buy, but would really be about something else. About him leaving. He had to listen to the words she was saying, but he had to understand the things she was feeling: fear, loneliness, abandonment, worry. He stood across the kitchen island from her. The kitchen island was covered in cool granite, granite that looked like leather, that felt like the surface of a meteor. Bubber had been put to bed, it was ten o’clock at night. When he came out of the office, she was banging dishes around in the kitchen, and then within minutes they were on opposite sides of the kitchen island, and fighting.

“What am I supposed to do for all this time? Two weeks in Florida, a week on the mission, more time after that. Am I supposed to just put a plug in this baby hole and not let it out? Am I supposed to just turn off the processes around here, shut it down, and wait for you to get back? I don’t have an Off button.”

“No” was all he could say. “I’ll be okay. Don’t worry.”

The kitchen was lit artistically, recessed lighting in the ceiling dropping down a gentle glow around the copper pots. Behind her, the state-of-the-art refrigerator. Behind him, the farmhouse sink recast in silicon. Deep, wide, perfect for canning, picturesque. The back of his head reflected in the window over it. The back of her head was a gray interruption in the glistening nickel of the fridge.

“So, I just carry on, then, all by myself. That’s great. Perfect. Well, you know what? I quit. I fucking quit. I say lights off. Shut it down. I want out of this sweater, I want out of this house, I want out of this city, I want out. I’ve been holding things up on my shoulders for too long, I want a break! I want to not be a mother for five fucking minutes!”