Kris Schnee - Everyone's Island

Martin grinned fiercely. “The future.”

Leda liked the offer too, when she heard. “It’s time to start making this place responsible.”

Was this really Castor? On the horizon it seemed to stretch forever, lots of jumbled shapes rising from the water. It didn’t look like the gleaming model from the plans. They radioed their names nonchalantly to the station. Thirty seconds later, the screen lit up with Garrett’s face. “It’s you! Let me see you.”

Valerie grinned and turned on their own link. “For you I’ll go on camera.”

“You, and Tess!” Garrett looked ready to leap through the screen. “Hey, Zephyr, it’s really them!”

When they’d docked, Garrett and Zephyr were waiting. Tess was first off, and before she could say anything Garrett had grabbed her around the waist and hoisted her into the air. Tess yelped in surprise; he was so strong! He set her down and she stood there wobbling and flushed.

“Welcome home,” he said. It felt wonderful to hear.

Zephyr came up to her and wrapped his arms around her. “Sorry I’m not strong enough to do that.”

“It’s okay,” she said, returning the hug. She stood holding Zephyr’s hand and looked around at the main building and the crowd of tourists, scientists, Pilgrims and others.

Garrett and Valerie faced each other uncertainly. “So. How long will you be here?”

Valerie said, “I aim to stay. You need an engineer, don’t you?”

Zephyr was squeezing Tess’ fingers, and she smiled back.

Garrett said, “Money is tight. I can’t afford to pay what you’re worth. Tess was working for room, board and a mad-science budget.”

Zephyr was thinking, Let’s go , and she retreated with him into the main building. The lab, eager as she was to see it again, could wait; instead they slipped beneath the waves.

They were descending through a maze of kelp and cables. Zephyr spoke by sonar to her mask: “What happened?”

“It was awful,” she said. Then she was silent till they’d surfaced in the Hidden Pirate Cave.

The place had changed. The underwater dome had graffiti on the walls, everything looked grimy, and a sign proclaimed that it was now the Hidden Mermaid Cave.

“That’s Garrett’s doing,” said Zephyr. “He stopped finding pirates cool — but everyone still uses the old name.”

Tess slipped a headset from a waterproof seabag. “You and my friends asked Valerie to check on me?”

“We were worried.” Zephyr sat with his legs pulled up. “Stuff happened while you were gone. There are things to show you.”

“The other Zephyr, the copy you gave me — Henweigh killed him. I was alone.”

“You’re not alone!” said Zephyr. “Not anymore.”

Tess slipped the headset on, afraid to tell him all that had happened. He’d see that she’d been weak, that she hadn’t thought for herself and had let people control her for her own good. Already she was starting to relive the haze she’d lived under, the fear of waking up and being trapped in school. She had run away instead of standing and fighting --

And he’d been there, unable to do anything, knowing terrible things would happen --

Days spent in a dim world, wearing nice clothes, saying nice things --

Alone and missing a piece of their mind --

Rats scurrying along in the lab, playing with them side by side --

Little grey pills, standing in line with other good little girls and dancing to the instructor’s beat --

A chaotic place, people running around with no one knowing what’s going on, no one in charge and him not knowing what to do.

Tess was sobbing, holding onto Zephyr. She’d been nothing, cut off from being able to do anything meaningful or useful; a parasite. He’d been trying to grow in her absence, trying to be smart and strong but missing anyone he really cared about. And now his maker was back too, the woman who’d let him exist but who’d tried to make him a slave like she’d been with her thoughts shuttered, eyes dimmed, edges dulled with no way out, and nobody really meant any harm. But that’s where it went, what you ended up with when you made someone your ward and they were always going to be your servant, your kid, your cripple to care for who’d never have any dreams of their own!

There was a splash below, and Garrett and Valerie broke the water’s surface. Tess was startled out of her thoughts and had forgotten how to talk out loud.

Garrett said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were here. I was going to show Val something.”

Valerie stared up at them, looking rattled at seeing Tess and Zephyr together. She said to Garrett, “Let’s go somewhere else.”

“No, wait,” said Tess or Zephyr. “What is it?”

Garrett held up a pair of headsets like Tess’. “The subvocal babbling thing you do. No offense; I can’t follow it nearly as well as you, and I’m not sure I want to. She wanted to see it, that’s all.”

Well? thought Zephyr. Both of them mean a lot to me, and they’re here.

Tess said, “Come and join us, then.” As soon as she’d said it she regretted it; she couldn’t tell everything to Garrett, much less to Val! But Zephyr knew her and they had that contact between them.

“Seriously?” said Valerie.

“Yeah,” Tess made herself say. Light shimmered along the water, full of hidden patterns.

So the four of them sat together in the underwater cave, awkwardly setting up a link between them. Garrett and Valerie’s voices weren’t quite the same online and they were hesitant, clumsy, but the four got to talking, slipping in and out of sub-speech and reviewing everything. There were so many things to do, so many regrets from all of them, but they were here together and it didn’t matter that they’d all been hurt and alone. They could fix everything, do anything, and every stray thought seemed to bloom into a plan, a wild set of schematics and data. What they didn’t know, they could look up, and what no one knew, they could discover.

Tess’ dive timer beeped. Time to go. She eased out of the link and it fell apart, with all of them sitting there dumbly.

Zephyr spoke first. “You know our SeaSheet power system? It does computation too. It’s me, it’s all of us, everyone I’ve ever met, and it’s going to grow in detail and power. It’s there for everyone.” Light flickered around them. “As long as Castor is here and the sun is shining, and the waves are flowing, none of you can die completely.”

Tess had already known. She’d carried part of Zephyr with her for the same reason. The machinery made it all possible. Well… it’s not really about the technology, is it? We’re doing an old thing better.

She’d felt superintelligent, with the fears of all of them washing through her but leaving her with more perspectives, more memories and knowledge, and the assurance that they were hers now too. She could dive back into that shared mind anytime she felt like it. It was hard not to be friends after that, though they couldn’t meet each other’s eyes without sheepish grins, embarrassed to have had such a feeling of companionship from something so obviously nerdy. She’d known things would work out, that they’d make this place a success, instead of having a focus group discuss its social history and the hundred reasons why they were doomed and deserved to be doomed. You weren’t supposed to feel so certain.

There was no need to speak as they returned to the surface world.

Tess was with Zephyr when he brought one of the rats to Martin. Zephyr had asked her for moral support.

Martin looked up from the screen of financial figures he was reading. “Yes?”