SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

I send over a friendly but exasperated expression.

"Follow your heart, kiddo," Whitaker says.

Dr. Najim shoots him a look.

"She’s anxious to get down there, of course," he says.

"I’d prefer if you didn’t refer to me as she actually," I say.

"Pardon?" Najim asks.

I don’t want to tell them it feels like nails on a chalkboard being referred to as the wrong gender so I say, "I’m a machine. It is more accurate."

UASA folks try to usher Whitaker away, but he plants his feet and grips the armrests of his chair.

Dr. Najim looks at the others, opens her mouth, and closes it again. "Okay? If that makes you more comfortable, we’d be happy to refer to you as an it rather than a 'she." She nods slowly and leans back from the camera as if trying to distance herself while she thinks things through.

I couldn’t care less if I confused them, I just want out of this ship and down on the planet. They sent a computer out to space and a computer is what they’re going to get. Maybe they’ll authorize my trip sooner.

On the southeast hemisphere of Goldilocks there’s this mountain range that puts the Himalayas to shame. The desert that stretches out on its leeward side ends with rolling violet plains. Beyond that is the planet’s equivalent of a forest, with white-barked trees and brilliantly hued leaves the size and shape of dinner plates. These same trees, a taller variety with pink leaves rather than purple, are also found on a continent five thousand kilometers to the north.

I revel in every new piece of information the Little Guys bring back. Their high-res telescopic cameras take detailed pictures from orbit, but I’m itching to get down there and see it for myself, analyze the air and determine if it’s truly habitable for a human colony.

There’s no evidence of animal life yet, but the place teems with plant-like organisms. Xenobiology was my first PhD and remains my passion. I’ve found my landing site without Mission Control’s help—a high plain on the edge of several ecosystems. Nearing the ocean is a cliff that must be three thousand feet high with incredible rock formations at its base.

It’s been weeks and they still won’t authorize my landing. In that time I’ve gleaned clues about Earth they neglected to send me in the official updates. Parts of the planet are in turmoil. The Indian Space Agency sent generation ships this direction in the blind hope habitable planets would be found. With their speeds I won’t get visitors for decades, but I might create the groundwork to save their lives.

I enter my landing site into the ship’s navigation.

I reboot and try again.

Yes, yes. I know.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I ping Mission Control and tweak my avatar, trying to get the look right while I wait. The screens come into view and a young guy in a UASA uniform sits in front of me.

"I’m ready to land and start my analysis of the surface," I say. "I need you to resend me the ship’s landing authorization."

"Resend?" he asks. "Um. Can you give me a minute? It’s 2:00 a.m."

"Yes, of course."

Dr. Najim shows up an hour later wearing another one of her business suits. She sits ironing-board straight with her legs together and her hands folded in her lap. "You’ve changed your avatar."

The old one didn’t feel right anymore. "I needed a change."

"You’ve changed your gender. And your race."

"Well, I’m not any gender or any race now, am I?"

"How do you feel about this change?"

"It’s just a picture." Honestly this new one isn’t right either, but I wouldn’t tell her that.

"I can’t help but notice that you’ve changed yourself to a white male. I feel there’s some significance to that." When I don’t answer she says, "I hear you requested landing authorizations?"

"Yes. I’ve had enough waiting, I want to get down to the surface." And out of this damn capsule , I refrain from saying.

"I understand," she says. "But let’s get a few of these kinks worked out first. We don’t want to risk unintentional damage in case anything goes wrong due to your—" She rethinks her word choice. "—processing problem."

"Then help me with my problem. What’s wrong with me? Some hitch during boot-up? I was fine one second, I switched off for space flight, and then I woke up feeling like I’d been buried alive. Why am I suddenly afraid of being in space when I’ve loved it my whole life?"

She sighs. "This development is unprecedented. The rare issues with the other uploads were immediately evident, not weeks after. Your initial testing looked great, that’s the reason you were selected."

"Listen," I say. "You’ve got colonists on their way who need to know if they’ve got a safe place to land. What you need is a probe on the ground, you need me down there."

Dr. Najim nods, but before she has a chance to say something I cut in.

"You can’t give me this responsibility," I say and am not sure why I said it.

"But you just said you want to go down there."

"I’m not talking about that responsibility. I’m talking about the other one."

"What other one?"

"I don’t know!"

I restart.

When the video feed comes back Dr. Najim still sits in the same place. I wasn’t gone long.

"Natasha Washington might help," I say. "I want to talk to her."

"That’s you," she says as if I didn’t know that.

"No, the other one. The human one who used to be me. She’s alive right? Is she senile?"

Dr. Najim shakes her head. "Oh no, I’m not supposed to talk to you about your other self. That was one of the foundational rules of uploading. It’s best that two distinct individuals are formed."

She seems to think it over.

"Listen," she says, lowering her voice. "I will tell you that she’s alive and she’s not senile, but there’s no way you’re talking to her."

"She could help me figure out what’s wrong," I say. "She’s me." But sane.

I sat on our neighbor’s couch, playing a game on my phone while the baby slept upstairs. I slipped into my least favorite memory on purpose this time. There’s something distinctly wrong with it, I just can’t figure out what.

"Baby Sophia is up there right now." Matthew James stood at the foot of the stairs in his favorite airplane shirt. "Can we go check on her? I can’t go up there by myself."

My phone screen showed I’d hit a new high score so I smiled and checked my watch. Sophia’s parents would be home soon.

Matthew James ran to me. "Go up there and check on her," he yelled. "How are you supposed to take care of me if you can’t take care of one little baby?"

I ignored him. The hand gripping my phantom throat squeezes like a vice-grip while the thirteen-year-old me continued breathing normally.

Her parents arrived home carrying the whiff of Chinese-food takeout. Sophia’s dad paid me while her mom went up to check on her. Matthew James slammed his hands over his ears as Sophia’s mother screamed.

"She’s not breathing! She’s not breathing!"

Another day in orbit, stuck in the capsule with my sensors going off as if I’m being crawled on by a thousand ants. I’m trying to figure out the piece I’m missing by playing through a memory, one where I’m an adult for once. I was accepting my degree in an outdoor graduation and the cherry blossoms were in full bloom. I looked out over the crowd at my smiling family—Mom, Dad, and ten-year-old Matthew James. As the shadows draw in, something clicks in my brain, something important that’s just out of reach. A ping from the Beacon brings me out of the memory.