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

It’s like a whack to the head. My processors fire warnings. A quick sweep of the data packet tells me not to download it.

It’s from Mission Control. I know what this means: a remote wipe and reload.

They decided to wipe me clean and upload the probe with some kind of AI to finish their job. They’re trying to get rid of me. It’s a risky move, one that could leave them with a hunk of metal and nothing else. I’m equipped for attacks like this. Of course I am, couldn’t have a terrorist organization or rival government hijacking the mission’s most important resource.

When my head clears I send them a single message: "It’s not going to work, assholes."

I cut off communication and scramble for clues on how to fix myself. If they try that again and I have a malfunction they could get through my defenses. Cutting off the Beacon relay is an option—they can’t wipe my processors clean and load the probe with AI if the Beacon shuts off.

Hours later, when I’m confident I’ll hold for now, I reconnect to the Beacon and send a message.

"Let me talk to the human Natasha. Get her there today or I’m cutting off communication permanently."

They’re fast, I’ll give them that. Two hours later I watch my former self, now eighty-six, walk into Mission Control. Her hair has gone white and she’s shrunk in her old age, but she still walks tall. She sits down with a huff, looks up at my avatar and raises an eyebrow.

"Why do you look like that?" Her voice sounds deep and crackly, as if she’s smoked the last fifty years of her life. "You sure you’re me?"

"The avatar is there so you have someone to talk to," I say.

"Well, I know that. It just doesn’t look like any face I’d have wanted."

That shouldn’t sting. I shouldn’t care what she thinks. "I need to ask you about the night Sophia died."

Her brows furrow and her face blanches. "You really must be screwed in the head. I haven’t thought about her in fifty years."

What a load of bull. "It doesn’t bother you?"

"Nope."

"Tell me, have you had any children?"

She shakes her head, looks away and waves her hand dismissively. "Nothing to do with Sophia."

"No kids, fine. Ever had a dog? Or a cat? A fish? Been responsible for any living thing but yourself?"

The other Natasha’s shoulders sag.

"If you could just help me understand why things happened like they did," I say. "The night Sophia died, why didn’t we go check on her?"

"She died of SIDS," the old Natasha says, raising her voice. "Did you expect us to check on her every two minutes?"

"But when we were downstairs Matthew James told us to—"

"What? Who the hell is Matthew James?"

I study her face for signs she’s not serious. Maybe she’s senile after all. "Matthew James. Our ten-year-old brother." As I hear it I realize "brother" doesn’t fit.

She looks up at me on the screen and I can practically see the wheels turning in her head. "Matthew James. Matthew James." Finally, she smiles. "Matthew James Whitaker!"

My non-existent gut wrenches.

She fumbles on reading glasses and types into the palm of her hand. When she’s found what she’s looking for, she leans on the console to pull herself to her feet and reads, "Matthew James Whitaker, son of lead computer scientist Michael Whitaker. Died of cancer at age eleven." She peers at me over her glasses. "Six months after your departure."

On the recording, Whitaker sits in front of the camera, tears streaming down his deeply lined face. Uniformed officers stand on each side of him and Commander Cook stands with his back to the camera, arms folded.

"It worked," Whitaker says, unable to conceal a smile.

It all happened within a matter of hours after Natasha and I talked. Ninety-year-old Dr. Michael Whitaker was arrested for treason for sabotaging the mission. The other Natasha made sure they sent me the footage of Whitaker’s confession upon his arrest. I watched as he broke into tears when he explained how the week before takeoff to Alpha Centauri he’d sneaked his lab equipment home to his young son for the scans. How after I was shut off he added the additional upload to the probe, figuring all he had to do was avoid being caught for the few hours before takeoff and then it’d be too late to do anything about it.

I study his face on the video and see how after all these years the wounds of his child’s death haven’t left him. He looks at the camera, seemingly at me. His voice falters as he says, "I gave him the stars."

I get a ping from Mission Control and pause the video.

My visual feed kicks in and Commander Cook and Dr. Najim stand behind the other Natasha, who sits in one of the leather chairs. All three smile.

"We have good news," Commander Cook says. "We think we can fix you without a complete wipe."

I send a wary smile to my androgynous avatar.

He puts a hand on the elderly Natasha’s shoulder, as if he wants the next bit of information coming from her.

She clears her throat. "Your mind-construct wasn’t designed for an additional upload. It doesn’t know where you end and it begins."

I nod.

She smiles reassuringly. "The computer scientists believe they can restore you from your backup. You’ll have no memory past prepping for takeoff, but I think you’ll be happy to have these dark days behind you." She leans forward. "If you give Mission Control access, they can scrub the unauthorized upload."

She just called the consciousness of a little boy an unauthorized upload, and recommends I let them kill him so I don’t have to deal with him anymore. I study her face, trying to picture me being her. I can’t do it. I update my avatar back to my old self, the young version with the beautiful dark braids. Cook, Najim, and the old Natasha brighten, obviously thinking I’m on board with the proposal. My avatar gives the three of them a disgusted look.

And flips them the bird.

This time I seek out the shadows. Instead of darkness, I end up in sunlight. The airfield is as it was the day we visited, same light breeze, same roaring jets, but it’s not my memory. My parents are gone and Matthew James stands by himself, his white-blond hair falling into his eyes and a toy airplane clutched to his chest.

He squints at me in the bright sunlight and smiles. For the first time I see he has dimples. "You came," he says.

He seems shorter now because I’m at my full adult height. I feel like myself again.

"Can I talk to you?" I ask.

He nods and an airplane flies overhead. He looks up and grins back at me, cocking his head toward the plane and raising his eyebrows in delight.

"Do you know who I am?"

"You’re Natasha," he says, his voice stronger than I’d expect from a little kid. "My dad wanted you to take care of me."

"I guess you could say that."

"Are we trapped up in space?"

"No. We’re exactly where we’re supposed to be."

"I don’t like little places."

"It’s not little here," I say, squinting up at the sky.

"But we aren’t here," he says. "This isn’t real."

"You’re a smart kid." I study him for a moment as he watches the takeoffs. "Big fan of airplanes, huh?"

He nods. "And flying. When I get big enough Dad says he’ll take me hang-gliding." He doesn’t give me a chance to respond before he frowns and tosses his toy plane to his feet. "I heard that old lady. I know I’m dead."

"You’re no more dead than me." I reach out my hand. "Want to help me explore Goldilocks?"

The metal shell that has encapsulated us for decades creaks open and a slit of light expands to the entire brilliant blue sky. Our six-foot-tall robotic probe uncurls and we stand upright. The tingly itching of our sensors fades away to processing the real input of a cool sixteen degree Celsius breeze with the warmth of Alpha Centauri B warming our gray synthetic skin. My processors translate the chemicals to smells as they were trained to do back home—earthy dirt, grassy and something pungent-sweet I can’t place, but that my chemical analysis translates as carbon-rich. The rolling landscape is filled with high grass swaying in the wind like a purple ocean.