Remember the Starfighter (47 page)

Although she was no longer in control, Arendi had been there secretly watching.

Her consciousness, while not fully active, was still linked to her former body’s sensory inputs. It was an aberration, a side effect to her existence that perhaps not even Servetus had become aware of. Arendi was surprised, assuming that she had been relegated to storage, only to find a part of herself still wanted to exist.

From what she saw, things were moving ahead accordingly, the equipment from the Au-O’sanah steadily transferring over to the Elion. Everything would be taken care of, Servetus always so efficient and careful to plan for any and all contingencies. As her creator had already declared, Arendi’s mission had been accomplished. There was simply no need for her anymore.

Logically, it made sense. She was expendable. An experiment that had never achieved its delineated goals. Arendi knew this. For a time, she even believed it to be fact. She was just a machine. Nothing more.

That conviction, however, now seemed in doubt.

Julian,
she thought.
I’m sorry. 

When she had set foot on the Elion, she could feel the creator taking over. The master protocols had entered into her communication stream, her own consciousness receding into the background. The final moment came when she arrived at her creator’s door, the control bot standing outside.

There had been another droid just like it, her sole companion on the day years ago when she had been forced to leave the Elion, and escape the shield. It was a mute robot, a reflection of Servetus condensed into the construction droid’s systems. She needed to only watch, as “Control” could take over, and manipulate her remotely. It had been that way for so long: to be merely a witness, when her own emotions had made her a liability.

All that had changed though, the moment Control had been lost. Her consciousness had come to the forefront, brought to face a war that threatened to destroy the galaxy itself.

Arendi had devoted herself to the mission. Just as what Servetus would have wanted.  

So why did she feel it? The sense that things still remained unsettled.

It gnawed at her. Especially when she remembered it. The last time she had seen Julian. He had rushed over to her and then realized the change. It pained her to see his reaction, the horrid surprise turning into anger.

A failed experiment?

She could tell that Julian was disappointed. Perhaps she had even hurt his feelings. But he wouldn’t understand. Even if he had seen logs, what did it matter? She had played her role, and completed her duties. All that was left was for Servetus to take back control.

It was almost a day later, and Arendi was inside the mainframe room. Servetus had taken her there, to begin the modifications. Her body stood still, as the operation was about to proceed. The control bot was nearby, equipped with the necessary tools. It appeared as a long needle, ready to insert itself and re-program her artificial brain.

This is what you wanted.

It was what she told herself over and over again, as the needle came closer, now only inches away. Once the procedure was done, her artificial mind would be fully extracted, and stored in the Elion, perhaps becoming fodder for more experiments.

No more pain. No more humiliation. No more sadness. Only logic, and the defined devotion to the mission.

It’s what I want.

But the words were not spoken with any kind of anticipation. No, Arendi did not want this. She just couldn’t admit it.

Help—

It was not a thought of her own, but instead a single message from outside, the word beamed through her communication signal. It was not from Servetus or any other drone on board the vessel. The signal had come from an Alliance frequency, the one Julian had used to link to her system.

Help—

There it was again. A voice in need.

It must be Julian. Only he would use the code. For some reason, he was in trouble.

Then Arendi knew. The danger all around them. It must be the Endervar shield.

She didn’t know how. But it came like instinct, her consciousness regaining control. Arendi sprang forth, the connection severed to her creator. Walking past the poised construction drone, she could feel Servetus transmitting the protocols to find only error. Running, Arendi then left the mainframe room, and headed back to the Au-O’sanah, crossing the landing bridge.

The message came again. The single word the same.
Help—

Where was he? Arendi was standing in the hallway of the bio-ship, when she began to hear the clap of the dull thuds. She walked to the sound, and eventually found him, struggling to breathe.

Julian was on his side, kneeling down and clutching the wall. His face was red, the eyes filled with fluid. Trying to walk, but falling, he keeled over, spitting out the saliva. 

“I’m here!” she said, running toward him, and putting her hand over his face. Julian’s heart was pounding. He cringed in pain.

“I saw them,” he said, shaking. “I think I saw the Endervars.”

Julian lay across the operating table in the medical bay, conscious, but still dazed.

His breathing and heart rate had returned to normal, the nano-serum entering through the blood stream, and working to regulate his body.

He looked off to his side, and saw the specialist still comatose on the other bed, her eyes shut. Behind her was Arendi looking at the tablet in her hand, and monitoring his vitals.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

Julian was still gasping for air. He pushed himself off from the table, and sat on its side, hunched over.

“It was like I was drowning,” he said. “Just overwhelmed. I couldn’t breathe.”

He wiped the sweat from his forehead, and grabbed his hair, clutching it in his fingers. It reminded him of the second time he had died, left on board the Lightning, with life-support down, and his air supply rapidly dwindling. Julian closed his eyes, shivering. 

Arendi walked over, concerned. 

“When did this happen?” she asked.

“When I fell asleep,” he replied. “...Then I started to see it. The images.”

He paused, and looked at his right hand, watching as his fingers folded, and collapsed inside his palm. He did it again, not quite knowing why, the fingers shrinking into a near fist.

“It was a dream?”

Julian was still quiet, but gradually began to shake his head. He swallowed, and tried to see it.

“No, a dream is like... something randomly popping into your head. But this was me. It was different. Like I wanted to see these things. It was like I chose to imagine them.”

“So you were conscious in this state?”

“Maybe. But actually, I don’t think I was really in control. The Endervars. The shield. It was telling me to do this. To see these things.”

None of it made any sense. But this wasn’t just a dream to be forgotten. If anything, it was a vision. Julian looked back at his hand, and made the motion again, the fingers crumpling to his will.

“That’s what I first imagined. My hand. Closing, yet never opening. It repeated again, and again. My hand, closing.”

“Then it was a flower. An orange flower in the grass. But not blooming. The petals were closing together, yet not withering.”

The objects changed from the shrinking electric charge of a fusion generator, to a flourishing factory town, condensing, perhaps even compressing.

“At the end, I imagined the stars, doing the same. All pulling back, and gathering. Then it went beyond. To entire galaxies. Thousands of them. Maybe more. All retreating, all coming back. Swirling together. Merging at the center.”

Julian clasped his hands together, and pressed them against his mouth. In spite of the different images, the common thread between them was obvious.

“A collapse...” Arendi said. “The collapse of the universe.”

Julian sat there silent, not sure whether to agree. A collapse maybe. But not in the negative sense. He had imagined it, wanting it to happen.

“Then I woke up,” he said. “I could barely walk. I think I was in shock.”

“Yes. You were.”

Julian shut his eyes, cold. He covered one hand, with another, and rubbed the skin. Inevitably, he tried to recall the images again, conjuring the final sight.

It was a light in the distance, watching him, but coming closer. Although he had not noticed it before, it had been present there in every one of the images, luring him in, enticing him to continue on. Only in the final image was it close. Close enough that he could see it was rife with energies and trying to touch him.

Julian opened his eyes, clamping his hands down on the side of the table in near panic. He looked across the room and found the specialist on the other operating table. “Alysdeon,” he said, imagining how many others had fallen to the enemy’s influence. Like him, they all had become victims. 

“We need to leave here as soon as possible,” he said.  

She heard the crash come from the other end of his quarters, the glass breaking on the floor.

Arendi looked down and saw Julian staring at the mess. He had accidentally dropped the cup, the impact cracking it in two. A puddle had now formed on the floor, the tea spilling out.

He groaned, kneeling down to wipe it with a napkin.

As Julian finished cleaning the floor, Arendi moved past him. She prepared another cup on the table in his room, and poured out the brewed tea into a separate flask. 

She handed it to him, the water steaming from the container. He nodded in a thanks, and took a sip.

“So,” he said. “Is it really you?”

Julian placed the cup on the table, and fell back into a nearby chair. “Am I really speaking to the real Arendi?”

He smirked, already knowing the answer. This Arendi was not the machine he had encountered a day ago. She brushed her hair back, answering, still too shy to look at him directly.

“Yes,” she replied. “I am here.”

“Then you’re back... Or is this just goodbye?”

Afraid of what she might say, Julian looked off at the window in his room. Arendi, meanwhile, felt the sting.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I apologize for what happened.”

She closed her eyes, regretting the way it had unfolded. The creator wielding her body like a puppet.

Julian tried to sympathize. He cut into her pause with another smile.

“Servetus. Your creator,” he remarked. “The heartless A.I...”

Although tired and pausing between each breath, Julian spoke seriously, putting weight on every statement he made. 

“He’s different than you, isn’t he? Emotionless. They all are. Probably programmed with set directives. I bet they were all just helper bots and A.I. before all this happened.”

Julian was right. Even Servetus didn’t have much of a personality. Not in the human sense, his operations all geared to “serve.” It gave him an almost slavish devotion to the mission, at times disregarding any so-called secondary or irrelevant needs.

“Heartless” Julian had said. Perhaps it was an accurate description.

“Yes,” she replied. “But he is my creator. I must follow his wishes.”

“But what about you? What do you want? Is he the one forcing you to...disappear?”

“I’m not disappearing Julian. I will be stored in the Elion’s databanks. But my mission is accomplished. There is no need for an artificial human. No need for an imperfect replica. Not when real humans exist.”

“You didn’t really answer my question,” he said. “Don’t you want to stay? With us?”

She clenched her teeth.

“Julian... It doesn’t matter. I’m not alive. I’m just a machine.”

“But you’re not. You’re sentient. You must be.”

“It’s a simulated sentience. Not real.”

“No. I don’t believe that.”

“It doesn’t matter. You don’t understand. I don’t... I didn’t want this.”

The sadness was evident in her face. Her eyes were wide and searching.

Arendi felt her neck, wondering how she could effectively explain. So she was blunt. “I didn’t want to be human. I didn’t want these flaws. These emotions.”

“You don’t know what its like,” she added, as her voice began to crack. “To not be able to control them. You don’t know what the emotions did to me... ”

But Julian did. He had seen the logs.

“Miya,” he said. “She’s not your sister. She was you.”

Arendi didn’t move. She could only clench her fists in shame, wishing that the logs had been erased, and left forgotten.

“The experiments...” Julian went on, pressing the matter delicately. “I saw what happened. The pain. It—”

“I went insane,” she said, interrupting. “I wanted to die.”

Arendi gave a deep exhale, angry. She looked at Julian, sitting comfortably in his chair.

“I felt so weak. So pathetic. I’m flawed.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I... you don’t understand. The emotions. The pain,” Arendi said, grinding her teeth. “Why did I need to feel it? Why did I need to be human? My existence is unnatural.”

She stared at him, like she was hoping for an answer. But Julian was only at a loss for words.

“Arendi...”he said softly. “I’m sorry. I—”

She raised her hand, stopping him. “For a time, I hated humanity. I hated to be like you. It made no sense... So I begged Servetus to stop. I don’t want your weakness.”

Closing her eyes, she then nearly yelled.

“Why do you even care, Julian? This doesn’t concern you.”

She turned away from him, both frustrated and embarrassed. “You wouldn’t understand,” she muttered again, crossing her shoulders, and feeling the humiliation in her skin. She was tired of this.

Arendi was about to leave the room, when Julian rose from his chair.

“You’re right. I don’t know what it’s like to be an android,” he said. “But I know that feeling... I know it. Because I did it.”

He came to her side, running his hand through his hair in anxiety, but still willing to admit it.  

“I killed myself too.”

Julian was about to go on. To talk about how far-reaching the depression could be. That it was not easy to understand, or even broach it, and yet it was still very real.

Instead, Julian merely rubbed the side of arm, his posture turning cold and shriveling to the admission.

“Yeah,” he went on. “Even after it happened, I still thought about it. Thought about doing it again. That’s how crazy it can be.”

He stopped, finding himself held back. Suddenly, he thought of it, the weapon in his hand.

Four years ago, the laser repair pistol had been pointed to his head. The trigger at his finger. And then the bang. He pressed a hand against his nose, feeling the memories swell.

“Shit,” he said, dejected. “Yeah. I know.”

Julian retreated back further into his quarters, returning to the cup of tea at the table. He looked at the wall, not sure what else to do.

“I guess I remember it,” he said, randomly thinking back. “When I was still with the Core. I also thought that too. That I’m supposed to be a starfighter. An instrument of destruction. Why do I need to feel? What’s the point?”

“In the end, the emotions did kill me,” he added. “But it was just a mistake. I know that now. At least I was given another chance.”

Julian could easily shower Arendi with plenty of positive statements. He had learned so many of them three years ago during his psychological rehabilitation back on Haven. But as always, it was easier said than done. There was simply no logic to it; the shortcut to salvation was just an illusion.

“I really wish I could tell you something Arendi. To fix it all,” he said. “But I... Sometimes, even I have trouble keeping it together... I wish I had been stronger.”

He drank another sip from his tea, and placed it down on the table. He then glanced at Arendi, confident in what he would say next.

“All I know is I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you. I’m sure Alysdeon would agree. Without you, this mission would have never happened. We’d be lost. Never knowing that we could save my homeworld.”

Julian smiled. “We’re all imperfect Arendi,” he added. “Even Servetus isn’t infallible.”

Hearing those words, Arendi looked off, and toward the window in the room. It was the same sight that had never changed since her conception. That of the Endervar gateway and its alien energies swirling in every direction.

For a time, it seemed the universe had nothing more to offer. To be trapped on a derelict vessel with no one else. Only in recent months, had Arendi learned that she had been wrong. That, indeed, there was much more. So much more.

“The pain,” she said. “What you saw in the logs. I actually don’t have personal memories of it.”

“Whenever a version of myself was deemed a failure,” Arendi explained. “Then the memory was wiped and Servetus would begin anew. A clean slate, but with modifications targeted at specific improvements.”

“But I’ve seen logs,” she added. “And I ... even with all the modifications...I... I still don’t know. Sometimes, nothing makes sense.”

Arendi turned silent. The logic had no bearing here. She simply felt it, the emotions beating inside.

How cruel it had all been, the experiments trying to replicate the sensation of pain. She felt her abdomen, and where some of it had once came. The power source was no longer there, and for that she was thankful.

“Servetus...” she said, before trailing off.
So heartless.

In another moment, she would leave his quarters, undecided and somewhat shaken. Was he right? Was she more than just a machine? Or was it all a misguided human fantasy? 

She returned to the Elion, Servetus calling to her with a stream of commands, and trying to analyze her defiance.

However, before she re-entered the ship, she noticed her reflection in the glass of the landing bridge corridor.

It was faint, but her face was there in the translucent wall. For a long time, she had been too ashamed to look at it, too easily reminded of the wounds littered over her previous body. But Arendi didn’t see that anymore. Only herself as she wanted to be.

“Listen,” Julian had said in that last moment before she left. “I just think the choice should be yours. I guess...I worried. I don’t want to lose anymore friends.”

“Like you once told me before. I was lucky to have met you.”