by Max Barry
“I did.”
“I have a bunch of new interviews.” She levered herself into a seat and set down her coffee. Her elbows splayed. “You did one with Good Morning America last sync, right? How did that go?”
“Fine, although we were interrupted by an engagement. I don’t know if they want to redo it.”
She shook her head. “That’s a great finish for them. That’s like gold.”
He hadn’t considered that, but she was right. Beanfield was much more aware of public relations than he cared to be.
“I haven’t opened my personal messages yet. Every sync, I tell myself I’m going to save them. I’ll open, you know, ten a day, so I won’t run out before next sync. But then I start thinking, what if we sync again tomorrow? So I open everything and have nothing left. Sorry, did you want coffee?”
“No, I’m good.”
She smiled. Beanfield wore her Service jacket unzipped most of the way down the front, a standard white tee beneath. “You need to get yourself a vice, Gilligan. You’re too perfect. It makes me suspicious.”
Jackson entered and took her usual seat, the one farthest from the door. If Gilly or Anders tried to sit in the same place more than three times, Beanfield would camp out in it before they arrived. Anything that looked like a rut, Beanfield was all over. But there was a captain’s exemption, apparently.
“Captain,” said Beanfield, which Gilly echoed. Jackson nodded. Sometimes Gilly thought Jackson was reading something on her film when she wasn’t. She was still inscrutable to him, even after two years. “We synced.”
“We did,” Jackson said. “And there’s news.”
“Oh?”
“I’ll fill you in when Anders gets here. Where is he?”
“Medical,” Gilly said. “He might be a few minutes.”
Jackson looked at Beanfield. Gilly wasn’t totally across everyone’s roles and duties, but he had figured out that whenever Anders did something bad, Beanfield was in trouble. “I’ll ping him,” Beanfield said.
“While we’re here,” Gilly said, “can we pull up the last engagement? There was an interesting attack pattern variation.” Jackson shrugged, so he spun up a projection of their last battle. Points of light and stats coalesced on their films, appearing to play across the table. “You see the ripple here?” The salamanders closed in an arc, as usual, but their line wobbled, with sections moving in and out. “I’d love to know whether any other crews have seen that.”
“We’re in a sync window,” said Jackson. “Find out.”
“It wasn’t very effective,” Beanfield pointed out. “They didn’t get any closer than usual.”
“The battle did actually take eight seconds longer,” Gilly said. “That’s almost a whole standard deviation.”
“Only because some of them stayed out of pulse range.”
“That’s still longer.”
“So?” Beanfield said.
“They’re learning.”
“They’re always varying their tactics,” Jackson said. “That’s not new.”
“But it isn’t random. Almost everything they try is more effective than before. It’s steady improvement. And that shouldn’t be possible, because we leave no survivors. They have no feedback on each tactic they try.”
“This feels like a question for back home,” Jackson said. “Or the ship.”
“Yes,” he admitted. “It’s just curious.”
“You’re curious,” Beanfield said.
“All right,” said Jackson. The salamander cloud vanished. “Anders can catch up in his own time. We have an all-hands from Len, but let me give you the spoilers. We’re going into VZ.”
VZ was Violet Zone, an area devoid of beacons and relays. Ships that went into VZ couldn’t sync at all.
There was a moment of silence. Beanfield said, “How long?”
“It’s situational,” Jackson said. “Depends on what we find. You know that.”
“There must be an estimate.”
“Listen to Len,” said Jackson, and keyed a video.
Len’s upper half appeared above the table, looking more somber than usual. “Evening, monkeys. Hope you’re well. There’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll just say it: Strategic Command is sending you on a trip to VZ. All expenses paid, but it’s going to be a long one. Preliminary estimate is six months.”
He thought he’d misheard. Beanfield said, “Six months? Six months with no sync?”
It was funny: They’d talked about VZ before and the joke was that Gilly would love it, since there would be no interviews, no one badgering him to record clips for his feed, just them and the ship. But six months was a long time to go dark. Even for him. No messages. No new books or movies. He said, “We must be going deep.”
“We’re winning the war,” Jackson said. “It’s where you go to find the enemy now.”
“Boy,” said Beanfield. On the table, Len continued to burble. “Anders will be a challenge.”
“Well,” Jackson said, “that’s what you’re here for.”
“Mmm,” said Beanfield. Gilly liked Beanfield a lot, but sometimes she seemed to be under the impression that her job was the most important thing anyone did. In reality, it was the other three of them who ran the ship. Beanfield was only monitoring them. “If we win the war, can we go home early?”
“Yes, we can,” Jackson said.
“We missed what Len was saying,” said Beanfield. “Can you rewind?”
“No,” said Jackson. “Rewatch on your own time.”
“In other news,” said Len, “from what I hear, we’re signing with Freco to produce the next generation of warship. So you’ll all be obsolete in about eight years.”
“Ugh,” Beanfield said. “Freco.”
“What’s wrong with Freco?” Gilly said.
She glanced at the Surplex logo on his jacket. “Aren’t they your competitor?”
“Yes. But Freco is fine. I’m not married to Surplex.”
“Don’t let the ship hear you say that,” said Beanfield.
“What do you have against Freco?”
“It opposed the war. Don’t you remember those ads?”
“Only at first. It changed its mind with new data.” Freco had a lot of political opinions and spent big to share them. But that wasn’t unusual; many companies lobbied for or against various things, for reasons Gilly didn’t care too much about.
“Well,” she said, “that’s shifty.”
“You’re anthropomorphizing,” Gilly said. “Mental flexibility is desirable in an AI.” Like Surplex, Freco’s executive decision-making was largely controlled by software. That was practically the most valuable thing about each company now: its machine intelligence code. It was used everywhere and guided everything.
“Shouldn’t have computers in charge anyway,” Jackson said. This was an outdated opinion, and Gilly let it go.
Anders entered. “What’d I miss?”
“Sit down,” said Beanfield.
“Len!” Anders said. “You’ve lost weight, you handsome devil.” He squeezed into a seat. His hand was wrapped in clear plastic.
“No sync window for six months,” Gilly said.
“That’s preliminary,” Beanfield said. “That’s only an estimate.”
“Bullshit,” Anders said, and looked to Gilly, who shrugged.
“You know what,” Beanfield said. “There are actually some pretty cool mental stimulation programs we can run in VZ that we’re not normally allowed.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. I have to check.”
“Fuck me,” Anders said.
“Anders,” Jackson said.
“Six months?” Anders said, and stood, for no apparent reason.
“We always knew this was a possibility,” Gilly said.
&n
bsp; “Sit your ass down,” Beanfield said.
“I’m sorry,” Anders said. “I’m feeling the need to externalize my feelings. Don’t you say I should do that?”
“There’s a time and place.”
Len began to talk about election news. Anders said, “Shut up, Len.”
“You should appreciate Len while you can,” Gilly said. “You won’t see him for a while.”
“Len can bite me,” Anders said. He began to unbuckle.
“Anders!” said Beanfield. “Stop that. Anders. No one wants to see that.”
Anders shucked his pants. He had a long penis. They had all seen it a few times. “Let’s go, Len. Right here.”
“This is a briefing,” Jackson said. “Put on your goddamn pants.”
“It’s a debriefing now,” Anders said.
“Get out of here,” Beanfield said. “You’re disgracing yourself.”
“Goddamn,” Anders said, losing all his fight. He collected his pants and shuffled out of the room. There was an awkward silence.
“I want to apologize for that,” Beanfield said.
“Mmm,” said Jackson.
“He went to Medical,” Gilly said. “Maybe he was, uh, affected by medication just now.”
“I’ll look into it,” said Beanfield. She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. “VZ is not going to be easy.”
“It’s not supposed to be easy,” Jackson said.
* * *
—
Beanfield caught him on the way out. “Gilly. Wait up?”
He waited. Jackson ducked through the doorway and disappeared into the corridor.
“Are you going to see Anders now?”
“Do you think I should?”
She nodded. “You’re good for him. You help him blow off steam.”
“I was going to check on the downstream distributors.”
“Could you do this first?”
“Uh,” he said. “I guess so.”
“Thanks.” She smiled brilliantly and squeezed his shoulder. Beanfield was very touchy-feely. It was best practice for a Life Officer, Gilly presumed. She was providing human contact. Personally, he found it distracting. They were trillions of miles from anyone he could have a relationship with and he preferred not to be reminded about it. He could do without the touching. “You’re a good dude.”
“Thanks,” he said.
* * *
—
Anders didn’t respond to ping so Gilly went and knocked on his door. After a minute, Anders pulled it open and stared at him. “You’re knocking,” Anders said. “I thought there was something wrong with the door.”
“You were dark on ping.” He glanced around Anders’s cabin, which he hadn’t seen in a while. There was crap everywhere: empty bowls on the floor, a boot on the bed. Gilly could not have lived like this. He wondered if Anders was cropping the mess out of his clips or just leaving it to Service to edit out. “Are you all right?”
Anders nodded. His breath was not great. “Is Jackson pissed at me?”
“Probably. Beanfield’s concerned.”
“I bet.”
“You want to play something?”
Anders scratched his face. “Nah. I’m going to lie down. The ship gave me hydrexalin and now my head feels huge.”
That explained a lot. “Okay.” Then he hesitated. “Beanfield told me to visit you.”
“Heh,” Anders said. “She ordered you to play with me?”
“Yeah. Instead of doing my job. Do you feel like Beanfield gets in the way sometimes?”
“Like how?”
“Like I’m trying to keep the ship in one piece,” Gilly said, “and she’s interrupting with stuff like this.” Anders was silent. “I mean, it’s annoying, right?”
“That’s Beanfield’s job,” Anders said. “To be annoying. Like everyone’s mom. That’s a Life Officer.”
“I work for Surplex,” Gilly said. “I’m not some Service cadet she can boss around.”
Anders yawned enormously. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” His role had been the subject of careful negotiation between Service and Surplex. He was expected to act within the Service chain of command, but he was also an independent civilian, exempt from military punishment.
“Well, then tell Beanfield that your job is more important than hers.”
“That’s not what I think.” It was. It was exactly what he thought.
“Then I don’t know what to tell you, Gilly,” Anders said. “I’m going to sleep now.”
“Okay,” he said, and Anders closed the door. Gilly stood in the corridor for another few moments. It still bothered him. He felt he hadn’t explained himself very well. It wasn’t that Beanfield was annoying; it was that when she prevented him from doing his work, she was potentially endangering them. Maybe he should confront her directly.
Before he could take a step, his film changed:
□ LOSS OF PRESSURE / HYDRATE FILTERS (SPT-2)
“Oh, goddamn it,” he said. He headed to his cabin to collect his tools.
2
[Beanfield]
THE DISTANCE
She was the most famous, according to the numbers: 311 million people back home following the clips, pics, and quips of Life Officer Talia Beanfield as transmitted from her Providence-class battleship in an undisclosed but, trust me, incredibly dangerous part of space. Frankly, she could see why. She sometimes browsed her own feed to admire the Talia it presented. Here: Talia taking you through her workout routine, bright and bubbly, glowing with health. Here: Hilariously trying to unravel the mystery of where the robot crabs went when they were finished doing something (how long was that chute??). Here: Waking with puffy eyes and matted hair (so vulnerable!), missing you all so much. This Talia was amazing. This Talia was an inspiration. It was no surprise to her that this Talia had three hundred million followers, because she would love to be this Talia, too.
She took snaps and clips every day and sent them back in sync windows. The sync after that, she would see what Service had done with them: clean them up, cut out anything that could be misinterpreted or taken the wrong way or show Service in a bad light, add a little fancy editing, a few filters, and publish them at regular intervals. Because her followers didn’t want six days of silence followed by a giant info dump. They wanted continuous contact. They wanted to feel like they were with her. So that was simulated. She liked the cleaned-up clips, even though—or because—they didn’t exactly resemble what she remembered recording, or resemble it at all, in some cases, like how on the feed she moved smoothly down corridors, rarely banging a wrist or catching a shoulder on a doorway, which in real life happened all the time. In fact, she was covered in bruises, because the ship was unbelievably cramped. It was the smallest enormous spacecraft you could imagine. Only her most endearing awkwardness made it to the feed. But that was fine. She knew very well that what the four of them were doing out here with the salamanders was only half the war, and the other half was back home, convincing a war-weary public that, yes, we really did need to build new Providences, even though they were unbelievably expensive, and—let’s admit—each new warship was less exciting than the previous one, and the intelligentsia was growing increasingly cynical about the war because it had been a long time since anyone had been in actual jeopardy from salamander attack, years, in fact, and what was our end goal, exactly—total genocide of another species? Really? The feeds were part of that war. Her personal story, or at least the edited version thereof, was part of it. This had always been clear, even though Service would never come right out and say so, since the perception of caring about public relations was itself bad for public relations. Back at Camp Zero, so named because it was zero degrees on a good day, when she was just one candidate among many hoping to make Life, she had undergone media training, learning how to sm
ile and reassure and look like a competent, dependable officer. There were roleplays, which she loved. They roleplayed almost everything, including scenarios they might encounter on mission. Sometimes she was dropped into a group scenario and assigned a personality to play, e.g.:
You are intolerant of authority and become angry when you feel your opinion isn’t being listened to.
You are jealous of the captain and will act counterproductively in any situation where she receives more attention than you.
You are deeply lonely and trapped with an introvert, a narcissist, and a veteran with posttraumatic stress disorder, all of whom you sometimes imagine flushing into space.
She made up that last one. That wasn’t real. But sometimes the instructions were No character, which meant you had to be yourself, and also that you were being scored by the examiner based on how effectively you resolved the scenario. Those were nerve-racking. But fun: the playing pretend, the ordering people around, the trying to figure out what was going on in someone else’s head. She adored that. And she was great at it. In one of her first group scenarios, she diagnosed four personality disorders and corralled her group into scenario completion with twenty-two minutes left on the clock, and the examiner, a famous hard-ass, had said, “I think we need to start making these more difficult.” From that moment she had known she was going to make crew.
“You were amazing,” said a boy in the corridor afterward. He had been one of her personality disorders. He was tall and light-haired and refreshingly friendly in a class where everyone was competing for the same crew slots. She couldn’t ask for a pencil in there sometimes without the girl looking at her like, What are you trying to pull. “All that touching you did, putting your hands on people’s arms and shoulders, was that dependent personality disorder?”
“I didn’t have a character,” she said.
“Oh,” he said.
But screw him. She was incredible at this. She cried genuine tears for You experience an intense fear reaction if the exterior door is opened. When she played Your commanding officer is severely depressed and will order a suicide mission if not stopped, people leaned forward in their seats. Everyone died in that scenario because they wouldn’t listen. “I don’t even know what you’re doing here,” a girl told her. “You should be, like, famous.”