"Mini?" Jessica13 asked. "Are you there?"
"I am always here, Jessica13," Mini replied.
She had no idea why she expected the soft voice to be out of breath and shook her head. "Do you think we can stop for a while? I think we're far enough away from Sanctuary to be safe."
"Safe from them, maybe," Mini pointed out. "We are far from being safe out here. But…my sensors do not indicate anything near us."
It took the mech a few seconds to draw to a halt as it first needed to slow after having maintained a high rate of speed for a while. Once they stopped and Mini returned them to the regular Minato mode, the silence overwhelmed her for a moment.
Beyond the almost unnatural quiet, something creaked outside and seconds later, something chirped. Night had fallen and out there and they were surrounded by life.
Life, not concrete. Sanctuary had never been quiet, not even during the evening shifts, but everything had felt so isolated. Out there, she couldn't help but feel vulnerable. The Outside was here.
"Is…is the air safe to breathe?" Jessica13 asked and peeked at the sky alive with bright, twinkling stars.
"Affirmative," Mini replied. "The air around us consists of nitrogen, oxygen, argon, and carbon dioxide, among other elements. There are no traces of chemical or biological hazards. Why do you ask?"
"I thought I could open the mech," she explained and drew a deep breath. She couldn't believe that she was doing this or saying it.
It seemed crazy that she even considered it. Her mouth was dry and her heart hammered inside her chest as she waited for the response.
"Well, you have access to the control to open the mech, if you want," the AI said. "There's no need, of course. We have supplies in here to last you for at least a couple of weeks."
"No, I want to get this over with now. I came out here. We…came out here. We started all this and put ourselves on the line and in the end, we did it to get this moment over with. So, I say we get it over with. What…what do you think?"
"I can think of no reason why not," Mini said.
Jessica13 nodded, took another a deep breath, clenched her teeth, and steeled her nerves. "Okay…I'm opening the mech."
"You have my full support."
Jessica moved down and tugged at the levers that were all that kept everything that was Outside away from her. A horrible moment of doubt surged, swamped her mind, took control of her emotions and she began to panic.
"No. I came here for this. I'm doing it!" she shouted and yanked the lever.
The magnetic clamp released and the other locks lifted, and a quarter of a second later, the mech was open and the doors swung outward. She held her breath for a moment and covered her mouth as she was exposed to the air for the first time. Instincts kicked in and she was unable to respond otherwise. Years and years of being told how dangerous the Outside was were difficult to ignore and there was nothing that terrified her more.
And yet, as the cool, fresh air touched her skin, a small chill rushed up her spine. The gentle shiver persisted as she moved closer to the opening and inched forward until her leg protruded from the mech.
Resolute, she followed it with the other leg and soon, Jessica stepped out, although she still covered her mouth and held her breath. The surreal feeling of the earth under her feet was interesting.
Her hands lowered. She wouldn’t be able to hold her breath for much longer. The seconds ticked by and the sound of her heart grew louder in her ears.
The option to get back into the mech and run the oxygen through a filter grew more and more distant. She didn't want to get back in the mech. After everything she’d been through, she wanted to be out there.
Finally, lacking any other options aside from passing out, she gave in and sucked a deep breath of air into her lungs.
It was clean, unrefined, and filled with so many different smells. Not all of them were good, but the air still tasted clean, somehow. Like it hadn't been run through fifteen different filters every hour to keep it clear of impurities. Clean and fresh were the words stuck in her mind.
And, most importantly, she wasn't doubled over while poison consumed her body.
"There…there's no poison gas!" Jessica said and released a loud laugh that echoed through the woods around her. "Only clean, fresh, beautiful air!"
"One might say the only poison gas in the air comes from the people in the cities," Mini said.
"How do you mean?" she asked and focused on the mech.
"Maybe some of the pirates," the AI continued. "They eat bad food. It makes sense that they foul the air they leave behind."
Jessica13 narrowed her eyes. "Wait, did you make a joke?"
"The possibility exists," he said.
"Okay, hold on, I simply need to…" she started to say and proceeded to climb up the side of the mech, pulled herself to the top, and balanced herself carefully on the shoulders to look upward.
"Have you never seen the stars before?" Mini asked.
"Well, I've seen pictures," Jessica13 said. "There were a couple of paintings my father made. They weren't very good, but… Well, I don't know how he would have been able to capture something like this."
There really was nothing that could have prepared her for this. While there were trees nearby, they were spread far enough apart that she was allowed a full view of the sky above. There weren't even any clouds to obscure her view and the sky opened to her in a wide expanse that took her breath away.
The sky was a deep, deep blue and acted as a dark backdrop to the pinpoints of light that filled inky canvas to cover it from edge to edge on the horizon. She had thought the most beautiful thing she would ever see was the sunset, but she had been utterly, completely wrong.
As she continued to gaze, utterly entranced, she realized there were patterns there. One in particular—a hazy band of white light that stretched across the whole of the sky—was the most beautiful.
Jessica13 lowered to sit on the shoulder of the mech. Hot tears began to run down her cheeks and she fumbled in her pocket to retrieve what was left of the picture of her parents. She couldn't stop the tears but she wiped them away quickly because she couldn’t bear to not see the sky.
"Are you all right, Jessica13?" Mini asked and broke the silence that had fallen.
"I'm…yeah, I'm fine," she said and tried to laugh the tears away. It didn't work but she wasn't feeling sad.
Well, not only sad. There were too many emotions rushing through her that were difficult to describe.
"Are you sure?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. I’m a little overwhelmed, is all. I never thought it would be this…amazing. I only… I… You know, my friends at Sanctuary used to call me Jessie because the I and the E look like they might be the 13 at the end of my name."
"Are we friends?" the AI asked.
"I…think we are," Jessica13 said. "After all, we've been through more than I've been through with any of my friends."
"I've never had a human friend," Mini said and sounded pensive. "I shall endeavor to be worthy of that designation."
"You already are." She smiled and her gaze traced the different patterns in the stars. "I… Well, I don't…do your data banks have anything on what those…stars do?"
"I'm not sure I understand what stars do. A star is an astronomical object consisting of a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by its own gravity. The star nearest to the Earth is the Sun."
"Wait, the sun is a star?" That caught her attention. "But it's so big. And…well, it shines when none of the others do."
"The reason why you can't see any other stars when the sun is out is that it outshines all the others," he explained. "And it's not necessarily large, merely much closer, relatively speaking. The sun is large enough to fit one-point-three million Earths inside it and is actually not that large when compared to some of the larger stars we know of. It is almost a hundred and fifty million kilometers away and is still the closest star."
"Holy fuck, that's far away,"
she said. "How…how long would it take for us to get there in the Minato?"
"Well, we could start running now and not stop once and it would still take longer than your natural life to get there. Similarly, to reach the nearest star, we could keep running for a thousand years and not get significantly closer to the second closest one. It's so far away that it takes the light from the star over four years to get to us."
"Wait, what? How… Wait, how long does it take the light from the sun to reach us, then?"
"A little over eight minutes," Mini said.
"Wow. Light must travel fast," Jessica13 shook her head to try to restore order to her suddenly rampant thoughts. "But if the light in those stars takes so long to get to us, how does it…you know, get to us? How do we see the stars?"
"The light travels and so the image travels," the AI explained. "It can be assumed that a great many of the stars have since died and all we see is the light they gave off before they died."
"How do stars die?" There seemed to be no end to the hunger for new information.
"You're full of questions, aren't you, Jessie?" Mini said although he paused before he used the nickname.
She shrugged. "I…well, yeah. Machines always made sense to me. I could look at the coding or the build and they kinda spoke to me. Even when I was a child, I could understand what they were saying. Most of the other subjects of study were difficult. But machines and computers came naturally to me. It’s the Athena genes, they said, and I didn't really know what they meant. But that never kept me from being curious about it. The fact that I had a harder time understanding them meant I was much more curious about it. So…I understand if you don't like the questions. But like the machines, they come naturally to me."
The silence lingered for a moment.
"Well, stars don't die like humans do," the AI said after a few seconds had passed. "Dying is more of a human alliteration to what they do. Eventually, once the fuel that powers the stars burns out, the core shrinks and the star expands. It becomes larger and less bright until it collapses in on itself. If the mass of the star is small, it becomes a white dwarf, barely visible in the night sky as it expands and then cools off over billions of years. If its mass is large enough, it collapses in on itself and becomes what they call a black hole. It's so massive and so dense that everything that passes close enough is sucked in, even light. We don't know what one looks like since no light escapes. All we can see is a halo of light being sucked in, which we call the event horizon."
Jessica13 stared at the sky again for a moment. "That’s so sad. Imagine that we see the lives of these stars and the light they give off, and for all we know, they could already be sucking some of their own light into themselves so no one else will see them."
"It is a little more complicated than that," Mini said.
"I know." She allowed herself a small smile. "But at least we get to see the light of the stars as they were shining brightly and illuminating the sky. It makes such a beautiful tapestry that we can simply stare at. I could stare at it for hours."
"We have no other engagements."
"Great!" She clambered down from the mech and moved inside to retrieve food and draw water into a bottle before she returned to her perch on the mech’s shoulder. "Can I ask you more questions?"
"You are physically capable of asking them," Mini asserted. "Whether I am capable of replying remains to be seen."
"So, stars die, right?" Jessica13 stated as she prepared a quick meal for herself using the patties and the soup and mixed them for flavor. "And the sun is a star, so…will the sun ever die? And if it does, what happens to us?"
"The sun will die, yes. But it is not something you need to worry about since it will likely only happen in about two billion years. I don't think even I will survive that long."
"Huh. Still, it’s sad to think about it. What happens when the sun dies? Will we simply…grow cold?"
"The standing theory is that the sun will expand into a giant and then collapse to a white dwarf and cool off," Mini explained. "Cool is relative, of course. In expanding, it will grow until it takes the Earth in as well, vaporizing the planet and turning it into dust that will float around in space."
Jessica13 tilted her head and stared at the sky. "That's sad too. But I guess all things must come to an end. It'll take longer when you're as big as a star but it has to come to an end anyway."
"I suppose that is true," Mini said. "But when you focus on what happens before the end itself, it's less sad. Like you focusing on the star's light instead of where it might come from. Celebrating life instead of mourning the inevitable death."
She smiled. "Yes, I think I like that. I like that a lot."
The food finally drew her attention and she decided she should eat while she could. It was still the same bland fare she was used to but somehow, it tasted a little better out there.
"We should push on," Mini said once she was finished. "I can keep the mech moving while you sleep inside."
"It sounds good to me." She yawned and clambered back inside.
It had been one hell of a long day.
Chapter Eleven
Once inside the mech, Jessica13 settled herself as comfortably as possible. The fresh air was liberating, but as Mini had warned her, there were still threats to be dealt with Outside, and they probably needed to keep moving. The folks in Sanctuary likely wouldn’t come after her, but there was no guarantee. Besides, she had proven herself to not be the best judge of what the leaders of the bunker would or wouldn’t do.
The AI returned to the Bulletfoot mode and moved rapidly across the landscape. The farther they moved from Sanctuary, the less open ground she could see in front of her. The darkness and the rhythmic movement of the mech around her were almost hypnotic, and it wasn't long before she drifted off to sleep.
It wasn't a peaceful sleep, unfortunately. She was restless, and the constant motion didn't help. But it was rest she wouldn’t take for granted. It had been a long day and it was very likely that she would have many more of those in the near future.
Any sleep was welcome.
She wasn't sure when she realized the mech had come to a halt, but she could feel it starting to warm up around her. No, it wasn't the mech. Well, it was too, she supposed, but the heat came from outside.
Her eyes opened and she stretched carefully in what space was available to her inside. It was only a little less than she had learned to manage with in her tiny little room. Small spaces were not foreign to her.
As she looked up into the light that beamed down on her, she gasped, covered her mouth with her hand, and gazed at the sun that had begun to rise over the landscape below her. Mini had stopped on a small cliff, which gave her a good view of the land, most of which was covered by thick, lush green foliage.
There was life all around them. She could hear it through the speakers and see it moving and not only with her eyes. The motion sensors on the mech told her there were living creatures everywhere. They woke and went about their lives and none of them even considered the idea that they were supposed to be dead out in the open like this.
"Oh, wow," Jessica13 whispered as her gaze returned to the gorgeous sunrise. It was like the sunsets she'd seen before but much more powerful somehow. It was wondrous to realize that it was coming up, not going down.
"Good morning, Jessica13," Mini said and added a smiley face to the HUD. "I hope you rested well."
"It wasn't too bad," she said and made another attempt to stretch. "I guess I'll have to get used to resting in here for a while."
"Provided we don't find any shelter for you to use, that would likely be wise. If you would prefer, we could develop software that would allow us to continue moving in a manner that would facilitate resting for humans."
She laughed. "I'm sure we could. So, did you stop us here so I could have something beautiful to look at when I woke up?"
"The location where I stopped was for your benefit," Mini said. "It gives us a vantage point from
which we can decide which direction to proceed in. The view was merely a pleasant side effect."
"I'll take it." She yawned again and settled into the controls of the mech, called up the data around her, and tried to give herself a decent view of where they were going—all while she struggled to avoid the distraction of the view. She could look at it for hours on end and accomplish nothing.
What should she do?
The question came to her and remained in her head, ticking there and begging to be answered. For the first time in her life, she faced a day with no orders and nothing she had to do. Of course, something needed to be done, but she was the one who would decide what it was.
It was an odd feeling, but one she was certain she could get used to. It wasn't like there was anything else to do but choose what she would do next. That was her life now.
Jessica13 sighed, opened the mech, and stepped outside. The air was still crisp and cool and there was noise all around her. Birds sang and trilled in the trees above, although some looked smaller and furrier than birds. No, she realized after a quick study, not a bird. It was clearly something else with a bushy tail and hands and feet and no wings, either. She wasn't sure what it was. There had been no creatures like it in the instruction videos she had seen as a child.
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes as her lungs filled with fresh air again. It seemed unbelievable how people could ignore the fact that the air they breathed had been recycled through fifteen different filters—which left a smell. She wasn't sure what it was but it was definitely there and it did grow old and stale.
Out there, a hundred different smells vied for her attention. She couldn't identify them either but there was a cold crispness to the air that brought only the word fresh to mind.
"Are you unwell?" Mini asked from inside the mech. "Should I access my databases for some medical knowledge?"
Jessica13 laughed, shook her head, and patted the mech on the arm. "I'm fine, honestly. I only…it's weird to stand out here. I dreamed about it so many times in the past but I never thought about what I would do if I actually got this far. It was always a pipe dream—that I’d spend my whole life trying to stand out here one day. And now that I'm here, I am at a loss about what to do next."
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