by Jason Gurley
Could it, though? I mean, if you could tell the --
The Dreambake.
-- the Dreambake about her, could it make her actually behave like her real self?
Todd shrugs. I don't know, man. It's not like this is future tech. It is what it is. I think you pretty much have to tell it everything you want it to do, and then it does it.
Huh, Micah had said.
Man, let me tell you what she did last night, Todd went on.
Micah waved him off. No, that's alright. Please don't.
You sure?
Sure, Micah had said.
That night he had replayed the infomercial twenty times. He studied the product carefully, but nowhere among the many conversations about it online could he find the answer to his question. He posted on a forum and explained his problem, and he was swamped by messages of sympathy from strangers. But nobody could answer his question.
It wasn't a difficult question.
Will the Dreambake help me talk to my wife one last time?
He wasn't stupid. He knew it wouldn't count for anything -- that Mae was gone, and no matter what he might say to a tech toy, that would never change.
But he thought that it might make him feel a little better.
Shake him out of this nearly decade-long depression he was courting.
Eighteen thousand dollars wasn't a problem. He spent almost none of his income. He worked to forget her. His wages fell into his bank account without fanfare, day after day. He had nearly three hundred thousand dollars there, saved from years of unpacking boxes and stocking shelves.
Eighteen thousand dollars was nothing.
Hell, it cost less than eighteen thousand dollars to go to space these days.
Micah had sat up in bed at the thought.
In the morning, he resigned his position at the market.
The next afternoon, he was holding Mae's Onyx card.
I guess I can't really stop you from calling, can I.
Well, you don't have to answer.
Yes, but when it says Micah, I sort of feel like I should. I feel like it's chastising me when I don't.
Jesus, Mae. How did we end up here so fast?
I don't know. It was pretty fast, wasn't it.
I just want you to come home.
I --
Or I'll come to you. Let me come to you.
Micah, I don't know. Something doesn't feel right anymore.
Is it really just the space thing, Mae? Is there more to it?
If you're asking me that, then I think you've missed the real point, Micah.
Come home, Mae. We can work it out. I miss you.
I -- Micah, I miss you, too.
Really? Oh, this is like music. I can book a flight.
But I'm not coming home.
Mae...
I said before, I have something to do here.
What is it? Tell me what it is. I won't be upset.
Micah, I can't.
I promise. I won't be.
Okay. Promise?
I swear.
There's someone else, Micah.
He hated those dreams.
They always carried a promise of hope, sang it to him as he slept. In his dreams, Mae was hesitant, still gun-shy, but crumbling. He was gallant, willing to set aside all of his flaws, willing to consider almost anything if it meant they could be happy again.
And then the dreams took awful, terrible turns.
In them, Mae was having affairs. Sometimes just one, but in the heightened horror of Micah's dream-state, often many, simultaneously. Sometimes they were one-night stands, a quick fuck in some stranger's apartment, or worse, on the Tokyo train. Micah had heard of these things. His dreams capitalized on his fears.
But none of these things were real, and Mae didn't feel an obligation in the real world to answer his calls anymore. They went unanswered, his pleading messages unreturned.
Perhaps she was preparing him for the end, he wonders now.
If she was, she did a piss-poor job of it.
He had just come back from town.
The beach house was hazy in the fog, mostly hidden from view. He could hear the water, but couldn't see it. It was calm, almost still.
He closed the door of his Jeep, crunched across the pebbled driveway to the front door.
Mae wasn't home, of course. He missed coming home to a house that was drenched in shadow, except for the single light beside her reading chair. She wouldn't turn on more lights than she was actively using, even though the climate crisis was decades behind them and the damage long since done.
The house was empty.
He'd left the lights on.
His wrist hummed, and he looked down at the display to see a missed call. He must not have felt the tickle of an incoming call. Maybe it came while he was turning into the bumpy driveway.
He tapped the display, and in his ear, the worst message of his life unspooled, spoken by an eerily calm Japanese voice, and cross-translated by his ear tab. The message was brief -- was he the husband of Mae Atherton-Sparrow, the American space station trainee? If so, would he please return this call?
And he knew.
In the dark of his grandfather's beach house, the one he had hoped to raise children in, the one he hoped to grow very old in, the one he had so proudly introduced Mae too, the one that he had constructed his dreams around since he was a child, he knew.
Micah wakes before the first sunrise of the morning, which is scheduled to happen at 4:32 a.m. It occurs to him that, 33,000 miles above his home, his sense of time has vanished. He wonders if Station Argus is high enough above the Earth to have affected the way time works. Yes, he imagines. But he decides that nobody has rewritten the number of minutes in the day for purely nostalgic reasons.
Knowing that twenty-four/seven hasn't changed is one of the most basic comforts, he imagines, for those who have chosen to step off of the spinning ball they were raised on.
Bob says, Good morning, sir.
Micah doesn't respond. He's only sleeping in his apartment, in this bed, because he doesn't know how to access his finances. He feels strangely like a traitor, though he cannot decide whom he has betrayed. He settles on Bernard, and Mae. By accepting this privileged existence, by leaning on it, he feels as if he is being disrespectful to that kind old man and his granddaughter, and as if he is thumbing his nose at the memory of his deceased wife, who was the sweetest of souls.
If he knew how to get to his money, he'd have stayed in a hotel in Argus City last night.
He'd have looked for a place of his own.
May I recommend a breakfast selection, sir? Perhaps a coffee?
No, thank you, Micah says. Let's continue with the education selection of your programming. Tell me where I can find my bank account. And how do I shop for food?
Sir, your assets were neutralized upon entry into the Onyx system, Bob says.
Micah wishes that Bob had a face so that he could stare dumbfounded at it. I worked for most of my life to save that money, he says, finally. And it was -- neutralized?
Onyx-class citizens enjoy unfettered access to all station systems, sir, Bob says. You will have no need for funds. To order food, simply speak your list of items, and it will be delivered to your apartment in as timely a manner as you wish. All other services are similarly free of charge.
Free, Micah repeats. I get everything for free.
Yes, sir, Bob says.
Such as?
Bob says, There are no charges or fees for your apartment or its support systems. Food is free of charge. Entertainment of all types, including physical, is free of charge. Clothing and any items you wish to purchase, including customizations for your apartment, are free of charge. Body modifications and enhancements, including neural adjustments, are free of charge.
Physical entertainment?
Physical entertainment is a polite way to describe intimate companionship, Bob explains.
Whores, then.
That is a les
s-polite way to describe it, sir, but you are correct.
Who chooses to be a prostitute in space? Micah wonders aloud.
Physical companionship is one of the four thousand seven hundred sixteen employment channels that Machine-class citizens are preselected for, Bob says.
Preselected, Micah repeats. You mean, the government taps new arrivals and says, You're a ship mechanic, you're a bartender, you're a gardener, you're a... piece of meat?
Machine-class citizens are invited to submit their qualifications for their preferred positions, Bob says. Physical companions often select that line of employment for themselves. I believe the consensus is that it is less physically-taxing than other Machine-class employment positions, and therefore, in some segments of the population, a desired position. Like other more interesting employment positions, physical companionship is one option with a waiting list.
Micah shakes his head. Okay, I can't think about that anymore.
As you wish, sir.
So the things that are free to me, Micah says. Are those only things I can get in the tower here?
No, sir, Bob says. Services that are free to you can be found all over Station Argus, both in the towers and in Argus City.
So I could go to the city today and buy a sandwich.
Of course, sir. At no cost to you.
I could buy a new wardrobe.
Yes, sir. At no cost.
I could visit the holopark.
Yes, sir, Bob repeats. At no cost.
I could... stay in a hotel?
In theory, sir. I would be remiss not to instruct you that sleeping out-of-quarters will raise an alert that you did not return to your apartment.
An alert. You mean someone tracks me.
I track you, sir, Bob says.
Stop tracking me, Bob.
I'm not at liberty to do so, sir. Personal tracking is less invasive than you may think. I simply observe your activities in order to better serve you.
So if I didn't come home --
In that case, sir, I am required to submit an alert to station government.
You have to tell the government if I don't come home at night? Jesus.
I am required to inform the station government, sir, and when you return to your apartment, you would be contacted by an administrator. The administrator would be charged with ascertaining why you did not return to your quarters at night.
Jesus fuck, Micah says. Why is that anybody's business but my own?
Absence from your apartment can be an indicator of several scenarios that the government must monitor, sir, Bob says. For example, it may indicate that you have begun a physical relationship with a Machine-class citizen.
Which is the government's business why?
Such a relationship may lead to complexities regarding that Machine-class citizen's status. If that citizen were impregnated, for example, without administration approval --
Holy shit, Micah says. I don't want to hear this.
-- then protocol regarding said pregnancy would go into effect.
You're talking about abortion. You're talking about forced government-sponsored abortion. Population control.
No, sir. Not strictly population control. Unauthorized class expansion is taken quite seriously. As I mentioned before, Onyx-class citizens are welcomed and even encouraged to reproduce among themselves as frequently as they like.
This is one goddamn horrible experiment you're running on this station, Bob.
I am simply your apartment's artificial intelligence, sir.
We'll see about that, Micah said.
He pulled on his clothes, threw open the door, and stomped into the hallway, still pulling on his coat.
Bob closed the door behind him.
What did you think when you first saw me?
We've talked about this before, haven't we?
Tell me again.
Well, I thought there was no one more beautiful in the whole world.
And you wanted to marry me right then and there.
I wanted to marry you a thousand times in one day.
And you wanted lots of babies.
All of the babies.
Did you think, wow, check out that bod.
I didn't.
Not even a little bit? I'm sad.
I really didn't. I was captivated just watching you smile and laugh.
You didn't even notice my butt? I have a very nice butt.
You were standing behind that food cart. I couldn't see your butt.
Ah, so you tried.
I didn't. But I'm sure if I had seen your butt, I really would have liked it.
You're a pervert.
I remember thinking, I bet she looks this amazing in any light. Because it was a very lovely morning, and the sun was shining through your hair and doing that thing where it makes you almost glow. And I thought, you probably glow at night, in the dark.
Like a radioactive princess.
My radioactive princess.
Micah.
Yes.
I'm sorry.
Sorry? What for?
For all of this. Look around. It's not what I wanted.
It's kind of scary, isn't it.
I wanted to have babies in in space, in the glow of a star, to make them shine and then push them out into the dark and let them light up the universe.
You're such a romantic.
I wanted to huddle together with you over a space campfire, all of the darkness around us, and know that we were special, we were together, we were the only two people for a hundred million trillion miles.
And instead, it's terrifying.
I don't even feel like I know who human beings are anymore.
They say it's an experiment, Mae.
It's a horrible one. You thought that the lower-class citizens were like animals in a zoo, but you were wrong. You all are.
The thought occurred to me.
What are you going to do?
I don't know. I could start a revolution.
I bet a lot of people have tried that.
You think?
It's scary how much they know about you already.
They probably know I'm not feeling their little utopia, I guess.
Not feeling it at all.
In fact, they're probably watching me right now.
Watching you sleep? Probably.
Is that what I'm doing? Sleeping?
You thought there was another way we could be talking?
I didn't buy the Dreambake.
Good. Infomercial products are garbage. It probably would kill all of your brain cells at one time.
But this is the conversation that I would have dreamed of if I had.
Maybe.
Maybe?
You weren't living in an oppressive cage at the time.
You could argue that my grief was a cage.
Yes, but you made that cage.
I was oppressing myself.
You were sad, Micah.
I was sad.
I know. If it had been different, I would have been sad, too.
I couldn't believe that you were gone. And that I wasn't with you when it happened.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry, too.
What are you going to do now, Micah?
Probably not start a revolution. I don't think I'd be very good at it.
You could marry again. Have space babies.
I can't even think about that. I don't look at women like that. Nobody is you.
They don't have to be me. They just have to make you happy.
They don't.
What does?
I don't know. The beach house didn't even work after you died.
You haven't been happy in seven years?
Seven years and one terrible argument.
That's awful, Micah. It's my fault.
It's mine, too.
So we're both responsible for your life being tragic.
Yes, I guess so.
Chivalrous
of you to take all of the responsibility.
Hey, you did kind of run away to Tokyo.
I did. So I guess you're right, it's kind of my fault, too.
I'll settle for that.
So. What will you do?
Argus City dazzles in the darkness. Constellations of light, the flicker of pods darting between the spires. Sparkling towers constructed from seamless transparent steel catch the moonlight and throw it around like fine china that splinters and turns.
Micah is alone tonight.
It's not even night. It's two in the afternoon, but the sun has dropped behind the Earth, and only the faintest golden glow breaks the planet's crisp horizon line.
If he closes his eyes, can almost convince himself that he's still on Earth. His ears reproduce the soft, papery surge of the waves. He can feel the damp wood planks of the pier beneath his feet. He remembers the most important voices that he ever heard in exactly that spot. His grandfather's, telling him that one day they would build a boat together, and that if it sank, then they would build a ship in a bottle instead.
And Mae's, closer, her breath on his neck, simply saying good morning.
Mae.
Mae.
Micah fits his arms into the bodyjet, and steps back, clicking his feet into the heel clips. The exoskeleton feels kind of nice against his limbs. A cradle for his fragile human body, perhaps.
What does one say in a moment such as this one?
He settles for nothing at all.
What did you think? When you first saw me?
That you were the most handsome man I had ever seen.
Bullshit. You didn't think that at all.
You're right.
Am I? Damn. I don't like being right.
You're right. I didn't think anything, because you put my brain into a coma.
That was pretty mean of me.
Oh, I don't know. It's been a fine coma-dream.
The finest, Mae.
I miss you.
I love you.
Micah steps across the red line.
He hangs there, suspended, just a couple of feet from the safety and artificial gravity of the observation deck.
I could go back, he thinks.
He looks down. The great petal narrows as it falls away beneath him. Hundreds of windows, some of them dimmed, most glowing with activity. He wonders if anybody is looking outside, looking up. Does anybody see him up here?