Callisto Deception

by John Read

North of the harbor, a swarm of enemy fighters narrowed in for the kill. Nash and Singer circuited the slower B-17s in a wide arc. Bullets spewed at random targets from Amelia and Kevin’s tail guns. They were in rough shape. Serene and Amelia had lost two of their engines. The commander, with Kevin in tow, banked toward the sea with two Zeros in pursuit.

  “Hang on, Amelia, we’re coming,” Avro said.

  “I don’t think you can save me this time, baby,” Amelia said.

  “Oh, would you guys shut up,” said another voice. It was Jamaal Nash. “You know we’ll be sucking back mojitos in an hour.”

  “Major Nash, that’s incorrect,” Commander Tayler said. “You’ll replay this battle until you win, over.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me, over,” Nash radioed back.

  “You’re stuck in here kid, Tayler out.”

  Avro and I dove toward the B-17s while another wave of twenty Zeroes approached from the west.

  “Hey guys, you’re about to have company,” Avro yelled.

  The approaching Mitsubishi fighters created a veritable wall of bullets, but Nash didn’t see it. He banked into the rain and his aircraft was torn to shreds.

  Singer banked into an inverted dive, trying to get away from the onslaught.

  “Where the hell are you going, Luke?” Serene yelled.

  “It a lost cause,” he said.

  “Get back in the soup, Singer,” the commander ordered.

  The approaching fighters opened fire on the Flying Fortresses, tearing off their tails, wingtips, and flaps. The bullets dug giant gaps in the sides of the planes, allowing visibility all the way into the cockpit.

  “Mayday, mayday, may ...” came Serene’s voice over the comm.

  Serene and Amelia’s aircraft impacted with a hillside, exploding in an orange ball, followed by a mushroom cloud of black smoke.

  We expected a similar call from the commander’s aircraft, but when I looked over, his cockpit was gone. Kevin’s tail gun continued to blaze as the aircraft jackknifed into the harbor. Pieces of wings and fuselage skipped across the water like rocks across a pond.

  Avro and I circumnavigated a beehive of enemy fighters, weaving to avoid crashing into the other planes, and firing our guns dry. I looked up in time to see Avro get shot though the cockpit. Blood splattered over the inside of the canopy, leaving me alone in the simulation.

  To my right, a Zero followed me into a tight left bank. He fired, but his bullets whizzed under my fuselage, unable to find a home. I leveled out and pulled up. The pursuing Zero did the same, flying in formation off my port wing. I studied the Japanese pilot, his white bandanna with red sun clearly visible behind polished glass.

  “Screw it, if they can kamikaze, so can I,” I said, banking my aircraft into his. The Zero’s propeller sliced into my wing, tearing it off. My plane began to spin. The other Zeros continued to fire at my P-40, bullets riddling the plane’s body as it continued to fall. My canopy took several hits, pelting me with glass. The resistance suit attacked my body with electric shocks and kinetic stimulation, rendering the feeling of being stabbed by multiple knives. I screamed. It hurt, but it could have been much worse; adrenalin masked much of my pain.

  With my aircraft in tatters, I unstrapped my harness, brought my feet up onto the seat, and jumped. The plane was spinning and I missed the wing as I entered freefall. The beach approached fast and I pulled the rip cord, releasing a parachute at 200 feet. I fell into shallow water, my feet hitting the ocean floor. I tried to breathe, but couldn’t. My feet kicked up a cloud of sand, pushing against the bottom, and shooting me up to the surface. The parachute floated nearby. I tried to swim but the cables held me back until I pulled the release and headed to shore.

  The battle was over. The enemy planes had already headed back to their aircraft carriers floating north of the islands.

  I walked toward the beach house, my body pulsing from the assault of a suit that apparently wanted me dead. The house still smoldered, but the porch was there. I climbed the steps to the deck.

  With a flash of light, I was back inside the JJ, then we were back on the porch. The Beach house returned, just as it was before the battle.

  “What took you so long?” Avro said.

  “I didn’t die,” I said.

  “You didn’t die?” Serene said. “You lucky bastard! We just spent the last hour in purgatory, waiting for you.”

  “Purgatory?” I said. “Let me guess, you were floating in space, with VR off?”

  “Yeah, purgatory,” she said.

  Commander Tayler gestured us inside for a quick debrief before we did it all over again.

  “So, what did it feel like?” I asked as we stepped into the cottage. “Dying, I mean.”

  “Like drowning,” Kevin said, “while being hit by an auto-car.”

  “Like being squashed,” Amelia said. “Claustrophobia, times a million.”

  15

  An old man began printing headstones, on each one writing a short dedication. He planted six rectangular headstones on a hill on the outskirts of the town. Walnut trees shaded the impromptu cemetery, and a light breeze ruffled their leaves, allowing sunlight to trickle to the ground and paint the grass in a kaleidoscope of green and brown hues.

  The hill was visible from a road near the town. By noon, others had joined the old man, writing eulogies on fiber-plastic stones, then strolling through the walnut forest to find the perfect resting place. By the end of the day, the hill was covered with graves, and if one were to count, they accounted for almost all of the Klondike’s 2,500 passengers.

  It was the day after the Klondike disaster and Marie spent most of it in her room. She lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to instigate sleep in an attempt to quell the pain. But sleep never came. Depression set in, and Marie mentally added the Klondike disaster to a list of tragedies that would haunt her forever. She began to wonder what the point of living was. Why not just finish them off, and be done with it? By the afternoon, she was overwhelmed by hunger. She punched out of VR and hugged Branson until he cried.

  She tucked him into bed and read to him until he fell asleep. Marie stared at her son; his chubby cheeks, and flutter of eyelashes. This is why I am doing this. Branson’s life is worth more to me than all of humanity combined.

  Marie left the nursery, floating between canvas walls to the cafeteria. About 100 people gathered around the tables, feet tucked into footholds to keep them from floating away. Someone was handing out pens and paper, and it seemed as if everyone was having the same conversation: what to write about their friends.

  With a full belly, Marie returned to VR with a new perspective. She walked to the hill and the printing kiosks brought there for the sole purpose of printing tombstones. Marie typed ten words into the machine: “The life in her years was bountiful. Lise Anne Locklear.” Marie made sure Lise’s headstone had a view of the east, facing the sunrise.

  She climbed to the crest of the hill and looked back at the town. The sun rested on the western horizon and buildings cast long shadows across the park. The Center for Genetic Diversity glittered in the evening light, its glass façade reflecting nearby trees. Things would be very different when she returned there tomorrow.

  Marie took her seat around the conference room table with Charles and James. At first, no one spoke. Clouds obscured the usually blue sky, and strange shadows drew swatches of darkness across the usually cheery space. Next to Marie, Lise’s chair sat empty.

  “We lost twenty-five hundred people on the Klondike,” Charles said. Marie exhaled a huff of air, annoyed that someone would state the obvious, but realizing that someone had to break the silence. For this team, the loss of 2,500 people was a practical matter, population being the most important metric in the genetic algorithm.

  “That puts us well below the optimal count,” James added. “We’ve deleted the Klondike’s population from the system. And we’ve instructed the algorithm to construct a sustainable population using seventy-five hu
ndred people. The issue with the algorithm is that it’s Swiss cheese, full of holes.”

  “True, but one of the reasons we recommend ten thousand people as minimum is because it takes disasters like this into consideration,” Marie murmured. She hated how easy this had been as a thought experiment, and how gut-wrenching it was in reality.

  “It’s not that simple,” James said. “The computer is basically frozen, saying ‘what now humans?’”

  “I think we’re giving folks too much freedom here. With our current restrictions, there’s no way the algorithm will work. Not without some serious alterations,” Charles said. Then he stood up. “We should mandate reproduction from the bank and restrict natural reproduction. Assume total control over the next generation.”

  “We’re not going to force husbands and wives to accept embryos from the bank,” Marie said. “Humans choose the DNA for their kids by selecting mates. I refuse to mandate anything!”

  “Marie, you know this is what we have to do,” Charles said. “There’s no other way. We’ve got to plug the holes.”

  “Forget the holes,” Marie said. “The first priority is to get us back to our original population. The holes in the algorithm will remain, but a population increase will buy us time.”

  “That’s an understatement; if we get back to our original population, it will buy us a generation,” James said.

  “A birth boom?” Charles asked

  “Yeah, well, a baby boom,” Marie said.

  “How do we force people to have kids?” James wondered.

  “We just do!” Charles sounded determined.

  “No, we don’t. At no point do we sacrifice our values to save society.”

  “He’s right, Charles,” Marie said. “If we don’t have values, what do we have?”

  “We’ll have less people like James,” Charles joked.

  “Not the time,” James said. “Marie, I’d like to hear more about your ideas.”

  “I don’t believe we need to force people to have kids,” Marie said. “I think we can get everyone to do it willingly. People just need a nudge. The founders of this mission haven’t used force to get us to do anything. Well, besides forcing me to come along.”

  “They didn’t force us!” Charles said.

  “They forced me,” Marie said. “Hoshi shot me with a tranquilizer in the Hive when I tried to stay.”

  James chuckled at this. “I know Hoshi, she’s fanatical all right. I’ve heard her say ‘The ends justify the means’ once or twice to my father.” James paused. “She needs you, you know. Badly.”

  Marie rolled her eyes. “Listen, we’ve got a few months left until we land on Callisto, and we need every woman who can get pregnant to be pregnant. I recommend we name the upcoming generation. Give it a historical significance.”

  “You mean, call it Generation Hope or something like that?” James said.

  “Exactly like that,” Marie said and forced a smile at James. She could tell from his tone that he liked the idea.

  “So, what’s next? How do we gain support for this Generation Hope?” James said.

  “With the first baby,” Marie replied. “Well, pregnancy anyway.”

  Charles and James stared at Marie as if they were teenagers and had just found out they’d impregnated their girlfriends.

  “After I’m pregnant, we’ll announce: Generation Hope.”

  “You’re going to have a baby?” James said, his eyes wide, like a proud father’s.

  “Yes, James, I’m going to have a baby.”

  Marie’s watch chirped and she rose from her bed in a strange delirium. She usually awoke long before her alarm and went for her run, but feelings of anticipation and dread had kept her awake until deep into the night. Marie hated it but knew that it was necessary. She hoped this baby would also give her hope for humanity, the way that Branson did. She skipped breakfast, and headed to the ship’s medical bay located in the core of the Mount Everest.

  The core wasn’t much more than a canvas cylinder punctuated by openings, as if a worm had munched on it like an apple. But it was subdivided into various facilities. She glided by a lady pulling along a bag of laundry, containing the white gowns worn by folks who spent any amount of time outside VR. As the lady passed, the smell of recycled polyester wafted in her wake. She smiled, pointed Marie to the clinic, and went on her way.

  Inside, a nurse instructed Marie to wait in an empty holding area painted in a calming yellow hue; images of smiling babies adorned all six walls. Canvas chairs stuck out from two of the walls, their teeter-totter like seats allowing the user to sit without floating away.

  A video played on a holovision with images of children in a sandbox, narrated by a corporate male voice: “Humanity has the technology to allow parents to choose the color of their children’s eyes, hair, and even skin. However, due to resource constraints, we are currently unable to accommodate customizations.”

  Another video played with the same narrator: “Fifty years of research has confirmed that zero gravity gestation is safe. Requests to relocate to the centrifuge nurseries will not be granted. If your baby is born on the spacecraft, you will move to a designated nursing station.” Marie wondered if the videos were customized for her.

  A female nurse in white scrubs floated to the door, her long brown hair dancing as she came to a stop. “Marie, Doctor O’Brian will see you now,” she said.

  Marie nodded, released herself from the chair, pushed off the wall, and floated behind the nurse to the examination room.

  “Put this on and wait here, please.” The nurse handed Marie a gown. “The doctor will be with you shortly.” The nurse floated away, pulling a blind across the room’s entrance.

  An examination table extended from one of the walls. A refrigeration unit glowed in blue light. Marie wondered if this was where they stored genetic material. She slipped off her jumpsuit, and wondered if the Doomsdayers had specifically targeted doctors as they had targeted her. She donned the gown, storing her single piece of clothing in a cubby on the wall, and then sat on the examination table. She pulled an elastic around her waist, and slid her feet behind a bar.

  Doctor O’Brian arrived without a smile, closing the blind behind her, and stuck her feet to a Velcro pad on the floor. Marie wondered if the doctor spent much time in Calli, and if she knew anyone from the Klondike. The doctor was an older lady of perhaps seventy. Her hair was short, curly blond, and bounced in zero G. She held a tablet with Marie’s file, and flipped through the files with a swipe of a finger.

  “That was fast. Usually I’m waiting forever to see a doctor,” Marie said in a quivering voice.

  “You’re from the Genetics Team,” Doctor O’Brian said, reading from the file. She looked up. “I’m sorry about the loss of your colleague. Lise did fantastic work.”

  “She was a close friend,” Marie said. “I promised her she’d help select my donor.”

  “In a way, she will,” the doctor said. “The algorithms your team designed will choose a donor on your behalf.”

  “Right,” Marie said.

  The doctor went back to swiping, pausing to read, and then swiping again. “The system has a match for you. Do you want to know anything about the father? Race, hair color, anything?”

  “No,” Marie said abruptly, and then faked a smile.

  “Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Doctor O’Brian asked, putting an awkward hand on Marie’s knee. Marie stared at the hand until the doctor removed it.

  “It’s something I have to do,” Marie said. “We need to rebuild the population, and I need to set an example.”

  “A child is not an example,” O’Brian said.

  “John, my husband, and I talked about having another child. I’ve been ready for this for quite some time.” Marie was lying about being ready, but she didn’t know if she would ever be, not without John. She knew after carrying a child for nine months, the child would be hers, and she’d love the child like she loved Branson.

&nb
sp; “Would you like to know the sex?”

  “No,” Marie said. “I’ll wait until birth. It was a tradition in my family.”

  Marie readjusted herself on the examination table, wrapping her arms under the provided supports and lying back. “I’m ready if you are, doctor.”

  “You’re feeling well, no nausea?” James said.

  “No, ah, not yet, it’s only been a day, James,” Marie answered. “Are you okay? You remind me of my husband when we found out. You seem excited, or nervous, I’m not sure.”

  “Maybe a little of both,” James said. Marie was seated at a table with her back to the window. The flags in the park were visible through the curtain of willow tree branches.

  “It’s time to spread the news,” Charles said. “Bringing your speech up now.” He typed a few commands into the table and the words hovered in large black font on the wall opposite Marie.

  “Where’s the camera?” Marie asked.

  James laughed. “We’re in VR; there’s no need for a camera, but if you like we can project your interview on a holovision so you can see what you look like.”

  “Sure,” Marie said.

  “Just let me know when you’re ready, and we’ll record your statement.”

  James sat diagonally across from Marie. He leaned forward, giving her an encouraging smile.

  Marie nodded to Charles, then faced the wall and took a breath.

  “Hello citizens. I’m Doctor Marie Orville, a generic anthropologist from the University of California, Berkeley. I’m here at the Center for Genetic Diversity with my colleagues, Mr. James Kotze and Doctor Charles Thompson.

  “I want to thank all of you for helping us these past months by providing information regarding the plans for your family. Your cooperation helps ensure that we’ll have a heathy population for generations to come.

  “But like many of you, we lost a friend and coworker. Doctor Lise Locklear was on the Klondike, and now, our work has gotten much more difficult. Ensuring genetic diversity with a smaller population isn’t easy and we need your help.” Marie swallowed a lump in her throat. “I lost my husband on Doomsday.” She was amazed how saying it felt like being punched in the gut. “I lost my best friend on the Klondike. We have a plan that won’t replace those we’ve lost, but it’s a plan to honor them. We call it Generation Hope.