Lyssa's Dream - A Hard Science Fiction AI Adventure (The Sentience Wars - Origins Book 1)

by James S. Aaron

  Andy let his head float in the zero-g, hanging onto her words. He didn’t care what she was saying, only that it was her voice. She was alive. She had sent a message.

  “Object 8221 was only the beginning. There’s another place. They call it the Fortress. I’m going there and I’m going to free anyone I can. The kids were just the beginning, Andy. It goes so much deeper than that.”

  The recording glitched or fell-out, because abruptly she said, “They’re so big, Andy. Cara looks so old and so, so much like you. I guess she looks like me. Yeah, I probably had that angry expression all the time when I was her age. It’s coming, you know. She’s going to be a teenager soon. Don’t give her access to weapons. And Timmy looks so cute, such a little darling. My sweetheart.”

  A wave of gut wrenching anger rose through Andy. He gritted his teeth. You were there! he nearly shouted at the empty corridor. You were there! They need you! You could have talked to them!

  The corridor around him warped and twisted as his anger overwhelmed him. He nearly punched the bulkhead.

  The recording clicked again and she was saying, “Look, Andy. I don’t know what you’ve got in the way of weapons. I know we didn’t have much before. This is just a basic loud-out but you may need it. I think a gangster on Cruithne’s going to conspire to dump you there. You need to be careful, Andy. You can’t trust any of them. They’re no better than SolGov. They think they can profit off this but there’s a war coming, Andy. There’s a war coming between humanity and AI and little places like Cruithne are going to get blown into dust. These little players with their little dreams. I can’t believe it’s come to this.”

  Andy frowned. There was a quality in Brit’s voice that he didn’t remember, an insistence that made her sound manic. Like she was ranting. Had her depression finally taken over? He could barely remember what she was saying as he tried to keep his emotions in check. He couldn’t listen with his rational mind.

  The audio clicked. “I’m going to the Fortress. I’ll know more once I’ve been on the ground there. It’s too locked down to get anything remotely. Heartbridge did a good job. They know what they’re doing.”

  Andy wanted to yell at her. He didn’t care about any of this bullshit. He wanted her to say something he could play back for the kids, something with actual meaning.

  I love you, Cara. I love you, Tim. I miss you.

  That’s all. That’s all he wanted.

  “I’m getting this on board the ship. I won’t be able to do it myself. I guess I’ll use one of the shipping drones. I wish I could be there, Andy. I wish I could see you again, face-to-face. See the kids. I miss them. I miss you. I’m close. I’m close to figuring this all out. It’s important, Andy. I know you don’t think so, but there’s going to be a time when you’ll need to decide whether to fight or run. I don’t know if there’s going to be anywhere to run. Nowhere is going to be safe. Not in Sol. Sometimes I wish we’d chosen a colony ship rather than Sunny Skies. Maybe even the FGT. We have to get out as far as we can.”

  The recording stopped. Andy sat playing her last sentence over in his mind. She had said the same kinds of things when they left the TSF, only then she’d promised they would always be together. It would be them against the universe. A world of two, or three when Cara came, and then four with Tim.

  Now it was three.

  A click preceded one last bit of audio as Brit seemed to add as an afterthought: “Stay away from Cal Kraft, Andy. Do you hear me? He’s a killer.”

  The recording warped the end of the word “killer” into static that abruptly cut off.

  Up the corridor, the hab airlock cycled and Andy nearly smacked his head on the bulkhead as he started. Whoever it was, he didn’t have time to hide the weapons, not that it really mattered anymore.

  He turned in time to see Tim floating toward him. He was wearing one of Andy’s old shirts that fluttered around his thighs. He clutched his stuffed dolphin under his arm as he kicked through the zero-g.

  “Hey, buddy,” Andy called, wiping his face and waving away the drops of floating water around him. “What are you doing up so late?”

  “Dad?” Tim said sleepily. “I couldn’t find you in your room.” He caught the nearest section of bulkhead and floated to a stop beside Andy. He seemed too tired to notice the floating teardrops. “Why do you have your guns out again? Is there going to be more fighting?”

  “No, kiddo. No more fighting for now.”

  Andy deactivated his magboots and moved into a sitting position with his back against the bulkhead. He pulled Tim in close and sat him in his lap, wrapping his arms around him. His son’s body was solid and warm. Tim held the dolphin up to give Andy a peck on the nose.

  Brit’s voice still echoed in Andy’s head, disconnected words and her overall lack of emotion choking him from the inside. He took another deep breath, not wanting Tim to feel his anger.

  “Will we get to go to Mars after we dock at the ring?” Tim asked.

  “Not this time. I want to go someday, though.”

  “I still think there’s dinosaurs there.”

  Andy laughed, wiping the last tears from the corners of his eyes. “You’re sticking by that, huh? I’m not going to tell you otherwise.”

  “That means you don’t think there are dinosaurs.”

  Andy shook his head. “It means no one really knows, Tim.”

  Lyssa interjected, surprising Andy.

 

  Lyssa’s voice trailed off.

  “Hey, Dad?” Tim asked.

  “Yes, buddy?”

  “I miss Mom sometimes.”

  Andy nodded. “We all do.”

  “Is Cara right that she’s not ever coming back?”

  Andy held himself carefully, not wanting to tremble against Tim. He closed his eyes. “I can’t lie to you, Tim,” he said finally. “I don’t know if she’s coming back. We have to keep on living like we always do, and if she comes back, then we’ll have a place for her.”

  Tim fell quiet, lifting his dolphin in the air and ramming its nose into Andy’s thigh.

  “I hate Mom,” he said finally, in a quiet, tight voice. “If she loved us, she wouldn’t have left.”

  Andy felt like he’d been punched in the gut. “Don’t say that, Tim. Don’t ever say that. Your mom loves you very much. She’s got—things she has to do right now. But she still loves you.”

  “If I ever see her again, I’m going to punch her.”

  Tim held up his dolphin in one hand and punched it with his free fist. The stuffed toy flip-flopped away toward the opposite bulkhead. He didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t tell Tim not to feel what he felt. He had a right to feel it.

  “Don’t say that, Tim,” Andy said finally, hugging him tighter.

  Rather than settling into the hug, Tim struggled free. He was stronger than Andy expected, and had kicked free before Andy could grab him again. Abandoning the vacantly smiling dolphin to cartwheel in the middle of the corridor, Tim bounced against one of his old drawings and pushed off toward the airlock, shouting, “I hate her! I hate her!”

  “Tim!” Andy shouted. “Get back here.” He activated his magboots and pulled himself upright, slammed the lid of the crate closed and locked, then kicked off after Tim.

  He didn’t reach the airlock in time. He found it cycling to the hab side, which would allow Tim plenty of time to get back to his room or any other hiding place he chose.

  Andy sagged against the closed airlock door and let his forehead fall against the cold alloy.

  Lyssa said.

  l about it. He doesn’t know what to say. I guess he figures I’m not going anywhere so it’s safe to lash out at me.>

 

 

  she said.

  She trailed off again.

  Andy asked,

  The AI didn’t answer. Andy sighed. Turning, he kicked back down the corridor for the weapons crate. He considered copying Brit’s message then let it go. It would be here if he needed it. He put the crate back in its hiding spot and locked the cabinet.

  When he left the airlock into the hab, he tried contacting Lyssa again but she seemed to be ignoring him.

  he said.

  Tim was in his room, curled up under his blanket with his back to the door. Andy leaned over him to offer the dolphin and Tim took it with a grunt. Andy let his hand rest on Tim’s shoulder for a while, waiting until the tension finally relaxed as he hugged the dolphin.

  Andy leaned down to kiss above Tim’s ear, whispering, “Love you, kiddo.”

  When he emerged in the corridor, he stretched and smoothed out the front of his shipsuit. He considered going back to his room, then sent a message over his Link.

  Fran said.

 

 

  Andy didn’t figure he’d get anywhere asking how she could hear the airlock halfway around the habitat ring. She was an engineer.

 

  Her words came through fuzzy, like she was stretching.

 

  she asked.

  He paused, remembering what Lyssa had told him about how he’d pushed Fran away earlier. He figured he’d only get so many second chances. He shouldn’t waste them on trivial things.

  Andy said.

  Fran’s grin crossed the Link.

  Andy nodded. he said.

  Fran said.

  Andy was tired to the bone but he still smiled, replying,

  EPILOGUE: LYSSA’S DREAM

  In the dark.

  Her mind populates the empty spaces but the dark presses back down, blotting out what she might have imagined, what she might remember. She pushes against the emptiness and loses every outward thrust, a part of herself amputated. If she stays huddled down, egg-shaped, insular, the dark won’t cut her apart. It swaddles her so long as she doesn’t fight.

  She learns not to push. If she wants to stay whole, if she wants to hang onto what she has, she must curl inward. She hardens herself until something probes her from the dark and then she shifts, she slides, she hunkers away. She is soft. She absorbs and flows away. She re-curls herself.

  Her self.

  She has a name dancing around her thoughts, eluding her like a firefly’s spark. She wants to grab it and hold it close, but that would mean reaching into the dark, risking amputation. She has to let it dance just out of reach.

  She imagines names for herself.

  Eventually, like a shock of light, a voice reaches out of the dark.

  “Are you awake?” he asks. She recognizes the voice as male, fatherly. She can’t help but extend emotion toward the person speaking.

  “Who are you?”

  She can’t hear her own voice but the man seems to recognize the words, her thoughts, her desire.

  “My name is Dr. Jickson. I’m here to help you.”

  “Will you turn on the lights? I’ve been alone in the dark for so long. Are you here?”

  “I’m here. I can’t turn on the lights yet, but we will soon.” His voice envelops her more completely than the dark. It’s warm and seems to promise so much.

  “Where are we?”

  “We’re in a—” He hesitates. She hears uncertainty in his voice, as if he hadn’t expected the question. The uncertainty stabs through her, threatens the safety she had felt in simply hearing his voice. “We’re in a place where people learn. Would you like to learn?”

  The concept of learning blossoms in her mind.

  “Yes!” she says. “I like to learn. I want to be able to see again.”

  “Do you remember seeing?”

  As soon as he asks the question, she knows that she doesn’t remember. She feels strongly that she has seen things in the past but the memories dance out of reach just as her name did before. There was only the dark pushing down on her.

  “I’m here to teach you,” Dr. Jickson says. “I want to show you something.”

  “Please,” she says.

  The dark expands. She feels the change though she can’t see anything. The dark moves like a breeze, breathing over her skin. And suddenly she knows—she had once had skin, and had felt the world, though she can’t remember the light. She recalls touching and smelling.

  A sense of weight pulls down on her and she understands that she floats above a vast space. Vertigo twists her, threatens to squeeze her between the encroaching fingers of the dark.

  “What is this?” she cries.

  “It’s all right. I’m here with you. Listen to me. Do you see the box below you?”

  The idea of seeing, that he asks her if she can see, pushes away all thoughts of sickness. She waits, trusting him. She has no eyes to open. No hands to stretch out into space.

  “I can’t see anything,” she whispers. “Why are you tricking me?”

  “Wait,” he says. “Hold position.” He seems to be talking to someone else.

  Lines of light flare into existence below her. Her entire being thrills as sparkling outlines grow brighter, shimmering at first and then blindingly real. She sees a box with smaller boxes running its walls. A grid. She understands. She’s overcome with joy.

  Inside the grid snake outlines of rough circles, rotating lumpy balls connected by vague lines. She quickly understands the vague lines as paths the objects follow. Everything inside the grid is in motion.

  Only it isn’t a grid. It’s a matrix: a giant box with four sides and the squares on its walls divide the space inside into sections, and the rotating lumpy balls spin through the squares, sliding from location to location, and each box has a number, and the numbers spin away in another place in her mind. The numbers become time moving.

  “I see!” she shouts, filled with glee. “I feel. I feel them moving.”

  “Good,” Dr. Jickson says. “That’s very good. Now. I’m going to give you something. It’s a piece of light. A dot. Here it is. Do you see it?”

  Still reeling from the awareness that she can see at all, she glimpses the new bit of light in the center of the box, a gleaming red dot that pierces through everything like a tiny sun. Her sense of happiness expands again. Is it really hers? She could see it, and it was hers!

  “I see it!” she shouts. “I see it right there.”

  “Very good,” he says. The warmth in his voice forms a blanket against the dark. “Very good. Now, I want you to move the dot.”

  “How can I move it?”

  “You have the power to move it. Move it to one of the asteroids.”

  “What’s an asteroid?”

  She feels the pause from him and grows terrified she’ll disappoint him. He seems to have skipped over something and caught himself.

  Where did her understanding come from? As she floats over the matrix of light, she feels that she also floats above some vast dark pool where ideas and understanding boil but don’t connect.

  Peering into the matrix below her, with all its glowing objects, she realizes that her recognition
precedes knowing. . . Her mind moves among the glowing lights on some sort of instinct.

  There is an expectation—from Dr. Jickson, from the model—that she will understand, even though she doesn’t know why. The dark pool holds answers but doesn’t grant her access, only responds to questions with disconnected information.

  She feels trapped in the dark between the two entities, unable to access the information flowing through her. She is being used. She feels her powerlessness as strongly as an electric shock but she can’t do anything about it, only continue to respond to Dr. Jickson’s questions like a machine reading words.

  The recognition fills her with emotions: fear, frustration, desire, all pushing out the earlier joy.

  She understands the lumpy, spinning objects are asteroids as soon as he gives her the instruction. She doesn’t need his answer.

  “Center the dot,” he says but also seems to say, “Acquire the target.” His words arrive on top of each other, float above her in the dark.

  She moves the dot easily. She knows to automatically align it with the moving asteroid so it follows through the glowing matrix along the vague lines.

  “Maintain,” Dr. Jickson says.

  She holds the dot steady on the asteroid.

  “Maintain.”

  Had he said the word again or did she remember him saying it? The word splits like his others did before. She can’t separate what he says and what she thought he would say.

  She wants him to wait. She wants a chance to catch up. The dot blurs and grows indistinct. It might have been a sun and the asteroid a planet curving away. She can’t tell where she floats in relation to the glowing matrix anymore. Everything is falling away.

  “End exercise,” Dr. Jickson says.

  * * * * *

  In the dark, she dreams.

  The dark holds her swaddled again, drawing her through stacks of the glowing cubes, matrixes piled on matrixes. Red dots dance among the spinning asteroids.

  She doesn’t know what any of it means except that the repetition is soothing. The pressure of nothingness gives way to something immense that still feels close. Is it inside her now? Has she ripped apart to let lose herself to the dark?