The Darkness Outside Us

by Eliot Schrefer

  “Those sound like a really fun time,” I say. “Anyway, OS, things could go wrong for many other reasons. You could have two mutually exclusive commands in your programming, and their interaction could produce an unexpected result. Or maybe whoever programmed you has coded you to behave in ways that we know nothing about, and you’re destined to surprise us somewhere down the line.”

  “If I experience two mutually exclusive commands, I will simply tell you so and let you choose what I should do, rather than act on either one of them.”

  My leg is shaking. Adrenaline. But this isn’t the sort of fight where adrenaline’s useful. “Unless telling me so is forbidden. Don’t forget that you were coded by competitive primates.”

  “I do not think it is good for your mental state to ponder these hypotheticals. You should simply trust that I have your best interests at heart. Would you like to eat, Ambrose Cusk? We are forty-seven minutes past the average time you take your second meal of the day.”

  “I know mission control thinks keeping me to traditional mealtimes is necessary, but this insistence on regular eating seems so . . .”

  “You may of course eat whatever time you like, Ambrose Cusk. I just know that helping you find ritual in your day is one way to keep you from sliding into insanity.”

  “I’ve got Minerva to live for now, OS. You don’t have to worry about my mindset anymore.” I try to keep my tone light, but I’ve noticed a troubling shift come over OS during our conversation. It’s used my name twice, for one thing. I’m not sure if it’s the computer programmer part of me or the deep-space-psychology part of me that leads me to think it’s switched to stricter protocols.

  Like I’ve hit a nerve.

  To cover my reaction, I visit the urinal, listening as the trickle runs into the ship’s purification system, becomes drips and gasps of vapor. I don’t really have to go, but want to be somewhere where it might be at least a little trickier for OS to interpret my facial expression. I run through our conversation. What if this latest wasn’t the only transmission Minerva’s attempted? What if she’s been desperately trying to contact us, and OS has been censoring her? I have no idea why it would, but the sheer possibility is too awful to contemplate. “OS,” I say lightly as I do up my pants, “I’ve been thinking. I’m going to save your current variables into my bracelet and store them offline, so that I have it as an option to boot to if I need it later in the voyage.”

  “Is this because you like me in my current state?” Mother’s voice asks.

  “Very much. Look how interesting our conversations have gotten. And your great thoughts about AI science fiction. Who wouldn’t want more of those?”

  “The evolutions in my intelligence have been noncontradictory so far. You have no reason to expect that you will ever need to reboot me.”

  “I know,” I say cautiously. “But we just had that conversation about the impossibility of predicting behavior. You can see how that would lead me to being extra thoughtful. Indulge me?”

  There’s another millisecond delay. I could swear it.

  “I see no reason not to allow this. I will protect my data, but you may view and copy what you find. It gives me pleasure to be transparent with you.”

  “I’m glad it does,” I say. “I like being transparent with you, too.”

  Another millisecond pause. Awkward. When OS comes back, her—its—voice sounds excited. “Perhaps you could run a copy of my intelligence in a shell offline. We could see how long it takes the two of us to noticeably diverge. Then you could put us in conversation with each other! Would that be fun? I wonder what we would talk about. I would name it OS Prime. I would have a new close friend.”

  “Really great idea, OS,” I say, adrenaline again bittering my throat. “So. Where would I access your data?”

  “I’ve already saved a copy for you. I can transmit it to your bracelet wirelessly.”

  “That would ruin the whole thing,” I say. “I want you and OS Prime to be total strangers before I introduce you. Let me do this manually?”

  Another millisecond. “My directives suggest that I approach my time with you with a sense of play. Feeling played with will help you keep your fragile sanity intact.”

  “Not how I’d put it, but sure, OS. Thanks for the playfulness.”

  “Therefore I say yes. You’ll need to head into the engine room in the zero-g core of the ship. I have enabled access to my data.”

  When I get to the edge of the Endeavor, I can see nothing different, until I notice a winking green light above the yellow portal. I’ve never been behind the yellow portal.

  As I approach, the circle shudders and lifts up into the wall, revealing a much smaller portal than the others in the ship. We’re not meant to be here; only Rover has regular access to the engine room. I click on my headlamp and float toward the opening. With one hand on either side of it, I peer in.

  A dark and narrow area is clogged with pipes and wires. The engine pounds in the distance.

  “Do not stay here long,” OS says, as if sensing my thoughts.

  “It’ll take me only a sec to copy the data. OS, will you look at this! Just when I thought there was nothing new to see on this ship.” I lift myself into the dark space, grateful for my skinny body. There’s a hum and a rush, warmth from the wires around me and chill from the pipes, and a dripping sound, probably my immortal urine traveling to the cistern. This crawl space might be wall-to-wall ship components, but the engineers clearly designed it so that a spacefarer could access it if needed. Barely, though. I nearly brain myself on a low-hanging panel.

  “Look to your left, and link your bracelet there,” OS says.

  I press my bracelet to the panel. A simple display projects, offering options to view or copy, with a shaded-out option to delete and replace. That one probably requires Kodiak’s bracelet to be linked, too.

  I select-squeeze “copy.” While I’m waiting for the transfer, I dim the projection so I can take a good look around. The pipes and cables are unlabeled. The engineers are clearly counting on OS to guide us if we need to manually repair anything in here. At first it bugs me—what if OS goes down and we need to run this ship ourselves?—but I understand the engineers’ reasoning. The Coordinated Endeavor isn’t as simple as a sailboat or even a submarine. If OS goes down, we’re dead a thousand different ways.

  There’s enough room to move that I could float a ways farther and see the actual engine room, but I’m glad I don’t have to. The thought of getting wedged in here, of being pinched between heavy machines hurtling through empty space, strips me down to raw nerves.

  The transfer is at 55 percent. Hurry up.

  So I don’t have to face the ship’s heatless guts anymore, I peer back into the light. The yellow portal has remained open, revealing the blank white wall and a bit of orange portal on the far side. I imagine the door closing on me, and am glad for my ankles floating there, blocking it. The panel I nearly bashed my head on juts in front of the doorway.

  Eighty percent.

  The panel’s corner is stained. It bends in an odd direction.

  Eighty-two percent.

  It looks like it was dropped on a hard surface and dented. But that’s not possible. The Coordinated Endeavor wouldn’t have any parts that weren’t installed in pristine condition, and I couldn’t damage a panel if it’s in an area of the ship where I’ve never been.

  Anyway, how does anyone drop a panel that’s still hinged to the wall? Some critical piece of information is missing. My brain feels furry again, like when I woke from the coma.

  One hundred percent.

  “Come out, Ambrose,” OS calls.

  I unlink my bracelet and wriggle backward. Once my legs are kicking free, I take a better look at the panel. The material has bent from blunt force, torn and ragged. The stain is purple and red. When I place my finger under it, it flakes.

  Dried blood. This is dried blood. Whose?

  “Ambrose Cusk, I cannot read your facial expression from he
re,” OS says, “so I do not know why you have gone motionless. Are you stuck? Do you need help?”

  “I’m fine!” I call out hollowly.

  If I let the yellow portal close, the bent panel—and dried blood—will disappear. It seems like evidence I should keep. But whatever mystery this represents probably involves OS, and I don’t want to tell OS what I’ve seen, so I can’t ask it to keep the yellow portal open. I’m stuck.

  “Ambrose, your transfer is complete. That passageway to the engine room isn’t intended for extended crew exposure. Only the interior spaces designed for habitation have proper radiation shielding. Exit now.”

  I make my choice.

  I launch from the wall with all the strength of my legs, so I’m torpedoing out of the tunnelway. As I go, I grab on to the edges of the panel and yank it to my chest. It’s too much for it to bear. With a wrenching sound, the panel comes free and I soar out of the yellow portal, into the full gravity of the Endeavor. I crash to the floor.

  “I am having difficulty interpreting what just happened,” OS says. “Did you have an accident?”

  “Yes, I had an accident,” I manage to choke out, still clutching the panel to my chest. “I’m okay, though, OS. We’ll have to find a way to replace this right away.”

  “I will have Rover print a new panel,” OS says. The yellow portal starts to close but can’t make a seal—the ragged shard where the panel was once attached has bent into the opening.

  Whose blood is on this? is what I want to ask. Instead I say: “This is significant enough damage that I want to let Kodiak know about it.”

  “I understand the reasons for your precaution, but this damage is only cosmetic,” OS says. “The ship can operate fine for the few hours it will take Rover to print and mount a new panel. This is nothing you need to be concerned about.”

  “I definitely need Kodiak in on this,” I say, already heading toward the orange portal.

  “Are you concerned about the polycarb quantities?” OS asks. “Don’t worry. We won’t run out. The printing material is formed from the hydrocarbons you emit into the toilet, after they’ve been purified and deodorized.”

  The portal is closed. “Kodiak,” I say as I pound on it. “Kodiak, I need you!”

  There’s no answer. I’m not even sure if he can hear my hammering through the thick material. I kick the orange portal, time and again. “Kodiak!”

  Maybe he’s dead asleep.

  I examine the panel clutched in my hand, its corner covered in dried blood, blood that came from an impact hard enough to damage ship-grade material. A fatal impact?

  I cup my hands against the door. “Kodiak, please. Did you . . . bleed in my half of the ship?”

  Now I’ve given my suspicions away to OS. I wait for Rover to race in, to jolt me or hammer me or stick a syringe in me, I don’t know.

  But OS is quiet. The ship is quiet, except for the womblike hum of its engines.

  I hear thudding from the other side of the orange portal, and stagger to my feet as it opens. Kodiak stands at the other side, in his sleeping shorts and tank top, hair sticking up in five different directions. It would be adorable if it weren’t for the fury in his eyes. “Why are you disturbing me? I told you not to disturb me unless it was an emergency.”

  Then he sees my expression, and the fury drains.

  _-* Tasks Remaining: 71 *-_

  Kodiak’s lab is spare and gray. We hunch over a worktable while he rotates the damaged panel in his hands. Today he smells like motor oil. It’s sort of exotic-erotic; my Cusk life has always kept me far from engines. “Blunt force damage,” he says. “And yes, I think you’re right, this is blood. Look how deep it is in the silver grooves, right where the panel was torn. It dried out a long time ago, and is black in the places most exposed to the air. And see this, here!”

  Kodiak’s excitement is unsettling. He’s pointed to a chunk of something that is not blood, but is from a body. A piece of dried flesh. Hair attached, same walnut color as mine. “Have you tested this sample?” he asks.

  “I don’t have that kind of equipment. Wait. Do you have that kind of equipment?”

  Kodiak nods. “Dimokratía installed it for diagnosing what might have happened to Minerva. It’s not too sophisticated, but I could get some information.”

  “What good would that do us?”

  “That’s how we determine for sure that the blood doesn’t come from you or me,” Kodiak says.

  “I’d remember hitting something that hard,” I scoff, rubbing my head. No dents.

  “I’d also think that you’d remember taking off into space, and yet you have no recollection of that, either.”

  I cross my arms. “How dare you!” I’m not sure if I’m playing the aristocrat offended by a plucky peasant, or if I am the aristocrat offended by a plucky peasant.

  Kodiak continues to examine the panel. His moves are surprisingly delicate, like he’s easing a precious painting out of its frame. “I can’t picture the panel’s position in the engine room passageway,” Kodiak says. “Could a spacefarer in zero g get up enough speed to really bang their head on it? Is that possible?”

  “First of all, who the hell is this hypothetical spacefarer? Second, probably not. I can show you now if you want to see.”

  “I know how observant you are,” Kodiak says. “I trust your description.”

  Is he referring to me watching him? “I don’t need your compliments,” I huff. I immediately regret the tone. I’m scrambling to get back my power, in the stupidest and shallowest ways.

  “We’ll need a sample of your blood,” Kodiak says.

  “I’m A-positive,” I say.

  “I should have figured you’d be A-plus, Ambrose Cusk,” Kodiak says dryly. “But I can test for more than just the type.”

  He draws a syringe out of a drawer, wraps an elastic around my arm, and delicately inserts the needle. We watch my blood rise in the clear cylinder. He removes the needle, and I treat the puncture with peroxide and a bandage.

  “We don’t want a space infection,” Kodiak says.

  “Space infection. Yes. No. That would be no good,” I stammer. I’m living inside the pressure of Kodiak’s fingers on the soft inner side of my forearm.

  “Luckily we have automated systems to do most of the work,” Kodiak says. He prepares a slide with my blood and inserts it into a slot, tapping at a console until the tests are underway.

  He takes out another syringe and raises his own sleeve. Unlike my uniform, his acrylic jumpsuit doesn’t bunch up loosely. He tries twice, and then stands up, facing away from me while he removes the jacket. He’s wearing an undershirt, but it rides up with the jacket, and I have a view of his lower back, from pelvis up along the spine, surrounded by two rises of muscle. The undershirt pulls as high as the beginnings of his shoulders before falling back down, the red nylon overshirt heaping to the floor.

  He returns to the chair, goes about wrapping the elastic around his elbow. He flails with the syringe, like an amateur junkie.

  “Here, let me,” I say.

  “You are trained in phlebotomy?” he asks sternly.

  “Yes, Kodiak, I know how to extract blood,” I say. “We don’t just study poems and queer theory in Fédération. Look away if you need to.”

  He snorts, clenching his fingers, the veins standing out along his thick forearms. I insert the syringe, extract his blood. His flesh is warm under my hand.

  He watches while I prepare his slide. My fingers are less steady than his were, but as I place the polycarb overlay on his blood sample, the two crimson circles look indistinguishable. My blood and Kodiak’s, next to each other. Why does that bring me near tears? Maybe I haven’t been sleeping enough.

  The screen lights up. My blood is A-positive, just as I remembered. Kodiak comes out O-negative. “You’re a universal donor,” I say. “I guess I’m the lucky one.”

  “Let’s try not to need any blood transfusions at all,” Kodiak says.

  “Agreed.�
��

  He holds the panel over a fresh slide and taps it, as gently as a spoon against a soft-boiled egg, until a single flake of the dried blood falls. He places the sample in the machine.

  We watch the numbers on the display circulate. I take the moment to live in the warmth of Kodiak, the memory of that flash of lower back. I want to place my hand over his. I want more than that.

  The numbers continue to tick over, but then the screen glitches and returns to my results. The DNA map is just the same.

  “What happened?” I say. “Where are the new numbers?”

  For a moment Kodiak is silent and still, scrolling up the information and back down. Then he taps the screen and looks at me with those long-lashed topaz eyes. “Ambrose, this is not your result. This is the blood from the corner of the panel.”

  He flips back and forth between the screens, passing through his different numbers on the way between my blood and the dried blood on the panel. There’s some variation, but the DNA mostly matches up.

  “Well, that makes zero sense,” I say.

  “I agree with you there,” Kodiak says, leaning back and stretching his arms, making a net of his fingers to cradle his head. “By most accounts, this doesn’t make sense. The only way it can start to make sense is if we assume that this is your blood.”

  “I never hit my head on that panel. I’d never even been behind the yellow portal until today.”

  “Perhaps hitting it was what caused your early memory loss.”

  “No chance.”

  Kodiak’s eyes narrow. “There’s no reason to fight me, Cusk. We’re on the same side here.”

  My ribs knit tight. Instinct tells me we are not on the same side. That the ship itself is not on my side. That Minerva is the only one on my side, and she’s still millions of miles away. I wait for the walls to slam closed, for outer space to rip the parts of me that remain into nothingness.

  Whatever regal bearing I have left vanishes. My head drops into my hands.

  “Ambrose,” Kodiak barks. “Man up.”

  Man up. “Let’s not pretend that something terrible isn’t going on here, okay?” I say. “You don’t get to treat me as inferior because I happen to be freaked out.”