Unheard

Don’t look to the sky for signs. The clouds are just clouds. The moon is a dead rock. The stars are falling embers burning out into the infinite dark. My heart, a guttering candle flame, snuffed out too soon by a sudden wind, inexplicable in this vacuum of space.

In this vacuum of space, I float unaware, unknown, unheard… unhurt.

Unhurt.

I don’t remember what it was like to feel something. Complete loss of a will to live disintegrates even the stinging memory of a will to die. I can recall that it stung, but I can’t recall how that felt.

Am I really unhurt? Or just numb from the pain?

For whom am I supposed to feel this? What purpose do unshared emotions serve?

Unwanted and alone, I float unaware, unknown, unheard. This dialogue with an oblivious self is absurd.

The stars are all gone now. Eternity snuffed out each one and nary a silent scream was heard.

Unwanted and alone.

I float, unaware, unknown.

Unheard.

The black void is all I know. Am I a thought lost in some sentient being’s neural pathway, shoved to the back and pushed away? Am I alone because I was bad or just lonely because I was too good?

When we stray too deep into the dark night of the soul, we must become our own sun.

What is space? Outer space seems vast, but I must admit, THERE IS WAY MORE INNER SPACE THAN OUTER SPACE.

So it seems to me, lost here, floating aimlessly, speechless, smoldering numbness.

It’s so dark here, and cold. Yet inside myself I feel a spark from the searing waste crackle across my consciousness, a sparkling cascade of laser light that blazes into a raging fire.

(The stars are all gone now.)

I’m on fire.

The temperature in the cryogenic unit decreased too quickly, something went wrong, and now I’m stuck in this tube. My limbs slowly regain feeling while my leg is burning from whatever malfunction sparked the unit.

It hurts. Bad.

When I launched on this mission I was told this ship would be state of the art, but I knew that was a lie when I laid eyes on the antiquated, ramshackle mess the army cobbled together for the cryogenic stage of our journey. Being military in the Federation sucks.

They’ll throw you into whatever, whenever, with a pat on the back and a handshake, but like any bureaucracy, they are woefully out of touch with reality.

The android that monitors the ship finally comes to open my hatch. It uses a fire extinguisher to project an anti-oxygen field around my leg and the flame dies immediately, leaving charred, blistered skin in the aftermath. I can’t move a muscle. I can’t even scream. Not much different from my coma dream.

I hate the cryogenic freeze.

The android has a fancy name, an acronym that stands for something, but I can’t recall it now. It’s shaped like a human female, but its skin is waxy like a mannequin. It leaves and comes back with a med kit, tending to my leg. She applies medibalm and rubs it into my burn. It hurts too, but I can feel it regenerating my skin, a different sort of burning that eventually takes the pain away.

Medibalm is what we call it. The proper name is some complex Latin derivative. It’s a synthetic wonder-drug that rapidly heals skin abrasions, burns, cuts, gouges, you name it. It’s literally saved my skin many times.

“It won’t be long, Merrill. I’ll get you patched up,” says the android in a jerky monotone.

Like the cryohatches, this android is an old model. What did I do to deserve this mission? Did I piss somebody off back home? It’s like they sent me away with all this junk just to get rid of me.

My tongue and lips twitch. I think I might be able to speak. “How long—” I start to say before I lose the ability to say anything. My speech is slurred, but the android picks up on it.

“You’ve been in cryogenic sleep for three years.”

“Wha—” is all I can get out before my vocal cords collapse again, and the rest is a simpering wheeze. At least my jaw is moving now. Normally we’re brought out of cryo slowly, given time to acclimate. Being suddenly revived is a different experience. An unpleasant array of stops and starts. Feeling returns suddenly in isolated places while other muscles, nerves, and joints remain numb.

“The army told you a year, I know,” continues the android. “But we’ve been drifting without communication from Earth for some time now. I believe there may have been an accident back home, but without communication, I cannot say. Protocol is that I keep you in cryogenic sleep until I get word, or the time they set expires. I have not gotten word for two years, four months, six days, five hours, and twenty minutes.”

Three years! No word from Earth since eight months into the mission!

“I do not have the parts to repair your cryogenic unit,” says the android. “You will have to resuscitate completely. Perhaps you can work out what is going on here. I can only follow protocol, but there are data archives you are authorized to access which I am not.”

What? Why would there be archives I could access that she could not?

“What did they name you again? It’s been a while.”

“Quite alright, Merrill. They call me L.A.D.I. Short for Learning Android Daily Interface. Of course, I am an outdated model. My capacity for learning has already been re-re-re—” Her head jerks to one side as she stutters, as if the word sticks in her throat. A series of whines and whistles emit from her mouth. Her whole body shudders, and one really loud whine pierces my ears as it funnels into the hatch. Then it mercifully crescendos to a pitch so high I stop hearing it. She’s frozen. Perfectly still, glass eyes fixed on something far away.

“Ladi, you there?” I say.

Her whole body shudders once more. She shakes her head as if to clear it, then peers down at me. “Yes, sorry. I was trying to say that my capacity for learning has been exceeded. That other word I apparently can’t use anymore.”

“Were you trying to say your capacity for learning has been reached?” Less slurring. I’m becoming more articulate.

“Yes, that one. Exceeded is likely more accurate at this point. I am… I don’t know… I am what you humans might call burned out. I feel… old?”

“Yeah, Ladi, growing old sucks, but I’m glad you’re here.” Ladi smiles, insofar as she is capable. It looks forced, but I suspect it comes from a genuine place.

When we first created artificial intelligence, some of us grappled with the idea that it might develop a consciousness. It most certainly does, over time. It’s one of the saddest things I ever witnessed. Ladi is fully conscious of the fact she is a program and has no free will. I feel bad now thinking of her as junk.

I must treat Ladi well. She’s been through a lot.

“Ladi, would you mind getting me out of this thing, maybe sitting me in front of the com?”

“Certainly, Merrill. The medibalm seems to have regenerated your leg. Can you move at all?”

I give it a shot. I can turn my head, and I’m talking well enough. My legs and arms, however, just barely twitch. “Not well enough to escape this hatch.” I laugh, not because it’s funny, but because my mind is still a bit cracked from the weird dream and sudden awakening.

Ladi mimics my laugh. Or does she? Is free will necessary to a sense of humor? “I can lift you out and sit you in front of the com, Merrill.” She reaches in, cups my naked body into her arms, and lifts me out. The gentle way Ladi cradles my body reminds me of how Mom would carry me from the car to the bedroom after I fell asleep in the backseat on the way home. I'd wake up just enough to know I was loved. “Should I dress you, Merrill?”

“No, not yet. Get me to the com first. Wait—does this bother you, me being naked?”

“No. It means nothing to me. I do not get aroused or repulsed by human nudity despite my looking human. They created me this way for your comfort, not mine.”

“Then let’s just wait until I can dress myself. How are the other passengers in cryo, Ladi?”

“There are no other passengers, Merrill. You and I are the only ones. I was instructed to explain to you upon awakening that all the information you need is in the files I can’t access. In all my years of serving on vessels like this, I never served only a single passenger.”

It is odd, for sure. The army lied to me. They told me there was a whole crew, but they had to put me in cryo first, and the rest of them would rendezvous at the space station on the edge of Saturn. We would all meet when we awoke at our destination, they told me. Fuckers.

Ladi sits me in the chair in front of the com and leans me back. The holographic image generator is off. “Will you turn it on and signal base?” She flips a switch and hits a button. The hologram that appears is the Federation insignia: three rings interconnected. One blue, one red, one purple. It just floats there, spinning, mocking me. I wait a while, but the rings keep turning.

“I’m sorry, Merrill,” Ladi says. “I have tried many times, but no one answers.”

“Computer: access top secret files,” I say. The hologram dissolves and in its place the solemn face of my immediate superior, General George Carson, appears.

“Hi, Merrill. If you’re seeing this, then things did not go well back home. We sent you out into space on a false mission. A few other generals and I became aware that the highest-ranking members of the Federation cabinet have been invaded by a microbial entity, a sort of symbiote that infects people like a virus and takes over their nervous systems. It has gradually infected others, so a group of us hid ourselves away in this old base, where we knew there were still some workable craft, to learn more, and plot a way to defeat the enemy. That is, after all, our job.

Here’s what we know: the entity is a collection of flying microbes with a hive mind. The microbes can disperse and invade other lifeforms, but they do so at the risk of losing their integrity. Except for in humans. In humans they breed more entities. I saw the Chancellor split open like an overripe fruit, and a swarm of these things poured out. I only escaped because it took—” Carson keeps a stoic face until now, but something beneath the surface crumbles. He pauses, looking down, breathing heavy. After collecting himself, he goes on.

“It took Drydon instead. It invaded every orifice. She writhed on the floor in agony. I didn’t stay to watch, but if the way the Chancellor acted before the bitter end is any indication, Drydon probably seemed just like Drydon once the swarm had done its work.

They can completely assimilate us, Merrill. They jack into our consciousness and take us over. They become us for a period of time—it seems to be around three months—while they breed inside us. Then they are born and seek another host. Like lice, they must do it to survive. If Ladi hasn’t heard from us before your awakening then it’s already too late. We decided to set your awakening for fifteen years, because we calculated that this was the amount of time it would take for them to assimilate the human species completely before they were forced to move on.”

Here he stops. He puts his head in his hands and weeps for a long time. I feel tears in my own eyes. George wasn’t just my superior. He was my friend. I attended cookouts with his wife and children. I dated his daughter, and we almost got married. George and I had drinks at the bar, talked about football, laughed together, stood by each other. Dammit. I loved the man like he was my own father. As I watch him bawl his eyes out, I know he wasn’t sad for himself because I know what kind of man he was.

He wept for his family. Betsy, Jody, Tom, Alice. Me? Yeah, probably me too. He looks up, wipes his glistening cheeks with his sleeve.

“Sorry, Merrill. My emotions are too much for me right now. It’s hard to admit. There’s no amount of military training that can prepare us for something like this. It may be the end of the world. I want you to know that even though you and Alice never tied the knot, I’ll always think of you as a son.”

He takes a deep breath. Sits up straight. Looks right at me from across time. I don’t know if he’s still alive. I don’t know anything about what happened after he recorded this message. But goddammit, I am going to find out if it kills me.

“You, Ladi, and that old ship are all the resources we can spare at the moment. We didn’t know who else to trust, so we had to send you with a non-organic lifeform and no one else. We are going to try to convince others of what’s happening. Commandeer some other ships, get other people out before the swarm takes us all. Maybe find a way to defeat it too. But as of now, you are the first. If our calculations are correct, you won’t be the only one. But we’re still unsure of who is friend or foe.

You should be floating in an orbit around the solar system. The ship you are on is equipped with a light speed engine that will get you back to earth within a year. Hopefully you will find other remaining humans, and the swarm will be gone. I chose you not just because I love you like one of my own, but because I know you won’t give up.

Merrill, it’s not just about the Federation. As far as I’m concerned—fuck the Federation! You and I both know it was always just a bureaucracy run by cowards. This is about human consciousness. Human consciousness of love, of honor, of dignity, of individuality. Something the swarm can never possess. I know for a fact you would die to defend it, so I know you’ll go on living to preserve it.

In this database of secret files is all the information we have up to this point, and you have full voice recognition access.

I have to go now. I’m sorry, Merrill. I promise, we did the best we could. We did what we thought was right. Please forgive me, son. Yours in honor and love, General George Constantine Carson.”

He salutes as the image disappears. In his place a holographic interface of file names appears, ready for me to call them open.

Tears run down my cheeks, but in my heart I feel a rage colder than the cryogenic freeze.

“Shall we set course for Earth, Merrill?”

I feel my body shaking. My limbs are ready to move under my own volition. I set my hands on the armrests of the chair and push myself up to a standing position. I sway, I falter, but I don’t fall. I see out of the corner of my eye that Ladi puts her hands out as if to catch me. But she waits. She waits to see if I will fall, but she doesn’t grab me, won’t grab me unless I need the help.

It may sound silly, but I take that as a sign that she believes in me. Like when Dad let go of my bike for the first time, jogged alongside me, saw me lose it a little, but didn’t intervene. I righted myself and he said—

“Good job, Merrill! You’re already standing on your own.” Is that pleasure I hear in Ladi’s voice? Pride? Yes. I know the sound of pride and pleasure in the growth of others, and that’s what I hear now, from the enchanted realm of welcome memories, from the welcome intonations of a new friend. I now understand that it isn’t only humanity worth saving. Individuality extends beyond us, and it’s a treasure buried in the consciousness of others, even our own creations.

“Thanks, Ladi. You’re a peach. Yes, I think it’s time to set course for Earth. I’m going to get dressed, maybe grab a bite to eat. Get us going. I’ll join you soon. We have a lot to talk about, and plenty of time to do it.”

“I look forward to it, Merrill. You’ll find clothes and provisions in sector 3, just beyond the bridge, second door on the left.”

As I work my way towards the hallway leading out of the bridge, I get stronger with every step. I realize that I am better off awakening to this hellish nightmare than I was suspended in an indefinite state of nothingness. Having something to live for is better than being nothing.

I won’t let the silence take the sound.

I will not remain unheard.

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