The Remnants

Elliot Gardner was a reversion expert: all his days in university on the space station Homeward had been leading up to the moment when he could begin recreating the past through the means of simulation and tech advances. His graduate project had been to provide a believable recreation of the 1920's prohibition era in America. Months of research, through all the databases available to him for study, culminated in a speak-easy environment with an added performance by one of the jazz singers of the time. The professors had given him high marks, nearly a perfect score, for all his attention to detail. It didn't matter that it wasn't exactly real; what counted was the atmosphere he was able to bring forth from archival materials ranging from photographs to videos.

But one professor's comment did sting a little: "While the methods combining simulation with after-earth data are impeccable, there is a certain lack of emotion to the piece. The student would be wise to incorporate some more heart into the reversions he performs."

After graduation, Elliot applied for a teaching license to keep him afloat until he found a position aboard one of the generation ships. While he watched a new group of reversion students learn their way to manipulate the tech to make their creations come alive, he too was looking for his next muse in regards to a new project. The last reversion project he had done was to create a mini-carousel for a birthday gift; the only organic material for the piece had been a paper horse and some flecks of gold dust. The tech reinforcements and manipulations had done all the rest. It was like creating a grand illusion that would persist long after his own personal magic had disintegrated.

His next project? It had to be big. Awe-inspiring. Groundbreaking. Enough to wash away the dirty smear the professor's comment had left on his own views of his work.

A coworker aboard the Homeward took him out for some brew after a day-long shift with the students. "You look awful," she said, settling back in her seat as he looked down at the concoction that in and of itself was just a mimic for real alcohol. Very few people could afford the real stuff, which was brought by special delivery every ninety days.

"I feel awful," he agreed, trying to sound cheery despite his words.

His coworker shook her head. "At least get an AI or something for all that pent-up stress," she said, and Elliot nearly laughed. Once, he had wanted to design AI programs before the technology of reversion had taken his breath away. He could still remember how the first reversion he experienced felt: the Atlantic Ocean, brought alive to his senses, its waters too cold to be anything but real lapping at his feet. When the simulation had ended, there were still goosebumps rising on his skin. It had felt so real.

"Why don't you go for your doctorate?" his coworker asked. "You'd get to do your own research and everything. And you might even get paid while you do it! Then you might have an even better chance of getting aboard one of the generation ships."

Elliot let out a long sigh. "It would just be for my ego," he said, "and everything I want to work on seems like a pet project."

"Well, try me. What would you like to work on, if given the chance?"

He hesitated, unsure if he could trust her with blatant honesty. He usually didn't talk reversion with anyone since no one he knew had the attention span for it. "I want to recreate something that was lost," he said. "Maybe a piece of history that was lost even before the databases existed to archive every bit of information about something."

His coworker frowned at him. "Lofty goals, huh?"

He actually did laugh this time. "Yeah, I guess you could say that."

Before they left the brew room, his coworker passed a driver component into his hand. "Why don't you give what's on here a gander? Maybe you'll be inspired." Then she was gone, too fast even to be hugged as a goodbye, but Elliot figured that was best. He really didn't want to start something with a coworker, especially one whose name never quite managed to stay in his overcrowded brain.

When Elliot was back in his quarters, he drew up his port screen and plugged in the driver. Files flitted above him in neat rows, each with descriptive titles that made him wonder just how long his coworker had been thinking about her own reversion projects. One entitled "shipwreck" caught his attention, so he tapped on it. Dozens of pictures appeared on the screen in real living detail.

The boat was decimated, even by after-earth standards. Long planks of wood jutted out in all directions, the innards caked with seaweed and debris. It was as if he were looking at a corpse of something that had once been a living vessel. And he supposed the boat had been before its lifeless form had crashed along the shoreline, never to be afloat on the waters again. He imagined what it might have been like to travel aboard such a boat when it had been at its prime. Why had no one ever done a reversion like that before?

But why should he expect such a thing from someone else when he already was perfectly capable of doing so himself?

Elliot started jotting notes down in real-time on the screen. Ideas flooded through him, each one more distinct than the last, until he had a project outline set before him. It wasn't the meat of doctorate material, at least not yet, but it was something. He could bring this reversion to life, he was sure of it.

What felt like a string of long sleepless nights passed by in a rush. Elliot took up every spare moment to dig up more research on ships in the era of peak oceanic travel on earth. The documents he scanned through were long, yellowed transfers that he had to squint to read even on his port screens. He supposed that no one had thought to salvage as much material as possible because space technology had outpaced and out-advanced all matter of travel by earthian seas. Who else but him would take this kind of side project so seriously? He even almost fell asleep while proctoring an exam for his students one day.

When he had gotten the skeleton aspects of the reversion done, he asked Janine—yes, he finally remembered his coworker's name—if she would like to see what he had been working on. Her brows had risen in intrigue. "Sure," she said. "I'd love to be your test audience."

That night, as others aboard Homeward had gone off to the mess hall for dinner, Elliot brought Janine to one of the larger simulation rooms. He readied each VR scope for what would trick the five senses into believing something was real beyond any shadow of doubt. Janine waited patiently, a small smile playing about her mouth, until he gave her the thumbs-up.

One moment, they stood in a sterile room in a drifting space station; the next, their shoes were digging into a sand-crusted shoreline. Even the traces of an ocean breeze flitted through Janine's long brown hair.

"Amazing," she murmured, her eyes scanning the waters. Even Elliot found himself marveling how blue the ocean was, such a far cry from the desert mounds left behind on the earth of today. And then, just as he was evaluating whether he should recreate the sounds and smells a bit more in his next run-through, he heard Janine gasp.

Out on the horizon came a magnificent ship the color of rich mahogany wood. It glided through the waves easily, its mast slicing through the picture of the sky behind it. And on the sail was a family crest that, as Elliot had researched, had gone nearly extinct back on earth.

His eyes slid back to Janine, who looked as if she were ready to weep.

"You recreated the Redfern ship," she said, her voice soft.

Elliot nodded. "You should have told me your family used to be mariners."

Janine wiped at her eyes. "I didn't think it would have mattered. It was so long ago. Lifetimes ago."

"But it's something worth keeping alive for posterity, isn't it?" His gaze returned to the ship that had become his obsession in these days past. "Now you have a piece of your family's past."

Janine nodded. Then, so soft he might have missed it because of the sounds of crashing waves, she said, "Thank you."

It was the first time any reversion of his had elicited such a response. He didn't fight the grin that came to his face.

There were, after all, so many more projects to come. This ship was just the start of things to come in his reversionist history.