“Yeah,” I say, pushing one lock of his blue-black hair away from his face. “It was. And they broke it.” Just like my family had done with me.
His chest heaves. “I don’t know what to do without that contract.”
“You get to decide what you become.”
He shakes his head derisively, then his expression softens. “I guess.”
“I’m glad we’re here together for this,” I say.
Kodiak looks at me. “I don’t know how you can find anything positive about our situation, but I believe that you mean that.”
I take his hands in mine, hold them in my lap.
He closes his eyes, and when he opens them there’s a sudden gleam in them. He snatches his hands away from mine, snaps his fingers, and points to the blanket. Startled,I throw it over the tops of our heads.
Kodiak writes on the tablet, and then passes it to me.I got it. This is a test!
A test? What kind of test?
In training we had many unannounced drills. Woken up in the dark / transported blindfolded / had to nav our way back from deep wilderness. This could be like that. The launch that we assumed was happening never happened. We don’t remember it. Then they put us in a mock ship and feed us some lie about “clones” to judge how we react.
He passes the tablet back to me. I scan his expression for any sign of doubt. It’s all a little too conspiracy theorist for me to even consider. Then again, so is the supposed truth of our situation.
I know in my heart that he’s wrong. That he’s going through denial, a textbook reaction to shock. I want him to get back to his tears, so we can mourn our situation together. But I don’t know how to write those feelings in a tablet under a blanket. Instead I type,The Minerva distress call?
A manipulation. Maybe she’s fine, or maybe she’s dead. It’s all part of trying to see how we might break down under mid-voyage stresses. As research for future expeditions.
Did he really just call my sister’s fate a manipulation? Ilook at him. His eyes are hollow in the filtered light. He’s retreated to some desolate place that I can’t reach. He’s too lost in his own suffering to realize how reckless those words are to say to me.
Could be true. I don’t feel like I can say anything for sure anymore.
He shifts under the blanket, so his face is out of view. I lift the fabric with one hand so I can see his expression again. He writes:Don’t confess that in front of OS. Then you’ll have failed the test. You won’t be sent on the eventual mission.
Watching his face, I gingerly take the tablet back. I don’t think Fédération works the same way as Dimokratía. My mission control wouldn’t do this to me. My mother wouldn’t do this to me.
His tongue makes a click, which I know is a mocking sound in Dimokratía.Such an enlightened country, I forgot.
Besides, we’re obviously in space.
How do you know?
Is he serious right now? The stars. The view of the other part of the ship. The hum of the floor under us. The fact that we’re not getting any signals from the outside unless the antennae is on the exterior of the ship.
All of that can be faked. The “old” you said those stars ARE fake, remember?
I roll my eyes, suddenly grateful that this hulk isn’t looking closely enough at me to notice. Yeah, and we might also be brains in a vat somewhere, and our whole lives have been simulations while machines milk us for our organic materials. Or we’re prisoners living their existences chained up in a cave, mistaking the shadows on the wall for the world itself.
I laugh, but when he doesn’t, I stop.
What if he’s right? What if we’re in a bunker and not a spaceship, and thisissome kind of test? There’s no way to know for sure. Well, I can think ofoneway. We could open a door—but that would involve depressurizing the whole ship. If my hunch is wrong, then we’re dead. Something strikes me. I tug the tablet from his fingers and start typing. There’s no gravity at the center of the ship.
Zero gravity can be produced artificially. We’ve both been in those simulators during training.
You’re really convinced, aren’t you?
Come on. Isn’t it far more likely that we’re in some psychological simulation than that we’re ancient clones woken up in the middle of a voyage across the galaxy???
A fair point, I guess. I don’t actually agree. I think he’s desperate for a way to hold on to everything that he thought he knew. I’m feeling the very same way. I’m just also a little more realistic about my own psychological pitfalls.
