SWWAE Chapter 9: Not an Automaton, Organic.

Standing in her own cargo bay, she felt rather nervous as she stood before the closed ramp. She was about to meet a person. Granted, Eternity was a person, but she was a goddess, so it felt different from meeting a normal person. Taking a deep but fake breath, she steadied herself before opening the ramp.

“Shit, I forgot to put clothes on.” Well, it was too late now as she could already see him through the forming gap. In her month alone, she had tried on Heather’s clothes and none of them really fit right. Back on Earth, she wasn’t a person to wear clothes that didn’t make her feel good, and since she was alone, she felt no need to get dressed. Now she felt extremely naked, even if this body had nothing to show off.

“Gods damn,” the man said, taking a step back from the opening ramp. “Is your heater not working?”

Taking a step forward, she realized warmth had not been something she ever took care of. It wasn’t needed in this body. She hadn’t really messed with atmospheric controls at all as, again; it wasn’t needed. “I guess so.” Now she got a better look at the man. He looked extremely human, except for his yellow eyes and slightly pointed ears. She was never good at guessing people’s ages, but by his graying blonde hair and the wrinkles on his face she had to guess he was getting a little old.

Rubbing his arms, he finally looked away from the outside of the ship and towards her. Immediately she saw his face harden at the sight of her. The phantom body inside of her felt her stomach sink a little. Without realizing it, her hand slowly inched towards Last Resort. Though she didn’t realize it, he sure as hell did.

“Hey!” He took another step back as his own hand reached towards what looked like a sword hilt with no sword that hung from his hip. “Don’t do something foolish, automaton.” His eyes suddenly went wide. “Wait, is that a draking slugger?”

This was going south far quicker than she would have liked. “Not an automaton, organic.” If he was going to say it like a slur, why couldn’t she do the same with organic? Technicality she was using what might actually be called an automaton body at the moment, but he still said it like a slur. “I don’t know what a draking slugger is, but this will surely put a hole in you before you can use that little sword of yours.” Internally she berated herself for only escalating this, but he looked a little more wary.

There was a tense moment of silence before he spoke again. “Alright, why don’t we just both put our weapons down and start over?”

“Okay.”

“What?”

“I said okay. We can do that.” Slowly, she reached for the buckle of the holster belt. She could probably have just pulled the gun out, but this hopefully read as more peaceful. As she did, he reached not only for the sword hilt but also for a small box hanging off the other side of his belt. Was that its power bank? Slowly, both of them put their weapons down on the floor. Internally, she calculated how long it would take to commandeer her way over to the sword, and even with full focus she was sure he could pick it up faster. If she distracted him, could she do it without him noticing?

“Now, why don’t we just start off with names? I’m Vestan, and you are?”

She hesitated to give an answer. As a human, she had a name. A name she loved very much, but was she even that person anymore? Had that person ever been real? Part of her wanted to continue using that name, but there was another, larger part of her that held her back. She wanted to believe that part of her was the excitement of the change to use a new name, but it was really the feeling that if it was all fake she didn’t want to continue to bring up all those feelings, every time someone said her name.

“I’m going to have to get back to you on that. Sort of going through some stuff right now and not really sure of a name.”

Vestan pursed his lips. “Right. Is there anybody else on the ship?”

“Nobody else, just me. Well, there is a body, just not a living one. Her name is Heather.”

His eyes glanced down at her gun. Then down to his sword hilt. “Was Heather the captain?” She nodded. “And what happened to them?”

She took a few slow steps forward and to the side of the ramp. Leaning forward, she looked at her ship’s belly and for the first time got a good look at the damage. It was very noticeable and spread out further than she would have thought, and she pointed it out to Vestan. It was only then that she noticed her hull was a beautiful, slightly sparkly crimson red. “Oh shit, am I a hotrod?”

“What?”

“Nothing. Anyway, the ship was docking with another ship when a power drain hit the reactor. The drain also affected the other ship, so that pilot yanked himself off without closing the airlock. Locked down sealed off the cockpit where Heather was, but the main hall lost all atmosphere. She had been putting off a repair of the seal between the cockpit and the hall. Air slowly leaked out, and she suffocated.”

“Drak, that’s not an easy way to go,” he said with genuine sorrow in his voice.

Were drak and draking the same word? She didn’t ask that, though. “And as for the other ship, I’m guessing the drain made his reactor go critical and… There wasn’t anything left that I could find.” During that month of hell, she had done some sensor sweeps for whatever was left of the other ship, but she found nothing.

Vestan sighed. “Faden[1], give them peace. What about you in all of this?”

“I was, uh, incapacitated at the time.” She might not even have been alive yet.

He nodded with understanding, which she found a little strange. He simply accepted that she was incapacitated? “What caused the drain?”

Her gaze drifted down to the floor. “Some stupid shit tech that wasn’t worth their lives.” Her words weren’t nice, but they were true to how she felt. She wasn’t anywhere near worth two other peoples’ lives. “The drain was also what put most of my systems out of commission.”

Again, he nodded. “How long have you been out there?”

“I woke up thirty-one days ago. Been trying to get anything working, and the only thing I’ve managed to do is get the power going. Even then the reactor is dead, and everything major system is missing components needed to function.”

“Did the drain do physical damage to the systems?” He looked at her curiously.

She nodded. “Main power lines are all fucked up beyond recognition. I’ve been working at them, but it’s slow going. It’s not really needed with how little the ship can function with all the missing components.”

“What do you mean, missing components? Have you been looted?”

“Not that I’m aware of. There are just major parts missing. My best guess is the drain literally drained them out of existence.”

“What parts?” There was wariness in his voice again.

“I’m just going to be completely honest with you; I don’t know. I don’t understand how this ship functions, and I haven’t been able to find information that gives me anything helpful to go off of.” There had been paper schematics in Heather’s room, but she still didn’t fully understand how to read them, nor did they actually explain how to fix stuff.

The look on his face told her he was getting suspicious. “Did they not program you with the ship’s schematics?” Though that might have been how he felt, he was still taking steps towards her.

Maybe it was a good thing she didn’t have facial expressions to show how upset that question made her. “I’m not a fucking automaton. I wasn’t progr—” She might have been programmed, just not by Heather or whoever made the automaton body. “This body was damaged in the drain as well since it was plugged in. I’ve fixed what I can and now I’m just piloting this android body, okay?”

Vestan put his hands on his hips as he stared at her for a few seconds. “So you’re a person?”

She put her own hands on her hips. “Of course I’m a gods damn person.” She took a step closer and realized she was only taller than him because she was still on the ramp. So, was he tall, or was she short?

His eyes narrowed at her. “You disagree with this statement.” Confused, she just continued to stare at him. Was that a riddle or something? It was paradoxical, so how could she give an answer? Was this going somewhere, or was he expecting an answer? “That’s what I thought,” he said, trying to take a step around her.

“Hey! I di—”

He jumped hard at her words while screaming, “Ah!” One of his hands reached up and clutched at his chest as he bent over. His breath was ragged and labored. “Gods! Giff!”

If she had actually eyes, they would have gone really wide. Standing there, she wasn’t sure what to do. Had she just scared this man into a heart attack? “Shit, I’m sorry. I di—”

“Why in all the hells did you just stand still?!” He remained hunched over and seemed to be in genuine pain.

“I didn’t understand what you were trying to achieve by stating a liar paradox! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” This whole encounter wasn’t going great. Questioning a god’s choice of who was to help her probably wasn’t the right thing to do, but she couldn’t help it.

“You did a damn good job of it.” He was still panting, but he didn’t appear to be in as much pain as he stood back up. “So you’re not an automaton?”

“I’m a real person,” she answered far more calmly than she would have liked to. She may not be organic anymore, but she was still a person. Again he looked wary of her words. “What was stating a paradox supposed to do, anyway?”

That wariness wasn’t going away. “What do you think it was supposed to do?”

She took a deep breath as she thought about it. “Shut me down?”

One side of his lips pulled back as he continued to look at her. “Alright, kid, why don’t you show me your catalyst and we can take it from there? I’m sure your reserves are low by now, and we aren’t going to get anywhere without major power.”

Was letting him on the ship the right move? “Okay.”

“What?”

“I said okay. Let’s go check it out. She stepped to the side and a little ahead of him. The cargo bay had sensors, but there were no cameras on the ship, inside or out. Well, she was sure there was actually meant to be one on the belly by the airlock, but it was destroyed in the detach. With all that in mind, she would not let him too far out of her sight, and she made a mental note to add cameras everywhere. Taking a few steps up the ramp, she realized something. “The catalyst and reactor are the same thing?” She asked, turning back to him.

He stared at her for a few seconds longer than felt comfortable. “The catalyst makes the reactor work. It used to be called a reactor, but now people just refer to all of it as a catalyst.”

“Okay, so outdated terms.” She muttered to herself. How long had this ship been out in the void?

“What?”

“Just talking to myself. I do that a lot now. That and to Heather. I swear it’s not like a wilson[2] situation though. I’m not that crazy.”

He didn’t say anything else as he walked up the ramp. Those yellow eyes scanned everything they could, but before they could wander to the hall, she shut the door. It made him jump, but she wasn’t ready to let him see more of her than she was comfortable with.

At the sight of her reactor, his eyes went wide, and he let out a long whistle. “Now that’s what I call beautiful.” Quickly he rushed over to it like a kid at a candy store, and she couldn’t help but find it a little cute. “A 3-15 Crestmech Quantum Overcharged. I’ve never seen one in person before. I don’t think I know anyone who has.” Gently, he placed his hands on the outer shell, and she watched the most genuine smile cross his face. “Kid, you have no idea what this is do you?”

Shaking her head, she said, “Not really.”

“This fine piece of machinery was the pinnacle of early power generation. Paired with the right engines, this beauty could push you to 0.47 light-years a day. Faster than anything on the market for its time.”

Less than half a light-year a day didn’t sound incredibly fast, but she didn’t doubt him. In her universe, humans had only ever gotten something to travel at 0.064% of the speed of light. Stargazer could have been traveling nearly 180 times the speed of light, so that was pretty impressive.

“I have a feeling you’re probably going to know more about Stargazer’s systems than I do.” Was that embarrassing, since Stargazer was her literal body?

He froze. “Stargazer?” She nodded. “This is a genuine Stargazer?” Again she nodded. “Not the L.A.R.? Lookback Anniversary Remake?”

“That’s what the gizmo says,” she said, lifting her arm to show him.

“An intact gizmo. It works?” She turned the screen on. “It works…” He turned back to the reactor. “This is an original, not a remake either.” He breathed heavily as he wobbled a little.

“Are you alright?” she asked in slight panic, ready to reach out and catch him if he fell.

“I, uh, might need to sit down for a minute.”

[1] Not really a reference, but a nod to the main character from Control.

[2] In Castaway while Tom Hanks is alone on an island for years he talks to a volley ball made by Wilson Sporting Goods, and calls it Wilson.

[Yay, another character introduced and more dialogue. Three chapters in one day is a lot, and I'm really don't want this to become habit. That being said, I think uploading all three at once was a more enjoyable read than having a week break between each chapter.]