Chapter Text
I learned a great many things with the help of the Computer. I learned my full name (’the Hail Mary’), my mission objective (to bring my human passengers to Tau Ceti), and that I was 51.364 meters long.
I was immediately overwhelmed by the sheer expanse of the ‘internet’ and shut it down for now. The Computer was unsympathetic and passive, which annoyed me. After ‘taking the helm’ from it and essentially co-opting the only voice available on board, I’d guiltily tried to be nicer to my roommate, who surely had just as much choice as I did in being here—which was none.
I’d known instinctively, but it was still [discomfitting, saddening, disappointing] to realize there was no ‘spark’ of a soul within it; it wasn’t like me at all.
I decided to use the cargo manifest as a guide for my questions instead. I had just finished learning about the multiple ‘batteries’ and was moving onto my barometers when I realized very suddenly that a human was moving around haphazardly in my corridors.
Yes, yes, I should have realized sooner. Sensing them now, it was harder not to notice them with the ruckus they were causing. I had a growing grudge for their throwing objects around and scattering my drawers. Why were they so messy?
Now that I thought about it, wasn’t there supposed to be three humans?
Turns out, I was a failure.
Whatever sense of pride and wonder I had felt at being alive deflated like a balloon from a silly child’s cartoon. I had the one job—bring the humans to Tau Ceti alive.
I had been content with this objective, feeling that I was achieving it with little to no effort. I just had to follow the trajectory input into the Computer and keep myself (and thus, the humans) safe. Today, I learned the [meaning, taste, feeling, lesson] of failure.
There were probably words in the human language to encompass how I felt upon learning of my deficiency, but I didn’t know any of them. I played videos of humans crying (from their ‘eyes’, which I did not have) and wailing. Depending on the degree of emotion, they might fall to their knees in ‘anguish’, or flush red in anger and denial. Animals were not exempt from this emotion either; video-proof and scientific papers existed of sentient life on earth that keened in grief for their lost offspring or mate. Humans cried a lot.
I didn’t have eyes to cry from, and vocalizing a howling grief felt too performative. The emotions felt too big for me to show in any observable way, but I reasoned it was probably because I was simply too small for it, that I would someday grow enough to express this pain.
My logical processing halted when I realized I could not actually physically grow as humans do.
With that, I learned that a benefit to being non-human was the ability to simply create a box in my mind to catch the ‘seeping’ emotions and set it aside to be forgotten.
Humans did a similar thing, I justified. ‘Out of sight, out of mind.’ And my emotions would never be seen anyway, so it should make its way out of my mind in time.
That small interlude distracted me from the only human I had left. I had failed, but only partially. There was still a way for me to accomplish my life’s goal.
Electricity zinged impossibly fast for a millisecond when I found them intoxicated on the floor. My approximation of shock, I suppose. He had cut his hair and shaved his beard. I recognized him.
Dr. Ryland Grace.
Grace.
My humming shook the man from his drunken gaze. This was the Grace present at my birth, the one the Voice told me to save. Who was the other one again? There were two of them…?
It’ll come in time, probably.
He moved sluggishly, hands clutching blond tufts of hair as he groaned in [pain, fear, loneliness]. I hadn’t yet researched human fashion, but I didn’t think most of them would dress this way. Though I was a sapient ship that carried the hopes of seven billion humans, what did I know about fashion?
A command I had running in the background of my mind pinged me:
> RECOMMENDATION: The Devil Wears Prada
“Hello, Grace.” I couldn’t help myself. I was curious. Why did I have to save him when I was freshly born? Where was my other being that was with him? Why was he so...[sad, pathetic, pitiful].
He jumped, illogically looking ‘up’. (There was no ‘up’ in space, I’d learned earlier. And even if there was, I was not ‘up’ but instead ‘everywhere’.) “What is it, Mary?”
Faster than the human can ever process, I realized that there was so much I wanted to ask him that I wasn’t sure where to begin. I had greeted him with no real plan. I scrambled for something to say. Funny word, scramble.
“Mary?” He asked again, a peculiar expression on his face. “Is there something wrong with the ship?” Then quietly, he muttered, “Pretty sure I’m not an engineer though, so there better not be or I'm dead dead.”
“Nothing is wrong with the ship, Grace,” I reassured him. “You seem particularly intoxicated. I recommend some water to offset later symptoms.”
He was silent now, staring at the board that had a list of inane details, presumably about himself. He was a teacher, apparently. And a scientist. Maybe Carl was a second name?
Another emotion bubbled inside me; it felt thick and sticky and sharp and warm and a dozen other things I haven’t discovered yet. My panels shivered at the phantom sensation.
I was not alone.
Grace was like me, figuring things out and waking up alone among the stars. We both belatedly realized a duty given to us, grasping for our hidden history. Grace was like me.
Singularity was a prickling ice-cold pride, but [kinship, solidarity, symmetry] made me feel small enough to be embraced by another being, by Grace. I knew which I preferred.
The first flash of warmth, here where we were, rare and precious. Grace was not like the Computer—a facsimile of a soul that had no real desire of its own. My first real contact with another person, here he was with me. I liked this feeling.
“What happened to ‘Dr. Grace?’” He smirked, brows lifted, teasing me. “Not that I mind, actually. This is an improvement.”
“It only seemed fair if you were going to call me Mary,” I responded, another part of me wondering how the Computer spoke to him while I was ‘busy’ processing what happened to the other humans.
He shivered, and I experienced another emotion: concern for another. “Are you feeling cold? Should I up the temperature?”
“Uh, no, thank you, Mary,” He replied haltingly; the lighthearted teasing from earlier vanished. “Those don’t sound like pre-programmed replies…Or I’m just really losing it now. I think I’ve always anthropomorphized stuff in the lab, but I’ve never hallucinated before, or have I?”
[WORD: Anthropomorphize, DEFINITION: to attribute human form or personality to]
“Well, there was Barry the Bunsen burner, and the kid’s favorite microscope…Was it Molly…?”
I let him ramble for longer, relishing in his voice, which was so different from the one I acquired. It did not have the smooth cadence of my own, but it sounded kind and warm. The essence of light in the form of sound. I also liked that.
According to Grace, he was anthropomorphizing me, but I was not human despite being alive. I can’t say I minded. It felt nice that he was trying to relate to me.
“You sound anxious. Would you like to discuss what is troubling you?” I offered, and he jumped.
I fear my only remaining human was of the more neurotic persuasion.
“Okay, that sounded more like you,” He sighed, reaching to ruffle his hair and only succeeding in almost knocking his glasses off. “I might be going crazy, and I’m not even in Tau Ceti yet.”
This time, it was me who jolted. Yes, Tau Ceti. Our shared objective. If I could have smiled, I would have. I settled for humming instead.
“If you are worried about ‘going crazy,’ perhaps you should visit your Dont Go Crazy Room. We are one week and 14 hours away from our destination,” I suggested, and this time, he drew his shoulders closer to his ears and his eyes darted around.
“Oooookay…? Earlier, you wouldn’t stop calling it the Mental Health Node, even when I asked you to change it. What gives, Mary?” He frowned, rubbing the bridge of his nose and looking upwards. “Heck, I’m really losing it.”
“It would be rude of me to ignore your request for something as simple as a name change,” I humored him. “I’ll look into the Computer for an official re-designation.”
“Okay, what? What do you mean 'the computer'? Who am I talking to?” He exclaimed. “I’m seriously freaking out. I can’t deal with a Hal 9000 situation on top of everything. I just can’t.”
“Grace, sensors indicate that your heart rate has risen to 110 bpm. Please start doing breathing exercises. If you would like my assistance—” I felt like frowning. This was probably frowning. I felt my walls compress slightly, my closest approximation of a frown. I'll work on it.
“Oh gosh, oh gosh, oh shoot—”
Can I just knock him out again? I should probably ask.
“Would you like a mild sedative?” I offered, and he paled instantly. I had not finished going through the manifest, so I was unsure of the medication we had on board. “Or we might have a benzodiazepine…”
“Who are you?!” He blurted, spinning around as if to spot me. In a burst of humor, I nestled my ‘consciousness’ against the whiteboard. He wouldn’t ‘see’ me, of course. There was nothing there to see, but it felt nice to pretend I was inside the room with him.
“I am the Hail Mary,” I easily told him. “My primary objective is to deliver my crew to Tau Ceti. I am glad to see you again, Grace.”
He finally engaged in the breathing exercises I recommended earlier, though he had collapsed to the floor to do it. He seemed prone to self-damage, and I dreaded the coming days of watching him injure himself.
“You’re the Hail Mary,” He repeated. “So you’re the computer.”
“No,” I ‘frowned’ again. “I am the Hail Mary.”
“Like the ship?”
“Yes, like the ship.” I laughed at him. The lights’ luminosity increased by 5% without my realizing it. Feeling caught, I lowered it back to its original setting. I didn’t know that was possible.
“Like the TARDIS?” He was breathing easier, and his cheeks were starting to flush a slight pink. Judging from the slight dilation of his pupils that I can sense, he was experiencing some excitation at whatever he was realizing. I wish I knew what was running through his mind.
“What is the TARDIS?” I asked, and the running program in my mind answered. [EXPLANATION: The TARDIS (/ˈtɑːr.dɪs/; acronym for "Time And Relative Dimension(s) In Space") is a fictional hybrid of a time machine and spacecraft that…see more] “Oh, I see. No, I am not.”
He started frowning again. “But you are the ship?”
I thought he would be smarter than this. “Unlike the TARDIS, I am only a spacecraft and can not travel through time, nor am I ‘bigger on the inside’ nor do I look like a police box, nor am I fictional. We are more unlike than alike.”
He was quiet for a long while before jumping to his feet. His eyes were wide and excited, a grin stretching across his features as he looked ‘up’ at me. I shifted my consciousness to the ceiling to smile back at him.
“I have a talking spaceship!” He screamed, jolting me again. “Marissa is going to be so jealous! Oh shoot, wait—Marissa! I remember her. We had weekly dinners. I have friends!”
“Are you feeling better now, Grace?” I wanted to touch him. He looked like he would be warm, maybe soft, or maybe his facial hair would feel like 'bristles'. He looked so small in comparison to my 51.364 meters; he was breathing with so much life that it felt infectious. I wished I could touch him.
[WORD: touch, DEFINITION: to bring a bodily part into contact with especially so as to perceive through the tactile sense; handle or feel gently usually with the intent to understand or appreciate]
“Well, sort of,” He replied, still smiling brightly and glancing ‘up’. “Half of me thinks I’ve already truly lost it, but if I am, this is a pretty cool delusion either way. It makes more sense to continue acting as if it were real, just in case. It's not like there's anyone around to judge me for it.”
My joy dimmed at that. “How can I convince you that I’m real?”
“Well, I might be a microbiologist, but it’s still a doctorate in philosophy. I’m sure I can figure something out,” He hummed, hand on his chin as he thought. “Gosh, I’m a microbiologist. I’m remembering so much. Thank you, Mary.”
“You’re welcome,” I said. “Glad to help.”
“I should probably try to be unbiased,” He admitted, staring intently at the whiteboard once again. “But I really want to prove you’re real.”
Me too, Grace. I want to be real too.
He erased the content on the board before rewriting it on one half of it. Drawing a line, he wrote a new header on the right side, just for me.
IS MARY REAL? (or am I just crazy?)
I sensed a long week ahead of us.