Chapter Text
San Francisco, 2018
“So we connect… this to the… and this goes…”
Eiffel had moved into his new apartment in February, a place on California Street where he was at most two blocks away from the nearest cup of coffee and pack of cigarettes, through the courtesy of--or rather, the settlement agreed on by--Goddard Futuristics. He had no job, no furniture, no memory of exactly who he was for the first thirty or so years of his life, but he took it all in stride. He’d spent the last two months getting to know a city he had never been to in either his past or current life, making his way through his logs from the Haphaestus (stopping for a while every time they got too dark, or he got annoyed with his own voice, or he needed to Google and watch his way through another movie reference, which was honestly what was taking up most of his time), and waiting, waiting, waiting for Hera to arrive.
Or rather, what was going to be Hera, as soon as he finished hmming and aahing his way through the thick packet of instructions that had been delivered the day before with the AI hardware.
“They’ve gotten a lot done since we were gone, I guess. Her personality matrix fits on this little chip, size of my pinky nail. Just gotta plug it in and boom--Smart House.”
Minkowski looked at him a little too softly--he had been angrier about that the first few times she had looked at him like that, like she pitied him, before realizing she really was the only one who knew exactly how much sympathy he deserved.
They were meeting for coffee during Renee’s layover on her way back to Seattle--to her house, and her husband--from Guam; it amazed him that she wasn’t choosing to stay grounded for the rest of her life, but, as she would say, the Air Force would always have her, and she was would always have the Air Force. Because Renee Minkowski, as he had learned, loved to talk like she was in Saving Private fucking Ryan (released 1998, directed by Steven Spielberg, according to IMDb).
He’s sure she could’ve gotten a direct flight, but he didn’t mention that. As contradictory as it seemed, it was hard to spurn the company of a person with whom he’d spent two years in a literal death trap, and yet who he hardly knew, even if it was only so she could make sure he wasn’t spiraling.
“Smart House,” she repeated, eyebrow quirked.
“Disney Channel,” he clarified. “Spent a good ninety minutes of my precious time on that one the other day, unfortunately.”
“Uh-huh. Haven’t gotten to Kubrick yet, have you?”
“Gotten to what?”
That look again. Sad. “Nothing. What were we talking about?”
“Hera. I’m going to put her in my apartment.”
“That’s… you’re sure?”
“What do you mean? Of course I’m sure.” It sounded angrier, more defensive, than he had intended, so he continued flippantly, “A chip the size of my goddamn pinky nail, Renee. It’s that easy.”
“I heard you the first time, Doug. I just mean… it might be easy to get her set up, but… we’re on Earth. You’re a person, and she’s--”
“A person.”
“... Yes. But a person with a brain capacity meant for running a spaceship. And you’re just going to move her into your apartment?”
“I’m not keeping her around so she can turn my A/C on and off, Minkowski.”
She had flinched, before, whenever he slipped and called her that. Now, matched with that tone, she only smiled and sighed softly. “That’s not what I mean, Eiffel. But she isn’t something you’re going to be able to turn off. You know what I’m saying?”
Doug was quiet for a moment, rotating his mug so the drops of liquid along its sides collected into a pool at the bottom. “I know I barely got to talk to her after… after we headed back to Earth. But we were friends, Renee. We are friends. And then they put her in a box. A box that is way less cool than my apartment.”
“Right. Did you get the electricity on yet?”
“Screw you,” he said, laughing. “I’ve got lights, I’ve got hot water, I’ve got a bed. She’s gonna love it. Not that she needs any of those things, but… you know.”
“You think she was going to use your bed even if she needed one?”
Eiffel coughed up a good third of the remaining coffee he had been draining from his mug. “Jesus, Minkowski.”
She handed him a napkin, deadpanned, “I’m kidding.”
“That Seattle air’s giving you one hell of a sense of humor, you know that? This is, like, my last clean shirt.”
She laughed this time, watching Doug dab at his ratty band tee.
“I just…”
Miss her. Need her, maybe, he thought, then scratched it out of his mind.
“I know,” Minkowski said, because she did. “Good luck, Doug.”
Step 23-d referred to a blue wire; he held up one that was maybe royal blue and another that was more azure, and imagined how much easier it would be to do this with Hera. Funny how that worked.
Eventually all the lights were blinking green and all the tiny ends of all the tiny wires had been pressed into all the tiny ports with little enough resistance for him believe they were placed correctly. He removed Hera’s personality matrix from its boring box, and flipped the chip delicately in his hands, like a baby bird, checking for dust or scratches. There were none; Doug didn’t consider himself someone who took much care of his things, but this, this…
He slid it into the drive, the final piece to the world’s greatest jigsaw puzzle ever, took a deep breath, and waited.
A loading bar was emitted in a flash of light from the main console, hovering and spinning slowly. He watched it for what felt like days… and it blinked from 1% to 2% complete.
He wanted to scream, but a voice in his head--maybe Hera, maybe Renee, maybe himself, from another timeline or dimension--said, Well, you’ve waited this long.
And so he continued to wait, eventually falling asleep on the hardwood.
--
“Good-bye, Doug.”
“Bye, Hera.”
He was the last one to exit the Urania, and he was in the comms room, looking up at nothing, at her. She watched him, from all angles, her best friend, but not her best friend. She could still sense his warmth within the hull of the ship, his oxygen intake, the beat of his heart. She thought of a billion things to say in .2 nanoseconds. But what would it mean, to say them now?
“Hey,” he said. This Doug didn’t ask if things were worth saying, either. “I’ll see you soon.”
“Will y-you?” Hera asked.
“Count on it.” He placed a hand on the wall of the ship, and she tried to convince herself that she could imagine what it was like, to feel it like he wanted her to.
Eventually, she shut off the lights. In the dark, she thought of nothing.
And then she was awake.
“System booted,” she heard herself saying, then, “Whoa.”
She had three points of vision. From one she saw a small kitchen; from another, a balcony with an ashtray on a patio table, and a view of open sky above, open water below; from the last, an empty room with white walls, a floor covered with packing material, tiny screwdrivers, and--
“Eiffel!”
He sprang upright, his eyes and hair wild, and grew large in front of the camera embedded in her main console.
“Hera? Hera!”
“Yes, it’s me. Hello. You don’t have to shake me like that,” she said, and when she laughed, Eiffel made a face she had never seen him make, which was interesting. Perhaps she hadn’t noticed because he had never been this close, before, but then again, her visuals were unusually clear.
“How d’you feel?” He hadn’t taken his hand off of her case.
“I feel…”
The camera positioning had left her with some blind spots, she noticed, which made her antsy, although she could reconstruct a layout with what she had. The air was a bit dusty, a little too high on the CO2. And she couldn’t help but feel a little… cramped.
But she felt settled into her new hardware, her new space. She remembered something Eiffel had told her about long showers… she imagined it was something like that. And Eiffel was there, right there.
“... updated.”
He laughed. “I should’ve guessed. I got you totally new digs. You’re state-of-the-art, Hera.”
“... Did you build me?”
He scratched the back of his neck. “Well, I put everything together, but all the stuff got delivered from Goddard--”
“Goddard?” Warning , she sensed. Threat .
“Whoa, hey, cool your jets. Or… your fans? Or, well, you would use your fans to cool your jets…”
“Eiffel!”
“It’s fine. This was part of our deal. They let us go home--well, they had to give me a home, first, but anyway--they’re gonna leave us alone. Me. Minkowski, Lovelace. You.”
“And what did they get?”
Doug shrugged. “They get to keep existing. Keep drilling stars, or whatever.”
“That’s… terrible.”
He swallowed. “Yeah. I know.”
After a quiet moment, Hera said, “Eiffel?”
“What’s up?”
“Where are we?”
His face lights up. “Oh! We’re in San Francisco. California.”
“Do you live here?”
“Yeah… It’s small, I know, but it’s kind of just me, and, uh…”
“You set me up in your house?”
Another long silence, much longer, much more silent than the first one. He stared forward at her, still propped up on his knees on the floor.
“I… you don’t have to be. I can move you. We can find something. I’ll find you somewhere else, maybe--”
“No!”
His mouth shut with a click.
“This is fine, Eiffel. I’m glad… I was afraid I was going to wake up...” She couldn’t think of where else. Or she could--each scenario sounding worse than the last. “I don’t know. Doug, I… honestly, I thought they were going to delete me, or put me in a data center, or...”
“I wasn’t gonna let that happen,” He said. She didn’t have many references for what he sounded like when he was quite sure of himself, but this checked out. “I told you I’d see you soon. D’you remember?”
“Yes, I remember.” Like it was minutes ago, which it was, to her.
“...So you’re okay being here?”
“Yes,” she said. “Thank you, Doug.”
“Don’t thank me yet. Not much for you to look at in here. Not to mention the Wi-Fi is trash.”
“I can help with that.”
“Oh, thank God.”