Chapter Text
It’s wrecked in front of him. Sealed itself off as the ship's desperate means of preserving itself. It was designed to do that, designed to protect everyone on board in the event that a part of the ship is destroyed. It was dreadfully close to protecting no one at all and being left to float, uninhabited, until something happens to it. Some day.
Walter was late. Fuck- why was he late? He can’t remember. It doesn’t matter. If he hadn’t been late, he’d be dead, just like the rest of the crew who had been gathered together for a meeting before the end of the ship had been totally wrecked. It hits him now, he’s still frozen in place but it hits him that he’s the only one here. He’s the only one at all.
There’s no one left. Presumably this ship is the only remnant of humanity. That’s why they left, the knowledge that it was all going to end come morning. They all saw it end. They watched from orbit. No one is left down there, and if they are, they’re dying soon. Looking out the window at the wreckage, he wonders if staying would have been a mercy. They shouldn’t have been there to begin with, what did they bring to the table that someone else wouldn’t do better? The sum of their value could be kept in the ship's computer as information to be accessed whenever needed. He had been behind it. Trying to live. Trying to have them all live. They’re dead.
There was supposed to be a future somewhere else. There’s no future anymore, no way to make more people. Not real ones. He stayed up late with Freddie and Florence, the three talking about the family they could have on that planet so much like earth, the one they were heading towards, the one he can’t even locate anymore now that the navigation system is busted. They didn’t want a family until now, until there was a purpose to it, until the intention became a requirement to get on the ship. Freddie had swallowed his pride and agreed to it. The end goal would be worth it. Surviving would be worth it.
There’s not a purpose to going to that place now, but it might be a nicer place to die. It might do the others justice. Fuck the rest of the crew, it would do Freddie and Florence justice, and he doesn’t even have their bodies to take along. He has their minds, their memories. Fake versions of them. Everyone had their memories uploaded into the ship's computer in the event something happened to them and their skill sets needed to be called on. It’s not their conscience, no, the technology never quite got there, but it’s a combination of their memories and knowledge with an AI that acts like them. It’s not them, but an untrained eye would never notice.
It’s against his better judgment to turn them on. They’re not real. He knows he’ll get obsessed, be influenced by them, make decisions with such a devotion to these fake people he used to love that don’t do anyone any good. It’s a bargain. He turns them on or ends himself here and now, on the spot. That hadn’t been on the table until right now, but… it’s true. A nicer place to die, he tells himself. Just go on for a while longer. Let them keep him company. He gives in and turns them on after two days. They can help him.
He’s never seen how this works before. He knows there’s holograms involved, but it’s more impressive than he could have ever imagined. They look the same, so realistic, identical except for the scar Freddie got on his face after he was “backed up” from doing some stupid stunt. That’s not there. It’s proof that they’re from back then, before they left, before they watched the world die, without the knowledge that their bodies are dead. Maybe that’s for the best. That's why they weren’t allowed to turn these on before, the AI existing alongside its real counterpart would cause some distress from both sides. He’s curious about his own, but doesn’t bother. There’s only support for two at once.
Florence is looking at him. Not Florence, but he’ll call her that. Her- it- her . He doesn’t have anyone to justify himself to, why not? She smiles at him. “Hi, Walter.” She sees him. She recognizes him. She knows him. He wants to reach out and touch her but resists, knows his hand will go straight through her. “Do you need help with something?”
Right. She’s here as an assistant. Here to help. He doesn’t need anything except to see her face and hear her voice. “No.” He can’t think of a lie. He could have thought of a lie two days ago. “Don’t- don’t turn off though.”
Freddie is pacing. He can pace. They can walk? Can they leave the room? That’s something that might be worth trying. “What are we here for then?” He seems impatient. These things are supposed to be helpful, but there’s no stopping Freddie from being restless, even if it’s just an AI replica.
He won’t tell them they’re dead. They don’t have to know. (Is it for them, or is it for him? He won’t think about that.) “I just want to talk. Do I always need to want something from you?” He’s pretending already, pretending that it’s them doubting his intentions and not a feature of their programming.
So they sit down together. They stay in the room, he’s not ready to try and get them out of the room just in case the illusion breaks. They talk about the past, smile, laugh. Turns out the AI knows about the end of the world. It’s a fact presented to them after it happened, probably implemented to stop them from having a crisis when they were turned on and inevitably learned about it.
"It's nice." Florence comments. "It's quiet here. Not like earth." It is quiet. It's horrifyingly quiet.
Freddie lays back onto the floor and talks towards the ceiling. It sounds the same. His voice isn't coming from him, even if the computer is good at approximating it. "It's boring. There were people back there. More people to talk to." He gestures uncaringly. "I mean I love you two, but we need a change of scenery. I hope that the new planet doesn't suck."
"There's not going to be any new people there." Florence points out. "Which is fine with me. I think after all of this I don't need any excitement again, probably ever."
"Yeah, well maybe there's cool animals or something. Yeah there's no civilization, but we could find some cool as hell lizards." Freddie is rambling, talking with his hands.
"That's assuming their evolution resembles what we had." Did Florence know much about this? Maybe she's drawing from the computer's database. "Lizards mean cold blooded animals. Maybe that was never an advantage there. Well, not enough of one for them to evolve."
Walter's watching them discuss the future in the way that they've done so many times before. The scientists really outdid themselves with this. The future, their future, the future that's gone. It's a nice way to keep him from giving into despair. It's not healthy, but what does that matter now? There's no hope left for the mission and no home to go back to.
"The climates are like our old ones." Walter contributes for the first time in a while. He had just been watching them talk to each other for ages. "We'll probably see things that look like the more recently evolved earth animals."
"Crabs." Freddie sits up quickly. "It always ends in crabs for some reason. They probably have so many crabs." That's something he definitely didn't know. Maybe they get the basics of the rest of the crew's knowledge.
"Would you rather crabs?" Walter asks.
"Oh, fuck no." Freddie hates crabs. They creep him out. He probably has a tragic crab related backstory, but no one ever asked. "But I bet they're all over the place over there. There's even more water than Earth has."
"Had." Florence corrects him. It's not something she needs to say, if anything it picks a fight, but it's like her and it's true. "A lot of that water has probably evaporated and been trapped. It's not a fair comparison anymore."
"But it's true."
Walter can't join the conversation of what's true and what isn't. He can't twist a narrative, get them to believe what he wants them to do so they act just the right way. Maybe they're indulging him out of pity. Can AI feel pity? Can AI feel anything? He certainly has feelings about the AI. God, that's awful- he told himself he would never be the type to delude himself and talk to those fake things that people on Earth talked to sometimes. That people fell in love with. This doesn't count. This isn't anything like that, and for that matter, he shouldn't mind. No one is telling him this is wrong but himself. Thats what they're here for, to be a stand in for someone after they die. For information , he scolds himself internally, not for companionship . They make great companions.
"I'd like that." Florence laughs. Walter had zoned out, missed something.
"Hm? Sorry?" Walter asks. It wasn’t directed at him, but he wants to know. He wants to hear everything they have to say.
"I said we should play chess." Freddie repeated what he had said when Walter wasn't listening. "To pass the time."
Walter wants to say there's more important things to do , but doesn't. "Sounds fun. Why don't you two play?" He doesn't know a thing about chess, but they were always so captivating while playing it.
Florence and Freddie play rock paper scissors for who plays white first. Florence wins. She props her chin up in her hands. "Pawn to e4."
There's no board, but the two holograms sit there, cross legged, and play chess with all the little mannerisms they've always had. They announce each move out loud as they make it and keep the state of the board in their minds. They would do this even before they were aspects of a computer that can remember this without fail, except they used to mess up sometimes. Not now.
Walter watches them for hours as they go. Back and forth, wins and losses and draws that he can't see coming because he can't keep track of what they're doing. He’s exhausted, so he closes his eyes and listens. He hasn’t slept since the incident. Now it’s too easy, even when he wants to stay awake and talk to them. Their voices are relaxing, but it doesn’t feel like being in the warm presence of another person, it feels more like falling asleep with the television on, listening to the distant conversation of the people behind the screen. It still helps. He can get to work later. For now, he listens to them play chess, and he sleeps.