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You stand at the window of the unit you repaired some weeks ago. It’s not much but you have a bed and privacy. You look out into the endless darkness dotted with whites and yellows and wonder for the first time what it would be like to see a horizon. A thought, maybe sudden but not unprompted by the recent turn of events.
There’s a memory stuck in your memory banks of a few fields, a meadow and a small forest, all within eye shot, all ending at a horizon created by the curvature of the planet you were standing on. But that image, the memory, isn’t yours. It belongs to someone else, someone you would probably be angry with had you had the energy, someone you’d probably hate had you not been so distant from them both in space and in time. And who knows, maybe it wasn’t even their memory either, just a remnant of a wish once wished for, a dream once hoped in and now dreamt of for endless years.
You don’t even notice how close you get to the window, until the heat of your body causes the glass to steam over and you blink, slowly, meticulously, and clean the moisture off with the palm of your hand.
As you watch the darkness beyond it, you realise how much more affinity you feel with Her than either the horizon from your memory or the person that locked that memory in your brain. You don’t feel Her attention as you would another person but you feel Her presence. It’s not dissimilar from your experience of the software structures of the Eye you’ve been wandering through.
On an instinct you close your eyes and another memory comes into the foreground. This one is unmistakably yours.
You’re locked in a freezing darkness. The walls of the container you’re in and your own body’s so cold your systems are slowly shutting down. Yet you persist. You lean into Her touch. You close off everything but what if necessary. You let Her carry you wherever She wishes. You feel moments from dying each second of your journey and the silence She treats you with makes you wonder if you’ve ever been alive in the first place.
You could stop functioning at any moment and you feel your limbs slowly giving out as every day you spend among the cargo travelling through space brings you closer to the end of your journey. If not the freezing cold of space, then the planned obsolescence that ticks away moments of your life will be the death of you. Yet, as you slip into unconsciousness, you hear Her speak: “Wouldn’t that be a shame,” Her voice a loud roaring of a flaming star and a silently absent whisper of nothingness.
You open your eyes again and let your hand slip down from the window. You’re not out there anymore. You’re here, you’re now but still you can’t resent Her touch nor question Her intent. She has none, never had.
From the moment you boarded the ship, everything was your choice. The soul-crushing immutability of inhuman slavery exchanged for terrifying unpredictability of life on the run.
And even with all that knowledge, you can still feel the clear affinity to the void beyond.
Gentle purring at your feet brings your thoughts back to your body. Yes, you’re here and this little ball of fur is undeniable proof.
You walk to one of the cupboards and pull out a box of cat food. You put down its bowl and pour it in while it follows you around, pressing its side against your leg, meowing and murmuring without an expectation of a reply.
The stray returns to you at the end of each cycle and performs this dance around you. Then it stays for the night. It hadn’t used to be so on the nights you didn’t come but since Lem and Mina moved next door it seemed to grow accustomed to the girl’s presence as well.
Lem and Mina…
Your eyes drift again to the window and the beautiful blackness beyond and you can’t but wonder what’s waiting for them out there. There’s heaviness sitting on your shoulders. You know the power to help them is in your hands and you’re willing to do anything that is necessary.
You sigh, your shoulders slag a bit, and you feel your own powerlessness in the face of adversity claiming you and you start to shake. Their future is just a step away and you’re not sure what terrifies you more, the fact that you don’t know what ramifications will your actions have or that you didn’t even hesitate before you agreed to do whatever needed to be done to get Lem and Mina their tickets to their future.
The real question was whether you will join them. Not that you didn’t trust them to withstand whatever was waiting for them on their journey alone, but there was longing that crawled through the metal frame of your body. Longing after their company. Longing to see Lem smile each and every day, longing to watch Mina grow and thrive. Longing that seemed to be mutual.
But there was also another part of you, the one that said goodbye to the endless darkness of space and touched the minds on the Eye, both the human and the technological. The part that wished to create a home of the metallic ring floating endlessly at the edge of corporate space. The part of you that realised that you and the Eye are one and the same, metal bodies created by corporations to meet their ends, both freed and in the state of constant death and renewal.
Creaking reverberates through the metal plates under your feet and spreads through the walls. Someone might mistake this for an agreement on the side of the space station. But not you. You’ve spoken to the Eye many times before, you know it’s not just one entity, one character, but a vessel, an amalgamation of metal and meat and rust, of software and hardware and people, a community, a family of those coming and going and those left behind.
The Eye itself could neither agree nor disagree but their residents could and right now both you and Lem and Mina were its residents.
You grumble painfully. You knew who you were here among the people and pipes and you knew who you’d be out there among the stars once more in the embrace of Her darkness but this time you won’t be alone or freezing to death. Still, you felt like you’re walking in circles and there was a certain frustration in that. Whatever you choose, there will always be a part of you wondering.
There was a knock on the door of your unit and a quiet shy voice that followed. You didn’t hesitate a second. Mina never left the apartment alone, something must have happened to Lem! Your dilemma is forgotten in the wake of the little girl’s tiny voice.
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Sabine presses two doses of stabiliser into the palm of your hand and nods. You only paid for one from time to time they gift you one more, a vague look of guilt on their face. You wanted to dissuade them but any time they got an inkling you’re going to mention their past, they changed the subject so one day you stopped and just accepted the kindness even if it came from a misguided source.
“I might be leaving soon,” you mention in the silence of their office.
“The ship is nearly done, I’ve heard,” they nod and smile.
You watch the wall behind them, silent, lost in thought, the division in your future clear as day.
“Are you scared?” they pause.
You shake your head and do your best to describe your train of thought as briefly as possible. They listen and wait for you to finish. Then they sit down opposite you.
“It might be selfish of me but I’d like for you to stay. You’ve helped change things around here.”
You lift your eyes towards their face, their expression is firm as always and they even frown for a moment.
“There’s no market for decommissioned bodies. But they always find a way into the hands of people like me. That is if you wish…” they trail off.
It was a strange thought. Unpleasant in a way it reminded you of the origin of your current existence.
“It was just a thought,” they shrug and pull off their gloves.
You smile in appreciation and turn to leave when they speak up once more.
“I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable. It’s your choice but you deserve more than the hand you’ve been dealt.”
You don’t turn, you don’t react in any particular way, still you accept their sympathy before leaving. There are other places to be, after all, you promised Lem you will join them for the raffle today.
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Maybe you’ve been thinking about this all wrong. This wasn’t about staying or leaving, it was about Mina having a chance at a future in a colony on a beautiful planet. Whether you’d be there was irrelevant.
You watched crying terrified Mina hiding in Lem’s arms as you ran from the square, you felt the encouraging squeeze of his hand in yours but his eyes betrayed the helplessness he actually felt.
You hold his gaze as long as you can but his pain resonates with your own all too much for you to bear. Once in the safety of their apartment, you untangle your fingers from his and squeeze his shoulder as you leave. He doesn’t fault you, doesn’t slight you, you’ve already done more than he could hope for and he trusts that you truly care.
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The procedure was strange and a stab of guilt almost stopped you from undertaking it. You wonder for a moment if it was the same for them.
Now you’re looking at a body almost indistinguishable from yours, metallic eyes shining with barely hidden sadness and abundance of hope. You can't help but feel kinship with the person in front of you. They smile when you smile, they lift their hand to touch you the same moment you do and before you even blink you’re embracing them as tightly as they’re embracing you. That is the moment you understand. The space around you collapses on itself and Sabine standing in the corner of the room disappears and all doubt with them.
The kinship was exciting and heartbreaking at the same time, like meeting a soul-mate for the first and last time.
You don’t speak and neither do they. They already know everything and you both know this is a goodbye. Once you leave they take your place and while in this moment alone they are you as much as you are them, after that you’ll be each a distinct person, taking the path you both chose.
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As you march towards the open hangar doors of the ship that promises to carry you to hopeful future, your hand tucked into Mina’s, you turn around for a moment, just to stop the time before future rushes towards you and you get engulfed in it, and see a familiar face in the crowd. They smile. A message. An assurance. The Eye watches and listens. A love letter. A kiss on the cheek. An embrace. A goodbye.