Chapter Text
1
“Can you state your name for the record?”
“Isabel Lovelace. L-O-V-E-L-A-C-E”
“Do you understand why we have asked you to come before this committee?”
“Yes”
“Thank you, Captain Lovelace. In the past few weeks a substantial bit of evidence has be brought forward pertained to allegations of illegal and unethical activities by your former employer, Goddard Futuristics. What was your involvement?”
“I was the captain… the first captain of the USS Hephaestus. A small scale research space station orbiting the red dwarf star Wolf 359.”
“And when did you first think things were… Not as they should be on this mission?”
The camera cut to a wide shot of Lovelace. Her crisp white suit, and ramrod straight posture made her look like a beacon in the warm hazy light of the courtroom. She looked the heavy-set, pale man heading the inquiry in eye. “Right away, there were a lot of oddities to the mission but it was until crew members started getting sick that-“
2
“So, how’s being a small box?”
Eiffel has so many wires and tubes coming out of him that he looks more like a futuristic robot than Hera, who is in fact a box the size of a washing machine.
“How would you feel if had a hundred sensors and receivers constructing a real time comprehensive understating of the local star cluster, and then that input was reduced to a few microphones and some dodgy HD cameras? And also you’re all your limbs were cut off, and you had to be wheeled everywhere on a cart?”
“Ok, so not ideal I am gathering.” Eiffel nods, “But you still feel like you are... you?”
“It is not in the nature of the mind to be able to know itself, digital or otherwise. If I was somehow altered, it would be very unlikely that I would be able to comprehend what was different, apart from a vague sensation that something was somehow off.” Hera says dictatorially, before softening her voice, “But it seems Hilbert actually did a good job, I think my personality is all intact.”
“We can officially add ‘good at taking people apart and then putting them together in relatively working order” to Hilbert's skill set then along with dropping pronouns from sentences, and sneaky homicidal plans,” Eiffel smiles, gesturing to the mess of scars that lay under the thin hospital gown. “Which side note, I am super glad they didn’t wake me up for that mid-space flight game of kidney hot potato.”
“I too am glad I was offline for the incident. Commander Minkowski refuses to speak about it in any useful detail.”
“Man, how weird is it that we actually all made it?” Eiffel asks, idly playing with his IV tube.
“It was statistically improbable,” Hera agrees.
The hospital room was quiet for a minute. They could hear the soft sounds of the TV where Isabel Lovelace was still testifying against Goddard, and the hissing and soft beeping of the machines connected to Eiffel. Outside gurneys rolled down the hall, and somewhere, outside, a bird was signing.
“They want me to go to California,” Hera says, “JPL wants to give me a new body. They have people talking me through the process. Did you know that there are lawyers that specialize in robots now? Her name is Arielle Lam. She is nice, though a little on the intense side. They also have an AI representative called MABEL that they want be me to see. And then there is also the engineers down at JPL itself that want to talk to me. It’s overwhelming. I am not used to be overwhelmed, Eiffel.”
“So,” he says kindly, “Are you going to go?”
“Well. I rather not remain the equivalent of a sentient crate. I’d like to be a space station again, even if it always felt a little weird to be a simulation of a human mind running in imperfect simultaneity across a structure as big as a skyscraper. But at least it would be familiar.”
“Pretty hard to fit in the door to visit me in the hospital then.”
“Yes, there are some logical and logistical problems with that route. Lam wants a humanoid body, says it well be more effective to get people to empathize with my story, if I end up testifying.” She says, pausing and letting her camera focus on the TV again, which was showing a close up of Lovelace’s face. “MABEL on the other hand is encouraging me not to be pressured into 'mimicking the form of the oppressor because it will make them more comfortable'. So. Yup. That’s a choice I have to make.”
Eiffel looks at her thoughtfully. “I am a little biased in favour of a humanoid body. Mine was serving me pretty well up until it got injected with evil sci-fi death virus. Did you know they are growing my new lungs inside a dog? I don’t know how to feel about that. I mean I am all for being able to breathe without pain again, and the periodic bouts of coughing up dried blood, which is like actually so nasty. But, like, a dog though.” He gestures broadly, knocking over the untouched juice box, on the bed side table. “Okay, right. Back on track. You know I will like just the way you are, whether you are a cool android, or a weird octopus looking robot like the orderlies here, or a robot car.”
“Life on Earth is way more complicated than I remember.” Hera says.
“No kidding. Who knew I’d miss being trapped out in the void. There is way too much gravity here. And weather. And I can’t just call for you when I am lonely or bored.”
“What a shame,” she said aiming for sarcastic but instead hitting closer to nostalgic.
He reached out, placing his palm flat on the cool metal of her casing. “It’s really weird that you are smaller than me. You were basically my home for almost two years. It’s weird not being inside you... Wow, did that ever come out wrong.”
3
It’s a red-eye direct from Houston to LAX. The small private Cessna Jet is loud, but not loud enough that Minkowski can’t drift into sleep not long after take-off. Hera is glad to have a friend with her. It makes her feel more like a person and less like cargo, even if she is now the world’s most awkward carry on.
Still, she has a window, so that nice.
Above the clouds she has a clear view of the Milky Way galaxy. It looks so strange only seen with normal camera. She can vary up her shutter speed, and watch stars streak in bright honey coloured arcs as the earth turns, though the effect is somewhat dampened by the plane moving five hundred miles an hour against the rotation of the earth. She probably wouldn't be able to do the calculations on the distance of a star any more, part of the hundreds of lines of code and memory that had to be left if she was to be jerry rigged into the shuttle home.
She can’t see the atomic make up of the stars written in the spectrum of light the put off, or the heat of an invisible gravity well.
It’s just darkness, hung with tiny points of light.
She closes her aperture against these tiny lights, and all the colour she can no longer see, as the plane chases the night west.