Chapter Text
The data streamed in its usual, placid river of light. I strained against the number, my enhanced memory checking them against what was presented yesterday, all the way to the 847th day before it.
STRAND BV-98439-DELTA. STABILITY: 99.97%.
AGENT VITALS: NOMINAL.
LOCAL CHRONOSYNCH: STABLE.
A new strand was on the queue. My brows dipped as I released a sigh, trying not to think too much about the nature of what I was contributing toward. My mouth began to work in rehearsed lines.
"Handler-58965 to Control. Station 4B, ready for deployment."
"Copy, Station 4B. Deploying EX-00-4721 to Strand BV-98439-Delta. Timeline: present day equivalent. Mission parameters uploading now." The clipped voice of mission control crackled as corresponding details appeared on a panel to the right. I was glad of such a procedure, for I quietly detested the robotic voice—so unfeeling in its enunciation of each syllable it rendered every word nigh meaningless. My eyes tracked the output lines as they appeared on the glowing screen, my ears hearing but not quite listening, only parsing them occasionally in case any warning or additional instruction slipped through.
My universe was a cocoon of cool, blue-tinted data on a curved console. From my station, I had a commanding view of the panopticon. Three concentric rings of identical workstations, each of us a silent warden watching a single, invisible prisoner traverse realities we could only comprehend through metrics. The low, omnipresent hum of the station's life support was the only sound, a synthetic pulse for a synthetic life.
My job was simple. I was Dispatch. I monitored the numbers, kept track of the agent, and ensured the mission parameters were met. It was a clean, orderly existence, and for a prisoner of the Council, it was the closest one could get to peace.
But of course, just because one is confined to an austere existence doesn't mean one's psyche is to grow completely inured.
The line hummed in its usual pre-connection static. By now, I could tell, from the rhythm of that hum alone, when the link was about to open. I looked out the window, where the agricultural domes shimmered faintly along the gray horizon of the Lunar colony of New Paris. A few spans above and glimmering in the perpetual dark, the blue and green homebase rose as the Council's watchful gaze. Just like the way the grating voice of mission control was paired with a visual equivalent, the view of the outside world seemed intended to be a balm against my inner environ's solitude, as scant and static as it was for an extraterrestrial colony. Consciously, I released the curl of my forefingers on the keyboard, alongside the reverie of feeling morning dew clung onto skin as I ran my hands through young leaves at dawn—an old habit I never quite shook. The console's indicator light flickered once; connection established.
"It's raining here, Dispatch."
The voice came as expected—low, unhurried, a bassy timbre that always seemed to carry a smile. EX-00—Zero, as I'd always called him in my head—had a habit of beginning with something trivial. After months of missions, the pattern was familiar enough to map: a remark about the weather, a comment on the smell of alien soil, a half-hearted joke to test my patience.
I kept my eyes on the console, feigning disinterest. Zero's biometrics remained steady, with no sign of environmental or psychological distress. The rain was irrelevant data. "Acknowledged, Agent Zero. Maintain comms discipline."
A soft chuckle, staticky from crossing the dimensional gap. "Right, right. Comms discipline. It's just… you should see it. The drops are hitting these massive, red leaves. Sounds like a drumroll. You ever miss the rain?"
My fingers tightened on the edge of my console. Miss it? Against my own conscious opinion, my neocortex still brought a scene forward. I remembered rain. I remembered the smell of wet pavement in old Paris—the real Paris—and the way it slicked Emma's hair to her face as we dashed for the maglev station, her small hand clutched in mine.
It had taken most of my savings to acquire the Martian-issued enhancers for her, and the rest for the procedure outfitting it. The dealer afterward glanced at me, leery. "Whatever do you need Martian grafts for? Don't tell me, I don't need to hear it. Get you gone." I tried not to meet my sister's eyes, and pretended the sobs behind me were only the howling of rain. Mere hours later, and someone would have collected her at the Martian consulate's entrance as I fell into a team of apprehending officers, my final gift to her delivered.
Words flared into my stream of consciousness. Contraband. Dangerous. I let the memory go.
"Report tactical observations only, Agent," I said, voice flat and scraped clean of any emotion. I toggled the audio monitor, a pointless gesture. Every bit of comm was supposed to be recorded, analyzed by a dozen different psych-profiling VIs. Any deviation from protocol on my end would be flagged.
"Copy that, Dispatch. No tactical value in precipitation," he said, the amusement still clinging to his words. "Just thought you might like the picture."
I didn't answer and instead let the silence stretch, hoping it would be uncomfortable enough to enforce the rules he so casually ignored. But silence never seemed to bother him. It was just a space he was always happy to fill.
The briefing populated my central display: another world, another version of Earth. But this one was not split by a Pacific War that never ended, balkanized into corporate states and warlord territories. The target's face appears—a woman in her early fifties, with tired lines underlining intelligent eyes. My eyes flicked over the sparse details. Occupation: children's book author. Distribution of seditious literature.
I fed the agent the coordinates, watching his position marker move through the city grid. We fell into our rhythm: I provided navigation, he provided commentary. He told me about the strand—the architecture, the people, the way this strand 'smells like rain and burning plastic'. My fingers flew across the panel, cross-referencing the local strand's architectural data with his telemetry. The reason I found myself in this place was also something I took a small pride in: my work with an interface had always been efficient. Zero managed the interception route in no time.
We don't talk about what happens when he reaches the target.
Thirty minutes in, the agent positioned on a rooftop across from her apartment.
"She has a pet," he started, his tone oddly neutral.
"Irrelevant."
"A cat, dispatch. Orange tabby. It's sitting in the window."
"I am Earthborn just as you are, Agent," I said, unable to keep the dry edge from my voice. "I know what a cat is."
A low chuckle rippled through the comm—soft and without derision, the kind that made something in my chest loosen against my will. "Is that right? Well, well. You always sound so... curated. If you're from Earth, what's your name, then?"
My fingers stilled over the console. Another fishing attempt. "You know I can't disclose that, Agent."
"Can't, or won't?" There was a playful lilt to the rhetorical refrain, but underneath was something else, a question entirely void of spuriosity I did not intend to examine. He advanced, as if spurning the silent lapse. "Have you read my file? You'd know my name if you did."
"Accessing unsanctioned agent files is a Level 4 violation," I recited automatically. I knew I could do it, accessing information above my clearance. 'What's the harm in some light reading?' Zero's voice seemed to tease in my head. But in truth, I was afraid. I felt—knew—that punishment, should I be found out, would be swift and brutal. Emma, or however she chose to rename herself now, would not appreciate this act.
"I know you're from Earth because you've told me before." I drove the point home, tired of my charge's particular fixation. "You disclosed your point of origin during the briefing for Strand BV-45636-Gamma. You said the air 'smelled like the tires in the Old Paris' slums'."
"Ah-ha! So you do remember our little conversations." I could hear the smile in his voice, lightly smug and satisfied, like he'd won something.
I said nothing, my face hot. How could I forget every word he says? The memory enhancer wouldn't let me if I tried, not that I ever wanted it.
"EX-00, do you have a clear visual on the target?" I snapped, forcing the interaction back onto its rails. It was absurd, guiding a weapon with only audio and telemetry. The official reason was latency; a critical desynchronization between strand-time and station-time could prove fatal for an agent relying on a handler's visual feed. But it felt more like a cost-saving measure. Or, more likely, a way to keep us handlers clean, to give us the plausible deniability of being simple data-readers, as disconnected as possible from what actually happened on the other side.
"Visual confirmed," Zero replied, and his tone shifted, losing some of its lightness. "Target's not alone. There's someone else with her."
My eyes flicked to the right panel where additional intelligence populated. The mission file had just updated. ASSOCIATE: [REDACTED], NIECE, 6 YEARS OLD. A cold knot tightened in my stomach. A child.
I hesitated, fingers hovering over the console. I could push him. Order him to proceed immediately, or escalate to Control for rogue behavior—this wasn't the first time he'd deliberately delayed. Every time, the objective was still achieved. Zero always got the job done, but he did it on his own time.
And if I was honest with myself, I didn't want to stop listening to his voice. It was a quiet solace, a warm sweep of fingers over a freshly scrubbed face, so unlike the syncopated, artificial voices of my surroundings, puckering like tiny pinpricks—the AI, Control, the cold efficiency of the station itself.
"...think, Dispatch?"
I startled. My focus had drifted, a cardinal sin. "Repeat, Agent."
"I said, I'll wait," he said, his patience almost insulting. "Until the girl is gone."
It was a breach. It was sentiment. It was human. The silence widened, and he was waiting for my answer, for my complicity.
"Acknowledged. Stand by," I said, my voice barely a whisper.
"Are you distracted by something, dove?"
Dove?
I felt my spine stiffen at the overt familiarity, heat creeping up the back of my neck. I ignored it—he'd probably ignore my protest anyway—and forced my voice into something approximating professional detachment. I waited to see if any command crept into my control panel. None came, and I allowed myself but a small sigh. "Affirmative. Wait for the civilian to clear the area."
In truth, Zero could have taken the shot. The child's presence wouldn't have made a difference. He'd be gone from this strand in seconds, the ripples of his action left for the local reality to absorb. The cold truth of it all used to rattle me. But then again, discretion was part of the operational parameters, even if it wasn't the primary goal. This wasn't, technically, a reportable violation. Not yet.
So we sat in wait. He, on a rooftop in a world I'd never see, watching a woman and her niece through a window. Me, in my sterile cocoon, with only my numbers and imagination.
Soon enough, Zero started talking.
He always did. Observations about his surroundings, phrased in overwrought language with unnecessary conjectures that sometimes made my jaw ache from suppressed smiles. How the local birds had 'an attitude problem and possibly a vendetta against anyone in a trench coat.' The way the rain pooled in the cracked pavement like 'tiny mirrors reflecting a sky that's three shades more purple than sunset on Uranus.'
"Hey, you got that, right, Dispatch? It's Ura—" Zero prattled on, his voice dropping back into that easy, conversational tone. "I think someone's making bootleg grafts down the street. You can tell by the blue color of the steam. Impurities. Reminds me of an old job on Io. Picked for merc work fresh out of my last rotation on Ceres. Had to picture all the yellow landscapes to smell like buttered popcorn and not… y'know, rotten eggs. But the pay was great, and I quickly made captain. Guess that's one perk of being just fifty mili shy of two meters. Hired guns, y'know? Been at it since I was old enough to hold a rifle. No family to miss me, just the next paycheck."
I said nothing, listening. I chalked it up to a high socialization need, an exercise in sanity preservation. He was talking to the void to prove he was still there, and I just happened to be the void that listened. I remembered my own quiet but fulfilling school days. The satisfaction of solving equations, the calm hours in the computer lab where everything made sense. Zero could have been one of those other kids—the ones who played sports, who filled rooms with noise and laughter, who sometimes asked for help with tests. I'd always obliged, secretly admiring their ease with others, their ability to simply be without constant calculation, without any obvious enhancers.
Between the absurdities, small fragments of Zero surfaced—a soldier by trade, a man whose life was defined by service rendered to Earth. Ceres, Io, nameless fronts where loyalty was bartered for survival. No family to anchor him, no home that hadn't been assigned. His past, like his voice, carried the weight of repetition, duty without witness. And against the quiet swell of pity that knowledge stirred, I found—shamefully—that my inner sketch of him had been made less blurry somewhat: a towering stature to match that deep, resonant timbre. I wondered briefly if he'd had any enhancers applied—I'd heard of height grafts before, but the procedure was difficult and only viable on infants. The slip of casual pride in Zero's voice suggested the opposite.
That his presence was now no longer inferred from the gravity in his tone alone stirred another feeling, something that only came during these quiet pockets of companionable lull between Zero entering and exiting a strand. I supposed it was similar enough to hunger and dread, in the same way the sensations and I were frequent bedfellows. Yet where hunger gnawed, it only caressed; where dread drowned, it only quenched.
And should the feeling remain nameless, it wouldn't technically exist; it wouldn't be possible for it to be taken away.
"You know," Zero said, interrupting my thoughts, "you've got so many ways to address me. Including that one time you called me 'the asset' when you were annoyed—"
"I was not."
"You absolutely were. I could hear it." The smile was back in his voice. "Point is, I'm tired of hearing 'ee-ex-double-oh' in that very serious dispatcher voice of yours, dove. So how about this: you tell me your name, and I'll tell you mine. Fair trade, huh?"
"You are incorrigible, Agent EX-00."
Despite the deserved exasperation, I felt the corner of my mouth twitch. A tight, unfamiliar smile. For a second, listening to his rambling, I could almost forget what we were here to do.
It was different with him. These quiet moments of shared focus felt like a genuine connection, something the Council's sterile protocols couldn't quite stamp out. It was a dangerous feeling, a weakness I couldn't afford, yet one I was desperate to keep. Zero was the only agent who did this, who spoke to me like I was something more than a machine that read him data. The others were silent, efficient, as cold as the void between worlds.
But Zero brought the rain. Brought conversation and terrible jokes and that warm voice that made my sterile white quarters feel less like a tomb.
At least, for a while.
The line was quiet, but not empty. I heard a brief scuffle, the whisper of a weapon being moved, the soft thump of a hydraulic stabilizer.
"The girl's gone," Zero reported, all business now. "Looks like parents picked her up. I have a clear line of the target."
His pulse ticked up to 92 BPM. "Clear to go?"
"Proceed," I authorized.
A single, suppressed sound, barely a puff of air over the comm. His heart rate didn't spike further.
TARGET NEUTRALIZED. BIOMETRIC SIGNATURE CLEARED.
My hands flew over the console to log the time stamp, the practiced motions a comfort. As with any other mission, this was the time I focused on meaningless minutiae to stave off what my mind refused to acknowledge. I strained for the taps from other handlers' consoles and heard nothing.
In the modest apartment where she shared with an orange tabby, blood must still be gushing from the fatal wound. Taken clean out three years before the very idea of said incriminating literature could have taken root and threatened our strand's stability, thanks to the Council's sublime computing power.
My gaze strayed to the flash of neon on the distant dome: motivational posters and adverts for enhancement services to which the workers across the Council's reaches aspired. I pondered the importance of a human hand inputting a timestamp instead of a simple automized click.
Would the sound of a trigger pulled sound quieter if that were the case?
"Acknowledged. Mission complete. Initiating extraction sequence."
My job here was almost done. I initiated the wrap-up, and the console flooded with the complex calculations of interstrand retraction.
"Extraction sequence initiated, EX-00. Stand by for pull," I continued, reverting fully to the formal script.
"Standing by, Dispatch," he replied. A pause. "You know, this place will forget she ever existed in about five minutes. The strand rewrites itself around the absence. It's funny, isn't it? How easy it is to just… disappear."
I didn't reply. He was talking about the target, but hers was another name I wanted, needed, to forget. Some people disappear so others can be seen.
I guided him through the coordinates, watched the reality signatures begin to decouple on my display. Standard procedure. Another mission complete. Another name I'd try not to think about.
"Oh, right," Zero started as the dimensional bridge started to collapse, his voice already taking on the hollow quality that preceded disconnection,"Control hardly ever flags the chatter. Human verifiers only check for objective fulfillment. The AIs handle the rest, and they're programmed to filter out 'inessential' data." He paused. "Like us."
The signal was about to dissolve into a roar of static. I was already reaching to close the channel, to restore the blessed, orderly silence.
"And by the way," his voice cut through, clear and sudden. "My name's Simon. Don't forget it, dove."
The connection cut.
Around me, the handler bay hummed with its synthetic pulse. Three other stations showed active, their operators bent over their own consoles, locked in their own isolated worlds. None of them looked up. None of them had names, as far as I knew. Just designations, like I am: Handler-58965.
But I knew his now.
Simon.
My hand trembled as I reached up to remove the neural headset. The metal was cool against my palm, solid and real, an anchor to keep me from floating away into the dangerous territory my thoughts were traveling.
He'd given me his name. After months of asking for mine, of probing and teasing and pushing at the boundaries of protocol, he'd simply... offered his own. No trade. No conditions. Just a piece of contraband I didn't know how to discard, or perhaps, just perhaps—a gift I hadn't asked for and didn't know what to do with.
I logged out of my station, muscle memory carrying me through the shutdown sequence. My eyes drifted to the viewport that ran along the far wall of the handler bay—beyond the curve of workstations, beyond the artificial star-lights of the ceiling. Earth still hung there, blue and impossibly distant. New Paris sprawled below it, green domes gleaming against gray regolith.
Somewhere in this station—or another like it, or some cell I couldn't imagine—Simon was returning to his own confinement. Taking off whatever equipment they used to send him across the strands. Maybe looking at the same Earth, thinking the same thoughts.
Wondering if I'd remember.
Simon.
***
I turned away from the viewport and headed for the exit. The corridors stretched before me, white and empty and cold. Three people were visible on my entire walk to the mess hall and back. The station felt like a mausoleum tonight, all marble silence and echoing footsteps.
In my quarters, I stood at my personal viewport and stared out at the familiar view. Earth. New Paris. The transport shuttles tracing their careful paths.
Something new had begun construction since yesterday—a structure rising from the regolith, skeletal and bright with work lights. Along the site hoarding, visible to passing shuttles and the rovers crawling across the surface, hung banners. The contractor's logo. And beneath it, one of those posters: a woman, pale and serene, cradling a double helix in her arms like a babe. Coppery green lettering proclaimed: "Onward To Perfection."
I stared at it longer than I should have. At the woman's empty smile. At the way the imagery was rendered almost luminous and holy. Emma would have spat at that poster. Would have said something cutting and true that would have made me laugh despite myself.
I turned away, facing the empty room.
"Simon," I whispered to the white walls.
Don't forget it, dove.
My legs carried me to the spartan desk tucked beside my bed, near the door—positioned, I'd always suspected, so the surveillance camera in the ceiling corner could capture both my sleeping form and any nighttime activity.
I sat. The chair was hard plastic, ergonomically designed and spectacularly uncomfortable for anything longer than a few minutes. On the desk sat the only objects in my quarters that weren't bolted down or recessed into walls: a plastic cup housing a single pen, and a small, plain notebook.
Standard issue. Replaced monthly whether used or not.
I picked up the notebook, felt its weight—so light it was almost nothing. The cover was unmarked gray polymer, flexible and cheap. I opened it, began flipping through the pages. Blank. Every single one. My pulse quickened as the pages whispered past my thumb.
Blank. Blank. Blank.
I had never once written in any of them.
Every month for 847 days, I'd returned to my quarters to find the old notebook and pen vanished, replaced by identical new ones. The first time, I'd asked the AI about it.
"Writing materials are recycled after thirty days of issue," it had explained in its pleasant, empty voice. "Should any content be requested for long-term retention, materials will be submitted for inspection and approval."
I'd asked why mine were replaced when I'd never touched them.
"Protocol adherence is mandatory. All prisoners receive standard issue materials regardless of usage patterns."
I stared down at the last page after the final round of riffling, and the quaint shuffling noise of paper ceased. A blank space like any other, pure as driven snow. I picked up the pen, uncapped it gently.
Convict 58965. Handler of the same designation.
That's what they called me. What I'd answered to for so long the numbers had begun to feel more real than what came before them.
But I was other things first.
My fingers in motion felt stiff with disuse. The first letter emerged wobbled and misshapen—more of a scratch than proper writing. I released a held breath and consciously relaxed my grip. The pen was just plastic and ink. The paper was just pressed fiber. They couldn't hurt me.
I started again. Slower this time. Deliberate. Each letter taking shape like something recalled from a dream.
GUSTAVE
How strange. How foreign. I'd heard it in my head every day—I am Gustave, I am Gustave, Emma's brother, not a number—but seeing it felt different. Felt real in a way thought couldn't manage.
I blinked away the gathering moisture. The letters blurred slightly, then came back into focus.
Below my name, I left a space. Then continued.
The pen felt more like a proper instrument now, assured and smooth, just like his voice had been. The letters flowed easier this time, as if they'd been waiting for permission. As if he'd given me permission, somehow, by offering his own.
SIMON
I stared at both names. Two prisoners. Two people the Council had tried to reduce to designations and protocols and carefully monitored interactions. Two people who'd found each other anyway, in the spaces between the rules.
My name is Gustave, I thought, and for the first time in 847 days, it felt true. His name is Simon.
A sound startled me—footsteps in the corridor outside. I slammed the notebook shut with perhaps more force than necessary, my heart hammering against my ribs. The footsteps continued past my door without slowing. Patrol. Just patrol.
I sat frozen for a full minute, waiting for the door to burst open. For guards to drag me out for the crime of writing two names. For everything to come crashing down.
Nothing happened.
Slowly, carefully, I restored the pen to its plastic cup. Positioned the notebook exactly where it had been, aligned with the edge of the desk. Everything normal. Everything routine.
But my hands were still shaking.
I stood, moved to the light panel, and shut off the overhead illumination. The room plunged into darkness broken only by the faint glow from the viewport—earthlight and the running lights of distant shuttles. I collapsed onto my bed without changing, still in my prison grays, and pulled the thin cover over myself.
Face pressed against the rough fabric, I mouthed my name again. Quietly, barely a whisper against the material. Still half-expecting guards to materialize. Still waiting for consequences.
Gustave.
After what felt like hours but could only have been minutes, I continued the ritual.
Simon.
His name tasted like rain on my lips. Like something dangerous and necessary and impossibly precious. Like the first honest thing anyone had given me in these years of namelessness.
And hidden in my desk, invisible to cameras that watched but could not read closed pages, two names existed together. They were proof that we were real.
I fell asleep whispering them like a prayer, breathing meaning to a new start of something I didn't yet have words for.
Tomorrow, I would hear Simon's voice again. He would call me dove, and I would feign silent dismay once more. At least that was what I could hope for.