Isolation

Chapter 18

There wasn't much to do on the ship. The waiting game wasn't something that Sara was the best at playing. Now that she thought about it, she didn't play any games at all. Since she now had security access, she went to the Sim deck. The Simulation deck took up most of the upper floor of the ship. She held her comm to the scanner.

"Welcome, Officer Whitfield."

An old picture of her face appeared on the screen of the scanner with her other uniform.

I need to update that photo, she thought. It reminded her too much of...

The door opened. She walked inside the dark room.

"VAL, simulate the beach in real time," Sara said. "Someplace like... California."

Everything around her changed. Sand, water, sky... sun. It felt just like the beach, though she didn't have anything to compare it to. She threw off her shoes and took off her uniform. She had clothes on underneath that would breathe better in the artificial heat. The sand dug between her toes. She would do this every now and then when she was on Canis. Texture was a delicacy of unknown proportions that eased her mind. For some, it was music or art, but all she needed was to feel the sand and water to stay calm and distract her from real-world problems.

She would take a swim in the water later, but she just wanted to lie down on a blanket and absorb some rays. She asked VAL for a pair of sunglasses and lied down on the purple blanket. She rested her head on her arms and kicked a leg up. She didn't know how long she stayed there, and frankly, she didn't care. This was her time. This was something she still had control of in her life.

She didn't mean to, but when she was truly relaxed, her mind would travel to places that she tried to keep locked away or in the dark. The sun opened a doorway to a distant memory of her family. Her father was a farmer, and her mother stayed at home to homeschool her sister. There was a daycare that her sister would go to every now and then for mentally impaired children to socially converse. It helped with her social skills that she had to develop even more than the average person. They had different age groups. At this point, she was eight, and she was already being very blunt when she spoke. Despite the teachers knowing how to handle them, she caused a lot of trouble sometimes.

Still, she didn't give up. She asked questions all the time, trying to figure out how to correct her mistakes. She remembered what everyone she wronged liked and didn't like and would put it into heavy practice. She would volunteer to help clean up or make snacks. She grabbed her disability by the throat and put a leash on it. When it went too far, she jerked it back and beat it black and blue. She hated her autism, but she never hated herself. She didn't want to be defined by what she couldn't do. She wanted people to know her by what she shouldn't be able to do.

Sara admired her for that. She worked to be a good example to her younger sister. Now, it's just... gone. No, not the feeling. Just seeing her face again would be enough.

She just remembered. She opened her comm and opened her photo gallery. Pictures flooded her storage. She chose the most recent one. Sara had taken them to a Sim and went on a jungle safari. It was an premade educational Sim, and her sister, Zoe, was always into animals. She was supposed to have a service wolf trained to understand when she panicked and needed help calming down. That wouldn't get to happen, either.

She touched the selfie of her family and felt drops fall down her face.

"There you are," Maria said.

Sara jumped and closed out of the application.

"Jesus! You scared me," Sara said. "How did you find me?"