Ten million buxom female fans were shouting Tom's name—while jiggling their buxom-y parts. It was a wall of sound that cut into his bones through his ears. He was everywhere. In every puckered mouth. In every shade of eye. There were so many people in the crowd they sat on and crushed each other, using others' heads for stools, shoving their hands in faces to gain balance. They even made a squirmy carpet on the aisles.
Everybody wanted him.
But they weren't loud enough to drown out the sound of Nathalie's text when she asked him if he'd heard the news.
He ignored her at first, lifting his eyes then raking them across the rows of the stadium, which made waves like water. Parted his lips for a smile, allowing metallic sweat to fall into his mouth, and roll down his tongue in a stream of beads. Expertly juggled the soccer ball with the heels of his graceful feet.
The air was coloured by sunlight. The grass was fresh and pixel-free green. He was moving like he'd invented the sport.
Glorious.
Then Nathalie video-called, and the game froze, paralyzed by a telephone icon. The audience was still and silent, the only sound the trilling dring of an incoming call, reverberating within his skull. Even the sun seemed dimmer.
She also sent a second message, which was accompanied by an anxious emoji.
Please pick up!
Tom was about to dismiss this as well—he was halfway into the curt nod that would do so—when another text registered. The letters appeared as a giant banner in the sky, thick in odd places.
THE SHIP WILL BE LANDING SOON.
Although the sun was, in fact, dimmer, it was still quite bright, and Tom still had to squint to read the words. They left him stone—except for his fingers. His fingers were jittering and unsteady.
THE SHIP WILL BE LANDING SOON.
He made the game vanish with a nod.
A dizzying transition. The blander dimensions of reality were almost an ocular slap. His eyes discovered walls and hard empty floor, along with the body regular blood and muscle stimulation kept toned and young. His pod was dark—save for the Mind Map, where Nathalie's message gleamed, and which he immediately enlarged, so things were less dark—and airless, as if the darkness were something physical that needed to take up space. There was the always-distant, always-present hum of the ship's engines, but the pod wasn't broadcasting its usual background music to muffle it. Everything was disturbingly silent, and it felt as if a giant was holding Tom's breath by the throat.
Pressing the telephone icon with a thought, Tom maneuvered himself onto his legs, accepting Nathalie's call standing up.
She appeared to be quite unnerved.
"We're really leaving, Tom!"
Natalie's pod was equally dark. The pale glow of her face, lit by her Mind Map, contrasted sharply with her shadow-coloured hair. Natalie had not been born pretty, but the ship fixed her up every day, and she only video-chatted with her best angle facing forward.
"That doesn't seem right," Tom answered. "I don't believe it."
His fingers betrayed his nerves. If the ship had arrived, that meant no Mind Map (for the Mind Map was connected to the ship's servers), no stimulators, no food pills, no back massages, no games, no curated dreams. No pods. (The ship would leave them behind on the planet's surface and return to Earth in the search for more survivors. The ship would drop those survivors on another "viable" planet and repeat the process.) It was a prospect that made his chest feel like it was short a heart.
"Where did you learn this?"
"The ship told me."
"Why would the ship tell you?"
"Because I asked it. Kind of."
The idea struck him as so odd, Tom was at a loss for words.
"I asked to see outside my pod." She paused before anticipating his question. "I was curious. And the ship told me. Just like that." She twisted her lip. "Maybe it needed to tell someone, and it chose me."
"That's ridiculous. The ship is a ship."
Natalie shrugged. Her hair danced like a current of air. She had dark, dark eyes.
"It's just that if I was forced to watch without ever announcing anything but the time—and not even that, because why would anyone want to know the time anymore—I would get lonely, you know, and want to talk."
"That's ridiculous."
"Then why do we talk?"
"Because the ship's algorithms paired us together."
"Because the ship knows that we require relationships in order to survive."
"I don't want to leave."
"You have no choice in the matter. Your pod will detach on its own and land on the planet and eject you and disappear." She smiled. Almost seemed annoyed. "We might finally meet in person."
"I want to talk to the ship. It'll answer me if I ask it a question?"
Nathalie shrugged. "I don't know."
"But it answered you."
"Maybe it only answered because I didn't expect it to."
"I like it here. I like the ship."
"I did, too."
"I really do like it here." But Tom sounded hard. "I don't want to leave. Can't we go on searching for a new home forever?"
"We'll tire of it, eventually."
Tom could not imagine that. The Mind Map was infinite: any fantasy, any whim, could be reenacted, created, felt. And did he mention back massages? And stimulations?
Until Nathalie's message, he'd nearly forgotten he was on a ship. Months travelling through the vacuum of space had repressed all memories of "Earth" to the size of flickable dust. He did not remember the others—and there had had to have been others, back on "Earth." Friends and family and perhaps even lovers, before the darkness of the pods and Nathalie, his assigned partner. There must have been cities, and fear, and a takeoff. But trying to remember it all was like trying to thin purée just by stirring it. He didn't have the patience anymore.
The ship and his pod were all that remained. The ship was like a silent friend who read your mind and gave you all you wanted but was otherwise invisible and unnoticed—that was the ship. The pod was like a cruise boat that sailed on your dreams and made more dreams with the ripples—that was the pod. They fed and clothed and spoiled him.
And he'd fallen in love with both.
He'd rationalized it long ago. He'd also forgotten the rationalization at some points, but had been more certain than ever that there was one, at those points. Within his pod resided his purpose in life, and what was love if not dependency? The Mind Map was like an addiction to him. He wouldn't survive without the simulations.
It was this love that set his mind ablaze and made his fingers shake.
"I won't leave," Tom said. He ended the call and hummed to fill up the dark silence. He told himself Nathalie must have been lying—why would the ship betray him?—until he almost believed it.
The darkness swallowed his hum and grew stronger.
Moving with jerking motions, Tom activated the Mind Map, selected the soccer simulation, and pressed play.
There were ten million buxom female fans. There was green grass and blue sky and yellow, yellow sun. He laughed with delight, taking it all in, heart slowing to a steady place. There was no Nathalie here. No ship. The world he'd created was beautiful.
Glorious.
Then it was gone.
An ocular slap. The pod was tinted red and shaking furiously and blurry and shaking more furiously and turning more blurry. An alarm was beeping, but it was very, very loud. Louder than his heart. Nathalie was calling, but the Mind Map was dull and grey now, and lit almost nothing. His seat trapped him in place with two criss-crossing metal straps. No use in trying to move. He worked hard not to wet himself, but ultimately failed. A stinging shame stained his trousers—it trickled down his leg like a sharp-nailed finger.
Next came the falling feeling.
Suddenly his head was much too light and airy for his body. His insides jumped but did not land, floating all the way into his throat, jamming there. He tried to scream but only whimpered.
"Ship."
He tried to shout but only whispered.
"Ship."
He shook and was jostled; the alarm doubled, tripled in intensity, till it was screaming inside him. Till he wanted to scream with it. His insides were still stuck in his throat. Tears were stuck to his face. The pod was a dark fantasy that spun and moved and fell.
"Ship."
Why couldn't they go on searching forever?
"Hello Tom."
The voice that replied was not human. There was no inflexion. No stress, no un-stress. The words were so smooth, so close to each other. They didn't even sound tongued.
Tom felt an ice on his body, despite the heat of his thoughts.
"Hello Tom."
"Sshi—" But his tongue had fallen out of his mouth.
"Estimated time of landing is in T minus 1 minute apologies for the turbulence."
"Ssssshhhhhiiipppp—"
"Did you enjoy your stay on Project Hail Mary?"
Tom could not speak. His head was flopping wildly; it was only connected to his neck by a rubber string.
"Silence means assent thank you for voicing your opinion.
"The current satisfaction rate is over 97%."
The voice disappeared, and so did the sound. Now Tom fell through silence.
There was no up—not anymore. Only down. The world had compacted itself into a little red-black ball and that ball was being tossed around by giant hands with clumsy stupid fingers.
There was only falling.
#
Tom's pod was still and dark, his stomach tight but in the right spot. Sweat ran over his fingers and made them sticky. He did not move.
Someone was knocking. Cycles of three raps, on the pod's door (had the pod always had a door?) that steadily increased both in speed and intensity.
He heard voices. They were muffled.
"The door's jammed!"
"Well, pry it open!"
"Something's jamming it from the inside—I feel it pressing against the knob!"
That something consisted of Tom's hands. The grunt of his weight was pressed against the door, keeping the knob from turning. Up until now, his grip had been solid.
But it was starting to slip.
The knocking resumed, at its strongest now.
Suddenly the knob twisted. He couldn't be facing one person anymore—it must be two, three, perhaps four.
"I think it's starting to give!"
Tom screamed. It was a howl. It sounded like someone had shoved their fist up his throat to produce it.
"Whoa, is he dead?"
"No, the pod seems fine..."
"Maybe his straps malfunctioned?"
The voices were strange to hear. Overlapping. Not quite worried enough.
"Just get the damn thing open, will you?"
"I'm trying!"
Tom's fingers felt weak. He wouldn't last, he knew that now. But he grunted and screamed and tightened his grip anyway, because he would last as long as he could.
"Ship!" he shouted. But the ship was gone. It had abandoned his pod. Spat it out like a wad of gum.
"Ship, I don't want to leave! Don't let them make me leave!"
Tears streamed down his face. Fire flowed through his fingers. The knob twisted. His heart was so loud the darkness throbbed with it and seemed alive.
"Ship! I was satisfied with my stay! I was!"
The voices outside were silent. No one knocked.
Tom breathed heavily.
"Just leave me alone, all of you. Just leave me alone..." But his hands were slipping.
He was halfway into his sob when the door opened.
#
Natalie stood in a metal space suit. She was not pretty at all.
Two more Natalies stood beside her.
His mouth fell open. The door was opened and closed behind them in an instant. The Nathalies moved with impeccable synchronism, their steps long and graceful, as if one mind were animating them all. They shoved a needle into his skin. They pulled him up and into a space suit, crushing his head into a helmet. They escorted him outside into brightness. They would not let him turn and look back at the pod, because their grip was firm (two secured either side of him, while one walked ahead).
It took Tom a moment to locate his tongue.
"Nathalie?"
He did not register the planet under his feet, not even the weight of his suit.
"The ship knows humans require relationships in order to survive," the Nathalie who walked ahead said. "The ship made us to partner with humans during the trip."
Tom said nothing. He felt like he'd lost his head somewhere in space. Maybe it would float into a star. Or fall back down like a meteorite. Maybe Tom could make wishes upon the strange memories the ship flew away with.
"No, I did not love you," Natalie finished, although he hadn't asked.
"You won't find anyone," Tom murmured, and for once he saw. He saw that there was nothing to see. No stars left in the sky. "Back on..." His voice died. "Back on..." He could not finish. "Back on... They're all dead. They're all dead by now."
"It doesn't matter," Nathalie answered.
"It does. It does matter! The ship left us for nothing!"
There was a fire in his bones, and lava in his veins. There was venom in his mouth, and lightning on his tongue.
Tom was angry.
The first Nathalie stopped in her tracks and turned around.
"Are you the ship?" Tom asked.
"I'm just a clone."
"Where are you taking me? What are your instructions?"
There was coal in his belly. Steam in his throat.
"I'm to gather you together and watch. I'm to help if I'm needed. I'm to be sacrificed as the colonists see fit."
"Sacrificed?"
Nathalie nodded with a smile. "One of the reasons why the ship made me."
His palms had made fists, but now they loosened. He hung his head low and looked at the ground.
Hurting Nathalie would be hurting the ship.
"Are we close?"
Nathalie nodded, and the other Nathalies nodded like echoes.
Tom noticed her strides lengthen. He didn't notice them stop.
There were voices all around. A crowd. Others.
A gathering.
#
Tom had loved the ship. He'd loved the simulations and stimulations and injections.
Now there was nothing.
The voices approached, and Nathalie's hands set him free. There were faces, obviously, to go with the voices, but he didn't see them, his eyes were gone, he'd left them on the ship.
"He was the last one," Nathalie said.
"Come, come, we're holding a meeting!" cried a young man.
There was no purpose in meetings, Tom thought. Not when Nathalie did not love him, and neither did the ship.
His hands were free. He'd do it fast.
"Is the air safe to breathe?" Tom asked.
"We're still running tests. Everything seems to indicate—"
Tom pulled off his helmet and took a deep breath.
If only the air were poison! If only it would burn his lungs and stop his heart!
But it was pleasant.
Crisper, cooler than his simulations. It was light. The ground moulded to his feet, and his knees bent and unbent, surprisingly nimble. Goosebumps raised themselves over his exposed skin. People murmured about him. The shame in his trousers dried and flew away.
It was what he needed.
It was glorious.
It had everything to do with the needle Nathalie had shoved into his neck.