Touching the Foam

by David Brookes

part 3 of 5

I can’t look at him, she thought. The words jumped fully formed into her mind, so suddenly and so clear that she almost said them out loud.

Staring down at the Companion’s supine body — and it was a Companion, the tests had confirmed it almost conclusively — Charlotte could not fathom something that was there now but had not existed a week ago, and yet seemed fully grown, entirely proficient in its cognitive abilities, and perfectly articulate.

She put her hand on his head. His skin was clammy and warm. Whatever had caused him to collapse was probably connected to the pre-programmed genetic dissolution that all Companions were compelled to go through. Most times Charlotte was asleep beside one and would stir at four in the morning, when it climbed out of bed to quickly stalk through the ship towards the organics lab, like a toad drawn to its spawning grounds in spring. They knew when their time was up. The consciousness was the first to go and the motor functions just automatically knew where they had to take the decaying body.

‘Can you hear me?’ she whispered into its ear.

She couldn’t help thinking of it as an “it.” A few days ago, the Companion had been a “he,” one of her Alex replicas. Poor Alex, who had been driven to dumping anxious, snappy, compulsive Charlotte just a fortnight after their third year’s anniversary, not that the date mattered, not like they’d been thinking of settling down or buying their own place or anything.

It was dark in the lab. She’d shut down all but the most essential equipment, including the lights, in a vain attempt to induce sleep in herself. Charlotte didn’t want to sleep in her apartment when she knew that this half-person would be lying right there in the lab. She would rather be where she could see him and, if he woke up, speak with him.

Alex.

His eyes flickered open. As Charlotte gasped, the Companion also parted his lips, in order to run his tongue over their dry cracked surfaces. Slowly he sat up, and put his hands upon his knees.

‘...What happened?’ he said eventually.

He sounded very parched. Charlotte passed him a glass of water.

‘You fell over. You looked like you were in pain.’

‘It felt like my head was splitting open.’

He groaned and drank the water in long gulps. Charlotte refilled his glass for him. He continued.

‘It’s throbbing now. I think I was looking out of the window when it hit me — or at one of the screens. It’s funny... I don’t remember actually signing up for this mission. When did you talk me into coming?’

‘I didn’t.’

‘I thought as much. I followed you around like a lost puppy when we first got together. Makes sense I’d still do it now. Except for...’

He trailed off. Charlotte looked him in the eye — it was Alex’s eye, right down to the little blue striations that overlapped the forest green iris. She thought that she could see his soul in there. Maybe it was just the darkness mingling with the eerily-coloured glows from the equipment.

I miss you, she thought. I knew that I could never live without you.

‘I remember coming out of that,’ Alex said, indicating the tank.

It was in standby mode, lit from above by a pale blue light. A yellowish liquid swimming with motes and flecks of organic tissue filled ninety percent of it. It was a soup of amino acid compounds and chromosomal aggregate, a base substance for the Companion-building process. It was a sticky, messy and bloody process, but the results were... Well. They were sitting in front of Charlotte.

‘I also remember some birthday parties with friends from school... University, meeting you... The academy and graduation...’ He looked Charlotte in the eye. ‘I remember what I did yesterday.’

‘What did you do yesterday?’

‘I drove to the reconstructed fort at Jamestown. Where we used to go. I had the Porsche fascia on the car, and there was a girl sitting next to me laughing. She looked a lot like you. I remember it all quite clearly.’

Charlotte said nothing. Suspecting that he was a little mad, she feigned to tidy the workstation while she searched for something to bludgeon him with if he got out of hand.

‘We got to the fort... The fee’d gone up another ten dollars,’ he said, pulling a face. ‘We went inside the walls. They were made of faux-wood tree trunks, meant to look just like how it was first built. It was pretty empty because it was raining. The rain was falling right down into the fort because those places never had roofs, just walls. I can remember the date it said on the plaque: May 13th, 1607. I wouldn’t remember that unless I’d just read it. But I can. And I said to the girl how I couldn’t believe how long ago it was when we first colonised America...’

‘Yesterday,’ Charlotte said flatly, ‘you were onboard this ship.’

She read its number off an ID label on the machinery built into the craft.

‘BRN-RDR 17211-14221-13.’

‘Rolls right off the tongue,’ he said.

‘When do you remember leaving the tank?’

He stood up fully then and stretched. He rubbed his scalp through his curly brown hair and said, ‘A few days ago. I came back here though in a daze and I don’t remember much. Then I woke up and went to make a cup of tea, and found you.’

‘That didn’t strike you as unusual?’ she asked.

Her fingers found a handheld scanning device that she thought she could use to knock him unconscious if circumstances forced it. She turned back to the Companion.

‘You know that you are a Companion, and not the real Alex Penrose, don’t you? You’re aware of that? Whatever you think you remember about little trips to my and Alex’s old stomping grounds on Earth was a dream. You can’t have two sets of memories for the same day.’

‘It’s quite real in my head,’ he said, raising his left eyebrow in that condescending way she hated so much. ‘It’s funny, but it’s like I can remember everything that we ever did together.’

‘What’s my favourite food?’

‘Pizza. Boring Hawaiian.’

‘What grade did I get at the academy?’

‘Second class for flight school, first for everything else. You were pissed off at that second.’

‘What did Alex always ridicule me for?’

He hesitated. ‘Uh... Gimmie a clue?’

‘It was every single morning,’ she scowled.

The Companion laughed, then stepped past her to pick up the T-shirt that Charlotte had taken off him while he was unconscious. He was grinning as he slipped it back on, muscles flexing.

‘You always picked odd socks. You don’t even care if they look similar. I bet you’re wearing odd socks now, aren’t you?’

‘That’s not important,’ she snapped. ‘And what do socks matter when they’re covered up by my pants anyhow?’

‘You get one more question, and then you have to believe me about everything I ever say from now until the day we die,’ he said.

Charlotte crossed her arms, and then unfolded them again. She wanted to be ready to lift up that handheld scanner if he got any closer.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Tell me why you broke up with me.’

He sighed lightly and hung his head. His arms bulged out of the T-shirt as he clenched and unclenched his fists. When he finally looked up, his jaw was set solid. There was half a week’s growth on his chin that Charlotte couldn’t account for.

‘That’s a dumb question,’ he said softly, ‘because you don’t know the answer. I never told you, did I, so how will you now if I’m telling the truth? Now, is there an AI on this ship?’

‘You should know that already,’ she said, and it began with words but ended in a grunt as she lunged towards him, scanner in hand, and missed his skull by a bare inch. He ducked out of the way and gripped her forearm tightly, just below the elbow, and pulled it sideways so that she had to twist to avoid having it broken off at the joint. He grabbed her other wrist and they stood there like that, frozen but both too well-trained to be out of breath, as still as statues.

He squeezed her wrist. She obligingly dropped the scanner.

‘Sorry,’ she murmured.

‘That’s okay. I’m going to let you go now.’

‘Okay.’

He let her go. ‘You’re testing a new propulsion drive here, aren’t you? I saw the view on one of the screens. That’s not normal space out there.’

‘It’s an Alcubierre drive. Warping space to go faster than light. Not technically faster, but in effect. I don’t know much about it.’

‘Right. I’ll ask again, but don’t hit me this time, okay? Is there or is there not an AI on this ship?’

‘Yeah,’ she said.

He smiled. ‘All right. Well let’s go and talk to it.’

* * *

Proceed to part 4...