Press Start to Play (3 page)

I hold her, feel her hair slithering over my arms.

The world outside is getting smaller.

Sarah shakes. The forgetting grows.

I don’t remember waking up. I am floating in gray. My body is falling through the walls and it’s so familiar.

I am holding Sarah in my arms and I can feel the cool sand of the beach under my hip. I am stroking her sea-smelling hair and murmuring into the soft dampness. “It will be okay,” I’m saying. “You’re the dreamer, Sarah.”

“We can find each other in your dreams,” I say to her.

And then the smell of her hair is gone, along with the feel of the sand. I open my eyes to look down at my body and I am tumbling, spinning in space because I have no eyes. There is no body. All of it has finally gone away.

Things unseen are not rendered.

And yet I am still here.

I am thinking. My thoughts are somewhere. Churning in the gray.

Sarah slipped through my fingers.

Was she my dream?

Am I the dreamer?

Even now, there is this one constant thing.

A pressure where my hand should be.

Fingers, laced into mine. Squeezing.

I can remember if I try very hard.

“Final stage,” I hear the whisper.

Something beats at my eyes. A flutter of reality. A line of hard light appears and shatters my vision into a briar patch of eyelashes.

I am opening my eyes.

And I find myself lying in a flower-smelling bed under a clean white ceiling that is chopped into neat squares. There is a gray video screen hanging on the wall.

“Final stage,” says that unfamiliar voice. “Neural calibration and transmission complete.”

Sarah?

Eyes swiveling down, I see that my right hand is a leathery claw, laced with blue-black veins, knuckles twisted and humped.

A small moan comes from my dry, cracked throat.

I am old. I am ancient.
I am twenty how am I twenty?

And my Sarah.

She is lying next to me on the bed—
it’s a hospital bed, this isn’t right, where is our dorm?
Her lips are peeled back into a sweet worried smile and I can see a hint of that beauty I remember in her youthful angular face—a dimple still lodged stubbornly in her sagging cheek.

We are…old. Melted like wax.

I was saving my wax. I blew out my candle. I was twenty.

Years have draped themselves over us. Did we fall asleep?

“I lost you,” I say.

“No,” she whispers. “We’re together now. Always.”

The screen on the wall flickers, shows me something painful.

Sarah and I are standing together on the screen.

Versions of us. In the computer.

We are holding hands and smiling.

It makes me cry to see us so young.

“Neural upload complete,” says the voice in the gray. “Both computational entities are viable. It’s a success, people.”

I think the world is running away between my blinks. The screen and the ceiling and the walls are splitting off and falling into the great forgetting.

Only she is vibrant.

“Hosts are losing mental cohesion,” says a gray whisper.

Sarah.

She is lying next to me on her back with tears tracing down her temple. Our fingers have found their old familiar places. Her face is so bright that it hurts my eyes. Her lips are red again. Her hair is a sun-kissed brown.

We are both trying so hard to hold on.

“Sarah?” I ask.

“I’m not scared anymore,” she says, and her teeth are so white. “It will be okay. We’ll find each other in our dreams.”

Her hand in mine. It’s all that matters.

In all of the forgetting, there is this one constant thing.

Her name is Sarah. I will always remember that.

Daniel H. Wilson is a
New York Times
bestselling author and coeditor of the
Press Start to Play
anthology. He earned a PhD in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where he also received master’s degrees in robotics and in machine learning. He has published more than a dozen scientific papers, holds four patents, and has written eight books. Wilson has written for
Popular Science
,
Wired
, and
Discover
, as well as online venues such as
MSNBC.com
,
Gizmodo
,
Lightspeed
, and
Tor.com
. In 2008, Wilson hosted
The Works
, a television series on the History Channel that uncovered the science behind everyday stuff. His books include
How to Survive a Robot Uprising
,
A Boy and His Bot
,
Amped
, and
Robopocalypse
(the film adaptation of which is slated to be directed by Steven Spielberg). He lives and writes in Portland, Oregon. Find him on Twitter
@danielwilsonPDX
.

Moon base six is visible in the distance, but you keep your eyes down. You keep them trained on the ground, in the patch in front of you. You have your sensor and your collection tool and you’re going to find iridium. There. There’s some iridium. Awesome. The tool hoovers it up. Cha-ching.

Moon base six over there. Close but far. Eyes down, like always, fixed on the iridium patch. You have your sensor, your collection thingy. Iridium is so rare. Really, really rare. You’d be lucky if you—oh wait. The sensor is saying you got some. Cha-ching.

You warm up your Lean Cuisine in the break room. Pasta primavera and a can of Sprite Zero. Oh shit, Carla’s here. You try to hand-comb your hair a little. She smiles. Oh shit oh shit. She’s having a Cup Noodles and a Dr Pepper. You move your iridium collection tool off the table on the off chance she wants to sit across from you. She says don’t worry about it and your stomach drops a foot. And then she comes around the table and sits right next to you. Oh shit oh shit oh shit. You talk for seventeen whole minutes, the rest of your lunch break. As you’re putting your bio-suit back on, you notice you are lightly sweating. It feels good.

Moon base six. What, maybe one fifty, two hundred yards away? You could get there in thirty seconds. Flat-out sprint. You could do it. You’ve seen fast, watched them do it. You know it can be done. You’re not sure why, but you feel it—there’s more to it than just this. You have big things ahead of you.

Cha-
chung
. Iridium. Big piece. It’s been a good week.

Is Carla seeing anyone? You ask around a little. Mixed messages, but bottom line what you are hearing is that she’s available. You have no chance. But. Hmm. You never know.

Moon base six. You do the work. The day goes fast. You keep your eyes down, but your head is in the stars. Iridium, schmiridium. Carla carla carla.

Plasma rains down on the surface of the planet, melting almost everything into molten death. In other words, it’s Tuesday. This week, though, you’re standing right here, in the crease.
Stay away from the crease. Far far away.
That’s what they teach you in training. They never explain why, but you know better. Stuff happens in the crease. Weird stuff. You can always get iridium there. You hoover it all up, leave for a few minutes, come back, and there it is. So, no. You’re not going to stay away from the crease. What do they think, you’re an idiot?

Apparently, you are an idiot.

Because this Tuesday, when the plasma rains down, melting everything, molten death, blah blah blah, et cetera, you’re standing in the crease when it happens. There is so much iridium coating your bio-suit, it’s fusing into a protective layer, shielding you.

The whole of creation seems to be falling down from above, raining down on your head, and you’re in your suit, feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. Tingly. You check your body parts, which seem intact. Fine. More than fine, in fact.

You seem to have been…changed.

Moon base six. Right there. Now there’s a whole mess of activity. Preparations being made, fanfare, all kinds of official-looking window dressing going up. There is literally a red carpet being rolled out toward the landing dock. Rumor has it CENTCOM Council is coming to investigate the incident. The Incident. That’s what they’re calling it. That’s not what you’d call it, though. You don’t know what you’d call it yet.

There’s that dude. He’s right there. In the middle. Of everything. At all times. Did he just grab his junk? He just grabbed his junk.

Get back to your iridium mining, someone says. You look up and see a CENTCOM noncommissioned officer, about five feet above you, riding one of those hover pads. You wonder if he realizes how much of a tool he is, balancing on that thing. You wish you could just take your iridium-collection thingy and whack him right in the nuts.

You whack him. Not in the nuts. In the shin. Which is probably worse, because it sounds like it shatters on impact.

People lose their minds. They have no idea what to do with you.

They are taking you down to the base. Holy crap. You are in an actual jeep, actually riding toward the actual base. You cannot believe it. You look around, try to take it all in. You have no idea what has happened. One day you’re an iridium-mining grunt, working for four and a quarter chits per year, on, like, a billion-year contract or something, and the next thing you know, you’re zooming toward moon base six with electromagnetic restraints on and two plasma rifles trained at your head. You are smiling like an idiot.

The smiling probably pissed them off, them being the dudes on the other ends of those plasma rifles, because you wake up in an antigravity holding cage floating ten feet off the ground. You’re floating around, bumping into the walls and ceiling of the cage. Your head is throbbing, probably because they clocked you in the skull with the butt of an RZT-195, but it was worth it. You’re still smiling, although a little less obviously.

Hey, you say.

What?

One of the dudes turns to the other. They both look perplexed.

Did he just?

Yeah.

Huh.

Hey, you say again.

Stop talking. You aren’t supposed to be talking.

Huh. Okay. Well, I am.

Again with the smashing of the skull. This time, your brain feels like it’s broken. That last hit did something. Between the plasma storm and having your brain bashed, you don’t feel quite yourself anymore.

You know better than to smile again. You’re not in the cage anymore. Now you’re being walked down a long corridor. This corridor is ridiculous, how long it is. Is it repeating? It seems like it’s repeating. There are doors as far as the eye can see. Doors, doors, doors. You know better. You could easily kick a dude from behind, maybe sucker-punch the other one with both cuffed fists and then smash through one of these doors. They all probably lead
somewhere
. Technically. There are rooms on the other sides of those doors. Maybe a break room, two people sitting at a table, staring at each other. In silence. For eternity. Just blinking. Maybe one goes to the microwave to refill a coffee mug every few hours. You’ve been in those rooms. You know what it’s like. You don’t want to be in those rooms anymore. Ever. Again. These fools think you’re a flight risk, so their fingers are on triggers. Little do they know, they’re leading you right to exactly where you want to be. You have no idea where that is, only that it’s at the other end of this corridor. A corridor is good. Interesting stuff happens in corridors. You’ve always wanted to be here. Right here. Somewhere. Wherever this is. Inside. On the map. Not out there in the infinite fields of iridium. They think they’re guarding you, but really, they’re escorting you. Right to your destiny.

This is him?

She says it so dismissively, you want to melt into a puddle on the table. You may be in love. You are definitely in lust. This is Oona Bantu, which is a ridiculous name for a very serious person. Bio-suit helmet off, long red hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. Stripes on her sleeve make her seem like someone important. This is good.

What’s your name?

Name?

Yeah. You have a name, don’t you?

Uh, one of the dudes tries to break in.

Shut up, Sergeant. I was talking to him, she says, indicating you with a pointed, sexy finger. Everything is so sexy about her.

I don’t, I don’t.

You don’t what? You don’t know your own name?

I don’t have a name. Ma’am.

That’s, uh, what I was trying to tell you, Commander.

Shut the hell up, Corporal.

Yes, ma’am.

Also, you should have told me.

Yes, ma’am.

Super Sexy Commander Lady turns her attention back to you.

So. An NPC, huh?

After all these years, it’s a weird feeling to know the name. Of what you are. You’ve heard that term before, but without understanding the context or what it stands for (you still aren’t sure—although your awareness, like a spreading gas, is starting to creep around the edges of the term and you feel that soon it may come to you, all at once). Now this CENTCOM officer from twenty thousand light-years away has come all this way. And for you. For you!

It works. You get a promotion, then a gun. They start sending you out on missions. You get stats, a profile, a backstory. You get
hit points
. Just a few, at first. People know your name. Oona Bantu knows your name. Sometimes she flirts with you in the elevator. You level up, then you level up again. With every mission you can feel it more and more. You don’t know how it happened. Actually, you do. You finally took control of your own actions. You’re free. No more of that iridium-collection bullshit. No more Lean Cuisines in the break room. No more…

Carla.

Hmm.

Well, you can get Carla. Right? You’re
you
now. If she liked you before, of course she’s gonna like you know. You just need to know how to keep this going. So far, it’s worked. Just do the worst possible thing you can think of doing. And then do something worse. Something you would never imagine anyone doing in any situation.

You go on missions. You level up. Up and up and up you go. Your armor looks great. You catch sight of yourself in the reflection of your pod craft and, you hate to say it, but you kinda look like a badass. How did this happen? You hover over the grunts in the iridium fields. Poor suckers. If only they could see what you see, the world from up here.

There are just a couple of things that bug you.

You used to be stuck down there, with those losers. And your life was the same every day. Wake up, brush teeth, put on the bio-suit. Get the thingy, use the thingy to collect iridium. At the end of the day, detach the basin, load it into the spectrometer. The number pops up, you get your chits for the day, and that’s that. Every day the same. Every single crap day the same.

Now you’re a player. You get to do what you want, when you want. When you’re not doing what you want, you get to chill out here, in this air-conditioned lounge with couches and free snacks and a cappuccino maker, waiting for the next mission. The music is a little repetitive, but the people are cool, if a little aloof. You’re you now. That’s something. It
means
something. It’s just that—how do you say this—to keep this going, you can’t help but feel as if your days aren’t any more free than they were before. They might even be, and you can’t believe you’re saying this, less free. How is that possible? You don’t know. But it is.

That’s the first thing that bothers you. The second thing is Carla.

You don’t know if she doesn’t recognize you now that you’re kind of a badass or what. Whatever it is, when you wave at her, from a pod craft or if you’re doing a perimeter sweep of moon base six, she doesn’t wave back. She sometimes gives a little smile, but you can’t tell if it’s because she still remembers your lunch chats or if maybe she’s just smiling because a second grade lieutenant is waving at her. Plus, the smile she gives you is one of those sad smiles.

All of which is to sort of make it a little more understandable that when Oona Bantu comes to your quarters wearing just her under-skin armor, you don’t turn her away. She comes to sit on your bunk, and things get a little kissy for a hot and sweaty five minutes, and you feel really terrible the whole time and confused but also you are
kissing Oona Bantu
, so you don’t stop right away but then Carla’s sad little smile face keeps inserting itself into your head and you break off the kissing and Oona can’t believe it. She just laughs, gathers her underthings, and walks out of your room.

You don’t know if it was that whole weirdness with Oona or what, but after that day in your quarters, you kind of hit a plateau in your career. The leveling up slows down. No more weapons upgrades. Your number doesn’t come up as often, and those missions you do get seem smaller, more like diversions, just messing around. And the thing is, you don’t even get to see Carla anymore. You got transferred to base nine, which is on the other side of the moon.

Mission selected. Gear up. Player chosen. Save save save. Complete the mission. Power down.

Mission selected. Gear up. Player chosen. Kill kill kill. Complete the mission. Power down.

Mission selected. Gear up. Player chosen. Blah blah blah. Complete the mission. Blah blah blah.

Mission selected. Gear up. Player chosen.

You look at the brief.

Moon base nine, collateral damage acceptable.

The ride over is only twenty minutes, but it feels like half a day. As you reach the base, the twin suns rise on the horizon. Oona’s up front, barking orders—she’s leading the mission—but all you can think of is Carla. You know she’s in that base somewhere, in one of the five thousand rooms. If only you could guess which one.

Blam. Blam. Ska-doosh. Ska-doosh.

Your team rips through the east wing in a minute forty-five, then up to the second floor and the third, clearing out the entire side of the building in four flat. Oona radios for your squad to secure the wing and await further instructions. A couple of the guys use vending machines as target practice. Wanger decides he’s going to flush a grenade down the toilet. You tell him you’ll stand guard in the hallway, but no one really seems to care as you wander down the corridor, peeking into rooms here and there. Nothing to see, nothing to see. A couple of randoms walking into corners here and there. You hear Wanger and Gutierrez messing around back there. Sounds like they’re torturing a couple of NPCs for fun. For a minute you think of going down and saving them, because it’s not cool and also an actionable offense punishable by court-martial, but mostly because, hell, you haven’t forgotten where you came from. Hey, you say, and turn back to go knock some sense into those two idiots, but then from a door behind you, you hear a
soft
voice say,
Yes?
And you recognize the voice.