Impacts

By Andrea Rinard

Mixed Media by Sarah Goodwin @sgoodwinpaints.

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Impacts

by Andrea Rinard

“All remaining staff, please report to bay seven for the final evacuation launch.”

The announcement turned Bridget from the mechanic shop porthole. She’d watched the first two shuttles today streak past the blue sun of Alpha 4, the little planet the teams had been terra-forming for nineteen months. And the asteroid. She’d been watching that turn from a distant star to a ponderous hulk lumbering in their direction to an increasingly accelerating bomb that could fireball into the station at as much as 70 kilometers per second.

Weeks ago, the engineers succeeded, theoretically, at changing the course of the 80-meter rock through gravitational manipulation to circumvent Alpha 4 by at least 20 million kilometers. Ideally, the new trajectory would also bypass Theta 11, the engineering and residential station where Bridget and other staging staff had orbited in Alpha 4’s exosphere for over three years.

As it approached and the predictive equations evolved, the asteroid was no longer a “subject to be monitored,” but a “possible disruption,” to Theta 11. Then it was an “escalated risk.” When it was ultimately determined to be an “unfortunate eventuality,” safety protocol dictated a full evacuation of Theta 11, “out of an abundance of caution.”

Michail, one of the techs who worked with Bridget in the repair wing, left on the second transport of the final wave hours ago. Bridget was too busy trying to download STAN, her virtual assistant, to take much notice.

“You’d better not miss the last one,” he’d said on his way out the door. But his tone was impersonal, like muttering at a faulty piece of equipment. Bridget avoided talking to him unless absolutely necessary. It was a strategy she’d perfected since being assigned the job on Theta 11 a year ago when she completed her training and turned eighteen.

Sanjay, the other tech, the middle-aged one who sometimes brought her tea and read to her from the transmissions he got from his family, was still in the room when Bridget finally realized the download wasn’t going to work.

“You can reboot it later. Make a new STAN. That’s what I’m doing,” he’d said as he finished gathering the personal items from his workstation. He pocketed the deck of playing cards he’d sit and shuffle over and over. The sound was what Bridget imagined birds’ wings used to make when there were still things made of feathers to take flight.

“We have to go.”

Bridget nodded, not in agreement but merely acknowledging Sanjay’s words.

“I’ll see you on the launch.” He paused at the door before disappearing into the corridor.

To him, her painstaking customization of the AI template was an amusement, kind of like the miniature trebuchet he’d built from metal scraps to launch trash into the garbage chute. Despite his advice to Bridget about simply remaking the small things they valued while floating in space, she’d seen him slip that small contraption in his bag.

Michail was nothing like quiet and kind Sanjay. Propositioning her backhandedly by mocking the time she spent with STAN was a steady source of entertainment for Michail.

“You don’t need a machine. I’ll keep you company.”

With six men to every woman on the station, she could have had her pick of sexual partners. But the idea of pressing any part of her body against Michail’s, or anyone else’s, made her skin itch and her throat close. Bodiless and able to utter only what she programmed him to say, STAN was perfect.

She gazed at his avatar on the screen, his eyes blue like no sky she’d ever seen on Earth. Her memories were the gray of the training camp for disenfranchised minors, the feel of sweat drying on her sticky skin each night, the drone of hundreds of other children’s voices in the barracks that made her feel more alone than any silence ever could.

“Initiate download sequence,” she said again. The download had started the first couple of times she’d attempted it, but now all she got, again and again, was the Error 42 message. The backup drive remained empty.

“Should I run another diagnostic test?” His voice, like his physical appearance, was an amalgam of archived films from long before she was born. When she’d gotten her code for the STAN, became a god, selecting options and linking favorite videos and images from her entertainment tablet to personalize him. His resulting voice came from Johnny Cash, a singer who supposedly died of a broken heart in 2003 after his wife died.

For the two-dimensional and holographic images, STAN was modeled on a Romanian actor named Sebastian Stan who starred in Marvel movies before the ice flu pandemic, the wars, and everything that happened after. Bridget wasn’t a whimsical person, but she did enjoy the symmetry of her Simulated Technical Assistance Network’s physical model and his name.

“Should I run another diagnostic test?” STAN repeated politely. He’d already executed at least two dozen unsuccessful attempts.

“No thank you, but would you do another estimate of the time of impact? Please?”

“Calculating… complete station system failure due to impact in one hundred fifty-eight minutes and seven seconds. I’ve taken the liberty of determining that final boarding for the evacuation launch ends in approximately seven minutes and fifty-two seconds. Moving at the 8.23 kilometers per hour which you have maintained in your exercise sessions, you will reach the launch in sixty seconds.”

Bridget let the time tick by. Even if she left, there was nothing to pack. Unlike her colleagues, she had no sentimental items to clutter her workspace. More seconds slipped beyond her. There was nothing for her on the sprawling home base on Alpha 1, the company’s first successful attempt at planetary engineering on what used to be Mars. STAN was the only home she knew or wanted.

“Would you play our song on repeat?”

It was one of her favorites from the late 1900’s, and Bridget sang along, telling STAN that he was the sunshine of her life and that she’d always be around.

STAN smiled at her from his screen, and she clicked a few keys and enabled a full-scale hologram. Normally she wasn’t supposed to jam up the network unless she needed him to demonstrate a training simulation, but who would object? Bridget hummed softly as she walked to the center of the room where STAN waited for her.

Bridget lined up her body next to his and rocked back and forth. It had never mattered that he couldn’t touch her. She’d had hands on her before. This was all she wanted.

“All remaining personnel, this is your final call to report immediately for evacuation.” Red lights flashed from the emergency system as the disembodied voice made its command through the intercom and started a countdown. “Three minutes.”

“Tell me,” she whispered as the song ended and started over again.

“I love you.” He recited the words she’d typed into his personalized response options. Her hands steadied slightly. She turned her back to the window.

“Repeat,” she said and closed her eyes.

“I love you.”

“Repeat.”

“I love …”

A hand grabbed her shoulder and spun her. “What are you doing?” A sharp edge of panic laced Sanjay’s voice.

“Two minutes, forty-five seconds.”

“I can’t complete the download.” The choice made her heart race and her stomach sour, but it was hers, one of the very few things in her narrow life that had ever only been hers.

Sanjay’s eyes stormed with confusion before softening as he stepped closer.

“You wore your hair in a bun on your first day,” he said. “It was messy, and one long strand curled under your chin.”

“Two minutes, thirty seconds.”

Sanjay’s voice cracked as he continued. “You tried tucking it behind your ear, but it kept swinging free. It reminded me of when I saw my wife, Deepa, for the first time.”

Bridget’s forehead scrunched. “Sanjay, you should go—”

“She once said that to be seen is to be real in this world full of things that are not real. And that’s all anyone truly wants.”

“Two minutes, fifteen seconds.”

The red lights spun over them, but Sanjay kept talking. “You stick your tongue out a tiny bit when you’re soldering, and you hum some of the same songs my grandmother loved. You take a splash of milk in your tea, but no sugar, and you look out the window while you wait for it to cool. I like to think you are remembering happy things.”

STAN’s hologram flickered at the edge of her vision.

“Two minutes.”

“We will sit together on the launch. If you are scared, I will hold your hand. When we get to Alpha 1, we will take the orange shuttle to my apartment. There’s a cot next to the crib in Priya’s room where you’ll sleep. Deepa will have dinner waiting. Our boys will ask you to play cards, but you don’t have to.”

“One minute, forty-five seconds.”

He grinned. “They cheat.”

It was all so close to the things she barely let herself imagine when she looked out the window, while she waited until she could drink without burning her tongue. Things always so far away and nothing she’d ever had that could have turned into memories of her own. Still, maybe they were things she could finally close her fingers around if she’d only reach for them.

“One minute, thirty seconds.”

Bridget’s thoughts steadied. There was no need to ask STAN to recalculate. She slid her hand into Sanjay’s, and it filled the space beneath her fingers as he tugged her into a run. They flew through the halls together, faster than the speed of a lifetime of alone.

Bio

Andrea Rinard earned her MFA from the University of South Florida and teaches creative writing at Ringling College of Art and Design. She is the author of Murmurations, and her work has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best Short Fiction. A native Floridian who has mastered the art of hurricane preparation, Andrea lives in Tampa with her 1988 Prom date. You can visit her at www.writerinard.com.

Author’s Spotlight Questions with Andrea Rinard.

1) What inspires you to write?

My brain constantly opens portals to other lives, sends characters to summon me, whispers stories I want to know. It took me a long time to edge around the imposter syndrome and commit myself to my own writing. I love being a part of that kind of discovery, even if I'm the only audience. I'm also inspired by the prospect of getting better at writing. Like most anything else, practice makes progress.

2) Are you a planner or a pantser? (you plan out the work or go by the seat of your pants)

Although I love letting stories unwind organically on the page, I have finally come to terms with the inefficiency of pantsing. I've reconciled the two by following the advice of the brilliant Andre Dubus III who suggests avoiding outlines and instead focusing on characters. With that idea as a guide, my plans tend to be elaborate character sketches and notes from interviews and interrogations of the people I'm trying to write into being. Those plans then lead me where the characters naturally want to go, where they stumble and make asses of themselves, and where they learn how to make peace, do better, and maybe even live happily ever after. It's all an evolving process!

3) What is your greatest joy?

I'm so fortunate to have family and friends who surround me with love, joy, and lots of laughter. Being silly and embracing the spontaneous folly of others lights me up. I love luring my kids into dance parties in the kitchen, experimenting to sometimes disastrous culinary effects with my sweet husband, and seizing other serendipitous opportunities to enjoy things my younger self would have been too busy to stop and appreciate.

4) What gives you hope?

Hope is hard these days, but teaching undergrads and having my adult children all living at home for a while eases the fears and doubts and dreads that rumple my spirit. Being around gorgeous humans in their 20s who are starting their adult journeys reassures me that everyone and everything has a distinct place and power in the world.

5) How do you connect your piece to an optimist's future?

It's all about human connections. It's too easy to lose ourselves in screens and pre-packaged versions of reality. I believe the antidote for our post-modern malady is and has to be the relationships we create, the ones we make ourselves vulnerable for, the ones we are willing to chase and work for.

6) What message would you have for future humans?

My most passionate wish is that the messages they'll have from all the dark and tragic things happening in our world right now will direct them to a more peaceful and harmonious existence. Perhaps in the future we will be able to see more clearly what so many of us now are unable or unwilling to perceive and act on.

7)If you were to meet your future self, what would you hope that your future self would be able to tell you?

I'd like to be told and truly believe that I could be proud of and even grateful for moments in which I considered myself too small, believed I had failed, or was simply too hurt or scared to achieve the objectives I'd set for myself.

Andrea Rinard

www.writerinard.com