I have a Google Keep list of story ideas that I have been, well, keeping for years now. A whole series of little prompts for myself that I’ve said I would get to one day. Most of them I have come up with sporadically, some have even been dreams. Well, someday is today. At the behest of my lovely partner, I’m going to start working on The List. I’m going to try to make it a full story in around 2000 words, but let’s see how that goes.
Anyway, let’s get started.
Willow smiled. It was always so good to hear from Jen. They could be a literal galaxy away, and Jen’s messages, though growing more infrequent, always made her day. As the images of her latest project played across the screen, Willow couldn’t help but feel proud of her, and a little lonely. She showed her how far the colony’s farm project had come, and how the pressure had started to rise outside enough that she could walk without a suit.
“It’s still very cold, but with my heated parka I can be out long enough to collect some samples of the flora. These plants feel so weird.” She said.
The specimens in question were indeed strange. Though green like the plants here in the habitat, the texture of them was odd. Small little dendrites of material covered them, reminding Jen of the tongues of cats, though they seemed to be more willing to lay down when she moved her delicate fingers over them.
“We’ve been able to get these particular ones to grow in our environment,” Jen said, holding up a desiccated brown twig with purple leaves to the camera, “which makes us hopeful that the local flora will be able to tolerate a higher oxygen environment. Still, we’re decades away from being able to walk outside without breathing equipment.”
She panned the camera around her living area, showing Willow some other things she had collected, then finally pointed the camera to her face, pale and calm. She always looked so serene, even when she had sent her messages to Willow during the journey to the planet, when micrometeors had set her vessel adrift for three days.
“I suppose I’ll go. I can’t wait to hear from you again. I wish you could see this place. I wish I could see you.”
She moved her hair out of her eyes and stared down the barrel of the lens. There was such depth there, a deep blue with a ring of brown fire around the pupil. She let a half smile crest her lips, then reached out and cut the transmission. Willow found herself lost in the darkness of the screen that now filled the space where Jen’s face had been. After a while she finally pulled herself up out of her bunk and shut down the console. There would be time to send a message later, but for now Willow’s attentions had to be elsewhere.
*******
Jen was exhausted. A few days ago the containment field around the livestock had failed and the pressure dropped. Some of the cows had died from hypoxia, and the chickens had begun to act strange. Their skin had begun to turn a light purple around their orifices. The bio team had yet to determine what exactly was causing it, but the prevailing theory was that some native fungal infection had taken root. The science team had been holing up inside the compound for a few weeks now. The chief scientist had stopped all expeditions to the outside, even those fully suited up.
She sighed, and leaned back in her chair. She had been cataloguing species at a record pace, but there was not much for a xenobiologist to do when there was no biology to work with. Per protocol, all of the specimens she had been studying in the STP open air lab had been destroyed after the incident with the livestock.
She was idly chewing at the inside of her mouth when she saw a notification come in. She thought to just clear it, but realized it was a message from Willow. It had been months since they had communicated with each other, but she suddenly sat forward at the realization and hungerly opened the missive.
The screen played out the image of the inside of a docking bay, with Willow’s disembodied voice coming over the speakers. There was a loud, rhythmic crashing, and a white plastic and metal automaton came into the frame, wires trailing it that attached to a box that Willow was holding.
“It’s not done yet, but look how much it can pick up,” Willow said, making the robot bend down in front of a large crate and then lifting it effortlessly. “If they won’t give me access to loaders for my projects, then I’ll make my own. Just because we’re in zero g doesn’t mean the gear doesn’t have inertia.”
The message continued with Willow parading the machine around and manipulating more things in the bay. Jen was impressed by the machine, but her attention kept falling to the contrast of Willow’s tan skin against the white plastic of the robot. She loved to see Willow light up when she had a new project, especially one that worked. Sometimes her messages would end in tragedy, like when her cart racer lost the wheels when she went full send and snapped an axle.
Willow stopped playing with the robot and came and sat in front of the camera. “Anyway, it’s been kind of boring out here. We’re moving the rig to a new site, so it’s just me and the darkness for a few days.” She gestured to the cupola at the end of the engineering bay, which showed up as a black, yawning void on camera.
Jen heard the sadness in Willow’s voice. She knew that Willow did not do well without a job. She had such a hard time sitting still.
“Anyway,” said Willow, “I hope things are going okay for you. I know we’re both busy, but don’t be a stranger.” She let out a long sigh. “I miss hearing your voice, sometimes I replay your messages just to hear it. I…good bye, Jen. I’ll talk to you soon.”
The video ended, and Jen sat for a long time in her chair, replaying those last few words in her head. It was so strange to have such a deep connection to someone you’ve never met in person, but this was the way things were. Humanity had become so spread out, and at current reckoning, Jen was around 60,000 light years from Willow. Sending messages via quantum tunneling was one thing, but entire bodies, well, that was another. Sure, all of the parts would get there, but what came out on the other side wasn’t what one could call human. Organisms tended to not survive being broken down into light and reassembled.
*******
Willow was groggy as she came out of suspension. She hated being put under, but luckily this was a short trip. At full throttle it was just two months to the next debris field they were planning on salvaging. She sat up in the pod and coughed out a glut of grey-white goo. What an absolutely foul way to travel.
After toweling off and finding some clothes she sat down in front of her console before even heading to the shower. In her suspension she had strange dreams, and had hoped she would have a message from Jen.
After scrolling furiously through all of the spam and work notifications, she had a message from the one person she had come to realize meant more to her than anything in this universe, and she looked sick.
Jen’s face filled the frame, but she seemed tired. Her hair was greasy, her face looked thin, and she was paler than usual. What concerned Willow the most though, was the slight purple tint that ringed her eyes, mouth, and nostrils.
“I think it makes me look exotic,” Jen said through raspy breath and with a staccato cough in the middle. “I think magenta is really my color.” Her eyes fell down though, staring for a few seconds at the floor. Her cheery disposition had been replaced with something Willow couldn’t quite grasp. The lines on her face and glassy eyes betrayed many sleepless nights.
“The medical team thinks we’ll all be fine, but we’ve lost two of my team already. Some of the chickens ended up being fine, though, so I have hope. For now, I have to stay in this stupid little room.” Jen gestured around at the little med bay she had been quarantined in. It was stark white, and had none of the small charms and knick-knacks that Willow had seen in her room.
“We’ve been having a lot of issues with the climate control though,” Jen said, a small bit of her breath visible as she exhaled. “Most of the engineering team has passed. It seems whatever this is gathers in moist areas, and a lot of the technicians were exposed early on.”
There was a fit of coughing, and Willow listened as she went on about other things. She had finished a few books, one of which she highly recommended to Willow, even though she knew Willow wasn’t fond of reading. She said she had spent a lot of time watching the robot fighting leagues, and wondered if Willow ever had considered entering herself.
After a while, Jen looked straight at the camera, and Willow thought in that moment, across all of that distance, that Jen could actually see her. For two years they had existed like this, playing hopscotch with videos over the vast distance between them. A cosmic game of tag that took two people that had never met and made them closer than kin.
Willow felt her heart sink. For so long she had ached to be able to talk to Jen in real time. To hear her voice first hand, to engage in witty banter, to hold her hand, to gently caress her face, and kiss her. She wanted desperately to feel Jen’s lips on hers. Lips that were ringed with purple from some alien infection.
Willow’s musings were cut short by another coughing fit from Jen.
“I really hope I hear from you soon,” Jen said, “most of the others stay away from us in the med bays, and even we’re prevented from interacting with the other infected. I’m so lonely, Willow. I really wish I could curl up next to you. Even if I could just see you on the other side of the glass, that would do me good. Take care.”
Jen signed off. Willow sat for a long while in silence, accompanied only by the buzzing of various machines. Soon others of her crew began to wake up. She swallowed her emotions and began to get dressed. There must be something that could be done. The distance was so vast, even at full burn, it would take millennia to get to Jen. The ocean of space was only slightly dwarfed by the dark ocean in her soul. It cried out to be illuminated with Jen’s light. There had to be a way.
*****
Things got worse for Jen before they got better. The infection spread to many of the colonists. Around half of them had died, but, slowly, over time, the remaining biologists were able to find a way to combat the infection. Jen had to be put into suspension for around a year, and even when brought out, her system had decayed to the point where the doctors were not sure she would survive. Suspension was not always reliable, and she found that she had to relearn to walk and use her left arm. She would live though.
When Jen was strong enough she was moved from the cryo bay to the med bay, and eventually was allowed back into her room. Her pale complexion had returned to its former state, with only the slightest purple tinge around her eyes, giving her a look of permanent magenta eye shadow. She admitted she kind of liked it.
All of her accounts had been frozen when she was put under, but she had one message waiting for her, sent shortly before she was suspended.
Willow’s voice filled her perception, yet is was sullen and raspy.
“I’ve spent days wracking my brain trying to figure this out. I think I’ve got it.” Willow briefly appeared on the screen, then went out of frame. Jen could hear her fiddling about off camera.
The screen paused and then the scene jumped ahead. Something entered the picture. It was a stocky, medium sized automaton, with smooth white plastic and shiny aluminum structure that had the vague silhouette of Willow. It had eyes in the right places, and they had been painted to match the pale green orbs that sat in Willow’s head. When it spoke, Willow’s voice came out, yet it had a sort of flanged, metallic quality.
“What do you think? said machine-Willow. “I spent a very long time trying to make it right, make it look like me. I’ve barely slept in months. I couldn’t bare your last message. I couldn’t bare the distance any longer.” Machine-Willow strode off camera, and returned wearing a similar jumpsuit to the one Jen had seen Willow in earlier, including her nametag.
“I’m sending this to you,” machine-Willow said. “I’ve managed to get a hold of some of the other colonists. I know you’re not doing well, I know you’re in suspension, but hopefully by the time this gets to you, there will still be time.”
The robot came and sat in the chair Willow had been sitting in. It’s eyes, though cold and covering up a great many gears and sensors, looked familiar to Jen. She looked straight into those eyes, and saw no difference to the ones she had looked into longingly for so long.
“I’m coming to see you,” the robot said, “I can’t wait any longer. I wish my body could, but this will have to do. Jen, I love you.”
The screen went black, and Jen’s heart raced. She was excited about the robot, but a bit of her was disappointed that it would just be that, a machine. Still, over the past year, she was sure that quite a bit of Willow’s personality could have been programmed into the automaton. She felt herself getting tired, and for the first time in a very long time, she sunk into her own bed, and let herself go to sleep naturally.
*****
Willow woke up confused and in pain. She couldn’t feel parts of herself. There were people in technician’s uniforms standing around her, holding pieces of her. An arm, a leg, she watched, paralyzed, as her head moved closer to her body. In a few minutes the technicians had her attached, and soon things began to feel better. She was in her body again, and what a relief it was.
The last thing she had remembered was sitting in the chair of the transporter. She had been afraid. She remembered looking down at her white plastic skin and prayed that everything would be alright. Afterall, nothing like this had been tried before. She felt cold like this. The technicians helped her to her feet, and she took a few steps.
“Everything seems to be in order, run a diagnostic,” one of them said. Willow held up her hand and flexed it in front of her eyes. Everything seemed fine.
“I’m good,” she said, her metallic voice squeaking out of her robotic mouth. She walked around, stretched. This wasn’t so bad.
“Let me in,” came a cry from a familiar voice beyond the door to the transport chamber. Willow then saw the most beautiful sight she had ever seen, with these eyes or her old ones. Before her stood a tall, lanky woman, pale skin, dark brown hair, and magenta eye shadow.
Willow reached out to shake her hand, but Jen just hugged her metallic frame. “I’ve missed you so dearly,” Jen said. They stayed like that for a while, and eventually they broke off, and Willow followed Jen to her quarters.
Willow stood in the corner while Jen sat down in front of her console. “I just have to message Willow and let her know you’ve arrived safely.” She began to record, and Willow moved in front of the camera, and knelt down in front of her. She put a hand on Jen’s lap and placed her hand in hers.
“Jen, there’s something you have to know. Willow’s not, I’m not there anymore.” Jen looked at her confused.
“What are you saying?” Jen said.
Willow stood up and began to pace around the room. She told Jen of how she had developed the robot, how long it took, how much time she spent on it.
“It couldn’t have been an approximation. That wouldn’t have been enough,” Willow said, staring at Jen with eyes that had far more to them then just the components that made them. “Jen, this is me. I had to put all of me into this machine, or else it wouldn’t work. I had to see you, with my own eyes, even if they weren’t my biological ones. It couldn’t have been a copy, that would have been incomplete.” Willow could see tears start to well up in Jen’s eyes, accompanied by a slow understanding. Jen grimaced.
Willow faced the corner of the room. “I know this is probably a shock, but that body, my old body, is just a shell now, hell, the crew has probably already disposed of it. I understand if you’d rather not be around me, I understand if this changes…” Willow was interrupted by the warm feeling of Jen’s biological arms going around her metallic waist. She could feel her breath on the back of her, lighting up every touch sensor she had as Jen pressed her face into her cold, plastic skin.
They stood like that for a long while, in silence. Jen squirmed a bit, and Willow stood fast, waiting for countless seconds until Jen spoke.
“I’ve waited for you for so long, and I faced the veil of death thinking I would never get to hold you,” Jen said. “What matters to me is that it is you, not whatever form you take. If i can fall in love with a recording of you, then I am beyond ecstatic to have you here with me in person.”
Jen let go of Willow’s waist and she turned around to face her. Jen was slightly taller than her mechanical frame, but she looked up into her blue-brown eyes, and felt more at home then she ever had been on the salvage ship. She leaned up and kissed her, and felt her mechanical body come alive in a way that her biological one never had.
“I love you,” Jen said, “come on, let me show you my world.” They left the room, and the habitat, and Willow held Jen’s hand as she stepped out underneath an alien sun, into a whole new life.
