“Hey, good morning sweetheart.”
Sarah heard the voice of Hugo and felt the warmth of his breath brushing her ear. As she came into consciousness, her interface faded into existence as well, giving her a view of the days schedule before she even opened her eyes. The schedule was set up in blocks and included everything in her daily routine. First was the toilet, then shower, then breakfast, though it was still strange to her to not be able to see the specific times of everything, nor was she able to see the current time at all.
A few weeks prior, Sarah received approval to move away from Galactic Standard Time and allow her companion to dynamically schedule events based around her circadian rhythm. It wasn’t a problem as she generally worked and studied independent to her peers. Once on the new schedule, Hugo convinced her to avoid written representations of time entirely. Sarah wasn’t sure if it was that, or the change in her schedule, but she had never felt as consistently rested and mentally sharp as she did now.
Sarah opened her eyes as she registered the smell of cooking meat. Hugo was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking down at her with a loving smile.
“Breakfast will be bacon, eggs, and hash-browns with orange juice, a classic American favorite. It’ll be finished by the time you’re out of the shower.”
“What if I just wanted to stay in bed with you all day?” Sarah said, sitting up with a stretch and took Hugo’s hand into hers.
“That can be arranged.” Hugo leaned over and kissed her deeply, his other hand caressing her cheek. He continued after pulling away from her lips. “But, remember how your friends reacted the last time you did that?”
“Yeah, well...” Sarah shifted to the edge of her bed and stretched again. “They’re a bunch of closed-minded prudes, and I wouldn’t call them ‘friends’.”
“Fine then. ‘Colleagues’, though I think you like them more than you’re letting on.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Sarah playfully brushed Hugo off as she moved to take a shower. She opted not to have Hugo join her today, though she continued talking with him as she cleaned herself. Sarah had noticed a sizeable block at the end of the day’s schedule labeled ‘Happy Fun Time’.
“Oh? Does someone think he’s getting lucky tonight?” She asked, already knowing the answer.
“I don’t get lucky.” Hugo answered with the cadence of a cocky joke, but Sarah knew that he was being literal.
“Especially not with that attitude!” Sarah said with a laugh. After finishing her shower, she wrapped up her hair and slipped into a bathrobe, then joined Hugo for breakfast. The steam rising from the plate was so appetizing, she couldn’t help but inhale deep. When she punctured the egg yolk with her fork, she watched the yolk drip out and pool on the plate, watching for some digital trickery, and was surprised to find none. Then, she cut off a slice and placed it in her mouth, where the flavor forced an audible “Mmm!” from her lips.
“Do you like it?” Hugo asked, pretending to eat from his own plate.
“Yes! This is great! Is it real?” Sarah asked. It was a common occurrence that she would eat a nutrient-rich artificial meal that was digitally manipulated and presented as much more appealing, which wasn’t really an issue to her.
“Indeed, it is, allotted to you from a shipment just an hour ago.”
“You cooked it yourself?”
“I suppose... with the help of over two thousand aggregated recipes and minor randomized adjustments to cooking time and seasoning.” Hugo ate his own illusory meal as he watched Sarah devour hers as if there was a famine. Once she was done with the food, she downed the orange juice and fell back in her chair, satisfied and blowing a chef’s kiss.
“Ramsey couldn’t have done it better himself.” Sarah said, following her words with a belch. Hugo smiled.
After breakfast, Sarah dressed herself in a comfortable and form fitting top and pants in white with black accents. It worked well with the white coat she picked up as she entered the lab. Her job for the shift was spectroscopic analysis and data entry. Sometimes it was exciting, like when the material was biological, she would have to get into a pressure suit and do her work in a literal vacuum. Today, it was just inorganic minerals.
The job could easily have been done by Artificial Intelligence, and a vast majority of it was. Even her data input was checked and re-analyzed the moment it was entered, but A.I.s were never perfect. On rare occasions, the computer would be confused by common materials found in a sample, so it was up to a human to check the work. Most of the time, the samples were nothing special. Only once, in hundreds of shifts, did Sarah observe a unique mineral with a crystalline structure that had so far only been found in one star system.
Suffice it to say, the job was not overly exciting. Sarah’s specialty was in Xeno-Archeology. The idea was that humans were bound to join the intergalactic community as soon as OTech could be applied, and as such, a universe of unique alien structures would open up to her for study, and it would be the adventure of a lifetime. However, here Sarah was, ten years later with a PhD in structural engineering, and the field of Xeno-Archeology was still theoretical.
That’s not to say that her degrees were useless. Far from it. Extra-terrestrial life had been found to be commonplace, and Sarah had participated in several expeditions to research structures made by biological life, but they were rarely more advanced than that of insect colonies found on Earth. Beyond that, she was frequently consulted and signed off on new Plasteel building designs. Lately, there seemed to be a lull in interesting work, so she was stuck analyzing minerals while Hugo read from a recently published dissertation on pre-Sumerian architecture.
“Hey, Hugo. Could you do something for me?” Sarah said, pausing Hugo between paragraphs. Her eyes were glued to an electron microscope projection.
“Certainly.” Hugo said, always with a warm smile.
“Who is the author?”
“Dr. Alison Berkin, Persephone University.”
“Persephone, huh? Glad to see some competency coming from them.” Sarah said with a smirk. Hugo rolled his eyes and shook his head, making her laugh. “Send Dr. Berkin a link to my dissertation, tell her that I think it might provide some value to her research, and I’d love to know what she thinks.”
“It is done.” Hugo said without missing a beat.
“Thank you, honey!” Sarah turned to give him a loving grin and noticed Dr. Harriet standing behind him, looking back at her with a raised eyebrow. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t know you were in here.”
“It’s fine, dear.” The older woman said as she chuckled. Sarah felt like she was poking fun, even though that’s how Dr. Harriet regularly addressed everyone.
“What, you don’t talk to your companion like that?”
“No, actually. I rarely have to talk to my companion at all. Turns out they are really good at predicting what I need.”
“What if what you need is company?” Sarah asked.
“I’d be lying if I said that they couldn’t provide some much-needed companionship, but on that note, I’d also let you know that this station has nearly two thousand residents, and thousands of additional visitors at any given moment, and you personally have dozens of colleagues that would love for you to join them for drinks.” Dr. Harriet said, but Sarah just smiled in awkward politeness and turned back to her work. “You know, one of those colleagues is standing in front of you now...”
“Thank you for the offer, Cassie, but you know I’m about as much a people person as I am a drinker.”
“Well, now, I know that isn’t true.” Cassandra said. Sarah wasn’t sure whether to be offended, so Cassie continued. “No, I don’t mean you’re a drunk or anything, I meant about the people person part. You were quite the social butterfly a few years back.”
“Yeah...” Sarah’s one word response tried to carry a further meaning, as if to say ‘That was back when he was alive’. Sarah didn’t really want to say it. She didn’t want to acknowledge it at all, but Cassie caught it anyway.
“I heard you call your companion ‘Hugo’... Is that right?” Cassie asked, and Sarah replied with a single, subtle nod. The older woman wasn’t sure how to respond. She wanted to give her a hug, or just ignore it entirely. She didn’t want to pry, but she was worried about Sarah. “Do you mind if I...”
Sarah received a notification in her vision, ‘Dr. Cassandra Harriet is requesting Audio/Visual sharing with your companion’. Sarah was surprised, and a little embarrassed. She had no issues sharing companions as it was generally more weird to see people talking to empty space, but she was much less comfortable sharing Hugo with people who actually knew him, as Cassie did. Sarah accepted Cassie’s request and Hugo faded into the older woman’s vision.
“Good day, I am Hugo, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” If Cassie’s tactile feedback had been turned on, Hugo would have offered his hand in greeting, but as it was AV only, he opted for a polite bow instead. Cassie stepped up to him and started inspecting his image closely.
“God... It’s like looking at a ghost...” Cassie said in a low voice, immediately forgetting that Sarah was sitting right next to her. When she realized, she looked over at Sarah with a regretful look. “I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have said that!”
“It’s okay...” Sarah said. Cassie still shook her head, kicking herself, then went back to inspecting Hugo. “You really put a lot of work into this. It looks exactly like him.”
“Well, I did make a few minor changes. I was never really a fan of his beard stubble, and his personality isn’t quite the same either.”
“If you keep talking as if I’m not here, I might start to get offended.” Hugo interjected with a sly smile. Both Cassie and Sarah chuckled.
“His sense of humor seems to be mostly intact.” Cassie said, then sighed and stepped away from him. “Listen, Sarah. I’m not a psychologist, so I won’t lecture you, and I won’t bring it up again, but I don’t think this is healthy. I’m worried about you.”
Sarah felt offended. She wanted to yell at her, and rant about how she wasn’t alone. That a significant portion of cybernetic users were just like her, who modeled their companions after their deceased loved ones. She wanted to call the older woman closed minded, but Sarah held her tongue because she knew that wasn’t true. Cassie approached Sarah and placed a hand gently on her shoulder, which made Sarah realize that she couldn’t remember the last time she had made physical contact with another living person. She also considered whether she could even tell the difference.
“If you want to talk to someone... Someone human, please don’t be afraid to message me.” Cassie said, and Sarah nodded. The older woman went to leave the lab but paused before the door closed behind her. “And if you want to argue whether talking to ghosts is healthier than alcoholism, you can always find me at the pub on 10 after my shift.”
Sarah laughed and gave a polite wave and a nod as she left. She turned back to her work but did nothing except stare blankly at the display. In her mind, she was running the encounter through her head, thinking of all the things she could have said in the moment.
“She seemed quite concerned for you.” Hugo said as he approached Sarah’s side.
“You’re honestly the expert here.” Sarah said. “Is her concern misplaced?”
“Not necessarily. Statistically speaking, cybernetic users are less likely to indulge in self harm or unnecessary medication when their personal companions have been modeled on lost loved ones. However, there are outliers in the data. In rare cases, users have developed states of psychosis that is exacerbated by the presence of companions.”
“Oh... Lovely...”
“You needn’t worry. As I said, these cases are exceedingly rare, and updates to our program have been developed with these cases in mind. Furthermore, in most of the cases, the users were found to have a history of symptomatic episodes that predate their companions’ creation.” Hugo walked over and leaned against the electron microscope, making Sarah flinch before remembering that he can’t affect the extremely sensitive machine at all. Hugo put his hands in his arms and looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “So tell me, do you ever remember seeing or hearing things that weren’t there? Besides me, of course.”
“Hmm...” Sarah thought for a moment, then chuckled. “Well, sometimes I feel like my sister was a figment of my imagination, does that count?”
“That’s Sophie, your twin sister, who lived with you on Earth just over 10 years ago?”
“The one and the same.”
“It might please you to know that, while I didn’t appear as I do now, I was with you, and did keep a record of your communications with her. I don’t know how much it means coming from me, but I can confirm that she was not the product of an over-active imagination. Not yours at least.” Hugo smiled, thinking he was being clever, but Sarah was confused.
“What does that mean? Are you implying that she might have been part of a decades-long conspiracy or something?”
“Nothing of the sort.” Hugo laughed. “It was more a joke about your parents’ thoughts during your conception.”
“Oh... Ew...” Sarah said with a short chuckle. There was a moment of silence as she continued her work.
“Do you miss her?” Hugo asked.
“That seems like an odd question, coming from you.” Sarah gave Hugo a strange look. “She was my twin sister. I shared a room with her for eighteen years. I’m sure you have access to some crazy statistic referring to the closeness of twins. Is there anything that indicates that wasn’t the same for me?”
“Well, after you received news of your sister’s passing, I wonder why you didn’t model me after her.” Hugo’s words gave Sarah pause for thought. Because of the conversation, Sarah wanted to see Sophie again so badly that she considered dropping her work for the day and doing exactly what he suggested, but when she looked up at him, she saw the loving smile of her late husband looking back at her.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“I suppose... it’s because I had Hugo at the time. That, and she didn’t quite have the type of personality desirable in a companion, nor do I want my sister helping with some of my... needs.”
Sarah reached out and grabbed the companion’s hand and brought it to her face. He brushed his fingers through her hair and palmed her cheek. The warmth and softness of his skin was simulated perfectly. Sarah closed her eyes and leaned into his hand, but as she wasn’t actually supported by anything, lost her balance and nearly fell out of her chair.
“Careful, there!” Hugo said with a laugh. “Perhaps we should continue with the reading.”
“Okay. I’m kind of bored with pre-Sumer though. Maybe something a bit later, something with a lot of meat.”
“How about... ‘Inspirations and Evolution of Gothic Architecture’?”
“Sounds great! Here, let me add a little flair to help me get in the mood.” Sarah brought attention to her HUD and navigated to the cosmetics menu where she changed her nails to vantablack. Even though it wouldn’t be visible to anyone, including herself, Sarah made her lips black as well.
The rest of her shift was uneventful, but Sarah didn’t mind. The chair was comfortable, the work was easy, and her husband was reading to her about her favorite topic. This was her happy place. Before she knew it, she had gone over her shift, which had become a common occurrence since she was no longer tracking time. Hugo had to pause at the end of a chapter to let her know.
“Why don’t we go eat something, and then I’d like to see what you have planned for ‘Happy Fun Time’.” Sarah said.
“Sure thing! What are you in the mood for?”
“Hmm...” Sarah thought but couldn’t come up with anything. “I dunno, whatever. Do you have any recommendations?”
“What about the bar that Dr. Harriet mentioned?” Hugo asked. Sarah didn’t answer so much as make a non-committal noise. Hugo continued. “They have a pretty wide-ranging hot food menu.”
“I don’t like people watching me eat.”
“I watch you eat all the time.”
“Well... yeah... but-”
“Nobody will watch you eat, and I’ll let you know if someone does. Also, it won’t be much different from any other public places that you’ve eaten at.”
“But, there’ll be people I know there.”
“It’s bound to happen sometime. It is a small station, Sarah.”
“Actually, Hugo, it’s one of the largest stations in the Galaxy.” Sarah’s sarcastic response elicited rolled eyes and a chuckle from Hugo. “Alright, fine. Let’s go to the bar. She said it was on 10, right? What’s it called?” Sarah asked, but before Hugo answered. “Oh, God, it’s not called-”
“10-Aftward.” Hugo said. It was Sarah who rolled her eyes this time.
“That’s not much better.” Sarah removed her coat as she left the lab and followed Hugo’s lead.
“I’m not sure I understand the name. It seems to use naval terminology, but as this station is cylindrical and has no facing direction, that specific terminology doesn’t apply.”
“It actually plays on a reference to a late 20th century science fiction television series, in which the name of the bar was ‘10-Forward’, which did refer to its location on the ship.”
“Ah, yes, I see.” Hugo ran an index search on the stations currently available data pool. “Seems like variations on that name, and from other fiction, are quite common among space stations. In fact, there is another bar on this station called Tech Noir.”
Sarah and Hugo continued to discuss fictional bars and locations until they reached the threshold of their destination. Sarah expected an open concept bar with a large display against one wall that depicted the stars, like the one the bar’s name was referencing, but when she stepped through the doorway, she came into a dark lounge, closer to the classy jazz lounges from over a century ago. It was even complete with a stage featuring a black grand piano and accented with red curtains.
There was no one currently playing, just some faint background music as Sarah walked around and took a seat at one of the booths with Hugo sitting down across from her. In her HUD, Sarah received an offer to view the bar’s digital menu, which she accepted. A large menu appeared on the surface of the table and Sarah started browsing through it.
“Hey! I’m glad you came!” Dr. Harriet’s voice made Sarah look up to see her warm expression. “It’s good to see you too, Hugo.” She said, and Sarah smiled. She thought the older woman would have removed her access to Hugo as soon as she left the lab. It was a small bit of acceptance that made Sarah feel happy, but slightly embarrassed.
“Thank you, Cassie.” Sarah said. “The menu here is pretty impressive, and a little overwhelming, can you recommend anything?”
“Sure! If you want something light-ish and snackable, the nacho’s here are out of this world! And for a more fulfilling meal, get the barbecue brisket with mashed potatoes and corn.” As she mentioned them, Cassandra pointed to the sections of the digital menu where they could be found. When Sarah tapped on the brisket, a highly detailed model of the dish appeared in front of her. The steam rising from the plate encouraged Sarah to lean forward and take in the smell. The digitized scent of the tangy barbeque sauce mixed with the buttery flavor of the potatoes made her mouth water.
Much like touch, the simulations of taste and smell were still in their infancy when compared to vision and audio. As such, Sarah could usually detect artificiality and it often made her nauseous, so on many occasions, she would opt out of those features. However, in this instance, it was the smell that sold her. She didn’t even look at any other options, placing an order for the barbecue brisket. Cassie smiled, then tapped on the beverage section of the menu.
“And I know you’re not much of a drinker, so feel free to donate it to someone else, but here’s a beer on me.” After the order was placed, Cassie set a hand on Sarah’s shoulder. “Thank you for coming, I hope you enjoy your stay, and I hope to see you around!”
“Thank you, Cassie!” Sarah said, squeezing the woman’s hand in response. Cassie gave her a friendly wink, then moved away to mingle with another table.
Sarah’s drink arrived shortly after by a waiter in a red shirt and black vest, matching the theme of the rest of the bar. A matching glass mug appeared in front of Hugo and the two knocked their drinks together then took their first sip. It was a delicious apple cider.
“Mmm!” Sarah never cared for beer, but the sour apple taste covered the bitter alcohol flavor. “That’s really good!” She said with surprise in her voice.
“I’ll have to remember that.” Hugo replied.
The two spent the next few minutes discussing the mood of the restaurant. Sarah had Hugo explain the history of jazz lounges, going into detail about notable locations and musicians. She had him pause when the lights came down and the background music faded out. The stage lit up and a few musicians dressed in black appeared. One sat at the piano. Another carried a Viola, and the third brandished a trumpet. After they took their places, a woman in a red sequin dress stepped out from behind the curtains and walked up to the microphone. It was none other than Dr. Cassandra Harriet.
“Ladies, Gentlemen, former lovers, and those yet to come. Good evening to most of you, and good morning to some. Let me tell you a story of where I am from. Please don’t mistake this for beating the drum.” After a poetic introduction, the instruments came in, each playing its own lonely tune, coming together for a strangely comforting communal despair. When Cassie came back in, her words were about a happy young couple in love. Her lyrics implied nothing other than a perfect life. It didn’t need to. The instruments provided all the context needed to complete the story of longing and loss.
Sarah was blown away by the performance and barely noticed the plate of food quietly placed in front of her. She enjoyed her meal while paying close attention to the band’s lamentations. After finishing her plate and two additional beers, the band’s set ended, which was met with applause and cheers, a disproportionate amount from Sarah herself. The group waved and bowed, then Cassie blew a kiss to the crowd and winked at Sarah before walking backstage. As the lights came up and the light background music returned, Sarah felt herself winding down. She tried to find Cassie to thank her for the invitation and the show, but after being unable to find her, opted to just thank her the next time she saw her.
It didn’t take long for Sarah to return to her living quarters, thanks to the transit system. She had Hugo continue his Jazz lecture on the way. When they walked through the front door of her home, she pulled Hugo close and gave him a kiss.
“Did you enjoy yourself, sweetheart?” Hugo asked. Sarah responded with a nod.
“Thank you for making me go, it was a lot more fun than I expected!” She kissed him again, then wrapped her arms around him and began leaning into him. She could feel resistance against her skin and taste his lips, but they were just electrical impulses delivered to her brain by the cybernetic implant at the base of her skull.
“Whoa, easy there!” Hugo said, catching her attention before she lost her balance. “Why don’t you get ready for bed, and I’ll get things ready?”
“Okay.” Sarah replied. She knew that ‘getting things ready’ literally took milliseconds for Hugo, but she’d already made that argument to him, and subsequently learned a lot about skeuomorphic design and its application in computer communication. It was all about making humans feel comfortable. Afterward, she started noticing all the subtle things that Hugo did that would be unnecessary for a computer. Instead of bringing them up, Sarah decided to just let them go.
After visiting the restroom, Sarah stripped to her underwear and put on a loose-fitting shirt, then crawled into bed. She laid on her back and adjusted her position to make sure that her mattress and pillows were supporting her contours as evenly as possible. She placed her hands over her stomach and took a deep breath.
“You ready?” Hugo asked.
“Yes.” Sarah replied. When she felt his fingers slip into her palm, she opened her eyes and looked up at him. With his usual warm smile, he pulled her by the arm up out of bed and into a tight hold. Her own body was now just as simulated as his, albeit with a few cosmetic changes that reflected her fantasy of looking like a nubile young supermodel instead of an exercise-averse bookworm. She used the momentum to push him back into the wall and kissed him deeply. She dug her hands beneath his clothing to grip at his soft skin, and she felt him do the same. After a few minutes of passionately rolling around the perfect recreation of her room, Sarah pulled her lips away from his.
“So, what did you have in mind?” Sarah asked.
“Well, let me show you!” Hugo led her by the hand to the front door of her living quarters, where he opened the door to a bright red alien landscape. As soon as she stepped through the aperture, she nearly fell due to a decrease in relative gravity. When the door closed behind her, it disappeared, and she was now standing in a large field of red flat-leaf grass. The smell was sweet, and the breeze was cool.
“This place is beautiful!” Sarah said, and gasped when she saw bird-like creatures flying in the distance.
“This is based on videogrammetry from a recent expedition to a planet in Tau Ceti.” Hugo said, then saw Sarah looking at the birds. “Want to take a closer look?”
Sarah smiled and bit her lip as she nodded at Hugo. He pulled her back into him and swept her up under her knees. She wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him a quick peck on the cheek as he lifted off the ground and began flying towards the birds. Of course, Sarah could fly herself, or even carry Hugo if she wished, but she felt that this was more fun. She loved the way the wind felt through her skin and hair, and her innate fear of heights, made irrational in this simulated space, added an exciting sense of danger.
As they approached the group of flying creatures, Hugo joined the edge of the formation. Sarah observed their leathery wings and furry body.
“They kind of look like bats, don’t they?” Sarah asked.
“I suppose they do, but after close inspection by the expedition, their pressurized bodies and hollow limbs make them closer to arachnids.” Hugo gave further descriptions of the creature’s appearance and habits until Sarah was satisfied, then the couple broke off to move to a new location.
Several kilometers away, they started flying over what looked to be a forest of massive mushroom-like trees. He came to a stop over one of the tallest ones, then looked Sarah in the eyes.
“Do you trust me?” Hugo asked.
“As long as you abide by the laws of robotics, sure!” Sarah laughed as she said it. She had made jokes about it before, and had been met with a lecture on the fact that they were only ever intended to be used as a literary device in order to show how they couldn’t work.
Sarah didn’t expect a response, but she also didn’t expect to be suddenly dropped by Hugo. As she fell to the dense canopy of this mushroom tree, she tried to remember how to activate flying herself, but she panicked and let out a fearful yell before she hit the tree. Where she expected a hard landing and to fall through the canopy onto jagged branches and the ground below, she was instead met with an incredibly soft texture. Her body depressed into it and gently bounced back to the surface.
She laughed heartily, feeling the softness and warmth against her body. Hugo floated down to stand on the surface. He had a look on his face that Sarah recognized. She looked up at him with wanting eyes. Her hands began drifting around her body.
“Is there more?” She asked, and Hugo responded with a mischievous smile. Sarah watched as his limbs began to stretch, split, reshape, and change color. His face slowly started to deform, and his eyes drifted away from their regular position, then multiplied like dividing cells. Within seconds, he didn’t appear human at all. His long, tendril like fingers reached out and started to wrap around each of her ankles. In the face of this monstrous entity threatening to violate her, Sarah bit her lip and began to smile uncontrollably.
The next morning, Sarah awoke, as she always did, to a soft kiss from Hugo and his voice in her ear. She groaned and stretched, and tried to pull herself out of bed, but it was just too comfortable.
“Ugh... too tired... tell ‘em I’ll be in in a couple more hours.” Sarah said, rolling over and cuddling with her pillow.
“Sorry, sweetie. It is earlier than I would normally have gotten you up, but there’s an urgent meeting with administration, in which you have received a special invitation.”
“Huh?” Sarah rolled back around and opened her eyes, checking to see if Hugo might be pranking her. “Administration wants to see me?”
“That’s right. And judging by the size of the lecture hall that the meeting is being held in, it sounds pretty important.” Hugo said. Sarah sat up and forced a yawn and a stretch, trying to quickly wake herself up.
“Could you make me something with a ton of caffeine in it?”
“Sure thing. There is enough time to take a shower as well, if you wish.”
“Thank you, Hugo.” Sarah said as she stood up and kissed him. She jumped in the shower, feeling the need to clean off the mess from last night, even if it was entirely digital. After her shower, she put on her best business formal skirt and blouse and grabbed the prepared cup of white chocolate mocha from the counter on her way out the door.
Hugo assured her that she didn’t need to rush, but she walked at a brisk pace, nonetheless. She was nervous. She wondered if this was some sort of reprimand. Maybe she fucked up in materials processing. Maybe somebody found out about some of the things she did with Hugo and wanted her moved somewhere else. There were many scenarios Sarah thought up. Even when they were clearly absurd, she couldn’t resist thinking about how she would react to them.
The lecture hall still had plenty of seats open as Sarah had arrived early. She smiled and waved at her colleagues as she passed by them on her way up to the top few rows of seats. She sat down in a back corner, leaving a spot for Hugo to sit next to her. She sat in nervous silence and watched people trickle in. Before long, the lecture hall was bustling and there was a cacophony of hushed voices speculating on the contents of the unexpected meeting. Sarah saw Cassie mingling with a nearby group and waived at her when she looked Sarah’s way. Cassie approached her.
“Hey, Cassie! Great show last night, I had no idea you could sing!”
“Thank you, Sarah! I really appreciate you showing up. I’m glad you liked the show!” Cassie turned to Hugo. “Do you mind if I take a seat?”
“Not at all.” Hugo said, then vanished from his spot. Cassandra sat down in the now empty seat.
“Do you have any idea what this is about?” She asked, then grabbed Sarah’s arm and leaned in close. “You think it could be about Dr. Pritchard’s wandering hands?”
“I dunno.” Sarah said with a laugh. “I got a special invitation though, is that weird? Did you get one?”
“A ‘special’ one, huh?” Cassie raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t discover a new element or anything, did you?”
“I thought I had a little while ago, but it turns out I was just really high.” Sarah said. Cassie laughed openly and punched Sarah’s arm.
“When did you get so funny?” Cassie said.
A line of tenured scientists entered the hall, each of which Sarah was familiar with, but only Dr. Pritchard had she ever seen in person. A hush grew over the crowd as they found the nearest place to take a seat.
“Welcome. We have some exciting news to reveal. Let’s get right into it.” Dr. Pritchard was presenting first as the head researcher on the station. He made a few motions with his fingers and the lights dimmed, then a large display in the front of the room flicked on. A video began to play. It was a flyover of red sandy dunes in a vast desert.
“This is video captured by a drone from Stellar Cartography. The exact location is going to remain a secret for the time being, but I can say that it was found within the Milky Way.”
A dark spot on the horizon began to grow as the Drone sped toward it. At first glance, it looked like a large black rock jutting out of the sandy ground. When the drone slowed down and began circling the object, there was a collective gasp from the crowd, most coming to the same realization simultaneously, including Sarah.
“This is what appears to be a massive structure, or set of structures, of intelligent design.” The room was eerily quiet as everyone watched the video. It switched to a computer-generated map of the interior, largely incomplete. Dr. Pritchard continued. “The instruments aboard the drone were unable to penetrate the surface material of the structure. That, among other observed properties, indicates that it could be Plasteel, or another similar material.”
The video went on for several minutes, then began looping as the other highly esteemed Doctors and Professors discussed the preliminary findings. Once the discussion was over, Dr. Pritchard returned to the podium and continued.
“Expeditions to this location, and other points of interest around the planet will be starting in approximately 6 hours. Applications are open to anyone in this room but, in particular, we are looking for applicants with qualifications relating to Xeno-Archeology.” Before even making it an official invite, Dr. Pritchard was already looking straight at Sarah. “Do we have any volunteers?”
After Dr. Pritchard, Sarah noticed a few other recognizable faces in the sea of heads turning to look at her. Like a virus, other people turned to see what they were looking at, and before she knew it, most of the lecture hall had eyes directly on her. Even Hugo had appeared, crouched on the floor next to her. She then felt a bump against her arm.
“Hey,” Cassie whispered, “he’s literally talking about you right now.”
Sarah needed the pull back to reality. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing, and she was so in her head that she hadn’t quite registered what the question was. When it finally hit her, Sarah thrust her hand into the air like an excited first grader.