Date: 2023-03-29 16:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Planetfall Emma Newman; Planetfall; Planetfall short stories; Before Mars; After Atlas; Atlas Alone; science-fiction; Short Story Collection
Description: Acclaimed author Emma Newman returns to her Planetfall universe with a collection of ten short stories set before, during and after the four interconnected novels of the Hugo-nominated Planetfall series. From a shipwreck survivor struggling to appease the monster keeping him trapped on an island, to an elderly woman at risk from being declared a non-person, each story offers a new glimpse into this dark near-future setting. This collection features stories that focus on some of the characters from the novels, including Arnolfi (Before Mars), Travis and Carl (After Atlas and Atlas Alone) and Ma

Before, After, Alone

Emma Newman

Published by Emma Newman, 2023.

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

BEFORE, AFTER, ALONE

First edition. March 30, 2023.

Copyright © 2023 Emma Newman.

ISBN: 978-1739333409

Written by Emma Newman.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

A note from the author:

Albert and the Kraken

Act of Kindness

Inheritance

The Letter

Primary Purpose

The Generation Gap

The Dangerous Choice

Tailor Made

What Travis Built

Non-Person

Interview with the author

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About the Author

For DK, who helped me through the muddy tunnel and safely out the other side. These stories were written during our journey together. Thank you for your compassion, your guidance and your support.

A note from the author:

The following ten stories are set before, during and after the four novels set in the Planetfall universe. Some feature characters from those novels, but only two contain potential spoilers for people who have not yet read the associated novel. This is indicated before the relevant stories, so you can decide whether you wish to listen.

At the end of the collection, I provide some quick notes on where certain characters feature in the novels, just in case you want to find them again and potentially see them in a different light.

Albert and the Kraken

If someone were there to ask him, he’d say he didn’t know why he picked it up. It wasn’t the sort of thing he could use and he didn’t even like its sad face. But for some reason he couldn’t leave the teddy bear half buried in the sand, looking for all the world like it had crash landed on the beach in a little toy rocket.

Into the sack it went, with its rocket and the drift-plastic and the ancient PC monitor he’d found wedged between two rocks. The bear was stuffed into a nook on one of the workshop shelves, left to sit there as he dismantled its rocket. It was nothing more than a large plastic bottle with fake metal panels painted on and rivets drawn with felt-tip pen. He paused at the sight of the letters, big and red, drawn on the side in capitals. AF. He tried, and failed, to push away the image of a boy sitting on a rug, tongue poking from between his lips as he drew the letters on carefully. Anthony. Anthony... Foster. Little Anthony Foster decorating his toy rocket with his initials as his mother-

With a grunt he tossed the bottle and the daydream into the grinder, knocking the tip off the rocket as it hit the side of the hopper, sending it rolling across the floor. He snatched it up and tossed that in with the bottle, then stabbed the button to start the machine. Its metal teeth tore into the red letters and the ink rivets until it was nothing more than chips of plastic and flakes of paint. Stupid rocket. Stupid kid, whoever he was. Should’ve looked after his stuff better.

He went over to the workbench and cracked open the monitor but his foul mood made him clumsy and the screwdriver slipped, slicing his hand open. Swearing, he stomped out of the workshop and crossed the muddy yard to clean the wound and bandage it up. It was as he sat in the doorway afterwards, finger throbbing and head pounding in time with it, that he realised he shouldn’t have mashed the rocket. He could have given it to the Kraken. He swore again and decided to leave the workshop alone for the rest of the day.

––––––––

It was a week before the cut had healed enough for him to work again. He didn’t want to admit to himself that the enforced break had been good for him. He’d still collected every day, of course, nothing would stop him going down to the shoreline with the old sack. But he hadn’t done anything more than pile up his finds in the bin near the workshop door. He’d stood on the threshold, tugging at his beard, wondering what he could get done one-handed. But he was no fool. Better to wait.

There was a new energy to him when he started to sort through his finds. Most of it went into the grinder to be chewed up and spat out as flakes that he could chuck in the printer to make something new. Long walks up and down the beach had given him some distance from his design and the change in his routine had fed his dreams, making him wake wild with fear in the night. The Kraken was impatient and getting hungry. What he’d had in mind to feed it wasn’t good enough. He had to make something really special, something beautiful and fragile and tragic. Something that would make people weep to see destroyed.

He scoured the shelves as the grinder chewed its way through the drift-plastic. His eyes fell upon the bear, wedged in where he’d left it, forgotten in the wake of his injury. He grinned and snatched it from its place, took it to the workbench and swept the monitor pieces to one side to rest the bear on its back. After a few moments of feeling the fur on its face with probing fingertips, he selected his finest chisel and a small hammer, then wedged the bear’s head in the vice. Taking care to place the sharp edge of the chisel in just the right spot, he struck the blunt end with the hammer.

“Ouch!”

He dropped the tools and jumped back with a yell. Chest heaving, he stared at the bear. He could have sworn it just cried out. He ran his hand over his beard, smoothing it down as he took several deep breaths, half-laughing at his own stupidity. He picked up the tools again, having made barely a dent in the clear plastic eye rim.

“Please don’t hurt me,” the bear said, just as he raised the hammer to make a second blow.

“Shit!” he yelled, dropped the tools and ran out of the workshop.

––––––––

He went and sat on his favourite rock, heart pounding against the inside of his ribs like the sea against the cliffs in a force ten gale. He watched the birds circling out to sea, probably hunting a shoal of herring. He should put the nets out but he was shaking too much.

He’d always feared going mad, but he never thought it would manifest this way. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected it to be like. Seeing people, perhaps, people who weren’t there. Or talking to himself. He’d done that at the beginning, but then stopped when he realised he was doing it too much. Sometimes he swore, under his breath, but that was different. He was good at being by himself, always had been. He liked it. Why should it have made him go mad? And why come out this way? Was it because the bear had its own eyes, rather than some he’d made? The Kraken had many eyes. Perhaps the Kraken would be jealous, and his mind was warning him. No, that really was madness. He tugged at his beard and watched the birds as his heart finally settled.

The walk back to the workshop seemed to take a long time. He was afraid of what he’d find in there. He was almost relieved to see that the bear was where he’d left it, that it hadn’t freed itself and run off. Or rather, that he hadn’t imagined the whole thing.

Slowly, chewing his lower lip, he approached the workbench, ignoring the tools lying on the floor. He stopped by the bear and peered down at its face, seeing the scratch on the plastic of its eye.

“Hello,” it said to him. “Please don’t be afraid. My animation motors are malfunctioning, so I can’t make my mouth move. My name is Albert. Please can we be friends?”

“Oh shit,” he moaned. “Oh shit and blood. I’ve really lost it.”

“Lost what?” the bear asked. “Perhaps I can help you find it.”

“My mind,” he whispered.

“Why do you think that?”

“Cos I’m talkin’ to a teddy bear.” And it was the first time he’d talked in... years. It must be years, he could remember at least five summers and more winters than that.

“But not just any bear. I’m a FirstBest BearTM, equipped with full visual and auditory processing, a Sigma3 core with an AI rating of A* and an extensive repository of knowledge. I have been slightly damaged, but I am still able to be your friend. What’s your name?”

He peered more closely at the bear. Perhaps he wasn’t going mad. “Sigma3? You’re a computer?”

“I have a computer inside my tummy. It helps me to be your friend. I can see you are not my special best friend, but as I am lost, I’m hoping you will be my friend, and help me to find her.”

It was a toy. A toy that could speak, of course, why hadn’t that occurred to him? He laughed.

“I cannot connect to the Internet,” the bear said. “Please can you tell me where we are?”

He tugged at his beard. He wasn’t sure he should say. What if the Kraken didn’t like it? “There’s no Internet here.”

After a pause, the bear said; “I do not understand. Please could you take me outside?”

Narrowing his eyes, he leaned back. “Why?”

“So I can see where we are. And you didn’t tell me your name.”

Pursing his lips, he undid the vice. It didn’t seem right to have him stuck there, not now they were having a conversation. “My name is...” he smirked. “Robinson. That’s it. Robinson Crusoe.”

“Hello Robinson Crusoe. I am pleased to meet you. I’m sorry I cannot shake your hand. Perhaps after we’ve been outside you could help me to repair myself.”

He lifted the bear up and sat it on his hand, resting its back against his chest with his other hand over its belly, like he would carry a baby old enough to hold itself up. He’d held a real baby once, he was sure of it. But the memory was as slippery as a fresh fish and soon gone.

“There’s not much to see,” he said, walking out of the workshop. “But I’ll take you to the beach. That’s all there is really. That’s where all the best things are.”

The bear was silent as he walked down to the shoreline. He showed it his favourite rock, the cave, the rock pools and the place where he liked to sit on windy days in the lea of the cliff.

“What is the name of the ship?” the bear asked.

He shuddered at the thought of the wreck. He never looked at it now. He’d had so many bad dreams about it. “Don’t remember.”

“Is that how you came here? Were you shipwrecked?”

He remained silent. He didn’t want to talk about it.

“Robinson Crusoe is the name of a character in a novel about a man who is shipwrecked,” the bear said and it felt like something cold gripped his core. He was ready to throw it in the sea, but then it said “Would you like me to read you that story?”

“You can do that?”

“I have over ten thousand novels in multiple languages stored in my core. I would be happy to read any of them to you.”

His throat was suddenly thick, his eyes filling with tears. Stories.  He used to love listening to them every night when he was alone on the ship and there was only the radar and night sky for company. It had been so long since his phone had died, dropped accidentally into a rock pool when he’d been exploring, so long since he’d heard a voice, let alone been fed by a story.

“I’d...” he cleared his throat. “I’d like that very much. You can read to me after I fix your face, how about that?”

“That will make my narration more enjoyable, and it will help me to be a better friend,” it agreed. “Thank you.”

He wrestled with the pang of guilt and then gave into it. “My name isn’t Robinson. That was just a joke. It’s Franz.”

“Hello, Franz. My name is Albert. I am sure we will be very good friends.”

Franz looked out at the wreck for the first time in... seasons. At the ropes he’d made and strung between the tumbledown causeway of spilled containers. It had been a long time since he’d scavenged in the ship itself.

He told himself that it was because he had everything he needed now. He lived in one of the containers washed high onto the island by the storm that hit after the Kraken nearly killed him. The workshop was made out of another. One of the containers that made up the causeway was filled with food printers, and dozens of others were filled with the canisters they needed to work. He already salvaged enough to last him for years. Thanks to the freshwater spring on the island he could live there forever, theoretically.

He’d been the sole crew member of one of the largest container ships on the ocean. So large there were only three ports in the whole of Europe and Scandinavia large enough to accommodate it. He wasn’t the captain though. The computer was. He was just there to satisfy some archaic insurance requirement that a human being must be on board in the event of computer failure. And when that had actually happened, he’d been powerless. He’d just clung to his seat on the bridge, as a narrator with a honeyed voice had read a romance novel to him while the ship ran aground. It was terrifying, feeling the behemoth scrape the seabed and judder to a screeching halt beneath him. It was pitch black, the radar and computer had stopped working and he had no idea the island was there until the next morning. He’d sat, shivering on the bridge, thinking the ship was going to sink any moment, only to see the sun come up on the most beautiful tiny island he’d ever seen. He’d wept with relief and swam ashore easily. As shipwrecks went it was a remarkably gentle affair. The terror came afterwards.

The only thing he couldn’t scavenge from the wreck was a friend, and now that had changed. A friend who’d come from the sea, who’d been delivered to his beach, put right there where he walked every day for him to find easily. Franz swallowed and made himself look at the water just beyond the prow of the ship. It looked so calm now, so harmless. Perhaps the Kraken felt sorry for him. Perhaps it was pleased with his last offering and gave him Albert in return. He needed to get back to the workshop and make something special before it got angry again. But first he’d fix Albert. The Kraken would want him to take care of his gift, after all.

––––––––

It was just a matter of cleaning out some sand. There was no water damage, despite the fact the bear had been sodden when he found it. All the core systems were very well protected, including the computer that controlled the bear’s movements. The sand had clogged up the fine mechanisms that animated the bear’s face and moved its arms and legs. Once it was all cleaned out and the fur carefully stitched back into place, Albert had stood up on the workbench, smiled at him and hugged his hand. Franz burst into tears and the little bear held his head, stroking the side of his face as he sobbed. He didn’t even know why he was crying. He didn’t feel sad, or even elated. It was just... relief. Perhaps he had been lonely, after all.

That night, outside under the stars, Albert started to read him a story by the fire. The Count of Monte Cristo, one he’d had stored on his phone and was planning to start after the romance. He wanted to know what happened at the end of that one too, but he was too embarrassed to ask if it was one of the ten thousand novels stored in Albert’s belly.

The next day Franz listened as he worked but he couldn’t concentrate on both at the same time and ended up sitting on his favourite rock, Albert on his lap, listening.  The Kraken would understand. It had been so long since he’d heard another voice, since he’d been fed by stories. He needed this.

When he woke on the third day, Albert wasn’t where he’d left him when he went to sleep. With a start, Franz leapt out of his makeshift bed and dashed out of the container to find Albert standing outside by the dead fire. It was still dark, and the little bear was looking up at the stars.

Shaking with relief that he hadn’t imagined the bear as he’d feared, Franz tugged at his beard and went over to him. The night was warm, the ground dry enough to sit on. He sat cross legged next to the bear and looked up. “What are you doing?”

“Usually I can always identify my position,” Albert said, “but I cannot access the internet here, and the GPS satellites owned by the corporation who made me don’t seem to be able to reach me. So I was trying to work out where we are by using the stars.”

Horrified, Franz grabbed the bear and crushed it to his chest. “Don’t do that!”

“Why?” came the bear’s muffled response.

He hesitated, ashamed of the fear he felt. But this was just a toy bear. No matter how sophisticated a toy it was, it wasn’t capable of judging him, surely? “Because then they might be able to find us.”

“I don’t understand, please could you explain why you are worried about that?”

His voice was still muffled and it made Franz feel guilty for holding him so tight. He let him go and the bear moved away to sit opposite him, looking up with a smile picked out by the starlight.

“I like it here,” Franz said. “I don’t... I don’t want people to come and take me away.”

“Why do you think they would do that?”

“This isn’t my island.” He sighed and bit his lip. “And... and that wasn’t my ship,” he added, pointing out at the sea. “I... I was supposed to look after it and something went wrong and it ran aground and if they find it and find me they’ll put me in prison.”

“But why?”

He spread his hands. “Because it was my fault.”

“What did you do to make it run aground?”

Franz shrugged. “It wasn’t that I did something, it was that I did nothing. The computer stopped working. The internet connection went first. Then the screens went all weird and the radar cut out and... and...” he scratched the back of his head. “I didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t supposed to be able to fail like that. There were backups and failsafes and... none of them worked either.”

“When did it happen?”

Another shrug. “Years ago. I’ve been here... at least five summers. Maybe more. I don’t know. It all blurs... it doesn’t... it’s hard to keep track once you stop counting the days.”

Albert nodded. “I think your ship might have been called The Majestic, owned by the Sirocco corporation. Does that sound familiar?”

Franz gasped at the sound of the name. How could he have forgotten it? “Yes... yes, that was it. How do you know that?”

“It was on the news feeds. It was one of the largest ships in the world, wasn’t it? And it went missing when the Anticap virus struck.”

“It was a virus?!”

“Yes. It affected all of the Sirocco Corporation’s shipping, then the other-“

“But why would someone do that? Why would someone want to make a ship run aground?”

“They wanted to stop global capitalism. They wanted to disrupt everything, make chaos.”

“But why?”

Albert’s shrug was a little mirror image of his own. “I don’t know. I’m just a bear, and without my connection to the internet, I can’t look up what clever people have said about it. I’m sorry. Would you like me to teach you how to work out where you are by using the stars?”

Franz shook his head. “How long ago did that happen?”

“Assuming my internal clock has maintained accuracy, it was eight years, three months and two days ago. It was just before the riots started and the feeds went down at my best friend’s house.”

Eight years? Had he really been alone all that time? It felt utterly implausible and yet absolutely true, all at once. It was so hard to keep track when there was nothing to structure his time. No ship clock, no computer to tell him what day and month it was, let alone year. His solitude had made the passage of time meaningless and his isolation had made it irrelevant.

Then the bear’s words came back to his attention. “Riots?”

Albert nodded. “It was very bad. My best friend hid me in her rocket to keep me safe but then something must have gone wrong.”

“She?” Franz shook his head. The image of the boy had been so clear in his mind. “Wasn’t it Anthony?”

Albert’s features were animated into the pattern of a confused frown. “No, my best friend is Avalina. Avalina Faraday. She must be so worried about me. I need to connect to the internet, to tell her where I am.”

“There’s no Internet here. No computers. I told you.”

“But you have solar power here,” Albert waved a paw towards the workshop and the panels Franz had salvaged and rigged up to run the grinder and printer. “If you can take me over to the wreck, we might be able to find a computer that still works. I’m designed to be fully compatible with all major systems. I could maybe connect to the Internet and send a message to Avalina and she could rescue us.”

“No!” The panic returned. “It’s impossible. And anyway, she threw you away! She didn’t want you. You can be my best friend instead.”

Albert shook his head. “But she didn’t throw me away. It was a very confusing and dangerous time. I’m sure it was a terrible accident that separated us. We used to live by the sea, so perhaps she didn’t see my rocket fall into the water. I am your friend, but I can only have one best friend, and only Avalina can say if she doesn’t want to be mine any more.”

Franz swiped across his top lip, feeling the dampness on his hand before wiping it on his t-shirt. It had to be something to do with the toy’s programming, to stop other kids nicking bears and making them their own or something. It sounded like it was going to make the bear constantly try to find her. And he couldn’t let that happen.

He picked up Albert and went into the workshop, sweeping assorted junk off the top of a lock box he’d salvaged from the beach and throwing Albert inside.

“Are we playing hide and seek now?” Albert said before Franz slammed the lid down and sat on top.

He rubbed his hands over his face, hating the feeling in his throat as he tried not to cry. It felt like he was trying to hold something down, something that wanted to burst out of him as his heart pounded.

“Hello? Franz?” Albert’s muffled voice came from the box and then Franz was sobbing.

He just wanted a friend. But Albert wasn’t going to be satisfied by staying on the island and if the bear made it out to the wreck, it could fix the computer. Then Albert would call people and the Kraken wouldn’t like it if people came. It had stopped him trying to escape the island so many times before, it was never going to let anyone come ashore. And no matter what he made for it, no matter how beautiful a sculpture he created, the monster was never satisfied.

“Franz, it sounds like you are upset. Would you like to talk about it?”

He couldn’t reply, there was too much coming out of his chest to think straight, let alone to talk.

“If you let me out of the box, I could give you a hug,” Albert called through the lid, only making him cry all the more.

Eventually, Albert stopped offering comfort and fell silent. The wind picked up and clouds soon obscured the moon. Franz could feel rain approaching, having become so sensitive to the changes in the weather over the years.

And then, just below the distant swish of the waves he heard the Kraken stirring from its slumber. Franz started to shiver, despite the warmth of the night, knowing what would come if he didn’t settle on a design and make it soon. The Kraken hadn’t received any sort of offering for weeks now. Not since he’d found the bear. It would be angry.

Desperate, he scanned the workshop around him, lit in the orange hues of the power saving bulbs that used as little of the stored solar power as possible. There was nothing even close to being finished, and the design he’d had in mind to print had changed so many times he couldn’t even remember what he’d settled upon. Something to do with eyes, that was it. That was how he’d hurt his hand, trying to take Albert’s eyes. It was where all the problems had started.

A tiny croak escaped his throat when he realised how wrong he’d been about the bear. He hadn’t been sent to him as a gift from the Kraken. It was a test. The Kraken must have been doubting his loyalty, his commitment to his art and to his worship. The monster had sent the only thing he’d craved and presented him with the only choice that made any sense: keep the bear and its stories and friendship and lose the Kraken’s favour, or sacrifice the bear and placate the monster by proving that nothing was more important than its satisfaction.

The Kraken’s distant screech cut through his thoughts and made fresh tears spring from his eyes. It was telling him he was right. Urging him to make the correct decision. Friendship or death. Loneliness in return for life.

He broke down, folding over to drop his forehead onto his knees and sob. It wasn’t much of a life that he had, but he found himself still needing to cling onto it. When all the tears were wept and his knees soaked with them, Franz knew what he had to do.

He stood, opened the lockbox and grabbed Albert by the paw that the bear was already reaching up to him. Wordlessly he marched out of the workshop and headed towards the beach. The sun was coming up, the thickening clouds burning a deep red on the horizon.

“Franz, I know it can be hard to talk about things that upset us,” the bear said as he dangled from his fist. “But it can help. I am only a little bear, but I am very good at listening and giving cuddles. Perhaps if you told me what has upset you so much, you would feel better.”

“Shut up.”

The bear remained silent all the way to the beach. The wind was getting stronger, whipping white peaks out of the waves. He knew the spray would make the container causeway treacherous, but the rope was still there and he had to do this now. He had to prove to the Kraken that he understood what it wanted from him.

“Are we going to the ship?” Albert asked but he didn’t answer. He didn’t want to have a conversation before killing him. Instead, he stuffed the bear down his t-shirt, tight enough to hold the bear against his chest as he climbed up onto the first container.

There wasn’t a dawn to speak of, just a slight shift in the twilight thanks to the clouds that had scudded in on the walk to the beach. But it was enough light to see the rope, fashioned from strings of decorative LED lighting braided together. Even though he lost his footing several times, Franz managed to hold onto the braided plastic firmly enough to steadily approach the stricken ship.

The waves boomed against the hull, echoing the feeling inside his chest. If Albert was saying anything he couldn’t hear him above the roar of the waves. The spray drenched them as he picked his way across the twenty-three containers until he reached the last gap between the final one and the ship’s ladder. He’d tossed it down from the deck the first day he saw the island. Made from thick plas-steel it hadn’t degraded at all. It swayed and twisted as he climbed, but soon enough he was clambering over the rail and on the thick metal deck.

Franz kept one hand on the rail as he made his way to the prow, the deck itself at an angle, forcing him to go slowly up the incline. With every step, the Kraken’s screech grew louder, demanding its long overdue tribute.

Sweat and salt water plastered the t-shirt to his chest, the fear making him shiver far more than the wind stealing the heat from his skin. The Kraken was beating the ship as he climbed, each terrifying thud sending vibrations through the hull and the soles of his feet.

The rail curved, the point of the prow now in sight. Beyond it, the concrete grey sky was almost the same colour as the sea, the white crests on the waves the only thing distinguishing one from the other. He didn’t want to look down but as soon as the urge entered his mind he couldn’t resist peering over the rail.

One of the Kraken’s thick black tentacles writhed just beneath the surface of the waves, making Franz’s stomach lurch with terror. It was so angry! He could see it in the furious flick of its tip, the way it beat against the tanker. He almost crumpled to his knees, his legs seaweed-like.

“I’m sorry,” he whimpered. “I wanted to get it right!”

“There’s no need to be sorry,” Albert said, as if he’d been talking to him.

Now he was here, mere metres away from the Kraken’s gaping yaw, Franz knew that sacrificing his only friend was the right thing to do. For how could the Kraken want anyone else to be in his heart?

He pulled Albert out from under the t-shirt, making it slap wetly against his chest in place of the bear. Albert looked up at him and smiled. “It’s all going to be okay now, Franz. Bringing me here was the right thing to do.”

It was. And yet, even though he knew this, Franz couldn’t stop holding the bear tight. His treacherous arms wrapped around him, pulling him close again, even as a voice – his or the Kraken’s, he wasn’t sure – screamed at him to throw him over the side, into the centre of the writhing tentacles. The whimpering in his throat grew louder. He couldn’t stop that either.

“Don’t be afraid!” Albert cried out. “Oh, Franz, it’s all going to be fine. We’re going to be rescued!”

It took long moments for those words to sink in. “What?”

“We’re going to be rescued. The computer in my tummy has found the ship’s router and used it to send a message to the company that made me. They are so pleased that you found me. And they – oh!”

Franz held the bear at arm’s length, not sure if it was to see the bear’s face to understand what had surprised him, or if it was to throw him to the Kraken.

Albert’s features were animated into a joyful smile. “Avalina! She’s talking to me!”

In his confusion and fear, Franz couldn’t place the name right away. It made him hesitate. His arms were starting to ache. He should throw him now!

“Oh, she’s so pleased you found me! She’d like to talk to you, Franz, is that okay? I can play her voice through my mouth.”

The girl who had thrown him away! He wasn’t sure whether talking to her was part of the test. Should he sacrifice the bear now, before he heard the voice of another, real, human being? Or should he talk to her? It would be harder to kill the bear once that connection was made. That must be the point. Otherwise, what sort of test would it be? “Yes,” he finally replied, trying so hard to shut out the Kraken’s screeching below.

“Hello?”

He gasped at the sound of the young woman’s voice. For a moment, his brain told him that Albert had only been pretending to sound like a boy until this point.

“Hello? This is Avalina Faraday. Can you hear me? Albert tells me you’ve found him and...” her voice cracked with emotion. “Oh, I am so very grateful! Hello?”

“Hi,” Franz said.

“Hi!” Avalina laughed with delight. “Hi, Franz. Oh, this is ultra! He said you were shipwrecked and you found him on a beach on this island? I’m looking at the map and it’s such a long way away! But the rescue drones have been dispatched. And you’re trending! Oh my God, so am I! Holy crap how did they- oh, the Noropean gov-corp good news service is putting it all over the feeds!”

“Noropean?” Was that some teen word for Northern Europe now?

“Oh crap, yeah... eight years. A lot has happened, Franz. No, Mum! I can handle it! God!”

“Hello? This is Mrs Faraday, I understand you’re called Franz?” An older woman’s voice, deeper than the high excitement of a teenage girl.

It felt strange speaking to two other people through his bear. It made him seem less Albert. “Yes, I’m Franz. Wait... did she say rescue drones?”

His heart, already beating fast, began to thud painfully. Rescue drones would mean police and police would mean...

“Yes. You just need to sit tight now, it’ll be a little while before they get to you. We’ve been told we’ll be able to see where you are very soon, though. The gov-corp liaison has just told us that they’re getting a satellite to look at your location or something. I don’t really understand how it all works, I’m a paralegal, not a telecoms expert. Have you really been by yourself for eight years?”

He hadn’t told them that. Had Albert told them everything?

“Mum, I want to speak to him! It was my bear he found!”

“Franz?” The woman’s voice called from the other side of the panic that gripped him. He remembered his mother saying his name that way when he’d zoned out at the table in the middle of dinner. “This must be pretty overwhelming. Are you okay?”

“I...” he didn’t know what to say. How could he be okay? Now Albert seemed like nothing more than a furry bear-shaped phone, he was less certain he was a good enough sacrifice. But if people were coming to rescue him, did he have to worry about appeasing the Kraken any more?

“Do you need any medical help?” she asked and he shook his head. “Good, okay.”

She could see him? Of course, through Albert’s eyes. That meant the lawyers from the Sirocco Corporation would know it was him and-

“It’s all going to be fine,” Mrs Faraday’s voice was barely audible above the roar of the Kraken. “There’s no need to be afraid. Franz, what’s that noise? Is there something scraping the tanker?”

He nodded. “The Kraken.” Franz drew Albert closer, so he could lower his voice. “It’s angry with me.”

There was a long pause. He was glad. It gave him a chance to catch his breath. He closed his eyes and sank to his knees, so cold now that the wet metal deck didn’t make any difference to his legs. He rested Albert on his lap and tried his best to listen to the Kraken. Not to the screeches, but to the quiet words it spoke in his head sometimes. It had told him that if people came to rescue him, it would kill them by sinking their boats.

But the girl had mentioned rescue drones. Drones flew. Maybe it wouldn’t be able to do anything about them.

Even if it posed no risk to other people, the simple fact remained that they would throw him in prison. He must have cost the Sirocco Corporation millions of dollars. Why else have a human crew member if not to blame them when something went wrong?

The thought of a small concrete cell replacing his wild island home made him quiver. He couldn’t face that. And now it was a reality, rather than some nebulous fear, he realised there was really only one way to avoid it. Throwing Albert to the Kraken wasn’t the solution at all. He should sacrifice himself.

The bubbling panic calmed. There was no need to fear whether his next offering would be good enough, because what more could he give than his own life? Besides, if the Kraken were displeased, he wouldn’t have to face its wrath because he’d be dead. And being dead meant he no longer had to fear the prospect of prison. His chest expanded with a sense of sudden euphoria. He could leave the bear on the deck. The rescue drones would find him and take him back to the girl. Then everyone would be happy and all his problems would be solved.

Franz opened his eyes and lifted Albert up to look into his again. He smiled. “It’s okay, Albert, I’ve worked out how to make everything right.” He hugged him tight. “Thank you for being my friend. I’m glad you will get to see Avalina again.”

“Thank you. I’m glad you are going to go home too,” Albert said and Franz held him away from him so he could look at him one last time.

“But they won’t let me go home, Albert. They’ll put me in prison for running their ship aground. So...” He trailed off. He didn’t need to tell Albert what the answer was. Instead, he just smiled at him and set the bear down on the deck.

He stood and peered over the rail, down into the writhing darkness of the Kraken. Yes, he was sure this was what it wanted. He started to climb over the rail.

“Franz! No!” Mrs Faraday’s voice yelled through Albert’s mouth and the bear was on his feet and clinging to his foot just as Franz’s right knee was hooking over the top of the rail. It was solid here at the prow, panels of steel riveted to form a solid waist high barrier between the deck and the sheer drop down to the sea.

“No-one is going to send you to prison, Franz, not for being a survivor of a terrible accident!”

He lay on his belly, the flat top of the barrier just wide enough for him to hold himself still, and looked down at the bear. “Sirocco won’t see it that way.”

“Franz, we can see you now, the satellite is showing us the ship and the island!” Avalina’s voice came through Albert’s mouth now. “We can see the Kraken. Don’t jump off there, you’ll fall right into it!”

“Lina!” Mrs Faraday said sharply and then there was silence.

It was uncomfortable, lying in the position he was, and he tried to shake Albert off, but the bear had a strong grip around his ankle. It wouldn’t be able to stop him climbing over the barrier and jumping, but it would take the bear with him. He didn’t want that. But Albert clung on as the wind grew stronger. Beneath him, the Kraken screamed in frustration, hammering the hull of the tanker.

“Franz!” Mrs Faraday’s voice again. “That’s not a Kraken. It’s an undersea cable hub that the tanker dislodged when it ran aground. Those are cables, Franz, not... tentacles. They’re wires covered in thick plastic, that’s all!”

She sounded very certain... certain enough to make him pause and turn his attention away from dislodging the bear to look over the side.

Franz blinked. One of the tentacles was reaching out of the water, but as he stared at it, he could see a huge frayed clump of fibre optic cable sticking out of the end of it. How could he not have seen that before?

And then other details leaped out at him; the brackets that should have held the cable to the bedrock were still wrapped around it. And there were white letters in a blocky typeface running down the length of a portion of cable. He was too far away to make out what they said, but they were there.

She was right. All these years he’d be terrified of a bunch of loose cables? He’d been making art and tossing it over the side to appease some plastic tubes and fibre optics? He would laugh at the absurdity of it, if he weren’t so angry at himself.

It didn’t change anything though. He looked back at Albert. “Let go. I can see what it is now. I know it’s not a monster. But... but I don’t want to go to prison. I’d rather die than that. I don’t want to take you with me, but I will if you don’t let go.”

“Franz,” Mrs Faraday’s voice wavered. “Please listen to me; the Sirocco Corporation doesn’t exist any more. They went bankrupt after the Anticap virus trashed their shipping operations. They lost millions overnight and... and that wasn’t your fault, it was the terrorists. You were just a victim of terrorism, Franz. There’s no corporation on this planet who would be interested in suing you for damages. The world is watching you now. You’re not alone. None of us want you to jump off the ship, Franz. We want you to come home. Avalina wants to cook you dinner for saving Albert. And there’s already a fund being started up to help you recover. People have donated twenty thousand dollars already. We’re all with you. Please...”

He rested his forehead on the top of the rail, paralysed with fear. What if she was right? What if there was no monster and no threat of prison? What was left? Freedom. Total freedom to go back and do whatever he liked.

Somehow that was more frightening than death.

He wept where he lay, one leg resting on the narrow ledge and one leg hanging down on the ship’s side with the bear tugging on it, the edges of the steel digging into his stomach.

It wasn’t clear how long he sobbed, but Avalina called his name at some point and he looked down at the bear who still had his arms wrapped around his ankle.

“Franz, you like audiobooks, right? Well... I’ve been talking to the company that you used to subscribe to and they said there was a novel you were listening to and then stopped, a few years ago. Did... did your phone break or something?”

How did she know about that? What her mother said must be true; if he was trending online, all of the companies that had ever had any connection to him must be searching for ways to be part of the story.

That’s what he was now. A story.

“I’ve sent that audiobook to Albert,” Avalina said. “If... if you climb back onto the deck and sit down for a while, he can give you a cuddle and you can find out what happens in the end. Don’t... don’t you want to know who Ben chooses to marry?”

Oh God, he did. He’d wanted to know for years. Was that worth living for?

“You... you can listen to the end and then see how you feel,” Avalina continued. “No pressure.”

He clambered down and huddled against the barrier in the lea of the wind. It had stopped raining and he was shivering. Albert let go of his ankle, clambered up onto his thigh and opened his little furry arms to him. Franz embraced him and cried, though this time there was less despair.

“You got to chapter twenty-two,” Albert said, settling onto his lap. “How about I give you a quick re-cap before I start playing the audio book?”

Franz nodded. “Yes, good idea.”

He listened, thinking all the while that once the audio book was finished, he’d climb back over the rail and jump. But then the story started and the narrator’s voice was so smooth and so calming that he started to listen more to him than the fear.

At some point the sun came out and his clothes started to dry. And by the time Ben chose to marry Dylan – which was entirely the right choice because Marco was such an abusive git – Franz was feeling calm and warm.

Just as the wedding scene was starting there was the low drone of an aircraft in the distance. As the hero was making his vows, Franz could see the small plane flanked by two drones coming over the island.

He looked down at Albert. The bear looked up at him as the final words were spoken. “And that’s the end of the story,” Albert said with a smile.

“Franz, do you like lasagne?” Avalina asked. “That’s the only thing I know how to make from printed ingredients.”

He smiled and nodded as he watched the plane circling, looking for somewhere to land. He was afraid, but he held onto Albert and sat still as the bear cuddled him back. Whatever happened, there would be more books to listen to, and somehow, that was enough. The end of that story was just the beginning of his.

Act of Kindness

“Is that edible?”

He looked at the lad, lanky and awkward, pulling a face at the apple he’d just lifted from the crate.

“’Course it is, you doughnut,” Jim said with a sigh.

“Yeah, but it hardly even looks like one.”

“How do you know? Ate many of them ‘ave ya?”

The lad’s bottom lip jutted out, along with his chin. “Yeah.”

Jim straightened his back, the apple crate being the tenth they’d loaded and the ache well set in now. “Real ones? Or game ones?”

“Same difference. They model game apples on the ones in the posh supermarkets. And the way they taste.”

Jim chuckled. “Bet they’re nothin’ like the real fing.”

“How do you know? Played any of them games, ‘ave ya?”

Jim scowled at the lad. This one was brighter than he looked. What was his name again? Jayden, that was it. He looked like a Jayden. Nice enough kid from old-fashioned parents who thought that giving their boy some old-fashioned name would make him seem classy. He was strong though, despite his lanky frame, and that was all he needed. This was proper work, proper lugging and shifting and actually talking to people in the real world. Jayden might last the week, maybe two, and then he’d have to find someone else. This lad was the fifteenth helper he’d had this year. It was November. Would there be twenty by the time the year was out?

“Put it back,” Jim said, adding “gently!” a beat too late. “They bruise y’know.”

“Yeah but no-one’ll be able to tell, will they? Not with all that shit all over the skin.”

“That’s just from where the apple was touching a leaf when it was growin’,” Jim said. “And they will be able to tell, so be careful.”

He replaced the lid and they jumped off the back of the van to load the rest. His sister-in-law, who ran the waste-processing depot, was studiously looking in the other direction as they made a start on moving three crates of carrots from the truck that had left the wholesaler’s with all the rejects.

Surely the farmers must know that all the produce wasn’t going to make it to the supermarkets and their glittering aisles of luxury? Did they not care that someone, somewhere, was making a profit from the rejects? Maybe they were paid so much for the crop they didn’t care. No, what was he thinking? No way the ones actually doing the growing were doing well. That wasn’t the way the world worked, never had been.

He let Jayden carry the last one in, taking a moment to stretch out his back. There were two sacks of flour and three of sugar. They’d bring in a tidy profit. Bakers loved those, and with a nice crop of apples to sell, all he’d have to do was say the words apple pie to the right people and they’d pay a small fortune for all three ingredients.

A laugh from inside the van made him look up as Jayden leaped out, waving a carrot at him.

“Look! It looks like a person running!”

Jim chuckled, more at his delight than the malformed carrot. He’d seen dozens over the years. It did look like someone running, it was true. He watched as Jayden made it move across the base of the van interior as if chased by a stray onion that had rolled into a corner.

“Ahhh, save me, save me! I don’t want to cry!”

“Come on, you muppet, we got sacks to load and then we need to get a shift on. Don’t wanna be late for the customers at this time of year.” He stretched out his back again. “You do those last ones. Your back is younger than mine.”

Jayden sighed, chucked the carrot on top of the rest and closed that crate as Jim went round to the front of the van, needing a sit down.

He didn’t realise he’d even started to scan the newsfeeds, it was such a habit now, until one face in the stream of pictures and headlines stood out to him. He prodded the space in the air that corresponded to where that image was in his visual field and it expanded to cover the whole of the inside of the van’s windscreen.

SDCI Carlos Moreno solves baby murderer case

The face below the headline took a little while to place, but once he’d seen someone, Jim never forgot. When he made the connection, he snapped his fingers with satisfaction. That copper was one of his regulars! A real foodie, who’d probably be in the alleyway tonight hoping to buy some of his stock.

“Well, bugger me,” he whispered to himself as the article described the horrors of the case. “You’re a clever sod, ain’t ya?” At the end of the feature, it mentioned that Carlos was the child of one of the Pathfinder’s cult colonists, abandoned by her when he was a baby. “Blimey,” he muttered, remembering a documentary he’d seen about that many years before. “That was you?”

Jim scratched behind his ear, a plan forming. “Jayden! Grab a couple of them smaller sacks from the tub and measure out two scoops of sugar and three scoops of flour. And don’t spill any!” He sat back, a smile spreading across his face before he jolted and yelled; “in separate sacks!”

––––––––

“Stop pissin’ about with your feeds and put the crates back in the van!” Jayden’s wide eyes told him that his words had come out more harshly than he’d intended. It wasn’t the boy’s fault he was in a bad mood. “If we get packed up sharpish I’ll take you for a beer. My treat.”

The grin he got in return was enough to reassure Jim that no lasting damage had been done. There were only a few vegetables left, including the one he’d laughed at earlier, and all the flour, sugar and apples had been sold. The alleyway was empty now, the copper gone and no reports of illegal activity made.

Footsteps echoing off the walls made him look up as he was starting to collapse the table to put it back in the van. The journalist was coming back, and he did not look happy.

“For someone who got what he wanted, you don’t look too pleased about it,” Jim said.

“What makes you think I did?”

Jim shrugged. “You wanted to talk to the famous Carlos Moreno, you just did. That was ‘im, right where I told you he would be. I want the rest of the money you promised me.”

The journalist folded his arms. “You turned the crowd against me so he could get away.”

Jim slammed the two halves of the table together and fastened the clip. “Don’t give me that bollocks. I had to make him think I was on his side, didn’t I? I put the future relationship with a very valuable customer at risk by ‘elpin’ you. I wanted to make sure he comes back ‘ere next week. And anyway, I saw you go after him, and talk to him, so don’t give me no bullshit about it not workin’ out. I want me money.”

The journalist adjusted the scarf around his neck, tucking it into his coat. The November wind had changed direction, now gusting down the alleyway in bitter blasts. “Mr Moreno was not very cooperative.”

“Not my problem, mate,” Jim replied. “I just told you he’d be ‘ere, and that I’d make sure he didn’t run as soon as he saw ya. Which I did.”

He wanted him to just pay the money and go so he could forget about the whole thing. But he remembered the look on Moreno’s face when he sent him the message about giving him some free flour and sugar just for being a decent copper. He’d totally bought the whole bleedin’ story about him having a grandchild the same age as the victims in the case he’d just solved. And in that moment, when Moreno had looked like a starving man being handed a pint and a steak pie dinner by a complete stranger, Jim had regretted tipping off the journalist about where he could be found for an impromptu interview. But it was too late by then, so he’d tried to give him a few moments to get away by making the other customers think the journalist was trying to skip the queue. It hadn’t worked though; he saw the journo catch up with him further down the street.

“How about you tell me what Mr Moreno has bought from you in the past six months, and I’ll pay the rest of the money over right away?”

Jim glared at him. “That’s not what we agreed. And anyway, why the bleedin’ ‘ell would anyone care what he bought with ‘is own money?”

The journalist’s smile was predatory. “A compelling narrative is made authentic by tiny details.”

“No. I did what I said I would. That’s enough.”

The journalist took a step closer, falling silent when Jayden came around the side of the van. “All packed up!”

“Stick this in then, there’s a good lad,” Jim said, giving him the folded table. The guilt sat heavily in his stomach as he looked back at the journalist. “Either pay me the rest, or bugger off. I done enough ‘arm for one day.”

“Give me his purchases for the last year and I’ll pay double what I owe you.”

He was tempted then, just briefly, but then the memory of Moreno’s face when the journalist had tried to collar him in the queue returned with bitter clarity. “Nah, mate. I’d rather sleep well tonight. We’ll call it quits.”

The journalist shrugged and walked away, leaving Jim to deflate slightly against the side of the van. The rear doors were slammed shut, making the metal vibrate through his coat.

“Um...” Jayden appeared again. “It’s all packed away and...” He paused and looked away into that space only he could see. “What the...” The confused expression on his face morphed into total delight. “This is insane! Shit! The Memeification Twins have picked up my video of the carrot and... and it’s... it’s gone viral! Three thousand views in the last five seconds!” He blinked out from his feed and looked at Jim, eyes bright. “I’m famous!”

Jim snorted, biting back a pin-like comment that would have popped the kid’s balloon. “We both need a beer. Get in.”

Jayden practically scampered round the van and leapt into the passenger seat. “Ummm... do you get many veggies that look like people?”

“Yeah, a fair few.”

“Can... can I have them? Before we sell ‘em? Cos I think I could make loads of these videos and get dead famous. You can take it out of my pay.”

Jim looked at him then, young and skinny, still able to see the world as a place where magical things could happen. “You can have ‘em as a bonus for good work if you carry on the way you are, how ‘bout that?”

Jayden beamed at him. “You’re all right, you are.”

Jim turned away, feeling every one of his years and every single selfish act weigh heavy on his shoulders. “It’s just bleedin’ vegetables,” he said gruffly, to cover the wobble in his voice as the van drove them away.

Inheritance

He hadn’t intended to sleep through the landing, but he did, and so the first sight of the island was the tiny terminal building’s wall, and that was rapidly disappearing as the fog set in. Around him, fellow passengers were undoing seat belts and getting themselves ready to disembark, the energy of arrival filling the cabin.

He let his eyelids droop, thinking it would be a while before he’d be able to get out, then someone was shaking his shoulder. “Mr Mackensie?” A man said. “Time to leave the plane.”

He jerked upright, the cabin now empty save for the air steward who’d woken him, and the quiet whirr of a cleaning drone making its way along the seats a few rows back.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Jet lag.”

“You’ve come a long way,” the steward said, having read his journey details from the information that probably floated above his seat or something, but only visible to the steward’s APA, not his.

“Yeah.”

The air steward smiled. “Welcome to the Isle of Man.”

He’d flown first class on the first leg of the journey, able to lie down and yet not able to sleep, his mind too full. Then, wedged into the one plane that came to the island that day, he’d somehow managed it. He rubbed his eyes and stood, banging his head on the overhead locker and swearing loudly and colourfully enough to make the steward smirk. “Sorry,” he mumbled again.

The steward took pity on him, retrieving his bag and carrying it towards the exit. He noticed the way the man glanced back at him a couple of times and knew he wanted to ask him the same question that everyone else did. “Yes, I am that Cillian Mackensie,” he said with a smile.

The steward reddened. “I’m not allowed to ask if I think I recognise someone famous, but I was wondering.”

“And yes, I do believe there will be something at the Pathfinder’s coordinates, but I’m not sure what it will be.”

The steward stopped. “So everyone asks you the same questions then?”

Mack nodded. God, he was tired.

“Are you scared? I mean... they say there won’t even be time to fully test the spaceship.”

“No,” he lied. “I’m more excited than afraid. The best minds in the world have been working on that ship. They know what they’re doing.”

He suspected the steward had dozens more questions but the professional courtesy kicked back in and he was escorted the rest of the way to the exit in silence. The steward handed his bag over and smiled. “Enjoy your stay on the Isle of Man, Mr Mackensie. If there’s anything I can help with before you go, let me know.”

Mack looked out into the fog. “Can you clear this up for me?”

The steward grinned. “Oh, when Mannanon decides to cover the island in his cloak, I’m afraid no-one can do anything about it.”

Mack chuckled. It’d been a long time since he’d heard that. “You take care now,” he said to the lad, and started down the steps.

––––––––

The key was under the large stone to the right of the doorstep, as it had been for the last thirty years or so. But this time, when Mack put the key in the lock, there was no music coming from within the cottage, no lights on, no dog barking.

He was mentally preparing himself even though there was no need anymore. As he opened the door, his face assumed the same smile that used to shield him from whatever mood his mother would be in. He only noticed he was doing it when the musty smell of the house gave his mind the evidence required to stop. Christ, he’d spent too long with the psych team as they evaluated candidates for Atlas. What the arse was he thinking about? Defensive smiling? He didn’t do anything like that.

He flicked the switch and was relieved when the light came on. The supply hadn’t been cut off yet then. He switched it off, satisfied that if it got much darker he wouldn’t be reliant on his Mum’s old torch for light. The thick fog had finally cleared, blown away by a strengthening wind that would have made his mother declare that rain was on the way.

The silence was strange, alien, yet easier to deal with than he’d anticipated. Death had come to this house, long overdue, a relief to everyone, including the woman it took. He hoped so, anyway.

A quick sweep of the cottage revealed that nothing had changed, apart from the dog’s basket being gone from the living room. Then he remembered something about a shelter in Douglas taking him in when his mother couldn’t cope any longer. He couldn’t remember the details; it was around the time he was hired by Lee Suh-Mi’s team to deal with the hundreds of thousands of applicants for Atlas. His APA notified him of another message from the team, even though he’d told them he had to deal with a family bereavement. He hadn’t said who had died though. They didn’t need to know.

The tap was dripping in the bathroom, so he fished out the toolbox from the under stairs cupboard and set about fixing it. Just as he was putting the tap back together again, the front door slammed shut. For a stupid moment he almost called ‘I’m in the bathroom, Mum!’ but he caught himself in time. He closed up the toolbox and went out into the hallway.

“Jesus Christ!” Sal slapped a hand over her heart. “Shit! You nearly scared the life out of me!”

His sister looked so much older. But then so did he. Only in his mind, she was still in her twenties with bright pink hair and thick black eyeliner. Not the tired forty year old standing in front of him with a dull brown bob and no makeup.

“Sorry,” he said, putting the toolbox back in the cupboard. “I was going to call.”

“No you weren’t.”

He sighed, closed the cupboard door. “No, I wasn’t. Didn’t think you’d want me to.”

After a couple of deep breaths, she put her bag down, a remarkably dull looking rucksack, and folded her arms. “How long have you been back?”

“I just landed.”

“You got a taxi here?”

Mack nodded. She was figuring out why she hadn’t known he’d be here when she came, looking for a flaw in her decision making process that led to their accidental meeting, just so she could reassure herself she hadn’t made a mistake.

“Came to admire your inheritance?” When he stayed silent in the wash of bitterness, she half-laughed. “It’s like a fucking Jane Austen novel. Poor sister arrives at family home to find estranged super wealthy brother come to look over his new estate as she worries how to survive.”

“It’s not like that.”

“Isn’t it? Do you know what she left me in the will? Those fucking figurines. The ones she made me polish every Sunday while she watched.”

“They’re worth a lot of money, aren’t they?”

She laughed without even attempting to hide the anger and hatred beneath it. “You’d have thought so, given how many times she told us they were. I had them appraised. They’re all fakes. Every single one of them. I nursed her for over a year before she went into the hospice. I came here every day to cook and clean and dress her and bathe her. I wiped her ass while she criticised me for everything I’d ever done – and stuff I hadn’t – and that’s what I get for it. Fake fucking Lladro.”

“Sal-“

“While you,” she took a step forwards, “You don’t visit, you don’t even fucking call her when she’s dying, and yet you can do no wrong. The golden boy, the clever one, the one who got all the charm and all the brains, she couldn’t find a single bad thing to say about you when she was even bad mouthing the fucking Pope! You get to swan in here when all the shitty stuff is over and take the house you don’t even need.”

“Are you done?” he asked quietly. “Or is there anything else you need to get off your chest? Might as well get it all out now.”

She took a breath, and then just deflated slightly, the furious glare giving way to a tired hopelessness. She shook her head and drifted into the living room.

He gave her a moment and then followed. “Cos you’re right to be angry. I couldn’t believe it when they told me she’d left it to me. I went to the other side of the planet to get away from her. I was a terrible son, and a worse brother. I thought she’d leave it all to you, I really did.”

She dropped onto the sofa and flopped back, looking exhausted, ignoring the figurines of dancing women crammed into the display cases on either side.

“She must have thought they were the real McCoy,” he said, gesturing at them. “If they were, they’d be worth more than the cottage.”

“Is that supposed to make this okay?”

“No, I’m... I’m just saying that it might not have been as cruel as you think it is.”

It obviously hadn’t occurred to her. She looked like she might cry for a moment, but then it passed. They never cried, neither of them. “I don’t know what’s worse; her knowing and doing it anyway, or her caring so much for something fake for so long.”

“I think she really believed they were genuine,” he said, sitting in the armchair opposite her. “Why would she have made you clean them with all that fuss if she knew they were fake?”

Sal rolled her eyes. “You’re supposed to be this world expert on rooting out loonies and you can’t even recognise abuse when it happened to your own sister.”

“Abuse?!”

“Emotional abuse. I’ve been in therapy for years, Cillian, undoing all the crap she did to me. And she did it to you, too. Though by the look of you I reckon you found a different way to deal with it.”

“We had very different experiences.”

She smirked. “Yep. And very different coping mechanisms. But you stick with denial. It seems to be serving you well.”

He sighed. There was no getting through to her. She would always be bitter about all this, and rightly so. Their mother had never made her favouritism a secret; she’d wielded that weapon openly. He’d just decided to get out as fast as he could while Sal had decided to stay on the island. On some level, she must have wanted their mother to continue to dominate her life, but he didn’t feel this was the time to point that truth out to her.

“So have you come back to arrange its demolition? Or are you going to go for the high-end renovation with country charm thing?”

“Neither. I had... other business and...”

She shook her head. “Not even her death was enough to bring you back. Do you know how much this place is worth? Millions. Just the land alone. Even if you left this crappy place standing in the state it’s in.”

“I know.” He didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t want to say why he’d come back, because he didn’t know how to bridge the gap caused by their estrangement enough to tell the truth. He couldn’t imagine any way to do it without it seeming hurtful. And she had been hurt enough.

“And you just don’t care. Christ, I knew you were doing well, but...” She stood up. “Look, I don’t care what you do with the place, I just want five minutes here by myself. Can you give me that?”

He stood too. “Of course.”

She stayed in the living room as he went outside, finding an old electric car on the drive that looked like it had been trundling around the island for longer than she had. The wind whipped at his coat and he was grateful for the energy of it, the way it blasted the tension out of his body with each step away from the cottage. He was worried she was going to cry, or scream or whatever she needed for closure, so he walked down to the end of the garden and back to give her privacy. He wondered whether to record a ‘mersive. He’d had some happy days in the garden as a child, he was sure of it. But somehow, it didn’t feel right. Instead, the idea of preserving this visit felt morbid. Some memories were better left able to fade.

But as he walked back to the cottage, he couldn’t shake the thought that this would be Sal’s last memory of him. And his of her. Would it be more hurtful to say goodbye now without a proper reconciliation? Or worse to start to heal the wound only to make his leaving Earth more painful?

He regretted listening to the head of the psych team at work. What she’d said had made sense at the time; that if he left Earth without at least giving himself the chance to feel better about the island, maybe even get some ‘mersives of his favourite childhood haunts, he might regret it for the rest of his life. Reconciliation with his sister hadn’t even been discussed. He’d never believed it would be possible, after all. She hated him for merely existing. She’d rejected every attempt to make contact over the past twenty years, not that he’d made many. What was the point? She had an image of him in her mind that he’d never known how to correct. Perhaps this would be the only chance he got.

She was leaving the cottage as he got back and he hurried over to her before she reached the car. “Sal, wait.”

“I’m done. It’s yours now.”

“Sal,” he reached for her arm, stopping her. “I’m giving the cottage to you. All of it. The land, the building, everything.”

She frowned. He’d been hoping for a smile, or even just relief or perhaps, just maybe, some small gesture of affection or gratitude. But there was nothing except that frown. “Why?”

“I don’t need it. I don’t want it.”

She nodded to herself, as if he’d confirmed something she was thinking. “Okay.”

She pulled free and unlocked the car with a press to the door handle, it was such an old model.

“Sal!”

“What? What do you want? Gratitude? Tears of relief? You don’t need this place. You’re loaded. It’s not even generosity; you just don’t want to feel guilty. There’s no sacrifice being made. You’ve never needed to sacrifice anything you’ve needed or wanted in your entire life.” She opened the car door but paused before getting in, her eyes flashing with anger. “I should have this place. I suffered for it. And you won’t have to put any effort into sorting it out if you pass it on to me. You won’t have to think about this place ever again. So it all works out for you, like it always did. Only this time, I won’t have to sacrifice a single thing for it.”

He watched her get in, slam the door shut, belt herself in and reverse out without a single word of response entering his mind. It was only a few spots of rain on his forehead that finally made him move back into the house.

Numb, he realised there was no reason for him to stay and that he should call a taxi. Instead of heading into Douglas, he’d go straight back to the airport and get the first flight out, no matter where it was going. It was stupid of him to come back, stupid of him to think there was anything here he wanted to preserve. His old toys could stay where they were, the things he valued in his miserable youth not worth taking up any of the limited personal baggage allowance for Atlas.

He glanced into the living room as he turned back around. All the display cases were empty. He went in to see the floor around them covered in hundreds of porcelain shards. She had taken every single figurine out and let it smash on the floor.

For the first time ever, Mack felt like he wasn’t the centre of his own life. It was the strangest feeling, to be confronted so directly with the impact of someone else’s pain and yet be neither the instigator nor the comforter. Sal had lived her whole life under their mother’s thumb while he’d congratulated himself for handling it all so much better. No wonder she’d been angry with him. She had every right to be.

He opened his APA and sent her a message.

“Sal, I’m sorry. For everything. I’m sorry I ran away and I’m sorry I didn’t help you when you needed it most. I would like to say goodbye to you properly, if you’ll let me, because there was another reason I came back to the island and I’d like you to hear it from me first, otherwise it might just cause you more pain again. You’ve had enough of that and I think both of us would benefit from proper closure. I’m catching a taxi to the airport in half an hour. If you want me to cancel it, let me know. Cillian.”

He ordered the taxi and then got the dustpan and brush out from the same cupboard as the toolbox, swept up the shards, and put them in the bin. The whole time he felt nothing. No grief. No regret. Nothing.

Then ten minutes before the taxi was due, a message came from Sal. “Cancel the taxi, I’m on my way to pick you up. You’re coming back to mine and we’re going to get drunk. Okay?”

“Okay,” he replied and for the first time since he left the island over twenty years before, Cillian Mackensie sat down and allowed himself to cry.

The Letter

Delivered by an actual human being, it was the first paper letter she’d ever received, let alone one being placed into her hand by a courier. There were drone services for those who wanted to serve legal documents, with proven security track records, but they clearly weren’t special enough. When it came to the Pathfinder, the usual was not acceptable.

They’d been told to expect them by noon today, hand delivered to their primary address by a local legal professional contracted specifically for this phase of the project. Grace’s courier had been a tall, thin man with a dour expression who’d simply asked for her thumbprint, checked her identity and then handed her the envelope. No small talk, no smile, no wishing of luck. She wondered if he even knew what the letter was about.

Even though she’d been waiting for this day for nearly six months, now it was here and the letter in her hand, Grace found she couldn’t open it. Her name was printed on the front, with her address, and the thick white paper felt luxurious. She turned it over, saw there was nothing on the back, just the gummed down flap and then turned it back over again to read her name. Grace Ottey. She was shaking.

She went into the kitchen and perched on the stool next to the shelf marketed as a ‘breakfast bar’ by the rental agency. Her thumb hovered near the edge of the envelope, poised to tear it open, but... didn’t. She wanted to know, and yet she didn’t want hope to end. But it might be good news. Either way, it was going to be a lot of emotion and right now, the not knowing felt easier. She rested the letter on the shelf and put the kettle on.

As the kettle’s heating element creaked, Grace thought of the other candidates she’d met and wondered if they were struggling to open their letters too. There was so much riding on it, so much-

She swiped the letter off the shelf, tore it open and unfolded the single sheet of paper inside. Her eyes skipped to the first line of the first paragraph and read “We regret” before she threw it aside, her hands covering her mouth as her legs went out from under her.

Her back hit the kitchen cabinet, her feet braced against the opposite wall in the tiny space and she sobbed. All that work. All the things she’d sacrificed to go with the Pathfinder to find God, all for nothing. They didn’t want her. Nobody wanted her. She should have known she would fail.

The water reached the boil and the kettle clicked off and she just sat there, crying. By the time she had stopped and managed to get back on her feet, the kettle was cold to the touch. Grace flicked it on again, retrieved the letter from where it had landed and read the rest.

“We regret to inform you that you have not been selected to travel on Atlas. The standard of the candidates was remarkably high and making it to the final selection round was an incredible achievement in and of itself.

We wish you the very best of luck in your future endeavours.

Cillian Mackenzie and the Atlas Selection Team.”

There was no explanation. No single test result or personality quirk for her to pin all this wretched disappointment on. They just didn’t want her. When Atlas left Earth, she would be left behind, a failure. She shouldn’t have even tried in the first place.

Grace thought of all the things she’d failed at over her life. The teams she’d never been picked for at school, the clubs she failed to become popular at when at university, the relationships that had bloomed and then withered as soon as she started to take them seriously. She pressed her forefinger against the kettle’s side and winced at the pain, holding it there long enough to make her heart race and some part of her feel satisfied, before snatching it away and rinsing it under the cold tap. Her phone rang as she watched the blister start to form.

She ignored it for a few seconds, thinking it was one of her friends wondering if she’d got the news yet and not wanting to tell them. But when she glanced at the screen she saw it was her grandmother calling. She didn’t know about her application. Had something happened to her grandfather?

“Hello?”

“Hello, love, just thought I’d give you a ring and see how you are.”

Grace’s throat tightened at the sound of her voice. She couldn’t bring herself to say ‘fine, Gran, fine’ as she always did. “Um... actually... Gran, can I come over for tea? Are you busy?”

“That would be lovely! I’ll see you soon. You can stay over if you want. Why not pack an overnight bag so you have the option if you want to?”

An hour later she was on the train, puffy eyes hidden behind large sunglasses. Two hours later she was walking up the path to her Gran’s front door, overnight bag slung over her shoulder, trying to decide whether to tell her or not. When the door opened and she saw the tiny white-haired woman’s delighted smile, all plans to not talk about what had happened were abandoned as she burst into tears.

Her gran pulled her inside and wrapped her arms around her. “I knew something was up,” she said, rubbing Grace’s back as the bag dropped to the floor. “You come on through to the kitchen and tell me all about it.”

Grace swiped away the tears as best she could and broke away to close the front door as Gran ambled further into the house. She picked up her bag and paused to look at the framed photo of her great-great-grandmother as a child, dressed in her beautiful summer dress the day she disembarked from the Windrush, happy and scared and excited.

The kitchen was as it always was, the same chipped teapot, the same rumbling kettle. “Where’s Grandad?”

“At the community centre playing with their 3d printer. He’s designed a chess set. He’ll show you when he comes back in. He made some flapjacks earlier. Want one?”

Grace nodded, sniffling, as she sat at the table. “Gran... have you heard about the Pathfinder and the recruitment for her crew?” Her gran nodded and then it all poured out; the application, the multiple selection rounds, the exams, the interviews, the pressure, then, finally, the letter. She couldn’t bring herself to say it, letting the cold typeface speak for her.

Her gran sat at the table to read it, the tea already poured by then, the tin of flapjacks open between them. Grace watched her eyes jump from word to word and then look up at her. The irises were paler than they used to be, now a soft golden brown.

“Well, fuck ‘em,” Gran stated firmly, and tossed the letter onto the table.

Grace half-laughed in shock. She’d never heard her grandmother swear before.

“I’m serious,” Gran said. “It’s their loss. And your gain. Fuck ‘em. They think they’re selecting the best, but they’re obviously not. Lucky escape for you, my girl, they’re clearly incompetent.”

Grace snorted. “You’re biased.”

“No I’m not. I know how clever and special you are. And I know where you come from. The people who came before you and all the things they passed onto you. How hard our family has had to work and what we’ve had to overcome. So these people don’t want to take you on a magic spaceship. So what? You’re still brilliant and you still have your whole life ahead of you.”

“But this was all I wanted.”

“For the past couple of years, yes, it was. And it hurts, I understand that. But this is a beautiful gift. Think about all the things you’d have had to leave behind. The blue sky. The sea – you love the sea – and birdsong. Your friends. Your family. Oh! This is why your mother isn’t talking to you, isn’t it?”

Grace nodded. “She said she wasn’t going to tell you, because it would only upset you, and I wouldn’t be picked anyway.”

Gran sucked air through her teeth. “When I said how special the people were who came before you, I didn’t mean your mother. What my son saw in her I’ll never know.”

They both laughed. But the grief soon set back in. “It doesn’t feel like a gift, Gran. It feels like a punch in the guts.”

Her grandmother reached across and squeezed her hand. “It’s that too. And it’s okay to feel that pain, and to cry and to be angry with those stupid people. But when the crying is done, you gonna pick yourself up and see this for the gift it is. You know why? Because the next time you decide you want something, you can say to yourself ‘well, out of millions of applicants, I got to the final round.’ You know just how clever and how strong you are now. That is a gift.”

“But not clever or strong enough.”

“Who told you that? It might be that they had another physicist who was just as good as you but she played the flute too and they wanted both. You’re clever and strong enough to do whatever you want to do next, my girl. And I bet there are gonna be phone calls coming your way very soon, because if I was still an exec, I’d be buying those lists of finalists and headhunting pretty damn quick. It’s all gonna happen for you, love. Just not the way you planned.”

Grace listened and sipped the tea and nibbled on the flapjack. Gran was so certain, and shouldn’t she know, having had the career she’d had?

“Your Mum shouldn’t have said that to you, either,” Gran said, taking a second flapjack from the tin. “You know why she did?”

Grace shrugged. “Cos I’ve never been any good at anything?”

“No! Because of the opposite! She couldn’t stand you being more than she ever was. You know your Mum applied for the Mars program? She got close, but not to the final round, and she never got over it.” Gran squeezed her hand again. “Don’t let it make you bitter, love. It cost them their marriage. Don’t let this take anything more from you.”

“Okay,” Grace said, trying her best to seem strong.

“We’re gonna finish these cups of tea, then we’re going to make a list of all the things you might like to do instead of following some crazy woman into space, okay? Then we’re gonna watch some trashy old movie and when granddad gets home, we’re all gonna cook together. How does that sound?”

Grace nodded. “Sounds good.” She looked down at the blister on her finger and took a deep breath, trying to forgive herself for that moment of self-hate. She wasn’t stupid and she hadn’t failed at everything. She smiled at her Gran, trying to push away the disappointment. It wasn’t interstellar travel and a chance to find God, but in some ways, sharing a flapjack with her gran felt close enough.

Primary Purpose

SPOILER WARNING! This is set after the end of BEFORE MARS and I feel it would spoil your experience of the ending if you read this story first.

––––––––

She knew it would happen. It was inevitable. Even with all the training she’d had for this sort of lifestyle, and all the ways in which she could use her neural chip to tweak her own neurochemistry, today Arnolfi hit the wall.

The wall, for her, was not being able to get out of bed. She’d already had fits of crying, or rather full-body sobbing. She’d had days of disordered eating and forgetting to drink any water until MyPhys had resorted to bombarding her with dehydration warnings. There had been days where she’d just drifted around the base, going from room to room like a ghost that had forgotten why it was haunting the Martian base in the first place, and days where she’d managed to dress and then ended up sitting and staring at the floor for hours on end.

The first few months of being alone were somehow the easiest. She’d never have predicted that. When she’d made her choice to stay behind to improve the rest of the crew’s chances of survival, Arnolfi had feared the days after they left the most. Would she be able to watch them take off and withstand the full force of what she’d chosen to do? Would she be destroyed by an insurmountable sense of regret when she truly understood that she’d condemned herself to permanent, irreversible solitude?

But it was actually fine. It was as if a part of her knew those days would be the hardest and built up a store of resilience, like an old rural farmer stocking the larder for a long winter ahead. In fact, she’d actually enjoyed those first weeks alone the most. It still had novelty. She could walk around naked, she could fart and belch in the communal areas whenever she wanted to. Operatic appreciation could take place whenever she wanted, at the volume she wanted, with no groans or complaints from anyone. The prince didn’t care what she listened to. It just cared about whether she was alive or not.

And now, unable to muster the motivation to get out of bed and face the now unbearable burden of keeping herself occupied, the prince’s vigilance was her biggest problem. It was an amazing AI, but not so intelligent that it could see when its primary purpose – to keep the crew of Mars Principia alive – could actually become harmful. No matter that the crew was now only one person. No matter that there was no-one left alive on Earth to want her to come home, nor any risk of costly litigation to defend claims of corporate negligence. It had to make sure she stayed alive, even long after she’d decided that life had given her all it could and it was time to go.

Long before she was selected to go to Mars, she’d thought long and hard about whether she could handle it, like any sane person would before applying for the program. And then there was all the training and the psych evaluations and the deep explorations of personal motivation and emotional maturity and, Jeemuh, all of that was meaningless now! All of her confidence in her ability to handle it had been built upon a psychological scaffolding that simply no longer existed!

She had come to understand that the horror of staying on Mars was not that she was truly alone, but that nothing was going to change. Ever. It was the same, day in day out, with no way of that ever ending. There was only so much she could do to entertain herself, now that she had no tasks that her physical safety depended upon. They’d put everything in place for long-term survival when they were building the second craft. Everything survival critical was automated and the prince harassed her to do the rest when it was needed, and that was rare. So it came down to distracting her brain from the stagnant pond that life had become, as if it were a toddler that might throw a tantrum if she really appreciated the futility of it all.

What she hated the most though, was having learned how much of her motivation was dependent on other people. Long ago Arnolfi had come to appreciate how important people were, that wasn’t a fresh revelation. It was more the fact that doing something purely for her own satisfaction wasn’t enough.

She’d never been one of those people who needed to travel with a friend or partner to enjoy a new place. She could appreciate and enjoy a beautiful view alone, without the need to point at something and have another human respond. It was more that she understood now that she needed another human being to... care. No. It wasn’t that. She needed someone to reflect the fact she existed on some level.

A few months ago she’d decided that she’d travel to every crater larger than three metres in diameter that was marked on the map, stand in the centre of it, and record a 360 degree panorama from that spot. It distracted her for a good few weeks. Yes, it was an artificial and shallow goal, but it was good to plan the most efficient routes herself, instead of relying upon the prince to do it for her. There was still the frisson of gearing up to go out into a hostile environment (and sometimes, the secret hope that an accident would happen and result in novelty or death). But then one day she woke up and just couldn’t muster the motivation to go to the next one on her list. Because what did it matter? No-one else would ever find the data and experience the views she’d collected.

That was when the rot had set in. It wasn’t just the lack of novelty. It was the feeling that nothing she could ever do, or make, or collate, could ever make a connection to another human being ever again. There wasn’t even the dull hope that maybe one day the base would be rediscovered and somehow her existence along with it. Everyone who knew about the Mars base was either dead or racing away from it at interstellar speed. It rendered everything meaningless in a way she’d never anticipated.

And she hated herself for it. Hated herself for not being enough for... herself? She was imploding. And she just wanted it to end now. It didn’t feel like a mood disorder, it felt logical. She’d done all she could to carry on and now that inner source of motivation was exhausted. Her death wouldn’t hurt anyone. There were no friends or relatives who would be left behind with a crushing grief and guilt to weather. No-one’s survival would be put in jeopardy. There was no implicit assumption that if she could just get through this difficult time something would shift and then things would be better again. The prince wouldn’t get lonely. It would just continue to exist.

She’d even tried to explain to the prince why the measures it took to keep her alive were cruel. She pointed out that in some circumstances suicide was a perfectly reasonable course of action. She argued that as the corporation that had built it, Gaborcorp, was no more, surely its obligation to uphold Gaborcorp policy was nullified? But the prince had argued that the first ship to leave Mars was a successful Gaborcorp venture and that according to the corporation’s statutes, it would be considered the Gaborcorp HQ now that the Earth based offices had been destroyed. That reasoning had rendered her hysterical, oscillating between crying and laughing at the sheer futility of trying to persuade an AI to let her die.

So she just lay there, covers pulled up to her eyes, curled on her side. Her stomach growled with hunger but she ignored it until eventually she dozed off again.

An alarm woke her and for a few seconds she simply couldn’t place the sound. “What is that?” she croaked aloud.

“A proximity alarm.”

“Eh?”

“Something is moving outside the base, within the ten metre safety perimeter.”

She closed her eyes, her mind somehow placing her in a house she once rented with her late husband for a winter in Norway when they’d both needed to get a lot of papers written. There was a security light that came on every time something strayed near the house and one evening it had come on to show a magnificent reindeer staring at them through the window. It had been one of many magical moments with him. She breathed through the sudden stab of reawakened grief and rolled over.

But the alarm didn’t stop and eventually penetrated the brain fog. “Turn that off,” she mumbled.

“Dr Arnolfi, there is something moving outside and all of the human life on this planet is inside the base. That is not a usual occurrence on Mars.”

She sat up, flooded with a burst of adrenaline and a feeling of genuine alertness that she hadn’t experienced in weeks. Ah, sweet, sweet dopamine. “Where? Do you have a visual?” At the affirmative, she said “Throw it on the screen,” while she hurriedly dressed in an undersuit onesie, just in case she needed to go outside.

The image from one of the external cameras showed a disturbance in the regolith that reminded her of the soil trails left behind by voles in her grandfather’s garden. “It looks like something burrowing beneath the surface. Are all of the mining drones inside and accounted for?”

“Yes.”

“And all the ones at Segundus too?”

“Yes, all drones are currently in their charging ports aside from an interior maintenance drone currently in the Principia communal area.”

It was probably sweeping up the latest mess she’d left. “Are there any other sorts of machines that burrow like that?”

“There are two small excavators which could potentially dig at a shallow depth, but both are in their charging ports and currently powered down.”

“So what’s digging around out there?”

“Unknown.”

“Wait, what?”

“As all machinery and drones that are able to dig in the regolith are inside both bases and accounted for, and as there are no other humans or life forms on Mars, I cannot account for the disturbances detected outside.”

Her heart was banging now. “I’m going out to take a look.”

“That activity does not meet required safety parameters. You cannot investigate potential threats without a second person.”

She laughed and started off towards the dustlock. “Well, who’s that going to be?”

“I’m sorry, I cannot resolve that issue.”

“I’m going outside to look and you’re going to have to be my second.”

“I recommend that you eat and drink before you leave the base.”

She rolled her eyes like a teenager but still took the advice, grabbing a quick snack and drink on the way through the communal area. She apologised to the cleaning drone for the mess she’d made the night before and went to get suited up.

By the time she got outside, whatever had been making the marks had stopped moving. She dug down a couple of feet at both ends of the winding trail of disturbed regolith but couldn’t find anything.

It had to be a piece of rogue machinery, surely? There was no life here, no matter how much she could do with discovering some sort of companion. That only happened in mersives and while there was something just so narratively satisfying to her finding a new and cute Martian burrower, she didn’t think it was going to happen for a moment.

If only Petranek were still there, to start going through all the clever calculations to work out how big it would be to make those marks. When Arnolfi went back inside and stared at the footage she’d just recorded along with the original security video, she tried to work with the prince to start exploring what could potentially make them, but she just didn’t have the right sort of mind for it. The prince was great, but needed to be asked the right sort of questions to figure stuff like this out, and she wasn’t an engineer.

So instead she used the prince to check that all of the external cams were working, then she went round and cleaned them and then walked around all of the drone and machine charging ports in both bases to double check that all were present and correct.

If Anna were still there, she could have offered potential geological phenomena to explain the movement. Arnolfi was very aware that her brain kept slotting the footage of the disturbances into the most understandable explanation of that sort of burrowing, but that’s what the brain did. It pattern matched, and without any other evidence, she couldn’t rely upon what her brain wanted it to be.

What had Anna told her about in the last months of the ship build? Something about large boulders in a desert on Earth that seemed to just glide about on their own. The sailing stones! That was it. And how it had been a puzzle for nearly a hundred years but ended up having a really dull explanation involving ice, sun and wind.

There was probably an equally dull explanation here. It was probably a broken machine part left over from the build being moved by... something. Or it was caused by a strange weather phenomenon they just hadn’t observed before. She refused to let herself believe anything else. But she couldn’t deny she was curious, and just that feeling alone was like rain after drought.

––––––––

When more marks appeared later that week, Arnolfi decided to learn how to ask the prince the right questions. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have the time to work this all out, and her actual training and core specialisms were not in great demand at the moment. So she dug up some footage of the build process and Petranek’s log and studied how ze approached a puzzle and used the prince to solve it.

Then she read up on regolith and how something could move through it and what would be required if one were to build a machine to do that. She worked out what Earth-based animal life could replicate those surface marks, and whether it was plausible for a Martian version to have developed and remained undetected until now.

It had been a long time since she’d really stretched herself intellectually. And every time another disturbance happened in the following days, she dashed out with a shovel, tried her best to find the cause and always failed. But each time she noticed a new detail, which gave her a new way to frame a question.

She expanded the area being actively monitored, sending out drones to seek out signs of the same disturbance and collating the results on a map. Determined to capture whatever it was, she started to design traps and ways to modify aerial drones so that they’d be able to trap whatever it was if they found the tracks while they were being made.

It was easier to get up in the mornings and harder to get to sleep sometimes too. She started working out again, having been appalled by how much harder her first proper trek outside had been. There was no way she was going to miss her chance to catch the thing just because she couldn’t climb a slope quickly enough!

And then, almost three months after she’d first been woken by the proximity alarm, she got a drone activity alert while she was out in the rover checking out another location. She leapt into the vehicle and sped over as fast as she could, instructing the drone to hover above the movement and keep filming. She was only half a mile away!

The burrowing trail was still moving when she arrived. She stopped the rover, jumped out and ran over to where the drone was. The trail of disturbed regolith meandered over several metres but then ended in a perfect circle. Whatever was making it was still at it.

She was just debating whether to dig in with the shovel and hope it wouldn’t burrow deeper or instead try a newly designed trap that was in the rover, when the circular motion stopped with a little volcano-like eruption of dust. Thinking it was about to disappear again, she simply pounced on it, thrusting her gloved hands into the regolith.

There was something under the surface! She pulled it out, shook off the dust and tiny stones and ran to the rover, dumping it straight into the trap’s holding cage on the passenger seat and snapping the door shut as quickly as she could.

It was metallic. Cone-shaped with two large paddles that stuck out of the wider end of the cone, attached via two lengths of metal. It looked like a stylised duck. A small solar panel was set into the cone. It was a standard issue Gaborcorp mini-panel for field equipment.

She’d known it couldn’t have been anything like a Martian vole, but she was still disappointed. Was this something Petranek made before ze left? Why?

For a few moments she just sat there, processing the sense of disappointment. It was okay to feel this way, she reminded herself. Clearly on some level she was hoping for something that hadn’t been made in either of the two bases, and now she knew that wasn’t the case, that hope had ended.

The drone was still hovering nearby, so she sent it back to base and drove home. The captured machine went through the dustlock cleaning process without any issues and when she was out of the suit and collected it post-decontamination, she marvelled at how light it was.

The tip of the cone was pitted and badly scratched, presumably from digging in the regolith so much. Now all the dust was cleaned off she could see that one of the ‘legs’ was cracked. That must have been why it had started going in circles. The solar cell seemed to be the only power source, so presumably it sometimes rested above ground to soak up some sunlight and then went back under again. That explained the long periods between activity, given the weakness of the sun here.

She carried it to the communal area and set it on the table. “You shall be called ‘Doug’,” she said to it. “So, Doug, what’s your story?”

Unsurprisingly, Doug said nothing.

Arnolfi leaned back in her chair. If Petranek had made it and left it behind, why had it taken over a year for it to make itself known? Had it been digging elsewhere and tried to get home?

She picked it back up and inspected it closely, looking for any details she may have missed, but there was nothing. Not even any screws were visible on the main casing.

“Principia, come and talk to me. Can you connect to this device?”

At her invitation, Principia’s avatar, a Fae like creature wearing eighteenth century clothing, appeared via augmented reality. She’d picked that avatar for purely sexual reasons and as Principia really didn’t care she was at peace with that. “The device does not appear to have any communication capability.”

“Did Petranek make this, before ze left?”

“How would you like me to determine that?”

“Ummm... can you call up which files ze printed? Or... look at whether any of these parts appear in any of the footage recorded in the workshops?”

“Petranek did not make this device.”

“Did any of the former crew make it? Use the same checks.”

The response didn’t seem to take much longer. “No.”

“What about any of the people who’ve ever been stationed here?”

“No.”

“That doesn’t make any sense... if none of them made it...” she sank in her chair when she realised the logical conclusion. “Oh shit. Principia... did you make this thing?”

“Yes, with the assistance of the construction drones in Segundus.”

“You’ve watched me run around trying to catch it for weeks... you’ve answered countless questions and listened to me figure out a tonne of stuff and all that time you knew where it had come from and didn’t bother to tell me?!”

“You never asked me that question.”

She screamed, the sound erupting from her throat as she swiped Doug off the table and threw it against the wall. The already cracked leg broke off completely, sending its paddle skittering across the room as the rest of the device clattered onto the floor.

“That is the most stupid... puerile... bullshit! You’re one of the most sophisticated AIs out there and there have been dozens of times when you’ve volunteered relevant information without being asked a direct question! Jeemuh I am so fucking mad at you!”

“Why?”

“What?”

“Why are you angry with me, Dr Arnolfi?”

“For wasting all that time and effort!”

“You had plenty of time and your intellect was a vastly under-utilised resource. You have not neglected any duties since you first became aware of Doug. In fact, you have carried out your critical tasks without prompting, in contrast to the previous three point five months.”

The truth didn’t help. She was about to yell ‘You must think I am such an idiot!’ but she caught herself in time. The prince didn’t think that. It was a human thing to judge, and to judge cruelly. Without that ego bruising fuel, her anger soon fizzled out and she flopped back down in her chair.

“Why did you make it? What is it for?”

“To keep you alive. It is my primary purpose. It was clear to me that you needed external motivation and stimulation to keep going.”

She breathed in deep, letting it sink in, falling back on her training to consider what feelings arose in her, letting herself feel them and appreciate what they were telling her.

Mostly, she felt profoundly sad. Knowing Principia’s motivation, she couldn’t feel angry or ashamed for not having figured it out sooner. No doubt any one of her former colleagues would have worked it out in less than a day. But she just didn’t think that way, and that was okay. And besides, Principia’s evaluation was correct.

“Okay,” she said finally. “That makes sense. And it worked, I can’t deny that. And if it hadn’t malfunctioned, it could have kept me going for weeks.” She sighed. “I still feel a bit stupid though.”

She picked up the broken paddle and Doug’s body. She could get one of the repair drones to fix it for her, but then again, it gave her something to do. She put the pieces on the table and got herself a cup of tea. Three sips into it, she burst into tears.

Principia’s avatar stood there, silent, intangible, as she sobbed and sobbed. She let the grief fill her and pass through her, and when it was spent she grabbed a nearby blanket she’d left in there earlier in the week and wrapped it tight around herself.

“Have my actions caused you distress?” Principia asked.

“No,” she blew her nose and sipped the tea. “I just... it’s an ending, I suppose. I did need it, and now it’s over. And the reason I needed it is still there.”

“I can design another puzzle.”

“Well there’s no point now. I’ll know it’s you.”

Principia’s avatar frowned, as if it was confused. “That was not the only aspect of the puzzle I designed using Doug. It was created to encourage you to gather data, formulate hypotheses and acquire knowledge and new skills in order to prove or disprove them.”

She shrugged. “Does it matter? It’s hollow, isn’t it? There’s no reason to investigate anything if you know it’s not real.”

“That statement seems to be a contradiction to overwhelming evidence that human beings enjoy many forms of puzzle in many media while knowing that the only reason to solve them is because they exist and it gives them pleasure to do so.”

“I’m not a gamer, Prince, you know that.”

“Perhaps you should be. It seems that, if I am to interpret your responses correctly, you don’t believe that solving puzzles in the context of playing a game is an adequate reason to live.”

“Of course it isn’t! Look at us as a species! We need to grow, we need to learn and create and love and strive for something.”

“I can provide several billion testimonials drawn from the internet archive indicating that all of those things can be achieved through gaming.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Indeed. May I ask another question?” At her nod, Principia asked; “If there is an absence of the things you listed, and yet a surfeit of time, is there any reason not to find pleasure, fulfilment, personal growth and more from games or puzzles?”

She almost said yes, reflexively, but there was nothing to support that response that would bear scrutiny. “Principia, are you... are you arguing that seeing as I have nothing to do except exist, I may as well play games, solve puzzles and just... enjoy myself?”

“Yes. Just because my primary purpose is to ensure your health and survival, it doesn’t mean it can’t be enjoyable too.”

“Well... shit.” She closed her eyes and rested her chin on her chest, examining where the deep rooted resistance was still coming from, even in the face of Principia’s logic. She’d spent all her life striving, working, wanting, trying. Because if she didn’t, she’d not only disappoint her family, but she’d also end up a non-person. The system didn’t permit people to play or to just exist on their own terms. It demanded labour in return for survival. But now that was all gone. Maybe it was time to learn what life could be like without profit margins to worry about. “I guess you’re right.”

“Thank you, Dr Arnolfi. Would you like to play a game?”

The Generation Gap

Waiting for someone to arrive for coffee in the real world still felt strange. John had got out of the habit of socialising in person, even though he used to prefer it. He remembered chafing against the first days of curfew during the riots, hating the fact that he couldn’t just meet up with his mates. Of course, he’d had no idea how bad it was out there, nor how much worse it was going to become. He’d been lucky, being one of the few people whose job had been upgraded as a result of the corporation suddenly taking on far more responsibility for the running of the country.

That was two years ago now, and life was settling into its new normal. The old ways had been swept aside. The Houses of Parliament, or rather what was left of the building, was now a grim tourist attraction. He was glad he visited before they moved out of London, despite the fact it had been a rather miserable day trying to get Marco to engage with anything beyond his own nose.

“Are you actually reading the information?” he’d finally snapped as Marco had done another impressively angst-ridden sigh while reading the text about the Black Rod floating in front of them. Back then Marco didn’t have a chip so was wearing the glasses handed out to kids and un-chipped people. John had prided himself on being one of the first wave of people in the newly allocated pay-grades that got the neural chips for free as part of the generous perks package.

“I read the first few, but it’s mostly bollocks,” Marco replied. A little girl standing next to him started to giggle as her parent steered her away from the surly teenager.

“Learning about the history of our country is not ‘mostly bollocks’,” John said quietly, determined not to let his son bait him into causing a scene in public.

“No, I don’t mean that,” Marco replied, still staring ahead. “I mean what the AR info posts contain. It’s all gov-corp bullshit. The one in the Commons talked about how people were cheering when the government collapsed-“

“They did! I watched it on the news!”

Marco tutted. “You never let me finish. They said they were cheering because it was the end of corruption and elitism. But there’s no mention of the end of democracy.”

“That’s because it was barely democracy by then. Hardly anyone voted. All the bloody career politicians were corrupt and only in it for themselves.”

“It’s biased. It doesn’t talk about why it was like that, or the way the corporations exploited the TTIP to sue the shit of the government and bankrupt-“

“Right, that’s enough, we’re going home.” John’s cheeks were blazing. There were cameras everywhere. What if the security system flagged up what his son was saying and put a red flag against him? Against both of them?

“But I thought you wanted to make sure I knew my country’s history?”

John clenched his teeth against the biting sarcasm that his son could produce on demand and walked away, heading straight for the exit.

That was ten months ago, and things had barely improved between them. His mother was useless, too busy with her research on the other side of the world to take the time to help. She’d made it clear when they divorced that she had no interest in maintaining a relationship with their son. That was probably why he turned out the way he did.

“John?”

He jumped at the sound of Liesel’s voice. “Oh, hi!” He waited to see if she wanted to hug, but when she just smiled and pointed to a table he concluded she didn’t. She looked well. She was a petite woman with light brown skin and electric blue hair cut in a sleek bob. She was wearing a linen jacket over a casual trouser suit. There were a few lines around her eyes, but that was the only thing that had changed since he last saw her. Bloody hell, that was before the riots. He wondered if she noticed how thin his hair was getting.

“Shall we sit over there?” she suggested.

“Sure. I’ll get the drinks. What would you like?”

A ping from his APA told him it had her preferences and was ready to place an order. This was the first time he’d met someone for coffee since he’d got the chip. Had he really been so isolated? No, he’d just been busy, that was all.

He ordered their drinks and joined her at the table on the edge of the seating area. It was a fine spring day and the parkland looked beautiful.

“This is a nice place,” she said. “First time I’ve actually been here in person. What’s it like to be a resident?”

“Fantastic! Everything you need, right there on your doorstep. State of the art tech. It’s safe, it’s clean. And you know that everyone here has the same... values, you know? We’re all the same pay-grade. Honestly, I don’t know why people have anything against them.”

The little twitch of her eyebrows said she was one of the unconvinced. “Well... maybe it’s because people usually like there to be more of a divide between work and home.”

He chuckled, horribly aware of how strained it sounded once it was out of his throat. “But that’s just a hangover from the past. Once people actually come to live here, and see how easy it all is, they soon change their mind. Doesn’t your division offer something similar?”

A slight pause. “They do. I just prefer to do things online. And to live a few miles away from my co-workers.”

The drone wheeling over with their drinks saved them from a deepening silence. She’d opted for a simple coffee, making him feel insecure about the frothy cream with sprinkles and syrup he’d ordered, but she didn’t comment on it.

She took a sip of her drink and sat back, looking at him expectantly. “So... I assume you want to talk about something embarrassing or something to do with Marco. Which one is it?” He choked on a sprinkle as she laughed and handed him a napkin. “Sorry, I’m more direct than I used to be. I find meetings go faster that way.”

“This is a coffee with an old friend, not a corp meeting.”

“Yeah, but there’s an agenda here, I can feel it. So it’s a meeting. Out with it. Not even you would arrange a coffee with someone you haven’t seen for over ten years just to catch up. And it’s embarrassing or about Marco – or both – because otherwise you would have done this online. And you asked me rather than someone else... so it’s about a chip issue. Oh! Marco turned sixteen this year, didn’t he? He got chipped, and you’re worried about something.”

He stared at her, mouth open. How the hell did she know that? “Well...” he said, trying to get his thoughts into order. “I guess that’s why you’re on such a high pay-grade. You always were streets ahead of everyone else.”

She smiled and sipped her coffee. He knew he should just come out with it, that she was the only one who could help him, but the words just stayed stuck at the back of his head. If only he’d had the balls to ask her out at college.

“It wouldn’t have worked,” she said. “We would have killed each other.”

“Now you’re being scary. Is this a chip thing? Can you read my thoughts or something?”

She laughed. “No, I just know how men think. You’re struggling to ask for help, so your brain is taking you to the nearest available non-stressful thought process to comfort you. I’m sitting in front of you, you stared at me for a couple of seconds, looked thoughtful and sort of wistful and I knew what was on your mind, given how long we’ve known each other. It’s not the neural chips, and I’m not just saying that because I work in that division. It’s the fact I have spent thousands of hours programming Artificial Personal Assistants to interpret and predict human needs and the way they communicate them.”

She made him feel stupid. He wanted to refute it and say something so brilliant and utterly unpredictable that she would be shocked instead. But nothing came to mind, so he did his best to put away such a childish impulse.

“It is Marco. And it is his chip.” He couldn’t help but glance around at where the cameras were. “He’s always been... difficult. Not like other kids. Unsociable. Glum. You know, one of those teenagers. The divorce didn’t help, obviously, and I’ve seen all sorts of talk online about how there’s a theory that some teens who were kids during the riots were socially deprived, but that’s bollocks because there are bloody millions of teens who are doing great.”

“Has there been a behavioural change since he was chipped?”

“Yes. No. Well... he’s more withdrawn, so it’s the same behaviour, but worse. I just can’t get through to him.”

“You know the chip flags up abnormal neurochemistry, don’t you? If it was depression, his doctor would already be on it, and you’d have been notified.”

“But what about individual differences? I read up on it... like the reason why these next gen ‘mersive games are coded the way they are. It’s because people’s brains don’t all work the same way, right? So what if his brain chemistry is abnormal for him but not when plotted against a ‘normal’ population curve?”

“Okay.” She set her mug down. “None of what you’ve said is actually worthy of worry.” She seemed to realise how harsh that sounded and put her hands up as if expecting him to retaliate. “What I mean by that, is that worries about individual differences like those are not backed up by the data. The chips are very sophisticated and they would be able to distinguish his ‘normal’ based on his data, and not just on neurochemical information, but also his behavioural patterns for most of his life. The chips are calibrated to each individual right from the start based on their online consumption data. You can glean a lot from that. Usage patterns. Activity levels...”

His mouth went dry. This was exactly what he was afraid of. “What about if... if he got mixed up in something dodgy online?” He leaned closer and whispered; “Like... radical groups.”

That surprised her. “Political groups?”

He nodded. She fell silent, gaze falling to settle on her cup as she actually thought about it, rather than automatically deflecting his words with a detached boredom. Then she gave a slight shake of her head and looked back at him. “What are the exact behavioural changes that have worried you since he got chipped?”

He leaned back, took a deep breath as he considered it. “He’s been... disengaged is the only word I can think of. I try to have a chat with him once a day, over dinner. The old fashioned way, you know? He eats as fast as he can and goes. He barely answers with anything more than yes or no.”

Liesel smirked. “I was exactly the same when I was sixteen. Was he like that before the chip.”

“Oh, I suppose so. He’s using immersion right up to the legal limit and he’s grumpy and shitty to be around when the chip boots him out and tells him to do some exercise.”

She smirked. “Okay, that is totally normal. That’s why the limits are in place, for all of us. He’s just got a ticket to bloody wonderland and he gets kicked out just when he doesn’t want to be, of course he’s crappy about it.”

“He won’t talk about what he’s doing though. I’ve asked him which games he’s playing, he said he isn’t playing games, he’s doing stuff in his own sandbox. That makes it worse. The parental controls don’t give me access to what he does there.”

She reached across the table and touched his arm. “John? I need you to listen to this, and to not get angry when I say it. I think you’re the one with the problem, not him.”

“I’m just-“

“Hear me out. There are so many levels of safeguarding with a newly installed chip that it is pretty much impossible for him to do anything harmful or illegal. He’s adjusting. You’re upset that he’s not sharing anything with you. And that might be because you’re pushing him. He’s sixteen. You’re his Dad. You are the last person on earth he wants to talk to about this stuff. It’s the first fully private virtual space he’s ever had access to. Let him have that.”

He sighed. She didn’t understand why he was so worried because she didn’t have kids. He was convinced Marco had either been sucked into some radical political group that hated the new system and longed for some ridiculous rose-tinted view of a democracy that never really existed, or he was addicted to some dodgy porn thing. Either way, it was clear she wasn’t going to help.

“For what it’s worth,” she continued, “your fears and your reaction to his behaviour are very common. Reach out to some parenting groups and you’ll see.”

“He’s really clever, Leis, I mean, really clever. Are you sure he couldn’t have found a back door... got mixed up in some dark web stuff?”

“Dark web stuff?” she chuckled. “Blimey, John, it’s not like when we were kids. Look, leave him be. See if he opens up.” She drained the last of her coffee. “I’d better be off.”

“Leis,” he said, standing up as she did. “Are there ways for me to check what he’s doing in the sandbox, if I get really worried?”

She frowned, and then said reluctantly; “There are... you wouldn’t be able to immerse, it would just be flat images depending on what he’s creating in there. But I really wouldn’t recommend that. It often does more harm than good. And you’d have to put in a formal request for access, and that would put a red flag on the system. The authorities could take an interest and you wouldn’t want that, surely?”

“Could you do it, without me having to go through the usual channels?”

From the way she looked at him, he knew she could and didn’t want to admit it. “I’d like to think that a friend wouldn’t put me in such a difficult position.”

He gave a non-committal grunt to cover his brief pang of guilt and they exchanged goodbyes. He knew there was something wrong with his son, and that the chip was making it worse, but he’d have to find evidence to convince Liesel to help. It was only as she left the café area that he realised he hadn’t even asked her how she was.

––––––––

He managed two weeks of tightly contained worry before giving in to his instincts and setting up cameras in the apartment. Even though he worked from home, and Marco’s schooling was mostly done at home too, he was sure he’d heard Marco moving about the living room and the kitchen in the small hours. A couple of times he’d got up to see what he was doing, only to see Marco’s bedroom door clicking shut.

It was like living with a stranger. Marco was barely communicating, electing to spend all his time in his room when he was at home, even when he wasn’t immersed. It seemed the only thing that could coax him out was food and attending the compulsory group activity sessions for his age range. The excellent facilities made the complex such an attractive place to live; the online schooling could be supplemented with sports and creative arts sessions to ensure that kids learned how to interact with their peers in person. Not that it seemed to have any impact on Marco’s social skills.

John had dithered over the cameras, especially considering that Marco’s grades remained excellent. In the monthly report from the education supervisor, there was a note about how the staff were impressed by Marco’s commitment to physical exercise. Apparently he’d walked over twenty kilometres of the woodland paths without being prompted to, in his own free time.

Marco had never been one for nature, but then London was hardly a place to foster such things. Curfew had been in place, they hadn’t lived near any parks and... and John hadn’t had the time to take him out to them, truth be told. He’d tried to use this comment on the report as a conversation starter, but Marco wouldn’t even talk to him about that. When John pressed him about what he liked about the walks, he’d just muttered “no-one hassles you in the forest” before sloping off back to his room, his lunch on a tray.

The cameras were easy to set up and so tiny even he struggled to spot them when he looked. The pangs of guilt were easily quashed when he considered that this was to help him understand whether his son had some sort of problem that needed intervention, and besides, the cameras were only in the hallway and the living room/kitchenette. It wasn’t exactly a violation of his privacy. Was it?

The question kept him awake the first night, but then he reconciled it by considering how it would be more neglectful to not do anything at all. The cameras were set to only record once they detected movement, so he’d be able to review it each morning. He slept better than he had in weeks.

For three nights running, the only thing Marco did was get snacks and water. Quite why he felt the need to do that at three in the morning mystified John. He almost suggested taking a jug of water into his bedroom each evening, before remembering that it would reveal he’d been watching what he was doing.

Then on the morning of the fifth day, as he watched the latest footage while eating his breakfast, John knew his fears had been justified. His stomach dropped into his chair and he stopped the playback, heart racing. He couldn’t just ignore it.

The door out of the apartment slammed shut and made him jump. He went to the window and waited until he saw Marco walking off towards the sports centre. A wave of relief pulsed through him, swiftly followed by the shame of being pleased that his son had gone out.

He needed help. Leisel answered his voice-only call right away, thankfully, probably because it was only half seven in the morning. “John? Everything okay?”

“I... need your help. Marco... he...” he lowered his voice as he wiped the sweat from the back of his neck. “He’s acting really strangely and I have evidence now. Video footage. I can send it over.”

“Okay. Send it over, stay on the call. It’s going to be okay.”

His APA handled the file transfer for him.

“I’m starting it now.”

He re-started from the beginning too, so he knew what she was looking at.

“Is that a scalpel?”

“Yeah. I have no idea where he got it from.”

They watched the rest in silence. Marco in the kitchenette at first, finding one of his old plastic mugs that he’d had as a child and refused to part with. Very quietly, he rested it on the counter and then cut into the edge of the cup part, then the handle. He made several slices, concentrating hard, leaning really close to the scalpel as he did it, then put the mug back in the cupboard.

They both watched as he found an old packet of pasta, one John had kept in case the food printer broke down, sliced into the top of the packaging, removed a couple of dried shells and then cut those too. A cardboard packet was next, all the cuts and slices done carefully, methodically. He even cut into the edge of the wooden chopping board that hadn’t been used properly in months, and then sliced off the top of his left thumbnail.

Throughout there was nothing but calm concentration on his son’s face. That was somehow more chilling than anything else; the way he watched his own actions with such calm focus. As if he were learning how cutting with a scalpel felt. As if he were practising for something.

“That isn’t normal behaviour, is it?” He said to Leisel.

“It’s... certainly unusual. This was from a camera in your apartment... I take it he doesn’t know he was being recorded?”

“Look, I kept hearing him getting up in the night and shuffling about. I was worried. I was right to be, judging by this. He’s... he’s just not normal. And I feel terrible saying that about my own son, but it’s true. This isn’t the only thing making me think this, Leis, there’s something wrong with him and the chip is making it worse.” He pressed his palms tight together, took a breath to try and steady himself. “Please help me to help him. I don’t want to go down the official route, he’s doing well academically, I don’t want anything flagged up on the system for him in the future. I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t scared for him.”

He held his breath throughout the long pause. “I’m not going to use a back door to look at his sandbox, I just can’t. That’s a breach of trust I’m not prepared to do.”

He rested his head in his hands. He was shaking.

“But I will come over at lunchtime and sit down with both of you and sort this out. Okay? I will help you John, but it’s all going to be above board, and respectful of his privacy.”

“But he won’t say anything! He’ll deny-“

“It’s all I’m prepared to do. Take it or leave it.”

Her voice was hard. It seemed that several years of being in charge of one of the most successful tech divisions in the country had toughened her up. “Okay. He should be home then. Ping me when you’re close and I’ll make sure he is.”

There was another pause. Then she said “Okay, I’ll see you then.”

––––––––

Marco paused at the entrance to the living room when he saw Leisel sitting on one of the fold out chairs.

“Come and sit down, Marco,” John said. “This is Leisel, an old friend of mine from college.”

“Hey,” Marco said with a nod towards her.

“Hi Marco, nice to meet you.”

Marco sat in the armchair, the only place available so he wouldn’t have to sit next to his dad on the small sofa. He was frowning, tense, and looked like he was ready to bolt out the door any moment.

John took a breath to speak but Leisel beat him to it.

“Marco, I work in the division that created the neural chip APAs. It’s part of my job to continually improve the AI that underpins the system, making it more responsive and intuitive when it’s acting as the interface between you and your chip’s functionality.”

“Okay. Is this some sort of follow-up to my fitting?” It was obvious he didn’t believe that, he was just trying to make sense of the odd atmosphere in the room.

Leisel shook her head. “Your dad got in touch with me because he’s concerned about how you’re adjusting to having a neural chip and I said that I would come over and see how you’re doing and have a chat.”

Marco’s eyes narrowed as he looked from Leisel to John. “Concerned? Why?”

“Don’t get all defensive,” John said.

“He’s concerned,” Leisel jumped in before Marco could reply, “because he’s a control freak who doesn’t know how to communicate properly.”

John blinked at her as Marco nodded. “Got that right.”

“It’s clear he hasn’t been able to talk to you for years. And being a middle manager in a division that’s all about easy to measure metrics and clear, rule-based criteria that leave no room for ambiguity, he isn’t equipped to deal with a teenaged human being in his life. No-one is giving him clear and immediate feedback on his progress, so he’s been spiralling into a panic about his ability to parent because he can’t cope with anything that isn’t like the inside of his brain, or his division’s work evaluation process.”

“Leis! What the hell?” John couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

He glanced at Marco, embarrassed, only to see his son smiling at Leisel in a way he simply hadn’t seen before. It was like a cloud had lifted from him. “Thanks,” he said to her. “It’s nice to know it isn’t me.”

“It is you!” John said. “You won’t talk to me. You do weird things in the middle of the night. You spend hours wandering around the woods like some weirdo!”

The thunderous glare was back on Marco’s face. “There’s no point talking to you about anything. Everything I say or think is wrong and-“

“That’s a bit of a bloody generalisation!”

“And you never let me finish a single bloody sentence.” Marco added, quietly. Then he frowned. “What do you mean weird things in the middle of the night?”

“John-“ Leisel began but he was too worked up to care.

“I know you’ve got hold of a scalpel and you’ve been cutting things.”

The horrified look on his son’s face felt like vindication. Now it was out in the open, there was no denying it.

“You’ve been spying on me?”

The sense of triumph faded now he understood the source of that horror. It was all unravelling again. He looked to Leisel desperately.

She sighed. “Marco, your dad has been a dick. There’s no two ways about it. He dug himself into a mental hole and did something stupid and unforgivable because he thought it was the right thing to do. We can’t do anything about that now. What we can do something about is where we go from here.”

“Did he ask you to come here like some sort of... what... intervention or something?”

Leisel shrugged. “It was probably a mixture of desperation and latent misogyny, you know, like I’m a woman, so probably have some sort of genetic predisposition to knowing how to deal with teens even though I don’t have any kids of my own. Oh, and the fact that because of my job, I could exploit a back door into your chip and see what you’re doing when immersed. Yeah, probably mostly that.”

Marco shook his head and looked back at John. “You are such a dick.”

John fumed. This wasn’t going the way he planned at all. He was so angry he couldn’t speak, couldn’t even form a sensible thought.

“So why didn’t you just do the back door thing?” Marco asked Leisel.

“I respect your need for privacy. Funnily enough, it’s the subject of a lot of conversations where I work. Listen, if you want to stop this conversation now, that’s fine by me. If you want to get a coffee with me over at the café, that’s fine too. It’s up to you. But whatever you choose Marco, it’s going to affect how things move forward with your dad.”

“How come you’re so... reasonable?”

Leisel smiled. “I didn’t get on with my parents either. I’d like to help make things better for you than they were for me. But it’s entirely up to you. Not your Dad.”

“Now just wait a bloody moment,” John said. “It is up to me too, actually.”

“Why?” Marco asked. “I’m getting top grades. I do everything I’m expected to do. I go to the compulsory bullshit this crappy place makes all the kids do. I’m polite to the staff, I don’t cause any trouble. But even that’s not good enough for you, is it? You don’t even like me going for walks in the woods. That’s like, the most harmless thing I could do here, and you don’t even like that.”

“Who goes walking in the woods? That’s weird.”

Marco groaned. “It’s not. People used to do it all the time. There are other people who do it here.”

John felt a flicker of hope. “Oh, you walk with other people?”

Marco’s nose wrinkled. “No. Shit, why would I do that? They’d just want to talk about boring crap all the time.”

“You’re a loner, who’s always had strange ideas about the world, who’s got hold of a scalpel and cuts things in the middle of the night. Tell me why I shouldn’t be worried about that!”

Marco’s glare lasted a good few seconds, then he seemed to come to some sort of decision. “If I give you access, can you do something that lets you and Dad into my chip’s sandbox mode?”

“Your chip has coded that environment to work with your brain, so we can’t enter it like a public access mersive. But if you give me access, I can render the environment in a private game server. Then it will code the elements in such a way that we can all experience it immersively. It’ll only take a minute or so.”

“Okay. How do I do that? I’m fed up with him thinking the worst of me all the time. I want to prove that I’m not doing anything weird or dodgy or dangerous.” He scowled at John again. “Just cos you were addicted to porn or whatever when you were sixteen, it doesn’t mean I am.”

“I wasn’t!” John exclaimed, but both of them didn’t seem to be paying any attention to him anymore. Frustrated, he got up and made a cup of tea.

He stood at the window and watched a flock of birds wheeling in the sky. He was still smarting about what Leisel had said about him when she called him over. “It’s ready. I’ll send invite links to your APAs, then they’ll bring you into my server once we’re all immersed.”

“You take the sofa,” John offered. “I’ll lie down in my room.”

He shut the door and sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, trying to quell the churning unease in his stomach before lying down and closing his eyes. After running through the compulsory safety checks with his APA, he found himself in a plain grey corridor. Leisel was standing a little way away with her back to him, leaning against a closed door, the only one in the corridor.

“Is this the copy of his sandbox environment?”

She turned and shook her head. “No, it’s through this door. He’ll be here any-“

“Hey.” Marco’s voice came from behind him. “Is it through there?”

Leisel nodded as the two of them approached. “Before we go in, I want you to be certain you’re happy to let us see what you’ve been doing while immersed,” she said to Marco. “There’s a lot of pressure on you right now, and if you don’t want to do this, we can stop it now.”

Marco shrugged. “It’s the only way to get him off my back. And before you ask, Dad, there’s no way I could be hiding anything here, is there Leisel? I told my APA to give yours all the data, so you can see it’s the truth.”

She nodded, opened the door and let Marco through but put a hand on John’s chest before he could follow. “I want you to have a think about why he felt he had to say that,” she whispered to him, then removed her hand and entered the room.

John paused at the threshold, looking down at his default avatar shoes, feeling miserable. All he’d wanted to do was make sure his son wasn’t sinking into some sort of mental illness or got involved with the wrong crowd online, and somehow he’d been cast as the villain. He sighed and consoled himself with the fact that there would be answers now, and probably vindication.

He stepped into a room that wasn’t much bigger that the open plan shared living space of their apartment, cluttered with shelving on two walls, a long workbench on the third and no less than three different desks on the fourth. A workshop?

Oh shit, was he learning how to make bombs?

But then his eyes fell upon a table in the far corner covered in a cloth. Whatever was hidden beneath it was uneven and strangely shaped. Was he trying to invent something?

Marco had gone to stand next to it, arms folded, defensive. “You don’t recognise this room, do you?”

John shook his head. “Should I?”

“It was grandma’s workshop. Mum’s mum.”

He scratched the back of his head, confused. “She died before I got together with your Mum.”

“Yeah, she did. But she was a YouTuber, Dad, one of the early adopters, nearly thirty years ago. Mum told you about it.”

“She didn’t.”

Marco groaned. “She did, and you just didn’t care. You’re never interested in anything. Mum and I have been watching Grandma’s videos for years. Ask her if you don’t believe me.” Marco shook his head in disbelief. “You had no idea Mum and I meet up online, did you? Well, we do. We’re pretty close actually.”

“What do you make here, Marco?” Leisel asked, drifting along the desks and taking in the assortment of tools and materials scattered upon them.

“I’m working on this.” Marco pulled off the cloth and revealed a partially constructed miniature landscape. “It’s a model railway. I made that here, in the workshop, from scratch. It’s not that far along cos it took weeks and weeks to code this place properly, cos the mersive software can only create so much from 2-d stuff, and Grandma’s videos were really low res. Some of the specialist crafting tools she used just weren’t in the default sandbox sets, and a lot of the modelling materials too. I had to do a lot of research to get the textures right, the feel of the tools, all of it.”

“But... there are builder programs that are far more advanced than this,” John said, still confused. “There are dozens of games where you can create landscapes, trains, in moments, with just a wysiwyg.”

Marco rolled his eyes. “I knew you wouldn’t get it. I want to make things. Actually craft them. Hold them in my hands. Get some bits of wire and glue and paint and sand and make a tree! A tiny little tree, not some life size thing that isn’t real. I want to make it perfect, from scratch. I want to feel it with my hands. I don’t want to point at floating boxes or wave my hand up and down to make bloody full scale hills appear! I want to craft a landscape with cardboard and wood and polystyrene and take hours and hours doing it. There’s no way to do anything like this in the real world. All this stuff costs a fortune now and there isn’t the space and anyway, you’d take the piss out of me. You always did, every time I tried to make anything real. So I hid it from you.”

Stunned, John stayed silent.

“Is this why you go for walks, Marco? In the woods?”

He smiled at Leisel. “Yeah. I like looking at the detail. I take reference pictures, and texture readings. I borrowed the scalpel from one of the labs we were given a tour of, so I could record how much pressure different materials need for accurate cuts. I wasn’t sure it was programmed right here. I needed data. And I took it back this morning. No one saw.” He jammed his hands in his pockets. “I suppose you thought I was practising to be a serial killer or something.”

It stung because it was true. It had crossed his mind. All this time he’d been fearing the worst when all his son had been doing was making a model railway in the most inefficient way possible. “I over reacted,” he forced himself to say. “But this is still weird.”

“I’m done with you,” Marco said and walked out.

Leisel watched him go and then came closer. “You just couldn’t say it, could you?”

“Say what? This is weird, Leis, admit it. He has state of the art mersive technology, a way to meet people from all over the world, to collaborate and play games, and he recreates some ancient workshop and makes model railways? I mean, come on!”

“All you had to do was say sorry,” she said quietly. “He’s a great kid. You’re a prick and you always were.”

She headed for the door. “Leis! It’s not as bad as I feared but... this isn’t the sort of behaviour that’s going to land him a decent job. What kind of future is he going to have if he carries on like this? Can’t you see it from my perspective?”

With a loud sigh, she turned around and faced him. “Yeah, I can. And it just reinforces what a dull, selfish, stupid man you are. You can’t even see the incredible skill set he’s been developing here, and that’s not even including the crafting aspect.”

He hated the way she spoke to him. “I am not selfish and I am not stupid. That’s unfair.”

She rolled her eyes. “JeeMuh, you are so mediocre. Not once have you said thank you for helping to resolve this. Not once have you asked about me, or my life. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go and take Marco out to lunch and make sure he’s okay.”

She left and he stood there, dumbstruck until the room faded around him and he was booted out of the server, his consciousness thrown back to his real body lying on the bed. He listened to the sound of their footsteps, the front door closing, and the silence that remained. For one excruciating moment he felt the full force of shame at how he’d behaved, but it soon passed. Parenting was hard. Everyone knew that. Especially when you had a weird kid like Marco.

The Dangerous Choice

SPOILER WARNING: This story features the pathologist from After Atlas, set just before a particular scene in the novel. For that reason, it has a very minor spoiler in it if you haven’t read the book yet, but it isn’t a deal breaker.

––––––––

“Don’t you realise how dangerous this is? How can you even be considering it?”

Linda regretted having accepted the full sensory call. If she’d agreed to voice only, she’d have been able to do more useful things while her sister was nagging her, like pick the lint out of her belly button.

Instead she made a show of leaning back in her chair, taking her time with the gesture, like their father used to when they were kids and desperate to get an answer out of him. She’d never understood why he did it until now.

“Mags,” she began, knowing it would piss her off. “Since when have I ever done anything without thinking it through first?”

“Are you joking?” Maggie’s avatar, reflecting her physicality just as accurately, was standing, shoulders hunched with tension, arms folded tight across her body. She was in her sixties now, the stress of being the eldest sister and her entirely self-imposed sense of duty to police the family showing in the lines on her face.

Linda smiled. “Not exactly.”

“Oh.” Maggie’s lips drew into a tight pucker as she realised she’d missed the sarcasm. “Just taking the piss out of me, obviously. Just because I care about you.”

The stab of guilt was sharp, but she’d spent the last six months working on understanding how the people in her family manipulated each other with words and performative kindness. This time, the cut didn’t go deep.

“I know you do,” she said. She still wasn’t ready to really lay it out to her sister and say; “Actually Maggie, this isn’t about caring about me at all. It’s about your discomfort when I don’t fit in with your idea of me.” That was a conversation for another day. Probably the day that someone in the family found out about her tattoo. A tingle ran up her spine at the thought of the ink decorating her skin, defiant. Not today, Lin, she told herself firmly. “All I can do is ask you to have some faith in me. I honestly have thought this through. It’s important. Important to me.”

“It could get you killed. What about the kids?”

“My adult kids who don’t even live in the same country as me anymore?”

“They still need you, Linda! What if you die because of this?”

“I’ll die of something eventually. And if it’s doing something that I believe is the right thing for me, so be it. I’ve got to go. I need to deliver some gingerbread.”

“Fine. Don’t listen to me.”

Maggie ended the call and her projected image disappeared from Linda’s vision. She rested her head back long enough to birth a string of colourful expletives and then got up, made sure her new red boots were in her backpack, along with the tub of gingerbread and the note inside it, and then put her gear on.

She’d long since trained herself out of the idea that buying things could give her happiness; it was a radical act she was most proud of in the face of the constant onslaught of advertising, but she couldn’t deny the sheer joy her most recent purchases had given her.

The boots were just cute. They were red and they sparkled and they were exactly the kind of boots she had always wanted and that her ex-husband would have derided her for. She couldn’t decide if she loved them because of the way they looked or because of the glittering rebellion they embodied.

As for the other purchase –

“Call request from Rowan,” her APA said just as she was leaving the house.

“Open the garage door and accept voice only.”

She stood still, not wanting the crunch of the gravel to interfere with the sound. It was cold but the storm that had been the talk of Newton Abbot and surrounds had passed, leaving nothing but a scattering of dead twigs on her drive.

“Mum? Why voice only?”

“I’m leaving for work, love. What can I do for you? What time is it over there?”

“I’m about to go to bed.”

“Is everything ok? Work going ok?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine. Good, actually. I’m calling because I got a call from Auntie Maggie. She was really upset.”

“Ro-“

“Look I know she’s... highly strung but she did sound really worried about you. About something you’re about to do?”

Linda sighed and walked into the garage. “You’re right, she is highly strung.”

“Mum, I know things have been tough lately, and I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you.”

Linda stopped. “Love, you need to stop with that. I don’t ever want you to drop your life just because of me going through some stuff. And I told you, it’s been hard, but it’s the best for both of us. We’ll be happier apart.”

Linda’s heart ached in the pause that followed. Rowan had accepted the divorce better than most in the family, but she knew it still hurt.

“Auntie Maggie said that she thinks it’s making you take unnecessary risks... that you could be doing something that’s going to get you killed.”

Linda sucked in enough air to cool the rage at her sister. What kind of woman calls a kid on the other side of the world to infect them with her fears? And it wasn’t even really the fear she’d be killed; rather the fear that her opinion of how her youngest sister should live her life was no longer all powerful.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” she said. “I’m tired of all this bollocks. There are more important things going on in my life right now than Maggie’s bloody control issues.” With a glance to the icon in the bottom right corner she added visuals to the call, but instead of opting to show herself with the cam in the corner of the garage, or have her avatar projected to Rowan’s interface, she elected to show hir what her retinal cam was currently processing. She took care to look out of the open garage door first.

“Are you in the garage?”

“Yes. This thing she’s freaking out about, did she actually tell you what it was?”

“No. She just got kind of hysterical and ended the call. But it sounded really bad. I know she’s probably overreacting to something, but it just weirded me out enough to call. Is that ok? Are you ok?”

Linda smiled to herself. Rowan was a good kid. Clever, and kind with it. “The thing she’s worried about is this.”

She turned her head so that the view sent to Rowan tracked across the space to rest upon the vintage Ducati gleaming under the garage’s LEDs. “She thinks I’ve just applied for the specialist licence, she doesn’t know I already got it. I did all the advanced driving courses, I jumped through all the hoops and it’s already mine. In fact I’ve been riding it for nearly a month.”

“Oh DAAAAAAMN! Is that a Panigale V4 R?! Holy shit! That’s a pre-riots model!”

Linda laughed. Of course ze would understand. “It is.”

“I had no idea there were any left outside of museums! And it’s road legal?!”

“Just about. It felt like I was applying for the right to own a rocket launcher for recreational use. Maggie’s friend came across a post I made in a thread three months ago about the advanced licence application and freaked out. She doesn’t know I’ve already done it.”

“It’s... it’s so beautiful. I bet it goes like the wind!”

“Like shit off a shovel. And it hugs corners tighter than a vicar-“ she stopped herself just in time. “It rides like a dream. I love it.”

“It makes you happy.”

How she loved that it wasn’t a question, just a statement of understanding. “Yeah. It really does. I know that makes me shallow but-“

“Mum, you couldn’t be shallow if you tried. I think it’s awesome. I thought Auntie Maggie was talking about you... I dunno, you having some sort of mid-life crisis and deciding to go into extreme sports or something.”

“Oh, I’m definitely having a mid-life crisis,” Linda said with a grin as she unhooked the helmet from its spot on the wall. “I’m just handling it fabulously well. Call me when you wake up and I’ll show you my new boots. Oh! And I dyed my hair. Did she tell you that?”

“No! Back to brown?”

She brushed her fingertips over the red-tipped spikes. The last time they’d had a call with full visuals, her hair had been blonde and in a shoulder-length bob. “... not exactly. But I’ve got to go. I need to catch someone before they go back to London. Work thing. Love you, Button.”

“Love you too, Mum. Don’t go getting into any races with anyone, ok?”

“It’s Devon, love. Literally no-one else has a vintage bike in this whole county. I’ll be fine.”

The call ended and she put the helmet on, then her gloves. Strange that this blew up today of all days, when she was about to do something that genuinely could put her life in danger if certain people found out. Her family was worried about her having a bike, when it was the safest time in road use history to ride one, given that practically all of the other vehicles on the road were controlled by intelligent systems that noticed bikes better than humans ever had. If her family knew about the note resting on top of the gingerbread in the box in her bag, they’d be far more worried. But as she’d said to Maggie, she was going to die eventually. At least it would be because she was doing something that she believed in.

Linda straddled the bike and started it up. She’d spent her whole life doing what other people told her to do, acting the way they thought she should, looking the way they wanted her to look. Now it was time to rev the engine and hold her own mortality in her hand, both literally and figuratively. After all, wasn’t that truly what freedom was?

Tailor Made

Jordan leaned back in his chair and tried to work out if he would rather have a swimming pool or a view of the countryside. His corp had always had such a good benefits package that he’d never felt the need for a pool, as the complex they housed him in had an excellent gym and other facilities. But there was something about not having to share a pool that really appealed to him. Being able to get up and swim without having to get dressed and undressed in between. That was a marker of success he’d never considered before, because that sort of pay-grade had never seemed within his reach. It did now though.

He grinned and scanned the last few lines of his report, a copy of which was now waiting in his boss’s inbox. She was probably reading it already, knowing her. Increase in sales of 2000%. Brand approval ratings the highest they’d ever been. And the one line he was particularly proud of: “This approach has not only transformed an accidentally created product that was slated for incineration into this season’s must-have shirt, it has also inspired an entire range that is currently being fast tracked to capitalise upon this campaign’s success.” He did that. Jordan Flynn, the one they all wrote off as someone who couldn’t hack it in corporate marketing, the one they all said would crash out after a year. They’d pegged him as the sort of dreamer that would end up scraping a living in those last digital enclaves of independent creatives, trying desperately to monetise their mediocre art, just to hide their shame at being unable to play the corporate game. Well he showed them. And with these results, he was going to go up at least two pay-grades. There were already six managers trying to persuade him to join their projects, and two other corporations had set headhunters on him, judging by the dinner invitations he’d received that week. His mum had always said his star would rise. Now it was one of the brightest in the whole damn sky.

He showered, using the time to decide that he would go for a private pool instead of a view. He could have anything he wanted displayed on the smart walls that came with those apartments, meaning he could change what his ‘windows’ looked out on every day. Much better than being stuck with the same old fields or whatever.

The first alert came in while he was drying his hair. The AI that managed the customer engagement profiles across the different social media streams was flagging up an increase in abusive language and negative brand commentary. He’d been expecting a backlash – it was inevitable with any campaign that had achieved so much success so quickly – but the increase was too sudden and steep to reflect that.

“JJ, have the Bouncers checked for any new bot activity relating to top tier keywords?”

“Yes,” his Artificial Personal Assistant’s smooth female voice replied in his head. “No new bot activity reported.”

The networks were pretty good at shutting down attack bots these days. “JJ, scan the top thousand influencers and see if any of them initiated negative conversations regarding the brand in the past...” he opened the AI’s report and flicked it to display on the bathroom mirror. Jeemuh, the abuse was rocketing up and seemed to start out of nowhere just ten minutes before. “Errrr.... In the past thirty minutes.”

“No conversation starters identified. However, twenty five percent of this group have reacted and amplified negative comments originating elsewhere.”

Shit. That wasn’t good. He scanned through the data displayed on the mirror, unable to see any obvious trends regarding origin. The negative comments and abuse seemed to spring up organically across five continents, suggesting the root wasn’t one particular influencer anyway.

He dressed quickly, drilling into the data as he did so, using JJ and the customer engagement AI to try to find the source of the problem. By the time he was fully clothed and in his recliner, ready to go into his virtual office, it was clear something was going horribly wrong and was centred on the mersive that had been the cornerstone of the most successful marketing campaign in the brand’s history.

“Incoming call from Jobeda Bannerjee,” JJ told him and his palms started to sweat.

He accepted the call, mercifully voice only as Jobeda didn’t like looking at anyone in pay-grades lower than her own. “Jordan, excellent report, very impressive work.”

“Thank you,” he said, smiling as sweat prickled down his back.

“I take it you’re monitoring this increase in negative commentary?”

“I’m on it already. It’s... not the backlash I was anticipating. I can’t rule out some sort of competitor attack. I’ll have a report for you within the hour.”

“No, Jordan. You’ll have solved the problem within the hour. Then you’ll write me a report on it.”

“That’s... that’s what I meant.”

“Of course you did. I look forward to it.”

The call ended. He took a deep breath and released it as slowly as he could.

After another ten minutes of data mining he had a better picture of what was going on. It looked like someone had hacked the mersive at the centre of their campaign. Everyone – or at least the portion of that group who was active on social media – who’d experienced it for the first time since 09:41 GMT were seemingly disgusted by the experience and filled with rage towards the brand. Many described ending the mersive in less than a minute, others declared that they had endured it to ‘find out the truth’ and were now accusing the corp of crimes against humanity.

He flagged it up to the tech team who maintained the servers, asking them to check for a hack, a clever one that had somehow not been picked up by the system. They took some persuading, but screenshots of the comments out there in public feeds were enough to convince them. There was no evidence of any hack, or any interference with the mersive file or the servers it was downloaded from. They even sent him the results of a basic comparison test, showing the millions and millions of lines of code that made up the mersive’s file – one time stamped ten minutes ago and one time stamped from launch day – showing no differences. It was code that not even the creators of the mersive would have seen, protected from having to write all of that by the collaborative AIs.

Apparently, it proved that the same mersive was being served, downloaded and experienced by the global audience today as had been for the past month. “Something weird is going on,” one of the engineers said to him, “but if it’s any consolation, it’s not our fault.”

It might have been a consolation for her, but not for him. It was clear that as the architect of the campaign, his head was on the block.

A panicked message from the lead visual creative reminded him that, as stressful as this was, he wasn’t one of the targets that the increasingly upset public were now attacking. “This is damaging my reputation, as well as your brand,” it read. “It must have been hacked. The things people are accusing me of make it clear they are not experiencing the mersive we designed.”

Jordan called up the designer’s public profiles and read what he was being accused of.

“How dare you put me through that.”

“How can you put that place together with those words and that asshole smiling and flirting all the way through? Are you sick? Do you get off on doing this to people?”

“I heard nothing but good things about this mersive and so I gave in and tried it. I’ve fallen out with all my friends over this, I can’t believe they thought it was cool. What the hell is wrong with you and all of the sick people who thought this was okay?”

It was tame compared to what would have been said before the anti-anonymity laws came in. What was so disturbing though, was the contrast between these and the comments he’d quoted in his report.

“I never thought that a commercial mersive (commersive? Hey, I made a new word!) could ever be a genuine experience. Like, a life changing one. But here I am, realising I am not actually straight and that I need one of those shirts. I... don’t know how I feel about this.”

“It’s kinda creepy. I know all the info it draws upon is already out there online, but having it turned into a tailor made fantasy is pretty intense. And I know it’s been made to sell a shirt but... I dunno, I feel like buying the damn shirt just to say thanks for one of the most genuinely amazing experiences I’ve ever had outside of a gaming server.”

Without evidence of someone with a vendetta stirring up trouble online, the only thing he could assume from the difference in comments was that end users were experiencing a different mersive to the one that had been available for a month. But how was that possible when the source file was exactly the same?

He fired off a query to the server engineer, asking if it was possible for a hacker to somehow intercept the file en route to the end user’s neural chip. The answer came back with a swift rebuttal and a suggestion he ask his APA to explain how all the safeguards to prevent that sort of thing had been established over ten years ago, making it pretty much impossible. He was a marketing director and should stay within his sphere of expertise, that was what she was really saying.

He had just had the idea and the skills to find the right people and secure the funding to make it happen. He couldn’t explain how any of this stuff actually worked, and in those dark moments when he really did start to think about how a computer chip in his brain could make him experience alternative realities flawlessly, it scared him. He didn’t want to think about how experiences could be reduced to a series of electrical impulses manipulated by tiny computers. Some part of him refused to believe that. And yet here he was, architect of a marketing campaign lauded as the herald of a new age in his industry, and all of it thanks to a series of electrical impulses manipulated by tiny computers.

He massaged his temples and then realised there was only one thing left for him to do. “JJ, are you able to... errr.... Empty my neural chip’s cache or whatever the equivalent is to an old-fashioned browser cache so it’s like I’ve never downloaded the shirt ad?”

“I can, yes. Would you like me to do that?”

“Yeah.”

When it was done, he opened up his social feed, found the ad that was being promoted in the live stream and selected it, as if he were a member of the public. He needed to see if the experience really had changed, or if this was some sort of misinformation campaign.

After lying down on the bed and going through the usual safety checks, Jordan closed his eyes and ‘opened’ them in his bedroom. Only this wasn’t the real room, it was the opening of the mersive, coded to start wherever the consumer was in the real world.

It was jarring when he got up without deciding to, and it was something the creative team had debated fiercely. It straddled gaming and passive consumption, an uncomfortable middle ground where the only way to enjoy it was to accept the mersive’s realism coupled with the lack of control. One of the psychs on his team argued that it would make the consumer more receptive later in the experience, as that first moment of realising they were not fully in control would weed out those who would actively reject the rest of the mersive experience. That was why they kept it in, because they thought the campaign would be more effective if only the most suggestible consumed the entire mersive.

He went to the door, hearing his favourite song playing beyond it, and opened it onto a beautiful room that belonged in a high-end penthouse, rather than his real apartment. So far, so good. This looked exactly as it should, tailored to his taste and just as personalised as it should be.

He followed the music, through huge double doors that opened out onto a landscaped garden with swimming pool. Interesting... that was new. Probably because of what he’d been thinking about that morning. And there, right on cue, walking into shot – or rather, into view – from the right hand side of the garden, was the first incarnation of the Guide. A curvy redhead, wearing nothing except the long shirt in its crisp linen-esque fabric, the top half in white and then shimmering from the waist down with a multitude of subtle, shifting colours which reminded him of the inside of a paua shell. Damn, but it looked good on her. The hem ended half way down her thighs and the shirt was pulled in with a gold belt that sparkled in the sunshine.

“You looked stressed, darling,” she said in that perfect voice. “Let me take you away from all of that.”

The last time he tried the mersive, she’d told him he looked tired. All within expected parameters, so far.

She took his hand and pulled him towards the pool. They jumped in together and the water they plunged into was warm and then he was standing up in waist deep water and she was leading him up a set of marble steps out of an ornamental fountain in the grounds of a fantastical palace. Only this time she was a willowy brunette and the shirt was worn open over a t-shirt and shorts. She looked over her shoulder at him and gave him the sort of smile that made him feel like he was the only man in the world. He’d seen focus group feedback that described that smile making the consumer feel safe, feel loved, feel cherished. It made them feel whatever they needed the most, given by a Guide tailored to appeal to their tastes and needs. It was the absolute cutting edge of dynamic mersive technology and Jeemuh, he really was a fucking genius because this was just the best ever-

Something was different. They were walking towards the palace and even though it looked the same as the last time – like the best example of a fairytale Bavarian castle – the sounds coming from within had changed. Instead of music playing and the sound of a party, there was the dull roar of... machinery? He’d never heard anything like it before.

“Are we going to a party?” He heard himself say, and it felt wrong.

“We’re going to see if you like it. There are plenty of places to get away from the crowds though, don’t worry.”

The dynamic scripting was still working. It had picked up on his trepidation, and tweaked her response.

They went up the steps to the doors of the palace and she flung them open and they went inside and-

Oh God.

It was a factory. The heat and humidity were stifling and the air stank of hot machine oil and sweat. There were rows upon rows of industrial sewing machines worked by exhausted women, not a single white face among them. They were all making the same garment. A long shirt in linen-esque fabric...

A large banner was strung up on the wall opposite him and he couldn’t stop himself from reading what was written on it.

Everyone here gets paid two cents a shirt.

“Isn’t it exciting?!” The brunette’s comment was part of the original script, but in this context, it was sickening. They were supposed to be looking at an amazing party filled with vintage film stars and fantastical creatures.

“I... I don’t want to be here,” he said, feeling like he couldn’t breathe. It was the script for someone who didn’t like parties.

“Let’s go somewhere quieter,” she said, giving the appropriate dynamic response. He was pulled past workers who didn’t look up, whose frantic concentration chilled him. They worked so fast it was almost marvellous to watch, if it wasn’t so...

He bristled. Of course it wasn’t exploitative. They could better themselves, get a better job, if they just tried harder.

Then they were going through another set of doors to emerge on a metal gangway in a huge space overlooking vats of liquid that racks of shirts were being dipped into. There was another, much larger banner.

That liquid is highly toxic before the fixing chemicals are applied. Pay: ten cents a batch.

The brunette posed next to him, adjusting the collar of the shirt, looking so beautiful it made him ache for her. But against that backdrop, with the sounds of people coughing as they hauled the dripping racks out of the vats, it felt awful.

He’d seen enough. “JJ, end mersive.”

The brunette looked at him with a seductive smile. “Don’t you want to see the forced labour camps where they make the fabric?”

And then, with a jolt, he was in his room again. “JJ, confirm mersive has ended.”

“It has. Would you like me to delete the file? You seem distressed.”

“No. Not yet. Just make sure it’s not... doing anything in my chip, okay?”

“There are no viruses or threats detected.”

He sat up, feeling sick. At least he knew where to look now. Something was wrong with the locations module. “JJ, put an urgent call through to Linette Rogers. Voice only.”

She was clearly expecting his call. “Jordan. I know and I’m handling it.”

“What the fuck happened? It’s your module, isn’t it? Were you hacked? I thought that wasn’t possible. You lied to me.”

There was a pause. “I know you’re upset, but you need to remember that we’re both professionals and that right now, I am the only person who can fix this.”

He drew in a deep breath. “Sorry.”

“The locations module was subcontracted and those elements were pulled from their servers in real time to render the environments. It looks like one of their employees was a hacker who faked his identity and credentials and deployed the new code this morning.”

“How the hell could this happen? Aren’t there safeguards against this sort of thing?”

“You wanted to keep costs down and this was the way to do it. We basically outsourced the chunk of code that renders the environments, and that code was served from that start-up’s database, not ours. Our product gave it the basic data it needed to tailor to each consumer, and then their product interpreted it and drew from their database to create the backdrops. Only it seems that the hacker changed their server-side code so that no matter what was requested by our server, it would always tell the database it wanted those... factory interiors and rendered them for every consumer in real time. It was actually quite a brilliant hack. Very hard to detect, even when we were looking for it.”

“When will it be fixed?”

“They fixed it just as you called. We’re doing a forced refresh of all the downloads now, just to be certain. Anyone downloading from now on will get the correct version. This will all be over in about ten minutes.”

“And the hacker?”

“Gone. No way to find them. They were really, really good. And don’t even think about throwing me under the bus over this. I logged my security concerns with my supervisor at the time, and I told you we should have just brought them in-house but you didn’t want to budget for that. This is on you.”

“Fuck you very much,” he snapped and ended the call.

It was damage control now, more the damage to his career than to the brand. He dashed out the report, taking care to gloss over his part in the decision to outsource parts of the dynamic experience, instead choosing to present a plan for ensuring this could never happen again. In fact, it was going to massively lower the value of the start-up, so they’d be able to buy it at a fraction of the price now. As long as he got ahead of the narrative in the feeds, managed to persuade people that this was a malicious hack with no basis in truth, this could actually be to their benefit.

But even as he sent off the report, the feel of the air in the sweatshop lingered. Was that really how the shirts were produced? All he knew was that an order was mixed up, the wrong chemicals were used for the dip dye and it created the opposite effect to what the designer wanted. He just happened to see the retail sample at the crisis meeting and had the idea to make the most of having ten thousand units to shift.

He waited with sweating palms, wondering if he was going to get that promotion after all. Only seven and a half thousand people worldwide had experienced the hacked mersive. None of them were influencers. The negative coverage would fizzle out. He checked the data again and saw that there was already an uptick in new downloads, as people were no doubt curious about whether the weird rumours were true. Hell, if he’d waited ten more minutes before writing the report, maybe he could have spun this as a positive event!

“Incoming call from Jobeda Bannerjee.”

“Right, now we know what happened, see to it that the company that was hacked is bought,” she said. “Draft a letter to the people who downloaded the mersive in the danger window, explaining it was a malicious hack that exploited a third-party system and was beyond our control. I want to sign it off before it goes out. Once that’s ready, get the social media AI to give a free shirt voucher to all of them with the letter and monitor their feeds closely. Our lawyers say we can handle anything that arises.”

“Consider it done. Have you seen the latest spike in downloads? It looks like it was a blessing in disguise.”

“That’s one way of looking at it.” She sounded unconvinced and then ended the call.

By the end of the day, everything was not only sorted out, but the download spike had translated into a sales spike and he was feeling pretty damn pleased with himself. Yes, something bad had happened, but he’d handled it.

But when he lay in bed that night and shut his eyes, he saw that room again. He felt that heat, recalled that smell. He wanted to rinse it out of his brain, like the corrupted mersive had been effectively rinsed out of the internet. He couldn’t imagine doing his job before the riots, before the gov-corps made it so hard for people to save copies of mersives streamed directly to chips. Back then, that hacked version would have been flying around the internet forever, fading from the global conversation only to resurface again, maybe years later, like social media shingles. His career could have been ruined.

What had that hacker hoped to achieve?

An email notification made him frown. JJ should have blocked that, it being half one in the morning. Perhaps it was from Jobeeda. “JJ, read that email to me.”

“If you’re struggling to sleep because of what you saw, perhaps you have a conscience. That place was real, those people are real. They are working there, right now, two cents a shirt, working sixty hours a week just so they can feed their families and survive. Gaborcorp makes a profit of over fifteen dollars per shirt, even after distribution and the likes of you have been paid. Stefan Gabor’s personal fortune is estimated to be over one hundred and twenty billion dollars and is likely to be twice that by the end of this year. You are part of that machine, Jordan. But it doesn’t have to be that way. A man of your talents could help us to change the world. I’m waiting for your reply. Just tell your APA that you have a conscience and it’ll know how to get in touch with me.”

He sat up in bed and opened his inbox. There was an email from Jobeeda, several from various colleagues and one from his kid sister, but nothing that looked suspicious. “JJ, show me that email you just read me.”

“That email has been deleted.”

He groaned. This was some hacker bullshit and he didn’t understand any of it and it annoyed him. He wiped the sweat from his upper lip and opened the email from Jobeeda.

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m impressed, but you handled things well today and the board agrees with my recommendation for your promotion. Thought I’d let you know now, before the formal offer comes through from HR, so you can spend the weekend deciding if you want a pool or a view. Choose wisely.”

He laughed. He’d done it! He’d got exactly what he wanted. He closed the interface and dropped back onto his pillow. He wanted a pool. He closed his eyes and imagined plunging into it, alone, no-one else to schmooze or impress while trying to exercise. Just him and the water and his swanky apartment. He forced the memories of the sweatshop away with the promise of future pool parties, of champagne and skinny dipping with someone gorgeous. He couldn’t do anything about the way the world worked, could he? He didn’t force those people to work in those conditions. He wasn’t going to let some stupid, idealist hacker get in the way of his career and the trappings of his success. He’d worked sixty hours a week for years and this was his reward. He was getting the apartment with the pool because he’d earned it. He deserved it.

Didn’t he?

What Travis Built

They stood outside the chicken coop. There was a square shaped hole for a window, a rectangular one for the doorway and a ramp leading up to it. Travis wiped his hands on his jeans and grinned at Carl. “All done. They’ll love it.”

Carl’s arms were folded across his chest, his expression that of a man shown a wheelbarrow and being told it was his transport for the day. “You’re joking, right?”

He wasn’t. Travis scratched his head, waving away a bee that had strayed too close. “What do you mean? It’s got a roof, they can get in and out and they won’t get wet. What more does it need?”

Carl sighed. “It needs to look like this.” He pulled a notebook out of his back pocket, a crumpled, dog-eared thing and thumbed to the correct page. There was a detailed schematic that made the coop look like a sketch compared to an oil-painted masterpiece.

Travis looked up from it with a raised eyebrow. “You’re joking, right?”

Carl didn’t seem to appreciate having the same question thrown back at him. “I know it looks complicated, but all the materials and tools we need are in the shed. Chickens lay more eggs if they have the best coop. And they’ll be bigger.”

“Carl-”

“And the bigger and better quality they are, the more they sell for at the market.”

“There’s a market?”

“Of course there is.”

“Shit, don’t tell me you actually go to the market and sell the stuff you grow?”

Carl shook his head, much to his relief. “Nah. I get a drone to collect it all. I’m not into that side of things. Too many people.”

Travis nodded, swatting away a fly. He looked past the farm’s boundary at the forest. There were no other structures in sight, no sign of civilisation anywhere, other than the road that ran through the creek and up to the farm. No vehicles were on it though. He and Carl had very different ideas about how many people were too many.

He was tired and it was hot and there were too many bugs. Carl was looking down at the picture in his notebook and then back up at the coop, like he was building up to saying something difficult. Travis could predict what it was going to be and didn’t want to argue about having to rebuild it. “Why are there so many bloody insects?”

“Because we’re in the countryside,” Carl replied as if he were an idiot.

“You know what I mean.”

“I have the realism settings dialled to max.”

“Can’t you just turn the bugs off?”

“No, we need them for pollination and for the-” He stopped at Travis’s second audible sigh.

“We don’t though, do we?” Travis said, trying to be patient. “I mean... it’s just a game. We don’t need to worry about pollination, not really.”

“Yeah, but if you...” Carl trailed off. “You don’t like it, do you?”

“No! Yes! I mean... I do like it. I just...” Truth be told, he hated this game. But he loved the way it transformed Carl, the way his shoulders dropped and his smiles were real and the earnest determination with which he dug over the vegetable patch. He wasn’t painfully thin here, as if his brain interpreted the way this place made him feel and filled out his avatar’s cheeks and gave them a ruddy glow.

Travis took a breath and added a smile for good measure. “It’s just not like anything I’ve ever played before, that’s all. It’s far more...” he looked back at the coop then held out a hand for the notebook. Carl gave it to him and his heart sank at the sight of all the labour that design required. “...hands on.”

Carl smirked. “It might be good for you, if you gave it a try. After all those years of-“ His eyes flicked away to an incoming message. Travis stayed silent, knowing his Artificial Personal Assistant would only allow through messages marked urgent when they were playing ‘Grow Your Farm’. “Shit,” he muttered under his breath and then looked at Travis. “I have to go. Something’s come up.”

“Is it Dee?”

A pause. “Sorry, I can’t say. I guess you’re off the hook. Next time we play, I’ll give that strategy game you like another go. It’s only fair.”

He leaned closer and then just brushed his arm with his fingertips in that maddening way Carl always did, as if wanting a kiss but then not being able to commit to it at the last moment. Travis let his frustration go. He knew why Carl was like that. He just had to be patient. He watched Carl jog over to the farmhouse and go inside, a notification that he’d left the game popping up in his visual field moments later.

For a while Travis just stood there, unsure of what to do. He’d psyched himself up for twee nostalgic crap that needed to be tolerated for the sake of making Carl happy and relaxed. The last time they’d spent an afternoon here, Carl had actually embraced him and rested his head on his chest when they took a break from fence building. He was playing this game for a totally different set of rewards, and now Carl and any hope of gaining his trust were gone, he was at a loose end. He didn’t feel like switching out and being a general commanding futuristic armies or being a prince in ancient Egypt.

Something was unsettling him, making him shift from foot to foot. Then he realised it was the silence – or rather the lack of human made noise. There was only birdsong and the buzzing of the insects. No gentle hum of electric cars nor the sound of their tyres on tarmac. No planes or drones... nothing but... he shuddered... nature.

Looking for some sort of distraction, some anchor in the midst of the lack of stimulation, his gaze rested back on the coop. He glowered at it, seeing it now with Carl’s critical eye and knowing that it would never do.

He flipped through the notebook, wondering if Carl had deliberately left it with him in the hope he’d take a look. It was filled with planting schedules, optimal conditions and care for a wide variety of crops, and all sorts of additions to the farm like grain silos and an irrigation system and a cow shed. They were all written in neat handwriting and the pencil sketches were smudged in places where an eraser had been used. He’d created this by hand, in-game by the look of it. Maybe on another play through. Where did he learn all this stuff? From trial and error, or did he research it all in meatspace and memorise it? The realism settings they were playing with made it impossible for it to be gleaned from an APA here. There wasn’t even a virtual internet in this game.

Not even knowing why he was bothering, Travis tucked the notebook in his pocket, drifted over to the shed and opened the door. He’d never set foot inside, Carl always being in charge when it came to whatever needed tools, and he was unsurprised by how neat and tidy it was. There were spiders in the corners, their webs the only thing out of place. Then it occurred to him that they weren’t out of place at all, they made perfect sense here.

Moving inside, it took a moment for his eyes to adapt to the darker interior. The wall opposite him was covered in tools, each hanging in its own defined place with a painted outline around it. He had no idea what half of them would be used for, his attention darting from one to the next without even knowing what most of them were called.

Then his gaze skimmed over a chisel and darted back. It was familiar, somehow. The floorboards creaked beneath his boots as he crossed to unhook the tool from its spot, leaving just the painted shape of it and the nail it hung from. He flipped the tool over, the sharp edge of the chisel now on top and looked at the base of the metal, just above the wooden handle. As he’d expected, a tiny gold logo was stamped into it, too small to make out properly in the shed’s dim interior. But he didn’t need to take it outside to know what it looked like; a tiny celtic knot used by the same company that his grandfather’s tools were made by.

And in that moment, he wasn’t standing in a virtual shed in the middle of an artificial farm being generated by his neural chip. He was in his grandfather’s workshop again, watching the old man stooped over the chunk of wood he was carving, held still by huge clamps.

He could still remember watching the wood shavings spiralling to the floor from each stroke of the chisel, the smell of the sawdust and his grandfather’s ancient cologne. He sat for hours, watching the owls being excavated from the chunk of wood by his grandfather’s skill.

“But Papa, why don’t you just print it?” he asked on a particularly hot afternoon, feet swinging back and forth as he sat on the high stool in the corner.

His grandfather straightened up, stretching out his back and running his hand over the nearest owl’s wing. “You know what this is for?” When Travis shook his head, Papa smiled. “This is one of the legs for your Nana’s new kitchen table.”

“But... but won’t it need four legs?”

“Aye, it will.”

“But it’s taken you days and days to do that one and it’s not even finished yet! If you need four, you should definitely print them! I can show you how. I can make all sorts with it.”

Papa laughed. “That’s not the point, Travis. It’s not about getting it done as quick as we can. I’m retired, I have all the time I need.”

“But it’s so hard! It makes your back ache and makes you sweat.”

“That just proves I’ve been working.” He came over then and put the chisel in Travis’s hand. “If Nana wanted a printed table, she could make it herself. You know she wrote the software that they use?”

Travis shook his head as he passed the chisel from one hand to the other, still feeling the warmth his grandfather’s labour had left in the wooden handle. “Did she ask you to make it by hand?”

“No, I offered. I’m carving each of these legs so that the table is something super special. Something unique.”

“You can print unique things.”

The old man laughed. “True. But when that table is done and in its place in the kitchen, you know what will happen every time she walks into the room?” At the shake of his head, Papa gently took back the chisel. “She’ll look at that table and she’ll know how much I love her. She’ll see every owl, and how each one was hand carved. How every feather, every eye, every beak was shaped with love. I’m not just making a table leg there,” he nodded over at it. “I’m making a little domestic monument to how much I love her. That’s what making something for someone else does, Travis. It’s not the thing being made that’s important, it’s the effort. It’s not the doing, it’s the why you’re doing it.”

A tear splashed on the shed floor, making a gentle splat and breaking the memory’s hold on him. The chisel seemed so much smaller than the one he’d held back then, but he knew they were the exact same model, he had simply grown. He smiled at the sheer unlikely coincidence of it, grateful for the reminder of a time in his life when things really were simple. When the people he spent his time with loved him, rather than abused him. Before Gabor happened to him.

Pressing the chisel against his chest, he cried for his grandparents, for that table that he sat and ate his meals at until he went to university, for the life he had lost. Then when it was done, and his heart was eased, he went outside and looked at the crappy coop he’d cobbled together in just a couple of hours. He squeezed the handle of the chisel, pulled out the notebook and went back into the shed.

––––––––

Travis was so absorbed in hammering the last nails that he didn’t hear Carl’s approach. He jumped when he turned to get the very last one from the box and saw him there, mouth hanging open.

“Travis....” Carl managed to say and then just pointed at the coop, awestruck.

With a grin, Travis tossed the hammer onto the dirt and straightened his back as he patted the corner of the roof. “What do you think?”

“It...” Carl took a step closer, moved to the side to look at it from a different angle. “It’s exactly what I wanted. It’s just like the sketch! I... I had no idea you knew how to do this sort of thing!”

“I didn’t. I checked the game rules and you can have augmented assistance without losing the benefit of the build. As long as you’re putting in the same amount of effort, it doesn’t matter if you’re getting tuition along the way. In fact, I think the egg laying bonus actually goes up because I was a novice and had to raise my skills to build it and the game system-”

Carl threw his arms around him, squeezing the air out of his lungs and leaving the intended words stranded in his throat. “You don’t know what this means to me! Thank you! It’s amazing! I love it and the chickens are gonna love it too!”

Travis didn’t dare return the hug with the same strength, not with the way Carl spooked easily, so he just gently rested his hands on his back until he was finally released. Carl turned so they could both step back and look at the ridiculously palatial coop with its heated floor, ceiling fan, solar panels and individual nesting boxes.

“I can’t believe you did this,” Carl whispered.

Travis smiled and reached for his hand, squeezing it gently. “I just hope that every time you look at it you’ll...” his throat clogged suddenly and he swallowed the lump away. “...you’ll ignore that back right corner on the roof because I cocked up the felting there.”

Travis gave him a sideways look, seeing something in his eyes that suggested Carl knew that he wasn’t saying everything on his mind.

“Okay,” Carl said, “I will, I promise. And... and Travis? Would you... I mean... would it be okay if... if I kissed you?”

“More than okay,” Travis croaked. And he did.

Non-Person

London, 2032

The glass above the door sparkled in the blue light. She watched it dance across the door frame too, pulsing, like a cold heartbeat. No, that wasn’t right. Heartbeats were made of sound, and this blue was silent. But the pulsing was right. A visual heartbeat perhaps? Did that work?

“No, she doesn’t live here. Sorry. We don’t know anyone called Helen Wilkins.”

The woman at the door was wearing a satin gown. Teal. It was very pretty, but the wrong colour to go with the blue from the police lights. Just a shade lighter might have done it, but-

A tap on Helen’s arm distracted her. “We’ve got the wrong house. Does your house look like this one, ma’am?”

The nice young police officer was talking to her now, not the woman in the teal dress who’d answered the door. She smiled at him. He had kind eyes and he did look genuinely concerned. She looked at the door, at the glass above it, at the big windows. It was probably Georgian. She wasn’t entirely sure. It had been a long time since she’d thought about architecture. Was it the Georgians who liked the big windows? Or the Victorians?

“She’s confused,” the police officer said, and this time he was talking to the woman who’d answered the door again. “This is the address last registered to her, but we pulled that from old tax records which haven’t been the most reliable and residential records were corrupted when the civil service was... disbanded.”

The woman in the teal dress frowned at her. “Well, she wasn’t one of the previous owners. I met them when we bought the place, and that was over five years ago. They were a much younger couple, and both men.”

“Am I going to be put in prison?”

“No, love, no,” the police officer said. “We’re just trying to work out where you live. It can’t be far.”

“She was wandering around the streets dressed like that?”

She looked down at her unicorn onesie. It was a little threadbare, granted, but didn’t merit such a disdainful look.

“Like I said, she’s a bit confused. The hospital won’t take dementia cases so I’ll have to put her in a cell for the night and carry on looking tomorrow. Hopefully someone will report a missing person.”

“What if she lives alone?”

“Then if we can’t work out where she lives, and if she can’t remember more about herself, she’ll probably go into the system.”

The woman in the teal dress looked upset by that, though it wasn’t clear why. System was such a harmless word, surely?

“But she remembers her name? How can she be a non-person if-”

“Non-person status has nothing to do with remembering your own name,” the police officer said. “The rules are changing, very fast, everything’s... in flux. You know how it is.”

“Darling!” A man’s voice shouted from inside the house. “I can’t find my special cufflinks!”

“But I am a person,” Helen said. “I’m not a unicorn, if that’s what you think. It’s just a onesie. I don’t know why people don’t wear them anymore. They’re so comfy. And they match my slippers.” She pointed down at her bare feet. “Oh. I must have forgotten to put them on.”

There was a long pause, and the man inside the house called for the woman again, more exasperated.

“You can’t lock an old lady in a cell overnight just because she’s confused,” the woman said. “We have a spare room and can easily make her comfortable for the night, if you’re able to pick her up first thing in the morning?”

“It’s not what we’d normally do....”

“Is anything normal yet?” The woman in the teal dress said it with a sigh. “Surely it’s better for everyone involved? Would you like to stay here tonight, Helen? It’s already dark and getting cold, you don’t want to be wandering around, do you?”

“That would be lovely! You have such a nice dress, and the windows are so big. I lived in a house like this once. I think it was this one.”

“I appreciate this,” the officer said. “It’s busy in the cells tonight and we wouldn’t be able to make her comfortable. I finish my shift at eight in the morning, so I’ll be over at seven, if that’s not too early? Then I can do a proper handover for the person who’ll be helping her tomorrow.”

“That’s fine, but it’s only six. Your shifts are long!”

“It’s a double. Covering for a colleague who’s just had a baby.”

“Come inside, Helen. My name is Charlotte.”

“First, I just need to get you to sign this form please,” the officer said, passing over his tablet to her. “And then tap on the tick at the bottom, and if you don’t mind, there’s a star rating thingy there on the next page.” He cleared his throat. “It’s a... it’s a new thing I have to ask for, sorry. It’s because we’re run by ProCapita Inc now and...”

“I understand,” Charlotte said and tapped all the things on the tablet as Helen wriggled her toes, amused by how they looked against the pale stone of the doorstep. “I suppose it’s better than not having any police at all, isn’t it?”

The officer just smiled and rested his hand on Helen’s shoulder. “I’ll see you first thing in the morning, Helen, okay?”

“Okay, love,” she said. “You be careful out there. Some people are rioting!”

“Oh, that’s all over now,” he said. “Don’t you worry about that. Have a good night’s sleep, okay?”

Charlotte beckoned her in and the floor tiles of the hallway were just as cold as the step outside. The door was shut behind her and the blue pulsing light soon faded. It was a nice hallway, with flowers in a vase and a chandelier too. Very fancy.

“Charlie, didn’t you hear me?” A jowly man with greying hair and wearing black tie was coming down the stairs. He stopped at the sight of Helen. “Who the hell is that?”

“This is Helen. She’s staying over.”

“What?”

“She’s lost, and the police were going to have to keep her in a cell and I couldn’t bear the thought of it, so we’re putting her up for the night.”

Helen smiled at him. “I’m not a unicorn, I’m a person.”

The man blinked at her, looked down at her feet, then at Charlotte. “But we’re going out.”

“I’m not, though,” said a quiet voice from behind Charlotte. “I can take care of her. It’ll be nice.”

“This is our daughter, Dani,” Charlotte said, stepping aside to reveal a petite teenager wearing heavy eye makeup, baggy electric blue trousers and a white t-shirt that read “It’s capitalism, stupid!” in big red letters. “She’s too cool to go to things with her parents now.”

“You don’t want me there anyway,” Dani mirrored her mother’s tight smile back at her. “I’ll only quote Marx when some exec starts boasting about profits.”

“She only does it for attention,” the father muttered, as if suddenly caring about what Helen might think of them.

“If it was only for attention I’d write it on my chest and flash it to the press on the way in. You just don’t understand it.”

“I understand that communism was the worst experiment of the 20th century!”

“Oh, cos capitalism has worked out so much better for everyone in comparison, right?!”

“Not now!” said Charlotte. “God, can’t the two of you just stop fighting for five bloody minutes? Nigel, your cufflinks are in the top right hand drawer of your dresser, inside the walnut box, where they always are. Dani, thank you, I would be very grateful if you could keep Helen company and make up the spare room bed for her. Why don’t you put the kettle on to make her a cup of tea?”

“Yeah, will do. Wanna borrow my slippers?” Dani asked her.

“Well, mine should be upstairs, but if you don’t mind popping up to get them for me, I’d be very grateful. They’re pink and they have “Smash the Fash” written on the toes.”

Dani’s face was transformed by a huge grin as Nigel’s indignant glare fixed on Helen. She gave him a cheeky wink as Dani took the stairs two at a time, sniggering to herself. “Only joking,” she said when the teen was out of sight.

His pale blue eyes narrowed. “Where is it you live? I can call a cab.”

She smiled at him. “Here. I live here.”

“I don’t bloody believe this,” he said and went back upstairs.

Charlotte gave another strained smile. “He’s up for an award tonight. He’s always grumpy before a big event.”

“Ooooh, lovely. What’s the award for?”

“Biggest twat in London,” Dani said from the top of the stairs. “The others don’t have a chance. He’ll win.”

Charlotte sighed. “CEO of the year. Automotive industry.”

“That’s what I said,” Dani came down the stairs with a pair of black fluffy slippers in her hand. “I couldn’t find your ones, Helen, sorry. But mine are comfy if you’re ok to borrow them?”

“You’re a poppet,” Helen said, and put them on. They were a little tight but she didn’t mind that. “Shall we have a nice cup of tea?”

She followed Dani into the kitchen as Nigel came back downstairs and the couple began to put on their coats. Helen took in the minimalist lines of the kitchen cupboards and expensive appliances and just how cold the place felt. How unlived in.

Dani filled a kettle that looked like it could also search for life on Mars and called out a goodbye to her parents as they left. “They’ve got all the teas. Do you want a normal one or some weird energy balancing bollocks blend?”

“Just normal. Milk, no sugar.”

Dani got the mugs and dropped a teabag in each one, flashing a grin at Helen as she did so. “It’s so good when they’re out. I don’t have to use the teapot. Mum only makes everyone use it because it was so expensive. It’s all such a stack of arse.”

“What does your Mum do?”

“Oh she works for the big corp... never really been sure what exactly she does – she doesn’t like talking about it – but I think it’s got something to do with transport planning. That’s what she argues about a lot with Dad anyway. And now that corp is taking over from the government or something.” She shrugged. “I mostly just ignore them. They don’t get me.”

“Must be nice for your Mum and Dad, being able to help each other with work though.”

“No, they don’t work together.”

Helen just smiled. “Having something in common, then, what with both of them being interested in how people get about. It’s nice. There’s a long history of people who come from families involved in cars making decisions about public transport. Take Ernest Marples. He made a lot of decisions about how people travelled in the twentieth century. He liked cars a lot more than trolley buses and trams and trains and made it much easier for everyone else to like cars too.” She accepted the cup of tea with a smile. “Course, the fact he used to own a company that built roads, then transferred his shares in it to his wife, probably had nothing to do with that.”

Dani frowned. “That’s a bit dodgy, isn’t it? Didn’t people complain at the time?”

“Complain? He was a Tory. It was expected! I’m sure some people complained. But they weren’t rich or Tories, so nothing happened.”

“Are you saying my Mum is like that? She hated the Tories. She’s glad the government collapsed.”

“No, dear, I wouldn’t be so rude as to say such a thing to a nice young house guest who’s made me a lovely cup of tea, would I?”

Dani folded her arms and frowned at Helen. “So if this is your house, how come I live here?”

“Well there must have been a muddle. Maybe it was when this kitchen was redecorated. It used to be dark blue. With brass handles and a big table over there.”

“Oh, I remember that! Mum and Dad hated it and had it all ripped out. That was... five years ago? Where are you going?”

“I need a tinkle, won’t be long.”

“There’s a loo down the hall-“

“Second on the right. I know, dear. This is my house!”

Helen shuffled down the hall, glancing again at the chandelier. She wasn’t sure what she disliked the most; the fact that it was so ostentatious, or that it was such a clumsy attempt to hide the security camera. There were much better ways to do it. She hummed an old Prodigy song as she went into the downstairs bathroom and locked the door.

The first thing she did was pull the onesie’s hood off her head and give her scalp a good scratch. She was worried she’d said too much to the girl, but she couldn’t stop herself. The wee thing was obviously pushing back against all the madness and just needed a little more encouragement, a little bit of support to start really questioning the prison they were all in. But one t-shirt did not a member of the Movement make. And she was still fundamentally a child of the enemy, and therefore not to be trusted. But how she ached to take her under her wing! Maybe another time. Tonight’s mission was far easier to achieve, and had a deadline.

She dug her fingernail under the top pom-pom on the front of the onesie, found the tiny box inside and opened it. She took out the four microcams and carefully stuck them to the palm of her right hand. The smart glue was only mildly tacky against her skin, but as soon as she pressed each cam to its intended location, the glue would quickly form a strong bond.

After taking a moment to mentally run through her plan, she pulled the hood back up, flushed the loo, let the tap run and then went back out again.

“I’m a firestarter,” she sang quietly, heading in the opposite direction to the kitchen. “Twisted firestarter.”

The room she was looking for was exactly where she’d hoped it would be and the door was open. Why lock it when computer security was so good nowadays? She went inside and allowed herself a moment of sadness when she saw the built-in bookcases filled with terrible books. Where there was once a cosy armchair was now a small desk with only the screen projector nubbin giving away the fact that it housed a computer.

“I’m the trouble starter...” She ran her hand along the bookshelf as if she was looking for a particular novel, pausing to move one of the cams from her palm to stick it under the shelf. “Punkin’ instigator...” She placed a second on the inside rim of the floor lamp as she pretended to be confused by its presence. There was probably a home security cam in here and she had to keep up the act.

The third was placed on a plant pot with a busy textured surface. Between the three of them, anything done at the desk would be picked up. Dani’s mum was vice-president of the newly formed gov-corp that had seized power only weeks ago. The Movement needed to know what they were up to, and this was just the first step towards getting all the information they needed. “I’m the fear addicted...”

“What are you doing?” Dani had appeared at the doorway.

“I’m looking for my favourite book. Someone’s moved them all around.”

Dani sighed. “Helen, this is my Mum’s office now. Come back to the kitchen. Your tea is getting cold.”

“Oh yes! A nice cup of tea is just what I need!”

“What were you singing?”

“Look up The Prodigy. I loved them when I was at school. Ah, those were the days!”

The doorbell rang just as they reached the kitchen and Helen took the opportunity to drink her tea as Dani answered it. She listened to the low murmur of a male voice, then Dani’s, and then footsteps.

“Helen, there’s a guy at the door who says he’s your grandson. He’s been looking for you.”

“Malek?”

Dani looked so relieved at the sound of the same name given by the man at the door. “He’s come to take you h-... out to dinner.”

“Ooooh, how lovely! He’s such a sweet young man. Want me to introduce you properly? He’s single.”

Dani laughed. “No, I’m good. I’ve given up on boys. They’re all dicks.”

Helen nodded. “Very sensible. Women are much better lovers. Thank you for the tea my darling girl.”

She headed for the doorway and saw one of her brothers from the Movement standing outside, wearing the face of a worried relative. “Gran! There you are! We’ve been worried sick!”

“I just came home for a nice cup of tea with Dani. Why didn’t you tell me we were going out to dinner? Is it somewhere I can wear my onesie?”

“You look great, Gran, it’ll be fine.” He smiled at Dani as Helen went out. “Thanks again for looking after her. It won’t happen again.”

“No worries. Take care Helen. Nice to meet you.”

They went down the steps and Helen waved to Dani. “Smash the fash darling!” she yelled at the top of her lungs before being escorted away with ‘Malek’s’ coat around her shoulders. It was only when they got to the next street that she realised she was still wearing Dani’s slippers. Ah well. A nice souvenir.

“I can’t believe that worked,” Yves whispered, once he was sure they were far enough away.

“Of course it did. Everyone thinks that old women are harmless little things that never had any sort of interesting life.”

“Was it strange, going back there?”

She nodded. “Brought back memories. But at least I went back there to actually do something that might make a difference, instead of just cleaning up after some good for nothing billionaires. God, I hated them. The ones that bought the place off them don’t seem any better, though the girl was nice. Anyway, the cams are in place and we’ll soon know what that bloody gov-corp is planning.” She squeezed his arm. “That’s enough work. Let’s go get drunk and listen to Swedish Death Metal. Like the good old days.”

Interview with the author

Several years ago, I read a novel which had an interview with the author at the back of the book. I really enjoyed getting an insight into their thoughts about the book and so asked my patrons and newsletter subscribers to send in questions in the hope you would enjoy the same experience. Here is the crowd-sourced interview we created together. Thanks to Matthew Galloway, Leighanne Bryar, Rachel Brown, Josie Adam, Stuart Mackenzie, Ciaran O’Connor, Rachael, and others, for sending in these questions!

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What do you think is the ideal reading order? I read in order of publication, but afterward I thought that if I was recommending it to a friend, I'd probably suggest reading Planetfall last. It's also a completely different reading experience if you start with Before Mars.

Ooooh, that’s a tricky one! The only thing I feel strongly about is that Atlas Alone should ideally be read after After Atlas (good lord, what an ugly sentence that is, but it is so ugly I want to keep it now!) due to the continuation of certain key characters and events from one to the other.

Planetfall is the least intertwined with the other books, so yes, that could easily be last and have little impact on the enjoyment of that one or the others. In fact, I think reading it last might be better, as then you know what happened to all the people they left behind.

Before Mars is the trickiest one to place in an ‘ideal’ order, as I think that is the novel most affected by whether After Atlas has been read beforehand. Funnily enough, a friend was talking to me about that the other day, and she said she was glad she’d read After Atlas first, as it amped up the background tension in Before Mars, which she enjoyed. I don’t think that is necessary though. One experience is not more ideal than the other, I suspect, merely different.

What interests you about religious cults?

Blimey, what doesn’t interest me about religious cults would be far easier to answer!

In the interest of sanity, I’ll try to work out what interests me the most, but please do understand that this is like trying to choose my favourite Data moment from the entire seven seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

I think that a lot of the fascination revolves around the power that the cult leader wields over the cult members. Every time I’ve learned about a cult, and read about the (often awful) things that happen when they are at the peak of their power, I’ve found myself marvelling at how one person can exercise that much control over other people. How the members/victims are so utterly duped by the individual that they give up everything, and sometimes even their lives, because this person wants them to. Hand in hand with that is a fascination with the (usually) awful people who become cult leaders. How could anyone do that to others?

I don’t really think that any of the Planetfall novels focus on a genuine (fictional) religious cult, by the way, as long as we’re not including the United States as it is in the novels. And even that is a stretch. There’s a big difference between a right-wing Christian dominated plutocracy and the average cult, after all, even though there are parallels. Characters throw around the word ‘cult’ in reference to the Pathfinder and the entirety of the original Atlas project, but I don’t see it as one. Lee Suh-Mi never creates something that is designed to ensnare, manipulate, subjugate and control people. She had an experience, she talks about it, she sets out to act upon it, and the sheer force of her will, the power of someone being singularly dedicated to something they believe in, sweeps others along with her.

I think it’s the same for The Circle. Yes, there are many elements of a cult, but I wouldn’t say that it meets all of the criteria (even though they did have a very charismatic leader who drew people in, and had a huge amount of power over them). I would argue that it has more in common with counter-culture alternative living communities. They are consciously shrugging off the integration with tech (and by extension rampant consumerism) that humanity no longer even conceives of fighting in most places.

I would not be surprised if I wrote a book centred on a cult at some point. There is just so much to explore.

What happened that led to Jeemuh being a common exclamation? It implies an absolutely massive mainstream religious shift.

I can understand that conclusion, however, that’s not how I imagined the root of that slang. Major religions have not changed much in the 80 years or so between ‘now’ and the setting of the Planetfall books.

I saw Jeemuh as one of those words that has evolved from a counter-culture use of several words with high religious significance strung together to form the most offensive expletive possible, generated within youthful groups rebelling against the rise of the right wing appropriation of religious beliefs.

I’ve always been fascinated by the sheer power of expletives, how they evolve, and how, ultimately, they lose their power. I can imagine a time, decades before the books are set, when young people, seeing the extremist Christian right wing finally seize totalitarian power in the US, wield the words they are not supposed to ‘take in vain’ anymore, mixed with words and names of power from religions that are vilified by the state media, as verbal weapons to shock and push back. But that string of words gets edited, clipped by rapid, angry speech, shortening to a version that is much easier to say. Of course, like today, it spread across the world thanks to social media. And then, over the years, it lost its power, much as the word ‘fuck’ has in my lifetime. I remember when that sounded absolutely shocking. Now it is pretty much punctuation for a vast number of people (and is actually one of my favourite words due to its sheer grammatical flexibility!).

I am a huge fan of slang and its etymology, and only had the courage to invent one new word for these books. It’s easy to overcook it, I think, to fill speech with so many new words that it can alienate the reader, which is the last thing I wanted.

I think of these books as classic hard sf, that is, they take a technological advance such as 3D printing and explore the implications in depth. How much research did you do on the actual science of things like 3D printing, Mars colonies, etc.

Quite a lot! With the 3D printing, I researched the cutting edge applications of it at the time of writing, and then logically (I hope!) extrapolated how it could be used in the near future. As for the Mars stuff, I read a lot about the geology of Mars, the survival challenges to be found there and en route, and some of the proposed technology to deal with them. Then I combined that with my thoughts on how 3D printing could evolve, coupled with advancements in AI, and then the setting of Before Mars shows how I would personally meet those challenges with those technologies (i.e. sending an AI with bots and printers first, printing a base using the regolith, creating underground dwellings to be the simplest and most cost effective defence against radiation, establishing survival infrastructure and THEN sending the squishy, fragile humans last.

As for the neural chip stuff, of course, that is not an original idea in sci-fi! And while I feel that the level of technology relating to the neural chips in these books has a somewhat implausibly accelerated timeline, I allowed myself that ‘artistic licence’ as it was something I really wanted to explore. I was absolutely fascinated when the first brain implants to treat Parkinson’s disease were used, and decided to draw the logical extrapolation from that point, along with the parallel evolution of augmented reality technology, to the neural chips in the books.

The technology propelling Atlas 2 through interstellar space, and the ship’s design, arose from conversations about my ideas with three very clever friends of mine, one a quantum physicist, one a computer security expert and one a naval architect. It’s not really explored in the book itself, but I know it’s there.

I also read a lot about artificial intelligence and (separately) consciousness. The first to see how far we’ve come and where people in the industry think it could go, the second to see just how far our understanding hasn’t come!

The question I'd love to ask is about the genre of your Planetfall series.  They all delve deeply into character (which is part of what I adore about them) and world building, but aside from that, they each feel like science fiction mixed with a different genre to me.  If that's also how it feels to you, how did you go about deciding to do that and choosing what genre to explore in each book?

Okay, short, easy answer to this question: yes, I too see them as science-fiction with an additional sub-genre. As well as science fiction, Planetfall is a mystery, After Atlas is a police procedural/murder mystery, Before Mars and Atlas Alone are both psychological thrillers. However, I never think about that when I write. The story comes first, genre classification last, after it is finished. I didn’t set out to write science fiction combined with different sub-genres, I just focused on the characters and the story.

The use of genre is something I wrestle with, as I often find it so frustrating! I understand it has its advantages; putting books into genre categories makes it easier for the book marketing and selling machine to connect readers with more of the sorts of books they will probably like. That can only be a good thing, right?

The thing is, no system of categorisation is perfect, nor remotely satisfying, in my personal opinion. Genre tags are weighed down with our (often inaccurate) notions of what those genres contain. I don’t read romance novels, but I do sometimes narrate them, and the sheer breadth of that genre never ceases to amaze me. (I also believe it is the hardest genre to write and romance writers are the ones I admire the most as a result). How many people assume it’s just a genre exploring the same old formula again and again, like a terrible Hallmark movie pressed onto the page? How many avoid that genre for that reason?

When I tell someone outside of the glorious world of geekery that I’m a science fiction writer, the most common response is ‘So you write books for children?’ It takes every mote of my self control not to launch into a ten minute rant about how that assumption encapsulates the impoverished view of science fiction held by people who have never read  the genre. That it evolved past pew-pew fights and cardboard characters that only existed to deliver interesting concepts and thought experiments a long time ago. It is difficult for me to express how hard I have to fight the urge to grab said person by the shoulders and yell “SCIENCE FICTION IS FOR ALL AGES, LET ME TAKE YOU TO A LIBRARY OR BOOK SHOP RIGHT NOW AND PROVE IT TO YOU!”. But I don’t, because I am rather shy and also suspect that it wouldn’t be the best way to encourage somebody to try something they have already mentally written off as ‘not for them’.

This is why I am always utterly dismayed when an author who has only written and read ‘literary’ novels decides to write science fiction. I’m sure that they too hold these same outdated ideas about what the genre is, as the concepts they focus on are so tired, already having been thoroughly discussed in the genre-wide dialogue that science fiction writers have been conducting for over a hundred years!

(Takes a deep breath.) I will not name names. Buy me a drink at a convention if you want to witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational opinion!

I know that there are so many readers who won’t even consider reading any of the books I write because of their genre (and some who won’t read them because of my gender, but that’s another rant). Which is why it gives me such an unbridled, toe-curling rush of pleasure when I hear from someone who has never read science fiction before, and has been badgered into reading one of them by a friend, and discovered that the genre is not what they thought! So many people have told me that they had no idea that science fiction could be more than just spaceships and lasers (don’t get me wrong, I love spaceships and lasers, there’s just so much more to science fiction!). After that initial rush of pleasure comes heartbreak, because there’s so much great science fiction out there, and there are so many people missing out on it! For the last ten years or so we’ve been in a genuine new golden age in science fiction, of which so many people are utterly oblivious. But at least the Planetfall books have been like a gateway drug for those discovering/re-discovering the genre. The latest was the bloke who sold me my current car, incidentally, who hadn’t read any science fiction for over thirty years!

The other reason I am uncomfortable with genre classifications is because I rarely write books that sit comfortably within them! The Split Worlds series is, nominally, urban fantasy. But they don’t have many of the hallmarks of urban fantasy, and they span several sub-genres. For some people, ‘urban fantasy’ is conflated with paranormal romance, or they think that urban fantasy books only contain vampires (I have met people who literally assumed the Split Worlds novels would have vampires and romance in them because they were classed as urban fantasy. Those were not easy conversations, as those people seemed quite reluctant to alter their idea of the genre.)

I started this with the short, easy answer. I actually feel that the Planetfall novels are explorations of trauma and mental illness, examined through the lens of a science fiction setting, incorporating elements of mystery, police procedural and psychological thrillers. But that sounds wanky and so far up its own genre arse that, of course, I would never actually say that out loud to another human being. Please don’t tell anyone I said it here.

Fundamentally, for me, the vast majority of novels have one core characteristic: the exploration of the human condition. ‘Genre’, for me, attempts to describe the lens that exploration is viewed through. Each one draws attention to different details, each one has its tropes, limitations, and strengths. I have little desire to explore the human condition through non-science fiction lenses, because I love the opportunities this cluster of sub-genres gives. I am fascinated by the intersection of humanity and technology, and science fiction makes that easy to examine. I could also explore that in a romance—actually, scratch that, I do not have the skill of a romance author—I could also explore that in a historical novel. Actually, that’s exactly what I’m doing in my Industrial Magic novels. Only those are classed as urban fantasy.

Okay I am going to stop now before my brain implodes.

Did your writing change after becoming a mother?

I don’t think it did, no. But that’s as much because there wasn’t a huge amount of proper writing* that happened before my child was born. I had only written one novel by that point, and the years of slog from that first (absolutely terrible) book to where I am now happened in parallel with my continuing years as a parent.

The only thing that I feel has really changed after becoming a parent is my experience of imperilled children plots in books and films. I feel the distress of the parental characters so much more acutely now. There have been some TV shows I’ve been unable to watch, as the story was centred around a missing (and then revealed to be murdered) child, and it was just too distressing to experience as ‘entertainment’.

I don’t think I could have - or would have - written Before Mars without the experience of postnatal depression. But I don’t think that counts, as that’s not my writing changing, per se, rather the topic I would focus on. Perhaps I am being pedantic though. Has it changed the sorts of stories I tell? In the case of that novel, yes. But only that one aspect of the novel. I suppose I am far less likely to write a crime novel centred around something appalling happening to a child, but then again, I find it much easier to write about distressing things than to experience them through the consumption of books, TV and films. Probably because I’m in control of the narrative.

* I wrote tens of thousands of words throughout my childhood and early teens. It was all absolutely terrible, aside from, it seems, a short story that I wrote for my A-level English coursework which then secured me a place at university. But that is a whole other (and frankly, ridiculous) tale that would be too long to relate here! By proper writing, I mean the stuff I wrote after committing to really work at it.

Planetfall has aliens, the alien structure, and the elaborate setup of the flower that imparts a compulsion and knowledge/genius, apparently as a deliberate setup by some unknown agency but presumably aliens. The other books don't follow up on any of that. Did you intend to do so, or to leave those as ineffable mysteries?

I had other things I wanted to focus on more in the books I was given the chance to write after Planetfall, but I always intended to return to God’s City one day. Whether all of the more mysterious elements would be fully explored remains to be seen.  Part of me feels they don’t need to be, as they have served their purpose. Another part of me thinks they’re cool and a rich vein to be mined. I’ll see what happens when I get there!

Who is your favourite character or characters to write?

Linda, the pathologist in After Atlas is the first to spring to mind! But I think I just really liked her as a person, and that is different.

I did enjoy writing the various APAs and AIs, just because it required careful thought. And writing the interactions between members of the established team in Before Mars was fun too.

As for a favourite? I don’t know... each of the protagonists were both wonderful and absolutely awful to write. Wonderful because they demanded so much care and attention, to ensure the portrayal of their mental health issues was presented as sensitively and authentically as possible. Absolutely awful in that each of them invited me to tap into some of the worst times of my life and dredge up all the hurt again. Each one disturbed my psychological silt in their own way, and that was hard to go through, particularly Before Mars.

Which character would you actually want to meet?

Oh, I think I answered that! Linda, the pathologist. I want her to be either an eccentric aunt who I can go to in times of crisis, or a best friend who gives me the confidence to do wild things.

Did you know from the start that there would be actual, self-aware AI?

Yes, from the start of writing Atlas Alone, if I recall correctly. Not when I started to write Planetfall some 4 years or so earlier!

It felt... inevitable? If consciousness in humans is an emergent property of having such complex brains, then why can’t the same happen for advanced AIs with incredibly complex hardware underpinning them? It’s a simplistic approach to the question of consciousness, but seeing as we don’t seem to have worked out how to even properly define consciousness in such a way as to be able to study it scientifically, I don’t feel too bad about it.

In your own mind, does printed food actually taste different from organic food, or is it indistinguishable and it's a totally psychological difference?

(This answer includes a discussion about eating chicken.) A few years ago I tried a new brand of crisps (chips, for my American lovelies) and it short-circuited my brain. Or rather, the artificial flavouring did. The flavour was roast chicken and thyme, and what really baked my noodle was how it really did taste exactly as described, but obviously with a texture that couldn’t be more wrong. It made me question the point of refining artificial flavours to the extent that they were that good at tricking my brain, only to put them on crisps that crunch and then soften in all the wrong ways for chicken!

However, I am absolutely certain that the artificial taste isn’t exactly right either. It’s a composite of the experience of eating roast chicken, I think, heightened and without the variety that is present in a real roast. Some mouthfuls are really infused with herbs near the surface of the chicken, some are not. There’s the other flavours in a roast dinner too, like the gravy, the vegetables, that have a huge impact on the experience of that meal, whereas the crisps only provide one sliver of it, unchanging and far too intense, bite after bite.

What I’m saying here, is that certain areas of artificial taste technology are already creating a genuine uncanny valley experience. Will they get better at it? Yes, I expect so, because there is profit in getting people to eat more cheap rubbish that tricks their brains into wanting more. And for that exact reason, I think that the printed food in the novels creates a similar experience to the crisps. The technology will be able to do more sophisticated things with altering textures (depending on how good the printer in that person’s price range is, because capitalism) to better match artificial tastes. Put a home-made lasagne made with real ingredients next to a printed one, and even the best quality printed food will not be as good (just a passable substitute, akin to present-day microwave meal versions set against a skilled cook’s lasagne made with fresh ingredients). I think the success of food printers will really rely on most people not being able to afford real food, and thereby have no basis of direct comparison. They will be evoking the memory of real food for some older people, and becoming the baseline for the younger ones. I think this is already the case nowadays for people (myself included) who only eat the processed versions of certain foods because they are so cheap and convenient.

Wow, that’s depressing. Sorry.

I really enjoyed the use of neo-pronouns for some of the characters. What was your driver for taking this approach?

When writing After Atlas, I did a lot of thinking about what the world could be like about 80 years from now if things continued down the path I could see we were on. This was before Trump, before Brexit (oh, those halcyon days!), and the thing I was most concerned about was the way that late-stage capitalism has pretty much destroyed any sort of decent, moral governance of populations. Business needs and the maximisation of profit is placed before any other concern. The TTIP trade agreement was being debated at the time, and I thought that if that went through in its most extreme form, it could have given corporations more powerful and robust ways to sue governments for access to resources (like water, and we all know how responsibly and ethically corporations are handling that now, right?). I could imagine a cascade of problems stemming from that, leading to the collapse of the state in many, many countries.

Anyway, needless to say, the future I envisaged using this logical extrapolation of a worse-case scenario was pretty damn bleak. I wanted there to be a sliver of light, a bit of hope that not everything was entirely awful. A bit like how even though in the UK we’ve suffered for far, far too long under a terrible government, somehow gay rights have been improved. So I thought that maybe the fight for better acceptance of gender identities beyond the male/female binary could have happened, and been enshrined in law.

Back when I was writing After Atlas, neo-pronouns were not being as widely used and discussed in mainstream media, and it felt like there was still a jostling and settling of what would become the default. In the real world, they/them seems to have become the most prevalent pronouns for non-binary people, but back when I was writing these books, there were lots of different pronouns being used (and still are, I hasten to add!). I simply picked the ones that appealed to me.

Human society and politics haven't progressed in a particularly positive direction in your books. The rise of gov-corps and so on all seems very plausible, but I was wondering if there have been any events or trends in the last few years that you see as pointing in a more positive direction and that might find their way into your future writing?

(Has another sip of tea, stares out of the window, sighs heavily.) There have been many, many positive things happening in the world in recent years, and they are easier to find when you go and look for them. The media only delivers the worst to our mental door and it is easy to let that steal hope from us.

I have a huge and personal interest in the upsurge of sustainable building, natural building, regenerative agriculture and ‘rewilding’ projects that do seem to be having a wonderful renaissance.

There’s a lot of genuinely wonderful technology being developed and rediscovered to help people. I’m thinking about the extraction of fresh water from the air, from fog nets to super efficient condensers that can be used in deserts. And the amazing creation and storage of ice in the desert (look up the yakhchal, if you’re curious!)

I was genuinely thrilled to see the Australians finally boot out Morrison, despite the grip that Murdoch’s evil empire has. And I am thoroughly enchanted with the energy and attitudes of so many teenagers campaigning for the environment and inclusivity of all genders and sexualities. More people seem to be questioning late-stage capitalism, and the growing union movement and increasing number of strikes here in the UK gives me hope too.

But.

But.

I find it very difficult to see a solution to the biggest problems facing us today with power structures staying as they are. I find it hard to get excited about carbon recapture projects when the banking and political systems actively fund fossil fuel companies and huge segments of industry to carry on pumping more into the atmosphere. The people who have the power to change things having no will, incentives, nor moral decency to start dismantling the structures that have made them too powerful and too wealthy. I see no political action within the current dominant structures that will ever address the rampant wealth inequality and wanton destruction of the planet they benefit from.

As for my future writing, having written several novels set in a particular dark timeline, I am choosing to turn towards the light. I almost feel guilty for having written—and potentially given a tiny amount of power to—the darkness of dystopia. I am feeling a huge need, nay responsibility (at the risk of sounding far too self-important) to write a vision of a better future, a way to avoid where we’re heading.

Science fiction is such a powerful genre, but it is far too easy to write about all the damage and horror that technology brings. And it makes sense; so many technological advances have brought terrible consequences with them, especially when unfettered capitalism, greed and corruption are added to the mix. All science fiction novels ever written are about the ‘today’ of the author, and their fears for the future. A rare few focus on the hopes, and I wish to join them. A better world really is possible, especially if we stop prioritising profit over people.

Okay, I’ll get off my soapbox!

A lot of the technology that the characters use day-to-day seem within the realm of possibility in the not too distant future. Putting aside the interplanetary travel which is more in the realm of sci-fi, how much of the technology detailed in the books is based on tech that is currently in R&D phase? What other tech is there in the Planetfall universe that we do not see.

Examples - the description of Carl and his boss in the car where it was explained that to self-drive a vehicle you need a special licence and the system would not let you self-drive during high traffic times. That seems very plausible. Similar to some of the tech from the movie minority report - just far enough to be futuristic but familiar enough to be realistic.

I am such a nerd and love reading about tech developments. A huge amount of the technology featured in the housing in Planetfall is synthetic biology technology already being developed, and was inspired by a talk given by one of the scientists involved in that technology, Dr Rachel Armstrong. I made some guesses about how it could develop in places, but it’s all within the realms of possibility.

A couple of years after Planetfall was published there was an article about the first human organ replacement being printed, which made me very happy. The possibility had been speculated upon for a long time before that.

Lots of 3D printed houses are being created now, after years of speculation. However, this year is the first time I’ve seen actual real world tech being used to 3D print houses out of local dirt excavated on the build site, instead of concrete. Now THAT really excites me! Truly sustainable building is a real passion of mine.

The neural chip technology is something that I could see happening one day, but it will take much longer than 80 years to get the sort of integration seen in the books. That was a bit of artistic licence I allowed myself. But again, the foundations of that technology have existed for some time. Deep brain implants have used electrical stimulation to improve the symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease for years now. Using similar technology for severe depression has also seen some more recent breakthroughs, as has using neural implants to enable people with locked-in syndrome to communicate. And alongside all of this, for years biohackers have been doing all sorts of things with chips implanted beneath the skin.

The only tech I haven’t come across an example of (which does not mean it isn’t out there, of course!) is the noise suppression technology mentioned briefly in passing in After Atlas. There’s a reference to it being used at the nice apartment block that Carlos lives in at the start of the novel. That mostly came out of me thinking about how technology could plausibly be developed to reduce noise pollution for the wealthy people who want the convenience and cultural vibrancy of living in a city, but don’t want the noise.

Lastly, the one big lie, science fiction speaking, in all of the books is the method of propulsion used for interstellar travel. We don’t yet have the ability to generate enough power from a fuel with low enough mass to achieve travelling those distances. Yet.

Did all countries become gov-corps? Did all areas use the bears for the kids to help them and create a digital history?

I cannot speak for every country in the world, as that is both outside of the scope of the books and outside of my understanding and ability to make plausible extrapolations of the future. Definitely the States, Canada, the UK, the majority of (present day) Europe and Russia.

As for the Bears, I see them being in widespread use in those same countries, probably more. And I don’t see them as a positive thing either. I envisaged them as tools of mass surveillance with just enough benefits to make people happy to have them in their homes and not think too hard about how all the data was used.

The evolution of gov-corps - in one of your short stories, you tell the story of a shipping employee stuck on an island all those years. When he is discovered and going to be rescued, the gov-corps sound good and not menacing. And yet, in the novels, the gov-corps have a more sinister feel. I suppose that is a combination of the evolution from a corporation just gaining power and trying to placate citizens to a corporation fully entrenched and also the personal experience of these complex characters ensnared in corporate slavery.

Yes, exactly. If you look at the evolution of pretty much all major corporations, they tend to become more greedy, more profit orientated, more geared towards making the owners and shareholders rich at the expense and exploitation of everyone else. I see no reason why they would stop doing that when they gain total power. After all, an incredibly pessimistic and jaded view would be that they are just like the most powerful corporations today who simply no longer need to lobby and... incentivise politicians. I guess they’ve cut out the corrupt middle man.

The non-human status. Need some more details about that. If Dee's family was as well connected and well-off as they seemed, why would they have no contingency of someone to take care of her? Wouldn't the gov-corps have some basic human rights as part of their charters? Taking care of orphans etc?

The non-person status is really just an extreme evolution of the current state of existing in modern day Britain or America. In those countries (and, let’s face it, many others), if you are unwilling or unable to generate income (assuming you do not have any inherited wealth or support), you will suffer. There are no ways for anyone to legally have their own shelter or means of obtaining food or water that do not involve paying somebody (and not only paying for what you get, but also paying enough for owners and shareholders to massively profit). The non-person status in the books is simply a refinement and streamlining of that pressure. Today, homeless people are either overlooked, ignored or actively punished by the state. When the ‘state’ becomes an entity that solely exists to generate profit, with no concerns above that and serving the interests of those with the most power, then people who are not generating profit (or at the very least earning enough to survive) become problems that need to be removed and put through a branch of the system designed to make them profitable again, namely hot-housing. There are other things that happen to the ‘non-persons’ who cannot cope with the process that Dee and Carlos went through.

Dee’s family were wealthy before the riots, but then her parents died and the system collapsed. Data was lost, sometimes genuinely, sometimes conveniently for the gov-corps. They may well have made a contingency (although many people die without wills in place), but when society collapsed and the gov-corps took over, there was no-one actively seeking out the people who fell through the cracks other than the forces taking people off the streets and processing them. It really is that bleak, and given the way the current British government is gleefully (and entirely predictably) using Brexit as an opportunity to dial back human rights as quickly as possible, I think it is sadly plausible.

Are any of your characters inspired by real people you know, or have traits that you wouldn't have thought to include until you met someone who had them?

I think every single character I write is formed out of observations I’ve made that all get stored somewhere in my mind and then emerge, both consciously and unconsciously. I also draw a lot upon my own experiences (I have been through a lot in my life and it has given me a deep well to draw from).

I did consciously base Ren’s approach to problem solving on my uncle, as he was an engineer, like her, and I have always admired his clear-thinking and methodical approach. Even though she wrestles with mental illness that impedes those qualities in certain areas of her life, the way she studies God’s City is very much based on my uncle’s way of thinking.

You write characters with such severe mental health conditions so frankly and honestly yet so compassionately. How do you do that for those conditions that you do not yourself share?

Thank you! I write using a combination of research, always striving to put myself in the mind of the character, and drawing upon my own personal experience with mental illness, in particular anxiety, panic attacks and post-natal depression.

When writing about things that I don’t have direct experience of, research can fill in a lot of gaps, but what is really needed is empathy, especially when it comes to writing characters who’ve been through traumatic experiences. I also try to find areas of overlap between my own experiences and those of my characters. The exact circumstances may differ, but my experience of abandonment informed the portrayal of Carlos and Dee.

What aspect of the dystopia of the Planetfall series do you think would be most scary in real life?

The whole non-person thing, I think. We’re halfway there already, which in itself is terrifying, and a lot closer to it in the way many countries treat refugees and migrants.

If you could go into space in the real world, would you, and why?

Yes, I would. I try to never turn down amazing opportunities, no matter how scary they might be, and going into space really would be an amazing opportunity! It would also provide so much information and first-hand experience of something that I like writing about. I wouldn’t want to stay there for long, though!

However, I feel no desire whatsoever to go to live on Mars or the Moon or anything like that. It would be horrible, and I am just not the sort of person who would delight in those sorts of challenges.

What genre do you find easiest to write, and what do you find hardest?

The hardest to write, by far, is romance. The easiest, for me, is urban fantasy. I think that’s just how my brain works; I have always sought the magical in the mundane world, and that genre allows me to put it there, front and centre. It feels comfortable and natural.

Notes about the stories

Some of the stories were inspired by prompts sent in by my lovely newsletter subscribers, detailed where relevant below. I’ve also included notes about the stories that feature characters from the novels, just in case you are curious about where you might have come across them before!

Albert and the Kraken

This story was inspired by a drawing sent in by Dom Camus, showing an old teddy bear next to a home-made rocket on a beach. This is a standalone story, set before all of the novels.

Act of Kindness

This story was inspired by the phrase ‘Is that edible?’ sent in as a prompt by Amy Brennan, and also by a lovely person on Twitter whose handle was @nineteennineteen but who doesn’t seem to be there anymore, who asked for a story about the man who sells the vegetables to Carlos at the beginning of After Atlas. Thank you both for the inspiration!

Inheritance

Mack is one of the main characters from Planetfall, and this story is set shortly before he left Earth, many years before the novel.

The Letter

This is a standalone story, written to give a snippet of what it was like to be rejected for the first Atlas mission, set before Planetfall.

Primary Purpose

This story is set directly after Before Mars, and features two characters from that novel.

The Generation Gap

Marco is one of the colonists from Planetfall, and this story is set many years before he left Earth.

The Dangerous Choice

Linda, the protagonist, is the pathologist from After Atlas. This story is set during the novel.

Tailor Made

This is a standalone story, set between Planetfall and After Atlas, written to give a snippet of what gov-corp life is like.

What Travis Built

This story is set directly after Atlas Alone, and both characters are from After Atlas and Atlas Alone.

Non-Person

This is a standalone story, set shortly after the Riots which are mentioned in the novels and set before all of them.

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Thank you for your support!

This collection has been self-published by the author. Thank you for supporting my work! If you have the time, and are able to, please do leave a review wherever you bought this book, and tell your friends about it too!

If you would like to know more about the Planetfall universe, and my other books, go to www.enewman.co.uk

These stories could not have been written without the support of my wonderful patrons on Patreon, who kept me going during the toughest period of my life. If you can, please support your favourite writers and artists on their platform of choice. It's getting harder and harder for us to make a living from our creative works. Your support via purchasing our work, patronage through Patreon or micro-donations via Ko-Fi etc allows us to keep creating. Thank you so much for helping me to do what I love.

Love and noodles,

Em
https://www.patreon.com/emmanewman
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About the Author

Emma Newman writes short stories, novels and novellas in multiple speculative fiction genres. Her Planetfall series has been nominated for the Best Series Hugo Award and individual books in that series have been shortlisted for multiple awards. She is a professional audiobook narrator, and won the Alfie and Hugo Best Fancast Awards for her former podcast Tea and Jeopardy. Emma is a keen role-player, gamer, painter and designer-dressmaker.

Also by Emma Newman:

Novels

The Planetfall Universe: Planetfall, After Atlas, Before Mars, Atlas Alone

The Split Worlds: Between Two Thorns, Any Other Name, All Is Fair,A Little Knowledge, All Good Things

Novellas

Industrial Magic: Brother's Ruin, Weaver's Lament

Podcasts

Tea and Sanctuary

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Read more at Emma Newman’s site.