Mollie woke up to her usual “Good morning sweetie” from her Mother with the words projected directly to her vision from her aiCOM. It was the first day of summer season on Io-24993, a colonized moon of Diaz-549 (aptly named for the great space explorer Diaz Columbo that first discovered the gas giant planet around a millennium ago), and she was ready to relax after finishing grade-13.
As she groggily got out of bed, rubbed her eyes, she replied, “Morning Mom”, without so much of a word leaving her lips. The aiCOMs were directly implanted at the base of the spine and intercepted all signals from the brain, allowing for complete control of surrounding technology without so much as a thought. Using such a device was certainly difficult for the first Generation of aiCOM users to get used to, but now it was commonplace for everyone to be outfitted with one upon birth, provided your family could cough up the credits.
Mollie adorned the outfit that erupted out of her closet, which was the exact outfit she had wanted. A dark orange jumpsuit with streaks of blue down the sides. As she went downstairs she could smell the aromatics of coffee and fresh eggs (which were actually lab-grown substitutes, as for reasons that still eluded scientists livestock could not handle space travel).
Her mother greeted her with a smile in the kitchen, and as she sat down to begin eating breakfast her Mother said without moving her lips, “Your brother was waiting for you”.
As these words passed through her mind the familiar image of her brother appeared before her and her mother.
“Hey guys.” The image said with only a wave.
“Hi James!” She said back excitably as she continued to eat, “How goes the trip?”
“Pretty uneventful, as usual” he said with a sigh, “We still haven’t found any planets suitable for habitation nearby.” Her brother had joined the scientific alliance in search for exoplanets. The human race was growing fast, and the resources of any one planet could not sustain its pace. “I’m actually en route back to Io. You all should meet me at the port.
“Definitely! When?” Mollie said back, as she finished her food quickly and took a sip of coffee.
“In about an hour. If you leave now I’ll still probably beat you there.”
“Great, I’ll meet you there”
“I miss you James, hope to see you soon”, their mother said with a longing look. James looked remarkably like their father, who had passed in an unfortunate crash shortly after Mollie was born, “and stay safe.”
With that James’ image faded and Mollie said to her mom, “Shall we?”.
“Shall we what?” her mother looked at her with a quizzical face.
“Go meet James?”
“He’s still on his trip.”
“He said to meet us at the port, he’s coming back. Were you paying attention at all?”
“Stop playing Mollie, you know I miss James just as much as you. He still has a year left to travel back, he’s half a light year out.”
“What is wrong with you…” Mollie was getting visibly frustrated, and her eyebrow had a slight twitch, “He said to meet him at the port and I’m going.”
“Oh Mollie…” her mom put her hand to her face, “lets take you the ai store to get your aiCOM checked out.”
“NO! YOU’RE the one that needs to be checked out” Mollie fumed, “I’M going to see my brother.” And she set her aiCOM to ignore her mother.
For the first time in Mollie’s life her mother opened her mouth, screaming out, but Mollie didn’t hear anything. Mollie stormed outside into the bright blue-green glow of the Diaz’s Sun and just the thought of leaving brought a car to outside her doorstep. The door of the sleek tinted car slide open and she stepped in, as her mother ran out the door of her house. Mollie looked back as she stepped inside the car and could see her mother’s mouth wailing with tears streaming down her face but yet there was nothing but complete silence. As quickly as she stepped into the car its doors slid closed and it began to accelerate.
With just a thought the tinted windows turned clear and she could see herself zooming down the interstate moving towards the city of Ionia in the distance. Its tall shiny buildings broke the clouds of the sky, like a knife in butter. She saw the other cars along the road streaking in and out of the city, the shiny husks reminded her of a busy hive of insects, which she had learned about in school although of course no other animals than humans inhabited the planet. She had always wondered why that was, but if even trained scientists couldn’t figure out how to transport such things then how would she know. She had always thought that maybe it was the spite of the archaic so-called ‘God’ which humans used to blame their problems on when things didn’t make sense otherwise.
She was still fuming over her mother. SHE was the one that should go get HER aiCOM checked out. Her brother had clearly been talking to both of them, and her mother had never really been the same since her father had died. Although Mollie had never remembered what her mother was like before the incident her brother told her otherwise. She missed James. It had been over a year since he left on his ‘grand search’ for habitable planets. He had spent most of his life studying life, or rather, how to sustain it. He had always had a fascination with the cosmos too, so when he applied, and was accepted, to take a trip to search for new planets for terraforming she knew he would take it. As she sat back and remembered the day he left the aiCOM whirred to life and brought her directly to that moment at the port almost a year ago.
“You can’t go James!” She whined, “What am I supposed to do with mom! She’s always so gloomy, and with you gone I know she’ll be even more upsetting…”
“It’s alright Mollie. You know space flight is safer than riding in those self-driving cars. And besides, I can talk to and see you guys instantly.” He pointed to the back of his neck.
“But its not the same. You won’t be HERE. You’ll just be some image and it just doesn’t feel the same.”
“Look, I know it’s not ideal and I’m never that good with saying goodbye, but it won’t be that long. And I promise we’ll talk everyday.”
“Promise?”
“Yes, I promise.” He gave her a big hug and kiss on the forehead, and she could feel it because he was there, even though soon he wouldn’t be. “I’ll talk to you tonight.”
“OK,” she said with a tear starting to form, “be safe!”
“Don’t worry about it,” he winked at her as he walked off.
The memory faded around her and she was back in the car going to the port to meet James when she received a message from her friend Jalela that popped up into her vision.
It read, “I’m so sorry Mollie”.
“About what?” She thought back.
“Your brother”
“What about my brother”
“Are you OK Mollie?”
“Yes, I’m fine.” Mollie said defiantly.
“Well I know its a lot to take in…”
“WHAT is a lot to take in.”
“Your brother, and his ship. We all saw it. It’s gone…”
“I’m on my way to meet him at the port now. I don’t know what you’re talking about but thanks.” And she set her aiCOM to silent.
What did she mean about his ship? Mollie knew she was on her way to see her brother. Did something happen at the port? What had Jalela seen that she hadn’t? More importantly, WHY had Jalela, and her mother, seen something that she hadn’t. Was there something actually wrong with her aiCOM? There were too many questions going through Mollie’s mind when she realized, why don’t I contact my brother?
With that thought the aiCOM kicked in and she sent a message to her brother, “Is everything alright? Jalela said that something happened to your ship.”
She instantly got a reply, “Yeah everything is great. Meet me at the port. I’ll see you soon.” A sense of calm rushed over her. She couldn’t quite put together what everyone else was worrying about but she knew her brother was there and she had to go. She was getting close to the city. The thin sharp buildings cutting into the sky became immense structures that invaded her entire view. The bright lights of the various shops and other businesses flooded her vision. Advertisements for the new ai features plastered everywhere, “It knows what you want to listen to when you want to listen to it. Introducing, the aiSpeak”. The seamlessness of life in the city was astonishing. Cars whizzing from great speeds to a halt, just for someone to pop out directly to their destination. It was a miracle that nothing collided. She thought maybe her brother was right, space flight does seem safer than the chaos of the city.
Mollie soon arrived to port terminal. The car came to an abrupt stop, and its doors flung upwards just as she was stepping out. As soon as her feet hit the platform the car she was just in seemingly disappeared in a flash of propulsion. The great swathes of people started to make her nervous; she didn’t travel into the city too often as she found it was too fast for her liking. There wasn’t enough time to think, just go, and the aiCOM’s were all too well equipped to do the thinking for you.
She found the list of arriving ships, but she didn’t see her brother’s. “Weird”, she thought and tried to contact her brother again, but there was no response. Now she was starting to get worried, but before she could dwell on it too much she felt a hand on her shoulder.
“Mollie!”
She turned around and it was James! She felt a wave of relief overcome her entire body and rushed in to give him a hug. As he embraced her something didn’t feel right. She was ecstatic that he was standing right there. He was OK, and he did meet her at the port, but there was a sensation in the back of her mind that told her something was not quite right.
“It’s so good to see you.” James whispered to her.
Mollie couldn’t even bring herself to respond, as tears started to well up.
James pulled back and looked her in the eyes, “Let’s get out of here.”
She nodded in agreement and said, “Mom didn’t believe me you were coming back, and Jalela said something had gone wrong with your ship…”
“People only see what they want to see sometimes.”
“You mean to tell me Mom didn’t want to see you come back?”
“No, but she may not have believed I would come back.”
With just a thought, Mollie took a snapshot of her brother before her and sent it to her Mom.
No response.
“She’s not responding to me.”
“I wouldn’t worry, you know she needs some time when she’s upset.”
“Yeah, but I thought she would be excited to see you.”
“She doesn’t think she’ll see me.”
“Well then, lets go home.”
“Sure, but lets stop by the arboretum on the way.”
The arboretum was one of the marvels of the planet, the source of the original terraforming exploits when Io was first colonized. James would often take Mollie there when she was younger, and tell her about all of the species of plants. Each had come from a seed that originated on Earth. That fact had always been hard for Mollie to grasp. The idea of ‘Earth’ had always felt like a fairytale. She had seen pictures, and videos, and with aiCOM had virtually been there, but she had still never experienced it. And how could it be real? Earth was over hundreds of millions of light years away. Without the aiCOMs there would be no way to even communicate with anyone on Earth, and to travel there would take hundreds of human generations. It was already hard to swallow that the people who started the colony on Io had once been on earth, although in reality it was their descendants with no original memories of ‘Earth’ that first step foot on Io.
“Yes, but we shouldn’t stay too long. I don’t want to keep Mom upset, and she’ll be so happy to see you!”
As they approached the edge of the platform that jutted out from the entrance to the port, a car approached and opened its doors, blocking her view of the sheer drop into the almost endless chasm of the city. All within seconds James and her were on their way to the arboretum. It was on the outskirts of the city, practically on the way back home. The grand structures of the city turned into jagged lines on the horizon behind them, while before them lay massive swathes of green.
There weren’t as many people at the arboretum as inside the city, which was one of the reasons Mollie like to come here. It was also one of the few places that her and her brother would come just to talk. With how busy he had become preparing for his trip it had been years since they had made a trip here. When they passed through front gate an overwhelming number of colors and scents came over her senses. She felt relaxed. Alongside the path leading up to the original terraforming dome there were monstrous trees that provided a cover from the blue-green rays of the sun, which were beginning to turn into deep shades of purple mixed with turquoise as the sun set. She felt protected by the trees, and in a sense they did protect all life on this moon. The original atmosphere on Diaz had been overwhelmingly carbon-dioxide, that the trees took in and in exchange provided the oxygen that sustained them all.
They followed the path through the dome, as they had many times before, and after passing through the pressurized airlock were greeted by a sweet scent that she had been told was like vanilla.
“Ah, we picked the right time to come. The selenicereus grandiflorus decided to bloom tonight. They only bloom once a year you know,” James said to her.
Indeed there were white flowers in different stages of bloom all throughout the dome. She remembered they had tried to come see these flowers before, but they always seemed to miss the right day. She looked at one of the buds closer, and a slight glow seemed to be emanating from it.
“They’re beautiful!” Mollie said with a growing beatific smile. “They must have known we were coming!” She joked.
“They knew we wanted to see them.” James smiled back.
They found a small path of grass for them to sit in between the glowing flowers.
“It’s hard to believe this is all here,” Mollie said.
“It is amazing to think that people could make this happen. The universe is not exactly on our side when it comes to life.” James responded.
“Aren’t you being cheerful.” Mollie said sarcastically.
James chuckled and then said, “That’s where I was supposed to come in. I did everything I could to make sure this would all survive. That humans would survive. Everything is so fragile.”
“Yes, but that fragility makes it that much more beautiful, right? If it were easy to make this happen then would we even care?”
“I suppose not.”
“So tell me, how was your trip.”
“I wish I could say it was awe-inspiring, amazing, and everything you want to hear but that’s not true.”
“Why not?”
“When you’re in the depths of space it becomes clear that we’re not meant for this kind of life. We didn’t find any suitable planets. It makes me wonder why anyone would have left Earth in the first place. We were gifted with a planet where everything was just right, but we decided to leave and try to make the universe bend to our wills instead of just riding the wave of our existence.”
“Woah, what’s gotten into you James? Was it really that dark and depressing out there?”
“Mollie, I’m dead”
Mollie rolled her eyes, “Really James? You’re going to play these kind of games when I haven’t seen you in over a year?”
“They’re all dead Mollie. It’s all dead. Humans weren’t meant for this.”
She was starting to get annoyed with him. “So then why did you come back if we’re all dead. If you’re dead, how did you come back? You’re not making any sense James.”
“It doesn’t have to make sense Mollie. It never did. The reality we’ve been living never made sense. We knew our cosmic limitations and yet we believed we could break those barriers. Or rather, we fooled ourselves into believing we could.”
Mollie’s annoyance was turning to anger. She stood up over James and yelled at him, “Why are you acting like this. What are you talking about?”
“Let me show you.”
She felt a shock on the back of her neck and the colors shining through the dome gradually faded to gray, with thick clouds of dust appearing at the same time as a hole in the dome.
Gasping for air she awoke.