Chapter 3

…

"I fled from being drafted for a meaningless civil war, so as to protect my soul by the very means he imparted on his followers, who passed his teachings down the generations and eventually on to me, only to find myself conscripted to perform as a killer." - from Markus's final log

…

The screen struggled to come to life resulting in a static buzz, illuminating the room in a flood of artificial bluish white. Lines of corrupted images crawled up the screen before it finally loaded the preprogramed dawn simulation. Every once in a while, the image would glitch, but it was largely ignorable to most spacers.

The LED lights that ran along the corners of the room slowly brightened up the space on a programmed timer to help the colonists wake up gently. Isaiah was already awake. He knew he was alone because he never slept well when he was left alone. He didn't so much hear his dad leave as feel the loneliness wake him up. Still, it wasn't until the lights came on that he felt he could move; he developed a special talent at staying very still.

The young boy, now twelve, peeled out from under his covers. His room was set up just like his dad's. The faux orchid was even the same color, though Isaiah did try to use markers to differentiate the plastic flower. In fact, Isaiah made a number of modifications to his room. He tugged on a pulley at the head of his bed.

What was unleashed was a cascade of mechanisms. Isaiah once took interest in Rube Goldberg machines when he was younger. That phase lasted a couple of years before he moved onto something else. Still, the remnants of his phase chimed and churned throughout the room.

He turned to his next phase, the one that he couldn't stop thinking about for years. The Rube Goldberg machine finally concluded with the unplugging of a charge cable from a little four foot tall robot. "Up and at 'em, RC. Initiate wake up routine." said Isaiah.

RC came to life and rolled out from under the conclusion of Isaiah's contraption. The robot drove on three balls, situated in a triangular fashion. Its boxed torso seemed out of place with the more advanced looking mode of transportation that sat below it, and had three arms attached to it - two fastened to shoulder joints, and one smaller arm in the front. The arms themselves were all at slightly different stages of development, and there were indications present that a fourth arm was missing. Finally, fixed atop the body of the mechanical automaton was an almost immaculate recreation of the Isaiah's face. The robot, however, was crafted with more symmetry, minor adjustments and refinements, like a more perfected representation of what the boy looked like. The robot's face was made without the flaws Isaiah saw in himself. It showcased a difference between pure functionality and a more developed form and design. The robot was incomplete in the preteen's vision, but it was undeniably his - a more perfect version of whom he wanted to be.

"Good morning, Isaiah," RC responded with the same cadence as his creator.

Isaiah would've preferred more from his companion, but he hadn't programmed that into him yet.

"RC, can you tell me something funny?"

The robot gave a blank stare. Then, it asked, "What are two star ships doing when they fall in love?"

Isaiah looked over as he dressed into his one piece, school uniform. He frowned at his creation. "What?" he asked with a bored expression, already knowing the answer.

"Shipping," RC replied before launching into a forced, artificial laugh.

"Access to the whole local web in this system, and that's the best I could come up with?"

"Would you like to hear another joke?" the robot asked, unaffected by its creator's remark.

"Not until we're on Ganymede. You'll have to have better jokes there." Isaiah knew he would probably never see the moon he was born on again. He took some pride in himself for a more creative way of saying "never again." But the possibility was at least there. If by some miracle The Hegemony permitted them to return to the home worlds rather than all the way out on Victor Prime, homesteading, then RC wouldn't have a basic network to access; the robot would have access to a massive, multi-world network. RC could recount humor from the best minds of Ganymede, sailor humor from Callisto, or classics from Europa.

All of this was imagined by Isaiah, as he didn't really know what the central worlds were like. He may have been born on Ganymede, but his father moved him and his mother to Victor Prime when he was four. Ganymede was more of a distant dream to him, a magical place in a child's mind where blanks in his memories could be filled with whatever made it better than the world he currently called home.

Isaiah opened his bedroom door. The living room lights came on, sensing movement, and the window screen buzzed and flickered to life, settling on a picture of some remote mountain scape. It was sometimes annoying that the screens weren't consistent from room to room, but there had to be some psychological justification for the design. In truth, it was discovered that mammals craved randomness so much, that this function was built into much of the visual stimuli that was manufactured for the better part of several hundred years. Even now, as with everything in this space colony, randomness was integrated into the design because the new images from room to room had the effect of a slight increase in dopamine. It may have bothered Isaiah on a conscious level, but subconsciously he liked it, as it helped to mitigate the feeling of cabin fever and the risk of depression from never seeing the sun. It was also a momentary distraction from the fact that he was alone. All alone. Again.

Isaiah sauntered to the kitchen and pilfered a protein bar from the cabinet. He made his way to the table and opened his dad's note as he chowed down on the tough, processed brick.

"Dear, Isaiah," the note read. "Had to go in early this morning. I want you to know I'm so proud of—"

Isaiah crumpled up the handwritten note and threw it across the room. Proud of what? he asked himself. You haven't even seen me in two months. I don't even have a dad. I don't have a fucking dad!

His vision blurred as tears flooded his eyes. He wasn't crying so much from the thought. It was how forcefully he was trying to convince himself. In the absence of a father, Isaiah found himself to be his worst critic. But he needed that criticism, or at least, that's what he chose to believe. I don't have a dad. My dad—Sully doesn't love me. Sully doesn't want me.

RC rolled up to the boy whose body was shaking as he sobbed. "Isaiah, are you unwell?"

Isaiah slapped himself. "I'm fine," he told the robot made in his image. Isaiah slapped himself two more times.

"You appear damaged," RC continued.

"Shut up," Isaiah snapped. "RC, discontinue."

"Okay."

Isaiah got up from the table and hurried over to the crumpled note at the other end of the room. He opened it up and held it to his chest, before carrying his dad's words to his room. Isaiah opened up his side table drawer next to his bed. Inside were dozens of handwritten notes, all from his dad. He laid his dad's note on top of the others, and held down the stack as he forced the overfilled drawer closed.

A clink sounded from under Isaiah's bed. It sounded like something was angrily tapping against glass.

Isaiah looked under his bed. "Hold on, little buddy." He looked up to see RC rolling into the room. "RC, assist."

"You got it, dude."

"How? How do you make it awkward?"

RC folded its torso and positioned its head toward the front of its body. It looked flat like a crab with its arms out in front.

Together, RC and Isaiah tugged on a glass tank under his bed, the contents of which slithered. It was breakfast time for more than just the boy left alone.