Mother
A Science Fiction One Shot
'Do you recognise the woman in this picture?'
A 3x3 inch glossy photo slid from a slot in the machine, the screen pulsed as it spoke. Stazar reached forward from the faux-leather seat too hard for his liking and snatched the photograph from the slot. A woman, middle-aged, with greying brown hair cut above the shoulders smiled back at him frozen in time. Her eyes were warm and kind. There was a shock of recognition in his brain, his new brain, as the static currents of the synthesised matted with the memories of his organic former self. He used his new eyes with myriad scanning and aperture capabilities to scan the photo, front and back, though the back was nothing more than blank black. There was nothing else there, no hidden messages, no cryptic, no image behind the image. It was a photo of a woman, organic and kind.
'Do you recognise the woman in this picture?' the machine spoke in the soft tone of a young woman.
Stazar found there was a word on the tip of his tongue, one he hadn't used in... well, no time recently anyway. 'Is it my mother?'
The screen swirled into a happy face, 'Yes, the woman in the photo is your mother.'
Stazar considered the photo again, the smooth glossy texture tactile against his synthetic skin designed to be stronger and heal quicker than regular. Wrinkles in the paper spread from his thumb on the paper, stronger than he was used to. 'Huh... mind if I keep this?' he said.
'You may,' the machine responded. 'That will be all for today,' the door to the booth slid open and Stazar stepped out into the hall. The clean white walls, floor, and ceiling shone like they been polished and a stream of rippling green arrows guided Stazar back to his room. He passed a dozen doors to other rooms and then a set of double doors with glass windows to another corridor but the arrows only pointed back to his room, it didn't matter anyway as none of those doors would open for him even if he had tried them.
His room was 15x15 foot with a table, a bed, a chest of drawers, an armchair, and a coffee table. A screen dominated the wall opposite the bed with the gentle features amalgamated by the machine to be its face. It was a woman's face, young and attractive with smiling blue eyes and mousy brown hair drawn into a ponytail. She smiled as Stazar entered, 'How was my sister?' the machine said.
'Fine,' Stazar said. 'She gave me a photo of my mother.'
The computer's face grinned, her eyes bubbling love hearts, 'Ooo, let me see.'
Stazar showed the photo towards the screen, though the machine could have seen it from any angle in the room, 'She is beautiful.'
'Thanks,' Stazar said, then felt odd as he didn't know what else to say. 'I imagine she is dead,' the thought struck him unwillingly.
'Why do you say that?'
'I dunno, just a feeling. I've been around a long time.'
'Your new body is thirteen days old, that sounds pretty young to me.'
'But what about my previous bodies.'
'Unfortunately that is classified, Stazar,' the face took on a frown but it was not mean, he didn't think the machine's face could form any expression that didn't look playful or kind. 'You have your memories, can't you judge time based off those?'
'Well... yeah... and that's why I know she is dead,' he held up the photo of his mother. 'There's a lot of memories, a lot. Most aren't pleasant, most are me killing people or torturing them, things I'd rather forget.'
'I can arrange that if you wish,' the machine said.
'Maybe later,' Stazar didn't like the memories but without them there wasn't much left of the intervening years from... well he wasn't sure how long anymore but it would be a severe chunk of his life to remove and who knew what else would be removed with them. Sure his “self” could be moved from body to body now but it wasn't as if his consciousness was code that could be hacked and chopped and changed, it was more like a ball of string a million miles long and knotted into itself in so many ways that to cut one was to cut a hundred strings all at once with no notion of the consequences. At least that was what he had heard from his comrades, the machine always said differently and he'd given up trying to find out the truth.
'Would you like a meal? A show to watch?'
'Not right now,' he sat down in the armchair and stared at the photo of his mother.
'Good morning, Stazar,' the machine chimed. The smiling pretty visage appeared on the wall opposite his bed. 'Breakfast will be served shortly but first your morning exercises. How is that new body doing? No stiff joints or faulty wiring I hope,' the machine chuckled melodically.
Stazar sat up in bed, he only slept for around 4 hours and could go at least 3 days without sleep thanks to his new body but as he had only been piloting the thing for 2 weeks his sponsors had suggested he get used to before limit testing it so he took it easy. 'These bodies don't have wiring anymore,' he said.
'It's a turn of phrase,' the machine said, sounding more human than his rebuke had.
He groaned the sleep away and leapt out of bed to stretch and perform various low intensity exercise. Today was the first day of proper training, though it was in skills he already knew but the new body didn't know, not yet, and muscle memory was his best resource in the field.
A slot in the wall opened up and steaming plate of steak and eggs with green beans was waiting for him. A pot of peppercorn sauce on the side. 'I prefer mustard,' he said and the slot closed and reopened a moment later with a jar of mustard and knife to spread it with. He set the meal on the table and began to eat when he noticed a 3x3 inch photograph on the table. The woman retained a prettiness rare for her age combined with happy eyes. 'Did someone come into my room last night?' he asked the machine. There was no name for the ever present “personality”, that was deemed too personal.
'Negative. You slept soundly with no disturbances from 0213 hours until 0613 hours, a perfect 4 hours. I would say you have settled into your new body excellently,' the pretty face on the wall chimed a smile as thumbs up floated upward from her eyes.
'Where did this photograph come from then?' Stazar held it up for the machine to see.
'You returned with it at the end of yesterday.'
'Oh, well I don't need it,' a panel opened in the wall and he dropped the photograph into the incinerator chute. Stazar finished his breakfast and set off to his first training session.
Training was the same as ever. The new recruits and the veteran's in fresh bodies trained together, both as clumsy as each other physically but the veterans quickly moulded their shells into well trained killing machines. The recruits would take longer, much longer.
Stazar returned to his room for lunch and afterwards had his daily round of analysis to determine his cognitive stability. He left his room into the porcelain hallway and followed the arrows towards the usual room. He sat down and the familiar face appeared on the screen before him with her soothing voice and understanding eyes.
'Good evening,' the machine spoke in a woman's voice, soft and delicate.
'Huh-uh,' Stazar shifted in the seat, tired and sore from the day and wishing only to go to bed.
'How was your day?'
'Fine. Yours?'
'My days are always splendid, thank you.'
'That's great,' he looked to the ceiling of the squat room only a little wider than the chair, the sliding door firmly sealed.
'I am going to show you an image and I want to know if you recognise the person in said image.'
'Alright.'
A 3x3 photograph emerged from a slot beneath the screen. It was a picture of a woman, middle-aged with joyful eyes. Stazar examined it, careful to only touch the glossy white surround of the image. 'I've seen her somewhere before?' he tapped the photo against his knee and pinched the bridge of his nose. 'This morning,' he clicked his fingers. 'This photo was in my room, don't know why though.'
'Do you recognise the woman?'
He pondered the question, searching his memory. 'Can't say that I do.'
'Okay, deposit the photograph back into the slot please.'
He did so and leaned back in the chair. A silence began that stretched into minutes as the machine calculated something behind its kind, motherly eyes.
'Here is an object, do you recognise it?' A ring dropped into the slot.
Stazar reached for the ring, it was gold with a date engraved on the inside but he couldn't make out the numbers. He tried it on and was surprised it fit his ring finger almost exact.
'Do you recognise it?' the machine prompted him again.
'No, should I?'
The machine face considered that, her eyes going from left to right, 'No. Please deposit the ring back in the slot.' There was a pause then she continued, 'I have another photograph for you,' the machine said. A second 3x3 image slipped from the slot below the screen. 'Do you recognise the man in the photograph?'
Stazar sighed, leaned forward with hunched shoulders, and snatched the photo from the slot. He studied it. The man was slender, bald, serious looking. There was a blue sky behind him and sun ripened ruins dotting the hills of wherever he was. 'No, no idea. Should I?'
'Not necessarily. If you do not know you may deposit the image back in the slot and then follow the arrows in the corridor,' the machine said. The young woman's face smiled and the door pinged open.
Stazar tossed the photo into the slot and stepped outside. The arrows led away from his room, down the pristine white corridor and through a set of double doors he'd never seen open before. The doors hissed open when he neared them revealing another corridor of white walls, floor, and harsh lighting, the green arrows on the floor leading further on and turning right to point towards a door highlighted in green. Stazar approached the door and it slid open with a sigh. Three other men in the same white shirt and trousers as Stazar were sitting looking at a screen on the far wall with a visage of the machine smiling back at them.
'Welcome, Stazar. Now let us begin,' the machine said. Her face shrank into the corner and a video began to play. 'You have passed initial testing and will now enter active duty. Within the week you will each receive your first deployment and be expected to complete it successfully. Should you fail you will be returned to assessment for fourteen days and then reassigned. Success will be rewarded with credit, access to more facilities, and leisure time before subsequent deployments.' The video played hard looking soldiers with state-of-the-art equipment being dropped into war zones to detonate vital targets, extract crucial information, or rescue VIPs. The scenes flew by in a haze of gunfire and stress. They all succeeded and were joyous about it.
'What if we die?' Stazar asked.
The video continued to play but the machine's visage became larger on the screen, 'Those KIA will have their bodies left behind.'
Stazar nodded, the others nodded too, an understanding that needed no words.
'Please watch the rest of this informative video,' the machine said.
The four men watched in silence. Clips of war torn cities and dead soldiers plucked at a hint of a memory for Stazar that faded as quickly as the clip finished and then forgotten as the next one played. The voice over spoke of duty, of victory, of necessities and goodness, of the vital nature of their missions. None of that mattered to Stazar, he wondered if it ever had.
The video ended with a wordless logo of an octopus reaching out of its depths to ensnare ships and people. Stazar felt a warmth towards it but he had no memory associated with it and before he could ask the machine was ushering them out a door, different to the one he'd entered by, and the four were in a mission ops room. A table with a thick ridge around the edge dominated the centre of the room, a man in a pressed deep green uniform with brass buttons stood at one end.
'Welcome, this will be your first mission,' the man spoke, his words catching on his teeth as he barely moved his lips. He was bald with a pockmarked face. He tapped the table with a knuckle and miniature projectors emitted a 3D image of a landscape of hills to the west and a town to the east, a river ran north to south, a ruin of a bridge led into the town. 'A cache is located in this building near the centre of the town.' A blue ring highlighted the building in question, deep into the town. 'Anti-aircraft batteries prevent us deploying you close to the town and, besides, we want to avoid attention. No one can know we are involved. You'll be deployed here,' a red circle highlighted a spot behind the hills. 'We expect you to take no more than twelve hours, extraction will be arranged once the cache is secured. Required information and schematics will be uploaded as required, good hunting.'
There was no room for questions, the uniformed man left as soon as he finished speaking. A door opened and green arrows led the four men out and into a corridor. Then they were in a barracks with eight others. Stazar hadn't seen another person, he couldn't remember how long but at least the fourteen days since he'd been granted a new body. A grizzled man nodded at him, one bionic eye mismatched with his organic one. Another slung a rifle at him using a prosthetic arm of carbon fibre and microelectronics. The rifle was familiar, his own. He knew this but he didn't know how. He knew which locker to open, what operations gear went with what, where it lived, how it fastened, all of this came unbidden even though it hadn't been in the training sessions. Within minutes he was dressed and armoured with a rifle over one shoulder and a pistol on his hip. He lowered the tactical camera from his helm to check it, his fingers swimming over the tiny buttons and dials knowingly.
A double wide door slid open and the unit of twelve stepped through into a hangar bay, the stars glistening beyond the forcefield. They boarded a ship of harsh angles and bulbous armour and still no one had spoken.
'Prepare for take off,' a machine said.
The ramp closed and sealed, the atmosphere stabilised. A weightlessness took over quickly followed by a drag of artificial gravity. There were no windows, no ports, no screens showing beyond the four walls of the transport ship. Stazar sat in silence staring at the man opposite him, his well-lined face telling a story all on its own. Stazar looked at his own in the reflection of his rifle scope, clean, fresh, unmarred, a face of inexperience, a face he didn't recognise. The ship shook and vibrated. Klaxons sounded. A heaviness returned. The ramp descended and the twelve were rushing out onto a meadow of purple and yellow flowers amidst rolling hills under a hazy blue sky.
Without a word Stazar knew where to go, who to follow, as the unit split into three teams worming they way through the hills always at the lowest point to avoid being seen. He thought that was too late, they had deployed during the day, only a few kilometres away from the objective. Whoever was in the town would have seen them, Stazar was sure of it.
The leader led Stazar and the two others through the shallow valleys towards the last hill where he began to crawl to the top, the purple and yellow flowers swishing in the breeze close to his waist. Thoughts came unbidden. How they would attack, where they would go, who to target, as if the whole battle had been scripted. Stazar knew where to aim his rifle before he even reached the peak of the hill, he could see what his captain had seen and when the four of them lay in the long grassy meadow waiting for the signal no one had to speak or gesture. They knew.
The signal came and Stazar crawled to the top of the hill, aimed down the sight at a sniper on the roof of the nearest building and squeezed the trigger. The enemy fell limp. Stazar moved on to his next target.
A sudden, sharp pain struck him in the ribs. He struggled to catch his breath. A second round slammed into his shoulder and he was limp on the ground. One of his comrades dragged him back behind the peak but it was too late. Stazar's thoughts drifted, his hand worming its way to a pocket on his gear. He reached inside and pulled out a 3x3 photograph of a kindly looking woman with a big smile in her middle years. Stazar smiled, remembering his mother, and all went black.
Stazar awoke under harsh lighting in a pristine white room. He lay on a bed dressed in nothing but a medical gown. His hands were stiff, his eyes sore and blurry.
'Careful,' a calm, machine crafted voice said. A woman's voice. 'Welcome to your new body, it will take some getting used to. First, I will show you an image, tell me if you recognise the person.' An image of a woman appeared overhead, she was young with full cheeks and mischievous grin.
A warmth spread through Stazar's chest, 'I do but I can't place her.' It felt like he was speaking with his mouth full of potato.
'Don't try too hard, this is a fresh body,' the woman said, taking away the image. 'Do you remember your name?'
'Stazar,' he looked at his hands, smooth and without blemish. He wondered what his face looked like, not that he could remember his previous faces anymore, nor which he had started with.
'Good, good,' the machine said. 'Tomorrow we will start on coordination but for now get some rest and allow the body to calibrate to you.'
Stazar felt sleep come over him and he drifted into slumber, the face of a kindly middle aged woman greeting him on the other side. He couldn't quite remember who she was.
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