Survivor 1 (Short Story)

“Are you ready?” Dr. Collins asked over the intercom.

“I guess.” I answered, adjusting my safety harness.

I double-checked every hovering hologram screen in the pilot’s cabin of my spaceship, just to make certain. Every graph and display had a glowing circle or full bars.

“All systems are in order, Sir.” I said.

I heard him chuckle. “Zira, how many times have I asked you not to call me that?”

“I didn’t count, Sir.” I replied, just to be cheeky.

Out my window I could see the gray-black asphalt of the launch pad below me, and above me, glimpses of a deep teal sky through the ever-present thick clouds. I pulled up a new screen. This one showed the main room of the control tower nearby. Engineers and mechanics were bustling around, checking scans and adjusting switches. Dr. Collins stood in the middle of it all, smiling up at me.

I took in his face. Worry lines and crows-feet across tanned skin, so different from my own face’s smooth lab-grown coating. Deep, piercing blue eyes, set under a mop of thick brown hair. The hair stood up at all angles as always, making him look like he’d just rolled out of bed.

“You’re staring, love.” He said gently.

“Just getting my money’s worth of the view.” I teased.

He shook his head at me, but didn’t protest. He knew why I was staring. I wanted to fix him in my mind, curl my love for him around every inch of my wiring. I had to. I was never going to see him again.

I bit my lip, a human mannerism I’d picked up from him and rest of his team. Unlike most droids, they had made me able to feel emotions. I didn’t know if mine were exactly the same as a human’s. Either way, they were overwhelming me right now. Hope, grief, love, nostalgia, a thousand other things I couldn’t name.

Dr. Collins nodded briskly. “Okay. Survivor-1, you are cleared for takeoff.”

Then his face softened into a sad smile. “Good luck, Zira. Be careful out there.”

I made myself smile back at the man who’d been my creator, my best friend, and my first love. “I will be.” I hesitated. “I’m going to miss you, Adrian.”

Dr. Collins sighed. “I’ll miss you too.” Then, regretfully, “We shouldn’t drag this out. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye.” I said softly.

Then I shut off the connection. Dr. Collins blinked out of sight. I took a deep breath and gunned the thrusters, shooting up through the lower atmosphere as the launch pad grew small behind me. In a rush of flame, I cleared the last barrier of air, rocketing into the star-studded blackness. Once I was out of orbit, I turned the ship to look back at where I’d come from. Alecto, a little terraformed planet orbiting a binary star. Three continents and innumerable scattered islands, surrounded by reddish oceans and a thick, foggy atmosphere. It was the only planet in its system, out on the fringes of civilization.

It wouldn’t be anywhere special if the last of the human race hadn’t been holding out there, refugees from the bloody civil war that destroyed their original solar system. The fighting would get here soon enough. Everyone I knew, except for the other 99 Survivor droids, would die. Adrian would die. I blinked away tears. The ability to cry was something I could have done without.

That was the reason I was out here, I reminded myself. The other droids and I had a mission. It was the reason we were all made in the first place, to take the last caches of human genetic material away. We were meant take them far beyond the known reaches of the Universe, searching for a safe place to repopulate humanity. And I needed to get on with it. So I took one last look at Alecto, then picked up speed in the opposite direction, heading into the unknown.

It had been over a year since I left Alecto. I still hadn’t found a planet that would work to raise a human on. I was starting to lose motivation. Maybe the team had made me a little too humanlike, I decided. The capacity to get bored was something I really disliked. I was currently parked on a frozen waterworld covered in barren ice sheets miles thick. They stretched seemingly forever in white, blue and gray outside the ship’s windows. I made my way across the galley, trying not to spill my coffee as the ship shook in the unnamed planet’s gale-force winds.

I’d been here about a month, the hologram screen over the sink informed me. I sighed, then changed it into a mirror with the push of a button. My own face stared back at me: cocoa-brown skin, smoother than any human’s. Features not quite symetrical, because perfect symetry looked uncanny to them. Dark hair, cropped close to my head. I looked tired, even though I’d had a full charging session just last night. Maybe the coffee would help with that. I took another sip, savoring the rich taste of the added cream and sugar.

A loud beeping noise startled me. I saw myself flinch in the mirror, silver eyes widening. I smiled a little.

“Relax.” I told myself out loud. “It’s probably just that repair alert for the flickers in the lighting systems. You’ve been putting off fixing it for almost a week.”

I pulled up the hologram screen again and checked the alert on it.

It wasn’t about the lighting systems.

First Implantation Date Is Today. It read.

I took a deep breath, dismissing the alert with shaky hands. This was the moment I’d been both hoping for and dreading: The day I started carrying my first human baby. If this worked they would be the first of many. That’s what I’d been made for, repopulating the human race. Worries buzzed through me like too much electricity, making me jittery. What if I malfunctioned? What if I forgot to eat? So many things could go wrong with an artificial pregnancy. Right now, I was thinking of every single one, even though I knew most of them were unlikely.

“It’s going to be okay.” I reminded myself aloud.

I was identical to all the other Survivor droids. We’d all been tested in simulations for this a million times, nothing bad was going to happen. But the other worries were harder to shake. I knew I could physically care for babies and children. I’d had plenty of training. But what if I didn’t have the empathy to raise one as my own? What if I couldn’t give this child the love they were going to need? Would they ever love me back?

I shook my head. “Stop being ridiculous.” I told myself. “If you’re worrying this much already, you definitely care about them.”

One more deep breath, then I moved the screen to take a thorough scan of my insides. Right there. Upper left side of my uterus. A tiny, growing cluster of cells. Organic, human cells.

“It worked.” I said, half in disbelief.

If I did this right, those cells would be a person in about nine months. I put a hand on the outside of my abdomen, something I’d seen pregnant humans do. I wasn’t entirely sure why, since there hadn’t been any outward changes yet. It just felt right somehow.

“I can’t wait to meet you.” I said with a grin.

Then I laughed, for the first time since I’d left Alecto. I was having a baby. From now on, I wouldn’t be alone anymore.

I couldn't stop smiling as I walked down the ship's main hallway. I heard the sliding doors to the pilot's cabin whoosh open when they sensed me coming. I ducked through them, plunked myself down into the seat and buckled up my safety harness with a series of clicks, humming to myself. I would make something good out of all this, I decided. I would find a place to raise this baby-to-be, this little one that already felt like mine.

With a few swipes of my fingers, I brought the cabin’s screens to glowing life and started looking through my music library.

I tapped the play icon and music floated through the whole ship.

Tell me, did you sail across the sun, did you make it to the Milky Way to see the lights all fadin’?

The song was Adrian's favorite. My smile faltered, thinking of him again. Then I shook my head. He was still with me, in a way. He had promised me that the first baby I grew would have some of his DNA. I hoped I’d love every child I made, but this first one was always going to be extra special because they came from the love of my life.

I turned it up and sang along as I yanked the red lever back to start the thrusters for takeoff.

Steam surrounded the ship as my rockets melted the top layers of ice. I headed higher into the atmosphere, watching the massive spikes of the blue-white glaciers shrink under me outside the cabin windows. Higher and higher, flames dancing along the glass from the friction of the air as I sped up. I felt a sudden jolt of extra speed, pushing me back against the seat for a moment as the ship broke free of gravity.

“I’m going to find a place for you.” I promised the tiny life growing inside me. “I’m going to find us a home.”

Tell me, did Venus love your mind, and did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there?

I raised my voice with the music. This time, when the tears came, I let them fall. I remembered a quote I’d heard somewhere, that grief is love hanging on. Maybe these tears meant I could love. Maybe they meant I could do this.

(Photo by ThisIsEngineering on Pexels)