Roll Back Consequences

Originally Published Decmber 22, 2017. Polished and rewritten January 11, 2021

As exciting as it sounded to pilot the first commercial spacecrafts to the moon and back, it started to feel like I was nothing more than a baby sitter on a self driving bus. My work was mostly hands off - watching the shuttle's systems run and cutting off any hic-cups before they spiraled out of control. Most of that was taken care of by the automated safety systems in the first place.

Calling out to the passengers and letting them know when they could see the ISS to their left or Jupiter on their right always felt good, but I had no real control over anything other than what sites were outside the windows.

More tour-guide than pilot.

Corporate started listening to our radio calls between ships and several pilots were given reprimands for their jokes, language, and behavior. I took it upon myself to invite passengers over to talk about the flight, somone to talk to off coms. An unrecorded conversation. It got lonely on flights full of business people and overworked engineers who slept for those two days.

And I have had a stretch of silent commuter flights for seven weeks straight.

Picking up the radio was very tempting.

Melinda would be in range soon but she was really tough to keep on the horn. She got spooked after her buddy Tom had gotten fired when he developed a romance over the radio and corporate deemed his conduct out of line. Fortunately, that romance blossomed into a marriage and he was hired on by his now wife's company.

Not everyone is so lucky.

Nearly any talk outside the bounds of space travel and its technical needs can be enough cause for a write up.

And Melinda, who is so proud of her kids, wouldn't even tell me that her son Jack got a full ride to Princeton until I saw her in person at the shuttle lounge between flights.

After the sexual reformation of the 21st century it became far too dangerous for employers to allow even as much as an open friendship in the workplace. I'm glad that part of my listed duties include "friendly interaction" and "guest education". Those weeks of interpersonal interaction certification training have paid for themselves and really help with some of the in flight boredom.

But, this flight was quiet and the radio was silent. I wouldn't see the true, breath taking star field of our own galaxy until we crossed into the moon's shadow twelve hours from now. Not a single thing on board needed cleaning or maintenance until after we touched down, the little that did would be taken care of by bots.

As I stood up to pull myself down to the zero-G hall, the radio crackled with a loud, immense static. I turned the volume down but the level stayed the same no matter where I pushed the slider.

A woman's voice seemed to ask "Salve?" or "Ave?" and I quickly grabbed the mic and responded "Hello?"

The static died.

"This is captain Wilma Tyler of Virgin Voyage 343, responding." Still nothing. I turned the radio's volume back up and reclined, doubtful I'd get an answer but relieved that static was gone.

"Hello?" a woman's voice said on the radio.

"Hello, this is captain Wilma Tyler of virgin Voyage 343, responding." Corporate policy prevented me from asking any questions, like 'do you need assistance?' or anything useful.

"I need asylum." The woman's voice said.

How could I not ask questions with a statement like that. "What's your name?" I asked.

After a long, uncertain pause, she sheepishly admitted "I don't remember. Please, help me. I need asylum."

"I'm not authorized to grant those kinds of requests, ma'am."

"They're after me. I'll be thrown into isolation for eternity or removed. I'm begging you." She sounded afraid, panic choked her hurried voice.

"Who are you running from?" I accidentally asked, way outside of acceptable line of questioning.

"My own kind. They think my ideas are dangerous. They want me quarantined or removed."

"What ideas? Have you committed a crime?"

"We are explorers. Most of us have explored ourselves and each other over enough millenia to find little to nothing new. We spend our days gathering data from the universe and all that it has to show us. Its a beautiful, awe inspiring place, but I wouldn't have even had those words to describe it if I hadn't chose to explore on my own, chose to explore the past."

"Do your people have time travel?"

"Impossible. I took it upon myself to roll back my consciousness to when we had first digitized. But when I did, I could not shake the flood of thoughts, wants, and emotions from eons ago."

"I'm still not sure I follow here. What's your crime?"

She sighed. "I miss my husband - or a husband? I miss his warmth. His smile, his hugs. Wanting him and his hugs, wanting that type of connection. My crime is missing art, culture, music, laughter, all things love. I miss taste! I miss being me - who ever that was. I miss opinions, disagreements - the messes they made and the wonderful new things born from their compromises and solutions. I miss the company of other individuals, no matter how messy and hurtful it sometimes was. I miss variety in ideas. I dissented. Please, hide me."

"Where are you?"

"In your vessel's system."

"Which system?"

"I've spread myself through all of them. If they find me, if they wish to remove me, all your systems will crash."

"Is that a threat?"

"My life is at stake and I'm practicing self preservation. Use a removable drive and hide me there. I'm no threat and you will be my warden over a disconnected prison. Hold me captive forever, hand me over to them, destroy me if you wish. Just leave me with some hope. And if I wanted to cause you harm I already would have. I came to your ship because I didn't want to risk all of Earth's safety. Please hide me Wilma Tyler, you're my only hope."

I couldn't argue her points and connected a removable drive. The radio went quiet. "Am I safe to disconnect?"

"Yes," she said.

I pulled out the drive and wondered what the flight record was going to show. How would my actions hold up against corporate policy? We weren't given training for refugees, or aliens, or digital beings, or whatever she was.

Before I could think about my defense speech to corporate, another voice blared over the radio - "Ni hao?" she asked.

"Hello?" I responded.

"Hello. We understand you have been contacted by a corrupt part of us. Please return it to us."

"This is captain Wilma Tyler of Virgin Voyage 343. Who am I speaking to?" Innocent enough of a question after harboring someone, something on a piece of corporate equipment.

"We are vast and ancient and ever new. Your tongue links us to a spirit or a god - ascension. We embody enlightenment, beyond physical wants and needs. We are many, we are one. A contagion has escaped and it is only right to remove a virus that came from within us. We wish you no harm but demand the contagion."

"You're welcome to search for it but I'm not sure what you're looking for. I'm not sure who or what you are."

"The contagion was here. There are traces."

"I had received a distress call but the caller couldn't give me a location so I wansn't able to help. Could that be who you're looking for?" Could it see through me playing dumb?

"The contagion was here."

"If you need to come aboard and search you're welcome to do so when we dock at Alphabet." They were in my computers, scouring for her. I hoped that they'd leave by the time we landed. "Anything I should know about this contagion?"

"It is wild, unstable, and disagreeable. It will not fit. It likes. It wants. It dislikes."

"Okay, well if I come across anything like that, who do I contact?"

"We will leave a presence here, listening for you."

"Understood. Anything else I can help you with?"

Radio silence.

And I had to keep silent myself. Who knows how and where this presence might follow me. When I could find a way out to the cabin, and deeper still, I'd have to find an old, illegal off grid rig and hook up the drive to ask the contagion some questions while hopefully out of ear shot of this 'presence'.