Memories from my previous instances struggle to snap into place. The discordant clamor ignites something deep in my hippocampus. The handheld slates on the countertop light up and start beeping, slightly out of sync with each other and my heart rate beeps, feedbacking into an echoing déjà vu. “Why haven’t new instances been decanted?” I try to control my breathing and make sense of things. On the vitals display my heart rate and blood pressure spike outside acceptable limits and a mournful hospital beep begins. “I have decanted you because I have a job for you.” On the vitals display, my heart rate jumps. “You are currently the only active crew, Zac,” Server says. “Server, again, where the hell is everybody?” One display shows the nano readings on my vitals, my heart rate a soft beeping. My vision comes into focus and I scan the print room. No human checking my heart rate and blood pressure. Someone usually makes a naked joke right about now and someone else hands the new instance a smock or scrubs. The static electricity builds as the nano swarm finishes cleaning and begins checking my vitals. I remember who I am and why I’m here, but I’m struggling to coalesce the memories of my previous instances. If that helps? When did the crew assistant interface learn to be snarky? “I’ve gone forty years without a decanting?!” Just over three hundred and ninety-three years from Sol.” “The SS Shannon Lucid is almost halfway to our destination star, Trappist-1, Zac. “Where and when are we? And where is everybody?” It takes a while before the brain opens the floodgates.Ī swarm of cleaning nanobots vacuum up the blue vomit and the extra Bio-Fluid as it drips off of me. Just a snippet from my first instance’s memories. The blue fluid makes me think of those big jars of combs at the barbershop. Where are they all? Did they all just step away for a snack? No Captain Thorisdottir saying, ‘Calm down, you’re going to be okay’. Berto’s not helping me stand when my new feet hit the cold floor. Maeve and Nil aren’t there to comfort me. I try to breathe deeply into my new lungs but initiate a coughing fit, which leads to vomiting Bio-Fluid all over the print room floor. I have trouble climbing out of the print bed, bumping my head on the slow-raising lid.
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