DAY 5 - I don't think I'm me
01 Jul 2019Cal-L
I don't think I'm me!The curse of deep space, is you have too much time to think. It all started with a creak, a soft creak, almost like a purr, the sound I have heard a million times before. It is human nature to personify our ships, but I swear my girls have their own idiosyncrasies and Restless Dreamer, Dreamer to her friends, purrs when I lean back in my chair. When I first got her, I added it to my mental list of things to fix, but I soon became accustomed to it, quickly to the point it became reassuringly comfortable.
That simple sound took me back about a month. I was in HIP 8758 and had picked up a bread and butter mission to recover some artwork, except as I approached the signal, I got a bad feeling deep in my gut. Now my gut is normally right, but I rationalised I could jump in, take a look, and if it was an ambush I would make a quick exit while they were still scanning me. Well they caught we with my scoop down, and it all went south quickly, 5 or 6 of them, I didn't bother to count, jumped in and opened up on me, so I made a run for it. If it had been Dreamer's sister, she would have torn those mongrels to pieces, but Dreamer isn't that sort of girl, and although she has legs, it was all too little, far too late.
When I woke in Firsoff Orbital the insurance had already replaced Dreamer, and she was sitting in outfitting. They must have used the black box, because every detail of her spec was perfect, even down to the 98% engineered power plant. With the unpredictable nature of engineering I had wondered for a moment how they had found a power plant exactly engineered that much.
Which brings me back to that creak, the exact same creak... nobody replaces a creak.
On our first trip out we visited where it happened, closure maybe, not sure exactly. There wasn't much to see, nothing more than a few bits of hull.
So if they had replaced Dreamer, creak and all, how do I know they didn't replace me. How do I know that my original atoms are not still floating in space.
In the bar at the Orbital, I got latched onto by a drunk, the locals called him Lucky due to the number of times he had been rescued from a lifepod. Apparently he had turned down the sidewinder they offered after his last escape, and disappeared into the bottom of a bottle. He only stopped talking when I bought him a drink. As I was leaving in a moment of relative lucidity he said "We're all just 0s and 1s you know! Nothing more!" Strange why that stuck with me.
Anyway the scoop has disengaged, and it is time to jump. As I lean back, I can't help but smile as Dreamer purrs. Maybe when I reach the next station I will raise a glass to the original Dreamer..... and me, just in case.