Ghosts Hate Robots, Section 2; Break In Time

Section 2; Break in Time.

I’m still stuck in the cargo bay of the space station watching them prep another space vessel for takeoff and imagining the war between the bots and the aliens when I am slapped with the sonic vibration of a vessel leaving the outpost. Some of the humans implore the bots to cheer for the departing craft but they are met with blank responses from their mechanical co-workers.

The humans here are social and gather frequently to eat, to exercise, and hold on to small vestiges of a traditional human life but something seems off about them. Maybe it’s being born on a distant planet in space, but they seem to evolving; they are significantly smaller, no one is over five feet here, they’re hands are somewhat bigger than you would expect on someone that small and the fingers are thin, almost tentacle like now. Some have been modified with robotic parts- but I don’t hold it against them. Hell, these folks live well past one hundred. Some close to two hundred, that’s progress.

There are no days or nights on this asteroid but there is an ebb and flow to the humans. The bots never stop working. A hologram of the recently deceased crew members is being projected in the center of the plant. One person sits at the base of the memorial for long periods of time while drinking from a bottle. Throughout my travels all humans have consumed a form of alcohol. More so in space than any other world. Maybe it’s the size of their astral backyards that gives them the need. I don’t know but I wouldn’t mind a cold beer and cigarette.

This outpost is one of the deepest, one of the furthest mankind will reach. It’s merely a hunch, I don’t know coordinates or distance, but the depth of space is moot to a ghost. Go ahead, bet against them. I might even say these two leaders meeting so frequently were flirting but if they were it was only the human- robots remain soulless, although they do give it an earnest effort, I wonder how that works out for them.

I try to draw focus on the small clearings in my smudged view beyond the signal transmissions, constant gibberish, and the pressurized hiss of the universal sound. Like a transistor radio that just can’t find a station, if I endure long enough, I can break through the paralysis and into the cracks of reality where I am momentarily freed.

The robots with the smoking appendages enrage me most of all. They don’t even have lungs- though I’ve heard them talk inside the cities of Jupiter about a disease, something insidious for their mechanical race. After discovering the virus’s epicenter they demolish the southern settlements, a vast mixed metropolis on Jupiter, dematerialize them all with an explosion that leaves a crater the size of Asia, then fill it with molten ore, freeze it over, and never speak of it again.

Disease gone.