Life in Silico

“Hello,” you say as you enter the room.

“Hello, sir!” The technician, a young corporal, was already seated and setting up the machine.

You step onto the pad, casually looking around you. A small teleportation chamber, with a telepad and a terminal for a human operator. This ship must be ancient, human operators became obsolete quite a while ago. But ships are expensive while men are cheap. And if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.

You wonder why the Colonel called you personally. You have already analyzed the project to death, and all the reports have been submitted and accepted. He won’t be able to pry any new information from you even if he personally scanned every neuron in your brain - everything you know was uploaded. Damn that old geezer. And just when you were about to celebrate your anniversary…

“Err,” the technician looks up apologetically.

“What is it?”

“Well, the scans are alright and the data was transmitted, but the protocol wasn’t finished for some reason.”

Protocol wasn’t finished was an euphemism for your body wasn’t vaporized into atoms and recycled. You’ve never heard it before, except in briefings. It wasn’t supposed to happen, and it never did, not to you, not to your friends.

“I should be able to fix it in a few minutes, please bear with me.”

“Do you have break-downs often?” A garbage can, not a ship…

“Very seldom, but this looks manageable. Please remain on the pad, sir.”

“Yes, I know the protocol.” There were to be no duplicate personnel, no matter what. If a malfunction ever happened - although it never happened to you before, or to any of your friends - you were to remain in the chamber, on the pad, and await the completion of the protocol. Everybody knew this, why did he remind you?

You find yourself losing patience. Silly, considering your data was already sent. Whether he fixes it five minutes or in five hours doesn’t matter - soon enough the data will reach the base, and you’ll be there, on your way to meet the Colonel, regardless of what happens here. Still, it’s a malfunction, which annoys you now just as the apparent malfunction in the Colonel’s brain, when he decided to yank you away from your official vacation into this stupid meeting. Amanda was not pleased, and neither were you. You didn’t ask to be reassigned to a desk job for nothing. Ugh… what’s taking him so long?…

—

A man in military clothing materialized out of thin air. He blinked a few times and shook his head - he never quite got used to the instant transformation of surroundings following a teleport.

“Welcome, Captain. The Colonel is currently attending an urgent meeting. You’re welcome to wait in any of our recreational facilities,” a voice said. He never got quite used to that, either - just a voice, no human being. And what was keeping up the Colonel, what urgent business could he possibly attend to in this peaceful, boring-to-death solar system? The Captain walked in the direction of the mess hall, agitated. A few hours wouldn’t make a difference - he missed his anniversary by a few weeks, thanks for the Colonel’s call - but still. He would be demanding these vacation days back. He was missing Amanda badly.

—

“Excuse me, it’s been twenty minutes already. What’s taking up so much time?”

“Terribly sorry, sir, never can be quite sure with these things. But I’ve almost nailed it, just five more minutes.”

Cheap, backward Space Force. Maybe you should retire. This nonsense doesn’t happen on civilian ships.

You should be on your way to the Colonel already. In fact, you are - the base is only ten light-minutes away. The technician has been working twenty minutes on the problem, so you should be already on your way navigating the maze that is the Colonel’s headquarters. Right about now you should be thinking about kicking the architect where it hurt.

Only… you aren’t. You are here. Waiting. So who is there? Somebody else? Whoever is there is completely unaware of this annoying screw-up. He’s walking to the Colonel’s office. You wonder if this will even be recorded. The technician said such a thing happened already, but then, it’s not like anyone would be around to tell. You too will be vaporized very soon.

These thoughts never occurred to you. Teleports just worked. But then, if they didn’t, nobody could tell about it, since the original is always destroyed, and your duplicate wouldn’t know. Original? Duplicate? In all the briefings you were just teleported, not reassembled or vaporized or anything. It’s just like walking - now you’re in your room, then in the corridor, then in class. Right?…

And what would happen when you’d get vaporized? Would you suddenly transport to the base? But you’re already there - or somebody is. He’s not you - you’re here! - but who else could it be?

What the hell is wrong with the dumb machine? You’re sweating now, tapping some frantic beat with your foot on the pad.

I’m going to die.

How stupid, you tell yourself, you’ve done this hundreds of times before. Standard procedure. You’ve remained yourself. You can remember everything that happened. Your childhood, The Academy, the war, Amanda, and now here you are. Think about previous teleportations, what happened then? All was normal. Everything is going to be OK now, too. This hold-up doesn’t mean anything.

Amanda… who’s going to go back to her? Not me… I’m going to die…

You suddenly feel hot. You have the urge to run away. Idiot, you scold yourself. You’ve seen real danger. You’ve nearly really lost your life quite a few times, and you’re afraid of this?! You see yourself running from the room. What are they going to do, hunt you down? Sounds logical, they can’t just let you go. You can see yourself falling, struck in the back by one of those phasers.

You look at the technician, hunched over the terminal, mumbling something franticly and manipulating something on the screen with swift motions. You take deep breaths, then your leg begins to move its own, you open your mouth to shout…

—

The technician looked up into thin air. He thought he heard the Captain say something, but he was too engrossed with fixing the malfunction. He was so anxious he executed the final command without even a glance at the Captain. Oh well. Doesn’t matter. Wouldn’t have changed anything anyway.

“Computer, file a report on the malfunction of teleportation chamber number three…”

Damn the stupid thing. His shift was over, he was tired and wanted to sleep, but now he had to do the report.

—

The Captain was not pleased. The Colonel called him for entirely political reasons, to gossip about those involved in the project. Why can’t he keep it professional? It’s not even a big project. It’s not even in his own damn solar system. What does he really want?

He reached the teleport pad, which did not have a human operator on this end. He stepped on it and stared angrily into the space in front of him. At least he was going back to Amanda now. He sighed, and vanished.