Caravellum

This is a reworked version of a previous short story I posted in 2022, titled Extraction Facility IV. This edit was intended to cut the story down while maintaining the primary elements of its atmosphere. The ending also went through some changes.

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Extraction Facility IX

The display told the android that it was happy. The alert appeared as it ran a damp cloth along the top of an office chair. A soft hydraulic hiss accompanied the slow drip release of a pale serum into its system. Indeed, the android felt Happiness, and it was happy that it did. Standing in the old foreman’s office of the expansive warehouse, with its rows of pods upon pods criss-crossed by service cables. They had debated about when Happiness was meant to be felt but, as the facility’s Keeper, it felt right to be happy here. It glanced at the thin meniscus of the serum in its display. It would be happy for a while yet.

An alert came from the screens on the office wall. Columns of colour flickered, updated constantly with long lists of extracts from the Filters. Glancing over the monolithic shaft of Anger and the ever-in-demand pillar of Discontent, there was a new column. Just after Love, a rising sliver of lilac. The Keeper had no memory of it, and it bore no classification. Perhaps there should have been Confusion, given the Keeper’s job to understand these resources and judge their potential market impact. Yet, the Happiness remained.

The Keeper looked out to the warehouse, where a pin in its vision identified the source of this unknown variable: Filter 732. The android was pulled up by the locks of cables connecting its skull to the ceiling network. As it was lowered at the offending pod, the lid slid open. The scarred body of a Filter lay upon a nest of wiring that drilled into the skin. The Keeper displayed the identifier. Hope Marlow, 32, newly interred. Her extracts were drowned in red but then, that sliver of lilac.

Selecting the latest timeframe, the Keeper unscrewed its hand to expose a thin plug. It turned Hope’s head and inserted its wrist into a cavity at the base of her skull. A moment passed. Then, it was Hope.

_____________________________________

As I watched the night sky torn by burnt shipwrecks in orbit, I wondered what life might have been like if we had left when we had the chance. I felt a tug on my arm. A boy looked up at me, familiar blue eyes shining behind a crudely carved and painted mask. 

‟There’s my boy!” I was surprised by how tired my voice had become. I leant down and embraced him as his pudgy arms wrapped around my neck. 

‟Look at the mask I made!” He said with a grin.

I performed an enthusiastic once-over. ‟Wow! You made this by yourself?”

‟I supervised,” a tired voice said, ‟Ethan did all the work though.”

I looked towards the man with his hands tucked deep into his down jacket.

‟Hello, Jasper.”

‟It’s good to see you, Hope.”

I looked towards the hill as latecomers ascended. ‟I think you’ve arrived just in time.”

“Wait, Dad.” Ethan’s wide eyes flicked between us before pointing towards a nearby stall. The smell of melted butter wafted over the night wind.

Jasper chuckled. ‟I’ll get it. Save me a spot.”

Ethan and I jostled through the crowd up the hill to the grand tree.

‟So many people.” He whispered.

Much less than last time. I nodded to some familiar faces. The night was cold, and they had rugged up. Hand-woven scarves hid bandages wound over fresh scars. Brief silences were perforated by the sound of an empty sleeve in the wind or the offbeat clatter of crutches. Yet, surrounded by the remnants of their families, their smiling eyes reflected the dim moonlight. It was a night to forget. 

The Keeper recognised some faces. Loyalists. Criminals.

“Up there.” Ethan pointed to one of the tree’s low-hanging branches.

I lifted him up, before swinging my leg over the branch. A searing pain shot through me. I felt myself slip towards the ground before a firm palm was placed on my back.

‟Hey lad, do you mind taking this for a tick?” Jasper held up his other arm with a steaming box of popcorn. “Just need to help your mum.” Ethan grabbed the box with glee.

Jasper helped me position myself stably, and the pain subsided.

‟Still?” He asked.

‟It’s fine.” I said.

Jasper pulled himself up on Ethan’s other side. Our weight bowed the branch, but it endured. I kept my arm wrapped around Ethan, and I could feel Jasper’s hand hovering slightly from my back.

The Keeper saw Frustration. Embarrassment. Old products.

Ethan had pushed his mask atop his forehead and was staring at the popcorn with a furrowed brow.

‟What’s wrong?” I asked.

‟Can I start?” Ethan asked, looking past me.

Jasper nodded. ‟Go for it, lad.” 

Ethan smiled behind a mouthful.

Jasper softly cleared his throat. ‟We weren’t sure you’d make it.”

I nodded. ‟I know. I’m sorry.”

‟He understands.”

I looked over to our son, who was watching older children playing on the higher branches. I brushed a stray kernel from his cheek before taking the mask from his forehead.

‟I didn’t know he liked masks.”

Jasper glanced at it. “He told you in the letters.”

I turned it in my hands. The inside edge had been smoothed by a practised hand.

Jasper continued. ‟It’s not easy, but I’m trying to be a better father than I was a husband.”

I didn’t look at him as he said it. For a moment, I wished he hadn’t. So I might have a night to forget as well.

‟It wasn’t your fault. It just…” It fell apart. It didn’t work. It wasn’t the right time. We weren’t the right people. We were young. None of them seemed right. ‟you know.”

‟Yeah. I know.” 

He glanced at his watch. ‟Would have been our seventh anniversary today.” Then, with a grin, “your favourite number, right?”

His words brought me back to our university years. When our perfect ending was to be side-by-side. Chatting on campus greens, calculating how many more buses I could miss before my parents call. Sharing everything and anything. We planned which planet we would live on, when we would get married, how many kids we would have and all of their futures. He would promise, with that same grin, that we’d be happy.

Without knowing why, a laugh escaped me. It was a strangled sound, cracked from disuse, but as if I had forgotten how, each attempt to contain it burst into a more desperate chuckle. Jasper smiled and waited for the few moments it took to control myself. In the ensuing calm, he spoke.

‟I missed your laugh.”

I watched him. A low whistle sounded in the distance, climbing into the sky.

He looked into my eyes. ‟I missed you.”

In the sudden flash of light, accompanied by cracks, fizzes, and the appreciative murmurs of the crowd, I saw Jasper. His eyes were deep set and sunken, red-rimmed and blood-shot. The bruised purple hues of their bags weighed low upon his high cheekbones. Changed, and yet the same.

The Keeper watched as finally, the sliver of lilac came.

The same eyes, in a man I no longer knew. Through fights, arguments, and accusations, we had shared stories of love. A ‘love you’ declared each morning until, one day, it had lost its meaning. We persisted, though I didn’t know what it meant anymore, or whether I meant it. We might have stayed like that forever. Then, the world turned, and the call came.

We knew each other completely, so there were no empty platitudes or half-hearted attempts to make it work. We both knew that I had to fight, and he had to stay. It was over. I had scoured my mind for the right decision at the time, and I had comforted myself in the knowledge that there wasn’t one. Yet, seeing Ethan now, and the love for his father, made me think for the first time that I got it wrong. Maybe we could have been somewhere else, sitting in that cottage we talked about buying, reading dusty paperbacks to the three other children we promised to have.

The fireworks came to an end with a short burst. Ethan was clapping at the spectacle, dropping popcorn below. I looked down, offering an apology to the group of elders. They hadn’t noticed. They looked to the horizon. Past the treeline. One looked up to me, their eyes meeting mine for a brief moment in the moonlight.

Then, there was Fear.

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The Keeper released itself from the memory. Hope’s eyes fidgeted behind closed lids. Reattaching its hand, the Keeper adjusted the pod and closed the door.

The Keeper was pulled back to the foreman’s office, its pale serum all but depleted. Landing on the metallic walkway, it walked to the main console. The unclassified extract remained level. Unproductive, unsuitable, unmarketable. The Keeper submitted its judgement on this relic of a dead species. Then, it returned to cleaning the unused chair. 

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Cheers,

Marcus