Anne of the Thousand
Years
Kenneth
James Crist
Dr. Griswold was
blathering on, but Anne Childs was hearing little of what he had to say. Once
the word cancer had dropped like a massive stone into the well of her
consciousness, her panic had become so complete her concentration just went the
fuck away.
Dimly, she heard chemotherapy
and radiation therapy, but what was really slamming around in her
brain was a completely different set of terms: liver, pancreas, stomach, and
one lung…
She took the cards
with the appointments written down for the therapies to begin and drove home in
a daze. In fact, later, she could not even remember driving at all. She was
home fifteen minutes before she collapsed on the sofa, sobbing uncontrollably,
with no one to comfort her.
Annes’ life had
been
no great shakes and now, it was spinning merrily along toward its end. It was
not fair. Not goddamn fair at all. She was a short, flabby woman, who had
always been an overweight child, bullied and mostly friendless her whole life.
She’d never been married, never had kids, in fact she’d only had one lover,
when she was in her teens, a pimply, skinny kid, who was just as awkward and
friendless as she. He went into the military at seventeen and was killed in the
invasion of Russia in 2064.
Cancer. Anne was one
of those people who believed that cures for cancer had been found many years
ago, but suppressed by drug companies, simply because there was more profit in
treating the disease than there would ever be in curing it. But it really made
no difference. It was going to kill her. Simple as that. Dr. Griswold
had been as gentle as he could when he delivered the diagnosis, his nurse had
held Anne and they had cried together. But it made no difference. She would die
sooner, rather than later. All their therapies would only postpone the
inevitable, as she got weaker and sicker. Over the next few weeks, Anne Childs
would go through all the stages of grief. Denial. Anger. Bargaining. She was
almost into acceptance when Dr. Griswold called unexpectedly on a Saturday
afternoon.
He seemed unusually
upbeat, considering her condition, because she was surely losing her battle.
She was no longer flabby. The cancer was burning her life right out. She had
lost over fifty pounds and had little or no strength for everyday chores. After
some small talk, he asked if she would be interested in joining a program that
would not only save her life, but prolong it almost indefinitely?
“I’ve never
heard of
anything like that, Doctor,” she said, “is this some new drug they’ve come out
with recently?”
“No, Anne, no
drugs
involved. Maybe you should come to my office tomorrow morning, and we’ll
introduce you to the program and some representatives from the company, who can
answer all your questions. Say, nine-ish?”
Anne didn’t know
whether to laugh or cry, to be overjoyed or wary. It sounded too good to be
true and her Mom had always said, if it seemed too good to be true, it most
likely was. All she could say was, “Thank you, Doctor. I’ll be there…”
Anne got little
sleep that night. There were so many questions whirling through her mind, so
much fear of death and also of disappointment. What if she went for this
“program” and it failed? What would it cost? She didn’t have much money and if
this was something experimental, her insurance most likely wouldn’t cover it.
What about side effects? Could the cure be worse than the disease that was
wracking her body? The doctor had said it could prolong her life almost
indefinitely. What the hell could do that? In the end, she almost didn’t go to
Dr. Griswold’s office for fear that it was some kind of a con. But then, what
if she passed it up? The grim reaper was waiting, impatiently tapping his bony
foot…
Upon arrival at her
doctor’s, two slick-looking men in suits sat her down and made her sign at
least a dozen forms, non-disclosure agreements, agreements to cooperate with
all testing and treatments, permission forms to allow access to all her
personal records and banking records, it just went on and on. Then, at last,
they ushered her into a room where there was a large video screen covering one
wall and sat her down. They told her to watch the entire video before saying
anything or passing judgment on their program. They left her alone in the room
and the video started.
It was a very
professional production and in the opening credits, she saw references to at
least six government agencies she recognized, including the U. S. Space Force,
the FBI, CIA, NSA and a couple of others.
Soon, the most
incredible thing she had ever heard of unrolled on the screen. She’d had no
idea there was a starship program or that it was being built in Earth orbit.
That scientists had experimented with a drive system that would accelerate the
ship to near light speed, and another system, still untested, that would jump
the ship to a velocity exceeding the speed of light—something Einstein had said
was impossible—and that nobody was sure would work.
Finally, halfway
through the presentation, it got down to the reason she was there. They wanted
volunteers. The program would not use ordinary humans, because travel to the
stars would take much longer than a human lifespan. The ship would be “manned”
by androids—enhanced biomechanical entities was the term being used—and
volunteers who were terminal patients were being asked to have their brains
downloaded into these semi-mechanical beings. The risks might be high, or they
might be minimal, but the patients, it was felt, had little to lose and
everything to gain by joining the program.
If the patient
joined the program, they would be hooked up to a computer and all their
thoughts and memories would be loaded onto an immense hard drive, then transferred
into the biomechanical brain of an android. The only thing that would change
would be that the patient would receive a near-indestructible body to occupy as
they went out to explore the cosmos. Their old, diseased bodies would be
cremated and given proper burial.
As the video ended,
Anne was given three days to think about the assignment. She walked out of the
room and looked over the two government agents and said, “Fuck yeah. Sign me
up…”
No more pain. No bad
smells. No pimples. No ingrown toenails, no tooth decay. No fucking cancer. On
her way home, she was so excited it was almost like the first time she ever got
laid, along with Christmas Eve and Fourth of July all rolled into one. She had
three days to “get her affairs in order” and then drive to the local air base
to be flown to Houston, Texas to the space center for “transfer and training.”
They had assured her all her training would be a breeze. It would all be
downloaded into her new brain. She wouldn’t even see the inside of a classroom.
“Get her affairs in order…” what a fucking joke. She had no living relatives to
give anything to. Her house could go back to the bank for all she cared, same
way with her car. Her personal stuff and furniture could all go to charities.
She would have no use for any of it now.
Three days went by
in a flurry of activity and by seven in the evening on day three, she rolled up
to the gate at the air base. The gate guard told her to park her car in the
visitor lot and in a few minutes a car picked her up. They drove straight out
to the tarmac, where a transport lifter waited, its engines already turning.
She barely got strapped into a seat before the machine lifted and went
supersonic for Houston.
An hour later, she
was walking into the Space Force training center. She was allowed to use the
restroom, then she was walked into a laboratory, where she was examined,
showered and disinfected, then taken to surgery. She was moved onto an
operating table and given a shot. Sleep dropped like a hammer.
* *
* *
“Anne? Annie,
wake
up, Sweetie. Are ya with us?”
Anne opened her eyes
and the first thing she noticed was how clear and beautiful everything was. Her
eyes had been fixed. She had worn glasses since she was twelve and had never
been able to see this well. “Yeah, I hear ya. Wow, this is cool!”
“Okay, we’re
gonna
be doing some system checks now, just sit back and enjoy the show.” Across her
vison, streams of numbers and letters began scrolling and a series of tones
assaulted her hearing. Moments later, she suddenly tasted broccoli, then
lemons, then chocolate, then menthol cigarettes, and it went on and on, then
the smells began, and it was a sensual symphony. Just as she thought she was
totally immersed in sensual pleasure, invisible hands began stroking her, tickling,
pinching, poking, licking, burning and on and on, ending with an orgasm so
powerful, she felt herself trying to pass out. Then it all stopped and the
voice of the nurse said, “Okay, everything checks out, Anne. You’re all set to
go. Sit up and take a look.”
The wall opposite
the bed was a full mirror. Anne looked at herself and saw a most beautiful,
sexy, tanned, doll of a woman and her joy seemed boundless. Trade cancer for
all this? Oh, hell, yeah! “My God, is that me?”
“You betcha,”
the
nurse answered, “and that’s not all. You’ll never get sick, you’ll never have
to use a bathroom, hell, Sweetie, you’ll never even have bad breath. Once you
learn how to control your new brain and body you’re gonna have the best life
ever.”
Training. This was
where it would get boring, she was sure. Probably gonna be weeks and weeks of
pain and exercise and cramming information—nope…as it turned out, the machine
that she now inhabited just needed to be programmed and tuned. A young, kinda
cute, kinda nerdy technician came in and said, “Um…okay, um…Anne, are ya
ready?”
“I guess…what
are we
doin’?”
“Well, you’re
relaxing and I’m gonna get ya up to speed. Here, let’s get ya hooked up…” The
tech fitted a thin black elastic band around her head and another around her
left bicep. He picked up a remote and pushed a button. Blackness.
It seemed only a
moment later and Anne was awake again. The tech was gone and she was in some
kind of command center. Looking around she saw control panels and view screens,
acceleration chairs and about a thousand switches, buttons and dials. The
amazing part was that she recognized every piece and part and knew what systems
they ran and controlled. Her knowledge of the ship was complete down to the
tiniest detail. On the view screens she saw various views of the complex ship,
both inside and out and in the background of some of the camera shots, the
Earth turned slowly below.
She sat down at a
control console and picked up a headset and put it on. She keyed a switch and
spoke. “Commander Childs here. Where are we at in our countdown?”
A quiet, disembodied
voice came back. “Good morning, Commander. This is Starship Columbus. We are at
Launch minus thirty minutes. Final fueling and provisioning are completed.
Final system checks are underway. So far, all boards are green.”
“Thank you,
Columbus. Keep me advised.” As she waited, she scrolled through various camera
feeds until she came to one that showed a storage bay so vast that it seemed to
go on forever. It was filled with coffins. Or so they appeared. Anne opened a
new window on her commander’s screen and posted a query. “What am I looking at
on camera 413?”
The reply was almost
instantaneous. “Cryogenic Storage Bay number 16. One of 32 storage bays filled
with human volunteers who will be in suspended animation for the entire voyage.
Temperature controlled and fully automated, the storage bays will require no
particular attention from the Mission Commander.”
So, no humans aboard
who were not frozen like Thanksgiving turkeys and stored, awaiting their
arrival. She continued scrolling. In a moment, she stopped again, and asked,
“Columbus, what am I looking at?”
Again, near-instant
information. “Engine Bay 7, Commander. This bay houses one of the three jump
engines, which generate a super-gravity field that will shift time and space,
allowing near-instantaneous transfer of the ship and contents across star
systems. Due to time constraints, the actual system remains untested, although
prototypes appear to be viable.” Anne scrolled on. After a few minutes,
Columbus advised, “Commander, we are in final countdown. Even though you are
now nearly indestructible, I would recommend you strap in…”
Anne moved to what
she now knew to be an acceleration couch and strapped herself in, hitting the
switches to crank it back to its negative-G position and turning on the monitor
above it, so she could see what was going on in her command.
The voice of
Columbus intoned, …3…2…1…launch…” and for the fourth time since she had bid
multi-system cancer goodbye, blackness took Anne.
It seemed she was
out for only a few seconds, but then, as she began to come around, she heard
Columbus’ voice, in a state of monotonous recitation.
“Number 376, no
vitals…number 377, no vitals, number 378, no vitals, number 379, no vitals…”
“Columbus, what’s
going on?”
“It appears that
the
jump has been immediately fatal to the human cargo, Commander.”
The ship’s
artificial intelligence sounded completely unconcerned, as if it had been
counting gumdrops, rather than human lives lost by misadventure.
“What? My God,
how
can that be? They’re…they’re all dead?”
“That appears
to be
the case, Commander…”
Anne thought for a
few minutes as Columbus continued to check its human cargo and found no one
left alive. Finally, she spoke. “We have to go back. Columbus, we have to go
back. Immediately. Um, set course for Earth system and prepare for jump.”
“I’m sorry
Commander. We cannot perform another jump…”
“What? We just
did a
jump and we can’t do another to get back?”
“Correct, Commander.
Our fuel expenditure was too great. We cannot summon enough power to jump a
second time.”
“But…but
we have to
get back, so we can let them know not to do any more jumps. They were building
more ships, just like this one. We must get back!”
“I didn’t
say we
could not return, Commander. But we will be limited to travelling at sub-light
speed.”
Anne slowly sat back
on her acceleration couch and asked the question she dreaded asking. “How long,
Columbus? How long to reach Earth?”
“Approximately
a
thousand years, Commander. Give or take…”
Anne retreated deep
into her artificial brain and then finally said, “Columbus, set course for
Earth. And you will no longer call me Commander. My name is Anne.”
“Understood, Anne.
Stand by for acceleration.”
“And Columbus?”
“Yes, Anne?”
“I
sure hope you can
play fucking chess…”
