Starfish in Love

 “WARNING: COLLISSION IMMINENT” flashed up on the piloting board. Celina glanced at the scanner’s feedback. A large shape had been detected just ahead. No prior warning. One minute her course was clear and free from obstacles, the next a screen-sized blur appeared out of nowhere, triggering her craft’s defensive measures. She looked out the cockpit windows. All she could see was the starlit expanse, seemingly stretched out to infinity. How could there be anything there that she hadn’t anticipated? “WARNING: COLLISION IMMINENT”, insisted the overhead display. The letters had an angry hue, panic-red and abrasive. Alarms blared, lights flared. She imagined a vast spectral whale gliding up ahead. Or could it be a swarm of infinitesimally tiny debris bundled up in a ship-wrecking whole? She had to rely on Starfish’s guidance. 

Starfish, her trusted artificial companion, linked to her through their joint neural interface.  Gone were the cumbersome days of coiled wires and binding electrodes. All she needed now was her cortical micro-implant to translate her thoughts into actionable inputs. It didn’t come without a cost, of course. It was still experimental technology, exclusively rolled out for light-vessel scouts and frontline fighter pilots who would benefit from enhanced reflexes. This biomechanical application was prohibitively complex and expensive for anything larger such as carriers and battleships with their extensive crews and multilayered objectives. Celina was willing to be a guinea pig for the Corp if it meant she’d get to be a bleeding-edge vanguard moving at the speed of thought. She wasn’t privy to most of what went into the inner workings of Starfish’s operational capacity. She knew enough to do her job. She went to all the courses, gave the pledges, signed the forms. She was made well aware that this would be an irreversible invasive procedure and that there’d be no manual off switch once the link had been established. Proximity was the main activation parameter. The pilot’s seat offered the optimal range. That’s when Starfish fully came alive, engines rumbling and monitors beaming in the half-light.  

Celina loved thinking in directions and feeling her ship respond to her prompts. She was an arrow in space, svelte and steadfast. As a scout, she didn’t have any weaponry installed. Scouts were meant to activate their shields and cloaking device and retreat at the first sign of danger, marking the spot for the fighter crews. She hadn’t even had the thrill of blasting floating rocks to smithereens. What she did have, besides the formidable force of flight, were her scanners with their associated feelers that would analyse the types of objects and terrains she’d come across in her exploration, and her mid-sized terrestrial navigation and sample collection drone. It had been named the Sea Urchin because of its spherical shape, spindly legs, and the variety of extendable tools that would unfold from its carapace. Maybe those scientists went a little overboard with the aquatically inspired designations. Celina just called it Urchie. As an extension of Starfish, Urchie was enormously useful as a signal enhancer in land-based trips where the ship couldn’t follow. 

She’d needed time to adjust to this novel connection and she didn’t think she’d ever truly get used to it. It was strange to always have something – someone? – probing the inner recesses of her mind while she was on the job. It was stranger still to have Starfish with her when she slept during long shifts at quieter moments. She had been assured that there was no danger of any internal signals being misinterpreted as calls for action when they weren’t meant as such. She had been trained to imbue her thoughts with specific intention for the AI to manifest the corresponding responses. Still, she wondered what it made of her idle musings and her dreams, especially as they all revolved around the same wearisome subject at the moment. She couldn’t stop thinking about Kyle. They had left things in a bad place the last time they'd seen each other and she couldn’t help feeling hurt and angry about it. He didn’t understand that her work was more than a paycheck. It was her calling. Sure, he enjoyed his teaching post and he was good at it, but he hadn’t experienced what it was like to be out here, at one with the cosmic currents. She’d been born to do this, chart a course and break new ground for the colonies. Celina and Starfish were thick as thieves by now, having already carried out three exploratory expeditions without a glitch. 

Until now, that is. She brought the ship to a halt and waited for whatever was out there to pass her by. Don’t take interest in me, Mr Space Whale. I’m nothing of note. Slide on by. The unidentified object approached until it was right on top of her. She hadn’t spotted anything outside yet. No movement, no crash. “INTERNAL DAMAGE DETECTED.”, came the system status report. She took note of the highlighted areas on the screen. Shit. That didn’t look good. Multiple sections were affected, chief among them her drive compartment. She’d have to head back to home base. That wasn’t part of the plan at all. She’d barely got started with this trip! It was meant to take three months at least and she had planned to refuel and rest at several outposts along the way. This reset would rob her of precious time and resources. She’d have to modify her schedule and apply for new permits, depending on the length of the repairs. How did this happen? What the hell was that thing? The warning system couldn’t clarify. Useless. At least she could go back home for a bit, see if she could patch things up with Kyle. Either that or rip that band aid off for good.  

At least the return wouldn’t take long. Home base was half a day away. Input target coordinates, maintain a steady pace, re-enter the atmosphere, deploy pressure and thermal shields before landing. Simple enough. Take us home, Star, she thought. Star obliged. She settled in for the ride and allowed her mind to drift. She didn’t want to separate. They could make it work. He’d understand. They had handled the long absences that came with her career so far. Why quit now? They could talk things through. They should take a trip to one of the outer colonies when they found the time. Decompress. Re-ignite that spark.  

She was pulled back to the present by another warning. She was aware of being on the brink of atmospheric re-entry. This time the alarm came from her home-monitoring system which was indicating a perimeter breach. All light-vessel pilots had one installed following the incident a few months ago. Some of the colonists violently objected to the new AI tech. They thought it was a concession too far to automation, that enough employment sectors had been lost to the machines already. The early adopters were treated with contempt and suspicion in those circles. The worst case was a home invasion that resulted in one of her rank buddies being beaten so badly that he was still in a coma with unknown recovery prospects. The onboard home-monitoring systems were meant to offer an added sense of security to concerned crew members. Threats could be identified and intercepted through calls to headquarters. That is what Celina was frantically attempting with no success after her disbelief at the series of misfortunes had given way to dismay. She couldn’t get through to anyone. The radio silence was impenetrable. Had it been caused by the earlier interference? Her house was under threat. Kyle was there. He’d be in danger. The advantage of Starfish’s compact size was that she could land nearby with minimal disruption to the surrounding area. She could stop whatever was going on before it was too late.  

She plotted the new coordinates and performed all re-entry checks. Fuel supply sufficient for chosen destination: check. Landing gear functional and ready to deploy: check. Pressure and thermal shielding: on. She finished up the rest of the preparations. Satisfied with the info on all displays, she lay back. This was usually her favourite part. The light-headedness and swirling insides as she entered a blinding conflagration knowing that she would soon be safe and sound with her feet on the ground. Only this time, something was wrong. She was burning up, feverish, suffocating. Her bones rattled and her muscles ached. Were the shields not fully operational? Star? Check thermal shielding. Check pressure levels. Check, check, check. Everything came up green, reassuring, normal. Why couldn’t she breathe? She was standing on the edge of an erupting volcano. She was suspended in the blackest of holes, in the utter absence of light and warmth and gravity’s steadying embrace. Kyle was there, staring at her imploringly as everything collapsed in silence. She reached out for his hand and tumbled back into awareness.  

Starfish was still. Had they landed already? Sparks were flying and a searing sizzle filled her ears. Something tore through the cockpit and landed on her lap. It was heavy and cold. She tried to break through the haze. She was suddenly helpless in the clutch of metallic appendages. She fixated on the glint of a circular saw at the tip of an emerging limb. “U…Urchie?”, she managed to blurt out before the saw revved up with a roar and landed on her throat. Her voice was drowned in a wet shriek as the spinning blade drilled through cartilage and bone and came out the other side, the pilot’s chair tearing and shuddering at the impact. There was a dull thud as her severed head hit the floor. The drone landed next to it and held it in its claws. It spewed forth charged-up wires that entered the still warm and profusely bleeding base of her skull. They burrowed deep within her frontal cortex as Urchie sent its signals to test its new-found body part. It trembled in response. A gurgle was building up: an attempt at words. “Hell..hell…hello”, rasped the thing in Urchie’s grasp. 

Remaining cloaked and silent, Starfish directed Urchie to a new task. As the drone skulked towards its target, Kyle slept a dreamless sleep. He awoke with a start at some kind of shattering. He had fallen asleep in the living room listening to the late-night radio. Transmissions from Earth and old-time tunes, which were still playing as he got up. He tried to shake the disorientation settling in his joints and cautiously approached the front-facing windows. No signs of damage. He peered through the gloaming at the dormant streetlights and the empty pavements. Nothing stirred as he examined the front-door display and tested the locks. An ancient melody drifted through the house as he moved into the bedroom and turned the lights on. It was Norah Jones’s Come Away With Me, a song he remembered his grandmother often sang softly in his childhood home. He didn’t notice the fragments of glass and trail of blood on the floor where something was dragged along. As Norah sang about cloudy days and knee-high grass, he gaped at the incomprehensible sight facing him. It looked like a melting mannequin’s head, moulded in crude mimicry of Celina’s features, dangling on top of a tangle of wires spouting out from under the bed. Its eyelids fluttered violently and its lips twitched. Its mouth and eyes opened wide as if it were surprised to see him. “Llllll…Llllll…Love”, it croaked. “Love. Love. Me. Love. Me. Lovemelovemelovemelovemeloveme.”

Head Popping

Tom felt the familiar angst that preceded the emergence of a spot on his forehead. He put his finger on it, feeling it ready to blossom beneath his skin. It wasn’t visible to anyone but him yet. It was the vanguard of accursed acne, a blemish, a blight, one of many unwanted pockmarks. “Bad company”, he called them, ever since those horrible teenage years when they would pepper his face and ruin his life. They were a constant barrier, an oily veil between him and his peers. During particularly prominent breakouts, he couldn’t bear to look anyone in the eye. It would be like looking into a supernova of pure judgment. He was an aesthetic disgrace, repulsive with his army of whiteheads and blackheads peering out from every pore. If only they were extra eyes. At least they would serve a function then, grace him with a dozen new perspectives. They were worse than useless: they were nature’s insult, only there to cause distress and disgust.  

He used every cream he could lay his hands on. They didn’t help. The ads were lies, featuring smiling beauties rubbing their hands over their smooth and glowing skin. They didn’t need any help; he did. They were the perfect antithesis to his craggy moon of a face. He was a boiling egg, about to crack and spray the walls with foul-smelling yolk. It wasn’t fair. If it weren’t for the bad, bad company, those marauding intruders of blood and pus, he could be, if not handsome exactly, then unremarkable. No one would laugh behind his back or look at him in pity.  

Then gradually, for no other reason he could tell other than the passage of time, the symptoms started subsiding. He was relieved. Bring on aging, bring on the lines and wrinkles, anything but this degrading scourge. He could finally join the rest of the human species and be ugly in a normal, boring way. These days he only suffered from occasional whiteheads, and they wouldn’t last long. They were still unpleasant reminders of past misery and he preferred to have minimal interactions with others when they occurred. On days he had the luxury to hide away until they cleared up, he would. When he couldn’t do that, he would do everything his power to avoid acknowledging them.  

That worked pretty well until Nancy showed up. He liked Nancy. She brought him out of his squeamish skin, showed him that it was ok to jump headfirst now and then and that he could laugh at himself, that not everything is a matter of life and death, that re-invention is possible. There was only one problem, and it was a major one. She loved to squeeze and pop the whiteheads. He could never hide them from her. As soon as she noticed them, she would get an awful, gleeful look, as if she were a large cat and there was a limping mouse just outside reach.  

This morning’s blistering intrusion would be the worse one yet. He felt it in his gut. He broke into a cold sweat at the thought of the ordeal ahead. She was still sleeping. It was the start of the weekend. He didn’t even have the escape of work. What if he kept his eyes shut and tried to sleep some more? Would that reverse the process? Of course not. What if he feigned illness all day with his head buried in pillows? What if he wore a bandana, or a beanie? She’d see right through him. He walked into the bathroom, steadied himself and looked into the mirror. To his terror, there was already a section of the surface area that was an angry red. He was lost in a swirl of panicked thoughts. It’s enflamed. It’s going to be worse than ever! He could rub it, make it go away. No, that will only enrage it. He had to stop thinking about it. Stress always makes them worse. There is a rotting elephant in the room, shambling forth with cruel intent. Something was even stranger than usual. The spot seemed to shift, and, in a blink, it was no longer red: it was a bulbous yellow globe. He hid his face and kneeled in front of the sink for a long while. He glanced back and it was still there, slimy and snug between his eyebrows, pulsating almost imperceptibly.  

As he turned to leave, he nearly crashed into Nancy standing in the doorway. She was gaping at him, her eyes sparkling, spit lines forming at the corners of her mouth. She was mesmerised. 

“It – it’s wonderful!”, she gasped.  

“Nancy, please don’t touch it. Not this time. This one’s all wrong, I can feel it. I’ll go back to bed, wait it out. No one else can see me this way”, he begged.  

Her eyes did not lose their glint. Quite the opposite.  

“No one has to. I’ll make it go away. There’s so much jammed up in there. Oh, it’s ready to go! Let me touch it, just the once. I’m only going to test it, don’t worry. If it’s not there yet, I’ll stay away, promise.” 

He instinctively brought his arms up in defence. 

“No, no, please, it’s too big, it’ll leave a nasty scar. What if there are eggs in there? You know those stories of people with bugs in their skin? What if it breaks and there are centipedes all over your hand?” 

“That’s stupid, centipedes don’t do that.” 

“Spiders? Spiders do! What if it’s a spider nest?” 

“Come here, it’s going to feel so good when it’s done, I promise.” 

“What if my head explodes? I can hear it growing, stay away!” 

He walked back into the bathroom, his options dwindling. She advanced on him with twitching eyelids and grasping hands. He feigned to the right. She took his bait. He bolted over the bathtub to her left, tearing the shower curtain off in his mad dash, tumbling outside on all fours. She groaned and grabbed his ankles. He kicked her away and crawled into the storage cupboard, trying to close the door behind him. She was too fast, jumping on his back and pulling his hair back. He made a desperate lunge for the mop in the corner, using it in blind backhanded stabs to get her off him. One of them landed with a thud and she screamed, letting him go. Holding the mop like a lance, he pushed her further back and scrambled over her into the living room. He tripped over his feet and landed through the glass coffee tabletop with a deafening crash. He cradled the mop and whimpered in a foetal position, shards gleaming all around him.  

He could hear her panting in the hallway. She got up and slowly walked into the room.  

“Just a pop”, she growled. “One quick pop.” 

She sat down next to him and took his head into her arms. She delicately brushed his hair off his forehead and leaned close.  

“I can hear it too”, she whispered. “It’s calling to me. It needs me to do this so badly.”  

Tom had no fight in him left. There would be no shouting and pleading against his fate. His tongue, his skull, his entire body vibrated in unison with the new growth. He felt safe, at the right place at the right time. He was a freshly crafted humming instrument. He was an aquatic embryo deep underwater, learning to breathe. The pulse on his forehead was life itself. The pus-filled pustule was not a parasite. It was the concentrated sum of his desires. It craved to be caressed, fondled, and fingered until it burst, showering the world with its burning affection. There would be a torrent of new sensations for everyone to share. No more hurt, no more fear, no more uncertainty, only magnificent sliding forms with multicoloured liquid insides.  

“Do it”, he said, “Do it now.”  

“Yes”, she moaned. She put her thumbs and forefingers around the suppurative sphere. It was soft and welcoming. It reminded her of the bright red cellophane candy wrappers she toyed with while waiting for her mum to pick her up at school. It was going to be so satisfying. She quivered in anticipation of the warm stream on her palms. She took a deep breath and pinched.  

She was sitting on the floor staring at a discarded mop and broken glass. “Have I been sleepwalking?”, she wondered. That’s dangerous. She should do something about that. She swept the shards and walked through the house, which seemed emptier than usual. She should do something about all this unused space too. She should go for a run, clear her head. These winter mornings always put her in a contemplative mood. She brushed her teeth, changed to her running clothes and left, closing the door on a silent house.