“Wait. If you destroy them, then Scarlet and I have no way of getting back.” Jessie said and stood with her.
“That is what he wished so it must be done. It is for the best.”
“Where are they?” He asked. “I haven’t seen them anywhere. Or any blue osmi-thing.”
“They are in his space ship.” She said and started towards the door. “They are dangerous items that you can’t have access to.”
“He has a space ship?” Jessie asked, ignoring the fact that she was treating him like a child and hiding things that he might hurt himself with. “Really? Can you show me how to fly it?”
She kept her resolute pace. Her Jessie had given her an order, it had to be carried out.
“Wait.” Jessie said just as she was about to walk into the airlock. “He told me to do it. Not you. If you do it then that wouldn’t be doing what he said.”
She stopped, one hand on the locked door.
“Then I will bring them inside so you may proceed.” She said.
“I’m not going to destroy anything.” Jessie said and turned back to the table. “He’s not the boss of me.”
They argued back and forth, his obstinate stubbornness as unwavering as her faultless logic and in the end nothing happened. She couldn’t do it by his logic and he wouldn’t despite hers. She could have continued all night and probably all month with the circular arguments.
“Jessie said they must be destroyed.”
“I’m Jessie and I say no.”
“You’re not Jessie.”
“How about we let Scarlet decide when she wakes up.” He finally said and she relented.
Jessie went back to his food and it was still the perfect temperature, the dishes themselves keeping the salad cool, the drinks icy and the casserole looking thing hot.
“Did he say anything else?” she asked
“Some. But it’s my turn to ask a question.”
She sat her fork down in anticipation and almost child-like excitement about the game. He had about a million questions he wanted answered. Like why did she eat? Why did they live way out in the middle of nowhere? Who was the Queen of the Outer Reaches? What would they do once Scarlet was healed? Were there loads of different kinds of aliens? Did the space ship have gun turrets? What was sex like in zero gravity?
He had to be careful though. She was honest but a shrewd negotiator. He believed she’d answer anything but only for as long as she had questions for him and he really didn’t have much to offer. He needed to ask big questions that had answers she wanted to give. Questions about him, the other Jessie. Questions that would help him fill the gaps in the journals.
“How did you meet?” Jessie asked, hoping her answer would be long and filled with other answers.
1
The Traveler
Jessie sat in the old Mercury and listened to her playlists through most of the night until he finally fell asleep. He allowed himself a few hours to mourn her, to feel sorry for himself but forced the sadness out. He pushed it away and refused to let it pull him down. She was safe, she was with the boy she loved and Maddy would take care of them. He’d examined his heart and it missed her but the unending ache had faded. He knew it had something to do with the strains of the zombie virus flowing through his veins. The same endless, aching hunger for blood they had was the same as his need for her. It had nearly driven him to madness every time he jumped and failed but this time hadn’t really been a failure. They were together, in a sense.
She was safe, that was what was important, but he felt cheated. He’d been trying to get back to her for so many years and when he finally succeeded, he chucked it all away.
That didn’t matter.
She lived.
That’s what mattered.
She was with his young and dumb self and no matter how much he resented it, he knew it was for the best. They could grow up and grow old together. If he’d gone back instead of sending the boy it would have been weird. For her no time at all had passed. Years had gone by for him. He had done so much, had so many endless centuries in limbo between worlds where all he did was think slow thoughts that he felt old and tired and worn out. He’d been back to this world and abandoned it to try again more times than he could remember. Maddy would know how many times he’d made the jump, how many years he’d been in between worlds. Hell, she knew everything. He wondered how she reacted to see the young Jessie materialize before her instead of him. It didn’t matter. She’d get over it and take care of them. She would do what needed to be done. He shook the cobwebs out of his head, wondered if he had any coffee stashed away. Now that he’d accomplished the job he’d been trying to do for so long he felt a little empty. A little lost.
Scarlet was safe now; he could let her go. He was a little surprised but he kind of missed Maddy.
That’s dumb. He told himself as he fired up the car. She’s a machine. A protector and nothing more.
They’d been through a lot over the past few years. Sometimes he forgot she wasn’t a real person.
Madroleeka, or Maddy as he called her, was an ancient AI made up of smart cells that could take any shape. She had pulled him out of the time stream before he was obliterated but he’d corrupted her programming when their cells merged for a moment. She was much diminished, only a tiny fraction of what she’d once been before the war had destroyed most of her. She had been idle, confined to a destroyed battleship drifting in space for ten thousand years until he had reawakened her sense of purpose. She made
