the middle of the ship, trying to wage a pretend zero-G war in too-big environment suits. “So I’ll break it down for you as best I can, and let me just be frank here, OK? We’re pretty well fucked. I can’t lie about that. But there is still a way to…”
He pauses.
I’m feeling pretty annoyed at this point. So I snap at him. “A way to what?”
“Well, it’s not a perfect solution. But it’s the best we can hope for.”
“Do I even want to know?”
“No.” SB19 frowns. “You don’t. I’m afraid Harem Station is over, Crux. The whole thing is pointless now.”
“Wait.” I hold up both hands. “Back the fuck up. What is going on?” I look around. “And why are we here? What are you doing?”
“Listen,” he says, and now he’s the one holding up both of his hands, pushing air at me. “Time is a loop. A continuous circle. There is no beginning, there is no end. It just… exists. But we all live inside of it and so… we must deal with it. Every now and then there is a recycling, so to speak. Like water on the station. You use it, it goes to a tank, it gets cleaned up, you use it again.”
“I don’t get it. Time gets reused?”
SB19 sighs. “It’s a metaphor, Crux. Can you just work with me here? Hm?”
I put up my hands. “Fine. Continue. But I don’t understand.”
“I’m not surprised. You’re not the smartest brother, are you?” I open my mouth to tell him to go fuck himself, but he puts up a hand. “You’re not the dumbest either, so there’s that. And I’m feeling extraordinarily patient today, so I’ll skip the metaphors and just spell it out. Time is a loop. And we live inside it. All of us. Every incarnation of us. And of those, there are billions of iterations. Billions of versions of you and me and everyone else. Some of them have already lost, or won, and are starting over again. Some of them are in the middle of their journey—like the people you saw back in that kitchen. And some of them are at the end. We are at the end, Crux.”
“You just said there is no end.”
He shoots me a look that tells me he’s not really feeling extraordinarily patient today. “There isn’t. It’s a loop. I just said that. Twice. And I gave you a handy metaphor and you feigned ignorance, so—“
“Fine. I get it.”
He pauses. Probably waiting for me to continue the fight. And I have an urge to do that. But I control it. I might not be the smartest brother, but I am the wisest.
SB19 is satisfied, so he continues. “Once we finish what we’re doing here on this timeline, we’ll start over again. And we’ll do it again. And again. And again. And again. Forever. Like I said, time is a loop and we can’t ever get out. And normally, the loop is set. Predetermined. Fate, if you will. The fate of those people you saw in that kitchen has already been written. What happens to them as they live out their life together, I have no idea and I don’t care. Whatever I’m doing in that world, it happens light years away from that place. I’m not a part of their story and they aren’t a part of mine. But I do know what happens next to us, here. All the AIs know.” He stops to ponder something, a thoughtful look on his unreal face. “And the beebots too. They know. That’s why they’re so dangerous. They are always trying to change the fate of our loop. But up until now, changing the outcome was impossible.”
He stops talking, as if this might be the entirety of his explanation.
I rub my hand down my face again, suddenly very tired. “I really don’t get it.”
He smiles at me and for a moment I see ALCOR in him. The Real ALCOR. My ALCOR. And even though most of the past twenty years have been filled with moments when I hated that AI, and even though I have never fully trusted him, I want to see my ALCOR one more time so badly in this moment, I feel sick just thinking about it.
“They have figured it out, Crux.”
“Who?”
“The Akeelians. And Cygnians.” He flips a hand in the air. “But the Cygnians only know what they’ve been told. The Akeelians are the ones running this show. They know how to change the fate of