Page 143 of The Last Session

“Something happened to Catherine.” I was suddenly sure of it. I started to stand. “I have to help her.”

“You already helped her. She’s safe.” The speaker’s name materialized: Aurora. She was an operating system, and I’d chosen her voice out of five options.

“Oh.” I sank back down again. “That’s a relief.”

“I’m glad you feel comforted.”

“Something happened—there was a fight, or an attack, or something?” The knowledge trickled in. “And I’m in an escape pod, but it’s damaged. I made Catherine take the one that still works.”

“Correct.”

“How much time do we have left?”

“Five days.” Aurora said it solemnly.

“And we’re…”

“Eight months from the nearest station.”

“Thank you.” Strangely, I felt a lack of concern about my imminent demise. It didn’t feel quite real. I just had to remember to turn off Aurora towards the end. I didn’t want her to be conscious as she drifted in space for thousands of years. That would be cruel.

“You needed time to grieve,” Aurora said, apropos of nothing. Maybe she was starting to glitch. “Time to heal. Everyone has their missions, but they need to happen in the right time and the right order. You have to go through the anger first. Why wouldn’t you be angry?”

“I don’t know.” Her words seemed somehow appropriate, though I didn’t know what she was referring to. Maybe I was finally losing mymind. It would’ve happened a lot earlier if I didn’t have Aurora. She was programmed to have her own personality, so we’d even had a few fights.

“Would you like me to tell you a story?” she finally asked.

“I actually want to pull up a dream.” I’d been having a lot of dreams lately. Some of them were about a colorful castle in the middle of the desert. There was a pool with lounge chairs, where I could smell real flowers and feel the actual warmth of sun on my skin.

“Of course.”

“The sunny one, Aurora. Not the one in the cave. Please.”

She didn’t respond, maybe irritated that I’d called out her mistake. But she’d messed it up on multiple occasions. And I didn’t want to be back in that dark, cold space.

“So Catherine’s still okay?” I couldn’t help but ask. “She’s alive?”

“I am no longer in contact with her capsule. But all signs point to yes.”

“Good.” I exhaled. I hadn’t been able to save the others. I imagined their particles dispersing into the void. I opened the map, zoomed in on our solar system, traced the lines.

“Maybe we’ll make it back home,” I said.

“It’s possible.” Aurora was programmed to be optimistic.

“Okay, I’m ready.”

“Recorded dream ready to play.”

I lay back and closed my eyes. “Play.”

I was back in the cave.

Damnit, Aurora. I told you I didn’t want…

I blinked into the darkness. It took a second to settle into reality. I really was in the cave. Aurora and the space capsule had been a dream.

But it had been so realistic. They’d all been. Being in Catherine’s body at the premiere, in Moon/Sarah’s at her house after her brother had died. Back in my thirteen-year-old bedroom. And all of us experiencing that specific void I’d thought was only within me.