Space.It’s been called many things and described in many ways but what it is most of all is where wherever you are you are always surrounded by dark nothingness. Though everywhere you look you see stars and suns and worlds shining bright far away in the distance, if you try to go there, try to get to those bright lights of promise, you’ll soon realize that you can’t. The lights are forever out of reach, forever in the distance, and the darkness still surrounds you.Space is where the light flees from you like a beautiful dream you reluctantly wake up from and soon can barely remember, and where the darkness clings to you and stays with you like cobwebs still felt on your skin as you try to shake off a horrible nightmare.Somewhere deep in that darkness a tiny green light suddenly flickers. On, then off and then on again. Moments later a slow, pulsing hum can be heard. At first barely noticeable, nothing more than a vibration only felt somewhere in your gut, but within seconds it has grown to a loud roar that ends in a deafening explosion as breathable air blasts through and fills every part of the ship and the SS Aphrodite brings itself back to life.A cargo ship twenty-four years into its mission, twenty-four years in absolute darkness and silence, the Aphrodite’s interior is now for the first time since she left earth’s orbit bathing in its own white fluorescent light, her primary cargo being ninety million imperial gallons of fresh water in six giant, circular tanks beneath her, giving her the likeness of a fly carrying the cylinder of an ancient revolver.Her payload and most valuable cargo, however, carried in a cold storage in her lowermost deck, is 2500 vials of what is simply called “goo”.-In the med-bay a piece of the floor opens up and a cryo chamber slowly rises from below, like a burial in reverse. The lid slides away as the thick, pink fluid inside is drained, revealing the naked, glistening body of the ship’s captain and only crew member.At first completely still as if dead but then her arms begin to tremble, then her legs do, and then her whole body violently shakes and convulses for several seconds before she sits up with a jolt and a scream, ripping the lumi-mask off her face.Confused and disoriented, on the verge of a sanity-crushing panic, something deep inside her consciousness remembers her training and the words;Breathe. Think. Listen to the voice.So she does, and soon she hears the voice, coming from somewhere above her, saying her name over and over and asking her to repeat it.“You are Captain Ellen Barber,” it says. “What is your name?”Over and over until she is finally able to answer.“I am Ellen Barber,” she says as her mind pieces itself back together.“Captain Ellen Barber.”“Good morning, Captain,” the voice says. It is feminine, metallic and artificial but still kind and reassuring, almost motherly.“Good morning, mom.” Ellen says.“Your shower is ready, Captain.”-Though the electrically charged amniotic fluid she’s been submerged in for almost two and a half decades have kept her nerves and muscles functioning, even enhanced, her legs still struggles to carry her as she gets up and makes her way to the shower at the end of the room, forcing her to lean on the walls on the way. As the cryo chamber behind her descends and disappears beneath the floor, she enters the shower cubicle and suddenly screams again in startled shock as she sees someone else is already in there, staring back at her.It takes a few seconds for her to realize she is staring into the full size mirror that makes up one of the walls of the cubicle, and a few seconds more to realize it is her own reflection she sees. Her hand trembles again as she raises it to feel her now bald and shiny scalp.The fluid and the chamber kept her alive, slowing down her metabolism and every physical function to one eighth of its normal rate, and though she was born forty years ago by now, her body hasn’t aged more than if she was nineteen.But the fluid also destroyed every single hair follicle, leaving every part of her skin totally smooth and bare. The long, blonde, wavy hair that had been her trademark and her pride at the academy is gone.Only her eyebrows and eyelashes remains. An unintended but certainly welcome side effect of the lumi-mask, which purpose was to keep her eyesight from deteriorating.She’s in the shower for almost an hour, each drop of warm water a quickening, getting used to the feeling of her hairless self with reluctance and dissatisfaction at first, but soon with enjoyment and pleasure as she savors the new and delicate sensitivity.Finally she turns off the water, and the light above her turns red and warm just before the air inside the cubicle turns into a whirlwind that spins around with her in the center of it, and in a few seconds she is dry.She steps out and, still naked, makes her way to the bridge.-“Power and capacity at ninety-nine point six percent. Life support at one hundred percent,” the Mission Operation Manager, the ship’s artificial intelligence operating system, says. “Would you like me to report the full list of emergencies now?Ellen groans, leans back in the chair and puts her feet on the desk.“If you have to,” she says. “But reds only.”The three screens in front of her is suddenly filled with codes, numbers and messages in different colors; green, yellow and red. Thousands of them, twenty four years of things that had gone wrong but were taken care of by the MOM without ever disturbing Ellen’s sleep. Even the red ones, marking a major malfunction or damage, had been located, diagnosed and corrected. They appear and disappear too fast to read, but every time a red line pops up the scrolling stops until MOM has read it out loud.“Day fourteen. Number 2.116. Sex hikayeleri Code A16f. Oxygen reconstruction system blockage. Restoration code 11.”“Day thirty-six. Number 4.322. Code C12f. Radiation shield damage. Restoration code 3.”“Day forty-two. Number 5.474. Code R16b. ERB-communication systems unresponsive. Modification code 7.”About twenty minutes in, Ellen gets out of her chair and walks towards a machine integrated in the wall close to the spiral staircase that leads to the living quarters and the lower decks, and pushes the button marked “coffee”.When nothing happens she pushes it again, and then a third time before she says “Mom.”“Day two hundred and three. Number 8.691. Code B09a. Navigation error. Correction code 1.”“Mom, stop. Take a break, will you? Why isn’t there any coffee?”“Your digestive system needs time,” MOM answers. “For the first twenty-four hours you can only drink your pee.”“What!? Excuse me, what?”“For the first twenty-four hours you can only drink your P.E. Your Physiology Enhancement gel. No coffee until tomorrow.”“Oh,” Ellen says, not quite convinced she heard wrong. “Right.”“Strawberry or banana flavored?” MOM says.“Seriously? That’s what you have? Ugh.” She sighs. “Strawberry, please.”A cup drops down into one of the smaller cavities in the center of the machine and is slowly filled with a colorless, thick substance. Ellen grabs it and returns to her seat, putting her feet back up before she takes a sip.“Continue,” she says with a grimace. “Oh, and mom…”“Yes, Captain.”“Remind me to take the banana one next time.”-Her hair is back. Not that it was ever gone, of course, how could it be? Hair doesn’t just disappear, why would she even think that?She’s at the academy, sitting in the grass by the lake with Ms. Dubois, and her hair is floating on the wind like waves of gold behind her.She’s laughing, but she can’t remember why. Was it something Ms. Dubois had said? Just before she kissed her?No, wait. Where did that come from? Ms. Dubois hadn’t kissed her. Not yet, but she’s about to, she’s sure of it, but how can she know that?Ms. Dubois moves closer as if she’s read her mind, leans in towards her until the tips of their noses almost touch. Ellen closes her eyes and just as she’s about to feel Ms. Dubois’ lips on hers she shouts “Captain!”But she’s not a captain. Not yet. She’s still at the academy, and they told her she would never be captain. Not unless…“Captain!” Ms. Dubois shouts again, but something is wrong with her voice. “Wake up!”-“Captain!” MOM says and Ellen almost falls out of her chair as she is ripped out of her dream, both her feet waving in the air above the desk as the chair tips backwards before she’s able to regain her balance and it settles back down on all four legs.“Mom,” she says. “What the fuck. What’s wrong?”“Movement detected in sector 3A,” MOM says calmly, not at all like Ms. Dubois’ shouting.“What does that mean?” Ellen says. “That’s impossible. Your sensors are wrong.”“No, they are not,” MOM says, sounding almost offended.“Then what is it?”It takes MOM a moment to answer.“I don’t know.”“What do you mean you don’t know? How can you not know? What do you see? Show me.”“The data doesn’t make sense. There must be an error. Initiating diagnostics.”“So there’s nothing down there?”“Yes, there is. I’m detecting movement.”“But you just said…”“The motion detection sensors are accurate. I believe there is an error in my visual data interpretation software. Running scan. Video feed temporarily offline.”“You’re telling me there’s someone in the med-bay?” Ellen says, but there’s no answer.“I’m the only one on this ship and we’re still weeks away from the nearest station and months away from the nearest inhabited planet, and you’re telling me there’s someone in the lab?”“Yes,” MOM says. “I’m detecting movement.”Ellen sighs.“Fine. I’ll check it out.”As she reaches the staircase, MOM says “Captain.”“What?”“You’re still undressed.”“There’s no one down there, mom,” Ellen says impatiently, but still she stops at the deck just below and heads for a door at the far end of the hallway, and from a shelf in the storage room beyond it she picks up a white jumpsuit and puts it on.“Your sensors are wrong!”She shouts the words as if MOM was still on the deck above her, but then she remembers that MOM can hear her perfectly from any part of the ship.“You know,” she continues in her normal voice as she zips the suit up in the front. “You just spent the last hour telling me about a million things that has gone wrong with you, so your sensors could actually be wrong. I’m just saying.”But once again there is no answer.Heading back to the staircase her eyes fall on a locker in the corner, and even though there’s no possible way there’s anyone downstairs, she unlocks it, opens it and grabs a Chazer, a U-shaped pulse gun not powerful enough to kill but more than enough to knock you off your feet and maybe fracture a rib or two.She makes her way down to the third deck and when she stops in front of the door to the med-bay it slides open without a sound.The first thing she notices is that the cryo chamber is back up, but it seems to have moved further down the room. It’s closer to the shower than it had been.Her mind tries to tell her that maybe it doesn’t just move up and down through the floor, maybe it moves sideways too for whatever reason and that’s the movement MOM registered, but of course she knows that’s not the case and that one has to be another one, a second cryo chamber that isn’t supposed to be there at all but has been there next to her the whole time, and what if inside it…Then she sees it. Someone’s hand is gripping the lid of the chamber. Someone is crouching behind it. Ellen lifts the Chazer and with hands Sikiş hikayeleri shaking and eyes wide in disbelief she watches as a woman stands up with her back to her. Her bare skin is glistening, still covered in pink amniotic fluid, and when she tries to take a step forward her feet give way and she almost falls down but manages to grip the chamber lid again.“Don’t move!”Ellen meant for the words to be loud and sharp and tough, but they come out as a high pitched whisper. Still the woman freezes in shock and surprise.“Put your hands up!” Ellen says after getting her voice somewhat under control. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”The woman raises her hands and without turning around she says slowly, “Take it easy. My name is Ellen Barber, and I’m the captain of this ship.”“Good morning, Captain,” MOM says from above. “Your shower is ready.”-The woman slowly turns around to face her, and Ellen’s first thought is that it’s just another mirror, that she’s simply pointing the gun at her own reflection. But then the gun would be reflected too, wouldn’t it? Not to mention the jumpsuit she has on, and the woman standing in front of her is completely naked and unarmed. Other than that, however, she is the spitting image of Ellen.She seems to be just as shocked and surprised as Ellen, at least for the next minute or so, a minute they both spend just silently staring at each other, but then she cocks her head and actually smiles.“Now, this is interesting,” she says.“Shut up!” Ellen says. “Who are you? What’s going on?”“I told you,” she answers. “I’m Captain Ellen…”“No! Stop lying! That’s me. I’m Ellen, not you. I’m the captain. Why are you here?”“Could you not point that thing at me?” the woman says. “You’re shaking. You’ll pull the trigger if you don’t calm down.”Ellen looks down at her hand holding the Chazer and it is indeed shaking, vehemently. Her whole body is, actually.“No,” she says. “I’m not putting it down. I don’t know who you are but you’re not supposed to be here and I’m locking you up until I find out what’s going on.”“Whatever,” the woman says. “But, mom did promise me a shower, and I really want one so I’m having one first. Do you mind? You’re welcome to watch if you want.”“No,” Ellen says. “I mean, yes, okay. Fine. But be quick.”“Maybe you want to join me?” the woman says and winks. “You know, just to… keep me… compliant.”“What? No. Just… move!”Ellen follows her towards the shower, waving the gun towards it as if she’s the one demanding she takes a shower, just to show she’s still in control. A few seconds later the door to the cubicle is fogged up, and though Ellen can’t be sure, the movements of the woman’s silhouette suggest she’s enjoying more than just the warm water.Shortly after, the woman is walking in front of Ellen up the stairs to the sixth deck, where the sleeping quarters are. Since they are steep spiral stairs, Ellen is constantly six or seven steps below her and she has to lift her hand above her head just to poke the two tips of the Chazer at the woman’s lower back. At one point the woman stops and turns to look down at her, and shakes her ass invitingly at her.“You know what we could do with that thing?” she says and winks again.“What’s wrong with you?” Ellen says perplexed. “Just keep moving.”There are four doors on deck six, including the one that leads into the storage room where Ellen found her jumpsuit a few minutes ago. The door next to it leads to the R&R and then there’s the two sleeping quarters. Although only one is needed now, the ship was built way back when every mission required two crew members.Ellen pushes her towards the nearest of the bedroom doors.“Get inside,” she says, and as soon as she does she says “Mom, lock this door. Don’t open it unless I say so.”“Yes, Captain,” MOM says.The door slides shut. There’s a glass covered porthole in it, just high enough up so Ellen has to stand on her toes to look inside and when she does the woman is doing the same, staring back at her and suddenly the window is a perfect mirror.Until the woman smiles and blows her a kiss.Ellen turns around and walks upstairs to the bridge.–“Mom, what the hell is going on?”“I don’t know,” MOM says.“I don’t believe that. You know everything, you know what this is. It’s in your brain somewhere, it has to be. Tell me.”“I really do not know. The information seems to be in a category 9 file. I won’t know until I’ve accessed it.”“Then access it!”“Authorization code needed.”“What code? I don’t have a code. Just access the damn file.”“Authorization code needed.”“Mom, stop fucking around! I’m the captain and I’m telling you to access the file and tell me what’s in it.”“Authorization code needed. Would you like to generate an authorization code, Captain?”“What? Yes. Yes, I do.”“Code generated. Code X1010A.”“Now just… access the file, please,” Ellen says, exhausted and annoyed. “Authorization code X1010A.”“One moment.”“Why’s the coffee not working?”Ellen spins around. That last sentence wasn’t MOM speaking. It was the other woman. The other Ellen. Still naked, she’s standing by the machine pushing the coffee button over and over, and Ellen is again struck by the feeling she’s looking into a mirror. A magical mirror this time, one that doesn’t reflect what’s in front of it but rather what happened there one hour ago.Maybe that’s what this whole thing is. Some bizarre time loop. She remembers stories about time experiments at the academy. Could that be it?“How did you get out?” Ellen asks.The woman looks at her and laughs.“You still don’t get it, do you? Damn, I thought I was smarter than that.”“What are you talking about?”“I’m you. You’re me. I’m the captain too. Tell mom to only do as the captain says and she’ll do as I say. Erotik hikaye Isn’t that right, mom?”“That is correct, Captain. Category 9 file accessed. Would you like to read it?”“Just give us the highlights,” the woman says.And for the next ten minutes, MOM reads out loud from a file called ‘Project Echo’.When the first interstellar missions became possible, only a few years after the devastation of what had become known as the XY plague, every space ship had a crew of two. The main reason was that the cryo technology was still in its infancy, and two crew members doubled the chances of someone at all waking up to carry out the mission. Still, more than twenty per cent of the missions failed because both crew members died in cryosleep.Of the missions where both survived, the rate of failure was over fifty per cent. Some of these as a result of strife and dissension between the two women on board, but most had failed because of what the reports called ‘unhealthy physical alliances resulting in excessive and obsessive fornication’.In other words, they were fucking so much they stopped caring about their mission.Of the missions where only one crew member survived the cryosleep, the rate of failure was nearly eighty per cent, either because of defection, or suicide.So the confederacy and the academy came up with several solutions to the problems. Among other things, they decided that when possible, there would only be one person on each mission, and that their physical needs, the neglecting of which were deemed one of the main reasons for the suicides, would be taken care of mechanically, through automated R&R facilities.This too was unsuccessful, and more missions failed than before. Even though the cryo technology had improved, the rate of failed missions because of cryo failure continued to be unacceptably high.When these sole crew members survived, desertion and suicide were still among the reasons for failure, but their rates had dropped significantly due to the R&R. However, the capabilities of the automated R&R rooms actually proved addictive, and the missions suffered in much the same manner as those with “unhealthy alliances” between two crew members.So new solutions were found.Firstly, the academy was to focus much more on the challenges of solitary space travel and how to cope. This included “proper use of the R&R facilities” classes.Secondly, the activities in the R&R was to be strictly monitored and controlled by the Mission Operation Manager.And finally they created what became the top secret “Project Echo”.Cloning technology was once considered to be the solution to the devastating effects of the plague. It had failed to save those affected, but the technology itself worked and would come to serve a purpose in intergalactic space missions. One clone, an exact copy of the ship’s captain would be created and put in cryosleep along with the original, and in the event the real captain did not survive, her clone would be awoken in her place to carry out the mission, unaware she was a clone, and the body of the original would quietly be disposed of.If the original did survive, the clone would immediately be terminated, and disposed of.-“Disposed of,” the woman says. “How about that, huh?” She shrugs. “So, about the coffee…”“You’re only supposed to drink your…”Your pee, is what Ellen almost says but doesn’t.“Your physiology enhancement gel,” she finishes.“Oh. Right.”“Where are you going now?” Ellen says as her clone heads for the staircase with a cup of the dreadful gel in her hand.She just shrugs.“R&R,” she says. “Maybe mom can help me blow off steam. You got this.”“Unless,” she continues and turns to her, “you want to come with me?”Ellen frowns and shakes her head.“No. Of course not.”She shrugs again and walks away.-When she’s gone and Ellen is sure she can’t hear her, she says “Mom, I need to send an ERB.”“Recipient?”“The academy.”“Recording.”“Project Echo malfunction,” Ellen says. “Clone and original both alive and awake. Requesting instructions on how to proceed.”For a moment indignation and rage grips her, to the point she actually looks around for something to throw at the walls but there’s nothing there so she just slams her fist on the desk.“We’re also aware of what you fucking psychos are doing!”“End of message,” she says after taking a few seconds to compose herself.“Message sent,” MOM says.It will be at least 48 hours before she can expect an answer, not including the time they will need to come up with one.The ERB communication system launches a tiny capsule containing an artificial hyper-sphere that once it has reached safe distance from the ship, a minimum of 24 hours away, will create a microscopic wormhole which it then fires a laser beam through. The beam consists of the message encoded on the lightwaves which is instantly visible at the recipient’s end. To answer they must in the same way launch a capsule to send a beam once it too has reached safe distance from their point, in this case earth and the academy.-48 hours. It will feel like forever, with this… this woman, this clone, this… herself.Even though she’s still angry, the thought makes her chuckle. How can I live with myself? And when the 48 hours are done, and she gets her orders, then what? There’s no need for two people on this mission, but the ship can sustain them both, so that will probably be the order she’ll get.’Keep going. Deliver the cargo. Distribute the goo. You don’t just abort a mission and head back when the trip back home takes twenty-four years. You’ll just have to learn to live with yourself.’She chuckles again.And apparently, according to the statistics, she’s a lot less likely to defect now. Or kill herself.All they have to do is stay clear of strife and dissension.And…She shakes her head to get rid of the thought.Sleep. That’s the first thing she’s going to do. Then she’ll just wait. Keep to herself. Her clone, the other Ellen, certainly seems to be fine with keeping to her self. They can just stay apart.