By Jacob Liljenquist
Turning away from the battle, you think back to blue skies, and the day you left Springville. Hard not to, when you find yourself squinting at twin suns on a sunburnt horizon and wondering how the hell you ended up on an ugly hunk of red sandstone eighty lightyears from Earth.
’Course, it wasn’t exactly a mystery. The morning the Suits came around the community farm, yapping about some big scuffle in the sky for the future of humanity, you couldn’t help but laugh at the way they shuffled across the hardpack dirt, as though they were afraid of a little dust. Maybe they were—who was to say with folk who lived up in the clouds? But the cash had been good, good enough for Ma to fix her spine, good enough for Pa to clap you on the back and call you a real man and go on about duty and sacrifice and dyin’ for what you believe in and such.
[INJUNCTION: Operator Ren, please return to your allotted course.]
Turns out duty’s a real shibboleth of a word.
You tell ARcOS to shut up as you trudge towards the canyon, and you pray to heaven that the quiet sticks. When the Brass first nerve-stapled you into this hunk o’ metal and sent you off to kill bugs, they didn’t tell you about the onboard conscience. Back then, ARcOS could even make you do things. But you’ve always been good at fixin’, and turns out AI is closer to tractors than one might think, and now all ARcOS can do is bleat in your ear.
[INJUNCTION: Operator, you must return to your allotted course.]
And bleat he does.
“Ain’t happenin’, bud.” You approach the canyon ledge, spraying pebbles into its maw, and you try to not to hear the way they clink against the metal husks of Privates Sammel and Crewse. They’d been the first to go over the top.
Well. They’d done their duty. After all, what better way to die than by fightin’ bugs?
“Alright, ARcOS. Hit the jets,” you say.
Nothin’.
“ARcOS?”
[ADMONITION: You have strayed from your course. I am not authorized to activate the Assisted Flight Pack.]
Fine. Your pistons complain as you kneel and lower yourself into the crack, kicking gouges into the red rock with titanium toes. You catch a flare in the distance as the canyon swallows you. Best hurry.
Luckily, the suit’s great for things like this, even without the jets. Kick, step, grip, repeat, a good ‘ole square dance of steel limbs as you clamber down the cliff wall. It’s a shame your conscience doesn’t like to dance.
[SHAMEFUL OBSERVATION: You are a bad soldier, Operator.]
[ROUSING LECTURE: It is a privilege for citizens to participate in United Earth military expeditions, Operator.]
[LEGAL WARNING: In accordance with Article XII of UEMC law, non-compliance with CenComm directives may incur such penalties as execution, court-martial, revocation of auto-cleansing privileges…]
And on and on and on and on. You give up arguin’—can’t teach stone to think, Pa had always said. So, you let ARcOS carry on with its injunctions and unctions and compunctions, speaking nary a word. Until—
[QUERY: Why are you afraid?]
You pause. “Come again?”
[Re: QUERY: Why are you afraid?]
“I’m not.”
[EXPLICATION: Your amygdalic response clearly indicates fear. Yet, you have just fled the battle and are in no danger. HYPOTHESIS: Are you, perhaps, merely a coward?]
Your next kick is a tad more forceful than necessary, and ARcOS says something about warranties, and you ignore him because how dare he call you a coward, when he only knows his neat highways of cable and the absolute certainty of a world written in Python. But—dammit, how could you explain it? Because you’ve been out here for two years now, waiting for that sense of duty to lift you up, but after all the rousing speeches about honor and sacrifice, all you can think about is the way a bug burns, writhing and screaming. And you wonder: is this what you’re supposed to die for? Cheap patriotism, and the reek of charred flesh?
At least there’s one upside to the angst. Seems ARcOS heard all your thinking, because the suit goes quiet, and you get to climb in peace and think of blue skies and the thing on the ledge and how ready you are to see something beautiful again.
And you’re close, too. Only a few yards away. Then ARcOS talks.
[APOLOGY: I am sorry, Ren.]
You frown. “Hmm?”
You don’t notice the cables until they’re around your arms, and then you’re being winched upwards, pulled towards that damned red sky. The sergeant’s faceplate is opaque, but you know you’re in for a whipping once he and the other soldier finish pulling you up.
And you can’t help but think: maybe you are a coward. Maybe you’ll get up there and take it like a man and go on torching harmless bugs, because it’s your duty, like Pa said.
ARcOS doesn’t speak this time. You reckon you won’t hear him again. But something does show up on your dash: a button you’ve tried before. One that ARcOS always claimed was broken, or out for maintenance, or some other lie.
Were you a coward?
Or—were you just waiting to die for something you believed in?
You hit the button. The suit bursts open and you slide out, cables ripping free of your spine as you fall, naked as a sparrow, through the canyon air. For a moment, you fly.
Then you shatter against the ledge. Somewhere, somewhere distant, you suppose it hurts. You suppose you’re dyin’.
It doesn’t matter. You reach out a broken, shaking hand and pluck your prize—a single, perfect flower—from the lip of the ledge. It ain’t like the flowers back home, all needly spines and petals like sandpaper. But it’s blue as a summer sky and bright as the LED lights in Ma’s kitchen.
And that’s beauty you could die for.
Jacob Liljenquist was raised in suburban Bountiful, UT, where—lacking the adventure of city or country life—he had to pick up a book if he wanted any sort of excitement. Now a firm believer in the ennobling and transformative power of a good story, Jacob enjoys reading fiction, watching fiction, writing fiction, talking fiction—anything fictional, really. Currently, Jacob lives in Provo, UT with his wife, Rachel, and studies history at Brigham Young University, with a minor in creative writing.
Header image by Amelia O’Neill, Inscape Fall 2018
