Just Keep an Eye On Things — Flash Fiction
He sat in the booth, alone. Two seats beside him lay empty. Soft, translucent rubber cushions belied the cold metal beneath.
He had sat long enough that the rubber no longer provided comfort. It felt as hard and lifeless beneath him as the panels of lights he did not understand, as the halted gauges that had not marked progress for many hours now.
The viewport above the console stretched the whole eight feet of the breadth of the booth, showing nothing but a blue and unspotted dune outside.
By now, the others should have passed across that viewport. Their steps should still be present as reminders of their passing.
Nothingness. Not even the stars seemed to have moved since the others had exited the shuttle.
“Computer.”
The water heater blinked on, a waveform indicative across its crystal display that it had indeed heard him. It was the only thing which would respond to him. He was only the intern. He lacked the authority to command anything else.
“Computer,” he repeated, “how long has it been now?”
The generic circuits of the heater’s processor spun for a few million cycles before chirping a reply. “Eight hours and thirty-two minutes.”
The ship would have responded to the demands of the missing others. Any of them could have pulled up the remote sensors, could have switched to one of the seven other viewports on the ship, could have purged the communication buffers, could have referenced the vitals of everyone else outside.
“Computer,” he asked. “Any new messages for me?”
“No new messages,” it replied.
He rose, moved to the door, and tried to open it again. Its micro-display politely asked him to swipe his card.
He didn’t have it. He had left it in his bunk.
He returned to his seat and keyed for the administrative controls.
The viewport flickered and then shifted to reveal the operating system’s administrative software console. A set of debug messages informed him that the I/O system had been locked due to too many failed passcode attempts. It had initially informed him he could try again in twenty-four hours.
Fewer than sixteen to go now.
He looked down at the scrap of paper upon which he had written every passcode he could think of. All but three were scratched out.
“Computer,” he asked, “are the onboard life-support systems still fully functional?”
The water heater cycled for a few seconds. “I’m sorry,” it said at last. “I don’t have that information.”
“Computer, how long can a person survive without food?”
“An average human in good health can survive up to two months without food, so long as it has access to adequate water.”
He keyed out of the administrative console and returned to the frozen view outside the ship.
“Computer, how long can a person survive without food or water?”
“An average human in good health can survive up to three weeks without food or water.”
He was silent for a minute.
“Computer,” he asked, “how much oxygen did their tanks have?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t have that information.”
He drew a cup of scalding water, sipped it slowly, and stared at the frozen screen.
