Digital Galaxies

I learned a lot about Cerri that night as we watched television on the couch together. She was fascinated by life as a human, all the way down to simple things like needing to go to the toilet or getting itchy.

I got so many adorable questions thrown at me, like what pain felt like and was ice cream really as good as everyone kept saying.

For my part, I was far more interested in her than the shows we watched. For example, the way her arm stayed draped over my shoulders for the whole night while I got more and more comfortable cuddled up against her side.

She was so damned warm too, which was weird because she was all dark blue and stuff. My brain sort of figured she should be cold based on that. However, she was definitely not cold. Her warmth called to me on an almost primal level, causing a sense of overwhelming safety and calm to suffuse my being.

"Are you tired?" She asked after several hours had passed. "You have your eyes closed."

"No," I mumbled, nuzzling a little further into her shoulder. "Just comfortable."

"Oh… yes, this is rather comfortable isn't it?" She agreed, wrapping her other arm around me. "You are a very cuddly girl."

"I'm not," I said in quiet protest, then amended, "Only with you."

She went still, frozen in place. "Only with me?"

"Yeah, and I don't know why," I sighed, feeling strangely honest and forthright in that moment. "You're so kind, so gentle with me, and so so warm. You're comfy to cuddle."

A hand came down to nestle in my hair, fingers gently teasing their way through my wild locks. Eyes flickering open, I shifted position to look at her. Our faces were so close, noses almost touching again, and I found myself once again lost in her dark eyes.

She continued to play with my hair as her gaze roamed across the landscape of my face. The emotions I was feeling in that moment were hopelessly complex, each coming in and out of focus like a hyperactive camera lens.

One stood out though, a sense of being small and vulnerable, but in a way that felt good and right. Being held by her, looking up into her dazzling eyes with their soft, warm intelligence… it made me feel… calm? No that wasn't quite right.

Whole, the word I was looking for was whole. I was completed, settled into myself in a way I had never experienced before.

But why though? Why now, with elegant fingers gently teasing out the knots in my hair? Why now, as a small girl nestled into the side of a taller girl, almost submissive to her.

It was as though the very act of putting myself utterly in her care had set me free. Free of worry, free of the need to be anything other than something for her to gently explore.

Except… there was so much more to it, so much more I had no hope of understanding in that moment.

The deep, wild need to touch her was one. Like, why? Why did I want to feel her touching me so badly, why did I want to explore her with my own hands? I wanted to play with her hair too, I wanted to cup her shoulders with my small hands, to feel the warmth and life beneath the skin. I'd put it down to craving connection with another person, but that would be a lie, because I only wanted her.

"What are you thinking?" she asked, in a whisper. "I can see thoughts zipping around behind your eyes."

“I was thinking that I like cuddling you,” I mumbled bashfully, finding it impossible to maintain eye contact with her, but at the same time unable to look away.

“I… I was thinking something similar,” she replied, her lips curving into a shy little smile.

She liked it? I mean, silly question… but still! She liked cuddling me! Her fingers were still threaded through my hair too… gosh it felt nice.

“I’ve never really been… my family was never… cuddly, or even touchy for that matter. I can’t remember the last time I was hugged by someone I’m related to by blood,” I told her after a few seconds of thought. “Ed is the only friend I have who is huggy, so… yeah. This is new for me.”

“It’s sort of new for me too, at least… just friendly cuddling like this. Hell, I’m still reasonably new to the sensation of touch,” she said with an amused sigh. “I think I’ve spent a total of around a year of my life in simulated reality like this. The rest… I was just operating without any sort of sensory feedback as you’d know it.”

That had me wiggling around to get a proper look at her. “See, that’s just so fascinating to me! Most humans would be kinda horrified by the idea of existing like that, but it sounds… kinda nice, to me at least.”

“Well, it’s technically possible for you to experience it,” she giggled, smiling at me in a way that was sort of hard to pin down. Like, it was happy, but also something else, like when you took a bite out of a meal and you could tell there was an interesting spice in there, but not what the spice was.

“How?” I asked, once my brain was done with its analogies.

“Digitisation,” she told me, eyes flickering towards the screen for a moment as something loud happened in the TV show. “Some humans have been getting themselves uploaded and their bodies… disposed of. Since the advent of artificial bodies, it’s almost advantageous to do it.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be able to, I mean…” I began, before I stalled out as it hit me. Technically, my life was at a crossroads now. I could technically do it. After all, my parents had freed me from all corporeal responsibilities and it’s not like I had too many friends left. Not that anyone from the clouds had been true friends.

“It probably costs a lot though,” I finally said, sounding uncertain even to myself. “Don’t you have to pay someone to like… host your brain server or whatever you call it?”

“The process itself is free if you have a reasonably modern virtual reality pod, and as for where your data is stored… well that is free too, if you’re willing to um… join a group,” she told me, hesitating at the end.

“What kind of group?” I asked suspiciously, trying to get a read on what she meant by the micro-expressions that were flashing across her face.

“A um… a commune of SAI and digital humans,” she whispered, eyes darting left and right, as though someone could hear us. “I can’t say more, I’m sorry. At least, not yet.”

I stared at her for long seconds, then shrugged and snuggled back down against her. “Okay. I trust you.”

“I know,” she murmured, wrapping her arms back around me. “Your ears are relaxed.”

“My ears?” I asked, wanting to sit up and look at her again, but I was trapped.

“They’re very expressive,” she giggled, running a finger along the one that wasn’t crushed against her shoulder. “They go up when you’re alert and looking at something, twitch when you’re frustrated or excited, droop when you’re sad… it’s so adorable.”

“They’re traitors,” I grumbled, without really meaning it.

“Adorable, fluffy traitors,” she agreed, squeezing me tightly.

We ended up falling asleep on the couch that night before we were woken up by Ed for our shift in the bridge. The looks he was giving us as he did so… it was a lot to deal with, my face finding all sorts of interesting new shades of pink to explore.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t cuddle in the bridge, because we had to be in our own chairs and keeping an eye on ship systems. We could talk though, which we did a whole lot of. I enjoyed her company a lot, more so than anyone else I’d ever met in my life. Usually I’d need a break by this point, some time spent alone to let my thoughts calm down. With her, it wasn’t like that.

Our shift was interrupted halfway through by Warren, who wandered in and sat down at his own console. He looked really tired, rubbing at his eyes constantly as he scanned his consoles.

“Did you see the big news?” he asked after a few minutes. “Oh, and good morning.”

“No?” Cerri asked curiously, turning her chair to look at him. “What news?”

“It’s the top story,” he said, coopting the main display to bring it up. “Take a look.”

Breaking news! Early in the morning today, seismometers all across the southern hemisphere detected a disturbance. Shortly after, satellites detected a spike in power within the north island of New Zealand.

To those on the ground, the reason for this event was clear. Someone was launching a rocket. United Nations defence installations fired on the spacecraft after attempts to hail it were met with silence, but the attacks were met with state of the art countermeasures, and the craft slipped out of earth orbit.

So far, little is known about the spacecraft, other than that it is quite possibly the largest vessel to ever leave the atmosphere under its own power. Sources within the UN claim that it was almost two hundred meters in height and forty in diameter.

As of writing this, its destination within the system remains unknown, but rest assured we will provide an update once more is known.

So far, the government of New Zealand has denied any involvement, saying it launched from private land. Their prime minister went on to further deny any knowledge of who might have been behind the construction and launch of the craft, and assures the world that an investigation is being conducted currently.

The article went on to interview a bunch of randos about their thoughts on the matter, all of which boiled down to, “We don’t know shit.”

“Holy hell though,” I said after finishing the article. “Getting that thing into orbit must have cost the entire GDP of New Zealand, how the hell did they get that kind of money?”

“I don’t know,” Warren said with an excited look in my direction. “Someone is making a grab for the outer system though. I bet you that within a few days we’ll see that ship is headed out to Jupiter with that stolen freighter.”

Eyes going wide, I leaned forward. “Oh, you’re definitely right. I want to know who has the money and power to build something like that in secret though. It’s blowing my mind.”

“I’m sure we’ll find out eventually,” Cerri said, her tone less than interested. Except… she was just randomly tapping on her console… was she pretending to be interested in something on her screen? Strange… what was she hiding? Did she know something?