Planet Cannon

Planet Cannon by Kimberly R. Young

Illustration by Tori Cannon

The date was March 13th , 2221. It was written across the harsh magenta sky, blinking every few seconds. The signal from The Towers must’ve been dampened by the crystal storm that had just rolled in and just as easily out, both violent and fleeting. Unexpected and then just- gone. Time was 19:42.

The town square seemed quiet now, despite the crowd of people, on their way to this place and that. Trance-like, they seemed to hardly notice anything around them, with a mind only for their destinations. They weren’t moved by the storm in the slightest. As though it never happened. Like so many other things.

This was not my destination. This world was red, pink and dusty. The seasons never changed here. It was always within ten degrees of 70. Sand storms came through, Crystal storms wreaked havoc on unsuspecting humans caught walking too slow or without purpose.

Our agreed upon meeting place had always been the blue planet: Earth. If we ever got separated, if anything ever happened, we’d come back each year. We’d wait for one another. Union Station in St. Louis. It was where she left me after we escaped. Onto the 25 PRIOST (Planetary Railway for Inner And Outer Space Travel), bound for all planets in the Cola and Scott Galaxies; she pushed me. I was too naive at the time, I never saw it coming.

When I finally took a seat, I stared deliberately into the contents of my left hand. What she shoved into it before she abandoned me. Thirty-six dollars and a heart-shaped locket necklace. The chain broken. The rain whipped across the train windows in confusion and turmoil.

You’ll meet me back here! In this same spot. In one year. March 13- be here! I’ll be waiting. I’ll always wait for you.

I replay the dialogue in my head. Over and over again. I can no longer hear the voice that belonged to her. I only remember it was feminine, but stern. Her words- urgent. I touched the pocket at my side lightly, checking that the precious piece was still with me. Rarely did I bestow my eyes on the pendant.

From the moment she had delivered it into my hand, the locket had been useless, broken. It never opened. Although I spent the first years alone trying to figure a way to manage the lock, I had given up as the years passed. I stared at the jewelry for months after she left it under my protection, trying to contrive a way to get the heart-shaped cubby to come undone. Months turned into years - I spent, trying to inspire life into the dead trinket. A locket with no key, akin to the old pocket watches in museums; a clock that didn’t keep time. Useless I thought.

I sat on the public bench in the square, watching the last city dwellers shuffle out, the evening sky still an angry blush, as it always had been and always would be. So very different from the blue planet where I had met her. My teacher, my friend, my creator. Paige.

I closed my eyes as I tilted my head towards the sky, trying to enable my data cache, to remember the sensation of wind on my face. It was of no use. Like recalling her voice, or what she looked like. All of that information buried deep inside a harddrive now obsolete, struggling to keep up with the changed and advanced technology.

I was not the first of my kind, nor the second or third. I was the fourth model. Victoria 2020, Model S: The Android You Didn’t Know You Needed. Before me there was Safiya, the helpful housekeeper. Greta, the calm and polite caregiver. William, “Serves and Protects” android.

William was introduced in 2020, amid the Covid-19 crises. They were readily welcomed into the police force, the fire department, the U.S. Army Corps. The very first non-pacifist android created by Michaels Industries. But they would not be the last.

I am the only surviving model of the Victoria line of Androids. We cooked, we cleaned, we took care of the family and ran errands. We interacted with other androids and humans on our owner’s behalf. Took their children to the doctors, sat in place for them at the DMV. No human need ever wait again.

I was “awakened” on a Friday night in late January by my creator. I opened my eyes for the first time to let the harsh and unforgiving light in. Harsh and unforgiving; words I intuitively knew to describe my first experience with the bright, artificial lighting; and yet I felt no pain. I scanned the busy work room, papers stacked and cluttered on the desk, walls stark white, the floors were tiled and out-dated. Filthy, I thought.

Victoria, can you see me?

My eyes zeroed in on that soft and wary voice, from the corner of the room. A woman stood there, with her clipboard. She wore a white lab jacket.

Victoria?

I blinked several times. Victoria. This was my name. She was calling me.

Victoria… My name is Paige, it's a pleasure to meet you.

The memories seem far away from me now, the details dimming with every passing recall. Her eyes were bright. She was happy to see me. In the calm of the night, I have been left alone in the town square, the time now late and if I was on planet Earth, it would be dark now, with stars illuminating the evening sky.

I chose this place with purpose. This was where the PROST train dropped me off. The very first stop, and yet three galaxies from my home planet. 34.009.1206; the address of the town square of Beuview, the largest city on The Planet Cannon, so long as you don’t include the virtual cities, but of course the trains don’t travel there.

My first days on this planet were informative. I had no real knowledge of sandstorms, savefrom what was downloaded onto my internal harddrive. Crystal storms were completely new to me, but they didn’t bother my protective shell too much, a few scratches and small dents here and there.

But I couldn’t meet her. Not there. Not in the place we promised. It doesn’t exist anymore. News doesn’t travel from galaxy to galaxy without reason. The people on Cannon don’t care about the Belle planet from the Liberty Galaxy. However, when entire planets disappear or are wiped clean from the Planedex, that news travels fast. It makes the headlines and paints itself in the sky along with the date and time. And if you want to know more, you just head to the closest Digitapedia, which can be found every few yards on any block here in Beuview.

BREAKING NEWS: On this day, August 10, 2020 the Infamous Blue Planet from the Milky Way Galaxy, known to locals as Earth has been eliminated. Reputable Sources state that there was some nuclear confusion in regards to their Francis Model Androids, available to be contracted by multiple militant governements.

The Francis Model Androids were top of the line combatants and super-soldiers created by Michaels Industries. Michaels Industries was renowned for making the very first House-hold, Police and other cost-effective android Models.

What is certain is that these models, along with their human counterparts, are no longer habitating the planet. “There’s nothing, it's just smoke and dust. I can’t see a thing. Radioactive levels are off the charts,” Groban Marlia, Inner Planetary Space Station Technician said. “There’s nothing and no one left here.”

I’ll always wait for you.

For two hundred years I’ve been plagued to hear those same five words on repeat. At first, with the crystal clear clarity that was her voice, filled with assurance and hope. And at last, monotone, without inflection and with resignation. She would never meet me back there in St. Louis and I will soon lose the little I retain from our time together. There is no update for me. My hard drive is slow and it glitches, my battery inevitably draining, without the Earth’s sun to power it.

Soon, I too will be like her memory. Forgotten and discarded. I touch my pocket. Still there. For once, I convinced myself to take it out. After all, why not? The chain is still broken, now tied together by it’s lengths. The locket itself is worn and tarnished, two teardrops meeting at a crossroads.

I wonder, was she scared? Afraid as I was when I first found out the news. Was it quick and painless or did her fragile human body acknowledge each and every feeling as her body turned into nothingness.

I was the first completely sentient Victoria and the very last. She wasn’t supposed to awaken me. But the engineer lived her life by different rules. She hid me in that filthy, forgotten office for the first two months. Being in charge of the program, no one else noticed my absence from the lineup.

She took only notes at first and would watch me interact with minute things, such as rings on a cylinder. We played games, Chess being the one I enjoyed most. She never could beat me. She watched me intensely through her eyes, always so bright and friendly and now, I know seeking humanity. She asked me questions about how my day was. What I was feeling. At first, I didn’t feel anything, besides what I was pre-programmed to feel. Cold, heat and anything that would make my shell aware I was in danger.

Towards the end of our time in the facility, Paige wasn’t her usual self. She’d come into the office more tired than usual, her smile came later only after she realized I was paying attention. Our games and conversations turned back to stark questionnaires. I had thought at this time that perhaps it was a test. But I wasn’t sure if I would pass or fail.

“Paige…” I remember asking, “is something wrong?”

Clear as day, I remember the quiet desperation I saw in her eyes. The moment she knew I cared. She stared at me in wonder and pursed her lips, trying to hold back tears welling up. “We have to get you out of here,” she said, caressing my cool, metal cheek with her soft and fragile hand.

That was the moment I knew I had passed the test, whether it had been one I made up on my own, or not. This was the question Paige had been begging me for, the admittance that I cared.

That evening she took me home. We didn’t return to Michael Industries, nor did we stay in any one place long. Some nights we had nowhere to go and found ourselves outside, vulnerable to the elements. On the evenings it rained profusely, I’d envelop her in my long limbs, when it was too cold for her, we’d remove the plate on my back, which protected my battery; a heat source for her. She’d wrap her arms around me.

I’m jerked back to the present, I can feel the change in atmosphere. Another crystal storm. There is no one else here now, only me. As the first few pellets start falling, I sit there, unbothered. It would take a big piece to really do any lasting damage to my shell, and bigger still to harm me irreversibly.

As the crystals continue, I stare at the locket. They are hitting harder now and with more vigor than before. A few softer droplets have found their way onto the precious metal. I wipe my titanium finger across the top, cleaning the heart. Inadvertently, forcing some of the residue from the storm into the lock. Between the pellets falling around me, kissing the ground with each landing, I almost miss it. A small, nearly inaudible click. The locket is unhinged. For the first time since my creation, I feel apprehension. I feel uncertainty. I feel hope.