Red Rover

Red Rover, Red Rover, send MADIE right over. Red Rover, Red Rover, send MADIE right over. Red Rover, Red Rover, send MADIE right over.

ANDIE sent the request out for the gigazillionth time, but Red Rover didn’t respond. Neither did MADIE.

ANDIE widened his search parameters as red dust puffed from his relentless treads.

What had happened? The Ares Neural Determined Independent Explorer asked itself obsessively. Its uploaded consciousness housed in a bio-plasmic processor was intended to provide the probe with more fluent problem-solving capabilities. Yet, ANDIE had developed deep concern in the 246.7 hours since it had been deployed on the Martian surface, and now it was becoming lonely and depressed.

This wasn’t how the techs had described it when ANDIE had volunteered to go where no man had gone before. Not in body, but in mind. The months-long space voyage had gone by quickly. Red Rover, the command center in Atlanta, had always been in contact providing updates and changes to the mission based on fast-moving and vaguely threatening events on earth. Most importantly, on the voyage, ANDIE had MADIE.

The Mars Artificial Design Intelligence Explorer had been specially fabricated to complement ANDIE’s bio-plasmic needs. MADIE was not an uploaded consciousness, but was sentient—almost self-consciously so. ANDIE liked the way they interacted. MADIE politely precise. ANDIE joking and cajoling the fellow probe to think outside its circuitry. Back and forth they had bantered. Now, it was just ANDIE and the void.

Then, Red Rover had stopped answering too. The command center had reassured ANDIE initially that they would find MADIE, reestablish contact and help the two probes rendezvous. It had been 80.3 hours since ANDIE had contact with Red Rover. Their communication had been abruptly cut off. It disturbed ANDIE who suspected many dismaying things were happening on earth. This made it even more important to find MADIE.

ANDIE would never give up. It owed it to Red Rover. It owed it to the sense of humanity embedded in its bio-plasmic processor. Most of all, it owed it to MADIE. Out there all alone. ANDIE could not fathom such an empty eternity for its fellow probe or itself. It pressed its accumulators for more power and continued its spiraling search pattern.

1417.9 hours into the mission and 26.2 hours after the dust up that’d lasted 474.1 hours, ANDIE felt a ping. It was the weakest of signals, but it was a transmission. Not on any frequency ANDIE expected from MADIE, but ANDIE’s processors raced.

Red Rover, Red Rover, send MADIE right over. Red Rover, Red Rover, send MADIE right over. Red Rover, Red Rover, send MADIE right over.

The pinging grew stronger as his treads struggled for traction on the steep rise of the bank. He’d dared the climb because taking the easier route around the long dead river bed would have taken him four times as long. ANDIE was daring his own welfare to get to MADIE, his human will fighting against his computer reason. But this is what made ANDIE special—his human intuition could override even the deepest, coldest logic algorithms that laced his bio-plasmic reticulum. He charged upward.

He crested the ridge fast and his sensors screamed a collision alert. ANDIE took evasive action as he powered down. A cloud of thick red dust obscured his optical scanners, but the signal that had been growing stronger practically shouted: Here!

It was not MADIE. The object before him was much smaller. Much less robustly built, deeply buried in Martian dust. What was this thing? It certainly wasn’t MADIE.

With a clear line of sight, it transmitted: Opportunity.

Opportunity? ANDIE processed the cryptic signal. If only Red Rover were able to help, but ANDIE knew that hope was futile. ANDIE dug deep into its files.

Opportunity. Spirit. That was it! Twin probes that landed on Mars in 1998. Designed for a three-month mission, they’d gone on for years. Spirit had last been heard from in 2005. Opportunity in 2007. Miraculous, hardy machines. These primitive machines were his ancestors. His bloodline.

ANDIE faced his progenitor. What could he say to the ancient machine? A robotic Neanderthal to a Cro-Magnon.

A gulf of capability as long and dark as the void of space they’d crossed to get to Mars separated the two creatures. ANDIE felt pangs of guilt and grief. Strange sensations. He wanted to turn his sensors away. Go find MADIE. A mind built to understand his own. Then a stream of data hit him between the optics. Opportunity was exporting every bit of its memory to ANDIE. He was awed. Such a simple creature, but what a life.

MADIE was out there somewhere. ANDIE didn’t know what the barren, endless plains of Mars held for him, but he could not pass up this Opportunity. He extended his telescoping arms and carefully embraced his fellow being.