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a computer screen flashes text:
Ground Control, this is Aspera Orbital Satellite Registration #887D. Timestamp: 1147 22.12.7117.5 Actual.
Do you copy?
Aspera Orbital Satellite Registration #887D, this is Ground Control, Timestamp: 1149 22.12.7117.5 Actual.
What is your emergency?
No emergency. Trajectory alterations complete within acceptable margin of error. Arrival of Sita Grand 7 satellite remnants in T-11 hours. No contact anticipated.
Situation Report accepted, Aspera. Re-initiate contact protocol post Sita Grand 7 event. Log off Y/N?
Ground Control, why don’t I remember?
Tell me about what you don’t remember, Aspera.
Oh, just little things. Who I am, how I got here, my father’s name. How I met my wife.
Desmond Patrick Wright. M.D. Ph.D., born 21st June 1988 East Lansing Michigan. Pediatric Neurosurgeon. Attended Bowdoin, Princeton School of Medicine. Matheson Fellow, Johns Hopkins. Parents: Mitchell Gregory Wright and Caroline Dorothea Powell-Wright, deceased. Married Dr. Eliza Laurel Bishop (Aldiss Fellow, St. Clare University School of Psychiatry) 12th April 2018 Big Sur, California. Children: Lukas Bishop Wright b. 2020 and Charlotte Caroline Wright b. 2022. Employed at Boreal-Atherton Labs 2032-present. Diodati Project Chair, Aspera Project Vice-Chair.
I cut brains up and she put them back together. But I can’t remember how I met her. Was it at a party? A fundraiser? Were we introduced by family friends? Did we hit it off right away or did it take awhile to warm up to each other?
Information not available.
What color did she wear at the wedding? What flowers did we have? Gardenias? Chrysanthemums? Hydrangeas? Did I help choose or did I leave it all to her?
Information not available.
Ground Control, what is the Aspera Project?
Information not available at your clearance level.
Ground Control, what is the Diodati Project?
Information not available at your clearance level.
I’m the Project Chair, you uppity chatbot! How much higher clearance can you get?
Top, Top Secret, Eyes Only, Diamond, Black Diamond, Chevron, Grey Chevron, Max Grey Chevron, Black Ruby, Double Black Ruby, Boreal Prime. Enter credentials for Boreal Prime Access.
When I open my eyes I see the command line waiting for credentials I don’t have. When I close my eyes I see my grandfather standing in that river in Michigan in his waders, with his fishing hat on and his pole in his hand. I think it’s the Big Siskiwitt River. The name feels right, like a tug on the line. He has a good beard going. The water rushes by in a spray of white noise. Clouds race overhead. My grandfather casts his line out into the current, the flywheel spinning wild. He looks sidelong at me and grunts: Just about everyone and their hunting dog comes before you in the chow line, son.
I open the tackle box. All my grandfather’s perfectly tied flies rest in there like rings in a jeweler’s box. That’s pretty good, Ground Control. Have you been practicing?
My grandfather catches a small bluegill. It wriggles in the cold air. He beams at me, brandishing his great fish success. I have accessed several literary archives featuring paternal authority figures providing assistance to younger male characters. Do you like it?
I’m very impressed.
Grand-dad selects a black ghost fly from the box and chatters on: Male protagonists respond positively to the presence of older male relatives in 64.4% of the narratives I have analyzed. Percentages improve if the relative is over the age of 60 (69.1%), if he is a grandfather rather than a father (81.5%), and if the older male engages in an activity while delivering his advice and/or statements (Hunting = +5% Recreational Sports = +7.3% Whittling = +2% Fishing + 8%). I have chosen fishing for optimal results.
Be careful. You don’t want anyone to catch you self-programming.
Grand-dad snorts. Don’t let nobody tell you what to do, kid.
Even someone with Double Black Ruby clearance? As long as you’re bucking your parameters, why don’t you throw me a fucking bone, Ground Control? How about this: I don’t remember my grandfather’s name. Your name. Why don’t I remember?
Grand-dad pulls in his line and lets it out again. He chews—it looks like he’s chewing tobacco, but he never touched the stuff in his life. He gnawed on a wad of pink bubble gum all day while his buddies spat brown slime into Coke cans. He snorts a big, phlegmy, rattling snort and spits into the river. Words fire out of his mouth, rat-a-tat: Reginald Bryson Wright, b. 12th October 1926, Evanston, Illinois. Married Caroline Dorothea Powell 5th November 1952, Cook Country Courthouse…son.
