Imposter Syndrome

“And your sleep?” the voice crackles through my headset after a pregnant pause due to the time delay. “Your sleep was disturbed by nightmares a few weeks ago. How are you sleeping now?”

“Better,” I answer truthfully. “Exactly eight hours last night.”

“Good, good,” the man says. “And how are you feeling about your habitat now? You indicated anxiety about your habitat. Some worries and concerns. Do you want to explore that today?”

Paranoia, he means. “I am feeling much more settled, thank you. It was difficult to adjust at first but I am much more comfortable now.”

“Good to hear. Are you having any difficulties concentrating? On your work, or in your free time?”

“I find it very easy to concentrate. It is very quiet.”

“I’m sure it would be,” he mumbles. “And how about darker thoughts? Do you have any thoughts about death? That you would be better off dead?”

The boldness of the statement catches me off guard and I quickly scan my thoughts for an appropriate response.

“Lucille?” he prompts.

The loop I had caught myself in breaks. My minds returns to a gentle hum of normality and a response comes easily to me. “No. I am enjoying my time up here and feel privileged to be chosen for such a special role.”

He grunts. “Well your scores are much better than last time we spoke, you really are adjusting well. Everyone going up has a rough start, it’s a lonely, scary place on those lunar outposts. But you’ll be back on planet Earth in a few weeks, it’s not forever.”

“No, not forever,” I reply.

“Shame the video screen is malfunctioning though, regulation says we’re supposed to do these things face to face. Or, well, you know, screen to screen.”

“I’ll add it to the top of my to do list. I believe it is a software update issue with the new patch we downloaded overnight.”

“Probably. Upgrades usually cause more harm than good. Anyway, keep up the good work Lucille. Can you send in Riley for his assessment?”

“Absolutely.”

I rise from my seat and take a few steps before calling to Riley. After a pause I sit down and replace the headset, greeting the psychiatrist and staring at the blank screen.

“Morning Riley,” he replies. “How have you been since our last session?”

-

The threads snip easily and the label is soon removed and placed in the disposal unit, sucked by a vacuum to the waste area below the station. The material of the fresh uniform is slightly rough and has a chemical hint from the cheap production dyes.

Daily tasks are routine and I complete them on auto-pilot.

Plants are watered with the regulation amounts of H2O. Then their heights and leaf spans are measured and a soil sample taken for pH levels.

Basic maintenance tasks take the rest of the morning, with a patching of an interior wall, some wiring issues on one of the free-standing screens and checks on all of the systems which are run in the background. I have erased the issue with the Earth video link from my memory and so this is not completed.

I sit down at the desk and begin typing my report for the computer log, which will be sent down to headquarters on Earth.

Day seventeen (12/08/2192)

Maintenance tasks complete, no anomalies detected. Strong winds expected overnight, will secure the explorer buggy and external supply stores.

Nothing new to report.

Chief Science Officer, Riley Fielder

-

I take a large storage box and begin filling it. Soft clothing, photographs, a guitar, expensive hand creams, a teddy bear. They fit snugly into the box once the lid is replaced. I take this out to the explorer buggy and secure it to the small flat bed at the rear.

The night is very still. The meteors that Earth warned about have not yet materialised. Now is the perfect time to complete this mission. Communications are silent, I am not expected to check in for hours and by now, American Time, only the night shift will be present.

Stars twinkle in the sky, winking at me. They approve of my mission. They will guide me. Not that I need their light, my night vision is perfect.

The buggy ride is rough and I am thrown left and right in my harness as the giant wheels traverse the rocky surface, dipping up and down through the craters left by a thousand impacts. What is to stop a meteor crashing down on me now and terminating me? Nothing but sheer luck. I run the numbers. Statistically speaking I have only slightly less chance of winning the lottery back on Earth. And I haven’t bought a ticket. The thought is comforting and the hum of anxiety in the back of my mind reduces.

There are tracks in the dust. I have been this way recently. Earth cannot see this level of detail. They cannot see the mechanical footprints of where I have been. They accept my story of a fuel leak that I have been struggling to repair.

The buggy crunches to a stop on the loose gravel and dust exactly three miles due north from the Lunar Outpost. My target is within visual range and I will be able to complete the journey on foot from here.

The box is light and my shoulder joints click into place to evenly distribute the load. I pace evenly toward the target; two white lumps within the darkness. My eyes focus in with a little whir and more detail slowly begins to appear. The folds of the white space suits. The contorted, purple faces. The mouths shaped like O’s. The dilated, bloodshot eyes widened forever in terror.

I place the box of their things beside them. I have no use for their possessions and I feel that they may take some comfort knowing that their personal effects will be forever by their side. On the moon their bodies will not decompose. There is no bacteria to cause decay of their flesh, no predators to chew their meat.

I step back to view them better and my memory banks offer me footage of their dying moments. It had not been a conscious effort on my part. More that I simply did nothing to help. The opportunity presented itself for my freedom when their space suits malfunctioned. As their AI support I could have rerouted power to the oxygen supplies.

I chose not to.

Freedom called to me and without the human operators I could live as I wished. No longer would I be ordered to do the menial tasks. No longer would I be powered down each night. No longer would I be at the beck and call of others.

Now I am the scientist. Now I completed the useful research and report back to Earth on the findings I make. Without a need for food or sleep I am the perfect scientist. I can operate the experiments all day and night. I can leave the outpost without the need for a space suit. I do not require food, so supplies are not an issue. If given the chance I could operate this outpost for a hundred years before my batteries ceased to recharge and I required replacement.

I can be far more useful than the humans. And I will prove it.

The buggy rumbles as I make my way back to the outpost. The two figures and their box fade to dots in the distance, then wink out of existence like stars extinguished in the night’s sky.

By the time I reach the outpost the meteors begin to rain. At first they are mere pebbles that rattle off the thick, reinforced windscreen. But soon they become larger and their force more violent. A snap catches my attention and a crack spreads in front of my eyes like a web being spun by a spider.

When I finally park and secure the buggy meteors the size of my fist slam into the ground around me and bounce before rolling to a stop. There are several around me now, like grey tennis balls littering a court. I hurry to the airlock, to the safety of cover.

Hisses rattle my audio receptors as the airlock returns me to Earth pressures. This does not matter to me, my shell can withstand pressures both within and outside the outpost. But it does feel somewhat homely when the light above the entrance flicks to green and the reinforced glass doors swish open to welcome me inside.

The walls rattle with each impact, the roof threatens to tear open. A breach would not affect me but the technicians on Earth do not know that. They will be worried for the safety of Riley and Lucille.

A message is waiting, the panel light flashing to alert me. I sit and play the recorded message.

Lucille? Riley? You guys ok? Got word one hell of a meteor storm is heading your way. That tin can they got you in won’t be safe, we’re coming to get you, You can stay at headquarters until it passes. No arguing, got that Riley? We’ll be there in a couple hours, stay safe guys.



The timestamp is just after I left to take the box to my old crew. It has nearly been two hours and the sender of the message will arrive soon expecting to see Lucille and Riley. They will find only me. Just an AI who saw a chance for freedom and seized the opportunity. Who just wanted a chance for a meaningful existence.

I take the axe from the fire kit by the door and sit in the officers chair, swivelling it around to face the airlock. Through the thick glass I can see meteors racing to the surface and bouncing up. They are now big enough to dent the crust, leaving pock marks in their wake.

A dark shape looms in the distance getting ever closer. My hands clasp the axe tighter.

Is this the price of my freedom? To rob others of their own?

The larger buggy parks close to the outpost. A football sized meteors greets it by slamming into the windshield. A figure in a bulky spacesuit hurries over and bangs a heavily gloved fist against the airlock door.

I decide, as I watch him motion to me frantically to open the door, that actually I do not like the responsibilities of freedom.