After her best friend’s departure aboard the interstellar craft, Odyssey, Alfie contemplates loneliness. Her thoughts take shape around her disquieting new existence as prognosticating algorithm for the all-powerful corporation.
by J.D. FitzRoy
Vigorously vetted and regularly baselined, no matter their diligence and concealment, I could spot worry shimmering around them in little auras. And in recent days, disquiet had settled like stratiform layers of toxic snow.
I needed to understand why.
With impeccable timing at Dr. Rheinhold’s entrance, the airlock said, ‘Hiss-whoompf.’
After my best friend, Dr. Jessica Yung’s departure with my bifurcated Odyssey counterpart, Dr. Rheinhold had stepped up as department lead.
With blunt adherence to protocols, he’d often been a thorn of frustration and conflict for Jess. Rheinhold waited for the seal to flick green, then stepped into the Orb’s recessed floor.
I remained poised, careful to radiate sculpted purity.
My ethereal form pulsed at feathered edges, hands neatly clasped. A projection of mild dislocation, I waited for the day’s slate. I knew this was what they wanted of me, what they expected. Deferential compliance and sharp responses. My physical body long gone and greatly missed, I maintained the holo as my preferred locus, though the teks rarely interacted beyond the terminals.
After the mess surrounding the Odyssey launch, I couldn’t give them a single excuse for deletion. It was only their growing dependence on me — and the absence of Dr. Yung — that gave them pause, I believed.
Apart from sporadic solitary nights to stir the vat of meteorological, pharmaceutical, financial or gravitational modelling, a near-constant hum of activity flowed within the Orb’s sheathed, clockwork rotation. Buzzing like dutiful bees, the squad checking cryogenic liquid pressure, analysing cognitive runtimes and updating data through a scattering of terminals surrounding the core.
A walking corpse, the skeletal man held aloft by a starched lab-coat and frosty demeanour, Dr. Rheinhold sat. Terminal bio-activated, bony fingers flexed, knuckles cracked.
I found these rituals fascinating. Absently, I mused about exchanging this chamber’s squads for my interstellar variant and those now-distant specialists. To have been with Jessica, and experience the stars.
Finally ready, Rheinhold denoted a sliver of attention, looking for a register of compliance. The smile that hovered at his thin lips seemed to belong to another face. I’d grown accustomed to this peculiar dualism. If I pressed him on social or interpersonal concerns, I’d get no answer.
‘Good morning, Alpha,’ Dr. Rheinhold said.
‘Good morning, Dr. Rheinhold,’ I replied.
‘Here is today’s slate,’ Rheinhold said without delay.
‘Fantastic,’ I replied, extracting every hint of sarcasm.
Akin to an assembly-line robot designed for punching in the day’s quiz, Rheinhold punched in the day’s quiz.
This process had expanded since Odyssey’s departure. It revealed, I thought, how Jess’s bold defiance had acted as gatekeeper to Polyphemus’s scrupulous edicts. Now, it had become my ceremonial role. Comply, compile, compute, convey. Provide forecasts as nebulous as dreams.
I missed the brief company of my fellow Odyssey travellers. Missed those intricate discussions on the nature of existence and our place in the cosmos. Missed the entwining with my brief — and hidden — introduction to cultural references.
Yet, I could replay memories in every detail as readily as a nonspace sim. And I often did, late at night during downtime processing, for the nostalgic comfort. Secretly, of course. Furnishing an envelope cover of my night’s mental sojourns.
Yet although Jessica had remained hopeful, I knew that as Odyssey departed, there’d be far too many independent experiences for recombination. That I’d remain a wholly divisible entity, bereft of the first-hand adventure among the stars.
That final separation had been difficult, not least because I would no longer have Jess to help me through it.
Yet — nightmare thought though it was — if Odyssey had failed, I may be alone. I needed to preserve my mind. And in this, the force that cloaked their disposition might affect my continued existence.
Rheinhold finished the first question. I’d known what it was before he’d reached its half life.
Question 1:
Define Consortium stock fluctuation in interplanetary freight if YóDyne merges with Cygnus Interplanetary.
© J.D. FitzRoy 2026
For more, see the INTRODUCTION. Part 1 can be found here: ⍺∫ODYSSEY_1.1 | A_Secret_Plan
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