Mimic and the Journey Home

Progress is Progress

I had read plenty of novels on the net in my time and I was always aware of the trope of the narration summarizing highly technical or monotonous endeavors as to not bore the readers. As I cut wire after wire, then dutifully did the readings that the twins needed after every move, I found myself wishing that someone would do that to my own life.

At first, I had been so nervous, terrified of doing something wrong. But after the initial dozen or so cuts, it went right into the mundane.

Mimic sat by dutifully, however, asking questions and listening whenever I grew too bored, and then Ciangi and Bahn both would stop by occasionally to make sure I was on track and didn’t need any help. Our days blended into a bit of a routine, and not an unpleasant one at that, which left me looking less at the calendar and more toward space.

I supposed I should have kept an eye on the alerts just in case Giomatti managed to catch up with us, but that was near impossible. Even if he had somehow convinced his crew to take off after us, they didn’t have the supplies or the means to do anything to the massive mining ship. It wasn’t like they had the advantage of surprise or a shapeshifter like my group had, not to mention that the engineers had taken the time to boost the defenses of the mining ship when they weren’t busy working on the scanner.

“What are you thinking about?”

I finished cutting the wire I had between my fingers before I looked at Mimic. She was wearing a large, baggy shirt courtesy of Bahn, and tight, synthetic leggings from Gonzales’s collection with the ankles rolled up. I kind of missed her in my oversized jumpsuit, but it seemed I was the only one who liked the thick, durable fabric.

“Nothing important,” I said, handing her the wire then taking the power-cap she handed to me.

“I think everything you worry about is important.”

“That’s because you’re still very new to this whole bipedal, human-esque thing. Everything is fascinating to you. Even things that are not.”

“Perhaps. Or maybe you all have just become too numb to the wonder of…well, everything.”

I laughed lightly. “I guess there’s no way we’ll ever know.”

“Perhaps not,” she murmured. “But I would still like to know your thoughts.”

“Just thinking about Giomatti and how mad he must be.”

She smiled at that, her small face taking on a mischievous expression. “Certainly very angry. He was not a nice man.”

“No, he was not.”

“Higgens?”

“Mimi?” I replied, raising my eyebrow at her.

“We have been friends a good while now, yes? And have survived many things together.”

“Yes, I would say that’s accurate.”

“Then you would answer a question honestly, even if it was uncomfortable?”

“Mimi, what are you getting at?”

“I just…” For the first time in a long while, she seemed at a loss for words. “I’ve read many amazing things on the net interface your kind created. But I have also read many terrible things. Things I still do not want to believe. Wars, and explosions, and murder of millions. I thought perhaps those were just rare tragedies that were not to be expected.

“But then, that man, Giomatti. He was cruel. He wanted to ruin me for profit. He felt absolutely no remorse for the death of my family. He didn’t even seem to realize we were a people, even if we were so different from his own kind. “

I looked to her earnestly, giving her my full attention. I still didn’t know where she was going with this, but I wanted to listen. It sounded like it was important to her, whatever she was formulating. “I think you’re right.”

“Thank you. But that affirmation is not what I need. I know Giomatti is a selfish man. A myopic one, even. And I know you are a good man. Incredible, even. You were willing to give up everything to help me, a stranger, what might have even looked like a monster to you when we first found each other.” I blushed a bit at the praise, but she continued. “But what I need to know is if most humans are like you, or are most humans like him?”

Oh.

Oh.

That was a question indeed, and one that I hadn’t been anticipating. “I… That’s really hard to say. I’ve been told my whole life about how I’m weird, but I don’t know if that’s what makes me kind, or if it’s something else.”

“I understand if you cannot answer with resolute conviction, but I want to know your opinion. I have always valued it and always will, even when I didn’t know enough of your language to communicate that to you.”

“Right. Well, uh, I guess I would say that the majority of people are average. Not necessarily good, not necessarily bad. Just people, doing their best to get by and that’s it. They have the capacity to do great things, but most likely they will not. And then, a much smaller fraction is like Giomatti. They tend to cling to power and do terrible, horrible things in the name of progressing their own means. Then, there’s people like me. We’re not particularly special either, but when we see someone hurt, or when we know that someone needs help, we do everything in our power to aid them. It’s like a scale, where the three of us all balance each other out.”

“So, you’re saying for every Higgens, there’s a Giomatti.”

“I guess so.”

“That’s…terrifying.”

I paused, surprised by her reaction, but then I thought it through. It was pretty daunting to think that for every single selfless, helpful person in the world that there was a person waiting in the wings to take advantage. But then again, for every person who would hurt another for gain, there was someone who wouldn’t stand for injustice right behind them. It was like a cosmic scale of checks and balances.

“I guess it all depends on how you look at it.”

“Or who you choose to surround yourself with,” she countered. “I think I just happen to have lucked out to have run into four very good people.”

I blushed again. “Well, good is subjective, but thank you.”

“Of course, Higgens. You are my friend. I have read that lavishing compliments about positive traits is productive to keeping friends both happy and healthy.”

“Well, it’s safe to say that being your friend makes me very happy.”

“Excellent. Now for the next wire, are you removing it, splicing it, or repurposing?”

“Splicing.”

She nodded and reached to the tray next to her, handing me an ionic welder and then a simple pair of wire-snippers. “Splice away, then.”

“Do you think we did it?”

“I don’t know. You guys are the experts. Do you think we did it?”

“I don’t want to jinx us.”

“Human friends, it has been just over a month since our escape from Giomatti. I think perhaps the best way to find out if we have indeed done it is to power up the scanner and see if it works.”

The four of us looked at Mimic, who was standing to the side and watching us intently. I had to hand it to her, she certainly was keeping her calm for someone who might or might not be on the edge of being reunited with her people.

“Right. Starting it up. That would be a good way to get this going.” Ciangi took a deep breath. “Bahn, do you have the algorithms loaded?”

“I do.”

“Gonzales, you said the initial power tests went well?”

“Check, my friend.”

“Higgens, you loaded all of the samples into the analyzer?”

“Just like you showed me.”

Ciangi nodded, her small mouth pursing as she went through another mental checklist. It was funny how she had seemed to have taken over as the de facto leader of their little scanner project, as Gonzales had taken over during the planet-hopping section of our journey.

“Okay. Got it. I…I think we’re ready. Bahn, add the power.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The taller of the coin twins reached over to the console and punched in four simple digits that would reveal if all the work we had put in was fruitful or a complete waste of time.

The room filled with whirring and popping as our machine came to life. We all held our collective breaths as we waited to see if it would all end in a fiery explosion.

But it didn’t.

Things lit up and the scanner menu booted just fine on the console, with the loading bar proceeding right on task. It was a tense five minutes, but then, finally, the computer let out a ding.

Calculations Completed.

Then, in a glorious moment of relief, a map of the system we were in projected itself into the center of the room.

Possible matches found within one thousand clicks. Estimated arrival time: nine hours.

“Oh my gosh!” Ciangi cried. “We did it! We actually did it!”

“We…” Mimic’s voice cracked a bit. “We found my people?”

All of our smiles were ridiculously large as I pulled my friend into a hug. “Yeah, Mimi. We did. You ready to go home?”

She let out a long, shuddering sigh and I was pretty sure it was the first time I had seen her show such emotional vulnerability. Or perhaps she was just learning to show her emotions as we did. “Yes, more than anything else.”

“Then let’s take you home, friend.”