THE END OF ALL THINGS BY John Scalzi
To Jay and Mary Vernau, of Jay and Mary’s Book Center of Troy, Ohio;
To Alan Beatts and Jude Feldman of Borderlands Books of San Francisco, California;
To Duane Wilkins and Olivia Ahl of University Bookstore, University of Washington;
And to all the booksellers who have shared my work with the readers in their stores.
You are the best. This one is for you, with thanks.
THE LIFE OF THE MIND
To my friend John Anderson, dearly departed, and to all who were friends with him.
Let the music play.
PART ONE
So, I’m supposed to tell you how I became a brain in a box.
Huh. Well, that starts off a little dark, doesn’t it.
Also, I don’t really know, technically, how they did it to me. It’s not like once I woke up as a disembodied brain they showed me an informational video about how they did it, just in case I was curious. Here’s the part where we snipped off all the blood vessels and peripheral nerves, the video would say. Here’s how we removed the skull and spinal column, and here’s how we stuffed your brain full of nifty little sensors to track your thoughts. Pay attention, there’s a test later.
Jesus, I’m really bad at this.
I’m not a writer or an orator. I’m not a storyteller. I’m a spaceship pilot, so let me just get that right out there. The Colonial Union asked me to tell what happened to me because they think that information will be useful to them. Fine, I’ll do it, happy to help. But it’s not going to be, you know, classic literature. It’s going to skip around. I’m going to get lost telling the story and come back to points and then get lost again. I’m doing this off the top of my head.
Well, metaphorically. I don’t have a head anymore. Pretty sure they tossed my head into an incinerator or something.
See what I mean?
Someone’s going to have to edit this if it’s going to make any sense at all. So to you poor anonymous Colonial Union editor: I salute you and I apologize to you. I’m not trying to make your life difficult, I swear. I just don’t know what they really want, or how they want me to do it.
Just tell us everything, I was told. Get it all down. Don’t worry. We’ll sort it out. Which I guess is where you come in, anonymous editor. Happy sorting.
And if you’re reading this: I’m sure the editor did an excellent job.
Where to start this damn thing? I don’t think any of you will give a crap about my childhood; it was standard-issue pretty happy, mostly noneventful, with decent parents and friends. Schooling likewise unremarkable with all the usual bits of stupidity and libidinousness with occasional moments of cramming for tests. Honestly, no one will want to hear about any of that. I hardly do and I lived it.
So, I think I’ll start at the job interview.
Yes, that’s a good place to start. The interview that gave me the job that turned me into a headless wonder.
In retrospect, I kind of wish I hadn’t of gotten the gig.
Oh, and maybe I should say what my name is. Just for the record.
It’s Rafe. Rafe Daquin.
I’m Rafe Daquin, and I’m a brain in a box.
Hi.
* * *
The reason I got the interview at all was because of a university friend of mine, Hart Schmidt. He works as a Colonial Union diplomat, which I always thought was the very definition of a thankless job, and in some recent downtime was in a bar on Phoenix Station and talking to the executive officer of the Chandler, a cargo hauler doing a standard triangle run between Phoenix, Huckleberry, and Erie. Not exactly a prestige job, but a gig is a gig. They can’t all be glamour postings.
Anyway, in conversation the XO was griping about how when they got to Phoenix Station the Chandler was met by a bunch of law enforcement types. Seems one of the Chandler’s pilots had a little side thing going, down on the actual planet of Phoenix, the details of which I’m still a little hazy on but which involved blackmail, intimidation, graft, and bigamy, the last of these being one not so much like the others. The point was the Chandler was now down a pilot and needed one, fast.
Which was nice, because I was a pilot, and I needed a job. Also fast.
“This tells me you were a programmer before you were a pilot,” the XO said, as he looked at my work history. We were in a burger joint on Phoenix Station; I had hauled my ass up from the planet as soon as Hart told me about the gig. The burgers were legend, but I wasn’t really there for the culinary thrills. The XO’s name was Lee Han and he had the look of someone who was going through the motions. I had a feeling that as long as I didn’t admit to murdering adorable kittens in front of children, I was going to get the gig.
“I went to school for computer engineering,” I said. “Graduated and did that and programming for a couple of years. Worked for Eyre Systems, mostly on starship navigation and maintenance software. You might have one of our setups on the Chandler.”