She could never forget the look on the doctor’s face when her hologram flickered into the hospital. The sorrow was so obvious that even she—an AI assistant who had never quite grasped the delicacy of human emotions—could not miss it.
“We are so glad you could make it, Miss Galaxy,” the doctor said. “We hate to disturb your important work, but we feared he might not have much time left.”
She nodded. The call from the hospital had come when she was halfway through a meeting with the Council. It had not been the most enjoyable experience; processing the piles after piles of documents had taken much longer than she expected, and the roomful of bickering Council members which followed did not make it any better. Regardless, she had come to appreciate those moments when she felt like she could still make a difference, rather than just watching as her master laid helplessly in the hospital.
What Master Winslow had, the doctors had told her, was a lesion in the brain which would slowly take away his ability to process thoughts and memories. But she had always known his health was deteriorating even before they could pinpoint an illness. The instant scans completed by the cameras incorporated into her irises did not lie.
The doctor pushed open the door for her and Miss Galaxy drifted into the ward. The room was silent, save for the soft hummings and beepings of the monitors. Master Winslow was curled up under the blankets, his head tilted to the side in his sleep. He seemed so small, so fragile. It was not a status she would associate Kevin Winslow with—not the great inventor who turned against the world that ridiculed him and created a hidden paradise where he had risen as king.
Without a word, Miss Galaxy reached out to brush the back of his hand with her fingertips, then withdrew herself immediately when his eyelashes fluttered in the tiniest of movements.
“Nebula?” he croaked.
Something in her glitched at the sound of that name. Nebula—the name only he would call her by, because to him she had always been more than a hologram and strings of binary code. She’d been a star, a universal wonder in the making.
She took a step away and lowered her head. “Yes, Master Winslow?” “What time is it?” he asked, struggling to pull himself into a sitting position. “Almost sundown.”
He laughed as if there was not a single thing to worry about in the world, and it made her mechanic heart—if it could even be called such—ache. “I do miss the sunset. Remember the last time we’d seen the sunset, Nebula?”
She did. Every single day of the past was stored in the vast database which made up her brain, with every memory as clear as a freshly developed photograph. She remembered standing by his side and staring at the horizon, where a single streak of sunlight shone through the impenetrable gray fog which had separated them from the rest of the world for decades. A tiny boat drifted atop the waves, carrying his wife’s still body in it, then soon disappeared from sight.
Sometimes she wondered if things would have gone differently if they had talked about grief then—a concept she had never quite understood the full spectrum of. But instead Miss Galaxy only watched as he ordered the robot assistants to remove all traces his wife had left in the house, then replaced all their pictures on the walls with snippets of his writings. In his study, charts and tools for his scientific inventions were cast aside, replaced by pen, paper and a newfound obsession for poetry. Since then, Miss Galaxy had often stood by his shoulder and read his works out loud to him; his eyes were too old to distinguish the words. The handwriting was more than familiar to her, even as his hands began to shake the way a candle flame wavers in the wind, the remainder of a once-fierce life flickering.
“Tell me what you need,” she murmured now. A breeze came, lifting the silk curtains and swiping them gently against the windowsill. Master Winslow gave a round of coughs, but when he looked up at her, Miss Galaxy caught sight of something shimmering in his eyes.
“Look after things, won’t you, Nebula?” he rasped. His words would have been lost to her had her ears not been more sensitive to soundwaves than that of an ordinary human. With a shaky hand, he reached out to touch her cheek. “Look after… promise me.”
In the weeks, years and even decades to come, her mind would wander back to this moment continuously. Amidst the countless documents, Council meetings, public announcements, and, eventually, the frequent visits to the labs of the Isle’s top-notch scientists, Miss Galaxy would look up from the carefully organized list of things that needed to be done and wonder if Master Winslow had seen what she had when she cast her eyes over him. Had he known the end was drawing near?
But she had always known there was no point in dwelling in the past. Musings of what could have been were the product of wild human imaginations, and Miss Galaxy, her mechanical mind whirring as always, was already putting together a plan for the future, even as the nurses turned off the monitor that now displayed nothing but three straight lines, then drew the sheet over Master Winslow’s head.
For the next few days, the phone would ring nonstop. Miss Galaxy would meet first with the Council, then the media, then crowds after crowds of people coming to offer their condolences at Master Winslow’s funeral. She would nod and smile as all things went according to plan, thanking everyone for their kindness and telling them that all would be well, that she would take care of everything. But when she returned home she would find a silent, empty house waiting for her. Amidst the papers, tools, and trinkets on the writing desk, a cup of tea awaited a master who would never return.
A sigh. Then, like Master Winslow had all those years ago, she would call in the robot assistants and begin boxing up his belongings. All his science instruments would soon be donated to the Science Institute, and the rest of his things would be rearranged into the museum the house would soon become in honor of Master Winslow’s memory. She would be speaking to the manager of this project tomorrow, after her meeting with the Council about the election of a new Chief Executive for their government, which was scheduled first thing in the morning. There was much to be done, and Miss Galaxy would be there to look after everything. She had promised as much, and it was a promise she would forever keep.
“I’ll be there, Master Winslow,” she vowed, as the old man in his sickbed reached out a shaky hand to touch her cheek. “Always.”
“Thank you, Nebula.” Her master gave a contented sigh. “Now read me a poem, will you? Read me the one I like.”
She nodded, then recited the words she had now known by heart after reading the poem to him over and over again throughout the years. She found herself unable to look away while telling him of a beautiful tribute to love and grief, desperate to imprint his features into her mind. But before she could finish the last stanza, Kevin Winslow had already turned to his side, smiled, then closed his eyes.
The soft beeps of the monitor by the bed were replaced by a steady, everlasting buzzing sound. Nurses would be rushing in soon, even though Miss Galaxy did not need the three still lines on the screen to inform her of that.
She reached out her hand, as if she could touch the lingering warmth of his life, and even as her spectrum fingers passed right through his, she thought of the loss of a love so dear, and whispered the ending lines for him for one last time:
Tell me—I yearn to know
if you are dreaming of me,
for I am dreaming about you—now,
always, forever.
Until the end of time.
