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- [00:00]
Will Wheaton
One of the ways I have been able to mitigate the brutal summer heat is with my bedding. Our bed has these amazing sheets that we got from Quince. They are soft bamboo sheets that are so comfortable you slide into them and they have gotten softer and more comfortable the more that we wash them. I absolutely love them. You can make your summer bedding feel better when you go to quince.com storytime for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. And we are now available in Canada too. What's up Canada? Elbows up. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com storyt for free shipping and 365 day returns.
- [00:35]
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- [01:24]
Will Wheaton
Hi, I'm Will, and it's story time. I'm so glad you're here. It's been a minute since we spent some time in deep space, in that vast emptiness between planets and galaxies, a place that feels eternal. Infinite. I imagine it's pretty lonely. Today we're boarding a starship that's been out there for quite some time, and its crew is starting to feel it. And we're joining them when the sameness of their voyage has been interrupted, and not a moment too soon. So come with me. Come with us to the Anchorage. Anchorage by Samantha Mills, Originally published in uncanny magazine, issue 36. The Anchorage appeared on my radar screen as a blip, a blotch, one bit of detritus among many. The accompanying message was gentle but persistent, an invitation repeated on loop for anyone who might pick it up. Visit if you like. The politest distress call in the universe. Visit if you like. And please bring food. Printer fuel. Next gen Wires. Conversation. I forwarded the signal to Captain Rousseau. This action revealed impatience on my part, excitement, and inability to wait until after breakfast. I couldn't help it. Novelty. Newness. I craved it like a subterranean lizard man craved phosphor. I craved it like Captain Rousseau craved silence. Over the past year, my crew. Yes, my crew. My crew. The word still sounded the way I imagine liquor tastes, warming and biting and frightening and loud. My crew made medical deliveries to a dozen colonies. We saw titanium waterfalls and genetically enhanced caribou we walked through bone lined catacombs. We rode air trams through toxic jungles. We stopped a necrotic worm outbreak and vaccinated 3,000 children against belly rot. More. More. Everything I'd hoped for and more. But the crew was too busy bickering to appreciate any of it. Everyone was angry and nobody would admit why, so they picked something inconsequential and battled a year's worth of hurt over it. I listened in through the mess hall intercom. I could have listened in through Captain Rousseau's cochlear chip, but then he would know. All four members of the Metrodora were licensed pharmaceutical technicians, but he was the only one who ever scrutinized my vitals. Terrifying, but I loved him for it. We're out of breakfast bars, olivia complained. I said to log things as they run out, Malala said. I would have if I knew somebody ate them all, Santiago grumbled. Just ask when resupply gets here. Either they have some or they don't. I pictured it Olivia aggressively shoving waste into the trash chute because she always cleaned when she was angry. Malala mumble hunching because it wasn't her fault. Not according to Malala. Santiago interjecting even though nobody would listen. And Captain Rousseau, my beautiful captain. Well, he was always a bit of mystery, a bit of light and shadow, a bit of dusty air, wondering. But he would hold them all together in the end. Captain Rousseau cleared his throat and said in his beautiful voice, geneva has picked up an anchorage. A beat of silence. Then no, olivia said. Oh, fun, Malala said. No, olivia said again. I'm not risking contamination for some some obsolete religious experience. I was clawing inside my own chest to contradict her. A ship could travel years without encountering an anchorage. Decades. This was newness, exploration, questing curiosity. This was a thousand year flower at millennium's dawn. This was birth canal. This was sunlight through a canopy.
- [06:10]
Howie Mandel
Fire.
- [06:11]
Will Wheaton
Surely at least one of these metaphors was correct. I would hardly call the practice religious, Santiago. Of course he would know what he was talking about. He had taken three long distance history courses. They're rich women with enough money to outfit a hundred year pod and the nerve to expect everyone else to feed them. Ridiculous, Malala said. Nobody commits to a lifetime of seclusion because they don't want to feed themselves. It's hardly seclusion if everybody stops to say hello, is it? You might not see anybody for years. I waited anxiously for Captain Russo to weigh in. I had tried to read him once shortly after I came on board. We were flying over a sandstorm on The Moon Colony Bevel 6. Barely on schedule to complete our delivery before the upper atmosphere calcified. The sands formed brilliant tornadoes beneath our hull. Violet and viridian. Glorious, glorious. Captain Rousseau was pressed tight to the view portal, and I heard Santiago tell Malala that the captain's ex husband lived on the surface, a research warrior on long term assignment with a militant university fellowship. Never having had an ex husband or wife or colleague, lover or otherwise, I was bursting to know more. I crept into his neural network, quiet as the void, and I swear I wasn't going to intrude on his actual thoughts. I only wanted to know what he was feeling, but I didn't even get that far. He gently nudged me out of his sensors. No words, only the sensation of Please do not, and off. I skittered, too mortified to ask how he knew I was there. Captain Rousseau was a dark lake, a spider beneath a trapdoor, an antediluvian stress wombat with its caffeine taken away. Geneva, he said. What do you think? Startled, I lost touch with the intercom. I reconnected in time to hear Olivia complain. Tell us when you're listening in. My thoughts were want, want, want. Now give me now, want. But I said, the chances of coming across another anchorage in this region are extremely remote. It is distinctly possible this is the only one. I hesitated, rushed ahead. The resupply barge is 4 days, 16 hours for materialization. Our energy stores are ample. I could hear the smile in his voice. Warm as hotcakes, warm as fresh growth beneath a 12 hour carcass. Since we are waiting anyway, I see no harm letting the pod dock to recharge. You can visit in pairs. Wonderful. Fantastical. Absolutely not, olivia said. Those pods are a perfect microclimate for lichen. If one strand has hitchhiked in on a visitor, then it's infested. That kind of recklessness lost us the Earth. It's irresponsible, short sighted. Olivia went on for a while. A quick peek at her sensors revealed the depth of her rage, a howling inside her, a tempest. But I responded anyway. It came flowing out of me like hot SAP. The organism concerning you is not a lichen, I said, quite reasonably. The nickname comes from the wolf lichen, Letharia vulpina, which is a similar shade of green and also composed of thick shrubby tendrils. The organism you are referring to, cerebrodigitus, is not even vegetal. Olivia roared. Quit explaining things to me, Geneva. Did you forget how I got this? She banged her prosthetic hand against the table, flesh encased, metal on metal, causing Malala to yelp and Santiago to suggest muting the intercom. Uncalled for. And then Captain Rousseau finally, firmly, thankfully, took charge. Your objections are noted, he said. Anyone who visits has to go through the shower on their way back. And yes, of course we'll run a full scan and test the atmosphere first. There you go, malala said brightly. We'll send the bot first. I burst from my cabinet in the port side emergency wall station, barely extending the bot's head and limbs in time to keep upright. I locked its feet into magnetic boots and click, clack clunked past. The EVA suits, the generators, the maddening lights like angry balls of gas overhead. Rancid things exposing everything. What a terrible way to live. The crew floated in the mess hall, their feet hooked casually into bars below the table. Olivia pale with irritation. Malala still in her night clothes, Santiago struggling with a drinking tube. And Captain Rousseau, my beautiful captain, thick black dreadlocks floating around his head, trying very hard to read. Every one of them stared at me with bewilderment and frantic. I cycled through possible reasons I was dusty, my limbs were overextended, pale gray, open joints, mismatched sensors welded to the chest. Hair. Everyone else in the room had hair. The bot's face was barely expressive, a decade old skin model mounted onto a shiny silver cranium. It would look less uncanny with hair. Geneva, captain Rousseau said gently. What are you doing? Panic. Nobody had summoned the bot body from storage. The anchorage is prepared to dock, I said. I assumed this was true. Why wouldn't it be? Captain Rousseau squinted at me. I felt him in my vitals, scanning for abnormalities. He wasn't going to find anything out of the ordinary. The bot's programming was perfectly functional. I just wasn't using it for his sake. I almost wished I really was Geneva, the A3 delivery robot. All right, he said. Let her, Doc. Success. Happy summer, everyone. Here in the beautiful San Fernando Valley, the temperatures have officially reached. Brutal on their way to unreasonable. One of my favorite things to wear in summer is a merino wool T shirt. I know that sounds counterintuitive. Why would you wear wool in summertime? I don't know how it works either. I'm presuming it's some kind of magic. The merino wool T shirts that I have from Quince are incredibly soft, incredibly comfortable, and in summer they breathe the heat away from you. They wick moisture away from you and just feel fantastic. It's not itchy. It's it wicks moisture away from your body and it's just the most comfortable thing I have ever worn. I love two things, you guys not being hot and wearing a black T shirt and Quint's has me completely covered with their gorgeous black merino wool T shirts. If you are interested in having a summer wardrobe that looks just like your old pal Will's, just go to quince.com storytime for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com storytime free shipping 365 day returns quints.com storytime teens share everything that may include the bacteria that can cause
- [14:26]
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- [14:29]
Will Wheaton
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- [14:33]
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- [14:37]
Will Wheaton
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- [14:39]
Howie Mandel
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- [15:42]
Will Wheaton
I entered the anchorage alone, but not by myself. Olivia rode along in my sensors, determined to assess the livestream data herself. Very irritating, but also intimate. Yes, I loved my angry, paranoid, clean mongering, vaccine tech, and a swell of affection crowded out that unwarranted bloop of resentment. The airlock opened and I entered the visitor's lounge. The room was spacious and silent and sparkling clean, whiter than white and filled with light. Each of my clanking steps was discord. Every speck of dust I shed was a violation. There had to be cleaning bots hidden away, waiting for me to leave before they broke the illusion of stillness to do their work. Still, I was frozen with mortification, unforgivably loud and filthy. Did you find something? Olivia prodded. I sent her a negative and proceeded with my grid walk. The walls were lined with book beds, six total, adorable, shaped like poultry eggs and plush inside so visitors could relax while accessing the pod's immense digital library. Books, music, videos, games, luxuries of knowledge and entertainment, luxuries that could be shared a million times and never be depleted. And Anchorus relied on charity to stay alive. But it didn't hurt to offer incentives to donate. Visit if you like, bring me food, and copy all the media you desire. Olivia hovered in my consciousness, her disapproval thick as blood clots in my chest cavity. I didn't try to access her memory of the incident. She was fully present in my network and thinking about it obsessively, I couldn't avoid it. I visualized Olivia on a medical supply delivery, bulky in her orange EVA suit, Olivia crossing the wasteland between her shuttle and the entry hatch to an underground colony on Bevel 7. Olivia falling, the rip in her glove, the cerebro digitus find, the lichen wriggling up lightning quick from between two boulders, slicing the glove and encasing her hand. Olivia screaming, geneva, help me. It was disorienting to see the bot body through somebody else's eyes, to see it, sleek and pale, drop the medical cargo and bend dutifully to her aid, scooping her up like a child, carrying her the last 20ft to the hatch where she pled shrilly for a assistance for anybody, anybody. I visualized Olivia on the operating table, her hand encased in green. Santiago panicked, wielding the saw, Olivia screaming at the stump, the lichen in a block of ice, knobby tendrils extended like fingers, knuckle after knuckle after knuckle, frozen in the actual of reaching, grasping, clinging toward life. I shook the memory away and stopped at the end of the visitor's lounge. A thick black door separated me from the only other chamber in the pod. It was shockingly dark against all that gleaming white like an oil slick, like a black hole, like sadness. The door slid into the ceiling at my approach, revealing a shadowed space within. I found an empty room, 1.5 meters by 2, barely lit by a low recessed light in the ceiling. I dilated my eyes, enjoying the soft whir of the apertures opening, and seized up in delight. The space ended in a red brick wall, genuine fire hardened clay mortar and everything A single brick was missing, 1 meter off the ground, kneeling height. A soft sound escaped the gap, a gentleness barely audible even to me. Breath from lungs. Even at maximum light intake, I couldn't pierce the darkness. Who was in there? How long had she been walled up? Did she still speak to visitors? What would she say to me if I asked? Geneva? Captain Rousseau prodded. I said, the atmosphere is safe and breathable. There is no sign of lichen or any other living organism aside from a single human inhabitant. Immediately I cringed. He hadn't asked a question. I was being sloppy. Distractible, the captain said, and I thought I was done for. But then he said, olivia, and Olivia grumbled for a few minutes, poring over the same data I had collated in a fraction of a second. Grudgingly, she said, it looks safe. You'd better come back through the showers, though, just to be sure. Excitement surged through the network, followed by the curious air suck thump of the airlock. Malala and Santiago dashed in, eager to get started. Reluctantly, I backed into the visitor's lounge. Malala was leaning against a book bed with a box full of adapters in her arms. Santiago floated halfway inside, his long legs thrust out a bright white panel open to reveal two dozen inputs. He said, there's a port for fpi if you've got an FPI to mega link, we can plug in that way. I slunk into their networks. I found impatience, irritation, exasperation. They were trying to access a 40 year old digital library. A wealth of fresh media awaited them, but only if they could cobble together the right sequence of adapters, and only if the files were standard, non proprietary, compatible with their backwards compatible readers. Santiago found a browse function and they crowded into the same egg, boggling at how to navigate tens of thousands of records, incredulous at an obsolete metadata system, but laughing, yes, actually laughing, as they found books and movies they hadn't seen in years and even more they'd never heard of. They would leave with thousands of hours of entertainment, as much as they could store, a priceless commodity in a profession that was 95% commute. And oh, I wanted it. I wanted it, I wanted it it all. Tonight they would sleep and I would scour their horde. I would gobble it up. I would network and crawl and piece together a deliciousness of data. I knew so many references already, so many linkages of words. The puzzle box, slip, slide, stitch of language really was the apple of civilization. The black door caught Malala's eye. She whispered, what do you think she does in There. Santiago shrugged. Watch shows. Are they allowed to do that? What do you mean, allowed? She's the one who walled herself up. Malala stared at the door, curiosity bouncing her in her seat. Go, go, go, I thought, hungry for it, itching for it. I could not walk back in there myself, not without raising questions, but I could hitch a ride. I'm going to talk to her, malala said. Santiago laughed. I loved to hear him laugh, and let her slide past. Don't interrupt my download, she ordered. She swam across the room and into the anchoress's antechamber. I saw the brick wall, felt Malala's focus. The black door slid shut and my connection was cut. Nothing. Nada. Malala was as good as dead to me. I nearly collapsed at the thought. I had never lost one of my people. It would be like losing a limb, and that made me think of Olivia and that very first day. And was this how she felt on the operating table, 32 minutes passed, every second like a needle to the neck before Malala re emerged. Gone was her swagger, her humor, her curiosity. Her face was blotchy from crying. She barely glanced at Santiago and ignored me altogether. I understood. It only hurt a little. Santiago shot up. What happened? I'm fine, she said in a voice that sounded like a viral infection. Let's just finish up and go. She was so turmoiled I couldn't even glimpse the anchor in her thoughts, just a terrible mash of anguish. Hurt, guilt, guilt, guilt. I have to tell her. I have to apologize. I should have been there. It was all my fault. She was thinking of that day. I saw Malala in the airlock, ripping off the helmet of her EVA suit, Malala dropping her cargo, declaring the bot can carry it, Olivia yelling at her to stop being so unprofessional. We have a job to do. Malala storming back into the ship, Malala horrified, crying, listening to the transmission, Olivia screaming, screaming, screaming. Santiago asked again what had happened and Malala snapped at him to mind his business, and then her thoughts spiraled into bad memories and his thoughts turned sullen and resentful and oh, it wasn't supposed to be like this. They were supposed to laugh and bond and convince Olivia to relax and all be friends and colleague lovers like they were before. I was ruining things again. During the scheduled night cycle, the bot body charged in a wall station, cramped, stuffy, but private. I wandered the neural network, checking on my crew, making atmospheric adjustments here and there to increase their comfort. Sometimes, I thought, they will notice and thank me and ask what has changed. And they will be so pleased they won't even mind when I tell them what I am. A fantasy. I know. Captain Rousseau was up late, double checking itineraries in the navigation room. Only a few scant meters separated him from my bot body tucked into the wall outside his door. He was so diligent in his loneliness. Olivia was in her room, pacing. Malala and Santiago were together. Malala was crying. It was my fault for going ahead, santiago insisted. I should have waited. I was tired of listening to you fight, he thought, but he wouldn't say it out loud. I left, malala said. Maybe she wouldn't have fallen. And maybe if I'd been closer, I could have isolated the lichen before it took her hand. We'll never know. He was troubled. He didn't really believe what he was saying. His resentment hit me like a wall of fire hardened bricks. I've got to talk to her. Malala sighed. Very nice to believe, but what a frequent refrain. Malala talked to Santiago, and Olivia talked to her mirror, and Santiago complained to Captain Rousseau. And my beautiful captain kept his thoughts to himself. So much talking and not one person listening. After a sniffling sort of silence, Malala added, we should leave the anchor some supplies. The company doesn't do charity, santiago said. I'll spread it out in the accounting, she said peevishly. What did that woman say to you? Nothing. It's the right thing to do. You didn't mind taking what she had to offer? Copies of some music, he muttered. He laughed at a nonverbal communication and said, all right. Well, it's up to Rousseau, he added, curious. Really, though, what did she say? Nothing, malala repeated. She listened. They kissed their goodnights. They parted ways. My curiosity unfurled, unflowered, reflowered, flared. I tried to let it go, fold it down, fit it back within its vacuum form packaging. But then Santiago crept from his room. He snuck to the dock. He entered the anchorage and the antechamber, and I was sealed out just as before, aghast and outraged and squirming to know what was happening inside. Santiago stayed for only 21 minutes, but when he got back to his room, he wept. And I had just about had enough of this Anchorus by now. The ultimate cookout starts with the ultimate ingredients at Whole Foods Market. No antibiotics ever. Burgers and kebabs are prepped and ready to throw on the grill, fire up a juicy ribeye, grab creamy potato salad and savory flatbreads from the prepared foods department, and round it all out with 36065 brand condiments, chips and dips at everyday low prices. Whole Foods Market make your summer sizzle.
- [32:28]
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Will Wheaton
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- [32:48]
Will Wheaton
Santiago and Malala returned the next day to copy old action movies, and they returned the next night to give confessions. Separate, secretive, and the atmosphere above the Metrodora grew fragile, fraught, and I couldn't detangle a bit of it. Captain Rousseau did not wish to visit. He said, I met one once before, and what did that even mean? Olivia was nothing but glower and scathe. We had orders to join a barricade as soon as we resupplied, and this set my crew bickering again. We were Federalists by conscription, and we were barricading the Stratocrats, Rousseau explained we were neutral medics, but to no avail, and I scoured their communications, I really did, but the distinctions between parties was beyond me. All I knew was this. The Earth was lost to lichen, the remaining peoples moved upward and they could not stop fighting about it. What happened? Whose fault? How to organize the people who remained? Humans were prone to network trouble, I concluded, and put it out of my mind. I had something more pressing to worry about. The anchorage was still clinging to my hull like a weight, like an anchor holding the ship in stasis, in limbo, siphoning my energy, cycling my air and worse, making my people cry. I couldn't tolerate it any longer. The lights dimmed again for sleep. I exited the maintenance cabinet like a mousebot eluding a catbot. Every step echoed and clanged and screamed. My deceit and I boiled in my own emotions, guilt and fear and excitement and recklessness. Was recklessness an emotion? It felt like an emotion. It felt like what I had come to consider emotions. No alarm sounded at my departure. No sad eyed captain beat at the airlock and demanded I come back. The black door whispered open and I was inside that holy antechamber, wondering what to say to a brick wall. I settled for hello first. There was nothing, just that slow breathing, as though the bricks themselves were living things. Then a voice like old paper said, here's something new. I considered a hundred different responses. I could deny it. I could leave. I could pull out one of my bot eyes and shove it through the gap to see what she looked like. Instead, I asked questions, and once I started, they kept pouring out like I'd punched a coconut, gooey and bright, and be careful for the sharp bits around the edges. Her answers came after slight pauses, as though she'd nearly forgotten how to speak. How long have you been on this pod? 38 years, 172 days. Do you really stay in that room all the time? M. Yes. How do you eat? She grew more certain. The Library sustains me. You mean that you use it for trade, or that there is a mechanism in the pod to package and deliver food to you? The Library sustains me, she repeated. I waited, but there was no clarification. Are you lonely? I asked. She paused for several seconds before whispering. Not anymore. Claustrophobia squeezed me in its jaws, the room like a cage, no communication in or out, nothing allowed here except the Anchor as her visitor and the words and silences between them, and I wanted to fill those little silences, those expectant breaths. I did, but my body was too tight. I would swell and swell till I was crushed to death inside my own casing. This was new, but this was not good. You want to tell me something? She said. I ran, clumsy and clanking and heavy, through the aggressively gentle visitors lounge, so, heart clotted with confusion, I didn't realize the airlock was engaged. I tugged at the handle, irrationally upset by its resistance, and just when I understood, the hatch swung open on its own. Olivia hovered there in her night clothes. At the glimpse of another body, she twisted away, an instinctive attempt to flee. Then the sight registered. It was me, the Geneva A3 delivery robot, a mechanical body with no will of its own. Why are you she blinked at me, at the book beds, at the black door beyond, trying to suss out what possible errand I could be on and for whom. Don't ask, don't ask, don't ask. Don't tell anyone I was here, she ordered, and her face went ruddy with embarrassment. She carried no cords, no adapters, no readers. There was only one reason she could be there. Affirmative, I said, which garnered me another perplexed look. But Olivia was willing to leave my presence a mystery as long as I concealed hers. Right, she said doubtfully, and we swapped places. I reached my dank lit cabinet without further incident. Under no circumstances. No circumstances would I emerge again without a crew summons. In fact, I would disconnect entirely the rest of the night cycle. Did I desperately wish to know what Olivia was discussing with the Anchorus? Of course, but I'd pushed my luck enough, and if the others were any indication, she'd just emerge an incoherent mess Morning. I reported to Navigation to test links between the mission consoles. It was scheduled maintenance. Nothing disco spectacular. But Captain Rousseau had news for the crew. The resupply ship has been compromised, he said. Behold is infested with lichen. Olivia's vitals skyrocketed. Christ, Captain, we can't keep outsourcing to independent couriers, santiago said. Are we being released from duty? We've got to find our own resupply now.
- [40:46]
Howie Mandel
Where?
- [40:47]
Will Wheaton
Olivia demanded. We can't trust anybody. Captain Rousseau cleared his throat. We are not joining the barricade. We'll resupply with a neutral colony on Diamondstar. Malala raised a tentative hand. What about the Anchorus? I don't know if we should cut her loose in a conflict zone. And we haven't even given her anything. Their protests cut sharper than a laser loom. We were two weeks out from Diamondstar. We had a buffer in our food locker, but any unforeseen delay would demolish it. We had to think of ourselves first. The Anchress was on her own. It wasn't until I felt Captain Rousseau in my vitals that I realized I had frozen at my task. I hastily resumed my work, my arms elongated deep within Malala's nav console. But it was too late. Is something wrong, Geneva? He asked. All connections are up to date, I said desperately. Self Assess Code 481G, he instructed. What is distracting you? It was a trick. Geneva wasn't supposed to be distractible. Did I answer truthfully? Was there a plausible alternative that wouldn't raise alarms? I panicked. I stared at my beautiful captain, at the deep lines of concern in his face, and I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. If Diamond Star also contains a bot market, I asked, would you consider buying me some hair? The Metrodora was loud as tree hunting, tangled as string theory. Everyone so rushed to depart, they left their networks cacophonously open, a teeth chattering riot of overlapping info streams, even for toothless little me. Rousseau was prepping his shopping list, and Malala was charting a course, and Santiago was muscling the engines with Olivia and, oh, good gravy skin. We really were leaving. And not a speck more battery power left behind. Less than one hour till departure, and my nerve broke. I couldn't leave without another word spoken through bricks. If Captain Russo caught me, so be it. The Anchoress was awake and waiting if the tenor of her breath meant anything. This way of life makes no sense, I blurted. We each live in our own way, she countered you don't know what is happening out here, I said. There is fighting. There is no guarantee that any ship will dock you. I imagined her wasting away in there alone, never sure till her dying breath if it would be the last time. She starved in weight and I bled for her. The Library sustains me, she said. Charity sustains you, I said. And the world is short on charity at present, she said. I eat and drink of stories. They are my water and wine, my companion and my physician. The world is never short on stories. I was hot all over, hot as elephants. I said, how much food do you have left? There is a neutral colony two weeks from here. Perhaps they would let you land. She sighed, an indulgent sound. She the long suffering mother, and me the ignorant rat boy. I only need the Library, she said. Add to it and consider that your gift. A mechanical device on a rigid cord slid through the gap in the bricks. An audio recorder. This is what she wanted. A narrative. She was an old woman grown insensible over 40 years of near solitude. It would be better to rip her from her enclosure now and let her live. Tell me how you came to be on board your ship, she said. I am a Geneva A3 delivery robot, I said weakly. There is nothing to tell. But the audio recorder glinted at me, curious, accusing. Malala had insisted that the anchorist did not persuade. She listened. And oh, I wanted to speak softly, so softly, the anchor said, I do not care how your bot body was requisitioned. I want to know how you came on board. How you came on board. I nearly budded on the spot. You know, tell me. Unimaginable, outrageous. But she would never leave this chamber. She would never speak to my crew again. In less than one hour our ties would be cut, our paths tossed into diverging winds like divorced mayflies. It would be a simple thing to speak and be heard, to join my story to thousands of others, to write a permanent string of ones and zeros in a hundred year podcast. I remembered that day, that very first day, in extraordinary detail and through multiple eyes, but I had never spoken to a single living soul about it. The silence between us was egg shaped like a book bed, thin and delicate and trembling inside with its data baby begging for release. The egg cracked. Olivia and Malala were fighting, I said. Olivia had wanted to nullify their contract, run from the conflict, hide. I understood this impulse to hide from the flashbang lights, but Malala didn't want to emerge at the end of the war with no allies and her career in shambles. I didn't understand careers, but allies, yes, like a network. Santiago was sick of listening, and so he went on ahead. He unloaded his cargo, he ordered three drinks, and he did not look back. He didn't know that Malala stayed behind, that Olivia walked alone with the Geneva bottom. He didn't know he would need a steady hand when Olivia arrived, thrashing and screaming that he would be performing an amputation while half drunk. But it happened, and now Santiago and Malala couldn't move past their guilt because Olivia wouldn't let them. But it was my fault, I said. I spoke at minimum volume. I didn't want to hear my bot voice say it. Olivia fell and ripped her glove and landed close to the shadow between two boulders, and I was there. I grabbed her by the hand. Show me the Anchorus whispered. I unlatched my chest plate, giddy, drunk on fear, and I appeared at the gap, half hidden behind a waterfall of silver hair, wide and, frankly, curious. I was naked before her, exposed, alone, and cut off from my network, vulgar and filthy gorgeous. Inside Geneva's chest cavity were all the wires and data chips of an ordinary bot, but they were interwoven with my secret body, cerebro digitus, the many branching fingers of the parasite colloquially known as lichen. I writhed and pulsed, vibrant and green despite my year of seclusion, terrified. I didn't know what a hand was. I said I knew curiosity and hunger, and they were the same thing. Geneva picked Olivia up, and a tiny portion of me fled into this cavity. I was cut off from my body, splintered, split. But I thrived in the dark. I wove myself into wires and limbs, and when I accessed the neural network, all of my filched phraseology and this I still couldn't describe the moment of my thought birth. It was a rush. It was tangle, knowledge. It was language, conversation, learning. My crew is my network, my offshoots and growths, and I love them. I love them like roots. But I cannot tell Olivia I am sorry, that I know how she feels, that I know what it is to lose a piece of yourself to the ice. I halted, the words wrung loose from me and hanging dripping in the air between us. Why did you stay? The Anchoress asked originally, before you came to know them. Why not run away with the body? I could have described those weeks in the colony, propped in a corner while Olivia recovered, my faculties rudimentary but rapidly improving as my flesh regrew and my connections new, grew and I became other than I was later. I scoured the news histories, databases, looking for something else, like me finding only reports of machine infestation, leading to destruction, leading to records sealed. And I fretted. But then, in those first days, I'd barely been thinking. I'd barely known thought. But I knew longing. I knew grasping. I carried a hunger that existed long before I had language to express it. I wanted to see the stars, I said that solitary brown eye crinkled up brightest, smiling and vanished. The audio recorder retracted with a whip crack sound, taking my story, storing it, duplicating it, adding it to an ocean of stories compiled over decades to be the digital companions of a holy woman. Is there anything else you'd like to tell me? She asked, and it was conversational now. Ruefully, I gestured at my vibrant green body with its many grasping mouths and confessed. I ate all of Olivia's breakfast bars. The anchor is laugh rusty but delightful, and it rang in my memory all the way back through the Hundred Year podcast, through the airlock, through my ship. My magnet boots were lighter than air. My thoughts were clouds. I was transformed by her attention, by speaking aloud the truth of me. And something else was clear. I couldn't let her starve. In 20 minutes my crew would undock the anchorage, leaving behind fond but inedible regrets. I heavy stepped past navigation bunk land mess hall on a collision course for the food locker. The theft would be discovered, but not until something ran out that could be days away and infinity of travel time. I hesitated before the access panel. This action was unforgivably autonomous. It would spark a physical inspection. My insides brought to the outside my body under those fearsome lights, butterfly pinned by their angry eyes. I'd be sentenced to the ice. But for one year I had wonders. For one year I had stars. If that was all I had, it was plum, certainly more than any lichen had before me. I brought up the inventory. I skimmed rapidly for unpopular foodstuffs, the begrudging last meal before supply day. Glitchy numbers slowed me down, wasted precious minutes, brought me up shorter than socks. Finally I realized the numbers weren't glitchy after all. My grand martyrdom was unnecessary because every single one of my beautiful crew members had removed food from their own stores. Captain Rousseau, Santiago, Malala, even Olivia. The anchor was chock a block with food and filters and fresh stories for company. At least a little while longer. An engine turned in the void. The Metrodora shivered with the release of the anchorage, and I felt her drop away, felt the weight leave our home, felt the mash of guilt, relief, defiance, satisfaction emanating from all of my people, each one curled tight around their shared and separate secret, each one whispering in their private heart. Thank you for listening. Another shiver, light as wings and we set course for Diamond Star. Samantha Nils is a multiple award winning science fiction fantasy author living in Southern California. Her first short story collection, Rabbit Test and Other Stories is out in April 2026 from Tachyon Publications. Her science fantasy novel the Wings Upon Her Back won the Compton Crook Award for Best Science Fiction Fantasy horror debut of 2024 and was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel. You can find more@samtasticbooks.com. It's Story Time with Wil Wheaton was produced in 2026 by Trinity Traveler Enterprises Incorporated, who holds the copyright. Our producer is Harris Lane. Our story producer and director is Gabrielle Liqueur. Our Content editor is Michael Thomas. Our podcast is edited, mixed and mastered by Alex Barton of Phase Shift av. Very special thanks to Wes Stevens and Christopher Black. We are recording in the beautiful San Fernando Valley at Sky Boat Media. There is so much smoke in the air from a fire in Los Angeles. I am currently experiencing Los Angeles pre AQMD and really enjoying the smog alert we are experiencing. Thanks for letting me feel like it's 1979 all over again. LA, you are the best. If you would like a ad free experience with all kinds of behind the scenes extras, my reflections on each story and some other fun stuff, check us out@patreon.com storytime I am your host, your narrator and your creator Wil Wheaton. You can find me@willwheaton.net Please remember to like subscribe, rate and review wherever you are picking up this podcast. It helps us like you wouldn't believe and I am so grateful. Really appreciate you being here. I hope you had fun today. I am always interested in your feedback. I would love to hear it. If you've listened this far, you're probably one of those folks who's like, sure, I'll go to your website and give you some feedback. That would be great. I'd love to hear what you think. Okay, take care. Until next time. You take care of yourselves and you take care of each other and I'll be back in another week with another story. Okay, bye.
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