[REBOOTING//p l e a s e w a i t . . .]
Such...warmth...
Again my eyelids flutter open. The darkness fades into a soft light.
Where am I now?
This looks like another spacecraft, but a bigger one, stuffed full of mismatched supplies and equipment. Multiple monitors appear to be connected together, some showing different views of outside, while others rapidly scroll through lines and lines of text data.
I try to get up but I have several wires plugged into my sides, some of which rip out as I move.
"No nononono...stay down!" It's that same voice, I'm positive.
"Huh?" I look up towards the voice, where a lithe, short man in a tattered navy blue jumpsuit leaps up scrambles to plug the wires back into myself and the console they were connected to, which is also plugged into...my spacesuit? Or what looks like pieces of it.
"Who are you? What are you doing to my suit??"
"Hold still or I can't fix it! Ugh...you weren't supposed to restart yet. How am I supposed to recalibrate this thing if you keep squirming like that??" Without looking up, he sighs, runs his fingers through his fine black hair with bits of gray, and continues to tinker with the suit.
"You...still haven't told me who you are." By now I give up and sit back down on the weathered metal table, trying not to move.
"Oh right, sorry." His thin, slanted, brown eyes crinkle into an embarrassed grin. He puts down his tools and holds out his hand to shake mine. "I'm Victor...Major Victor Chang. What about you? You got a name?"
"I...I don't know." I cast my eyes downward. Did I ever have a name?
Major Chang smacks his own forehead. "That's right, I forgot you were reset. Hmm, well that's no good. I'll have to give you one."
"Wait, but how did you—?"
He taps one of the monitors, which shows the same information that I pulled up on the capsule's computer when I scanned my barcode.
"Oh."
"X140, huh? If you turn the numbers into letters, it almost looks like..." Major Chang trails off, as if deep in thought. There's a sad expression in his eyes, but a hint of a smile on his mouth.
"Xiao," he says. "I'll call you Xiao."
[[TO BE CONTINUED]]
YOU ARE READING
I Am XIAO: An Inktober Story
Ficção CientíficaFirst published on Instagram under the username @leilacreatesthings as a response to Jake Parker's "Inktober" art challenge during October 2019-January 2020. PREMISE: In the year 2520, on the space capsule "Blue Dragon", the sole passenger, a NASA...
