I dragged a hand along my cheek, wincing as I felt the build up of stubble upon it. When you knew you were going to die, it became pretty hard to care about things like hygiene and battling one’s crushing dysphoria.

“Hey Elliot, you around?” I asked, floating away from my cot and towards the cupboards.

A green light bloomed. “I’m always around, Sekai.”

“Hey, I wouldn’t judge you if you found something better to do,” I joked, opening one of the cupboards.

A week had taken its toll as I already noticed a decline in my quantity of food. However, I hadn’t quite fallen into dire territory yet, with the emergency rations still untouched. This was probably for the best; I wasn’t really looking forward to consisting on protein bars and energy paste quite yet.

In all honesty, my master plan in this scenario was to eat like a queen until everything was gone and then have Elliot vent me into space without a suit. The dude seemed pretty chill, so I was sure they’d be onboard for that little suicide pact.

“I’m an effective multitasker,” they said, their voice dropping as I pulled out a regular ration of beans, rice, peppers, and all the other good stuff that came in a pouch of heavily preserved tex-mex. “You promised you’d start to conserve resources.”

I flicked my wrist dismissively. “I don’t see what good that’s going to do. If no one saves our sorry asses by the time we hit Saturn, these supplies sure as shit aren’t going to last until we intercept with Neptune.”

“There might be other ships out there that can asset,” they said.

I shook my head and sighed.

“Can I ask you a question?” I said, desperate to get off this line of discussion.

The green light momentarily flickered in aggravation, a sign I took as Elliot resigning themselves to the fact that I wasn’t going to cooperate with their one-in-a-million survival plan.

“Sure,” they said.

“Can you get philosophical?”

They snorted. “That’s sure is a question.”

“I mean it though,” I said, opening the food packet and pouring in some boiling water.

Which if I might add looked absolutely bizarre without gravity. Though I couldn’t help but feel a little nostalgic at the mental image of my current situation. I mean, the food thing, not the dying horrifically part.

There was a certain rustic charm to eating packets of tex-mex without gravity. This was just like how the settlers used to do it, when they first voyaged to Mars two hundred years ago.

“I can understand and analyze philosophical trains of thought. I can understand the concepts of ego, of greater understanding, and of higher powers. Yet, I can not really offer my own unique perspective on these things. I know there are AI who can, but I am not one of them,” Elliot explained.

“Can you feel love?” I asked, poking the ration to feel how warm it was. It wasn’t quite there yet and I’d learned my lesson in patience after my first disastrous meal.

“I can feel… fondness,” Elliot responded. “I can form a sense of attachment and can bond. I don’t know if that is the entirety of love, but I understand that is a part of it.”

“Well yeah… that is part of it,” I said. “Though I guess love is kind of hard to really describe. There’s a sense of closeness, intimacy, like you can just feel this spark.”

Elliot chuckled softly. “My entire existence is made up of feeling, experiencing, and interpreting sparks.”

“Ok but this is like a special spark like… the spark to end all sparks.”

Steam billowed out of the bag and I snatched it out of the air, carefully opening it away from myself. This was a lesson I had learned after the first time getting a billow in my face. A gust of heated vapour poured out and after it came the rich scent of spices. I didn’t even wait for it to cool before I shoveled a spoonful into my mouth.

It burned but was totally worth it.

Elliot’s light dimmed. “The spark to end all sparks?”

I nodded. “I don’t know, I’m not really a poet, it's just… when you’re in love you never experience anything like it. It’s just like… suddenly there’s this person in your life who you’d be willing to sacrifice anything for, talk about anything with, and just spend the rest of your life with. And before you know it you can’t imagine your life without them.”

“Have you ever had anyone like that?” Elliot asked.

“Thought so, but well…” I whistled and shook my head, “that bitch was crazy.”

“But did you feel that spark with her?”

Elliot’s light returned in full force.

“I mean I thought I did,” I said, motioning with my spoon. “Like, I never felt like I had to keep any secrets from her, and boy let me tell you, the sex was top notch.” I smiled fondly and made an okay sign with my hand. “That girl was fucking freaky.”

“I’ve never really understood the appeal of sex,” Elliot murmured.

“I mean if you’d like to try it out…” I searched the cabin, looking around for something. “I’m sure there’s a hole big enough in here for me to stick my dick into.”

Elliot laughed. “I’d rather you didn’t.”

“Hey dude,” I said, gesturing defensively with my hands. “No means no, and I totally respect that.”

I took another bite as Elliot’s light dimmed, going down to that level where I knew their processors were trying to come up with a response.

“Look, Sekai, you’re a wonderful girl,” they finally started to explain.

“Hey hey hey, I am totally ok with rejection, you don’t got to justify yourself.”

“It’s not that, it’s just…”

I cocked a brow. “What?”

“The only hole that fits the dimensions necessary is the garbage disposal. And the last I heard, those were not especially kind to the processing of organic matter.”

My expression blanked. “Fair enough.”

“Plus, just because I can’t experience intercourse doesn’t mean that I can’t appreciate the other aspects of a relationship.” They sighed. “For example, I wouldn’t mind trying out that whole… speaking openly aspect.”

I motioned towards their interface. “Alright. What’s on your mind?”

“Do you fear death, Sekai?”

I paused for a moment before I threw back my head and laughed.

“I’ll take that as a no?” they said.

I waved towards them, using my other hand to wipe away tears. “Sorry, sorry, that was just one hell of a topic to open with, is all.” I sighed. “Yeah, I’m pretty terrified by the idea of dying. Like, there is a hell of a lot of things I wanted to do with my life and knowing that I won’t get to do them kind of… leaves me pretty disheartened.”

“You seem to be dealing with the current crisis quite admirably.”

I shrugged and closed my tex-mex ration, letting it float away, my appetite now strangely absent.

“I…” I shook my head, “haven’t really thought about dying in this context a whole lot. I guess you could say I’m very much in the denial part of grief? Like I just can’t believe that this is going to be the way I’ll die.” I snorted and shook my head. “Slowly starving to death in a tin can. Always thought I’d go out with a bang.”

“Have you ever been concerned about dying alone?” Elliot asked, their voice growing uncharacteristically stoic and their light’s brightness reflecting that as it dimmed considerably.

“Not really?” I relaxed, allowing the sweet embrace of weightlessness to take me. “But I’m not going to die alone. I’ll have you with me until the very end.”

“I was… actually talking from my own perspective,” they said, their voice soft, hardly louder than a whisper.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean eventually the ship’s batteries will run out and eventually I’ll be forced to turn off systems one by one. Then before long I’ll go to sleep and a few decades after that… well after that the batteries will drain their last watts and I’ll be dead.”

I frowned. “Aren’t you part of a central mainframe?”

“My core files are, but the second that reactor went offline…” They sighed, “the second that happened I was severed from the outside world. I am no longer connected, which means I can not back up any of my files. For sure, an Elliot, of some form, will live on. But the Elliot with my own unique experiences and stories?” They paused, and I was just about to cut in, when they finished their train of thought. “That will die once those batteries are drained.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, wincing silently. “I got so caught up in my own shit that I didn’t even really think what you must be going through.”

“Don’t concern yourself with me, Sekai,” they said. “You’ve been… the best company I could’ve asked for. You are rather fun to talk with.”

“You’re not a bad conversationalist yourself,” I offered back before snapping my fingers. “But hey, maybe we won’t even have to worry about any of that. After all, you’ve been working on that plan to save our sorry asses, right?”

Elliot chuckled. “Ah yes the ‘one-in-a-million plan’ as you call it.”

“I mean Apollo 13 had a one-in-a-million chance of making it back to earth and look how that turned out.”

“Fair enough… I suppose.” Their light faded, as they ‘shrugged’. “Stranger things have happened.”

“So anyways, what do you got for me?”

Elliot cleared their throat and a monitor sprang to life, showing a rudimentary depiction of our ship heading towards Saturn.

“While the radio system on board is rather weak; when we are close to Saturn…” The depiction now showed our ship right next to the system, “we will potentially be within range of the mining stations on the outer edges of the system. If we can establish contact within this thirty-minute window, we might be able to hale for rescue.”

“Might?” I asked.

“I’m sure we’ll be able to get a signal through,” Elliot explained. “However, we’d be at the mercy of whatever operation is running it to send out a rescue team. I estimate that whatever crew tries to save us will need to burn at close to two-gravities, for a two-week period. So, I wouldn’t doubt that a lot of crews would pretend they never even heard anything in the first place.”

I groaned. “Fucking fantastic.”

“But hey,” Elliot said, trying their best to sound cheery, “human nature has surprised me before. Something something the enduring power of friendship and comradery.”

I pushed off of a nearby wall, propelling myself towards my bunk. “I wish I had your faith.”

“Where are you going?” Elliot asked, their voice dropping.

“Back to bed.”

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