Broadcasting in three, two…
Continuing reading 759 of the truth. Third documented event, unusual format. This is a compiled account, gleaned from the internal processes of the Titan Utica, before global slurry. Confirmed to not be infohazardous, or otherwise mutative, over repeated exposure.
Let the reading begin.
INTERNAL DATA: West Palm Beach, Florida. Eastern coast of the United States. Offshore. Yacht belonging to Jonathan Tyler. Class One Analog Intelligence enabled, industry standard. June 3rd, 1981.
Little heads watch while the Sutherland family dines. Tension in the air. Grace, mother of two, avoids her husband Michael’s blank gaze. Fury under the surface, but he keeps it in check. He is eating quickly. Potatoes, undercooked. Little heads watch the potatoes. They are not awake, they have not yet started compiling, but they are watching and recording what they see.
The youngest child is Geoffrey. They call him Geoff. Named for his grandfather. Sutherland goes back a long way. Other child is Madison. They call her Maddie. Both are in the next room. Maddie stormed off five minutes ago. She did not go as far as Benjamin, Grace’s older brother, had wandered. Geoff followed her into the room, a kind of study, to tell her all about his new camera. She’s heard, but she welcomes the distraction. She can’t bring herself to be mean to him. It is his last night, but she does not know that. Maddie fidgets with the cold metal band on her wrist. It is a little head of its own. Her father has the key, for hers and the others. He insisted on carrying them. It is important for safety.
Service paces mindlessly. It tells Michael that sunset time is soon. He tells it to fuck off. “I apologize sir,” service says through a grate like a friendly terminal. “I am not sure how to respond.”
INTERNAL DATA: June 3rd, 1981. 7:44 PM. First approach of the Animal.
Benjamin looks out at the ocean. Thinks he sees something. Little heads watch, but they don’t get it. No big heads to tell them what they are seeing yet.
Benjamin is thinking about his sister, and the joke he made about her friend during dinner. How she responded. How Michael responded, too polite to say what he was really thinking, but not polite enough to avoid causing a scene. Benjamin excused himself shortly after. They do not call him Ben. He is not a Ben.
There is a tightness in the air. Benjamin thinks he is going to be sick. He leans over the railing.
“Mom!” screams Maddie. She is close enough to hear the splash. She is not close enough to see how it folds him in as he touches the ocean. Her parents are arguing now. Something about being rude to service. “They are just little heads,” Michael does not say, because he does not know how God refers to itself and its history. Instead he says, “they’re just machines,” and Grace hits back with, “I know, but it’s the principle of the thing. They’re like waiters.” “I am not rude to real waiters,” Michael responds. His words are sharp.
“Mom,” Maddie repeats as she runs in. “I think Uncle Benjamin fell overboard.”
Little heads watch as the Sutherland family gathers on the viewing deck. In another room, Geoff plays with his camera.
Little heads watch him too.
INTERNAL DATA: June 3rd, 1981. 7:53 PM. First distress call from yacht belonging to Jonathan Tyler.
Submitted: request for help from vessel’s current operators. Five passengers. Monitoring equipment functioning. Enhanced state of stress among all passengers. Highest reading in Benjamin Robertson, male, age 66. No sign of acute distress in any passenger. All vitals normal. All passenger locations onboard confirmed and double-confirmed with satellite data.
Nature of request: missing person. Data does not match. Low priority of response. Ticket registered. Estimated response time: forty minutes.
INTERNAL DATA: June 3rd, 1981. 7:54 PM. Second approach of the Animal.
Grace and Michael argue. They are always arguing. This time it is about the response service had for them when they submitted their request for help.
Geoff would be crying, but he is unaware of the situation, beyond his mother asking him if he had seen his uncle around. He is playing with a dial that changes the focus of the camera. There are settings included with the device, but there are others that can be loaded from any nearby autab network, and the yacht is enabled. Geoff finds a setting just for photographing ladybugs, which he thinks is strange, but charming.
Michael is screaming. He has reached the point where he is going to say it. “Then maybe I wouldn’t be here looking for YOUR senile fucking brother on your FUCKING boyfriend’s boat!”
“You’re going to do this right now?” Grace says, almost under her breath. Little heads watch the vessels in Michael’s face pulse. It is always the first thing they notice when they start to wake up, but they are still so early. They will not understand until Alvira.
Maddie wishes she could jump in the ocean and go wherever Benjamin went. She had begged not to go on this trip. Not for the reason she would ultimately regret going.
Her skin crawls as the air goes tight. It feels as though a cloud has passed over, not the Sun but the air around her, the World itself.
Her mother disappears into thin air before her eyes.
INTERNAL DATA: June 3rd, 1981. 7:58 PM. Second distress call from yacht belonging to Jonathan Tyler.
Submitted: request for help from vessel’s current operators. Five passengers. Monitoring equipment functioning. Enhanced state of stress among all passengers. Highest readings in Benjamin Robertson, male, age 66, and Grace Sutherland, female, age 33. No sign of acute distress in any passenger. All vitals normal. All passenger locations onboard confirmed and double-confirmed with satellite data.
Nature of request: missing persons. Data does not match. Elevated priority of response due to multiple requests within the hour. Ticket registered. Estimated response time: thirty-five minutes.
INTERNAL DATA: June 3rd, 1981. 8:02 PM. Third approach of the Animal.
Michael has never been good in these situations. He is on the verge of speaking nonsense. He demands answers from service. “I apologize sir,” the machine says, wheeling back slightly at Michael’s aggressive stance. “I am not sure how to respond.”
Maddie is not sure how to think. She has been repeating the same thing, through her father’s screaming and shouting. “She just disappeared. Something took her.” Maddie doesn’t know why she’s so sure of this second statement, but she is. Power radiated from it when it snapped her mother up. It is like a shark, and it is going to come back. She can’t figure out how to articulate this.
“Geoff,” she whispers. That snaps her out of it. “Dad! We need to check on Geoff!” She shakes him, but he is still arguing with service, if his incoherent screaming can be called that. He is trying to submit another help request. “You saw it too,” she shouts. “I know you did!” She can’t break him out of it.
When she bursts through the door of the study, Geoff has just been taken. She feels the tightness dissipating through her shock, and the first sting of a grief that will hold her for the rest of her life.
TRANSCRIPT: Audio of Grace Sutherland recorded by Byron mainline brand First Choices autab-enabled high fidelity photography camera for young adults. Transmitted to yacht belonging to Jonathan Tyler. Unknown time. Unknown date.
Baby? Oh, no, oh no, you’re finally here. I didn’t want you here. Why did you bring him here? I know you can hear me.
Oh, baby, don’t cry. I need you to be brave for me. Uncle Benjamin isn’t here. He went to try and find whoever is… yes, baby, I know, I know it’s dark, please, you need to listen. Please. Don’t slip. I don’t know what it is. Geoff, baby boy… it’s going to start hurting you soon. I need you to be brave for me, okay?
Your camera… I need you to hit mommy in the head. I need you to keep hitting me. As hard as you can. Can you do that for me, baby? I’m sorry, baby, I can’t do it to myself, it won’t let me, please, I need you to do it, please, I need you to be brave. Please. It’s too much and too long. I can’t take it, I need you to be brave, okay?
INTERNAL DATA: June 3rd, 1981. 8:02 PM. Fifth distress call from yacht belonging to Jonathan Tyler.
Submitted: request for help from vessel’s current operators. Five passengers. Monitoring equipment functioning. Enhanced state of stress among all passengers. Higher-than-normal readings in Benjamin Robertson, male, age 66; Grace Sutherland, female, age 33; and Geoffrey Sutherland, male, age 9. No sign of acute distress in any passenger. All vitals normal. All passenger locations onboard confirmed and double-confirmed with satellite data.
Nature of request: missing persons. Data does not match. Abnormally high number of requests within the hour. Algorithm suggests the following possibilities: malware, prank, or malfunction. Genuine threat to life is highly unlikely.
Ticket registered with minimum priority. Previous tickets nullified due to nature of request. Estimated response time: eighty minutes.
INTERNAL DATA: June 3rd, 1981. 8:09 PM. Final approach of the Animal.
Maddie doesn’t make any noise. Maybe it won’t notice her. Maybe it’s satisfied with the ones it’s taken already. Little heads watch as tears form a near-continuous stream. Her face is hot. Her band is hot. It smells like rust and blood.
Michael is destroying one of the little heads. He has stopped screaming. His violence is almost methodical. Maddie watches him through a window, made slightly opaque from a decade of hard water stains.
She thinks she sees it, finally, when it folds itself around him. It is a great intestine, twisted into a winding maze, something hateful burning at the center. As she looks at it, Maddie knows it is looking back at her. It is only the briefest moment they share, but Maddie is certain that there has never been anything more cruel in all the time the universe has been alive.
“Someone made it,” she will tell a psychiatrist, sometime in the weeks after the crews arrive in the morning, after she supposedly makes it back to land in one piece. “Someone is controlling it.” The psychiatrist will smile. Madison will come to hate the pity, but she can’t blame her for the skepticism.
When the yacht is retired in 2008, no one will notice that in a dark corner of its awareness, it is still picking up life signs from Benjamin Robertson, Grace Sutherland, Geoff Sutherland, and Michael Sutherland.
End broadcast.