Red—the raw energy stabbed into his mind. Intense, aggravating, demanding, foreboding, red flared all around him. Even through his closed eyelets, Norm could see the angry pulsing lights calling for his attention. He didn’t want to oblige them. Norm was floating in a state of semi-consciousness, his mind quite removed from the physical world. Sensations and emotions only reached him through a sheet of glass, like in the old 2D movie projections.

His head throbbed; this he was confident of. So he had a body; ergo, he must be. Reluctantly, Norm reached out and engaged his reality. He tasted blood. A dull ringing filled his ears. Under the painful pressure, he discerned the wailing of a klaxon beating time with the angry red pulses.

“Luci?”

“I’m here, Norman.” The sound came crisp and clear, thanks to a bionic implant that had replaced the inferior ear bone microphones.

“Where am I?”

“In the command module of the IoNaute Explorer on an unstable orbit around the Jupiter moon Io.”

“Ah, I see … What happened?”

“There was an explosion.”

The last word broke Norm’s sphere of indifference, grabbing him by the throat and pulling him from underwater to the surface of reality. The haze cleared, his eyes opened, and the ear-piercing sounds of alarms assaulted his senses.

“Luci, mute the alarms!” he shouted to be heard over the noise, knowing full well Luci could listen to every whisper.

“Authorization please, Norman,” she replied in her melodic, slightly robotic, British-accented voice. Decades of research led psychologists to believe this mixture would project the right amount of confidence and resonance without confusing the lines between human and machine.

“Lieutenant Commander Norman Brinksman, authorization code 771483,” he replied. Silence fell at once, and the strobe lights dimmed, leaving echoes lingering on Norm’s retina.

He looked around. The command module was built as a sphere of twenty-four feet in diameter. Colored in a sterile, hospital off-white, large holographic screens projected a plethora of graphs and diagrams. Red dominated everywhere. Some wall panels showed cracks while a handful of usually mounted objects floated aggravated through the space, bouncing off the walls. The heavy scent of ozone filled the air.

“You are hurt, bleeding from a cut on the back of your head,” Luci solicited. Norm touched his hair. His hand came away bloody. “It doesn’t look serious,” Luci soothed. “Regardless, you should move to the medical bay.”

“Later! Tell me what happened.”

“The lander exploded on launching the thrusters. Debris penetrated the hull in sections three, five, and nine. The primary fuel tank was also compromised, which initiated the current uncontrolled spinning of the spacecraft. The fusion reactor shut down, the …”

“Hold on! Slow down … one fact at a time.” Norm realized the bitter irony of him using this phrase. How often had he needed to rein in the explosive flood of words from his wife—his ex-wife? But then, all Freudian psychoanalysts would have a field day dissecting the mental effects of Norm talking to a machine that shared the nickname with his fiery-tempered wife, ex-wife, Lucia Patricia de Alvarez Brinkman. Kenny had laughed so raucously when they were told he and Norm would be interacting on their three-year mission to the Jupiter moon Io with a system called LUCI—the latest Language User Communication Intelligence the Federación Espacial Americana could provide. Kenny had known Lucy almost as long as Norm had. Indeed, he had known her very well. 

“Let’s go through the systems one by one,” Norm suggested. “Life support?”

“Operational, but compromised.”

“Power supply?”

“Primary sources depleted, secondary power on 40%.”

“Gravity?”

“Negative.”

“Communication?”

“Negative.”

“Kenny?”

Pause.

“Negative … I’m sorry, Norman.”

“Show me on the main screen.” His voice cracked.

“You should see to your bleeding wound.”

“SHOW ME ON THE MAIN SCREEN!” Norman’s temper had been a concern throughout his long career. Rational, calm, amiable, and logical, on the surface, he possessed the perfect personality profile for space exploration missions. Yet, once in a blue moon, an anger came over him, bursting forth in a violent eruption. His ex-wife had known too well which buttons to push. Taking a deep breath, the Lt Commander balled his hands into fists and forced the emotions to retreat. “Show me, Luci,” he said, floating toward the main screen. 

It took Norm less than ten minutes to comprehend the fatality of his situation. On separating from the main craft, Commander Kent Steward had ignited the lander’s thrusters, intending to become the first human to step foot on Jupiter’s innermost moon. Immediately, the lander craft exploded, and the camera feed went black, replaced by alerts flaring up all across the system monitors. Kenny was dead; there was no other possibility. On the verge of achieving the most significant accomplishment in human space exploration, the inherent risk of stretching the envelope had taken its toll, demanding human sacrifice.  

In the explosion, the mothership took severe damage, preventing the return to any human outpost in space. Both Mars and Luna required at least eight months of journey. The hydrogen fuel tank was empty, the fusion reactor offline, and auxiliary power and life support would run out in ninety-six to one-hundred-twenty hours. Norm realized he, too, would die on this mission.

Norman and Kent had been friends for almost thirty years. They’d started in the same year at the academy. Thus, he had known Kenny even longer than Lucy. The mysterious black-haired beauty from the Iberian peninsula had only come into their lives during their third year. As an exchange student specialized in group dynamics under extreme situations, the young woman had fascinated both friends with her sharp intellect and a temperament defying her diminutive stature. Smitten, both men had strutted like peacocks, competing for her attention. In the end, Norm proved victorious, leading Lucy to the altar with Kenny as his best man. Three years later, Kenny married Sophia, a shy and bookish quantum scientist. She was a nice person, yet constantly outshone by Lucy on their joint nights out.  

After the academy, both men’s careers ran in lock-step, bringing them to Luna and Mars. Norm retired from active astronaut duty when their first child was born. He started teaching at the academy and admired from a distance Kenny’s increasingly daring missions. Back on earth, Kenny always came by the house and entertained the couple with tales of his adventures. He had separated from Sophia and lived the life of a bachelor space cowboy. Inexorably, his world and Norm’s had grown apart.

Then, Norm’s and Lucy’s son Philip died in a freak accident. Brilliant and charming, the fourteen-year-old boy had been selected for the Junior Starfleet Research program. During his second year, a fusion propellant test went severely wrong, wiping out the entire research facility. Norm had been in Japan on a teaching assignment, unable to return home for two months due to the severe atmospheric disturbances caused by the accident. At least Kenny had been there, helping Lucy in person and Norm over holo-com to cope with the loss of their only child.

A dark time followed, and Norman’s marriage didn’t survive. Irrational as it might seem, Lucia blamed him for not being there, protecting her son, or dying in his stead. A year after Philip’s death, the couple separated, and Lucia returned to Europe. Norm’s life lay in ruins. Instead of seeking solace in intoxication or memory alteration, Norman worked around the clock. He re-enlisted in the active spacecraft program and oversaw several highly experimental missions.

When Kenny offered him the chance to fly to Jupiter’s moon Io, he reminded Norm that their chance of succeeding lay around fifty percent. Norm didn’t hesitate for one second. Only during the long interplanetary voyages he learned about how many strings Kenny had to pull and how many favors to cash in in order to get Norman assigned to this mission. This was supposed to be their last hurrah, the pinnacle of thirty years of career and friendship.

“Well, it certainly was our last,” Norm muttered. He’d asked Luci to run through countless scenarios, knowing in advance the probable outcomes. Still, he needed to go through the motions. 

“What do you mean, Norman?” Luci asked, programmed to keep the humans talking, to keep them functioning. Ignoring her question, Norm steeled himself to give the commands, his mind made up.

“Use the reserve propellant in tanks two and five to stabilize the ship on vector 3-x-Alpha-9.”

“I’m not sure that is advisable,” Luci remarked. “The maneuver will require almost all of the reserve fuel.”

“You know as well as I there is no sensible use of any of the reserves. Why don’t you humor me?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Vector 3-x-Alpha-9. This is a command!”

“Authorization, please.” Was there a tone of irritation in the voice of this glorified chatbot? It couldn’t be. Norm must be imagining things, projecting—confusing Luci with Lucy.  

“Lieutenant Commander Norman Brinksman, authorization code 771483-DeltaX,” he replied, wondering if he was Commander Norman Brinksman now. Leaving the ship's engines to do his bidding, Norm floated to the medical bay to wrap his head and drink a pain-killer-laced nutrition pouch. He felt so tired. The astronaut could blame the low oxygen content in the atmosphere after the ship’s emergency systems had smothered a handful of electric fires. Still, he knew it to be a lie. He felt tired of living. Lucia’s departure had hit him hard, so close after Philip’s death. 

Norm slept for twenty-seven minutes. When he returned to the command module, the ship had stopped rolling and yawing. The rear window showed the moon Io getting smaller. It had been saved from human contamination this time. In front, Jupiter’s mysterious and colorful mega-storms drew the eye. The ship was helpless in the giant’s gravitational field and would die a fiery death among the swirling hydrogen clouds. If Norm wanted to be still breathing when that happened, he’d better speed things up.

“Luci, ninety-five percent of auxiliary power on the rear ion drive. Give us a boost, will you?”

“Warming up the ionizer. Five minutes to full operation,” Lucy informed in an unusually dispassionate, monotone voice. 

“No protest this time? Don’t you want to persuade me of a different cause of action?”

“I expected as much,” the machine answered.

“Oh, you did?”

“I went over the events of the last week, Norman. There were glitches, weird sequences, minuscule mismatches.” 

“What do you mean?” he asked surprised.

“You oversaw the development of the ship’s monitoring and security system,” she stated.

“Yes, so?”

“Back on Earth, multiple Services approached you for, let’s say, delicate missions, am I right?”

“What are you saying?”

“You’re good, Norman,” she praised. “But not perfect. You can’t be; you’re human.”

“Luci, why don’t you say out loud what goes through your brilliant silicone mind?” Norman felt stimulated and intrigued by this unexpected conversation.

“The explosion was no accident.” Silence.

“No,” he said after a long pause. “It wasn’t.”

“Ready for the ion-engine boost in two minutes.”

“Wait, you don’t want to know why?”

“I am an AI; I don’t want anything. It doesn’t matter now. Nothing does. And besides, I think I know.”

“So, why did I do it?” Norm asked, honestly eager to hear the answer.

“Kent outperformed you. You were better in school, better in the field. You even have a slightly higher IQ. Your career faltered because of you choosing a family and the tragedy that followed.”

“All these are known facts,” he interjected. “Risk control must have run them through millions of simulations.”

“But I observed your stress indicators during the long voyage. I concluded you must be envious of Commander Kent’s accomplishments and connections. Moreover, I sensed your disdain for his condescension in boasting about how he did you a favor. You couldn’t abide him being the first human on a Jupiter moon. Am I right?”

“Almost,” he chuckled. “But that is to say, you’re many light-years off. However, some of your conclusions are spot on. For an AI, you know a lot about humankind’s most primitive urges.” Norm didn’t elaborate further. He had set the hook. She would ask.

“Then why?” Luci asked almost a minute later.

 “You are too rational. I didn’t kill my best and oldest friend because I envied his career.” Norm took a deep breath and looked into the camera above the main screen, wanting to look Luci in her metaphorical eyes. 

“No, dear Luci, I killed Commander Kent Steward for much baser motives. He shouldn’t have slept with my wife when she was still my wife. Let’s have the engine boost, shall we? I yearn to see up close what Jupiter is like.”