Sample:

Joane awoke with a jolt. 

Her breath caught in her throat, her heart pounding so hard it hurt, and her short hair lay plastered against her scalp in sweaty clumps. The sheets were hopelessly tangled around her legs, the white, standard issue fabric also soaked in sweat. With trembling hands she undid the twisted sheets and flung her legs over the edge of the bed, planting her feet firmly on the floor. The cool metal felt good against her warm skin, but it did little to calm her racing heart. Nor did the dark of the room.

“Lights.” Her voice wasn’t more than a panting whisper, but the ship’s computer picked up the command anyway. The ceiling came to life with Joane’s preferred settings, casting the small room in a soft yellow light.

After taking many deep breaths she did what Dr. Clinton had instructed during their last session, going over the nightmare in her mind to find the holes that discerned it from reality. I was back under water, back at the accident, Joane made herself think. The day my 10th and 11th Cycle ended.

I woke up under water. I was drowning, my sheets knotted around my legs, snagged on a chunk of debris. The concrete was pulling me down fast, so fast my eardrums burst from the pressure. But it was nothing compared to the burning in my chest as I gasped for a watery breath.

This wasn’t the nightmare and Joane knew it. It was simply the prologue, the intro to something worse. Her mind tried helplessly to steer her in another direction, but she pushed on.

There was no hope so I let myself drown. 

One blink and I was staring into the blue depths.

The next I was in the familiar warmth of a Birth Pod. But as the tubes that had been keeping my new body alive detached, the orange tinted water didn’t drain and the lid didn’t open as it should. There was no air in my lungs, only water, and once again I was drowning. This time I panicked. This time I wanted to live – I had so much to live for. I was banging the lid of the pod, screaming with water filled lungs for anyone to save me. 

Still this wasn’t the nightmare. Joane began crying as all the memories flooded her mind. She clutched her head and brought it down between her knees, the panic attack coming in raging fits along her spine.

The actual nightmare had been the 33 minutes and 58 seconds that had come afterwards. When Joane’s pounding had stopped, her fists sore and bruised. When that initial panic had been replaced with utter fear the moment she realized she was not yet dead.

For 33 minutes and 58 seconds the already existing oxygen – combined with various drugs – in Joane’s system had kept her alive. For 33 minutes and 58 seconds Joane lay trapped in her Birth Pod no larger than the coffins man had once buried their dead in. For 33 minutes and 58 seconds Joane awaited help.

After 33 minutes none had come, and for 58 seconds Joane once again drowned.

***

“Tell me how it felt to go over the dream once you had woken.”

Joane was seated in Dr. Clinton’s on board office several hours later. She had gone through her daily work without incident, though the residue of the morning’s panic attack had left her weak and aloof. When her shift came to an end she had booked the next available opening in Dr. Clinton’s schedule – a mere 15 minutes, but it would have to do.

The doctor’s office was personal in its lack of personality. The wall panels were set to a soft yellow, the ceiling lit with the standard simulation of sunlight. The big panorama window along the left wall from the door showed an incredible view of space standing in stark contrast to the brightness of the room. A metal desk stood in the nearest right corner, a sofa group sat in the furthest. The most common place for patients to sit during sessions, Joane guessed. She at least usually lay there, staring up at the sunlit panels.

But for these 15 minutes of reflection she had chosen the lone chair by the window.

“It didn’t help.”

Dr. Clinton shifted her weight, the only sign of her mind calculating. Her clothes were just as impersonal as her office. The jumpsuit was standard issue – the same kind as Joane wore, just Medic teal instead of Worker yellow – as were the shoes, despite the fact that she as a doctor had the freedom to choose her own wardrobe. Joane had first thought it might be out of sympathy to her patients, to make them feel more equal to her by submitting to the same rules. But after 4 Cycles of these sessions Joane had found that Dr. Clinton simply lacked personality.

“Tell me.”

Joane sighed. When she had taken the job as a Worker on board the Explorer class ship Beyond 556, she had been told these sessions would be few. Just regular checkups to make sure her psyche was functioning properly. And it should have been, hadn’t the memory blockers she got once each cycle been outlawed due to some 1/10,000 chance of Critical Failure to the Core. This was her second Cycle without the medication, which meant the nightmares were back, just as bad as they had been before she was put on the blocker.

“I did what you told me to,” Joane said. “I went over the dream and tried to find the inconsistencies.” She blindly studied the stars outside. “It didn’t work.”

“And why do you think that is?”

Joane focused on a star. Despite them traveling at 10 times the speed of light, the stars outside didn’t move and inch. They didn’t zoom by in streaks as so often depicted in the science fiction of her Cycle Zero, nor did it go completely dark as some had speculated back on Earth. When a ship reached Light Speed the world around them simply froze – the stars and galaxies were solely ghosts of what had once been their location. The ship’s engines could only maintain this speed for .45 Cycles (approximately 22.5 Standard Years) before needing a complete shutdown and maintenance. The procedure took 6 months before they could jump back to 10xLS. A insignificant loss compared to the distance to their goal. The next LS dropout would occur tomorrow.

“I– I don’t know,” Joane said. “I couldn’t find any holes, nothing that seemed amiss or hinted on it being a dream.” She turned to look at Dr. Clinton. “I was there, Angela. This isn’t just something my mind has made up, I am reliving a memory.” Joane felt stupid saying it outloud – Dr. Clinton knew these things, she shouldn’t have to tell her again and again. She brushed away a rogue tear that slid down her cheek.

Dr. Clinton took a few steps forward and crouched before Joane. Her smile was soft, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Joane, this is progress. I know it might not seem that way from your perspective, but I must remind you that even mentioning the nightmare during our first sessions caused you to panic.” She casually checked the time on her arm. “I have my next patient waiting outside, I‘m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Joane said and rose from the chair.

Dr. Clinton got up as well, smoothing out her jumpsuit. “I’d like you to come back tomorrow after your shift. I’ll clear an hour for you, we can go over your thoughts, analyze the dream together.”

“Alright.”

Before opening the door to let Joane out, Dr. Clinton added, “I want you to consider what might be keeping you in that moment. Why are you stuck there?”

Joane nodded and left. The question wasn’t a surprise, Dr. Clinton had presented it many times, in one shape or another. Joane knew the answer, but uttering it would make it real.

Joane Riger of Earth had died that day.

***

Her first Cycle End had been planned. 

Joane had been 26 years old when Jackson and O’Malley had won the Nobel prize in medicine for their groundbreaking Conscious Transfer technique. What had been known in science fiction as “mind uploading” had finally become a reality – through an implant to the brain one’s mind could now be transferred from one body to another. That, in combination with cloning, changed humanity forever.

Conscious Transfer (CT) became available to the general public when Joane was 43, but it cost a fortune. Or rather, cloning cost a fortune. The JOM-implant on the other hand was affordable, in some countries it was even free or covered by insurance. People got implanted at a hospital, left a clonable DNA-sample with one of the cloning companies, and once they died their consciousness was stored as data on a server until cloning could be done cheaper. The issue was this: you had to die hooked up to a computer or else the data would be lost.

Joane had been the only one in her family who’d decided to give CT a fair chance. “I want to see the future, Terry!” she’d told her husband. He hadn’t approved, but throughout their lives he had been supportive, even defended her at family dinners. After Terry passed away Joane made an appointment at the hospital. She didn’t walk back out.

Her Cycle Zero had come to a close.