Echo-1 The Whale

12: Save the Whales

I swam over to the boat and pulled myself out of the water. Shaking like a dog, the wetness flung right off my body and clothing. The boat was similar to the flat engineless vehicle I road in earlier. It floated just above the water, was stacked with equipment, and had a small control room at the back. There were four synthetic life forms aboard. Two walked up to me, immediately.

"Hello!"

"Hi, hello there," in a German accent. "Call me Werner and this is Forklift, over there are Sunshine and Tim." Werner gestured to the cabin.

I knew right away who they were, their matching red Save the Whales jackets said it all. They were once humans in the Echo-1 simulation too. A group of four who were crushed to death below a Japanese whaling boat. Jonas was so touched by the selfless act in defense of his kind that he gave them a second life on the Banga. They already proved they would give their lives for whales.

They were similar to me but far more customized. Sunshine was a spitting image of Dixon, but with two big braids of blond hair hanging down from under her cap. Werner had shaggy brown hair and a large beard, which I didn't think was possible. My face was completely smooth. Forklift was smaller and squat with no hair at all. Tim had enhanced eyes in the form of fixed tinted goggles and he had webbed hands and feet. I noticed Sunshine did too.

They were a very jovial bunch. They all talked at once.

"Did you see the sleeping pod? Fantastic, no?"

"The great pillars of the deep."

"We live for the whales."

"We're their keepers."

"Do you think Vronsky and Veronica have a thing going on?"

"What did you do when you were a human?"

"Have you met Anger yet? Dr. Death?"

"Those guys are crazy, they don't even care about these animals..."

"Uzi does."

"I love animals."

"Cindy loves animals too.''

"Don't you think Jonas is the best?"

"Isn't it fantastic to be here?"

"Did the Beluga touch you?"

"What about the Narwhal?"

"Pass me that hatch cover."

"Dixon said you were cute, but I don't know, you seem a little ordinary."

"Is your name really Hands?"

I let their comments wash over me like the waves beneath us.

The Save the Whalers were a separate mini-unit with their own ranking system. Tim was the captain, Werner the first mate, Forklift the one-man crew and muscle, and Sunshine, well, she lived up to her name.

"I'm the diving expert, in case you're wondering." Her smile bubbled like the sea. "I've done over 3000 dives with whales."

Sunshine spread her webbed fingers in a warm-hearted wave then glanced down at her bare feet and wiggled her webbed toes. I was jealous with my solid shaped toeless doll feet.

It was a six-hour trip to the airlock and they suggested I take a nap, that the ship was big and traveling around it can take its toll even on hardy synthetics. I sat in a seat at the bow of the boat. Sunshine was singing an old 50's song about lollipops.

I drifted off to sleep for the first time in my new body. A myoclonic jerk startled me back to reality. I was on a boat, floating over a sea, in a spaceship heading to a wormhole, fifty years travel distance off the first arm of the Milky Way. 

A brief reality check and as I closed my eyes again that feeling of free fall returned to my mind. This time I embraced it. I slept soundly for the remainder of the voyage and I dreamed of miraculous fish in all the colors of the rainbow. I was swimming with them through an endless ocean. When I woke it seemed I was somewhat aware of the journey and what was going on around me. I opened my eyes happy that in this incomprehensible new reality I still had a dream world to go to. Dreams being a true sign of sentience. 

I stretched in the chair and watched the crew loading containers that were stacked next to the dock. I got up and walked off the boat, looking back I saluted Tim who was in the control room. He nodded in return.

Werner and Forklift were stowing the boxes.

"Why is it you always make me lift the big ones?"

"You're stronger than I am."

"But we are genetically identical and built to the same specification."

"Well, maybe it's a mental thing?"

As I approached the airlock to exit the sea, Sunshine stepped through.

"Someone fun is waiting for you."

She grinned, smacked me on the butt, and rejoined the crew aboard their space boat.

I went out through the airlock and there was X standing naked on the side of the road.