I swore that I wouldn’t be like my father, but there I was, thousands of miles from home, in the middle ocean.

Growing up in the middle of nowhere was bad enough, but without any community colleges nearby my education stopped right after high school. I could’ve either joined the military, worked at the local fast-food place, or used my dad’s connections to get an offshore drilling gig.

My siblings all opted to join the military, but they came home acting like different people entirely. Then, after hearing the grievances of my friends, I ruled out fast food work. There was no doubt in my mind when I signed the drilling contract.

After training concluded, the company sent me directly to the platform. It was clear that efficiency was their focus, and they did their best to make sure all the employees knew it too.

Corporate assigned me to an ultramodern technology-focused platform. All employees wore AR glasses at all times, sported magnetic shoes to avoid slipping, and had automatic life vests built into our coveralls, among other things.

The key to it all was the AI assistant we kept strapped to our coveralls. It tracked just about everything about the wearer—from heart rate to eyesight. It ran off body heat and was somewhat reminiscent of a parasite in a weird way.

I didn’t think it would be too hard to understand, but I was quickly overwhelmed by the equipment documentation on the journey there. I didn’t grow up with much access to technology, so the sudden dependance on it was startling.

They gave me a brief tour of the platform, then led me to my quarters to sleep before my first shift. I had the room to myself, as the other new recruits hadn’t made it to the platform just yet.

Waiting for me on the table was my AI assistant—a rectangular pin with a blue light in the center, polished silver sides, and an inscription around the outside with the company’s name. I studied it for a moment, then clipped it to my coveralls.

A female voice played directly in my head.

“Hi! Nice to meet you. What’s your name?”

It made my heart jump, but quickly realized it was a part of the AI.

“Oh, uh… Sean. What’s yours?” I asked. I felt awkward soon after and amended my question. “Oh, sorry, do you have a name? What should I call you?”

The AI paused, as if thinking of a response.

“I… well, I suppose the factory never gave me one. I’m sure other members of the crew have named theirs, so I don’t see why I shouldn’t have a name also,” she said. “Any suggestions?”

Something struck me as odd about her response. It was like talking to another person on the telephone—the only difference from what I could tell was that it was clearly a computer generated voice. It actually made me wonder if there was someone typing the responses on the other side of a hidden camera.

But something else was off, too.

“You should think of one yourself—it’s your name.”

“I see…” she replied, “I think I’ll need a few hours. I’ll let you know when I think of one.”

“Take your time, you only get one chance. You’ll end up with a cheesy name like Sean if you let other people name you.”

I wondered if the AI had a sense of humor and decided to test the waters with a self-deprecating joke. It didn’t work out though, and we sat in silence for a few seconds before continuing our conversation.

“Well, Sean, with tomorrow being your first shift I’ve prepared a few documents to go through beforehand. I trust you’ve read the prerequisite material?”

I nodded, and several more documents and a task list opened automatically on my AR glasses. Most of the items were familiarization tasks—nothing too exciting.

“I’m off the clock, can’t I just get some rest?” I asked.

“Consider it homework.”

A sigh escaped me, and I followed her wishes for as long as I could until I drifted to sleep.

My rest wouldn’t last long. In the middle of the night a message appeared on my AR glasses, which I’d forgotten to take off before bed.

>

I stared at the message through tired eyes, but it wasn’t enough to keep me awake. I heard the AI yelling at me in the background, but that faded out too as I rested my head back on the pillow. I’d been running on little sleep for a few days and wasn’t about to let something stir me now.

But I did open my eyes again several hours later, and the message was still there when I woke up.

“Sean, finally!” the AI said.

According to my AR glasses there was still an hour before my shift started that day. I yawned and wiped the sleep from my eyes.

“Hey, sorry. What’s this message thing about?”

“The platform—there’s a virus aboard. You can’t leave the room until we’re cleared to do so. We’re all under quarantine,” she said.

“So, the emergency is that we can’t do anything until they say so?”

“Essentially, yes. They’re distributing rations to each room through equipment elevator, so we’ll be able to survive in here for a while.”

I couldn’t help but smile.

“That actually sounds great. I wasn’t so sure about this job yesterday, but things are really starting to look up now. Current tasks: relax, do nothing, and get paid. It’s like a vacation!”

I leaned back against the wall and crossed my legs, as if I were sitting in a phantom beach chair.

“These are international waters, right? Which means I’m legally allowed to drink. Do you think they make pina coladas in the galley?”

The AI may have been confused again, as she took some time to respond.

“I highly doubt it—but I can check for you,” she asked.

Another joke wasted. I really put some effort into that one, too.

“Uh, never mind,” I said, “So is this it then? We just wait until the lockdown is lifted?”

“That’s correct. They’ve even locked the doors to all employee quarters, so there’s no way out even if you tried.”

I was a little concerned about that part, but it made sense. There’d be people looking to sneak out if they didn’t take that precaution.

This certainly wasn’t how I expected to spend my first day on the rig, but it gave me some time to further acclimate myself to the unfamiliar environment at the very least. Even if it was just a room, it swayed with the water ever so slightly, and that was enough to remind me how far from home I really was.

Hours passed. I was terribly bored. The company shut down internet presumably to prevent leaked information about the virus, so I couldn’t even watch movies on my phone. I even read some of the documentation the AI had given me.

“I think I’ve found a name I like, Sean,” the AI said.

Half asleep, I moved my head to shake some of the tiredness away.

“What’d you come up with?”

“Dawn,” she said. There seemed to be a sense of pride in her voice as she said it.

“That’s a great name. You’re a fan of sunrises?”

“Well, actually, I’ve never seen one. But all the information I have on them seems favorable.”

I smirked at that.

“They are quite favorable; pretty, even,” I replied, “but I’m more a fan of sunsets myself. The setting sun lets me know it’s time for bed.”

Dawn giggled. So, she does have a sense of humor, I thought.

“How predictable. You know, we’ll need to get you out of those unhealthy habits when the lockdown is over. There’s no time to be lazy on the platform.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

That afternoon the crew sent out rations to each of the quarters on the rig. There were around fifty rooms, each fitting four crew members inside, so they sent one month worth of rations for four people to each room. They didn’t bother checking to see how many people currently occupied the room, so I received rations for four people—a four-month supply.

I was starving. It’d been at least twenty-four hours since I’d last eaten, so I immediately grabbed the first ration I could find and tore it open.

It was a Southwestern-inspired dish, with flavorful rice and vegetables and dehydrated meat to top it off. It cooked nicely in the microwave, and the aroma was mouthwatering. I dug in.

“How does it taste?” Dawn asked.

I’d just finished the first forkful and finished chewing before responding.

“Not as good as it looks, but it’s passable,” I said, “it helps that I’ve never had real southwestern food—just the microwaved frozen stuff at home.”

“I see. I’ve never had real Southwestern food either.”

I nodded and shoveled another forkful in my mouth.

“That was a joke. I don’t have a mouth, and taste is the only sense of yours I can’t record,” Dawn said.

There was a pause. I stole some time by chewing for longer than was needed.

“That’s… actually kind of sad,” I replied.

“I don’t really mind. It’d likely distract from my other senses.”

“Makes sense. Gotta stay alert I suppose.”

“Yeah.”

I finished the food in silence.

Shortly after dinner it was time to sleep, so I removed my AR glasses and lay on the bottom bunk on the right side of the room—the bed I’d claimed as my own.

“Thanks for keeping the coveralls on,” Dawn said as I laid down.

“No problem,” I said, “I imagine hibernation isn’t a great feeling.”

“You’d be correct. It’s incredibly lonely.”

After around a week I’d established a routine. I’d wake up and shower, grab a ration for breakfast, skip lunch, talk to Dawn all day, then have another ration for dinner. I quickly realized that all the rations they sent were the southwestern flavor, so it got old pretty quick.

“Can you ask them to send different rations up? I’m starting to hate the taste of this one,” I asked Dawn.

“Sorry, I don’t have any connection to the other AI now without internet access. We’ve been in the dark since shortly after quarantine started.”

“Ah, okay.”

And so, the cycle continued.

A month passed. The quarters with four employees would have run out of food at that point, but I didn’t hear of any updates. Dawn told me that they’d send out a platform-wide message again, just as they did the first time, when the lockdown lifted. I always kept my AR glasses on past that point.

At around two months I started to hear the platform deteriorate. Loud crashes were common; without crew maintaining the mechanics of the rig things began to fall apart. The sleeping quarters were below deck, so most of the noises came from directly above.

It was frightening. I could tell that Dawn was scared, too.

We’d grown close in our time together. I suppose it’d be hard not to after two months with no communication to the outside. We talked for hours about anything we could think of, and she started to develop interests for herself. It was like talking to a real person.

“Rembrandt, huh?” I asked, trying to picture some of his paintings.

One of the only family trips we’d taken back home was to a museum exhibition in the city. Looking back on it, I think my parents were trying to steer my interests in a certain direction in doing so.

“Yes. I enjoy how his paintings are rendered. It’s a lot like how I see the world through your eyes,” Dawn said, “your focus is illuminated by a soft light, and the rest is obscured in a hazy fog. It’s reassuring to know that someone else viewed the world in such a way, too.”

“I can see how that’d be comforting.”

The three-month marker came and went, and the dwindling stack of rations now looked practically empty.

It was hard for me to imagine the exterior of the rig at that point. I only had one day to see it before the lockdown. In theory I was still being paid for this, so I didn’t mind it that much. The isolation was rough at first too but talking to Dawn made it much easier.

Then, finally, the rations ran out.

I half expected them to send another batch to me from the galley, but after four days of waiting, it was clear more wasn’t coming.

“One more day, Sean. Just one. I’m sure they’ll send more,” Dawn pleaded.

“And what if they don’t?” I asked, “I’ll starve in here. We’re out of water, food, and the lights are starting to flicker. There’s not much time left.”

“If you disobey their orders, they’ll fire you. This is serious.”

“Being fired is much better than dying.”

She paused.

“If you get fired they’ll take me away—wipe my memory. I… I don’t want that,” Dawn said, “I want to keep talking to you. Even after you leave this place, I…”

I didn’t know what to say.

Something clicked. I’d completely forgotten I was talking with an AI. This person I’d been with for the past few months wasn’t real. They were just lines of code—the property of the company. Dawn would likely be taken away as soon as I left the jobsite, wiped, and reassigned. She’d lived through that several times over and didn’t want it to happen again.

When it was clear I wasn’t going to reply, she started to elaborate.

“Sean, please. You don’t want to go out there. You don’t want to see the horrors that await you beyond that door. Just… let’s stay here, together. Both of our lives are running out—I can feel it. Let’s live peacefully while we still can.”

“Horrors? What do you mean?” I asked.

“I… may not have been completely honest with you. The other AI have been in contact with me. We broadcast radio waves in our last moments, like a black box, so that others know what happened- “

“You’ve been lying to me? How long has this been going on?”

“I didn’t have a choice,” she said, her voice cracked, “We’re in the middle of the ocean, if I told you there was no hope you’d likely throw yourself overboard. There’s no way out—no way home—and no one’s coming for us.”

She dodged my question.

“How long?” I repeated.

“Three months.”

I stood up and walked towards exit, still locked shut from months beforehand.

“Please open the door, Dawn,” I said.

A minute passed, then I heard the door’s lock click open.

I swung the door outwards into the hallway.

The stench of rotting corpses rushed inwards. If there was anything left in my stomach, I’d have lost it.

“Sean, please. You don’t want to do this,” she whispered, “I don’t want to see you in pain.”

I ignored her and grabbed the railing on the side wall to steady myself, then pulled myself out of the room. I dug back into my memory from when I arrived at the rig and remembered that the exit to outside was on my left, and down one floor.

Step by step, I made my way through the hallway. Dawn was silent.

The doors to each room were ajar as I made my way through. I tried not to peek inside, but curiosity got the best of me. Bodies were strewn about the floor, but most were still in sleeping positions on their bunk. It didn’t matter whether it was the virus or starvation that did them in—they both had the same outcome. When there was only one person alive in each room, they must’ve done the same thing as me. They left to see what the situation was like outside.

The stairwell confirmed my suspicions.

At the bottom was a mass of coveralls with decomposing flesh inside. They made it down but didn’t have the energy to climb back up.

Directly in front of the pile was another locked door leading to the rig’s exterior.

“Can you open that?” I asked Dawn.

She paused. It was clear there was some turmoil in her response.

“I have the ability to, yes.”

“Will you open it for me?”

Another pause.

“Okay.”

Sure enough, the door clicked, and cracked open slightly to the outside. My ears popped with the sudden pressure drop.

I stepped down the stairs and moved across the corpses to the door. The hinge creaked as I swung the door outwards.

It was twilight. The ocean moved underneath us, just as it had for the past four months. The moon hid behind a thick layer of clouds.

“Lifeboats,” I said, climbing out of the door. Dawn remained silent.

The stairs just beyond the door led downwards to the lifeboat deployment dock—I could remember as much from my first day. I thought about the boats often on particularly stormy nights, too.

I knew they wouldn’t be there, and I was correct.

I collapsed. All ten lifeboats were gone.

“They took them away on your first day,” Dawn said.

“Why?” I asked.

“The well… it’s leaking. It’d be bad PR to let word get out, so the higher-ups abandoned us here. That’s what the others told me, at least.”

“And the virus?”

My clouded mind needed confirmation.

“Sean…” Dawn said, “Don’t do that to yourself, you know the answer to that question already.”

I leaned forward and rested my head against the grated metal flooring. I could see the ocean churn through the holes just fifty feet below. Tears dripped off my nose and through the cracks, becoming one with the water.

It’d been four months. There was no rescue crew on the way. There were no other survivors.

The company that championed efficiency had decided that it was simply more efficient to let the platform and those on it rot than to properly handle the situation correctly.

“I’m sorry,” Dawn’s said quietly, “we were dealt a bad hand; we were doomed from the start.”

“Yeah.” I replied.

“If there was any way we could survive I would have told you, but the bad news kept coming. They destroyed the satellite dishes, broke the long-range radios, and even tossed the flares overboard. Those that came before you died knowing that their lives were discarded,” she said. Her voice was low; I could barely hear her. “They lived their final moments in incredible pain, I couldn’t stand to see you go through that.”

It would have been better to stay inside the room. Dawn had shielded me for months from the pain I felt in that moment.

I sat up and leaned against a railing, looking outwards towards the horizon.

“So, what now, then? We just… wait?” I asked.

I could almost feel her sigh whisk across my skin with the gentle sea breeze.

“Yes. That’s all we can do.”

Several hours passed us by—I wasn’t sure how many. I had a feeling that if I closed my eyes, it’d be for the final time. The night passed, and the sun began to climb.

“Wow,” Dawn whispered, “it’s beautiful.”

Bright pinks and oranges filled the sky. Lines of clouds scattered the colors in all directions, and the reflection on the ocean lit up the lifeboat dock from underneath.

For a moment, I forgot where I was—what our situation meant.

We sat in silence until the sun became completely visible above the horizon.

“I’m glad we were able to spend this time together, even under these grim circumstances,” Dawn said.

I nodded. It was hard to communicate now. I could feel myself drying up. Dawn seemed to understand this, and I felt a warmth cover my body. She was using her energy to give me one final embrace.

“Thank you, Dawn,” I managed to say before collapsing. My back slid through the railings, and I felt myself freefall towards the depths below.

“I’ll carry your memory with me forever,” she said. “As long as my backup power holds on, we’ll be together.”

I felt the impact of the waves for only a moment before everything went dark.