"Come on, Load!" screamed Simon, just as the yellow bar of the screen shot to the end and finished the download.
"Yeah, yes! Fuck yeah, we made it! Ha-Ha! Whoo!" he screamed.
He watched in silence as the rocket blasted away into the atmosphere. What he didn't know was that he wouldn't be on it.
The pilot seat's screen lifted itself from his head as he looked around, confused.
"I'm still here… I'm still here…" he said to himself, not wanting to believe it.
He knew in the back of his head why he was here but there was no way he would accept it that easily, something must have gone wrong.
"Catherine? Catherine?" he said, needingly. He needed to hear her voice, to confirm everything would be alright.
"I'm here." came Catherine's response.
He sighed a breath of relief at hearing her voice before proceeding to ask his question, "What went wrong?"
"Nothing, they're out there, among the stars." she said.
Refusing to believe it still, he pressed on, "No I saw it, it finished downloading just before it launched."
"I saw."
"Then why are we still here?" he asked, his voice desperate for a resolution.
"Simon, I can't keep explaining how it works! You know why we're still here! You were copied onto the ARK, you lost the coin toss, we both did! Just like the Simon at Omicron just like the man who died in Toronto 100 years ago!" she said, her voice irritated with him.
"We're gonna die down here with those fuckers living it large on a spaceship! They're not us. They are not us."
"Now I'm sorry you feel that way Simon but Simon and Catherine are safe, on the ARK, be happy for them." she said, trying to calm him down but to no avail.
Now what he did next he knew he shouldn't have done, but the pure rage, frustration, confusion, all of it. All of the pent up emotions he had, he felt now was the best time to take them out on her. On the Catherine, the only person he'd had by his side since his arrival at Lambda, the only one who seemed to care. The only one out of all he'd met, that seemed human. Not even Sara was as human as Catherine to him, but still he chose her to take out his frustrations on.
"No, no, no. Fuck this! Fuck! Fuck you! Fuck you Catherine you lied, and I believed you, I trusted you!" He screamed, a voice not his own taking over, the one of control and ignorance and rage.
In a fierce voice Catherine retaliated, the screen just to his right shattering under the stress, "I didn't lie! I can't be responsible for your goddamn ignorance! You fucki-"
"Fuck!" screamed Simon as the screen displaying Catherine's face was shattered and her beautiful face now replaced with an error message.
Critical failure, please retry, please retry, please retry…
"Catherine?" he asked, on the brink of tears.
"Please don't leave me alone." nothing.
"Catherine? Catherine!" he yelled, standing and grabbing the screen on either side.
He stared at the blinking error message a while longer before collapsing back into his chair and his resolve crumbled. He lowered his head and cried, or more made the noises of crying, his chest heaving uncontrollably as his mechanical eyes, incapable of shedding tears, closed, his face in his hands.
He sobbed a bit more before finally gaining enough composure to speak. With his head still in his hands, his voice lowered and shaking, heaving along with his chest, he spoke.
"I'm sorry…"