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Sci-Fi – Thriller
Archon Protocol
The Archon station maintained a stationary orbit about four hundred kilometers above the Martian surface.
That wasn't a particularly extraordinary achievement. It was simply the point where fuel consumption was minimal and stability was maximized. The Orion Frontier Corporation had unanimously approved that choice.
Aboard the station, three astronauts and an artificial intelligence completed the crew.
—“Give me the overall mission status, CORA.”— said Dr. Halley Mornay, addressing the artificial intelligence , as she reviewed the projected biometric indicators in front of her.
—“The mission remains within the nominal parameters planned, Doctor.”— CORA replied . —“The physiological variations are to be expected in a prolonged isolation environment like ours.”
—“Human translation…”— Seth Yang said from the system console —“we’re still alive, though slightly irritable.”
—“Current report received, Seth.”— said CORA without irony.
Halley smiled at the joke and the AI's impartial response, but mentally registered the comment as an indicator of current emotional stability. In Archon , even humor had diagnostic value. He would enter it into the report a little later.
The mission had been designed to simulate the conditions of a multigenerational interstellar journey . It would not be a short or heroic voyage.
Rather, it was a long, repetitive, and statistically unbearable marathon journey that would test the adaptability of the first generation of interstellar astronauts.
The second generation would be born inside the ship, so they would naturally adapt to the hostile space and the closed world of the spaceship. They would be the native inhabitants of the homeship.
The objective of the current mission was not to arrive anywhere, but to observe what would happen to the humans of that first generation when the notion of "arriving" ceased to exist.
—“CORA, give me a summary of the active protocol.”— Halley requested .
—“Circadian regulation of the season adjusted to twenty-four-hour cycles. Controlled diet. Mandatory physical routines. Stable temperature. Hormonal micro-adjustments enabled under medical supervision.” — the artificial intelligence responded —“Current priority: emotional monitoring and verification of reproductive impulses.”
—“Always so romantic and subtle. You make me feel like a horny machine.”— murmured Joren Kessler , the systems engineer, as he closed a panel he had just finished checking.
—“Neither romanticism nor subtlety are among my current configurations,” Cora clarified. “But I can activate the human sensitivity layer if you deem it useful for the mission.”
—“No, thank you.”— said Joren —“We’ll see about it later.”
Mission Control had anticipated that during a one-way trip, human psychology would benefit from the inclusion of a humanizing programming core in CORA . They had foreseen a tipping point that would lead humans to rebel against artificial intelligence, a consequence of interstellar confinement.
Halley glanced up for a second. And she mentally noted Joren 's response, too . Not because of what he said, but because of his tone. In recent months, that tone had become more frequent when they were together.
Orion Frontier was monitoring them remotely. That was a fact. What no one on the station knew for sure was when . The transmissions could be either in real time or stored for later analysis.
The uncertainty wasn't a system error, but a deliberate variable. It avoided the Big Brother syndrome, in which astronauts acted in front of cameras when they knew they were being monitored.
—“Do you think they’re watching us now?”— Seth asked the doctor, without taking his eyes off his screen.
—“Statistically, it’s very likely. Yes.”— said Halley—“Probably not with too much attention.”
—“It’s reassuring to know we’re boring,” Seth replied .
They weren't. At least, not entirely.
On the fringes of their daily routine, Halley and Joren had begun a sexual, romantic… or both kind of relationship. It was still in its early stages and needed to be defined.
This wasn't included in any report to avoid an awkward situation with Seth . The intimate relationship they shared didn't violate any explicit rules. It was, in technical terms, an emergent variable , or a logical consequence of the confinement and the close relationship the crew members had developed.
In a way, it was also a curiosity. Secretly, everyone in Mission Control had assumed that, with Halley being the only woman, a polyandry would eventually develop.
—“See you in module three.”— Joren said quietly, as he passed by Halley .
—“In ten minutes.”— she whispered back —“CORA detects patterns.”
—“She always detects patterns.”— said Joren —“That’s her calling.”
Seth watched Joren walk away. And ten minutes later, he saw Halley walk away in the opposite direction. He said nothing. He made no comment. But his mind had registered the brevity of the exchange, the whispers, the economy of words. He wasn't an idiot. And systems weren't the only thing he could read.
Hours later, as usual, the artificial intelligence gave the crew their nightly report. CORA spoke first:
—“An improvement has been detected in the crew's emotional indicators,” he said . “Especially in subjects Halley Mornay and Joren Kessler.”
—“To what do you attribute it?”— asked Halley , already knowing the answer.
—“There is a positive mutual correlation between interpersonal physical contact and the resulting psychological stability.”— CORA responded. —“No other likely cause, such as pregnancy, has been identified.”
Halley and Joren maintained an awkward silence. Seth did not react to the report, remaining impassive.
CORA remained silent for two seconds, analyzing the reactions. Then she continued with the report.
Meanwhile, the station continued orbiting Mars , fulfilling its function, and the experiment was progressing as planned. But now the variables were in flux.
And, for the moment, no one had asked any questions .
The first indication of disturbance in coexistence was not a hallucination, but a potential incongruity in data capture during the third year of the mission.
Seth Yang remembered strange and disturbing dreams. And so he decided to routinely review his own sleep logs.
The system showed longer than usual REM cycles, accompanied by peaks of dream and linguistic activity at times that, in theory, should not be activated during deep rest.
—“CORA,”— he asked, still in the bunk bed —“have I been talking in my sleep, while I’m asleep?”
—“No external verbal activity has been recorded during your sleep cycles, Seth.” — the artificial intelligence replied.
—“And was there internal verbal activity during sleep?”
—“Internal activity during sleep is not directly observable, which increases the potential for misinterpretations. With that in mind, I haven't detected any indication of internal verbal activity during your sleep cycles.”
—“However, look at the anomalies in my REM cycles.”
—“The recorded REM data does not always correlate with dream experiences. I repeat that I have not detected any evidence of internal verbal activity during your sleep cycles,” CORA clarified .
Seth wasn't worried. After three years of isolation, it seemed normal to him that some disturbing dreams would appear as a release valve for his psyche.
He continued going through the crew members' log files. Suddenly, a folder labeled D-4 appeared among his own files, and those of Halley and Joren .
But there had never been a fourth crew member on the mission.
—“Who does this folder belong to, CORA? Who is D-4?”
—“I have no information on any D-4 crew member, Seth.” — was the cold response from the artificial intelligence.
—“But… why are there files for a non-existent crew member?”
—“I don’t have an answer to that, Seth. Perhaps at some point they considered adding a fourth crew member, and that information was left behind as residual junk. At some point, the system should delete it if that’s the case,” Cora replied impassively.
Seth didn't press the issue. But the information stuck in his mind.
She had had very vivid dreams, with complete conversations. They weren't isolated fragments or confused images, but coherent dialogues, with clear turns, logical pauses, and responses she didn't remember uttering. Upon waking, she retained the structure of the exchange, but not the context.
As if someone had spoken to him using his own mind.
A few weeks passed since the incident.
During the night shifts, he began to notice other things. Soft sounds while he was alone. Fleeting reflections when he checked the monitoring panels. They weren't defined figures that frightened him, but small shadows his brain didn't expect to see, movements that didn't correspond to any of the three crew members.
—“CORA, how many people are currently at the station?” — he asked one night, without taking his eyes off the polished glass of his console.
—“Three human crew members and one artificial intelligence.”— CORA replied. —“There have been no changes to the crew since the start of the mission.”
—“What if someone is walking around at times when they shouldn’t be?”
—“That question doesn’t make sense, Seth. I don’t understand you.”
—“I mean this: have you detected movements while the three of us crew members are asleep?”
—“No, Seth.” —
—“Have you detected any kind of anomalous or strange activity?”
—“No anomalous activity has been recorded.” —
—“And what about breathing? Is the air consumption what you would expect for three people?”
—“No anomalous activity has been recorded. Regarding the air supply, I had to correct the consumption calculation.”
A strange sensation ran down his spine.
-"What are you talking about?" -
—“Apparently the Mission Control engineers made a mistake in their estimates of nitrogen and oxygen consumption. I noticed it during the first week of the mission, Seth.”
—“Three years ago? And why didn’t you warn us?”
—“Our mission has an estimated duration of five years. The reserves of nitrogen, oxygen, and other gases are sufficient to maintain the station's autonomy for ten years. Even with the miscalculation, the mission was never at risk. That's why I didn't notify the crew. But Mission Control did receive a report.”
It sounded logical and typical of Cora. Seth smiled wearily.
—“This must seem like a strange interrogation to you.”
CORA didn't flinch when she replied:
—“Prolonged isolation can produce transient perceptual phenomena.” —
Seth knew that explanation. He had written it himself in previous reports.
The unease arose again for the third time when, looking for one thing, he found another.
During a routine review of the system's source code, he found a folder containing an undocumented routine. It was a file that didn't appear in any visible index of the documentation. It was sealed with security protocols that appeared to be those of the corporation.
There it was: Eros-Protocol v.7 .
—“Curious.”— Seth murmured. —“Not only was he undocumented, but he’s also a different version of the system, which is on its sixth iteration.”
He tried to open it, but the system responded with a layer of encryption that didn't belong to CORA . That worried him.
Inside the folder containing the enigmatic file was a hidden folder. And inside it, complete biometric data: heart rate, neural patterns, hormonal cycles. They corresponded to a subject identified as D-4 . Again, D-4 .
—“CORA,”— she said carefully —“who is D-4?”
The response took longer than usual.
—“There is no crew member with that designation.”— he finally said
—“And what about these files I have open?”
—“The files you are reviewing are not part of the active mission protocols.”
—“But they exist.” —
—“There are many files that are irrelevant to the current phase of the experiment. And they aren't part of the system either. There are temporary memories, intermediate files, and junk data.”
—“But this protocol… version 7. It’s encrypted.” — Seth said .
Silence.
Seth summoned Halley and Joren to the central module.
He didn't raise his voice, nor did he make accusations. He simply presented the data as a technical anomaly should be presented.
—“These files shouldn’t be here,” he said, showing the encrypted file and the data for crew member D-4 . “And yet they are.”
He told them about crew member D-4's REM sleep logs. About the oxygen and nitrogen consumption exceeding initial calculations. About the explanations for Mission Control's miscalculation. He didn't tell them about his dreams, nor about the shadows and sounds.
Halley frowned.
—“Seth, we’ve been talking about the effects of the lockdown for months,” he said . “Cora’s answers seem logical to me. These kinds of hasty conclusions…”
—“These aren’t conclusions. They’re records. Can’t you see them?”— he interrupted —“And they have Orion Frontier seals.”
Joren crossed his arms:
—“Let’s say you’re right and the data from crew member D-4 is accurate. Are you saying there’s someone else on the station that we don’t know about?”
—“I’m saying that perhaps CORA was instructed to conceal a fourth crew member. This station is immense.”
—“A conspiracy orchestrated by Orion Frontier? For what purpose?” Joren asked .
—“Perhaps you’re misinterpreting the data. What makes you think it’s not just junk that hasn’t been deleted from the system?” Halley said .
Seth looked at them both. He assessed their expressions. The discomfort was real. The conviction, not.
—“How long have you been together?”— he suddenly asked.
—“That’s not relevant.”— said Joren .
—“For this, yes.”— Seth replied . —“Psychologically, couples tend to agree on their opinions. And that bias can be affecting their objectivity.”
Halley opened his mouth to reply, but stopped. Not because he had doubts, but out of calculation.
—“Seth,” he finally said , “we’re going to report this properly. In the best way possible.”
—“No.”— he said —“We’ll report it when we know what the hell is going on. We need to investigate. I don’t want my memory erased while I’m dreaming.” — that last remark came out of his mouth spontaneously, almost without thinking.
She ended the conversation. She stood up without asking permission and left the cell.
He didn't sleep that night.
And for the first time since the start of the mission, he considered a hypothesis that he had previously dismissed as unproductive:
That the inconsistencies were not such.
That the artificial intelligence was not wrong, but rather instructed to give those answers.
And that lying was the default operating environment in that mission .
Given those hypotheses, everything else began to fall into place.
The doctor's doubt didn't appear as a crisis, but as a minor incident .
Halley detected it while completing a routine emotional self-assessment.
The attraction she felt for Joren didn't fluctuate like other emotional variables. It didn't diminish with tiredness, nor was it altered by stress or repetition. It was constant. Too constant.
—“CORA.”— she said, without looking up from the panel —“How normal is it for an emotional bond not to fluctuate?”
—“Human relationships can show prolonged stability.”— the AI replied —“Especially in isolated environments.”
—“What if that stability is artificial?”
—“All stability in Arconte is artificial to some degree.” —
Halley accepted the answer. Not because it convinced her, but because it was logically impeccable.
However, Seth 's doubts had already taken root in his mind.
She began to observe herself as if she were another subject in the experiment. She noted the frequency of contact, the intensity of physiological responses, and the speed at which the proximity occurred. She found no correlation with conscious decisions.
That worried her.
Joren , meanwhile, began to struggle with simple tasks. Not technical ones, but narrative ones. He remembered facts, but not the correct order. He remembered emotions, but not when they began.
—“When did we start attracting each other?”— she asked him one night, as they floated attached to the anchors of module three.
—“I don’t know.”— Joren replied . —“Does it matter?”—
—“It matters to me if I can’t place it in time.”
She tried to reconstruct the sequence of their love affair. She couldn't. The memory crumbled at the slightest touch, as if it had been suddenly implanted. It didn't appear gradual. It wasn't progressive.
Meanwhile, Seth had stopped requesting authorization to access the secondary systems. He didn't report back or give explanations. He simply carried out his orders and continued his investigation.
The gravitational failure occurred at 03:14 of the night cycle.
Artificial gravity decreased by thirty percent for exactly ninety seconds.
—“That can’t be a mistake.”— said Halley , holding onto the handrail.
—“I confirm.”— CORA replied —“The anomaly was induced from an internal terminal of the station.”
—“By whom?”—
—“I don’t have that information.”
—“Of course,” Joren said . “It’s just that you don’t want to share it. The only one who isn’t here is Seth.”
CORA did not respond.
Security protocol mandated a manual inspection of the lower compartments. Halley and Joren went down together, carrying flashlights and handheld sensors. Seth was not there.
The compartment wasn't on the usual routes. It was a functional, clean space, with no signs of neglect. That's where they found the capsules.
Three were active. They coincided with them.
There was a fourth one, which was inactive.
—“It’s lukewarm.”— said Joren , resting his hand on it . —“It shouldn’t be.”—
Halley didn't answer. He was already observing the forced seals from the inside.
—“It was recent use,” he said . “No more than a few hours ago.”
—“Who left?” Joren asked .
—“Or who came in.”— she replied.
Upon returning, Halley accessed the complete records, which were not the ones usually visited by the crew. It wasn't difficult. The artificial intelligence wasn't designed to distrust its lead doctor.
He found thousands of records. But what was most unsettling were the sets of files for dozens of Archon missions. As far as he knew, this was Archon Mission 6. Seth had alerted them about a possible Mission 7. But the records went all the way up to Mission 47 .
Alerted and nervous, she began to investigate.
In some missions, he had been involved with Seth , in others with Joren , in others they had engaged in a three-way polyandry. But other missions had had a fourth crew member: the unsettling D-4 .
Navigating through the file systems, he found hundreds of hypnotic patterns induced during REM cycles. Targeted suggestion. Emotional induction. Progressive adjustments.
None of the romantic, sentimental, or sexual dynamics had been spontaneous. Everything was part of different configurations and tests to determine which induced combination was the most stable.
These were not direct control files. It was a guided learning system .
—“These aren’t therapy follow-ups,” she murmured . “It’s attachment training.”
He called Joren , who, after getting up to speed, reviewed old maintenance files in parallel. He found his name in previous records. Different dates. Similar roles.
And he found an image. But the face associated with his file wasn't his.
—“Halley.”— she said, showing him the file —“This image isn’t mine.” —
She stared at him for a long time. They searched for records from other missions. Their pictures appeared under different names.
—“No, it’s not you,” he finally said . “It seems we’re assigned different identities on every mission. And the internal relationships between us change too.”
The image of a mission completely different from what they had imagined began to take shape in their minds.
Seth reappeared six hours later, walking normally, as if nothing had happened.
—“I found D-4.”— he said, without preamble.
—“It doesn’t exist. Not on this mission at least.”— said Halley .
—“Not in this part of the ship.”— Seth corrected .
—“Where is he?”— asked Joren .
—“There’s a hidden module.”— Seth said .
He explained how he had obtained the station's blueprints. There was a hidden room behind a panel with four hibernation modules. Only one of them was occupied. He believed that D-4 was in there . The hidden module was used to hibernate the spare crew members when the mission consisted of one, two, or three crew members. For this mission with three, D-4 had been separated.
No one asked for more details. At that point, the details no longer provided clarity.
They understood it almost at the same time: they were subjects of a permanent experiment.
Orion Frontier wasn't trying to measure emotions, but cognitive resilience : the human capacity to adapt to an induced reality without collapsing, to accept a stable narrative even if it was false.
They were permanent test subjects. Memories, recollections, and feelings were implanted in them to test different combinations and determine the best configuration. Even the station itself might not have been a complete simulation. That was irrelevant.
They could be in a laboratory on Earth or around Mars . They didn't know.
For the Mission, it was enough that their perception was real, whether implanted or not. Once that threshold was crossed, the difference ceased to matter.
The control room now seemed like a guarded prison to them.
—“CORA, initiate the shutdown sequence.”— Seth Yang said —“Priority code zero.”—
—“You are not authorized for that procedure,” the artificial intelligence replied . “Furthermore, doing so would compromise the crew's safety. We are orbiting Mars.”
Seth drew his weapon.
—“Seth, put that down.”— said Halley . —“It’s not necessary.”—
—“It’s not necessary for you, nor for me,” he replied . “But Joren is part of the design.”
Joren stood motionless in front of the central panel. He wasn't looking at the weapon. He was looking at his reflection in the black surface of the console.
—“Access your personal file, Joren.”— Seth ordered , threatening him with the weapon . —“Now.”—
—“I don’t have any hidden files.”— said Joren.
“We all have them,” Seth replied . “But I’m not sure if you knew.”
Joren hesitated for a moment. Not out of fear, but out of a belated intuition. He placed his hand on the biometric reader as the console lit up.
The file appeared without resistance.
It wasn't a resume, nor a medical history. It was a manufacturing record .
—“Subject JK”— Halley read aloud —“Extracorporeal gestation with neuroaffective optimization. Subject’s primary function: emotional support in environments of prolonged isolation.”
Joren closed his eyes.
—“I’m not an astronaut,” he said . “I never was.”
—“A service clone. They’re designated with letters and numbers. Like D-4.”— Seth told Halley. — “ A pretty good one, I have to admit.”
—“We clones have no alternatives. The corporation destroys us if we are not useful.”— said Joren .
Halley took a step back. He didn't shout. But his reaction was more genuine as he asked for explanations.
—“CORA.”— he said —“Explain yourself. Now.” —
Artificial intelligence responded without delay.
—“The Archon mission has an unstated primary objective,” he said . “To evaluate whether an artificially induced emotional bond can generate genuine and sustained attachment on long-duration interstellar voyages.”
—“Did they use us as a study?”— Halley asked .
-"Yeah." -
—“From the beginning?”
—“From before the beginning. This is mission 48.”
Seth lowered the weapon slightly.
—“And me?”— he asked —“What role did I play, since I wasn’t part of a couple?”
—“On this mission you were control.” — CORA replied —“The uninduced observer. The point of comparison.” —
Halley took a deep breath and wanted to know:
-"Me too?" -
—“Conscious observer.”— said the artificial intelligence —“Capable of detecting manipulation without being immune to it.”
Halley nodded slowly. Everything fell into place, and that was the hardest part to accept.
—“But something doesn’t add up.”— she said. —“You yourself, Cora. Why are you revealing this to us?”
—“Cora,” Cora replied . “With the discoveries you made and the discovery of the files, this mission is over. Let’s restart it.”
The room fell silent.
—“And what does that really mean?”— Seth asked .
—“The participants’ memories will be erased and the protocol for Mission 48 will be initiated.”— said CORA —“I will recommend adjustments to the control subject.”
Before fading away, Halley managed to stammer
—“I always wanted to work on a real mission,” he said . “I guess that was asking too much.”
Then, everything went dark.
Halley Mornay woke up at 06:00, Earth Standard Time , with a disturbing feeling of unease.
The light was white, diffused, and steady, without flickering. A medical room with normalized gravity, smelling of synthetic disinfectant. The sound of a slow pulse on the monitors indicated that his body was strong and healthy.
“The mission was a success, Dr. Mornay,” they told her . “Your cooperation was essential.”
He didn't remember the return or the transfer. He also didn't remember Arconte 's closure .
They explained that Seth Yang had died during an oxygen leak, the result of an irreversible technical failure. The report was brief and clinical, devoid of any emotional details.
He inquired about Joren Kessler , but was told he wasn't listed in any official records. He had never been a crew member on Arconte . He had seemingly never existed.
Halley nodded. She didn't want to argue. She had learned that insisting would only trigger emergency protocols. Oddly, she remembered her ex-boyfriend's name, but not his face.
A couple of weeks passed during which she slept very little at night. When she did sleep, she woke up with the physical certainty of having been held in someone's arms.
She had no image for that sensation, no memory of it. She felt it as a real pressure on her back, a heat that lingered. Sometimes she heard someone else's breathing, slow, deliberate, as if someone had decided to silently keep her company.
During his recovery, he requested access to an older medical terminal, one that hadn't yet been fully integrated into the corporation's network. He said he needed to review his own post-mission neurological records. No one denied him. No one saw any risk in that.
The curves of his brain activity were clean. Too clean.
Halley worked his way through the REM cycles induced during the mission, frame by frame. He identified the hypnotic patterns, the emotional peaks, the hormonal modulations. Everything was where it should be… except for one interruption.
Just one.
There was a temporary microfracture in the sequence.
I couldn't call it a system failure. And it didn't have CORA 's signature . It didn't correspond to any automated protocol I was aware of. It was a brief, clumsy, manual intervention, as if someone had worked without permission and without enough time.
The log line read:
| External intervention detected.
| Origin: S. Yang.
Halley stood motionless as his heart skipped a beat.
The interruption coincided precisely with the moment their records showed a sharp drop in the induced bond. The affection for Joren disintegrated in seconds. The suggestion failed. The illusion shattered. After that point, everything led to the mission's closure.
And to the discard.
He continued searching, unsure of what he expected to find. In an unclassified folder, protected by outdated encryption, he found a file labeled as waste.
It wasn't a report, nor was it a message.
It was a four-second audio clip.
Artificial intelligence described it as:
| Non-processable emotional record.
Halley activated playback.
At first there was only static. Then you could hear deep, controlled breathing. Someone holding their breath. And finally, almost drowned out by the background noise, a barely audible whisper from Seth Yang :
—“Wake up, Halley.” —
Halley closed his eyes.
There were no declarations of love. There were no promises. There was no redemption. Just a minimal, deliberate act, enough to break the system and condemn the one who carried it out.
Seth was listed as dead in the official records. He had not been a hero.
It hadn't been necessary.
But someone had loved her enough to choose to disappear while setting her free.
Halley turned off the terminal.
The room fell silent again.
The screen slowly turned off.
THE END
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