No Hugs for Holographic Fathers

By Robert E. Harpold

Takuji clutched Indra’s hand as they watched the holographic representation of their child’s emerging head. Soft beeps from the bedside monitor blended into the ethereal music and lavender-scented air.

Two minutes and twenty-seven seconds left.

The nurse waited at the foot of the delivery bed. “Push.”

Indra sat propped in a half-sitting position with pillows at her back, her face a picture of Zen contentment. She pushed. The holographic baby’s head ducked back inside, then reemerged with Indra’s next push. Tak brought his head closer to the hologram, as though it would help him see better.

The hospital room blinked out. Tak stumbled and reached behind him in the dim light, catching himself on the thin bed. Staring at him from the opposite wall was his tokonoma, with Japanese characters on its digital scroll surrounded by plastic cherry blossoms. He was back in his tiny apartment on Mars.

“No no no no no...” Ansible must have dropped out. His son would be born in one minute and forty-three seconds, and Tak was 200 million kilometers away.

He tripped over the bed as he dashed to the nightstand to grab the blinking transmitter. Signal had cut out again. Network issue, mechanical issue, didn’t matter which. The ansible was costing him one of the most important moments of his life.

One minute and twenty-two seconds. He shook the transmitter, tapped it. Nothing. One minute. He might have to call IT to fix it, but the call could take an hour, and then he would have missed everything.

Thirty seconds. He picked up the transmitter. Still blinking red. He tapped it again, then slapped it. Then again. A quick check on his phone confirmed a temporary overload in a relay.

The blinking red changed to a steady green. His surroundings snapped back to those of the delivery room in Phoenix, Arizona.

Indra leaned back on the bed, clutching their baby boy to her chest and smiling like a saint. The boy, Tak’s son, squalled while clutching his mother.

Tak had missed it. His son emerging into the world. Indra seeing their child for the first time. That first instant when she held their baby. Indra’s mother was right: long-distance relationships didn’t work because he would miss weddings and birthdays and family gatherings and every important event. He would constantly fail Indra and the child.

Tak rushed across the room, dodging one nurse deactivating the baby hologram and another cleaning the edge of the bed, but couldn’t avoid the one on the way to clamp the cord. The nurse passed right through his arm. On all of Earth, only Indra had synced her implant with his. Only she would ever feel him.

Tak stopped beside the bed and put a hand on Indra’s shoulder, caressing her clammy skin. She pressed baby Pranil to her chest. Maybe one day, there would be a second person who would sync with Tak.

Indra looked up and smiled. “Just like our first date. Remember when you blinked out on me, and I thought you’d already gotten bored?”

Tak forced a laugh. Losing moments on their first date had been bad enough, but he had just missed his son’s birth.

Indra put her hand on his. “We’re really doing this, aren’t we?”

Tak on Mars, Indra and Pranil on Earth. His genes mixed with hers, cobbled together from her egg and a digital file of his genome sent over ansible, the first baby conceived this way. It seemed like a miracle, but it was just science. “We’re doing this.”

Indra patted little Pranil’s back. “Isn’t he ruggedly handsome?”

“Our little mountaineer.”

The boy clenched a golf-ball-sized fist. One day, those fingers would haul their son up a mountainside. Those tiny feet would nestle in boots as Pranil hiked a trail in Arizona’s natural beauty.

“I’m going to be there,” said Tak.

“Hmm?”

“I’m so sorry I missed our son’s birth.” Tak held Indra’s hand and put his other hand on Pranil’s shoulder. “I let down our family. But I won’t miss another important moment. I promise.”

Tak emerged from the tent, stepping through its nylon walls like a ghost, willing Pranil to follow. The boy was taking forever putting on his boots and was missing the Grand Canyon’s majesty. The Sun poked above the desert horizon, oranges and reds in bands above the chiseled rock on the opposite side of the valley, hinting at secrets of the canyon’s formation. It was almost as beautiful as Hellas Planitia and, surprisingly, almost as untouched by technology, other than the miniscule nanites throughout the atmosphere that allowed him to visit this place at all, even as just a hologram.

A few steps away, Indra knelt beside the portable stove. She was the most efficient person he knew. The eggs sizzled alongside the potatoes for her sali par edu, and she had set out a cup of tea.

In all their years together, Tak had never cooked a meal for Indra or their son. He had never vacuumed the house or cleaned the dishes or mowed the lawn. An ansible could only do so much, and even if he managed to save enough to move to Earth, the gravity would crush him.

So, Tak did the only job he could do. “Come on, Pranil. You’re missing it.”

Pranil unzipped the tent and stepped outside, his short legs unsteady in their hiking boots. He didn’t even glance at the scenery.

“Dad.” Pranil stared at him with the intensity of an adult pronouncing a profound truth about the world. “When can we go home? I want to play Truck Striker.”

Tak was still lagged from the offset between Arizona’s and Mars Colony’s time zones and would work overnight shifts at the hydroponics tanks next week on top of his geology fieldwork to compensate for this vacation, and Pranil wanted to play another videogame. “But we’re at the Grand Canyon now. Do you know how limestone is formed?”

Pranil gave him a look usually reserved for an action figure that had lost favor. “So, we’re not going home, then.”

“Limestone is formed from the ocean,” said Tak. “Minerals precipitate out of the water and form rocks over millions of years. You can see it all over the Grand Canyon. Your mother did her dissertation here. She can point out all the limestone to you.”

Pranil walked past Tak and gave Indra a perfunctory hug. He had stopped trying to hug Tak years ago.

While Indra continued cooking, Pranil wandered toward the cliff. Tak followed, his back and legs stiff from long hours at the community hydro-tanks during the week. The drop-off in this area had no guardrail, which meant an inattentive visitor could easily plummet over a kilometer down, bouncing off rocks and shrubs on the way.

“What did you find, Pranil?”

Pranil looked over his shoulder and gave Tak the grin that meant trouble. Then he burst into a run, his little legs pumping like a drunken sprinter’s. He would reach the edge in moments.

“Pranil! Stop!”

Maybe the boy only meant to scare Tak. Maybe he meant to trick Tak into running off the cliff and having to reset his connection. Tak couldn’t take the chance. He gave pursuit.

With his longer legs, he closed the distance in seconds. He reached for Pranil. His fingers closed around the upper arm... and slipped right through. Pranil kept running. Only a few steps left.

“Pranil! Stop!”

Maybe Pranil tried to stop. It was hard to tell from behind. But he tripped, falling to the ground and skidding forward. Dirt kicked up behind him. Tak stood, frozen in place, helpless as his son slid toward the cliff.

Pranil’s slide came to a halt a meter from the edge. He curled into a ball, clutching his knee and moaning. Indra sprinted past Tak and leaped to the ground beside Pranil. She wrapped herself around him and pulled him to his feet. Pranil clung to her with desperation.

And, as always, Tak watched.

Indra led a stunned Pranil back to the tent, wiping the dirt from his knees and promising bandages. Tak followed and sat beside the stove.

The eggs were burnt.

Tak sat beside Indra on the thin bed in his tiny apartment, his jumpsuit chafing his legs, as he stared at his tokonoma on the opposite wall with its digital scroll and plastic hydrangeas. Pranil was already twenty minutes late.

“He’ll be here.” Indra’s wrinkles, or ‘smile lines’ as she called them, had entrenched themselves in her face. Her hair had gone mostly gray. Her eyes, though, still sparkled with that same mischievousness, and every muscle in her body thrummed with energy. She raised her wine glass to him, the loose sleeves of her kameez dangling.

He tried to clink his glass against hers, but they passed through each other. “Cheers.”

“We did it.” Indra took a sip. “We raised a kid. He graduated. You on Mars, me on Earth, despite what our families said, we did it.”

When they had become pen pals in high school, he had never expected it would lead to decades of marriage and a child. They had clicked from those early messages, and he had gathered the nerve to ask her out despite living 200 million kilometers away. “We did it.”

He kissed her. Softly at first, then he pressed harder, running his hand from the back of her kameez to her legs.

Indra laughed. “He’ll be here soon.”

“He’ll learn a valuable lesson about what can happen when he’s late.” Tak kissed her again.

“Remember when we were on our third date, and we were making out in my room, and—”

“And your mother...” Tak laughed.

“She didn’t know I was on a date, and no one was in my room, so she opened the door, and...”

It was like none of those years had passed.

Then Indra pulled away. “He won’t have to see you anymore if he doesn’t want to.”

Tak coughed. “What?”

“Pranil’s an adult now. It’ll be his choice.”

“Did he say he doesn’t want to?”

“No, he never said anything like that. It’s just... Sometimes, you can see he’s thinking you’re trying too hard.”

Indra was right. Tak felt pushy, insisting Pranil skip a sleepover for family time or forcing him to go on all those camping trips. Maybe, instead of creating a closer bond, he’d pushed Pranil away.

“He’ll love this trip, though,” said Tak. “I haven’t been able to do much for him, but at least I can show him Mars.”

“Okay,” said Indra. “Let’s do Olympus. We’ll load the program.”

So that was done. At least it was a chance to spend time with Pranil, and maybe Pranil would enjoy the hike for once.

As Indra pulled out her phone to find the program, Pranil turned to Tak. “Dad, I saw your message about the implant.”

Indra raised an eyebrow.

Tak tensed. “Are you going to get it? I think it would be great for you to experience Mars like I do. You’re a man of two worlds, and an implant is a great way to embrace that. It’s safe for someone eighteen or older.”

“I just don’t think it’s what I want.” Pranil gave a sheepish grin. “I mean, after all these years, it’d be a bit weird, right? Being able to actually hug you?”

Tak wanted that hug more than anything. But Indra was right. He pushed too hard. “Yeah. Yeah, it would.”

The moment stretched on, with no one saying anything. Then the fake dust of the fake base of Fake Mount Olympus filled the room, and the moment was over.

Tak held Indra’s hand as they stood at the back of the delivery room. It was as quiet as an office, except for the soft whirring of the printer on the corner table. Pranil and his husband, Grant, peered inside the printer’s chamber, both wearing t-shirts, and Pranil, in a half-hearted nod to his mother’s culture, wore a billowy salwar instead of jeans. A technician stood to the side at a discreet distance, checking her monitor every couple minutes.

Tak leaned closer to Indra, putting his hand on her back in a gap in her sari and wishing he had something in his wardrobe other than jumpsuits. “I saved enough to buy a ticket to Earth. The planetary alignment is favorable in three more months.”

Indra’s eyes widened. She ticked off the points on her fingers. “The gravity would crush your heart and lungs. Your immune system would be so unprepared, you could die from a cold. Even if you survived, you’d never walk.”

“I found some good life-support services on Earth. Indra, I’ve never held my son, and if I don’t go, I’ll never hold my granddaughter.”

Indra squeezed his hand. He felt the pressure, felt her fingers against his scar from the explosive-decompression event two years ago. If she pushed his projection, he might stagger in reflex, but she, herself, could never move him.

Her eyes welled with tears. “I’m so sorry. But you’ll never hold her if you do come. You heard what happened when Cam Wilken came. His bones snapped like eggshells.”

“But...”

“And you know I’d be fired if I went, and Pranil would never go.” Indra hugged him. “We knew what this life would be like.”

A few steps away, Pranil and Grant watched their child being born. Tak had met Grant twice, for a few brief minutes. A major part of his son’s life, and Tak knew him less than he knew the woman at the produce-distribution center.

The printer pinged, and Tak took a step closer to peer at the screen. The progress bar showed 77% and increasing.

“Someday,” said Pranil, straightening, “we’ll be able to print a full-grown, fully developed human. I’m involved in some of the trials. Not with real babies, of course, but it’s so cool seeing the simulations emerge without going through infant or toddler stages. No baby teeth, no having to learn to crawl and walk. Their first day alive, if they wanted, they could chug a beer. But for now, we have to let biology do some of the work.”

Grant squeezed his arm.

“I still remember the day you were born, Pranil,” said Tak.

Pranil’s face reddened like the Martian dust. “Dad...”

Indra gave Tak her warning squeeze. Trying too hard again. Ruining the moment. Putting attention on the wrong person. It was one of those things, or all of them. He didn’t know which, but the solution was the same to each: Shut up.

But aloud, Indra said, “Your father has always been sentimental. It’s one of the things I still love about him after all these years.”

Pranil and Grant returned to scrutinizing the printer. The technology involved in combining their DNA was similar to that used to combine Tak’s and Indra’s. A connection between both couples, but not a meaningful connection.

The printer pinged, the door opened, and the baby appeared, quiet. Pranil and Grant picked her up, ecstasy etched into their faces.

Tak watched.

The familiar tone sounded in Tak’s head. Indra was calling, off-schedule. Tak deactivated the water-purifier and stepped away from the hydroponics tank, pretending to ignore the glares of his coworkers.

“Hey, honey.” Tak leaned against another tank, watching the kelp bob in place. “What’s going on?”

“It’s Pranil,” said Indra.

Tak couldn’t recall the last time Pranil had spoken to him. Five months ago? Longer? “Is he okay?”

“I don’t know. We were talking while he was driving, and then the call dropped. I heard a noise just beforehand. I can’t get hold of Grant.”

Tak’s mouth went dry. It might just be a simple disconnection due to a blind spot in nanite communication, but those blind spots were rarer than people being struck by lightning. Pranil could be in a ditch or halfway through his windshield. “What was his last location?”

The instant Indra sent him the final coordinates her phone had received from Pranil, Tak popped on the ansible. He didn’t know what he could do. If Pranil were caught under his car or a branch, Tak would be helpless.

It was dark when he appeared on Earth. A winding road, trees along the side. An automaton truck had overturned and blocked the road, crumpled like an aluminum can. Boxes spilled across the pavement, along with the shredded metal of the front half of a car’s engine compartment. Inside the gaping mouth of the car’s inner workings, the emergency transmitter flashed. The rest of the car, and Pranil, were nowhere on the road.

No skid marks swerved off the road. No gaps appeared in the trees, and the undergrowth looked untouched.

Tak ran to the trees and saw a gully leading down a hill. He sprinted. In moments, he could see smoke wafting from below. Then he saw the rest of the car.

The doors were caved in, tiny glass cubes scattered everywhere, and the car had flipped onto its side. Worse, it rested on a ledge several meters below a drop-off.

Tak leapt to the ledge, then rushed in through the back door and slipped into the passenger seat. Pranil slumped forward against the wheel. Blood dripped from his forehead. He groaned and turned to Tak.

“Dad?” He coughed. “Guess I’m dying if I see you here.”

“Hold on, Pranil. Help is coming.”

Pranil closed his eyes. Tak wanted to shake him, but his hands would go right through his son. Pranil was slipping away, and Tak could do nothing but watch. Always, he could only watch.

“Pranil! Stay awake!”

Pranil’s eyes snapped open. “You’re still here.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“That’s good, I guess...” Pranil glanced around him. “Must’ve been a bad accident...”

“Yeah, but you’re going to make it.” The moment Pranil needed him most, Tak could do nothing but give meaningless platitudes.

Flashing red and blue lit the sky, coming from up the hill. The EMTs had arrived. Doors slammed, and Tak could hear their voices from the distance.

“Transmitter’s here,” said one of them. “But no body.”

“Think the kid’s under the truck?”

“Shit, I hope not.”

The EMTs had gotten distracted by the wreckage and the transmitter. They might not notice the gully for several minutes. Several minutes that Pranil might not have.

“Pranil. Hold on.”

Tak disconnected, then reconnected with his coordinates reset to the road. The flashing lights were brighter now, and technicians ran scanners over the crumpled truck.

Tak stood beside the gully and waved. “Here!”

One of the techs pointed, and they both ran toward him.

“He’s on a ledge below a drop-off,” said Tak.

The techs exchanged a glance. One of them tapped her wrist, and an elevator-sized drone buzzed from the ambulance’s roof. It flew over the trees and disappeared from sight.

And so did Tak. He reconnected beside Pranil again. Pranil glanced up.

“You came back. Thanks for being here, Dad. At the end.”

“It’s... not the end.” Tak cursed himself. “I’m sorry, Pranil. I was never there for you. I missed your birth. I tried too hard. Your mother had to do everything for you. I let you down. But now... you just need to hold on. Help is coming.”

“You didn’t, Dad.” Pranil coughed. “Let me down. You were always there for me. I know we didn’t always connect or...”

Pranil’s eyes closed, and Tak thought it was over. Then Pranil blinked and took a deep breath, face twisting in pain. “Sorry, tired. You were always there, Dad. I appreciated that, and I love you for that.”

“I...” Tak felt his face redden.

“Also gave me...lot of cred at school.” Pranil grinned despite his obvious pain. “Telling my friends about my Martian geologist dad.”

A loud sound came from above. Through the car’s windshield, Tak could see the drone descending. It hovered beside the driver’s side door and extended a stretcher from beneath its body. As arms emerged from the drone to pull Pranil from the car and onto the stretcher, Pranil waved to Tak.

Tak returned to the roadside in time to see the drone carrying Pranil to the ambulance.

“He’s going to be fine, sir,” one of the techs told Tak. “Did you want to ride to the hospital?”

Tak followed them into the ambulance and, after texting Indra and Grant, sat in the back alongside the stretcher and an IV. He put a hand on Pranil’s shoulder. He couldn’t feel the shoulder, and Pranil couldn’t have felt the hand, but they both knew it was there.