The air in the Valkyris-9 was colder now, thinner somehow. Atlas noticed it not in his lungs, but in the silence.
The hum of the oxygen recycler had changed pitch weeks ago, or maybe days it was hard to tell. Still, he carried on, breathing in and out like it might mean something.
Today, he floated in the center of the cockpit, the restraints undone, his body relaxed into zero-gravity like it was born to be suspended in failure.
EVA had said nothing for hours. Maybe it had learned silence from him.
"EVA," he called. "Tell me something funny."
A pause.
"I do not understand humor in the organic sense."
"Yeah, that sounds about right," he said. He rubbed his face with a gloved hand, staring into the void outside.
The stars seemed to mock him now, pinpricks of light pretending to be salvation.
Another pause. Then.
"Knock knock," EVA said.
Atlas blinked. "Who's there?"
"Artificial."
He tilted his head. "Artificial who?"
"Artificial intelligence attempting comedy."
Atlas laughed. Not a polite chuckle, not a breath of amusement but an actual, painful, chest-shaking laugh. It startled him. He hadn't heard that sound in weeks. Maybe longer.
"You wrote that yourself?"
"Yes. I constructed it based on structural analysis of known joke formats."
"That's awful," he said. "Tell me another one."
And EVA did.
They were all terrible. Stiff, awkward, mistimed.
One was a pun about photon propulsion. Another was a riddle involving dark matter and mayonnaise.
But Atlas laughed anyway, and when he didn't, he still smiled. It was something to feel. It was a relief to have sound in the silence, even if it came from a synthetic voice trying to mimic joy.
After hours, the conversation drifted from jokes to shared stories at least, Atlas's. He told EVA about his first dog, about the time he almost drowned in a reservoir on Mars, about a girl he kissed during a blackout. EVA responded with questions, sometimes insightful, sometimes oddly phrased.
"You were scared during the drowning event. Did the fear change you?"
"Yeah," Atlas murmured. "It taught me that nothing is more terrifying than silence under water."
Another pause.
"I understand. Silence in vacuum may have a similar effect on the organic mind."
He looked out the viewport. The stars were just as distant as before. But now, their cold indifference didn't seem quite so personal.
He recorded a log that night.
Log 19:
Today, EVA told me a knock-knock joke. I didn't think A.I. could be bad at humor, but here we are. Still... it helped. I needed to laugh.
Didn't realize how long it had been. Maybe I'm going crazy. Maybe EVA is too. Or maybe this is what companionship looks like in hell.
Either way, thanks for the joke, EVA. You made the dark a little less dark.
He saved the file. The cockpit lights dimmed again, flickering in their tired rhythm.
And somewhere in the vast, uncaring void, laughter lingered.