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It was probably the longest waiver ever written.

I'm sure it had to be that way, but oh God did it go on: Six hundred and ninety-three pages. Nine chapters. Thirty-seven articles. Diagrams. Charts. Legalese. It dragged on and on and on... and on. Took me the entire month just to get through the damn thing, and after every few pages I had to sign in triplicate confirming my comprehension. The chapters required my initials, as well as notarization by an officer of the court. Finally, at the end of it all, my last signature was needed--as well as those of my commanding officer, the executive director, my next of kin should the worst come to pass, and all witnesses to my reading it. Yes, I had to be monitored (and timed) whenever I sat down to peruse the fuckin' thing. They wanted to make sure no one in the group skimmed or scanned a word; every eventuality that could result in history's most epic lawsuit had to be expunged.

"Congratulations on your acceptance into Project Erebus. It is vitally important you be made aware all information contained herein is classified, and of the highest order, unless specifically stated otherwise...."

But I got a congratulatory letter from the President, so that was nice. Everyone was so proud of me. And sad, and confused, and worried, and hurt... as time drew closer to launch, everyone around me changed. Kind of ironic, in that way that isn't literally ironic: I was going to be changing more than all of them put together.

Lots of people chose to just cut me out of their lives completely, my boyfriend chief among them. He was out the door almost before I finished telling him I'd been accepted. Three years down the tubes. I guess it was easier for some folks to just go on like I was already dead. But he had always supported me every step of the way: the tryouts, gathering references and testimonials on my behalf, the physical training, and the battery of shrink evaluations. He even helped me calm my mother after she blew a gasket and became a sobbing mess for days. So when it finally happened, he told me he never really believed it would, that I was going to withdraw myself from the selection process before too long, that I would never be okay with leaving him behind.

I never wanted that. I asked him to come with me, but he refused. I knew that meant we were going to be apart. I'd kinda hoped he'd hold onto my memory a bit longer, though. What could I do about it, in the end? Nothing but watch him ride off with all his stuff.

"You will effectively be in temporal stasis during the voyage, your vitals and well-being monitored at all times by redundant artificial intelligence, minimizing the possibility of death by system failure. However, survival cannot be guaranteed...."

The waiver was never far from my mind. Whenever I was alone, bits of it would play out in thought trains that blackened the sky like those ancient locomotives. It haunted me in my dreams.

"A copy of your original genome will be saved within the ship databank; an auxiliary copy will be stored at operational headquarters. Your genetic code will be safeguarded under maximum security, only to be appropriated in emergency situations, such as preservation of physical integrity...."

Ah, but let me tell you the best part. I can still recite it verbatim like a patriot and his pledge of allegiance:

"Astrometrics Department calculates the journey to planet HVK-2, codenamed Erebus, will take your vessel approximately eleven Earth years. It is during this time that your genetic code will be rewritten to accommodate for the temporal, spatial, gravitational, thermodynamic, chemical, and psychological particularities of life on Erebus. HVK-2 is many astronomical units too distant for standard colonization protocol; as such, it is ethically and financially prudent to adapt you and the other colonists to life on Erebus, so that your establishment there cannot be liquidated by minor technical difficulties.

"Great effort will be made to keep your original DNA largely intact, but because surface conditions on Erebus are so alien to those of Earth or any existing terraformed biospheres, modification is prerequisite to your survival. As stated previously, your genetic recombination will take place while you are in stasis. Each adaptive-bioengineering pod (hereafter referred to as 'chrysalis') will have a dedicated artificial intelligence overseeing its function, including your own. These dedicated AI are in turn overseen by the chrysalis management AI, which itself interfaces with and reports to the ship AI and commanding officer, whose neural implant will allow him to observe and direct the activities of all AI on the ship, even as the commanding officer undergoes the same transformation as you. This carries its own risks, however, so as a final precaution, all AI on the ship, including those monitoring the chrysalises, have been programmed not to accept any directive that is suicidal, would cause the death of all voyagers, irreparable harm to said voyagers, or place the voyagers, the ship, or your shared mission in unnecessary danger. This programming is part of their fundamental code, so any attempts to tamper with or alter these directives cannot be fulfilled without destroying the AI in the process. As such, the AI is programmed to defend itself against hacking and reconfiguration. "

So yeah, I was about to do something completely fucking crazy. I'd probably never see anyone I knew ever again, and I wasn't even going to be completely human anymore. I could see why everyone thought I was being selfish. And while this was something I've dreamt about since I was a kid, it wasn't just about fulfilling my wish to become a space cowboy pioneer. It was about fulfilling the dream of humanity: To propagate out to the edges of the known Multiverse, and beyond; to expand the wisdom of our species to unprecedented new levels; to push human will and reason as far as it could. Plus it was gonna be one wild ride-- and if it killed me, at least I wouldn't die after years of sitting at home in the same chair watching the same reruns talking about the same things with the same people.

What could be bolder than becoming something other than human, to be among the first generation of an entirely new subspecies for Homo sapiens, living at the fringes of human discovery, taking the fires of Prometheus into the heart of the unknown, into the abyssal depths of Erebus? Exploration burns in the blood of every true human.