Dr. Alison Starr is sobbing behind the hatch to the latrine. She must be brushing her teeth.

 

“Smile bright—”

 

It’s back. The VEIN-9 — or Volumetric Emotive Interface Network, version 9 — has been playing a thirty-second toothpaste ad on a feedback loop for the past two months. Mr. Smiley warbles from the projector in a cheerful falsetto, spinning above the grated floor, his comically oversized teeth flashing white.

 

“—sleep tight—”

 

Mission Control calls it a “glitch.” To me, Mr. Smiley is an annoyance. But to Alison, now in her eighth month of pregnancy, Mr. Smiley is an existential threat, a tormentor who must be destroyed.

 

The latch snaps, and Alison charges out of the latrine, her mouth foaming with toothpaste, coral blue eyes wild and bloodshot. Light glints off her white-gold wedding band as she hurls a wrench at the pirouetting Mr. Smiley.

 

“MR. SMILEY EVERY MORNING AND NIGHT!”

 

The wrench sails harmlessly through the hologram’s light and hits the bulkhead with a metallic clang. Mr. Smiley flickers momentarily, then keeps spinning and singing, his falsetto piercing and undeterred.

 

We tried everything. Manual overrides, counter-jingles, even the Professor's old diagnostic wand. I waved that damn thing around for weeks. Alison filed a dozen emergency tickets with the service desk. No luck. We tried rewiring the emitter array. It didn’t even make Mr. Smiley lag. I even read Frank’s dissertation on “Non-Coercive Morale Architecture,” hoping to find a clue. Nothing.

 

Earplugs had failed Alison — my crewmate, my soulmate — months ago. White noise doesn’t work. The Mr. Smiley jingle seeps through the walls, the vents, even the goddamn sleep chimes.

 

The Mr. Smiley ad is supposed to target our core demographics — mostly researchers, miners, cosmic drifters, the Outer Belt Fresh-Breath Segment — but the VEIN-9 malfunction has converted our ship into a captive, 24-hours-a-day, two-person focus group for the past two miserable months.

 

Mr. Smiley brand toothpaste (available in seven refreshing flavors) is one of 300,000 brands owned by the Lastick conglomerate of companies. I’m a third-generation Lastick man. My grandfather helped patent time travel; my mother ran the Psychic Weaponry Division until the merger with the U.S. Army in 2180.

Ah, the Eighties. Simpler times.

 

I’m a Senior VP in Intergalactic Media, which sounds glamorous, but I sell toothpaste ads in space. Don’t be impressed. Once I collect my mission bonus, Alison and I can vanish somewhere quiet with our child. No brands. No slogans. Just real smiles for a change.

 

Truth is, Alison keeps this whole mission from collapsing. She revises my compliance reports so the Board can’t weaponize my typos. She recalibrates my stress metrics every night so Headquarters doesn’t flag me for “declining enthusiasm.” She’s the one who rewrites my quarterly objectives in language the algorithm understands. “More specific verbs,” she whispers over recycled coffee. “Less passive doom.” She even moderates my daily sync calls so the brand team doesn’t hear how tired I sound. Alison tells them it’s a latency issue on the outer belt uplink.

 

They always believe her.

 

Alison staggers into MedUnit-7 and straps herself in.

 

“Maternal heart rate elevated,” she reads aloud. “Cortisol 2.3 above baseline. Fetal arrhythmia detected.”

 

Mr. Smiley is killing her. Endangering our child.

 

I kiss the crown of Alison’s head. “We’ll fix this,” I whisper.

 

“How?” she asks, trembling.

 

“What about repurposing thermal dampeners to make a jingle firewall?”

 

“No,” says Alison. “We need Frank.”

 

She’s right. There’s no other choice.

 

I hold Alison’s hand while I still can.

 

The Professor is the MIT contractor who created VEIN-9. The man was brilliant but unstable. I accused him of rewriting the morale algorithm without clearance, and I notified Mission Control that he was a threat and posed a risk to the mission. As commander, I had a moral responsibility to act. Once Alison corroborated my report, we followed protocol. First, sedation. Then, cryo-sleep. I can still picture Frank’s palm pressed flat against the glass as the lid descended and steam filled the chamber.

 

At 0900, Mission Control pings.

 

“Commander Rusk,” the synthetic voice says. “Reversing containment is not recommended.”

 

“I realize that, sir.”

 

“You submitted the red flag incident yourself.”

 

Behind me, Alison is unconsciously mouthing the jingle.

 

“Affirmative,” I say.

 

A pause. The Mission Control supervisor nods. “Very well, commander. Permission to initiate reheat sequence is authorized.”

 

Alison and I walk to the cargo bay. She steadies herself on the walls; her ring catches the corridor light. I pretend not to notice.

 

The cryo-sleep pod rests under a crust of frost, humming faintly in the green light.

 

“Ready?” I ask.

 

“No,” she whispers. “But do it anyway.”

 

I punch in the code. The green light turns amber, then red.

 

“Reheat sequence activated,” intones the bot.

 

Steam spills from vents. Frost melts in rivulets. Blue pulses throb beneath the lid in slow, mechanical breaths.

 

Alison stands rigid. Last time she saw Frank awake, he was pleading through the haze of sedatives. She kept her eyes on me instead.

 

A cold mist curls along the deck. The hatch unseals with a soft sigh.

 

Frank Starr sits upright: pale, blinking, shivering.

 

I nod. “Good morning, Professor Starr.”

 

His gaze is searching, confused at first, until it fixes on me.

“Where’s my wife?” Frank demands.

 

Alison inhales sharply.

 

“I’m right here, Frank,” she says softly, handing him his glasses. “We have some things to talk about, but—”

 

Mr. Smiley sings from the corridor: 

“Smile bright—”

 

Alison clamps her hands over her ears and screams.

 

Frank winces. “That shouldn’t be happening.”

 

“No kidding,” I manage.

 

Alison steps toward him, uncertain, brave.

 

“Frank—”

 

“Smile bright—”

 

VEIN-9 glitches and spits a single warped note through the corridor speaker.

 

Alison screams and covers her ears.

 

I steady myself and feel my facial muscles contort into the expression that has closed deals, soothed investors, and sold a thousand lies.

 

I flash my winningest smile.

 

“We need your help.”