Tag: scifi

Colony Constructors

During my last trip through the dark, I was paired with the newest recruit for the second shift. Second shift is the boring middle months after the ship has left one system but before it reaches the next. There were other crew members out of cryro at the time but the foreman had asked me to mentor Joanne on the ship systems.

After five minutes of watching numbers on display screens, I asked her a question, “So, why did you join this mission?”

She looked out the viewport at the stars and said, “I wanted to explore a new world.”

I laughed, “You do know new planets are mapped and explored by satellites and rovers, right?”

“Yeah, but is it really explored if no humans have been there before?”

“Yes. It doesn’t matter if I see a rock or if a robot sees it. It’s been seen. Anyways we aren’t an exploration mission. There aren’t any manned exploration missions.”

Joanne sighed, “I know. This mission was the closest I could find.”

“You’re not going to have a lot of time to ‘explore’.” I counted off items on my fingers. “We have ten habs, fifteen farms, ten labs, and six storage buildings to set up before the colonists arrive. And then the real work of getting the colony running starts.”

“Still we get to be the first people on a new world. That’s still something.”

I couldn’t help smiling. “I wish I had half your spirit.”

“Why did you sign up for this mission then?”

“Same reason I signed up for the last ten colony missions: I wanted to build something.”

“You never wanted to settle down, have kids?”

“Thought about it but I wanted to travel and Colony Constructor is strictly a single person’s job. Children were straight out of the picture.”

She pointed an excited finger at me. “Ah! So, you do have some of the explorer spirit in you.”

“Maybe a little but after you see a few planets it starts to wan. We go where life is possible, which means Earth-like planets, which means they all kind of look the same.”

“There’s still some stuff to discover on these planets,” she countered.

“Yeah, but we don’t get to stick around to discover it. If you really want to pioneer a new world, you should have applied for immigration and joined a colony.”

“I might do that someday but first I want to see a few planets first.”

“Don’t wait too long or you’ll end up like me,” I warned her.

“You’re not that old.”

“Physically I’m only old enough to be your aunt but relativistic time dilation means I’ve outlived everyone I knew on earth.” I paused thinking about the distant family members that were still on earth that I barely knew. “This is my last mission. Next time I ship out will be as a colonist.”

“What will you do then?” Joanne asked.

“I’m going to build something new.”

The Bad News, The Good News, and The Ugly Truth

The courtroom looked completely ordinary, except for the reptilian aliens. The jury box was filled with twelve brutish crocodile smiling creatures jammed into the human-sized chairs. On either side of the box I was sat in, two more leathery creatures sat at the defense and prosecution tables. Behind us, an audience of similar gecko aliens sat in the audience. Before us behind the raised dais was the judge, twice as wide as the jurors, flat-faced, plates of bone shifted over their shoulders. Their voice was raspy, dark, and ear shaking.
“Present the case against humanity.”

-The Bad News-

One of the lizard aliens stood. I felt a shiver run up my spine. Thoughts and memories began to pop into my mind. They appeared projected in the air in front of me changing too fast for me to really see. All I got were quick impressions.

Sexism. Racism. Acid in pools. Bigotry. Intolerance. Oil spills. Clear cut forests. Nuclear waste. Greed. Over-fishing. Guns, jets, tanks. War. Hiroshima. Nagasaki.

“That will be enough,” the judge said with a nod. The alien prosecutor sat back down. “Present the defense of humanity.”

-The Good News-

The other alien rose to their feet and again my memories were raided and displayed.

Friends holding hands. Babies laughing. Babies smiling. Babies crying. Babies. Family eating together. Communities banding together after disasters. Children on playgrounds. Sunsets. Rainbows. Dancing. Hugs.

“That will be all,” the judge said. “I will now pass judgment.”

“Wait,” I said. “Don’t I get to say anything?” The audience began squealing and squeaking among themselves.

“Quiet! Quiet!” the judge yelled. Silence retook the courtroom. “This is irregular but I will allow it.”

-The Ugly Truth-

I stood shakily in my box.

“You have looked at my memories of the good and bad things humans have done to ourselves, to our world but we are so much more than just the good and the bad things. We have potential to be more if you give us more time.” I paused trying to think of more to say. No bolt of inspiration hit me, so I sat back down.

“Your words have been heard and added to the record. It is the judgment of this court that Earth shall remain on the restricted contact list. Humanity will be reassessed in fifty galactic standard years. The human will be returned with their memory wiped of these proceedings.”

“You’re not going to blow up the Earth or wipe out all of humanity?” I asked.

The judge turned to look directly at me, “Of course not, we’re not humans after all.”

You Get To Choose

I scrolled through the contacts on my phone looking for someone who still owed me a favor. The past week had been a hectic sprint from safehouse to safehouse while I voided debts in exchange for sanctuary. Now I was stuck in a motel room that I knew wouldn’t be safe for more than the night. By tomorrow they would know where I was. I was done. Tomorrow I would turn myself over to my boss and hope for a quick death. All because I’d made a minor miscalculation that ended up costing my boss not only a large amount of money but also their reputation.

Unless …

I stripped the case off my phone and popped open its back cover. Inside was a business card, white, matte finish, and blank. “If you ever find yourself backed into an impossible corner, you can use this to get out but afterwards you work for us.” I just needed to write down a place and time. It could be any place at any time so long as the room was empty before I chose it.

I wrote down the motel’s name, my room number, and added five minutes to the current time. I stepped outside and set a five-minute timer on my phone. After what seemed like a lot less than five minutes my phone began buzzing. I turned back to the door to my room and stopped hand on the knob. Was this really what I wanted to do? No, but I had exhausted every other option. I had no more favors to call in nor friends to back me up.

I hesitated another minute, straining to think of some way to not have to walk through the door. Finally, I gave in and turned the knob and pushed the door open. Inside an old woman sat at the small table by the window playing with triangular cards. She looked up and smiled.

“Took you long enough. Would you like to know your future?” She chuckled. Her face though lined and wrinkled was still as familiar as the one I saw in the mirror. The few gray hairs I had started to notice around my temples had replaced her entire head of hair.

“How old are you?” I asked. I sat down opposite her.

“Hmm, let’s see.” She flicked her wrist and a display projected from her bracelet onto her forearm. “According to this, I’m one hundred and eighty-three years and some months old.”

“How?”

“One of the perks of time travel is you can always go to when medicine is best. I’m due for another rejuvenation in a couple of years. If I keep up with them, I might make three hundred. It’s a shame the tech was only available for twenty years.”

“What happened?”

“A collapse. Like always. Nothing lasts. A war or an economic crisis or revolution. Things get better then they get worst and then they get better in a different way. Over and over. You’ll see when you take your tour of time.”

I was silent, watching sadness and anger and disappointment wash across her face. After a moment, she resumed her card game.

“So, I need help,” I said.

“Of course you need help and we’re here to help you.”

“We?” The door opened and a woman in heavy body armor walked in. Her boots thudded on the floor as she walked to take a position behind the old woman. Beneath her visor, I could see a familiar smirk.

“That was unnecessarily dramatic,” the old woman said to the armored woman.

“The kid likes drama otherwise we wouldn’t be here.”

“How are you going to help me?” I asked.

“However you need us to. I can provide medium to far combat support. Or supply you with weapons and training if you’d prefer,” the armored woman said.

“I can give you guidance and advice,” the older woman said.

The door opened again and another woman, younger than me, wearing a black business suit walked in carrying a briefcase. Her heels clicked on the floor as she walked to the side of the card table.

“Or we can just pay off your debt.” She set the briefcase on the table and opened it. Inside it was filled with neat stacks crisp banded high-value bills. More than enough to save my life.

“You’re younger than me?” I asked.

“Yes, I didn’t wait as long to use my card.” From a pocket inside her jacket, she pulled out a white card with writing in blue ink on it.

“But aren’t you me? How can you be younger than me?” The old woman pulled out a card with flowing purple words. The armored woman’s card had brown stains around neatly printed black ink numbers.

She smiled. “The multiverse is much bigger than you think. You’ll learn about that doing your orientation year. So, what do you want to do?”

“I get to choose?”

“Of course it’s your future that you’re shaping.”

Space Spies

The ceiling spins overhead. They’ve given her too much of whatever drug they are using these days to loosen the lips of enemy spies. She’s too disorientated to understand their questions but still, they ask. “Who gives you orders? What was your last mission? How many targets have you eliminated? What is the launch capability of your nation? How many space capable landers do you have?”

After three hours, she the drug begins to lose its effect and starts to answer their questions by narrating her life’s story. I was born to poor farmers in the eastern providence. “When I was ten I skinned my leg riding down a hill on a sled. At twelve, I was advanced two grades and then another three a week later. I was disappeared from my family when I was fourteen. I saw the curvature of our world from space at seventeen.” Another two hours pass in this way, the two conversations fighting for volume.

Then she gets one hand free from her restraints. In the struggle to re-secure her, a guard loses his gun. The lights explode and darkness buries the room. The door cracks open. Two shots force it closed.

“When I was eighteen, I ‘joined’ the program. I was the best shot in my class with the highest marks for accuracy. I’ve killed for my ‘homeland’. For my people. For a cause that I believed in. I killed to escape all of it. I’m here to defect, which I would have told you if you hadn’t drugged me.” The gun drops to the ground. “Can I get some coffee?”

***

Five years earlier, she sits in a ruined sanctuary, turned by the war into just another abandoned building among a city of abandoned buildings. The sanctuary was abandoned before the city. The regime had no need for a higher power. The altar is gone. The symbols are stripped from the walls. The pews trashed for firewood. The chair for the orator remains. She sits in it gazing at the pendant on her necklace, a symbol of a faith she barely knew. Her captain and co-pilot find her there.

“You come here too often,” her co-pilot says. She distrusts her the most.

“Only when I need too.”

“Our mission is a go. Launch at 1834 hours. Be ready,” her captain says.

“Will you wait a minute while I pray for us.”

“The gods are dead. No one believes in them anymore,” her co-pilot says.

“I don’t know if I believe in them but I remember them.”

“The Regime has no need for the gods,” her captain says. She places a hand on her shoulder. “But in our line of work, we can not turn down an help.”

She nods and bows her head. Two minutes later they leave together.

***

The launch goes off without a hitch. Sub-orbital insertion by the numbers. On and off the enemy radar before their trajectory can be tracked. Their lander blends into early morning traffic disguised as an RV. Four hours later they are in position.

They know target’s name, description, daily routines, job description, friends ranked by trust, pet’s names, and extended family tree. He is a scientist in the enemy’s space program. One that is obviously close to a breakthrough. This can not be allowed.

She takes her shot. Five hours later they rendezvous with the stealth submarine to return home.

***

After they return home, she sits alone in the ruined sanctuary and wonders how the Regime spies can know so much about their targets. Everything about their lives is neatly typed up in file folders referenced and cross-referenced. How can they know so much? Do they have a file on me with as much detail? Do they know what I think about while sitting in this desecrated place of worship? Does it even matter as long as the Regime knows what is right? As long I follow the Regime all will be ok. Right?

***

Many years later, after more missions, after defecting, after the final war, after peace is declared, she is once more preparing for a launch. Their goal is orbit and then farther out. The lander is just a box to get them to space and back.

“When I was a space spy assassin for the Regime,” she tells the technicians, “Our lander could function as an RV after we landed.” They laugh at her and she laughs with them.

“You should not share old secrets so freely,” her old captain tells her. She never defected but after the war, travel and exchange of knowledge opened up.

“The Regime is dead and their secrets are now ours to spread even if no one believes us.” She pauses to stare at the lander. “No matter what they told us, we weren’t saving the world or even our homeland; just slowing down the future.”

“We’re building the future now.”

“Yes, we are.”

Ghostly Defense

The world watched live on tv as alien ships hovered over every major city on earth. I never thought I would live to see our hopes and fears about extraterrestrial life play out on CNN. To be accurate I hadn’t lived to see it.

I had died in my sleep years before but it wasn’t peaceful. My killer stabbed me twenty-three times but the first three would have been enough. The violence, my pain, my fear, my suffering bound my spirit to earth. At least I think that’s how it happened. Maybe I’m just a remnant, a torn scrap of a soul. Existence is weird after you die.

Time is moves differently. Sometimes days blurred by; other times a night lasted forever. Then there is moving around. I could effortlessly pass through all walls, ceilings, and floors. Except I couldn’t leave my home. The outside walls were simply impenetrable to me. And worst of all, I had no body. I mean, I was a ghost so of course I didn’t have a body but I also didn’t have, like, a ghost body I could see or feel. I learned to “walk” like I had feet and “grab” things like I had hands. After a while, I fully grounded myself and settled down to quietly haunt my house.

When I was alive, I didn’t care who might live in my house after I was gone. I hadn’t expected to be around to care. Turns out I did care. I drove out several new owners for various reasons. My methods were classic haunting. I opened cabinet doors. I stomped in the hallways at night. I rattled doorknobs. I moved small items. Once I managed to break a window. It was never earth-shattering scary but if done randomly and often enough, anyone will give in. If I had to “live” with these people, then I needed to like them.

Finally, a nice lesbian couple, Lou and Betty, moved in after buying at a discount because of my haunting. They burned incense and left small food offerings, neither of which I could truly enjoy but the gesture was nice. Better than the previous owners who tried to have me exorcised. I stopped being a problem ghost and “lived” in peace with them. They didn’t know my name but knew I had been a woman so they called me Jane.

Years passed. Betty went back to school, meanwhile, Lou wrote a book but never finished the sequel. They had two kids, Diane and then Henry a couple of years later, and a parade of cats most of who mostly ignored me. The main exception was Miss. Whiskers, an older rescue, who hissed near constantly at my presence. After a couple of years, she only hissed when I entered a room.

Through it all they never forgot me. The incense burning and food offerings dwindled and stopped but I didn’t mind. They were nice people and often tried to include me in discussions. “Do you think Jane would like to watch a comedy or action movie tonight?” Most times I didn’t answer. It felt voyeuristic to be an unseen and unheard presence except by knocking on a wall. I did occasionally put on a mild show when their skeptical friends would visit.

When they brought Diane home for the first time, Lou stopped just inside the front door and introduced me to her. I gently held her hand and she tried to squeeze back. At night, I watched over her and as she started to crawl and walk I guarded her steps. Henry was much the same. I fretted all day when Diane began preschool causing the wind chimes hung in the living room to sound randomly. Betty thought it was funny that I seemed more active when the kids were out of the house. I couldn’t guide them away from sharp corners or steady them when they tripped when they were out of the house.

In my death, I had found a family. Then they appeared. Silent massive hovering alien ships. I watched the news from behind the couch as Lou, Betty, and the kids huddled together. We hoped they came in peace but when the pods began to drop that hope died. Alien controlled machines began terrorizing cities around the world.

Nearby, I heard and felt an explosion rumble through the house. They were coming and there was nothing I could do to protect my family. I became erratic; pacing through the walls, flying from floor to floor, causing doors to bang open and closed. I only stopped, when I heard Betty yelling, “Jane stop it! You’re scaring the children!” I froze in the kitchen. From outside I could hear more explosions and people yelling. Then the front of the house tore open. One of the alien machines stood staring in through the hole it had made. It raised what I could only guess was a weapon and took aim.

Time slowed as I launched myself at the machine not caring that I could do nothing. As I approached, I felt heat coming from the machine. It grew in intensity until I felt like I was burning but I continued toward it. I grabbed at the weapon and electricity lit up every nerve in my non-existent body The weapon sagged and the machine staggered back with twitchy uneven movements. I followed it out on to the lawn and reached into the body of the machine. Again electricity surged painfully through me but what was that going to do, kill me? I pressed forward to the hottest part of the machine. A horrible screeching sound came from inside the alien machine and then it collapsed to the ground.

My amazement at my apparent victory was cut short by Diane yelling, “Are you a superhero?!” I turned to see all four of my adopted family staring at me.

“You can see me?” I asked. I glanced down seeing my body for the first time in years.

“Yeah, we can see you. Who are you?” Lou asked.

“I’m … I’m Jane the ghost,” I said opting for the name they would know.

“You’re our ghost!” Diane shouted. She broke into a run towards me and passed right through me. I reached back, grabbed the back of her shirt, and pulled her back inside the house. A hand passed through me followed by a squeak from Betty.

“You really are a ghost,” she said. “What did you do to it?”

“I don’t know. I just touched it.” I heard a crash, nearby. I stepped out on the lawn to get a better look. Another machine was tearing into a house down the street. I was outside; no longer trapped in the house. My adopted family stood behind me.

“Are you going to fight it?” Henry asked.

“Yeah.” I turned around. The front of the house was torn open. “Listen the house might collapse so go someplace safe. I’m going to … take care of this.”

“Are you coming back?” Lou asked.

“Of course. You’re my family. I love y’all. I’m going to keep you safe.” I turned around and started running toward the second alien machine before I could find out if ghosts could cry.

The second machine went down as easily, except for the nonexistent burning nerve endings, as the first. Over the next few days, other empowered ghosts began to appear around the world but ghosts are rarer than most people think. There weren’t enough of us to decisively change the tide of the invasion at first. After we lured a few alien machines on to some Civil War battlefields, we started to have the numbers. The Ghost War had just begun.

Memory Dive

The final test is a solo dive your own memories. After a year of theory, six months of simulations, and six months of tandem dives, most are ready for the challenge. It’s not dangerous; not physically dangerous. Nothing can prepare you for what you will find. Diving into your memories is not like remembering or reconstructing a memory. Recalled memory is fluid, unreliable, and easily changed. Memory diving bypasses the mind and shows the diver exactly what the brain has stored.

Memories aren’t organized by date or alphabetically. One leads to another to another to another. Branching pathways that can circle back into repeating loops. Finding your way requires laser-like attention. Waver for a second and you’ll find yourself lost among the debris of your life.

Ok. Go.

Follow the chain of memories. A conversation leads to a college lecture leads to a movie leads to a birthday party leads to an office party leads to Friends leads to a field trip. Almost there. Wait, didn’t you already see this birthday party?

Office party. Friends. Field Trip. Lecture. Movie. Birthday party. Office party. Friends. Field Trip. Lecture. Movie. Birthday party. Office party. Friends. Field Trip. Lecture …

Breathe.

It’s a feedback loop. Circular memory path. Feedback loops can trap even experienced divers; for a first timer, they’re usually dead ends. Try running the path a few times to see if you can find an out. There’s no shame in surfacing. Even professionals do it.

Field Trip. Lecture. Movie. Birthday party. Office party. Friends.

Field Trip … Lecture … Movie … Birthday party … … Club.

That’s the ticket. Now just straight on till morning. That was good memory awareness back there. When you dive into a stranger’s mind you won’t have that advantage but you won’t get sidetracked as easy.

Stop here. Watch carefully. Not like how you remember it, is it? Hurts to see yourself like this, doesn’t? That’s because you’ve been lying to yourself. Everyone lies to themselves. They lie about what they said, about how they acted, about how they felt. We can’t help it. In the dive, these lies are stripped away. You see yourself.

Breathe.

Follow the memory chain out. Good. Everyone cries their first time through their own memories. Take your time. When you’re ready, surface and head into the next room.

Shattering Eternity

The Andornian raised her primary arms, interlocking her claws over her head. She inhaled deeply through her abdomen gills. Her thorax pulsed as fluids and air mixed within. The pupils of her bulging eyes dilated until they were consumed by blackness. After several minutes she tipped forward, opened her mandibles, and released a thick mist into her secondary hands. The mist floated between her hands in a turning sphere. It was a dark purple; silver and gold sparkles breaking through the surface as it swirled. Once more she opened her mandible and a viscous milky fluid began to leak out. Her hands darted up and down pulling strands of the fluid. Strand after strand a globe was woven around the mist sphere. As the globe dried it turned from translucent to perfectly clear.
“Behold Eternity,” she said. The Andornians called the globes Eternities because once hardened they were indestructible; guaranteed to last for an “eternity”. Highly valued as status symbols on Andorn and as art off the planet. The history of every Eternity included battles and wars for its possession. A common method to acquire an Eternity was to bombard the area it was being kept until nothing remains. Except for the Eternity. One Eternity was buried under a mountain for five hundred years. It was never considered lost or destroyed; merely out of reach.

The Andornian extended the globe to me. Carefully, I took it with shaking hands. I had spent so much money and time and even more money for this moment. The journey from landing on Andorn to finding an Andornian preparing to create an Eternity they were willing to sell to me alone had taken two years. For the Andornian, it had been a ten-year process; ingesting chemicals and metals in non-fatal amounts for their body to store and transform.

The globe shifted in my hands; in a panic, I gripped it harder. I felt something give. Spider-web thin cracks radiated from my fingertips covering the entire surface of the globe. I glanced up at the Andornian; she met my gaze for a second. The globe popped like a soap bubble. Purple fluid, gold and silver flecks splashed on my hands and dripped onto the floor.

“I didn’t mean … It just …” I sputtered.

The Andorian looked from my hands to the floor and back. Her eyes constricted to pinpricks. “You bought it, you broke it. No refunds.”

Doing Time at the Same Time

“You’re not going to understand this for a while but I need to tell you this,” the older man with his arm over the younger man’s shoulders said, “Time isn’t what you think it is. There’s no neat folding of time. It bunches and gathers around the machine.”

“What machine?” the young man asked.

“The machine we built. Will build? Are building? It’s all happening at once but you’re going to have to live through the bulk of it. Come on I’ll show you to where you’ll be working.” The old man began walking with the young man.

“This is research station Gamma, isn’t it? I was supposed to be working here alone.” The young man had been greeted by the older man when he exited the shuttle. As they walked through the station he noticed a few other men walking around. Most were walking away from them but he got a glimpse of a familiar face. A cousin or brother he never had. The old man had surprised him when the shuttle airlock opened. For a second, he had it was his father.

“Yeah yeah. Gamma Station. There’s been a slight change of plans. You’ll still be working alone for most of the year before we bring you into the collective.”

“What is the collective?”

“We’re kind of a think tank for extra-temporal problems.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’ll figure it out.” The older man opened a door to an empty lab. “Well, here we are. This your lab for the next year. No one will bother you but if you need any materials you can request them through the computer.”

“Ok. Hey, what’s your name?”

“Names aren’t that useful around here. You can call me Thirty-four.” He tapped a patch on his shoulder that displayed the same number. Thirty-four closed the door before he could respond and walked away. Another man, a few years older than the young man, a five on his shoulder, stood nearby in a doorway. He joined Thirty-four walking.

“Got the newcomer all settled in?” Five asked.

“You remember how it was,” Thirty-four said.

“Probably better than you do,” he paused to study the older man’s face, “How much longer do you have here?”

“It’s my last year. What about you?” the older man asked.

“I’m five years in,” Five said tapping his shoulder, “Should be?”

“There’s only ever been thirty-four of me. When the machine explodes and the rest of you reset, I won’t be here anymore. We think that means I’ll be out of the time folds. Or I’ll be dead.” Five was silent. “This is when you walk off in thought.” Five glanced at the older man and turned down a hallway.

Thirty-four continued down the hallway to a door flanked by two men. One with a nine on his shoulder and one with a ten on his shoulder.

“How’s our guy doing?” he asked

“A little banged up but alive,” Nine said.

“He’s a little agitated,” Ten said. He frowned and looked down.

Thirty-four motioned to Ten and walked a few feet away. “We have free will.”

“I know. It’s just I said the same thing Ten said when I was Nine and–”

Thirty-four interrupted, “And when you are Thirty-four you will say what I’m saying now of your own free will.” Ten nodded, his brow still knotted. “When we’re done here you can take the rest of the day off.”

They walked back to Nine and Thirty-four opened the door. Inside a young man sat on a bed. His hair was longer and he sported a beard but he was the same young man Thirty-four had just talked to.

“Hi, how are you doing?”

The young man stood up and approached thirty-four. “Why can’t I leave?” he demanded.

“There are things you need to understand before I can let you loose on the station. What is the last thing you remember before waking up here?”

“I was running a test of the machine. The power started to spike and … that’s it.”

“The machine suffered a catastrophic overload. It exploded. Did you recognize the men keeping you in this room?”

“They look like … Are they clones or synths?”

“They are you. I’m you. We are all one person caught in the folds of bunched up space-time. Do you understand now?”

“No, that’s not possible. Time doesn’t work that way.”

“Do you remember what I told you when you arrived?”

“No. Something about time folding?”

“Time isn’t what you think it is. There’s no neat folding of time. It bunches and gathers around the machine. I just told you this a few minutes ago.”

“You told me that when I arrived a year ago.”

Thirty-four moved to the intercom on the wall. He typed in a passcode and room number. The speaker crackled and a familiar voice came out of it. The young man’s voice.

“Hello, is someone there?”

“Yes, this is Thirty-four. I forgot to mention you can use the intercom to contact me. Just press function nine two zero and I’ll get on the line.”

“Ok … Thank you.” The intercom went silent.

“I remember that. I remember you left me alone and then the intercom started beeping. And … Was that a recording?”

“No. It was live. I could call him back if you want.”

“I’ve been here for a year.”

“The machine did something we don’t really have the words to describe to time. Some thirty odd years are bunched up in this station all happening concurrently. The only way out it to live through it. We call each other by the number of years we’ve been here. You’ll be Two.”

The young man sat down heavily on the bed. “I did this.”

Thirty-four sat beside him and put an arm around his shoulder. “We all did this but we’re going to get out of it together.”

Restane Connect

It was Saturday and I was enjoying a lazy day window shopping in the mall. I had just finished eating a slice of pizza in the food court when I noticed a new store off to one side. It was barely a store; just enough room for a glass display case and an employee. There wasn’t even a register on the counter. The girl behind the display case smiled as I walked up to it. Inside was a single brand and style of smartwatch I hadn’t heard of before.

“Restane Connect,” I read from the top of one of the boxes, “I wonder what it connects to?” I smiled hoping she hadn’t heard that joke too many times.

She smiled and began her sales pitch, “Well, it can connect to your phone of course but it works best if it connects directly to the alien implant in your head,” the salesgirl said. I laughed but she didn’t. “I have a demo model if you’d like to try it.” She pulled out a sleek silver watch from under the counter and handed it to me. I took the watch and slipped it on my wrist.

“Now what?” I asked

“Sync activate,” she said.

“I’m sorry what?”

“Sync activate,” she repeated in a stern voice.

“I don’t know what that is.” I took a half-step back and considered leaving.

She rolled her eyes and sighed, “One of these days it’ll go smoothly. Come here.” She motioned me closer to the display case. I took the watch off and offered it back to her. She grabbed my wrist and pulled me toward her. Her other hand touched the side of my temple and pressed against it until I heard a click.

Then things got weird. It was like someone was playing with the color saturation and contrast of the world. Colors popped and glowed then muted to shades of gray. I shut my eyes against the strobing effect.

“You can open your eyes now,” the salesgirl said.

The watches were gone, the display case was gone, the door I came in through was also gone. We weren’t even in a store anymore, it was just a poorly lit alcove. Outside the alcove was not the food court of the mall. The long tall room looked more like a cafeteria with rows of tables and bench seating. The people all wore the same brown clothes and had metal collars around their necks. I looked down to see I was wearing the same brown clothes and could feel the collar dig into my chin. At the end of the room, there was a line of people with empty trays setting them into a hole in the wall. Something poured unto the tray and the people walked off with it.

Nearby one of Them stood by. Its scaly face and body spoke of something ready to lash out. Their true height was hard to guess at because of how they slouched and folded their bodies but even at rest they towered over us by several feet. I remembered now seeing them run through the streets grabbing people and tossing them into their flying drones. Tearing houses and buildings apart to get to the people. I remembered the horrifying moment when I was grabbed by the ankle. The second of flailing while falling then the air thickened around me and I was pulled inside the drone.

I felt a tap on my shoulder. The salesgirl, really just another prisoner, pulled me back into the dim alcove. I noticed the side of her head was shaved and a strip of metal with lights protruded. A quick check verified that I too had one.

“Do you remember now?” she asked.

“Yes, we’re –”

She put her hand on my mouth, “The security in this store is really good.” I nodded. “Have you decided to buy a watch?”

“Yes. I think one of these would suit me very well,” I said playing into the false reality I was not a part anymore.

“Excellent. Let me finish setting it up for you.” She took the watch I had a minute ago been trying to hand back to her and strapped it to my wrist. It too looked different. No longer a sleek pristine silver, now it was scratched and scuffed with wires peeking out. She pressed the dial buttons and a segmented green circle appeared around the edge of the face. “When it’s all green it’s safe to talk.”

“What is going on? Why didn’t I remember being captured by dragon aliens? Why are they doing this to us? How are you?” I asked.

“They’re using us for slave labor. The implant creates a false reality. You can’t fight back against something you don’t even know is happening. I’m part of The Resistance. Welcome to the fight.”

I was a Translator for NASA

That probably doesn’t sound too impressive since NASA is part of an international space initiative but I don’t speak any languages other than English. A translator was what they called me but I was more of a conduit. The said my brain structure, the actual folds of my cerebellum, is “conducive to extended range communication”. They never said who was communicating with us or how they got scans of my brain. I heard there were more “translators” but I never met them.

After I was hired they implanted a web of filaments under my scalp to “focus energetic transmissions”. At the start of every session, I was sat down in a reclining chair and given an injection. The NASA interrogators would then start to ask questions. “Where are you from?” “What is your name?” “What are you?” “What does the sky look like?” “How fast does a rock fall?” “What stars can you see?” I would answer their questions but not with information I knew. The answers were coming from somewhere else. Another planet or maybe another dimension. The NASA people were pretty tight-lipped about it. They didn’t want to “bias the experimental subject”. Sometimes the others would ask questions through me but the NASA interrogators never answered.

There were other effects of “translating”. The first time I translated for NASA, I relived my third birthday party and forgot the letter S for a day. The second time, I spoke in Seinfeld quotes for an hour. The third time, I remembered every place I had ever set down my keys. The fourth time, I heard my mother singing to me while I was in the womb. The fifth time, I don’t remember anything. There were a lot of sessions after that time but they started to blend together.

Around the sixty-seventh time, I started having “memory leaks beyond safe parameters”. So I was retired. It was good money and free healthcare while it lasted. They left the filament web in place because “nano-mesh half-life is expected to be less than two years”.

I still get the occasional blip of connection. I’m supposed to report to them if that happens but I stopped writing the reports. Sometimes as I’m falling asleep, I glimpse someplace else and remember swimming deep under an ocean. I’m working on extending that moment between being awake and asleep that opens me up to them. I don’t know what I want to say to them. Maybe I’ll tell them about Earth.