My Internet Nightmare

by J.J. Mainor

  Chapter P-2

  Cole fell back into his thin mattress and stared up at the empty rack above him trying to forget his father in those stains marring the underside. Most were so faded and old, he could only guess if they represented spilt blood or splattered food. He didn’t want to think about the bodily functions that might have created them.

  The only reprieve those two had from each other came after their arrest yesterday. The guards separated them from Jessica, and despite the obvious language barrier, Michael insisted on arguing over the girl and demanding word of her fate. Cole couldn’t stand listening to his concern over his surrogate, but he was afraid to speak up or the accusations would head his way again.

  It went on for an hour before the guards finally returned. Michael protested stronger, but the first guard produced some sort of shock stick, sticking it through the small opening and flooring the father with a rather strong jolt of electricity. Cole could contain his humor, but he struggled with everything he had to do so.

  But his amusement lasted only until the guard opened the door and pointed for him to follow them. Cole’s heart jumped into his throat, wondering what tortures they had for him. At that point it didn’t seem there was any way to communicate, so interrogation seemed useless.

  It was a shame he thought, since there was no reason to keep secrets. If this really was a different Earth as his father claimed, and if that stupid hopper couldn’t get them home, then there was no reason not to tell them everything. Still, Cole followed them out hoping to find some way he might talk with them.

  They left the holding area and moved on toward the next door. Every space he had seen was surrounded in bland, gray walls. The only break came in the ceiling which radiated with light. It wasn’t that the fixtures were recessed, it was the ceiling itself which glowed in one solid sheet of soft light.

  And still, once the guard pushed him into the interrogation room and forced him into one of the chairs around the table, he had not yet seen a single window or any sign of the outdoors.

  The guard took the seat across from him and tapped the table, springing the top to life with an image of the shop they had invaded when the hopper brought them to this world. With another tap of his finger, the image went from the two-dimensional representation splayed out like a placemat to a three dimensional model dancing between their heads.

  The man said something in his funny language and Cole only stared at him through the image wondering what he wanted him to say.

  “I don’t know what you’re saying,” Cole told him apologetically. “Do you even know English?”

  The man responded with another incoherent statement as if it were his reply. His posture suggested he wasn’t impressed, but wanted his questions answered anyway. As far as Cole knew, this might have been his interrogation technique: to leave him confused to find out what information he might volunteer without direct questioning. Maybe it was the equivalent to letting him sweat it out until he offered his confession. They might have had a translator to interpret Cole’s English, or this man might have understood English on his own and played ignorant as part of the act. The best Cole could do was tell him what he knew and hoped that was enough.

  “If you can understand me,” he began, “this is going to sound strange. Truth is, I don’t entirely believe it myself. I’m half expecting to wake up and find out I’ve been in a strange coma or under some sort of hypnosis. I don’t know, but according to my father we’re from a different universe.”

  The guard kind of cocked his head and raised his brow as Cole might have if he heard this claim from that side of the table. All he could do was tell it and let the man decide. Who knows, if they thought he was insane maybe they would throw him in the nut house instead of prison for whatever law it was their entrance violated.

  “You would have to ask my father how it’s possible. All I know is it’s supposed to be like bubbles in a bath. One minute I was standing in his lab, the next we were in some forest. Then we went to some rocky place with harsh air. After that, his stupid device put us in the middle of this place.”

  He indicated the miniature shop before him, and on cue as if he understood, the guard changed the image to show the same shop with the three of them and their device sitting in the middle of it. Everything that had been sitting where they ended up had vanished. Whether it was sent to the supposed world they had just left or it was obliterated completely, he couldn’t say. All Cole knew about their travel method was that it cleared their destination so that they didn’t merge with something or crash into something dangerous.

  “You guys showed up before we even knew where we were.”

  The guard said something else, but Cole had no idea what he wanted, or what he could tell this guy.

  “If I could understand what you’re saying, I would gladly tell you whatever you want to know. Believe me, I’m not interested in playing hero here.”

  The guard was frustrated, but the door opened behind him before he could voice his frustration. Another figure entered wearing a crimson gown and carrying what looked like a syringe without a needle. She circled the table and took Cole’s arm. They had drawn enough blood during his enlistment physical to know what was coming.

  Without a needle on that thing, he wasn’t sure how she was going to get his blood, unless it was like one of those magical hypo sprays they have in those science fiction shows that draw blood or inject vaccines without breaking the skin. He felt pretty good when she place the tip against his forearm, but that feeling ended when he felt the needle eject from the device and into his skin. Blood flowed into a small vile within the syringe, and when this woman was satisfied, she withdrew that syringe, removing the vial and handing it to the interrogator.

  For his part, that man removed the model from the table and set the vial flat on the surface. With a tap, the table sent out some sort of scanning beam into the blood and returned a series of foreign words. If they were trying to identify him, Cole knew he wouldn’t be on file, but rather than hinting toward truth of his other universe story, the lack of information only frustrated the interrogator.

  The pair argued in their funny language. Though Cole had no idea what they were saying, it was clear the woman had no idea what to tell the man who was dissatisfied with her answers. She finally threw up her hands, grabbed the vial of blood, and stormed out.

  The interrogator turned back to Cole, taking a very deep breath to figure out the next step.

  If it was an identity he wanted, Cole figured he might as well provide it. After all, there wasn’t much he could do with a name.

  “My name is Cole Greenburg. I’m a private first class in the United States Army.”

  He thought about giving him his full name, but it was unlikely it would matter much. Maybe if they pressed him later, he would offer it up, but until then, “Cole” would have to do.

  “Does any of that mean anything to you?”

  He couldn’t tell if it did or not. The man rose from the table and gestured for Cole to follow. Apparently, the man heard enough and decided to return him to the cell.

  His reprieve from Michael would be extended as they wanted his father next for questioning. As the old man’s absence wore on, Cole figured he must have been spilling his guts about his theories and the complex workings of that stupid device. Though he had long-ago grown tired of the audience of his son, that strange-talking man would give him enough of an opportunity to talk on and on about it all as long as someone feigned interest.

  It wasn’t until the mealtime that Michael returned to that cell. He seemed almost angry with his son, yet he didn’t say a single word. The man simply skulked on his bed while he picked over that strange bar. The so-called food was similar to that which they would receive in the morning (if their sleep cycle truly occurred during night), only difference was this bar reminded Cole more of glue than cardboard.

  It was the same kind of bar they received at the end of the
second day – their first full day in that cell. By that time, Cole was so hungry, he ate his bar without any regard for its texture or its taste. These people clearly weren’t concerned for their needs or their taste buds, so he figured there was no use sticking his nose up at this meal.

  It also seemed they weren’t interested in further interrogation. The only times they saw the guards on that second day was when they brought the meals and when they were annoyed enough to satisfy their prisoners’ whining.

  The third day dragged on similarly with no hint the guards wanted more answers. Cole was so sick of his father and his silent accusations, he wished badly for another prisoner to talk to. By that point it didn’t matter if the guy was surly, violent, or just plain crazy because Michael had no interest in talking with him. The man would just sit on his rack staring out into space, thinking of magical solutions to their impossible problem. Sometimes he would change things up and lay on that rack. Another prisoner would break that frustrating silence, and if Cole was lucky, maybe the man might be the kind to put his father in his place.

  The lights flashed to life on the ceiling overhead to signal the start of the fourth day. Cole heard the door to the holding area open and he went to that small hole in his cell door to take the bars that were coming for the morning meal. While he waited, he heard the latch to this door move.

  Maybe they were ready to interrogate them again, or maybe they had decided to charge them. Cole figured with the way things had gone, it was doubtful they decided to let them go. At this point, he had missed his check-in at the barracks. His sergeant would have checked the police reports from the weekend’s liberty and discovered his name was not among them. Even if they let him go and his father was to somehow find a way to get them back home, his life was already ruined, so it no longer mattered.

  The door parted and Cole found himself looking at two strangers. The man had the same reddish-brown skin of the cops, but the woman’s complexion was closer to white – almost a bronze as if she had tanned regularly. Both were older, closer to his father’s age, and wore similar gowns to the one the technician bore during his interrogation. Instead of red, their color was royal blue.

  The woman handed him a tiny device that looked like an earplug, only a bit smaller. She then pulled one from her own ear, showed it to him, then returned it. After pointing to the one she had just given Cole, the younger man slipped it into his ear. It might not have been wise allowing them to accost him with their strange devices, but during his stay in this cell, no one had really tried to hurt him. Other than the occasional electroshock treatment his father received when he tried to make demands of the guards, no one had given him a reason not to trust them.

  The woman watched as he slipped that device into his ear, and when his hand dropped back to his side, she smiled.

  “Can you understand what I am saying?”

  Cole’s utter shock at hearing his native tongue roll off her lips must have answered for him.

  “You speak English!”

  For the first time in their stay, Michael raised his head toward his son at the proclamation. He hadn’t heard English from anywhere but from that boy’s mouth. Then again, he wasn’t entirely interested in their new guests, so he waited, figuring he missed her speech.

  “No,” the woman explained. “The translator I gave you allows your brain to interpret my speech into words you understand. I actually speak Greek.”

  “Greek?”

  Michael didn’t have the benefit of the translator to hear what the woman was saying. To him, it sounded like two idiots talking to each other in their idiotic ways. He couldn’t yet say much for these new guests, but it didn’t surprise him from Cole. Rising from the rack, he joined his son by the door to investigate the madness. Before he could even open his mouth, the reddish man handed him one of the translator devices.

  “What is this?” he demanded of the stranger.

  “Just stick it in your ear,” Cole sighed.

  Michael bore a look of offense at his son’s seeming insult. “Would you try to take things seriously for once in your life?”

  “I am serious,” the boy insisted. “It lets you hear what they’re saying in English. Now stick it in your ear and shut up.”

  Michael looked from the tiny device to the man, then the woman who returned him a warm smile. After far too much thought, he finally slipped the little earplug thing into his ear.

  “That did not hurt, did it?” the woman asked him to his astonished delight.

  “It really is!” Michael stuttered. “A universal translator!”

  He looked once more to the woman, studying her lighter complexion, looking for hints to her ethnicity.

  “What was my son saying about Greek? Who are you?”

  “My name is Arank,” the man finally spoke. “This is my colleague Eudora. Yes, we are Greek.”

  Michael studied the reddish man, scrunching his brow with uncertainty. “You don’t look Greek.”

  “Dad,” Cole smacked him across the shoulder, speaking from the side of his mouth, “don’t be racist!”

  “It’s not racist!” Michael protested. “Greece isn’t exactly a multi-colored society. If I had to guess, I would say he’s…” He paused abruptly, turning back toward Arank as the realization of who these people were finally flooded into his conscious thoughts.

  “…Indian!”

  At that, Arank took great offense. It didn’t bother him to have his Greek heritage challenged, but being called “Indian” was the insult.

  “I am not Indian!”

  “I’m sorry…Native American.” Michael rolled his eyes. His students gave him far too much nonsense over political correctness; he had hoped he could at least escape it in another universe. But it was not the PC that bothered and confused the pair before him.

  “Do you mean Native Armenian?” Eudora asked him with a twisted look on her face.

  But the confusion wasn’t mutual for Michael. He seemed to understand their differences, even if he still formulated those differences in his head.

  “My god, Cole!” he shouted, turning to his son with more interest than he had shown the boy in years. “The English must not have settled the New World here. The Spanish and the Italians didn’t cross the Atlantic, hence these were never the Americas. If they all claim to be Greek, that must mean Greece controls this land. But the Greeks, like the Romans, were not so much colonists as they were conquerors. They would have subjugated the Natives, but left them in place.”

  Cole merely rolled his eyes at the entire false history lesson. He might not have picked up math and science as much as his father wished, but he did remember the Greeks were conquered more than two thousand years ago. It was a preposterous notion his father proposed, yet had he understood the possibilities Greenburg’s multiverse promised, he might have accepted a variation of Earth where the ancient Greek Empire carried on and flourished.

  “You mean Greece does not control Lenapehoking where you come from?” Eudora asked their suddenly interested guest.

  “I don’t know that name,” Michael admitted while thinking on it intensely. Something seemed familiar about it but he couldn’t initially place it until he dredged through the forgotten corners of his memory.

  “Lenape! They were the ones who sold Manhattan…” he stopped himself, afraid he might say too much. If they were to hear how his kind had swindled the Native population in their world and driven them to near extinction to steal the land from them, these people might fear his device portended a similar effort directed toward their world in their universe. Michael realized they had to be careful what he told these people about their Earth if they didn’t want to suffer for the crimes of their ancestors.

  “You mean Manahata,” Arank corrected, interrupting his thoughts.

  Michael was in awe. Theories had indicated the infinite size of the multiverse and the certainty that such variations could be found, but to see it
for himself – a human society unfolded in a unique and unfamiliar way – it almost made up for the fact that he probably wouldn’t ever get a chance to publish his findings.

  Cole remained unimpressed and uninterested by it all. They had discovered who these people were and where they came from – mystery solved. The more important question hung in his mind given their situation, and someone in his father’s little cabal had to worry about it.

  “Not for nothing, but you people don’t seem surprised by our story. I’m living this nightmare, and I’m still not convinced my father isn’t playing a trick.”

  Michael was visibly angry at the implication, but Arank and Eudora seemed to appreciate the youngster’s to-the-point style.

  “You want to know why we’re here,” Eudora nodded.

  “We can discuss that on the way,” Arank cut in. “We have secured your release, though the authorities are not exactly happy about it.”

  “They were about to execute you all for murder,” Eudora added.

  “Murder!” Cole’s skin went pale.

  “Yes. There was a man in that shop who vanished when you appeared,” Eudora reported. “According to the reports, you confessed.”

  “I didn’t confess to murder!” Cole protested. There were tall tales that his command could be nasty when it came to the tricks they played on misbehaving soldiers. He had seen a few of his fellow recruits punished for various infractions, including the man charged for desertion, but from what little he heard after the facts, there wasn’t much to indicate the charges were trumped up in any way. Even if he ever faced the charges for his own “desertion,” he never expected they would have to make up supposed facts, or invent a false confession. This kind of worsening nightmare only happened in some of the worst governments on his Earth, unless…

  He turned to his father with icy accusation. “What did you tell them?”

  “None of that matters,” Arank interrupted once more. “Fortunate you are that the report on the incident came to our attention. All that matters is we secured your release on the condition that you help us with our research.”

  Michael suddenly looked upon their new friends as if he were a star-struck fan meeting his favorite actor. “You are working on inter-universal travel!”

  “Correct,” Arank told him, “and it seems you have managed to solve the problem that we could not.”