“Perhaps we will,” Blake said as Dorin walked into the city and the crowds beyond the doors.
“That’s it then?” she asked.
“That’s it,” Perry confirmed.
“And can anyone here see that?” she asked.
“No one that the Maze does not allow to return,” Blake replied.
“So when we’re done, we just go,” she said. “We don’t stay or anything?”
“We are here as long as the Maze says we’re here,” Blake explained. “No more. No less. When it’s time to go, it’s time to go.”
“Simple as that,” Michelle said.
“Simple as that,” Perry said. “I wish I could stay longer sometimes, but you just get used to it after awhile.”
“Shall we?” Blake said, holding out his hand for Michelle to enter. She entered the little room, followed by Perry, and then Blake. He pressed the single button, and the doors closed behind them.
Blake told her that as soon as the doors close, they disappear from that time and place. No one saw them come. No one saw them go. From the perspective of the people on that planet, they walked into nothing and were no more. Almost like they just rephased.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The elevator dinged once again, and the doors opened to the common room where they had started. Michelle walked out and looked at the room that would serve as her home for as long as she remained. Perry walked past her and plopped on the sofa, while she sat more daintily in a chair.
“I’ll get some food together,” Blake said as he walked past them into the kitchen.
“Awesome,” Perry said. “I’m starving.”
“So how long am I going to be here?” Michelle asked.
“Until you’re done,” Blake replied. She had come to hate his cryptic answers, and wanted some level of clarification on this, especially since Perry had been here six months, but stated others had come and gone since his arrival.
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“Everyone is different,” Blake explained, coming to the kitchen window to talk to her. “When you reach the point where you have learned whatever it is you needed to learn, the Maze will take you back home.”
With that, Blake disappeared back into the kitchen. Michelle scoffed and looked at Perry, who had his eyes closed as he relaxed on the couch with his knees spread far apart and his hands rested folded on his stomach.
“Why does he have to be so cryptic all the time?” Michelle asked Perry.
“He always does that when he doesn’t know,” Perry sighed. “Afraid to be wrong or something.”
“It’s just something I can’t answer,” Blake said, reappearing at the window. “I won’t just make something up.”
“So I have no say in this,” Michelle protested.
“You chose to crawl into the elevator,” Blake noted.
“I was drunk,” Michelle noted. “That can hardly be considered a state in which one makes wise decisions.”
“Whether in your right mind or not, every choice you make is one you have to live with,” Blake said. “I never know why the Maze chooses who it does, but I like to believe there are reasons behind it. And when it comes to reasons, you had drunk yourself into that state because you were unhappy with your life. You might say that the Maze gave you a second chance. A chance at adventure and perspective. Drinking is an escape in and of itself, and so you really think about it, you chose to leave your life in that way before choosing the elevator. That was what you wanted to do. And if your life is so awful that you drank yourself into a stupor, why are you so eager to return to it?”
Michelle’s mind whirled with all the things that she had left behind that she did not realize were so good. She was uncertain what her goal was that night she left, but she was grateful she lived through it. She might have hated her job, but she loved her kids. In fact, she had found so far during her time here that she loved a lot of things about her life, but got caught up in the moment of depression. She had gotten caught up in everything that was wrong that she failed to remember everything that had made her life worth living.
“Maybe I’ve changed my mind,” she offered. “I did choose to get into that elevator and leave it all behind, but maybe I realize that I do have some happiness back there. Maybe I think I can handle it now.”
“That’s good,” Blake said giving her a moment of hope before dashing it. “Then at some point, you’ll go back to it. For now, let’s relax.” She leaned back in her chair in a very unladylike fashion and crossed her arms with a huff.
Blake emerged from the kitchen and walked to the area where Michelle and Perry sat and stood next to her. She looked up at his smiling face, but could not be angry at him, nor even accuse him of anything. Part of her wanted to since he was in charge, or seemed to be, but really, she realized she should be grateful for the chance to see more of the universe than anyone she knew would ever be able to see. She knew this would take some getting used to, and it seemed that Blake understood her and was more than willing to give her room to accept this in her own time.
“You’ve gotten a taste of what we go through,” Blake continued to encourage her. “Rest up. When those doors open again, we’ll be off, and who knows where or when we’ll end up. Could be on Earth, but in your past or future. Could be on another world. We could meet aliens that look nothing like us next time, or we could be all by ourselves trying to correct a wrong for someone we’ll never meet. Wherever it is, and whatever we do, it’ll be an experience you’ll never forget.”
* * * * * * *
After everyone had settled back in and food had been served and eaten, Blake accessed the computer terminal in his room to review what information the Maze had on the planet of Keersh. The Maze had recorded their most recent visit and flagged several vital pieces of information to cross reference with the archives in an attempt to match the planet with anything else on record.
Based on the star positions that Blake had witnessed, the planet was orbiting the star Opuesta 37, and Keersh was the fourth planet in orbit. Between fourteen and fifteen hundred years prior to their visit, the Voraster race indicated a some confrontations with a human colony on a planet in the Opuesta system where their home planet used to be, but the planet’s name was not notated. Blake thought this was odd especially when he learned that Keersh was the Voraster name for the fourth planet in that system.
The final piece of information came from the tale that Kelvin Gorm had presented. Earth history showed a terraforming colonization ship called The Mirificus that was launched in Earth Standard Year 5337 bound for Keppler 22b which was 622 light years from Earth and subsequently colonized by a later vessel. The Mirificus disappeared shortly after launch and was never heard from again.
This last piece of information definitively proved Kelvin’s book, which Blake did find in the library but decided not to read until he lived through it. It was, in fact, the true story of the beginning of the human inhabitants of the planet Keersh. In this case, they were colonists from Earth who had left their home planet to start new lives on a world light years away, and somewhere in the process, they got lost. Yet, the resilience of humanity won out, and instead of dying alone, they thrived and created an entire society from scratch using their resources and managed to follow much the same path humanity had centuries before. The most amusing part was that these people did not believe in life on other planets when they were, themselves, life from another planet. Fifteen hundred years was a long time, and in terms of human life, it was long enough for history to forget itself and start over.
Kelvin’s account also presented the fact that at some point while Michelle and Perry traveled with him, they would be on that ship in the history of these people. He could not control the Maze, but he suspected at some point, beyond participating the landing of the Mirificus, they might find themselves exploring the planet of Keersh itself again to fill in some gaps in the history they only just discovered.
He accessed records of Kee
rsh following the Carburast incident and found that his system had a wealth of information about it. It appeared that the people of Keersh were in an age where practically everything was recorded, but he was primarily interested in what occurred immediately after they left.
The sudden appearance of the population of Carburast after ten years created a host of problems for the country of Pilkrand related to its handling of the original situation. He found where Doctor Velata had sacrificed his life to stop Major Halloway who also died. With the death of Major Halloway, those who served under him were quick to denounce his actions and claimed little to no responsibility for what he had done, nor did many of them know whether his orders came from higher up or if he acted primarily on his own to keep the city in its phased state. However, when it was revealed that top security prisoners had been forced into the phasing zone of the city to imprison them, most of the government experienced a total upheaval out of the resulting scandals. The prisoners, having realized that they could escape in the initial chaos, did just that, and since these prisoners included many that made a profession out of hiding from pursuers, a vast majority were never recaptured.
He even found some records about those who helped them. Gerard, Dorin, and Hector all reunited with their families who confirmed that a side effect of the phase shield involved a sort of frozen moment in time for everyone involved as no one inside the shield aged during the entire time they were trapped which allowed them to live out the remainder of their lives as if everything were simply a long dream. The technology that created the phase shield was subsequently put to use in medicine to suspend a patient’s life until life-saving procedures could be performed.
He sat back and felt good about this one. They did not always end well, and he was not always so lucky to find any kind of aftermath. Even then, that aftermath did not always turn out the way he might have hoped, but with Keersh, it turned out that the planet was still there, and the population continued to thrive to the present day, though it did not tell him when that present day was, of course.
Blake left his terminal, lay down on his bed, and closed his eyes. He was rarely tired, but acknowledged that his body required rest because at any time, he would hear the familiar ding of the elevator. Regardless of all the wonders he had seen in his life, there was nothing more exciting than the next journey.
THE MAZE
continues in
The Kursas
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
George Willson was born in 1975 and has lived in Oklahoma the majority of his life. Following his graduation from Broken Arrow High School in 1993 where he excelled in the music program, he had a short tour in the U.S. Army as a trombone player before returning to civilian life in Oklahoma. He started by writing musicals and eventually collaborated on one that had a small scale production in Sweden at about the same time he had a play produced in Tulsa, Ok in 2001. He became a member of the Simplyscripts.com screenwriting community for a time culminating with the production of a short film, No Better Loved Than Lost, and a feature, No Kind Of Life, both of which he wrote, produced, directed, and performed the soundtrack in 2007 and 2009. He still writes music regularly and can play piano along with a dozen other instruments though he currently uses his trombone talent with the local community band. He has written four novels for the Fempiror Chronicles series, seven for The Maze, and two other novels of a miscellaneous nature. He currently lives in Broken Arrow, Ok with his wife and three princesses.
www.fempiror.com
City Of Phase Page 24
