This World

by Lee, TD

  Grania sighs deeply. Her pendant returns to the glowing green color. “Oh, okay, good. Well, nice to meet you Adele! I hope we can get along great!”

  “Of course we will, you are currently traveling with the Prospector, and let me tell you. Is it not the worst thing in the world when even he does not know how to properly land the NEXUS?” Adele asks with the most playful tone that I’ve ever heard her speak in.

  Grania’s eyes light up as she replies excitedly, “Yes! He’s been traveling for how long and he still can’t figure it out? I’m afraid I’ll fall down into the engine of the NEXUS every time we land somewhere!”

  “Hey now! I have quite a good grasp on the NEXUS!” the man protests.

  “Blasphemy! Two years we traveled together and I cannot recount a single moment where you had a good grasp on the NEXUS,” Adele sasses the man while getting a good laugh from Grania, “men and their spaceships.”

  “Can we move on?” the man asks with a displeased look on his face.

  Adele sighs happily. She looks over at me and introduces me, “This is Ridley. Ridley this is the Prospector and Grania.”

  The man, or Prospector I guess, moves over to me and stretches out his hand towards me. “Well met Ridley! I hope Adele doesn’t keep you on too short of a leash.”

  “What?” I question. There’s too many eccentric people in front of me for me to comprehend right now.

  “Prospector, I am simply a caretaker for Ridley. In fact, today is the first day that Ridley is deploying my services,” Adele responds to the Prospector’s earlier comment.

  “I see,” the Prospector remarks. He tilts his head up with his mouth open slightly. His eyes scan me, almost as if he’s trying to read everything about me as a person. Can he do that? Is this guy a superhero? “Ah, well the more the merrier I suppose.” The Prospector moves away from me and towards the telephone box.

  “So where will you be taking us that you needed my assistance in such short notice?” Adele asks.

  The Prospector answers with, “Always one to be quick to the point.”

  “If there is anything I have learned in my time being your comrade, it is that time is quite precious,” Adele remarks with a sassy smile on her face.

  “Yes, yes,” the Prospector sighs, he glances over at Grania, “Don’t take after her.”

  “Too late, Prospector,” Grania replies, giving the Prospector a mischievous wink.

  The Prospector takes a couple of steps towards the telephone box. “We will be departing for the Sixteenth Iotan Cluster, Fifth Planet of the Themis Lunar System, Veritas!”

  Adele’s brows furrow a bit. She tilts her head, questioning, “The planet of truth and justice? We will be going to the planet where all intergalactic affairs will be judged and condoned? I see, it makes sense now why you need my assistance.” Adele smirks proudly.

  “So we’re basically going to intergalactic court?” Grania asks, dumbing down everything that the Prospector and Adele just said. Even she didn’t know about the destination?

  “Yes, intergalactic court! What dramatic courtroom entanglement will we be thrust into? We will just have to find out for ourselves, won’t we?” the Prospector exclaims, waving his arms in the air as if he had an audience watching him do a monologue.

  “Wonderful! Let us be on our way then,” Adele says, approaching the telephone box.

  “Yes, let’s go!” the Prospector exclaims again. He marches into the telephone box with Grania.

  I walk up to Adele, asking her, “So we’re going to this planet with a telephone box?”

  She nods. Her eyes nostalgically stare at the telephone box. Rhythmic breathing escapes her mouth before she answers me. “Yes. It is quite the magical telephone box. It is much larger on the inside.”

  “What?” I question.

  “You will find out soon,” Adele answers with a smile, “not let us go in.”

  Before Adele and I enter the telephone box, a familiar voice stops us from behind, “Going off on an adventure?”

  Adele and I turn our heads finding the woman who opened the door for me standing with Shiko. Adele nods. “Traveling the galaxy is always quite the adventure if I do say so myself,” Adele remarks. “I will be back though as this is rather a temporary journey with the Prospector.”

  “Well, do what you have to. While you’re gone, I’ll be looking for those people you asked about yesterday. Hopefully they’ll say yes,” the woman replies, yawning a bit.

  “Thank you Dominique, please inform me about any of your findings and their answers when you get the chance. Despite being in a completely different galaxy, my phone will receive your messages,” Adele instructs.

  “How many times do I have to tell you, call me Dom. Dominique sounds too fancy for someone like me,” the woman sighs, shaking her head a bit. “But I’ll do what I can. In this kind of business, you know there’s no guarantee for anything going the way we want it to.”

  “Correct you are. So long Dom, we will return. Please do let me know if you need me to return. I will do my best to return as quick as I can, generally speaking,” Adele says, her tone is rather stern and caring heavily contrasting the way she was speaking to the Prospector.

  “Yeah, yeah, you go do your space travel thing,” Dom says waving Adele and I away, leading Shiko back towards the agency.

  “No more interruptions I suppose,” Adele mutters under her breath, “let us go in now.”

  Adele and I step into the telephone box and what’s in front of me is not what I expected. The door shuts behind me, enveloping me in a whole new atmosphere. There’s so many blinking lights along the walls, shiny machinery from some outer dimension stands in the middle of a glass floor. On the machine are several knobs, levers, switches, and gadgets that all look important. Fluorescent light shines from underneath my feet, they playfully swirl amongst each other. There’s a specific steel path that protects me from falling into the dark unknown beyond the floor. The ceiling is so high up and bathed in a pleasant light. Several staircases lead into corridors filled with mysterious wonder. One of the walls of this thing is complete glass, making it a giant window that currently shows the alley we were in. Steam wafts throughout the air. How in the strange Hell is this inside of the telephone booth!?

  “Adele, where are we?” I ask sheepishly. I’m so overwhelmed with this weird telephone box that I can’t exactly process what I’m seeing or hearing or anything really. All of this is just so weird.

  Adele takes a couple steps forward. Her eyes look around in awe. “This is the NEXUS. It is a beautifully strange and moody machine, but she is quite the reliable transport,” Adele answers me with a wide grin on her face. Her hands gently caress the railing and the walls. A long satisfied sigh emerges from Adele. She seems so content all of the sudden.

  “What’s the NEXUS? What’s this place? Adele what’s going on?” I ask. “There’s so much happening that I honestly don’t understand. Is this normal for super people? Am I the weird one because I don’t know about all of this stuff?

  “Ah! The NEXUS. While terribly overemotional, she does her best to transport us when needed. More often than not, she’s the one that comes to the rescue,” the Prospector exclaims as he fidgets around with several of the levers at the large control panel.

  Grania walks over to me and explains in simpler words, “The NEXUS is the Prospector’s spaceship. It can take us anywhere in the universe as well as in any time. So it’s basically a time traveling spaceship. Pretty neat huh?”

  Time travel? I murmur, “It can time travel? Does that mean it can go back in time?”

  “Er, well, yeah. That’s what time travel encompasses!” Grania answers me with a wide smile on her face.

  If this thing can time travel, then does that mean I can go back in time and save Hiro? That’s possible with this thing. All we have to do is travel back in time and save Hiro. Then he’ll be alive and still doing his piloting thing and everything will be fine. All we have to do is just have th
e Prospector take us back in time and make it all better. I get Hiro back and the world might be a little less destroyed. It’s perfect. Maybe this is why Adele wanted me to come with her. So I can meet the Prospector and his spaceship. Maybe she’s trying to help me save Hiro!

  Adele’s voice breaks my train of thought, “I can see that look in your eyes Ridley, and it is not a good one. Do not pursue that line of thought for it is too dangerous.” The look in her eyes is serious, yet there’s a caring tone to them. What does she mean it’s dangerous?

  “Hold on tight!” the Prospector announces playfully as he pulls down on a lever.

  The whole entire NEXUS rumbles and shakes violently accompanied with a wheezing sound. I can feel the whole inside of the NEXUS lift a bit. In a couple of seconds, the NEXUS starts moving smoothly, I think. It’s hard to tell if it moved or not. Rather, everything just seems to be rather still. Scarily so. If this whole thing is moving then this is unsettlingly smooth travel.

  “How long will it take for us to get to Veritas?” Adele asks. She slowly wanders around the control panel in the middle, watching the Prospector wildly pull levers and press buttons.

  “Just barely enough time for us to discuss what a wonder you will be for our cause there,” the Prospector answers with a wide grin. He laughs a bit and continues to, seemingly randomly, mess with the control panel. He’s a busybody, constantly moving about. Almost like he’s just using his whole body to fidget with.

  This guy is so eccentric. Nothing about him seems normal, yet he looks just like anyone else. Just what’s his deal? And why does Adele seem so happy around him? This guy is a total mystery.

  I approach Grania who’s fidgeting with the pendant around her neck. She’s sitting at the edge of a railing, dangling her feet down into the unknown darkness. “So, who exactly is this guy?” I ask Grania.

  “Who? The Prospector? Well, he’s the Prospector. Nothing more to him really,” Grania replies.

  “But who exactly is the Prospector? What’s his name? Is he some sort of space lawyer or something?” I ask.

  “That’s one of many things he can be. Space lawyer, planet curator, galactic detective, star archaeologist, you name it, he can probably do it. Not probably—definitely, he can definitely do it,” Grania answers confidently. “And simply put, he’s the Prospector. He doesn’t really have any other name than that.”

  “But who is he? Why does he give Adele and you, for the matter, this look of absolute wonder? Just what’s his deal?” I ask, curious.

  Grania looks over at the Prospector for a brief moment. Her eyes filled with complete awe as she looks at the man. “He’s a wonderful man, spectacular he might say. He always has a fondness for humans. He’s brilliant and adventurous. But underneath all of that, he’s a damaged soul. Someone who has seen so much that despair is only inches away at your fingertips.”

  “What?”

  Grania shakes her head and smiles. “Nothing. The Prospector is an ingenious person. You’ll see.” She eyes Adele and the Prospector, both of which are speaking about something enthusiastically. “The Prospector speaks really fondly of Adele, by the way. He calls her his best friend.”

  “Just how does Adele and the Prospector even know each other?” I ask. Genuinely, I’m curious.

  “She traveled with him. Across time and space. She was in the same position that I’m in with the Prospector. He often fondly remembers his adventures with her. It’s a lot to live up to,” Grania answers with a distant look in her eyes.

  I might be overstepping my boundaries with someone I just met, but the way she’s speaking seems to be envious. “Are you jealous?” I ask.

  Grania shoots me a shocked look. Her pendant glows an eerie purple. “J-jealous? Is that even the right word for how I feel?” She pauses, taking in a deep breath. She looks up. “Maybe it’s just the natural chemistry or the history they have together, but I am a bit envious of how their friendship is. It’s like I’m the third wheel, the odd one out right now. It’s not often the Prospector pays a visit to his old comrades, or even asks them for help. While I have nothing more than just an intellectual attraction to the Prospector, I can’t help, but feel out of place. Have you ever felt like that Ridley? Like you don’t quite belong amongst a group of people?”

  “Er. Maybe once or twice,” I mumble. The only times I’ve really felt like the way Grania is describing was when I was angry at Hiro. But even then it was an irrational thing.

  “I see,” she sighs. “It’s humanly normal to feel this way though right?” She chuckles a bit. “People are weird. We want to be understood, yet some of us aren’t willing to let others know what’s happening. We want to be heard, yet we won’t talk. We’re weird. Everyone’s weird.”

  You’re weird that’s for sure.

  There’s a brief pause between me and Grania. I look around and catch a glimpse of what’s outside. Through the wall of a window, I can see several twinkling stars as well as some rapid zooming lights that streak by. A giant ball of fire shines brightly. Is that the sun? There are several floating debris, asteroids maybe. This entire view of space is ridiculous. It’s breathtaking, yet scary. It makes Earth look so small by comparison.

  “So tell me about yourself Ridley,” Grania says to fill in the silence.

  I reply quietly, “There’s not much to say.” I continue to stare at the space in front of me.

  “I’m sure there is,” Grania says. She looks over at me. “I can hear it you know. I can hear the sadness in you.”

  “What?”

  She places a hand on my shoulder and sighs. “There’s a lot of sadness behind the things you say. Sure, you may not exactly be sad when you say them, but there’s an undertone that you have. A subtle emotion that comes out whenever you say anything. To most people, they wouldn’t catch on, but I can. And it’s okay. We all feel sad.”

  “What are you, some sort of superhero?” I ask. Of course she has to be, she’s traveling with this Prospector guy in space. It would be weird for her not to be a superhero.

  She laughs quietly to herself. “I wouldn’t call myself a superhero. Just a girl from Earth with an ability.”

  “That sounds like a superhero to me,” I remark.

  “Maybe so, but I don’t go around saving people on a normal basis. That’s all the Prospector,” she says quietly as she looks down. She sounds disappointed in herself. “Never been much use to anyone.”

  What do I even say to something like this? “Er, uh, well.”

  She shoots me a smile on her face. “Don’t worry about it. But if you’re interested, I can tell you about my ability!” Her pendant vibrantly shines yellow. How did she change her mood so quickly?

  “Uh sure.”

  “Well, I’m definitely not a superhero because I don’t even know where to begin helping people with this ability, but I can hear people’s emotions. Their true feelings about something. Their true intentions sometimes too. It’s really weird, but I’ve had this ability since I was born so I just got used to it with time,” she answers with a wide grin on her face.

  “Is that why you said you know I’m sad?” I ask. That is a weird and oddly specific power to have, but an ability is an ability. If she makes it work then good on her, I guess.

  She nods and starts fidgeting with her pendant. “Yup! It’s never really been of any use other than knowing if someone truly is feeling an emotion or not. Other than that, it has really become more of a nuisance than anything else. There’s so much noise and discord everywhere, that listening to it all starts hurting.” She pauses again, taking a deep breath.

  As soon as Grania was about to speak again, the Prospector speaks loudly, “Grania! Would you be a dear and take Adele to the study? She’ll need to brush up on intergalactic law.”

  “Yup, gotcha!” Grania answers just as loudly as the Prospector. She turns to me and speaks in a normal tone, “It was nice talking to you Ridley. We’ll talk again later.” She gets up and leads Adele up a staircase and
into the unknown.

  Without even a brief moment of reprieve or quietness, the Prospector plops down next to me and starts speaking, “Tell me about yourself Ridley! And none of that boring, mundane, ordinary stuff, give me the details! Your aspirations! Loves, interests, maybe a significant other? Just who are you?” The Prospector leans in closely, nudging me lightly with his shoulder.

  “Er, uh,” I stumble with my words. All of the things he’s asking me is catching me off guard. “Well, I, um.”

  “Don’t be nervous now, we’re all friends here, I would like to think,” the Prospector grins widely, “after all, you’re working for Adele, that must mean you have something up your sleeve.”

  “What?” I question.

  He stares off into the vast space in front of us. He elaborates, “Well, everyone is special in their own way after all. That’s what makes everyone so unique, special you might call it. A quirk some might say. Tell me about yours.”

  I hesitate to answer with anything. Looking at this guy, he just has this sort of look that he’s intrigued, yet he already knows the answer. It’s almost like he’s asking a question to an answer he already knows. I quietly reply, “I’m just a nobody.”

  “No, no, that can’t be right,” he smirks, nudging me again with his shoulder. “Adele wouldn’t associate herself with people that have no interesting qualities. For she’s someone who highly values people and their unique personalities. So, tell me, Ridley. Just who are you?” He turns his head and stares straight into my eyes. It’s like he’s staring deep into my soul. Every second that he stares it’s like he’s traveling further down into my mind. How is he doing this?

  What’s with this guy? I slowly repeat, “L-like I said, I’m just a nobody.”

  The Prospector continues to stare deep into my eyes, mesmerizing me. He shakes his head, replying, "Do you find yourself so unimportant that you forgot how to describe yourself?" He looks away, back at the space in front of us. “I can see it, you know. That vacant stare into the world. A sense of loneliness because you're not quite sure if you belong in the world. Just a person among many. A nobody among somebodies. That’s how you feel, isn’t it?”