Hostage of Time (Beacons of Time Book 1)

by E. D. Cask

  “I am Sergei,” the kid stuck out his hand. He looked to be about fifteen.

  Josh shook his hand. “I’m Josh. How long have you guys been here?”

  “Weeks…years, who cares? The point is we’re never leaving this dump,” another kid at the table muttered.

  “Don’t worry, Alexei,” Sergei said.

  “Name’s Alex, doofus,” Alex said.

  “Yes, yes, Alex and here is Freddy, Larry, Bobby, Sammy, and Nicky, yes? And now, Joshy.”

  Josh couldn’t help grinning at the spirit of Sergei, who showed him where to get the food and moved over when he brought it back to the table. The shelves on the wall were now filled with trays of food. All you had to do was take a tray. You could get refills of drink with the buttons. The tray, plate, bowl, cup, and utensils were all made of hard gray plastic. The food was bland, but not too disgusting. It was goop in different colors. As Josh ate, Sergei kept up a stream of banter, which didn’t bother him as much as it normally would have. He needed something normal and homey right now. Apparently there had almost been a riot at the beginning when they had only had gray goop to eat, so Ku had requested the AI to add colors. Now they were lobbying for some flavors.

  “The Ducks have to be careful of shocks, but we can ask, right?” Sam said.

  “Ducks?”

  Sam explained, “That’s what we call ourselves. The abductees.”

  Sergei frowned and pursed his lips, “I still do not understand this. Those two words are nothing like each other.”

  The brain implant was translating everyone’s languages, except words that Josh knew. This was disconcerting when Nick would talk to him and a Spanish word that he knew would pop into the sentence. He learned to live with it, but it was a bit annoying. It was easier than having to learn everyone’s language. It also used strange word order, like the actual order of the words in the sentence of the other language. The other thing that the translator did was strip out the emotion and intonation of the words. A couple of times, he saw someone obviously complaining or whining, but their translation was flat.

  After a while, people started heading out of the cafeteria. Sergei and the guys led him to their room. It looked like a dorm room and smelled like a clean locker room. The beds were numbered. He recognized that the numbers weren’t roman numerals or numbers like he was used to. They were some other type of figures, but he could still understand them. When he looked at them, the number seemed to whisper in his brain. The guys jumped onto beds all around the room. The room could have slept twenty, so there was plenty of room.

  “Choose anywhere, we are the only ones here,” Sergei said.

  Josh grabbed a bench bed that had the number that translated as seven, his favorite number. He sat there and looked around.

  “So what do you guys do all day,” he asked.

  There were groans. Sergei smiled. “You will see tomorrow, good night.”

  There was a low hum and the lights started dimming. They were tired from the day’s training and all asleep when the lights turned off except for Josh. He lay there trying to figure out if it was a good thing that this reminded him of Ender’s Game or a really bad thing. Finally, he fell asleep.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Ducks

  The next morning, the seven guys showed Josh around. He figured out pretty quickly that they were all gamer geeks. They didn’t remember all the same games, but the fundamentals were the same. He figured that they had been captured from different continents and different eras. Bob was a Pac-Man kid from the 80’s, Sam was a little later with Super Mario Kart on a Nintendo system, Fred and Larry were both into Quake from the 90’s, and Sergei was a Tetris whiz and some other Russian sounding game that he didn’t know. The rest had mostly come from a later time, after 2050 or so, because he didn’t recognize the games they were talking about. They sounded much more immersive than a flat screen TV.

  Alex talked about this gaming system that was the size of a mobile phone and it connected to your optic nerves and neural network with two little patches on your skin. Some people even implanted them permanently. This allowed games to be played anywhere.

  “The homeless are the craziest, man. They sit there twitching with these blank looks on their face and you know they are jacked in. People have to go around and force feed them sometimes,” Alex explained. “My dad used to do that on his breaks. That’s why he never let me play those kinds of games. I had to use the hologames.”

  Sam frowned, “Hologames?”

  Alex shrugged, “Yeah, they were 3D in a little space over your table or something. Like the holos here, but a lot smaller. The neurogames made you feel like you were actually inside the game. Kind of like the sims here.” He grinned, “My dad would throw a fit if he knew I was playing these games now.” He looked down at his feet.

  Sam patted him on the back.

  Most of the training here was similar to video games or flight sims. They strapped into chairs, put on helmets that covered their faces and became immersed in virtual cockpits of space fighters. Josh was instructed by the voice, Duumai, to place his hands into two holes in the console. Yuck! It felt like more goo at first, but the sensation dissipated and he could feel buttons and levers. They learned all the controls and capabilities of the fighters they could absorb.

  Josh felt like he was back in high school, learning a new video game. As he repeated the training, he caught up to the other guys pretty quickly. He almost forgot that he had been abducted. But reality crashed in when he saw the ships they were supposed to destroy. They looked big; and there were humans in them. No one would tell him why they were the bad guys other than the fact that they had fired on the sentinels at the edge of the system.

  They were also taught the common language of the Lytix, called Logos. This wasn’t fun, but Josh was up to the challenge. The year on the road had been a physically challenging. It felt good to challenge his mind again. The language was like a mishmash of other languages. Sergei said there was a smattering of Russian words in Logos. But the language was sparse and austere. They were never taught words about emotions or feelings.

  At dinner, after a full day of learning, somebody from one of the other tables got up and started shouting, “You…people…think you can take—” and then the translation stopped. After a few more untranslated words, the man fell to the ground. Two MedBots came in and picked him up and carried him out. The room was quiet for a while as everyone watched, then the buzz of conversation slowly began again.

  Josh looked at the guys at his table and raised his eyebrows. Sam pursed his lips and said, “That’s the third time that Mustafa has acted out. He was gone for days last time.”

  “Does it happen often?”

  “More often lately. The pressure has been getting crazy in training,” Fred said.

  Josh frowned, “Do they give you any downtime?”

  Most of them shook their heads and Sergei said, “Nyet.”

  “Have you asked for more downtime? Obviously you need it, right. Look at that guy.”

  Sergei smiled, “They gave us food colors, yes?

  Josh stood up. “How do I talk to the guy in charge?”

  “Don’t make a scene or we might get in trouble,” Bob pleaded.

  “Hey, look. I think that’s Ku. He’s not too bad. He’s the one who gave us the colors in our food,” Sam said as he pointed.

  Josh turned around and walked over to Ku. “I assume you know what happened here.”

  “Yes.”

  “From what I am hearing, we need more downtime.”

  “I do not understand this concept.”

  “We are human and we need time for our minds and bodies to relax and decompress. Doing the same thing over and over is bad. We aren’t robots.”

  “You wish time down?”

  “On Earth, we usually got two days a week as a break. Hasn’t anyone told you this?”

  “The concept of not working for two days in seven has been mentioned, but it is inefficient
.”

  “Is losing warriors like that efficient? Do you want that to happen in battle, where you would have even less control?” Josh asked.

  “I will consider this, but taking days off is unacceptable.”

  Josh thought for a moment. “What might work is a holodeck.” Ku observed him. “There was a show…never mind, a holodeck would be a room where we could spend an hour wherever we wanted to. We could call up a scene from Earth, like a park or a river. Then we would feel better. It would be a break from all of these gray walls.”

  “That might be possible. Duumai, do we have a room available for this?”

  Yes, room 38476 would be suitable. It will be ready in five minutes.

  Josh asked, “Is it big enough for everyone?”

  Yes.

  Ku said, “You may tell the people.”

  Josh smiled and turned to the room. “Hey guys. Ku has offered us a break room of sorts. Anyone who watched any Star Trek might recognize a holodeck. Duumai is building it right now.”

  Excited chatter broke out as those who knew what Josh was talking bout explained it to the others. After a few minutes, Ku led them all to the room. When everyone was in the dark, gray room, Ku looked at Josh and said, “Tell Duumai what you want.”

  “Okay, Duumai, I would like an Earth park in springtime.”

  The lights dimmed for a second and then came up on a large park that looked like it spread miles around. There shouts of surprise and joy as the Ducks looked around.

  “Duumai, can you add birds?”

  There was a flock of songbirds that flew in and landed on the trees and started singing.

  “Duumai, that’s too much. Just three birds that sing at a time.”

  The noise level dropped.

  “Duumai, can you add the smells of flowers…just a touch of scent.”

  Several guys dropped to their knees and tried to smell the flowers, but the scent was everywhere. People started wandering around and walking through trees and bushes. Josh grinned at his roommates. “Well, not exactly like the Holo Deck, but still pretty cool.”

  “Yes, very nice.”

  An older man came up to Ku and Josh and bowed. “Thank you for this vision. It is calming and peaceful.”

  Josh smiled at him and gave a short bow.

  Ku asked, “This vision gives you peace?”

  “Yes, it is a peaceful scene. We need this as a break from the real world sometimes.”

  “Duumai informs me that a chemical called endorphin is flooding your brains.”

  “I think that is the one that gives us pleasure.”

  “You may come here for a short time after training each day.” Ku left the room.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Ku

  I am Ku. This is my designation as I am the tenth in succession. I begin this new document as a historical record. The main task that I have been given is to prepare the children for battle. I was not even given instruction on how to do that. Only the task. This pleases me. I say the word pleases, but it means less to me than to you. This satisfies my logic. It is a mark of note from Du. That he knows of my usefulness.

  We have not had children in our care for many hundreds of years. It is much easier to grow a Lytix to full stature and ability than to take the chance of error with a growing thing. Our bodies are mortal, but our consciousness lives on. This only requires new bodies be built when needed. I have been conscious for hundreds of years and Du has been conscious for longer than any of us. It is more useful to reuse the same consciousness many times over.

  We have had to terminate many consciousnesses which exhibited erratic tendencies. Even disciples of Master Au are prone to error. When this happens, we grieve the loss. Not in the way that the young humans do. We are unable to keep all the thoughts and impressions that an erratic consciousness has and we feel the loss. I continue to use words that mean different things to different beings, but future humans might not understand our technical language.

  We are disciples of Master Au, the first, who taught that all emotion and excessive feeling is dangerous and unnecessary. It leads to anger, strife, and war. This is his core teaching, but we have expanded it over the centuries. We have done everything in our power, which is considerable, to remove all emotion from our lives. We learned how to subtract all of these dangerous feelings and thoughts from our bodies. This even involved removing those parts of our bodies. This is the more efficient way. We have survived in peace for centuries because of this.

  Master Au would be pleased. Perhaps we can bring his consciousness forward and show him what we have accomplished.

  However, this extreme efficiency has perhaps led to an error in logic. We did not predict others from outside of our solar system intruding. This has led to problems. We are not equipped for war. We are only equipped for peace and the acquisition of knowledge. Our AI constructs failed us in this manner.

  It was decided to take humans from our past before they were altered to help us defend our work. We do not care for our bodies, but we must save the work that we have compiled over the centuries. This is our primary purpose.

  It took many tries to successfully program a time beacon back in the past. It was programmed to look for individuals who were lost or dying. We did everything possible to prevent a time ripple. All the humans that we took could only have been listed as lost. Anything else would have been rumors. We learned that children were best suited to this great change in time and circumstance. Their minds were properly flexible. Certain adults that we took became too erratic. It was also decided to only take boys. Mixing two genders would cause even more emotion and tension.

  I was tasked to teach these children, showing them what was possible. I placed them in groups. The historical records called these teams and show that teams work most efficiently. This also promotes something called competition among the teams. I already see examples of this. Teams have taken to naming themselves and choosing colors. They like colors. All of these emotions are difficult to process, but I have tried to keep them active and satisfied. There have only been a few times when the brain implant was needed.

  I worried when I saw this one called Josh. He was older than most of the other new recruits and showed signs of strong emotions. But he had the qualities for leadership that were needed. His addition to the younger team improved them all. Duumai said that they call themselves a clan, which seems to be a stronger version of a team. Their talents with games bonded them.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  A-team

  Josh fit in with the kids and enjoyed the training, in spite of himself. They reminded him of his old clan from his high school times. The only difference was that this was a physical group. Most of his clan in high school had never met physically. It was weird being together all the time, but it did make the game training time even more rich. They dropped into leet speak pretty quickly, even learning the new or, in some cases, old slang from others.

  The games were absolutely immersive, down to the chair that they sat in. They were taught all the controls and methods and then trained in mock battles. The guys, all younger, naturally gravitated toward Josh as a leader. He enjoyed working out strategies with Sergei on how to defeat the other teams. Josh’s team took to calling themselves the A-Team. There was no actual leader board in the computer or the cafeteria, but all the teams knew that the A-Team won every battle.

  Bob was the youngest of the group. He was a black kid from the suburbs of Detroit and had been some kind of Pac-Man champ. He had really fast reflexes, but his targeting skills were low. He wasn’t used to shooting things. Josh had heard him whimpering in his bed from nightmares a few times, so he tried to get him to open up.

  “So, Bob, what was your high score at Pac-Man?”

  Bob shrugged and looked down at the floor.

  “You don’t want to tell me? Are you afraid that my score can beat yours? I think I got over 50,000 points once or twice. Can you beat that?”

  Bob giggled, “I almost reached a
million once, but nobody was there the whole time to see.”

  “Wow, that is amazing. What about Galaga? That was around, too, right?”

  Bob shook his head shyly, “No, my mom thought it was too violent for me. I liked Pac-Man better anyway.”

  “I guess. Did you play in any competitions?”

  “Not really. Nothing official. I just learned to get better at Pac-Man, because my dad only let me spend one dollar a week at the arcade. So I learned to stretch that dollar into hours of game time. My parents didn’t want me focusing on games. They wanted me to work harder in school.” He teared up a bit.

  Josh patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, Bob. I’ll try to find a way to get you back, okay?”

  Bob nodded, “I miss my mom.”

  “What did your dad do?”

  “He was a designer at Ford. He was going to buy me a Macintosh for my next birthday.”

  “Cool. Hey, don’t tell anyone, but when you get back, tell your dad to buy stock in Apple and hold onto it for at least twenty years. He’ll thank you later.”

  Bob looked mystified and shrugged. Josh laughed and started back to the dorm room.

  “Hey, baby kid. Where is your mama?”

  Josh turned around. Three larger boys were converging on Bob, who was trying to catch up to Josh. The boys cut him off and surrounded him, taunting him.

  “Are you still crying at night? Do you miss your tiny doll?”

  Josh turned back and pushed them aside. “Leave him alone. He’s with me.”

  They laughed, “What are you going to do? No violence allowed in the rooms. You can’t stop us.”

  “Oh really? You think a little shock can stop me?” He stood over them.

  They laughed nervously and took a step back.

  “I could get one good punch in before anything stops me. Leave Bob alone.” He turned and walked back to Bob and they made their way back to the dorm. Bob shyly grinned his thanks up at him.