Déjà Vu (First Contact)

by Peter Cawdron

  “Can she hear us?”

  “Who are you?” I ask.

  The woman points at me. “Vox is on. She’s responding, but I’m not picking up any sound. Jorgensen?”

  “She’s commandeered the channel.”

  “How is that even possible?”

  “How is any of this possible?”

  Jorgensen’s hands ripple over a holographic interface that looks like several keyboards stacked above each other.

  The woman lowers her disposable face mask. She’s wearing bright red lipstick. Thin strands of blonde hair have slipped out from the side of her white cap and curled around her neck.

  “Open your radio channel.” She beckons with her hands. I don’t understand. I thought I was transmitting. A red light on my wrist-pad computer indicates I’m on mute. I must have bumped it during the rush on the savannah.

  “Is that better?”

  My voice bellows within the cleanroom. Heads turn. The woman bats her hand at the air, signaling for Jorgensen to lower the volume.

  “Try again.”

  “Now?”

  Having heard a deafening boom when I spoke, I’m not willing to offer more than one word. Scientists and engineers from throughout the cleanroom wander over, standing well back from Jorgensen. They watch us with keen interest, talking in hushed tones from behind their paper masks.

  “Are you real?” the woman asks.

  I try not to laugh. “I was going to ask you that.”

  The woman turns to Jorgensen, talking as though I’m not hearing her every word.

  “You’re sure this isn’t AI mimicry?”

  “Yes.”

  “We haven’t picked up a guest account by accident?”

  “I’m telling you, she’s from the Gamma-November simulation. No doubt about it. She fell out of the sequence.”

  I’m confused. I’m floating a few feet above the floor. The sensation is one of weightlessness even though everything and everyone around me is grounded. I feel as though I’m in free-fall, plunging down the side of a rollercoaster or falling from a cliff, and yet I’m stationary. Although it looks as though I’m hanging from the ceiling, I’m not. I’m entirely weightless, drifting within my spacesuit.

  “Who are you? Where am I?”

  “Can you bring her down?” the woman says.

  Jorgensen waves his hands through the air, touching at the hologram interface. I descend until my boots are tantalizingly close to the ground. I’m frustrated, kicking lightly with my legs but unable to touch the floor. The polished concrete remains out of reach, just millimeters away.

  “Can you put me down properly?” I ask, echoing the woman’s words.

  “She doesn’t realize.” Jorgensen faces the woman. “She doesn’t know. You have to tell her.”

  “Wh—What?” The woman’s flustered, unprepared for this—only ‘this’ has context—this is me—this is my life they’re talking about.

  “What is going on?” I ask.

  “Ah.” The woman points at herself. “My name is Dr. Sandra Everton. This is my colleague, Dr. Hans Jorgensen. We’re historians.”

  “Astro-archeologists.” Jorgensen lowers his mask, leaving it hanging loosely around his neck.

  I’m silent.

  “We’re researchers. We use the computing power of Astoria Holidays to conduct virtual reconstructions of significant historical events.”

  “Holidays?” I say. I didn’t catch anything else he said, becoming hung up on that one word. “This is a fucking day spa?”

  Jorgensen laughs. He’s nervous. “Ah, it’s complicated. A lot has changed since you left.”

  “I’m dead, aren’t I?”

  “Yes.” Dr. Everton hangs her head.

  “And you can’t put me down on the ground because—”

  “Because there is no ground.” Jorgensen sounds dejected. “Not for you. You’re a hologram—a simulation.” His hands skim over the various interfaces. “I can alter the physics engine—have it simulate One Gee at floor height. That’ll seem real enough to you.”

  “To me?” I’m struggling to grasp what’s going on.

  “I’m sorry.” Dr. Everton shakes her head. “We didn’t think this would happen. We really didn’t.”

  “I—I don’t understand.” My hands tremble within my gloves. I’m unable to reconcile reality with the prospect of being nothing more than bits and bytes in a computer simulation. This is impossible. This cannot be happening. Not to me.

  Dr. Everton avoids looking at me. She stares at Jorgensen. There’s something else she doesn’t want to tell me.

  My boots rest on the floor. Gravity increases. I can feel my body taking up the weight of the spacesuit and life-support pack.

  “So this?” I gesture to my suit helmet. “There’s no need for any of this?”

  Dr. Everton shakes her head.

  Jorgensen says, “You’re in a simulation.”

  I get that this is a simulation, but I’m not. I’m alive. I know I am, but I can see it in their stunned faces—they’re talking to a ghost.

  Although it feels wrong, I power down my life-support system. With grim determination, I grab the locking ring halfway up my forearm and pause. I can feel the pressure beneath my gloved fingertips with more clarity than I have ever felt in my life. I’m aware of the grip of my hand, the twist of my wrist, the flex of muscles in my forearm, the subtle pressure running up into my shoulder, and the torque being applied. I twist until the interlocking metal ring gives and the glove comes free. How is this not real? I drop the glove, watching as it falls to the floor within the simulation. This is so messed up.

  No one speaks.

  I remove the second glove and examine it, looking at the fabric. There are scuff marks on the rubber fingertips. Grease stains have smudged the palm. I squeeze it, examining the flex and texture of the material.

  Dr. Everton walks forward.

  “It’s not real.”

  She holds out her hand, gesturing for me to give her the glove. Our eyes meet. She must see the tears welling up as I struggle not to break down. I rest the glove in her outstretched hand. It falls through her fingers—not from her fingers. The glove passes through her hand as though it wasn’t even there. Only it’s not her hand that’s not there, it’s mine. It’s my glove, my spacesuit, my hand, my arm, my body that are fake. I’m panicking, hyperventilating.

  “It’s okay.” Dr. Everton reaches out, almost but not quite touching me. With outstretched fingers, she says, “Breathe.”

  “Why?” Tears stream down my cheeks. “Why breathe if none of this is real?”

  The silence within the cleanroom is overwhelming, and for me, that’s confusing. If this is real—this room—this time—this place—why is the only sound that of my own breathing?

  I reach up, releasing the locking ring on my helmet. With both hands set on either side and far more precision than I have ever employed before, I squeeze and twist. The illusion is overwhelming. The rigid casing shifts sideways, cutting off my vision, leaving me staring at the lining on the inside of my helmet. I’m of Middle Eastern descent, the granddaughter of a refugee from Yemen. My Mams, as I called her, worked as an engineer at the Marshall Space Flight Center. My dark hair is oily. Even with a Snoopy cap on, thin strands get loose and drift against the padding, leaving telltale signs. There’s a soft yellow smudge on the white material. I raise the helmet, reluctant to surrender the safety of my suit, but knowing it has to go, along with the backpack.

  “So what is this place?”

  My voice breaks with barely disguised disdain. I feel robbed, insulted, demeaned, embarrassed. I toss my helmet on the floor. I could place it on the bench—or could I? I’m still coming to grips with reality—whatever the fuck that is. No one answers. The helmet bounces, rolling across the polished floor. The sound reaches my ears, which is confusing. Am I lost in a dream?

  I unbuckle my Snoopy cap and slide it from my head, feeling my hair run through the fabric. Loose strands f
all across my face. I scrunch the cap up in a ball, conscious of the feel of the wiring and the earpiece embedded in the material. Apparently, they’re not real. I toss the Snoopy cap at the helmet, which has rolled over by the bench. The flimsy material catches on the collar, swinging on it before falling to the floor. Missed. I never was any good at basketball, not even the office kind with a crunched up bit of paper being thrown into a wastebasket.

  The two scientists watch with keen interest but don’t offer any comments. Even the engineers are curious. I guess it’s not every day you watch a computer simulation suffering an existential crisis.

  “I don’t suppose you could help me with this?”

  Dr. Everton shakes her head.

  I work with the EVA backpack, releasing the support straps that connect it to my spacesuit. The pack is designed to be interchangeable in the event of an emergency, with quick-release clamps securing it to the fiberglass torso of my suit. In microgravity, the clips are easy to work with as there’s no weight on them. Standing here in the cleanroom, the pack is cumbersome. I get frustrated, fighting with one of the clips.

  “Not real, right?”

  I unhook my oxygen hose, followed by the air return valve and CO2 filter.

  “Feels pretty fucking real to me.”

  Dr. Everton lowers her eyes. She stares at my bulky boots with their thick soles and layers of thermal protection.

  I’m angry. I feel I have a right to be angry. This is my life! And yet, with the rush of blood following that anger, there’s a moment of tranquility and peace. I’m alive. They may not know it. They may not understand how or why, but I am.

  I’ve cheated death.

  I release the straps. The pack slips to the ground. Real or not, it’s a relief to get that weight off my back. Even without the life-support pack, my suit has me looking like a linebacker. Big bulky padding wraps over my shoulders.

  Dr. Everton gestures around her.

  “All this, it’s a... Ah, we take virtual holidays. I know. I know it seems strange. So much about our world must be confusing to you, but this was the only XVR engine we could get time on. The owner is a benefactor of the museum. He grants us 25% of processing power during the off-season and gives us space to work in the machine shop. We run historical simulations, reconstructing events and modeling outcomes. Most of the worlds in there are tourist destinations.”

  “The mammoth?”

  Jorgensen nods. “Paleolithic hunting is particularly popular with the Marines. There’s something about the challenge of...” and his voice trails away.

  Dr. Everton explains. “We were trying to reconstruct the loss of the Intrepid.”

  “And me? How did I end up in there? And don’t tell me I’m not real.”

  “You’re real.” Jorgensen swallows a lump in this throat. “Or you were. The wreckage of the Intrepid was found almost a century after the incident. Your desiccated remains were recovered from—”

  I cut him off, knowing the answer.

  “—the rings.”

  “Yes. But how did you know that?”

  I ignore his question, asking, “What about the aliens?”

  Jorgensen looks at Dr. Everton. She shrugs as she replies. “There are no aliens in Procyon Alpha A or B, or any other star system even remotely close to here. The only alien lifeforms we’ve ever found are prokaryotic slime around Wolf 359.”

  “But I saw them. The eyes. A field full of eyes. I saw those creatures, and they saw me.” The look of disbelief on Dr. Everton’s face suggests she’s not convinced. I continue, saying, “How do you know there aren’t any aliens in the Proc?”

  She points at the floor as she replies.

  “Because we’re here—in the Procyon Alpha A system. There’s been a continuous human presence here in the Proc for over nine hundred years.”

  “How—How long?” I ask, only now getting an idea of how much time has elapsed since the destruction of the Intrepid.

  Jorgensen looks at Dr. Everton, maintaining eye contact for a second before saying, “It’s the year 4044 in the modern era.”

  The blood drains from my head, or it would if I had both blood and a head. My jaw drops.

  “I—I’ve been dead for two thousand years???”

  I must seem like a relic to them. I’m as far removed from these guys as the Roman emperor Caesar is to me.

  “Actually.” Dr. Everton screws up her face a little. “The reckoning of the era is from when Armstrong and Aldrin walked on Earth’s moon. Technically, using your dating system, it’s a little over 6000 AD.”

  “Fuck!”

  Jorgensen raises his finger, wanting to make a point. “Ah, that’s one little gem that hasn’t gone out of fashion.”

  “But you speak English?”

  “In the same way people from your time might speak Latin.”

  Jorgensen gestures to the scientists and engineers behind him.

  “Most of our colleagues have no idea what we’re talking about. They might grasp a few of the terms, but your syntax is different—archaic to them. Similar to what you’d grasp if Chaucer was read aloud.”

  Dr. Everton clarifies. “Even with our translation units, it’s hard for us to talk to you—talk with you.”

  “Hard for you?” I say, fighting feelings of anger.

  “I’m sorry.”

  I pace back and forth. Even though I have no legs, it feels good to exercise whatever virtual limbs I have, grounding me in the moment. This is a nightmare. I can only hope I’ll wake with the dawn and find myself floating around Earth in the cargo bay of the Intrepid. We’re only two days out from launching to the Proc. Jansen and MacArthur will be there. They’ll rib me as I recall my strange dream.

  Dr. Everton destroys that notion, saying, “We found fragments of brain material—just scraps really. Jorgensen was able to reconstruct the neural matrix. He mapped memories from three of the crew.”

  “You recovered Jansen and MacArthur?”

  “Yes.”

  Jorgensen points at three jars. Fractured skull bones float in what I guess is formaldehyde. Tiny blue lights flicker from bits of brain matter hanging from the underside of the bone. Fiber optics lead from the organic remains, twisting into bundles and snaking away like a spinal cord. It leads down to a plug at the base of the container. From there, the connection must be wireless as a node on the side of the glass has a flickering blue light.

  “That?” I point. “That’s me?”

  Dr. Everton nods.

  “There were several shared memories, but the details were corrupt. They tend to blur together. One of you preparing to launch from Earth’s orbit.”

  I cut her off.

  “—and another, while we were in orbit around a gas giant.”

  Dr. Everton gestures toward one of the fishbowl-like holograms hovering above the workbench. A miniature model of the Intrepid floats above a massive gas giant. The rings. As always, the rings are stunning, resplendent in the distant starlight.

  “You’re on Erebus. One of the moons of the gas giant, Styx. Your ship was destroyed by a collision with debris dislodged from the inner ring.”

  “Oh, it wasn’t debris,” I say, but my comment is ignored.

  Jorgensen speaks as he types on his ghostly keyboard.

  “Yours was the strongest memory. We ran the simulation multiple times, slowly tweaking variables, trying to tease out details. We wanted to learn about—”

  “The aliens.”

  “We weren’t sure. We found traces of non-terrestrial amino acid on your epidermis.”

  “My skin,” I say. “It’s okay. You can call it that.”

  “There’s no match for any known lifeforms. There are several schools of thought. Some scientists think those strands are legitimate, hinting at other forms of complex biological life. Others suggest they’re a corruption of human DNA exposed to cosmic radiation. Still others say they’re nothing but contamination from the rings.”

  “And you?”

  D
r. Everton is proud. “I’m a scientist. I’m not taking sides until the evidence is settled.”

  Jorgensen isn’t as clinical. “Whoever they were, they weren’t from around here. They must have moved on long before we arrived.”

  Dr. Everton appeals to me. “Can you help us?”

  “Help you?” I laugh. “I’m the one that needs help.”

  “We’ll do what we can to assist you, but the answers we seek could be locked inside your head, deep within your subconscious mind.”

  I see compassion in her eyes—a longing to help. She’s sincere. She cares about what happened, although I’m not sure what she can do for virtual me. I’m a ghost from centuries past. For them, it’s as though the mummified remains of some ancient Egyptian on display in the British Museum has been brought back to life.

  Jorgensen taps on his virtual keyboards. A similar keyboard appears in mid-air before me, just inches away from my waist.

  “I can give you some autonomy.”

  I hope he sees the irony in simulating a virtual keyboard within a virtual world. Redundant much? The layout of the keys is considerably different to what I’m used to, and they’re angled to be ergonomic. No QWERTY in the future—probably for the best. C’s look like E’s, but they’re squarish rather than curved. While A looks like an upside-down V and G looks like an almost but not quite finished O. It’s as though someone ran out of ink while revising the alphabet.

  A bunch of everyday objects float around the ghostly keyboard: a miniature table, an armchair, and a refrigerator.

  Dr. Everton is gentle. Her words convey patience. It’s as though she’s working with a petulant child.

  “Go on. It’s okay.”

  My fingers reach for the miniature table and a real table appears in front of me. A slight twist of my wrist and its position on the floor changes. I move it beside me and withdraw my hand from the hologram.

  Polished wood glistens under the down-lights, revealing a beautiful mahogany finish. The table’s easily five feet square, being ideal for a large family. Thick, sturdy legs rest on the floor, casting shadows on the ground. A beveled edge softens the sides. Ornate laurel leaves have been carved into the skirting just beneath the tabletop.