“Taz? Who… wait… the nurse lady from the hospital?” he asked, immediately getting a nod and a grin from her, “You’re the one who was there for my MRI?”
“If you think that’s freaky, I’m also the girl downstairs that you know as Sierra. Though she’s the confused version of herself, same as you. Once you introduce yourself to her by your real name, you’ll see what I mean,” she said, dropping the chip back into the drawer.
“You’re one of them now? You’re the one behind all this?” he spat, clenching his fists in anger.
“NO!” she shouted quickly, raising her hand to cut him off, “Not at all! I’m a victim the same as you, but somehow, at some point in the past, you and I switched some things around and did some damage to the whole mission of these people.”
This brought him back a step. He tried to process all this, going back to everything he had seen and heard.
“You and I escaped somehow – long ago. But our escape must have been ingeniously perfect because no one ever figured out that we switched the chips and by doing so, we put a spy on the other side of the wall.”
“I don’t quite understand. When and why did we exist as Indentures before? Do they keep making carbon copies of us?” he asked, “Do we keep living this hell over and over again?”
“I only know for sure that we went through this all about eight or nine years ago. Since my memory only begins at my MRI, same as yours, I don’t know the details of what happened then. I do know this, however,” she said, kneeling next to the cabinet and tugging a folder out from under the cabinet, “I wasn’t left without something to go on.”
She dropped the folder next to Declan and flipped the cover open. The first paper was a small scribbled note on a torn blue sheet of paper. Declan leaned in and read it.
“Just play along or you’ll be killed. You’re not Tami – you’re Chief Warrant Officer Brianna Rowe on a spaceship in the future. It sounds like a joke, but if you don’t play along, you’ll die. Look under the green cabinet in MedLab 2. Until then, claim that you feel some gaps in your memory.”
“Imagine waking up to that. My first memory after the MRI back in the 21st century was waking up in a glass chamber, completely naked, in a body I didn’t recognize, with a little stuffed animal that apparently I demanded to have with me upon awakening. It was just me and a little walrus with ‘tear me open ASAP’ handwritten on his fat belly,” she said, tossing the little paper to the side, “You think you had it bad? I was lost, confused, and trusting the handwritten instructions of someone I had never met.”
“Dear Lord,” he muttered, understanding the true magnitude of their whole situation for the first time, “And you played along?”
“I read a lot of sci-fi in my time,” she said by way of explanation, “Unless something bad happened, I had no choice but to play along and hope for the best. This folder here was the same exact folder under that green cabinet all those years ago. What you see is all that I had to go on.”
Declan lifted the top few pages from the folder, a small map suddenly slipping from his pile and fluttering to the floor. She knelt to pick it up and placed it on the folder.
“This was just a map of the ship with scribbled notations from you. You wanted me to be able to pretend I knew where I was at all times, but even you didn’t know where half the passageways lead. You didn’t even know where my berthing was for that matter,” she said, “Rowe’s berthing, I mean.”
“I can’t believe you were able to fool the crew of the ship. Honestly, I don’t think I would have believed any of this stuff if I woke up as you did,” he muttered, examining the papers before him, “Wait, I don’t get this. It says we were woken up when we got to the Beta Hydri System – two weeks before getting to the planet. You just told us the same thing yesterday.”
She nodded, offering no explanation, “Just read it.”
You are a crewmember of this ship in charge of a group of slaves – or Indentures as we’re often referred to. You, Tami, are (and were) one of these slaves actually, so please don’t mess this thing up. We went through a lot to get you implanted into the body of an officer…
The letter continued to explain how she should act and that she should claim that some scanning flaw must have been responsible for her gaps in memory. As he read further, it just went on to explain an identical experience for the Indentures, discovering themselves to be in the 24th century and preparing to be trained for colonization of a planet.
We found a way to escape into the command portion of the ship through Storage B. Knowing there was no way we could take over this ship or achieve freedom in any sense at all, we chose to spend our nights sneaking around in these uncharted regions of the ship hoping to learn what we could.
I won’t bore you with all the details since time is of the essence, but as time progressed, we learned that we, the Indentures, were the only ones going to Hydrus. The plan had originally been for everyone, the command crew and the Indentures, to establish this initial ground base for the upcoming colony ships, but something significant had happened aboard the ship. Whatever this unknown thing was, it made the crew want to drop us off and head out. That’s where you come in. If you think this is all part of a scam, ask the Indenture named Sierra any questions that only you would know the answers. You were and are Sierra.
Declan continued to read, shaking his head.
“How did Rowe die? I mean, I guess she had to die in order to be reconstructed with your information inside,” he said.
“Supposedly an electrocution accident involving some bare wires in the exercise lab,” she said, “But I think it would be safe to assume it wasn’t an accident. It happened a few days before dropping off the Indentured.”
He leafed through more papers, some giving her what little history they could gather on Rowe. Her murder was definitely premeditated by two people who were uncommonly patient.
“This is all so unbelievable. I almost want to pat myself on the back,” he said, setting the folder down, “Did you ever find out why they… why we were dropped off on that planet and where we’re going now?”
She nodded, taking the folder off the counter and sliding it back into its original hiding place.
“All the command personnel seem intent on keeping the crew in the dark, so I’ve got no information from them. I’m an officer, but not in the line of command officers. I did however gather some interesting tidbits from the engineering guys. Personally, I believe what they told me explains it all,” she said, motioning for him to follow her out of the room, “All the USSC ships have the capability of travelling at speeds of up to 95% the speed of light. That’s a tolerable speed for our local group of stars especially since those travelling at such speeds experience a slower passage of time. But-”
“Wait, mankind can somehow change the flow of time now?” he sputtered as they entered the passageway and headed down the long, silent corridor.
“Seriously, Declan? We’re talking about ancient 1905 Einstein relativity,” she said, giving him a mocking grin, “He theorized, and it’s been proven many times in our own time, that both gravity and speed affect the flow of time for the subject involved. The faster you go, the slower time goes. If you reach the speed of light, time stops, which is why we can never travel at that speed.”
“And this is real stuff?” he snickered, “Not something from your sci-fi books?”
“Come on, it’s old news even for me. If this ship travels at 95% light speed, using Einstein’s proven formulas, you experience about a 69% warp of time. Basically, for every 10 years of Earth time that passes while we are in transit, only a little over 3 years pass for the crew of the ship,” she said, “And no, this isn’t science fiction. And yes, you are taking me off topic. I was trying to bring you up to speed on my investigation,
“Anyway, as I was saying, I learned that we had a prototype engine aboard this ship called a ‘Jump Drive’, which would essentially permit this ship to perform a nearly instantaneous transit b
etween the stars – essentially travelling much faster than the speed of light. And it worked perfectly as far as anyone could tell, but it also damaged itself beyond repair in the process. As far as I can guess, we made a one-way trip to Beta Hydri aboard a ship that was supposed to return to Earth afterward using the same Jump Drive. I believe this unexpected problem is somehow related to the crew refusing to join the Indentures on the new planet.”
He followed her down another passageway, then up a short set of stairs leading to what he assumed was a computer lab of some sort. Nothing in the room resembled any of the computers of the 21st century, but it didn’t require a stretch of imagination to see some sorts of processing technology in the various workspaces.
“How long have you been living inside Ensign Rowe?” he asked.
“Nearly eight years now,” she said, turning to him, “Eight years of obeying the secret commands of two non-existent people; spying on the crew and officers; and all the time waiting for you to be recreated so I could get some help!”
He raised his eyebrows, confused by the sudden anger behind her words. She had already turned away from him, flipping unseen switches to bring some of the equipment to life.
“Are you mad at me for something?” he asked, examining a dark circular screen pierced by several bright green pinpoints, “Let’s remember that I’m not the same man who escaped and did all this crazy Star Trek espionage eight years ago.”
She turned to the terminal and tapped some keys, raising a three-dimensional holographic display of a bunch of triangles, dots, and dotted lines on the tabletop before them.
“Listen Declan, I need to tell you something,” she muttered, staring blankly at the three dimensional display, “I believe you and I may have… well… let’s just say that everything I’ve turned up appears to point to the fact that we seemed to like each other a lot – Tami and Declan, I mean. And truthfully, I guess I could see something like that being possible based my memory of you at the hospital that night. It’s just-”
“Wait, was there some sort of soap opera love triangle going on?” he asked, half-jokingly.
“No!” she turned to him, slapping his forearm, “Just stop interrupting and let me get it all out right now because this isn’t easy for me. What I’m saying is this: I spent a lot of time reading and re-reading those notes and instructions from you and me. And in some ways, I felt a bit of jealousy toward that girl – Sierra or Tami or whatever you’d call her. I also felt that I should wait for you.”
She turned away from Declan as he started to pace near one of the other lit up computer displays.
“I know it sounds completely stupid, but these were the thought processes of a medical assistant who found herself abandoned in the 24th century. Anyway, that loneliness I felt progressively became unbearable and I wasn’t able to wait for you. I found someone I cared about and we clicked in a way that… well, he was the first one I truly loved. When I say ‘I,’ I’m referring to this version of Tami Guzman – me. Basically, I’m married now, Declan,” she said, finally turning to him.
He stopped his pacing when he neared the holographic display. Then he turned to her unsure of how to respond to what he assumed was a confession of unfaithfulness in her eyes.
“So, you feel that you betrayed me or something like that?” he asked, shaking his head, “I’m not that Declan who wrote those instructions to you and so far, I haven’t really even spoken to that Indentured version of you downstairs.”
“I know,” she replied, “And I know you probably think I’m crazy, but I guess I was just hoping you’d tell me it’s okay. You know – that it’s okay I’m married.”
“Of course,” he replied with a shrug, “Yeah, sure. I don’t mind.”
She laughed, dropping her face into her hands, “See you think I’ve lost my mind, and I guess we all have in some sense. It’s so hard trying to figure out the ethics, morality, and principles for having multiple versions of ourselves.”
“Believe it or not, I can see how you’d feel awkward about all that so don’t worry about it. I’ve seen so much insanity in the last 24 hours that this doesn’t even come close to the top ten,” he said with a chuckle.
“Good,” she raked her fingers through her hair, then nodded, “Good, so then I imagine you’d also understand that people share things with their spouses… such as the fact that a certain spouse may be on an undercover mission to save the Indentures from slavery.”
“Are you kidding?” he sputtered, “Please tell me you’re joking. He could ruin everything!”
“No, you don’t know him and actually I needed his help on some things, so stop looking at me like I’m a bad guy again,” she said, “He’s not even a member of the crew, so he’d have nothing to gain by reporting infractions.”
Declan turned toward the door, aware of the fact that he was quickly losing any footing he thought he’d gained. Every time he thought they were making some headway, something would jump out and knock him to the floor.
“He’s a GRAV. That’s what we call the civilian organization that runs the artificial gravity systems on spacecraft,” she said, “He’s just an engineer that spends ten hours a day monitoring some giant reactors in the core of the ship. You can trust him, Declan.”
“But how do you know he doesn’t talk to his friends? And what about when those friends talk?” he asked, “I’m just talking about normal people innocently hanging out with their friends.”
“He’s already spent some time helping me – helping you,” she said, turning toward him, “I just paged him up here. In a few minutes you’ll see for yourself why you can trust him.”
He rushed over to the chair where she was still seated, searching her lap and the terminal in front of her for whatever paging device she used.
“Where is it? How do I know the whole cavalry isn’t headed here?” he pleaded.
“Where is what?” she asked, raising her hands to show them empty, “Wait, you’re looking for a pager? We don’t use devices like that in our time. It’s a… I’m not even sure how to explain it. Imagine having the ability to bring up a little computer screen that you can see hovering in front of your left eye. Then with your mind, you move the little cursor to what you want and you just select it. I mean, how did you think people were getting jolted without anyone physically doing anything?”
“So what, you just simply think it and it happens?”
“Pretty much, but we also see a visual while we think it,” she said, “Please just trust me on this one. I’m deeper into this whole thing than you are and I’ve got much more to lose than you, so I’m not going to make any foolhardy decisions. Give me some credit.”
He glanced back to the holographic image of dots and triangles, then slowly nodded.
“Okay, now can we just return to the display that I originally came in here to show you? This is an up-to-the-moment display,” she said, tapping a key that caused it to gradually rotate.
She pointed at a small blue triangle that appeared to be dragging a dotted line through the image.
“This triangle is us right now. Thanks to my lack of security clearance, I’m not lucky enough to get any of the nice little definitions, codes, or notations of any sort on these maps. I can pull them up, but I can’t tell you what they are for sure,” she said, tracing her finger to the furthest point of the dotted line behind the triangle, “But I can tell you that this little circle back here is probably the planet Hydrus where a version of you and I are at right now,
“I did some research and learned that Beta Hydri is part of a binary star system in the Hydrus constellation. Here we have two yellow circles that seem to be surrounded by multiple blue circles – a binary system with its planets. So you can see why I’m certain this is the planet we’ve been calling Hydrus.”
“Yeah, I can see it,” he said, reaching into the holographic display and pointing toward the planetary system they were now entering according to the map, “So, if our Jump Drive is shot and we’v
e spent eight years travelling this far, where are we actually going?”
She turned to him, “I think we’re heading back to our own solar system – to Earth.”
It took him a moment to process this. He shook his head, then pointed at the planet she called Hydrus.
“No, because you said this system is about 24 light years away. Without the Jump Drive, we can’t even travel at the speed of light, which means it would take more than 24 years to get from there to Earth,” he said.
“I’m guessing you were a horrible student in school, Declan. I just explained Einstein’s relativity to you,” she said, rising from the seat and gesturing toward the hologram, “To the stationary observer on Earth, it would take our ship around 26 years to make it back from Hydrus. So yes, you’re right about that, but to the people aboard the ship, traveling at 95% light speed, it would take around 7 to 8 years to reach Earth. Eight years.”
He shook his head, looking from the map to her.
“Trust me on this one,” she said, “I think we’re just now entering our solar system. But something worries me about the place we’re returning to.”
Declan was about to ask her another question when he heard someone coming up the small flight of stairs behind him. He turned to see a smiling man anxiously approaching him, clad completely in orange coveralls that resembled the prison jumpsuits of the 21st century.
“Greetings, greetings,” the man rapidly spewed, shaking his hand heartily, “I’ve heard so much and I’m honored to meet the real Declan Stringfellow.”
Declan glanced curiously toward the woman he still saw as Ensign Rowe. She replied with a grin of embarrassment before taking the arm of the unusual man.
“I told him about your vigilante superhero deeds of the 21st century, some of which actually exists in our historical records,” she explained.
“Indeed,” the man said, raising his hand to his stubble-covered chin, “Sorry about my haggard appearance, but I had no idea you were coming today. My name is Stephen, by the way.”
The Mystic Saga Omnibus (Books 1 - 5) Page 5
