by Ryan Krauter
“How’s your world history coming along?” Asked his dad.
“I’m getting a B.”
“Good enough, I guess,” he replied. “This story starts around the early Middle Ages, in the 11th or 12th century. Technology was advancing faster than ever, universities were founded, social development charged ahead. Everything was great, and the plagues that later swept the civilized world were over a hundred years off. This advancement drew the attention of some people from offworld.”
His dad paused, tapping the tablet PC, which changed the holographic image to that of a different solar system. Matt saw that here, there were even little spaceships zooming around the system between planets. “There was a race of beings called that called themselves Clariens. They were very advanced; they were thinkers, scientists, that sort. There was one, named Enneb, who led the greatest experiment they had ever devised. They wanted to run a nature versus nurture experiment on a planetary scale. They wondered what would happen if a civilization was gently guided and allowed to advance at it’s own fastest pace with the goal of bettering itself, free of wars, inequality, crime. There would be no prejudice, no crooked CEOs. They wanted to find a people who were new, free of outside contact, and give them the tools they’d need like schools and shelter, and see how fast they’d advance compared to the baseline.”
“So they came to Earth roughly a thousand years ago. They took, voluntarily so the records claim, tens of thousands of people from all over the planet over a period of a few decades, enough to ensure genetic diversity. They took them to a new planet far away, which they had named Haven. There, the people were allowed to develop on their own with minimal contact from the Clariens. They had little or no fighting, corruption, disease, because every person on the planet was focused from the earliest age on the idea of furthering their civilization. They already had the basics like food and shelter, so they were free to spend their time learning and growing. Imagine what people could accomplish if they could spend their years striving to better themselves instead of worrying about the things that drag us down.”
His father paused to look at Matt and check his reaction. “Yes,” Matt said, “that’s great. You should try to sell that script to Hollywood.”
“So the people of Haven eventually passed up Earth by over four hundred years of development,” Matt’s father pressed on. “Think of how many times Earth had its development slowed. Plagues, famines, witchhunts, wars, that sort of thing always slows down the development of a people. We didn’t have that on Haven. Life, frankly, was pretty good.
“Then, a hundred years ago, another bunch came to the party. They called themselves the Vorlins. They had some sort of grudge against the Clariens, and after a few decades of sparring, they destroyed them.”
“What,” Matt asked, “like took over their planet or something?”
“No, I mean destroyed. They wiped out their planets and hunted down every last one they could find. There are no more Clariens anywhere in this galaxy that anyone knows of.”
“Bummer for them,” was Matt’s reply, but it was a little more thoughtful than his last response. His parents noticed that he seemed to at least be thinking about the situation they were describing and trying to understand.
“Then the Vorlins realized we were in the picture. They decided to get rid of the humans as well. Problem was, we had heard about their attacks from the Clariens, and we fought better than they’d expected. They had an edge in technology, but we countered with something they couldn’t possess- genetics.”
“Because we’re just more awesome, right?”
“Sometimes, I don’t think you take us seriously,” said his mom.
“The Vorlins are able to disrupt almost any electronic or light signal. This causes problems while fighting in space, because we couldn’t communicate with our ships, captains, bases, anything. Our datalinks couldn’t work, and if the distances involved were too great, we couldn’t even get real time information on where our ships were, much less coordinate our efforts. The Vorlins were forcing us to fight individually, and they were wiping us out.
“Here’s where everything changed. Our scientists, through research that had nothing to do with the war, found something remarkable. There was a very small percentage of the population that had a gene that had a unique function- it gave the person a sort of sixth sense, an ability to see and organize and multitask, to hold a number of things in the front of their attention and make sense of it all. It’s basically an enhanced version of the common ability to multitask, though genetically it serves no useful purpose since only with a computer datalink can this ability be tapped. On Earth, the people with this extremely rare gene are the people that can play a videogame, talk on the phone, order a pizza, and solve a puzzle all at the same time. They can assemble one computer while testing another and carry on an intelligent conversation and not screw anything up.” His dad paused looking squarely at Matt, waiting for him to make the connection.
Finally, it was there. “Wait, you mean me?” Matt replied with doubt. “So what? I can do a couple things at a time. There are other people who are good at that.”
“There are, you’re right. But only people with this gene can do what is needed to coordinate a battle. With training and the right equipment, you could become a command center for an entire army. You could talk to, visualize, and order around fleets with a thought, using less bandwidth than our computers take to say hello to each other. With enough people like you in the fighting ships, it would make an entire fleet act like one perfectly organized unit.”
“And why on Earth would anyone think I could be this magic sorcerer?”
“Because we were,” replied his dad. “Your mom and I both served as Combat Coordinators. It’s extremely rare, can’t be done artificially, and often it’s genetic, so you most likely possess the same gene we do.”
Matt had finally reached the breaking point. His day had started off so gleefully normal, and now, after watching two strangers fight over him, get chased out of the mall, a high speed drive home, and the most insane speech ever delivered by parents to a kid, his mind was on the verge of shutting down. He just didn’t know where to go with all of this, and it must have showed, because his parents stopped their presentation and watched him, looks of concern on their faces.
Silence hung in the air. Finally, someone spoke.
“You’re from space!!!” They heard Jessie’s voice scream from Matt’s cell phone lying by his side. “Are you kidding me?”
“Oh. Crap.” Matt whispered softly, closed his eyes, and slumped back into the couch as the air left his lungs.
His mom and dad just looked at each other. His dad seemed to be holding back some sort of comment, and his mom just looked at the phone in his hand, which he had obviously forgotten to shut off when he stopped talking.
There was a sudden noise at the back door and it burst open. His parents both turned to the door and had their weapons raised in a two handed firing stance in an instant, a practiced move that made Matt nervous because they seemed to be so comfortable with it. Jessie stood at the door, one hand still on the handle and gasping for breath, since it seemed like she had run the few blocks to the Falken house at a full sprint.
She stopped panting for just long enough to look at his parents and say, “I hope those are set to stun.”
