Floating Ink

by James Livingood

CHAPTER TWO

  Executive

  The world was cookie cutter ready for an alien invasion. The Xenophen didn’t round humans into tiny cages, we ran into cubicles by ourselves. They didn’t take away our military might, we gave it to them to retrofit. The floating ink monsters didn’t kill world leaders, they groomed them gently with successes. The creatures had been watching and waiting for society to reach a nexus. As they noticed us rising from our past brutalities, they hopped on the other side of the seesaw, lifting us even higher. They leveraged humanity’s growing into a knowledge economy. To control us, they simply needed to offer a better education. Xenophen provided technology beyond anything scientists had learned. We pleaded for the honor of serving them, with the hope to learn their technology. All the while, the Xenophen weaved together a trap. Charging a premium, they partnered with companies to build minor changes in existing technology. These creatures used the massive funds to then influence laws and culture.

  Few saw this truth as clearly as Ruth. She had once been a beggar on the streets, eating garbage where she could find it. Since the aliens had scanned her, life was drastically different. The Xenophen put a numerical knowledge in her head, without giving her the full key to unlock it. As a result, she could see the art and poise behind the numbers. Being given a direct gift by Xenophen had been a unique resume booster. Companies often sought her out to help them understand statistics, accounting, and marketing. It was little surprise that a Xenophen partner company offered her top dollar. Slowly, though, she began to see a different pattern forming in the numbers between companies. It looked like a noose around the neck of humanity, slowly tightening.

  Ruth told her supervisor about the pattern within the numbers. He asked Ruth to please illustrate that design in a simplified manner and he would bring it up with his supervisor. He had been particularly interested if the pattern could be exploited to save money. She assembled colorful spreadsheets full of information. Her spreadsheet art caught the attention from someone near the top of the corporate latter. The meeting was not supposed to contain anyone else, just her and the executive. The secretary smiled politely and waved Ruth to open the large wooden doors.

  She stopped in place, eyes wide, when the executive turned out to be a Xenophen.

  “Please sit,” said the Xenophen, floating near a chair.

  Ruth looked around the office. In one corner was a metal platform with sheets of glass sprouting from it. The other corner contained the traditional decorative rug and brown leather chairs. There was neither a desk in the room, nor swivel chairs. The bareness of the office showed off the fantastic view.

  “I read your report. It’s a good fiction story.” The flying ink monster said.

  “Fiction?” mouthed Ruth quietly, her eyebrows drawing in.

  “Yes. But I need to make something clear, which is why I’ve called you in.” The Xenophen floated several inches higher, towering over Ruth. “Do you like eating garbage?”

  “Umm, what? Garbage? What does that…” trailed Ruth tilting her head.

  “Our records indicate that we elevated you because we felt you were humbled for your species. Humble people should handle difficult things. If you are not humble, we should remove the mental elevation.”

  Ruth’s eyes went wide, and she gripped the sides of the chair. If they removed her abilities, no company would pursue her. That would be the end of her capacity to make money.

  “I should say that the technology we use to alter your abilities isn’t perfect. We sometimes get the power settings wrong because of unique anatomy differences. We will do our best to be professional in removing your caretaker abilities.”

  Ruth thought of the exploding guitar player and went pale. She started to nod slowly. “Fiction, yes. Sorry to disturb you.” She heard her lips say.

  “Excellent! I am glad we are in agreement. We’ve taken the liberty to erase this monetary tale from your equipment. I trust you will file any paper documents into the shred bin. Thank you again, for bringing this to our attention. You are a valuable member of our team.”

  The Xenophen floated toward the other corner of the room, and the metal platform raised slightly. The panes of glass shown with images that projected out into holographs. The creature’s tentacles darted from symbol to symbol, interacting with them. Ruth got up and showed herself out, taking extra care to close the door quietly. She wanted to go hide in a dark cave or the woods. Somewhere she wouldn’t be noticed. The closest place she could think of was her desk.

  Completing an extra helping of work had her seeing the spots again. Ruth did not reveal she saw spots, choosing instead to remain silent. She needed this job to keep food on the table. These spots were small visions, floating in the air. She didn't want to reach out and grab them, afraid of what others would say. How silly would it be to be running around and poking imaginary bubbles? If she were alone, she would watch a passing bubble for hours. Often times the image contained herself doing something productive. She was either cooking, hiking, or doing some extra work. Every time a clock or text appeared in the picture it was garbled up; like someone was trying to make things harder to read.

  Looking down at the passing bubble, the text was garbled and confusing to read. She was about to get up and get some coffee when she was able to make out a bubble image of a book with an out-of-body image on the cover. Ruth looked around and found that no one else was in the office with her. Frustrated with not having her ideas heard, she decided to take a risk. She slowly reached into that bubble and pulled out the book. The moment it was free of the floating bubble, the image disappeared, though the book remained in her hands. The words were written in a language that she didn’t know, but the diagrams made a pictographic kind of sense.

  The first picture showed a person having an out of body experience. It then showed an image of an ink blot, obviously one of the creatures, being in multiple panes or rectangles. Finally, an image on the last page showed bubbles in one rectangle, while not being in the other rectangles. Ruth had been wondering if the bubbles she had seen where a mental breakdown of some sort. Now she knew the bubbles were based in reality as she had plucked this book from that realm. Ruth continued to stare at the oddly shaped words and photos trying to make sense of what she was seeing.

  At the beginning of the early morning shift, the siren went off. The creatures had determined the optimal work cycle and created various sirens to help people understand the phases. The siren going off startled Ruth, who had been trying to build a cipher to break the code on the pages. She felt like if she could understand this mystery, she could know how to reverse seeing bubbles. That might help her become better with the accounting numbers.

  Ruth left the office and began to walk to a movable platform. One of the largest benefits to the ink beings is that they had brought technology for floating moveable platforms. This book was far beyond anything Ruth had ever seen. Midway through the gentle trip, she decided to bring out the bubble book and continue to read it. As soon as the cover was out of her bag, bells began to sound all around. As alarms and bells chirped, she was given instructions to ‘Stay calm and stay there’. She didn’t know what she had done wrong, but she certainly wasn’t going to stick around for the executive Xenophen to come “remove her elevation”. Ruth jumped down off the platform and began to run for the woods.