Isonation

by In Churl Yo

  Dr. Lightsea stood in the hallway near his daughter’s room, bewildered by what he saw inside. Madeline watched his reaction, then came out to greet him.

  “How long has she been doing that?” he asked.

  His wife, now beside him, crossed her arms and sighed. “For most of the day,” she replied.

  Together they observed their daughter scribbling on a virtual desktop, her hands a whirlwind of activity. At one moment, Zoah was solving a multidimensional physics equation, the next she was sketching the plot points of an unknown star field. There was no apparent rhyme or reason to her work, except that it was nonstop and prolific, as evidenced on the several screens around the room displaying her latest sketches.

  “She says something happened to her,” Madeline continued.

  “On the Syrinx?”

  “You should hear it from her.”

  He shot her a concerned look then entered the room, a fresh smile across his face. “How are you feeling, Z?”

  “Dad!” she answered without looking up from her work. “Dad, I’m glad you’re here. I’ve got to show you something!”

  Dr. Lightsea waited several moments for his daughter to share her discovery, but instead she continued with her writing, oblivious to him. He looked at Madeline, who shrugged before lifting a chin at him, urging her husband to continue. “Zoah? Honey, what was it you wanted to share?”

  “Hm?” she responded, acting distracted.

  Her father stepped forward and placed his hand on her arm. She stopped drawing and looked up, a serious look in her eyes. “Have you ever had the feeling, during all this time you’ve been building the Gaia, that someone was helping you, giving your ideas a spark, almost like… divine inspiration?” Zoah asked.

  “Well, I don’t know. We’ve had our share of breakthroughs. What are you saying, Z?”

  She was about to respond but hesitated. A second later, Zoah started scrawling again. Dr. Lightsea viewed her progress, intrigued by what he saw.

  “Tell me, this theorem postulates what exactly?”

  “I think it’s a dark matter, dark energy unified theory,” she replied.

  “You’re not sure? How did you come up with this derivative to the scalar potential field?”

  Zoah looked at the equation again, then lifted the digital paper off her desktop and tossed the file over to a display on the wall. She started sketching something new, forgetting everything she had just written and their conversation. Dr. Lightsea waved for Madeline to join him out in the hallway again.

  “That went well,” he said. “Don’t you think?”

  “Physically, she’s fine,” said Madeline. “Until all of this started, she was suffering from a little exhaustion, nothing more. We noted a few abnormal readings on her neural scans, but nothing that couldn’t be explained by her present mental state.”

  “She seems agitated. Distracted.”

  “Hypomania,” she replied, “but she’s not presenting any psychotic features. I’m recommending observation for now. It isn’t anything…”

  “Dad!” Zoah yelled from the doorway. Wearing her hospital gown and in bare feet, she came out and pulled Dr. Lightsea back into her room. “This! This is what I wanted to show you!”

  “Alright, honey, take it easy. What am I looking at here?”

  A detailed, hand-scrawled schematic had been enlarged on the room’s main display screen. Dr. Lightsea stepped forward and attempted to decipher the plans.

  “A generator,” he began, “some kind of field generator. Hold on a second…”

  He used his fingers to expand a series of computations in the margin.

  “Exotic matter production… superluminal particles…”

  Zoah offered up a blank look to her father, who swiped the image up so that he could continue reading. “This is some kind of negative mass field propulsion engine. Possibly faster-than-light. Where the hell did you get this, Z?”

  “Charles!” his wife exclaimed.

  Dr. Lightsea waved his hand in apology, paused to collect himself. “These designs aren’t speculative, Madeline. They’re actual building plans. We’ve only theorized such things were possible—the bending of space-time, the harnessing of ground state energy. Do you know what this means?”

  “All of this,” Madeline said, pointing to the various screens around the room, “is real? Zoah isn’t just writing gibberish?”

  “Yes! But you’re missing the larger picture. If the science holds up, if this machine does what it purports, it means the Gaia no longer needs to be a generational ship. Our journey through space just went from a century to mere weeks. Weeks!”

  “My friend shared her technology with us,” Zoah announced, “so that we could meet in person.”

  Her parents looked at each other, unsure how to reply.

  “That sounded weird, right?” Zoah rubbed her temples, then shook her head, trying to snap herself out of whatever was clouding her brain. “What I meant to say, what you need to know, is that we’re not alone. They’ve been helping us all along.”

  She slapped her hands on the flat display on the wall. “You see, they knew about the blight and tried to help us from the Virt. They live in the Virt!”

  “Maybe you should lie back down,” Dr. Lightsea suggested.

  “You believe me, don’t you?” she asked them. “I’m not crazy.”

  “Don’t be silly. Of course you’re not,” said Madeline.

  “Dad, you can’t deny facts, right? You’re always saying we need to trust them because facts don’t lie. Well, how do you explain all of this? I’m not nearly smart enough—this science is way beyond anything I could do. They talked to me, shared all of this, because they want to meet us!”

  Dr. Lightsea scanned the room and let out a deep breath. “Alright, Z. I don’t completely understand everything that’s happening here, but I’ll concede that these equations are indeed beyond your capability, and mine too I might add, which would appear to corroborate what you’re saying. After all, I can’t very well trust in the math and not the rest your story, no matter how fantastic it may seem. The logic supports it, but more importantly I do, too, and always will. I believe you.”

  Zoah hugged her father, practically collapsing into his arms.

  “The complexity of the science could take us months, even years to interpret, much less engineer,” he continued. “You said you can talk to them. Perhaps there’s some way for us to open a dialogue…”

  “Later,” Madeline said, seeing how tired her daughter had become. “She can speak to the virtual reality aliens later. For now, rest and recovery, doctor’s orders.”

  Her husband opened his mouth to object, then thought better of it. “Well, far be it for me to disobey a superior officer,” Dr. Lightsea relented. “You heard the admiral. Back to bed!”

  Zoah climbed onto the mattress and pulled the blanket up to her shoulders. “I think I’m better now. I don’t feel like drawing so much anymore,” she said.

  “Let me know if that changes. I’ll dust off my slide rule.” He kissed his girl’s forehead as she closed her eyes, and soon Zoah fell asleep, looking all of 8 years old to him, still just a child from his perspective. The time had gone by fast, as it’s wont to do. There was no disputing it.

  He turned around to face the wall display again, the diagram scrawled in his daughter’s hand projected at eye level, the true ramifications of the discovery just now settling in. For more than 50 years, mankind had prepared for one grand contingency, sacrificing everything in a desperate, last attempt to survive. Now, only here at the end and after having already suffered so much loss, did another contingency present itself that made those sacrifices meaningless. All those people, gone. All our freedoms abolished. For nothing.

  Dr. Lightsea allowed himself a moment to feel the pain of that revelation. He took his wife’s hand, squeezed and held it tight. A smile surfaced on her lips, a sign of her love and support for him, as she pressed her palm against his in return. They stood th
ere, fingers interlocked, the warmth of their two joined hands offering him some comfort.

  Then after a while he released his grip…and let it go.

  CHAPTER 40

  Milton Lee hated waiting. But he hit the button again and waited some more. He was about to knock on the door when it swung open, revealing a face he hadn’t seen for days but planned on seeing a lot more of now that it was healthy, happy, and out of the hospital.

  “Finally! You ready?” he asked.

  “You kidding?” Zoah replied. “Just try and keep me away.”

  “Yeah, a week in isolation with no one around but your family? I blame your mother.”

  “She means well. At least she let you visit. Twice.”

  Milton pumped out his chest. “She had no choice. I’m family, too, right?”

  Zoah waited a second for Heelo to catch up before she closed the door behind them and traveled down the hallway without answering. Milton caught up and shook his head. “That’s cold, Lightsea.”

  She gave him a playful shove. “So, what’s happening out in the real world? My dad has kept me on total lockdown and completely off the network. I’ve watched nothing but old movies with Thomas for days now.”

  “You should have told me. I could’ve hacked you in.”

  “Not if you want to stay on my father’s good side, and trust me, you want to stay on his good side. Besides, I could’ve hacked myself in if I really wanted.”

  Heelo whistled in agreement, flying tight circles around Milton’s head.

  He tried to wave the toy drone away, but it kept buzzing about just out of reach. After a while, he gave up and changed the subject instead. “I heard they harvested some of that zero-point energy a couple of days ago. That’s all anyone was talking about,” Milton said.

  Zoah gave him a disappointed look. “My dad already told me about that. Anything else?”

  He thought a moment. “Oh! Elsif programmed a drink dispenser to spray lemonade all over Baller. Man, was he pissed!”

  “That I wish I could have seen,” she said laughing. The truth was, her father had made it a point of updating his daughter whenever any news of substance surfaced. Progress on the new engine core had been slow, as the science indeed proved tricky to decipher. Still, Dr. Lightsea harbored no false aspirations, and Zoah agreed, knowing it was only a matter of time. If they were going to evacuate the planet and save everyone—including those outside of the Ceres cities—they’d have to build that engine. There was no other option.

  Milton stepped in front of Zoah and took her hand. “You sure you’re ready for today? I mean, you just got better. No one would think any less if you decided you needed a few more days.”

  “Now who’s mothering me? It’s been a week. It’s time.”

  Milton pressed his forehead against hers.

  “It’s time,” Zoah repeated before giving him a kiss. Followed by second. And a third.

  A few minutes later, they were in the Gaia’s B-ring, standing in front of another door, waiting for it to open. Soon Caleb appeared and waved them inside. He offered Zoah a hug, and she gave back as good as she got.

  “You seem well. All patched up,” Caleb said, “and none the worse for wear, from the looks of it. I’m happy to see both of you.”

  “I haven’t had a chance to thank you for rescuing me,” she said.

  Caleb waved her off. “Your dad assigned me to the security force on permanent Lightsea detail, and that means that rescuing you, among other things, is my job now. Speaking of which, we’d better leave soon or we’re going to be late. I’ve got something to show you first.”

  He pulled out a long silver case from a closet and placed it on a nearby table. Three latches popped free, and Caleb lifted the top open before swinging the whole thing around so they could see inside.

  “My dad’s rifle,” he said. “It arrived yesterday morning. Somehow during all the excitement before we boarded the Gaia, Nox arranged for it to be brought up to me.”

  Zoah put her hand on the case and smiled.

  “You were right about him,” Caleb said. “He saved the ship and everyone on board. I thought you should know.”

  She nodded, wiping an eye with the back of her hand. “Thanks, Caleb.”

  Then he lowered his voice, as if to keep from arousing suspicion. “Don’t tell the old man, okay? I know projectile weapons and spacecraft don’t play well together, but I plan on keeping her unloaded.”

  “Mum’s the word,” Zoah replied, knowing her dad probably wouldn’t object anyway. “Consider these lips sealed.”

  A few minutes later, they arrived at the designated spot on time, and Caleb waved his cufflink across the electronic keyhole, releasing the locking mechanism that allowed access to the restricted area. Zoah scanned the room. There among the newly constructed equipment and exposed cabling, she found a familiar face smiling back at her.

  “Neema!”

  The leader of the Kiter movement stood from her station and approached Zoah, who made up the distance with a quick sprint across the room. The two came together in a warm embrace.

  “Let me look at you,” Neema said while studying the young lady. “No lingering effects?”

  “I’m fine. Really. I missed you.”

  “I missed you too. We all have.” Neema swung her arm back, pointing to the bank of workstations where Tifa, Elsif and Baller all waved at Zoah, who wiggled her fingers back at them. “Are you ready?”

  “Why does everyone keep asking me that?” Zoah said.

  “Because today’s a big day,” Dr. Lightsea replied, emerging from a nearby office. “For all of us. Know that I hate to break up this impromptu reunion, but it’s time to change. Don’t think because you’ve been vacationing in the infirmary, I’m going to let you slack off. Everything’s on a schedule, Z. Nothing to it but to do it.”

  Milton followed everyone to the dressing area and found a stall with his name on it. He stepped inside and secured the door behind him, but not before seeing Zoah and the others disappear into their own compartments.

  The haptic suit was snug, but then they usually were. Milton tried stretching the fabric out by moving his arms around, but that never worked. Still, it loosened him up a little, took some of the anxiety away.

  Once dressed, he returned to the main staging room, where teams of technicians swarmed around them as they emerged, connecting synaptic sensors, spatial harness rigs and a dozen linkages to the various control modules that tied them to the input array. The last piece of equipment was the sHD sense helmet, and after sliding it on, the tech patted its hard, outer shell, signaling to Milton that he was good to go.

  Hydraulic systems then lifted him into place, suspending him by thin wires that controlled Milton’s movement across all six axes in three dimensions. On either side of him were Zoah, Neema, Caleb and Dr. Lightsea—all chosen to undertake this inaugural journey together, and he couldn’t imagine a better team for it.

  Madeline Lightsea arrived and once satisfied with the various readouts from the bank of monitors in front of her, addressed the group. “Hello, everyone. It’s good to see all of you here,” she began. “Please be aware that we’ve modified your Virt interface in two important ways: first, we’ve boosted the signal gain in your synaptic relays—higher than nominal but still well within safety parameters.”

  “What does that mean?” Milton asked.

  “It means your perceptions will feel hyper-aware. Reality will still be reality inside the Virt, only more so, if that makes any sense. All harmless, I assure you.”

  “How about your word,” said Caleb, “that we won’t end up as dribbling, diaper-wearing vegetables?”

  Heelo gave a long, low whistle as he buzzed across the room, his tiny sensor array shaking in apprehension.

  Madeline shrugged and feigned uncertainty, knowing the reaction it would get, then offered the group a smile of reassurance. “You’ll be fine,” she replied. “The simulations all checked out fine. But if so much as a sin
gle neuron fires out of place for anyone, we’ll pull all of you out immediately. You have my word. Now the second modification adds a discriminated brainwave pattern into the carrier signal that’s amplified through your synaptic interface. This is the same unique, abnormal pattern we identified from our scans of Zoah’s brain activity during her recent state of hypomania.”

  “If we’re correct, this should allow us to communicate with our new friends,” said Dr. Lightsea. “That’s the working theory, at least. Madeline, I think we’re ready here. Care to do the honors and flip the switch?”

  “Godspeed,” Miranda Pyle offered via an open com channel. “We’ll be monitoring your progress from here.”

  Neema chuckled. “The farthest long-distance chat room ever established in human history…”

  “And that’s a good thing?” Caleb asked. “What if they’re interested in something other than chatting?”

  “Don’t you worry. We’ll make contact with the pig-tailed little girl, and everything will be okay,” Zoah replied. “I know it.”

  Milton offered his girlfriend a warm smile, which she returned, and his heart, already excited, practically leapt from his chest. It took all his concentration to slow everything back down and focus, all his will to stay cool.

  Ready. Steady.

  Energy released into his synaptic pathways then, shunting all of Milton’s senses into a perceptual buffer as he transitioned to a different state of awareness. An electric buzz trickled from his brain into his nervous system and throughout the rest of his body, a feeling that was comforting to him, as he hadn’t realized till then how accustomed he’d grown to the feeling.

  It’s real. REMEMBER…

  As Milton’s visual acuity sharpened, he steeled himself for what lay ahead. A world possibly beyond their imagining was waiting.

  …the Virt…is REAL!