by Richard Leru
“Search yourself.”
What kind of answer was that? Why wouldn’t the voice identify himse… wait. Could that really be true? Yes, it was. “I know you.”
“Yes, very well, actually.”
“I am you.”
“Technically, we are each other, but yes.”
“So this is a dream and I’m just talking to myself?”
“No and yes, you are talking to yourself, but this isn’t a dream. Your body may be asleep, but your mind has woken up.”
“Okay, then I’m daydreaming or simply going crazy. I knew that sleep serum should be tested more fully. “
“Sleep serum?” Alex felt a wave of hopeful emotion emanate through the dream. His heart raced and a sense of comfort washed over his mind. “Then this is the time. Alex, you aren’t crazy, please let me explain.”
“Not crazy? I’m talking to myself in the third person in a drug induced sleep, under house arrest, travelling in space, about to end the life of billions, and now I’m going to tell myself how everything will be okay, this should be good.”
“Like I was saying, you aren’t crazy and this is no dream. I am you but I am also not you. I am Alex Runner thirty years into our future; I am what becomes, or could become of us. Alex, I know what you’re feeling. You have just learned that the universe is far less of an expansive and free place than you had previously believed. Mankind has no control over their future, but rather, is destined to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. We are all rats in a cage, running on a preverbal hamster wheel for all eternity. I know how much you want to scream, fight, and rebel. Going quietly with the crowd has never sat well with us. Succumbing to fear as a tactic for control is not in our nature.”
“If you really are me, then you know this isn’t right, it can’t be.”
“What they said is true. We are both caught in a perfect cycle.”
“How?”
“No one knows how it started. It may very well have been at man’s inception with Adam and Eve.”
“No, not how did it start, but how can you live knowing? I tried to just accept what I was hearing but deep down, I always fought against it. Everyone else seems content to just, sit back and follow orders, how can I become like them?”
“Do you really want to?”
“Well, wouldn’t I be happy, isn’t the ultimate goal?”
“Would you be happy?”
“No. So I’m trapped in my own endless cycle? Am I doomed to always be at war with this terrible destiny?”
“Maybe, maybe not. It’s funny, as much as I don’t envy the emotions you’re currently feeling, trying to wrap your head around this truth, I do envy you.”
“Envy me? Why?”
“Because if this works, you won’t ever have to experience what I have. You’ll be spared from the pain that is yet to come, the worst memory in my life, being torn forcibly away from Angela and your young daughter. Watching the guards shoot your wife and knock the young girl grabbing at your legs to the ground. Your screams echoing through the front door of your townhouse as the men inject you with a sedative. Then waking up, in this room, locked in just like you are now. You think you’re in pain now? Trust me, there is no worse pain in all of time or existence than having to see the life leave your wife’s eyes and fear consume your daughter’s soul in one glance while not being able to do anything.”
“You didn’t do anything?”
“I couldn’t.”
“What do you mean, you couldn’t? You could have snuck them on the ship, you could have run away, you could have done one of a thousand things to save them! Instead, you just sat there! That’s proof that we are not the same. I would not abandon Angela like that. I would not abandon my daughter. You didn’t even use her name, who are you really?”
“I couldn’t do anything because I didn’t know they were coming!” Anger filled the white space. The poison of a deep emotional pain ripped into the sea of pure consciousness, clouding the white light with a flow of red. “Don’t grandstand to me! You have no right to crucify me for what I’ve gone through! You are only where you are today because of what I’ve done. I have already risked everything for a chance to change things. I will not have you lecture me!”
A long silence came in the dream, allowing for the red to dissipate. Once the white returned, Alex asked a question.
“How did you not know they were coming?”
“In the past, or in a previous loop, depending on how you look at it, things were different. You did not get on the Erebus, and without you here to oppose Commander Birch, the crew followed the Erebus II’s orders to the letter, resulting in the destruction of the solar system and the loss of the two people we love most in our lives.”
“So you can change things?” Hope began filling what had been a previously empty soul for Alex.
“Yes. For countless cycles, following the fall of our solar system, we, meaning I, dedicated our lives to trying to understand, why. We searched the past for clues that would lead us to the reason the cycle was created or what purpose it served. To simply live was not enough. Life after life, loop after loop, we searched until soon, we realized we already knew the results of tests. We could tell others where the clues to mankind’s history could be found. In the eyes of many, we were like gods, able to see the future. It wasn’t true. What was happening was something I call, affectionately, the Angela Effect. Do you remember the day you and Angela first met?”
“Of course.” Alex had thought of that day often while on the Erebus.
“Can you remember how she found the path that led to the top of the mountain?”
“Um, she had some sort of…dream. Is that what this is?”
“Similar, I discovered that all of us, all the versions along the loop, something in common, ourselves. Angela had that dream because another version of her had experienced that moment in the past.”
“So we can share memories?”
“Yes and we can share consciousness.”
“Then why couldn’t I have seen all this coming before it happened?”
“Fear.”
“What?”
“Fear. Fear is what clouds our mind and blocks the connection. Only in moments where we can break through fear can knowledge be shared. There is a piece in you that wants to not know what is going to happen, because you’re afraid, because I was afraid. I have been trying for a long time to end the loop and save the people we love, but fear was there, thwarting me at every step. I tried reaching out through logic and fear overwhelmed my message. I tried reaching out with an appeal to ego, but fear was stronger. I even tried using fear against itself. Unfortunately, using fear only backfired, resulting in failure again. This loop succeeded. Our parents were right. They always told us the key to archaeology was to keep asking questions; eventually, you’ll ask the right one. That’s what we are Alex. After trying for so many years to not become what our parents had hoped, we, ultimately, are archaeologists studying the entire human race, and last loop, I asked the right question.”
“I’ve beaten fear before, why was it so hard to do it again? Almost every break through I’ve had was in spite of my own fears.”
“That’s what I thought, too. That’s why we kept failing. All the major steps in our life were not because we took fear head on and challenged it. We did not act in spite of fear, with face paint beating a drum. We acted not without fear but with an emotion far more powerful. We acted in a spirit of love. When we quit our job in the city, it wasn’t because we hated the fear of failure, or wanted to beat the fear of loss. We quit because we wanted better for Angela to return to, we loved her and were inspired to create a better life. It was that love that could overcome fear, but we would need a lot of love, we could not do it alone. Which all comes back to where you are now, and my envy of you. Love is winning, that is the reason you are lying in your chambers aboard the Erebus. These “discoveries” have been made with the help of two others. They both love you and Angela so much
that, together, we can change everything. We can free all of time.”
“Who?”
“You know.”
“Jo and Dr. Titus?”
“Yes.”
“No, that’s impossible. Dr. Titus is the one who kept Angela from me. He’s the reason I have never seen my daughter.”
“Would you have gotten on this ship, had you known Angela was pregnant?”
“Of course not! I would have been there for her. I would never leave her alone with our child.”
“Precisely why Dr. Titus had to keep her from you.”
“What?”
“I, we, you, told Dr. Titus to make sure, at any cost, that Angela did not reach you, and that you got on the Erebus. I reached out in a dream much like this, and convinced him to take a leap of faith in love.”
“You what? Why would you? How could you?”
“It had to happen. Your being on this ship was key to saving her.”
“You had no right to rob me of my daughter’s birth. To make Angela a single mother, to tear my family apart.”
“I had every right. I may have taken the first handful of years of her life from you but in return, I’m giving you a lifetime, and I’m saving you from having to live through the hell I experienced.”
“This is crazy, if you really loved her, you wouldn’t leave her alone. That’s the one promise we made to each other.”
“I love her as much as you, remember, I am you. The promise we made was no matter how long we spent in the dark, we end up together in the light once more. I may have plunged us further into the dark, but only because it’s the only way to reach the light on the other side. Only by separating Angela and you, can you be together.”
“How does that make any sense?”
“It all now lies on you. What happens next will determine if you see Angela again and your daughter ever.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“No, remember fear, and this loop, can only be broken by love. I’m simply reminding you that if you take action in the spirit of your love for them, you can save us all.”
“So what am I supposed to do?”
“Listen to your heart.”
“What does that mean? I’m not looking for a quote from an inspirational book, I’m looking for a plan.”
“It’s amazing how often the plan we are looking for can be found in a simple quote from an inspirational book.”
“Okay, fine, I’ll listen to my heart.” Alex thought of Angela and all he had just heard in this dreamland. There were two things that were still left hanging. “I have two questions. First, what did you tell Jo to do?”
“You’ll find out soon enough. Remember to think about what she said, she is more easily in tune with her love for you and Angela, you know this. Think on her words.”
“Okay, secondly, you always referred to her as my daughter and never gave me a name, why?”
“After the moment when I lost her, I never got to see her again, she died in the blasts. Any moment after that is a memory only you will experience. She will be completely yours from that moment on. As for the name, well, some things are better to discover on your own.”
“Now what?”
“You wake up.”
“What?”
“Wake up, Alex!”
Suddenly, the place he had been in went black and cold. Now he was alone.
Alex rubbed his eyes as feeling slowly crept into his entire body. What a strange dream that was, but was it a dream? The serum was supposed to stop dreams from happening. If it wasn’t a dream, then what could it have been? Had he actually been talking to another version of himself? Shaking his head, Alex looked around the room. The lights were still out, only the emergency safety light above his desk was on. It cast a cool blue pallor on the room. Everything looked cold, frozen in time. Rolling his feet out of bed, Alex leaned over and stretched his body. Why weren’t the lights on? The engineering crew should have turned the power on across the entire ship by now. Alex looked down at his wrist, where he still wore his favorite watch. It was a cheap black digital timepiece his grandfather had bought him from a Kmart as a kid and Alex could never part with. The green glow stung Alex’s eyes slightly as the time and date was displayed. What? Alex checked again. Did the watch battery die? He had been asleep for years, maybe it ran out of juice. No, the new battery that powered the watch was a genius design of Dr. Titus that actually fed off the human body, it could essentially last forever. The date was right, he was not mistaken. He had slept 24 hours less than the rest of the ship. Why?
Had Jo given him a lesser dose of the serum? She was supposed to have already helped him. Was this how? Does this mean the dream was real? ‘Think back to the list?’ What did Jo mean by that? Could he really change things?
If there really were no such thing as free choice, then no matter what he did, the result would be the same. His dream, or whatever it was, could be wrong. If only he had hard evidence, some proof, events could be altered without major consequence, then he could take action. Without that proof, he couldn’t risk losing it all.
For hours, he sat thinking about what Jo had said, repeating the words, “Think back to the list.” He had only glanced at it briefly, read the names. It was random, no single ethnicity or creed. Economic and political influence ranging from none to quite a lot. There was no pattern, but there had to be something. After nearly eight hours of thinking about the list, finally the “eureka” moment kicked in. Alex leapt from his bed, understanding how his entire life had led to this exact place in time. Not just his experience in the past, but also in the future, had groomed Alex to break the pattern that had mankind held in stasis.
He had to stop the Erebus from going back to Earth. Without their return, there would be no nuclear war. Angela and his child could live a full and happy life. He could, and would, change everything! Alex was locked in his room by the electro magnetic seal. What could he do? Alex quickly made a plan. Step one, get past the locked door to his room.
The locking mechanism was a digital key code, which required nine numerical characters. He could try for days and still not get the correct answer. Alex checked his watch, he only had 16 hours left.
Alex searched the room for any kind of tool, something he could use to pry open the keypad and attempt to rewire the circuit. There was nothing. Everything was bolted to the floor or wall itself. He thought about writing a code-breaking program on his tablet to free himself. He could but he had no way of connecting it to the locking system. So he would try brute force.
For nearly two hours, Alex pushed, rammed, and threw himself at the door, hoping to break the electro-magnetic seal. It didn’t budge. Alex stared at the door, unsure of what he could do next. He had to get out of his room, but how? Alex tried one last run at it. His shoulder slammed hard into the solid metal door. Now with a sore shoulder, Alex slid down the steel frame and sat leaning against the impenetrable barrier to his freedom. He knew how to change things, to free the future, but he was stuck in this small room. Staring at the minimally appointed cell, he felt more trapped than ever before. Alex silently asked the universe for help, for something that could get him out of this room.
Sensing something in his left pants pocket, Alex reached in and pulled out a small piece of paper. On it was written, “Do what you have to. 349287554.” Jo must have slipped it in his pocket as she put him to sleep. He really owed her now. Nine beeps on the keypad and the door opened. Step one accomplished, now on to step two.