329 Years Awake

by Ellie Maloney

  “I just wanted to know how are you. Maybe take you out for dinner.”

  “I told you, I’m fine. What time is it?”

  “Five”.

  “Five what?”

  “Oh my god. Five in the evening. How long have you been out?” Fah wasn’t answering. “Hello?” Jaden persisted.

  “I’m thinking, I’m thinking! Wait, what day is it?”

  “Unreal, girl! What did you take?”

  “Nothing. Just some sleeping pills.”

  “Okay, I’ll be at your apartment in one hour. Get dressed.”

  “One hour? I won’t be ready that soon!”

  “You can ditch the ball gown, girl. Just brush your teeth and put some pants on, that’s all I ask.”

  Jaden hung up. Fah sat in bed, her whole body frozen, unable to move. That was when her phone rang for the second time.

  “Jaden, I am getting up!”

  “Hello. Fah Napasiri?” An unfamiliar English-speaking female voice patched through. That voice uttered only three words, but it promised a sultry mystery and perhaps even an adventure. All of that with only a few bouncing sounds on the other line, immediately thought Fah, and decided to actually get off the bed and turn on the lights.

  “Fah is listening. Who is speaking?”

  As Fah turned on the light, the sight of her face in the mirror made her cringe. In her early 40s, still very beautiful, albeit hungover on prescription medication, Fah’s face was furrowed with pillow crinkles. Her chiselled eyes were puffy, and her full lips were chopped from dehydration.

  “My name is Veronica Starr,” answered the mysterious sultry voice. An army of ants ran up Fah’s spine. She thought of Lauren Bacall, an obscure film noir icon from over a century ago. “I am representing an anonymous philanthropist who would like to discuss a business proposition with you.”

  “What sort of business?”

  “Let’s just put it this way. My client is a wealthy investor who believes in your talent and would like to invest in your project.”

  At that point Fah immediately became suspicious.

  “Wait, I get it, it’s Jaden’s idea. Very funny. Ha ha. Tell him he needs to grow up.”

  “Fah, this is not a joke, and I can prove it. I’ll pick you up in one hour at your apartment.” And she hung up.

  “Right… Bring Elvis with you, would ya?” mumbled Fah into the disconnected phone.

  Some time later, Fah was showered, clothed in loose linen pants and a sleeveless shirt, drinking coffee with a cigarette on the balcony of her small apartment. She enjoyed a view of Bangkok from the 58th floor. The pedestrians on the ground wore masks to protect their lungs from toxic smog. Living on the 58th floor Fah enjoyed a privilege of breathing relatively clean air, but a thick smoggy cloud was crawling higher every year. Now they issued a warning for all the tenants living below the 45th floor. At that rate, in a year or two Fah’s apartment would be enveloped in smog, which would mean no coffee and newspapers on the balcony. Of course, she could move, if only she could afford it.

  For years, Fah had battled for the spotlight in investigative journalism, but had been fired from one news company after another. Neither of the firings were her fault. One time she went after the wrong people, another time she was maligned to her boss by a competitive colleague who wanted her out of the picture.

  Her latest job termination was different though. By that time Fah took any job in journalism she could find, and ended up covering the pop culture segment for a web site that made its revenue entirely on click-baiting. Fah’s boss did not care if the stories were accurate or even close to the truth, as long as the title was sensational and delivered ROI.

  The day she was fired from her last job, two years ago, she had been covering a food festival that claimed to produce the biggest noodle bowl of the century. In order to take the attraction one step further, the organizers claimed that the visitors would be allowed to swim in the noodle bowl once it cooled off enough and everyone had eaten all the noodles they wanted. Fah’s boss thought that it would be a great idea for Fah to jump in the bowl of noodles on camera and have all the crowd follow her lead. Fah took the assignment. She hated her job for so long that swimming in noodles on camera seemed to be the least insulting thing to her journalistic credibility.

  When time came, Fah stood at the edge of the bowl, spoke her sound bite, and jumped in. The noodle broth was warm, and the noodles swarmed in it like reeds in a stagnant lake, catching Fah’s ankles and weighing down her hands. The giant bowl was deep, and she could barely keep her head above the broth.

  Then the rest of the crowd started jumping in the bowl.

  The broth started shifting in heavy waves, and the noodles dragged her down as more and more bodies landed in the bowl, splashing and tangling the noodles around her body.

  Very soon the noodle bowl turned into a death bowl. The organizers rushed to pull the people out, but the more people ended up in the bowl, the worse it got. Finally they figured out that the best thing they could do was to throw in as many floating objects as they could and hope that people could hold on to them. Luckily the outdoor chairs they used for the festival were made of lightweight and durable material that floated enough to sustain a drowning person. Hundreds of chairs were thrown in the bowl, and the drowning noodle swimmers started fighting to retain a chair, creating even more damage.

  Fah managed to grab one chair and hold on until the police, fire marshals and ambulance arrived to fetch the noodle lovers.

  Seven people drowned that day. The case was immediately picked up by class action lawyers and dubbed “The Death Bowl Massacre.” Victims of the Death Bowl Massacre received a compensation that roughly amounted to Fah’s annual salary. Fah received six months’ worth of severance.

  With modest means to exist, Fah decided to take some time off and pursue something big, something audacious, something that would give her life meaning and restore her career. The only problem was, she had no idea what that project would be. For several months, Fah perused archives and browsed the internet, made copious notes, and added items to her push-pin board. Soon, she ran out of space on the board and started plastering notes and newspaper clippings all over the walls. She’d hoped that one day the big story would simply roll off her tongue.

  ***

  Jaden arrived early. He was a big African-Canadian guy who had come to Thailand five years ago on a vacation and never left. Jaden was a writer without a deadline, one of those who always worked on his book with a subject that was a moving target. Fah met him at a social function and they somehow stuck together. While neither considered the other to be their best friend, in reality, they were the only friends each other had.

  Jaden walked into the tiny apartment and glanced at the walls littered with paper, tape, and multi-colored threads of yarn.

  “The monster has grown,” he sarcastically nudged. “Do you know what it is?”

  “Not exactly, not yet. But I am following a lead.”

  “Oh yeah. I can see. When you run out of wall space your leads will take you to the neighbor’s apartment.”

  “Laugh at me all you want. Speaking of hopeless causes, how is your book coming along?”

  “Changing the subject so soon?”

  Both laughed.

  “Seriously, Fah, what the hell is this?” Jaden waved at the stuff on the walls.

  “This… This, my friend, is a mystery.” Jaden looked at the stack of old books on the floor with a sticky note on the wall above the stack: “UFO.”

  “UFO. I see. Where is the stack about the Big Foot?”

  “I know how it sounds, Jaden, but seriously, have you ever read how many eye witness accounts of UFO’s have accumulated over the past 500 years?”

  “Honey, if all the crazies in the world were institutionalized, Bangkok for once would be far less crowded.”


  “I know what you mean. At first, I felt the same way. As a serious investigative journalist… What? Stop laughing, I was a serious journalist once.”

  “I know, I am sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. Ok, try me, maybe I can understand.”

  “Ok, in short, I decided to focus on a less researched UFO area: Japan during the Tokugawa Shōgunate period.” Jaden drew a blank. “That’s from 1600 to 1868.”

  “Okay…” Jaden grabbed a chair anticipating it would be a long one.

  “Would you like some coffee? I’ll make you some.” Fah grabbed a can with ground beans and a vintage copper coffee pot, added water to the grounds and put it on the tiny burner stove.

  “I never heard of Japan and UFOs. That was never a big subject in science fiction.”

  As the coffee simmered, Fah proceeded.

  “Actually, Japanese folklore has pretty remarkable stories that eerily resemble modern-day alien science fiction: abductions, creatures arriving from the skies or from the Moon, flying saucers, you name it. No folklore in the world had those fantasy ideas back then. But let me start from the beginning. During that period, Japan was discovered by the Portuguese missionaries and merchants. Initially the Japanese and the Westerners got along splendidly. The Westerners shared their knowledge and technology, and the Japanese were willing to trade resources but then…”

  A forgotten coffee pot boiled over and Fah rushed to salvage the remains of the coffee for Jaden.

  “…Then,” she continued, pouring Jaden’s cup, “the Japanese people isolated themselves. The official narrative is that it was because the Shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu didn’t like the influence of Christianity on Japanese society which was recovering from a bloody civil war.”

  “It makes sense,” said Jaden, sipping his hot black coffee. “Got any sugar?”

  “I don’t… I drink without; and I always forget to buy it.”

  “Milk?”

  “Coconut milk.”

  “Will do.”

  Fah went to the fridge and extracted a pack of coconut milk, set it on the tiny kitchen table. “Jaden, I will show you a few things.” Fah picked a few volumes from the stacks on the floor and brought them over to the table.

  “Look at this drawing.” She pointed to a picture of a traditional Japanese drawing depicting what looked like a Westerner coming out of a ship, and a group of Japanese men looking at him. “Do you see?”

  “What am I supposed to see here?”

  “Look closer.” Jaden inspected the painting, taking the book in his hands. He looked closer at the ship, and realized it resembled a classic UFO saucer. Then he looked closer at the Western man, and realized that under the folds of his robes he had octopus-like tentacles. Finally, once Jaden noticed those peculiarities, he realized that the face of the Westerner was far from human.

  “Look, Fah, this, I don’t know what to say. Westerners looked weird to the Japanese. That’s just an artistic interpretation.”

  “That’s what I thought at first, until I dug deeper and found numerous corroborating accounts about a Portuguese scientist named Jose Brito. The pictures of this guy always look the same!”

  Fah showed a few more pictures from different volumes. They all depicted scenes of this Jose Brito, who was excessively taller than the Japanese characters in the drawings, and who always had tentacles protruding from under his robes.

  “Ok, I’ll admit, it is peculiar. Fah, can you boil it down for me?”

  “The records tell us that this Portuguese scientist Jose Brito came to Japan and befriended Shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu by promising him to dramatically improve performance of his samurai soldiers, to make them invincible. In return, Brito asked Ieyasu to kick out other Westerners from the country and keep their project a secret.”

  “How come the secret got out?”

  “Recent archaeological digs uncovered Ieaysu’s personal diaries where he details his friendship with Jose Brito and the miraculous experiments he performed on his samurai. Apparently, they could predict every move of the enemy and evade it. They could evade bullets and swords alike.”

  “So what, none of them died in the fight?”

  “They all died an honorable death, seppuku.”

  “They killed themselves. Why?”

  “They became sick. And according to the Samurai Code of Honor, a sick samurai is a disgrace to the Shōgun. He must take his own life. Ok, in short, there are records of Jose Brito performing genetic modifications on the young samurai boys in order to give them supernatural abilities in combat. These abilities or alterations led to the samurai’s ultimate death.”

  “Fah, how are you planning to resurrect your journalistic career with a story like this? Honestly, some stories are better left untold, unless you are not afraid of certain labels.”

  “I’ll find ultimate proof.”

  “Proof of what exactly?”

  “Proof that in the 17th century Japan, aliens made genetic experiments on samurai, and that’s the real reason for the Japanese isolation period. To perform a controlled experiment. Don’t you see?”

  “See what?”

  “All I need is to find descendants of the Tokugawa’s samurai and examine their DNA!”

  “Oh, as simple as that!” Jaden prepared for a substantial mocking diatribe when the doorbell rang. “Are you waiting for someone?”

  “No, let me check though. Maybe it’s the landlord.”

  “You pay your rent, don’t you?”

  “Oh yeah! For the most part.” Jaden rolled his eyes as Fah proceeded to open the door. From the kitchen, Jaden heard a female voice, dark and smoky, like night on the Bangkok back alleys.

  “Nice to meet you, Fah. I’m Veronica Starr.”

  Year 1602.

  Lenauri

  Ennuturat’s long dreamless slumber was over. He opened his drowsy eyes and allowed a tantalizing green glow to enter his perception.

  “Home! Home at last, but not for too long.”

  Ennuturat’s bedroom was set to a minimalist design, only functional technology was present. Ennuturat did not allow any distractions to side-track him from his mission.

  Every night Ennuturat returned home from Earth to Lenauri to immerse in deep hibernation, like all Unkari before him. In the entire history of the Unkari civilization, only several scientific expedition members slept where their road found them, and often it ended up tragically. Every Unkari was viscerally aware of their vulnerability during the sleep cycle. This vulnerability was the result of their evolution, their environment, their life style. This made Unkari dependent on their brothers who were awake and stood guard for the sleeping ones. Always intertwined, they guarded each other’s sleep. No matter what quarrels and grudges they held against each other, the Unkari as a whole were forced to be united against the rest of the universe.

  Ennuturat finally felt like the blood in his body awoke. It carried chemicals that brought a surge of energy and acuity. Early in the morning, Unkari were always at their most energetic and creative, which was why wasting morning time in bed was unforgivable. It was not illegal or inappropriate, more like imprudent. So many revolutionary ideas and decisions could present themselves in the morning to an awakened Unkari mind! After all, morning hours could bring Ennuturat closer to cracking the oscillation DNA.

  Ennuturat resolutely shook off the last flakes of sleep that clung to his eyelids like moths, and swiped his tentacles in the air a few times, bringing online a liquid silver display. Sticking his tentacles into the silvery liquid puddles hanging in the air, he looked up his calendar. What had happened during his sleep? Various messages flashed before his eyes, but he was looking for a specific message. It was the morning message from the Enkri ambassador to all awakened Enkri Unkari about the state of affairs on the planet.

  Ambassador Taiber Enkri was on screen.

  “Good morning,
Enkri, may this waking hour find you in sharp mind. I will make this message brief in order to save you valuable morning hours. In general, no major problems occurred this night and our Katu brothers did a reasonably good job at running the planet. We discovered several valuable mining sites in the Gamma Quadrant of the CG9 galaxy. A remarkable find of a potentially suitable habitat for our species was detected as well. Detailed reports on both issues are attached; feel free to browse through them at your convenience. For specific areas of inquiry, please go to the reference list below. I incorporated a wealth of details that will satisfy your needs.”

  Ennuturat scrolled down the list of subjects, ranging from agriculture to literature, and found the one that he was interested in:

  “Project Oscillation. Earth Research Facility.”

  Once he selected the topic, all sorts of reports popped up, but he looked for a video message from Argon, the lead Katu researcher who looked after the project when Ennuturat slept. “Let’s see, Argon, what sort of mess you left for me to sort through.”

  “Good morning, brother Ennuturat. I will be as brief as possible. We have made some strides in isolating one of the human tribes, and prepped the ground for implementing a new set of experiments. We suggest using samurai as research subjects. As we learned from the previous experiments on human subjects, mainly carried out on Lenauri reservations, the chances of activating an oscillation gene are best when the subjects are having a near-death experience. The samurai fit the research design perfectly as a class of humans specifically trained to seek death. Once you see the detailed reports on Japanese culture, you’ll see that this sample is ripe for progress.

  “There is more. Since this tribe is so isolated from the rest of the humans, I believe you can spend your shift among them. I know how lonely and boring it gets in the lab. Watching fish swim by gets old quickly. So as long as you keep other humans from showing up in Japan, the island is all yours to explore. You will need a proper outfit and some augmented reality field, so you seem more human to them. I left detailed notes on this subject as well. Have a good day, Ennuturat. Do good work, but remember, don’t grow too attached to your pets.”