329 Years Awake

by Ellie Maloney

  With those words, the scientist approached one of the stasis chambers and the camera zoomed to reveal what was in it. There, Ennuturat saw a monster with eight heads, eight bodies, eight legs, only two arms; all tangled in wires and hooked to a bunch of huge machines that monotonously hummed. The human ‘octopus’ was seated at the table, with a cup in front of it.

  “These eight subjects will be tasked to turn the water in their cup into wine. From a quantum perspective, the idea is very simple. At the level of quantum superposition, the cup contains every element that could mathematically exist based on the amount of atoms in it. This probability is not without limitations. For example, they cannot create a black hole from the amount of matter in the cup. Well, I suppose they could, but the black hole created from the squeezed together atoms of a glass of water would be too small to even be detectable. It would immediately evaporate. That is why turning water into wine is highly plausible. Both liquids have similar density. All the research subjects must do is access the water through their consciousness on the quantum level and reassemble the molecules of water into the molecules of wine. Enough talking now, let’s get to the fun part: human trials!”

  The scientist looked way more excited than was appropriate for anyone conducting an experiment on a sentient creature. Granted, the tests were important, and even Ennuturat was anxious to see how the experiment turned out, but universe knows, he at least paid mental respects to the lives sacrificed in the name of science.

  “Who is this Doctor Death?” inquired Ennuturat.

  “Oh, that is Goran Katu. He was recruited by Argon for this shift. Goran was impounded by the Council for numerous ethical violations. Argon pulled some strings and he was allowed to practice again, under Argon’s supervision.”

  “This Goran is in good company. I don’t always agree with the liberal tendencies in the Enkri philosophy, but Argon reinforces my allegiance to the Enkri. Our two tribes are just too different.”

  “I wholeheartedly understand you, Master. But keep watching, it’s going to be interesting.”

  Meanwhile Goran continued his preparations.

  “The final piece of the puzzle here is creating enough urgency in the subject so that he releases an explosive chemical cocktail in his brain, in order for oscillation to occur. This, as we found out, could be achieved through torture and near-death experiences. I’ll skip the details of how we arrived at this conclusion, but torture proves to be less effective. Apparently, consistent infliction of pain numbs the subject and the proper chemicals are not released into the brain. What needs to happen is the realistic death threat, an experience of losing life. Something happens to the subject in those moments before he dies, and this metamorphosis is so powerful that it allows these creatures to hack the fabric of the universe. As a result, quantum probabilities that are not naturally occurring in our daily life become possible. The easiest way to inflict a near-death experience in a human is to deprive him of oxygen! It is cheap and effective.”

  Goran opened a communication channel to the stasis chamber.

  “Hello, research subject. How are you today?”

  The eight heads produced a variety of angry grimaces.

  “Good to see you in strong spirit. Trust me, today you will need it. Today we are going to work on a very important experiment. You will need 100% of your concentration and collaboration. Your life depends on that.”

  With those words, Goran punched a few keys on the controls of the stasis chamber and the sound of venting air pierced the lab.

  The eight-headed monster jumped off the chair and started exploring the walls of the stasis, looking for the hole that leaked the air.

  “Sit. Down,” commanded Goran in a voice of steel. “Concentrate. If you waste time, you’ll die of suffocation.”

  The octopod reluctantly sat on the chair. One of the heads yelled: “Alright, you ugly freak. What do you want us to do this time?”

  “Ugly freak. How ironic. However, let’s get to business. You see a cup of water before you. Your task is simple. You need to rearrange the elements in that water so that it turns into wine. Concentrate, my friends. If you succeed, you’ll live.”

  The human monster panicked. All the heads started talking, trying to convince each other to concentrate and ultimately bringing the experiment to chaos. Finally, they started experiencing lightness of the air.

  “Quiet! Brothers! Quiet!” yelled one of the heads. “Let’s pray. Let’s pray how we never prayed in our life. Remember what the scripture says, with the faith of the mustard seed we can do miracles. And a miracle is what we need right now.”

  The heads nodded. The two hands on both sides of the stitched-together body were raised in the air. One of them started singing, leading the rest in the saddest, most doomed harmony.

  The sound of the human voices filled the lab.

  The eight-headed monster entered a state of trans, so transfixed by the prayer that it didn’t stop singing when the oxygen started dangerously depleting. It only made shallower and shallower breaths, and eventually stopped making any sound at all, only silently moving blue lips, eyes big and desperate.

  The oxygen continued escaping through the vent in the chamber, and the monster finally fell to the ground, with the last words on their mouths: “Amen”.

  Goran shifted the view of the camera from the lifeless body on the floor to himself.

  “The subject is dead,” he pronounced matter-of-factly. “Some of you may say, what a tragedy. The creature is dead. Did you know, that I could bring oxygen back? I could have saved its life? But I didn’t. You’ll think, Goran, what a monster you are. What you don’t understand is that oscillation at that level is like a dose of lethal radiation. There is no way this subject could have survived. And his death would be a lot more painful. So you might argue that I did it a favor. But hey, let’s check how the experiment went.”

  Goran punched a few keys on the console, and the cup was picked up by a robotic limb and delivered to the orifice in the stasis chamber. There, the scan performed a simple spectral analysis. “Unbelievable! It is alcohol! Red alcohol! If I was more ignorant, I’d say I just saw a miracle!”

  ***

  “What an arrogant, sadistic monster…” groaned Ennuturat, feeling nauseous.

  “I understand your feeling, Master Ennuturat. We launched a complaint with the office of the Katu Ambassador to remove Goran from the next shift. But I must admit it will not be easy because, as you could see, water to wine, miracles, and all that. Goran’s methods proved to be effective.”

  “Yeah… I understand…” Ennuturat almost forgot why he had come to the reservation in the first place. “By the way, what happened with the dome? Do you know the reason for that explosion?”

  “Master, although it is classified, I think I can tell you. You need to be aware of it.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll handle the classified information with care.”

  “Remember what Goran said on the video about the black holes?”

  “Yeah…”

  “Well the research subjects in the exploded dome managed to create a miniature black hole. And then another one, from anti-matter. And collided them.”

  Year 2045.

  Bangkok, Thailand.

  Fah’s small room was littered with clothes and shoes, as she painfully considered what to take with her. Choice between books and shoes did not seem like a choice at all. Her doorbell rang. Fah opened the door and saw Veronica Starr, well dressed and smelling fantastic, as if smog and humidity did not apply to her.

  “Are you ready, Fah?”

  “Almost there!” Embarrassed for all the mess, Fah shut the door to the bedroom.

  “I see. At this rate, we won’t leave by midnight, darlin’.”

  “I can’t pack on such a short notice.”

  “You had three days!”

  “I
guess I needed four.”

  “Come on, Fah. What is your problem?”

  “I don’t know what the weather will be like, what kind of shoes should I take, and what do they even wear these days in Japan? Do I need formal wear?”

  “Stop right there.” Fah stopped. Veronica Starr extracted an e-cigarette from her tiny purse. “Do you mind?”

  “Go ahead.”

  Veronica activated the cigarette and took a good puff.

  “You don’t need any clothes. Just take whatever research you need, the rest you will buy there.”

  “I can’t afford to replace my entire wardrobe!”

  “Now that you work for my client, you can.” Veronica Starr dipped her slender fingers in her purse for the second time and extracted a credit card. She dialled a few digits on the card and Fah heard a characteristic ‘ping’ for the completed transaction. “Go ahead, check your account.”

  Fah went to the kitchen. Among the clutter she found her purse and extracted her credit card. Swiping on its display, she saw her balance, which was several digits bigger than it had ever been. “Good lord! I hope I won’t have to kill anyone for this amount of money.”

  “Don’t be silly, Fah. You better start getting used to being paid, you deserve it.”

  “Ok, I guess this makes my packing easier.” With those words, she picked her laptop and a few hand-held devices, tossed them in her purse, and grabbed a jacket from a hook nailed to the wall of the living room. “I’m ready.”

  “Wonderful. Our jet is waiting in a private airport. Don’t forget your passport, we are headed to Japan right away”.

  Right when the two were ready to exit the apartment, the door flew open. In the doorway was Jaden, wearing an old black stocking cap, a scarf, a pair of hiking pants and a worn pleated jacket, with a messenger bag over his shoulder, stuffed to the brim with writer’s junk.

  “You were not about to have an adventure of a lifetime without me, were you, girl?”

  Year 1603.

  Edo, Japan

  A group of Japanese merchants were having tea in the house of Daimyo Tatami. His house was overlooking the Bay, situated on the hill of Edo, the key trade and government center of the newly established Tokugawa Shōgunate.

  The merchants were sitting on the floor around a tea table, enjoying the tea and the company of Tatami’s gorgeous servant girls. As much as they enjoyed the social event, the mood in the room was sombre. With Tokugawa Ieyasu coming to power, their affiliation with the rival Daimyo Toyotomi served them no good. All businesses under Ieyasu were redistributed, causing those on the wrong side of this alliance to slip in the oblivion of Japanese business society.

  “Turbulent times we live in, Daimyo Tatami,” said Daisuke, the eldest businessman of the group. “I’ve lived through many wars and insurgences, but this one is different. For the first time in my life, I am worried.”

  Daimyo Tatami nodded and sipped from his cup.

  Tatami was a powerful businessman in the region. Through his allegiance with the Toyotomi clan, Tatami secured valuable licenses for importing goods from China. Even when the Chinese emperor officially banned trade with Japan, accusing Japanese government in enabling piracy, Tatami managed to retain his business by conspiring with the Portuguese captains who served as the intermediaries. Now Tokugawa Ieyasu concentrated all Nanban (Western) contacts around himself and his allies, leaving Tatami in a business dry spell.

  “My Nanban contacts refuse to do business with me now. Ieyasu threatens to expel every merchant who does not go through his administration for trade licenses,” complained Tatami.

  Overrun by the sense of doom, the group quietly sipped their tea.

  Meanwhile, a foreign ship came ashore in Edo bay. That ship was much different from any other Western ships that had ever come to shore. It was spherical and illuminated by a green glow. It also was not made of wood, unlike every other vessel ever seen in Japan.

  It was made of solid iron.

  “How can this vessel float? Surely iron is heavier than water…” pondered a casual observer in the port, watching the weird vessel gracefully manoeuvring and docking.

  “These Nanban merchants have great wisdom!” suggested one of them.

  “They are not greater than us!” retorted another. “They just have different wisdom.”

  “You are right! Add to that, they can’t read or write our way. They can’t be so intelligent and not understand such simple things as writing from head to toe.”

  Meanwhile the vessel came to a full stop. Ennuturat, dressed in a climate-controlled suit and camouflaged in a holographic image of a Western merchant, stopped the engines and proceeded to exit the vessel.

  Back at Tatami’s house, Daisuke absent-mindedly looked over at the port. He had to double-take the scene of a strange new vessel and a Westerner coming out of it. Locals at the port surrounded the newcomer, greeting him with gestures. Apparently, the Westerner did something amusing and the crowd started clapping and cheering.

  “Tatami, look, we have another Nanban over here. He’s clearly new!”

  Tatami waved off Daisuke’s enthusiasm.

  “So what? He will be working with Ieyasu and his minions in no time.”

  “True. But he will have to be introduced to him!”

  “What do you have in mind, Daisuke?”

  “We need to get to him first! Come on, let’s get to the port immediately!”

  Year 2045.

  Tokyo, Japan. Daichi’s Basement

  Daichi awoke. The room was dark and smelled like food leftovers and dirty laundry. Before fully opening his eyes, Daichi reached out to his cell phone and checked his notifications. Most of them were spam or ads, but those ‘incoming’ numbers always promised a hope of something meaningful, although only until he opened the app and saw that all of those notifications were garbage.

  Garbage.

  Funny word. People thought of Daichi as garbage, and he had turned himself into a living manifestation of that thought. They called him hikikomori, the recluse, the loser, the outcast, the broken one.

  In fact, being garbage was the only thing Daichi knew how to do well. Over the past three years, Daichi had perfected the art of being garbage and taken it to the grandmaster level. He did not shower, did not shave, did not go outside his room, did not change his clothes, did not take out the trash. Ever. And he was exceptionally good at doing those things. It took a strategic mind to be able to live in his parents’ basement without ever stepping outside, and not being a burden on the family.

  Perhaps Daichi was garbage, but he was not a leach. He worked for his food playing games and earning bitcoin income. From that money, he paid his portion of the rent and ordered his food online. He also purchased his own electronics, but he did it extremely frugally, repairing everything whenever it was possible. That was the deal he had made with his family: as long as he could support his existence, they agreed not to evict him from the basement.

  Daichi had last seen his mother in person over two years ago. She brought his food and mail to the door of the basement whenever it was delivered and left it on the door mat. Two years ago was the last time she had tried to establish contact.

  The last time Daichi had seen his dad was even longer ago than that. Daichi wished to erase that day from his memory forever, because it had turned him into what he was now, the shame of the family, the disgrace, something that was never spoken out loud, the hikikomori.

  ***

  Daichi was in his senior year when his dad decided that he needed to change schools. In order to stand a good chance of entering an engineering college, Daichi needed to spend more time studying, and his parents felt that Daichi was wasting too much time playing video games and fooling around. Over and over, they had passive-aggressive fights about Daichi’s attitude, how he needed to pull himself together if he wanted to beco
me anything but garbage.

  One evening, dad returned home and announced that he had important news.

  At the dinner table, mom served miso soup, rice and fried eggs.

  “Fried eggs?”

  Dad raised his eyebrow at the sight of eggs and rice - not a traditional combination. Mom lowered her gaze and spooned some soup.

  “Hajime, I just had no time for anything better. I’m exhausted. Just eat your meal.”

  Dad said nothing, just swirled his spoon in thin miso soup. Finding nothing of outstanding substance there, he put a spoon-full of broth in his mouth. It wasn’t bad, he decided, and continued eating, alternating the soup with fluffy rice.

  Mom broke the silence, hoping to bring some energy into the dinner-time atmosphere. “What was the news you were anxious to tell us, Hajime?”

  “Ah, the news! Great news! My loan was approved!”

  “What loan! Another loan? Hajime, you cannot be serious…”

  “What sort of a loan? Well, that is the best part about my news. The loan is to put Daichi through cram school.”

  “A cram school?” Daichi gasped for air. “You want me to leave the house? You want me to sleep on the floor in a room with fifty other kids?”

  “Relax, Daichi. It is a very good school. It cost me a lot of money, but there is nothing I want more than seeing you succeed. You are my only son, so don’t think about money. Think about the school. That’s all that matters.”

  Cram school. Those two words could not have possibly instilled more horror in Daichi’s poor mind. Cram school meant that you were never alone. It meant having three hours of sleep every night, if you were lucky. But most of all, it meant fierce competition. In cram schools teenagers turned into monsters, calculating, memorizing machines, devoid of anything human.

  Daichi was not a stranger to bullying and mockery in his old school, but there at least he could hide amongst the crowd, avoiding his tormentors. In the boarding cram school you were on lock-down 24/7, with the same people around you, and if those kids were anything like the kids in his school, Daichi was cooked.