She pointed toward the roof to mean outer space.
“Those trainers are being hard on me, and I’m starting to wonder if they’re both mentally unbalanced. But if I make it through this class, I’ll be stronger and ready to fight back if I ever need to,” Antaska said.
“Your trainers have hurt people with more than just bruises,” M. Hoyvil warned her. “They’ve broken students’ bones too. Master Mytaar says they know their limits, but I think they’re ruled by their emotions. I think that in a moment of passion, which they seem to have many of, they could do harm beyond what is supposed to be their limits.”
“I agree with you about that, but I still want to stay in the class for now,” said Antaska.
“OK, but if you change your mind at any time, you can switch. Just let me know,” M. Hoyvil said. “Do you feel up to going to astronomy and political science classes with me today?”
Chapter 12
Antaska was eager to see what holographic displays would be shown in M. Hoyvil’s classes that day. She went to both classes and sat next to him. His teachers silently pointed out alien planets, life forms, and other features of outer space that she had never seen in Earth space school. Antaska sat peacefully, putting the problem of her fitness trainers out of her mind. She remembered her decision to ignore the whispering sounds, and she tried to pull up the mental wall to block them. It had been easy the day before, but today it wasn’t working—as if the muscles of her mind were worn out from the previous day’s use.
“I’ll just have to ignore them today,” she thought.
Oddly, the act of ignoring the whispers made them louder and clearer. Antaska could now hear whole strings of words instead of just individual words. Phrases like “Ophiuchus constellation, the lost thirteenth sign of the ancient Earth human zodiac,” and “there will be a quiz on Friday” came into her mind, but she didn’t pay attention to them.
Later at dinner, Antaska told herself that she wouldn’t look at Eegor. And she continued to ignore the whispering noises, even though longer and longer strings of words and even sentences now flowed through her head.
In the dining hall, there seemed to be many voices coming from all directions and all talking at once. The jumble of words and phrases was much more confusing and seemed to make even less sense than what Antaska had heard in the class. So it was easy for her to ignore them, even though she was still couldn’t put up her mental wall to block out the sounds.
As usual, M. Hoyvil ate and talked telepathically and with hand signs to his friends all at the same time. Antaska ate her food and looked around with interest at the other nearby diners. At each of the two tables on one side of her, adolescent Verdante females sat with two or three Earth human companions each. Three large, light green-skinned Verdante males of M. Hoyvil’s size sat at tables on the other side. They had one human companion each.
Antaska recognized many of the humans from the gym and M. Hoyvil’s classes. They smiled and waved, and she waved back.
Surrounded by friendly people and filled with a nutritious meal, Antaska felt happy and confident about dealing with her gym instructors and about the trip into space in general. In her relaxed state, despite her intention to ignore the whispering sounds, she found herself fascinated by a strange conversation taking place between two female voices.
“Are you going to breed your new pets when we get back home?” asked the first voice.
“Of course, what else is there to do for 300 years while we wait to be old enough to create our own children? I picked out one with green eyes and one with blue especially for a new look I am planning. The pet geneticist told me it’s possible to produce a baby with one green eye and one blue if you tweak the DNA just right.”
“That sounds really cool,” said the first voice. “Can I have one if you end up with extra?”
“Oh, definitely,” answered voice number two.
Antaska tried to tell herself that she had imagined the conversation, but discussions about pets usually caught her attention. The one she had just heard was particularly thought provoking. On Earth, pets like cats and dogs, even the so called pure breeds, were allowed to reproduce as they would in the natural animal way.
Antaska had never heard of anyone creating genetically designed pets in vitro in the same way that humans were created by the Earth governments’ scientific baby labs. Shockingly, it sounded like the genes of these pets were being combined and designed not in the interest of health, evolution, and genetic diversity, but for more superficial entertainment reasons.
Then Antaska’s thoughts turned to Potat. If the Verdantes practiced production of pet babies from mixed genetic material, she wondered if someday she could get a new kitten created from Potat’s DNA. That possibility had never occurred to her before.
Antaska knew that she had only a short time to be with Potat. The cats of that time in history had a very short lifespan, only forty to fifty years, and Antaska didn’t know how old Potat was.
She thought about how much she would like to have a kitten made from Potat’s genes to be her companion and remind her of Potat after she was gone. Then she felt guilty about having those thoughts. As nice as it would be to have a kitten who looked like Potat, it wouldn’t be the same cat. No cat, however cute and smart, could ever take her place.
“Is something bothering you? Are you worried about gym class tomorrow?” M. Hoyvil asked her.
In a short time, it seemed like M. Hoyvil had become quite good at reading Antaska’s facial expressions.
“I wasn’t worrying about the class, I was thinking about Potat. I know it sounds silly, but I was feeling sad thinking about how short her life will be,” Antaska answered.
“That doesn’t sound silly at all,” said M. Hoyvil. “I understood exactly how you feel. Would you like to go out with me tonight to the game room and space viewing lounges? That might cheer you up. Potat can come along again too.”
Antaska felt energetic and agreed to the plan.
They finished eating and carried their trays over to the drop-off counter. Despite Antaska’s best intentions, her thoughts turned back to Eegor. She couldn’t resist a last look in his direction. With a thrilled mixture of excitement, relief, and shame, she saw that he was again looking her way.
As usual, Tilde was looking too. Antaska’s face flushed with heat. She wondered for the first time if other people in the room, especially M. Hoyvil, noticed this embarrassing scene. Antaska looked up at M. Hoyvil, but she saw with relief that he seemed to be looking everywhere but at the two trainers.
Chapter 13
That evening, Antaska and M. Hoyvil, with Potat in his pocket, passed through the wide, high entrance to the game room. They walked part of the way across the curved foyer that led to the various parts of the big room. Dim lighting made it impossible for Antaska to see its far walls. Round tables, each softly lit by a blue light focused down from a point on the ceiling, were scattered about one section of the room.
Verdantes of various sizes and Earth humans sat at the tables sipping from drink tubes of many colors. Some played card or board games. Behind the small round tables, more humanoids stood at larger rectangular tables playing games Antaska didn’t recognize. Turning to face the center of the room, she saw an empty dance floor with a spot-lit bar counter and bar stools placed far behind it.
Antaska turned again and looked to her other side. She peered into a much more dimly lit area and froze in shock.
“What is that?” she gasped.
It was a vision that could have been right out of one of the Earth-made horror movies about aliens. These movies were still popular after many thousands of years, although the Verdantes had attempted to persuade the humans not to watch them.
Earth humans were eager to adopt most of the helpful information and technological advances that the Verdantes provided, but in the case of movie viewing, the warning message had the opposite of the desired effect. The forbidden nature of the movies only increased their popul
arity. Curiosity kicked in, and almost everyone, including Antaska, wanted to know what they were being warned about.
In one common movie theme, a more powerful alien race captured humans and stored them in some vast facility. The stored humans believed they were still living their lives, but they were actually in a dream state enclosed in eggs or other containers. Often, tubes were attached to them to suck out their mental or physical energy.
Now, Antaska was horrified to be faced with a similar scene directly in front of her. Hanging from the ceiling from harnesses were more than a dozen humanoids covered from head to toe in a tight casing. Its shiny black material glowed out eerily from dark shadows that enveloped the area. There were no eye openings in the black encasements. Sensors stuck out all over the heads and other parts of the bodies, attached to wires that led to the ceiling high above the floaters.
Most disturbingly of all, the humanoids weren’t making full movements, but the muscles of their arms, legs and bodies were twitching. They twitched like Potat did when she was dreaming and thought she was running or jumping. Mixed in between the occupied suits were many empty ones that seemed to be waiting hungrily to encase and feed on their next victims. Antaska didn’t know the real purpose of these suits. But she thought these humanoids must be in a dream state, experiencing some kind of illusory reality.
Antaska instinctively backed away from M. Hoyvil. Reflexively, he lifted and waved the six fingers of his hands in a gesture protesting his innocence. But she didn’t understand Verdante sign language, and she backed away even more.
Could the energy taken from these humans be what they use to power the ship? Antaska wondered creatively.
When M. Hoyvil saw Antaska’s reaction, he felt as if he had suddenly developed the supposed mind-reading powers of Master Mytaar. Hoping to reassure her, he spoke out loud.
“It’s not what you think! These are virtual reality suits, and these people are playing games in them. They aren’t trapped in there. There’s a virtual control function that lets them get out of the suits whenever they want to. If you look closer, you’ll see that it’s not just Earthlings in the suits. There are just as many Verdante adolescents, if not more. If these suits were for capturing humans, why would we put our own people in them? Not that we would ever do that, of course.”
M. Hoyvil kept his eyes on Antaska while he was speaking. He was relieved to see that she looked calmer. But with his sharper-than-human eyesight, even in the dark room, he also noticed a red color changing her tan skin to a deep copper shade.
She must be embarrassed, M. Hoyvil thought.
“I should have warned you about this, but I didn’t know you’d watched those Earth alien movies. Actually, the truth is that I was preoccupied with thinking about a lot of other things,” M. Hoyvil admitted. “I should have remembered Potat’s extreme reaction when I brought her in here last night. I felt something poking into my shoulder, and when I looked over, she had grown to twice her size. Her fur was sticking straight up, and her back was curled up too. But once she realized it was harmless, she got interested. She tried to slap and claw at the players. I had to take her away before she messed up someone’s game.”
Antaska looked up at Potat. She sat on M. Hoyvil’s shoulder calmly washing her white paws, clearly taking no interest in the discussion. Then, something new happened among the silent and barely moving hanging black figures. Two of them lowered to the ground. Their black casings opened. One released a male Verdante of about M. Hoyvil’s size. The other released an Earth human male who Antaska recognized from her gym class. They walked over to M. Hoyvil and Antaska.
The two Verdantes stood staring silently at each other, and Antaska heard whispering, but she ignored it. The male human spoke to Antaska. He was about her height with brown curly hair and large dark-brown eyes.
“Hi, I’m Pablo. I’ve seen you in gym class,” he said.
A reddish flush appeared on his face, and he looked down at the floor. Antaska felt a sudden stab of embarrassment.
Is he thinking about what’s going on in gym class with me and Eegor and Tilde? Antaska wondered. But it’s not that different than how people acted on Earth. We were taught not to get into exclusive relationships. So no one would have cared who I flirted with.
“But this isn’t Earth,” the tiny voice in her head said again.
This time it seemed to come from close by. From up on M. Hoyvil’s shoulder. Antaska looked up to see Potat staring down at her.
Antaska shook her head.
No. I’m not hearing voices, she told herself. But I’m starting to think that voice might be right. This situation with Eegor and Tilde isn’t like anything from Earth. It seems to be out of control, and it might be dangerous. And it’s embarrassing. From now on, I’m going to make it clear to everyone in that class that I’m not interested in Eegor, Antaska decided.
Pablo stood waiting. Antaska realized she had been just standing there thinking.
“Hi. I’m Antaska,” she said in a friendly tone. “What happens in those suits you were just in? I thought for sure when I first saw them that they were some kind of energy-draining device, but I guess I was wrong about that.”
Pablo’s face lit up with enthusiasm.
“Oh, they are fantastic!” he said. “You move around, and it’s like you’re really there but you’re not, and you can’t get hurt. You can do all kinds of things like skiing on a high mountain, white water rafting, or horseback riding. You can even going on a mission as a character in an adventure story.”
“Wow! Really?” said Antaska.
“Yeah,” said Pablo. “There’s thousands of sports and games in there. All kinds of things people used to do on Earth before the apocalypse and all kinds of strange alien things too. I didn’t try those yet, but I’m going to. And I’m going to try some of the ancient Earth-style fighting and martial arts programs, maybe even against some aliens.”
“That sounds great! I’d like to try it too,” said Antaska.
She looked up at M. Hoyvil. He had stopped staring at the other Verdante and was now looking her way. A plan was forming in her mind. Maybe she could learn some new defensive and fighting moves from the virtual suits to help her fight back against Tilde. Even without the psychic abilities of Master Mytaar, she was sure that more encounters with the two trainers were in her future.
“Pablo was just telling me about the virtual suits. Can I try one of the martial arts games?” Antaska asked M. Hoyvil.
“Sure. I’ll show you how to set up the programming,” M. Hoyvil said.
He bowed a goodbye to his friend and to Pablo. The other alien and Pablo bowed to M. Hoyvil and Antaska.
“See you tomorrow in class,” Pablo said to Antaska.
“See you then,” she said. “Thanks for telling me about the suits.”
Antaska and M. Hoyvil turned away and walked into the darkness of the virtual reality area. M. Hoyvil still carried Potat up on his shoulder. They stopped in front of an empty human-sized suit, and Antaska reached out a hand to feel its material. It was soft and smooth, almost skin-like, and it felt very light when she lifted it.
“This suit is made from bioengineered smart fabric,” M. Hoyvil explained. “To put it on, you pull the hood part over your head. The rest of it will shrink and expand to fit itself to cover all of your body. It covers your mouth and nose, but you won’t have a problem breathing because the material allows air to pass though.”
Antaska felt a little nervous about that part, but she was still interested.
“Once you’re inside, a screen appears with instructions for you to select and start a game,” M. Hoyvil continued. “It tells you to push buttons. When you do, and when you make other movements in the games, you’ll feel like you’re moving. But you’ll really only be twitching like all these people around us.”
Antaska looked around again at the humanoids hanging nearby in their suits. Close up, the twitching looked even more creepy, but now she knew why they were doing it
.
“If you’re playing a fighting game, when you get hit or kicked, the suit will press the contact spot, so you feel the blow, but it won’t hurt,” said M. Hoyvil. “If your opponent scores a certain amount of hits on you first, your avatar—you in the game—will die. Then the game is over, and it asks if you want to play again. Or else, if you score more hits, then your opponent dies, and the game is over.”
Antaska didn’t think that was going to happen today, but it could happen someday. She looked around at the humanoids who were completely encased in material that seemed to have a mind of its own. Antaska started to feel claustrophobic.
“How do I get out if I want to stop playing?” she asked.
“You can stop playing between games, and there’s a virtual button you’ll see in there that will let you stop any time you want,” said M. Hoyvil. “If you keep going, it’s set to stop after an hour and let you out so you don’t end up staying in longer than you realize. It’s easy to lose track of time in there. It can actually be very addictive if you don’t watch out.”
M. Hoyvil sounded like someone who might have had personal experience with this problem in the past.
“Mew!” said Potat from up on M. Hoyvil’s shoulder.
She bent her body to peer down and wink her golden eyes at Antaska. Then she watched with alert interest.
“No swatting at her when she’s in the suit,” M. Hoyvil told her sternly. “That’s bad.”
Potat answered with a small sniffing sound.
“I guess I’m ready to start,” said Antaska with determination.
She stepped under the floating suit and placed the hood over the top of her head. The soft material began to slowly compress itself tight against her hair and skin. It produced a creepy, tingly suction feeling that started at her scalp and spread from there.
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