Jacob turns to Sara. “Let’s go.” She grabs his hand and they run down the corridor.
A few more small turns and Sara is leading them down a long hallway with doors on either side. One of them is open and through it Jacob sees a containment unit. He stops running. Sara notices his absence a little farther down the hallway and turns around.
“Jacob!” she hisses quietly. “Jacob, we don’t have time! We’re almost there. Let’s not stop, please!”
Jacob cannot answer because he does not hear. His mind is transported to a dark, lonely place filled with nightmares. He sees that the top of the containment cell—coffin—is slightly fogged over with a thin film of condensation. Beneath the fog, he can see the vague outline of a human. A pulsing hum fills the room; the same hum from Jacob’s own prison.
There is a large digital readout on the side of the unit. Red, blocky letters boldly state a number: 364.
“Three sixty-four,” Jacob says absently and takes a step into the room. Sara runs over and grabs his arm. “Three sixty four,” he says. “What is that?”
“Jacob, we have to go. Now.”
“What is it?” he repeats, turning to her. The look of pain and confusion on his face stops her in her tracks.
“It’s…it’s the number of days until his next waking cycle. Jacob, let’s go.”
She gently pulls at his arm. His eyes linger on the containment unit until she gets him past the door. Then she is behind him, pushing him toward the next hallway.
* * *
Sara smiles as she punches a code into the panel next to the pod door. The door slides up silently and she pulls him inside. “Sit there.” She gestures to one of two large black chairs in the cockpit of the escape pod.
It is a small vessel and one that barely fits two people comfortably. Jacob climbs over snakes of cable and humming equipment and plops down into one of the chairs. The controls before him are less complicated than those in front of the other seat. He leans the guard’s gun against the panel beside his chair.
“You can fly this?” he says over his shoulder. Sara slaps a button and the pod door slides down, sealing them inside.
“Thing flies itself, really.” She steps lightly over the equipment and drops down in the chair next to Jacob. For all their running and ducking, she looks remarkably unfazed. Sara’s hands dance over the control panel and it responds accordingly. The pod hums to life and the cockpit glows with ambient light. A series of beeps and clicks precede a loud, hollow CLONG, and suddenly the ship is free.
“That’s the good thing about stealing a ship,” she says, smiling. “No pre-flight checklist.”
They drift down a long shaft and Jacob hears small bursts of air as stabilizing thrusters keep them from bouncing against the walls of the tunnel. Several long seconds pass before the bottom of the ship sweeps up past them and they drop into space.
The sight is staggering, and Jacob involuntarily holds his breath. The medical vessel is enormous, easily one hundred times the size of the tiny cruiser Jacob had booked passage on for his flight to the outer colonies. The hull is smooth and angular at the same time; large, windowed protrusions bubble out at seemingly random intervals along the length of the great ship.
Below them, the silent planet glows warmly. Jacob imagines it is welcoming them to safety; offering a safe haven from years of torture and suffering.
He turns to Sara.
“Thank you,” says Jacob. “I’m sorry about your job.”
This makes her laugh. “You’re sorry about my job? Jacob, I helped keep you a prisoner for years, and you’re sorry about my job?” She laughs again. “Trust me, it was time for a career change.”
“Still, you didn’t have to, but you did. So thank you.”
She looks over at him and smiles. “You’re welcome.”
He leans forward and peers down at the quickly growing planet below. “So what the hell are we supposed to do when we get down there?”
“I’m sure we’ll think of something. Maybe steal one of the rich guy’s speedships and hop around the galaxy for a while. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
Jacob nods, thinking that it would be. He also tries to fight back the thought that everyone he ever loved and cared about is dead and gone.
Sara looks over at him as if she can read his mind.
“It isn’t all that bad, you know,” she says. “You get used to it after a while.” She reaches over and sticks a small needle into Jacob’s neck. There is a small sucking sound and Jacob feels ice-cold liquid shoot into his blood.
“At least,” she continues, “that’s what the manual says.”
“What manual?” he asks groggily. “What the hell was that?”
“That was a sedative, Jacob. It’s going to put you to sleep in a few minutes.”
He lurches toward her but the drug has already worked its way through his system. His hand merely brushes against her shoulder before falling helplessly to his side.
“Why…why…” he stammers.
She taps a few buttons and sets the pod on autopilot. “You know, Jacob, you’re one of a kind.”
He tries to talk but can’t. The interior of the escape pod melts and swirls around him.
“Well, one of about a dozen, I suppose.” She reaches over and pushes him toward the viewing window. He can barely make out a handful of other escape pods emerging from tunnels beneath the massive medical freighter. “Not everyone had the resolve to stick it out all the way to the pods. Most never even got out of their cells. They just laid there screaming, like they always do at the start of a new cycle.”
Jacob drunkenly falls back into his chair and tries to focus on Sara. There are multiple copies of her, all circling around a steadier, more solid version. He decides the middle one is where he should be looking.
“I knew something was different about you the day you woke up and didn’t scream.” She smiles to herself.
Is that pride? Jacob wonders.
“I told them we should keep an eye on you,” she continues, “and I was right. You were the first one to escape, Jacob. And the first one always sell for twice what the others pull in, at the minimum. I’m betting the guy on the planet below us will pay triple.”
Jacob mumbles and commands his arms to grasp her throat, but they don’t listen. Instead he just sits there and stares; eyes glassy, jaw slack.
“Nice fat commission for me, nice new home for you. I’ll be able to retire sooner than I hoped. So I guess I should be the one thanking you, Jacob.” She leans over and kisses him on the forehead. “You taste like money,” she says, then laughs. This time it is a shrill, unpleasant cackle.
“But seriously,” she adds, “the motivated ones, the ones with the greatest capacity for imagination and drive for freedom…those are the ones that keep the company afloat. The ones that lay there screaming…we’ll keep them alive, sure. Everyone hates to sleep, Jacob, even the poor. They can only afford third-rate product or lower, so that’s what we give them. A whole ship full of lazies would only power this rich bastard for a decade. You, though, I’m betting you’ll be helping his grandchildren’s grandchildren stay productive twenty-four hours a day.”
Jacob’s head droops onto his shoulder and his eyes flutter to stay open.
“Uh oh,” Sara says, looking over. “That time, I guess. It’s been fun, Jake. Definitely the most thrilling escape I’ve ever staged.”
The planet is close now, filling the viewing window completely. Jacob’s eyes are too heavy to keep open. His brain is fuzzy and he has to focus all his energy on breathing.
“Remember to keep dreaming, Jake. As long as you have that fire burning inside, you’ll be producing for decades. Centuries, maybe. I only wish there were more like you.”
* * *
There is silence.
Jacob’s awakening is much like his first. The confusion of not knowing where he is (but I do know: I’m on the planet) and the absence of light (oh God my eyes) revert him to a state of panic. His fi
ngertips touch the fresh stitches that bind his top and bottom eyelids together.
He does not call for help. He wants to call out so badly but he does not. He wants to give them no reason to laugh, nothing to talk about as they walk from room to room and take their readings (but there are no other rooms, Jacob—you are alone).
Alone.
This last thought drives him mad. He pounds the walls of his new prison until his fists bleed. Muffled thuds echo in the small room. This containment unit is much sturdier than the last. Jacob uses his feet to feel the bottom of his upgraded coffin. It is smooth. No loose machinery to kick free; no chance of escape.
Between the pulsing throbs of electric current emanating from his container, Jacob can hear a distant ocean. Waves crash continuously against what he imagines must be one of the most beautiful beaches in the galaxy.
Jacob opens his mouth and screams.
A Word from Sam Best
Speculative fiction is, to me, analogous with exploratory fiction. There are broad horizons to be ventured toward in our everyday lives, for certain, and there are heroic stories to be shared. Yet for those brave Couch Captains like myself—those astronauts whose mind is the universe into which we eagerly delve—speculative fiction opens worlds of imagination too large for one planet alone.
That’s not to say that all spec fic takes place ‘out there’. The great thing about the genre is that it encompasses so many niches, Earthbound and otherwise, that together form a whole—an identifiable collective of the weird, surreal, and unknown.
“A Dream of Waking” is an exploration of all of these, wrapped up in a shell of terror. If there’s one thing speculative fiction allows us to do more than any other, it’s to explore the depths of human nature; to probe how we would react in extraordinary circumstances. In this regard, spec fic is akin to other genres; it looks inward as much as it looks out.
Things are usually just a little bit weirder at first glance.
Sam Best is the author of numerous speculative fiction novels, including the apocalyptic thriller Genesis Plague. His short stories have appeared in The A.I. Chronicles and Alt.History 101. He is currently traveling the world with his wife.
The Invariable Man
by A.K. Meek
The Boneyard
OLD MICAH AWOKE WITH A START, not remembering if today was his sixtieth or sixty-first birthday.
Ever since Margaret passed, he wanted to forget days such as today. Aching bones and splotchy, veinous skin told him all he needed to know of his age. He didn’t need any extra reminders of his mortality.
He peeled his sweat-soaked back off his battered leather recliner and hopped to his feet. His face flushed and he swayed from a head rush. The dog-eared, yellowed paperback on his lap dropped to the matted carpet in a flutter of pages. With a huff and grunt he bent and picked up the book by its broken spine. Flimsy, faded pages spread like a fan.
He placed his copy of The Variable Man on the end table next to his recliner, right where he always placed it.
Thirty times, at least. That was one number he cared to remember. He must’ve read it that many times.
Thomas Cole, the variable man. The original fixer. Tom had an uncanny ability to fix anything, even if he didn’t understand how it worked.
Like Micah.
He pressed a button mounted on a simulated wood wall near his chair. Long solar panels that stretched over his trailer shifted in position, taking the brunt of the brutal southwestern sun.
Micah had rigged a decade-old atmospheric unit to run on solar power. Essentially an outside air conditioner. It formed a cool bubble around his home, lowering the temperature to a comfortable one-hundred twenty, fifteen degrees cooler than the blistering Arizona morning.
Any little bit helped in the desert.
He walked the few paces from his living room to his kitchenette and turned on the stove. The ancient burner ignited, heating the teapot on top. There was never a bad time for tea.
Skip insisted on Earl Grey.
He opened the cabinet, stopped, and spun around. That’s when he noticed Skip slumped over the bathroom pedestal sink at the end of the hall.
Great. Not again.
Micah shook his head as he walked over to him.
His knobby hand rubbed over the back of Skip’s smooth, cool, slumped metal head until he found the pressure panel at the base of his skull and depressed it. It slid aside to reveal a tiny switch. Micah pressed it to reset Skip.
He had found Skip in a partially crushed military shipping container that he had picked up in an auction. Skip had been stowed in a compartment, still in original packaging. Micah could never have afforded a bot like him.
It was the best thing to happen to him after Margaret passed.
Skip was an Acme Multi-use Bot, model LX-100, serial number 11347AMB23. Eleven for short, or so it referred to itself after Micah replaced its power supply and turned it on.
That was the extent of its self-awareness programming; the ability to identify itself by truncating its serial number into a name. This bot’s random generator selected “eleven.”
The law restricting bot cognition was a good law. Too bad it wasn’t an international law.
Eventually, Eleven became Skip, because Micah always liked that name. He also gave him his own surname, Dresden, because it felt wrong not to.
So with a new name, Skip Dresden became Micah’s best friend, so to speak.
A weak buzzing indicated that Skip’s processor was booting, running through system integrity checks and routines.
The bot shuddered and rose from his awkward position. He glanced around the room, then to Micah. His head drooped slightly. “Begging your pardon, sir,” he said in his best butler voice. “Please forgive my loss of composure. It won’t happen again.”
Skip said that same phrase, in that same voice, after every collapse. Shortly after the accident, he insisted on acting as Micah’s butler.
Micah waved his hand, dismissing the apology. “Don’t worry about it. You can’t help it.”
The teapot whistled and he went back to the kitchenette.
Micah wanted to fix Skip, to stop his unexpected power-offs, like the one that just happened, but he dared not attempt to fix him again. The last time he tried to enhance Skip’s programming still haunted him.
Shortly after finding Skip and swapping his power supply, Micah wanted to hack him with a more powerful central processor. He had salvaged one from an old Tyrell agri bot destroyed in a tornado. Ty ags were known for their processors.
When he had Skip’s skull open, accessing his processors, he touched wires, crisscrossing them, or something. Whatever he did caused a sharp pop and a shower of sparks. Grey smoke billowed and burnt ozone filled the room. Micah thought he had completely fried Skip’s circuits.
After an hour of worry, he decided to reboot his bot. Luckily, Skip worked, but was never quite the same. He became, odd; obsessive.
The front door screen screeched open. A three-foot high service bot, dust-covered, faded and marred, rolled up the entry incline into the living room, its treads clacking against dingy linoleum.
Kitpie had returned from morning perimeter checks.
Two days after Margaret collapsed while cooking dinner in this very kitchenette, he knew she wasn’t going to recover from the heart attack.
Margaret collapsed a couple of days after they found Kitty.
The cat’s name wasn’t original, but that’s what happens when you get two bull-headed people such as Micah and Margaret trying to figure out a name for the stray they found. After an hour of arguing, a fed-up Margaret threw her hands in the air. “Fine, let’s name her Kitty.” Out of spite, Micah agreed. They never discussed poor Kitty’s name after that. It just kind of stuck.
Three days after Margaret went in the hospital, at 9:18 pm, she had just told Micah she loved him. He said the same. Then she said, “be sure to feed Kitpie.” Then she died.
She said Kitpie instead of Kitty.
On her deathbed, the last thing she said in this world made him laugh. He would never forget that name or that he laughed as his wife passed from the earth.
Two weeks after Margaret’s passing, Kitty ran away.
“Micah,” Kitpie’s mechanical voice crackled, scratched from years of dust wearing on its resonance box, “scavengers attempted to breach the wall in Sector Three. They damaged one pole, but the field stood.”
Micah rushed to the door, only stopping long enough to grab his straw hat, before stepping out into the Arizona morning.
His trailer, a narrow fourteen by seventy-five-foot tin box, nestled between mountains of junk in the Boneyard.
The Regeneration Center sprung to life when the Air Force established it just to the south of Tucson in the 1940s as a graveyard for old, outdated aircraft. The dry southwestern heat reduced rusting.
After the Machine Wars, tons of military surplus; broken tanks, aircraft, even a few of Nikolaevna’s machines, found their way from across the country to the Boneyard, as many called that final resting place.
It quickly expanded from a few acres to envelope miles and miles of desert.
Micah wound his way through his yard, his collection, through piles of broken technology. As a salvager, he had rights to bid on any scrap, as long as he beat other salvagers to it. He could then repair and resell for a profit, which was little after the hefty government surcharge.
Micah was a fixer, one of a handful that the government allowed to live in the Boneyard, doing what he did.
He hurried along to Sector Three, worn boots kicking up the dry, grassless dust. Kitpie the shovel bot raced behind him, whirring along.
They reached his property border. The fence he had planted years ago separated his broken treasures from the rest of the junk metal. Two of the posts were bent, one emitting an intermittent spark, about ready to shut down. Something heavy had slammed against them.
Future Chronicles Special Edition Page 3