Flightsuit

by Deaderick, Tom

  When the creature's return trip is activated, the flightsuit flash-scans every molecule of the pilot. The scanning process destroys each molecule of the pilot in the process. The computational requirements for something like this are far beyond anything we can do at this point. The process has to occur nearly instantaneously because the location of each molecule in relation to the others also has to be preserved. Their animal tests made some real messes. Fortunately, at a molecular level, there's a lot of redundancy, so they drop the copies, knowing they can reproduce them by copying one of the preserved molecules. In my old job, we did the same thing with data, its called de-duplication. Taylor paused, thinking.

  Adults drone on more in their head than they do when they are speaking, Leo thought. He sensed time passing slowly outside. Give them more time and they just fill that up too. Why's he taking the time to tell me all of this? What's he waiting for?

  Taylor wasn't "listening". Leo watched a leaf break fall from a real-time tree. Before it reached the ground, Taylor continued.

  Of course, nothing material is really preserved, just information. The inside of the suit is going to be filled with a grey indistinguishable mush after the return trip tech snapshots the pilot. It's a destructive process.

  Leo's panic suddenly rose.

  That's as horrifying a concept to them as it would be to us. Hard not to see that as dying, regardless of what you hope will happen next.

  Then the flightsuit packages the information. Once the pilot has been scanned, there's no rush. I guess it's a good thing for us that they haven't yet mastered this return trip technology. There'd be thousands of them showing up here. We'd be easily overwhelmed.

  The flightsuit calculates the homeworld's location. They use calculations from the Neutrino flow for this as well as radio waves from the local stars – techniques that I couldn't understand even as I see them in his mind and of course you wouldn't understand them anyway, so there's no point in telling you. That location is identified and the position relative to the flightsuit is adjusted hundreds of times a second like a sniper keeping crosshairs on a target with his finger on the trigger.

  He brags like he's one of them, thought Leo, like this was his achievement.

  When everything is ready, millions of microscopic engines woven into the underlayer of the flightsuit realign to point toward his home world and the tiny mills are reengaged. When they are generating energy from neutrinos, the mills only brush lightly with the flow of particles, not changing their direction. For the return trip to work though, the mills must completely divert a particle's vector. The particles are fired at the home world, with some slowed slightly to create staggered patterns. The patterns are the encoded data which can be interpreted on the other end.

  He is really pretty doubtful that the process can work. They've developed algorithms, distributed in the control systems of the trillions and trillions of neutrino mills that power every part of their society. These algorithms monitor neutrino flow and direction watching in the direction of each assigned adventurer, always watching for a pattern signature of a return trip.

  In theory, the patterns will be caught and the snapshot of data that represented your every molecule, fired hundreds of light years away will be reassembled in reconstitution tanks.

  The reconstitution process takes almost a year. It is new tech to them and there were many failures in the years before he left. The lead designer was one of the first tests of a sentient creature. He transmitted himself from one device to another, coming out physically indistinguishable but with substantially diminished mental capabilities and strange psychological quirks. Even among a society that elevated discovery and exploration, volunteers for subsequent tests were reluctant afterward.

  By the time he left for our solar system, the most recent volunteers were only slightly diminished during the process, with the exception of a few random disasters. They are true adventurers though. They can't imagine not exploring and expanding. Even if the odds were considerably worse, they'd still have plenty of their young eager for the opportunity.

  Still, he has some anxiety. Either way though, he's going through with it now. The accident that opened his seal on reentry burned his body in seconds. Not immediately…Taylor "remembered" the searing pain the alien felt as the frictional heat flashed in through the open seal in the sleeve.

  He doesn't have anything to lose since his body was already destroyed.

  49

  Leo thought the helicopter sounded closer.

  They won't get here in time, Taylor told him. He's almost ready. He has to make room. Their minds need much more storage space than our brain has.

  When he first came into my mind, I could barely function for a week. I didn't know what had happened at the time, at first I thought it was a brain tumor. After a week, the pain faded and I began to notice my new abilities. I thought I'd just somehow unlocked something I was born with back then. Didn't know he was in here with me.

  He was content being a passenger for years. Well, not content, I guess. Despondent and resigned might be closer to what he felt. About the way we'd feel if we were trapped with cavemen or savages with no hope for rescue or relief. He hung on. They're geared for survival and anyway, they don't have any way to release control of their consciousness, even when their physical bodies die.

  He started creating the wide neural nets that I called "timesharing", so he could stretch out across all of their minds. A single mind was too small for his consciousness. Being constrained made him tense and edgy. He also stretched out to learn more. They can't stop that explorer's drive.

  The neural connections with groups of people were a great relief for him. He encouraged me by connecting my mind with theirs. That boosted my own mental process. Even though only lasted during the connection periods, I was able to make checklists so my smarter self could give me directions, Taylor tapped his head.

  They don't give up easily, but I think he'd given up hope of returning home until the NSA brought the artifact to me. Before I touched the artifact, I had no idea that my abilities might be caused by something else living inside my mind. As soon as I touched it, I started to hear an echo, very quiet, much quieter than my own thoughts. As I focused on the artifact analysis, he was planning his escape.

  Over the next few weeks, he subtly took over. My reliance on the checklists made it easy for him. That's clear now. It was easy to develop a dependency on the checklists. The checklists helped me build a profitable company from nothing, guided me through investments, relationships, everything - for years. Why wouldn't I follow them? I trusted my smarter self and didn't expect to understand the strategies it developed for me. They just always worked.

  When the alien's goals replaced my own, I didn't even notice the difference. Thinking back though, I can recall times when I started to wonder about it. He sensed me coming near his purpose and pushed reassuring ideas into my mind. I'd be looking at a list that detailed stealing an alien artifact from the NSA and he'd associate that with my dreams of sitting on the beach, as if that were a logical result. It's pretty easy to be tricked when someone has access to your mind and you have no idea they're in there.

  Taylor glanced in the direction of the helicopter. They are getting closer. But we'll make it. He smiled.

  It's telling him something now I bet, Leo thought. Taylor's booming god-voice stopped communicating with Leo. His mouth slackened and fell open. His eyebrows jammed together like he'd been punched.

  Taylor looked toward the edge of the clearing over his shoulder. He turned away from Leo and walked a few dozen feet. He knelt and started pulling rocks away from the base of a gnarled little tree. Leo tried moving, but the suit was still locked in place, so he twisted his head to see what Taylor was digging up. He'd stopped now and was just looking at something. Leo couldn't see what it was until Taylor bent at the waist and brought up a dusty glass dish.

  He wiped the inside of the bowl out with his sweat-wet shirttail and carried it back to the pla
ce he'd stood while communicating with Leo.

  Leo saw the disk was a thick bowl of clear glass or plastic with a white glass-metal triangular panel running down from the top to one side.

  Taylor held the bowl upside down over his face, smiling through the clear glass. It's the helmet, Leo knew then. He realized that he'd still somehow been holding on to a thread of hope because he felt it slipping away.

  50

  They are adventurers, Taylor repeated.

  He just loves to hear himself think, thought Leo, tired of Taylor's condescending and arrogant tone. He thinks he's in the middle of something amazing and it doesn't matter what it is going to cost anyone else. What a total jerk.

  Taylor kept on. They thrive on overcoming challenges. Adventurers that aren't smart enough to plan for almost every conceivable situation don't survive long. These guys live for hundreds of years, and their civilization is a hundred times older than ours.

  The flightsuits give their explorers every advantage. It has weapons we can't even imagine. Leo thought of the way the suit had paralyzed Ethan and hoped he was ok.

  As Taylor talked, Leo noticed the sky behind him. White clouds like a crashing surf, frozen over the blue sky, like a slow-moving photograph. The clouds over Taylor's shoulder were so far away Leo felt like he was looking at them from the bottom of a deep well. They felt so distant. Standing on the tingling edge of the cliff, unable to even see his feet, he felt a vertigo-pull into the clouds. The feeling was so strong, he felt if he could jump just a little into the air that he'd fly up into them. He held onto the feeling for moments before letting go - it was better than his reality. As the tingly feeling faded, he felt a tight constriction deep in his chest and a feeling that something was stuck in his throat.

  Leo was bruised, dehydrated and terrified. Everything he'd taken for granted, his life, his freedom, his mother - everything he'd ever assumed was his, had been taken away and he'd been handed the life of a prisoner in return.

  He wanted to just get away. Get away from this crazy jerk, before he steals everything and be free. Leo longed for the freedom he'd had just hours ago. He wondered at how much his life had changed in just a few hours. How could it get so far away so fast? Please, please, just let me get away from this. If I can just get away, I'll never forget how much I have again. I just want to go home.

  He kept his eyes on the sky behind Taylor, trying not to look at him. Deep behind the blue sky. Somewhere out there is a whole world of aliens. They make amazing things and travel forever to explore anything that's hidden. They can make things that could keep everyone on Earth fed and warm and help us learn even more, but they don't care about that. It doesn't care about anything but going home and it is going to take me with it, Leo thought.

  Was there a heaven somewhere between him and a horrible planet full of aliens? Where would he go when the machine shot the alien home?

  Taylor heard his thoughts.

  I think you're going along for the ride Leo. I think a little powerless part of you will be there inside as he controls your body. He smiled crookedly. You'll be the first human to see an entire alien civilization. The bad news of course being that you won't be able to actually do anything or speak with anyone and you'll just be ignored and alone, like a headache. Something to be pushed aside and forgotten.

  Assuming the whole thing even works of course. He thinks there's a good chance you'll both be mentally defective when you get there, but like I said, he's got nothing to lose at this point. He's ready.

  They've thought of everything. Their neural process is so different from ours, their fail safes take advantage of their ability to mesh minds with other creatures. They know there's a good chance their physical body could be damaged, and they plan for situations where their consciousness might inhabit someone else, me in this case, so they design the suit to automatically mate to another pilot. As soon as the system is sealed, Taylor indicated the helmet, it'll reconfigure to fit who, or whatever, is wearing it. If the highest life form on earth was a raccoon, I guess it'd make a raccoon-shaped armor, Taylor laughed in his head.

  That's why it had you put on the rest of the flightsuit, but not the helmet. At this point, the suit's still programmed to follow the alien's guidance. Sealing the helmet activates an automatic reconfiguration. That would transfer control over to you. Plus the suits are designed for fighting, so they block any telepathic attack. He needs the helmet off while he clears space in your mind for his trip home.

  Leo stopped looking at the clouds and watched the helmet in Taylor's hands.

  The helicopter was getting closer. Close enough now that they might see it, little larger than a bird behind the green forest cover.

  Leo looked directly into Taylor's grinning eyes. Why? Why are you doing this to me? I know he wants to go home and doesn't care what happens to me, but why are you helping him? I've never done anything to you, or anyone else, he added. Why are you helping him steal my life?

  Taylor's head shook once, his caustic grin dripping down as his upper lip crept up. Like I have a choice, the booming voice replied. If he keeps smashing my mind, he's going to break something. You have no idea boy. He's just communicating with you through me. He's inside me. He can reach out and fire pain receptors directly in my brain. You have no idea what it feels like when the memory of every pain you've ever felt gets called up at once. So stop whining. You have no idea.

  Besides, if it's your life or mine, that's easy math anyway.

  Before he fell into my mind from his exploding suit, I had nothing. You don't know what it's like. Your whole life's been easy. Really, you've had all the best parts of life anyway, I'm saving you from the hard parts that come later. I've paid my whole life for something better and I'm due. I've worked as hard as anyone else. Everyone else gets the rewards while I do all the work. They all stick together and unless you're one of them, they'll never leave anything for you. They're selfish and small. If only one of us can have a life coming out of this, why should it be you? What makes you deserve a chance for a good life more than me? I've worked my whole life while you've done nothing.

  When he fills your mind, I'll be free again. No more headaches from him trying to elbow more of himself into my brain. You can't even imagine. Looking forward to a pressure that's not just lifting off of you, but blowing like a wind right out of your head. Of not feeling like you might explode at any moment, and staying clenched night and day to hold it together. For years.

  It'll be different for you. Still painful, I'm sure, but he's had time to clear out more space in your mind than he had with me, so there'll be less spilling over the edges.

  What do you mean? Leo asked. What has it been doing to me?

  You've noticed it. I watched you remembering. He needed time to clear more space in your mind. I've not just been standing here waiting for nothing. He's been clearing space for himself for the trip home and for the long recovery after. He can only carry as much luggage as there is space. Our minds have a lot less space.

  He lost a lot of his own memories and knowledge just cramming himself into my mind, yours has more room – mine has decades of stored memory and experience, but he doesn't want to go through the rest of his life clenched and cramped either, so he's been clearing out your memories. You've noticed it. I could see and feel them too as he unwound them.

  Leo's breath caught. He remembered feeling pleasant memories as Taylor had talked in his mind, but aside from the general peaceful feeling they'd produced, he couldn't recall what he was actually thinking about. He tried frantically to remember, but there was nothing. What was I thinking about? New tears tracked down his face as his fear and isolation crested.

  It'll be a blessing really boy. Why would you want to remember what home was like while you're trapped in a prison where you can never reach it again? That'd be terrible.

  Leo saw a small smile flick the edge of Taylor's mouth. Whatever happens to me makes no difference to you, he thought. Don't act like it does. He stared at Taylor
, unable to move, unable to run. Unable to release the frustration, and anger, and fear. He screamed his frustration full into Taylor's face. After the silent mental communication, the scream jolted Taylor. Jerking away, his foot slipped on the small rocks. He grabbed at the flightsuit's arm to avoid falling from the edge. For a second, Leo tensed, expecting that he would pull them both crashing into the rocks below, but the suit's traction held. Taylor stepped back glaring at him. Leo felt at least a little relief and smiled.

  A third voice spoke in his mind. It wasn't Taylor this time. As it spoke, the anger dropped from Taylor's face, replaced by slack-jawed awe. The voice sounded like two dust-dry rocks scraping together to form words.

  It was quiet but clear and it spoke in a rumbling whisper.

  Ready.

  Leo and Taylor stared at each other, and for a while neither spoke or communicated.

  Taylor spoke, aloud this time, "It's never spoken to me before. Always used pictures from memories joined together into stories and just made me understand by meddling with my thoughts." Taylor looked up into blue sky, as if searching. "I'm the first person in history to communicate with alien life. The first person ever."

  Taylor dropped his eyes back to Leo. Leo shook his head once, "I'm here too jerk. I heard it."

  "You're not here for long," Taylor said.

  51

  Everything happened at once.

  A deafening black helicopter slid through the sky over the clearing. As it passed over, it dropped from treetop height into an eye-level hover with Leo and Taylor over the valley floor. The sound made it impossible to hear anything else. The flightsuit didn't move, so Leo had no hands to cover his ears. It was so loud he could barely think.

  A door slid open in the side of the copter, and a man with a black rifle brought the barrel up to point at Leo or Taylor, Leo wasn't sure which.

  Taylor scanned the clearing behind them. Hack's security team ducked into concealment behind rocks and trees. They were ragged from the dripping heat of the mountain trail run and sleep-deprived, but catching up to Taylor instantly adrenalin-sharpened them. Hack's six security agents aimed rifles, the barrels of each moving between Leo and Taylor as the agents assessed which was the greater threat.