The Perfect Moment in Peril

by Kenneth Preston

  They didn't look anything like the aliens that David had imagined them to be. Of course, there are countless images the mind can conjure when imagining an extraterrestrial, but David had a particular image in mind: gray, large black eyes, stubby ears with a stubby nose to match, a wiry thin body with long skinny arms and long bony fingers. These extraterrestrials didn't look anything like that particular mental image. These extraterrestrials were white from head to toe. Their bodies seemed to be emitting a soft orange light. They were huge with bulbous heads and long limbs. David guessed they were each at least eight feet tall. David counted sixteen of them. They didn't have many distinctive physical features. In fact, aside from their large black eyes, their bodies were featureless.

  They moved in, surrounded the shuttle. There was no escape. But he wasn't entirely sure that there was any danger to escape from. They didn't seem particularly hostile. They weren't rushing the shuttle. They appeared to be curious―about the shuttle, its occupants or both. They didn't look at one another. If they were communicating with one another, David couldn't hear them. They appeared to be waiting for David and Emily to make the first move.

  David looked to Emily who, in typical fashion, appeared calm. Her eyes scanned the beings before meeting David's gaze.

  “Any bright ideas?” David asked, his voice trembling.

  “Well, based on their demeanor, they're not hostile. I mean, if they wanted to hurt us, they probably could.”

  “So what do we do?”

  Emily shrugged. “Well, we have two choices: Stay in here and wait for them to do...something, or get out and try to communicate with them.”

  David frowned. Neither option was particularly tempting. But of course, it wasn't really an option, was it? Emily was clearly suggesting they get out and try to communicate with them.

  David nodded. “Option b it is.”

  Emily gave him a faint smile and a nod before turning to the passenger side door. David nervously watched her press the touchscreen panel beside the door. The door silently slid open.

  Was he really going to let her get out first?

  The three beings standing near the door didn't react. Emily raised her hands to shoulder level, indicating that she meant them no harm.

  David was impressed with her bravery and ashamed with, what he perceived to be, his cowardice.

  Emily raised the back of her right hand to her mouth and opened and closed her fingers, indicating that she wanted to talk. She began sliding from her seat.

  David took that as his cue, pressing the touchscreen panel beside his door. Five of the beings were waiting for him as the door slid open.

  David raised his hands as Emily had and flashed his friendliest smile. He took one last over the shoulder look at Emily to see her standing silently among the beings on her side of the shuttle before sliding from his seat and planting his feet on the ground. The beings didn't move. David looked at them and nodded timidly.

  “Now what?” he murmured.

  Now, you come with us.

  David was startled. The words seemed to have come from inside his head.

  Please, do not be alarmed. We hope that we did not frighten you. But it is difficult for our species to initiate telepathic communication with beings that are not telepathic without startling them.

  David looked over his shoulder. Emily was looking back at him through the shuttle's open doors. She nodded, her eyes wide. “I heard it too,” she confirmed.

  David turned to the being closest to him. “You communicate telepathically,” he stated as a matter of clarification.

  We do. The words echoed through his head.

  Emily said, “And just to be clear, you're speaking to both of us?”

  We are. We can isolate an individual and communicate to that individual alone, but at this time, we are communicating with both of you.

  “How do you know our language?” David asked.

  “They don't,” Emily responded. “Our brains translate their telepathic signals into English. And I'm guessing that you're all communicating as one.”

  That is correct. Our species is a collective. We are individual parts of a whole. We communicate as one; we exist as one.

  “What do you want with us?” David asked.

  We want you to come with us.

  David and Emily glanced at one another. Emily said, “If we refuse?”

  You do not want to refuse. That is not a threat. We will not harm you if refuse. We cannot guarantee that no harm will come to you if you refuse to come with us, but we have no intention of harming you. It is in your best interests to come with us.

  “Where are you taking us?” Emily asked.

  We are taking you to the tower in the center of the city. We know that you have more questions. Every answer we give you will inevitably lead to more questions. But we have told you all that we can tell you for the time being. The answers you are seeking are in the tower.

  The being closest to David extended a long white arm toward the forest, gesturing for David and Emily to come with them. The other beings repeated the gesture. What choice did they have? David accepted the invitation with a faint smile and began walking. He sidled up to Emily as they both crossed the front of the shuttle.

  “This is fun,” he quipped, taking her hand.

  “Interesting to say the least,” Emily replied softly as they began walking toward the forest.

  The beings surrounded them as they walked but kept their distance.

  David leaned close to Emily and said, “I'd say they were taking us to see their leader, but I don't think they have any leaders.”

  Emily shook her head. “They're a collective. They don't answer to anybody but themselves.”

  “What do they want with us?”

  “To tell us something...or show us something. They brought us here for a reason.”

  “Are you guessing, or do you know this?”

  “How would I know this?”

  “Your powers of perception―”

  “Are non-existent, David. They have been for some time now.”

  David looked away. The elephant in the room, the unspoken truth, the truth he had been avoiding, was now out in the open. The door had been opened. And now that it was open, he didn't know what to say.

  Emily filled the silence with another truth. “But you've known that for awhile now, haven't you?”

  David nodded before looking at her. “I knew something was going on with you. I just didn't know...what.”

  “The what is a bit complicated, but put simply, the term 'non-corporeal' is a bit misleading. We in the Great Community, or the Community of Light as you refer to us, are beings of pure consciousness, but our physical bodies still exist...within us. As we evolve to beings of pure consciousness, our physical bodies are absorbed, the molecules of our bodies are phased into our consciousness. But based on our recent...experience together, you must know that my physical body has returned.”

  David felt his face flush at her reference to their “experience together.” He nodded. “I...uh...I had my suspicions.”

  “The answer to the question you never asked is, yes, it is possible for me to be intimate as a being of pure consciousness. However, the difference for both of us would have been a bit...different.”

  David furrowed his brow. “How so?”

  “Let's just say the experience would have been more cerebral and less physical. Sexual encounters between two physical beings can be both, but an encounter between a physical being and a being of pure consciousness emphasizes the mental more than the physical. It would be difficult for you to grasp the concept without actually experiencing it.”

  David resisted the impulse to inquire as to whether or not that experience would be possible for the two of them.

  Instead, he asked, “What's going on with you?”

  Emily sighed. "My body has returned, the molecules no longer phased. I am no longer a being of pure consciousness because I have been separated from the Great Community
for a long time. The Great Community is a collective. Our existence as beings of pure consciousness is dependent on one another. We need to be linked to one another to continue to exist in that state. We can be separated and continue to exist in that state but only for a limited time."

  “Why didn't you tell me any of this?”

  “There's only so much I can tell you, David. There's only so much I can accurately convey to you. I'm not even sure if what I've told you is completely accurate, but it's as accurate as human words can convey. Besides, I've been struggling with this. This transition has been very difficult for me...for so many reasons.”

  “These beings, they're a collective as well. Do they have any connection to the Community?”

  Emily shook her head. “No, the Great Community is a community of non-corporeal beings. Our new friends here are corporeal beings as far as I can tell. They're highly evolved corporeal beings. They communicate telepathically. But the Great Community is a community of human beings. These beings are a different species altogether.”

  He hesitated before asking the question that was on his lips, but he decided they had come this far in the conversation. They may as well go all the way with it. “That little meeting you had with... yourself, did that have anything to do with us?”

  Emily smiled. “My little personal moment? Yes and no. Well...more yes than no. That encounter made the transition a little less difficult.” She paused. David got the sense that she was hesitant to say more on the subject. She sighed and said, “I had been fighting the transition, holding back my physical form. The transition would have happened eventually. It just would have taken a bit longer. That encounter convinced me to stop fighting it, to let go and embrace my physical form.”

  “So you're...you?” David regretted the question the moment it left his mouth.

  Emily chuckled. “I've always been me, David. Whether corporeal, non-corporeal, or something in-between, I'm me. But I know what you mean. I'm somewhere in-between. Like I said, I'm transitioning. I'm on the road toward becoming the physical gal you knew before I rejoined the Great Community.”

  “But when we return to Earth, you'll rejoin the Community, right?” He wasn't sure what he wanted her answer to be.

  “If we return to Earth...” She looked at him and winked. “No, seriously, when we return to Earth...well, we'll just have to cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  David was pleasantly surprised by her answer. She was actually considering leaving the Community of Light...permanently. This was more than he could have hoped for. And yet, he didn't want to be excited about it. Being excited about Emily leaving the Community of Light seemed somehow...selfish. He had prided himself on the fact that he had loved her every bit as much after she rejoined the Community of Light as he had before. But the fact remained, he had been bitter. A crack had formed in their relationship when she rejoined the Community, and that crack had grown into a chasm so wide he could barely see her. It was no coincidence that he had begun to feel closer to her, both physically and emotionally, as her body re-established itself. He had begun to feel closer to her than he ever had before.

  He sensed there was more and knew that he probably should have dropped it at that point, but he was on a roll. He couldn't stop himself. “Is there something else you're not telling me?”

  She didn't look at him. He could see that she was hesitant to respond.

  “Tell me,” he persisted. “No secrets.”

  “Unfortunately, there have to be some secrets.”

  “Fair enough. But not this one. You're reluctant to tell me, but you want to tell me. Don't you?”

  She glanced at him.

  “Just go for it. What's the worst that can happen?”

  She threw her head back and sighed. “You've been having some weird dreams lately, haven't you?”

  Despite the fact that her question had just touched a nerve, he shrugged. “All my dreams are weird.”

  "Come on. You know what I'm talking about. These dreams are particularly weird because after you have them, they stay with you for awhile. Do you know what I mean?"

  “I do,” he conceded.

  “Good. We're on the right track.” She paused, took a deep breath and said, “Those dreams? They're not just dreams. They're suppressed memories of actual events.”

  She looked at him to gauge his reaction, but he wasn't sure how to react. He wasn't even sure if he remembered the dreams. They had something to do with space travel, something to do with another vessel―another Encounter. Vague images of forgotten dreams flooded his brain. But he had had the dream before their experience with the inbound Encounter.

  “I don't understand,” he admitted.

  “And there is no reason why you should. I didn't understand it at first myself, and I'm not sure I can do a very good job of explaining it to you.”

  “Just give it your best shot.”

  She let out a long sigh. “Right. My best shot. Okay, here goes. Have you ever heard of a temporal loop?”

  David threw his hands up and shrugged. “It sounds like something from Star Trek.”

  Emily smiled. “It was an actual theoretical scientific principle that's become an actual scientific reality.” She looked at him sheepishly.

  It took a moment for the meaning of Emily's words to sink in. He furrowed his brow and pointed his index finger at her, then himself. “What...us?”

  She nodded slowly. “I don't have all the details, and the few details that were imparted to me by my future counterpart are fading as my body re-establishes itself, but yes, we are stuck in a temporal loop. We're experiencing the same period of time over and over again.”

  Chapter 24

  David stopped in his tracks. Emily stopped next to him. He dipped his head, his wide eyes scanning the weeds in front of his feet as if the meaning of what Emily had just told him would be found there.

  He raised his head and looked at her. She was looking around at their escorts. He followed her gaze. Their escorts were waiting patiently.

  “We should probably keep moving,” she said before bringing her tentative gaze back to David.

  “How long?” David said nervously. “How long have we been stuck in this...loop?”

  Emily furrowed her brow. "You mean how many times have we been through the loop?"

  David raised his arms, shrugged emphatically and looked off into the distance. He pondered his own question for a moment before concluding that he wasn't entirely sure what he meant when he asked it. He decided the number of times they had traveled through the loop was a reasonable query and said, "Yeah."

  "This is our third trip through the loop," she said bluntly.

  He dropped his gaze to the ground, contemplating the plethora of meanings and possibilities of what he had just been told. "You mean we've had the same experiences three times?" he muttered.

  Emily shook her head slowly. "No, we've had similar experiences up until this point in the loop, but not the same experiences. Each time through the loop is a bit different based on the choices we make." She smiled slyly. "Did you ever read those choose your own adventure books when you were a kid?"

  David snickered. "You're kidding."

  "No, I'm not kidding. Did you?"

  "Yes," he moaned. "And I get your point. Different choices set us off in different directions."

  Emily brightened, stabbing a finger into the air. "Right!"

  "But if we didn't know that we've been through the loop before, why would we make different choices? Wouldn't we make the same choices each time?"

  "We do know. We just don't know that we know. Ya know?"

  David rolled his eyes. "I know. At least I think I know."

  Emily cocked an eyebrow. "What do ya know?"

  "That the memories of our previous experiences through the loop are stored in our unconscious, hence the dreams."

  Emily gave him a wink. "Bingo."

  "Three times," David pondered aloud.

  "Three times," Emily echo
ed.

  "So this temporal loop is something new." He winced at the extreme irony of his assumption. "I mean, the loop was created recently." He winced again, knowing that his attempt to clarify was every bit as ironic. He threw up his arms. "You know what I mean."

  Emily chuckled softly. "Well, 'new' and 'recently' would be relative terms in our case."

  "What do you mean by that?" he asked, narrowing his eyes. “How large is the loop? I mean, how long a period of time are we talking about?”

  Emily looked away from David's prying eyes and didn't respond. He knew that this was something she didn't want to, or couldn't, talk about. “What?” David pushed. “Days? Weeks? Months?”

  She looked at him pleadingly. “I can't tell you. I'm sorry.”

  “Years? Centuries?”

  “I can tell you where the loop ends, but I can't tell you where it begins. What I mean is, I can tell you how far ahead into the future the loop goes, but I can't tell you how far back in time it begins. It's too dangerous. This is why my future counterpart imparted this information to me and me alone, and I've already told you too much.”

  David threw his hands up in the air. “Why did you bother telling me anything?”

  Emily winced. “I can't tell you that either. I can only tell you that it's important for you to know what I've told you...for future reference.”

  David furrowed his brow. “For future reference,” he echoed cynically.

  “Yes,” she said remorsefully.

  “And of course, you can't tell me what that means either.”

  “I'm sorry.”

  David unabashedly sighed. “Okay, anything is better than nothing. Throw me a bone; how far into the future does the loop go?” He raised his eyebrows in anticipation of the answer.

  "It ends when we return to Earth, when our future counterparts return to Earth, just after our little rendezvous." She paused before adding, “Then we go back...to wherever the loop begins and start all over.”

  "Wait. I just want to make sure I have this straight. You're talking about the future Encounter."

  "Right. Our future counterparts."

  "Right after the other you went back to her Encounter, right after they left us and made their way to Earth, they went back to wherever this time loop begins?"