Far inside the Legion of Planets, a small blue planet waited with minimal defenses incapable of defeating the superior force of the Great Fleet. Humans believed their technology alone could save them. They’d sent a few hundred pathetic souls in search of the fleet, failed to find them, and left the terraformed worlds of the Outer Rim available for conquest. After gathering every possible resource from the scorched planets of the Great War, the commander set course for Earth. He had a little more than one hundred cycles until the Fleet would reach the heliosphere of the Sol system. From there, they would reduce humanity to ashes.
And feed.
Chapter Seven
I woke before dawn. The twilight gave me enough light to see, though I kept my eyes closed for a moment and tried, in vain, to fall asleep again. The world was out there! The reptilian couch groaned slightly as I tossed back the thin fleece blanket and sat up on the green cushions, waiting a moment to get my bearings. Head in hands, I yawned and stared at the sandy carpet between my feet. For the first time, the nagging question, “Who am I?” raised its head. I tried my best to answer it. Everything about me felt and seemed the same as I could remember. Granted, I didn’t take stock of my appearance on a daily basis, but I appeared to be as normal as ever. I dropped my hands to my thighs and got ready to stand. I studied my legs and stopped cold.
Something was off. Not wrong or out of place, but something about my legs just seemed off. The smell of popcorn came up impossibly from the couch. Were my feet always this size, my kneecaps this bony?
I ran my hands down my shins, stretching forward until my chest rested on my knees. The stretch felt heavenly, but there were no aches or pains accompanying it. Under the stretching was a tension, a jitteriness that I recognized from sports. My body wanted some type of release, so I decided to go for a run.
Across the small room, a pile of clothing rested—several shirts and shorts as well as a pair of sandals that looked as though they would fit. Allan must have laid these out for me. I pulled on a pair of swimming shorts and a short-sleeved shirt with “Tooheys” written across the chest. I eschewed the sandals and walked barefoot toward the door.
Mally, is there a path along the beach where I can run or walk? I need to clear my head.
<
I ignored her and chose west. As I strolled barefoot across the cold, wet asphalt, I decided that I was as well as I could be at that early hour. With a step onto the beige sand, I began to run. I said aloud, “Mally, let me teach you about rock music.”
The rising sun at my back gave the clouds a greyish-blue tint that was at once ethereal and troubling. More rain would come, that was certain, but the early-morning run breathed life into my veins. To my left, the inky ocean exploded from purple waves to dull white foam in a split second. Every crashing breaker sounded like a long, cleansing sigh. The trail rose sharply, and I grinned with every light and quick step, feeling better than I could ever remember feeling. The mist from the breakers covered me, and I licked at the salt on my lips. I’d run for a minute or two before Mally spoke. I figured she was checking with her monitors, or controllers, or whoever at the Integration Center wanted to know everything about my recovery.
<
I answered Yes but decided I wanted to talk out loud. Even if I appeared strange, talking out loud felt more like I was with someone. Not that I didn’t enjoy thinking a conversation, but while running, it just felt weird. “What are you using to determine my integration? What have I done to progress to Stage Three? What does that mean?”
<>
I chuckled and changed the subject. Nothing like telling me something I already know. “Mally, please keep track of elapsed time and distance covered. And what about some music?”
Mally replied, <>
I smiled. “That’s a good start, but we need to broaden our horizons. Give me something from the same time span, and we’ll work from there. If I don’t like it, I’ll tell you. If I do, please tell me who the artist was.”
At the fourth mile, I finally felt a trickle of sweat on my forehead. I’d gone from sedentary to running hard in less than three days without adverse physical effects. The thought made me interrupt Pat Benatar’s “All Fired Up.”
“Mally, how am I running this hard, barefoot, barely a day out of the Integration Center? Is that what you implied when you said my feet were genetically engineered?”
<
I thought for a moment. “What’s my heart rate?”
<
What? I stumbled along the path and struggled to maintain my balance. Should be a lot higher than that! But it made sense, given the genetic engineering. “So, that’s why running barefoot doesn’t bother me?”
<
“I can do pretty much anything without fear of getting hurt?”
<
I picked up the pace, pushing myself as hard as I could go. The fifth mile passed in a little under five minutes. To my left, the beach disappeared into a rocky point, and the trail climbed hard toward a lookout with a little concrete bench. Breathing heavily, I pushed up the hill and stumbled near the top. I looked down at my feet and noticed a small cut oozing bright-red blood.
At the crest of the hill, I rested and chuckled. A nine-mile run, more or less, and I’m just breathing a little hard. I rested on the concrete bench and studied my legs again. Wait…what? Where’s the scar?
Exactly where my right hand rested on my thigh, there should have been a scar. Not a big one, only about an inch long and a quarter of an inch wide. I’d gotten it when I was twelve or thirteen. I was…
Sitting on the curving concrete steps to our house in Tennessee. I loved that house. Two stories of warm red brick with three big columns, it stood at the center of a long cul de sac. The image brought a flood of memories, a warm rush of blood to my ears that blocked out the angry ocean for a moment or two. I was carving a piece of cedar, the way my father did, using a chisel to remove a big piece. I’d shoved the sharp tool against a knot in the wood, and the chisel jumped out of the wood and into my thigh. There was more shock than pain. I remembered calling for my dad, and we put a butterfly closure on it. That was the last time I’d ever carved
anything with a chisel.
“Mally, why do I not have a scar I remember having?”
For a moment, there was silence, then the melodious voice in my head replied, <
“You aren’t answering my question.” I ran a hand through my hair, idly wondering if it had always been so short. “I need more information. About everything.”
<
I grunted. “Save it. This isn’t my body, at least not the body I remembered. The genetic whatever it was healed the scar, right?” If they could make me perfect, it would include my skin.
Mally didn’t immediately respond. My logic seemed to be right. “Mally?”
<
“Mally, you still aren’t answering my question.” My growing frustration was not with Mally, but rather, with not knowing important facts about my life. Other people were making decisions about what I should or should not know. I sat on the bench through a beautiful sunrise and watched sets of waves approach and crash into the rocky shore. There was a calming effect that I relished. “Mally, you can’t tell me anything about myself, can you?”
<
“I can ask other people, right?”
<
I looked down the trail toward Esperance and Allan’s little bar. The quiet town showed signs of life with hovering vehicles moving silently down the nearby road into town. The bar was to open at eleven. Maybe Allan would need a little help getting ready for the day. Maybe I could ask him some questions and get some damned answers even if I didn’t like them.
At the house, I shed my salty clothes and went outside to a shower built on the inland side. The location felt more than a little strange, but after a nervous moment of thinking that everyone in Esperance could see my bare ass, I relaxed and let the warm water rinse the sweat and sand away. I rolled Tennessee around in my mind and waited for something, anything, specific to bubble up. Mally could spout endless facts about it, but I didn’t want that. I wasn’t sure about what I wanted or how much I wanted to know about myself. My prior life would either be something I wanted to continue or something I wanted to forget. My home, though, was different. It was simply home.
My stomach tightened with a memory: a young woman asked me where I was from, and when I told her I was from Tennessee, she replied, “Oh, you’re wearing shoes.”
My fists clenched at the memory as if she’d insulted me once again despite having been dead three hundred years. I wanted to know everything. Tennessee. Thoughts of low, round mountains exploding with autumn colors filled my head. Clear mountain streams descended into wide, placid lakes. Steam rose off the cold water on a winter’s morning like ethereal mist. I remembered wide arms and warm handshakes. Home. The thought came like the scent of freshly baked cornbread wafting in the air. I grabbed onto it but knew the feeling wouldn’t last. I’d have to leave Esperance at some point, although I would return. I had to go home and try to find out who I was. Or maybe I’d find nothing at all.
I found Allan at the side entrance, offloading bottles of beer from an automated delivery truck. The robot driver wore coveralls like a human but didn’t leave the vehicle. Identical claws grasped the steering wheel of the hovering truck. A cylindrical head swiveled left and right constantly as if sweeping the scene. When it stopped scanning and waved to me, I recoiled in shock but managed a wave in return.
I called over to Allan, “Need a hand?”
He grinned. “I’m not a man that turns down free help.”
I hefted a wooden crate, followed Allan behind the bar, and set about plunging the bottles into refrigerated coolers and a special bucket filled with ice for the morning regulars.
Allan studied me with something between a smile and concern on his face. I welcomed both. “Good morning for a run on the beach. How far did you go?”
I shrugged. “End of the trail to the west. The little concrete bench on the overlook.”
He grunted and gave no sign of surprise as he hefted another handful of bottles. “I hear that a good long run will clear your mind. I never run farther than I have to.”
We laughed and finished putting the bottles away before returning to the truck for more. As we worked, he watched me. Then he turned away.
“What is it?”
Allan shrugged. “Was about to ask you a question.”
“You can ask me anything. Okay?”
Outside in the warming sun, he stretched his back. “Fine, then. How’re ya feeling this morning?”
I shot him a look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m willing to bet there’s at least one unanswered question in your hypnotically emptied mind right now.”
“Hypnotically?”
“Emptied.” He lifted two cases with a grunt, while I did the same without real effort. “They do it so you’re not all keyed up about the amnesia. That’s why you’re not huddled up on the couch bawling your eyes out, wondering who you are. It’s all about suppression. Your brain is all jellied up right now with millions of disconnected thoughts swimming around. Once they start connecting, you are more and more able to handle the answers. Some of them are easy, and some of them are bloody hard, but they’re all answers you need to fully integrate.”
“How do you know so much about it?”
The blond man shrugged. “Neurals.” He chuckled. “In your day, it required a computer or a smartphone to get online, right?”
“I guess.” It sounded true.
“Well, we have access all the time if we want it. Neural processor and retinal display.”
“Like a computer in your head.” I remembered Doctor Garrett’s explanation.
“More than that, mate.”
“I have a protocol.”
Allan nodded. “A bit different, that is. You’re not ready for all of the information at your fingertips. Your protocol will help you more than a neural connection will. Like helping you work through questions that you can’t answer—things that you can’t talk about with someone. A null profile means you’re a sleeper. It’s a term we use for people who are placed in hibernation with brain injuries. Your protocol will help you put those pieces back together again.” Allan pushed through the back door and into the kitchen.
“I can’t talk about things with you or anyone else? Like who I am or what I might be?”
“Of course you can, mate. That’s not what I meant. There are harder questions rolling around in your head.”
We passed back into the bar and got to work stocking the coolers. “Like wondering why a scar I remember being on my leg isn’t there anymore.” I shouldered the doorjamb as I walked through the door. The impact jarred me, but I pressed forward as if nothing had happened like a puppy without a clue to the size of its body. Like I’ve always done, my mind whispered.
“There’s a door there.” Allan chuckled. “Why do you think that scar isn’t there anymore?”
“This isn’t my leg. I mean, it is my leg—I’m standing on it—but something is missing.”
“Right,” Allan replied. “But it’s your body like you remember it, right?”
“I think so.”
“So, if it’s your body but without the scar, what does that tell you?”
“I don’t know.”
It was my body. It felt right in every way. Even hitting the doorjamb was typical, something I always did. Not that I was typically clumsy, but I often either hit my head or bumped into doors with my shoulders like a puppy who didn’t know how big its body was.
He looked at me for a very long moment then shrugged and said nothing, likely because of the rules. Damn them.
“Think of anything during your run?”
“I’m from Tennessee—at least, I think I am.”
He grimaced. “Ah, the States.”
The United States of America, my mind flashed. Half a world away. “Rings a bell now.”
Allan leaned on the bar and gestured me to move to the other side and sit. “It’s kind of a long story, but it ain’t there no more, mate.”
“What do you mean it ain’t there?” I slapped my hand on the edge of the bar. “It has to be there. It’s where I’m from. It can’t just go away!”
Allan sighed and leaned heavy forearms on the bar. “Things are very different in the world now. You’ve experienced a lot in two days but not enough to grasp the entire situation. I shouldn’t have brought it up. You’re supposed to learn by experience and not by lecture, at least for a while. Speaking of which, I wanted to ask you about getting some experience.”
“How about telling me what happened to Tennessee?”
“You’re not ready for that, mate.”
I wiped my eyes and fought the urge to punch the nearest wall. “I’m sick of people telling me I’m not ready for things. What the hell am I good for if I’m not ready?”
He smiled. “I was going to ask you about helping me out here in the bar. You can stay as long as you like. All the fish tacos and beer you can eat?”
My anger washed away. I hadn’t been away from integration for twenty-four hours, and there I was, demanding answers at light speed. Taking my time, being patient, was something I’d have to learn. I looked at the ramshackle bar that didn’t fit the glass and steel of the town by the sea. There was no better place for me to learn patience. How long it took did not matter as long as I kept moving forward. I stuck my hand out. “It’s a deal.”
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