Total Amnesia: Forgotten Lives

by J. W. Northrup

  The first creature is looking at a big screen. The screen shows a view of the colorful light display but it is pale compared to the display I witness earlier. Espree was right. They do show a false image of the display.

  “God I get sick of those twirling lights.” It says.

  My eyes grow wide. I look up at Espree. She nods. “Listen.”

  “We have to try one of those new infrared lures,” says the other one, “they’re so much easier on the eyes.”

  “You got 8500 credits for a new lure? Huh?”

  Amazing! His dorsal ridge is turning orange and stiffening. His dark green coloration is showing streaks of orange.

  “We can’t even afford decent friggin’ generator. What are we going to do if it gives out Huh? The damn warranty’s expired. What do we do then?”

  “D’ya have to be so pessimistic? We’re doin’ fine Doyle.”

  The other one―apparently his name is “Doyle”―shakes his head at the view screen. “We’ve got barely enough capacity in that damn trap to make expenses. Sooner or later something’s gonna break. What do we do then, huh, tell me that Turse, what do we do then?”

  “Nothin’s gonna break Doyle. This is a good ship. It may be old, but they don’t make ‘em like they used to. You’re always sayin’ that to me.”

  “Yeah, they make ‘em better now.”

  The others’ ridge has gone very limp and dark. I can see at once that the taller one is the dominant one—like an unhappy marriage with a bitchy wife and a subservient husband.

  “Now you’re depressin’ me Doyle. Why do you have to look at the negative side? Huh?”

  “Wait ‘till the damn generator gives out, then you’ll know about depression.”

  “We’ll I’m not gonna let you depress me…”

  Its attention shifts to a row of instruments to the side of the main display.

  “Hey look Doyle. I think we’re almost there, don’t ya think?”

  Doyle is looking at one of the dials on what appears to be a control panel.

  “Yes Turse, we’re almost there. So why don’t you go over there and get ready.”

  “Energy monitor,” says Espree, “it is an indicator of how many spirits are in the trap area. They have been waiting for it to fill up.”

  That sounds so strange. They’re waiting for a trap to fill up with “spirits” – like fisherman waiting for their nets to fill up with fish.

  “It’s about friggin’ time,” says Turse walking up to a control panel.

  This is really fascinating to me. It’s like a movie.

  “What is that background sound I hear?”

  “That is the sound coming from the ‘Pulsator,’” says Espree. “Most Trap Ships have a buffer so the sound doesn’t penetrate the ship―apparently this is a very low budget operation. These two appear to be struggling to make ends meet.

  She looks back at me. “Can you believe these two have no idea they are trapping actual spiritual beings. Can you grasp that? These two low-life’s are about to capture the most powerful forces in the universe. They are about to enslave an innocent group of immortal souls—just as they themselves were once captured.”

  The creature named Turse’s green color is streaking yellow. His motions are agitated as his attention shifts from the controls to Doyle and back.

  Espree explains. “The collection zone may be full by now. This guy is anxious to fire up the Stimulator.

  “They can only guess at the amount of EHF units―or free spirits―that have accumulated around the lights. Instruments cannot detect a free spirit. They can only detect the energy a spirit creates and only if they are producing forms of energy that are similar to that produced by the physical universe.

  “So, it’s a gamble of when do you turn the Stimulator on. It is really an art. Right now they have no idea how many spirits are there inside the trap zone and once they turn on the ‘Stimulator’ those free spirits outside the zone will leave. That means if there are not enough spirits in the trap, these two will not be able to collect and sell enough “EHF units” to cover their overhead. They will either have to take a loss on the load or start over again; either way they lose money; which is something this little operation can ill afford.”

  “What’d’ya think Doyle, another few micro-terms?” Turse’s color is tinting in shades of yellow, his cranial ridge erect with anticipation.

  “Just curb your ammonia a little longer. I’ll tell you when it’s time. Just get ready.”

  “Oh c’mon, we’ve been here 28 milli-terms; it’s got to be time by now!”

  Doyle’s dorsal ridge is stiff and erect and turning redder by the minute―obviously agitated at his impatient partner. He glares up at Turse and shakes his head.

  “OK, Turse, but if this load is short, I swear, I’m going to break your eye ridge; you got that!”

  Turse frowns, and straightens up. “C’mon Doyle, it’s got to be time by now.

  “OK fine, pull the damn lever!”

  “Alright!”

  Turse leaps to his feet and dances up to the panel. He reaches up and pulls a switch.

  They put protective helmets on their heads with dark visors. I can hear the ship beginning to hum loudly, then progressively, the volume increases in pitch as Turse eagerly watches one of the dials. Finally he puts his finger on the largest of the switches, looking over at Doyle who has taken a seat in front of the big transparent Ergometer.

  Doyle takes hold of two joysticks and looks up at Turse.

  “OK I’m ready.”

  “Here we go!”

  FFrrroooom!

  Suddenly the bridge is flooded with an intense light.

  I hear Espree gasp. I look over and see a terrible expression of shock and grief on her face as she stares at the scene in the viewer. Finally she looks at me and I can see tears welling up in her eyes.

  “I don’t care how many times I see it Tim, it devastates me to see this happen.“

  She falls into my arms, her face buried in my chest.

  I do not share her emotion, I’m feeling claustrophobic. Once again I seem to have lost control of my emotions. My face is hot and flushed; my heart is beating hard in my chest. I am consumed by a panic driving me from within, flowing through my veins, pressurizing me with a rapid vibration of rage.

  Nothing in my surroundings corresponds to the psychosis that I feel inside. But logic cannot override this raw the emotion. I must fight this; I must stop this―whatever it is, wherever it is.

  Some unknown terror surrounds me and engulfs me from without while something ominous and foreboding grips me from within. It is as if I am in a strange movie of myself going psychotic.

  I stand and look toward the door. Thinking I’ve got to get out of here!

  This place is engulfing me, suffocating me. I NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE!

  Espree is staring at me in fascination.

  “It is the trap Tim. The trap is doing this to you!”

  I feel I’m going to explode like a supernova, or simply bounce off the walls like Daffy Duck. I am utterly out of control and as for what will happen next, it is completely out of my hands.

  Then, when I feel I can’t take it anymore, another emotion takes it place―apathy and submission. It is a solution; the only solution. Give in, stop fighting. It only gets worse when you fight. It gets better when you give in.

  Yes, that’s better. I feel much better.

  The fever has broken and the cool sweat moistens my clothing as my body returns to normal.

  Espree has been watching me go through it. She seems to want to say something, and then stops herself.

  “Are you OK?” she asks.

  I sit back down in the chair. “Yeah, I’m OK now. Jesus Espree, what the hell is happening to me? Maybe it’s the gas.”

  “Not possible Tim, there is no gas, only a control node in your brain. We burned that out.”

  “Maybe you didn’t get all of it?”

  “Tim that has nothing to do w
ith how you feel,” she says, “now are you ready to continue?”

  “No.”

  “OK, please, let’s continue.”

  I’m feeling real leery about that viewer now. Maybe it’s some psychosis machine, like some kind of subliminal crazy maker.

  “It is NOT Tim. Nothing is doing this TO you; it is simply stimulating that which is within YOU.”

  “You’re saying I’m psychotic?”

  “Tim, everyone in this universe is psychotic. It is psychotic to think you are that hunk of blood and bone, it is crazy to believe you are ruled by the Laws of Physics, it is ludicrous to have no knowledge of your past and it is preposterous that you―a free spirit―have become subject to the constraints placed upon you by these two degraded souls!” She says pointing at the scene in the viewer.

  I have to admit she is convincing. Were anyone else sitting beside me, I would have simply walked out and taken my chances with the aliens, but with Espree, there is an unspoken intention with a certainty that melts my objections like butter in a microwave.

  “Let’s begin.” She says.

  We look back to the viewer and the scene with the big green ball. Terse has taken his seat in front of the globe with his hands on the controls.

  The big Ergometer globe is filled with glowing yellow dots.

  “Apparently the collector was fairly full.” Says Espree miserably.

  Doyle quickly moves the joystick. A glowing red dot in the globe moves with the movements of the joystick. Inside the globe are hundreds of yellow glowing dots. Some blink on and off, some disappear and others vary from intense to dim.

  “The yellow dots are points of energy omission that can be detected by the Ergometer. Each dot will reveal the location of a free spirit that, in response to the bombardment of electricity. A free spirit will create energy to resist the barrage of energy that is being shot into the spirit trap zone. This is why it shows up in the Ergometer,” explains Espree.

  I see Doyle quickly move the red dot to the location of a yellow light, then push a button on the joystick. The red dot turns blue and three coordinates appear beside it.

  “Gottcha!” he says and continues to expertly pick off each of the yellow dots appearing in the Ergometer. His body is glowing bright green and it appears as though he is smiling.

  Turse is also glowing a contented bright green as he adroitly moves from dot to dot.

  He is obviously very happy as he looks over at Doyle.

  “I told ya it was full!”

  Espree looks up at me. “This was yours―and everybody else’s―entrance into the physical universe. This is the Spirit Trap. And these two stupid, degraded jokers are the trappers.

  A strange understanding is coming over me. These little yellow dots represent free life being captured.

  It is unbelievable to me, but I can feel it. I can sense what is happening. I don’t know why I know this, but I do. Has she merely convinced me of this? I just don’t know.

  Is this simply a device that somehow drives one insane?

  “No,” says Espree, predictably reading my thoughts. “The device is not driving you insane; the past HAS driven you insane. You are merely becoming aware of it.”

  I’m feeling the psychosis coming on again and I know this time―like an escalating nausea―I will not be able to stop it.

  “No, no this is all wrong. This is all crazy. I don’t want anything to do with this.” I look angrily at Espree. “That is a psychosis machine! That’s exactly what it is and you are trying to drive me insane."

  “Tim, listen to me…”

  “NO, I will NOT listen to you! I know what you’re doing!”

  I feel the adrenaline coursing through my system again and the blood rushing to my face as my heart is trying to pound its way free of my chest.

  No, no I don’t want anything to do with this!

  I’ve got to get out now. If I don’t get out now, I will never get out!

  As the terror rises to a crescendo, I jump to my feet and head for the door in an uncontrollable panic. I’ve got to get out of here!

  SLAM!

  The door shuts in from of me!

  Espree did that! That confirms it, this is just a TRAP! She’s not going to let me go! She’s not going to let me out!

  I have been betrayed! It just been some kind of sick game from the moment my roommates woke me up in my dorm and showed me the alien invasion! Somehow she’s drugged me and brainwashed me. It’s all an illusion!

  I must be hallucinating! I must be on some psychiatric drug for some psych experiment! That’s it! I’m not going to let it happen! I’m going to break out of here. I’ve got to break out of here! It is like some horror movie only it’s real. It’s really happening!

  I feel myself running toward the door. I’ve got to break through. I’ve got to get out!

  “LET ME OUT OF HERE!!!” I hear myself yelling.

  Espree is saying something, but I can’t hear her through my own screaming; and I don’t care anyway.

  I’m pounding on the door. I’ve got to break this door! I’ve got to get out of here!

  The panic is overwhelming me, running my body as I scream obscenities as I ride the wave of panic.

  Again and again I throw myself in vain at the thick oak door. I try kicking the lock with my heel over and over. I’ve got to push harder. I’ve got to break this door, I know I can, it’s my only escape…

  Wait! The window! I can jump through the window!

  But between myself and the window is Espree’s desk and to get to the window I will have to turn and face Espree.

  I can’t! I can’t look at her. I can’t face her. She’s created some kind of hypnotic compulsion toward her. I won’t be able to resist her!

  Now I become aware of her thoughts and they confuse me.

  She is so sad, so very sad―as if I have betrayed her…but she betrayed me…didn’t she?

  “I cannot stop you―I mustn’t stop you….”

  The door clicks open.

  Espree’s thoughts contain such a terrible, sad sense of loss. It’s funny, this telepathy thing. The thoughts are not words; the thoughts are entire packages of concepts contained in thought. They don’t arrive as words or sentences or even mental pictures. Like a drop of red ink in a glass of water, the concepts are absorbed and comprehended by an understanding that is far above mere mental machinery.

  I understand how she feels. She was so hopeful, but once again her hopes have been dashed. The thoughts contain the countless times she tried to make others see, the times she succeed in getting others to listen, only to find them perverting what she said and turning against her―just as I have now.

  I look back at the door. My route of escape is now open to me and my body is urging me forward.

  I look out through the open door to the other side of the hall. I see t beyond that, through a window to the deserted campus that was once bustling with activity.

  “It did happen.” I say to myself. “I’m not delusional, it did happen.” But that does nothing to alleviate the intense desire to get out of this office and away from that dastardly psycho viewer.

  I can leave. I can run out into the campus and out into the streets and be free.

  I could hide from the aliens and live off the land. There is plenty of food now that everyone is gone. I probably have the planet to myself and anything I want is mine! Only the humans are gone. I could live in the Taj Mahal. I could drive down the freeway 250 miles an hour in a Ferrari with no one to stop me.

  I could have anything, anything, any…THING.

  And be free from the aliens? Who am I kidding? If they can annihilate and entire population in 24 hours, do I have any idea what I’m in for?

  Had Espree tried to show me the Trap Ship before the invasion, I would have left then and there. But I do know something now. I was there watching as the world was conquered by the invaders and the bodies collected up and I have no doubt that had I never met Espree, I would now be amongst them,
paralyzed, unconscious and headed to who knows where..

  I know if I walk out that door I will never come back. I will not be able to come back. Such a strange knowingness has suddenly come over me!

  I feel like I am about to do the same thing I have been trying to do forever―over and over again―getting out, but never becoming free. Every door I escape through only leads to another door that I must escape through and on and on. Every escape, merely a movement into another thing I must escape from.

  The feeling of panic has suddenly faded and is replaced with a sense of calm.

  “I don’t want to escape, I want to be free.”

  I look back at Espree and smile and shrug my shoulders. “I’m back.”

  I see she was crying and I know why. I know how many times she has tried and failed. How many others has she watched go through the door and “escape” back into the trap?

  I walk back and take a seat in my chair.

  The look on her face is one of gratitude.

  “I will not leave you Espree. I can see that you are my only hope.”

  “And you are mine Tim. You are mine.”

  We come together in a long sobbing embrace. I am surprise at her emotion and mine. It gradually transforms into laughter. I have never felt such love for another. Until this moment, I never knew what love was. We have formed a bond that nothing can break and now I realize that I MUST find a way to free myself if only to allow myself to be with her for eternity and never have to face the loss and disconnection that comes from death.

  “Is this what being a girlfriend is like?” She asks.

  “Sort of―actually this is this is much better.”

  “Then I like being you’re girlfriend Tim.”

  I feel my face turning red.

  Espree is looking at me in utter fascination. “You overcame it Tim. You did not run.”

  “I realized there was nowhere to go.”

  “You are the first Tim―the first one who has not run!” She looks at the viewer. “You saw it and you felt it. Maybe this will work. Maybe there is a way!”

  “I think we’re on the right track,” I say, “It isn’t a very comfortable track, but it seems to be the way. Escape seems to be the opposite of freedom. Funny, you would think it’s the other way around. You’d think that if you escape something, you would be free of it, but that is not right. If you are escaping from something, it means you must avoid it. It means you are no longer free of it. The more you have to escape, the more you are trapped.