The Star Collector

by Matthew William

  Applebottom was dropped off at the nearest space port and thus began the worst years of his life.

  It was within hours that he saw his face on every news outlet imaginable. A kook, a maniac, a psychopath. He couldn’t stay in one place too long before the death threats came pouring in, mostly from Talashamen for the destruction of their holy world.

  It was impossible to find work. But surprisingly, money wasn’t an issue.

  An unforeseen consequence of his newfound notoriety was that sales of his book skyrocketed. Except now, instead of a science textbook, it was read as the pulpy ravings of a madman. Each sale was like a slap in the face. He bought vast quantities of scotch to numb the pain.

  Applebottom found himself hanging around more and more obscure corners of the galaxy. Places that spoke languages that his book hadn’t been translated into yet.

  One day, inside a tearoom on New Philadelphia, he was approached by a young boy with a copy of his book.

  “Is this you?” the boy asked, showing Applebottom the picture on the back.

  “No, it’s not,” Applebottom said. This had become a common occurrence for him, he had resorted to shaving his beard and his head, and found the best strategy was to simply deny everything. He was about to make a run for it, but the boy continued.

  “Can you sign it anyway? I’m hungry and I can sell it for food.”

  “Fine,” Applebottom said and took the book. He thought about what name to sign. It was easiest to just go with the truth, plus it would make the book actually worth something. He went to hand it back to the boy, but across the room in a darkened corner he saw a pair of hateful eyes staring him down. Those eyes wanted him dead. In a wave of horror he realized the signing was a tip-off and he may have had only seconds to live.

  “Who asked you to have me sign this?” Applebottom asked, holding on for dear life to the book in the boys hands.

  “My father. He said you’re a mad scientist.”

  “A what?”

  “A mad scientist, like in the movies.”

  Applebottom was silent. After all the years of running and trying to clear his name, his reputation had taken on a life of its own.

  “Is it true?” the boy asked. “That you’re a mad scientist.”

  “I don’t know, maybe.”

  “Then you’re the only one who’s ever really lived.”

  “I guess... so,” Applebottom said. Finally, he let go of the book. There were worse things to be remembered as.

  “I’ve got to be going now,” the boy said and scurried off.

  “Tell your friends,” Applebottom called out. “Tell them that you met a real live mad scientist. The only one who ever really lived.”

  Applebottom was stabbed in the back trying to escape the tearoom. They said he had a smile on his face as he expired.

  28

  Joe sat in an office atop an impossibly tall skyscraper in the middle of a bustling city. There was no sound from traffic below or the passing ships outside. In the distance, tall ivory towers with spindly silver tubes reached up into the sky. Beyond them were the vague outlines of some large superstructures, like eggs in space – hazy, white and barely visible in the light blue atmosphere.

  The room smelled of cinnamon and fresh plastic.

  An alien creature came in through the door eating a sandwich. It was a Talashaa, exactly as they had appeared in Halle’s footage – four arms and a face that could only be described as the mix of a Capuchin monkey and a spider. But now, instead of fantastic, mythological clothing, it wore a short sleeve shirt and a cheap neck tie. Joe stared at the two tentacle-like legs the creature came walking in on. At three meters tall, his head nearly scraped the ceiling and he towered above Joe in his chair.

  “Sorry, I’m late,” the Talashaa said.

  Joe didn’t say a word. Joe couldn't say a word. He didn’t know what he would have said had he had anything to say. He was so discombobulated. Had he made it to some sort of afterlife?

  “My name is Roy,” the Talashaa said. “I’ll be your liaison here at headquarters. My clothing is chronologically accurate and comforting to you?” he raised one of his four arms to present the room. “These surroundings as well?”

  Joe barely managed a nod.

  “Super. Now, let me take a look at your file,” Roy said. “There seemed to be some sort of error with your deposit. Yes, that’s right – you’re the only member of your species that the Collector picked up. Are you a one-being species?” The Talashaa looked up at Joe and shook his head. “No, that doesn’t seem right.”

  “What’s going on?” Joe asked.

  “What species are you anyway?”

  “I’m a human.”

  “And... are you the only human?”

  “No,” Joe said.

  “How many are we talking?”

  “There’s almost a trillion of us.”

  “Okay...” Roy said, shaking his head and sorting through the files. “What’s the species name again?”

  “Human.”

  “Hmm. No sign of that in our system. What did you enter into the Collector?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What species name did you enter into the Species Collector?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about...”

  “Did you come into contact with a type of metal orb that began to flash once you touched it?”

  “Uh… yes, I did.”

  “And what did you enter as your species name?”

  “I didn’t know we were supposed to do that.”

  “Didn’t you read the manual?” Roy asked.

  “There was a manual?” Joe asked.

  “Did you just start up the Collector without reading the manual first?”

  “We never found a manual.”

  “Damn. It must’ve gotten lost.” Roy sighed and looked at the file with what one might assume was a depressed look on his alien face. “Well, this is kind of unprecedented. I’ll have to see what I can do.”

  The Talashaa crept up from his chair and left the room. Joe was alone once again. He tried to peak at the file that the creature had been looking at, but a Newton’s cradle obscured his view. Quietly, he stood up and snuck around the desk. The folder was full of alien writing along with a picture of Joe naked, with his arms and legs outstretched on an examination table.

  Roy opened the door. “Hey! What are you doing back there? Get out of there!”

  “Sorry, sorry!” said Joe, going back to his chair. “Hey, what the hell am I apologizing for? What are you doing with a naked picture of me anyway? I want to know what’s going on.”

  “I’ve got it all right here,” the Talashaa said holding up a bright new red file.

  “I want you to tell me what’s going on,” Joe said.

  “Just take a seat, sir, and calm down. I’ll explain everything.”

  “I want some answers.” Joe said, plopping down in the chair and crossing his arms.

  “So, when your species reached the Collector it meant you were ready to graduate. Is that the right word to use in your language? To leave the nest so to speak.”

  “That depends what you’re trying to say,” Joe replied.

  “Your universe is merely a nursery, a place where we grow civilizations until they’re ready to move on and join the others. A planetarium? No, that’s not the right word. Sorry, I just learned your language today, so I’m a bit clumsy. If an aquarium has fish and a terrarium has plants, what would you call a receptacle that houses an entire species?”

  “I don’t think we have a word for that,” Joe said.

  “I see.”

  “But why… why would we be in that thing anyway?”

  “We’ve found this is the best way to bring sentient life into existence. We do this to minimize suffering and prevent species from destroying one another. We let them all progress on their own and at their own pace and in their own space. And then, when they are ready, we take them out of the… thing.”
/>   “And who’s we?” Joe asked.

  “The creators,” Roy said.

  “Uh-huh. And why is this all necessary?”

  “I’m sure your own history reflects,” Roy said, referring to the file on his desk. “That whenever an advanced civilization meets a less advanced civilization, the suffering that occurs is astronomical. This system was set up by the creators to avoid those situations as much as possible. They’re all about minimizing suffering, you see. So with that said, let’s take a look at your species development to make sure you qualify for entry to the higher realm.”

  The creature took a sip from a mug and opened the red file. He took a quick glance and spit the drink out over the desk. The alien clicked his mandibles repeatedly, like a rattlesnake’s warning. Joe nearly jumped from his chair. Then he realized that the Talashaa was merely laughing his ass off.

  “Wow, this is bad. Sheesh, what a mess,” Roy said, shaking his head and turning the pages. “I’ve never seen a suffering number so high. You still eat other animals. You’re still split up into factions and languages. Still on separate currencies. You trashed your home planet beyond repair. A huge segment of your population is either hooked on drugs or medicated up to the gills with no programs to help them. Okay, you think you would’ve seen the problem with that. These rape and murder numbers are off the charts. Genocide is still a thing. You have corporations running the news? You still have a consumer economy? You have people dying of starvation? Still!? What’s wrong with you people for chrissakes? Am I using that term correctly. Crissakes?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” Joe said. He shook his head and came back to the topic at hand. “Something tells me this is very bad.”

  “I can tell you right now, it’s not good. There’s no way you’ll be accepted into the next realm. How did you ever even reach the Collector? I mean, I can’t believe you managed to become so advanced while still being so backwards. It’s almost comical.”

  “I had nothing to do with all this, you know,” Joe said, figuring he might as well distance himself from the situation.

  “I’m not saying you did. It’s just...” Roy tried to find the words. “This has never happened before. We want species to be like a well oiled machine when they move on up, so they can hit the ground running when they get to the next realm. And usually a race either destroys itself or it refines itself by the time it gets to the Collector. So far, it’s been enough to just place the seed of life so far away from the collector that it takes a few billion years for a species to reach it. But this… is just so weird.”

  The alien shook his head as he skimmed through the file. “Sir, I hate to have to say this to your face. But your culture is garbage.”

  “Sorry,” Joe replied. “But, like I said, I kind of had nothing to do with it.”

  “Well, did you ever do anything to try and stop it?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Did you ever riot or start a revolution or go out and try to make a difference in the world?”

  Joe was quiet for a moment. He had been content to view it all as out of his control. “No, not really.”

  “Then you kind of did have something to do with it.” Roy continued to flip through the file. He stopped and seemed to be impressed by something. “Well, you’ve set the record for the quickest time to reach the Collector, and by a large margin.”

  “How fast were we?”

  “You beat the next fastest species by about ten thousand of your earth years.”

  “And what were they?” Joe asked.

  “What do you mean?” Roy asked.

  “I mean, what type of species were they, the next fastest?” For some reason this felt oddly important to know.

  “Oh, they were a race of ants. They built dirt tunnels between worlds, assimilating them into their hive.”

  “That makes sense, I guess.”

  “Anyhow,” Roy said, setting down the file. “I’ll have to contact the creators and let them know what’s happened. This is really going to throw off our schedule. We were planning on using your universe for an event.”

  “You’re not going to destroy us are you?”

  Roy shrugged. “I’m really not sure. I mean, if you hadn’t come through all by yourself, we would have, no questions asked. But since you did, we had to examine your case and it turns out that the manual was missing. That might give you guys a fighting chance.”

  “We’re capable of changing,” Joe said. “There’s some bad apples sure, but I assure you the best of us, is better than the best of anything you’ve got here… wherever we are.”

  “Let’s agree to disagree,” Roy said.

  “Fine.”

  “Fine.”

  Roy gathered up all the files on his desk. “So since we try not to eliminate individuals without the rest of their species, we’ll set you up in a space-time capsule where you can await the creators’ decision. We’ve accessed your memories and have duplicated a time and space that would be acceptable for you.”

  Joe was about to ask what Roy had meant by ‘space-time capsule’, but he found himself instantly back in the tree house with Cassandra. She was alive...

  “And what did you say to him?” Cassandra asked, nonchalantly.

  “I told him the price was too high and I’d get back to him tomorrow,” Joe could feel himself saying. What was going on?

  “Makes sense,” Cassandra replied. “What did you want to have for dinner?”

  “Whatever.”

  “You’re not in the mood for anything?”

  “Not really.”

  Joe tried to move, but was unable to. He tried to speak, but it was impossible. This must have been a memory he was riding in, experiencing again firsthand. It all seemed so real.

  Maybe this was when Joe was the happiest. He had no way of knowing, he couldn't feel the feelings he was having in the past. All he could experience now was the joy of seeing Cassandra alive and the regret that this wasn’t his current reality.

  “I was thinking of going for a walk,” Cassandra said. “Wanna join?”

  “No, I’m good,” he said.

  Inside his head Joe screamed, ‘Go dammit! You only have so much time with her.’

  But apparently his past self couldn’t hear him. He simply sat on the couch and watched a documentary about the making of glass terrariums. It wasn’t even interesting.

  Joe cried on the inside. Why couldn't they have picked a less depressing day?

  “Hello Joe? Joe? Can you hear me?” came the voice of Roy. “I’m sending you back to your time and universe now. I hope you’re ready. We took out the Collector, by the way, and let your timeline go as far as possible without any event deviation for you, so you’re life will be as unchanged as possible. Alrighty? Off you go!”

  Joe was ready, he couldn't take any more.

  29

  In a flash of light, life was wiped from our universe.

  The Collector was then removed.

  For a brief moment there was nothing.

  Then, quietly and invisibly, life was seeded on a pale blue dot, three spots out from our sun.

  A few billion years later, a sheriff and his newly appointed deputy sat in a diner overlooking the stars. Bacon and coffee aromas permeated the room. Their booth was set next to the window and the sheriff was careful not to sit too close, the cold seeping in chilled the parts of his wrist and neck that weren’t covered by his starchy uniform.

  At 17:35 the nighttime lights flickered to life, illuminating the establishment since the ancient alien ruins were blocking the nearby star.

  “You know what wiped them all out?” Tammy, the deputy, asked. “It was my teammate. He had gone in there and killed the entire enemy squad all by himself. And that, to answer your question, is how I won an E-Sports Tournament.”

  “You know what wiped them all out?” Tammy, the deputy, asked. “It was my teammate. He had gone in there and killed the entire enemy team all by himself. And that, long story short, is how we
won the E-Sports Tournament.”

  Joe sat on the other side of the table, shocked to see Tammy alive, shocked to be alive himself, and shocked to be at the beginning of the story. It was a mix of existential horror and relief surging through his body.

  “It was my teammate who had done it, you see,” Tammy said, a look of unease on her face.

  Joe dove over the table and hugged her. The silverware clanged and many a patron turned to see what the disturbance was. Joe didn’t care.

  “Um?” was all Tammy could say as she was practically being choked.

  “I can’t believe you’re alive,” Joe said, the tears swelling in his eyes.

  “What?”

  “What are we doing here?” Joe asked, falling back into his seat, wiping the tears from his face.

  “We were ordering lunch,” Tammy said. “Before you got all touchy-feely.”

  “Oh my god, this is the past” Joe said, moving his hands and his fingers. “And I can move now.”

  This meant Cassandra was still alive too. He looked at his wrist to see his star sailor’s compass pointing towards Bolstra 5.

  “Are you feeling alright, sir?” Tammy asked.

  “Are you kidding, I’m better than alright – I’m alive. For the time being anyway.”

  “...So as I was saying about the video game tournament.”

  “You never won that video game tournament, Tammy.”

  Tammy gasped and her face went as white as a ghost.

  “Now, what the heck am I doing back here?” Joe said. “I didn’t die, at least I don’t think so. He said they took the Collector...”

  “What are you talking about?” Tammy asked.

  “I can show you,” Joe said. “You wanna check out the ruins? Come on, let’s go check out the ruins. There’s a psychopath on his way here and I want to be gone by the time he gets here.”

  Little did Joe know, there was no Alistair Mezza coming to meet him, because there was no dark energy prospecting to draw out Deniz, because there was no artifact to generate the dark energy. It had been removed from the equation.