by Glen Zipper
This final stage of Iso-Pod immersion, the Empty, was always the most unsettling part for me. It felt more like a glitch or a stutter than the natural crescendo of my brain synapses firing faster than the speed of light. Despite hundreds upon hundreds of prior Iso-Pod immersions, I still couldn’t shake the fear of being lost forever, floating untethered ever deeper into the barren void of my own unexplored mind.
Yet, just as I always had, I emerged safely inside the program’s illusion. For me Emergence was like waking from a dream inside another dream. Like remnants of sleep still casting shadows on my waking mind.
As my eyes came into focus, I marveled at all the sights around me. I had seen some of it before in holo-simulations, but only in fits and starts. Running the full program required rerouting more power than Bix and I could’ve had authorized for recreational Iso-Rec use, so we had been limited in what we could test in advance. To run her in all her glory, we had to wait for the perfect moment.
In preparation for her disembarking, the California had already begun its launch protocol. It took three hours to safely re-sequence her engines to full ready status, and four more to reseed the plasma that had been siphoned from her weapons systems and reenergized during our stay at Gallipoli Station. All that energy pumping to and fro gave Bix the ideal opportunity to mask his custom Iso-Rec program’s massive power spike. The perfect moment was finally upon us.
It only took one step forward to confirm everything was just right. Fine blue grains of silicon sand, soft as dust between my toes. Pink ocean waves breaking against the beach and receding slowly back toward the burning amber dusk. Incandescent clouds of yellow-green gas painting the distant horizon. A sweet floral fragrance carried on the drizzling haze of a softly blowing sea mist. It was paradise. Otherwise known as Sigma 547-T.
547-T was an Earth-like planet in the distant Blevins System. Its distance was so great it would not be reached in my lifetime, my children’s lifetimes, or even their children’s children’s lifetimes. Our only knowledge of the planet came from one of Dr. Samuel Fuller’s Transdimensional Probes, a technology he’d created to allow us a glimpse of worlds we might otherwise never have dreamed of.
Transdimensional Probes and Blink Reactors worked according to similar principles, both folding space-time to travel great distances almost instantaneously. Their most important difference, however, was the power required for their successful operation. The forces generated by the probes would have, quite literally, ripped human beings apart.
We received the first image transmissions from 547-T shortly before the war. Never before had we seen anything so pristine and untouched—or so closely resembling our human notions of perfection. For many it was like touching heaven. In fact, some even went so far as to assign it spiritual provenance. Absent the war, the discovery of 547-T probably would’ve inspired us to dive even farther into the stars. But the war did happen. And most people forgot about the beauty of 547-T and how it made them feel.
In our time at Farragut, there were so many in-between moments when Viv and I were uncertain and afraid. That’s when we’d talk about 547-T and invite each other to imagine we were safe together in paradise. We had spent countless hours in our minds climbing its snow-capped mountains, running through its lush, verdant jungles, and swimming in the deliciously pink waters of its oceans.
Our daydreams were our sanctuary, and for her birthday I wanted to bring some small part of them to life. Doing it right was no small task, though. It required Bix to ingest extraordinarily dense volumes of data from the original probe transmission and painstakingly repopulate it, detail by detail, inside the Iso-Rec computer. What he ultimately created revealed itself to be beyond my wildest expectations. It was, quite truly, a masterpiece.
About twenty meters ahead I saw the last small detail I had requested: a bonfire. The crackles and pops of its thirsty flames were just as inviting as I had hoped. Sensing my approach, Viv swung her head back in my direction. She looked like a kid on Christmas morning.
“You’ve outdone yourself, sir,” she said.
“I’m just the idea guy. Bix was the execution.”
She stood and hugged Bix and me. “Well, it’s perfect. Thank you. Both of you.”
I smiled and spied Lorde out of the corner of my eye. If he had his own birthday surprise in store for Viv, he had already been hopelessly upstaged. Unsurprisingly, he looked defeated.
“We picked Julian’s brain too,” I fibbed. All the grief I had given him suddenly felt so unnecessarily petty, and throwing him a bone was the least I could do.
“Is that so?” Viv cooed in his direction.
Julian flashed an embarrassed smile and quickly looked away.
I sat down in an empty space between Viv and Bix and pushed my palms out to warm them on the fire. “So are you going to blow out this candle or what?”
Viv puffed out her cheeks and pantomimed a futile effort to extinguish the flames. “I could stay inside this forever. I really could,” she said.
“Why can’t we?” Ohno wondered aloud. “I mean, when you think about it, what’s really stopping us?”
“Brain function. You’d die of thirst in two days,” Anatoly answered while casually throwing a stick into the fire.
I could see Bix’s wheels start spinning. “Nourishment is certainly an obstacle, but not an insurmountable one.”
“How do you figure?” Viv asked.
“It wouldn’t be difficult to integrate an intravenous nourishment interface into an Iso-Pod. The real challenge would be the sensory fluid. After a day or two, it would begin to have a somewhat . . . corrosive effect on your body.”
“Who needs a body when you can have all this?” Ohno joked.
“Disembodied but forever in bliss?” Lorde chimed in. “Sounds like a familiar story. Only the addition of angels would be required.”
“I guess that would make you God, Bix,” I said.
“Well, as your duly appointed, all-knowing, all-powerful creator, I’m finding myself slightly frustrated that you’re all huddled around my modest gift of fire when I’ve created two square kilometers of heaven all around you. Start exploring or subject yourselves to my vengeful wrath.”
Viv snapped to her feet and started walking backward toward the ocean, a wide grin on her face. “Amen!”
She made a beeline for the water’s edge, and one by one we chased after her. I had a fleeting moment of panic as I began peeling off my clothes. Fortunately, Bix was as detail oriented as always—right down to providing us with skivvies.
I hung back a moment and watched my friends all plunge themselves into the shimmering water. Viv dove headfirst under a breaking wave. Bix, all forty-nine kilograms of him, was immediately consumed by the same swell. Anatoly and Ohno playfully splashed and frolicked in the shallow depths, while Julian gracefully front crawled out into the deep.
Wading into the water, I took it all in. It was good to see everyone so happy and temporarily unburdened by the constant, unyielding regimen of the Explorers Program. It may have been Viv’s birthday, but they all deserved a break. Though as much as I wanted to, it was difficult for me to share in the fun. The prospect of it all soon coming to an end for me made it feel so unearned.
About to lapse into another fog of introspection, I noticed a shimmering, murky something gracefully gliding toward me underwater. I soon recognized it to be Viv and waited until she breached the surface. Her skin gleamed with tiny pearls of pinkish seawater. I let my eyes linger on her for a second longer than felt comfortable.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
I sheepishly smiled, thinking that would be enough of an admission to satisfy her. But it was too late for that.
“Tell me,” she persisted.
“It’s nothing,” I maintained.
“It’s not ‘nothing.’ You’ve had that same expression on your face since the moment I walked out of the locker room. There’s something you’re not telling me.”
Unable to look
her in the eyes, I bowed my head and watched the water split around my waist in a soft current of foaming bubbles.
“You’re scaring me, John. Please tell me what’s wrong.”
“I wanted to wait. Until morning. I didn’t want to ruin this.”
“You’re more important to me. Tell me.”
You’re more important to me. Those were probably the last words I wanted to hear. What I was about to confess couldn’t have been any more selfish.
“I’m so sorry, Viv,” I said. It was all I could manage.
“Sorry for what? What did you do?”
“I think it’s over.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked, her voice tightening. “What’s over?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to. The anguished look in my eyes pushed her toward the most obvious explanation—which also happened to be her worst fear.
“They expelled you?” she cried out. “No. That’s not happening. We’re stopping this right now and going to my mom. She’ll talk to your dad—”
“It’s more complicated than—”
“You’ve been struggling,” she interrupted, trying to get ahead of me. “I know that. Everyone knows that. But the answer isn’t throwing you out. Not now. Not when we’re this close. Not after all you’ve done to get here.”
“Viv . . .”
“Just shut up and listen to me. We’re going to my mom. She’s going to talk to your dad, and we’re going to figure this out. We can fix this.”
“No, Viv.”
“It was Gentry, wasn’t it?” she asked, her voice growing increasingly manic. “He got you expelled? This is not happening. Absolutely not.”
I took her wrist and gently rested my hand over hers. “Viv . . . Vivien . . . no one expelled me. I did this.”
“That’s not funny,” she said, snatching her hand back.
“No, it’s not.”
She stared at me in disbelief, still searching for any hint I might be joking. “I don’t understand. You can’t . . .”
“I did. I had to. It’s time for me to let go.”
“Let go? Let go of what?”
“The Explorers Program. Graduating. Becoming an officer.”
“I don’t . . . I don’t understand. This is the life you’ve always wanted.”
The life you’ve always wanted.
Her words hung in the air between us like a ghost, the shadow of my dying destiny staring back at me. My future would not be out among the stars. There would be no grand adventure across new worlds. Worst of all, our shared journey would be coming to an end.
Despite all that would be sacrificed, somehow the horrible bargain still soothed me. That’s how weak I was in the face of fear. I felt more cowardly than ever before.
I took her hands in mine and waited for her to settle. In a moment she knew I was opening that part of myself only she had access to. Her panic subsided, giving way to the reality she probably saw coming from the moment we left Earth. Still she needed to hear it.
“What have you done, JD?”
Until right then it hadn’t felt truly over. Admitting it to myself wasn’t the final step. Admitting it to her was.
I squeezed her hands more tightly.
“This isn’t the life I wanted. I think it’s just the story I needed to believe.”
Her body swayed inside a passing wave as the laughter of our friends juxtaposed the silence between us. My heart felt like it was breaking in two. I placed my hand on her cheek, praying her reaction to my touch might reveal that she understood. Or that she might one day be able to forgive me. I thought I saw it. A glimmer of hope for what I needed to hear. She opened her mouth to speak, but a sudden, thunderous rumble rolled across the sky before she could utter a word.
The rumble was closely followed by the program losing its integrity, leaving the world around us to strobe in and out of existence. Next came a sensation of violent impact, but nothing moved. The disorienting disparity of stimuli induced a powerful wave of nausea. Viv doubled over, feeling the same sickening effect. I tried to call out to Bix. All the overlapping sounds and disembodied voices of immersion returned. It was almost as if we were about to lapse into a deeper immersion. A simulation within a simulation. When I started to feel the Drop, I thought my frightening suspicion might have been right.
I closed my eyes and waited for the Empty, but it never came. Instead, the bottom flap of my Iso-Pod slammed open, dumping me and fifteen hundred liters of sensory fluid onto the Iso-Rec floor. Viv and everyone else were lying beside me, looking equally confounded. Each of us had been ejected from our pods.
“What the . . . ?” I said as a strange sound and vibration echoed from the walls as if a powerful wave had just crested and crashed at the California’s feet. Without warning, the ship rolled hard to starboard, sending us all sliding across the wet deck into a bulkhead wall.
Before any of us could gain our bearings, the ship’s Emergency PA system suddenly came active, emitting short, shrieking bursts of alarms.
“Listen,” I said, getting to my feet.
“This is not a drill. All cadets and students report to your safety positions. This is not a drill. All cadets and students report to your safety positions. Remain in your safety positions and await further instructions.”
The announcement continued in a loop. Stunned and disoriented, everyone else uneasily got to their feet as well.
“What the hell is happening?” Viv shouted over the alarms.
Still dizzy from our abrupt disconnection, I struggled to find my focus. “I don’t know.”
“All right. We need to follow protocol. Get to our safety positions.”
“No, wait,” I interjected. “The senior command staff isn’t on the ship. Most of the crew are probably still on Gallipoli. What if no one’s in command?”
“Gentry and Lewis should still be on the bridge.”
I ran to the emergency com.
“Don’t!” Viv exclaimed. “We’re not supposed to touch that!”
“They can write me up,” I said as I activated the com. “Bridge, this is Cadet Marshall. Do you require assistance?”
No response.
“Bridge, I repeat: This is Marshall. Do you require assistance?”
Still nothing. In the background, the PA continued to loop over and over again. “All cadets and students report to your safety positions. Remain in your safety positions and await further instructions.”
“Guys, this doesn’t feel right. I want to hear ideas, and let’s start by forgetting about safety positions.”
Lorde, of all people, was the first to speak up. “We should evacuate to Gallipoli.”
“Negative,” Ohno answered. “All points of disembarkation are automatically sealed in an emergency alert.”
“What?” Lorde exclaimed. “If this is an emergency, why would the ship prevent us from getting out?”
“This is a battleship,” I reminded him. “Usually emergencies aren’t about the good guys trying to get out. They’re about the bad guys trying to get in.”
“Bix, can you get into Sentinel to see what’s going on?” Viv asked.
“Not from here. In an emergency alert, the only direct point of access is the bridge.”
“Any way to override?”
“Yeah, if you give me two hours.”
“Shouldn’t we just wait here?” Anatoly asked. “Just stay where we are and—”
A crashing boom and another hard, abrupt shift of the California’s attitude interrupted him. We braced ourselves as an odd modulation of static and buzz crackled through the PA’s speakers. My skin began to tingle with unwelcome goose bumps.
“Defense grids,” I said as the realization hit me.
“We’re under attack?” Viv uttered in disbelief. “That can’t be.”
“There’s only one way to know.”
By the look on her face, I could tell she knew exactly what I meant.
“This isn’t a Blink Drill, JD. If
we do what you’re suggesting, there aren’t going to be any write-ups or disciplinary hearings. It’s summary expulsion. We’re done.”
“I’m the senior-ranking cadet. You’d be following my orders. I’m the only one who’s gonna be done.”
“Bix, Ohno, Toly . . . ?” Viv called out, seeking their vote.
“Same as always. We go where you go,” Ohno answered for all of them.
Viv grudgingly shook her head. “All right. I guess we’re doing this.”
“What about me?” Lorde asked.
“You can stay here or you can come with us. It’s up to you,” she replied, looking in my direction more than his. Her message was clear. She wasn’t going to tolerate contradiction. There wasn’t any time for me to argue with her anyway.
“Well, I’m certainly not staying here by myself.”
“So be it,” I said. “But until this is over, you follow orders just like everyone else. Got it?”
Julian half-heartedly nodded, clearly reserving an unspoken right of insubordination.
Viv gestured toward the exit. “All right, fall in.”
She held me back as everyone else hustled toward the Beta Deck passageway. “You understand the moment we step foot on the bridge, there’s no turning back. It’s really going to be over for you.”
“You know it already is.”
CHAPTER 16
VIV
ANOTHER THUNDERCLAP RATTLED THE CALIFORNIA, AND WE all struggled to stay on our feet as we ran down the Beta Deck passageway toward the central personnel lift.
None of us was prepared for the chaos that greeted us as we rounded the next corner. Cries and screams echoed from the bulkheads as students scattered in every direction. Like a chain of falling dominoes, emergency harness systems dropped from evenly spaced compartments along the length of the passageway. Even though they had rehearsed their safety position drills dozens of times, many students still struggled to secure themselves into place.
I noticed a slight, redheaded girl fighting against her gear. I barely knew her but remembered her name was Heather. Tears streamed down her face, and she tumbled to the floor as another blow belted the California.