Before We Die Alone

by Ike Hamill

  I take a step away from the wall. It gives me a touch of vertigo, so I pause to let myself adjust to the feeling. Maybe it’s just because I’ve been underground in tight quarters for so long. Maybe that’s why I suddenly have such a fear of big spaces.

  “Wouldn’t it be easier to move to Maldy? That planet seems to be like an unspoiled version of Earth.”

  The bear shakes his head like there’s something stuck in his ear. “Maldy is a last resort. It’s too sterile.”

  I take another step.

  “What about that other place? Llanive? The other bears took me there for a trial and then I lived in the forest. That place wasn’t sterile.”

  “Filled with assholes,” the bear says. “Are we waiting here for a reason? You know that the control pad is a couple-hundred yards that way, right?” He points with his nose.

  “Give me a second,” I say. A few months before, the bear would have forged on without me. Now, he waits for me to take the lead. It’s a fascinating change in our relationship. “There must be infinite worlds across the dimensions. Seems like if you’re hung up on this one, you haven’t tried hard enough to find a different one.”

  “Maybe,” he says. “But if you saw a guy beating a child, would you turn a blind eye because there are a billion other children out there?”

  I don’t think that’s an equivalent argument, but I don’t bother to argue it with him. Every response I can think of makes me sound like I’m in support of child abuse. Instead of replying, I start walking. The first few steps are small, but I gain confidence as my legs start moving. The bear falls in next to me.

  I could have let him go into the big room alone. I could have stayed up in the control room with Janice and the senior staff. They’re going to have a better sense of what’s going on anyway. But down here in the bubble we’ll be able to see the action firsthand. If there’s a containment breach, we’ll be in immediate danger. My team knew that I was going to be out there, and I think that my safety was a motivating factor for a lot of people. Some hate the bear. Some hate him so much that they would risk his life readily.

  They don’t hate me. At least I hope they don’t.

  “It’s impossible to believe that one location can supply power to every corner of the globe,” I say.

  “Only impossible because you grew up in a place where energy was expensive. It was so expensive that people poisoned the air and water around them just to get it a little cheaper. It was so expensive that people froze to death in the cold, or baked alive in the summer heat. As soon as we give the world access to free energy, they’ll find a way to utilize it. They’ll bring batteries here to charge mining equipment. Using that ore, they’ll create new transmission lines to the surrounding area. Once they fully grasp the scope of the energy available, new industries will emerge. We’re surrounded by desert now, but not for long.”

  “Did you get all this from one of the simulations?”

  “No, just speculation.”

  “Some of the most powerful companies in the world have a strong interest in keeping energy scarce,” I say. “Don’t you think you might run into trouble from them?”

  “That’s why we’ve kept this place so secret. Nobody outside this building has a sense of what we’re doing.”

  He’s forgetting about my brother. And the other bears, of course. And Adam. There are tons of people who know. I suppose he doesn’t care, but it seems like a weird statement for him to have made when it’s so clearly untrue.

  “I can’t imagine the amount of time and effort required to construct a room of this size underground. There must be a lot of people who were involved in the construction. They must be incredibly curious about what goes on down here.”

  “Not humans,” he says. “Do you think humans would be able to build something on this scale?”

  I hadn’t given it too much thought. When the structure is on Earth, connected to a perfectly believable office building, of course I would assume it was built by men. Now that the bear mentions it, I have to look up towards the ceiling and reevaluate. How tall is it? The first time I saw this place, I thought of a football stadium. It’s certainly larger than that.

  “Who built it?”

  “Friends of mine,” the bear says.

  “Where do you come from, anyway?”

  “Florida,” he says.

  “No, I mean, where do you talking bears come from originally? Are you from some far-off planet that evolved earlier than Earth? Did you guys seed Earth with the original plants and animals? Do we share common origins?”

  “Florida,” he says.

  Some days I don’t get straight answers from the bear. This is clearly one of those days.

  For a month I’ve been rejecting test results. Each time the team thought they were done, I managed to find a hole in their logic. A week ago, I knew we were getting close because they came up with several loopholes that I hadn’t even considered. I hadn’t succeeded in finding all the potential problems, but I had succeeded in training the team to think differently about testing. The easy approach is to consider how you want the machine to act and then validate that it’s acting that way. It’s much harder to see the problem from a completely new angle. That’s what they were able to do.

  For days, we’ve passed every conceivable scenario with flying colors.

  The machine will be completely constrained and contained. I fully believe that. If I didn’t, there’s no way I would be down on the floor right now. That first day that the bear demonstrated the loop I had no idea how precarious the bubble was. If one tiny little breach had spun out of control, we would have been killed instantly. Perhaps killed is the wrong word. We would have been nullified.

  Today is different. Once we’re in the bubble, I have no doubt that we will be completely safe and sound while the machine reaches stability. We will witness the moment when this solar system is no longer a closed equation. We will witness a key step in the evolution of mankind. To be perfectly honest, that’s not the part that thrills me. The thing that makes my heart beat faster is the machine itself. I can’t wait to see it ramp up to its full potential for the first glorious time.

  ---- * ----

  As soon as we’re in the center of the floor, I see the little circle that encloses us. This is the bubble. None of the machine’s effects will reach us in here. When the bear speaks, his voice is picked up from a special microphone that’s trained on our location.

  “We’re set,” he says. “Activate phase 1.”

  The yellow flashing lights at the ends of the room flip to red.

  Darkness descends from the peak and down the arched ceiling.

  When the stars light up, I start to nod. One of the physicists, an older woman named Amy, predicted this. The stars are not randomly scattered as they were before. Because of our new containment matrix, the stars are fairly regularly spaced. It’s as if someone has taken the night sky and moved around the little points of light to give each one its own area. And, of course, I know that they’re not actual stars. The little points of light are merely clumps of nitrogen, excited and heated until they produce light. Amy explained why they occur, but I’m afraid that I wasn’t paying full attention. At any rate, I’m encouraged that she’s right.

  The bear says something, but it’s too low for me to hear.

  “What was that?” I ask him. He’s usually not one for mumbling.

  “I didn’t say anything,” the bear says. I’m confused why he would lie. I’m staring right at him when I hear the voice again.

  This time I understand what it’s saying. “Shut it down. Tell them to shut it down.”

  “Why?” I ask. This machine is safe. I would stake my life on it. In fact, I have. Just standing here, I’m gambling my life on the safety of this machine. It might be idealistic to assume that free power is going to save Earth, but I’m not claiming to believe that. What I do believe is that this machine will not harm Earth. It can’t—we’ve been way too careful.

&nb
sp; “Why what?” the bear asks.

  “Nothing,” I say. On my first trip into this room, I thought cosmic rays were sparking hallucinations in my eyes. This time, I’ve heard a strange voice. There’s a word, paracusia, that I’ve learned recently. Paracusia is a type of auditory hallucination, where people hear voices outside their head in the absence of auditory stimuli.

  I believe that’s what is happening to me now. At least until I recognize the voice.

  It’s Adam.

  “Shut it down before it’s too late.”

  “No,” I say. The bear straightens up a little to really scrutinize me. “It’s perfectly safe. We’ve tested it from every angle.”

  “Who are you talking to?” the bear asks.

  “Nobody,” I say. I can tell by the way he’s looking at me that he doesn’t believe me. We’re in close quarters because we both have to fit in the bubble. Above us, the star in the middle of the room is beginning to expand and change colors. Soon it will expand into a loop. We’re not looking at it. He’s examining me and I’m staring back at him.

  “You don’t understand the possible consequences,” Adam’s voice says. The bear’s ears flick. I think he heard too.

  I see the ripple of golden light behind the bear. There must be a fold there. I’m not sure how Adam found me, and I have no idea how he’s throwing his voice, but the golden light moves this phenomenon definitively from paracusia to real.

  The bear looks up.

  The light has pulsed from red to orange. It pulls into a loop and begins to mature. This loop is the energy generated by our process. It’s formed by the collapse of divergent paths in the fifth dimension, down to our four-dimensional reality. This is a perfectly natural process. We’re just harvesting it for power. People do the same thing by collecting solar, wind, and tidal power. We’ve just executed the harvest on a much larger scale.

  The loop begins to hum as it cycles towards the sides of the room.

  “Think of the billions of lives you’re putting at risk,” Adam says. The bear spins around with a growl. He’s facing away from me in our little protective bubble. The golden light that was behind the bear is gone. “Trillions, if this really goes bad. Maybe more.”

  A snap from above draws my attention.

  The loop above is bright white. The ends crackle with electricity arcing to the walls. There are collector plates there to tap the energy. The thing is like one giant battery. An unimaginable voltage is formed across its length. Well, perhaps not unimaginable on a global scale. It’s like a continuous lightning strike. I suppose that if it could be measured, it might be in the billions of volts.

  Once the arcs make contact with the plates, high up on the walls, we’re theoretically safe. The bubble shouldn’t be needed anymore because the system is stable. The electrical contact its making is much lower resistance than we would provide. Still, for safety, the bubble remains up. It crackles when the bear strikes at the air. He’s trying to swat a phantom voice that’s already gone.

  The bear growls.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “Step back,” Adam whispers to me. The bear is tuned to Adam’s voice now. The whisper was barely audible to me over the sound of buzzing electricity coming from above, but the bear heard it. He’s on high alert.

  The bear’s lips are curled back to reveal his snarling jaws. Furious saliva drips from his teeth. His paw is raised to strike.

  “Traitor,” he says.

  “Calm the fuck down,” I say. I’ve learned some things over my months working with him. He responds best to confidence. I need to demonstrate that I’m in control.

  He strikes. His claws slice through the air in front of me. I’m not the same fool who he mauled in a coffee shop so long ago. I’m an entirely different fool. I take a tiny step back. I’m not sure how close to the bubble I am. There’s a golden light swirling around my ankles. The bear lunges forward. I know the bubble will shock me, but I can’t stand in place while the bear charges at me.

  I step back.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  * Exile *

  I TUMBLE BACKWARDS.

  THE stars above me flip past. I’ve lost sight of the infinite loop. At least I’m not being fried by a billion volts of electricity. Not yet, I should say. My head bangs into something hard and I flip over again, onto my face. I skid to a stop on a bed of gravel. I push myself up and blink at the night.

  “Yeah. I get it,” I say to myself. I raise my voice to the night. “Okay, I’m here. What’s your point exactly?”

  There’s no reply except the chirping of crickets.

  I stand up and make a slow turn. I can’t see much. The moon is low on the horizon, and it’s only first quarter, so it doesn’t give me very much light. I’m on a rocky hill. Behind me, the ground rises up into a low mountain. The moon is rising over a wooded valley. I don’t know where I am in relation to Adam’s cabin.

  I swat a bug that bites the back of my neck.

  There has to be a fold around me somewhere. It wouldn’t have closed already. I could probably step back through if I could find it. I look around, but I don’t see anything.

  Somewhere down the hill, a frog starts to croak. I take a step and disturb the gravel, sending a little avalanche down. The frog goes quiet again. It’s too dangerous to try to navigate at night. I decide to sit down and wait. I’m sure Adam will reveal himself before long.

  ---- * ----

  I wake up as the sun rises in a bed of clouds. The orange and red glow reminds me of sherbet. Overhead, the sky is a deep blue.

  I don’t recognize a damn thing.

  This is my life now. There is no comfort of knowing where I’m going to wake up. I can’t hit the snooze button and wake up in another nine minutes to a normal existence. Just when I’m growing accustomed to a place, it’s pulled out from underneath me. And I’m usually cast out into the wilderness.

  I stretch my shoulders, shake out my legs, and begin to climb up the loose rocks. I want a good perspective on this place so I can figure out where the hell I’ve folded to.

  As I climb, I acknowledge a couple of realizations.

  First—this isn’t Maldy. At least it isn’t the Maldy where Adam lives. There are crickets and frogs and birds. I wish I had studied the moon last night—was it my moon? Was it the moon that I grew up with? I’m pretty sure it was. Anything else would have been jarring. There’s a good chance I’m somewhere on Earth.

  Second—I’m not sure it was Adam’s voice that interrupted me in the bubble. It sounded like him, but there was something wrong about it that didn’t strike me at the time. The bear’s reaction was a clue as well. If he had heard Adam, I don’t think he would have reacted so angrily. I’m not sure what was behind his anger.

  The loose rocks are hard to climb. I veer to the side, where grasses and wildflowers take over.

  If I liked hiking outdoors, this place would probably be close to paradise. As the morning warms up, the dew soaked into my shoes begins to dry. Bees buzz around me, visiting all the flowers. I turn back frequently to look for signs of life in the valley, but the only thing moving is a shimmering river. There’s a line near the horizon I can’t explain. It almost looks like a giant grey box settled amongst the trees. It’s too far to make out though. It’s lost in the haze.

  There’s a black patch up ahead.

  I approach slowly. It looks like something has scorched the ground.

  I stop on the edge.

  The back side of the mountain looks like it was exposed to a blast of heat. Looking up the slope, I see a curving line that follows the profile. The valley on the other side is a wasteland. This is the edge of life.

  My curiosity nearly overwhelms me, but my brain won’t let me tread over that black ruin. That’s where death lives. I kneel down and find a flower that fell over and crossed the line. Half of the blossom is roasted and dead.

  I back away.

  I move as fast as I can away from the backside of that mountai
n as I descend. I want to get a large volume of dirt and rock between me and whatever scorched the land. The farther I go, the more questions I have. I almost wish that I had spent more time investigating there, but I’m not going back. The thought of the flower, half eaten by death, is an image I won’t soon forget.

  Eventually, I sit down. Hunger and exhaustion overwhelm me and I find a boulder to lean against.

  I close my eyes.

  I have nowhere to be. I have nothing to do.

  My only goal is survival.

  ---- * ----

  I make my way down the hill and into the woods.

  I’m trying to find my way to the river I saw. Fresh water is my first priority. Before I find the river, I discover a fast-moving stream. The clear water bubbles through a pebbled bed. It looks clear and smells clean. I take the chance. My gut clenches around the water, but I think it’s only because the cold water was a shock to my empty stomach.

  I remember my lessons. I have to prove myself independent on water, food, tools, shelter, and clothes.

  I’ll put fire on that list, too.

  By the end of the day, I’ve drunk from the stream, eaten some nuts, and found a rock ledge to sleep under.

  I dream of vending machines.

  ---- * ----

  I’m sick of this.

  I’m tired of walking. I’m tired of talking to trees. I’m fed up with foraging. I find fruit that looks ripe only to find out that the flesh is so bitter that it poisons my mouth for an hour. I find a river that’s too deep to cross and a bank that’s too swampy to follow. I have to retreat back into the forest where I lose my sense of direction.

  It’s not like I have a goal in mind I’m not sure where I’m headed anyway.

  I take up the practice of meditating. I need to relax.