Clay (Episode One of Farther Than We Dreamed)
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Charlie woke up again. He lay on a silver metal laboratory table. His hands and legs were tied down with black leather straps. The back of his head was sore and his arm was throbbing from where the needle had broken the skin. He was bruised from fighting the Mud Men. He didn’t immediately see Aelfwyrd, but instead when he looked ahead he could see one of the Mud Men specimens floating inside of its tube.
The face was severe, but the arms rested gently in the fluid as the bubbles blew through them. The smaller bubbles clung to the flesh and slowly made their way up against the creature’s skin. It looked like a medieval vision of the Devil. It looked like death.
Doctor Aelfwyrd walked in. He was wearing a white surgical gown and plastic apron. His face was covered with goggles and a white surgical mask covered his mouth, but Charlie recognized him easily enough.
He sat down near Charlie’s head, took out a notebook and a pen. “Do you remember your name?”
“You know who I am, David.”
“I need to set up the control. Do you remember your name?”
Charlie clenched his teeth. “I’m Captain Charlie Daemon.”
“Is this reality?”
“I’ll answer your questions on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“For every one I answer, you have to answer one.”
Aelfwyrd nodded. He removed his goggles and pulled his mask down. “What do you want to know, Charlie?”
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Ah. Well, you see I figured it out. It’s the robots, Charlie. We need the workers. I don’t want to imprison and experiment on thousands of aliens, to make them suffer, when we have an automated work-force just waiting for your password. It’s not worth it. And you, you’re new. This version of you just started today. I’m sorry, it’s been fun, but these few memories are not worth punishing and enslaving the Mud Men for. I need to know what you know, and I need to know what you should have known. Now. Is this reality?”
Charlie thought for a moment before answering. “No, this is not reality. I think the real Charlie Daemon and the real David Aelfwyrd died, oh, maybe a thousand years ago. We’re just clones, duplicates, and broken ones. None of this is real.”
Aelfwyrd was scribbling rapidly in his notebook. He didn’t react to the answer. He just wrote it down and described the way it was given.
Charlie continued, “Now how the heck are you going to do this? This isn’t the Genesis Chamber. Allambree, Sally Brightly, and Kalligeneia are all there, maybe more. If you euthanize me, I’ll wake up with them.”
Aelfwyrd nodded. “Yes. Which is why I will keep you alive and unconscious until the chamber is clear. Once the rebellion is over, I imagine that things will calm down fairly quickly. It won’t be so difficult. My question: Is this the first time we’ve spoken?”
“No. You and I have spent the day together fighting the Mud Men, exploring the ship, and arguing about trolls. Wouldn’t you rather work with me? We could find a way to make the robots function, or some other solution. We still don’t even know why we would need anyone to do our work. We don’t know enough. Let’s get our answers first.”
“Was that a question or a speech? For a man who says he doesn’t remember his political career, you sure sound like the man we studied in school. I have already looked into it. I studied the problem from every angle and did my best to find a less dramatic solution.”
“When?” Charlie mocked.
“In my previous life. He was me. I am him. If I can’t trust his judgment, then I can’t trust my own. I will sort out all of the details, but we’ve already reached the end result. Charlie, I need you to remember. You’re the captain of the ship. Your briefing was more important than anyone else’s. It’s indispensible. This isn’t just about robots. We don’t even know what other functions require your passwords and knowledge. We’re not in our own galaxy anymore. Our mission is important. What if the next version of you might remember? Or remember just a little more?”
“Or what if I’m not a glitch?” Charlie asked. “What if I’m exactly the way they designed me? You’re a scientist. You know about lying to your patients. Who says this is an exploration mission? What? You remember someone in a dream who told you that it was? That’s not science. That’s not how a scientist would work this problem. Let’s learn more. Let’s gather data.”
Aelfwyrd kept writing for a long time. Finally he paused and looked up at Charlie. “What do you remember from before?”
“David! I’m not just an iteration. I’m a real person. When I die you might get someone who looks like me and acts like me, but I’ll be dead. My death will be real. I will die.”
“What do you remember from before?”
“I remember destroying The Machine. I remember the explosion. I wasn’t near it, but the heat was devastatingly hot. I felt like I was on fire. I had to take off my coat. When the blast died down I had to take another off of a dead friend’s back so that I wouldn’t freeze to death.
“I remember walking into the ruins with my gun. I shot at a piece of machinery which was still moving, in case The Machine was alive inside of it, but I think it was just shaking from the explosion. I remember finding Armando’s burnt body. His face was gone. I could see his bones, but I recognized him from his clothes.
“I found Willis next. His left side was gone. He had bullets in his body, so I knew he had died before the blast, but the heat and fire had cooked him all the same.
“I touched a piece of shrapnel as I made my way inside of the shell of the building. It melted the fingertip of my glove a little bit. The robot, the king of all robots, was inside. He’d made himself a body like a teenager would design. He was covered with guns and phallic symbols. The outer armor was shaped like steroid-pumped muscles. The A.I. was smart, but in most ways he was just a child. Really, only a child would have started killing all of those people. It makes sense in movies, but what sane mature adult would do that?
“I remember hacking away at the head, at the neck for maybe half an hour until I got it to break free. I buried it in the snow and mud to cool it off while I ate the rest of my rations. Then, as things started to cool, I tied some of the wires around a metal pole and I started dragging it off with me. I was going to keep the monster’s head as my prize.
“I remember walking through the cold for days, getting weaker and weaker, and forgetting about my prize and just letting go at one point. Life was more important to me.”
A voice called out to them from across the room, “Life is important. It is all that is worth killing for.”
An Asian man stood at the bottom of the stairs where Charlie and Aelfwyrd had come in. He seemed to be wearing a high-tech helmet, and his hands were covered in red, yellow, and purple metal. A blue view-finder hung in front of his right eye, which allowed him to aim. He was holding a weapon which looked similar to Sally’s drive-rifle, but much bigger and more menacing. He wore a thick and carefully styled moustache. His right ear could be seen, not his left, there were at least five jeweled earrings hanging and shining from the lobe and cartilage.
“Mr. Wu.” Aelfwyrd recognized him.
The newcomer spoke clearly and carefully. He sounded formal. “We would prefer to question you before sending you back.”
“This is an important experiment, Wu. We need to find the captain’s memories.”
Wu Gwei walked forward. He was a large and thick man. He had the eyes of a killer, and Charlie was suddenly afraid for Aelfwyrd. Perhaps also a little afraid for himself. “You are of no use to us or to your captain if you cannot respect your position. I could prevent your return. There are ways. Or I could punish you in your next life for your cowardliness of today.”
Aelfwyrd set his notes down on the table and stepped back until the furniture blocked him from retreating any further.
Wu kept his weapon aimed at the doctor’s head as Aelfwyrd began to untie Charlie’s bonds.
“Thank you.”
It was left for Charlie to untie his own feet, but that was easy enough to do once his hands were loose. “We came here looking for the controls for the Mud Men’s collars.”
Wu Gwei answered Charlie without taking his eyes off of Aelfwyrd. “I believe you will find that the doctor has commanded the workers to disobey. They were his distraction, used to keep us busy while he experimented on you.”
Charlie turned to Aelfwyrd. “Is this true?”
“Charlie, I am your friend. I was trying to restore your mind. There’s no way we can know what you’ve forgotten. You should have been so much more. You were supposed to be our leader.”
Charlie got up, walked past Aelfwyrd into the next room and quite easily found the Mud Men control station. There was a placard above it, which would have once upon a time identified the device, but all of the words were gone. Charlie found a dial which had been set to red and he moved the line back to the left until it rested on green.
When the three men emerged, the Mud Men were all docile. Many of them had gone back inside of the building. Those which remained in the street were smelling flowers, singing, and two of them were even holding each other and exchanging gentle kisses.
“It was unthinkable that anyone recruited to this crew could have designed a faulty device. Therefore the control had to have either been sabotaged internally or externally. When we found your corpses in the Genesis Chamber, the picture was clear. In his first life, our dear doctor was forced to experiment on many thousands of patients in order to advance the species and make life in the universe possible. I saw nothing in his background which suggested he would hesitate to experiment on you if he felt justified.”
“Thank you for finding me, Mr. Wu. As you may know, I don’t remember my briefing before I woke up here – in this life. I don’t know you.”
“My name is Wu Gwei. I was born in the late 25th century. I led a planet full of warriors in battle against the worst of the monsters during the darkest times of the Age of Nightmares. I consider it a great honor to serve you.”
Aelfwyrd, his hands tied, spoke up, “If you think I’m the bad guy, ask your new friend how he convinced that planet full of warriors to sign up.”
Wu Gwei showed no sign of being upset by Aelfwyrd’s accusation. “I did what history required of me, as he did, as you did, as we hope all men will.”
TO BE CONTINUED IN EPISODE TWO – WAVES
(Available NOW in The Secrets of the Universe, along with episodes 1, 3, and 4.)
Noah Mullette-Gillman was born in Montclair, New Jersey. He spent his childhood there, as well as in the town of Manly, Australia, and the woods of Upstate New York. He earned a multidisciplinary degree in Philosophy and Creative Writing at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.
www.noahmullette-gillman.com
www.fartherthanwedreamed.com
Twitter: Noahlot
Mailing List:Noah@noahmullette-gillman.com
APPENDIX
THE CREW
CAPTAIN CHARLIE DAEMON
Born: 2030.
US President, Rock Star.
QUEEN GLORYANNANA MELLIFLUOUS
Born: 2119
Monarch, Pop Star, Talk Show Host.
DOCTOR DAVID PETER AELFWYRD
Born: 2130
Scientist.
SALLY BRIGHTLY
Born: 2232
Starship Captain, Explorer, Pilot.
ALLAMBREE ALAWA
Born: 2259
Archeologist.
KALLIGENEIA ATHANOS
Born: 2362
Artist, Biologist.
VERONIKA ZAVADA
Born: 2414
Artist, Geologist
WU GWEI
Born: 2512
Warlord, Heavy Metal Guitarist.
AVRAAM FOCK
Born: 2549
Hero.
NAYARA BORGES
Born: 2604
Musician, Diplomat.
UMBRA FARRAH
Born: 2740
Physicist.
MEW TSE
Born: 2792
Artist.