Authors: Wade Andrew Butcher
Chapter 9
November 9, 2829
I could not shake the gentle stranger from my mind. Even though I had Eon, I too craved the once friendly company of others, a comfort mostly lost to me in recent years on Gambler. The thought of talking to an original voyager, one who had not gone insane or died, was compelling enough for me to want to risk a trip back to the half-weighted interior. Although still unsure, I was willing to risk being wrong about him.
I went without Eon. I thought if anything should go wrong, I would at least have the peace of mind that I was not putting him in danger. My own safety was of course a concern, but a desire for the intangible pursuit of companionship overrode that worry. I returned to the interior unsure whether I was walking down the same hall as before.
“Jay!” I yelled as I knocked on doors. Finally, in front of me, a door opened with Mr. J standing behind it.
“Please,” he gestured inviting me to sit. The cramped room was very similar to mine, with the exception of the curved floor and the single platform for a bed. I was a little nervous but willing to risk safety in an attempt to make a new ally.
“How do you know me?” I asked.
“Many of the originals know you. I told you. I was a good friend of the General. But I also knew of you before that. Your father was famous back on Earth – I knew about his invention of the gravity fabric. I knew he had a daughter, and David told me about you.”
“I shouldn’t have boarded.”
“Maybe not, but I heard the circumstances. Your father fell out of grace on those Islands and was held prisoner. It sounded to me like you made the right decision. This was your ambition anyway, right? In the grand scheme of things, what better sense does it make than to send the best and brightest of our species? It’s as if a higher power guided you to be here. I suppose if any of us would have fully understood what was to come, very few of us would have boarded.”
His words resonated with me. For a brief moment, the ambition and pride of being on the first manned interstellar space voyage was awakened, but I had to argue, “Let’s suppose for a minute that I do represent the best and brightest, which is really both debatable and irrelevant, but let’s suppose it anyway. Why do I feel like a neglected zoo animal? Surely I could be used for something.”
“No argument from me on that one, Isla. Look at me too. But whether you know it or not, you have been used, however not like you wanted. You hosted children, right?”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“I have eyes and ears in many places here,” Jay said.
Part of me was intrigued and wanted to know where he had those relationships, but another part of me felt encroached upon by the stranger that knew so much about me. I suppressed the latter and pondered whether to tell him about my old hopes and dreams.
“I heard you say when we were here before,
God bless you Isla
, do you believe in God?” I asked.
“Oh, yes, very much so. And you?” Jay returned the question.
“I don’t know,” I replied partly ashamed that I did not have a good answer.
“Well, I don’t think Gambler was conceived and constructed at the hands of men alone. The effort to build something so massive had no direct benefit for anyone involved. Talk about delayed gratification – in this case, if it arrives, it will be several generations into the future, and who knows whether the people who end up seeing new worlds will appreciate what was done to get them there. The sacrifice and collectivism that it took to build this structure were completely against our nature.”
“I figured it was just social evolution that motivated the people of the world to fund it. That’s what we were taught growing up.”
“Maybe some of that, and admittedly, I was taught many religious beliefs growing up. I reject some of them, but I cannot escape God’s existence. I think well-meaning people have misinterpreted what they could not directly see and hear. There is something there, trying to speak to us, creating those beliefs both correct and erroneous.”
I find it hard, now, to recount his words, but they rang true to me and I decided to ask him about an old dream I once had, one that I remembered long after it occurred to me while sleeping long ago.
“I had a strange dream before I was invited here. I saw vivid images of my grandfather, encouraging me to go. What do you think it meant?” I asked.
Jay smiled and said, “God, whoever He is, delivers messages to us in ways we can understand. Maybe that was what happened with you.”
Minutes turned to hours. The conversation turned from philosophy to nostalgia and then finally to practical matters of survival. I asked if he was worried about the end of the calendar year, to which he replied that he would simply hide from the census-takers to avoid extermination.
“I have a bad feeling about the end of this year too,” I said.
The catalytic conversation with Jay gave me an idea that I pondered as I was returning to my quarters. I should be able to contact Leonidas somehow. Maybe I’m crazy for thinking I should, but I have to do something proactive to improve the chance of survival for Eon and me. Even if I cannot contact him directly, I should be able to plant some communication for him to see that would lure him to me. I can reason with him and make the case for my survival. I know my name is in the census. I must be an extermination candidate soon. I am past child-bearing years, and I have no other current assignment. I can approach him to make a logical argument that improved conditions down here would lead to more stability in his best interest.
I must suppress this entry so it is neither transmitted nor found.
Chapter 10
December 31, 2829
My door has been bolted shut. A day ago they announced on the intercoms:
the annual purge will take place tomorrow. If you are slated for extermination, you will be confined to quarters.
My attempts to contact Leonidas have failed, and my desperate attempt to reclaim some purpose here has been lost. This purge seems to satisfy the sick need of our leadership.
They say this will be the third annual purge. When the first one happened, I had a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that we might eventually be targeted. There was no precedent for the event except for scattered individual disappearances. No suspicion existed that the people escorted from our levels were on a death march. There were twelve that first time. I will now be one of those people.
I’m ready to be taken away from this place, but Eon is scared and angry, and I am even angrier than him at the thought of his execution. There is faint yelling through the hall. There is banging on doors. I would say it is futile, but Eon is one of detained individuals yelling and banging on the fastened door as if somebody was on the other side to hear. I don’t want to tell him to stop.
The time is drawing near. Farewell Father.
January 10, 2830
I address this writing to no one except my own tortured soul. Eon, the offspring of my fellow Islander is helping transcribe my words into the machine, the communications terminal at the foot of their beds. I do not know the destination of my story, but I hope it finds a way home to Bishop Islands, and somebody there remembers me and knows I miss them. I was with General Mason and Isla at our departure on that day in 2806 from Matamoros on Earth.
Whether Chiara Bishop forgives me or not for removing one of her prized genetic accomplishments, I suppose it does not matter, but I ask for understanding if not forgiveness. My commitment to Leonidas, ingrained in me at birth, compelled me to do what I did. My allegiances to the Bishops, Leonidas, and the Wingtons were irreconcilable. Boarding this ship was the only thing I could do to resolve those conflicting loyalties. It pains me to disappoint any of these people, my Islanders, who I am sworn to protect with my life. Ten days ago, I was on the verge of forfeiting that miserable life, as it did not seem fit to provide that protection.
If Isla had been put to death under my watch, my breeding would have lost its intended purpose. All that I am would have been a failure, if not already. I would sooner take her place than to see her exterminated without cause, but what am I to do if Leonidas, my captain, is the one that gives the order? I cannot comprehend a situation in which he wants her dead.
Charged with bringing them to the gas chamber, I performed my duty while struggling to think of a way out that would preserve my honor. To fight my fellow patrols would be a heinous act of treason, but to allow Isla to be taken was a cowardly deed. There was no righteous course of action. I escorted Isla and Eon to their imminent doom, her hand in mine, with tears rolling down my face.
I escorted them in with the others and gave her a final kiss. She has aged well and survived many years here, but she will always be that sweet Island girl like a little sister to me. There was nothing to say. I exited, not knowing whether to look through the glass or leave. I watched as the oxygen was purged from the room by the nitrogen-rich haze permeating the space. After some minutes, the lack of breathable air began to claim its victims.
Thirty minutes passed. The small chamber was littered with asphyxiated bodies. Isla and Eon sat against the wall next to each other hand in hand. They had their eyes closed preparing for the inevitable blackout, but it did not come. The lone pair of survivors sat there and continued to breathe, and breathe, over and over again.
I do not know what emotion forced me to do what I did. Whether confusion or rage, it boiled to the surface and obliged me to throw my fellow patrol to the ground, clearing the door for me to reenter. My once mighty wings expanded from my back, tearing the synthetic fibers from my body. My concealment had come to an end with the reflexive expansion. My physique was exposed before I realized, but I did not waste time with my own mere embarrassment. I removed my friends and returned them way down below to their room. I resigned to seek forgiveness later rather than permission for this act, justifiable by the inexplicable survival of my friends. I would make the case that there should be an investigation into their ability to breathe nitrogen to buy time for their survival.
The gift of flight given to me by the genetic engineers of Bishop Islands was nothing but a curse in the tight confines of Gambler. After twenty-three years, I revealed in public that I am the only one of my kind here. The webbed wings normally folded under my garments usually looked more like a deformity than a mutation. Before my revelation, I was generally hated as a patrol, and now I am known as both a monster and a police member, disliked almost equally by my own.
Leonidas knew me from birth, so my secret was not a surprise to him. The mysterious immunity of my friends to the gas chamber, however, was unexpected by both of us. I knew she was special. I knew she could see in the dark. I knew she had uncommon bacteria festering in her lungs, but the purpose was unknown until now. I wonder if she even knew. Had she kept it a secret from me? I had a chance to speak with Leonidas, and my plea was accepted without much conversation. He was in the pilot bridge room when I revealed the sequence of events.
“Commander, I have news,” I approached with my massive unfolded wings visible to all. It was soothing to have them out, although it was not uncomfortable to have them folded. Leonidas looked me over with his eyes opened wide. He looked around to gauge the reaction of the pilots to the visage of a Bauvat on Gambler. They did not outwardly react. Rather, they waited to follow the lead of their Commander.
“Salazar, my friend. What is it Islander? And why are you half naked?” Leonidas replied with more of a whimsical tone than one of concern. Some of the pilots seemed to want to laugh but stifled the urge.
“Isla was on the extermination list.”
“Yes, I know. Very unfortunate and sad. We just can’t sustain everyone who isn’t maintaining a function on the ship,” Leonidas replied.
“I’m not here to protest the extermination, although I should. She survived the gas. I thought you should know. What should we do with her next?” I recoiled at the last question realizing it was poorly worded. I thought for sure he would order her to be expelled. The onlookers paused to hear the answer. They, too, were curious to hear of the uncommon mutation.
“Hmm…” he deliberated at the unexpected news.
Before he could complete his thoughts, I suggested, “Perhaps a gene sample? This is not a familiar trait designed here. It must have been from Chiara Bishop back on Earth.”
That caught his attention. The genetic engineering on the Islands that produced me may have also been the root source of what I witnessed with Isla in the gas chamber. Leonidas may not have thought of the Islands in a long time, I imagined, and the possibility that there was an artifact from his home seemed to interest him.
Leonidas was the former Chief of Police on the Islands. I didn’t know if he still considered that place his home. He was an Islander in my view, even though he gave up that designation in self-exile to ally himself with General Mason. It is unclear what could have possibly been offered to make him want to leave the Islands in exchange for this desolate place. I suppose one form of isolation in exchange for another may not have been considered a downgrade, especially if he was promised the position of Commander as the General’s successor. After all, there was more square footage of living area aboard this vessel in comparison to his living space on the Islands.
Maybe I am extra sensitive to the lack of sky and fresh air that used to be available to me. I could soar from Mid-Atlantic to Grenada, to Aruba, to Cuba, and to Matamoros under my own power in just four days. I forgot where I was. My daydreaming of former freedom was finally interrupted when Leonidas answered.
“Yes, see to it. Have her genetic code duplicated for cloning and report back to me.”
His statement was final. I left the bridge to cover myself with a new suit, although I questioned why. I had been exposed. I would have been more comfortable without clothes, and I certainly had no problem being seen without them. Not any longer. But there were still social mores even within the confined and hopeless desolation.
I now check on Isla and Eon daily. I worry about the ostracism I face within the police force. This ship is no place for outsiders, who seem to exist only for a limited time, and I have flagged myself as a nonconformist both with my devotion to a commoner and my monstrous physique. At least, here it is monstrous. In my old home, it was majestic.