Floating Ink (2 page)

She felt her eyes fluttering open as the
light dimmed. She felt every ache in every limb as she lay on the
floor. She scrambled backward, making sure the creature did not
touch her. She ran past the creature and down the street. She was
about a block away when she paused to look around. To help separate
dream from reality, she slapped her face several times, ensuring
the sting meant reality. She would need to find some real shelter
and sort all this out.

She continued down the street toward the
market. If she held up in the local market, she would have supplies
and company. With any luck, she could compare notes with other
people who had encountered these strange creatures. She ran down
several blocks of empty streets. There were no cats, dogs, or birds
in the streets. It was completely silent.

As she rounded the corner toward the market,
she stopped in her tracks. A line of the creatures had gathered in
front of the market. They saw her and started advancing forward.
She turned around and began to run down a side street. It was far
too late that she realized that the shadows at the end of the alley
were not an exit, but an end. The creatures slowly flowed into the
alleyway. Ruth threw anything within arm’s reach at the beings;
bricks, stones, twigs. The creatures barely slowed at her onslaught
of projectiles.

Again, a tin voice blossomed from the being
in the front. “Hello? Hello? This one. Same one. Good. Lower power
this time. Almost fried her.”

A slightly quieter light shone onto Ruth, and
she was sure this time she was dead. It pulsed, and she felt
herself collapse for a second time in one day.

Executive

The world was cookie cutter ready for an
alien invasion. The Xenophen didn’t round humans into tiny cages,
we ran into cubicles by ourselves. They didn’t take away our
military might, we gave it to them to retrofit. The floating ink
monsters didn’t kill world leaders, they groomed them gently with
successes. The creatures had been watching and waiting for society
to reach a nexus. As they noticed us rising from our past
brutalities, they hopped on the other side of the seesaw, lifting
us even higher. They leveraged humanity’s growing into a knowledge
economy. To control us, they simply needed to offer a better
education. Xenophen provided technology beyond anything scientists
had learned. We pleaded for the honor of serving them, with the
hope to learn their technology. All the while, the Xenophen weaved
together a trap. Charging a premium, they partnered with companies
to build minor changes in existing technology. These creatures used
the massive funds to then influence laws and culture.

Few saw this truth as clearly as Ruth. She
had once been a beggar on the streets, eating garbage where she
could find it. Since the aliens had scanned her, life was
drastically different. The Xenophen put a numerical knowledge in
her head, without giving her the full key to unlock it. As a
result, she could see the art and poise behind the numbers. Being
given a direct gift by Xenophen had been a unique resume booster.
Companies often sought her out to help them understand statistics,
accounting, and marketing. It was little surprise that a Xenophen
partner company offered her top dollar. Slowly, though, she began
to see a different pattern forming in the numbers between
companies. It looked like a noose around the neck of humanity,
slowly tightening.

Ruth told her supervisor about the pattern
within the numbers. He asked Ruth to please illustrate that design
in a simplified manner and he would bring it up with his
supervisor. He had been particularly interested if the pattern
could be exploited to save money. She assembled colorful
spreadsheets full of information. Her spreadsheet art caught the
attention from someone near the top of the corporate latter. The
meeting was not supposed to contain anyone else, just her and the
executive. The secretary smiled politely and waved Ruth to open the
large wooden doors.

She stopped in place, eyes wide, when the
executive turned out to be a Xenophen.

“Please sit,” said the Xenophen, floating
near a chair.

Ruth looked around the office. In one corner
was a metal platform with sheets of glass sprouting from it. The
other corner contained the traditional decorative rug and brown
leather chairs. There was neither a desk in the room, nor swivel
chairs. The bareness of the office showed off the fantastic
view.

“I read your report. It’s a good fiction
story.” The flying ink monster said.

“Fiction?” mouthed Ruth quietly, her eyebrows
drawing in.

“Yes. But I need to make something clear,
which is why I’ve called you in.” The Xenophen floated several
inches higher, towering over Ruth. “Do you like eating
garbage?”

“Umm, what? Garbage? What does that…” trailed
Ruth tilting her head.

“Our records indicate that we elevated you
because we felt you were humbled for your species. Humble people
should handle difficult things. If you are not humble, we should
remove the mental elevation.”

Ruth’s eyes went wide, and she gripped the
sides of the chair. If they removed her abilities, no company would
pursue her. That would be the end of her capacity to make
money.

“I should say that the technology we use to
alter your abilities isn’t perfect. We sometimes get the power
settings wrong because of unique anatomy differences. We will do
our best to be professional in removing your caretaker
abilities.”

Ruth thought of the exploding guitar player
and went pale. She started to nod slowly. “Fiction, yes. Sorry to
disturb you.” She heard her lips say.

“Excellent! I am glad we are in agreement.
We’ve taken the liberty to erase this monetary tale from your
equipment. I trust you will file any paper documents into the shred
bin. Thank you again, for bringing this to our attention. You are a
valuable member of our team.”

The Xenophen floated toward the other corner
of the room, and the metal platform raised slightly. The panes of
glass shown with images that projected out into holographs. The
creature’s tentacles darted from symbol to symbol, interacting with
them. Ruth got up and showed herself out, taking extra care to
close the door quietly. She wanted to go hide in a dark cave or the
woods. Somewhere she wouldn’t be noticed. The closest place she
could think of was her desk.

Completing an extra helping of work had her
seeing the spots again. Ruth did not reveal she saw spots, choosing
instead to remain silent. She needed this job to keep food on the
table. These spots were small visions, floating in the air. She
didn't want to reach out and grab them, afraid of what others would
say. How silly would it be to be running around and poking
imaginary bubbles? If she were alone, she would watch a passing
bubble for hours. Often times the image contained herself doing
something productive. She was either cooking, hiking, or doing some
extra work. Every time a clock or text appeared in the picture it
was garbled up; like someone was trying to make things harder to
read.

Looking down at the passing bubble, the text
was garbled and confusing to read. She was about to get up and get
some coffee when she was able to make out a bubble image of a book
with an out-of-body image on the cover. Ruth looked around and
found that no one else was in the office with her. Frustrated with
not having her ideas heard, she decided to take a risk. She slowly
reached into that bubble and pulled out the book. The moment it was
free of the floating bubble, the image disappeared, though the book
remained in her hands. The words were written in a language that
she didn’t know, but the diagrams made a pictographic kind of
sense.

The first picture showed a person having an
out of body experience. It then showed an image of an ink blot,
obviously one of the creatures, being in multiple panes or
rectangles. Finally, an image on the last page showed bubbles in
one rectangle, while not being in the other rectangles. Ruth had
been wondering if the bubbles she had seen where a mental breakdown
of some sort. Now she knew the bubbles were based in reality as she
had plucked this book from that realm. Ruth continued to stare at
the oddly shaped words and photos trying to make sense of what she
was seeing.

At the beginning of the early morning shift,
the siren went off. The creatures had determined the optimal work
cycle and created various sirens to help people understand the
phases. The siren going off startled Ruth, who had been trying to
build a cipher to break the code on the pages. She felt like if she
could understand this mystery, she could know how to reverse seeing
bubbles. That might help her become better with the accounting
numbers.

Ruth left the office and began to walk to a
movable platform. One of the largest benefits to the ink beings is
that they had brought technology for floating moveable platforms.
This book was far beyond anything Ruth had ever seen. Midway
through the gentle trip, she decided to bring out the bubble book
and continue to read it. As soon as the cover was out of her bag,
bells began to sound all around. As alarms and bells chirped, she
was given instructions to ‘Stay calm and stay there’. She didn’t
know what she had done wrong, but she certainly wasn’t going to
stick around for the executive Xenophen to come “remove her
elevation”. Ruth jumped down off the platform and began to run for
the woods.

The
Cabin

Breathing hard, Ruth found shelter in the
thickest part of the forest. Several creatures slowly went toward
the platform and began to shine lights on it. The platform was
destroyed, and Ruth heard her name being broadcast. She thought she
heard something about how ‘that woman’ had tried to kill one of the
new creatures without provocation. The most Ruth had ever done was
throw a boot at one of the creatures. She realized they wanted her
to be the villain. If everyone believed she was the bad guy, they
would turn her in.

She knew that she had to find some place to
rest and read. She wished she had someone to run toward. The
daylight was slowly starting to fade, and she needed to find a spot
to hide and read. Deeper and deeper she pushed into the woods. At
one point she had stopped, assuming her inky hunters far behind.
Whistles nearby spooked her, and she began to run again. She knew
that this book somehow contained knowledge far beyond what she
could grasp. However, if she studied it for awhile, perhaps the
components would align.

As she breathed in heavy gasps, she
concentrated on escaping. Scanning the tree line, she saw a
shimmering, like a spider web caught in the sunlight. Beyond that
shimmering surface looked to be an abandoned cabin. The cabin was
in a clearing that had now overgrown. As she touched the spiderweb
surface, her balance shifted. She yelped as a tree branch grasped
her boot.

In the moments of her fall, she saw the rock
coming towards her head. She tried to push her arm out in front to
help block the impact, but it was far too late. As her head smashed
against the ground, she lost consciousness, the world turning
black. The last thing she remembered were whistles nearby and
someone stepping on the ground in front of her. She wondered why
she was in the woods, as the world faded away.

The first thing Ruth recalled was the smell.
Wherever she was, it smelled like a mix of refreshing rain and cut
grass. The natural scent combined well with the sounds of birds
chirping. The glow against the wooden walls illustrated the knots
in the lumber. It was as if the lights were focusing on an art
gallery of finely crafted oak planks.

Her head boomed, and she brought her hand up
to massage it. When she moved her hand up, she noticed the fabric
shift against the top of her hand. It was a rough wool spun blanket
of some sort. Whoever had knit this had little skill, as the loops
were large and the sheet barely held together. Still, it offered
some home-spun kind of comfort to know that someone had used their
handiwork to keep her warm. The custom care given to the blanket
reminded Ruth of getting a hug from a stranger. Naturally inviting,
but out of place.

Against all protest from her skull, Ruth
forced her eyes to remain open. Her headache was a necessary pain
to endure while she tried to figure out where she was. Staring down
at her from across the one room shack was a deer, face stuck in a
permanent pose of solace. Ruth closed her eyes again as the next
wave of a headache sunk in from the light that poured in. She
rubbed her head and groaned, waiting for the waves of pain to
lessen. As they lessened, she tried opening her eyes again. She
could see a simple stove in one corner, fire embers barely lit
inside. She saw the deer head mounted on the wall, staring down at
where she was sleeping.

A pile of furs in a chair, ignored until this
moment, began to stir and move. Ruth wondered if a ink monster had
been stuck underneath them. She then saw a face of a man peeking
out from the pile of skins and furs. The man had a long grey beard,
unkempt and wiry. When he rose from the chair, she could see that
the pile of animal skins and furs were actually the man’s clothing.
He rose up and began to walk toward the bed.

“Hit your head,” the man said in a way that
mixed growl and parental concern.

To Ruth, it was as if the man wasn’t used to
his own voice and was now trying to remember how to use vocal
cords. Perhaps she should feel lucky for being able to understand
him at all. Still, the words didn’t offer any insight into what had
happened.

“Yes... yes I did” Ruth murmured. She wanted
to say more, but the blinding pain throbbed again. She was forced
to close her eyes and rub fiercely at her temples, in an attempt to
quell the protest of her brain.