Message eighty-two

Lucas, is there a God where you are? I’m not really sure if there could be one. I think maybe people invent these things, gods, myths, whatever, because they don’t want humanity to be alone in the universe. They want to think that somehow out there in the chaos of the world there is some type of intelligence, something that can make sense of it. I guess there’s nothing wrong with that, but some use that belief to hurt, to justify horrible things all for some concept of an ideal greater good. Do people like that actually believe it? Or do they know they’re lying? I’m not sure.

If there is something out there, and its got you somehow, I hope you’re safe. Because too many times I’ve seen it hurt. 

 

Chapter 10

I woke to the sound of voices, both feminine and distant. The room around me fuzzed into view, metal and cold. I was laid up on some… not a couch, more a thin layer of cushions on top of a hard metal slab. It made my back hurt, and as I sat up past the fog of sleep I knew instantly I wasn’t at home. Home was at least a little bigger, this place was cramped. I’d compare the place to an RV. There was enough room for two, maybe three people, and a table before the space gave way to a large windowed area where I could see two figures sitting along a row of complex looking dials and displays. It was night, and so the cabin was lit by dim orange lights that sought to make one feel comfortable. It only made me anxious.

“You’re awake!” Lucas, who did not look like Lucas, swiveled around in a chair to face me, “How was the nap?”

I didn’t answer him, only stared as the revelation from just a few hours before came hurtling back. I tried, hard, to match his features to the person I knew seven years before. Some of it was still there, and I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t originally put the pieces together myself. The subtle dips of his eyes were the same, there was a wrinkle in his smile that I had seen so many times when he would laugh. All still highlighted by those adorable little freckles. I twisted my head for a closer side angle and saw flashes of that same silhouette. Though all of this was familiar, it was taken up by unfamiliarity. Thinner cheeks, fuller lips, completely different hair. I didn’t even want to begin to imagine what was new below his face nor could I believe it. He noticed I was staring and snapped his fingers back for my attention, “hey pal, eyes up.”

“Lucas.” I said, “This… this is impossible.”

“We had that song and dance, honey, and you lost.”

“You’re going to change back, right?”

He scoffed, “yeah sure okay. Right after I undo like six years worth of treatment.”

“Why would you do this to yourself?” I said, “This… this isn’t you.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Matt. You’re meeting me for the first time. A better question is, who are you?”

“What are you talking about? I know who I am. I’m Matthew Coulson, regular Earth MAN.”

“That’s not what your rap sheet says.” He said in a song-song kind of way. He motioned to Zwendel, who was already typing at the console in front of her, “tell me, who is Matthew Coulson?”

“Wanted fugitive.” She replied plainly and the window in front of us went dark. A holographic screen pulled up with my name in big bold letters and a slew of indecipherable letters and numbers beneath it. “Illegal arms smuggling, counterfeit currency use, theft of valuable artifacts, insurance fraud, investment schemes, murders-”

“Murders?!” I said and stood up, “I haven’t done anything like that! I work every day then go home, drink and sleep.”

“It’s true, Zwen.” Cass said, “This man has no life.”

“At least I’m taking responsibility for my life and I’m not caught up in some stupid fantasy!”

Ca- Lucas looked me up and down before gesturing all around us, “you’re in a spaceship honey, can you really call this a fantasy anymore?”

I sat back down, “That’s not the one I’m talking about. Look, why do you even think it was me?” I said, “up until literally right now I didn’t know any of this existed.”

Zwendel swiveled in her seat, helmet still on despite the fact we were inside a ship. I guess she just really liked secrecy. A pair of tentacles flew from her back to press some buttons on the console which brought up the image of a bizarre looking round device. Buttons on its side blinked, and in the center of the sphere was a clear vial containing two different colored liquids, and only a thin layer separating them. “This bomb was intercepted on its way to the Council of the Five Galaxies. Attached was a digital file containing this.”

Another moment and a single file appeared on the screen. Written out, in English, the sentence I’ve seen the way it all ends, and you’re at the epicenter.

“Each of these crimes seem to connect to a single point. Those Who See.”

The screen lit up with a strange symbol: an eye shape with a star where the pupil would have been. “This symbol and a cryptic message matching the tone of the one sent to the Council has been seen near or at various crime scenes all across the Five Galaxies.”

My stomach dropped. I knew those words, but didn’t understand how it was possible. Lucas was on the other seat now, checking his nails. “See? No reaction. You don’t know what that even is, do you?”

“I… I do.” I said. His face dropped.

“What?”

“Well now. That’s interesting.” Zwendel stood over me and approached with a pair of large metal braces. Lucas got in front of me.

“Hang on! This doesn’t prove anything!”

“You’re next.” Zwendel seethed.

“No, you don’t understand-” I said, “I wrote the words, but I never sent that to whatever this Council thing is. I don’t even recognize the symbol.”

“Yeah right. If it wasn’t for the Council who else could that possibly be for?”

Without another word I pointed to Lucas, who in turn slapped my finger from his face. “That isn’t funny.”

“No. No it isn’t.” I said, “I wrote that sentence in a letter I never thought you’d see. Hell, I never thought anyone would see it.”

“Did you post it on MySpace?”

“In any case, you got sloppy. Ordinarily we can’t trace these messages or symbols to a person or location, but this time we could. We traced the source signal to a device here on Earth.” Zwendel said, “It wasn’t hard. It was damn near the same signal you used seven years ago, Cassandra.”

Lucas seemed surprised. He looked at me, “you found that?”

“I mean, it was hidden away right next to all your po-”

Suddenly his hand was clamped tight around my mouth, “woah-ho ho ho-okay I didn’t think you would have actually gone there.”

“If you have any more arguments they can be heard in court.” Zwendel said, “For now I hereby place you under arrest under the authority of the Tangerian army and all Council Authority.”

“Silmon’s Proposition!” Lucas called, holding his hands up in defense. Whatever he meant, it made Zwendel stop.

“You’re joking.” She said.

“What? What did he say?” I asked.

Zwendel had her head in her hands, “In all my years, no one has ever invoked Silmon’s Prop. It’s outdated.”

“And still in that same rulebook right next to some stupid drug laws.” Cass said, “if those still count, so does this.”

“And you’re aware of the risks?”

“Oh definitely. Definitely.”

“What? What risks?”

Lucas was at my side, “allow me to set the stage. Three hundred years ago, known war criminal and elite aristocrat Ghil Silmon was arrested by the still forming Council of the Five Galaxies for a few misdemeanors and war crimes.” He took a few steps across the small ship like he was on the world’s smallest stage. “But old Ghil had a little argument up his sleeve. See, he proposed that it wasn’t fair for a government still in its infant stages to prosecute on interplanetary crimes that hadn’t even been made illegal. His argument being that, sure, if he killed hundreds of innocents on his own planet he could be prosecuted for that, but not for the killing of several thousands of innocents on a different planet.”

“So wait, he still killed those people?”

“Oh yeah. Shit tons. Dude was a monster. But you know what they say about history’s greatest monsters. Some idiot out there will say they had a point and folks on the Council agreed. So they allowed him to propose a little wager. If he could somehow prove his interplanetary innocence at his forthcoming trial they would spare him. And if he failed? Well, eye for an eye, life for a life. He would be executed, along with his entire planet.”

“And let me guess,” I said, “He failed.”

“Oh miserably. He had so much blood on his hands it was staining his clothes and turning his whites pink in the wash.”

Zwendel took over, “yet the precedent still stands. Should anyone wish to contest their weighty crimes under Silmon’s Proposition they are allowed to do so. It’s usually only viewed as a last resort, and has only been invoked three times. None have succeeded.”

I gulped, “Is- is there a plan B?”

Zwendel chuckled. She loomed over me and clicked her visor open, letting her dark slit eyes stare right into mine. “How’s life in a prison you can’t possibly comprehend with your stupid mushy human mind sound?”

“...not good.”

“So it’s a deal then!” Lucas said. He took me by my shoulder and squeezed me through the most miserable side-hug I ever had. “We’ll go out there and find who’s really doing all of this. That should be enough to prove that Matt’s not some criminal with a rotten soul, just that he’s a normal guy with a rotten soul.”

I tried to get away, but Lucas’s embrace was surprisingly strong

“Don-make-thish-worsh.” He said through the tightest grin in the world.

“Fine.” Zwendel pressed a button on the hull and a staircase folded out beside us, letting in the cool night air. It nestled in a grassy mound of dirt and I could hear cicadas chirping in the distance. Only then did it occur to me that we weren’t even in the city anymore. How were we supposed to get anywhere with proving me innocent if we were starting out here? Lucas didn’t seem to mind. He started pushing me for the exit.

“Come on, pal. Let’s go!”

“Not so fast.” Zwendel said. She came up behind me and a tentacle was fastened to my arm. Before I could blink I had it back with a new fancy heavy metal bracelet. Embedded within it was a digital clock that began at seventy-five.

“What’s this?”

“So we can find you, and so you can know how much time you have left.”

“Seventy-five days?” I chanced.

“Seventy-five hours.”

“Right. Three days.” I stepped down onto the stair, “Of course it’s three days. Couldn’t be three months, couldn’t even be three years. No no, it has to be three days.”

I got to the ground where Lucas was waiting and listening. “Ya done?”

I was about to go off on him when the stairs lifted up and I had to jump off of the last step. The engines of the spaceship roared to life as it lifted off the ground and aimed up to the sky. I shielded my eyes as the bright heat of the rockets whipped around and before I could look again it was rocketing off into the night. Once more, the metal hull shimmered into a glistening camouflage until all I could know of the ship was the same deafening roar that I heard at the theater just a few days before. When it left all I could think to do was stare at the moon and realize that there was another side.

“What a woman, amiright?” Lucas said, interrupting my bout with infinity.

“Why are you so relaxed right now?” I said, “This is all your fault you know.”

“Usually people say ‘thank you’ when they’re rescued from space prison.”

“Space prison?! I wouldn’t even have to worry about space prison if you hadn’t left!”

Lucas was looking at his wrist, half-ignoring me. “Yeah yeah, woopdeedoo. Come on, we got work to do.” He started walking away towards a group of trees. I stormed after him.

“Are you even listening to me? No. Of course not. Lucas hasn’t had to deal with his friend’s problems for seven years. How’s life in space, PAL? Want me to tell you how my life is going suffocating at the constant nine to five day in and out where all I can hope for is the sweet relief of de-Aggh!”

I tripped over the roots of a tree. Lucas turned around and crossed his arms. “If you’re keep bringing that stuff up, maybe record it for me to save your breath.”

“You… left.” I said, huffing oxygen.

“And I came back when you needed me.” He reached down to help me up, “Doesn’t that count for something?”

I smacked his hand away and stood by myself, dusting dirt from my jeans. “It… it says you can still change back.”

“Funny. That’s about what you said last time we were here.”

Confused by what he meant, I looked around. The trees seemed to me like any other trees, but then I realized the path, the way certain branches had been bent and broken. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t realized it before.

“We’re at the spot…” I said, “Where I last saw you.”

“Thought it would be a good hiding place.” He said and approached a densely branched section. I followed close behind.

“We’re going to hide?”

“No. I just needed to hide this.” He pulled away some branches that were piled on top of something in the ground. He revealed a headlight, and soon another on the other end of a chrome grill. Carefully, he took the branches off one by one until the whole thing was revealed. From the front, it seemed like an ordinary car. Some type of Ferrari model, though I couldn’t tell what. Its sleek paint job faded from orange to red to purple like a neon sunset and led my eye to the driver’s seat which was encapsulated by a large metal hull. From there, the machine was space-age. It seemed grafted onto a fighter jet, with huge engines on the back and two dangerous looking cannons on either side. I could tell that it was hiding something beneath the chassis, as metal sought to cover it entirely from front to back. The wheels sat two in each hubcap instead of one. Despite the bizarre look, I could see the interior was much like any other car though slightly more spacious and with seemingly more buttons on the dash. A little paper tree hung from the rearview mirror to tie it all together. Lucas stood in front of it and proudly flourished.

“Ta-da! The Cruiser!”

“That’s what you named it?” I said.

“Trans-mobile seemed a little on the nose.” He hopped in the driver’s seat and fiddled with something beneath the wheel. After a moment the headlights burst on as it came to life with engines almost as loud as Zwendel’s. He whooped and hollered, “Hell yeah! Lissen’ to that baby purr!”

I wanted to insult it, truly I did, but the only thing I could think was that it was definitely something Lucas would have liked. I shook my head, “so you want me to fly in that?”

“Yup!  you’re shotgun. Maybe later I can teach you how to drive one of these.”

“There’s not going to be a later.”

“What do you mean?”

I sighed, “This isn’t a game, Lucas, there’s too much at stake and you’re treating this like it’s every day for you.”

“Kinda is, but you’ll get used to it.”

“No. No I’m not going to, we’re going to find whoever has been impersonating me and then we’re both coming back.”

I walked over to the passenger side but didn’t get in. He shot out from his side and leaned over the hood, “Uh no. No I’m not coming back.”

“Well then I’m not going.”

“Matt you have to come.”

“No I don’t.” I said, “you know all this space stuff better than I do, why should I come with you? I don’t even know you anymore, for Christ’s sakes you think you have tits!”

“You have to be kidding me. You’re at the doorstep to the stars right now and you’re refusing to go because I’m a C-cup.”

“You just got here, and you’re already firing off into space without the slightest hint of remorse? Of regret?”

“Probably because I don’t have any.”

My arms shot up in the air, “Then why did you come back for me?”

“Because Earth is my responsibility.”

“What?”

A coyote moaned in the distance, “I’m from Earth, I represent it, I should be the one to handle things when shit goes crazy.”

“Bullshit.” I slammed the hood, which he clearly didn’t like but I didn’t care, “If that were true you would live down here. You came back because I was in trouble, yes, but you’re not going to come back for good?”

“I don’t have a reason to! Trust me, when you see it you’ll understand. There’s a whole galaxy out there, Matt! There’s so much to do and to see, you’re going to love it! Oh my God I have to take you to this bar I know about. The drinks are a little pricey, but so good and- oh my God the dance floor!”

“Bar? Dancing? Listen to yourself you sound like- like-”

“Like I’m alive?”

“What about your mom?” I said, and he clammed up. I struck a nerve, and I decided to keep striking, “did you know she calls me, Lucas? Every year. Just to see if I know anything about you. And every year, I’ve found it harder and harder to say I did. I don’t know anything about you anymore. You’re talking about things I can’t even understand. How am I supposed to call you my friend if you’re not here? How is she supposed to love you if she can’t see you?”

Lucas took a moment. He smacked his lips, “alright, look, let’s make our own little wager. You come with me. I help you clear your name, get Earth off their radar, what do you want from that?”

“You come back for good.” I said faster than I wanted. “See your mom, see all the hurt you caused her. Tell her who you are.”

He took another moment, “I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“I have too much going on up there Matt, I- I can’t just leave!”

“Funny, the choice was so easy for you before.”

“That’s not- you’re not being- Matt I-”

I reached my hand across the hood for a shake, “Do it. Or Earth is doomed.”

Lucas took a deep breath, twisting his face in annoyed contemplation. He took my hand. “Fine. But only because by the time we’re done, you won’t want me back.”

We shook and our hands knocked against the hood. Lucas leaned back inside the car, “now get in before you ruin my ride.”

I took a last look at everything around me. Maybe I was trying to hardcode what Earth was in my brain, what was at stake. I settled myself into the car and fastened my seatbelt. From inside, I could tell this thing was way different. For one, there were only three seats that were suspended above a carpeted floor by ergonomic arms. Lucas moved his seat around the dimly lit cockpit and pressed a series of purple and blue buttons. The radio on the dash crackled to life and a faint synth-laden melody came out of the surrounding speakers. It was a smooth beat, and Lucas was humming along.

“Oh I love this part! Doo-wee-doo-doo. Come on Matt, sing along. Don’t worry if you’ve never heard it before, it’s synthwave. It all sounds the same- ah you’ll pick it up.”

He returned to the wheel which, despite the fancy equipment around it, still looked like a regular steering wheel. The odometer looked like it was straight from the seventies and there were even pedals at the floorboard that were just standard car pedals. As he set things up, I couldn’t believe how cheerful he was being, we had just fought hadn’t we? How come he wasn’t stewing about the talk, taking apart every little piece of it and analyzing it back and forth until he understood every possible nuance the conversation had? That’s certainly what I was doing at that moment, anyway.

“Right then, up and out.” He flipped a few more buttons and slammed on the pedal. My guts were doing flips as the Cruiser lifted up off the ground. I could see the faint hint of the wheels extending out as it sailed up and up and up aimed directly at the moon. I looked back out the window, amazed to see the ground get so far away in such a short amount of time. First I was looking at the trees, then the lights of Sapulpa and Tulsa, then the entire state, then the edges of the United States on the horizon, then the seas, the edges of South America, and soon I was looking forward as we blazed past the atmosphere and found ourselves staring directly at the pitch black of space.

“Holy shit.” I said, “we’re in space.”

“Yeah.” Lucas said. He reached across the dash and flipped open a glove compartment. “Puke bags are there.”

“I don’t need-” My stomach gurgled, “Give me those.”

I took one and Lucas laughed, “you know something Matt? You really haven’t changed.”

I held the bag over my mouth just in case, “is that good or bad?” I said.

“Guess we’ll find out.”

He flicked a few levers on the dash and the ship seemed to pick up speed. Soon we were blazing past the moon at a speed I wasn’t sure was possible. It wasn’t hyperspace, but it was definitely faster than any spaceship Earth had developed. The puke bag became my closest friend as we began our journey.