The Mark V

Tunnel Vision

I open my eyes to no discernible difference from when they were closed. What time is it? Are the curtains shut? My back. My whole body actually, feels like I've been beaten to an inch of my life. I must have slept wrong. Something feels — off.

"Eve, lights please."

She doesn't respond. The power must be out.

"Eve?"

No answer. I slide my hand down to my side and feel a cold hardness beneath me. Where the hell am I?

"Hello?" I call out, hoping for someone to explain what's going on.

After a moment I hear something. A mumbling. Multiple voices.

"Hello?!" I call out, sputtering the end into a cough. My throat is a windswept desert.

For a moment, I consider the possibility that I've been blinded. The thought summons a cascade of fright riding on the back of an adrenaline surge. How is my life going to be now? And then, just as fast as the fear arrived it disappears with emergence of a light. I can see it coming from a distance. I'm in some kind of tunnel. A car crash? The light gets close enough for me to recognize it as fire. The smoke is visceral now, invading my nostrils in the thick aroma of burnt cedar, further drying out my already desiccated lungs.

A man approaches with the shadows of two others in tow. He's filthy. No, it's not dirt but warpaint. Like a National Geographic image of some lost Amazonian tribe. The flame flickers glimpses of animal skins and bird feathers. I've been abducted by some kind of psycho playing dress up.

"Prepare yourself" I mumble. But then the others come out from behind him. A young girl and boy. They look as he does, skins hanging from their necks with streaks of black under their eyes. Matted rolls of hair are pushed behind their ears as they come near.

"Uncle, you slept so long. We missed you!"
Uncle? The man pulls them aside and whispers something in their ears before they run back down the stone-walled tunnel. No, not a tunnel at all. A cave.

"You took quite a fall there. We weren't sure if you'd ever come back to us."

"Fall?"

It becomes apparent to me the moment I finish the word. He's not speaking English. I'm — not speaking English.

What is this? What do I remember last? I was at the lab. It was Tuesday, the 25th. Yes. I remember finishing the build on the Mark V, compiling the last algorithm to test. Did I fire it up? I think so, but what came after?

The man sits at the edge of a nearby rock and the stench of his body causes my nose to twitch.

"During the last hunt. The rain, like a lake on our heads. You remember? We were crossing horn mountain and then... then you were gone. Fell and rolled to the bottom. We found you next to the river."

"No, I -" how can I speak these words? "I — don't remember."

I understand these words. They are forming in my mind and at my lips the moment the sound leaves my mouth, but somehow they are not my own.

"How... long?"

"Nearly five suns."

Suns?

"What..." I'm afraid to ask. "What — year is it?"

"Ye-ear?"

The man tastes the syllables as if for the first time. Then I realize it's because he is. I don't know any other word for it. Perhaps it doesn't exist in their language.

"Take your time. When you feel better, come to eat. We've had a good hunt. We will save the largest leg for you. You will lead our hunt again. Your spear, and hopefully your feet, will be true once again."

The man smacked his right arm across his chest and bowed his head, then opened his palm while slowly raising it towards the rocky ceiling above. He placed the torch amongst a circle of stones before his shape slowly disappeared down the darkness of the cave.

The test. I did it — I remember now! The cores were aligned, the chiller was at a hair above absolute zero. It was functional. And then, and then...

the memory came back along with an image that sent shivers down my spine. Something had appeared. No more than a few inches in diameter. A sort of tear in space. A black hole that absorbed the ambient light around it. Hovering. Silent and still in the air next to the machine.

I had reached out. Had felt the power near my fingertips. Felt the energy surround my body and encompass me in the warm embrace of that sound. The tones were rising in my mind. I could almost hear them again. Like beautiful sirens on the rocks calling to lonely ships at sea, a song more lovely than anything else. Tears streamed from the corners of my eyes as a tingling started again at the base of my spine, sliding up between my shoulder blades. My synapses backstroked through a cocktail of endorphins and pure bliss as the tones rose higher and higher. Higher into my eardrums. Vibrating a sympathetic frequency of my skull. My body. My everyth..."

And then nothing.

A light breeze from the window. The soft caress of the finest Egyptian cotton between my fingertips. Wherever I had been, I was home now.

"Good morning. The temperature is 72 degrees with sunny skies all day."

Eve's voice was comforting, but what I had experienced had not been a dream. I was sure of it. The smell of the smoke was still with me, but fading with every passing moment. It was more real than any dream I had ever experienced. No, something had happened to me.

"Your transport will arrive in one hour, twenty-three minutes."

My head is spinning. I'm not sure where I've been. Even who I am. That person. That body. Those words. Everything was still nearby in my psyche.

"Schedule," I eventually say, falling back into my morning pattern.

"Tuesday, September 25th. Only one item on your agenda today 'complete testing of Mark V quantum drive'