My mind wanders more than it should, yet, I'm grateful to remember most things, especially what came next.
I hadn't slept, not really, although I felt groggy. The drinks played some part in it, but the kinked feeling had stolen over the entire day.
Where am I?
I shivered, ass down on the dank floor, surrounded by dark walls and not much else.
Immediately, I rationalized my nude mystery:
1. I'd passed out, pissed myself, and de-robed
Or
2. Some guy plied me with more drinks, we slogged, and the douche left me in a closet
Or
3. I was dead, and in a waiting room in the after-life.
The last thought wrought new goosebumps. I'd pulled some crazy stunts in high school, but this topped it all. Harrison was probably worried sick.
No, Harrison was in trouble, and he needed help.
The image of his slack face washed over me.
I buried it. Had to if I was going to figure out what the hell was going on. Clothes. I needed clothes before anything else. Unfortunately, the room had nothing but four dark walls. I clutched at my collarbone, a weird habit of mine, and stood.
Slowly, I approached the wall, reaching out. Underneath my fingers, I traced patterns onto the clay surface. Wall to wall, I groped for a doorknob, and found none.
My breathing picked up, and despite the cold, I began to sweat. No doorknob. Where the hell was I? I kept pawing at the walls, and suddenly came across a smooth spot. A white panel lit up, I pressed my palm against it, and the wall fell away.
Okay.
After a peek, I ventured out of my little closet, feet slapping on the floor. No one yelled out, no one laughed, no one stopped me. I was alone in a sparse space. I'd never seen a room quite like it before. White lacquered walls, blending to meet the white floor. Every part of the room flowed into the other. There were no angles to speak of, only curves. Further out, a viewing area spanned for about twenty feet, showing off a velvet sky set against an array of stars.
I was in outer space.
"Harrison?" Panic lit my voice.
The unbalance that had plagued me the entire day was gone, replaced by terror. My mind was unhinged and beaming in hallucinations. I shook my head, rubbed my eyes, and pinched my arm. Nothing disarmed the spell. I was trapped here, where ever here was.
"But it's so good you're here."
At the voice, goosebumps prickled my skin yet again. It was humanish, but belonged to a shiny figure, as white as the room. It was very clearly a robot.
"Is Harrison okay?"
The probability that I would see my brother was slipping from me.
"I'm not sure who that is, but without you, the mission would've failed," the bot said.
Brow-knotted, I skipped over much of what it said, instead focused on simple answers. "If my brother's not here, where is he?"
"Your brother," the chilling voice rolled the words around as though fascinated by them, "is not anywhere, because you're not supposed to be here."
The white walls, which had painted the illusion of an endless open cavern, now closed in. I couldn't breathe. Nothing made sense.
"What?" I backed away, closer to the bay window, not seeing any other exit available.
"All the other passengers expired in their dura-chambers, and you're not on the manifest. The only way you could've arrived is through a time anomaly."
I understood half of what was said. My brain jumped on the phrases passengers expired and time anomaly.
Head spinning, I tried to absorb my situation.
Don't pass out. Don't pass out.
I passed out.
~*~
"...Nearly there."
Fragments of a memory. Or a conversation.
"Almost out of time."
The robot's voice twisted my gut, and fleetingly, I thought,
The uncanny valley.
I tossed and turned, a stiff material scratching against my skin. I wore clothes, if that's what the papery concoction could be called.
In the midst of half-sleep, I heard the robot continue:
"We're a few rotations out from the drop point. Only a biological signature can release the flume. I suppose it acts as a safeguard against mechanical failures, which is ironic, isn't it?" The bot didn't sound bitter, merely thoughtful.
By then, I was fully awake, laying on my side, tears coating my face.
What do I---
An echo hit me, like words I'd already spoken. I grated them out:
"What do I need to do?"
"I'll show you," the bot said.
~*~
Within a few hours, I was familiar with the controls. While passing the targeted area, I'd release the flume, ensuring a millennia of knowledge and life would populate the next inhabitable planet.
Even if I was completely bonkers, I was intent on seeing the mission through.
Seeing row after row of ashen faces had made my decision for me. The bot led me by the deceased passengers, floating in the dura-chambers, the result of sabotage.
"A crew member experienced terrible night terrors while slumbering," the bot explained, "and became convinced he had to end the mission prematurely. He flooded all the chambers with a pathogen, and then did this."
Ribbons of crimson trailed out from around a curved corner. We paused the tour, and inside an alcove was the saboteur, knife where his throat used to be. I wondered what sort of dreams had driven him to mass murder. Hunkered down, I examined his body, nothing more than a pile of bones.
He looked nothing like him, but I couldn't help thinking of Harrison. Tears slid down my face, and I didn't care.
There wasn't anything to say, and so I kept quiet.
The ship was special, one of the first of its kind, able to travel across galaxies in a few years. The navigation controls no longer worked, compliments of the crazy man. As the course had been set centuries before, the bot informed me that we neared the outer reaches of space.
"Isn't space infinite?"
"One would think," the bot said.
With my limited knowledge of theory, I was unprepared to argue. Plus, without Harrison, arguing felt wrong.
Soon, I'd be gone, just like the crazy man, and like my brother.
~*~
The day of the mission came and went.
When my hand depressed on the control panel, releasing the flume, nothing felt better. Or worse. The bot assured me I had carried out a great duty, ensuring continuity.
In the next breath(not that it breathed), it reminded me that in one rotation, we'd arrive at the edge. Time and space folded there, the bot told me, and there was no theory to explain what might happen.
I was ready.
Ahead, an expanse of light lit up the dark void. I stared from the viewing area, still disbelieving of what my life had become.
The bot watched with me, lucite hand resting on the clear polycarbon.
"Will it hurt?" I asked.
"Who's to say?"
When our ship merged with the light, I woke up on a tile floor.
I'd wobbled over this floor enough times to know where I was.
Bar None.
~*~
I ran, naked once more, and screaming for Harrison.
Running lights twinkled on the bar counter, but it was dim everywhere else. My brother wasn't around, nor was anyone else.
In the employee lockers, I found some torn pants, a long sleeve shirt, boots, and a dirty baseball cap. For a good while, I stared at it. I knew now when I was, and what else I had to do.
After dressing, I headed outside. Clomping along in a stranger's boots felt funny, but familiar. Finally, I collapsed against the side of a building, smiling slightly at the store name across the street, Jay's Lays.
Then I closed my eyes, and waited.
THE END