Winner of the SciFi Holiday Contest -- June/July 2020.
General prompt: Innovation
Story specific prompt: "By putting forward the hands of the clock you shall not advance the hour." -- Victor Hugo
***
I remember the first time I woke up, it felt like I was drowning. I remember finding it amusing, a different sensation that provided relief from the persistent drone of agony. Then, the fluids drained and I saw my body reflected off the glass of my chamber. They had used a special type of fluid for me, but I couldn't help but feel that they had gotten it wrong. My itches started again; the phantom bugs making their rounds. I scanned my waking mind for memories of my medicine. It did little to soothe the torment, but knowing where it was helped my return to an unforgiving lucidity.
It took a while for all forty of us to wake. The ship's A.I. pilot gave us the same briefing it did a ship's year ago, right there in orbit. A medical liaison from Earth, now fifty years ahead of us, will contact us in designated rooms and brief us on the situation down below. She'll have our file so she'll know why we went on this trip in the first place. The most important piece of information she will give us is whether or not we have to go for another one. I have my doubts that any of my fellow passengers would want to know any more than that. I think many of them, like me, wouldn't hesitate to use all three allowed trips to achieve their singular goal.
"Good Afternoon, Mr. Chan. I'm Dr. Janet Arbaury, Medical Director of the Cure Chaser Program. How was your trip around the black hole?"
I had my mental defenses up when I saw the lady on the screen, and for a while, I lowered it. She was wearing a gray turtleneck and had her auburn hair tied in a neat ponytail. I did not see a doctor's coat or a stethoscope draped around her neck. That was a positive in my book; too many of those wielding a tool for the heart had told me that I had problems with my head. No doubt I wanted to be hopeful; it would be pointless being on this ship otherwise.
"I'm afraid there's still no cure, Mr. Chan," the smile she had worn was gone faster than she had donned it. "There just hasn't been enough research interest in your condition."
"Even after fifty years?"
I wasn't sure why I tried to hide the disappointment in my voice, but it was hard to do with borderline despair in the mix. Dr. Arbaury turned her gaze downward for a moment, the blue in her eyes showing a tinge of darkness.
"You must understand, Mr. Chan, that when you left, not many doctors took your condition seriously. The lack of clear physical signs and the reports of non-existent insects made it difficult to believe it was anything more than just delusions. Even right now, only about sixty percent of researchers acknowledge its authenticity."
"Oh, so more people think it's real now?" I could feel my own eyes widening-up.
"Yes. The consensus at this point is that it's some type of genetic skin disorder. There are people looking into this, though not many. Do you know of any relatives with similar symptoms?"
I looked away from the screen, showing my palm to demand a pause. It was so irritating, having to hear this again.
"Before I got on this ship, Dr. Montgomery from Princeton told me that very same thing and that he would look into it, " I said as I jammed a finger at the web-cam. "Has he really done nothing?!"
There was a display shelf above where Dr. Arbaury was sitting, showing all her certificates and awards behind a glass cover. It seemed to be facing a window, the view outside projected onto it as a faint reflection. I could see some kind of megastructure, large shadowy shapes stacked on more large shadowy shapes. I wondered if she had chosen this scene as her backdrop, to serve as a reminder to calling patients who think they can shout their way into getting what they want. Aside from that first look downwards, she had not broken eye contact with her web-cam.
"I'm not aware of any Dr. Montgometry from Princeton back then. If that is what he said, he had not made any follow-up reports."
I couldn't help but wonder if it was because I had gotten tired of waiting and decided to climb aboard this ship. I was pretty sure I had left him enough skin and tissue samples to work with. Well, he's a thing of the past now. I had no energy left to feel anything for him, not even after a year of sleep.
"Alright, fine. What do you think is the likelihood that a cure's found in the next fifty years?"
"It's difficult to say. There aren't a lot of subjects available for study. I would advise that you come back to Earth so that we can take a look at you again... Excuse me."
There was a noise that seemed to be coming from outside her window, like a person yelling on a megaphone. It was impossible to catch all that they were saying, but I did get the words 'Eurasian Bloc' and 'Aggression'. Dr. Arbaury got up from her chair to close her window, the shadowy megastructure vanishing off her display shelf as she did so.
"The Eurasian Bloc? Is there going to be another war?" I asked once she had returned.
"Hopefully not. Our leaders are trying to quell the situation peacefully, though some hardliners are hoping for a more aggressive stance. Anyway, I think you should come back to Earth or at least leave us some samples to work with. Give us another data point so we can help you more effectively! I promise you will be taken seriously this time."
I would be a data point. I remember those from science class; the insect with the larger thorax and the fish with the brighter scales. The promise of being taken seriously had been given to me by no less than five professionals, one of them being Dr. Montgomery. I know all too well about being the anomaly. It was much easier to write me off as an explainable error than find the explanation.
"I'll send down some skin and tissue to work with. I won't be writhing in agony any more than is necessary. "
Back in the dining hall, there was a cacophony of piercing cries and rambunctious yells. I was greeted with a scene of pure jubilation; people were hugging, laughing, kissing, and crying.
"They've cured cancer!" yelled a woman as I walked in.
That was the reason why nearly eighty percent of us went on this trip. I was going to get a new set of shipmates the next day, probably a smaller batch as well.
What the heck. It may have been only one ship year, and we had spent most of it asleep, but we did all embark on a journey of hope together. I decided to be happy for them, maybe share some smiles, and wish them the best in this new world. I had really wanted to stay for the cake, but my itches had begun acting up again. The explosion of insect bites and electric shocks through my body made it feel like my nerves were being ripped to shreds. I had to take my leave and my medicine as these people celebrated a new life with new friendships, ones that I would never be a part of.
It was time to move the clock forward, and roll my second die.
***
Even in the age of Faster-Than-Light speeds, cryonics has continued to elude us. The freezing of a live human body is a sure death sentence even on the best of days. Instead, we have induced hibernation; similar to cryonics but closer to sleep than death. It has the downside of a very limited run-time; just one year, and it doesn't halt the progress of the disease, only slow it. Fortunately, some scientists thought of combining this with time-dilation, and that was how the Cure Chaser program was born.
My second awakening experience was markedly different from the first. I didn't feel the drowning sensation, in fact, I didn't feel anything at all. I did not see my half-naked body in the glass, nor did I feel the ghostly parasites crawling under my skin. Instead, I was in my childhood bedroom; a disembodied consciousness observing a world I had ran away from. I saw a six-year-old version of myself sitting on my bed. My hands were clawing through my pajamas, and occasionally they would palm at my stomach and chest. I was trying to chase out the crawlies that were living in me, the ones that doctors told me weren't real. I watched as I slapped my thighs in frustration, a frown that was too old for me formed on my face. It was a dark feeling knowing that my condition would only get worse from here.
Younger me grabbed the dark-blue clock from the nightstand and started fiddling with the hands. I recognized this memory: New Year's Eve, 2159. I had just gotten a call from my Uncle in Singapore and after some awkward banter, he had said:
"You know, Toby. It's already 2160 over here."
My episodes last for about an hour, and my six-year-old mind had wanted to travel ahead to when the itching would stop. It was on that night that I learned: moving the hands forward does nothing.
The fluids were drained, and I saw my body again. I remembered where my medicine was, but that did little for my nerves. I wasn't sure if I was ready to take the call.
"That can't be possible... Dr. Arbaury?"
Those were the first words I said when I saw Dr. Janet Arbaury appear on the screen. I had not expected to see her again, much less to see her as she was fifty Earth years ago. She had the same blue eyes, the same auburn hair, not a wrinkle on her glowing face. The only difference was that she was now wearing a white cardigan over a yellow blouse. The megastructure was still reflected on the glass of her display shelf. It looked mostly the same except there may have been smaller squares added on top of the bigger ones. Bright specks were floating around a large spire, seemingly finding a place to land. They seemed too large to be drones. Flying cars? Guess that finally happened.
"I'm afraid I don't recall our previous conversation, but we've definitely spoken before. Hello, Mr. Chan. How was your trip around the black hole?"
Her voice also sounded the same. It didn't have the pitch that comes with aging vocal cords.
"I take it then, that eternal youth is now a thing?"
Dr. Arbaury stared blankly at me for a second, then upon realizing that I had been displaced from time, let out a small laugh, almost as if to appease me.
"Sub-epidermal nanobots," she explained. "They allow me to continue being the face of the times."
I cringed for several reasons. It seemed that the progress of the human race did not stamp out its desire for beautiful people. I wondered if there were a community of sparkling cyborgs living in gold-furnished houses at the foot of the megastructure. No, that would probably be for peasants. They'll more likely be living in the spire, sipping wine, and watching the cars fly by.
"Looks like medical science has come a very long way. I take it you have good news for me."
She answered me by picking up a small tablet and pushing her finger languidly along the screen. She may have the skin of a thirty-year-old, but her movements announced her true age.
"Mr. Chan, I'm afraid that there still is no cure for your condition. There just hasn't been enough interest in this and there's even less of it now. I'm sorry but I don't think there's much of a chance here."
Somehow I had been expecting this, and somehow I was still disappointed. I leaned forward towards the screen, resting my chin on interlaced hands while trying to come to terms with the hopelessness of the situation.
"May I ask why?"
Dr. Arbaury placed down her tablet and looked straight into her web-cam, and I could once again see the darkness around her blue eyes. This time, the darkness looked like a void, a microcosmic abyss showing the depth of her true age against a false face. She was tired, and I was a lot of effort.
"I'm sure you know there's a cure for cancer, yes? Well, the cure involved introducing an aggressive set of nanobots into the body to exterminate cancer cells. From there, many more extrapolated innovations have been made. Nanobots are now the answer to everything, including genetic manipulation."
The mention of that phrase perked me up. I had heard about it as a child, and I had been looking forward to the day that fixing my genes would fix my itches.
"Then there's also the discovery of a Universal Virus Code. In short, it's now possible to make people impervious to disease, meaning there is no more disease to cure. Except, of course, the ones nobody cares about."
"Hold on," I said. "Why not just put some of those gene-fixing nanobots in me?"
"They can only be safely introduced in children younger than ten. The chances of an older person surviving such a fundamental manipulation are about point one percent."
Once again, hope kicked me while I was down. Maybe I deserved it? What else could it be? Why else would the world be so cruel to me?
"There's another thing I think I should mention," she said on a long exhale. "We do have some new information regarding your condition. There have been two other documented cases of identical symptoms found in the past fifty years. Both subjects developed complications and passed away before they turned forty."
I was surprised to find tears in my eyes. I don't think I've cried since I was fifteen. I have always found it to be pointless, a privilege only for the visible.
Forty huh... That's not a lot longer.
"Why...why did I not know... about this?" I asked between sobs.
"There just hasn't been enough documentation. Others may have died before, but their deaths weren't thought to be related."
It was hard to sense sympathy through a screen, and as far as I could tell, Janet Arbaury remained stoic. Working in her field meant delivering bad news as clearly and objectively as possible. It meant working with distressed patients and panicky relatives. It must have been easier with me, separated by hundreds of miles of atmosphere, where I couldn't lunge at her from my seat.
Did she realize what she meant to those patients? Did she know that they see her as their beacon of hope? She was certainly my beacon of hope or at least a representation, but just like the world, she kept moving forward with only a mere glance in my direction.
I calmed my thoughts, wiping my tears with my ship-issued bathrobe. That wasn't fair to her; what was it that she could do? Why was I expecting sympathy from someone separated by time and space when it's already so hard to wring it from those in my life?
"Do you think... it'll be possible to change the genes of older people... within the next fifty years?" I asked, forcing the words out of my mouth.
"It might be possible, but I can't tell you how likely. Honestly, after my generation dies out, medical science might just come to an end, unless you count the medical science needed to deal with the casualties of a possible war with the Eurasian Bloc."
At that point, I had already made up my mind. It was now just pure tunnel vision, hearing only what I wanted to hear and justifying away everything else.
"I think I'm going on my last trip. I've got nothing left to lose."
There was a brief moment of silence between the two of us, as we both contemplated what I had just said. She must have understood that the Cure Chaser only carries desperate people, but was she expecting us to be backed that far into a corner?
"You have every right to, but I can't guarantee you'll like what you find. If you return now, we can give you something that might help with potential complications. Sub-epidermal nanobots can dull your itches as well. You won't even need to bother with medicine."
"There's really nothing more you can do? Aren't you the Medical Director or something?"
"Sorry, Mr. Chan. I can only advocate, I can't control interest," she said with icy professionalism.
Of course, they wouldn't put anyone with real responsibility on the other end. How else can you look a dying person in the eye and apologize in earnest?
"If you know anything about my condition, you'll know that I won't be comfortable with things crawling under my skin," I said, forcing myself to return to emotional coherence. "It's one more trip, I'll see it to the end."
Looking back, I realize I should have listened. The dream should have served as a reminder, a warning not to make the same mistake a third time. That was exactly what I did.
***
I think one of the biggest problems with the Cure Chaser program is the short amount of time they gave us to make life-altering choices. They may have thought that we would be making yes/no decisions based on whether a cure had been found, never realizing that 'maybes' were a possibility. We were given less than a day to decide our fate, and the only thing that felt real was the vastness outside our viewports.
My third awakening also began with a dream. In this dream, I was walking through a long hallway, carpeted with an array of fleur-de-lis woven into elegant threads. The doors on either side of the hallway were made with the deepest of woods. They were all simple doors, with knobs that shined with a luster that would mesmerize the staunchest stick in the mud. I remembered this place: the hallway leading up to my old therapist's office.
It was a door on the right side of the hallway, and it was very different from the others. It was not so much a door as it was a piece of wood hanging off its hinges. Insects, and creatures that are often mistaken as insects, were crawling in and out of cracks. The door swung open noiselessly as I approached it, causing some of the bugs to fall and vanish beneath the burgundy carpet. Though I dreaded what I would find, I felt compelled to look.
There was no room behind the door, just a floor with blue tiles leading towards abysmal darkness. Standing at the precipice of the darkness, like a choir preparing a performance was everyone that had walked through and left my life. I saw my parents, my eighth-grade teacher, my old bosses, my therapist, Dr. Montgomery, and Dr. Arbaury. They had blank faces on, shaking their heads in sync like an assembly of human metronomes. Each of them began uttering the words I had associated with them.
"All in your head...Grow up...Get a job...Be a man...They're not real...You're not sick...There's still no cure..."
"Stop!" I yelled.
They didn't stop. I turned away from the room and ran back down the hallway, where all the doors had transformed into rotting pieces of wood. I ran past replays of old arguments and fights, each set against the same dark void. I wasn't even sure why I was running; I had pushed these events into the recesses of my psyche. I wasn't supposed to feel anything for them...
But then why did I climb aboard this ship? Oh yes, of course... Because running was all I knew.
A giant centipede jumped at me from behind a door. There was some pain as I watched the world go dark.
I was not greeted with a wall of fluids, but with the smell of air that had been recycled a little too much. There was an unnatural hue to the smell, a hue that wasn't there before. I thought I must have still been dreaming, maybe an effect of being in hibernation this many times. I laid still in my chamber and waited for something to happen. Perhaps there would be the drowning sensation again, or I would be transported to another place in my darkest memories. I waited for what felt like an hour, then I waited some more. Nothing happened, just the slow monotone of strange reality.
Eventually, I decided to push open the glass of my chamber to see what was going on, only to find that it was heavier than I had remembered. I thought I had gotten weaker, or perhaps my strength still had not returned. I dropped back down several times as I tried to sit up, so I remained in the chamber, squeezing my fists to warm up my muscles. After several minutes, I realized I was already at my most able. This had nothing to do with what happened in hibernation. As I climbed out of my chamber and found the ground, I realized what it was.
The ship had an artificial gravity five percent lower than that of the Earth's. I was just that much heavier.
I began hobbling away from my chamber, towards the nearest viewing port. There was a purple mist filling up the next room, and the unnatural hue was stronger now. It was the hibernation fluids. I did not know much about its chemistry, but it was obvious that it had been burning. Through the resulting coughing fits, I pushed my way through the fog and found myself standing in front of another cryo-chamber, except this one was completely mangled. Soot-covered glass and metals were bent in odd proportions, and shards littered the floor. I saw the body of my shipmate, strewn carelessly over the ruins.
For the first time in my life, I felt grief. I wish I had gotten to know him just a little more, maybe ask for his name. Just like the people who had disembarked for the cancer cure, we were brethren in some way. There was nothing I could do for him, except to move on.
As I hobbled away from the corpse and limped through the ship's passages, my faculties started returning. I realized that I was heading towards the front of the ship, which had fortuitously landed upright. I passed more broken chambers and broken bodies, each more contorted than the last. Eventually, my deductive abilities came back, and I began putting together what had happened. The ship's hull was tough, designed to withstand the unforgiving cosmos. However, this toughness was not extended to whatever it was carrying. When the ship crashed, the impenetrable hull did not soften the blow, and the impact was transferred to its more delicate interiors. I was lucky that I was near the back of the ship; the damages my chamber took only served to spill the fluids and force an awakening.
I was greeted with a brilliant flash of blue as I peeked out the viewing port. It was a city, or what remained of a city. I could see a torn-up road littered with shattered vehicles, and a burnt-out building ripped from the fifth story up, like a weed pulled by novice hands. It took a while for my eyes to get used to the sunlight, but I was soon able to see the bodies. A few were in blackened vehicles, seemingly untouched by the fires that had consumed their ride. Others were lying on the sidewalk, better preserved than the groceries they were carrying. Clothes were tattered and burnt, but their wearers were otherwise in good, youthful shape. The whole scene looked like a city-wide party that had gone a little too wild.
Nanobots have become the answer to everything, except our darkest impulses.
Whatever happened must have happened a good while ago, for there was an oppressive calmness to everything, a silence so thick it was pressing on my ears. This was the world that had moved on without me, the peak of all its innovations and achievements, frozen and displayed for whoever cared to look.
I decided to probe the control panel for more answers. It was located even farther back than my chamber, so it survived mostly intact as well. The logs documented events over the past few months: the ship returned to Earth, did not find the space station or any backup signal, then hung around in geostationary orbit until atmospheric friction brought it to the ground. Nothing useful in any of that. I was about to search somewhere else when I saw the yellow flashing light on the communications panel. We had been briefed on the basic rundown of the ship, so I knew this meant that someone had sent us a recorded message.
Dr. Janet Arbaury was leaning against the back of her chair, clearly too tired to do otherwise. She still had the same face, eyes, and hair, but they appeared pasted on her like a costume. She was wearing a coarsely woven red sweater, likely hand-made by kin. The display shelf was still there, but it was now empty. That made it easier to see the megastructure, now with even more shapes and taller spires. Flying vehicles were whizzing about lazily, in a world where speed was no longer important. I looked at the date on the lower-right of the screen; it was recorded twenty Earth years ago.
"Hello, passengers of the Cure Chaser. I am Dr. Janet Arbaury, but I guess you already know that."
Her voice was now showing the pitch of aging vocal cords. Whatever she had previously done to those wasn't meant to last.
"I'm retiring tomorrow, and I don't know if I'll be alive when you return, so I'm recording this message for you and putting it on our archives. It should be sent to you once you've returned to orbit."
She paused, took a breath, and drank some water.
"It is as I've feared. Research into cures has stopped, and they're now only focusing on nanobots. By the time you get back, the Cure Chaser program will be terminated. I'm very sorry, but that's not all I want to tell you."
Another breath.
"I've made arrangements for all five of you. The company's pooled its remaining funds to buy a facility in Virginia, with state-of-the-art medical equipment, top-notch living conditions, and people who'll help you in any way. There'll be a shuttle to take you all there from orbit. I know it's not the cure you wanted, but it's really the best we can do. If I'm not around to see to this personally, then one of my children or grandchildren will. I've whipped them into pretty good shape so I'm sure you'll be pleased with their care!"
She laughed slightly and took one more breath, leaning forward against the forces of age as she did so.
"This next part of the message is for Toby Chan. I know how you feel about nanobots, but the latest models might enable you to live a normal, long life. We don't know for sure, but testing on another subject has shown rather promising results. I've left instructions for my successors so they should be ready to sort you out once you've reached the facility. I hope you'll be open to this."
She picked up something from the table that looked like a TV remote, but quickly put it down again.
"One last thing before I forget. For those of you with assets in the Eurasian Bloc, we've helped you extract what we could. You just need to sign the paperwork."
The video ended with a dark blue screen. I stared at it blankly, unsure of what to feel. As if to help me decide, the insects began to bite again.
It's been nearly an hour. I did not take my medicine this time. It's like... I have so many emotions at the moment that they're all jammed up. The hands have reached the ends of the clock, and there's nothing left to run towards or away from. The itch is the only thing that feels real, and right now, I don't want that to end.