Where. When. The meanings of these words have changed alot for me throughout my survival.
But for all my travels and adventures, this “place” I find myself “in” now, brings the old feeling of the word “where” right back home.
And I also — somehow — can tell that I’ve been here for a while. A long while.
Pardon the expression.
I’m not sure how I got here. But I remember things about this place.
Ok, ok. The concept of “memory” is also kiiiiiiind of screwed up for me at this point, too. The two are related, after all, aren’t they? Memory, by definition, is the storage of information to be retrieved when needed.
Whatever. I had “stored information” on this place.
Ugh. “Place.” That’s another term that I’m probably going to need to mull over a bit before I tell this story. The “space” between where I last remember being and “here” — pardon the expression — is pretty damn vast. You see, where I come from, some folks said that “time” is unique. That the rest of the universe doesn’t experience time as linear. Do you get that? If not, I don’t know what to tell you. But believe me, it’s a very popular thought experiment back home. What you might call a paradigm shift. They talk about it alot. It’s important.
You know what? Who the hell said I’m not allowed to use layspeak anymore?
I had been doing a big battle with a huge, impossible-to-beat, inter dimensional leviathan-class bad guy and I used latent superpowers that I have because I’m apparently the space messiah to clobber him so hard that it blew both of us a million bajillion light years away from all my friends and everything else I cared about in the universe and I’m now somehow sitting face to face with an alien robot.
You get that, right?
My friends had warned me not to do it. I can’t remember exactly what they said. I was “too powerful,” something like that. And they weren’t trying to flatter me. But I acted like they were.
And yet, at the time, even a small part of me knew they were probably right. That I hadn’t really thought this through.
But I gotta do my thing, so I did. It’s just my style.
I hoped there was a chance that something cool like this would happen, that I would jettison myself into the void and wake up smarter. And stronger. And it’s beginning to look like that’s what’s happening here.
But I didn’t realize how much I would miss my friends.
Whatever. More on that later.
“You are exceptional”
Very flattering. Thanks. Fucking alien robots…
“What am I doing here?” I ask. “Who are you? What are you?”
“Many of your questions cannot be answered.”
I know what that means. It’s a robot. It wants me to ask the “right” questions. But, hang on. “Who are you” is no good? Really? It’s about as basic as I can get.
And then it dawns on me, the aeons-old adage that you kind of have to be careful what you say to robots sometimes.
Break it down a little, Tanta.
“…are you aware of yourself,” I ask?
“No, I’m not.”
Okay. Now we’re getting somewhere!
For those of you who don’t have alot of conversations with space robots, or aren’t constantly finding themselves in an obviously artificial corridor stationed in some cosmic vaccuum-laden wasteland to which they have no memory of traveling… hearing a robot give a clear answer to an existential question, that’s not a bad sign. If you know what to say, you can learn alot. And maybe even get out of the place you’re in and into some other place that will offer a better chance of not being trapped inside an undiscoverable pocket dimension for all of eternity.
Robots can be a pain in the ass to deal with, but you can almost always believe them. You just have to be sure to assert yourself.
“Well,” I say, “I’m aware of myself. I’m sentient. I’m a human.” For the record, that last part isn’t entirely true. But it’s true enough. Or, at least, it must be. Because as I hear myself speak, I’m beginning to “remember” how I’d gotten here.
Pardon the expression.
No, I’d heard legends of this kind of thing happening to others like me. I had been “caught.” In, like, a net. It’s a metaphor. This room, this — rig, let’s call it — had been modeled for just this purpose. To catch an overly ambitious space traveler who found themself in just the right “place” at just the right “time” to remotely facilitate first-contact with an intelligent alien species.
Or, at the very least, it’s clear that that’s what it wants me to think.
I know I sound paranoid. I’m not. Just hang in there for a sec, okay?
Anyway, back to me and the space robot. You can probably imagine where it goes from here. Trial-and-error binary questions. This might take a while. On the plus side, I’m immortal. I got all the time in the universe.
On the down side, in too much time, my friends back home might be dead. If they’re not dead already. But for the moment, I have to say, this is one of the most stimulating conversations I remember having in a long time.
Pardon the expression.
“Do you know what brought you here? Was it your science, or was it something else?”
“What’s the difference to you, pal?” I say.
“None. But the query is purposed specifically for you.”
Oookkaaayy, that’s an interesting thing for a robot to say…
“Well, I can’t quite explain it,” I say. “So I can’t vouch for science.”
“You can explain it.”
It’s right. I used meditation. To perform faster-than-light travel. It was fucking badass. But I feel like…not saying that right now. Don’t ask me why.
You can always believe robots. But you can’t always trust them. So I don’t wanna show all my cards just yet.
“I just focused real hard and I did it,” I say.
“You are exceptional.”
Why does it keep saying that? Sounds like something my friends would have said. Or something they did say when I was trying to shut them out.
I really wish they were here to see this.
I can tell I’m losing track of time. Don’t ask me how. I just know. Time’s not running out for me, but it is for the others.
Pardon the expression.
I gotta face the music. If my friends aren’t dead, they’re frozen in time. It had always been unlikely that I wouldn’t have outlived them. By, like, alot.
But I missed them. And I really hoped that somehow they weren’t dead.
Hang on, I think the space robot’s going to flatter me again!
“Just one of your souls is a true, uninterrupted totality unto itself. What a spectacular incident your existence must be.”
Holy shit. What is that? I know that. Like, I know what she means. I’ve heard it before. Right? Haven’t I? What the hell is going on here? Maybe time isn’t the only thing I’m losing track of. A magic space robot wouldn’t say something like that to just any alien creature. Aliens are scum. That’s fucking human shit that she just said to me.
Shit that I missed about my old friends. Shit that I barely ever gave a second thought to.
In spite of all the love I had been given, I always told anybody who ever said that crap to me to go fuck themselves. I must be really damn lucky. Because I’m realizing now that, deep down inside, I always knew it was true. That I was special. And I never admitted it.
Now I really, really hope my friends aren’t dead.
“I have to get back,” I say.
“Then what are you doing here?”
“I don’t know how to get out.”
She stalls. She hasn’t done that yet. Not when I wanted an answer out of her.
Oh, by the way, it’s a she. She’s using a woman’s voice. I mean, she sounds like a woman. She’s not quite a robot, and she’s not quite sentient. But now I feel like she’s really speaking to me. She’s saying some pretty damn human things to me.
This changes everything. This robot lady — she’d known other humans. Somehow. She hadn’t been built by humans, I don’t think. But whoever, whatever had built her, had met one. At least.
Maybe I’d just been hanging out in the wrong places. The wrong states. I’ve slaughtered some pretty ugly creatures in this universe. I’d done that because I wanted to get away from humans. But I’d met some really good ones. And if I can prove it here, I might be able to be with them again.
If there’s the smallest chance, I’ll take it. No matter how much time it takes.
Pardon the expression.
