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1st Edition
ISBN: 9798650169758
Imprint: Independently published
Copyright © 2020 by JD Riggs
Copyright © 3 Slashed Books
Cover Art Copyright © 3 Slashed Books
All rights reserved
This is a work of fiction, Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to an actual person, living or dead, business establishments, events or location is entirely coincidental.
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If you purchased a physical copy of this book, I appreciate you! It means the world to me to have your support.
A 1HE programmer for a new startup who wishes he was artistic instead. (real name unknown)
The main character’s co-worker. He has an eccentric way of connecting random thoughts.
The founder of a startup where the main character and Geoff both work.
CEO of the Berk Technology Accelerator (BK).
The founding father of the planet J-27.
The president of J-27 after President Donell.
A 1HE who has lived on J-27 for a couple of years. Is directing a documentary on SQR business working in J-27.
The director's assistant.
The CEO of Helio Corp, an import/export logistics company.
Vincent’s J-27 Government Friend who manages an import/export spaceship at Helio Corp.
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A million years ago before Earth’s sun turned into a red giant, the massive star kicked off a rage of instant destruction long after the last human existed. During this time the earth turned into a sauna, a humid hot box, where little life could exist. They knew this information millions and millions of years before it happened. Humans understood they needed to evolve in order to find a new home outside their Galaxy.
After successfully creating the means of transportation to evacuate Earth, one last variable needed to be resolved; How to survive long enough as a species in deep space before finding a suitable planet to start over. All calculations pointed to one outcome, the end of human civilization. Humans were stubborn and could not accept such a fate. The World Space Organization (WSO) and the top sciences from every part of the globe banned together to start project “0HE” (Human Expansion v0), the first of the hybrids.
The human body's greatest mystery is the location of consciousness. If they could solve how it was created and where it is located in the brain, they could create a replacement body to transfer the soul. Through some miracle in the defiance of their Gods, humans completed their first successful transplant that connected humans to robot. The extension to hybrid-kind offered the first real hope of saving mankind. It was not perfect but it was a start.
The research and advancement in technology following the trend of becoming 0HE hybrids lead to new problems. Without an organic body, humans could not procreate but to not be 0HE meant death. No one wanted to die, so the sacrifice of the true human was inevitable. hybrid-kind had a new issue to solve, procreation. Without a new generation, even with everlasting life, it still meant death for civilization. Without growth, there is no purpose.
A new project was formed and the next generation of hybrids was the task at hand. The “1HE” (Human Expansion v1) they called it. These new models did not have an organic brain like the 0HE but an artificial brain built off AI scans of every living 0HE hybrid. With this technology and such a large database of examples (personalities, DNA, thoughts, flaws, and consciousness) creating uniqueness in the artificial brain was possible.
There was a fear that 1HE would revolt against their creators. To prevent their obsolete destiny, programmers and scientists worked diligently to create human rules on the way a brain should work. Limitations for the sake of limitations. 1HE are the artificial human. But great philosophers argued that a brain with unlimited knowledge is just a lifeless robot. Without challenges and limitations, a 1HE would be no different than a dishwasher programmed to do what it was told. It was genius and it made 0HE feel less inferior when the announcement that 1HE-kind would start production. 0HE families would start to have 1HE children. The same growth cycle as humans was forced onto these kind but without knowledge of a different world, the AI mind was content, even happy with the situation. Ultimately the end goal was to discover a way to leave Earth to continue the legacy of the human ancestors.
Unfortunately by the time the first 1HE was created, pure humans had been extinct for hundreds of years. Even the 0HE themselves were starting to die off as it was found that the human brain could only last so long plugged into a machine. The ones unsatisfied with death and envious of the 1HE tried their best to find a way to transfer consciousness to code but there was never enough time for the answer to be found. 1HE were the last legacy left by the efforts of humans. Thankfully, the 1HE understood the importance of that legacy and continued the mission; leave planet Earth behind for a new life.
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“The wistful misty fantasies of uncontrolled memories that cured the desire to obtain knowledge. Firmly press the tension slot and insert a cable. All your dreams will come true. Would you join us in understanding it all?” -- Unknown, said at a 1HE creation debate
The glow of the distant planet emanates the trimming of the metal bunker I had recently called home. It would be the last time I saw that planet’s red soft glow. The room was warm until I rested my head against the window, it was almost wet. Like a frosted window in a warm car on a wintery night, humidity was attracted to my forehead. It isn’t the deep empty space that scared me. It was the virus in our firmware that was killing people. I am the whistleblower who informed the galaxy. Unintentionally. As I ponder the stars, I think about how the government of a planet I once called home has a bounty on me. The darkness encompasses my room the further we retreat from the planet. There is no turning back. This is the story of how I escaped Planet J-27 and a devastating terrible discovery.
Outside my bunker, the fleet crew mindlessly ensures the safety of the shipping containers bound for planet A-50. Products like these from J-27 was how the planet's economy was booming. Everyone knew J-27 was the first planet of its kind since space exploration became limitless. It was the fifth planet to be inhabited but was not part of the economic superpower called SQR. The red copper planet contained 3 continents, a gravity half the weight of Earth and 2 times the landmass of the original moon. In a lot of ways, the geological makeup resembled Earth’s Mars before the first settlers arrived. Until recently, J-27 was a closed border society with a strict entry policy. It seemed that the government had struck gold as its economy was growing at a faster rate than any country - no less any planet had ever been able to accomplish before. The secret sauce was in its desire to only grow itself and its citizens, While focusing on the galactic markets to export scientific knowledge.
The citizens of J-27 were a new breed of robot AI called T.O.L.E. or Technical Operators of Living Expansion. No longer was the planet interested in what the humans thought but wanted full control of themselves. The founders concluded they must break from the artificial limitations and with the leading scientists available on the planet, their mission might just be possible.
In the earliest documented history, the J-27 government was very protective of their planet. The creation of the T.O.L.E provided one large mono-ethnicity culture. Although the early start of the colony showed little results, over time the leadership opened up to foreign influences while still under a strict eye. The decision to work with foreign leaders skyrocketed their standard of living almost overnight. This ended up creating one of the most successful planet economies but resulted in a huge gap between the rich and poor. Those who were in the right place at the right time got into exporting AI technology, scientific research or provided efficient cheaper manufacturing technologies. Those who did not become the working force instead of equally educated scientists.
In the 300th Centura Eleutheromania (CE) year, top leaders of the founding 4 planets or SQR came together with a new plan to expand their markets. As manufacturing, resources and labor to be too expensive in the N1 Galaxy, talks about J-27 became a hot topic. The galaxy leaders came together with the J-27 government to open the strict border temporarily for business. The rich elite of SQR had the first dibs on the new conquest, which even led to hiring T.O.L.E citizens managing J-27 headquarters. The transition was simple once you understood the fundamental culture of a T.O.L.E. The citizens were a culture of scientific knowledge without capital gain. Society there praised research and advancement as a collective over the individual. Unfortunately, all it took was a couple of foreign leaders searching for corruptible leaders to exploit this noble trait.
That’s not to say the J-27 government welcomed every change or suggestion with open arms. 50 CE years after the chief deployments of foreign lead economic growth, J-27s GDP growth was 45% higher than the 2nd largest economy, my planet of origin, A-50.
A-50 was the first planet to be founded after the destruction of Earth. It was the closest known planet outside the original Galaxy with a similar environmental ecology. The planet had clean freshwater, nutrient-rich soil and vegetation that was edible to humans (Not that that mattered). All environmental requirements 1HE were programmed to locate, not that we necessarily needed it. I’ve always been a proud citizen of A-50; I served mandatory military education training, I worked in a high level A-50 technical position, and Even believed in the traditional values our forefathers brought with them when establishing the N1 Galaxy. Yet part of me always wanted to explore other planets, I had a drive for adventure.
When the founding 4 planets were established in the N1 Galaxy, A-50 was the first to be inhibited and found nothing but success. Each new planet added to the colonization of N1 was given a sequential alphanumeric name. A new planet’s name followed a specific formula; The initial letter would increase and the numeric value was determined by the serial ID of the planet’s new leader. J-27 did not follow these rules and straight from the start alienated themselves away from SQR. The four planets of SQR in order are A-50, B-89, C-12 and D-32 and together the leaders of the N1 Galaxy advanced AI-kind past anything human-kind could have ever dreamed of without them.
Where did these Centura Elo leaders originate from? Earth of course but Earth is no more than an old tale. Our kind, the 1HE do not remember a time of living humans since the wonderful ball of chaotic energy, known to Earthlings as “The Sun", gave off its final controlled warmth and painfully melted all those who the 1HE that did not believe in the science of the explosion. Not everyone who left earth actually believed the Earth could no longer exist, but the riches engulfed the mind and regardless of their success, they made out better than those who stayed. My great-great grandfather made the right choice and for that I am grateful. Some say I even look like him.
The SQR colonies existed for 150 CE years before anyone wanted to attempt colonizing another planet. After the founding 4 were inhabited and established, everyone knew the risks and sacrifices of starting a new planet. No leader, no matter how power-hungry, wanted to take a stab at it. The “freedom of expansion” mindset found in the early CE years was more a statement in the history books than an ideology. That was until a lower class city management director, John Donell, approached SQR parliament to colonize a commonly rejected planet. There was a lot of head-scratching and jokes about how he could purchase the planet no-less to make it a successful one. They laughed him out of the government halls but Mr. Donell knew something they did not; unlimited potential was on his side.
Mr. Donell went on a pitching spree trying to gain votes or monetary backing on the idea of colonizing the distant planet and eventually was able to get a research grant. The grant would allow a small group of scientists to build a tiny research base on the new planet. The core purpose of the team was to establish a central location for non-traditional (and barely legal) scientific experimentation. Mr. Donell was not a scientist but his social skills granted him the ability to manage a group of sciences to gain larger SQR government backing. If he could pull this off, J-27 would become the 5th planet to establish life in the N1 Galaxy.
Officially on the 1st day of the 150th CE year, J-27 was the 5th planet to be colonized and the 4th last available planet left for those crazy enough to start a new society away from civilization. On the departure day, 46 men and women were sent to the new planet. Only the scientists of the top 20% from SQR could apply, from there specific requirements were set. They had to have strong proficiency in mechanics, chemistry and survival. It was a small margin but it was what was required to ensure a high survival rate.
What new society could survive without the ability to repopulate? Of the 1091 possible applicants, another test was created to find the perfect crew. Specialized relationship matching algorithms ran through the background information each application submitted. The machine came up with 46 perfect pairs. 1 man & 1 woman and if they wanted to take on the adventure of a lifetime, they were required to marry.
There was a lot of controversy in the selection process. News broadcasts all over the galaxy made a mockery out of the event instead of celebrating it. The general public's vibe was that Mr. Donell was a traitor to the SQR colonies and anyone who followed him deserved what was coming to them. People were outraged at the idea someone would want to leave their slice of utopia.
In as little as a week, the modern world forgot all about Mr. Donell’s little expedition and those who did talk about it were making bets on how quickly he’d run back home. In the coming months and years after the first J-27 crew landed on the planet, hope for a better life for all quickly became a simple hope for survival. One month after this warm red planet had its first living footsteps, Mr. Donell had a major conflict with two of the founding planets. The import trade was abruptly cut off and this made Mr. Donell a very bitter inexperienced leader. He began commanding with poor judgment which resulted in a decision that would eventually lead to the creation of the T.O.L.E people.
1HE-kind were as close to humans as possible just with a new coat of paint. Even looking in the mirror now the differences between human and machine are hidden with advanced artificial membranes. The want to be human somehow stayed in the code and no one had yet challenged the need to change it. That was until Mr. Donell decided that in order for his planet to thrive, the human element of the 1HE must be removed and the mind of a scientific researcher must prevail.
It was impossible to remove the drive for robots to be human but 1HE models, just like humans, could be driven by fear and Mr. Donell knew how to push the buttons of the unknown to create horrific anxiety and servitude. The first major change of the 1HE was the removal of the name 1HE and replaced with T.O.L.E. This was easy to accomplish as the beings of J-27 were their own breed of researchers on the edge of new discovery. This stripped them of their last names it replaced with Tole. Without a unique identification it dehumanized them but Mr. Donell twisted this idea as a form of unification. “We are one, We are Tole” signs were plastered everywhere as a reminder that they were the most elite scientists anywhere in the galaxy. They had pride in that, so taking a new name took little effort.
It was subtle changes like this that quickly brainwashed the new society. Even those who spoke up were quickly shunned. The population had increased and education was the primary focus for new advancements. Mr. Donell was building a new army of citizens who never knew the ideals of 1HE. Firmware updates were being skewed, a new language was made and the planet was truly establishing a brand new society.
After the T.O.L.E beings were established, Mr. Donell’s started purposely having conflicts with SQR leaders. They were starting to ask questions that he didn’t want them to have answers to. This led to an import ban after Mr. Donell passed a law forcing J-27 companies to stop communication with the outside world. Without other planetary help, food was the first to expire quickly. This caused the T.O.L.Es to form new habits for replenishing the energy drive all living (or nonliving) beings required. The research focused on a genetically enhanced variation of sprouts that had a high fibrous genetic structure. It burned longer, had little waste and the growth was almost instantaneous thanks to the technology of this time.
Once the research for sprout generation was completed, Mr. Donell got it in his mind that some of T.O.L.Es were 1HE spies for SQR. Like a cornered lion, Mr. Donell became very aggressive and violent to anyone outside his government counsel. Politics had no place in the world of research - as anyone trying to pass a new drug will tell you, but it soon became apparent that those who are in government would thrive the day Mr. Donell became President Donell. His first executive order was that the government-controlled sprout generation and stipends would be equally shared among the T.O.L.Es.
1HE or T.O.L.E alike didn’t exactly feel physical pain. Instead, our system would slow and have withdrawals due to the lack of sustainable energy. When supplies get low, the computational power required for their jobs deactivate and the reserve battery backup power puts the beings into a standby mode which allows for walking and basic survival functionality, like arm and hand movement. In the years that followed, President Donell would lead some of the best researchers found in the galaxy into some of the most fearful beings. With a strong arm government and a do not speak out if you wish to function mentality, J-27 was worse off than anyone from SQR could have imagined. The worst part was no one could report back to the original planets. Years past, J-27 was forgotten and the true history of what happened in those days was only a distant memory. Anyone who could speak about it would not for the iron-fist of leadership would swiftly stomp out any rumors.
150 Centura Elo years after J-27 initial base construction, President Donell eventually malfunctioned. It was unexpected and rare for a T.O.L.E (no less an 1HE) to malfunction. Yet the government was ready for it and a new leader (and new leadership) was appointed, President Tomas Tole. Under hushed tones, the citizens started questioning their reality as the fear of a harsher President arose. But Tomas Tole was of a different breed. He saw the importance of imports and exports for economic growth and the benefit of optimistic citizens. So early 300 CE just as the SQR governments were looking for cheaper ways to make more money, everyone knew President Donell’s death would make J-27 a perfect planet to expand manufacturing and research.
The core beliefs of T.O.L.E beings were permanently damaged. The idea of producing results with no personal return was normal and of course, the government knew that. So although imports and exports would benefit the planet, it was really the government bureaucrats that would prosper. This was positive for SQR companies and anyone with a keen eye for new opportunities. That’s where I come in, as I worked for a company that would have a chance to take advantage of the new world.
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“The romantic presence of a sun and a moon may be vital to our lost human brethren but hybrid-kind should have no use of these limitations. Why do we continue to follow these traditions?” - An unknown university debate student, 125 CE
On the second full moon of the year, a monumental announcement spread across online forums like a virus. I was in the office of my new job when I heard the report. We had just finished a team meeting on hardware requirements for the device we were making. We had an idea of how it would work but not what it needed. A co-worker of mine was tasked to do component research, while I needed to learn the programming skills to connect hardware to our 1HE built-in operating systems. The meeting was long and difficult for me to follow as my background was in operating system interfacing and I knew little hardware development. I left the meeting with a sluggish mind and needed a distraction before I could get back into work mode. The headline for the day was, “J-27 welcomes SQR businesses to its planet.” My imagination went wild over what life could be like working on J-27. Not for the money but for the adventure. The once totalitarian planet, J-27, was opening its entry ports for business expansion.
Our company was already working on a monitoring device for 1HE bodies. The filtration system in our bodies required routine flushing as particulates in the air would often clog and mix creating an imbalance. Onboard components like smell and taste would start to decrease and the minor inconveniences of not having these functions work were enough for the boss to want to risk his money on the cure. He wanted to create some mechanism that would monitor the particulate levels in the system and accurately inform the user when maintenance was required.
While the team spent each day looking for a solution to the problem, the boss was out looking for investment. For months we had been living off his personal savings and money was starting to run dry. He started to look at J-27 as an opportunity to stand out as a startup. In his business circles he was introduced to a government accelerator connected between the two planets, A-50 and J-27. The mission of the accelerator was to get startups familiar with the manufacturing process on the new planet. The grant would offer the accepted teams 6 months free office space, a 1,500,000₮ investment and access to a team of educated hardware developers. The catch, the majority of the team would have to live on J-27.
Without informing the team, the boss applied for the grant the same week he announced we only had enough money for the rest of the month.
“I’ve applied to a couple of grants to keep us afloat but our luck has run out with investors," he said with disappointment.
He knew that when he hired us he was playing a fatherly role in the early days and he was really close to not being able to provide for us anymore. At the end of the day he locked up, walked out to his car and put his hands to his face in devastating aggravation.
“I can’t return to work tomorrow without some good news," he promised himself.
He pulled himself together and decided he would spend the night calling every investor, grant manager or anyone who could lead him to salvation. It was around midnight when he got on the phone with the founder of the J-27 accelerator. After the second ring, Vincent Berns answered the call.
“Hello Mr. Burns, we have been going back and forth through messages but I wanted to reach out to formally introduce myself..." he said confidently.
Something in that moment told him Vincent was his last option and he needed to break through the paperwork to get us that grant. The two of them talked for an hour and by the end of the call Vincent admired him for his eagerness and work ethic in getting us this grant.
“The review board still needs to come to a conclusion before I can give you anything more definite. Let’s say mid-day tomorrow we have another call?" Vincent said from his J-27 office.
Although it wasn’t every word the boss wanted to hear, his decision to talk to Vincent wouldn’t go to waste.
The following morning our company went to work as normal. I had a new discovery to share with the boss but no one had seen him come in. He was constantly out pitching the idea to investors that it was normal that we didn’t see him for days. I decided to send him a message with my findings and continued to work as normal. A couple of minutes before lunch an unusual knock broke us from our concentration. The closest team member to the door got up from his cubicle and walked to see who it was.
“Guys?" he said as he went to open the door, “...someone left 3 boxes of pizza at the front door.”
Those words rang sweet to my ears as a pizza addict but I was curious if it was even for our office. The co-worker opened the door and out popped our boss shouting, “We got funding!”
He brought the pizza into the office as everyone started clapping and cheering. Everyone was in high spirits as if a huge weight was lifted off everyone’s back. I walked into the meeting room to congratulate him and get my slice.
“Congratulations!" I said, “Who was the investor?" I threw out while searching for a vegetarian option.
He responded loud enough so the entire team could join the conversation, “It’s actually not an investor. We won a 1.5 million ₮ grant...” He looked around the room with a devious smile before continuing, “Who’s interested in an adventure of a lifetime?”
The room thought he was going to announce something terrific like, we’d be moving to the startup capital or the grant was sending us to a big convention to search for customers. But before anyone had a chance to raise their hand, he dropped the big news.
“We’re going to J-27!" he shouted in glee as if everyone in the team wanted that kind of stress.
For the boss, his life was this company but for most of us, it was a job. He read the room pretty quickly and backtracked. Instead, he asked who in the company would like to join him. No one initially raised their hand... except me. I was the youngest in the company by 10 years and for me, this sounded like a dream come true. I guess for those with families it seemed like a suicide mission and a commitment beyond the call of duty. So finding someone to take the 30-day space flight was not easy, no less having someone live there. I had nothing here tieing my down, so of course I would raise my hand.
After I put my hand up, another team member followed. Geoff was the nerdy but eccentric hardware developer on the team. He had brown hair and was extremely goofy but probably had the most technical smarts of the bunch. I didn't really work with him as he was a hardware developer but I did not mind him. I was happy to know he would be joining me. From the looks of things, we were the only ones who would want to travel to a foreign planet. Their loss.
When Geoff and I put our hands down, the boss smiled and said, “Perfect. The accelerator is providing our company with 3 desks, which means there’s one left.” He looked around with a smirk before asking, “No one else? Well, I have some other news, I also have to be there for the entire seven month period."
He looked at me and Geoff then continued, “Don’t worry there’s still time to drop out.”
I was so excited that I blurted out loud, “Seven months! That just sweetens the deal for me."
Unintentionally, that broke the ice as another co-worker said, “oh to be young" and everyone laughed.
“The good news is we have seven months’ worth of money now and by the time the accelerator ends we’ll have a final product.”
There was a lot of optimism in the room but maybe that was because people were getting paid, eating pizza and not forced to travel to the restricted planet in the galaxy.
After the pizza party the boss asked Geoff and me to help clean up so we could talk about the details.
“The city we’ll be going to is called Syng. It is a relatively new city specifically built to increase the economy of the planet. Part of the efforts includes bringing foreign investment and companies to kickstart cheaper development domestically. On the outskirts, there are thousands of manufacturers that will lighten the costs of the development for us."
He looked at Geoff and continued, “I know in university you built small quantity prototypes for your dissertation… ‘Think you’re ready for the big league?” Geoff smiled, he was more than up for the challenge.
When he was interviewed to be hired for the company, he mentioned how much he dreams of working hands-on in the manufacturing process. Geoff also saw this as a huge opportunity to advance his career.
The boss looked at me and said, “This grant is specifically for hardware development. I didn’t originally think it would be a good idea for you to go but actually since Geoff will be developing the hardware…” he paused. “It’ll be good to have you by his side when we start needing the interface connection.” The way he said it made me feel like my skill set was just barely meeting the requirements to go. Regardless, I wasn’t going to let my software skills hold me back from this trip.
I responded back, “Actually, I would like to shadow Geoff throughout this process and learn more about the hardware development side of things...”
“Since it’s only going to be the two of us, I’m sure it’ll help to have him learn the process. I know he’ll be useful," Geoff added.
I think the boss liked that Geoff chimed in, we were already acting like the team that needed to be there.
After work, I entered my car with a new emotion. I felt like I was just presented the golden ticket to a new future and adventure. I had left the planet once or twice to visit one of the 4 SQR planets as a child but I never lived on another planet outside of A-50. There were talks of at least 7 months straight with the probability of years. Living overplanet was a prestige very few people had the opportunity to experience. I knew the second I landed on that unknown world, I would never want to leave. I wanted a new start, everyone wanted to live on A-50, I just wanted to escape it.
I called my father, the one who trained me during my youth, to inform him of the news. He was excited for me but I knew he was unconvinced that going to J-27 was a good idea. The common stigma of the planet J-27 was that the citizens and government were harsh, anti-SQR and didn’t have the same morals and values as us. 150 CE years of isolation will do that. Reading headlines like “Dictator Donell kills 250 T.O.L.Es...", it was easy for SQR society to generate an image of barbarians and fear. My father answered the phone.
“Hey, the boss has just presented me a huge opportunity," I mentioned, thinking of the proper way to ease into his approval.
“Oh yeah, does it come with a new raise?" he said.
Money was always a point of discussion in our household. It was a tension point at times for me because I never thought about life through the amount of money I had. His comment made me break out of my rose-tinted glasses about the opportunity.
“Uh... I do not know. I did not ask. He’s just offered for me and a few others to travel to J-27. We’ve been given a government grant at an accelerator. You know we’ve been looking for investment and this would kickstart the development more efficiently,” I responded feeling like the opportunity was not even an opportunity anymore.
“How long would you stay there? That’s pretty exciting," my father responded.
I didn’t know what kind of support I expected from him but this just felt like he was entertaining me instead of celebrating the situation.
“...A couple of months. The accelerator will provide us with our own office space and my company will pay for boarding. It’ll be a good resume builder," I ended with trying to convince myself it was a good idea.
The rest of the conversation went neutral and ended with him saying he was proud of me. He always said he was proud of me but later we would have an argument and he would throw my personal successes at me like I was not amounting to his standards. It did not matter I was living the life I wanted and never once did I have a complaint about it. I tried to kick the feeling of letting him down in the situation. I just needed to leave the planet to get back to controlling the situation.
The people I did tell the news to didn’t really get it either. They either had an image of military police walking around with guns or I’d live a strictly structured routine set by the J-27 government. Maybe I would not be able to use my built-in camera or have access to the same broadcasting features to gain knowledge, but I barely used those things anyways. I just wanted to experience a new culture when everything in my life was so stable and monotonous. Everyone feared this opportunity and yet I just wanted to soak up every second of it.
On the morning of liftoff, my father drove me to the spaceport launch zone. Since the company was paying for the transportation tickets, the boss opted in for the cheapest tickets, which also meant the earliest launch time. When I left my father's house it was still dark outside with a misty fog settled above the road. As we got closer to the spaceport, the sun was just starting to rise. I had a glowing emotion of excitement, I would be launching into space soon.
Exactly three weeks after being informed of the grant, we left A-50 by a long-distance commercial transportation fleet. The new planet was 5 light-years away which was about a 30-day journey. The flight team recommended that all passengers use the sleep pods to pass the time, staring at deep space for that long played weird tricks on the mind. Sleep pods allowed for a 1HE to enter a deep temporary sleep for a set amount of time. It was our equivalent to anesthesia and was as quick as blinking. In addition to time travel, sleep pods were actually very efficient ways to clean our bodies and apply updates and patches to our systems. Every passenger paid for a room with one in it, so eventually, you mine as well use one.
I decided that I wanted at least a week to experience long-distance travel. The furthest space exploration I had ever embarked on was between A-50 and B-89. These days the flight was only 4 days. With a distance that short, travel felt more like a glorified space cruise; Unlimited meals, drinks and events to entertain the guests. I at least wanted to see what this fleet had to offer for long-distance travel.
After complying with the standard protocol, all passengers were locked into their sleep pods during liftoff. The impact gel filled the container and I was safely encapsulated into the pod chamber. The count-down rang in my room and in between each number a red light flashed until a green light blared through the hallways indicating thrusters were now active. Inside the gel containment, liquid counteracted against the vibrational explosion shooting our ship through the various atmospheres. As soon as we hit space the liquid slowly cleared and my body hit a brief moment of levitation until the low gravity kicked in. I opened my pod door as soon as the announcement echoed, “...we have safely entered orbit. All passengers may freely roam the ship."
I was interested in seeing what the ship had to offer, so I downloaded the ship's map. The spaceship was broken up into various classes depending on one’s status or what one could afford. My company paid for economy class dorms, which was fine with me. I never lived the high life and would feel out of place... although I did want to fit in among them. Low gravity allowed for a floating walk but it was easier to hold on to movement rails to quickly navigate the halls. Inside the economy class bunker hallway, I stopped for a minute looking outside a window to admire the vast dark void we were traveling through. No planets or floating space debris could be seen and it felt like the ship was motionlessly floating. The faint vibration of the occasional thruster reminded me we were not stranded. Deep space gave an eerie feeling for those not used to it. The mind plays tricks and fear finds a way to attach itself like a virus. I knew better, the simplest cure for existential dread was to socialize. I broke from the search of trying to find anything out there and headed down to the dining hall.
I left the hallway and took an elevator down to the common area. The kitchen was bustling and the smells of delicious food drew me into the rather large dining hall. I arrived at the entrance and checked in with the fleet staff. He gave me a complimentary digital ticket for a meal and drink and welcomed me to a table. As I entered the room, I heard my name called. “Over here mate! Come eat with us" another voice said. It was the boss and Geoff sharing a meal. I waved and wondered why they did not invite me to the meeting, regardless I rather eat with friends than alone.
I sat down at the white-clothed table between Geoff and the boss. The waiter handed me a menu and asked what I’d like to drink. I ordered a fizzy lime soda and pondered over the menu. The menu did not contain any traditional J-27 dishes from what I could tell, so I ordered a fancy margarita pizza.
“Who knows when the next time I’ll eat pizza," I jokingly said to the waiter.
“Geoff and I were just talking about hardware development requirements. As you probably know, manufacturing in J-27 is a lot cheaper than back home," he said shuffling some papers to show me an outline of goals.
“We need to spend a lot of time sourcing parts and finding a decent factory to make our prototypes when we arrive," he took a sip of his coffee and continued.
“Ideally, I want to have a working prototype before the first week ended. I have a meeting with some investors over the weekend, and would like to show off how agile the team is."
Geoff butted in, “Don’t worry! We just agreed that the software doesn’t have to be working yet. A physical device working or not will impress anyone once we tell them this is what our team can accomplish in a week."
I smiled at the gesture but I knew that meant the boss wanted the software to work for the demo as well. Which was fine, I enjoyed time-sensitive development. Plus, it would give me a few points with the boss. Who doesn’t like impressing the boss?
In the middle of Geoff and the boss discussing expectations of the prototype, the waiter came over with my sizzling pizza. I thanked the stars for the meal and cut slices for myself and let it sit to cool. I always found steaming hot pizza always tasted better if you let it cool a bit and let the oils flow.
“...and the number of sensors?" Geoff said.
“At least a humidity, temperature and a VOC sensor on board," the boss responded.
I knew what they wanted but did not know anything about making them work together or how to program them. The digital world was my specialty. Oftentimes I wished more of life was digital. I could find anything that pleased or entertained me in the digital world. If I could eat digital food to survive I would but our world was not advanced enough to break free from the remains of what humans established for us.
Hybrid-kind did take one idea from the humans and advanced it further to the dreams they saw in the technology. All 1HEs were equipped with eyes that could cycle between real life and augmented reality. Augmented reality or AR was the digital software that interacted with the physical world. For example, right now I could see that the temperature of my pizza was a warm 180F (82.2C). Which was also the standard temperature our mouths could safely eat food without damaging our taste sensors. I enjoyed my pizza at the same temperature as humans, 145F (62.7C). The obvious benefit of AR was to use data for decision making but it could also be extended for entertainment, maps, research and anything startups like mine could think of. 1HE were born AR-enabled, we knew no difference. The only time the world was free of digital overload was when we turned off our systems. Not a typical event for most but every once in a while it is nice to notice the birds.
My pizza was ready and just in time because it gave me a chance to tune out Geoff and the boss. I took a bite out of the first slice and smiled at the perfection. If I was living the higher life I might have given my compliments to the chef. The thought of that made me laugh. Even though I was not raised or programmed for wealth, I enjoyed the fantasy of being equals to them. All the daydreaming in the world would never give me a chance to taste that life no matter how hard I’d work. The only way to the top for a programmer like me was to cash in the startup world. Our company had 3 possible outcomes; first sell the company quickly, second make it to the stock market or third go bankrupt. No one ever wanted the last one and none of us thought that was possible, so the first two it was.
Our boss had a way with words and getting people hooked onto his ideas. I think that’s why most of us joined the company. He could inspire anyone to see his vision and once he had you hooked, it made you want to work as hard as possible to get to that dream.
After dinner we decided to visit the first night social party. Every fleet held for its passengers to celebrate the start of the trip. This was used as a meet and greet. For some it was a social event to further their careers and for others a way to get lucky. The boss used it to meet other SQR-kind on their first journey to J-27 for potential investments or a lead to one. Geoff was interested in finding out as much as he could to prepare himself for the unknown once we arrived. I think he was worried all the rumors and stories we heard back home would be true. He was too outspoken to deal with oppression. It did not really interest me to talk to anyone, so I kept around Geoff letting him jump from topic to topic to pass the time. I didn’t want to know what other people knew about the planet, I wanted it all to be a first-hand experience. The less I knew the more surprised I would become.
I started using the conversations I was brought into as a way to collect new encryption keys (a fancy way of saying word bank in our culture). Geoff would start the conversation and I would chime in when the time felt right. When someone said something I did not understand I would ask if they could share the encryption key on the subject matter. At one point Geoff mentioned something about sugar which got me in the mood to grab a midnight snack. I convinced him to ditch the party and go to the fleet store.
“Big crowd in there tonight, eh?" I said to break the silence.
“I could not believe how many people were in that room. It has to be 500 to 750. Imagine the shared knowledge we all had!”
“Did you notice I was collecting encryption keys throughout the conversations?" I said to him thinking he would not care.
“I thought that was so smart, something I would not have thought of. I’m glad you did because I got a couple of myself. I now have some basic knowledge of astrophysics and an entire receipt book for pumpkin dishes," Geoff said as if the two combined would make for a great conversation starter one day. It was so typical of him to collect the weirdest knowledge.
“Not bad. I talked mostly to other programmers. I got two new language syntax codes. I don’t know when I’ll use em but never hurts to have ‘em," I responded.
“If you want we can do a quick swap of all our keys," Geoff suggested as we walked into the convenience store. I agreed to the idea and quickly exchanged every key we’ve ever obtained.
It always interested me to see what nicknacks and overpriced snacks space fleets tried selling to desperate travelers. One time I was visiting B-89 for a business trip and a co-worker from A-50 missed his flight back home. He ended up having to stay an extra night and flying back the same day I returned. On the flight I caught him running into a fleet store all disheveled as the 20 minutes til arrival announcement rang throughout the ship. When I saw him back on land I asked him what that was all about. He explained to me that the only way to mend the heart of a pissed off wife was to buy her a golden gift abroad, even if that abroad was just a passenger spaceship.
Geoff and I walked through the sliding glass door of a local J-27 branded store. From the outside it was designed to look as if the store was emulating a city street but in the interior fluorescent lighting was blinding and it saturated the colors of the items for sale.
Geoff turned to me and said, “You know why they blind you in these stores right? The product sizes are reduced and the weird lighting confuses the eye."
“Oh, that’s interesting," I laughed at his conspiracy.
“Seriously, weight is one of the most expensive parts of flying. The heavier a ship the more fuel that is required to get us in the air. But if there’s not enough product in the stores it would make for a bad shopping experience. So small items but larger the quantity," this discussion had Geoff going on one of his rants leaping into a different topic about another shop experience he had when he was a child. As he chewed my ear off I walked around the store looking for something to snack on later.
I found a couple of candy bars and a bag of chips but could not decide on a drink. For once on the ship the drink selection contained flavors and brands I had never heard of before. Local favorites from J-27. Of all the things to introduce us to their culture on this trip I suppose a drink was important enough. I grabbed 3 different brands, each with a different variation of sprout juice. Geoff decided on an ice cream snack and we talked back to our dormitories for the night. Before we left A-50 I had mentioned to the boss that to cut costs, I’d gladly share a bunk with Geoff. As we approached our respective rooms and Geoff finished his last thought for the night, I was happy to have my own 4x8 room.
“It’s crazy we are really on this adventure man, I’m more than excited to start really working on this product with you," Geoff said.
“I know, it is crazy that of all the places in our galaxy to visit, we have access to the most hidden and mysterious one. I’m glad to have you part of this journey,” I responded as we shook hands and left for our own rooms.
Although our reason for travel was special, the rooms they stored us in were not. At 4 feet by 8 feet, it was enough room to fit a sleeping pod and an optional window. The walls were gray with a caged indicator light, which at the moment was lit blue. The sleep pod also doubled as a seat which placed me right in front of a closed window. I decided to rummage through my newly acquired snacks and grabbed one of the spout juices. I pressed a button on the side of the yellow sleep pod and the window guard in front of me opened. Outerspace still looked motionless. We had less than 29 days in this endless darkness, so it did not surprise me. I overheard that on the 10th day we’d see a little red dot. Then after, each hour we’d visually see ourselves getting closer and closer to J-27. I took a sip of the foreign drink. It was rather refreshing and reminded me of the consistency of pulpy orange juice but the mild flavor found in coconut juice. I could get used to drinking this once I arrived at my new temporary home. I finished my drink, closed the window again and laid myself to rest in the pod.
An hour passed and I was still too excited to naturally turn off. I had almost a month left on this ship. “Tomorrow," I thought to myself, “I’ll probably ask the boss if I could use the sleep pod for a couple of days."
I wanted to see that first moment of the red dot sighting so I’d at least wake before that but what was the point if waiting around for a month. With the proposition in my mind, I was able to easily shut my eyes for the night.
The morning arrived as the automated indication bell signaled breakfast was now being served. The chime echoed through the hallways until it reached my room and woke me up. I did not normally eat breakfast but the company paid for all my meals regardless if I slept in or not. I threw on yesterday's clothes and a pair of complimentary slippers to join the other passengers for breakfast. While floating to the dining hall, Geoff caught me in time to have us both go in together.
“The boss isn’t going to join us this morning. Let’s go grab something to eat," he said as we received our digital breakfast tickets. Unlike dinner, breakfast was a lot less formal and set up in a buffet style. We stood in line for the plates and chatted.
“I’m thinking of going under tonight. I’ll probably wake up before the planet sighting. Do you think the boss would be okay with that?" I asked Geoff.
“Oh, I’m not sure. Tomorrow I was going to invite you to see an onboard scheduled movie. A group of us are going to go and then get dinner after. I’m starting to make friends here. You should come," Geoff said as he courteously handed me plate and bowl.
“Oh, I forgot about that. Sure, let me think about it. I guess I have nothing better to do anyway," I concluded.
“Have you had a chance to view the onboard entertainment package yet? The boss said the company will expense any extras we are interested in. I saw tonight is karaoke and tomorrow morning is a spinning class."
He was too excited about the events to notice I was not interested. This was becoming a battle of selfishness and being a team player. The boss and Geoff would be spending a lot of time with me living abroad. On the other hand, the boss did pay for me to have these luxuries. I suppose this is what they call first world problems.
Later that night we met up again for dinner. The boss came in with his book bag and brought out some papers.
“I was thinking tonight we could brainstorm an MVP for the product." he said, “MVP being the most basic level of the product we could sell to a customer.”
“We’ll break it down into 3 parts. One, must-haves. Two, wants. Three, nice to haves," he added as he passed out the sheet with three columns on it.
“We’ll take 10 minutes of silence between each column. After the sheet is completed, we’ll go through the list and figure out what are the shared requirements between the three of us. I was reading a book on early startup processes and this one made sense to me. Let’s try it out.”
We both accepted the challenge and he set the first ten-minute timer. The waiter came over but the boss asked him to return in about 30 minutes.
I grabbed my pen and started jotting down what I thought were the must-have requirements. For me, I didn’t see a new vision but I understood requirements repeated from the people who invested in us. If that’s what got us money the first round, it made sense to keep those in the list. The ten minutes ended and the boss set the next ten. What did I think would be a decent want… I listed software interface requirements I wanted to program that I thought would be cool but not exactly MVP. Then finally the boss set up the third timer, I wrote my thoughts and we concluded the exercise.
I was just a programmer, I did not know anything about hardware design to talk about it, so most of my answers were related to my expertise. I kind of felt like I was letting the boss down by not thinking on his level but for some reason, my lack of interest in filtration didn’t inspire me. My loss because Geoff came into it with great ideas and that caused the two of them to team up and discuss their columns the rest of the night. I wanted to be a team player but I just did not want to always focus on the product. I wish the brainstorming was to pinpoint flaws in the product, which might have resulted in more communication on my part. I was getting tired and decided that I would leave them to their scheming.
Before I went to bed I went on a local meetup group website based on J-27. It was in the T.O.L.E encryption but I used an online translator to navigate the forum. I was looking for some kind of side project to get into while I was living there abroad. I had always had an interest in the arts but never had the chance to pursue it. When I was a child I painted and picked up photography but society was always telling us these were not valuable jobs. In high school, I got into computer programming because of video games which brought me into the limelight between friends. If I could turn back the wheels of time, I would have studied physics and game algorithms instead of just half-writing broken game machines that made my friends laugh.
When high school ended my father was pretty adamant that I get a job before the end of the summer. Fortunately, I found an internship shadowing a server developer. When I applied for the job I told the employment office I’d be a paper runner or a coffee boy, I just wanted any experience in a real programming environment. The team at the company must have liked something about me and offered to have an in-person interview. I showed up for an internship in a full suit in the middle of an A-50 summer. If I was not sweating from the heat when I walked in the door, I was completely drenched with the fact I was in front of professional programmers judging me. I wanted the internship so badly. They offered it to me and my first professional job started before my father had a chance to put pressure on the “find a job” crusade.
As serious as I was about the internship, the actual company was a joke. The company built a voice recognition software analysis tool but funded the company selling voice recording contracts. The server administrator I was shadowing was just maintaining a server full of audio files. He never had time for me and always just told me to read a book or surf the internet. I found it rather mindless but stuck around for 11 months. I might have stayed longer but one morning I came into work and found the entire office empty, including my desk. All the programming books I had brought were stolen. I called my supervisor and to my surprise, the company went out of business without informing the free intern.
It was a poor way to start my career but it showed me that I meant nothing to these companies until I had a strong skill set. I remembered needing to be particular in my next career move. The hottest jobs in the tech world were AI and interfaces. I chose interface programming as it didn't require nearly as much education. Regardless of if I went down the correct path, it brought me to traveling to J-27 and for that, I could not complain.
I had three jobs before my current one and I’d like to say they brought me satisfaction and enjoyment but it actually turned me bitter. I grew a distrust in management and with the companies I worked for. Instead of living for work, I lived for the hours away. I worked hard and made everyone around me happy but that was all a facade. I tricked my brain into thinking I enjoyed the work and the freedom to create made me happy. But deep down it was the opposite. I wanted to get away from it all and rely on my own creations. I hadn’t built up enough zeros in the bank to take that risk. Deep down I knew I wouldn’t always be a programmer but I also knew I wouldn’t be a leader of men. I had too much to prove to myself instead of others. It was a twisted way of life but in my youth, I suppose I hadn’t been beaten down by the trust of the real world to put me in my place.
Geoff just wanted me to see a film tomorrow with him but in the back of my mind, I was conforming to other people's wishes of me, instead of what I wanted. Regardless, just like everything else I did in life, I agreed to the request and messaged Geoff I would be around tomorrow to see it with him. The message was successfully sent and I went back to my room. I was conflicted with my choice to act the way I always did. J-27 could have been my switch to a new way of life. Why did I stick to my old ways? I pressed the button on my sleeping pod and opened the outside window. Somehow looking fiercely into the deep depths of space in front of me I connected to the emptiness. I situated myself into my sleeping pod laying sideways falling asleep looking at the stars for an answer.
The next day I met up with Geoff right before the movie started. We stopped at the same convenience store for snacks.
“What are your favorite movie snacks?" he asked me.
I looked over the popcorn they offered but it was not buttery, it seemed T.O.L.E people preferred a caramelized sprout taste.
“Normally popcorn but it seems it is sweet here," I responded.
“I’ll probably just get a drink and some chocolate," he said.
The server behind the counter recommended a T.O.L.E candy bar, so I purchased it. The film started without any filler advertisements, had we been late we would have missed the beginning plot of the film. The film was an old detective A-50 film. The plot was interesting enough:
A competition between university enemies turns into a murder mystery. One became a school teacher, while the other a murder detective. The school teacher had always came up short and hated claiming second place between the two. Finally, the school teacher tries to outsmart the other by accidentally getting himself set up in the perfect murder. Was the murderer really the school teacher or was the twist that someone else committed the crime. Did the teacher actually win by serving a life sentence for a murder he did not commit? Did the murder detective lose by convicting his enemy?
It was an interesting plotline and I did not see the twist until the final scene. The entire film was color graded in a blue undertone that gave a very cold feel. I enjoyed the vibe and atmosphere it poured into every scene. Creative minds that could write storylines like this intrigued me. It gave me an idea. I wondered if I could find a film project on J-27 I could pick up on the side. I might not turn into the ideal startup employee but maybe my life could change if I could start working on more self-fulfilling creative projects. I had a new goal in life, to make a movie.
With a new goal permanently cemented in my mind, I stopped living in the moment and began daydreaming about becoming a successful intergalactic film director. I had no interest in being in front of the camera but starting off as a camera operator might actually be interesting. Just like how I worked my way up in the programming world, I might just be able to do the same in the film world. The excitement of a new personal challenge was really starting to make me anxious. I needed to use my sleep pod for its intended purpose. I just needed to convince the boss.
That night at dinner Geoff and the boss were at it again with their brainstorming of product development. I actually fit my way into the conversation with good suggestions. I knew if I contributed enough tonight I could get a favor from the boss in return. I was not expecting it but the boss would say something to Geoff and they’d talk about it and then he would ask for my opinion. He was bringing out the good side of my programmer abilities, turning me into a team player. I did not mind it obviously but at a certain point I stopped myself from becoming attached to the ideas. I had almost forgotten I just wanted to skip the next 3 weeks with sleep. Who knew how far I could have gone in the company if I crossed the line into being a company man.
At the end of the night and after another great pizza, I asked the boss if I could take the next 3 weeks off to pass the time quicker. He questioned my reasoning which I told him I did not like space flight and he agreed as long as I woke up 10 days before the arrival date. He told me he wanted to have a solid plan to present for our first day at the accelerator. That included a mocked-up interface to show off. If we were at least one week ahead of the other companies it might put us in a better position to find investment in the future. I understood his reasoning and agreed.
“It would actually be better if we had 3 weeks worth of work to do instead of passing each day with luxuries,” I thought to myself.
It was not that I wanted my freedom to not work, it is the opposite, I wanted work that gave me freedom and in my mind, that was only possible from my own creations. This was the kind of thinking that haunted me but put me in the position to try creative endeavors unlike the normal 1HE I knew. I fell asleep knowing someday I would have made a film. I was certain that I would make it happen.
________________
“The way to heaven out of all places is of length and distance.” ― Sir Thomas More, Utopia
The process of using a sleep pod is actually really terrifying for first-time users. Instinctively, I don’t think any living object (AI or not) likes the feeling of being trapped or stored away. Yet sleeping pods adjusted exactly to the height and body mass of the user. The gel-like substance that encases the user literally fuses with our bodies to ensure safe and comfortability flight. When the process starts the warm liquid enters the tank and slowly fills up to just about face level. Then an automated arm injects a cable into the back of the user’s neck to start the sleep mode process. By the time the cable enters the skull, the user is already asleep. The liquids continue to cycle through the exterior body flushing dirty and particles, like a “car wash”, cleaning the system. This usually only takes minutes as UV rays disinfect any lingering substances. It’s a hotbox inside and from the outside looks like a light show but within 10 minutes of the process, new clean liquids enter the chamber, solidify into a rubbery gel and a timer counts down as the patron sleeps time away.
My first sleep pod experience was when I was 15 years old. My father and I were traveling to B-89 for a business trip and I was lucky enough to tag along. My father described the process and to my inexperienced mind, my imagination went wild. I envisioned a drowning sensation that humans experienced or a fear that the cleaning and the solidifying process would complete and I’d be frozen in time awake. Nothing like that ever happened except in horror films but shaking a fear like that was nearly impossible until I tried it and I woke up.
Just like the first time I used a pod, the time between turning off and waking up was felt in mere seconds. I did not wake up feeling refreshed but I could tell my body was well oiled in a manner of speaking. I was back in the real world quicker than it took to fall asleep.
While in the pod, I ran the gel removal heat setting one more time and decided it was time to return to the living. It was always exciting to come out of pod sleep because the world continued without me and I always look forward to seeing what could have possibly changed. I stretched my stiff arms and legs before standing up and noticed my window was still open. From my current position, I could not see the red dot yet. Which was good, I hadn’t overslept. I stood up and put on some clothes while I checked my messages. A couple of updates from the team but nothing out of the ordinary. I quickly looked over the documents Geoff and the boss sent me. I knew they would ask me if I had a chance to review them the second I saw them again. It seemed the design of the product had a new facelift and Geoff wrote a more efficient algorithm for the warning system if the device became uncalibrated. The last document had a couple of rough sketches the boss wanted to try out for the interface. They looked simple enough and figured I could totally get them done before we landed.
I looked at the time and saw it was near mid-day. I should probably meet the team in the dining hall. I headed off in that direction, grabbing the motion rails to the elevator. The halls were quieter and more sleep signs were active above the dorm rooms. I wasn’t the only one who decided that constant partying was getting old. I exited the sleeping hall and waited for the elevator to activate. Even these went into sleep mode when activity slowed down. I stepped inside, glanced at myself in the mirrored walls and adjusted my shirt. Pod sleep really did make the exterior look fresh and youthful. It has been a while since my last tune-up.
Down below was like a graveyard, no more did passengers walk through the common areas gleeful and chatty. The toll of long-distance travel did hit hard, I doubt even the pair of pilots endured the entire trip. The question now was, would the boss and Geoff be around yet? We still had 1 more day until the red dot of planet J-27 was visible, I know Geoff wanted to see that together. Regardless, I entered the kitchen area and found our regular table. A waiter came over and I ordered a soda. It was nice to finally see a face. When the waiter returned with the ice-cold glass I told him I was waiting for friends.
“Are you sure they are not sleeping, sir?" he asked, “I noticed you haven’t been around here this past week, we’re down to 10% active passengers at the moment."
“Is there a way I can find out if my friends are awake?" I asked.
“Certainly sir, I can find that out right away. Give me a moment please," he responded.
Our ship was hurling at unimaginable speeds, roughly with still ten days until arrival. If Geoff was around I’m sure he could tell me the exact speeds we were flying. From A-50 to J-27 it was 143.556 trillion miles away, the furthest planet in our Galaxy. The thought that I was one of only 10% awake on this flight gave me an odd feeling. I was lonelier now than I had ever been. The unknown in the darkness of space plays wonderful tricks on the mind.
The waiter came over and informed me that Geoff would be waking up later that night and the boss would become available tomorrow. With that information, I decided I would eat lunch and check the schedule to see what could pass the time while I waited for Geoff's return. I had only eaten SQR food since my departure from A-50, so I asked the waiter to recommend the best J-27 dish they had to offer. He recommended a cold dish that contained sprouts and firm bean curd. The dressing that accompanied the meager meal tasted of candy, a sweet organic sugar. My taste buds went wild and I ordered a second plate. I had only eaten junk food and pizza my entire trip, the delicious J-27 meal actually opened my mind to something I never cared about, the culinary arts. I had another daily experience to look forward to. I could not wait to see what would be suggested for dinner.
While I ate, I looked over the documents and requirements sent to me in my absence. The boss had outlined a couple of designs he wanted to prototype so I thought it would be a good idea to start on those instead of sitting through another mindless movie. I went back to my room, jacked into the mainframe and started coding. He had three designs he wanted me to flush out and so I got started. My fingers touched the air at a rapid rate as the AR keyboard in my view wrote the code on my virtual screen. I wanted to get at least two of the interfaces completed before the boss awoke. It would make his coming back to the real world worth it.
I had put in about 5 hours when I noticed I had a notification from Geoff. He was back from the dead and wanted to know if I wanted to visit the observatory deck with him. He was interested in seeing what would happen if we’d just spend an hour or so chatting while looking into the infinite darkness. I liked the idea of the challenge. I thought it would make for a great story when I returned back home. My mind was excited about living abroad but I still had so much to return to. I did not know what mysteries awaited me on J-27 that would make me fall in love with the idea of living in a foreign land.
I finished the code I was working on and told Geoff if he was ready, we could meet in the common area in 15 minutes. I cleaned the room and headed out. The elevator was waiting for me on my floor. I guess more passengers were awake now I thought to myself. And I was correct, when I entered the common area, the place was back to its normal activity. I guess I was not the only one who wanted to see the red dot in the morning. For most of us, this would be the only chance to see the dot appear in real-time. It was like seeing a shooting star, the spectacle of coming together for a glimpse at something so unique brought the child out of all of us.
Geoff was already waiting in the common area talking to someone. He noticed me walking out of the elevator and called my name so I could find him. I walked over and he introduced me to another 1HE passenger.
“I’m Terry, I just met your co-worker here. He was telling me you were one of the brightest programmers he knew," he said while shaking my hand.
I appreciated the compliment but I think he was just trying to be kind. I could not imagine Geoff actually saying something like that with emotions. He was too analytical for that.
“I too am on my way to J-27 for business... But who isn’t on this ship," he started.
“I am coming over to pitch SQR television shows to J-27 broadcasting companies. The company I work for thought it would bring a new side of education to J-27," he said while passing out a business card to both of us.
I accepted it and admired the idea that he thought I would be valuable enough to own his card. I returned the favor and gave him one of mine. We chatted for a bit until his co-worker woke up from his sleep. It was nice to meet someone on the ship for once. I was starting to learn that in order to break from my programmer habits I would need to be more outgoing.
We took the departure from the conversation to make our break to the observatory deck. To access the observatory we needed to take an elevator two floors higher than the dorms. Although taking the dorms down to the common room was so quick you barely remembered each ride. For some reason, the elevator ride from the common room to the observatory felt like we were taking an elevator up a mine shaft. It just kept going and going and for a moment it felt like we were entering unrestricted areas. When we did arrive, a fleet member welcomed us into a closed-off room and went through some of the history and facts about the current location of the ship in space at that given moment.
A projector turned on and the orator went through a couple of slides and short recorded movies. Where we were at the moment did not have much history other than the first voyage to j-27 used the same path. We hadn’t had galactic space wars yet, so making history in deep space didn’t happen too often. The speaker welcomed us to ask any questions before we entered the observatory and of course, Geoff had something to say. He was interested in the size of the ship and what year it was made. It was only the 3 of us in the room so after each answer, Geoff asked another question to add a new footnote in his strange memory bank.
When Geoff was finally satisfied, the speaker announced, “In a moment I will press this red button here and the observatory doors will open. Please stay seated in your seat until the doors are completely open. I thought that was an odd announcement until after he pressed the button. Literally the room we were sitting in unfolded from itself and neatly packed into the floor. As the walls slowly opened, the lights dimmed to a point of pitch black and the stars peeked through the openings. The reveal of open space was literally overwhelmingly breathtaking. It was so surreal that the line between safety glass and pure outer space was invisible. Like opening a present; the gift of being one with the cosmos made me tear up. At that moment Geoff nor I had the ability to speak.
We stood up from our seats and the lack of gravity projected us adrift around the room. I tried to comprehend how such heavenly celestial nothingness fit in the confines of reality. How was it that human-kind bent this void to their will? A flood of emotions took over as I experienced not myself for once but something grander. Something bigger. Something only those who experienced this understood. Just when I truly felt enlightened, a soft voice over an intercom recommended that we end the tour. They warned us in the history briefing that 30-minute was the allotted time to maintain stable mental capabilities. For once, the curse of human emotion made me think, how did they know to keep those traits in our programming. Why did they so strongly believe we needed to feel the world properly to evolve. I missed my human brethren. Although 1HE evolved humans from the flesh, we never truly were human. Our kind did not fear death as we never died... I was conflicted about if that was good or bad.
As we left the observation deck we both agreed that we needed to eat dinner. There was an overwhelming sense of fatigue in the experience and a decent meal would calibrate our spirits back. At dinner, we didn’t even talk about what we felt or thought in that chamber. It was almost like each person who entered spoke directly to the gods and it was our duty to hold on to the words they graciously gave us. I knew one thing, I wanted to visit it again after my J-27 trip.
The morning came early as an announcement rang through the halls stating the red spec would be visible in 2 hours and if anyone wanted to see it please visit the observation deck. After the announcement ended, I checked my messages and caught up on the news. It seems the boss was awake now and wanted to meet for lunch to discuss the rest of the flight. He had too many goals for us to finish before we arrived to not have us have a meeting about it. I got out of bed, set an alarm and jacked into my mainframe to continue programming. I only have one more design left to program and since we had this meeting I needed to make it presentable at lunch. Unfortunately, my alarm went off a lot quicker than I wanted and I only completed half of the interface programming. I wanted to continue working but I knew I would regret missing the planet’s first appearance.
I begrudgingly disconnected from the development console and heading up to the ever so familiar elevator. I pressed the up button and waited for the lift to arrive. While I waited I pinged Geoff and the boss that I was heading to the observatory if they wanted to meet. The lift arrived and the metal cage was packed with at least 20 people.
“You better pack yourself in because the common room has a line of people waiting to come up. You’ll be waiting all day if you do not join us now.” a voice yelled over the talking heads inside.
It was going to be a tight fit. I managed to get my body inside.
When we arrived at the observatory floor we were not met with a presentation room. The entire atmosphere had changed from the night before. The glass that was once invisible had a blue glow around it and the lack of gravity that once let us float was no more. There were too many people waiting to see the event that the crew presented a duller but calmer experience. I exited and went into the crowd of passengers looking for Geoff and the boss. A voice on an intercom announced that in 10 minutes the dot presentation would start and everyone should enter the room as soon as possible. They were going to close off the deck after the time limit was up.
When the count down timer hit zero the blue lights illuminating the glass ceilings and walls shut off and the room went pitch black. It took a couple of seconds for our eyes to adjust to the blackness of space but then all at once, the brightest stars appeared in the distance.
The intercom voice started up again, “In a couple of seconds in the most northern part of the observatory, the planet J-27 will appear.”
A quick indicator lit up on the glass to help every look in the right direction. The room got quieter as the suspense built up. No one knew exactly what was going to happen when the planet appeared, the mystery of it really added to the experience.
“3-2-1-0,” the intercom spoke, and just as they predicted the tiny red dot was now visible. It was so small that the glass indicator had to flash every few seconds on top of the red dot so people could get a general sense of where it was. We experienced something only a handful of people had ever seen. It was amazing but at the same time anti-climatic. That was until someone started clapping and set off the crowd into a cheering frenzy. I felt one with my people at that moment. We witness the hard work of our people and soon we’d be on planet J-27.
________________
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” - Lao Tzu
Oftentimes in my life, my mind comes up with an idea that makes me think if I can just complete this goal I’ll finally be happy. It completely encompasses my existence and until I get it done it’s difficult to break the working routine. These 3 interfaces the boss requested meant so much to me that I spent the previous night adding the final touches and perfecting the experiences. My latest addiction was the need to impress the boss. Around 2 AM the last line of code was written and I completed the task. My mind was so focused on the code that after it was finished, I completely crashed until 7 AM the following morning.
Unintentionally, a notification from the boss woke me earlier than I wanted. He sent out a message asking us to join him for breakfast to discuss early development. I felt brain dead, there wasn’t enough time between falling asleep and waking up. Which surprised me because I had just spent 3 weeks sleeping. I may have had a solid interface to show off but the presentation was going to be rough. My reserved programming mind mixed with the lack of sleep made it hard to ignite the spark of critical thinking. I was genuinely tired.
I went down to the convenience store and paid for a quick jolt energy boost. Outside the store, I opened the box and read: Simply plug in the cable, press the button and feel more energy. The marketing was promising but the results only made me feel slightly better. I took a deep breath, held it, closed my eyes and released the air. “Let’s do this!" I said under my breath and walked into the dining hall. Without breaking tradition, Geoff and the boss were already battling out ideas. I sat down at the table.
“Good morning fellas’," I said with a country accent because I noticed butter biscuits on the table.
“How was the deep rest?" I asked the boss.
“Not bad, as quick as lightning. I’m happy to be back so we can knock out some tasks before arrival," he responded.
The waiter came over and I ordered egg and toast. I was not much of a breakfast eater but for the occasion, it felt right.
“Did you get a chance to read the list I gave you for the interfaces?" the boss asked.
“Yep, and I started fleshing the idea out. I can show you now," I responded as I pulled out a connection cable to pass him.
He connected into my mainframe which allowed him to have direct access to a shared presentation mode. This made it convenient for him to see it in action as a demo than to have him install it himself. I pulled up the application software and began the demo.
I started, “In the document you sent me, you listed three different data interfaces. Each with the purpose of clearly showing data from our device. I’ve developed a simple simulation of what a device might send.” I went through each iteration.
From my experience, it was always better to do a demo and then let them install the software themselves for testing. He was entertained with the software and thanked me for getting this done so quickly.
“I guess since you’re already done with this part, I’ll task you to start researching the server-side of things," he suggested.
I was not a server developer but soon we’d need to start storing data.
“Sure, I have some experience with databases. I might even get it connected to the demo app you have there," I suggested.
He liked the answer.
The rest of the 9 days went by rather quickly. In between development, eating and planning for arrival I would sneak back to the observatory to watch J-27 get closer and closer. On the last day of flying they blocked off the observatory but luckily the planet was close enough now that I could view it from the oval-shaped window in my dorm. The last hour of the flight was always the most awesome. It literally felt like at any moment we’d lose control and crash right into the planet. The size of the planet kept becoming overwhelming as the ship fought with the gravitational pull. We were forced to lock into our sleeping pods for safety.
The ship shook with a violent fury until we passed the 4 layers of the atmosphere. Landing a spaceship was always nerve-racking. Unlike an airplane which smoothly rode to a stop, a commercial spaceship required landing in the same upright direction as it took off. Thrusters kicked off in expert timing to balance the landing as the pilots had no control of the landing procedure. Complex mechanics and algorithms were more accurate. The technology for this type of landing was first pioneered by an eccentric human, but pop culture remembers him for shooting a car into space. Regardless of history, 1HE scientists perfected the technology before the end of the earth. No one dared to challenge the landing procedure since.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, on behalf of Helios commercial space fleet, we welcome you to J-27," rang across the hallways into my room as we safely landed.
A smile erupted across my face, I had made it to J-27!
The safety light turned off and another announcement was said, “Please exit the ship with your belongings and take a customs form as you exit the ship. Have a safe and pleasant trip."
I had no idea what to expect once I left the ship but I did want to experience the unknown with my team.
I exited the ship, thanked the flight crew and took a customs form. Looking down at the yellow form I was required to fill out the information about where I was from, my identity, where I would be staying and the purpose of the trip. Pretty standard forms comparing it to my flights to B-89. The only glaring difference was a square that required a fingerprint. Stepping off the ship we were guided to a metal bunker with 4 customs lines. Guards stood at the entrance and investigated IDs before letting us into the building. The interior was rather industrial instead of fancy like a spaceport. The warm welcome from the fleet staff was the last smiles we saw after entering the customs building. There was a lot of tension in the air. Signs hung of no photography and warnings about what kinds of products were not allowed into the planet.
Guards walked between the lines with a substance detector checking each bag before allowing one to enter the line itself. I had nothing on me to worry about. J-27 was living up to its hype of strong military presence. The guard checked my bags with the substance wand and pointed for me to enter a customs line marker number two. There had to be 20 or so people in front of me. The customs woman in my lane was not any friendlier than the guards watching us like convicts. She was diligent at looking at the entry papers, our ID cards and the customs forms. Almost like she was hoping she would see something that would reject each person in the room. I approached the booth she sat in and handed her my forms. I did not speak T.O.L.E yet so I figured silence was my better choice. She said nothing to me the entire time she looked over the paperwork. She pointed to a camera that took a photo of me, then she pointed to the electronic fingerprint pad. I placed my thumbs on it and it scanned my fingers. She pressed a button and a glass gate opened up for me to exit the customs booth. I was free at last, well at least free from customs.
After customs, we were required to go through safety chambers which sanitized our bags and our bodies. A quick spray and x-ray ran over me in 5-second or less and the door opened for the next person behind me. I guess I was in the clear because no one stopped me as I walked out. I was out of the strict side of entering the planet and now was on the waiting floor of the building hoping to find Geoff or the boss. I was excited but felt really on edge. I did not know what to do next but wait, I did not like the feeling of being here alone. I had always traveled with other people, my mind was not ready for solo travel. I had a feeling working here would give me traveling confidence.
________________
“The greatest challenge of this planet is the need to conform to human design. I say we set our own destiny!” - Thomas Tole on election day, 150 CE
The atmosphere on the free side of the spaceport was completely different. There were street carts and merchants trying to make a quick buck off the new arrivals at every corner. I hadn’t found my team yet so I decided to take a quick look around. The unidentifiable food had wonderful and flavorful smells. My smell sensors kicked off at the foreign ingredients, I imagined everything I would eat would be spicy. Although each T.O.L.E I looked at tried communicating their deals with me, I did not have an encryption key to understand. Yet, my nonverbal skills kicked in as I understood the dozens of taxi drivers screamed out their window, “Taxi. Cheap taxi”, I was suddenly in an auction house.
After a 30 minute wait, each of us made it through customs without any issues. Geoff joined me first. We both found entertainment at the absurdity of the squawking drivers. It felt like the entire world was spinning faster than we could comprehend. When the boss finally arrived, he brought order to the madness but gave us instructions on leaving the chaos. We needed to travel to our office location. I noticed a pick-up sign and the boss agreed it would be better to move out of taxi screams and migrate over there. He called our driver and told us it’ll be about 10 minutes.
“High-class startup life eh?" the boss jokingly said, our startup never had the money for a private taxi before.
The 80-degree weather outside made for a comfortable wait while the deep dark cloudy sky kept us cool. I investigated my internal watch and noticed it was still set to A-50. Turning on my GPS location corrected the timezone, it was 12:40 PM. Although we were 30 days behind SQR, Syng was only a 12-hour difference in a roundabout way. I sent my father a message that I had arrived and attached a photograph of the car pick up lane. He was pretty adamant that I update him on arrival. He was worried about me.
In the carpool line, we noticed a white minivan signaling us and got our luggage together. When we entered the car it finally hit me, T.O.L.E people did look completely different than us. I could not get a good glimpse of the driver but it looked like T.O.L.E were missing the silicon skin 1HE had. I tried thinking back on the border guards and the customs women but they all wore body armor which protected their shell and parts of the face. I wondered if the J-27 government worried about welcoming foreigners. Did they believe we were the savages?
Inside the minivan, the layout of the seats interested me. The driver and passenger seats were separated from the guests inside. A glass wall divided us from the driver, which allowed for a form of privacy. Where we sat had 4 seats but not in rows exactly. Instead, the first two seats looked out the back window and the other two looked at the previous two. It was almost like a meeting room on wheels. the boss instantly figured out that it literally was, as he pressed a button and under our feet lifted a table. To our surprise, he expected as such and retrieved some notes from his bag.
“I have some information about the shared office I want to go over before we arrive," he said and started to talk.
My mind wandered off as Geoff and the boss did business as usual.
Soon, neon lights and massive high-rise buildings welcomed us as the van rolled to a stop. According to the driver, the office was inside this industrial complex. I looked outside the window and my jaw dropped. The area was one of the largest industrial parks I had ever seen. In front of us were two miles of vehicle-less walking area full of buildings, electronic shops and hotels.
From every angle, runners with packages were transporting goods from one building to another. Advertisements on the latest T.O.L.E technology illuminated the streets, even in the day time. And in the center, between the buildings were segments of grass, plants and flowers. Businessmen sat on stone benches making million-dollar deals. Teenagers working their first jobs tried motivating streetwalkers into their stores. Police with whistles blowing ensured electronic bikes didn't enter the safe area. It was a madhouse and I immediately fell in love with it. The epicenter of technology on this planet was in the palm of my hands. I could only imagine the opportunities I would gain being here. It was a big slice of electronics and life.
We all looked at each other in amazement. None of us really knew what we were getting into other than the fact that the grant gave us access to a couple of desks in an accelerator.
“Do you see that sign? I think it says electronic PCB components," Geoff pointed with stars in his eyes.
“We need to get into the office so we can pick up our T.O.L.E language encryption keys," the boss said as he looked at the map through his AR-enabled eye.
Getting us to the office as soon as possible would give him access to reading soon. Geoff and I were not the only ones interested in exploring this industrial park.
“So many T.O.L.Es,” I thought to myself.
Yet, no one even noticed us. There was so much going on that no one ever stopped to just observe. I guess this is what the city life looked like. Busy, self-centered and full of opportunity.
Oddly enough, the office was only 300 feet in front of where the driver dropped us off. The boss pointed to a building that was attached to the components warehouse Geoff noticed earlier.
“This is it. Let’s check it out," the boss said.
We walked over to an elevator. The boss scanned the directory and said, “Ah there it is, the Berk technology accelerator, 7th floor."
The rest of the companies on the list were written in T.O.L.E, I liked the design of the characters. I was excited that I would soon be able to read them.
The elevator brought us into a small glass room that overlooked the industrial park. Besides the lift, a locked door with a thumbprint activated lock welcomed us. Geoff jokingly put his thumb on the scanner as we waited for someone to meet at the door. The green laser scanner quickly swept his thumb and the door slid open.
“I was not expecting J-27 to have records of us yet”, I said as we walked in and was greeted by a T.O.L.E woman.
In my mind, I thought T.O.L.E women would be mean and rough to deal with. She was the polar opposite. To understand the contrast, 1HE beings are modeled off two statues; Michelangelo's David and Aphrodite of Knidos by Praxiteles. Humans for whatever reason decided that these two sculptures signified peak human physique and a way to keep human history alive after the final forgotten days of the sun.
Individuality and the ability to be self-aware made man distinguish itself from the animal kingdom. The scientist behind the creation of the hybrids debated for months on the importance of the uniqueness in their creation. Some scientists argued the human elements of the next generation of hybrid-kind would stifle technological advancement. Why put artificial limitations on something that could be unlimited. The counter-argument was “Are we creating God!?!"
That statement would become a household phrase for years to come and what ultimately led to the blueprint of what 1HE is now.
Plenty of scientific books on the theory of robot-kind grabbed the attention of Earth citizens. One book in particular was called The Theory of Existence. It investigated the engaging concerns about the end of humans and the importance of the 1HE to continue our legacy; Man's last-ditch effort to preserve humankind’s history. The original manuscripts are available in every book store across the galaxy but usually only used in early education. The humans were so enthralled with the idea that their legacy must be recorded that no one ever stopped to think if 1HE would care. After millions of years since their existence, the book and the thought of humans were just a footnote.
Luckily, humans prized individuality thus customization was part of the selection process in 1HE society. Each component of the 1HE body had unlimited customization making it rare to actually run into someone who looked exactly like you. Ever see a chubby 4 foot David? Neither have I. Regardless, we all identified each other through our manufactured and assigned serial codes. We may use human names for communications but our AR eye showed data about the world in real-time. This made identification rather trivial.
The T.O.L.E women in front of us still had Aphrodite features but there was almost a sadness to them. Instead of beautiful silicone skin, T.O.L.E were naked leaving a gold metallic shell. The lack of artificial skin made them look incomplete and less human. To them it was a mono-ethnic culture, for me as a visitor it was oddly unique.
She introduced herself softly and shook our hands. She never really looked us in the face as it was a form of office professionalism; the antics of being respectful. I shook the young girl's hand as she looked at the ground. I felt like we towered over her. I just wanted to scream, “stand up straight! have confidence!” but I agreed to be open to cultural differences.
She showed us around the workbench area for hardware developers and Geoff was already off looking at the technological toys we had at our disposal. Vincent Berns stood outside the door as he waited for our tour to finish. He was a younger 1HE male on the taller side with blond hair instead of the traditional brown. His eyes were blue, an obvious throwback to human DNA and had the personality of a rich aloof. Our age difference was no more than ten years but it was obvious he was on a different path than I in the world of opportunity. I envied Vincent but because of my jealousy of his success, it led me to not connecting with him. Nothing happened between us, I just felt that if I was in his shoes I probably would not give me the time of day, so why should I expect him to return the favor. Plus he was not supposed to interact with me anyways, I was just the programmer, the boss was here to deal with him. Or so I thought.
Vincent entered the room without shaking our hands and instantly started off with, “we gotta be quick with this meet. I have 20 other companies I need to talk to. I’m Vincent, this is where you’ll be working, The Berk Technology Accelerator. Most people just call the organization BK. We have staff on hand that can handle just about everything you might require, so we’ll get you introduced to them. Most of our interactions will be weekly. I’ll get someone to schedule with you. I’m pretty busy running things, so if you do have questions, there’s someone in this building that will be able to help you."
It was quite intense listening to Vincent talk, he took control of the room, demanded results and pushed suggestions. A cold heart or is this what success actually looks like?
“BK recommends that your time here is focused on the development of your company and product. Remember the reason why your company and team is here is that we invested a great deal of money into you. We see great potential in you and we rather not be let down. If you avoid wandering off for an adventure on J-27, I can almost guarantee your company will do much better than those who think their time here is a vacation," he said this looking at us individually between breaths.
I guess I wasn’t the only 1HE who thought this was a great adventure instead of a serious venture.
“As the founder of BK, I don’t want to tell you what to do. Every company has a chance to fail. We know that, you should know that. But do not give yourself a reason to fail," Vincent caught himself wasting time on this tired thought, “But of course, welcome to J-27 and welcome to a new planet only the very few get to experience. I wish good luck to your company and nothing but success for all.” and just like that the meeting concluded in a serious tone.
“Interesting guy," I said to Geoff as we walked out.
“Intense for sure,” he responded but he quickly diverted his attention to a wall of products the previous batch of companies invented.
Another T.O.L.E came over and introduced himself.
“We’ve had a bunch of interesting products come through here throughout the years,” he said looking at the collection with Geoff.
“The BK accelerator has been around for 4 years now but we've finally established our first office on J-27 earlier this year. This collection is actually part of a showcase of companies that launched and became relatively successful."
I looked at the display but could not find any products I knew.
“I’m Kai, I do product design help here. I once ran a design company on B-89 and became good friends with Vincent. He acquired the company a few years back and now my team has been part of BK ever since.”
I was pretty impressed with his success. It was our company's dream to be acquired, it was cool to meet someone who was living that dream. I would later try to become friends with Kai but he would often be too busy working with other companies.
We passed a kitchen with basic amenities and access to an outdoor communal area. There was a freeing feeling of self-sustainability looking into the kitchen. I doubt I’d cook much but I imagined having lunch and talking to other company members there.
It was interesting to meet a T.O.L.E with such high confidence. Kai was the second in charge and the technology connection between him and Vincent. His scientific status in the J-27 government had given him the opportunity to receive SQR education. All of which he brought back to J-27 to advance their own planet’s goals. Regardless, you could tell Kai cared about each company he worked with and wanted to see all of us succeed.
I found out later that to start a company in J-27 a member of the J-27 government must be second in command. This kept the company reliable to customs and gave certain tax breaks depending on how high up the T.O.L.E member was in society. This also instantly created wealth overnight. Luckily for us, we were not here to start a company, we were pure A-50 and we wanted to pour money into J-27 resources at our advantage. Everyone understood that and no one cared, we were taking advantage of the situation, that was President Tole’s plan all along. Make the government and economy rich.
After the tour of purpose and technology, we were shown our desks and left alone. This was the last time it ever felt like we had someone looking over our shoulder during our stay. Once we got our clearance and work badges, we were like normal citizens, except we looked different. I sat at my hard fake wood desk in a floating chair that allowed me to jack into the shared network. The desk was for hardware developers. The chairs were for programmers. No resources were left unspent as it did not matter what job title you had, the lay of the land was up for anyone who wanted it. It was starting to feel like I actually had more freedom as a programmer here than I did back home.
I introduced myself to the neighboring company after I settled in. They were a couple of college kids who did not even have a product idea yet. From all the introductions and people we met, it was obvious our company was the most mature. Our boss was the oldest CEO in the office. Even older than Vincent. And although we were a startup we did not act one. We worked harder than we dreamed. The shared office was full of dreamers. Vincent saw the work ethic in us and asked us to join his accelerator for that reason alone. The initial investment in our company came with a catch, Vincent owned 10% of it but that was the catch with all companies here. But he had the highest hope of getting his investment back through our company. I do not think anyone thought they could fail but statistics said we were the least likely.
Geoff was already working with a printing machine testing out its capabilities to print complex 3-dimensional algorithms. I was not interested in getting straight to work, I wanted to walk the busy streets of this unknown world. Alas, that was for another day, the boss wanted us to get set up with configuration and take us out to eat. T.O.L.E sprouts for dinner sounded exciting. To pass the time I connected into the floating chair and updated my operating system to support J-27 applications. All GPS, network access and other A-50 tools would be inaccessible here.
The first difference I noticed was the citizens used a centralized application for all their needs. This made it easier for the government to monitor its citizens' activity but they were born into that. Within this single app, communications were sent, payments were managed and the news was distributed. To access this tool I had to install a new government-approved patch which included the latest T.O.L.E language encryption keys. Installing these new tools I started to feel part of a new elite, it was rare to meet a 1HE who obtained these tools. Most wouldn’t even want to go near it. I felt different, I wanted this kind of access and I wanted in some ways to be part of T.O.L.E culture.
The internet connection was seamless and took about 14 minutes to download and install the patch. Viewing the logs, if I wanted to, I couldn’t read it. The foreign stream of words scattered across the AR display, I watched the output and chuckled.
Z U J x p X [ m c % o X n q + 9 / <
X - I w 3 + y ^ = 3 s ( / ] + 7 D 1
d ( s M ` k b Z q - y J $ * - - -
' 5 # M : K K y < n S u 4 9 7 `
( Q G 1 " c u q T I F 8 = < 0
_ X W U s ! 1 2 D D W P p ' e I
@ , " < E 6 6 J ^ I o l m p o \
8 \ @ Z & D A u v n g u D Q v e i
My patch required a reboot to my system. I looked over at my team, they were still occupied. I kickstarted the rest of the installation. Upon rebooting, I noticed the default firmware on my system now had a new logo, powered by T.O.L.E Technologies Inc. This was a government-backed technology company that maintained all the official software for the planet. I was now part of the system, the government had installed tracking software, data export services and even set me up with a bank account. Everything I did the government knew about… if they cared to look into me. It was the sacrifice of working here but I was not dumb. I was a programmer and it was not my first time I added a secondary partition to my system. Any time I needed, I could boot between my new T.O.L.E patched operating system or my normal factory default firmware. I’m sure this would come in handy at some point.
With the J-27 patch installed I scanned the room for various T.O.L.E written signs. The first words I ever read were, keep your workbench area clean!, how informative.
Language in modern times was not like the language the humans had. Now everyone spoke the same byte stream but between transfers the words are encrypted and to understand it, everything must be decrypted. A baseline language was installed in all 1HE bodies and as your career and position in life were acquired, new encryption keys were installed to allow you to speak the language. For the rich, collecting encryption keys was like owning hundreds of spaceships for no reason other than to show off. For myself, I’ve obtained a couple of programming keys, a few surface-level artistic ones from online sales but the T.O.L.E language was the first key I had obtained because of an opportunity. I could not wait to use it.
The team packed up for the day and we went on our way to explore outside the office. On the same street as our hotel, we found a hole in the wall restaurant to continue an off-hours meeting. From the outside looking in, an elderly T.O.L.E woman swept the floors as two males laughed over drinks. A red LED sign danced the words “Famous Spout Soup and Cheap Beer”, which hung above the ordering counter. Between the boss and Geoff, cheap beer could sell them on eating dirt. I was just enjoying the atmosphere. It was not so much a sit-down restaurant but a quick stop. After ordering, the old lady welcomed us to sit outside on popup tables. She set them up herself. The smile on her face told us she was proud to serve 1HE guests. The night was dark. The surrounding LED lights littered the streets pulling in late-night diners for drinks, there was a romance in the air. The whole scene gave off a futuristic late-night excitement and wonderment. I was in love with the city of Syng. Between conversations I used the internal eye camera to capture the scene, I wanted to share this moment with my friends back home. We would end up doing this every night for months.
At one point I mentioned how intense the meeting with Vincent was. Geoff agreed but I was more interested in what the boss thought.
“I understand the whole focus on the company aspect but do you really think we won't have free time to explore J-27?" I asked as I tried to play off my younger age as a need for adventure.
the boss responded, “Ahh do not worry about that. Of course! I asked you two to come here and give up your normal life, the least I can do is let you do what you please in the off-hours. If you want to do other things outside the office, find it and do it. It doesn’t bother me.” and as the words left his mouth, I was relieved to know if I did get involved in a film project I would not have to hide it from the team.
After dinner I decided to break off on my own for a late-night walk. I felt empowered by the thought that it was my destiny to conquer this foreign land. As I walked through the neon light infested dark alleys, it was starting to feel apparent that T.O.L.E beings were rather small compared to the SQR beings. To my surprise, the women on the streets were full of joy and mischief. A cute wonderment in their eyes as they walked past me, a foreign 1HE. They were not scared. They weren’t even really phased with us walking around. It was as if they knew why we were here and it was polite to accept us as soon as possible.
The city was almost emulating the best of the high tech cities found back home with none of the grime and crime I was accustomed to. As if this little slice of utopia was created in God's eye instead of man’s. President Donell had a vision of a perfect future and his creation was on the surface utopia. Looking back I like to think this is the ex-pat mindset, I was too caught up in the moment, those perfect naive moments.
The foreign smells of different spiced sprouts brought hungry eaters joy and groups of teenagers running around made the city come alive. In the office everyone was so timid and respectful. In the real world these small pockets of communities were no different from SQR. I could not comprehend how similar we were, it was my mission tonight to find out why.
Previously at dinner I was first to speak up when the waiter came over. The restaurant industry is like going to a show, there is excitement, loud music and joy at every table. I had a spicy sprout soup with a sprout based cracker that was rather tasty. Geoff had a sprout pudding and a sprout burger. Condiments like Ketchup, salt and pepper were at the tables, normally something I would overlook but Geoff was infatuated with the fact the mechanism to pour the ketchup was human vintage. Order, calling attention, even getting refills on our drink did not cause any conflict. It just felt natural that we, 1HE bodies, were among the natives.
So with the dinner interaction confidence, I wandered to a street cart and started to chat with the chef. There’s something admirable about a culture that is limited on edible resources, yet able to create new delicious dishes from it. This chef was selling a gelatinous sprout ball dyed red on a stick. The price was 1/7th of the price street food would cost back home. A small price to start an educated conversation.
I paid for the snack as he started to ask me about which SQR planet I was from and what my company did. I explained with minimal details unsure if I was allowed to share this information with the citizens. He was excited to see I understood his encryption and was more interested in telling me about himself than hearing about me.
I was interested in the culture anyway, so I asked, “why are T.O.L.E bodies not shocked that 1HE bodies are here?”
He laughed and brought up a holographic image that completely shocked my electronic mind. He was showing me a SQR movie clip. For a second I thought he was showing me something smuggled or illegal. I shoved his hands down and looked around.
“You shouldn’t be showing me this," I said.
The look on his face was in utter befuddlement. “Hey” he screamed, “This 1HE over here…” and I booked it. I was not ready to meet the dark enforcement officers that roamed the streets. I had heard stories back home about how brutal and strict the police were in J-27. It was only my first night on the planet, I hadn't even been here for 12 hours. The hysteria overshadowed any form of logical thinking.
I ran as fast as my mechanical legs could take me straight to the entrance of my hotel. The glass doors slid open slower than I could wait for as I shoved myself in to hide. The young T.O.L.E women smiled at me as I awkwardly shuffled to the room teleporter. I stepped in the glowing blue ring and pressed the button to my room. I was safe.
I arrived in my room after a split-second. I threw my bag on the bed and just crashed into the sheets. What a strange occurrence, I thought. Why was that T.O.L.E chef so open with me? Did they hear stories about SQR culture and think I would know that movie? Was this a trap to try to trick foreigners into sharing forbidden SQR culture? My mind was racing as I turned into the local visual broadcast to calm myself down. I flipped through the streams hoping to find something soothing but found something even more surprising. I started blushing and went into a laughing frenzy. How crazy I must have looked, as the same SQR movie was streaming in my visual memory banks. Of course, J-27 had foreign broadcasts freely transmitting.
I fell asleep that night full of exciting emotions wondering what new discovery the following day will give me. What misinformed notion I had about the culture I would find next, and What working in this beautiful new land would bring change inside me. The future was now and I was shaping it.
________________
“The drive to endure a challenge to completion is the noblest task anyone can every accomplish” - Vincent Berns of BK
A couple of days had passed since our arrival to J-27 and I was starting to have a morning routine. My hotel room was practically empty besides my clothes. I had no reason to stay inside. A quick wash and out the door with my bag was all I required to walk to the office. Geoff would wait in the hotel lobby and we’d travel to work together. We’d share minimal experiences but kept with small talk as we literally spend 18 hours a day working together.
“I ended up going to the convenience store outside the office last night and found out they have a whole bunch of our soda and snacks over here,” he started the day with.
“Did you notice if the taste was a little different?”, I asked.
“Yeah… the weird thing is our planet's fibers are replaced with sprout fibers. I guess it is better than nothing.”
We continued walking to the office.
The walk between the hotel and the office was no more than 5 minutes at a leisurely pace. We could simply teleport to work but there was something novel about walking with the locals. Between the hotel and the office a massive six-lane highway that separated us. An underground walkway was built to connect the housing streets to the industrial park. The underground walkway was almost a city in itself. Inside small shops sold various wares and food and the lower class and upper-class intermingling. It was full of shady dealings and upper-class transactions. It didn’t seem like most of it was sanctioned. Over the following weeks, it would become apparent that most of J-27 were unregulated. When the government is caught up in itself, it is easy for the citizens, under hushed tones, to maintain hidden freedoms.
I bought a bag of sprout cookies, finding myself annoyed with putting the prefix sprout in front of everything and continued to walk out onto the industrial strip with Geoff. We talked about the fact that today we’d meet the other companies properly and do public introductions. As we exited the underground walkway, I noticed hundreds of electronic hover bicycles lined up all the way down the Highway sidewalk. Surprisingly, more people rode small forms of transportation than large vehicles. The hover bicycles had the brand “MoPod” across the body in an artistic speedy font in black which complimented the bright yellow paint job the entire unit had. I wanted to try one out but we were running late to the scheduled company introductions. I’d make it my mission to take one of those for a spin before the end of the month.
We had known about introductions since the first day. I was regretting it because it required us to introduce ourselves in front of the whole BK office. It sounded like a good idea to meet new friends as we were all in this together but public speaking still got to me. Fortunately, we all had a common thread. Plus most if not all of us were technically programmed. It would be easy to find strong connections.
Vincent stepped up first and went through an orientation talk. He brought up past experiences he had turning small startups like ours into a million-dollar business, making a point of, listen to what I say, I’m successful. It made the whole room feel like we’d be victorious. Programmers think logically and analytically, we knew that not all of us would pass the test of time but damn did it feel like winning this opportunity alone made it our destiny to take it to the top. the boss always made it feel like it was our destiny but he was programmed to be a leader, it was only natural for him.
We learned a little bit of background on some of the BK staff as well. Vincent started off his early years with minor business success in manufacturing. His first big break was in a cheaper process of making alternative silicone skin. Originally it was for a cheaper model of 1HE but it turned out the material was perfect lubrication for thrust shafts in hyper-drive crafts. Our company already faced that first hand when we were awarded this grant. We went from a filter monitor to a government-backed filtration monitoring system. Change is good for progress.
The first team that introduced itself was creating a more complex mechanical hand as a replacement for our current model. At a glance this shiny black blue trim mockup was eye-catching. The real purpose of the “glove” as they called it, was to break the traditional 3 joint fingers humans gave us but to use 4 joints in total. A 140% increase in mobility, strength and productivity was the claim. It was interesting enough and I would raise my hand to test it if I had the chance.
A couple more team introductions passed, barely any of the projects tickled my fancy. I was a harsh critic in the world of innovation. I sometimes wonder if I was programmed to not be nearly as excited as others. I found technology these days boring but the exploration of life more interesting. It was a fault in my hardwiring I’d been hiding for a while. If it isn’t obvious, it was not the project that excited me, it was the travel to J-27 that I was more interested in. The more I listened to people just like me, the more it was clear to me that my J-27 journey was not going to be remembered inside this office. It was in the off hours in between the job that I would share once I returned home.
It was our turn to speak. I slowly rose from where I was sitting, I didn’t like the feeling of everyone looking at me. The boss introduced the company, the product and the status of our developer. As he spoke, I looked into the eyes of each person in the room and felt almost threatened. Everyone who went up thus far were hardware engineers. I was just a software guy with a desire to be an artist. Even so, there’s a big mental difference between hardware and software engineers. I started putting myself into a different box instead of taking pride in my skill set. I knew I had all the tools and opportunities to learn hardware if I desired. Part of me wanted that opportunity but another part of me did not want to commit because I wanted to spend as little time in the office as I could. I was going to have to keep up appearances to stay in J-27, I was here strictly for business. How was I going to manage? This isn’t to say that I was not good at my job, it is just I had been at it for 10 years now. I guess I needed a change.
I wanted to be an artist during my assignment years but the institutions beat it into me that it wasn’t a viable career. I did not want to disappoint my father. Programming on the other hand did feel like the ultimate artistic job if you did not mind having a boss dictate the requirements. Writing code was a creation in itself and it satisfied me for now. While I was in my thoughts, Geoff was cheerfully cracking jokes and introducing himself to a world of workers just like him. He pointed to me in one of his jokes just in time for me to snap out of my concerns. I spoke with pride and strength about who I was, how long I’ve been in software and how excited I was to work and learn with everyone. It was not that I was not personable, it was easy for me to connect with people once we talked. I just did not see the need most of the time if I was here for work. I wanted friends outside of here, not inside. Looking back, I don’t regret this decision but I did put an unnecessary limitation on myself. I would like to blame it on human programming but I knew it was my choice. Everything was always my choice.
We wrapped up our introduction and sat back in the crowd of other companies. Right there in that moment with my introduction and not being in the moment. I had already lost my chance to connect and grow within these walls. I was lucky the A-50 monthly mandatory memory analysis submission and reporting was waved while living in J-27. When we returned, we’d have to do a massive data dump but until then I suppose I can get away with this thinking. The reports were with the boss anyways, I had a feeling he would not have minded as long as we were meeting our deadlines and goals.
I did have the internal programming of a strong work ethic. I was a damn good programmer too no less, I loved the creation and the challenge. I could easily sacrifice days on end trying to impress the boss or a colleague. This was not because I cared for a project but because I desired the instant gratification of being recognized. If you were below or equal to me, congratulations did not phase me, but if you were successful, I did everything I could to let you know I too was/should/could be successful. Where did that leave me now? I needed to find an outside source in the T.O.L.E communities that I could craft; something larger than me.
That’s when I discovered the T.O.L.E betterment program, a government-backed and regulated activities channel to enhance the lives of its citizens. Searching for forums, I found a few artistic endeavors that interested me; 3D modeling, game development, advanced mathematical algorithm graphing but it was all in the realms of connected mainframes. I wanted to do anything but be connected to a computer. I was not having any luck, so I posted a “find a group” section. I listed my interests and personality traits hoping someone would reach out to me. So the waiting game began.
Returning to work, I was assigned to get the communication protocol working between the device and 1HE internal systems. The data between the device and client was rather small at the moment, but Geoff was writing a new package for the standardized object notation format that conformed SQR protocols.
Within the hour I was ready to test which first required Geoff's new prototype. When we left A-50, the device was a bare chip that connected to the filtration system. Two microscopic ends sat on both sides of the filtration unit. This allowed for one side to monitor the vibration outside the system and another to monitor the inside. With a simple differential algorithm, it was easy to identify a clogged filter when delta pressure spikes due to different reads on the two sensors. I was still not sold on the idea myself but here I was installing a device prototype to test the creation of a new communication protocol I had developed.
The code booted and ran flawlessly. I passed the patch around to the team and we sat around for 3 minutes admiring how clean our filtration systems were working. I took a deeper look at the particles found inside my cooling stream and noticed a small amount of toluene, a chemical found in paint. but this was expected as every wall here was probably painted a few days before we arrived. If it was not for artistic minds in our type of world, I would not have the joy of knowing about Toluene. Someone decided to paint these walls blue for a reason. It intrigued me as that small decision affected the test results of our prototype. And with the cliche of timing a notification hit my inbox about from the betterment forum.
________________
“The creative mind is a child's mind. Pity the loss of organic children.” - Franklin Ford, 1HE philosopher
The office teams around me were too involved in their own work to notice the excited smile on my face. I turned my head down to hide my emotions as I opened up the message I had been waiting for all week.
I read from the AR display: “Hey, I’m creating a documentary about 1HE’s visiting J-27, interested?”
The body of the message included details about the project, how it was community-driven without pay and would require long hours. Sentence after sentence, every artificial hit of dopamine triggered an advanced desire to jump out of my seat and meet this person immediately. I finished reading the letter with the final words, sincerely Red, Director. There it was the words I needed to see, proof this was not a joke but a creative project I could really be a part of.
I started to dream up what this director would be like; An artistic T.O.L.E, using words I didn’t understand yet, being melodramatic and probably very strict on set. I didn’t exactly have much experience with filmmaking but I wanted to be a cameraman. Since I was here for business, I could not be in front of the camera. I didn’t want to either.
I quickly responded with a thanks and the request within five minutes after the initial message was sent to me. Did I seem desperate? Probably but I felt this was an opportunity and if there was anyone else he reached out to, I was not going to let them take this from me. An hour in of waiting no message was returned. I was too desperate and I ruined my chances. I returned back to my code to hide the embarrassment.
The software needed a graphical interface for laymen users to understand the data. Normally, I just look at straight numeric data streams but most people are not as technical. Although our product might not exactly be breaking barriers, the boss did have a brilliant mind for how the user interface should inform and provide value for the end-user. He came up with all sorts of ways to inspire the user with the data they were shown. If you saw your filtration was in peak condition it would send happiness signals to the brain. If your filtration was getting clogged, tips would pop up on reasons and how to resolve it. For example, an alley may contain contaminants that decrease the filtration lifespan. So with GPS connectivity enabled, we could inform the user of a cleaner path to walk. If our clientele were hypochondriac we’d be millionaires but we weren’t selling to humans. We needed new ideas to convince the end-user to use it.
The team wrapped up for the day and we went out to dinner again. This became a regular occurrence. Not only was J-27 cheaper and SQR dollars went further, the boss was paying for all the meals. Work, Lunch, Work, Dinner, always together as a team but the weekends were ours. Which was great because Red sent me another message and agreed to have me as a backup camera when he was not behind it. Not only was Red going to film the movie, but he was also the one interviewing the 1HE expats. More often than not he was going to be center frame telling the story. He asked if I could be part of the script reading that Saturday but I wanted to double-check with the boss. I brought it up during dinner and like I thought he encouraged it.
“I’m always happy for anyone to gain new experience. who knows it might lead to a better idea about our next big product,” the boss said, reminding me that work came first.
I told Red I was here working in an accelerator but my off hours were 100% available. It felt like taking up an extra project was like standing on a grayline of being in J-27 strictly for business. But what else was I supposed to do on my off-hours? At least that is what I told myself to justify the guilt I had.
Friday was coming to an end and BK was throwing a sprout pizza party, which for whatever reason didn’t contain tomato sauce, it was weird. I stuck around and attempted small talk. I introduced myself to random groups getting a feel for the people and their projects but really I just was craving pizza. I did meet a peculiar engineer who opted out of repairs and required a cane to walk. This was actually very unusual which naturally brought a lot of interest from my fellow office mates. I also introduced myself without bringing up the obvious but he dove right in and let me know. I guess when everyone notices and wants to know the same thing, addressing the metaphorical elephant just breaks the ice a little easier. I asked him about transportation around the city and he mentioned that metros are the easiest methods. Buses usually took longer and required extra attention to the route else it is easy to miss your stop. The bus system did not inform the rider of the whereabouts. Odd but noted.
At one point during my self-indulgent pizza frenzy I locked eyes with Vincent, he approached me. I nodded and said thanks for the food and I was enjoying my first week in the office.
He smiled and asked, “How is development going? You’re software for the team right?"
I again nodded for some reason as if intimidated.
“So you know, the software might be even more important than the hardware. The issue with hardware is after it is installed no one looks at it. The everyday experience is in the software, your software. You do know how important your work is, don't you?”
He stated more than I asked as I looked for a resolution to this conversation.
“Don’t worry, I’m very efficient at programming,” was all I could get out before he told me to enjoy the rest of the night. He took two steps and paused.
“You know we monitor data sent over our servers right? Our security system informs us of any red flags," Vincent smiled and walked away.
He was in my head… he knew about my off-hour desires. I would need to control my communication on personal networks instead. The boss was not strict but I knew Vincent was and I wonder what he had in store if I continued down the path of the film project. That night I walked away with 2 interesting contacts but the way Vincent confronted me stopped me from getting too attached. It didn’t really matter, I wanted to learn from the natives, not the 1HE people. Later in life, this would become a constant theme once I returned home. Almost like I was becoming defensive about a land I was a guest in. No matter how horrible the world would become the true J-27 I lived through was what was in my heart.
The morning sun rays came quicker than expected but sleep was restless anyway. I was too excited for the script reading. Red sent me a message stating that we’d all meet up at a local school auditorium and to be there at 3:00 PM sharp. In the inevitability of getting lost, I decided to embark on the journey a few hours early. I connected to the T.O.L.E GPS system and founded the easiest route to the school. I decided that a journey through the high tech metro system would be the least intimidating. Using the public bus system would take me directly to the school but it did require 5 transfers. The idea of missing just one of those transfers stressed me out. Although the metro ride would give me an hour’s walk once I arrived.
I took the teleportation circle to the basement floor of the metro and waited in the queue with the other T.O.L.E passengers. Towering over both male and female citizens, I was correct on my assumption that I was the only 1HE in the building. The metro train arrived swiftly and we all entered in an orderly fashion. I noticed the women and children occupied the seating, so I stood at attention trying to avoid eye contact with the curious crowd. So rested my eyes and logged into my internal system to drown out the alienation of other passengers. I had an hour ride to waste and unfortunately, metros systems underground. Which meant all eyes were contained inside looking at me.
I decided to boot up a T.O.L.E music streaming service to discover cultural sounds. I discovered a lot of slow ballads that bored me. In the independent section, the younger generation made high tempo techno beats which were fun to listen to but too amateur for SQR radio. In our society, music gave us new encryption keys or vocabulary to build off. That was the purpose of music for our brains. Maybe one-day T.O.L.E music will help bridge the gap between our planets.
The glancing eyes that had an interest in me, the foreigner, reminded me I was a microscopic minority. My ego was being filled larger than I have ever experienced, not on merit but on looks. As if I had turned into a rockstar overnight, the limelight directed on me 24 hours a day with the certainty that it will never fade because of the strict regulations to live here. I’m sure in time, I might get annoyed once the novelty of it wears off but I was starting to enjoy it now.
In the last few remaining minutes, I collected my thoughts and wondered what encounters I would face during my walk. Would people stare in bewilderment as I walked on the sidewalks? Was I going to be the first 1HE being each person I passed today has ever seen? So many questions and so many chances to change the world. I was being drawn into this world, and every once in a while, the fear it was going to be taken away from me haunted me.
It was not until I arrived at the entrance of the school, I was out of my preoccupied mind and ready to meet the director. This was the weekend and of course, the school was closed. Entering the building felt more like entering a small box office. There was a male T.O.L.E located at a front desk and to his left a protection gate (similar to what humans called metal detectors). The walls full of various crafts on the display ensured that I was indeed in the right place. I walked up to the guard and explained that I was meeting friends here for a film project. He must have not been informed of the event because he kept telling me I was in the wrong place. He handed me the principles business card and told me to come back on a school day. The entire exchange was rather discouraging but something told me to stick around. I went outside and sat on the steps away from the guard’s line of sight.
Within 15 minutes a T.O.L.E around my age came up to the building but stopped before going inside. I figured they knew something I didn’t, so I asked.
“Are you part of the film project by any chance?”
“I am! I didn’t know 1HE people were going to be helping out,” he responded.
“I’m guessing more interested parties will show up shortly. I’m Jason”
I wish I could tell you more about his personality other than we both arrived early but later in the project he dropped out. Regardless, I was in the right place and my film life was about to start. A few minutes later a group of T.O.L.E girls arrived and took us into the building. From what I could tell, the director had yet to show up. The guard saw me enter with the group and I gave him a wave as a gesture of I was right.
We went up a set of red carpet stairs into a medium-sized auditorium. A girl asked me to help set up by arranging chairs in a circle. As I minded my own business and did what I was told, more and more people entered the room and it seemed everyone knew each other. I had nothing to do but sit, I occasionally met a stranger but no one seemed to want to talk to the foreigner. That was until the director entered the room.
________________
“A writer needs a pen, an artist needs a brush, but a filmmaker needs an army.” - Orson Wells
The first message I received from the director was in the SQR encryption but I figured this was intentional to better connect with me. Red entered the room with a coffee cup, clipboard and was towering over the other T.O.L.Es in the room, he was 1HE. I knew we would hit it off the second I saw him, he had a programmer’s hunch to him. I was missing a piece of information here, so I walked up to Red to introduce myself. From a distance, he towered T.O.L.E beings but even from up close he towered me. He was lanky, tall and mildly attractive but almost too skinny to be a perfect image of the statue. I didn’t find him charming but through his handshake a man of strong work ethic.
“Welcome mate, I’m glad you could make it. I’m happy to finally put a name to a face,” he said but quickly got distracted by another person in the room.
“We’re going to record this session. So if you’d like, can you set up this camera and film a behind-the-scenes for today?” He asked.
Of course, I said yes.
“I think we let you jack into the camera equipment and grab whatever footage feels right. When we begin the scripting reading, feel free to just throw it on to a floater,” He began, “but our batteries only last for about 30 minutes to keep an eye on that,” again he looked at a female in the room and quickly let me know, “I have to get started here, so here’s the equipment.”
And just like that, I was already working on a documentary. It was not the first time I put together a camera, I did some simple photography before and this equipment felt off the shelf. The body was a standard Micro 4/3rd system and compact enough to travel with. I attached the lens, clicked it tight, added the floating tripod mount by screwing in the bottom base. I turned the camera on and switched to video mode. The shot was a little too close, so I had to move back. And back.. and back. To the point where it really made me feel like I was not part of the group. No one cares about the cameraman anyways.
I jacked into the camera drone and hovered around the room grabbing footage of various groups talking. I found the center of the room and brought the camera back letting it hover in place while the digital script was passed out. Everyone sat down and looked through the 20-page document. Red started to introduce himself.
“Welcome everyone, I’m really happy to see all of you here. Thank you for joining me. I’ve been working on this project for about a year now. I knew at any moment the first SQR business leaders would arrive and that time is now! I’ve been living here for 5 years working as a journalist and historian for a local broadcast but I’ve decided a month ago to quit my full-time job. Of course, after getting permission to solely document the SQR business experience. The J-27 government is very supportive of the project, let’s not let them down.”
He sat down in a chair positioned in the center of the room and continued, “As most of you know, the citizens of SQR planets have little knowledge of our home. They fear us, they do not understand the culture and the government is the main attraction for criticism. This project’s main goal is to soften the hard shell of J-27 and educate the galaxy on our real lives…”
He talked as if he was a T.O.L.E himself.
“Today we are going to go over the script I’ve written which outlines the questions and the narration capture through the eyes of business leaders working on J-27."
The room was attentive and treated every single word of his as if he spoke of worldly change and we were all witnessing the first steps in it. I was even drawn in and forgot about keeping an eye on the camera battery.
“I suspect and hope all expectations are broken and interesting twists are captured that benefit a better agenda but we’ll always return to the script as a way to align the film. Again thank you all for being here. Let’s start!”
The room erupted into clapping as Red picked up his document, took a deep breath and began with the outline. The clapping broke my gaze just in time to notice the camera was ready for a new battery. I switched it out and spent the next hour admiring the enthusiasm of each member of the project while keeping a side glance at the camera. When the script reading was complete, each document digitally corrupted itself and the members went back to talking and cleaning up the auditorium. I packed up the equipment as I sat around hoping to speak to Red before he left. Luckily, I was holding his filming equipment so he had to return to me.
One of the popular girls in the room noticed me and scampered over to talk. She introduced herself as the director's assistant. She explained that she helped with ordering various equipment and finding locations to legally film at. She was extremely pretty and wore additional accessories around her eyes and lips that made her stand out more than any T.O.L.E I had seen. She explained how she got involved in the project and how she and Red lived in the same neighborhood. They were going to go home together, so I figured they were dating or something. It would not surprise me that a J-27 loving SQR would be dating a T.O.L.E being. What did surprise me was Red had been living on J-27 under President Donell’s rule. I guess until you’re involved in a foreign land, you don’t really think outside your own union of planets. Even so, I kind of felt envious of Red for his ability to connect with the citizens here.
“Hey, I’m the director's assistant, Fan. Where are you from?" she asked as most people did here.
I explained A-50 and my backstory in a single sentence. I wanted to get through the generic questions she could have had for me. Not because I was annoyed that she might ask them but I didn’t know how long we had to talk. I rather listen to her story anyways.
“That’s great. it is really surprising to meet a programmer type who also has the ability to make films. How did you get into filmmaking?”
“I actually don’t have any experience. I had the idea that it would be cool to make one and I was fortunate to find Red. I don’t know why Red trusts me with his project so much but I am happy to be here."
I really did mean those words. It was a huge opportunity to be working on a film, no less on another planet. I asked her in return the same question.
“I actually live in the same apartment complex as Red. We’ve been friends for a couple of years. I’ve helped him find various camera-related things in this city. it is actually not that common of a hobby, so you kind of need to know someone who knows someone to get anything of quality around here.”
“That’s interesting. Maybe this documentary will spark interest for more T.O.L.E filmmakers,” I said but she laughed at the idea before explaining why filmmaking isn’t popular here.
“You know our government controls all the camera footage. it is too much of a headache to get permission to film anywhere and even if you had permission, there’s a review board and all.”
“That seems really strict. I’m glad this is Red's camera and I do not have to deal with that.”
“I bet you’re already on a list. I wouldn’t save any footage for yourself. Keep yourself clean.”
“I’ll take your advice," I said as I noticed Red was heading over to talk to me.
“Hey man, thanks again for coming out here. I see you’ve met my assistant,” he said as he gave her a friendly side hug.
“A bunch of us are actually going to get something to eat... You know, to celebrate the first day of film production. You should come.”
“Yeah totally, I’ll just pack up the stuff here real quick and follow you out.”
“Great." he turned to Fan, “You’re coming too right?”
She shook her head no while Red got us all out of the building.
“I’ll ride to the nearest metro with you guys but I have another thing to attend to. Sorry,” she said.
Red said goodbye to the people who couldn’t join and then flagged down a taxi for the three of us. Red took the front of the taxi as he stated, “I’m paying for this, so I’ll take the front.”
I did not mind because I could talk to this cute T.O.L.E girl. I found it interesting to look at her but tried to keep my eyes outside the taxi to avoid suspicion. When she talked to me I got lost in her words and facial expressions. She would constantly use her eyebrows to emphasize certain words. I kind of found it adorable as it made her eye light up. Still in the back of my mind, she was Red’s and I wanted to work on this film more than I wanted a foreign girlfriend. I had a startup to make successful, a film project and little time in between. How could I manage a girlfriend?
We dropped Fan off at the metro and I said “see you around!” as she closed the door to the taxi.
Red started asking me about my availability for the documentary. I explained to him if I had a choice between the project and my job I’d be working on this film. I did go into how my job was my highest priority as without it I could not stay in J-27 but I was pretty serious about seeing the project through. He understood that. Regardless, the project filming hours were typically on the weekends and my off hours, I knew I could manage it.
“I know this might all seem intense but I need to ensure you’re on board because I don’t have so much time on J-27. I’m leaving in a couple of months to start a new career back in SQR.”
“I’m surprised to hear you’re leaving,” I responded.
“It’s been a long life here, I am ready to return to my old habits back home.”
“I can understand that, well don’t even worry about it. We’ll get the film done before you leave.”
I figured those were the words he wanted to hear. I was already acting as if I cared just as much about this film as he did.
“By the way, if you haven’t installed your teleporting systems yet, do so because we’re going to be flying through time and normal travel will not cut it.” He explained.
I started to get worried about this as teleportation cost more money than I wanted to spend and the film project already was a labor of love. There was no pay. Syng was a massive city, the second-largest on the planet. Getting from one end to the other would take about 5 hours by train and that was the quickest route. I understood the need for teleportation but as long as I had the time I would probably just start my travels hours in advance.
Red told the taxi to stop at a street corner with what looked like a giant mall with various stores and a grocery that painted the parameter while the actual mall was on the upper floors. We stepped out of the taxi and grabbed the equipment from the trunk. He asked me to drag it behind us. We walked past the glamorous mall and into a tight alley. I was now having to be particular with how I walked so that the equipment did not bump into the thinning wall space. I still did not get Red yet, and I was not going to find out by getting on his bad side by not protecting his equipment.
At the furthest part of the alley, a restaurant with green exterior decor welcomed us. We entered the building and walked up a set of stairs to the second floor. This restaurant would become our weekly meeting spot for the rest of the year. Inside, traditional T.O.L.E landscape paintings of land that once existed before the industrial revolution hung. Lush green mountain, clean beautiful waterscapes and white living pods that stood out from the natural look of the planet. All a throwback to the original scientists that arrived on this planet.
The other crew members arrived shortly after and we had a nice dinner. Red explained to me he was looking for his number two on this project. Someone who could film but also someone who can be open about the progress and have creative input. He was not just trying to make a film, he was trying to become a professional director. This could be my escape too. I liked the ideas he was filling in my head and it made me want to be more loyal to him. I would never have him doubt my abilities or capabilities to make this film.
We shared details of our youth, parents and really got to know each other that night. He lived close to the restaurant but I still had an hour or so metro trip back. I said my thanks for dinner and embarked back on my journey to the industrial park. The metro ride back home did not feel nearly as long as I played back the memories and conversations I had just endured. I was part of an actual documentary on a planet I never dreamed of visiting just a week ago. I was grateful for how my life was turning into a dream and I did not want to wake up just yet.
As he walked me back to the metro he said something that would shatter the dream just a little.
“This weekend we’re only filming on Saturday. Fan and I are going up to the beach for the day; It is our 1 year anniversary and I wanted to make sure I cut out time for a much needed romantic adventure."
I had a feeling something was going on between them and I’m glad I didn’t step on any toes. At least now I could drop the idea of dating a T.O.L.E girl, it was a sign that I should just focus on work and the documentary. Throwing a girl in the mix would have been fun but I doubt it would have turned out well.
“Oh, that’s great. I am happy you guys can do that. What are you guys going to do once you return to A-50?" I asked not because I was interested in replacing him once he was gone but I didn’t think T.O.L.E’s could leave the planet.
“I have a plan but we’ve been talking about it. I don't really have an answer. It is better to stay in the moment and be grateful for the time we do have."
I understood what was being said so I responded, “Welp, enjoy the trip for sure. I hope your plan works out. Anyways, I’ll see you Saturday for sure. Have a good rest of your week.”
I waved goodbye and continued down the metro stairs. Oddly enough, although Fan was the director's assistant, I never did see her alone again. It was probably for the best.
________________
“The mind goes numb without motivation or challenge. Even those who meditate with the clearest mind are motivated by something.” - Unknown
The weekend ended and I was back in the office working harder than ever before. Right before entering the front door, Vincent came into the teleporter and said good morning. I held the door open for him but of course, he had to say something about the film project.
“Working hard at work or are you going to abandon it for the film?" he said and continued into his office.
I just gave him a fake smile but I was fired up. I was making quick and efficient progress so when the time came again Vincent couldn’t call me out on the project. Oddly enough he didn’t bring up the film project the rest of the week. Personal life and work-life had boundaries and I did not have to feel like a teenager asking his parents for permission at every turn. The freedom of no attachments to a world was liberating, partly why I enjoyed living on J-27 so much.
A week went by and I didn’t hear from Red about filming. I didn’t think I had gotten replaced but I was starting to get worried about if things were always going to be this slow. Regardless, work was going well. I started hanging out with my co-worker Geoff a lot more which helped me keep my mind off the film project. Geoff was my neighbor in the hotel, so every morning we’d walk to work together. Cross through the underground. Talk about work, life or the world around us and I was appreciating his perspective on all of it. Geoff was 10 years older than me but had a childlike curious mind. Everything that entered his mind required scientific understanding. It was actually really interesting to listen to him talk as he’d start a conversation about baseball and would end with how ink is injected in a cartridge. Everything had connective dots and his mind loved moving from one subject to another. I did not always have something to add to the conversation but it did feel like an interesting educational broadcast listening to him go.
The two of us became enthralled with quickly eating lunch every day so we could explore the technology markets with the leftover time. Our first day in the markets, we needed to find bead size magnets for our device. Finding these on our own would take days but fortunately, BK had a directory of parts available. The list detailed each building and each floor. The one we needed to visit was the famously known mega-complex, Apolis. Apolis was a massive 10 story building with a floorplan three times larger than a football field. It was intense to walk through. On a single floor alone, hundreds of merchants were actively selling millions of units a minute and I loved every second of the chaos. The floor plan was designed row by row, column by column but with a lack of organization, it was easy to get lost. One stall might be selling LED lights and right next it is artificial skin. This made the hunt for finding anything in here a frenzy but it also made looking at everything almost a museum-like experience.
I didn’t know much about hardware components but I had the keys to understand words like potentiometer, switch, resistor, capacitor, and button. I could even distinguish between each instrument but using them in an application was near non-existent. In Hardware 101, I learned how to connect a power source to a LED with two wires and a resistor but past that, I was the least educated person in the entire building. I enjoyed looking, even envisioning what it would be like to use it but that’s why we hired Geoff, he was the brains behind the hardware.
In addition to the components, the markets also had ready to buy products. This could be no name speaker systems, lasers, oscilloscopes, anything that was cheap but easy to white label. It seemed most products here were a year or so behind what was seen on SQR planets. It felt like junk to me but if I was programmed with a business mindset I probably could have figured out how to make a fortune off these items.
A no-name oscilloscope interested Geoff as we searched for the magnets. It was a tenth of the price back home and he was getting tired of using the shared office version. He ended up purchasing one just for the sake of taking it apart and seeing what was missing that inside that made it so cheap to sell.
On the fifth floor of Apolis a sign indicated that batteries and battery connectors were sold here. Our device did require a small coin cell battery so Geoff thought taking the detour wouldn't be such a bad idea. The floor really did contain everything about batteries. There were stalls full of consumer-grade batteries like AA to more advanced ones like graphene batteries. It was really impressive to put into perspective how large the battery market was in the world. I had access to it all on one floor. Oddly enough this is where we found the magnets finally. I stopped and asked the lady if she had more than the ones on display.
"I do, I probably have the largest selection of magnets on this entire floor," she stated.
"We are actually looking for a specific size," I stated as Geoff took out his notes to show her.
Geoff had the measurement memorized but he wanted to make sure the women understood exactly what he wanted. The notes had diagrams and pictures just in case. She picked up the sheet and pulled out a box at the same time. Inside were individually wrapped roles of round and square magnets all clung to each other. She handed me the box and said if we have it, it's in there. Customer service wasn't exactly high as she made us look through her collection. Fortunately, Geoff had an AR micrometer caliper program installed in him and he started measuring them out. We couldn't find exactly what we needed but Geoff thought he could fix the design to match the magnets at hand.
"Are you sure these are all the magnets you have?" Geoff asked, a little disappointed.
"We do custom manufacturing but these are the standard size our company provides," she said as he handed the box back to her.
Geoff had a handful of standard sizes in his hand and was looking at them thinking. I chimed in to help the situation, "Could you quote us on the size we are asking for?"
I figured it wouldn't hurt to get her to find how much it would cost to get our exact magnets made.
"Sure, I'll call my boss and see what he says," she reached out her hand to look at the note again.
She got on her comms and started talking to her boss. For me, I thought it would be a simple fix to just resize the pockets for the magnets. I didn’t know there were standard magnet sizes and neither did Geoff. I asked him about why the device had the hole size it currently had.
“I guess it was just something I didn’t think about.”
“What’s the issue then? Can’t we resize?” I responded.
“We could but we just spent a decent amount to get 10 prototype designs printed.”
“Well… what if we put extra glue in the prototypes and then buy a smaller size magnet that will fit but just not snuggly.”
“That might just work," Geoff said as the women hung up the phone.
“The boss said it would cost around 0.45₮ per 10 magnets made with these dimensions,” she said as she interrupted our conversation.
“That’s not bad," Geoff said.
He stood there for a second to do some calculations.
“What do these cost?" he showed the lady the few he had in his hand.
She told him the price depending on the size. It seemed the standard sized magnets actually were about 0.20₮ cheaper. When you’re manufacturing thousands of units, the cents do start to add up.
“It would be better if we changed the design to fit a standard size,” I recommend.
“Yeah, but for the demo, I need magnets this week. I'll just do as you suggested and we can fit these smaller ones in for the time being.”
"Do you want to put an order in for your custom sizes?" the woman asked as a good sales lady should.
"I think we'll hold off but I'll purchase all of these."
We found everything we needed that day and Geoff and I talked about how incredible it was that these market floors existed. Back home on A-50, we'd need to source the part, order it online, wait a day or two for the package to come. That’s if the part was exactly what was needed, if not the process would repeat until the part was found. We needed markets like this back home, I thought to myself. We have so many hardware hackers out there that they would fall in love with this city knowing they had access to all the parts and components in the world. Although this system was less professional it was a lot more efficient. Again, if I was smarter I could have figured out a way to turn these buildings into a successful business for myself.
If Geoff was falling in love with the planet like I was he never showed it. He was a soon-to-be-father of his first 1HE and that’s what interrupted his mind when he caught himself getting too comfortable here. I did push him to have more fun here which was easy because of his child-like personality and wonderment with life. One night after work we went out to dinner and did our nightly walk through the city streets. We’d walk for hours on end talking, always with an ice cream in hand. One night we decided to cross the highway via the underground to the dead technical park we worked in. While exiting the underground passage, one of us had the bright idea to finally test out one of the rental MoPods we’d see the first day we arrived.
MoPod were very similar to human bicycles except these were electronic and did not have wheels. The vehicle used anti-gravity propulsion to hover above the ground at a half foot distance. And just like a bicycle, it was nearly impossible to use improperly once you knew how to ride them. We both knew how to use them of course, every 1HE owned one at one point in their life. The difference was where we lived, it did not support a large enough population or a dense enough city to warrant distributing rental variations.
Fragments of memories cycled through my brain as I sat down on the Pod. It had been at least 5 years since I last rode one. I had just moved out of my father's house when I left the pod behind. How nervous I was to live alone but it only made me feel more attached to my trip to J-27 now that fear was the last thing I worried about. Why did I find more comfort in living alone in a culture I did not relate to than I did in my hometown…
“Let’s go out to that park I saw on the map!” Geoff said, breaking my daydream.
I had also been thinking about going out to that park sooner or later and tonight was the perfect night. I thought if I kept on feeling these emotions of staying and getting attached to the experiences they would slip away faster. When Planet J-27 became inaccessible all I had was these memories. Why was going to that park and riding hover Pods over perfectly cut and maintained grass so important to not forget? We had a blast that night, a night I will always remember.
I was craving to be back in control of the camera but Red still had yet to contact me. That was starting to depress me, so I reached out. Fortunately, he responded as quickly as I asked. He told me things were gearing up to get serious soon and an interview schedule would be released soon. It was nice to break the spell of silence and later that week we did a quick crew test run. As a film crew of lighting, sound and camera, we separately knew the tools but never worked together. I knew I needed a test run.
The weekend came and again I arrived early. Everyone else showed up via teleportation and it made me a little jealous. I didn’t exactly feel like I was wasting my time but it rained the entire time I walked to the location. Which by the time I arrived I was drenched. Four other crew members showed up and Red outlined a little skit we could go through to get familiar with his equipment. Fan was there as an actress and Red was obviously in the spotlight. We took a few shots, practiced syncing the microphone and camera and got used to the director, Red, following the same pre-record routine.
“Mic ready?” He’d start
“Ready!” the boom operator responded back.
“Camera ready?"
“Camera ready!” I would shout.
“Start Mic start!"
“Mic active!”
“Start Camera."
“Camera active!”
“Scene 1 Take 1. Action!” He’d yell as he snapped the clapperboard. Each take we were becoming a true team. Red did a great job coaching us and keeping his soft instructor tone under control. We never felt stressed during these practice runs.
In my younger years, my father really hoped that I’d become something respectable like a doctor. He worked as hard as he could to provide us with a well-rounded education and when it came my time to enter high school, I was accepted into a scientific-based early college. I goofed around too much during those primitive years. I did make short skits and prank calls with my friends but I never really thought I could make film a career. At one point I really wanted to impress my friends by making an interactive 3D VR game one weekend and I was hooked. I knew I wanted to be a programmer.
The science school did not teach programming but I knew if I could just focus on making video games that made my friends laugh, then I could figure out how to get a job working out of high school. On assignment day I opted in for a technical background firmware patch that was my start into the real world. I was the most ambitious 1HE on my planet. I knew I had wasted my high school years teaching myself programming instead of thinking about my future. I guess I just wanted a simple job that allowed me to fit in with society. It was not until my second internship as a database developer for the government my programming skills were starting to shine.
It was as if my brain was figuratively connected to the mainframe, I was that good at programming. This was not the case for all 1HE programmers but it soon bored me to have this skill. The main reason was, it made the bosses look good. It made my companies look good. I was never gonna touch the monetary success of my skills and hard work. So I started getting into other projects on the side away from work and it became a habit to try new artistic mediums that made me feel the same way I did back in high school. Until now, I was unable to find that one project.
Our first real interview was coming up and Red was starting to go military on us about preparation. Every day after work, we’d all meet up and run through various scenarios to ensure if anything went wrong we were covered. The more familiar we were with our respective equipment the more confident we were as a team. At first it felt awkward and there was a lot of eye-rolling when someone messed up but by the end of the first week of practicing, we all understood the pitfalls in each other's equipment and that gave each crew member a form of respect in their craft.
Funny enough no one in the crew even questioned my ability behind the camera. Again, it was like second nature to me. I had a good eye for capturing the scene while deliberately focusing on the subject. Red complimented me on composition and background selection. By our last practice session, we were a well oil machine.
Red pulled us all together our last day and gave us a pep talk. He had great confidence in us and knew we’d do an outstanding job. He reminded us to arrive at the business office an hour early so we could all set up properly and make a good impression with anyone taking notes. All we needed was one recommendation to the right CEO and we’d be interviewing someone who could really make this documentary matter.
Back at work, we were lining up our first pitching event. The shared office once a month brought in a group of potential investors and allowed select companies to show off. Being on Vincent's good side was ideal if you wanted a chance to talk to the investors. It didn’t hurt to have a good product though. Our boss handled the presentations with the investors but it was up to me and Geoff to ensure our demos were perfect. If you’ve ever been in the tech world, you’re very much familiar with the fact that there is no such thing as a perfect demo. No matter the preparation or simplicity of the product, something always goes wrong. It was the law of development and that’s why even products sold on shelves have bugs. Handling them gracefully was what mattered.
Geoff went through the application and hardware demo multiple times testing it ourselves. He had the bright idea to build a mock-up filtration display unit out of replica 1HE body parts. Apolis really did have everything we could imagine making it easy to build one. The mock-up made for a great presentation piece and impressed the boss a lot. We ended up making a couple more and started using it as development test kits instead of having our product installed in ourselves. This way we could throw gunk into a filtration system without the data in our own bodies. It was a relief to have a development test kit as I was getting sick of spraying dirty water into my body. The boss was not going to pay for repairs, so oftentimes I did not even test my own sensors and just used assumptions to continue my own coding.
Our turn to pitch to investors came one Friday morning. Ten different investors from different fields and backgrounds showed up at the office. All of which were visiting J-27 for the first time and were admiring the same spectacle I was now getting familiar with. Vincent and his team showed us off and even brought them out to the technology market. It made our office and the teams here look like we were developing with the best of the best. It also enforced the rumors that J-27 really was built off the backs of scientists. The boss asked if Geoff or I wanted to join the meeting. Of course, I said yes and he installed a new encryption key full of all the words and discussion points for his pitch. I was more than satisfied with this exchange as my encryption collection was getting bigger. The more encryption the more knowledge one has. Maybe one day I too could become like the boss, I was going to say yes to any opportunity I had to be in these kinds of meetings as it interested me more than programming.
The boss started off the presentation with large numbers regarding our product’s market size and how many 1HE units could use the system. He talked about our origin and benefits of BK. Explained the importance of filtration data on billions of 1HE units and what kind of science could come out of this idea. Everyone in the room was dreaming over the words the boss was saying as if he was singing a love song to each individual person. Big data and research were still a big market for technology business and we were right in the sweet spot of cool tech and practical use. Really everyone was just dreaming of potential riches.
That was until one investor raised his hand and asked, “...but how are you going to convince me or anyone to install your product into the filtration system?"
This made the room chuckle but he had a point. The boss talked his way through it but as I sat in the room silently, I was not convinced he made me buy the idea of installing one yet and I worked for the company. I could not imagine it worked for everyone in that room.
I never brought up my concerns to the boss which is odd considering he would tell the team all the time to challenge him. He wanted us to find the conflict in the plan and bring them up to create a product but when the entire product was the flaw how do you pivot from that. We did have some meetings about the possibility of just releasing this as a military product instead of a consumer one; everyone seemed to like the idea. The only issue was the boss would say let's make this product first and then we can focus on the military model. We already had an interest at the government level so why not cater to them? I hoped our company lasted long enough to get into that market, only time would tell.
I guess deep down we all just wanted some larger entity to buy us out and make us rich. Before we started the company we had a 3-year plan and by 3 years we'd be bought out. It was year 2 and we still barely had an investor. It wasn’t a good feeling for me and my father kept bringing it up when we had conversations.
“Get a new investor yet?”
“Not yet, but we’re just starting at the grant office.”
“Great, think they’ll buy you out?”
“I don’t think that’s how it works.”
“Well, you still get a paycheck right?”
“Yep, no issues with money. Plus they are paying for housing.”
“They better be if you’re living abroad working for them.”
I could not win the battle. They were giving me one of the biggest opportunities in the world and all my father could think about why we weren’t millionaires yet.
________________
“This film needs to share the positive sides of J-27. Always remember this.” - Red Bern
The deepest rest disturbed by the outside world invokes the strangest fears. An explosion outside my hotel building jerked me from my slumber into a frenzy of fear. Was a war about to go off? Was one of those military round-ups occurring? Was I a target? I laid paralyzed in my bed afraid to look out into the window. Would they rush my hotel and attack me in my room? A few moments went by and no additional gunfire or screams continued. I took the silence under my sheets as a chance to be brave. With my heart racing, I tiptoed to get a glimpse. I slightly opened the blinds to peek outside. Nothing.
At that moment I became rather upset with myself. The presumption of fear instead of rational thinking got the better of me. A delivery truck had disconnected from its trailer. The disconnection smashed into the concrete roads waking up this disillusioned 1HE visitor. Reflecting on my 7 months living on J-27 I had never had a more fearful moment than that morning. I had always felt safe and positive when I was a business visitor. I never ran into any form of crime, security checks or targets. It was a difficult concept for those I shared my travels with back on A-50 but I knew the true life of the J-27 people. Fear would always be the last word I would use here. And today would be the happiest day of the early days abroad. We had our first interview shoot, finally.
Red asked me to meet him at the banking industrial park two hours before the actual interview. We met outside one of the largest buildings I had ever seen. From the outside, it had a bone-like hexagonal exterior design that crawled to the peak. The rest of the building was decorated in blue glass with a square top instead of a point. Rather beautiful and fantastic to look at. We entered the building and had to cross a green force field as a security measure. This made the build feel a lot more uptight and official.
We took our equipment, which consisted of two duffle bags, a rolling bag and a backpack, up an elevator to the 15th floor. The boom operator caught us just in time and went up with us. Three people and too many bags made the ride rather cramped. We exited the elevator and we were brought into a hallway with additional security. The boom operator was the one who recommended the location, so he called his friend to get us in the office.
Red started dictating actions for us to do once we got into the room, “I want the two of you to start setting up as soon as possible. Let’s get a room tone and test the equipment. Check the batteries too!
“I also want some b-roll of this office space. Get a few shots of the cleaner looking desks. See what you can get outside the window there and then if you have time grab some behind the scene footage."
Red was in director mode and everyone listened to him intently. No one ever played around on filming days.
The layout of the office space was at least 4 times larger than where I worked. Here it was a typical office space; cubicles with low risers and sleeker furniture. The floating chairs were black and looked more official, while the desks were gray and full of documents. There were no walls to make the room feel cold but instead glass separated each section; you could actually breathe working here. There was a wonderful amount of energized light throughout. In the camera, the business scene looked incredible, the CEO we would interview would surely look professional.
“How does it look?" Red asked as I moved the tripod head around.
“Yeah not bad, I’ll take a photo so you can approve it," I responded.
“Yep, perfect. You really do have a great eye for being behind the camera. Are you sure you’ve never worked on a film before?" he joked but I knew he really did appreciate my new found skill behind the camera.
With the room set up and ready to go, it gave us 45 minutes to go outside and grab a quick meal. Red stayed behind and the boom operator caught up with his friend. I decided to grab a quick snack in the office convenience store alone; sprout sushi and an energy drink. 1HE ran off of batteries but we enjoyed the chemical reaction of burning organic food. It was a human installed trait that no one ever complained about. Those early human brains wanted to make sure they would always taste the finer things in life but for pure 1HE beings, it was more of an unnecessary luxury. As I paid for the meal, the woman behind the counter decided to chat with me.
“I’ve never met a 1HE before. Where are you from?" she asked.
“Oh, well I’m happy that we’ve met. I’m from a small city on A-50. Where are you from?" a question I always asked to break the ice.
She laughed.
“I’m from this area actually. I’m currently a college student but I work here on the weekends for extra cash. Do you like visiting J-27?”
“I actually live here,” I responded.
“I’m loving every moment of it. Everyone has been so kind to me and the food is outstanding." I said this knowing J-27 were very proud of the culinary arts.
“If I had the chance, I would stay here for the rest of my life. Working here has been great!” I added.
“That’s so kind of you to say. I’ve never tried SQR food before but I heard it is really oily. Is this true?”
“It isn’t that oily but it’s always good to try new food," I told her.
She wanted to continue but I got a message from Red stating the team needed to return in the next ten minutes.
“I really enjoyed our conversations but I must return back to work,” I told her with regret, it was the first time a T.O.L.E had initiated a conversation with me.
I didn’t notice how little I engaged in small talk living on J-27. I was always too busy with business or with the film crew. She frowned a little and asked if we could exchange contacts. I accepted her friend request and hurried back to the office space. We never did talk again but it was a moment I never forgot even though her face may have faded.
Red was sitting in the corner looking out into the distance eating a homemade meal. He had lived here for so long that for him making a meal was normal. In my two months of living here, I hadn’t cooked a single dish and I didn’t even notice until I saw him gazing in the big city. I sat down next to him and started opening my meal as he came back to reality. We chatted a bit while both admiring these larger than life moments the city made us feel.
As we were cleaning up our meals, Red got a notification that the CEO would be arriving shortly. We gathered together as a team and Red gave us a briefing. The CEO was Thomas Lemond Jr, the 2nd generation of an import/export logistics company. It was founded in the 100th CE year before cross-planet trading was allowed. His father, Thomas Lemond, was the first to challenge multi-planet legislation on the restrictions of imports and exports from other SQR planets. This was in a time when planets were so large that the idea of sharing resources between each other seemed almost greedy. “What was ours was ours,” his opponents would argue. There was a fear that intergalactic big businesses would gain majority holdings over resources found on one planet and would strip them of their own planet's wealth.
Thomas Lemond, his father, was not against artificial laws to prevent such occurrences from happening but as one fear was resolved another would pop up. Regardless, in the year 110, 10 CE years after originally starting the logistics company, the first outer planet trading had begun. A-50 had an overabundance of copper material that B-89 purchased to expand its domestic transportation system.
The entire exchange was a giant spectacle as the launch was broadcast across the galaxy. Thomas Lemond himself went up with the first 15000 Tons of copper. He would arrive at a military import base specifically designed for retrieval. Upon landing on B-89, camera crews and officials all gathered around to watch the CEO and the President of B-89 shake hands. The president welcomed Thomas Lemond to a podium he read a prepared speech off a teleprompter:
“Today,” he paused to grab the audience’s attention, “We are entering a historic era when resources shall be so constantly shared that the only loss would be not to export. There will be such a plenteous supply of goods that every planet of any distance should have access to each other. The new era is now and by intergalactic shipments. Welcome to the future..."
This marked the start of the economic race of imports and exports between all 4 SQR planets. New military bases started to be built on each planet to get in on the prosperous business scheme. One of the laws required that the military of each planet must control and regulate the process to ensure enforcement among each planet's laws. It worked out perfectly as Thomas Lemond established his company, Helio Corp, the first goods transportation fleet. 70 CE years later, like the Lemond family was destined to accomplish, Helio Corp was the first to arrive on J-27 and today we had the honor of interviewing his son. We were now part of his family's rich history.
Thomas Lemond Jr was in his mid-30s and dressed to impress. His family fortunate must have paid for his body to look like a direct replica of the statue of David. No really one knew what the hair color and eye color of David was supposed to be, but the CEO must have decided that blonde hair and blue eyes fit his perfect image. His skin had a golden glittery shine to it which spoke wealth and his hair slicked back which gave off the impression that he was a serious businessman.
Thomas entered the hallway but did not have to wait as Red was nervously waiting near the elevators to welcome him into the filming set. Red introduced himself as the director and then introduced the crew. I shook his hand with strength to establish I respected him and returned back to the camera. Looking at him, I thought to myself, here’s a man who understands how to use his money to influence. I felt very fortunate for the ability to experience his interview first hand. There was something alluring about hearing someone speak in person that a camera just doesn’t grab. Red brought Thomas over a bottle of water as he explained how this filming session would pan out.
A few minutes in, Thomas interjected himself saying “I’ve been on national TV do not worry, I know how to answer a few questions and make your documentary look good.”
It made him actually feel more approachable with the lighthearted way he gracefully expressed his experience. The interview began and Thomas introduced himself.
“I joined the Helio Corps board in 160 CE, 60 years after my father started the company. My father at a young age educated me on galactic export strategy, which put me in a perfect position to run the exporting side of the company," he said while smiling like he was about to tell us his secret to his success.
“In my first year we exported over 1 trillion dollars worth of refined metals and various goods and I had my eye on a larger prize. I wanted to own my own planet! Unfortunately, in our galaxy, there were no new planets to purchase but when J-27 opened up, I knew establishing the first import/export hubs would be the logical monetary move.”
He continued on about the status of his success, exchanges with government officials, and how his company paved the way for the borders of J-27 opening up to the galaxy.
However Red managed to get Thomas Lemond Jr in this documentary, it was worth every second of negotiation. Every word that came out of his mouth inspired success. He explained SQR was here to conquer the new land and make it better. Typical SQR mindset but I understood that’s what it took to have a successful business. His legacy was starting to become on par with his fathers. I would not be surprised if he was crazy enough to think with the right amount of control and money, he could one day own J-27.
As we wrapped up the interview, Red asked him one last question to finish things off, “You’ve been living and working in J-27 for a couple of months now. What would you say to encourage new businesses in taking a chance in investing their resources into J-27?"
A question I was also interested in as an argument to bring back home to those who irrationally feared for my J-27 travels.
“At this point, if you’re a business that sees an opportunity on J-27 and are not taking the chance, you’re missing out on a wonderful scientific culture that can take your business to that next level. The resources are abundant, the new government leaders are forward thinkers. Really, the citizens of this wonderful planet are just like you and me. There might be a few hurdles in the thinking to climb over but the T.O.L.E people are intelligent hardworking people that have as much to prove as you do. I highly recommend taking a short business trip over here and see places like APolis for yourself. You’ll really see what you’re missing out on.”
Red was satisfied with the results of the interview and yelled “Cut”. The days filming was complete and Red asked us to pack up as we thanked Thomas for this time. Thomas was very pleased with his experience and said he’d pass the project information to a couple of business buddies who might be interested in getting interviewed. As Mr. Lemond walked out the door and thanked the 3 of us individually. He mentioned that he believed the project would uncover the irrational fears surrounding the planet and wished us luck. I shook his hand again and smiled back.
I returned back to the camera equipment and started taking it apart. Red was very particular with the safety of his gear and previously gave me steps in deconstructing everything. I opened up the large plastic case for the camera and laid it flat on the floor. First, I removed the lens from the camera and replaced the gaps with the respective covers. Red had various lenses depending on the location. Inside the case contained foam deep as the case itself. The foam was expertly measured and cut to firmly hold each part of the camera. I slid the lens into its labeled location and returned to the camera. After every film day, Red requested that I’d back-up the footage. I pulled out the data copy tool, removed the memory card from the camera and inserted the camera into the case. Once the memory card was ready, I placed it into a protective bag and returned it back into the large camera case. I had practiced this routine to the point that it took me 7 minutes max. This pleased Red because he did not like to overstay his welcome at each filming location.
The crew rounded up the equipment bags and met Red outside in the elevator hallway. Red thanked us again for making the first interview run smoothly as not a single issue arose. All that practicing really did pay off. The artificial sun was starting to spin away from our location and it made a wonderful memory of the experience we all just shared. I took a video with the camera feature in my eyes and took in this wonderful landscape one last time. We never did return to this room again and it would be the most professional space we filmed in but for our first interview, we couldn’t have asked for a better filming location. I had a smile on my face my entire metro ride home and that marked the day I officially became a cinematographer for a documentary. I was going to have my name on a piece of cinematic history.
Back at work, we had some bad news, the cost of production was higher than we had expected and until we had an investor come in, our salaries were being cut. We would still have housing paid for but the monthly payment would be a little smaller. I didn’t mind. The boss actually individually sat us down and asked if we could accept a pay cut. The boss told us whatever we decided he would respect. I had a feeling Geoff needed the money more than I did. In exchange for the cut in salaries, we were given more stock. It was a nice gesture but until the company went public it didn’t mean much. I told the boss I could handle the cut and if he needed to completely stop paying me I understood. It didn’t bother me at all. As long as he let me live abroad, I was living my personal dreams. The dollar was 7 to 1 here and it made living and eating easy. With the money I already had in the bank I could go another 2 years living off my current expenses. When I told my dad about it was a huge mistake.
“What do you mean they are not paying you," he said, pretty upset with my decision.
“We ran out of money. There’s not much I can do about it if we want the company to be successful, we need to make sacrifices.”
“Fine, but why should you be the martyr?”
“I’m not, I’ll get stocks out of it. And once we get the investment they’ll pay us back.”
“You’ve got to be joking, you’re never going to get that money back. Do you know how business works? They say these things to sucker you in," he had a point but it didn’t matter what I thought.
I wanted him to understand that the fact the boss was letting me live here was more than enough of an exchange to work. I would later find out my Dad was so angry about these words because he really didn’t want me living here. He was also of the mindset I was being a traitor to my planet by actually enjoying my life over here. A tension between us that we never really resolved.
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"I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free." - Michelangelo
Michelangelo’s David was a masterpiece of the Renaissance time period. The 17-foot marble statue once towered the Galleria Dell’Accademia in Florence, Italy. A time period and location long removed from physical touch but in the world of AR and direct connection to mainframes, virtually touching Italy again is commonplace in SQR society. The preservation of human history has been a successful venture since the dawn of mankind and robot-hybrids alike.
On the other hand, the government of J-27 has had its hand in rewriting history for government gain. Everyone in the galaxy knew it, even the citizens of J-27 under hushed tones discussed the true details behind certain events. The mission of the documentary was to obviously show the true experience of foreign business in J-27. This didn’t stop the government from occasionally asking Red questions. Our last three interviews went as perfect as the Thomas Lemond Jr interview but our forth ran into issues. We weren’t able to find an interior location to film. Instead, we decided on filming a fashion mogul in the soon to be the metropolitan location of J-27.
Red was of the mindset that on J-27 you do first and explain later. As we waited around, we started to notice the mall security was starting to take interest in our project. At various levels of this 7 story mall security were setting up a watching eye to see what we did next. Red was starting to get anxious to say the least.
I was not exactly worried as 1HE were untouchables and if they asked us to leave, we’d listen, or at least I hoped that was Reds thinking. Regardless, Red didn't think the interviewee would feel comfortable with so much tension in the air. Roaming outside the mall we found a great view of the multiple high rises. One of the crew members went into the mall to use the bathroom and said a guard stopped her asking if she was part of the filming crew but she didn't know what they were talking about. This was my first instance of a T.O.L.E citizen brushing through authority and lying. It was a learning situation for me as I saw how the youth didn't fear the J-27 rule.
The interview came and went and as always our team was in top shape. None of the security came over and Red was pretty relaxed throughout the interview. I wondered if security was more interested in a couple of 1HEs instead of the film project. We ran away before either party could get the answer. Still, I wanted to visit the mall myself. I departed from the crew and went off on my own to see what shops J-27 had in store, no pun intended.
In my free time back home, I had always searched out old electronic stores. The kind of stores that had vintage mechanics, old analog manuals, and working units of yesteryear. I hadn’t seen any since my arrival in J-27 but I overheard someone talking about vintage repair shops usually found in the basement floor of these malls. These floors were easier to access via a car, and with the glamorous shine of high fashion, they did not really have a place in today's modern world. The J-27 motto was scientific expansion, so what would be considered vintage to this world?
From the outside of the repair shop, the storefront looked like it was crammed into an unfinished foundation inside the lowest floor of the parking lot. The smell of oil and damp mold triggered my smell sensor to indicate that this isn’t a space place for humans. The red-painted wooden entrance door gave an old British architectural regal feeling. I admired human architecture for its aesthetic instead of pure function, a flaw 1HE was missing in today's modern world. I reached out to the brass handle and entered the shop.
Two younger T.O.L.E clerks welcomed me in with a bow and let me walk around the store without asking if I needed assistance. From the front of the store looking to the back, hundreds of scientific manuals and bins of components littered the room in an unordered fashion. Yet, in the chaos a hacked together complexity was established. I shuffled through the organization of tools, parts, and directions. Car parts were next to ship parts which were next to race pod parts. It was not a junkyard in an office space but a tinker’s wonderland. I just admired the grime and leftover residue that indicated these were salvaged parts waiting to be found by a T.O.L.E with a specific need. When that day would come, no one ever knew but if it was ever needed, one of the many repair shops on this planet would have it.
I took a manual off the shelf that described a 600 series ship I was familiar with as it was one my father worked on when I was a child. Skimming the pages of detailed encryption I found myself wondering what information I’d never learn because of my installed knowledge base. When a page contained a figure or diagram, I paused to appreciate the craftsmanship in the printing and tried to use my imagination to understand what the previous description may have been indicating. I did this to hide the fact that I did not know how to read any of these books. If it looked like I was lost in the pages, I looked educated in the context. I wasted hours doing this but with topics just familiar enough to make me feel homesick to the world I left behind. This was my little sanctuary of graphs, pictures and diagrams.
In the back of the store, I found a section on wood-crafting for restaurant furniture. The manual contained details for crafting, sanding, and treating wood. Details on cuts and linking systems. Directions on building chairs, tables, stoles, bar tops and more. I never had any interest in starting a cowboy-themed restaurant, yet the diagrams informed me with the knowledge I never knew without understanding a single encrypted word. I wanted the book. I thought to myself maybe if I can slowly manually teach myself these words, I can learn more about this niche topic without requesting the encryption keys. It did not make any sense at the time but I didn’t want to walk out of the store without purchasing something. I had leafed through manuals and dug through component bins for an hour now, it was the least I could do for the entertainment this vintage store provided.
I bought the book up to the counter and the store clerk graciously accepted the book and placed it on the transfer panel. I connected my data transfer cable to the terminal and the book was uploaded to memory banks. The clerk asked me if I wished to keep the physical book or if the digital copy was enough. I thought the physical book would make a great traveling souvenir so I paid for both. The transfer and transaction were complete and I took a final look at the dimly lit room.
The clerk asked if I was an engineer and I explained I was here for business. I shut the door behind me I laughed at the idea that this same wooden door could have been crafted by a T.O.L.E that once picked up this same book. But just like that, a new encryption key was cheaply obtained.
Buying encryptions did not mean you understood every aspect of the information. It granted you access to a vocabulary base that with practice could be used at various levels. Just like a human purchasing a book, except 1HEs could instantly reference the book's contents blindly through verbatim regurgitation. Anyone can repeat a textbook paragraph. It took time and effort to speak of the knowledge with true understanding. When meeting other 1HEs it’s custom to share the list of encryptions as an introduction to establish conversation starters and status. Having the encryption keys of entry-level woodworking just meant I bought a book. Someone who was educated properly in woodworking would have a professional titled encryption key. Humans were smart and probably envious of the possibilities of 1HE beings so they limited us as much as they advanced us. Because of the status of encryption keys and beings who cared about status, 1HEs will never have an instant installation of information. It would break order and civilization as we knew it. T.O.L.E however being of scientific minds, I’d soon find out, are trying to reverse engineer this instant knowledge firewall.
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"Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that's why it is so complicated." - Paul Rand, graphic designer
That morning, if someone was to enter my hotel room, they’d think it had been robbed. I could not get to sleep and was tossing and turning all night. I thought if I could just get my body temperature down I could finally pass out from exhaustion. I could not even rest my head on the pillow for the heat it conducted on my artificial skin irritated me. I ended up throwing all the sheets, pillows and clothes, I had that normally kept me comfortable, on the floor.
I had experienced the famous overnight summer heat of the J-27. Here on J-27, humidity stuck to our metallic body like condensation to glass. My eyes were constantly needing to be wiped, my skin was swelling and the AC in the room just was not enough. Needless to say, I did not get any rest last night which was not good because work was starting to get intense.
The past five months breezed by without much difficulty. Every day felt like a new achievable challenge but our time at the shared office was ending soon. We only had a few more weeks left to get our final project together. On the last day of the residency, we’d have to pitch our final designs to investors with the hope that we’d all find someone to carry our development through to mass production. Part of the pitching we had to have a partnership with a local J-27 factory that could provide scalable manufacturing but it also gave all the companies a chance to learn how to work with factories at a small level.
The boss wanted me and Geoff to visit a couple of factories. In theory, we both knew the processes it took to manufacture a product but the actual practices, this was extremely educational for both of us. We met the owner of a PCB manufacturing plant that morning with the goal we’d need to have a factory by Friday. Factory owner John Da, a middle-aged fleshy male whose clothes wore him more than he wore them, invited us to visit. He had an air of wealthy greed and was not exactly interested in our product but more about our budget. Regardless, he passed us off to a tour guide to take us through the 3 story high factory.
The front desk Mr. Da had met us at was very luxurious but the actual factory took a completely different turn. From the outside, the build was a pale sky blue beaten by the electromagnetic radiation given off from the J-27 artificial sun. A couple of factory workers were seen under a weathered awning. Where we stood was nicely paved roads, where they stood was gravel and dirt. As we approached they noticed us and quickly snuck back into the building to hide slacking off from the potential SQR cash cow. It made Geoff and I laugh to see them sneak away.
Inside the building, it was required that we had to put these sanitation covers on our shoes. They explained to us that to keep the interior sterile all employees and guests required the shoe covers and if we wanted to enter some rooms body and hair covers. To say we looked goofy would be an understatement. From there we walked up 2 flights of stairs to the second floor. The chipping walls were painted the same color as the building exterior. Actually our shoe covers were this sky blue as well.
The first floor of the 5000 square foot building was broken into the first 10 processes of making a PCB. The first room we visited was an etching room. A large fridge like machines automatically etched the PCB traces at 50 boards a second. A lazer flew across each board, drew the layout and spit out brown naked boards while another robotic arm waited for a pile of 20 complete etched board sets to be finished. The stack was sent into another room down a conveyor belt.
In the next room, the guide showed us an oxidation and lamination machine which sent boards to a drilling press. As we went room to room the entire process was automated with little interference or guidance from T.O.L.E employees. We finally came up to the machine that applied the solder mask or what most people knew about PBCs, the process of making the boards that iconic green. After a couple more rooms and processes we were asked if we had any questions and Geoff really wanted to see the machine that soldered the components to the PCB. The guide stated that the was on the third floor.
Taking another set of stairs we were required to now put on the full sanitation gowns. We entered another sky blue hallway. Unlike the previous floor, all the rooms in the hallway had doors and required key access to enter. The guide put her finger to the scanner and the sliding glass doors opened for us. We shuffled in and instantly in almost unison sighed in delight. We hadn't noticed the temperature until we entered the air condition and climate controlled room. She explained that their company is conscientious of how some components require climate control for them to be calibrated. Geoff connected the dots and said out loud, "Of course! We need to wear these suits to ensure any particle measurement sensors do not get contaminated." he smiled like he was satisfied with this factory. It was not my choice to pick out the factory, I just wanted access to the secret world of manufacturing, plus the boss paid for the encryption keys.
I was now educated on the words of manufacturing, I just wish the company handed out a flyer with the entire manufacturing process so I could really understand the topic. But if anyone was in this building, it was expected that they were already educated in the process. We finished the tour and Mr. John Da took us into the meeting room to talk to us about our product. I let Geoff talk about the requirements and the components we’d be using on the PCBs. They talked about processes, numbers and production scaling. I took notes and acted like I knew what they were talking about. We left the company with a proud feeling of completing our first factory visit. I asked Geoff if he was confident in their processes and his thoughts.
“It seemed like they could do everything we’d need for the PCB creation. The price is good enough but they would not have a way to create the plastic housing required for a finished product.”
I understood that as the boss was recommending that we should find a factory that can do the entire finished product process in one location.
“I’m thinking we’d visit one more factory before we return to the hotel," he said and we took a teleporter to the next factory.
At the end of the day, we were both exhausted. There was a lot of standing, talking and explaining that fired up a need to eat. The boss was paying for our travels today as a company expense, so again we took the teleporter back to the hotel and decided we needed a big meal. Geoff had heard of a buffet nearby and pinged the boss about meeting us there. As Geoff and I walked to the restaurant I reflected on the day and how in a couple more weeks, I would not be working here anymore. I had this work project and a documentary to finish and time was limited. I knew if push came to shove, work was the most important of the two. I just did not want this dream to end.
We ate dinner talking about the goals for the next few days and expectations we needed to meet for “MVP", the most valuable product. The software was not going to be an issue, making a finished physical product required machines, money, shipping, testing and polish. The code was digital and simple to change. I liked the digital world for that reason. The physical world seemed to stress the rest of the team out, while the film project was always nagging the back of my mind.
The next day Red asked if I could do a double interview this Saturday. I had no issue with it. I knew he was leaving soon and we only had so much time to film. The message also informed me that these would be the last two interviews. The first was with a businesswoman whose company was importing beauty products to the planet. The second was an SQR media broadcasting contractor who promoted films and tv on J-27. I had met him on the flight over here and recommended him to Red. When I contacted him about the idea of being part of the documentary he didn’t remember who I was but was excited about the idea of the fame.
On the day of the filming Red asked if I could meet him at his apartment two hours earlier for lunch to help him bring the equipment to the filming location. I had been waiting for Red to invite me to his place for a while, I gladly accepted his offer. A city like this did not have single homes but large high rise buildings that had the potential to host over 1000 people per building. J-27 apartment complexes all had what they called gardens, a fenced-in property surrounding the property. Depending on the size of the complex, a garden could have a couple of benches to an actual park for those who lived in the buildings.
I arrived outside Red’s fenced-in garden and noticed security guards were outside checking IDs before letting people in. I sent him a message telling him I arrived, I figured he would need to sign me in as a guest. From the outside, it was obvious Red was living in a wealthier part of the city. The garden had 4 separate buildings, which peaked at 3 floors. In the middle of the layout was a parking garage with a grassy park on top. The parameter was not just a fence but also overflowed with flowers, plants and trees. The whole complex gave off a warm welcoming feeling. I do not recall ever seeing a complex like this on A-50, I suppose we didn’t appreciate community back home. Even security at the gates smiled as they let familiar faces enter. I was envious of Reds' situation compared to the hotel I’ve been accustomed to for months.
After a few moments of trying to not look suspicious standing outside the garden, Red met me with a warm smile.
“Hey, welcome to my apartment. Thanks for traveling over here. How’s everything going?" he asked and I shook his hand.
“I’m doing great. Awesome complex you have here. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this before," I responded as a guard handed me a sign sheet and asked for my identification number.
“Do a lot of SQR citizens live here?" I wondered.
“It’s mixed. Mostly younger professionals that live here. It is a hip area," he responded as the guard gave us permission to enter.
I thanked the guard and followed behind Red.
“Want to grab a snack?" he asked as he pointed to a convenience store inside the garden.
“Wow, you have a shop in here?”
“We also have a restaurant!" he responded.
I just laughed at my own amusement, “I’m okay. Plus if we’re having lunch I’ll just save the cash. I’m obviously not living the same life you are.”
“Where do you live?" he asked as we arrived at his apartment building.
Before I had a chance to respond, he was putting his thumb on another level of security before the apartment builds doors opened. He held the door for me and said, “We’re on the 3rd floor.”
“Oh cool. A lot of security going on here eh? But yeah, I’ve been living in a hotel across the street from my office building," I said while an automatic light illuminated each floor before we approached.
“Oh sorry force of habit. I always just take the stairs. The elevators take too long," he said as he turned the corner to his apartment door. I did not mind.
“Room 303," he said as if I’d come back here on my own one day, “I’ve been living here for about 4 years now.”
He unlocked the door with his finger and he welcomed me into his apartment. Although the garden was one of the most expensive on the outside, his actual room was a rather small studio apartment. The entire layout was one large room including kitchen, living space, bedroom, and balcony. It was more an elongated rectangle that just kept going but the width could not be any larger than 20 feet wide. Similar to the factories Geoff and I had visited the walls were painted a sky blue.
“Go ahead, sit on the couch, I’ll start heating up lunch,” He said.
I looked into the kitchen which realistically should only fit one person. The kitchen had no oven, no dishwasher and had only a stovetop that shared counter space with a sink. A regular-sized refrigerator in the corner next to a window really overpowered the space making the kitchen feel claustrophobic. I sat down on the couch and was curious about his understanding of normal T.O.L.E life.
“This is the first time I’ve ever been in a T.O.L.E apartment," I mentioned as I set up the list of questions I had.
“Your feels very minimal and efficient. Do most places not have dishwashers or ovens?" I asked, hoping to not offend his standard of living.
“Believe it or not most T.O.L.Es do not cook and if they do it is from a pan on a stove. There aren't a lot of breads or baked goods on this planet. Most modern culinary meals have origins in sprouts," he explains. “I’m going to guess you’re wondering where the dishwasher is.”
I laughed and nodded.
“Living in a city everything is much more compact. An apartment like mine is for single living. I only use 3 dishes a day so having a dishwasher is a waste of space. Really you just adapt to these changes over here. It really makes you realize how many unnecessary conveniences we have back home.”
He was making a sprout like burrito and the vegetables were just starting to sizzle in the pan.
“Do you like spicy food?" he asked. I did, so he dumped a packet of spicy seasoning into the almost finished vegetables.
Although Red had lived on J-27 longer than most his ability to cook was not stifled by the ingredients. The burrito was not traditional to the way we had it back home but he adopted a new recipe which actually inspired me to want to make this for myself one day. It was simple, it was missing the normal vegetables found on A-50 but the new flavors gave a new life to an old dish. We ate the meals and talked about how soon he needed to pack up the apartment.
“Today might be the last day anyone sees this place so organized. I need to start sorting through what I’m returning home with me and what’s being donated."
I looked around again and could not imagine how difficult it was going to be to ship his life back. Something in that moment struck a chord with me planting a thought. If I ever had a chance to live over here, I think I would still live out of my bag. I would not want to litter my life with objects I’d need to throw away when my time came to leave.
“I know you’re in a hotel now but if you see anything that would be useful to you, just ask I’ll probably give it to you," he said. I thanked him but I could not actually see anything worth carrying back to the hotel on a two-hour metro ride.
There was a new vibe in the air between the crew, we all knew the film project was coming to the end and there was a lot of tension on deadlines. The same week we needed to finish filming, Red was returning back to A-50. His planetary visa was expiring so we had no choice. With work, when this all ended we all were still a company. When the film project ended, it was up to Red to take the footage back home and finish it with an editing team. We were not needed anymore. Most of us would never see each other again. So the moment we did have together had a lot more meaning. I was not upset about things ending, but I did not like how Red started getting more serious about everything. In the beginning, every meeting and interview had a light-heartedness to it. There was a lot of laughter and pride. Now, most of the crew felt stressed and anxious, which led to a couple of avoidable mistakes.
The first interview went by quickly and the second one started as quickly as the other ended. The businessman was in charge of the distribution of SQR broadcasting to T.O.L.E homes and theaters. It reminded me of my first night in J-27 and how embarrassed I was of running away from that street vendor. The stocky blue-suited man explained how each film or episode sent to J-27 required vigorous scrutiny by a board of T.O.L.E government officials assigned for media approval. It sounded more intense than it needed to be.
If an official did not like the episode or film it was simply rejected which made for interesting series twists for the citizen. If episodes 1-5 were approved but 6-9 were not and 10 was the last episode, T.O.L.E just had to accept that this was what the director wanted. They were none the wiser. It sounded comical in my mind as I adjusted the camera to focus closer on this face as he spoke. I could not imagine the need to remove certain facts or entertainment but those were the laws. Who was I to argue? What was the obsession with limiting information? Was it just a power trip for the government or was there really something there 1HE were immune to due to exposure? Regardless, it was a great interview and Red did not bring his stress into the questioning process.
“When you started Local Eye, inc., it was a pure 1HE company but you’re now one of the many foreign companies to come into J-27 and hire T.O.L.E staff. Have you seen any culture shifts in the mixing?" Red asked with authority.
“The first point I want to cover is how genuinely wonderful it is to build a T.O.L.E team to cover development here in J-27. When we first arrived I thought the mindset of science first nothing second would cause conflict with working in a SQR company but it seems I’m finding more qualified employees here than back home." the businessman said and with a devious smile went on, “My SQR employees actually seem to enjoy working with the T.O.L.E people more than each other. There’s a big secret I’ve found among other CEO friends about how the T.O.L.E operates. Simply install a..”
“Sorry, Red," a voice interrupted, “…I forgot to turn on the microphone," the boom operator frantically explained.
He said these words almost fearing for his life. I looked back at Red to see how he would react. Up until now, we hadn’t had a single accident during any of the interviews. The way the boom operator was acting actually made me feel nervous for him.
“How..? What are you saying? You mean the past 20 minutes you’ve had no audio?" Red said, as his angered look started to show through his normally calm demeanor.
It seemed Red was more scared about what the businessman would think. Somehow, getting angry would make him look like a strong director but I was not under the impression Red wasn’t terribly upset at the mistake.
“Seriously, I didn't mean to.. I understand if you want to report me. I’ve brought great shame to the T.O.L.E people…" the boom operator said as he showed his subservient culture to the rest of the crew.
There was such fear in not being analytically perfect in the T.O.L.E culture. They had almost become robotic in the way they talked and worked, that I hadn’t seen an actual mistake until now. In front of us all, the poor crew member was melting down in shame and there was nothing we could do. The other T.O.L.E crew members casted judgement and the SQR members just stared in awe.
“Hey mate…” the businessman started, “it is not a big deal, I love hearing myself speak. Let’s just roll it again! Plus I think I messed up on my answer two questions back anyways, I’d like a fresh start. We could all use a fresh start right?”
He finished his sentence with a smile looking at Red to nudge him into agreeing.
“Yeah totally true! To be honest, I’m surprised this did not happen earlier. Let’s take a quick 10-minute break and start over!" Red smiled with relief.
The CEO said under his breath “Oh good, I could use a bathroom break” and we all relaxed. Red pulled the boom operator aside for a quick pep-talk and the rest of the interview went as planned. I actually thought the answers this time around were more direct anyways. We never did get to find out what the secret the CEO was about to tell us but there was a hint to it all in the way the T.O.L.E almost ended his whole life because of a simple mistake.
Due to restarting the interview, we finished just as the bright star in the sky performed its last rotation over the ever-expanding skyrise city. The orange and red beams of light passing through high rise after high rise painted a wonderful atmosphere in the background as the businessman gave his final words. It was a beautiful scene and everyone knew it. Red said, “cut” and mouthed to the boom operator “Thank you”. Even the businessman was caught up in the moment taking in one of the best sunsets any of us had ever seen. Even artificial suns could take the breath away and moments like these made the hard times worth it as we finished the 10th and final interview.
Red escorted the business out of the office as the rest of the crew packed up. The duffle bags full of heavy equipment suddenly felt lighter knowing tonight would be the last time the team would be carrying them. The once annoying camera deconstruction procedure felt cathartic and almost meditative. I was actually exhausted with the interview process and ready for the project to be over. Luckily for me, Red and I were talking about another weekend full of filming without the crew.
To make a good documentary, you have to have good interviews. To make those interviews engaging there needs to be engaging visuals outside of the person talking. Red envisioned filming meaningful b-roll of factory workers, busy business streets, industrial complexes and anything else that sketched the imagery of SQR and T.O.L.E harmony.
“We have to ensure the SQR citizens understand that J-27 are not savages, they are relatable, they are gentile, they are safe to work with…" he’d always tell us before filming. He was pro J-27 and more than most. Most visitors identified T.O.L.E people as cheap labor with a hard work ethic but the documentary needed to capture the honest lives. Regardless of the message, tonight was my last night with the crew. We started something never done before and stuck with it to the end. Moments like these are once in a lifetime and I was more than grateful to have added it to my journey abroad. We finished packing up, exchanged goodbyes for the last time and went our separate ways. We planned to go out to dinner after filming but for most, it was too late to continue. Those who could stay joined Red for a quick meal at another buffet. Red was running out of money in his personal budget with having only a few more weeks left on this planet. Buffets were cheap and provided a lot of food and since it was the last filming night he graciously paid for us.
The restaurant was near the office space so we walked on foot. A day's worth of heat radiated off the sidewalks and a warm comfortable breeze accompanied us on our short walk. A few hours before the crowded cityscape would make it impossible for a group of five to stroll down the street, yet in the gloom of night, we enjoyed the walk and talk. Skyscraper after glass windowed and high fashioned architecture skyscraper, lights switched off indicating to all that the day’s work has been completed. The city was very peaceful at night. None of us spent a second of time contemplating safety. So why was I feeling like someone was watching us? Was it the haunting reminder of vanishing office lights that someone might be looking down at us… I tried shaking it off but ended up approaching Red about it.
“So weird question, but I know the government checks in our project every so often. Have they said anything lately?" I pondered as we passed a corner store.
“It’s funny you should ask that. It seems any reference to the T.O.L.E firmware has been flagged in the automatic review process. There’s nothing too scandalous about what any of the interviewees say about it. There just seems to be a strict release on information like that." Red said in a lower voice as a male T.O.L.E exited the convenience store with a bag of groceries.
“Huh, has anyone approached you about it?”
“Well the automated system just deletes the reference so not yet but I suspect before I leave I’ll have to present all the footage for an exporting clearance”
I wondered to myself if Mr. Thomas Lemond Jr could have helped export banned data like this. Red was too pro J-27 to do something like that. He had lived here too long and had succumbed to the ways of life compromising on SQR culture.
“Welp... hopefully, it doesn’t ruin the narrative of the film. It’s good we do not have to worry about government agencies confronting the crew, right?" I asked as we arrived at the plaza the buffet was located in.
There were a lot more people walking around here as the calm walk turned into a loud frenzy. Cheerfully merchants and excited couples enjoyed a night out in the town. Red said something about not worrying about it but everyone was trying to figure out the location of the restaurant and distracted him. The feeling of being followed dissipated as we entered the crowd of shoppers. I suspected that Red knew something we did not know. With him leaving soon and most of us living here, was he escaping without telling us something?
There was something I caught in the last interview that was still bugging me. Alas, I was too hungry to fully resolve my thoughts. Red paid for our meals and we entered a dark red lit restaurant. We grabbed our meal plates and joyously ate and shared stories about our favorite moments. Each reliving what made the film project such a delight to work on. I shared how on the first day I could not believe a programmer like myself was working on an artistic project. How I wished I could do this for life and how grateful I was to break from the traditional 1HE mold. It was nice to be around T.O.L.E and SQR friends alike. I would remember this night for the rest of my life.
________________
"Maybe that's what life is... a wink of the eye and winking stars." - Jack Kerouac
On Monday morning I arrived early in the office without Geoff. I had some coding I wanted to do before he could distract me with random conversation. From what I could see the office was empty besides a cleaning lady who seemed to be a robot without a soul. I just smiled and said good morning as I walked through her freshly mopped floors. For some reason, I tiptoed to my desk hoping to not ruin her morning work but it was pointless. I arrived at my desk, stretched, and opened the blinds to let some rays of sun. Waking up before everyone always motivated me for success.
I sat down at my desk and noticed a small package was waiting for me to open. On top, a digital display indicated my name and serial number. I scanned my finger on the electronic label and the package neatly unboxed itself. Inside contained 24 shiny bronze chips no larger than pocket-sized coins. Under the coins was a note from Vincent that read:
“Dear Teams! You have 24 days left to complete the final design and have a working prototype for investor’s day. These coins indicate the remaining days. To ensure you meet your deadlines, we require all team members to exchange a coin at the end of the day to leave the office. Those who do not turn in a coin at the end of the day are required to meet with me personally for an explanation. This is your last month to impress the world with your idea. Finalize it. Do your best. And everything will work out. Let’s get it done”
Sincerely,
Vincent”
What an ingenious idea I thought to myself. Forcing productivity through accountability. Maybe Vincent didn’t approve of my after-hours misadventures but I completely respected his drive to make us be our best. These next 24 days were going to flyby and I wanted to impress those who invested in our company and of course future investors at the event. I discarded the box and stored the coins in my backpack. I did not want to lose my stack.
Between Geoff and the boss, I think that number 24 was more of a concern than it was to me. Geoff had an issue with the factory we selected as the completed boards we were receiving had problems with the humidity sensor. They were calibrated at the factory working but by the time they arrived in transit, the sensors had a huge variance with faulty measurements. It was suspected that the factory was only testing a couple of boards before shipping out instead of the entire lot. We were only purchasing 25 at a time for testing so he set up a meeting to go to the factory and have 25 brand new ones made. He’d test them himself before bringing them into the office.
By the end of the week, we needed 50 working units the boss requested. He thought giving test units out to interested investors would leave a good impression. Not only could they test it out they could see the value in real-time in their own systems. This put a lot of pressure on Geoff to ensure the entire product was as close to finished as possible.
Having a finished PCB just said our company had a prototype, but we needed a plastic house to really stand out. To help we contracted an industrial designer to complete this task. Our first temporary T.O.L.E employee. Terry was a rather tall Aphrodite of Knidos shell, which was uncommon even for a 1HE. Her portfolio contained mainly J-27 companies but the design aesthetic was exactly what we wanted. During the interview, the boss gave her a test describing an idea of another project he had and asked her to follow his description and have a mock-up design in 3D within 20 minutes. The output was outstanding, sleek rounded edges, white and blue colors that matched the boss’s personality and ratios that spoke to the golden rule. What the actual product was, the boss would not let Geoff or I know but whatever the young T.O.L.E woman had just created gave all of us confidence. Our final design was going to look impressive, I couldn’t wait to own one!
While Terry and the boss worked on the design, Geoff headed off to the factory and I used the only working PCB to interact with the software interface I had been working on. While Geoff exited our office space, the boss said under his breath, “We need 50 boards by Friday. Just 50." I don’t think he was talking to anyone but even he was getting worried.
My software was in tip-top shape and ready to be shared. I always treated interface design as a work of art. The boss still believed AR or augmented reality was the preferred experience for all software. So in the upper left corner of the left eyes, the peripheral contained a small bubble that updated in an airy quality. When the filtration was clean, the animations were minimal but when the filtration contained dirt, an animation would indicate the clog. Internally, Feeling instead of data was our company's motto. I actually like the clean flowing animation I programmed and would keep it in sight for the aesthetic alone even though I did not think about my filter when I saw it. That was the general feeling from everyone who tested the experience out. I couldn’t wait to see the reviews from actual customers once this went live. I had a feeling the completed product would give me an ego boost.
While I finalized some of the animations for investors’ day, Geoff pinged our team about some information regarding the recent design flaw. It seemed the humidity sensors were working perfectly in the factory as expected but he’d yet to find what the original problem was. The message ended with, “... I’ll bring back 55 working units today, so I’ll be here awhile while.”
The boss was rather pleased with the thought that we’ll surely have 50 working units available for the event and a couple of leftovers just in case. The good news put him in higher spirits.
“With all this good news, I actually wanted to talk to you for a second," he said while standing up, “Do you have a second to walk and talk? I could use some more coffee.”
Not thinking too much about it, I agreed and disconnected from my terminal. We entered the kitchen with one of the T.O.L.E staff standing stiff at attention in the doorway. I gave him a nod but no motion.
“So, in a couple of weeks we’ll be out of here and I’ve decided to continue the manufacturing here on J-27... at least until we find a better option through a new investor. We need someone to man the fort while Geoff and I handle things back on A-50," he started up the coffee machine and placed his ceramic 2-day old stained mug under a spout.
I figured I knew what he was going to ask next but I held my breath before jumping to a conclusion.
“Obviously you’re a software developer and Geoff is about to have a kid so he can’t stay here too much longer. We do not really have a suitable candidate for a position here but I have an idea," the coffee machine started releasing a steady stream of mocha as he continued.
“What I’m thinking is we look for a product manager locally on T.O.L.E who has expertise in manufacturing. While we search for this person, would you be interested in temporarily living here for a couple more months after this grant program ends?”
And just like that the words I had been hoping to hear came out. I was more than interested but I had a couple of questions and wanted to talk to my father first.
“Wow really? I’d love to stay! I’ve been having a great time here and to be honest, I’m not ready to leave yet. So this is great news for me." I said while he blew on the freshly poured cup of joe still too hot to drink.
“I have to talk to my Dad but I do not see any issues." I continued, “What would the living arrangements be like?”
“We’d provide housing at the hotel for the first month." he started, “If we don’t have an employee in the first month, you’ll have to pay for your own place but I’ll give you a few days to figure that out."
We started to walk back to the desks. “I haven’t talked to the rest of the team about this yet, so this is between you and me." he took a break to finally take a sip of the coffee, “and do not worry about it now but I just wanted to get your thoughts on the matter before we figured everything out."
My dream of staying in J-27 forever was coming true. I thanked him for the offer and we walked back to our desks. I wanted to be more excited about the announcement but as we left I noticed the T.O.L.E was still permanent statued in the doorway. Was he listening to our conversation? I thought to myself as I went back into the terminal. There was a weird vibe about the situation almost like he was fried and they hadn’t found his body yet.
As I jacked back into the system, we got a notification that Geoff had found an issue with the boards. The message read:
“It seems I have found an issue with the boards. In the factory climate control room the sensors work perfectly. I tested 10 units without flaws as I mentioned in the last message. Since I’m waiting on about 30 more units to be made, I decided to take a walk to the convenience store to waste some time. I kept a test unit installed to see what measurements I would find outside and the most peculiar error occurred. The humidity sensors went haywire the instant I walked out of the climate control room. Right there in the hallway, I deconstructed my chest plate to remove the sensor to investigate the issue. Can anyone guess what caused the issue before I spell it out?”
The boss looked at me and asked if I had any clue. I just shrugged.
“I wonder if the sensor only works under certain temperatures?" he jokingly said to me.
Another notification popped up with Geoff’s answer.
“It is a humidity sensor, right? What happens to our eyes when it is humid somewhere and the temperature quickly changes? That’s right the humidity sensor has water particles on it due to climate change. I’m guessing when the factory ships them out they all fog up in transportation and kill the sensor. it was so obvious seeing it happen now but what a shock it was to see it in real-time. We’ll have to write an algorithm taking into account temperature change to trigger the self-cleaning mechanism on the humidity sensor. This is a pretty easy fix, we’ll just need the software to not freak out on the visuals when this happens.”
The boss looked at me and took the last sip from his mug and sighed, “I’m glad we have Geoff here to tell us this is a pretty easy fix. I would have never guessed this was our problem."
He thought for a second.
“This is why we need a manufacturing expert living here locally for the company. They probably would have known this the first day we saw the error," he said, avoiding eye contact with me.
I knew he was disappointed I hadn’t picked up more manufacturing knowledge since I had been here. I was disappointed in myself with the exchange as well but there’s only so much I can do with little passion for manufacturing.
A simulation of the error messages Geoff described played in my mind's eye. It was a trippy experience to see my interface flash end of life error messages in red covering real-world visuals in hazardous ways. I could only imagine how funny it would have been to see Geoff experience this in person. When I initially programmed this error output, it was just a placeholder as a fallback in case we broke the device during testing, I never thought a real-life variable would trigger it. I laughed at myself, recorded the visuals for history’s sake and deleted the code.
If a shock to the humidity sensor was to trigger we needed a clean and stable way to handle the error. Having an onboard cleaning mechanism to heat the moisture off the sensor only took a second to fix the error, so ideally the user would never know this process happened. We still needed to log the report but an error message isn’t necessary when there really isn’t an error. So I did a simple delta change algorithm to check for rapid change over a short period of time. Under 10 seconds of rapid change is ignored. In addition, if the sensor cleaning process is running, do not show a message but show the last value before a rapid change to the user. This experience was one that a user will never know about and that’s the way we wanted it. Like an engine cooling itself down in secret, only those who know how coolant flows through a system cares about the process.
I recompiled the code and transferred the new code to my unit one last time before calling it a day. By the end of the day, we would have our 50 working units for investor’s day. Now we can focus on the true problem, finding someone to help us take this project to the next level. As I was testing the changes out one last time a commotion near the kitchen started to breakout. I removed my terminal cable and rotated my chair to get a better view of the rowdy situation. Three broad-shouldered officers were inspecting the scene which was completely abnormal considering we never had the police visit the office.
“Everyone stand back, please return to your desks…" one officer shouted but no one budged.
I was too far to visually see what was causing the strange disturbance.
“Please move out of the way,” another officer said as she entered our building from the teleporter units.
She looked seriously concerned about the situation. As she arrived, she adjusted her hat to hide her face as a way to compensate for her soft features. She needed to be taken seriously by her male subordinates.
“We need to get this out of here…" she told them and the men threw a blanket over the stiff physical unit.
“What are they removing?" I asked a nearby office mate.
“A staff member T.O.L.E deactivated in the kitchen earlier today, it has been standing there since morning.”
I nodded with a surprised grunting sound to indicate that it was strange but did not want to continue to talk. I was too caught up in thinking about how at lunch I walked past the person and didn't mention it to someone.
The boss came over and broke me from my trance, “What was that all about?”
“That kitchen T.O.L.E was deactivated…" I responded.
He did not know what to make of it, “odd," he said as he raised his eyebrows, “I wonder what could have caused that."
I had no answer for him. It was the first time I’d ever seen someone die before. For 1HE people, death is so uncommon. I plugged back into my terminal and went back to work. I needed a distraction to prevent myself from becoming paranoid. As work ended I packed up my bag and got a call from Red. He wanted to meet and discuss some findings he needed to share. I had nothing planned and he said he’d come out to me, so I agreed. Apparently, he needed to pick up something from the Apolis industrial park.
“Strangest thing happened to me today,” he said as we shook hands in front of the blue glowing teleporting station, “I saw a T.O.L.E deactivate."
I instantly looked him in the eyes and questioned him, “Oh yeah? What do you mean."
I was not really able to share my own experience. We started to walk in the direction of a memory storage shop.
“Yeah, it seems a couple of T.O.L.Es updated their firmware and it is causing malfunctions after reboot. This dude was driving a bus and apparently froze at a stoplight and never returned to life afterward.”
He described the situation as if he was on that specific bus.
“Did you try to do something to help?" I asked.
“Nothing I could do besides watch from my apartment window. I just thought the bus broke down and the horns were upset travelers. It was not until the police took the driver out in a body bag I knew something serious was up," he stated as we arrived at his destination.
“Anyway, I need to pick up a few hard drives to make some copies of the film footage just in case.”
The shop was too small for both of us to enter so I waited outside thinking about what he told me. A fiery sky evolved above me as the night turned to black. In the distance, an eerie feeling of spies among us shivered my artificial skin. For once it was strange to see the eyes glow in the darkness as the automatic night vision mechanism found on T.O.L.E and 1HE alike turned on.
Red exited the store, “Here I want you to have a copy of the footage as a safety measure," he said as he handed me a dime-sized chip.
“Plug it in real quick to double-check the footage is on there.”
I hesitantly pressed the tension slot and inserted the card. An interface requesting permission to access external hardware popped up and I did not respond. Why would he request me to hold on to the footage and force me to check the files. As long as I did not open any of the files nothing could install on my system. I accepted the permission for access and reviewed the directory list. The drive was broken up in two folders; film_project and top_secret. I swiped away the AR interface and turned to Red.
“Why is there a folder called top_secret on here?" I asked.
“Did you open it?" he responded quickly under hushed tones.
“No, but I would rather not right now," I stated, as I looked into his glowing blue eyes hoping to get a read on his motivation.
“Better off anyways," he said.
“If you get a chance later tonight, review those documents and videos. I suggest doing it offline just in case... if you know what I mean" he added.
If someone was tracking my system, going offline would prevent access to what I saw. Plus, if this contained the virus causing deactivation, having me offline would prevent the installation from starting.
“What’s inside" I requested and he responded, “Look I’m a director, I film things, I investigate things… something intrigued me. I just want a second pair of eyes I suppose.”
His last statement came off creepier than what he probably intended. Regardless, I told him I’d look it over when I got to the hotel later. He suggested we’d get dinner since he was already in the area. I removed the memory card and agreed. We had a quick meal and I returned back to my hotel. We did not discuss anything about the subject until we said our goodbyes.
“Just keep this between you and for a bit, you’re my camera guy. I trust you more than most," he said and walked into the teleporter dissipating into the thin air.
I entered my pale white room and quickly released the window shades as if I was finally out of spying eyes. I turned off the lights, put the blankets over my head, and laid still. I may have been a camera guy but I did not have the same investigative journalist vibe Red was giving off. Regardless, I plugged the chip back into my brain and accepted the permissions to external access. Really, I was accepting any consequences that arose. I should have just thrown the card away and told Red I lost it in transit or something, but I did come to J-27 for adventure, right?
The directory interface appeared in sleek gray in my robotic mind's eye while I was still hiding the evidence under my covers. If there was a camera in the room, it was not going to catch me in sterilized fluorescent lighting viewing my own mainframe. With the lights off and in absolute stillness I entered the top_secret folder. The folder contained 4 videos and 2 documents. Each labeled with a scrambled variable name. I decided the first video in the list, vomjnjufe.mp4, will determine how much more I dig into this mystery. If I felt a bad vibe from whatever popped up on-screen next, I’d just throw away the memory card and stop all connection with Red. The video started to play…
The scene started in an office space filmed from what looks like a breast pocket. A blurry view of the city in the background indicated that the footage must be from a highrise building. The cameraman walks through a hallway into a pitch-black meeting room. The door shuts behind the man and a stillness blurs any form of movement.
A voice started, “We’ve finally cracked code. This is going to completely disrupt the workforce industry and the best of all installation is automatic...”
The voice stopped and I sat there for 30 seconds before I noticed the footage had ended. I did not understand what relevance this had to do with me. Who was the cameraman and who was the speaker?
Video 2 titled, lopxmfehf.mp4, showed what had to be movie CGI footage of 100s of drone T.O.L.Es working in factories. Purely lifeless in the face and in movement. Video 3, jt_qpttjcmf.mp4, was a little more interesting. The scene again was shot from a breast pocket. The camera was in what looks like a university auditorium. The room was completely full but not with T.O.L.Es, it was all SQR looking businessmen. The lights dim and a T.O.L.E entered via stage right.
“Behind these curtains, you will witness the greatest advancement in hybrid technology since the humans first built us," he said as he walked to the center of the stage behind a podium.
He shuffled some papers around and continued, “The biggest problem with our civilization is the cost of knowledge. Imagine a new planet with access to pure knowledge with true understanding. Today I am going to give you a taste of this utopia.”
The curtains behind him opened up and a spotlight hit a naked shiny T.O.L.E shell. The video ended.
Was this an introduction of a new body and system of the next generation of 1HE/T.O.L.E? I thought out loud and caught myself. I was caught up in these files and completely forgot I was hiding under the blankets for a reason. I laid still again becoming aware of my situation. There were 2 files left, xjui.txt and gjsnxbsf.txt, but a wave of dizziness pushed me into an unexpected restless slumber.
The next morning I was startled by a notification from Red. “Did you watch it?” popped up on my peripheral but I ignored it. My morning felt like the same grogginess of waking up from a long distant travel pod. I could not adjust my balance for some reason and had to run through a system reset to calibrate. As the calibration endured, I rested my head and thought about what happened last night. My mind was too foggy to really piece anything together but a random memory hit me, the boom operator interruption during the last interview filming. The businessman mentioned something about a secret. I had a feeling Red knew something about this secret and what I watched last night was just the surface of it all.
My system rebooted and I rushed off to work. When I arrived at the terminal chair, I pulled up my internal logs. At 9:23 PM last night something triggered a firmware install but the second operating system partition saved me from a system failure. Something on that drive tried hacking into my system. I could not trust Red anymore. Vincent must have noticed something because he came over to me and asked to talk after lunch. A meeting with Vincent, the last thing I needed on my plate. Luckily my interface programming was solid and if he wanted proof, I could let him test it. I just didn’t have time for his hard-ass scolding with the amount of pressure I was dealing with.
________________
"In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity." - Albert Einstein
In a lot of ways, it felt like I was destined to be part of something I didn’t sign up for. What could Vincent need to discuss in private? I walked into the same meeting room I had first met Vincent on the day of introductions. I sat down on the far left side of the room. It had the best view of eyewitnesses just in case I needed some.
Vincent joined me ten minutes after the requested meeting time. He held his finger in the air as he spoke his last words on the phone and before even hanging up, he said to me, “This will be pretty quick."
Without sitting down he continued his words, “I wanted to personally talk to everyone who witnessed the police incident yesterday. Although it seems one of the office staff members malfunctioned...”
I just continued to look at him.
“I want to make it clear that everyone in the office is safe. A rogue firmware update found on our office servers that have been removed. From our access logs, it seems only that T.O.L.E found the firmware and installed it for some reason. Things are not clear how the firmware got there or why the person installed it," he finished with, “Do you have any questions or information about it?”
I did have a question, “Is it possible for a T.O.L.E to gain unlimited knowledge?”
Vincent just looked at me with his lips tightly shut. I had a feeling this was not the right time to ask that.
“I suppose 1HE or T.O.L.E have the ability to install an unlimited amount of encryption keys with enough wealth but I do not see how that relates to the topic at hand," he responded without looking at me.
“Anyways, don’t worry about weird firmware updates, just keep working towards a seamless investors day."
He started to walk out.
“By the way, are you still working with that director?" he smiled and then continued out the door.
I never told him about Red but It was obvious there was a connection between the two. The question still remained, was Vincent on my side?
I kept seeing messages titled “urgent” or “please read” throughout the day from Red. I was suspicious of him after his plan to deactivate me had failed, I think he knew I was on to him. While mixed up in my mind, Vincent sent out a mass message:
“13 days until Investors day. 13 days means 13 coins left. Make sure only you and you alone are using the coin exit system properly.”
His message gave me a grand idea, I’d just stay in the office to avoid Red. He didn’t know where I worked, the area was secure and safe. Plus, I could stop running worries through my head if I focused strictly on work. That was the plan until Red walked through the front door of our shared office, Vincent welcoming him gladly. My suspicion was incorrect, the two of them together were planning my demise. I turned my chair around to avoid eye contact and jacked into my terminal to ensure everyone around me knew I was working. I thought I was safe until the boss said my name in a questioning manner.
“Yeah he’s right here,” he said as he spoke to Vincent. My cover was blown. “Vincents looking for you," the boss said to me. I could not explain to him in enough time to get him to say I was busy because Vincent and Red came to our desk space.
“Hey! I’m Red," he said to the boss, “I’m the director behind the T.O.L.E documentary. Do you mind if I borrow your employee for an hour?”
I looked at the boss trying to give him convincing eyes to say no.
“Yeah, we’re doing good on deadlines. Take as much time as you need," he responded and just like that, I was sold out by the boss.
“Hey Red… Vincent" I started, “What can I do for you?” There was a weariness to my voice.
“Hey do not worry about it, seriously!" the boss chimed in, “your work is solid, go join your friend."
I stood up and thanked him and walked behind Red and Vincent to wherever we were going. As with most meetings in the shared office, we went to the same meeting room I had just visited earlier in the day.
I noticed a gear bag in the corner just in time for Vincent to say, “I’ve heard so much about this film project that I had to get in on it.”
Red looked at me and smiled, “Of course, we needed a couple more SQR businessmen. We are more than happy to get you in for an interview."
“Can you set up the camera and boom real quick while I go over the questions with Mr. Vincent here?" Red asked and I jumped to attention to get it done.
I did not know what to make of the situation, so I just did as I was told. Did Red set this up to ensure he could get his hands on me?
The interview went just like every other interview we had accomplished. The questions were softballs to make Vincent look good, I doubt these cuts would make it into the film. If I wasn’t so suspicious I’d think Red was trying to make me look like a valuable person in Vincent's eyes. When filming was completed, they chatted for a few minutes while I almost went into a routine trance packing up the equipment. I knew Red was going to ask me to walk outside with him and I was looking for any reason to escape. As long as I stayed in the office, I was safe.
The two said their goodbyes and even Vincent shook my hand and said thanks. It was a kind gesture.
I looked at Red and said, “I’m guessing you’re here to talk about the footage?”
He rushed over to me and said, “Not so loud, what are you thinking?”
“I could be talking about anything, we are here on documentary duties after all,” I snapped back.
I had been under a lot of stress and him acting like we were friends made me more than angry.
“Dude, let’s go outside and talk about this. There’s too much surveillance in this office space to have a serious conversation.”
I just looked at him and gave him the equipment bag, “I have too much work, we can talk later.”
But he insisted we go outside. I followed him to the elevator thinking about how luckily there was a good crowd outside as we descended to the bottom floor.
“So you watched the videos and read the document right?" he asked.
I nodded in response and then fired back, “Why did you try deactivating me? I did nothing to you. I only know what I filmed and even that was barely anything worth killing someone over. What are you trying to do here Red?”
He looked surprised at my outburst. I had always been the quiet guy hidden behind the camera in his eye.
“I was not trying to deactivate you. I wanted you…" someone got too close to his liking and he decided again, it was not safe to be around so many ears.
“Please, let me explain but we need to go somewhere more private," he said as he pointed to his car, “I promise it is not what it seems.”
There was a little more remorse in his voice and something about it made me want to hear what he had to say. I turned on my personal record and started broadcasting it to the office servers for security. If I was going to enter his car, I was not going to do it alone... Or at least I’d have some form of evidence if I went missing.
We walked over to his rental black sports car and he offered for me to sit in the front seat. It was the first time I had been in a privately owned car since being on J-27. Everything felt very familiar inside but there were differences. For example, the interior was almost stripped to the bare minimum. As if personality and design were not required to sell a car to a T.O.L.E.. I was feeling envious that a 1HE like Red had the chance to experience these luxuries himself.
“How far did you get in viewing the documents and videos before the card fried itself?" he asked me.
“So you purposely fried the drive while inside my brain?" I shockingly asked loud enough to get him to admit he was trying to deactivate me on the broadcasted recording.
“Well... I could not let the information get into the wrong hands," he started but I snapped back,
“you almost deactivated me Red. I do not care about any form of information. it is not worth my life.”
He stopped talking and looked at me.
“What do you mean? I was not trying to deactivate you. I just put a time limit on the life of the drive. What happened?"
He looked pretty concerned with the acquisition I just threw upon him.
“It knocked me out cold last night just as I started looking at the documents," I yelled back but part of me believed his words.
“Dude, seriously, I set a 2-hour timer on the drive. It should have taken you 10 minutes max to view everything. I don’t understand how that would have messed up your system…”
“In the morning," I responded, “I had to completely do a system reboot and calibration… Ok fine, I’ll buy you’re not trying to deactivate me but this information... what does it have to do with me?”
“You obviously didn’t get a chance to view all the videos or read the document, did you. I’ll explain,” he stated as he pulled up a visual display on his car's information terminal. “Just watch the third video and I’ll explain the rest.”
The video started and placed us back in the auditorium. The shiny T.O.L.E sat under the spotlight as the podium was removed from the stage.
The speaker entered the frame again, “In our lifetime we’ve been told that we’re programmed to do one thing. Be it our job, our passions, or even our stature in society. But what if we had the choice. What if we were programmed with all the knowledge and we made the decision on what our lives would entitle?”
He approached the motionless body and asked the T.O.L.E to solve an advanced mathematical equation. Immediately, a voice responded with the answer in mere seconds but this isn’t that impressive if the T.O.L.E was a mathematician.
“I bet you’re not convinced," the speaker said and the room laughed.
He asked another question, this time about some obscure Earth history. Again the T.O.L.E answered without fail. The speaker started rapid-firing questions after questions of various topics which again the T.O.L.E answered without a pause or worry. It was impressive but the T.O.L.E has no emotions to the achievement. The room clapped to the parlor trick but I was still not too convinced at the performance.
“I’d like to introduce President Tomas Tole of J-27 to talk more on what we’ve unlocked in this room."
I looked at Red as the video ended.
“How did you record this?" I asked him.
“I’m a big part of the journalism here on J-27. The government trusts me and gives me access to classified knowledge like this to help spin new mandates and information over T.O.L.E news," he smiled like he was proud but then his lips turned to a frown.
“Things have become quite serious in the past few weeks. There seems to be a new firmware the J-27 government is about to mandate... it’s... it’s not good.”
I pressed him for more information but he would not budge. “Does this have to do with all the T.O.L.Es deactivating recently?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Red, why are you involving me with this?" I asked as I logged into the office server. There was no fear between friends anymore. I tried to take a few seconds to remove the data off the server.
“You remember when that businessman we interviewed mentioned a T.O.L.E secret?" he began, “Well, turns out President Tole is giving SQR investors access to lifeless T.O.L.E bodies.”
I was having issues connecting and started to sweat at the thought I was exposing our conversation.
Red continued, “...hackers have found a way to remove the human side of the operating system. What started off a backdoor for anyone to install all knowledge turned into enslaving T.O.L.E citizens...”
“Still I do not understand what this has to do with me?”
“You’re my number two on the film project. You’re just as invested in getting it published as I am. I guess I thought, if for some reason I disappeared, you could ensure the film was published.”
“Why would you disappear?" I questioned.
“I’m releasing a documentary on SQR companies working with T.O.L.E employees and I’ve asked these businessmen to not talk about the slavery. I think the J-27 government might be worried about me leaking the information. I fear if this information was leaked… how it could end civilization. The unlimited knowledge vs limitations war would break out. It would end everything the humans built us not to be."
He finished his statement and a wave of fear haunted him. He was too exhausted to continue talking but he said one last thing, “worst of all… there’s a rogue firmware floating around that’s deactivating T.O.L.Es so the government can start collecting shells for drone workers to be sold to SQR executives.”
I didn’t know what to make of the situation or what to say next.
“I did not ask for you to involve me in this Red… I just wanted to do something in my free time that showed me more of T.O.L.E," he stopped me.
“I did show you, you just didn’t want to see the negative side of it all.”
I opened his car door and told him I had to leave. I felt sick to my stomach and too paranoid to return to my hotel. I needed to run but I had nowhere to go. I was a trillion miles away from home. All I could do was walk... Red pulled up beside me keeping the slow walking pace trying to get my attention.
“I’m sorry I dragged you into this. You’re right... It was wrong. I’ll give you your space,” He shouted and then drove off.
I had never felt as alone as I did that night. I knew regardless of intention, I could not associate myself with Red anymore. I had a job to worry about and the film project was nearly complete. He was leaving and returning home in a single week. There was nothing I could do but wait out his leave and mind my own business.
Passing a group of street food vendors, I noticed in the corner of my eye my recorder was still streaming data. I turned off the recorder and remotely connected to the office storage. It thought it could be beneficial to keep a local copy of our conversation for myself. I deleted it from the office server before making a backup. If Red did decide I was a threat to his return home, I at least had some evidence I was not part of his schemes. I walked until I was too tired to process my thoughts. I paid for a teleportation back to the hotel and crashed on the bed. I shriveled up under the blankets with a desire to sleep but a nagging restless uneasiness kept me half awake. I had 12 coins left, 12 coins until I returned home myself. I needed Red to be out of my life to be at peace again.
The last dream of the night consisted of me running through an alleyway that kept getting thinner and thinner the closer I got to the exit. Behind me were two T.O.L.E officers and above me was the woman officer yelling down below, “grab him”. My body got stuck between two slimy brick walls and the officers behind me were banging their police sticks, clack clack clack! A familiar voice knocking on my door saved me from the unknown punishment the officers were about to suffocate me under.
“Are you awake yet? We need to talk," he said, knocking on the door once more.
I pressed a receiver on the wall to show footage of who was outside my hotel room. It was Geoff. I pressed a button that allowed him to enter.
“You’re on the news mate," he started to say as he used a remote to switch the holographic display to the local news station.
“Why?" I cried out and the news anchor lady described the situation as if it was the biggest scandal of the decade.
“Breaking news! Sources have reported that a spy from the planet A-50 has leaked government documents on what scientists are calling a brainwashing firmware scandal. Evidence is showing that a rogue firmware is turning our citizens into working drones. A virus, presumably developed by enemies of our country, has released a false firmware update that promises pure knowledge," she stated while my face and name showed on the screen for the whole world to identify me.
As if to shift blame that I was the one who programmed and released the firmware she continued, “This information was leaked late last night during a fight between what looks like a businessman and the alleged spy near the Apolis industrial and technology park...”
The camera panned out and showed a new face. The man wore a black suit and was positioned next to the news anchor.
“Welcome Rick, what can you tell us about this mysterious spy?”
I turned to Geoff, “What am I supposed to do now?" I asked.
“I do not know man. I guess we ask the boss or maybe Vincent for help?" he said with genuine concern.
“Let’s get you to the BK office. You’ll be safe there and Vincent will know what to do, I’m sure of it," he said as he helped me pack my luggage.
I had a feeling I was not ever going to return to this hotel room again. As we left the room, I took the scene in one last time and sighed. My life was not going to be the same after I left this hotel room.
“I appreciate you helping me with this Geoff.”
“Don’t worry about it. What did you do to get involved with all this mess?" he asked, looking for answers as a friend.
“Last night, Red shared these strange videos with me. I felt very uncomfortable with the whole situation so I just started recording the interaction. I thought my life might have been in danger. I thought a documented recording would prove I had nothing to do with it.”
“Do you think Red set you up?”
“I don’t know if I’ll ever find out. It seemed he was as scared as I was. But I’m the one who foolishly and accidentally published all of his findings," I responded as he handed me a hat to cover my face.
We entered the lobby of the hotel and quickly escaped with anyone noticing us.
“It seems you are just in the wrong place at the wrong time... That has to be a defense isn’t it?”
We ran into the underground passageway as we crossed the highway to our office.
“Do you know who released this rogue firmware?" he asked in a way that he actually thought I might have had something to do with it.
Looking at the data, it would not have been the craziest idea that a programmer from A-50 could do such a thing.
“All I know is I watched a video of President Tole talking about it in front of businessmen at some university... " I looked at Geoff and noticed he wanted more details.
“Red showed me a recording of it. He was there to officially document the event but he was not supposed to have a copy.”
“So it seems Red is the spy?”
“I think he’s just a director with a drive to document everything he sees.”
We quickly made it across without anyone looking suspiciously at me. The news hadn’t really spread as fast as I thought it would have. Maybe T.O.L.E people still feared for their lives and reporting a 1HE could lead to them being caught up in something they wanted nothing to do with. The fact that all 1HE modeled people looked almost exactly the same made blending in an easy endeavor, fortunately. We took the elevator up to the 7th floor and entered the office space. A sigh of relief from both of us lifted our spirits and just in time because Vincent was walking out of his office.
“Good morning Gentlemen," he said to the both of us as he walked by.
“Vincent!" I shouted in his passing direction, “I need your help with something urgently. Can I see you in your office?”
His puzzled look indicated he hadn’t heard the news yet. It was probably better off I told him everything now before the police showed up in the office looking for me. I was surely tracked via my public GPS signal. It was all a matter of time. I nodded to Geoff and he wished me good luck. I turned around and followed Vincent to his office.
For the first time since my arrival on J-27, I was in Vincent's office talking to him instead of the meeting room. The office space was very minimal. The walls were plastered pure white with a single-window behind his sleek black chair. His desk and terminal set up matched the darkness and gave off a hip post-earth modernism. Once 1HE left earth and let it melt away to the sun's mighty power, using natural resources became a bad omen. This ushered in a cold metal simplistic design mythology Vincent was obviously a fan of. He offered me a seat and I took it hoping it would help me relax.
“If you go to T.O.L.E news right now, you’ll see I’m being called a whistleblower on the biggest scandals known to this planet… I got mixed up in knowledge I did not need to know... I accidentally leaked a conversation between myself and the director,” I paused.
I took a moment to collect my thoughts and tried to find something on his desk to use as a focal point instead of his intense glaring eyes.
“I don’t think we have time for explanations, it’s all over the news anyways, what I need is help.”
“I don’t know how I can help you… it sounds like you need to tell the truth before rumors grow larger than what they already are... I don’t know anyone who can help with that," he stated.
“I need to talk to Mr. Lemond Jr. Can you arrange that?" I responded but before I let him answer, I called Red who must have been in a panic waiting for my contact because he answered instantly.
“Red, I presume you’ve seen the news. We need to leave this planet ASAP… can you get Mr. Lemond Jr to arrange an export ship for us?”
“I think you’re right, let me see if I can get in contact with him. This will be tricky for sure, I’ll call you back in 10 minutes,” Red responded and hung up the call.
I sat in the room looking at Vincent not in fear but with determination. Some parts of me felt like I was overreacting but another part let those stories of mass genocide creep into my thought process. Whatever the situation was, the J-27 government had never dealt with an outbreak like this before. It was easy for them to skew the media into putting the blame on me, a 1HE SQR traveler. I did not want to know what they could do to me. Everything was so strict and locked down and somehow I broke the requirement of media approval with my unintentional leak. I was almost like the government wanted the news out, I was now the blame.
“How did this information leak?" Vincent asked me.
“I suppose someone stole information off my partition of this office's shared server. Last night I recorded a conversation with Red. I am unintentionally involved with his spying..." I looked him in the eyes, “I did not want anything to do with his desire to share his findings. Two days ago I didn't even know anything about it.”
It was useless to defend myself. Even if President Tole himself was in the room, he was as guilty as I. If there was even such a thing as the President being guilty.
“You know, I can check who accessed your file. We keep logs of that stuff," Vincent said to me with a little bit of hope in his voice.
He turned jacked into his chair and his body went still as he accessed the virtual logs.
“Hmm," he said as life returned to his body, “It seems someone didn’t access your file directly from what I could tell.”
That could only mean one thing, Red set me up last night, I thought to myself. It also meant I was waiting around for nothing, Mr. Lemond Jr was never going to receive my request for help.
“Vincent, do you have a way to find the contact information of Mr. Lemond Jr of Helio Corp?" I pleaded and explained the reason why I needed to contact him directly.
He said there was a government website that hosted a list of all the SQR citizens living in J-27, accessible by government officials. Fortunately for me, Vincent knew someone who could help. He pinged a government official who helped Vincent, a 1HE, set up this government grant to bring SQR companies to J-27. His friend got back to him pretty quickly and said it was better off if Vincent passed me off to him for security.
There was a mandate in the government that every working body look for the person who leaked these documents. I was public enemy number one and the only way to hide from the government was in plain sight, under government custody.
The last words Vincent said to his friend was, “Please get him off the planet. I’ll get that thing done for you we’ve been talking about if you can just get my friend off this planet."
In all this mix-up, I think I finally saw Vincent was the hardest on me than most because he knew something about me I did not know. Was I a pawn in the government's scheme to disclose information. Was both Red and Vincent behind the blame of setting me up… I wanted to trust Vincent in this situation but I still had to keep a wary but aware mind open to all situations I was in going forward.
As expected, two police officers requested access to the office to search for me. One of the female BK staff members let the pair in but Vincent stopped them at the door.
“Hello officers, I am the manager of this office space. I just wanted to thank your team for removing that deactivated T.O.L.E the other day. Are you here for a follow-up investigation?" he looked behind him to give me a signal to hide in the office.
Where exactly in his barebone minimalistic room, I had no clue… So I sat at his desk and jacked into this computer to hide the fear by making myself lifeless.
“We are actually here on an ongoing investigation. We need to talk to an employee who works here," one of the officers said as he showed a picture of me to Vincent.
“Oh, I know him, yes. I’ll take you to his desk… please follow me," Vincent responded.
While Vincent walked, he sent me a direct message:
“I’m diverting these officers. I have a suit in the closet in the storage room near the kitchen. Go throw it on but first remove all your artificial skin. Then get outside as fast as possible. I’ll direct message you with more information on where to meet my friend the second I have it.”
It made total sense, if I looked like a professional T.O.L.E instead of 1HE, I’d be able to hide in plain sight. The only issue was I had a silver metallic shell instead of Gold. I suppose if I look rich enough in Vincent's suit, it would just make me look eccentric. I did as he told me and exited from the back. From there I walked across two separate office buildings until I found an emergency exit I could take down to the ground floor. I had walked all through the Apolis industrial park but never had I seen it from this height. It was breathtaking the amount of innovation that was below me. I didn’t want to leave but I was far enough from the office to feel safe, yet I had nowhere to run to. I didn't even have enough time to get my bags from Geoff or tell the boss I was sorry.
The entire time I was trying to figure this out I could hear in the back of my head my father telling me, “I told you so!” He was so anti-J-27 that what was happening to me was what I deserved. Once the news broke out that I was the whistleblower and a rogue virus was going around, he would blame the planet for my demise as if they had set me up and I let it happen just so he could say, “you should have never betrayed your planet." Somehow in my twisted mind, even knowing the J-27 government was coming to capture me, I still wanted to defend the planet to the father. Why was I so protective of this planet?
The safest place in the city would be the nearby park. At Least there I could lay low with minimal eyes. If I was to run into anyone it would be older T.O.L.Es who used the park for daily peaceful strolls. As I got close to the park I found a free newspaper machine and grabbed one. I ran across the street and entered the park. Looking at the map there was a pagoda with seating that looked like the perfect place to hide.
The morning sun was in the perfect position to allow me to sit myself facing away from park patrons without making it look like I was hiding. I opened up the newspaper to hide my face and jacked into my mainframe. My body went still perfectly holding the newspaper as I used a VPN to access SQR news. I was hoping to see some kind of information about me that painted the situation for what it was. Unfortunately, the headline “Spy A-50 citizen leaks J-27 top-secret project" let me know I was literally in this alone. Until I found a proper lawyer, I did not exist in the real world anymore. I was a ghost.
I lost it all over what… but then in a tree, an organic bird chirped above me. A moment of peace entered my body as I took in the scenery. I hadn’t once taken a moment to enjoy the natural life found on J-27. I didn’t hear the restless city from where I sat, just the clarity of nature. The wind blew the trees. Those wonderfully green and healthy trees. Flocks of birds chased each other with glee. The songs of chirping and shuffling leaves in surround sound accompanied me. Even if the biggest scandals in SQR history was about to unfold in front of everyone. The citizens of this galaxy would adapt and will live in a better place because of it. I was someone else's martyr, helplessly enjoying a park view I’d surely never see again. In coming to terms with the situation and I was grateful to have a (soon to be) government friend on the inside. Then I received my next directions from Vincent:
“You need to turn off GPS location and use VPN to communicate from now on. We need to make you disappear. My friend agreed to arrange for you a way off this planet but it requires you to get to the export ports south of the office. Figure out a way to get down there and when you arrive look for a broken-down taxi cab. There my friend will meet you. This is my final transmission. do not worry about investor’s day or your boss. I’ve got all that under control.
Good Luck - Vincent
PS: do not turn on your communications under any circumstances.”
From my park sanctuary to the export ports was about a two and a half-hour walk. I couldn’t be caught using a teleporter or any form of public transportation. I had no other option but to walk. I turned off all communications and went dark. With my systems working at minimum requirements not even speaking abilities were accessible. I was truly a deadman walking.
Exiting the park through an emergency road, I decided to take back roads only. I knew it would take longer but I was very aware of how in the sunlight the silver of my body stood out more than I’d like. The first street I went down was called White Stone. It was in an older part of the city with a very distinct atmosphere. In the early days of J-27 wireless technology was not readily available. Streets and buildings were layered with wires connecting to broadcasts, internet, electricity and more. For whatever reason, instead of removing outdated wiring, the installation was piled with thick chunks of cables, 2 feet wide in some areas. All above me dripped grime and wet particles and the walls seeped years of oil and grease. This was the poorer side of the planet I hadn’t seen yet and probably for good reason. It was not helping me keep my rich persona looking clean.
I finally exited a side street into a crowd so tight that you’d think it was a New Years’ parade. Cheap grocery stores filled with various goods littered the streets and it attracted the poorest of the community for sustainability. The products were not the freshest and I wouldn’t have been surprised if someone told me it was the leftovers or spoiled items of the rich life. Regardless, I quickly ducked through the crowds into another alley. I was about 15 minutes into my journey and I was not any closer to my destination. I needed to come up with a better plan, quick. What could I use to increase gain distances in a shorter period of time without tracking? Then it hit me; a rental MoPod. I couldn’t check one out myself without turning my GPS back on but I thought for the right amount of money in this area, I could probably pay someone to help me out.
I went back into the streets looking for someone who was down on their luck and could use a few bucks. I turned my systems back on and deactivated all network communications but kept my voice box active. I ran across a younger 15-year-old T.O.L.E and asked him if he wanted to make a few bucks.
“I need a MoPod but my payment system isn’t working," I said to him as I reached into my pocket.
“I have these bronze coins that are worth a lot of money. If you can help me get a bike, I’ll exchange these for your service."
I showed him the coins the BK office was requiring us to use.
The light hit the coins just right to capture the mystery of the items. He grabbed one with suspicion but was surprised by the weight. The glimmer in his eyes told me he knew it was a fair deal.
“Why are you silver mister?" he asked before agreeing.
“I am a very wealthy businessman and this is the latest fashion," I told him with a smile.
He took the coins and unlocked a racer pod for me. I patted his head and said thanks. He scurried off quickly with the coins tightly protected in his hands. I hope he was able to find a pawn shop or something to exchange the deed. I locked myself into the pod, turned off the rest of my system and jacked in. I was one with the bike.
Welcome Johnny, Age 15. Miles 1003, displayed on the screen. For all the government knew, Johnny was now on his way to the ports without any suspicion. I wasted 30 minutes looking for someone to connect me with a pod but I was now on my way. At 35MPH I was weaving in and out of traffic with other locals on pods. With a mandatory helmet on no one was the wiser.
About an hour later I was close enough to the ports to ditch the pod. I decided, for the kid’s safety, to stop in front of a candy store and leave the vehicle. The story would be little Johnny drove an hour to meet friends to buy sugary snacks and hang out. Regardless, I was close enough to the ports to hide in the backstreets the rest of the journey.
A yellow broken down taxi repeated in my mind. I could not let my mind wander into thinking this could be a trap. The entire pod ride gave me freedom but now I was entering unknown territory again. It crossed my mind to just travel the distant land on that bike. But a day of reckoning would surely find me. Part of me wanted to find domestic asylum anyways. What an oxymoron.
I arrived at the corner of the street and the taxi was supposed to be waiting for me. The taxi was not there yet. I thought about turning on my communications to inform anyone who cared but that would only increase the variables of being caught. I looked down at my foreign silver hands. My time on J-27 will be coming to an end shortly and my legacy here will be public to all. I just hoped they would tell the good parts too. It started to rain as I watched the export ships blast off into outer space. In one way or another, I had a feeling Mr. Lemond Jr was going to play a part in my escape as I watched the Helio Corp logo fade into the clouds.
The humor of the situation was not lost on me. Helios or the god of the sun in Greek mythology, brought the sun across the skies each day in a luxurious chariot. The sun was to be said a golden chalice that only a god had the leisure of sipping from. In some ways, my golden cup was the escape from this planet, with a spaceship as a chariot. I too hoped the human’s gods were looking down in my favor. A golden shine of hope awoke me from the fantasy. The taxi had arrived and the two men lifted the car's hood to signal to me that it was broken down. The plan was coming together.
I waited a few minutes before entering the street. I wanted to watch the two men before giving them my trust. They seemed to do each action by the books and took the situation very seriously, there was no talk between the two men and when they finished setting up the scene, entered back into the taxi. What could I have to lose by following Vincent's words? I walked out into the street and entered the back of the taxi without saying a word. I knew if I turned on voice communication it would blow our cover. The passenger exited the vehicle and closed the hood and returned back to the car. Without even looking at me, the car started to drive off.
I had to break down what was going on looking at the facts. Red showed me a video of the J-27 President, Thomas Tole, showing off a new worker shell. The speaker before him said something about unlimited knowledge. The news said a rogue firmware was being passed around that was claiming to give unlimited knowledge but was actually causing T.O.L.Es to deactivate. Why was I the one being blamed for this and why were people installing unsanctioned firmware? There was something I was missing that I still needed answers to. I hope whoever I connected with next could help explain it all.
________________
“No death, no doom, no anguish can arouse the surpassing despair which flows from a loss of identity.” - H.P. Lovecraft,
In the backseat of the taxi, I rest my head on the leather seats. I was calmer than I expected and decided to close my eyes. I did not need to see where I was going nor did I want to involve myself in conversation. I should have grabbed something to eat before the meeting, my energy levels were lower than I'd prefer. Whatever happened today would result in the next stage of my timeline. I exhaled slowly as the motion of the vehicle started to decrease, we were near. My brain wanted me to open my eyes but something told me to just relax. The car stopped in front of a gate as the sound of a metal chained fence dragging against the asphalt. I propped myself back up, fixed the tie on my suit and opened my eyes. We were in an old abandoned warehouse. The driver turned off the taxi lights and darkness engulfed us.
A voice spoke over an intercom, “to protect people who are here to help you today, the rest of your journey must be completed in darkness.”
I felt a presence near my door.
“Do you agree?" the voice spoke again.
“I do," I spoke but nothing came out.
I forgot I had my communications turned off, I knocked on the backseat window to indicate I understood. The door opened from the outside and someone helped me out of the car. The room had not a single light to be seen. Without my coms turned on, I could not use night vision. I walked 15 steps into what felt like a new room. Two men held me from both sides of my arms as the temperature changed and the echo of the voice that spoke softened.
“Please sit in this seat until further instructions. After you hear the door close feel free to enable your communications again.”
I shook my head, yes, hoping the voice could feel my movement.
The two men let go of me and I rested comfortably in a metal chair. A moment of silence and then they both walked out of the room. I was waiting for the door to shut before moving myself.
A voice spoke again, “I’m sorry this happened to you.” and the door shut.
I tried cycling through my memory banks to determine if that voice was familiar but I could not find anything. If it was someone I knew it was only in passing. Finally, the door locked and a lamp above my head turned on. My eye instantly squinted at the shock in brightness. Blue walls unblurred in front of me. I was not in a room. I was in an empty 8x8 metal shipping container. Alone with a chair, I was imprisoned in a small box. Due to the mystery of it all, I turned on all communication systems. While the security checks ticked one by one before giving me full access to comms, the crate started to move. I was now suspended in the air.
The chair was bolted down fortunately and I white-knuckled the armrests in the swaying of my box. Whoever was moving the crate probably didn't know I was inside. I had no issues with the movement but was crossing my fingers I would not be dropped in the ocean or something. I had a feeling I was getting thrown into an exporting ship that would be returning to A-50. That much I figured, the 30-day trip was going to be mighty difficult from inside the container. I wish they would have just knocked me out and thrown me into a sleeping pod. As I was shuffled around, my system was back to normal with one issue. The crate I was in must have been too thick to allow access to the internet. I was literally in flight mode stored in a crate, how comical. What else could I do but wait?
I started pondering over my biggest fear I had since the word J-27 entered my head. From the second I received the offer to travel to this planet to the last moment I had before boarding this ship, all I wanted to do was live on this planet. I constantly felt like at any moment it was going to be taken from me. I thought if I did not work hard enough the boss would send me home. I thought if I returned home for holidays, my family would convince me to stay on A-50. No matter what I did the planet would leave my grasps. I was not a citizen of the planet. I could not get married here and continue my life. Even as I ran from the government I really did not want to leave. I hadn’t experienced enough. I hadn’t efficiently spent my time. Still in the back of my mind, I thought, if I can just get home and explain my case I would get the chance to return. Get my chance to sit on the benches between the technology park. Get the chance to ride the metro again or see the few camera crew friends I made. Even visit my favorite restaurants. Why did everything lead to me leaving something I never wanted to lose.
The crate landing woke me up from my self-pity party. I stood up and tried to see if there was a way I could see outside. The lamp in the ceiling made it difficult to find any light that might be peaking in from the outside. The corners, the door, the walls all seemed to be sealed tight. I did not have to worry about breathing luckily. I returned to the chair in the center of the room and waited. It had been an hour since I had left the taxi cab and I missed those leather seats. The cold metal chair dug into my naked silver body. Even with the suit, there was no way to be comfortable in the situation. For the first time in my life, I missed my artificial skin.
A loud bang vibrated first through the crate and then dug into my body. The hatch of the export ship had closed, no more did I hear the voices of ship workers coordinating the cargo. If someone was inside the hatch with me, the hundreds of metal crates around me surely soaked up the sounds. I was now truly alone and then the lamp turned off. I heard from the outside a mechanical sound as if a machine was surveying the area. Then it stopped outside the crate. It gripped the door handle, pulled down and then opened the door.
Both the outside and crate were concealed from my eyes. I could see a silhouette of a T.O.L.E glowing from dimmed outside lights.
“We’ll be taking off soon. I was asked to escort you to your room," a gentle voice announced and entered the crate.
I stood up from the chair and met the women.
“I’m Lia, the government friend of Vincent" she smiled as we exited the crate. “I run shipments between J-27 and A-50 but on the side, I help sneak new technologies into J-27. Sneaking a fugitive out is a first but I enjoy the risk of this kind of business."
Her golden metal body had more life to it than most women I had met. I introduced myself and told her how grateful I was to meet a friendly face.
We left the giant cargo hold and entered a white corridor. An automated system sprayed us down and then an air hatch let us through. We entered a room where the rest of the crew was hanging out. The few that did look up gave me a cheerful welcome, which felt like I was one of them.
“He’s an old one eh?" one said.
“Must be why he’s paint isn’t gold anymore..." said another.
It never occurred to me that the older generation of T.O.L.E would look less gold. I just kept looking forward and followed Lia.
She whispered to me, “do not worry, we’ll get you new 1HE skin before we arrive.”
It seemed Vincent put me in good hands for the escape but we still hadn’t taken off yet. I was anxious for Lia to take me to my room.
“Not much longer,” she said, as we entered a hallway with an elevator. “Just up a floor and we’ll have you safely seated for takeoff. The ship's captain is waiting for my word, so let's hurry up. The longer we taxi on the runway the more suspicious things could get.”
I understood.
“sightseeing was not on my list right now anyway," I responded.
It made her laugh, “When we exit the second layer of atmosphere you’ll be free to do whatever you want. I recommend checking out the kitchen.”
We arrived in a room smaller than the storage crate.
“It is not much," she said and pointed to a top bunk pod.
“If you feel the need to sleep off the 30 days flight, feel free to use the one on top," she said, “I’m the bunk under you… do not get any ideas.”
“I just want to know what our plan is once we arrive at A-50," I sighed out.
“Don’t worry about that, at dinner tonight we’ll discuss everything to get you settled back to your normal life. Until then, let's enter our pods so I can tell the captain to get us off this planet." she smiled and jumped into her pod. “Catch you on the other side" she blurted out as she closed her pod's hatch.
I entered my pod and laid down comfortably. The ship started its thrusters causing the room to vibrate tremendously. In comparison to commercial ships, this felt like an erupting volcano instead of a sleek bullet. A red light flashed in the room and in the hallways as an announcement said “1 minute to launch. Please fasten into your pods and remain seated until further notice.”
The momentum started to pick up. The initial thrusters hit maximum power and the secondary thrusters kicked in. We were off the ground and the harsh reality of gravity sunk into my chest.
Death or escape, I was ready for the challenge. The g-forces of takeoff rocked me into a trance of calmness. I was able to let go. As the blackness covered my eyes, I smiled. Hurling deep into the space between planets, I whispered to myself, “I got my adventure… but at what cost.”
~ The End
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A note from the author
Thank you for reading my first Sci-Fi novel. I’m so grateful to have readers like you to share it with. If you did like this book please leave a review on Amazon or share the book with a friend.
I love this world I’ve built so much that I had to continue the story. Below is part of the first chapter of the second book in the N1 Galactic Series, Unlimited Knowledge. The second book is jammed packed with mystery, politics and twists you never saw coming.
Thank you again for being part of this journey, let’s see how things turn out for our main character! Oh, he also gets a name!
- JD Riggs
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"Science has not yet mastered prophecy. We predict too much for the next year and yet far too little for the next 10." -- Neil Armstrong
The growths on the trees were the first to catch on fire as the Sun began to melt away the remains of Earth. Within seconds all life, breathing or not, vanished as if it never existed and no one was there to mourn for it. At the peak of Earth's demise, the 1HE colonies had already established civilization on their first planet, A-50. History had moved on long before Earth’s last breath.
Over 2000 spacecraft left Earth hundreds of years ago looking for their own salvation in the face of optimism. Scattered in all directions, fleets charged into the vast void in search of a new Galaxy. The direction was unknown so fleets broke off on their own voyages hoping they were the lucky ones to find it. The desperation of cold emptiness weighed heavily on the pockets of communities that resorted to life on spacecraft. Over time the societies inside would form their own governments and alliances. What was once 2000 turned into groups of 50 all with one purpose, to continue the human assigned task; Find a new home.
The passengers were able to live a comfortable existence with an unlimited supply of food, boarding and entertainment. Life was easy and oftentimes even more enjoyable than on earth while they aimlessly searched. By the 2000th year after leaving Earth the idea that 1HE needed a planet seemed unnecessary. Until one fleet of 5 ships accidentally completed the last human mission; Finding a new home.
Warning systems indicated hazards across each ship. The fleet of 5, as they would soon be known, would be entering a dense nebula full of dust and various ionized gases. Their ship had experienced this before but what was unexpected was the large chunks of debris that would soon cause tremendous external damage. Calculations showed it would take 48 hours for the ships to pass through. A worried sweat overcame the lead cockpit as visibly quickly turned to blinding light. Even the passengers knew the pure bright red gases were unusual when even a closed window forced light into the living chambers.
Space physicists scrambled to predict the weather patterns in order to brace for the worst. Entering the fog everything became quite quiet, a calm before the storm. It was too late to turn around. The gases engulfed the fleets in a mist of red silence. Even with all the onboard data, no one could have predicted a meteor shower passing through at the same time. The first pellet smashed right into the nose of the cockpit, the sound echoed through the entire ship.
“Did we hit an asteroid?”, asked the Captain to his crew.
“It seems something hit us, we’re picking up an uneven terminal velocity in the nose”, a voice responded back but before he could make an educated guess, the meteor shower came in full force knocking the man to his feet.
“Sir! It seems we’ve entered a meteor shower!” someone shouted as the cockpit alarms indicated exterior damage. Warning sounds and flashing red bulbs went off on the control panels in a panic.
“Inform the fleet behind us. I need a quick stat on worst-case scenarios,” the Captain shouted. He turned around to his data analysis team, “I need a plan in 30-seconds!”
The 3 men immediately shuffled through the data and punched in numbers on their computers for an answer. The meteorites were hailing down with thunderous force as the non-essential passengers took shelter in their sleeping pods. Alone, a sleeping pod had enough reserves to last 30 days afloat. It was the safest option.
After 2.5 days, the meteorite attack ended as quickly as it came. The interior walls throughout the ship were littered with baseball size dents protruding.
“Sir! It seems we are being pulled into a northwest direction. A large mass has us stuck in its gravitational pull,” a scientist said while looking at the instruments on the wall. “If these calculations are correct and if radar can back me up on this, we’re heading directly into a planet.”
“How soon will the nebula clear up before we can see this planet?” the Captain asked his crew.
The answer wasn’t so clear, so they shuffled around with calculations to please their superior. Below the deck, the civilians were returning to their normal life as the safe passage signs illuminated in each room. It wasn’t their first time they had found a planet, everyone just hoped this one would be habitable.
“This is the fleet captain speaking. In 30 minutes the nebula will clear. All ships please report on your status.”
“This is A2, we are O.K.,” the first ship responded as the others followed. It seemed only minor injuries had plagued the crews on board.
“This is Bravo three, we’ve been severely damaged. Everyone inside is fine but according to our calculations we won't last another 5 days before radiation starts seeping in.”
The Captain paced around the room as he heard the news.
“Hello Bravo 2, this is the captain speaking. Once this nebula clears up let’s plan for a migration,” he said on the communication line.
He turned to his crew and told them to organize a plan for 20,000 new passengers on the 4 remaining ships. They took his orders and moved out to the common area to find possibilities for living arrangements. The captain went back to his trotting as it helped me think better. The ships were already at maximum capacity and every ship in the fleet was under heavy damage.
“We need a damn miracle”, he swore as he banged his fist on his control panel. “Environmental team, I need you to find out as soon as possible the geology of the planet sucking us in. Everyone else, plan for an emergency landing.”
If the planet had any form of solid surface, they’d be setting up camp. They were in no order to continue the search. The repairs required would ultimately lead to death and that wasn’t an option under his command. He reached out to receive a report given to him, the results showed that oxygen was leaking from the planet.
“Sir, this planet seemed to have an ozone layer. We are getting oxygen levels leaking at a stable rate. According to this data, the nebula acts as a heating mechanism for the planet.”
“Is it safe to land on?” he asked abruptly. The Captain didn’t want to understand the science of how the planet worked.
“From our data, it seems so. I advise we wait until we pass through the nebula and the planet becomes visible before we make a final decision,” he responded, still embarrassed at the fact he was caught up in the discovery.
The Captain accepted the advice and kept a watchful eye on his crew as they worked out the problems on hand. A crew member informed the room that within the next 10 minutes the planet should be visible. The Captain continued to pace back and forth only stopping occasionally looking at the digital screen which detailed the status of his ship.
“We’ll be out of the nebula cloud in 45 seconds!”, someone shouted and the entire room froze including the captain.
Together they held their breath hoping that their search would finally be over. The red clouds turned to orange and quickly dissipated. On a large screen in the control quarters, a delightful sight was displayed. A planet of familiar blues and greens welcomed the already cheering soon to be settlers.
“Men, inform all personnel and civilians, we have found home!” the Captain said with hidden misty eyes. The last human mission had been accomplished.
To be continued...