Generations Down the Rabbit Hole
31 Jan 2018MMMMMalcolm
Arbuda isn’t that far from Sol. ‘Breathless’ could fly there in one jump. Still, we managed to lose ourselves in space and I powered down the ship amongst the asteroids of a ringed gas giant. It didn’t take me long to extract my old John Jameson backpack from the ship safe in my quarters.“Which would you prefer,” I asked Kay, “the journals or the laptop?”
“You know a girl always likes to curl up with a good book.”
There were five small journals. I handed the stack to Kay who wore a half shirt and sweatpants. She disappeared to the bedroom to tackle her part of the mystery. I slumped on the couch in the sitting room half of my suite. I wore some shorts that extended just below my knees and a t-shirt. I wasn’t sure how long this would take, no reason not to be comfortable.
After powering on the computer I hit my first hurdle. A password was required and I had no idea where to begin guessing. I strolled into the bedroom to get my encryption breaking tool. Kay was leaning against the headboard flipping through her first journal.
“How old did you say Tom and Nancy- um, I mean Eric and Natasha were?”
“I’m not sure, early fifties maybe. Why?”
“If the dates on these entries are correct, I would say they were closer to eighty.”
“That can’t be right. I’m almost thirty. I could have sworn they were in their thirties just before I ran away. Plus you saw To- uh Eric. They couldn’t have been older than fifty five.”
“Well if you were born in 3274, they would have to be at least twenty then. I found one journal with an entry date some ten years before that. I don’t believe companies were hiring teenage scientists, no matter how smart they were. I’ll keep looking for the earliest date, but this mystery keeps getting deeper and deeper.”
I opened one of my drawers and grabbed the electronic tool to help me crack the password protection. Kay’s discovery left me confused and I was more determined to get into the laptop. Who were Eric and Natasha? Why did they kidnap me? Were my parents still alive somewhere looking for me? Ten minutes later my tool had deciphered the password. It was “weKNOWXen0”. I thought that was weird until I saw the logo appear on the screen. I was flipping through files when Kay walked in and sat down beside me.
“I think I have the timeline sorted out, but I still can’t believe it. You won’t believe it.” I just sat there looking at her. I already knew what she was going to say but I needed to hear it. Maybe coming from her it wouldn’t seem so far-fetched. “Eric and Natasha used to work for…”
“INRA” I stated cutting her off. “Their logo was the first thing to pop up when I cracked the password.”
“But what you don’t know is their names were not Eric and Natasha; their real names were Jacob O’Connor and Olivia Warren. Olivia was a Federal Biologist. Jacob was Imperial. These are Olivia’s journals.”
“So now we know their real names; great. What else you got?”
“Not a lot really, just bits and pieces so far. The short version: They were biologists hired by INRA to research Thargoid technology. They bonded over their work but later became disillusioned with their employer’s goals. They fled together to Alioth. I’m still digging out the details, but that’s pretty much the gist of it.”
“Any mention of me or how I fit into all this?”
“Not yet, but I’ll keep looking. Have you found anything on the computer?”
“Not anything I understand. It appears to be their actual research. I recognize the words Thargoid and tissue samples, but all these formulas just make my head hurt. Their files don’t have names. They seem to be organized by date. The earliest is…” I sat staring at the screen, mouth agape. This couldn’t be right.
“What?” Kay asked.
“The file is dated 3145. If that’s true that would make them over one hundred and fifty years old. I’m telling you they didn’t look a day over fifty.”
“I told you you wouldn’t believe it. The first journal entry is dated August fifth, 3144. It says here Olivia met her supervisor Bexley Prince and her project teammate Jacob O’Connor. They spent the next five months in orientation, learning all the protocols of Hollis Gateway, before receiving their project assignment.”
“Any clue what their assignment was?”
“Let me see.” Kay flipped through the first journal, mumbling to herself, as she read snippets of entries. “No, this one is mainly about orientation, how demanding and picky Ms. Prince was, and whether or not Olivia truly was attracted to Jacob.” Kay opened another journal. “Here we go; according to this they were charged with trying to apply Thargoid self-healing properties to human flesh.”
Kay flipped through the journal and I thought about all those jars we saw stored in their lab back on Earth. Were they still working on their project or were they living proof (well not anymore) they had already succeeded. “The rest of this journal describes their failures. Olivia believed Ms. Prince’s pressure was taking a toll on everyone’s research. She also believed their growing romance was distracting them. One time Ms. Prince almost caught her and Jacob making out in their assigned lab.” I nearly choked on the ice tea I had poured for us. I rushed to find a towel while Kay continued. “The next journal is pretty interesting; Olivia states the team had been working on their projects for ten years. Everyone was becoming a little discouraged. A few started acting a little paranoid. One scientist, Isaac Graham, felt his every move was being watched. Olivia agreed because Ms. Prince once threatened to fire her and Jacob if they didn’t stop making out on company time and produce some tangible results. Another scientist, a Samantha Brown, felt she was being held against her will since her vacation requests were denied every time she submitted them. It was during this low period that Olivia and Jacob started to look at INRA differently.”
I was stunned. I sat speechless, while Kay buried her head deeper into the journal. Was this really happening or was it all just some bad dream fueled by the synthesized lobster I ate last night?