last edit: tue apr 15 12:01:10 2025  

> pt. one | wake up 

Beeps and trills and dings and chirps broke through the staticky din ricocheting inside his skull - the sounds aren't totally uncommon to him but the biggest takeaway in the moment is that they are, right now, louder than they have ever been. Regarding a reference point for the sounds, areas of origin even, well, he simply had none. Perhaps these vaguely familiar sounds were truly foreign, and seeing as his brain is decidedly having a difficult time conceptualizing any series of potentials relating to origin point (the only image coming to mind is of an isolation tank placed in a boardwalk arcade - an attempt at silence in an otherwise chaotic and, maybe at times, melodic environment), he was inclined to agree. He had never stepped foot in a boardwalk arcade, much less on a boardwalk of that variety. Despite being free in the knowledge that he had never been to a place as this, the tones dancing in his head conjured blurry visuals of large(r) spherical masses of pixels eating small(er) pixel masses and chrome-covered claws descending into pits of foam. Once again, he had never seen anything of the sort - though, he thought, this seems like a rendering rather than eyesight.

From the static, the same static playing in a loop inside his skull, came a unique sound, a buzzing almost, no, precisely a buzzing! An alarm clock? Now, he thought, all of this is simply a dream and the solution to this disquiet is to simply snooze the alarm.

What IS an alarm clock? He questioned his own mind, his memory, and why is it that his stress levels were increasing relative to the volume of the buzzing. He felt like he needed to be somewhere while wishing he had nowhere to be.

The buzzing took on a violent quality as it went from an initially gentle buzz to a klaxon-like gather-the-troops-style of alarm if you will, accompanied by a series of hisses and spurts one would hear when observing a pipe or orifice of some kind as it vents steam. Compressed air escaping a small tapering hole in rubber. All's fine, he decided once realizing that he had no idea what any of these things, or concepts (he couldn't be sure), truly were. All this business of arcades, clocks, and vents becoming a bit too much.

What is skee-ball? Why is that coming to mind, he thought.

Still quite klaxon-like with its musings, the buzzing became louder, much louder, than the pings and blips whose presence quickly became overshadowed. He tried to roll over, to snooze the alarm as he searched his mind for answers and just a second of solitude. Unfortunately for him, his body decided to be uncooperative.

Is this sleep paralysis? No, it can't be, he'd determined, people still have control of their eyes while paralyzed - right?. He no matter how hard he tried could not open his eyelids.

What kind of rest is this? A state of calm with a side of hyper-awareness? Hyper is a stretch, he concluded, but he could swear he felt the hissing on his cheeks.

Warm like a blanket dried in the sun.

Wait. Now cold? Damp, a hazy day. He considered whether or not he had left the window open overnight.

The alarms continued blaring, louder now. The vents increased the dampness and chilliness.

His skin felt like it was wearing a raincoat that had reached its saturation limit, he thought.

Louder now. The hissing grew closer, he could perceive it viscerally now on his face. The scent of artificial fog with undertones of burned, charred meat stuck to the insides of his nose, the back of this throat.

Smells!? Surely not, he thought. Wake up, open your eyes, he pleaded to an empty skull. If only his eyelids felt as if they weren't cemented shut. No matter, open them!

"Good morning!"

> pt. two | partnership

"Awake? Alive at least?"

He awoke to a woman's face hovering only inches from his own. She wouldn't stop smiling.

"Both. Who are you? Did my alarm wake you?" He rolled his heavy head to the left as he searched for an alarm clock through blurry vision.

"It's our alarm... in a sense. Everyone's really. Coming out of deep sleep takes a bit of time, so take it easy." She removed her head from his immediate airspace and looked around the area cheerfully with her persisting smile. "Sounds a bit like a dorm room, right? Alarms screaming into the void!"

He couldn't help but to agree with her, memories of shared accommodations and walls of alarms rushing down the halls at nearly the exact same time Monday through Friday. However, he was having a particularly difficult time placing her and what their affiliation may be. Also, deep-sleep? He was puzzled, distraught even, by the notion that he had in fact been asleep for a currently indeterminate amount of time. No matter, he dismissed the thought and returned his attention to her.

"Woah! Don't try to sit up just yet - okay there he goes - take it slow!"

He sat up rather quickly just to play the contrarian with his unknown partner. This, as it turns out, was a mistake. As he became partially vertical, he attempted to swallow the sensation of nausea traveling up his throat like a golf ball in a pneumatic tube. He looked to his left, then to his right, eyes darting up and down and in every which way hoping to spot a vessel through his still blurry eyes. He spotted tubes, indicator lights, banks of screens and displays, but no trash receptacle.

"What's all that? Did you kidnap m-" and upon hitting that fatal, nasally consonant, our unnamed traveler erupted with a slurry of what he briefly thought must have been completely bile - that thought remained brief once the next wave of sour acid reached his lips.

His knees, along with his thighs and the rest of the ambulatory bits, were soaked. He stared down at the mess he'd made and wondered (also briefly) why on earth he had been wearing what looked to be a padded white coverall that spanned from neck to ankles.

"Happens to the best of us. I'm fairly sure I spewed a year's worth of protein fluid."

"I'm real sorry-"

"Don't be," she interrupted excitedly.

"I had a 'but' lined up... what in the hell is going on?!" Her eyes lit up at the question, she threw her arms in the air then back to the man where they gripped at his shoulders forcefully.

"Oh, oh!" she began frantically. "I've read that this can happen. Memory loss! Temporary amnesia. It'll come back to you - supposedly. To answer the larger question. We, as it so happens, are currently traveling together through space. Just think about how neat that is, just for a moment." She put her hands in her pockets and stared deeply in his eyes as if to make sure that he was in fact thinking about how neat this all was, though the only look he could return was one devoid of any neat-ness - she continued on with a touch more care.

"Well, I can give you a rundown, a tiny one." Her fingers pinched in front of her face, squinting to convey how tiny the rundown ahead will be.

"I would like nothing more."

"The computer can give you a detailed synopsis when you're up and," she hesitated, giving him a quick look from his forehead to his vomity knees, "…cleaned up."

Embarrassed, she's embarrassed! He questioned why she should be embarrassed as he rose from the pod drenched in his own sick. He imagined her tossing him a towel with a dismissive look, saying something to the effect of 'clean yourself up'. Instead she turned and asked him to come along.

> pt. three | context

"So, remember the Voyager missions?" 

The pair were walking down a tubular hallway. The walls, so to speak, of the circular stretch of walkway were littered with the same sort of tubing he noticed in what he, seconds ago, decided to call the Med Bay. The tubes had the same white padded look as his soiled suit, perhaps to act as an insulation barrier. From the flooring to the top of the arc were dozens of small panel doors surrounded by flickering lights of different reds, greens, and yellows plus an additional selection of blues albeit at a much smaller amount. As he walked, he wiped his sleeves on a clean portion of the suit hoping to disperse some of the mess before it rolled off into the grating below. He heard the same beeps and tones at a muted volume continue to chirp even ahead of him in the dark room he happened to be ambling toward.

"Not quite."

"Right!" her index finger launched into the air beside her head. "Amnesia. Temporary! Well, years ago NASA launched a series - two - of satellites toward Jupiter and Saturn. It was what, 1975?"

"1977." A disembodied voice rumbled through the hallway. 

"Thank you! I don't have a name for the computer yet," she said, whispering now, "but we'll come up with one. So! 1977. Voyager launched. It did what it needed to do and slingshotted - or is it ‘slingshot’? - itself toward interstellar space. They reached Pluto around 1989?"

"Correct," the computer's voice echoed.

"Nailed it. Pluto in '89. Then beyond. We - along with many other ships - launched as backup in the early 2010s."

"Backup?" Despite feeling sticky and generally out of place in the conversation, he remained curious. 

"Backup, indeed! Usually when a satellite ceases communications NASA, or JPL, or whomever would kill the program. Nothing they can do. Right?" He nodded nervously, or was it ignorantly? Seeing as he had little to no information about the intricacies of space travel, he concluded it was the latter. 

"Wrong! This time, we sent up recon teams. The computer can explain the rest, much better than I can too. Alright?" 

He loosed another timid nod, this time the nerves prevailed. 

"Good. Here is this section's washroom. Shower, sink, toilet, a TV even - five star living up here. Wash up, i'll find your bunk and get a fresh set of clothes out for you."

The man said his thanks and watched the circular door slide shut between them. At once, he peeled his suit off and tossed it into the shower he was planning to occupy with a disgusted look. He twisted the knobs and let the water rinse the puke from the suit as it rose to a suitable temperature. He stepped in and slid the soaked piece of clothing toward the edge of the shower and stepped on it a few times hoping to wring out most of the mess before lifting it to the shower head for a final wash.

With the vomit now, mostly, washed off he hung the suit up on one of the hooks on the wall and began to fiddle with the knobs, wishing that the water would reach a near scalding degree. His hands moved toward a dispenser and pushed on the button labeled 'body wash'. Small apertures opened from the walls in the shower and each sprayed him with a dense foam that smelled of earth - it was dirty, but in a cleanly kind of way with scents of wet bark and grass. Hoping the shampoo and conditioner setting was a little less startling, he pressed the first button. It wasn't. He spent the remaining three minutes being pelted by focused jets of soap and steamy water until he decided to keep whatever layers of skin the shower hadn't already taken from him.

Reaching for a towel from the nearby shelving unit, he dried himself off quickly and wrapped the towel around his waist.

This all feels distantly familiar, he thought. Turning to the vanity he looked at the white sink with its chrome accents and flat edges, there was a mirror affixed to the wall above that he gazed into for a moment. 

Dark hair. Facial scruff - some may even call it a strong attempt at a beard. Decent musculature, something one should be modestly proud about - which he was. He was meant to be here, he thought. As if the woman saying he had a bunk wasn't proof enough he chose to search for more. 

A game, time to play a small game of association he decided. He looked around and noticed a small set of drawers recessed into the wall beside the vanity. "Okay," he said aloud, his hand now hovering beside one of the drawers. "Unlabeled. If I've been here I would know what's inside."

The hand gained and lost altitude as he attempted to pick a drawer at random.

"First aid," he announced while pulling on the top most knob.

Lotion, several types - facial, body, dry skin, sensitive skin - lay flat in the drawer, organized by size rather than type so the square bottles would rest aesthetically. 

"Razors!" he shouted. Ironically, the contents of the next drawer consisted of various types of first aid in a not so pleasing layout. "God dammit."

He started to reach for a third knob when a series of quick knocks came from the door.

"I hear you talking, we okay?" came the woman's voice. 

"Y-yeah, i'm fine. Just a moment." tightening the towel around his waist, he walked to the door and pressed the green button beside it allowing it to slide open slowly. "Think I could get a pair of pants?"

"Here, I brought these for you so you wouldn't wander around like that. Pants-less I mean. Did I hear you shout 'razors'?"

"Um, yeah I did. Thought if I remembered what drawer they were in then, well, nevermind. Silly thought."

"Got it," she said with one eyebrow angled aggressively. "Well, there's an extra toothbrush in there somewhere. Third drawer down I think. Come find me when you’re done."

The door closed and he cursed the drawers for having such an oddly arranged selection of items strewn into drawers with seemingly little to no logic. Third drawer down for the toothbrushes, however? At this height? How ergonomic. 

> pt. four | kitchens as a catalyst

He walked slowly down the modular tubed hallways. His walking speed, predicated by the scant lighting rather than anxiety, remained at an elderly pace until a T-shaped junction forced him into making a binary choice of either left or right. Could just walk back to the med bay, he considered, go back to sleep for a bit - a few more years?

Arbitrarily so, he chose to go left. It seemed like the correct way, it felt different to the man even though the equally tubular hallway had equally padded tubing, lights, and equally scant lighting - it still felt correct. Luckily, fewer than ten steps in this new direction, he could hear the woman speaking to what he believed to be the computer.

The grating felt cold to his uncovered feet, cold and uncomfortably edgy and digging into his already achy arches though he kept plodding along until the voices grew louder. Still unsure of where the voices were coming from, directionally speaking, he slowed his pace dramatically and simply listened.

Space, as it turns out, is loud. Not so much the near void like vacuum mere meters away, space tends to keep to itself - well that's a tad disingenuous isn't it, space is grabby and doesn't care much about personal space, like a mute alley-way assailant. The loudest part is where ever we are, he figured, if oxygen permeated through spacetime we would easily be heard from at least an AU away.

AU? Confused regarding the origins of this new bit of vocabulary, he closed his eyes and listened to the creaks and groans of the vessel. Out of the polyphonic blips, hollow clicks, and the gentle cascading of water through the pipes above the voices reemerged prompting his feet to continue onward. As he drew nearer a series of lights began to increase in brightness as he approached another circular doorway - the door was open, an actual door wasn't present, removed or otherwise unnecessary, leaving a wide aperture for him to step through.

"Why is it that the kitchen is the first room humans tend to find in places like this?" The computer's voice, stirred to life once his foot crossed the threshold, boomed from the ship's inlaid  speakers peppered throughout the walls of the kitchen. The voice startled the man causing his trailing foot to trip over the slight step leading into the new room, his body collapsed calmly enough to where he was able to catch himself thanks to the various bits of piping snaking up the walls. Still maintaining a sarcastic tone, the computer continued.

"If it isn't obvious, our guest has joined us." The snarky voice faded off but not before adding one observation, "Why the kitchen? Always the kitchen..."

"Hey there! Looks like you got some of that color in your face back. Hungry at all?"

Truthfully, our man hadn't thought of food since recently chundering on a potentially legendary scale but now the thought of a coffee, even a tea, and a flaky pastry filled his belly with a deep gurgle the likes of which hadn't been felt in - years? He questioned how long he had been in stasis for, how long its been since he'd had a bite of solid food. The rumble grew louder and more physical as its vibrations jostled his abdomen.

"AND your clothes fit. You know, NASA mentioned we may lose a little weight while we slept. There's only so much the liquid diet can do, you know?"

He offered a sheepish smile in response with an additional shoulder shrug to seal his ignorant stance. 

"Right... still nothing? Did you not see the shoulder patch on your shirt?" She pointed at his left shoulder on the vomit-free shirt and nodded rapidly as a way to egg him on. He awkwardly craned his neck and pulled at the material hoping to get a solid look at what she was pointing at.

"A NASA patch?"

"Below that."

"Tobin," he read aloud, "what does that mean?"

"It's your name, you dolt," the computer sounded annoyed, fed-up, with Tobin's lack of basic comprehension skills. "One would think that any sort of temporary amnesia would resolve itself upon learning their name. Is this going to happen every time one of you wakes up, Arlo?"

"You can call me Arlo. Or Exeter. First and last, no preference really, command calls me Exeter. They'll likely call you Tobin."

"Tobin," he repeated.

"Your first name is Thom! With an 'H'. I was going to let you discover that but I have little impulse control when it comes to surprises."

"Thom Tobin. With an 'H'. And," pointing as politely as he could, "Arlo Exeter."

"Either one works for me. About that meal - likes and dislikes? The printer will set you straight."

"Printer? Like a food printer?"

"Oh boy, we have a lot to go through. This ship has several types of printers. We have 3D printers, large scale material printers, metals, plastics, plasma even! These all range in use from printing small replacement parts with the 3D printer to complete objects and systems - control can send schematics and recipes, so to speak, for updated systems and we can do all of the upgrading here ourselves. The food printer - have you watched any sci-fi?" she waited for a response, he had none to offer. "We'll fix that. Well, in old sci-fi movies there have been a bunch of devices engineered to deliver food to expeditions. Freeze dried is old school, now protein manipulation and clever printing technologies allow us to take a bag of slop - the protein paste you've been ingesting while sleeping - and turn it into a bowl of Panang Curry for example. This printer is my favorite," she slapped her hand on the top of the device similar to a mechanic that was proud of his or her work. "Makes me hungry just standing in here."

Thom asked the machine for a cup of coffee and a croissant with Arlo's assistance. She pressed the touch screen to the right of the main printing apparatus and showed Thom how to input a request and ultimately print. A plastic shield rotated around from inside of the printer and covered the opening that faced the kitchen. As they watched through the plastic barrier a series of extruders appeared from above and began to eject a semi-liquid-like material on the tray below, building the foundation of what would be (Thom hoped) a fully edible, artificially laminated, buttery croissant. Ten seconds is all it took to go from a sloppy mass of liquid lattice to what looked like, unsurprisingly, a grey 3D printed pastry. The words above the printing stage indicator on the touch screen flashed from 'printing' to 'realizing' all while a golden brown coloration started to show in patches along the flakes and folds of the croissant. A blink of an eye later and the plastic shield rotated back into the printer and a slight chime sang from the machine to indicate the meal was ready. There was, however, a notification asking for someone to place a cup inside the chamber to fulfill the order of a coffee. Thom did as he was asked and the process began again, though liquids, clarified by Arlo, take much less time to complete. She was right, not that Thom had any reason to doubt her, his coffee was ready within ten seconds.

"Here," Arlo motioned toward the table situated in the middle of the room. "Take a seat, but also feel free to grab whatever you'd like. Most of the doors and drawers that you see in here open up to dry storage, fridges and freezers, cups, silverware... kitchen stuff. Just because we print most things doesn't mean we dont have backups. Fridge-cold water just tastes better, too, I think."

Thom took a seat across from Arlo and blew over the surface of his coffee. It smelled fresh - real. As if the beans were roasted and ground that same day. The first sip of a cup of coffee in the morning is ritualistic to some, a moment of solace and revitalization after a night of rest - to Thom, having been asleep for a still undetermined amount, that engineered liquid was the best thing he had ever tasted.

"Pretty good?" Thom had his eyes closed, it would seem like he hadn't heard a word she said, but he nodded slowly in confirmation. "You can ask for any type of roast, any kind. I won't say the choices are infinite, but they are vast. Now, computer, should we give Thom a bit of history?"

Continuing to sip on his coffee Thom looked around the kitchen while waiting for the computer to begin.

> pt. five | intitial conditions, late 2012

"Holy shit," from behind a bank of monitors a weak voice emerged. The voice continued to mutter the same 'holy shit' several times over until the tired looking engineer stood, his head swiveling from shoulder to shoulder as he looked for someone in particular. "Bill... Bill! G-get over here, now!"

"Coming," said Bill, the only other person present. On approach, he knew something was wrong, the near latent trail from tears rolling into his colleague's days forgotten beard.

“You need to see what happened to Voyager One. It’s, j-just...gone?”

"Riley? Breathe. Just reboot on our end to -" Bill was leaning over Riley's shoulder attempting to teach the younger engineer how to stay calm in stressful situations, like when losing an entire space probe for example.

"No no, here, this screen." Riley re-commandeered the mouse from Bill and moved it to a highlighted icon in the OS taskbar. "This might be the last message we ever receive. Recorded about a day ago but just delivered thanks to the delay - up to eighteen, nineteen hours now. Watch." Riley clicked on the transmission initiating playback for the two engineers.

The transmission began with a view from a camera mounted on one of the port side panels. The Voyager craft, that specific side of it at least, became gently illuminated - it was faint, but it was distinct enough of a visual change for the engineers. 

"Was a flank light activated for some reason? A bug maybe?" Bill asked. 

"Keep watching."

In frame a small vessel came into view. It quickly matched, then entered, a relative trajectory and velocity to the voyager craft. From its belly, a door from the unknown vessel opened and from it descended a limited series of connectors and cables that seemed to understand exactly what their task was - which anchor points on the Voyager to connect to. After a few more moments of latching and connecting, a ladder lowered purposefully from the craft and a single human-passing subject thereafter.

"Okay not good," Riley choked, the potential for more tears swapped with the now likely potential for vomit. "Oh Jesus fuck."

The subject, still in frame, opened a side hatch before the feed froze altogether. All communications including vital signs of the craft ceased updating from there on out. One last message appeared on screen, a simple confirmation that the communication had successfully been sent.

The two NASA engineers sat at their desks silently - deathly silent - until Riley built up enough nerve to replay the recording over again. This went on for another thirty minutes. They analyzed every second of the recording, advancing through frame by frame looking for any evidence of doctoring, deep-faking, and "green-screen fuckery" as Bill put it. 

What they did decide, however, was to lie about the alarm. Flat out lie. 

"I've only done this once before."

"What, lie?" Riley shot back.

"No, well yes, but specifically to the government. Sometimes these errors pop up and it's easier to brush it under the rug than get involved in the bureaucratic red-tape, stacks of paper kind of nonsense."

"This isn't a brush-it-under-the-rug-and-none-will-be-the-wiser kind of event. This is more like a multi-billion-dollar-forty-year-old-satellite-commandeered-by-deep-space-traveler-and-we're-fucked variety of event," Riley, clearly nervous, took a deep breath and a swig of water after his rapid-fire response.

"Agreed, which is why i'm going to independently classify it. Isolate that file, ensure no other copies exist - I'm going to clear that error and chalk it up to interference. Call me when you're done if you don't see me before - we'll run a few searches to confirm all records of this are off the network. I need to make a few calls, run to IT... I'll be back."

The two engineers parted ways for the moment and went about their tasks of: isolating video evidence of interstellar life, clearing NASA's system of said evidence, speak to IT, make a call or two, and lie to the federal government. 

Riley began clearing the system before Bill took his first steps away from the desk side, the young engineer's nerves on full display as heard by the louder than normal clacking of his keys - Bill couldn't stand mechanical keyboards and how infatuated these new engineers were with the right mix of key caps and switches. As he left the room, dialing the IT department on his cell, he considered banning the use of mechanical and gaming keys facility-wide.

"Bill, how's it?" A relaxed voice, rid of any semblance of workplace formality, answered the phone.

"Yoshio, sorry, I don't have long to talk, but I need a laptop. I'm doing well though, thanks."

"For sure, just toss a ticket in - y'know, just fill in the blanks for me and I'll get it moving."

"No tickets," Bill was looking over his shoulders and glancing into windows as he walked briskly through the agency's halls. "I need this quiet. It doesn't need to be fancy, bells and whistles at a minimum."

"... okay then. Hm. I'm sure I can find something? Can I ask a question?"

"Say it got pulled for repair, you're a tinkerer, I don't know. And sure, ask away."

"How is this going to come back to me?"

Bill paused and tried to think of a reassuring answer.

"It shouldn't. It's just a laptop - here, I'll trade you. Collateral. I'll even pay you. What do you want?"

"A certain level of job security."

"I promise you if anything happens I personally guarantee that your name will be clear. All the heat comes to me. I am your security. Just don't put a ticket in."

Bill could hear Yoshio sigh on the other end, then nothing for a moment.

"Fine. When do you need it?"

"Can I walk over now? Ten minutes."

"That works. Want a drink? I'm making tea."

"Sure thanks - Oh! Yoshio, can you make sure it's airgapped?" Bill winced awkwardly at his own question.

Yoshio's voice trailed off as he pulled the phone away from his mouth before ending the call. Bill was able to make out "oh fuck off."

Riley, still tapping away at his desk, similar to Bill, kept his head on a swivel as he trudged forward into murky waters that rippled with thoughts of multiple felonies and the Espionage Act of 1917. Any voice, the shuffling of feet in the hall, even the buzz of his cell phone, were all potential whistleblowers looking to drown the young engineer in mountains of red tape that ultimately leads to the death penalty or a lengthy stay in some government black site. I wouldn't last, Riley thought as he filtered through locally stored folders on one screen while running a sweep of the servers on the other. I wouldn't last at all, he thought again while convincing himself that he would likely snitch if it came down to it. Riley likes Bill, he looks at him as somewhat of a mentor seeing as he was the first engineer to lend a hand to the new recruit, but Riley would easily consider spilling depending on how the rest of their day panned out.

With his head tilted in order to get an ideal view of the main doorway - ideal in the while-involved-in-a-conspiracy type of way - without being suspicious, Riley combed through the C:\Users folder for any trace of the file in his personal folders. Program Files, x86, ProgramData, Common Files, Temp, Recent - all followed in the combing. 

"Empty." Riley turned around fully to ensure no one heard him. He pulled out his phone and shot a quick text to Bill, "all set."

Bill looked at his phone's screen and responded to the innocuous text with a passive nod, small enough to where Yoshio wouldn't think otherwise (though the technician was already suspicious of Bill, the nod didn't trigger any internal alarms).

"Here's your tea." Bill said his thanks and immediately took a drink. 

"Ah, fuck," grabbing at his lips with his free hand Bill set the cup down and winced.

"You do this every time. I make HOT tea, Bill. Hot. Now here's your laptop."

"Airgapped?" Bill asked. Still standing over him, Yoshio rolled his eyes and begrudgingly responded with the same word.

"I even took out the network card for you. Usually when someone asks for a computer with zero history of network connectivity, well, it's not for the most savory of reasons." Bill's stomach sunk though remained silent, Yoshio on the other hand noticed a decrease in color in Bill's already quite pale complexion. Now standing at the edge of the room, tea in hand, Yoshio continued.

"Last time I got a request like this, one of the department heads just wanted a safe device for his weird porn. He got caught pretty quick - watching auto-erotic asphyxiation attempts. Do you have weird porno that needs hiding, Bill?"

"No porn this time, just aliens." Bill loosed a smile that he hoped conveyed a level of intense sarcasm that someone like Yoshio would appreciate - 'hoped' being the operative word here, where a portion of his brain was hoping the sarcasm would fly the rest of the brain was working overtime chastising Bill for saying such an outlandishly stupid thing to an already suspicious third party.

"Aliens, huh?" Bill gulped. 

"Yep. I'll even show you. Not now, soon though." Yoshio narrowed his eyelids and studied the engineer closely, he stared deeply into Bill's eyes and moved his gaze to his hands then his arms and back to his eyes. Bill was fidgeting, Yoshio saw, Bill saw Yoshio seeing it - Yoshio was having fun and decided to take one last sip of his tea without breaking eye contact over the lip of his mug.

"Hmm," he murmured through a mouthful of tea while setting the mug down. "Alright, I trust you. Bring me back some real evidence and we'll pretend the laptop didn't exist."

Bill noticed a coy smile coming from the technician, allowing him to take his first deep breath in minutes. 

"Perfect! Thank you so much, I owe you one!"

"You owe me evidence."

"Oh yeah, of course," Bill hurriedly gathered what he brought with him and placed it on top of the fresh laptop, smiled graciously, and made his way to the door before turning quickly and taking a final drink of his tea. It still burned but he grinned through the pain. "Thanks again!"

Yoshio, again, rolled his eyes and commenced sipping on his tea before jutting his head out from the door to shout after Bill.

"Stop saying airgapped! Nobody says that other than TV writers!"

Bill continued walking though raised his hand and offered a feeble, definitely ineffectual, thumbs-up gesture.

> pt. six | in//sufficient data

"Alright, think I can end this bit of performance? Is that sufficient enough to surmise the remaining narrative?"

"No, computer, he needs to hear the rest! You were doing so well, I can tell you've been practicing your narrative delivery."

"Overall an unnecessary function you've assigned to me, but yes, I have... thank you. I would like to be done now."

"Just finish the bit with the president then I can just fill in the rest."

"So many other things this partition of memory could be doing right now."

— —

>INITIAL CONDITIONS CONTINUED

"Sir," Bill, sitting on a lumpy guest couch situated in the middle of the Oval Office, was sweating profusely under his rented suit. "I'm not really sure how to initiate this conversation, so uh, let me show you the how seriously we're taking this information."

Bill motioned to Riley, triggering a series of movements involved in the minor breakdown of their consumer grade laptop - the back plate was removed and placed directly next to the exposed computer and acted as a collection point for the half a dozen or so small screws. Riley used a pair of tweezers and pointed to an empty slot on the motherboard. 

"The network chip, gone." 

Riley moved the tweezers.

"Bluetooth? Gone."

The tweezers moved again.

"That's - what was there?" Bill whispered. Riley shrugged. "Also gone - Mr. President, this device has never been connected to any network, government or otherwise, and has no ability to do so now. What we are about to show you requires total isolation. Riley, you can play the recording now."

Riley gently flipped the partially disassembled laptop over and powered the device on. It took a few moments to boot up completely which created a slight bit of awkwardness in the room - Bill thought, in hindsight, maybe they didn’t need the fanfare of cracking the laptop open to showcase empty slots, would have saved them from thumb-twiddling and shoegazing. 

The two engineers sat quietly as the President began to view Voyager's last message. Initially, he remained seated with his back firmly situated along the backside of the chair - clearly interested in footage of deep space (relative to our local system) but not completely engaged. As the craft came into view and the boarding process began, Riley and Bill felt a collective sense of deja vu as the president leaned forward in his seat and displayed an expression that indicated the potential for vomit. His face, once flush and healthy, turned a cold white like the tips of reynaud's afflicted fingers in the dead of winter. 

As the footage concluded and the president wiped his forehead free from sweat, Bill spoke up.

"See sir, let me by start by saying what we do. We work on voyager trajectory design and implementation. Simply put - we drive it."

"Drive it? Voyager is an autonomous probe, no?"

"Um, well, yes and no, sir. NASA stated publicly that voyager was going to leave our system to aimlessly explore interstellar space - this is true, minus the aimlessly bit, nothing is ever quite aimless with rocketry and so on but this project has an extra layer of non-aimlessness built in. NASA picked up a signal from the Andromeda galaxy years ago, creating the basis of the voyager program's true purpose - to investigate that signal with the classified intention of having control over the vessel. NASA was advanced for the time, they were also a bit misleading about those technological capabilities."

"I knew none of this," the president quietly announced, clearly embarrassed and perhaps a touch annoyed by the lack of transparency. 

"That's by design, sir - no offense. Riley and I only know about it because of our degrees and skills, very few NASA engineers do what we do and we were pulled into the fold. Quietly. Now - with us of course not being terribly close to the system, Voyager has still traveled a good clip into wide open space. There’s activity there, sir. No planets, stars, no visible structures, but a traveler was there." 

Bill and Riley sat in the Oval Office for the next thirty minutes or so talking about what the logical next steps are, who to loop in and so on until the president's secretary barged through the door to chastise the leader's inability to keep a schedule. 

What came of that meeting was that of the largest technological boom in human history as we as a species looked to the stars, like we always have, but with the knowledge that we are in fact not alone.

> pt. seven | ikea adjacent

"Your species went through an incredible period of short term growth, technologically speaking. The president at the time kept the event hidden from the public for about a year. During that time, he established the first unanimously accepted super-conglomerate of global industry leaders, all previously independent manufacturers, now under one umbrella with no ties to any particular government - it was a progress machine with no shareholders to appease, Dodge v. Ford be damned, limited only by the occasional supply-chain bottleneck. It was impressive. Once the conglomerate began to launch countless satellites and vessels into orbit, the first major hurdle in space travel reared its head: in the early 2020's Earth was beginning to experience the first stages of the Kessler Effect - too much junk and debris from abandoned satellites in low orbit created tremendous logistical issues in regards to future launches and delayed any manned missions to the outer planets. The ISS went from a research station to a hostel of sorts, hosting various scientists and engineers tasked with building and testing these new technologies in space. They had to stay for long periods of time until windows of opportunity presented themselves - a clearing of junk, a void, for limited timeframes. Unfortunately, for those on the ISS by the mid-2020's, those windows were expressly used to launch the previously mentioned delayed manned missions - guests on the ISS were eventually able to come home but the long term assignments remained for incoming engineers. The second hurdle appeared in the form of tech-testing difficulties. Unable to test systems like near lightspeed travel effectively on planet and in orbit, those manned missions into the deeper regions of our system were tasked with testing the advancements with varying degrees of success - material printers came out of these testing phases. New drive types - now considered dangerous in hindsight - were also tested. Testing in a vacuum was key to the successes of some of these technologies, but the transmission delays led to communications breakdown and a handful of deaths. You humans are so eager. That's when the printers began to reach their potential and became one of the most used, and, arguably, the most important, pieces of technology on each ship. The workaround for the delay was sending one way communiques with instructions on how to build the desired device using on-board printers, no one would build or test until the one ways were received -  think of them basically as a step by step guide, like when humans used to buy couches that arrived in boxes. Not quite novel, but extremely effective. That device you used to enjoy a hot cup of coffee out here, similar ones are used to build systems that allow us to continue moving out here - Arlo mentioned that earlier. So, here you are... if I had hands I would gesture vaguely to our surroundings and pair it with a coy or, better yet, annoyed smile."

"Why are we awake then?" Thom asked, still unable to remember completely though some memories were leaking back in (as Arlo foretold). 

"When command sends updates, new schematics to build, systems to upgrade, they wake us up - well computer does but the communications trigger that sequence," Arlo responded with her awfully cheery smile, the corners of her mouth maintaining their position well into the upper section of her cheeks.

"Does this conglomerate also include previous IKEA execs?"

"What do you mean?"

"I get the joke, kind of piggybacked off mine about the couch but, oh well."

"Computer gets it? What is IKEA?"

Thom laughed at the exchange and got up to make another cup of coffee, not because he wanted one but because he wanted to fiddle with the printer some more.

"It is a computer after all. He?"

"I couldn’t care less, Thom. I was built."

"Fair enough. Where are we now then? And the reason to wake us?" Thom made his way to the nearest porthole window with his steaming cup and looked out into space.

"Go to the other window," Arlo said, "better view."

Thom moved to the other port and immediately shook his head in disbelief. He turned to Arlo, eyes darting back and forth and ears pulled back like a nervous pup. "Is that Saturn?"

"Of course," Arlo responded. She rose from her chair and slowly made her way to the port to stand alongside Thom. "We've been asleep for a while. Almost eight years? Yeah, space travel takes a while. Hence the sleeping."

Thom stood with his forehead against the window staring toward the jutting rings of the massive planet. He uttered a hushed 'incredible' and returned to silence as he sipped on the coffee.

Arlo let Thom take in the view and quietly asked the computer to display command's instructions on one of the several screens in the meantime.

"We're heading to one of the Lagrange points," Arlo said, breaking through the silence, the harsh glow of the screen illuminating her face in an unflattering way, menacingly even. "A rendezvous with another crew."

"A parking spot," Thom's breath left a swath of fog on the window, he wiped it away with his sleeve to unobstruct his view.

"You're remembering?"

"It's coming back to me in small bites - I seem to remember Lagrangians. Another crew?"

"I mentioned that manned missions already left earth," the computer added, dryly.

"I heard you. Wasn't really expecting to be meeting up, or to wake up near Saturn..."

"But here we are."

"But here we are." Thom said, mimicking the computer's tone.

> pt. eight | tethys or telesto 

"We're heading to Tethys, Telesto technically since it's situated nicely in the L4 lagrange point," Arlo began, her face still illuminated by the screen. She pointed to the image directing Thom's attention to the trojan moon. "Right here. Parked somewhere in there should be the crew of the Constant."

"The Constant?"

"They were one of the first missions out after Kessler windows were established. No planned return date - constant."

"What's this called?" Thom rubbed the metal panel nearest the porthole he remained standing at. 

"Hecate."

"Christ," Thom turned and faced Arlo with a sour look. "For what reason?"

"I had a similar reaction but decided to believe the ship was named after her for the crossroads-related symbolism, the decision variety rather than death. I even subscribe to a bit of the magical interpretations too. What we're doing sits on the boundaries of magic, no?"

"What are we doing, exactly? Other than meeting with the Constant."

"Good question, computer can you decrypt the instructions for us and display them when ready?"

"On it, Arlo." Thom noticed that the computer, for the first time since he woke, sounded helpful - excited even. "Displaying now."

Thom turned and walked back toward the common table in the middle of the kitchen and sat down. When prompted for an input, Arlo plugged in a few of her personal clearances, the last firewall to prevent any unintended eyes from glimpsing classified data. 

"It seems to be a drive," she said, pinching and expanding the space between her fingers to zoom in and out on the displayed document. "It's most definitely a drive, but... odd."

"What?"

"Computer, can you analyze the specifications of the build, maybe check the math, this isn't like any drive i've seen."

"You've been asleep for eight years, Arlo, things change."

"Right, of course. Well try to analyze and break it down for us."

"Looks to be an external drive, I wouldn't even classify it as a drive. Drawstring, they're calling it."

"Command also sent the build instructions, yeah?"

"They did, build begins when we arrive at Telesto. I'll prep the printers and put the schematics up in the lab."

>pt. nine | dualism 

“Arlo, Thom? Arriving at the L4 shortly, we should be alongside the Constant in approximately twenty minutes. Just maintain caution, I may have to employ a few adjustment thrusts to align properly.”

“Got it, thanks.”

“Adjustments? I thought these types of things were precise, thread the needle type trajectories.”

“Still with the amnesia, would you like to fly?”

“Computer, I’ll fill him in. Just focus. So, Thom, a mission just to get to Saturn would take six years give or take, but to hit the Lagrange safely we had to go with a low-energy fuel-saving route. We didn’t miss the window to leave earth per se, we were more or less forced to take an inconvenient one - a Kessler window during a time when Saturn wasn’t positioned ideally. Sure we’re going to end up in the correct spot, but it took longer than one would have hoped. An extra year of sleep isn’t all that bad all things considered.”

“Got it, sorry.”

“Don’t be. You’ll remember everything soon enough I’m sure of it.”

The pair, now in the lab, were standing beside a large central table, its surface comprising of a large screen that displayed a series of schematics labeled Top Secret: Drawstring Tech. Below the label, a sentence of descriptive copy told the two vaguely what it was they were looking at. 

Drawstring, experimental FTL drive, est. print duration two (2) days under ideal conditions. 

“What would the ideal conditions be for a print like this?” Thom was waving his hand above the screen to advance the schematics, pulling his fingers apart to zoom in on specific sections. He studied the build carefully hoping to recognize anything, not just the name or the actual technology itself but the technical terms employed to describe various pieces and the functions of said pieces. Maybe, he thought, maybe I’m an engineer. Gravitational draw. Weak tidal forces. Schwarzschild radius, or, how to toe the line with degeneracy pressure. “Are we making a black hole?”

Arlo looked up from the table with wide eyes and a toothy grin, “My goodness, welcome back Thom!” she beamed as a thundering round of applause rang through the labs speakers. 

“This is me clapping, I am overjoyed for you. In other news, my approximation was slightly off - we’ll be arriving in five minutes. I am extremely talented.”

Arlo blushed at computer’s passive aggression. “Yeah, a black hole, sure seems like it. Safe to say you remember what you did on earth?”

Thom continued to swipe around the schematics as he contemplated his terrestrial employment, his field of study. “Physics of some nature I imagine. Seems like that would be the best guess if I were to make one.”

“Sure, sure, but what kind?”

“I don’t know… astro.”

“Undergrad.”

“Theoretical.”	

“First job, post-doc. Can I just tell you? I’m going to. You blended theoretical and computational. You were - are - top notch at theory and you were pretty dang good at the computation side of things too. Though you only operated dualistically like that because your institution hadn’t hired someone with a strict focus in that sort of thing.”

“Hadn’t?”

“Well, couldn’t I guess would be the better word. The funding wasn’t there. Most of the hiring budget had been exhausted and government grants were pretty dry at the time thanks to that particular administration's anti-science sentiment and disturbingly deep love of christian fundamentalism - one certainty informed the other sadly. Luckily for us that president didn’t last long, but it took a while to undo all of the damage done, especially in research sectors. The Voyager event happened at the best possible time as far as progressive thought is concerned. It lit a fire under some asses to be sure” Arlo paused for a moment to tinker with one of the small materials printers. She tapped at one of the tubes situated on the side of the machine and poked a few buttons on its face. “So you learned the code you needed to know, Python, C++, then got to work… effectively doing two jobs for a while.”

“Until? And why do you know so much about me, I assume I shared this with you eight years ago right?”

“Well I’m the computational physicist they hired to replace you once a new science-friendly admin was voted in. Budgets exploded at the sight of interstellar piracy, jobs opened up, they picked me. You’re good, I’m much better.”

“She’s quite modest, Thom, if you hadn’t noticed. Two minutes.”

“I’m allowed some bragging rights. We worked together for a couple years. Still do, you just don’t remember - which pisses me off to be frank - but hopefully the amnesia is dwindling.”

“So we know each other quite well then.”

“I’d like to think so.”

“Our partnership here is due to our working relationship?”

“That was one of the driving factors of having us paired together up here. We understand our respective tasks on an operational level. If you suffered a bout of, say, amnesia, for example, I would be able to handle the theoretical side of things until you reunited with your senses… and vice versa.”

“Coming alongside the Constant now.”

“And if I don’t arrive to my senses?”

“I imagine you’ll be back to your normal self after another night’s sleep. I’m not worried.”

“Extending airlock connections.”

“We can get the build going with me in my current state?”

“We’ll start tomorrow. The Constant’s crew will want to go over some things, I imagine they have a build scheduled as well. In the meantime, we’ll meet with them, have a meal together maybe, off to the races after that.”

“Connection secured.”

“You really aren’t worried.”

“Not at all. Again, a good night’s sleep should do the trick. We can hook you up to an IV bag overnight if you want, pump you full of probiotics and nootropics. Wouldn’t hurt.”

“I’ll consider it.”

“Pressure achieved. We’re now safely connected to the Constant, situated nicely in a stable Lagrangian. You are both welcome.”