The Day After Armagedon

DAY AFTER ARMAGEDON
Sharon Feinstein (heTalya)

 

Earth isn't blue and you can't see the oceans. It used to be the most beautiful sight in the galaxy, shining even in shadow, haloed in sapphire.

 

I slow the vehe, telling myself it's not my fault, but know everything that played in the past three months is my fault.

 

Maybe when Daktoy abducted me from 1989 he tore time and space and maybe I'm anti-matter, destroying everything I touch.

 

About one million miles from Earth; can't work out the equivalent; I was still in feet and yards when Jamaica went metric. Flying a Zee bird where it's all Shaz measure, I'm going on feel not fact.
At this speed I'll reach the elMinach in about thirty minutes. Though the Aides who accompany might be scratchy as to why I'm creeping, they won't ask.

 

Officially I'm ZeSha, no, a ZerShaz goddess, The Sakari. I'm supposed to have a spirit so strong that warriors three times my size are dwarfed by it. It doesn't have to make sense. It doesn't even have to be real.

 

Real ended May 29, 1989.

 

On my veranda, looking at the stars, feeling the way I used to and seeing something fall from the sky. So hot I felt my eyelashes would catch fire though it was a good distance away. Then it was a dark object sitting on the sand.

 

When I saw it sort of open I knew it wasn't a meteorite. And when like a man stumbled out and fell on the sand, I was thinking, or trying to think, it was mil something.

 

I went to the pilot, rationalizing; JDF plane, a fighter from another country. But he wasn't human. Maybe I would of screamed if the flyer hadn't just fallen to dust in front of me.

 

Thinking it must be dream, I went into my house. When I turned he was by the door. It's not that he was so weird and freaky; he wasn't. He just was not human.  Little more I'll learn he's not just from another planet, he's from another time.

 

The time I am in now; the 25th century.

 

Earth grows on the screen but resembles Venus. I don't know what Terrans fired exactly. I'm told it ionized the atmosphere so no one can go in or out. I'm told it's called The Last Resort, to be fired when the ZerShaz Cosmic Force is about to invade.

 

Zees can't invade now. Nothing can get in or out. They're probably living underground on Earth. A once beautiful Earth becoming a lifeless hunk of rock.

 

I sit in this flyer not wanting to see it, remembering how it was; how it was the very first time I saw Earth from Space, the first time I was in space. How I got to this space.

 

No unauthorized person was to see the VX fighter. Being born 500 years ago didn't change it. That's the official reason why I was snatched from 1989 to 2491.

 

Of course the official reason and the real one aren't the same. They rarely are.

 

In 1989 the Alien Alien who'd landed in my yard was injured. He knew no human aboard his ship would touch him with a ten foot pole so with his last moments of consciousness he told the Receiving Team I knew 'much'; knowing they'd act as the mil robots they are.

 

Which is why Sharon Feinstein, nobody in particular, goes to the future.

 

Goes to the future and by promsing never to talk about 1989, Daktoy, or the VX, gets Earth status.  In the 25th Century living on Earth was a privilege not a right.

 

I suppose if I hadn't lived in a time of countries and VISAs I might not have understood how it was to be born somewhere but have no right to live there.

 

If I hadn't been so erased by what I'd gone through during my first month and a half in the future, feeling so ugly and stupid and unworthy to live, I would never have answered the psych questions like some fryer's punk who couldn't mash ants.

 

It was my lack of aggression, my weakness, which made me suitable to live on Earth.

 

And like, you wonder why Terrans lost the war?

 

If I look real hard I think I can sort of see the shape of South America and I'd cry if I wasn't in an EVS. I'd cry for Earth 1989, not 2496.

 

Sent to Earth in 2491, given a cushy gig in the Administrative Department of the University of the West Indies, able to take courses free, it might have looked livable.  Livable, if one is accustomed to a world of interchangeable cornflakes; livable if one is used to being in solitary or treated like an AIDs carrier.

 

Imagine a time when everyone is beautiful. Tall, thin, perfect. A time when everyone is a cornflake so there aren't diverse opinions beyond the most minor.

 

And imagine being an averge person...no an average Jamaican walking in on a reality you don't know, don't belong, can never be part of.

 

Though I never said word one, everyone knew I had a relationship with a ZerShaziemn. Terrans had bombed Daktoy's home world when he was a baby. He'd been rescued, maybe like an experiment, but when they realized he was so bright, they used him.

 

They put him in the mil, had him develop prototypes, but always hated him. Hated him for bein a Zerk.

 

I'm close enough to Earth to check how ugly it is. How it's grey stormy appearance is exactly how it felt to live there.

 

I'd loved my real life more than I thought, hated my unreal life more than I could manage.

 

To be on Earth, to be totally alone in a crowd of people who strive to provoke me so I'll react and they can route me to a Space Station--for the minute you show violence, you're routed off Earth.
And I'd said, a month in this Brave New World, I will die before I go back to a space station and will kill before I let it happen.

 

I did that, didn't I?  Sort of.

 

No matter how bad things were on Earth 2491-2496 it was better than a Space Station. No matter how bad things were on Earth, I, Sharon Feinstein had to be there just in case Daktoy tried to contact me.

 

Earth.

 

The sun is bouncing from the shroud of Earth with spite. Not even light seems able to penetrate. Erssavis patrol, orbiting to take in the moon and Earth in one spin.

 

My radio is off; I'm blanking out anyone who wants to chat to me, cause I need the silence. I need to sit here and take in flying in space. For five years this was what kept me alive.

 

This flying free in space.

 

In my early days on Earth not having a life, I thought about piloting a space craft. I didn't think I'd get a chance in RL so played on the Simulators.  Everything is hooked into one Central Com, my skill was discovered and I got the chance to try for pilot in Real Life.

 

I remember when orbiting a planet something I couldn't belive I'd ever do. Now, it was something I did to not do.

 

I almost didn't get the chance to fly.

 

I had to get a physical exam. No big deal. Except I couldn't get one. Each time I put my card for an appointment, it was rejected. It wasn't rejected for anything else, just a medical appointment.
I learned that age determined which doctor.

 

I never planned on being a criminal. I never thought I'd ever want anything bad enough. But I wanted to be a pilot. And I wasn't going to lose it over a messed up I.D.

 

People of the future have information, but stupid can't done.

 

So dependent on computers they couldn't check me being born in 1955 proved to the com I couldn't be alive in 2492 so anything that needed an age match, I couldn't get.

 

That no one had ever checked this prepsed I could get over.

 

I'd thought they were smarter, their brains had more pockets. But they were kind of dark upstairs, so I'd gone into a doctor's office, sat at the secretary's com, did a search, found a file of a woman my age who'd done a physical recently and passed high.

 

I deleted her name, her number, her particulars, keyed in mine, saved the file in my name, got it's case number, went to pilot school, gave them the name of the doctor and case number and they dled the file.

 

I'd always had a feeling that computers couldn't be trusted.

 

To hide the fact I had no life I gave myself a busy one. Training to be a pilot, working at U.W.I., taking courses and attending the Papine Record office to do my civic duty.

 

Earth had serious underpopulation and wanted to keep it like that. This meant some jobs went begging. To get them done, they made it a civic duty. Everyone did the right number of hours per month to prove they weren't anti-social. If you didn't, you could get routed.

 

Getting routed was easy.

 

There wasn't money, just amorphous credits entered on your card. If the Central Com sent your credits to another planet that's where you'd be going. They even gave you a ticket.

 

Earth can't route anyone now. The Mil can't walk into anyone's life again and take it away. Terrans are locked down now. Never to be routed. Never to see the stars or the sun.

 

I couldn't survive never seeing the stars, never being out here like this. It kept me alive. It kept me sane. Because when you're out here alone, you can never be lonely.

 

When you're an outcast casting yourself out is the key. No one can reject you when you're not there.

 

It wasn't that long ago I was flying the endless night I realised it was about to end. It happened when I saw Space Station 717. Seeing it, I realized I'm nearly forty, the true age of retirement.

 

Although 'officially' forty six is retirement, pilots stop getting real gigs at the are of forty. Unless you are asked by name, or a human piolot is actually needed and there is nobody else, you won't be flying. Your name will be entered as pilot and you'll get the pay, but the vessel will be robot flown.
Most ships have no pilot. The Pilot's Union demands every ship have a human pilot. Compromise. A human pilot is listed and paid, but is sitting at home, looking at the sky.

 

Why? The company saves credits on gravity, environment and food which is like ten times the cost of a human pilot.

 

I'd been a Grade A pilot, upgrading my skills, taking every gig offered, seeing other worlds, (moxing cards, making up false people to be, doing all sorts of hacks), but soon as I saw 717 I knew I was about to die.

 

In 1989 they dreamed of a space station without the reality. A Space Station is a never ending constantly monitored churning prison where the fatally stupid, cheaper than robots, did brain killing routines, living in a compartment so tiny the Human Rights People of my day would protest if a convicted baby raper were locked there for a week.

 

The day I was retired, I would be sent to a Space Station. And there would be no Daktoy coming to rescue me.

 

I lost my world for Daktoy who was flying free and strong, living his life, and would never contact me. Yeah, he'd promised, just as I had, never to make contact, but I kept thinking he would.
Somehow.

 

I kept thinking one day I'd I get to my gates and there'd be an e-mail. There'd be a moment somewhere, on Beta Mar or at some pier I'd see him.

 

But I'd never see him.  He'd never come for me. He was gone.  And even if he did come, there was no where in the galaxy we could be together anyway. So what was I living for?

 

It all came clear on that last flight to Seponi. I was better off dead. So death, a spectacular death was all I could get. And I took it.  I took it so he'd know I was dead.

 

I didn't know one couldn't just lock the bomb bay doors and push a button. I didn't know there was a fail safe. I didn't know that to avoid a jackass accidentally blowing the ship, a key had to be used to lock the bomb bay doors.

 

If the key isn't used, as the fire button pushed, the bomb bay doors automatically open and the bomb shoots out, seeking a target.  In my situation it was SS 717.

 

If I didn't get away, I'd be caught and sent to Miunow.

 

There is no capital punishment, not for civilians. It's real humane. You get to live. Live as an organic robot in a concentration camp called Miunow.

 

Without plan, I flew the C to Beta Mar II, intent on stealing the VX-7. Either I got it and got home, or was killed. There wasn't a downside.

 

The VX-7 was a prototype, hidden in the mil base on a moon of Beta Mar. The Military still had capital punishment. Which was a far sight better than life as an organic robot.

 

I don't know exactly how I did it. But I did. I got into the mil base, I got the VX, and I got out. I got out, I was free. I was free, with the chance in my hand to go home. Home to 1989.

 

And I stop and think: what would happen to Daktoy?

 

No matter what I went through, no matter how long or how bad, I couldn't let go of Daktoy. I had to make sure whatever happens they don't connect Sharon to the theft of the VX.  And that is when I turned into anti-matter. When I began the havoc which culminated in this finality. And maybe if I hadn't, there wouldn't have been war.

 

Maybe there wouldn't have been a war and the human's wouldn't have lost. And uPaychel's erssavis wouldn't be orbiting a dark Earth awaiting the entrance of me and my Aides.

Perplexity

PERPLEXITY
eKhain eDapktchoy

 

I pose by the kalki, enervated by my encounter with the humans aboard the Odin Path.  My advance of Sharon heTalya to the erssavi of uPaychel was not unwarranted; I knew her weakness; she was not indifferent. Her passion immeasurable, hatred consuming, and she owned not the ability to repress.

 

Had heTalya exposed herself to the abhorrence of humans, had she attracted their contempt in the Conference room, none would survive.

 

Among my people, she is goddess. Whether she comprehends the significance or disdains, the reality of the ZeSha is the only truth.

 

Can humans not appreciate that among my people there are absolutes?

 

I did not order the death of the female. I ordered silence. She disobeyed. The oTay responded.
The oTay has been in the ZerShaznelayZay perhaps four years, but his life has been bound and directed. An order from his liege lord given, it must be obeyed. There is one penalty for disobedience. In Shaz the word for disobedience is dishonour.

 

I ordered silence, the female spoke, the oTay dispatched her.

 

I must not meditate upon human foibles, it is squandering of contemplation; my singular concern is heTalya.

 

During the interval ChingKow walked upon Xenos we lingered above the planet; my first period of unbroken cohabitation with my wife.

 

As I, she slept brokenly. As I, she was beset by night visions. Despite closeness, the consumation of ganja, even raw exhaustion, the visions held dominion.

 

I was wary to mention her distress as she was to allude to mine. The enervation caused us to spend many hours upon the salpi, drifting in silence, struggling through darkness, finding a facsimile of comfort in the presence of the other.

 

I did not react to her gaining of human costume; the 'jeans' the 'tee shirt' the small chest garment she called 'bra'.  Though my sha ached as it seemed she was attempting to revert to who she had been ere my advent, I could not speak to

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 31.10.2021
ISBN: 978-3-7487-9807-1

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