Meetings

000

“It is time to go home. They are out of the black, so to speak.”

“I am more than ready to do so. But we do not have a home. We are returning to the place where we stay, where we live. That tin can on the moon is not a home.”

“We may have one here, on this planet in the near future.”

“Please. Enough already. That is not a viable option. We cannot cohabitate with them.”

“You haven’t warmed up to them after helping them rediscover and remember who they are?

“Phssf. Who will help us? Who is going to drop the from the sky and re-educate us, explain ourselves to us, to explain our existence, our history and –”

“Now is not the time for this.”

“The time is nearing for it; others think so. I am not the only one.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“I do. I know we face difficult decisions in the coming days, regarding our responsibilities here, regarding our own fate.”

“So what do we do tomorrow? And the next day and the day after?”

“We watch and wait. And help them even more if they need it.”

“But not like this.”

“No. Not like this. From a distance, from afar.”

“Indirectly, then, as we plan for our own future.”

“You make it sound as if they are our playthings, a planet-worth of humans to be manipulated by us.”

“And the game?”

“It is ready.”

“I know. But are we ready for it?”

“That is what I do not know. None of us do. That is why we watch and wait. For now, at the very least, our fate is entwined with theirs.”

***

101 A. B.

Lars Ellman took long strides past the other servicers-to-be gathered around the BioLude gaming cabinets in the common room of gov_building S.Green 003. Most of them played their recent and distant personal histories through one module or another. Some had mastered the art of partial attention distribution to such a degree that they engaged consoles and wearable BioBands concurrently, a double immersion in multiple social and temporal networks tethered to their own.

Everyone assembled there was scheduled for launch in less than a week. Everyone there had no idea where they were heading or even why, just like all the previous servicers, who had returned home without any recollection of what they had done or where they had done it.

“Spaced-duty” it was sometimes called, since veterans of the Service Program couldn’t recount their experience. No long-term psychological, emotional or physical effects, no PTSD or anything of the sort had been linked to the program, a refrain uttered by his instructors and the guest speakers. Except of course, that empty part of the vet’s brain that should have a memory. And everyone at the training facility, it seemed to Lars, could care less.

He wanted to scream,“You’re being shuttled offworld to work for the Hospees! Offworld! To do God knows what!” But he remained silent and maintained his brisk pace, focusing on the exit, trying to ignore the gaming jam, not caring that he frowned all the while.

Various social- and work-related scenes from numerous timelines flashed bright text and true-to-life avatars on the all-screens that Lars walked by. One screen simmed a high school graduation ceremony from 95 A. B, while another depicted someone’s avatar actually playing BioLude at home. He made a beeline for the front doors, as if his challenge was to avoid the game’s activity.

He was used to it. It was like this everywhere in the South Greens, public and private space, it didn’t matter. Every location, it seemed to Lars, was a game room for the encyclopedic BioLude, a real-time and user-updated archive of data that was repurposed into replayable moments from an individual’s life. Some of the cadets Lars passed even began to simulate the meeting that had just ended.

Above the row of glass doors a thin scroller in bright red letters repeatedly reminded Lars that “To Be is to Play, to Play is to Be.” Courtesy of lud_gov, of course, the official government department dedicated to managing BioLude. It ensured the seamless replay value of any trivial or meaningful experience uploaded to the game’s expansive and interconnected virtual social world. Even here, Lars mused, at the training facility, lud_gov is here. Like anyone needed a reminder to play.

Well, maybe he did, since his all-screen at home was covered in dust and dormant.

Lars stepped outside and looked into the graying sky, which was smeared with clouds stretching across the horizon. Just in case. He wasn’t the only one who did so after the meetings. But he didn’t to see any triangular shuttles darting overhead. The low-orbiting Hospee crafts were rarely if ever seen these days.

He sucked in fresh air and forcefully expressed it from his lungs. He avoided looking at the giant all-screens that radiated with randomly selected active gaming scenarios on the city buildings in the distance.

Last one in, first one out. It was the way he bookended each meeting, his last pre-boarding informational, at which he learned nothing new. Blah blah blah safe. Blah blah blah duty. Blah blah blah Hospees. While he was required to give a month or so of his life to the program in a few days, he wasn’t about to give it a minute more than he needed to prior to his departure.

The autumn evening was cool, not unseasonal for this time of year in the South Greens. The ground was wet and slick, not from rain, but from a filmy mist that threatened to morph into drizzle. Lights flickered on and off at the corners of streets, on which a steady but not thick stream of traffic gently moved. His heavy boots allowed him to confidently traverse the parking lot.

As Lars neared his car, he clutched more tightly the rolled-up gover-issued digi-scroll. When he extended the film-like screen, colorful icons stressing the same details that had been drilled into his head every other week for the last two months jumped to life. The exact same literature was waiting for him as attachments in his .state account.

Behind him he heard footsteps shuffling about incongruously and familiar voices spilling out into the parking lot. The other “graduates” of the course congregated under the soft yellow glow of light near the entryway, engaging in smalltalk, jingling keys and checking handhelds and wearables.

It wasn’t that he didn’t dislike his classmates; Lars just wasn’t interested in getting to the point where he had to decide whether he liked them or not. Most of them seemed nice enough, and many had already bonded over the experience that they will share. But he didn’t want the program bleeding into other parts of his life.

He unlocked the doors to his car with a click and tossed digi-scroll into the backseat.

“I wonder how many scrolls of info of you are just sitting around in a someone’s office.” Lars quickly turned around before the man finished speaking. He didn’t recognize the voice, which was gruff and deep. The face was nestled in the ample collar of a worn pea coat. “Can I help you with something?” Lars cursed himself for not hearing the man’s footsteps.

“What do you think is up there? Out there?” He looked out into the distance, beyond the building tops and into the night. He was about Lars’s height, maybe a smidge or two under six feet but not as stocky.

“All I know is that I am down here, and it’s getting cold and I want to get on home. Morning comes too early for me.” Lars didn’t take his eyes off him. “So.”

“So, good luck. I want to wish you luck. That’s all. I don’t mean to hold you up.” He held up his empty hands. “It’s just something I do. I know that you had your last meeting tonight. I know that you’ll be leaving soon.”

“OK. Thanks.” Lars took a step toward his car, wanting to end the conversation as soon as possible without incident. He looked over the shoulder of the man and saw his classmates already heading toward a nearby pub.

“I like to wish graduates luck. Cause, well, you’ll need it.” He shrugged. “My brother went through the program here a while back before he left.” He cut off Lars, who was about to interject. “He’s fine. He’s fine. Came back all in one piece and went back to work just like they say, like he was just on vacation.” He paused and looked at the ground.

“But?” Lars felt the pregnant pause, hoping to end it quickly. A car glided by on the nearest street on the other side of the chain-link fence. An image of his older brother’s photo flashed in his head, the one that hung near the chimney in which they grew up. Clean cut, full of confidence in his military uniform, head angled to the left. Or was it the right? Lars wasn’t quite sure anymore, but he was pulled away from sorting out the picture of his deceased brother.

“They don’t tell you everything in those meetings. You know that, right?” He looked at Lars now, the emphasis imprinted in his narrowed eyes.

Of course, Lars knew. “I know, I know.” Lars treaded carefully, but he couldn’t stop the flow of words that ushered out in a harsh whisper. “Don’t you think that I know this? I’m leaving in a few days. They already cleared me for departure; my pre-launch background screens checkout OK; my car has some kind of tracking device that logs its movement, and the shot that they gave me last week enhanced something in my blood that allows it to show up on their BPS grids.” Lars turned around and ran his hands through his hair. “I may not know where I am going, but if I try to go skip out on my launch date, I’ll end up in a holding cell in some dark corner of this planet.” He kicked the ground with his heal to punctuate his point.

The man nodded, as if he approved of Lars’s diatribe. A gentle wind to stirred, which momentarily compromised the cover the stranger’s jacket-collar afforded. The man hadn’t shaved in a week or so, and his bloodshot eyes suggested lack of sleep, too. He quickly readjusted his jacket and tilted his cap downward to conceal more of his face. “My brother was the same way. Just like you before he launched. Pissed and confused. Why me? And all that.” He turned and stared at the gov building. A few windows on the second and third floor were still aglow. “He didn’t want to go. Who does, though, right?” He shrugged. “But he came back alright, like I said. But he wasn’t the same. There was something different, something that made him less, less him. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah, I hear you.” Lars really didn’t know what he meant, but the distance in the man’s voice did register with him. There was a note of resignation, too, which made Lars more uncomfortable than he already was.

“You don’t keep a diary or anything like that do you?”

Lars looked at him blankly. “No.”

“I didn’t think so. But you might think about jotting down some ideas.” He shook his head from side to side. “But not online, not on a blog or anything like that. In a notebook or something. That would work. Old school. Pen and paper. Real paper. You can still find’em in the junk stores.”

“I’ll think about it, thanks for the tip.” Images of unicorns and pink pens flashed in his mind, the first associations that he attached to “diary.”

“Cause my brother doesn’t think that he’s changed. I’m not the only one who thinks that something is off with him, even if we can’t place it. But maybe, if you record your thoughts before your launch, you might be able to compare, before and after, self-diagnosis, maybe. My brother can’t, because – ” He looked away again.

“Yeah I know. I’m not going to remember anything about it, not how long, not where, not even what I do up there. Or with who.” He tossed a hand behind his head and leaned against his car, one of the last ones in the back of the lot. “Nothing.”

“Supposedly, for everyone’s protection.”

“Them and us, right?” Lars nodded with smirk on his face. Another point that was hit home at every meeting, in every piece of literature sent or given to him. What you don’t remember benefits all parties involved, including that ultimate unknown, the aliens, the Hospees, for whom he would work.

“Except, it didn’t protect my brother, cause I’m telling you, he’s not the same guy, even though you need to know him, I mean know him like a best friend or brother or son in order to see it.” They both listened to the leaves scoot across the pavement. “They took more than his memories, I’m telling you.” It sounded like a plea more than anything else.

Lars nodded. “I’m sure he’s OK. Maybe it’s just an extended case of spacelag.” He glanced at the giant BioLude screen animating the side of a nearby building. On it a random montage of the most recently updated personal timelines blinked. Lars looked away.

“If were only that.” The man looked at his watch and then back at the building.

Who the hell uses watches anymore? Lars thought, slipping into his car. Through the cracked window he said, “I do need to get home. Do you need a lift?” He slammed shut his door.

“No. Thanks. I’m good.” He held up his hand.

Lars gripped the steering wheel tight. He never noticed the sharpness of his knuckles before. “What advice would your brother give me if he were here?”

The man coughed, sending puffs of gray into the night. He then pulled at his collar. “I’ll tell you what he wouldn’t say.”

“Yeah?” Lars leaned forward into the open driver’s side window.

“You’ll cherish the memories.”

Lars forced out a chuckle. “Yeah. OK.” He started to roll up the window. But the man darted forward.
“Wait,” he said. “Seriously. Start a journal. Do it. What would be the harm?” He got a closer look at the man, who was a few years younger than Lars. The dark bags under his brown eyes could have been bruises.

After wishing the man and his brother the best, Lars drove off. He headed for the nearest entrance ramp to the interstate and just drove, which in a way, was a home of sorts for a man who spent most of his week in a truck delivering packages. No music, no podcasts or livecasts. Just the soft hum of the wheels spinning at a consistent 70 mph.

He thought of the encounter in the parking lot, not quite sure what to make of it. There had never been a dearth of eccentrics in the Greens. But Lars couldn’t anchor his thoughts for more than a few moments; they possessed an energetic of their own, one that kept them directionless, flitting here and there on a whim. He sped beneath the intermittent glow of the towering lamps lining the highway, his thoughts never straying too far from the launch despite their meanderings ways. But it didn’t take him long to lose himself or to lose touch with time. He eventually found himself at home.

As he walked into his modest ranch house, the lights flicked on, illuminating the living room and the adjacent kitchen. He turned on his BioBand for the first time since he left the meeting. It buzzed and blinked with ferocity at the same time that it told him that he had been driving for at least two hours. Before he could listen to one message, he heard car doors slamming outside. He saw the flashing red and blue lights through the window when he turned around.

The police officers knocked once before they opened the unlocked front door, shouting “terror-code priority” multiple times, the catchall claim that allowed them legally to enter his home.

Stunned, Lars backed into a wall with his hands above his head as the officers entered with guns drawn but not pointed.

“Disengage the BioBand. Sit down on the couch. Keep your hands in front of him at all times. Do it now! Or the situation would escalate quickly.”

Lars abided silently, watching the men gather in his living room and kitchen, eyeing tabletops and screens. He kept his hands chest level about a foot in front of him, unable to utter a word.

The taller man in the gray suit, who stood out among the sea of dark uniforms, walked toward him holding a tablet. “Evening, Lars. We know that you didn’t have anything to do with that explosion tonight.” His face was emotionless and he flashed a badge, which identified him as Agent Condridge, but what agency he represented was not so clear. He was darker complexioned than the others, bald and well-muscled. “Wait, what? What are you talking about?” He answered his hands still elevated.

“You can relax and put your hands down, Lars.” He gestured to a group of men to exit the house. But a few lingered inside. “The building in which your flight-prep classes were held exploded about an hour ago. Two casualties, a watchman and a custodian. We know that you were the last one to leave the premises – I mean, every person’s vehicle in that class is bugged now, right? – and that you have been driving on the interstate for about two hours or so?” He paused. “For how long, Hoorst?” He aligned his chin with right shoulder as he asked the question, not quite looking away from Lars, not quite looking back at the men behind him.

“Two hours and ten minutes, sir.” One of the officers hanging around the doorway answered mechanically.

“Thanks.” Agent Condridge looked back at Lars. “For two hours and ten minutes. What were you doing anyway? Seems like a waste of a battery charge to me, if you didn’t have a real destination. You didn’t even stop to grab a drink or take leak.”

Lars flirted with the idea of saying how much he had been thinking about going off somewhere without knowing a destination but he was still in shock, at the presence of the police and government agents at his house as well as their reason for being there. He fell back into the couch and dropped his face into his hands briefly. “Look. I just needed to some time to myself. That’s all. To try and clear my head. This whole thing is such mindfuck. I know I’m not supposed to think about it – that’s what they say, right? – the more that you try to understand it, the more it won’t make sense.” He looked up, hoping for a sympathetic audience. “I guess taking a random drive was my way of not thinking about it.”

Agent Condridge nodded quickly as he fiddled with the tablet in his hands. “Makes sense to me. I can only imagine. My cousin is up there somewhere right now; she should be back in a week or so, supposedly.” He glanced at Lars. “We just expect her back, like everyone else we know; they’ve all come back. You will, too.”

“Yeah. That’s what everyone tells me.”

“It’s true.” Agent Condridge placed the tablet on the table in front of Lars. “You gotta believe it to get through it. But first we need to get through this little situation, the one that is playing out right here. OK?” He pointed at the floor.

Lars nodded.

“First, we tracked your movements. Look here and verify that this is the route that you took, starting from the gov building and ending at your house.” He used a stylus to trace the route on a map that appeared on the tablet’s screen. Lars’s course was highlighted in red and pretty straightforward: he drove up to Old Salem, turned around and drove south on I-5 until he found himself at home, on the outskirts of Springfield Heights.

“Yep. That’s all I did.” Lars sighed as much as he said it, relieved that his actual route was represented on the screen.

“Good.” Agent Condridge tapped a box on the corner of the tablet’s screen. “That was the easy part.” He set the tablet off to the side. “Now tell me about the individual you spoke with prior to leaving what is now last night’s meeting.”

Lars exhaled. Even though he was expecting this question, his heartbeat jumpstarted in frequency and intensity.

“Some guy approached me when I was leaving. He started talking about the program and how his brother was in it and returned. I don’t know. He was just some random guy, I guess.” For some reason, Lars withheld mentioning the diary for now.

“What did he look like? Anything distinguishing about his features or dress?”

“He was about my height, around my age, I think. He wore a dark jacket with his collar up and a hat. They did a good job hiding his face.” Lars shrugged. “I don’t know. He looked tired, too, when I caught a glimpse of him. That’s about it.”

“You’ve never seen him before or talked to him before, in person or online?”

“No. Never.”

“OK. Good.” Another box on the tablet was checked. “Does this look him? Take your time to think about it.” Agent Condridge slid the tablet toward Lars and then walked over to the group of officers.

Lars picked up the tablet. The slideshow was already playing. It consisted of eight images, clearly taken at different places, perhaps over the course of years. There was never a clear headshot or mugshot, however. All of the pictures were taken from a distance, and some were of such a graininess that no image-enhancing could improve its clarity. A number of them showed an individual, who was circled in red, talking to others. Lars watched the images cycle through five or six time before Agent Condridge approached him.

“Well?”

“Hard to say.” Lars shook his head. “I can see about as much as this guy as I saw of the guy that I talked to. Wait.” He cocked his head and stopped the slideshow. “This looks like the coat that he wore. Dark blue peacoat. Collars are up, too.” Lars pointed to the image of a man standing next to a tree in what could have been a park or someone’s front lawn. He looked up at Agent Condridge.

“Good. That’s good, Lars. Nothing else, though?”

Lars watched the slidehow two more time. “No. Sorry.” He slid back into the couch.

“OK.” Agent Condridge picked up the tablet, but Lars couldn’t see what he did with it or to the any of the images. “That’s OK, Lars. That’s helpful.” He held the tablet behind his back. An officer took it and handed another one to the agent. “We’ve been tracking an individual of interest that may or may not be responsible for last night’s terrorist act.” He rubbed his chin. “All I need from you now is to verify the sequence of events that this narrative documents, including the nature of our visit and conversation.” He handed Lars another tablet.

Lars read it over. It was written in plain language, most of it prefabbed, but shaped to reflect the details of his particular experience, beginning with his leaving the parking lot to the arrival of the officers and agents. Direct and fair enough, it outlined his recent history without embellishment or inaccuracies. He provided a fingerprint and retina scan as requested to verify his identity before handing the tablet back to Agent Condridge, who thanked him.

The agent rubbed the back of his neck. “I hate to ask you about this, but it’s protocol, given your family’s military history.”

Lars stiffened. This question was expected, too. “If you’re asking about my brother being shot down accidentally,” he tried not to put any stress on that last word, “and if that had anything to do with that explosion at the gov building.” Lars looked at the tips of his fingers, as if a solution to all his problems were to be found there. “I’ve made my peace with my brother’s death, Agent Condridge. I’m not looking to start a war or looking to join one.”

“I believe you, Lars.” He nodded. “But you should know that you will be under more scrutiny than the average cadet as the investigation gathers momentum. Even though your prescreens are green and your background checks out OK, your brother’s unfortunate situation will be a flag of sorts to those who monitor these types of scenarios. Maybe it’s not a red flag or even a yellow one, but it is a flag nonetheless, which will follow your name around all the files and systems and offices that it will travel through.”

“I appreciate the head’s up.” Lars did, even if he was aware that no one was able to flag the government in the same way that he was flagged by it. His pre-launch instructor mentioned his status to him after the initial class session, and it was something that Lars couldn’t help but turn over in his head the closer he came to his departure. His brother’s death was years ago. The family had questioned and probed the circumstances surrounding it and the official “friendly-fire” verdict. Lars didn’t believe it. Not many in his family did.

“It goes without saying, Lars,” he added. “If you have any more contact with the individual in question, you need to get in touch with me. ASAP. Any information might be helpful.” He handed Lars a card with his contact info, including a line that stated the same info had already been sent to his .state email account. “If anything out of the ordinary happens, anything that seems strange or odd, don’t hesitate to get in touch. I don’t think you’re in any danger, but you can never be sure.” He swept the room with eyes quickly. “Thanks for your time. You’ve been the model of cooperation.” He held out his hand. “Lock your doors, tonight.”

Lars shook it. “Before you leave, can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.” He gestured with this head for the remaining officers to leave.

Lars looked at the empty television screen. “You’re a federal agent. How does this happen right in front of us?”

“The terrorism?”

“What?” The bombing still wasn’t registering with Lars. It was less real that the knowledge that his service would begin in mere days. “Uh, no. No. The service program. How is it that all these civilian and delivery crafts are taking off on a daily basis right before our eyes, without anyone seeing the service shuttles coming and going? Right from our airports. How is that even possible?”

Agent Condridge chuckled. “When it comes to that stuff, I’m just like you, Lars.” He stood in the doorway now. “Hey!” he suddenly barked, stretching his head outside. “What’d I tell you about BioLuding when out in the field? Deactivate and desist, agent. Work. Not play. Work. All right?”

Condridge turned to Lars and shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe because everyone’s too busy playing the game to notice a fleet of shuttles heading offworld?” He muttered,
“So unprofessional.” The agent glanced at the all-screen on Lars’s wall.

“Hey. I see it at work, too. Everyone does,” Lars said, “or doesn’t because they’re too busy with BioLude.”

“Anyway,” Condridge nodded. “I’m on a need-to-know basis like everyone else. And so far, I guess I don’t need to know jack-squat about the Service Program.” He looked at his BioBand. “I hope you get some sleep tonight. And remember to call me if you think of anything or if anything strange happens in the next day or so.” He closed the door behind him. Lars heard the three vehicles depart soon afterward. He got three hours of sleep on the couch in his work clothes, which he wore to work the next day.