Three
“We are stars that fell from the sky, and this world is our home.”
Welcome to fiction “From The Future” for this entry.
Congratulations, you have stumbled on a work-in-progress, it will not be emailed. It will change. What you see right now, will not remain the same. It will change.
This is also a new drafted chapter for a novel, “RETRIEVE”, being written this year.
Future + Fiction is the formula for everything, whether it’s an essay, story or chapter.
These long pieces are best read online, via the Substack App, when you have fifteen minutes.
"I was in darkness, but I took three steps and found myself in paradise. The first step was a good thought, the second, a good word; and the third, a good deed." —Friedrich Nietzsche
Part 1, The First Grace
Private SLN Jet, Approaching The Island, Under cover of SLN drone escorts
Her eyes were closed, and she heard a voice which whispered and repeated, “The sweetest part of this dream is connection, its most bitter, the isolation. I do not mean solitude, I mean the space between the stars, the silence between our words…. The sweetest part of this dream is connection, its most bitter, the isolation. I do not mean solitude, I mean the space between the stars, the silence between our words….”
She opened her eyes and squinted at the sunlight pouring on her face.
Aggie tried to move but her body was in a slow motion forcefield. She was in the backseat of a car. She was holding a doll in silver armor and robes. Her hands, her legs, everything, were in a slow motion forcefield. She wanted to yell but stopped when something, or someone, in the front of her line of sight moved, blocking some of the sunlight. There was a woman sitting in the front passenger seat. Someone was driving but Aggie couldn’t see who it was. The woman, turned to look over her shoulder, and asked, “are you and your friend, Sally, having fun?”
Aggie could move again, and was still holding her friend, a doll dressed in silver armor and robes. “Ohh, you dressed her, so pretty,” said the woman. Aggie nodded, “Yes, Mommy. She wants ice cream.” “Oh, she does huh? What kind of ice cream does Sally want?” Mommy said her “Ssss” funny, like “thhuh, thhuh, thuhh”, like “Thally”.
Before Mommy could look back something loud and fast mad everything spin, there was glass and loud hard shaking. Everything hurt so much.
A strange voice, it was so hard to move, her body was in a slow motion. Aggie cried, “I can’t move!! I can’t move. Mommmm…”
The soft hissing air sound and beeps was all there was. Then someone spoke. Not mommy. They were whispering. Aggie could move. She opened her eyes and she was in a hallway, holding her friend, who she dressed up, and she moved towards the whisper.
There was a woman standing with her back to Aggie, whispering. Aggie tugged at the lady’s jacket, and the lady turned but Aggie couldn’t really see the lady, it was all soft and fuzzy. Aggie heard the words, in a louder soft whisper. The fuzzy lady said,
“The sweetest part of this dream is connection, its most bitter, the isolation. I do not mean solitude, I mean the space between the stars, the silence between our words.”
“Aggie, wake up, you’re gonna be late!”
“Mmmm.”
“Aggie, come on!”
“Okay… mmmm.”
“Hey, mom.”
“Hey, sleepy”
“Mmm.”
“What going on, you haven’t been sleeping lately? School.”
“Mmm.”
“Mmm huh?”
“Mom!”
“Take a waffle, you’re going to be late. I love you.”
“I love you, Mom,” said Aggie through a home-made waffle.
Half awake with lidded eyes, Aggie throws on her shoulder bag, her headsup streams start rolling, school feeds competing with the fun things happening on campus, in town, she swipes it away with a flicker of an index finger against the middle finger of her left hand, which is mostly busy inside a warm-lined pocket of her hoodie, looking for a tab. No derms, this was a script-tab the specialist doctor gave her. It helped her settle down and softened the repeat on her dreams. Real sleep before the finals, a scholarship was hers to lose. She steered clear of a clique of some wanna-be-influencis at school, who messed with her in between scheduled streaming. UglyLeia was not making a guest appearance in one of their streams. Scholarship, scholarship, scholarship was the watchword from mom, hence the waffles and other things. Mom opted to do things for her “Aggs”, in lieu of making waves at school admins.
Walking down the transport, packed with future graduates and mothers and heros of the world, someone stuck out a foot to trip a sleepy smart super smart girl with an easy to mock name, a name that was all she had to go by after her birth’rents died after someone had one to many before daring to drive human (aka manual).
Aggie braced herself to keep from falling but she stumbled tumbled strained an ankle forward and
Found herself in between the stacks of the ‘bery, the library, in between her favorite Deweys, her hideout before she met “Mom” who took her in and then kept her after the transport accident.
“What … The… F…”
“Aglaea, all you alright?”
The ‘berian who worked her and became one of a handful she talked with was standing over her and offered a hand
“Yes, Ms. Brown, I must be more tired than I…”
“Hey, I know, those grants and scholarships… Hey, I heard from someone who I promised not to reveal, that we have some good news? I’m proud of you.”
Ms. Brown smiled. All those nudges and pushes to apply and go through it all. Yes, some good news.
Aggie noticed her shoulder bag was next to her, and so she opened it to show the acceptance letter.
Before accepting Ms. Brown’s help up, she reached into the bag for the letter, grabbed a loose sheet of hardcopy and her arm arced over to hand over the paper and then look up.
Aggie was no longer on the floor, she was sitting in a chair, in an antiseptic waiting room, handing over a sheet of paper for some form to a lady in medical scrubs.
“Thank you, dear.”
The lady had kind eyes and was patient.
They were sitting in a small room, an examination room.
“Thank you, Aglaea, we have some privacy here. I’ll take care of this form, and all the rest. It’s okay, you can trust me.”
The lady put an arm around Aglaea, “I’ll stay with you, until the doctor comes, to explain what happened. I want you to know we’ve got your mom, and we’ll be very careful with her.”
Aglaea was still taking it in, but when she heard “Mom” mentioned, she looked up, and within seconds, couldn’t hold it in. The lady held Aggie and squeezed a hand, and rubbed Aggie’s back, like she was a colicky baby.
Aggie wiped the salt from her eyes and opened them.
There was a window, it was right next to her seat in the plane.
She looked through the window. It was light out.
A grey-haired man, with light sky-blue-crystalline clear horn-rims, and dark charcoal suit, and crisp sky-blue dress shirt, came over with two cups of coffee, and offered one to her. The “Mad One”, who was “Mentor” to kings, was quiet. He had a small smile, and there was something in his eyes, a knowingness. “I know it’s not easy.”
Aggie reached in her pocket for a script-tab, and the Mad One raised a hand, “You won’t need these anymore. Your mind is realigning, the walls of your memory are being relined with restored truths, the blank spots are filling in, about who you really are.”
She sipped the hot sweet coffee and asked, “Who am I? What am I really?”
“You’re one of the most special people to walk through this world, right now, you always were. It’s just that you forgot. You are starting to remember, that’s the next-to-hardest part.”
“What’s the hardest part?”
“Accepting it.”
“Accepting?”
“We are stars that fell from the sky, and this world is our home.”
The plane’s intercom chimed, “Landing soon.”
The kind man in charcoal, who was not “Mad”, patted Aggie’s hand, “your mother… your mothers, the one who had you but was taken from you, and the one who took you in and raised you as her own, both would be very proud of you. You might be one of us, but you were theirs first. Keep that in mind today. Get ready.”
“For what?”
“For two other special people. Their names are Cale. He’s going to help us look for someone who’s been missing… for a long time… believe it or not, you knew each other. Her name is Thalia.”
She thought, Cale. Thalia, Thali, Thally, … Sally.
Part 2, At Last of First
Heavyville Texas, Space Launch Network Operations Room
“You have a message.”
Raina was glad for the distraction. Cale was still far away, working in a job he couldn’t talk about, and there was that picture of the woman, he didn’t explain before he left the apartment. It would be their first time apart from each other. They had birthdays next to each other, and this would have been their fifth, since she walked in on his messy project back in the common room outside his university dorm.
“It would be a crime if you were to celebrate your birthday alone. A party has been arranged for you. My friend Calliope is the DJ. Nema.”
Raina looked around. She felt guilty about leaving operations, in the middle of the rush, but all flights were grounded, while the powers-that-be settled their latest turf war within Overland Ventures. Who ran Space Launch Network, and who got what, while there were unofficial classified things going on in the Pacific, masked by wave in-house media waves of virtual “alternative” news pieces and sponsored influenci distractions. Her manager pretended his favoritism had nothing to do with Raina’s last name but Raina used it, just this one time she promised herself.
Back at her place there were packages, designer clothes, which Raina would be too shy to buy for herself, but it was like the fragrance, which she bought to remind herself of when her grandmother was still around, the colors were the kinds of things she liked. But of course, Nema would know, that was her job after all. Knowing the details that a person wouldn’t know or remember about themselves.
A few hours later, Raina made it to a small place, in one of Heavyville’s outer districts. There was a crowd, and a line, and someone spotted her and pulled her in. It was Nema’s colleague, Calliope, “Hi!!! Come with me please!”, who led Raina inside to a big “Happy Birthday!!!” inside the place. There were coworkers from SLN and classmates. “How in the world did you…?” but of course, it had to be Nema, that was in the job description.
Raina forgot about Cale being far away, while she was surrounded by so many people but she couldn’t shake off the feeling. She thought she understood Cale’s loneliness but now she really got it, she felt it because she felt special with him. Tons of people fawned on her, because of her family but Cale neither knew or cared about all of that. She resented both that she wished he was there and that she needed anything like that.
One person she didn’t see, was in the crowd, keeping watch.
A Greyhat, known among various circles by the nomen of Polytropon, whose Node aliases included Oduze Odysseus Kephalonia, was chatting up party-goers, enjoying some bottles, and keeping an eye on Raina, Nema and her colleagues. Calliope was ratcheting the crowd up and down, and birthday cakes were being prepped for both service and for throwing at party-goers. The Greyhat tapped a message out with his fingers, as he danced, “There’s going to be a grab-job. I’ll be ready,” which skipped along encrypted tightbeams from his person through a bespoke network, between party-goers’ bodygear, to and through the walls and up uplinks and down fiber and on tightbeams to Pallas. Oduze figured, one way or the other, one of the secret cavaliers and subalterns of either The Visitor’s or The Curate’s Clans would take custody. They could try. Either way, Oduze was paid but he prided himself of full service for payment, and also to keep on Pallas’ good graces. After all, he broke me out of an archival manifold, a few times.
The party went on. The young woman celebrating her birthday was important to more than one Clan. Oduze didn’t know why. It was above his paygrade. Answers later, and there was enough time for work, after the last set is played.
Part 3, The Last Home
SSN Eternal, Ex-Comm Room
The Island, Hour 40 of 48
“Nothing we can do. I see the other teams. No markings. They might be from that other boat. You know our orders. We wait, watch, and pick up the team, if they’re in position, and after we get the signal.”
“What if they’re running a little late, no telling with that island getting crowded.”
“Even if they’re waving their underwear, I’m picking up ST12, but they have to be in position. We do nothing until then to give away our position. Our new orders are also clear. At Hour 40 on the clock, we are to unpack and prepare to deploy the device we have on-board at Hour 48.”
“The Captain reached over to buzz the Control Room but an incoming buzz stopped him. The Chief was on top of it, and was ready, “It’s Hour 40, Captain. Ready to prepare for deployment, on your orders.” “Very well, prepare the device.” “Aye, Captain, deployment underway.” “Buzz me at the first sign of a signal, popped smoke, colors, anything., Captain out.”
“Captain? If that other boat is still out there watching us, they might have the same orders as us. Or maybe their orders are to blow us out of the water before we get a chance to pick up the team, or deploy the device.”
The Captain buzzed the Combat Information Center
“CIC.”
“Anything?”
“Island is getting crowded, Captain, the water’s empty except for us, for now. Blockade giving way. Inside, it’s just us. No sign of that boat, it’s true to its name, a ghost. After they blinded us with drones, they went dark, right after we picked up a launch bound for the Island.”
“Chief, do we have any drones left in stores?”
“We have a few left, all were banged up after the last engagement. No good to anybody now.”
The Captain was quiet for a moment before he leaned forward to the speaker, “I wouldn’t say that. Chief, we’re going to prep our “honored dead” for a burial at sea.”
“Sir?”
“Meet me in the machine room, with your best from A-Gang, plus the drones.”
“Right away, Captain.”
The Captain looked up from the map-table in the Ex-comm room, “XO, relieve the watch in CIC, keep eyes open for the Ghost. We’re going to draw them out of hiding.”
The Captain then buzzed the Weapons Room, “Wizzo, it’s Hour 40. Prepare the device. I’m entering my code,” said the Captain as he typed into the intercom, “now,” as he looked over at the XO, to do likewise. The XO walked over to the intercom to do the same, “Weapons, this is the XO, begin unpacking the device. I’m entering my code.”
The “Wizzo”, the Eternal’s Weapons Officer, answered, “Weapons confirms Captain and XO authorization to prepare the device. Device prep.”
The Captain and XO nodded to each other and left the ex-comm room.
AFTERWORD
Author’s Notes on what’s going on:
This “Book #3” project, “RETRIEVE”, is meant to be a prequel to two other books, “Box Of Stars” and “Harvest” but this piece could be read as a standalone story.
The prologue for “RETRIEVE”, “An Impossible Island”, was submitted as a short story.
Prologue: “An Impossible Island”, Part One and Part Two, and Part Three, was inspired by writing prompts from the Soaring Twenties Social Club (STSC) creative community, beginning with an STSC Symposium monthly theme of “Beach”.
Chapter 1, “Older Than Bones”, was inspired by the theme, “Dinosaurs”.
Chapter 2, A Love Trinity Denied, was inspired by “Romance”.
Chapter 3, “A Forgotten Circle Of Hades” was inspired by “Superstition”.
Chapter 4, “Reading The Room” was inspired by an image of a wall-sized bookshelf.
Chapter 5, “The Bittersweetness Of Deep Times”, was inspired by “Isolation”.
Chapter 6, “The Weaving Of Split Infinities”, was inspired by “Dreams”.
Chapter 7, “Dead Languages”, was inspired by “Propaganda”.
Chapter 8, “Path Not Forsaken”, was inspired by “Risk”.
Chapter 9, “The Last Word of The World”, considers words as worlds unto themselves.
Chapter 10, An Intimate Path Of Desires
Chapter 11, Absent Without Longing
Chapter 12, Lonely In The Same Room
Chapter 13, Children Of Daedalus
Chapter 14, People Of A Faraway Land
Chapter 15, Distant Shores, Distant Worlds
Chapter 16, The Rules of New Places
Chapter 17, Space To Breathe
Chapter 18, The Extra Air
Chapter 19, The Clash Of Selves
Chapter 20, The Last Meme
Chapter 21, Mistakes And Memories
Chapter 22, The Confusions Of Things
Chapter 23, The Senses Of Wonders
Chapter 24, The Gambits Of Curiosities
“RETRIEVE” chapter and notes will be posted in this Substack, while I edit books #1 (“Box Of Stars”) and #2 (“Harvest”). All will be in the archive, not all will be emailed.)