Chapter 12
“What the hell were you thinking?” Harris asked.
Amano was in the room with her, as well as several tacticians that were going over the down loads from Niamh, the Zurara, and the Virginia. Niamh was also present, sitting at the table with them. She was an AI-Ensign, rising towards being an ‘angel.’ “Just wanted to buy the Zurara time until help arrived,” Emmitt said.
“You could have died,” Harris said. Emmitt shrugged.
“You don’t care?” Harris demanded. “Are you suicidal?”
“No,” Emmitt said. “May I speak freely?”
“You haven’t been?” Harris asked. “Yes! We want to understand what you were thinking.” Having a transcript of a person’s thought doesn’t always illuminate exactly why they were thinking a particular thing- it only gave them a transcription of surface stuff.
“So, maybe it’s just a myth, but you know those aliens stories like 20 years and back,
Corey Good the whistle blower?” Emmitt asked. “I think those aren’t just stories; they’re real. And this bracelet you gave me, this is ‘Groundhog Day Tech.’ You need to have new people, but until we reach full disclosure, you can’t get new people unless you have a way to keep the potential recruits from talking. You can’t go around buying everyone into silence. Not everyone wants the payoff of being a famous celebrities. You also can’t kill everyone.” He showed her the wrist. “Hell, I love the idea of sex, but I wouldn’t trade this present life or even a career in Space Force to be Hugh Heffner! I am in this for life, but I will surrender my preferred life to serve others. This device is a temporal set point. In the event of my death, or my dismissal, I will be transported back in time to where you recruited me. When that happens, you will likely sedate me, put a memory block on, and I will go the rest of my life never knowing I served.” He paused. “Unless, this is simply a divergent point tracker and I am still there on Earth now, living my life and this body is a clone, and the bracelet is a telepathic link to update that brain with information from this brain, and you sneak in at night and download information so you know what’s happening out here in space?!” Wow. There’s a Garcia story here!
“You’re over thinking this. That is a reset point. You only get one reset,” Harris said.
“But you’d do that? You’d sacrifice your career with us just to buy a ship a few more minutes?” “A few more minutes was all they needed,” Emmitt said. “They were almost home.”
“But you weren’t sure it was a temporal bracelet,” Amano said.
“Technically, no. I have additional evidence to support my conclusion. You aren’t really teaching us safety protocols. You could have helped us avoid unnecessary injuries or death by giving us better initial training, which suggests you know that no matter what we’re going to be okay. But, maybe I am just being naive. Maybe you’re using plant philosophy, and just scattering seeds to the wind and see what sticks. Either way, I had faith that things would work out, that’s it,” Emmitt said. “And if I had died, well, in that instance, that would have been a good death.”
“No! There are no good deaths. There are only good victories,” Harris said.
“If you believed your peers would ultimately be okay, why did you warn them?” Amano asked.
“This is not Survivor, last man standing wins. We win together or not at all,” Emmitt said.
Harris smiled. “You are okay with your death, not others?”
“I willing to bet my life, not others. I have been dead before,” Emmitt said. “It’s not as bad as people think it is. I am also open to the idea that my personal paradigm could be wrong.”
Harris didn’t respond to that. “No one else has figured out they’re wearing temporal tech or that they have a safety net. Keep it that way.”
“Yes, Mam,” Emmitt said.
“I have another question,” Amano said. “The Transcript suggests you know the Chaons.” “I must have read it in the literature,” Emmitt said.
“There are no literary references to the Chaons,” Amano said.
“Not even my fan fiction?” Emmitt asked.
“Are you saying your fan fiction is based on remote viewing aliens?” Amano said. Emmitt shrugged. He looked at his bracelet. “Hypothetically? Could this bracelet malfunction and I be cycling in time even now?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I feel like I have done all of this before,” Emmitt said. “Maybe it’s just subconscious reminders to something I read or watched. I don’t know.”
Emmitt eyes fell to the table as he chased that thought. The table was transparent. He became aware of his eyes landing on Harris’ legs in degrees. Bringing his eyes back to his side of the table brought a peripheral view of Niamh’s thighs. He pushed his eyes to a new point in the room.
“What are you thinking?” Harris asked.
“You don’t know?”
“I am not privy to your thoughts presently,” Harris said.
“You still don’t know?” Emmitt asked. “Do I have to say it?”
“I am not talking about your libidinous thoughts. Before that, before you realized you were looking at my legs, what were you thinking?” Harris asked.
“I don’t know. I lost it,” Emmitt admitted.
“Stop that,” Harris said.
“Stop what? Sex thoughts? You know how hard that is?” Emmitt asked. “Stop thought blocking! Embrace all your thoughts all the time. Don’t suppress anything. Even your sex thoughts. Stop punishing yourself for having thoughts. Experience them first, then understand them. You can’t understand what doesn’t get manifested,” Harris said. “Your thoughts about sex are normal. The frequency of your thoughts about sex are normal. Your engagement of sex may or may not be normal depending on context.”
Emmitt eyes watered. “I am normal?”
“You’re nowhere near fucking normal, Emmitt. We don’t hire normal. But your thoughts on sex are normal,” Harris said. “You were raised in a social environment that punishes males for their sexuality, which was a backlash to previous generational sexual abuse and male dominance, which, interestingly enough, was a backlash to the previous generational matriarchy abuse. All society’s not built on collaboration are abusive. Single parenthood is abusive, by definition, because it lacks balance and individuals, mother or father, are forced to compromise and or exaggerate attributes to accomplish goals; they become too permissive or too authoritarian. You know this intellectually. You now need to own it emotionally. We are finally approaching true equanimity. Not equality. Equanimity. Men and women are not equal. We are different. We have different motivators. We all want sex. Men are simple. You’d get off to a line drawing of two circles and a triangle. That doesn’t mean you’re broken. Contrary to popular belief, women don’t have lower libidos. All sex drive diminish over time in long term relationships, if people do nothing to counteract that. Women are not broken, men are not broken. 70 percent of divorces are initiated by women. The moment they divorce, their sex drives returns to pre-marriage levels, if not greater! This clearly indicates there’s nothing wrong with them biologically or psychologically. They enjoy diversity just as much as men. The cost of engaging in that is greater for women than men.
“You have an opportunity to be in Space Force. We have tech that can read your mind. You will encounter aliens that can read your mind. There are some aliens that skip thought reading and go right to the unconscious mind and they unpack motivators and influences and can unravel the entire history of your psyche. Stop running from your sexuality. Embrace it. Be aware of it the way you would be aware of any thought transmission while engaged in meditation or mindfulness. You can actually use thoughts of sex to block unwanted psychic attacks. All waking life is a meditation in mindfulness. Become aware, bring in love and compassion, return to focus. Repeat. That’s it. Honesty starts not with your disclaimers towards others, but with yourself.”
The tears were moving down his face so fast he wondered if it was raining. Amano gave a soft, compassionate smile.
“Space Force is not looking for a few good men,” Harris went on. “We are looking for self-aware people. We are looking for high collaborators. We are looking for people who have exploitable strengths and weaknesses that mesh so well together that the team itself is a balanced psyche. We’re team building, not individual building. If you’re not a fully developed individual by the time you meet us, you will never become a Space Force Cadet. If you can’t play well with others, don’t come. If you’re going to sit at the back of the room and just observe, don’t come.” Emmitt wiped tears on his face.
“I appreciate your ability to emote in this context. Maybe that’s your youth. Maybe that’s your tremendous sense of relief at realizing no one here is condemning you for your sex thoughts but you,” Amano said. “If you get nothing else out of your pre-training, cherish that ability to be this transparent. Don’t lose this gift.”
“Is this real?” Emmitt asked. “Am I dreaming?”
“Everyone’s dreaming, all the time,” Harris said. “This training you’re engaged in, it’s not the old trauma based training where we break you and rebuild you into what we want. We find people with solidly established personalities and then build on what’s there.” “And yet, I am the only one in my group that doesn’t have old-school, militaristic paradigm training,” Emmitt said.
“We work with what we got,” Amano said. “There are exceptional people in everyday life, that’s for sure, but most are too caught up in the local social and political games to want to explore being in Space Force. Hell, they’re still dismissive of UFO’s in the news, even though we changed the name to UAPs. From the moment we started tracking you, you were already thinking about the bigger game.”
Emmitt was not surprised they were tracking him. “How long?” “Since you gave yourself your first heart attack,” Harris said.
“You knew?”
“Me personally? No. You didn’t come on my radar until you hijacked an Uber-Flight,” Harris said. “And then I found you had a profile, labeled someone of interest.” “It was not an accident Oracle found you,” Amano said.
“Go join your class,” Harris said.
“I have so many questions,” Emmitt said.
“Go read a book. Go play some games. Make friends. Camelot’s is a big place,” Harris said.
‘Camelot’s a big place’ was an understatement. New York City was a small suburb in comparison. There were fifty million souls living on this space station. This station was big in many dimensions, as if built by giants who were friends with ghosts. The builders were actually giants. They were dinosaurs. When they built a space city, they built for themselves first, for size, and finally for durability. If they built you a city, short of war, you could bet your ass the city would last a billion years. The oldest known dinosaur habitat in space had an established ‘online’ date of 700 million years. That factoid bothered Emmitt’s peers. He just recorded the information and moved on to the next fact.
Not all of the inhabitants of Camelot were humans. Some species kept to themselves, remaining in their own towers. Towers were completely contained environments that existed under a dome, a secondary environment. Every habitat was self-sufficient with airlocks. Redundancy was everywhere. There were lots of parks. There was more nature contained in Camelot per square foot than in any equivalent Earth state. Camelot had the equivalent land mass of Texas, if you considered just the ground floor. There were basements and towers.
The Amano group had the top floor of their tower. They had their own enclosed, private park on top of the roof. They had the roof, and the immediate floor beneath it. Fleet staff and families lived in the floors below. There were parks and gardens every three floors. On his 18th birthday, Emmitt experienced intimacy with Niamh in the forest. They were monitored by ‘angels’ 24 seven, and any of his peers could have been watching, but he didn’t care, and Niamh was agreeable. In fact, she had been teasing him in ever increasing increments the closer the approach. Tree nymph, he called her. Nympho! She manifested a blanket and they lay under a canopy of leaves with artificial lights shining through. Each leaf spun a dozen shadows that raked over them, as if the trees themselves wanted to play with them.
Emmitt was disappointed with his performance. Niamh laughed, holding him tights. “It’s okay. I didn’t expect you to last. How long as that been in the making?” She was able to relax him, teasing him physically and mentally, decreasing his refractory period. He recovered and they re-engaged, and he was much happier with the second round.
“You realize, as an AI, I will never be exhausted. Don’t measure your performance based on my abilities,” Niamh said.
The others treated him differently after getting laid. He asked Dehan if he was mistaken. She assured him we was not. Since getting laid, he had been much easier to get along with. “Really?” he asked, not seeing any change in himself. She said, ‘Really!’ and then fucked him in the lift to prove to him just how much easier he was to get along with.
They had their own bar. Erkin liked to drink. Most of them drank, but Erkin- he could put some alcohol away. There were no absolute partners, but there were several that had declared themselves inclusive. Emmitt was very clear, he was a free agent. Katarina Marijić wanted to be exclusive with him, but accepted his polyamorous perspective and declared herself monogamous. Giada Rossi was the only person in the group that chose celibacy. She had no intentions of having a relationship until she was married, and she had no intentions of marrying until she was sixty. She was a psychologist, a relationship expert, and 60 was the ideal age when men actually became mature adults and were eligible for settling; conditionally. There were always caveats, and she had a clear list of expectations. Erkin was not happy hearing that because he had a crush on her.
Humans in space are still humans. Erkin got drunk and pushed Rossi too far. He got her alone and pinned her and would have taken it further except Rossi cried for help. The station responded, calling for backup. Emmitt had been the closest in proximity and was first to arrive. Specifically, he was in the room underneath and utilizing a warp bubble he was able to go up one level and was there practically instantaneous. He was the only one of group that always had his Torch with him. He was the only one that always stayed in contact with his companion. He pulled Erkin off her and she scrambled back. She was on her feet and ready to fight, but Emmitt was between her and Erkin. He and Erkin were squared off. Erkin shoved him.
“Stop,” Emmitt said. It not command voice, but it was not a soft request. It had overtones that implied aggression would be met with aggression. “You’re drunk. We’re not doing this now.”
“You think you’re better than me?!” Erkin said. “You think she’s going to fuck you because you helped her?”
Emmitt being Emmitt, de-escalated Erkin by being truthful. “Yes. I want to fuck her. Yes, being the hero raises the odds of me getting laid, if not by her, by someone! People want to feel safe with others. I always want to fuck. This is not the way. It’s not our way. You’re one of
us. Come on. Let me get you to your quarters so you can sleep this off.”
MPs arrived.
“You want to fight me, too?” Erkin said.
“No,” Emmitt said. He pointed to his eyes, drawing to fingers to his eyes. “Eyes, Isa. Bring it down. I got you. Amano, let me take him to his quarters. You can post a guard till he’s sober?”
“Action approved,” Amano said. “If he strays, he will be arrested on the spot.” “Isa! Eyes. Walk with me, buddy. Don’t chose the hard way. Come on,” Emmitt said.
Erkin was tearful. “Okay. But if you any of you bastard touch me…”
“No! Isa. Focus. Eyes, walk with me,” Emmitt said. “Everyone’s cool. We’re just going back to your room. Come on.”
Emmitt got Erkin to his quarters. He staggered a bit and was talking shit but he got there on his own volition. He went to bed without hassle. An MP remained outside the door and inside the door. Emmitt sat on Erkin’s couch and read until the emergency meeting was called. There was a virtual space that the Amano group could travel to. It was the High Conference. ‘Go High,’ was instructions to meet. They closed their eyes and went ‘high.’ It was a circle floor, with a circle painted on the floor, glow-n-the-dark strip, and a dome overhead. The glow was usually a soft green, but occasionally it reflected the emotions of the speaker by changing spectrum.
Amano and Harris were on the circle as they all came high. Everyone was there but Erkin.
“How do you want to handle this?” Amano asked.
“What do you mean, how do we want to handle this?” Dehan demanded. “He tried to rape her. He goes to jail for assault. That’s it.” More than half the group sided with that sentiment. Erkin’s immediate friends wanted to give him another chance.
“Rossi?” Amano asked.
“I am biased and still a little angry. Mostly at myself for allowing him to get the better of me,” Rossi said. Indeed, red radiated out from her along the glow strip and touched everyone. There was no doubt she was still unsettled. “I would like to withhold comment until my mind is clear.”
“Fair enough. Emmitt, your opinion,” Amano asked.
He was looking at the floor. He was now aware everyone was staring at him.
“You were asked a question,” Harris said.
“We’re Space Force,” Emmitt said. He said that as if it had meaning. “We are a community of peers, lovers, friends, family. We are accountable to each other and all of humanity. Humans fuck up. We all fuck up and if we haven’t yet, then that day is coming. How do we want meet that person? How do we want to meet ourselves? How do we want our peers to meet that person? Incarcerating people for the simple sake of housing someone who fucked up does not help society, does not help the individual, and does not help us. We are out here because we are trying to change. Not just our image, but who we actually are. People are not disposable.
We’re not broken. We make bad decisions, especially under the influence. We, his training group, need to come at him, when he’s sober, and declare some new boundaries. We need to come at him with love. We need to recognize there is a darkness in him, hell! in all of us, and be that voice that help elevate him to a better way of being. I think he wants to be that better person. I think we all do. I think we owe it to ourselves to determine whether this is a fluke, or this is just what it is. Maybe this is his rock bottom. Maybe it gets worse. If it gets worse and it’s not manageable, then I’d say boot him. But right now, I want more data. I would like that data to be collected while he is sober. I would make his stay conditional. No more alcohol. This is my preference.”
He hadn’t known the details of the accident that killed his parents that turned him into a quadriplegic. At 18, he got full disclosure. Substance use had been involved. Had they lived, they would have been incarcerated. And they would have lived the remainder of their lives knowing they fucked up their child and killed other people.
Dehan was tearful.
“I want more data,” Rossi said. “I second Emmitt’s motion that Erkin stay.” They all voted for Erkin staying. High Conference was adjourned.
The next day, on watching the playback of his behavior, Erkin was extremely apologetic.
On hearing the verdict of the High, he was incapacitated with grief. He said he would quit. The Amano group told him no: “You will continue your training until you’re dismissed, or you die trying. That’s the way it is.”
They lived in dorms, five to a flat. A flat had five bed rooms, a shared bathroom, a shared kitchen and living space. There central kitchen dining hall where they could all meet, which was more like a coffee house than a real kitchen, but they took turns cooking for the group and sharing food there, and studying together. There was always a group there studying. There was a gym, a yoga-dance studio, a pool, and a sauna. The Library was virtual and they could go there in virtual avatars, or hold an Ipad that could bring up any book. Any book. Utilizing the Ipad, they had access to everything ever written by man up to the present date. More on that, they had access to a visual record of history of the entire Earth. They could watch the entire earth evolve in real time or accelerated time. They could watch human history unfold as it really happened.
More than one of Emmitt’s class were having existential crises. Some couldn’t put ‘history’ down. History was not what they were told. It wasn’t even a categorical opposite. It wasn’t a lie, either. It was just wrong. Two requested to quit and were denied. They were instructed to wait it out, talk with their peers. For whatever reason, they usually came to talk to Emmitt. He suspected because he did not seem bothered by discovering history was not what they thought it was, or even that there was tech that could reveal anything and everything. They usually glossed over this aspect. This ‘gloss’ affect interest Emmitt; he wondered if they just couldn’t see it, or they had self-imposed cognitive blocks. The implications changed everything.
“Well, if you accept entanglement as a real thing, and you assume that origin event of the universe, if not the big bang but something that was initiated at a very small, dense point, then everything that exist was once in physical contact with everything else, in resonant, harmonic phase, and so…”
“This is…”
“Magic?”
“Impossible.”
They had all by now seen his fight with the Chaons right out of the barn. They were all military and they wanted to know how he had managed to not get killed.
“Battlestar Galactica, remake. Starbuck nails it when she said, if you run in space, you’re dead. The reason most star-faring civilizations are peaceful is because you