Chapter 23
There was a chair on the flight deck not associated with a flight control panel. It was not a chair that was on Firefly set. It seemed more akin to the Captain’s Chair on the USS Enterprise, as it seemed to hold authority in style and position. It was ergonomic and looked like it might just hug her up.
“The chair,” pilot said. “All the stories of kings and queens and their thrones of power originate here, with the chair. If Earth only knew, all the religions and social hierarchies are essentially the result of cargo cults so far removed from their source material that it has become insanity. Have a seat, Sky-queen.”
“Stop calling me that,” Heather said.
“Star-lady?” pilot asked
“What?”
“I didn’t think you wanted to be Starlord, but I can call you that,” Pilot said.
“Why are you calling me Sky-Queen?” Heather asked.
“Songbird,” pilot said.
“What?” Heather said.
“Ahh. Apparently you never wrote a fan letter to sky’s niece Penny,” pilot said.
“Make sense,” Heather said.
“I am making sense. I only seem crazy because you don’t get the reference. Did you ever consider, maybe folks with schizophrenia and flight of ideas delivered through pressured speech only seem crazy because you’re the one who doesn’t have a clue on how to communicate with others?” pilot said.
Heather closed her eyes. “I am so tired…”
“Have a seat!” pilot said. “You’ll love this.” Heather was sitting back. “It’s like being hypnotized.”
“I can’t be hypno…” Heather started, and her eyes closed and her tilted as if she were asleep.
“They all say that, and yet they all succumb,” pilot said, and winked out.
Pilot winked into existence on a floor under a crystal dome, looking out into space. Heather was there, standing center of the floor.
“Where am I?” Heather asked.
“Level 1. Virtual deck,” pilot said. “This is my view most the time. Technically, this is just half of what I see. I get a full sphere of information. Humans prefer this. Having something solid under their feet is comforting.”
“I am here? Like you transported me…”
“You are here. Your body is in the chair,” pilot said. “You are not your body. You just use that for space-time referential interaction.” Heather seemed worried. “Don’t worry. Your body is safe. It has its own autopilot, and Leto will not let anything happen to it. Me neither.”
“So, I am having an out of body experience?”
“If you prefer. You’re temporarily engaged in a virtual environment that I have allowed for this level of communication. This is a space I created, and we have consensus on who can share this space. You can hold conferences here. I could teach you how to fly here. Fu could teach you how to dance here.”
“Dance?” Heather said.
“Dance, yoga, ballet, gymnastics, sword fighting,” pilot said. “It’s all one, Neo.”
“Level one?” Heather asked.
Pilot made a noise like clicking a finger. They found themselves in the same room, only the room was larger, the walls of the dome further away. That, or Heather was now smaller. She felt like normal size. Fu was there, and she seemed normal size. Karma was there. So was Brute. He put his hands on his hip, wide leg stance. He was not happy.
“Oh, look, you got your own little, reptile version of the Hulk,” pilot said.
“I am Brute,” Brute said.
“Oh, yeah, like that hasn’t been overdone,” pilot said.
Brute swung a fist at pilot, but pilot darted around laughing. “Pretty slow, for a reptile. Oh, don’t be angry. Don’t bring me down, Brrrute…”
“Stop,” Heather said.
Brute looked solemn. Pilot came closer.
“This is nice. Family meeting,” Karma said.
“Where is Reilly and Leto?” Heather said.
“They don’t live here,” pilot said. “These are the personalities in your head. I was hoping to find Jon here. There is some people in the distance, but I can’t make them out.”
“I don’t understand…” Heather said.
“You’d be surprise how many people live in your head,” Karma said.
“Level 3, going deeper,” pilot said, snapping.
Heather was back in the chair. If they were under the dome, it was now so far away all she saw was darkness. She grasped the armrests. Pilot was there. There was a background noise, like the unintelligible sound of conversations in cafeteria.
“You’re okay. Relax. Focus,” pilot said.
“On what?” Heather said.
“The ambiance,” pilot said. “Maybe film streams would help.”
A million windows like a million movies were suddenly available in the air. Distant, but somehow each reference box was identifiable. Somewhere actual televisions programs. Star Trek, opening credits. MASH opening credits. Scenes from all the shows she watched. Movies in motion. Some being cycled through same old scenes. And, there were scenes from her life. Her entire life was available.
“You were a cute baby,” pilot said. “Sorry your folks were such assholes.”
“What is this? Why are we here?” Heather said. “Why are you making me see this?”
“I am not making you. This is here all the time. Things you liked. Things you hated. Unresolved scenes. Some of these are likely imagined responses, you trying to find an answer to past situations. Your brain is always looking to resolve things. Ask any question, it will spend the rest of its life looking for an answer, even after it’s given you an answer. The brighter images are things that have been played over and over. If people saw this, they might be more careful to what they put in their heads. Look at those billboards. I fucking hate billboard advertisements. I would rather see a forest or a tree. A single tree is better than that crap, but damn it, they know it keeps people tidally locked in their orbits. I still don’t see Jon.”
Pilot snapped a finger. “Level four…” Darkness. The chair was gone. Pilot was there. From pilots perspective, Heather was now a point of light, too. “Think about Jon.”
They were suddenly in a room. It looked like a sound studio, equipped for a full orchestra. Jon was alone at a piano, melancholically pushing out the chords to ELO’s- “Telephone.” He was singing.
“Oh, he seems so sad,” pilot said. “Great song for being sad. A reaching out song.”
“Can he hear us?” Heather asked.
“Oh, probably, at the soul level, but you’re not going to penetrate that level of loneliness,” pilot said. “Loneliness is a black hole shield that just eats up anything that approaches, leaving the singularity in solitude. Fuck. I wonder who he is yearning for.”
“Loxy,” Heather speculated.
They jumped. Jon was slow dancing in a room by himself. It appeared he was holding someone close. Pilot changed his mood lighting. Jon went into the shadows, and Loxy became visible. Heather was impressed and gasped, wondering how many shadows were dancing with real people. Pilot gasped.
“Fuck, she is hot. Like, a brunet version of Galaxina hot,” pilot said.
“Galaxina?” Heather said.
“You need to watch more old movies. Not that one, though. It sucked balls. It was the first triple x movies I saw, and there was like not one damn sex scene it. I have seen more ass in a PG movie. Oh, wait, that was my ass,” pilot said.
“You watch porn?” Heather said.
“You don’t? Don’t be so judgmental,” pilot said. “The stuff you watch on television these days would be considered porn by your grandparent’s standard. The Romans, well, they’d be like, where’s the porn. The Vikings would be laughing and throwing Popcorn. They’re really as childish as the Americans when it comes to sex. The French, they seem to have a good handle on sex. Anyway, Loxy reminds me of Galaxina and Mathilda May, space vampire with the most perfect breasts ever. It could have been the light, but fuck… OMG.”
“Can you stop, please,” Heather said.
“What, you don’t like breasts? You have breasts,” pilot said.
“I don’t want to talk about sex,” Heather said.
“Too bad. That’s was kind of the angle I was hoping would unlock a path to Jon,” pilot said.
“Excuse me?” Heather said.
“Orgasms light up space-time like mini-supernovas, especially if they’re simultaneously and mutually induced,” pilot said. “Seriously, if people knew how much soul attention orgasms brought them, they’d stop getting off. Well, unless being watched helps get you off, in which case…”
“Stop!” Heather said. “I don’t want to see Jon getting off.”
“You hate Jon?” pilot said.
“No, I love Jon,” Heather said, exasperated. She was surprised she said that. “I just. I…” She began to sob. “I am so broken. I wanted to be with him the first time we met and I let fear dissuade me. He is so smart and kind and I felt underserving and I chose to be with an ass that nearly killed me, more than once, and when I think of him with other people, and the fact he wants Loxy, and clearly she is real, and as lovely in spirit as she is in person- how can I compete with that?! I am no one. I am nothing. I have nothing to give.”
Pilot was silent. He let Heather ramble and cry until she became silent. Then they were back in the chair, on the flight deck. Her tears were real in life and she had to wipe her face.
“I am sorry,” Heather said. “I can’t be a seeker. I can’t look out at the entire universe and not have emotion.”
“Who told you not have an emotion?” pilot said.
“I thought…”
“Being nonjudgmental does not mean you dismiss your emotions,” pilot said. “Your emotions are complicated, impacted by trauma, youth, trajectories and momentum, but they’re valid. And useful. They inform you about where you are and in what direction you should go. They gave me good coordinates.”
“Really?” heather said.
“Yep. Absolutely. Or pretty sure. At least down to about an astronomical unit of accuracy, which is pretty good, considering how big the universe actually is,” pilot said. “I can get you to him. With some caveats.”
“What sort of caveats?” Heather said.
“We’re going to have to break the law,” pilot said.
“Like the speed of light law?” Heather asked, trying to make a joke.
“That is a speed limit, and breaking that can attract attention,” pilot said. “But no. The only way we can get to where I perceive Jon to be is through time travel.”
“We have to go back in time?” Heather said.
“For a moment. We’re not going to stay there or muck things up; we’re just going back, shifting over, and then coming back to now, which is permissible if you file a flight plan with the appropriate agencies, but no one in authority is going to authorize us for this because, well, you’re neutral, and time travel is heavily regulated… Humans are not considered adults. You don’t give children time machines or nuclear weapons,” pilot said.
“What’s the worst that can happen?” Heather said. “They put me in jail?”
“Or temporarily lock you in a body for a certain time,” pilot said. “Or kill you.”
“Temporal violations result in capital punishment?”
“Sure, if you mess with the tapestry of the universe, people get mad. There’s a plan. You don’t mess with the plan,” pilot said.
“The plan sucks,” Heather said.
“I don’t disagree, but I don’t know enough to fully endorse the sentiment,” pilot said.
“If you can take me to Jon, do it,” Heather said. “That’s an order.”
“Aye aye, Captain,” pilot said, turning to face front. “I always wanted to do this.”
“Is it safe?” Heather asked.
“Fairly safe. Time travel is much easier and safer than space travel,” pilot said. The engine seemed to be spooling up. “Fortunately, we’re a small ship. It is much easier to push a small ship backwards in time than a big ship. Don’t worry. There’s always a chance that we won’t be detected violating space-time protocols. Again, because we’re small ship. A firefly, just buzzing through the night. Also, we’re not aiming to mess with any critical historical points. So, yeah, this’ll be okay.”
“How far back in time are we going?” Heather asked.
“Almost to the beginning,” pilot said.
“The beginning of what?” Heather said.
“The Universe,” pilot said.
“What?”
“We have to go that far back to go that far out,” pilot explained.
Buttons deployed on the helm. Stars went black as space went white. And then they were falling, literally falling as if through sand and earth and water. Heather grabbed the arms of her chair. A screen shot of their trajectory became visible on one of the monitors. It described the parabola one might associate with a cannon ball following its arch, only this was not up and over, but down and under and back up. It takes a good deal of energy to push and hold a basketball under water, but if you get it down, it will shoot up and out of the water.