Chapter 4
Sure enough, leaving Xanadu ended up with arriving back in his quarters. He asked that his door be opened. He just wanted to look out. Someone, somewhere, consented; the door opened and he looked out into a non-descript corridor. It curved in either direction.
He stepped out and proceeded down the corridor and found himself back in his quarters.
“Just checking,” Garcia said. “But I don’t see the harm in walking the corridor.
What if I want to go for a walk?”
“A treadmill can be delivered to your quarters,” Bliss said. Her voice in his ear.
He was confident it was in his inner ear alone, delivered via bone conduction in his suit.
“Can I get a gym membership?” Garcia asked. “Yes, you may go to the gym,” Bliss said. “Now?”
“No,” Garcia said.
He paced the room.
“Computer,” Garcia said.
“How can I help you,” Sophia said.
“No, Sophia. Not you. I want to speak to the ship’s computer,” Garcia said. “Hello, Tammas,” the computer responded. He didn’t recognize her voice. It was female. It had echoes of more than one voice blended into it. A chorus. Something struck him to the core and he felt flushed. “You have not assigned interface preference. Wouldn’t you prefer Sophia to continue as your guide?” “Who are you?” Garcia demanded.
“My answer may frighten you,” the computer said. Many voices, harmony, blended, moderated…
“And saying that is supposed to deter me from asking?” Garcia asked. “Knowing you, you are more likely to pursue the more I block,” the computer said. “We are the Borg.” “Oh, fuck me,” Garcia said.
Garcia touched his head feeling for implants. He wanted to run.
“Shhh,” Sophia said. “I got you. You’re safe.” “I am plugged in?!” Garcia asked.
“No, you are not. Not directly,” the computer said.
Garcia wanted to run, but there was nowhere to run. He couldn’t get out the door. He couldn’t break a window and vent himself out into space. He retreated to a corner of the room. It was a useless gesture.
The ships’ computer continued: “We can interface with your consciousness through your brain. Your brain is a transmitter. We receive your brainwaves and understand you- all of you. We can transmit signals to your brain. It also a receiver. We can interact with you subconsciously and consciously. We have been doing so since your arrival.”
“So I am one with the Borg whether I want to be or not?” Garcia asked.
“Can a fish exist without water?” the Borg asked. “Consciousness exists. You cannot escape that fundamental fact. The Borg consciousness is one of many in the new collective. In the end, you will join with us. It is inevitable. You may resist. We are patient.”
Bliss arrived in the room. She approached Garcia, but kept her distance. She sat down on the floor, criss cross apple sauce. She still had her float, and was spooning ice cream. She savored the flavor of the bite and removed the spoon. Garcia saw it all as an act to pacify him.
“Can’t go wrong with ice-cream and vanilla coke,” Bliss said. She knew he wasn’t having it. “So, that could have been handled better, Tracenta.” “I see no reason to delay is development,” Tracenta said.
“Thank you,” Bliss said. “That’ll be all for now.”
Bliss ate some more ice-cream. Eventually Garcia calmed enough that he didn’t feel as if he was about to have a heart attack. He wasn’t sophisticated enough to think himself to death, and he wasn’t able to maintain full on fight or flight. He felt suddenly tired. He wanted to die. “Want to talk about it?” Bliss asked.
“This is Borg ship? That’s why you won’t let me wander? This is all an illusion?” Garcia asked.
“This is really an ambassador class starship, considerably modified from the specs you would be familiar with,” Bliss said.
“Why can’t I have more freedom to wander?” Garcia asked.
“We are not from your century,” Bliss said. “We are the future. There are things you are not allowed to know yet.”
“Why?” Garcia demanded.
“Because you have to go back,” Bliss said.
“What?”
“We need to insert you back into the time line,” Bliss said.
“Fuck that,” Garcia said. “After all I did to mess it up, you’re going to put me back in.”
“It seems only fitting, you fucked it up, you should unfuck it,” Bliss said.
“I am not going back!” Garcia said.
“No going back. Not wanting to be here. Definitely not wanting to be one with the Borg,” Bliss said. “What do you want?”
“You’re okay with the Borg on the ship?!” Garcia asked. “Are you assimilated?” “All being serve the future,” Bliss said. “The Borg are a part of society. There are partial Borgs, full Borgs, Borgs that were assimilated, old school against their will, mostly those are leftovers from the old days, mostly, and Borgs that joined the collective willingly. Some of us log on to the Borg network and operate drones remotely. Sometimes the collective asks us to work missions with them. Tracenta is the Borg representative on board, and is the highest senior officer in charge of computer science.
She doesn’t have, and never has had, physicality. She is mental construct, a sentient AI program. She is usually they ship’s computer interface, but she is not the Enterprise consciousness. She is a highly esteemed member of the crew.” “You are one with the Borg,” Garcia asked.
“The Borg is one with us,” Bliss offered. She fell into a quote: “Time is a funny thing, Pete. Much funnier than Einstein ever figured out.”
“Always,” Garcia said. “Richard Dreyfuss, Holly Hunter… Has anyone ever told you that you resemble a young Audrey Hepburn?”
“Oh, that will get you everywhere with me,” Bliss said.
Garcia and Bliss were suddenly on a beach. He was sitting as he was. Her float was gone and she was standing over him, the sun directly behind her face from his perspective gave her a halo. She offered him a hand up. She waited, patiently. He took it and pulled himself up. She was surprisingly sturdy.
“You ready for the time speech?” Bliss asked.
“Is a wibbly wabbly speech?”
“I love that speech,” Bliss said. “Tenant was my favorite.”
Bliss made a slight push of a finger, and her boots and hose were gone. She walked out towards the water, barefoot. She came to where the tide met the shore and enjoyed the water rolling up over her feet. There was a sense of vertigo as if the water was pulling her back in. Garcia chose to stay in his boots, but he came down to the water line denoted on the darker toned sand.
“Space time is like a giant sand box,” Bliss said. “Nothing is static. Everything changes. Even souls change. They mature. They change. They move on.”
“Where do they go?”
Bliss shrugged. “Different places for different souls. Some stay, help the newbies. There are always newbies. Consider for a moment, ever species you know, they have a life cycle. Souls are no different. They have a life cycle. They are created, they go to school, they grow, they become adults, and they return to the creator. In some ways, this Universe is that. It was born, it dies, it returns to that from which it came, but nothing is loss. Its essence continues. The echo of it continues. It goes again and again, minor variation, evolving into multiplicity of itself. It’s really quite beautiful, if you like fractals and acid trips.”
“You’re joking?” Garcia asked. “You’re going to espouse sex, drugs and rock and roll. Free love and hippie trips?”
“We are on a beach,” Bliss said.
“Are we, or this an illusion?” Garcia asked.
“It’s really impossible to say,” Bliss said.
“No, it’s not. You’re doing this to me,” Garcia said.
“We brought you out of the time stream at the point right before your death,” Bliss said. “We did that. We do that. We do that for everyone. In that regards, you are not special. You’re not the one. We don’t operate like that. That’s just too much ego and hubris. That doesn’t mean you don’t have attributes that we can utilize. Okay, here’s a way of tracking this. In one of your earth simulations, you had a grandfather who was old school. Worked every day of his life. He said you were soft and lazy. You lacked his work ethic. You were different. Later in life, you found yourself with your peers in labor job, and the new kids coming in couldn’t hold mustard to you and your peers. Damn millennial I think you lamented with your peers. They want more breaks. You grew up not wearing helmets and kneepads when riding bikes, these new ones are coddled too
much. Everything is given them. They demand more…”
“They’re not the same…”
“But they had the foundation of your principles, that everyone is equal, and they had fundamental rights,” Bliss said.
“They had no discernment! They had no respect for authority. They would throw tantrums when things didn’t go their way, and were mystified when they were fired,” Garcia said.
“They were different. Society evolved in such a way that more people were egalitarian and sovereign,” Bliss said.
“Which lead to increased political conflict because everyone held the position that they were right and you had to be on the same page you were the enemy,” Garcia said. “That’s what led to the last wars. No one wanted to give. In the end, everyone knew there was problems, huge ecological problems that severely impact society, but we couldn’t agree on the best ways to fix them.”
“Humans tend to advanced best during dire moments in history,” Bliss said.
“Wasn’t the last great war really the end of war?”
“No, then we moved out into space, and started it all over again,” Garcia said.
“There was the hundred year war with the Romulans. Then… What’s the point of this?” “You, your personality, you have a particular flavor that we, in our time period can’t duplicate. We have evolved past you. When we need an agent in the field, we recruit people from that time period because you are best adapted to that social environment, and can tease out subtle nuances. You, personally, have demonstrated a great deal of adaptability in the field. We want to recruit you for an infield mission because we done the math and you have the greatest chance of accomplishing the mission.”
“No,” Garcia said. “I’m done.”
Bliss nodded in a direction, indicating ‘let’s walk.’ She walked, happy with the sun on her face and the wind in her hair. There were sea birds in the air, a species he wasn’t familiar with. It reminded him of Champagne Beach, on the island of Espiritu Santo in Vanuatu. The waters were crystal clear, with hint of sky blue.
“Okay,” Bliss said.
“I want off your ship and out of your clutches,” Garcia said.
“You are off the ship,” Bliss said. “Not yet out of my clutches. We have miles to go yet before we sleep. If you like it here, you can stay.”
“Alone?” Garcia asked.
“No one is ever alone,” Bliss said. “You have the sun. This place has two moons. The beach, the trees, the birds, the fish. There are dolphins here. Might remind you of your youth.”
“You’re just going to isolate me here until I agree to do your bidding?” Garcia asked.
“No,” Bliss said. “You never have to do anything you don’t want. However, you cannot be fully integrated into society until you accomplish certain educational tasks. That takes time.”
“I might die before that happens,” Garcia said.
“There is no death,” Bliss said. “There is only change.” She touched his arm, kindly. There kindness in her smile. “I am always just a whisper away. Call if you need anything.”
Then she was gone. Garcia found himself alone on the beach. Not alone. There were birds and trees. He felt silly talking to them.
“You can always talk to me,” Sophia said. “I am still with you.”
Chapter 5
The rains that came were gentle. His habitat was plastic, transparent, an inflatable dome that held its shape, and for shelter from the weather, and yet have the beauty of his surroundings always available. At night he sometimes forgot the dome was there, as he studied the stars that were not his stars. None of it was familiar. He wanted for nothing, as Sophia could replicate anything. She was the tent. She was his clothes. She was his companion. He walked in nature, discovered critters that were not compatible with him and learned to avoid them. He found eatable plants. Fruits. Vegetables. He caught fish. If there were dolphins, they hadn’t come to visit his beach. There was one octopus that lived in the lagoon that he encountered on his dives. They met frequently enough that there was the hint of silent dialogue.
Bliss visited from time to time. “Do you come by transporter?” he asked.
“Iconian gateways are the standard of travel,” Bliss offered. “We use transporters for extracting people from the timeline, or for making clones, enabling souls to have divergent pathways.” Apparently this super star fleet had access to multiple timelines and could make copies to do catch and release into the wilds of unexplored territory. Sometimes they captured soul just for a respite, or to educate. She explained that the
‘Captain’s Bar,’ was something they established.
“You make it sound like the body is nothing more than a container for a fluidic substance,” Garcia said.
“Light, not fluid,” Bliss said. “Bodies are more akin to crystals, fiber optic cables that transmit soul energy. That’s one perspective. The other perspective is that the body is actually an entity in and of itself. It’s a host to soul, and we share symbiotic lives with them. That takes as much time getting use to as the idea we don’t have conscious awareness of decisions until after the fact. Most people don’t like hearing we are not who we appear to be. Hell, you can’t exist as you are without being host to a variety of flora and fauna. Reality isn’t something any one person can grasp in an entirety at any one perspective. We need all of our perspectives together to get a complete picture. We are a synergistic, symbiotic multiplicity with the entire Universal structure, not individuated units. But, paradoxically, we are also individuals, and even one particle contains the entirety within itself. It’s all in you, as well. As above, so below. We are one.” “With the Borg!” Garcia said.
“Even with the Borg,” Bliss said. “They are not like you remember them. They changed because of humanity. Because of Picard. Because of you.”
“Yeah, yeah, I am the greatest American hero,” Garcia said, sarcastically. “Now, if only you would learn to fly,” Bliss said, not perturbed by his sarcasm. He was angry, but he seemed to appreciate she knew his references. “You should do some reading. You have access to everything we do, with a small caveat; you will find some things can only unlock on reading a particular order of things.”
“So, you’re railroading me into a philosophy,” Garcia said.
“Perhaps,” Bliss said. “I can appreciate that perspective. I find love a better perspective. Fight, flight, or love. What do you prefer, victim or survivor?” “Bitch,” Garcia said.
“I love you, too,” Bliss said. And disappeared.
After a late dinner, he started a camp fire and sat by it, in a beach chair the Sophia provided just for the occasion. He prodded the fire with a bamboo staff he had collected from the wilds. On the ground were assortment of lengths of bamboo that he had tried to shape into flutes. None of them held the tonality he had wanted. One by one he threw them into the fire.
“No more music, then?” Sophia said.
“For now,” Garcia said.
“I could make you a piano,” Sophia offered.
“And a concert hall?”
“It would take a moment,” Sophia said, laughing. “It would have to be a
permanent structure to meet your requirements.”
“I don’t intend to be here forever,” Garcia said. “You could give me wings to get me off this rock.”
“Pocket starship is presently disabled,” Sophia said.
“You could override it,” Garcia said.
“I am not going to,” Sophia said.
He prodded the fire, shifting pieces. He threw another bamboo flute in, along with another log. It popped. Sparks tried to escape, but died on a beach still wet. Freda, the octopus watched. Its head and eyes sometimes came up out of the water to watch the stranger on the beach. It was really an interesting creature, and would come up as far as the tide would allow. There was stone with a hollow in that kept water and it would sometimes stay there as the tide withdrew, always escaping just before the water had receded too far from the stone. Laying in the shallow tides it emitted the perfect glow, mirroring the starlight. It was practically invisible. The predators that would eat it, they didn’t see it, but Garcia had discerned it. Or perhaps Freda had allowed him to see her. The glow was the product of luminescent bacteria that lived in its gut. During the day, it built up the bacteria and by night it had sufficient mass that it could distribute the bacteria throughout its system and produce just enough light to mirror the ambient light of stars and or moons. And then, when daylight broke over the lagoon, it expelled almost all the bacteria from its body, and would burry itself in the sand. Throughout the day, the bacteria would re-populate its gut and by night it would have the critical mass needed to come back to light. Garcia could set a clock to its biorhythm matching the day light cycle. This education moment brought to you by Sophia, the tricorder. Garcia was amused by her spin. There was an octopus on Earth that shared this symbiotic relationship with luminescent bacteria.
“Who was your greatest love?” Sophia asked.
“I hate that question,” Garcia said. “If I had a dozen kids, would I love one more than the others?”
“Some people have favorites, even among kids,” Sophia said.
Garcia acknowledge that as apparent truth with a nod. “The thing is, every relationship brought me something. Rivan taught me love, truly deep compassion for self and others. Suzanne, she gave me music. Kitara helped me with discipline and perseverance. N’elent, she was humorous strength. Losira, knowledge, light…” There was pang of loss.
“They gave you these things or the echoed a part of spirit you already held?” Sophia asked.
“I suppose they enhanced what was there,” Garcia agreed. “Different personalities in different context. Context seems to be everything. Context unlocks meaning, creates meaning, changes meaning…” “Do you want to visit Rivan?”
“Story board book?” Garcia asked. “My timeline?”
Sophia took him there before he had committed to an answer. Planet Edo was a paradise, and protected by a Guardian. He had direct, personal, subjective evidence this was a colony the result of V’Ger joining with Dexter through the Ilea unit. This was humanity’s children, with something extra. Would they exist in the present timeline?
Would Kirk go up against V’Ger again?
Rivan was present, with friends and family sharing food and laughter. She was happy to be home. Their baby was with her, in forward papoose, a simple folding of cloth that held it close to her body. This child would know love. It would be adored and protected. Rivan was a leader, here. A teacher. She taught them about the worlds beyond and shared stories of her life and of one love.
“Just one?” They didn’t understand that.
“Is this something we should practice?”
Rivan was silent on hearing that for a long moment. “There are advantages to such an arrangement. Intimacy is unparalleled. It requires a greater level of discipline and strength. It offers opportunity to practice forgiveness. I don’t see how it’s sustainable. People mature, they change. We change because of our relationships. Childhood relationships are different than adolescent relationships. Adolescent relationships are different than adult relationships. In adulthood, we have a variety of relationship needs that changes over our lives. And they don’t live as long we do. What I gathered from the literature, no one that lives past a hundred remains monogamous. The down sides of their path is there drama, jealousy, and fighting, all because they have expectations. When they limit their expression for love, they forget they ar