The inky blackness extended far out in every direction. The only light was his. The small, yet bright, lamp that had been attached to his helmet. It illuminated the immediate area, but barely as much as his arm could reach in front of him. Every so often, as he spun gently in the weightlessness, he thought he saw something far off but whenever he turned in the direction he thought it was, there was nothing.
He spoke non-stop as he drifted through the nothingness he had arrived in. His capsule – the powers that be refused to call it a ship – was behind him somewhere, outside of his torchlight. He reserved a small portion of his brain to worry about that while the rest of it focused on what was ahead: finding something – anything – out here that gave him, and the people watching through the live feed on his helmet camera, an indication of what they could be dealing with.
The gentle spinning of the man all the way out there was stabilised by the time it made it back to the screens at home.
The main screen was a massive 100+ inch television that was mounted to the wall on one side of a huge office. It constantly showed a live feed from their explorer. For the last few hours it had been showing a slow motion shot of the mans foot as he spun wherever he was. Currently no one was watching it, and the person whose office it was was not there. No one saw the single twinkling light come into frame in the top left and immediately go out of frame on the left hand side.
“How do we justify this?” she asked. She ran her hand through her messy black hair and looked up, almost desperate, at the others around the table. “We cant keep him out there forever.”
“He isnt out there, not really,” the younger man said, his eyes glued to the tablet in front of him. Everyone assumed he was watching the live feed. “Its a projection. Kind of.”
“He’s definitely out there,” an older man said. His was the office with the huge TV in it. “That was the danger we always faced.”
The woman turned in her spot to the large window behind her which overlooked what looked like a large hospital ward. Below the window a dozen or so beds lined the far wall, each with any number of cables, wires and tubing attached to their occupants.
“But hes right there,” she said. “I can see him.”
“Physically,” the old man nodded, standing. He joined her at the window overlooking the patients. “But nothing more. His entire self, everything that makes him him isnt there. We know that now; he solved that problem for us.”
“He doesnt know that,” she said.
“No,” the old man said. “I dont think we can tell him either.”
“We cant,” the younger man said. His eyes still firmly locked on whatever was on his screen. “The threeway time difference is unnavigable.”
“Threeway?” the woman asked, turning to face the table again.
“Our real time progression,” the young man said, ticking off his thumb. “The time our explorers experience within the,” he paused. “The field. And the time their experiences actually take. We have no way of communicating with him under those circumstances.”
“But him with us?” she said. The two men shrugged.
“Hes recording, hopefully,” the older man said. “But we dont know if its even possible to record anything out there. Youve seen the screens. No light except his own. No motion except his own. We dont even know if he can breathe out there. Or if hes already dead.”
“How wouldnt we know if hes dead? Hes sending us a live feed.”
“We dont know where we are though. That feed could have been an hour ago, or it could be something thats happening right on the point of now. Its a jigsaw puzzle. His head is piecing it together for the stream, but some of it might still be … missing.”
“And he agreed to this?”
“They all did,” the young man said, finally looking up at the woman.
Sleep happens to everyone. Eventually. Even the most insomniac of us sleep at some point. It might not be for long, but it happens. Waking up from sleep, though. That isnt as guaranteed.
Right now, in a specially constructed hospital somewhere in the midwest of America, a dozen people – men, women, young and old, various ethnicities and intelligences – lay in custom designed beds sleeping. Their sleep was not a natural sleep, they had been induced. A sleep had been created for them. And in this sleep, they dreamed.
It had been hoped that each of them would be able to lucid dream, to be able to control themselves within whatever they ended up dreaming. To fly around and interact with this world. So far though, only one of them had even dreamed at all. He did have a limited amount of lucidity in the dream, which was great, but there was nothing there for him to interact with.
They had also hoped that each of the volunteers would have been able to share the dream, to be able to interact with each other. To help and protect. No one back in the hospital could answer any of the questions about why the very specific expectations had not been met.
“I dont know how long its been,” he said. “I dont feel like any time at all has passed, but I have counted some of my revolutions. So things are happening. Things happening means time passing. So they tell me. There is still nothing here. No floor, or ground. No sky. No items. No people, which I suppose is a good thing. Im meant to avoid anyone except other humans. But how do I know if the other dreamers are going to look human in here? Do I look human in here? I remember when I was a kid, I would want to be a cat or a big dog. Could I dream that I was something like that? Would that show up? I dont know.”
“Im pretty sure there is something out there. Its a long way off and I dont see it very often, but Im sure theres a light somewhere out there. Im making sure that I sweep the camera as far as I can get it. Its streaming back to the hospital, along with, I hope, this message. Theres a light out there. More than that I cant tell you. Is it one of the others? Dont know. Is it a threat? Dont know. I dont know anything about it. Ill see if I can follow it. I dont think Im moving that fast, but its possible that it flies on by again.”
“How do I get home? They never really wanted to explain that. Said something about waking up. Which, sure, I guess. But do I wake up? Or do they wake me up? They put me to sleep, said I would sleep as long as was necessary. Im not sure my continuing out here is necessary. But dreams only last about a second, dont they? If we dream, we dream. So I should have been asleep long enough to have dreamed. Im getting a bit scared now.”
“I saw the light again. Its bright and a sharp white. I stayed with it for about three seconds, I suppose. Counted as it passed. I cant tell if its moving as well, or if its movement is just because of my spinning. I dont know how I could tell. Would they see it? Would they wake me if it was a problem?”
There was excitement at the hospital. Someone had woken up. Kind of. She had been living on the street before they picked her up for this experiment and while she didnt really understand what she was meant to be doing, she did understand the wad of cash that had been thrust at her as an incentive to go with the strange people in their black van.
She had been the hardest to make the custom medication for. But she had fallen asleep as expected. But it had not last as long as the others.
She was awake now and screaming at the top of her lungs in a language no one understood. It was not her native language, nor any that anyone who worked at the hospital recognised.
Orderlies struggled to tie her limbs to the bed while techs removed all the needles and other bits and pieces from her arms and neck. Her eyes were open, but her eyeballs were rolled far back in her head and would not straighten.
“Can you tie her head down?” someone yelled.
“Im not sending my people near her mouth,” a voice responded.
“Shes going to tear the restraints,” an orderly shouted. “We should-”
“Do not finish that sentence,” a well dressed man said, striding across the room. “This is a valuable asset and we cannot afford to lose it.”
The new arrival stood at the bed and cast his eyes all over the restrained woman. Suddenly her eyes rolled forward, locked on him and she calmed down. She started speaking quieter, still in an unrecognisable language.
“Seems like you made an impression on her,” the well dressed mans assistant said.
“Hmm, yes, another thing to note. Take videos, photos. Everything. Get her folder. She never existed in this facility.”
“Sir,” the assistant said and got to work as the well dressed man looked up at the windows overlooking the patients and made for the stairs.
“Showtime,” the younger man said sarcastically as the well dressed man looked up at them.
“Hes going to take her,” the woman said, more interested in what the assistant was doing.
“More than likely,” the older man nodded, calling them both back to sit down. “We have about fifteen seconds, so listen carefully.
In a little under ten seconds, the old man had explained everything to the other two; a total breach of protocol and something neither of the younger two would have expected from him. Apparently this was what he considered to be an emergency.
“All,” the well dressed man said as a greeting as he entered the room and took a seat, nodding at each in turn before placing his hands on the table. “I am taking possession of one of your subjects,” he said.
“Patients,” the woman corrected.
“Subjects,” the older man and the well dressed one said at the same time.
“Regardless,” the well dressed man said. “I am taking possession. I will have it moved to my own facility for further study.”
“Why?” the woman asked.
The well dressed man looked at her again and the nominally friendly look he had used before was gone. Now there was only determination. “Because people like her are the true reason your facility and the others like it are allowed to exist. I own you and all of this and if I say I am taking something, then I am taking it. The woman, or whoever she was before, will be expunged from your records. It will be as like she never existed, and she certainly wasnt here. I will be gone within the hour.” He stood and nodded at them again before leaving.
“Well,” the older man said. “It was always going to happen.”
“You expected that?”
“To a point. I expected him to take our success, though, not a failure.”
The woman looked down over the patients again. The woman who had woken up was already gone, an empty space and disconnected wires the only thing that would ever show she was there at all.