Away

“The room is unfamiliar. I don’t know how I got here.”

“Let’s try again Ryan. Tell us where you are, and how you got there.”

I take a deep breath, hold it for a beat, then let it out through my nose. The voice in my head is asking the impossible. 

“I’m in a room,” I tell the voice again. I think I would’ve lost count of how many times we’ve gone back and forth with this if numbers existed here, but I have this sick feeling in my gut that they don’t. I just know the voice keeps asking and I keep trying to answer. “It’s got walls…sort of, and something not totally unlike a ceiling, and a floor-ish abstract kind of thing that I’m standing on.” 

I’m not exactly standing. More like an equivalent of standing, but I don’t even go there.

“Describe the room.”

“I can’t.”

The voice doesn’t say anything back for what seems like a long time and the first tendril of fear wraps around my heart. The voice is a pain in the ass with its incessant questions, but it’s all I have. Without the voice, I’m alone…and a very long way from home. Things are coming back now. At least I know who I am and if not where, I know I’m farther away than any living being has a right to be.

“We don’t understand what you mean when you tell us you can’t describe the room, Ryan.”

“Dammit, I keep telling you, it’s unfamiliar.”

“Of course it’s unfamiliar. You’ve never been there, and neither have we. That’s why we need you to describe it for us.”

And that’s when I loose it. I yell at the voice in my head as I flail around, spinning, with my eyes so wide they feel like they might fall out. Like…if I could open them just a little more, maybe they’d work like they are supposed to and recognize whatever they are seeing. I grasp with my hands in my tantrum, trying to express the inexpressible, to describe the indescribable. Somewhere in my fevered thoughts I picture myself as a young Captain Kirk in an ancient Star Trek episode trying to wrap his head around some new shit storm he’s in the middle of. But I don’t have a team of creatives making props and costumes so the viewers at home can be amazed at the strange new world he’s discovered. 

“It’s alien damn it! Un-freaking familiar. As in not familiar. I can’t use a simile, I can’t tell a story or an analogy so you can relate. I can’t describe the room, but I know I’m in a room.”

“Would you like us to pull you out Lieutenant Ryan? Bring you home?”

“NO!”

“Copy that. Just know we’re monitoring you closely. We can snatch you back in a heartbeat.”

It’s my turn to be quiet. And maybe the voice can feel a little of my fear because it seems less demanding when it asks if maybe I just want to rest for a minute.

But I have a better idea.

“Ask me specific questions about the room,” I say.

I can almost hear the conference as whoever comprises the voice confers with each other. They must like my proposal.

“Okay Ryan, can you see the door?”

“Negative. No door.”

“Well how did you get into the room?”

I grit my teeth. “I told you…I don’t know how I got here. Try to keep up. Ask me another.”

“How many walls comprise the room?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is it a cube?”

“I don’t think a cube would fit in this room.”

A pause. Then, “Ryan, that doesn’t make sense.”

“Thank you, I concur. Ask me why I don’t think a cube would fit in this room.”

“Why wouldn’t a cube fit in the room Ryan?”

“Because I don’t think cubes can even exist in whatever place or dimension you sent me.”

A short pause. Then, “you’re saying you believe you are in an extra-dimensional space. Do we have that right Lieutenant?”

“I think that’s about as close as we’re going to get. And for your next question, I have no idea how I got in here.”

“Why don’t you go over the events leading up to this point in time?”

That was an interesting choice of words. I’m pretty sure time is like its brother the cube and just isn’t allowed here, but I play along. I think back to where I was and what I was doing before I ended up wherever I am now and…poof. I’m out of the room and back on the plain. The sky impossibly black. There is no atmosphere, and in place of the billions of stars one would expect to see, just one speck of light almost too dim to perceive.

Well shit…that was weird. 

I speak to the voice, “can you hear me?”

“Loud and clear sir, we got you. The biocore appears to be working as advertised.”

“Good, because I just re-appeared on the plain.”

Another pause. “Re? Appeared? You just arrived.”

“No, you just asked me to retrace the steps that led me to the room, and as soon as I thought about it, I just reappeared where I was before I was in the room.”

“Lieutenant Ryan, what room are we talking about here? Have you observed a structure of some kind?” Excitement filled the voice. “Because that would be a first.” 

I say nothing.

The voice says, “Maybe the comms aren’t working as well as we thought.”

I could hear a bit of nervous humor in the voice, but they stopped short of laughing. I feel like laughing, but am afraid it wouldn’t be the happy kind. Thinking about that makes me realize I didn’t know who I was hearing. I knew the voice was some kind of command, and I was on some kind of…mission? Or trip? But things are getting a bit fuzzy in the understanding department.

“Who is this anyhow?”

“Sir?”

“Who am I talking to, and how’d you get in my head? And while we’re at it, just where the hell am I?”

Another voice spoke up. “This is Major Hans Schroder of the US Space Force…and your best friend by the way. Ryan, are we okay?”

Both names are completely unfamiliar to me. This has got to be some kind of…something. 

“Okay…and now my other question? Mind enlightening me…friend? Just exactly where am I supposed to be?”

“Relax buddy, we discussed this during your training.” The voice was exaggerating his calmness. It was infuriating. “We all knew you might experience some slight amnesia being this close to the edge of observable spacetime, but the docs here are certain it won’t last long so just hang in there. 

“The protocol is to explain to you the who’s what’s and where’s. It’s supposed to help you get back on track. I have a narrative I’ll read, so hang with me, and you’ll begin to regain your memory.

I listen as I stare at the tiny dim speck. It’s the only thing to look at. To observe. I wonder what it is, but I know what it is. I just do not accept it. I cannot accept it.

“You are Lieutenant Ryan of the USSF Quantum Displacement Unit. In a nutshell, our unit produces a wormhole, or gate of sorts here at our base adjacent to CERN in Geneva.

“You are a member of an elite team of travelers who are trained to observe and report. Due to the nature of quantum displacement, video, audio, or any kind of data-recording instrumentation is useless. Only biological entities are able to observe. We are communicating through a cortical node implant. 

"This is what you do, Ryan. And in my opinion, you are the best rift rat we’ve ever had. That’s why we sent you on this mission. 

“We’ve been all over the Milky Way, knocked on the door of Andromeda, and visited hundreds of neighboring galaxies as well. You are the first in the unit, out of thousands of successful missions to be transported to a point we believed would be right on the edge our current observable universe. You’re way out there kid. That’s why it’d be real helpful if you’d describe what you see. We’re going to pull you back in just under five minutes.”

That actually makes sense and while I still don’t recognize or remember the name, the voice does sound a bit familiar now. I guess that’s a good sign.

“I see a tiny dim speck.”

“Okay, that’s good Ryan. I’m assuming the speck is in the sky?”

“Sky? There is no sky. Just the speck.”

When Hans or whoever doesn’t say anything, I go ahead state the obvious. “I think we overshot a bit.”

“Explain.”

“You’re going to make me say it? Fine. I’m pretty sure that tiny dim speck is the observable universe. I think you sent me a bit farther than you intended.”

“Stand by Ryan.”

I stand by. Then, “Ryan, we’re going to stick with the program for now. We are resuming the observation protocol. You said you were on a plain. Can you describe the plain?”

“No. I can’t see anything but the speck. The only reason I know I’m on the plain is because I have to be standing on…something.”

“Can you walk around?”

“Yes, I can walk. I can’t see shit, but I can walk.”

“Very good Lieutenant Ryan, just walk around and observe. We’ll be bringing you back home in about 10 minutes. Just as soon as we get powered up for the pull.”

“You said 5 minutes. Now it’s 10?”

“That’s correct Ryan. 8 minutes. Time is of the essence. Please follow the plan and report your observations.”

I decide to ignore the time variations. I try to ignore the nagging memory way at the back of my mind that screams, they don’t have to power up for a pull, they can snatch you back at a moment’s notice, but can’t quell it. 

With my arms stretched in front of me like walking in a dark house and not wanting to run face first into a wall, I touch something. It feels solid, but fluid. I don’t have words to describe its feeling. I push a little and pop. I’m in a room.

“Lieutenant Ryan, is everything okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine.”

“Please report.”

“I’m in a room. And there’s light…or at least some kind of radiance. More like a glow, but not really.”

“Can you give us a little more? Describe the room please.”

“The room is unfamiliar. I don’t know how I got here.”

“Let’s try again Ryan. Tell us where you are, and how you got there.”

I take a deep breath, hold it for a beat, then let it out through my nose. The voice in my head is asking the impossible.