Inspired

Kala sat at the terminal, ready to type, just as soon as the ideas started flowing. She had thought about this for years, and here she was at last. Still, nothing. No bolt of inspiration, no moment of “A-ha,” not even a glimmer of an idea. In retrospect, this seemed like a bad idea.

Maybe if I describe my characters first. She began to type. “161 cm, 58kg, euro complexion, bushy medium-blonde curls….” Kala sighed and deleted what she wrote. I just described my mother. The blank screen taunted her for forty minutes until her comm chimed to remind her the group was meeting again.

She closed the terminal and headed back down to the meeting room. The atmosphere was all too cheerful for her current mood, so she continued past to the exterior door. The scene before her, a wide avenue lined with rows of identical blocks could be almost any city in the Federation. If she had walked the one kilometer to the opposite exit of the block, she would be standing by a lake right now. Surrounded by trees derived from birch, alder, and spruce, the lake boasted the best freshwater fishing off Terra. That’s what the block information screens said, anyhow.

With only a hint of a decision Kala began walking to the north side of the block. If she took the outside route, she wouldn't need to pass by the workshop to get to the lake. There was a certain novelty in walking outside a block.

Self-driving vehicles whispered past with no apparent order, traveling in what seemed random directions on the avenues. She stood and watched for a few minutes and realized how little attention she paid to such things. Those traveling farthest used the center of the avenue, and proximity to the shoulder told one where each would turn, and in what direction. What had seemed random chaos coalesced into an intricate dance. The algorithms that piloted the taxis, busses and delivery vehicles allowed them to avoid one another while maintaining the most efficient speed and travel distance possible. How did people ever steer these things manually? It must’ve killed millions.

Kala walked slowly, taking in the surrounding sights. She marveled that for her entire life she hadn’t paid attention to the world around her. Up close, the blocks looked impossibly tall at one hundred stories. Those in the distance, however, appeared as featureless, squat grey boxes, the square kilometer footprint far exceeding the height.

Rounding the corner to the west side of the block the lake opened to her left, beginning halfway down the block’s width and continuing south for another two kilometers. The only beach access was here, the rest of the lake guarded by the trees genetically engineered to survive on this planet. There were fish in the lake, also genetically engineered to survive here. That people stocked the lake with living fish and other people hunted them made no sense to her. She could go to any grocery in any block and pick up lab-grown fish, poultry, pork, beef... any meat desired, and nothing had to die. Short the funds for that, one could pick up the subsidized meat-replacement protein in any style, although the fish-style was rather tasteless and soft.

She walked right on the water’s edge, not concerned that the lake was lapping at her feet, soaking her shoes through. The air smelled green, somehow, as though the trees were painting the sky. Nice image, Kala, but I’m not trying to write poetry.

“Hey, Kala, are you…?”

The voice startled Kala out of her reverie. She turned to face the interloper. “Oh, Tal. What’re you doing out here?”

“I’m out here to ask you that same question.” Concern crossed his brow. “Why weren’t you in the group?” Tal raised a hand. “Wait, let me guess. You didn’t finish a paragraph to share, and you were… embarrassed… sad… afraid you’d seem out of place?”

“I didn’t finish a single word. All the talk about write what you know, find your voice, don’t be afraid of sounding foolish… it’s not working.” Kala crossed her arms tight across her chest. “I know what I want to write, but I can’t.”

“Of course you can. You just have to believe it.” Tal put an arm around her. “We’re just trying to convince you of that.”

“You don’t understand.” Kala pointed at a bench up the beach a few meters. “Sit?”

They sat in silence for several minutes before Tal spoke up. “Help me understand.”

“The story I want to write is about a conspiracy. What if all the crazy conspiracy theories about Dome 412 are almost true? What if… the truth is closer to those theories than the official reports?”

“That’s an idea. Ideas are easy, execution is the work. Remember that from yesterday’s talk?” He cocked his head to the side. “Perhaps it just feels too ambitious to begin with. How about starting with something a little lighter?”

“You still don’t understand. It’s the only thing I can think about, but I can’t write it. This story gets out, I end up in prison in the Oort Cloud.” She sighed. “Ok, now I sound crazy.”

“Well,” Tal chuckled, “I don't expect you’d get locked in Federation Max for writing a story.”

“I always wanted to be a writer.” Kala looked across the lake, afraid that Tal was looking at her with pity for her sorry mental state. “It’s really all I dreamed about. Life got in the way though. Career. I made my home in the Federal Defense Force for twelve years.”

“What was your job there? Police? Fire? Combat?”

“Criminal Investigations. Dome 412 was the case that made me quit.” Tears pooled in her eyes. “The evidence we had was… destroyed. All of it. The official story was the one the media assumed and reported from the beginning. Over forty-nine thousand civilians and Federal troops dead. Zero separatist terrorists. I held the truth in my hands and let my superiors destroy it.”

“Ah, but the official reports said all the terrorists were all killed.”

“No, it said there were no surviving terrorists. The reason wasn’t that they were all killed, the reason is they were never there.” Kala bit back the sob that wanted to escape her throat. “Didn’t it seem strange to you that the official report redacted the number of terrorists killed, but not the number of troops or civilians?”

Tal leaned in close. “Look, Kala. I like you, you’re a good person, so here’s my final advice. If you have to drink yourself blind or take hallucinogens or beat your head against the wall to think about something else, do it. Come back to the retreat and write some inane kak about talking animals or ghosts or time travel… anything really. Because if you don’t, if you leave the retreat without writing some non-threatening, safe thing, you’ll never get to tell your story.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means, Major Perrin, I’m not an aspiring writer, I’m a CI investigator. I want the story out too, but I wasn’t there. As long as you write anything here that’s not about 412, I can go back to my superiors and tell them you aren’t a threat. But I have to show them something.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because the truth is bigger than either of us, and I don’t want to be the one to shut it up.” Tal took a deep breath. “You start writing, you keep writing, and you get good. Really good. Get your name out there even if you spend every credit you earn on marketing. You have to be well-known before you can write that story safely. You may still go to FedMax, but the truth will be out there.”

“They’ll disavow me, smear my name..., say I’m crazy. You know that.”

“They can try, for sure. It’ll be much harder after you’ve written a few popular novels. Your service records will be public by then. They should always be a part of your marketing materials.” He counted off on his fingers. “Nine commendations, youngest person to make Major in Criminal Investigations, glowing reviews from your superiors, all of it.”

She looked back to Tal. “I’m right back where we started, unable to come up with anything else to write.”

“Ok, writing assignment: a child, found stowed away on an interstellar flight. Why, how, all that stuff.”

“Thank you, Tal.”

“For the prompt? Don’t mention it.”

“For not sending me to prison.”

His eyebrow shot up. “Another of the things you should file under ‘never mention it again.’”  He chuckled.

Kala stood. “Walk back with me? I think I need to sit down and write now. I have an idea.”

“The stowaway?”

“No.” She offered her hand. “And before you go asking, I won’t tell. You’ll just have to wait until the draft reading tomorrow morning.”