Chapter 4
As Vega and Mira followed Hamal through the trap door of the room in which they had been held captive, they entered a dark tunnel area. The 3 of them walked in silence trying to get as far away from unconsciousness alien before Vega finally thought it was safe and spoke up.
"Hamal, You're… you're the one that left the notebook of conspiracy theories aren't you?"
"Ahhhh... so you my theory is right and that's why you're here" Hamal responded.
"What? What are you talking about."
"Don't you think it's strange? We live in a city where everyone just accepts things as how they are. That some strange entity known as GIA just controls all the parts of our lives from who we interact with, to what our assigned jobs are, to where we live. And not a single person knows or is curious as to why?"
"Yeah, that is strange now that you mention it…" Vega said, "Especially with how our video games and books depict humans compared to how we live."
"The only explanation I could come up with was memory wiping" Hamal said, "and it looks like there're triggers for when they do it too."
"Yeah that's what the alien back there said. He said he's wiped my memories 3 times already. But I don't remember any of that."
"Of course not, because they wipe away and replace your memories along with other people that you've known"
"Wait, but that means," Mira gasped, "How… how many times do you think we've seen them already?"
"Well 3 times for your partner here."
"Vega my name's Vega."
"Right yeah, 3 times for Vega, and if what the alien said about innate suspicious personality traits is true, could be up to 100 times or more for me.
"That's crazy," Vega said in a very uneasy tone.
"Yeah, I know right? I don't know for sure what they're able to erase but your name might not have even been Vega your whole life… mine might not even have been Hamal."
"This is giving me an existential crisis."
"Welcome to the club," Hamal chuckled, "Of course who knows how many times you've had the same existential crisis."
"My trick in these situations is not to think about it too much!" Mira interrupted, "Let's just say we are who we are fabricated or not. Did you really fake your own death Hamal? That's what Vega read in your notebook."
"That's correct, I'm not exactly sure how they monitor us but at the very least it seems to me talks about conspiracy theories are safe in the confines of our own apartments. All else aside, the memories I have with Lyra forming these theories are still genuine. Who knows, we might have discovered the aliens a multitude of times."
Hamal then held up his right hand which looked heavily scarred at the wrist area. Under his wrist watch however was indeed a bottle cap between the wrist watch and his skin.
"By the way, I had to peel off a layer of my skin to get this to work."
"Wow! Hardcore" Mira said impressed, "Vega could never!"
"Anyway," Vega said slightly annoyed, "Where exactly did they take you too?"
He was interrupted however as an extremely strong scent began to fill the air.
"Ewwwww what hell's that smell" Mira said covering her nose.
"That's the smell of dead bodies." Hamal said, "And it just so happens to be the answer to your question Vega."
The trio arrived at a door at the end of the hall. As they opened the door Mira and Vega nearly barfed as they saw inside several dead bodies that lay one on top of another compacted into one giant container with wheels.
"How… how long have they been in there for?" Vega asked holding his nose.
"I've been here 3 days and this is where they dumped me at," Hamal said. As Vega and Mira observed the room they noticed 2 doors one on each side.
"Where do those lead?" Vega asked stepping towards one of them. In his mind, all he could think about was getting to a place as far away as possible from the dead bodies container.
"Well one of them leads to where we get our food from." Hamal responded heading towards one of the doors opening it. Inside, a conveyer belt could be seen starting with a tunnel from within the building. On the belt small cardboard boxes, the exact type of box that Vega had recognized as the boxes given to them for food rations by drones, were being transported and dropped off onto a container where there was a drone ready to push it.
"You hungry?" Hamel asked stepping towards the conveyor belt and grabbing a box.
"Wait, won't the drones…"
"Nah these things are dumb as hell. They're only designed to do one task apparently." Hamal responded walking up and grabbing a box. At the corner a busted up drone lay with one of its arms missing.
"They won't fight back, that's how I got this here metal rod," Hamal said flipping up the metal rod in the air he had used to knock the green alien unconscious.
"Damn that's crazy… where do you think this food comes from?"
"Haven't figured that part out yet," Hamal responded pointing towards the end of the conveyer belt which lead into a tunnel outside the room but in a space that a human could not fit through.
"I see" Vega said still perplexed at the entire situation. There were no other doors in their current room so holding his nose once again, Vega opened the door and asked where the other door in the room with the dead bodies lead to.
"Honestly, I'm not sure. I assume it must lead to whatever is outside of Polaris. In the 3 days I've been locked here the first time that door opened was earlier today."
As the three walked closer to the door they noticed just to the side of it was a small screen.
"There's some sort of identification code on this panel," Hamal said going up to the screen, the only time it opened I was hiding when I saw the green alien brought you two in while you were unconscious. "
"Shit yeah, you think he'll wake up soon?" Mira asked turning around towards the tunnel the trio used to enter the dead bodies room.
"Yeah I don't think that was a fatal blow, and I'm sure there're going to be more like him coming." Hamal said, "Honestly, we should hide somewhere. I have no idea what's really going on but I'm sure someone has to eventually open this door again. Then we ambush them and exit."
"Ewww… but that means we have to hide in this room," Mira shrieked trying her best to contain herself from barfing
"Yeah it means we have to hide in the dead bodies room missy. But you see any other options right now?" Hamal asked.
"What? I don't know. Aren't you supposed to be like the wise old sage or something that deux ex machinas us out of here?" Mira asked
Hamal chuckled, "You watch too many movies, I'm just a regular human like the two of you. Now hurry behind the cart, I think I hear some footsteps.
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As Irena got off the subway at the stop past where the other humans on Polaris were allowed to go, she entered a room with two doors one of which was labeled "Tunnel to Fetna Rooms" and one labeled "Exit". For a moment she briefly reached her hand out towards the exit before stopping herself.
"No… they'll just kill me like they said," Irena thought to herself before retracting her hand, "But is that really so bad compared to doing this forever?"
Despite the intrusive thoughts, however she quickly opened the other door and started heading down a tunnel. At the final end of the tunnel, a sign with a small screen panel next do it that read "Body Disposal" could be seen. She put her wrist watch onto the screen and a sensor scanned it before the door opened.
She prepared herself for combat but surprisingly no one could be seen from within the body disposal room.
"Okay, on three we jumped her," Hamal whispered. The trio that were actually still in the room hid behind the disposable bodies container.
"1… 2…. 3!"
The trio jumped out in unison to try and restrain Irena. They couldn't reach her however as Irena athletically invaded their attack by summersaulting backwards.
"I… Irena?" Mira muttered in shock.
"You know her missy?" Hamal asked slightly confused.
"Yeah, we know her," Vega said, "She's my friend's partner, and the one that brought me here."
He then turned his gaze to Irena.
"Explain yourself Irena! Are you an alien? Why did you take us here."
Irena let out a long sigh.
"It doesn't matter, you'll have your memories wiped anyways."
"Not on my watch!" Mira shouted running towards Irena who again averted her attack. Despite the trio's best efforts, Irena was faster than all of them as she did a number of acrobatic moves to dodge their attempts to restrain her.
After about 10 minutes of the cat and mouse charade, Mira, Hamal, and Vega began breathing heavily from exhaustion.
Irena however did not seem to be worn out at all.
"You guys are lucky you know," She said, "I wish I could get my memory wiped, to be always ignorant of everything like you guys."
"We just want to know the truth of this place." Hamal said exasperated. For an 80 year man he tried his best to keep up with the rest but was clearly more tired than everyone else.
"The truth?" Irena snickered, "The truth is we're just cattle. Cattle that superior alien beings use for fuel when we die."
"Is that where these bodies are going?" Mira asked.
"Indeed, it's all part of the cycle of humanity," Irena said as she turned to Vega, "I've already seen you go through it 3 times Vega, I would tell you to give up but you won't remember this conversation anyway so not really a point to it."
"What… what makes you so special then?" Vega asked, "Why do you keep your memories and why are you working with the aliens?"
Irena gave out another sigh, another question she had heard a number of times.
"Believe me if I could wipe my memory of what I knew and stay ignorant of everything I would." Irena responded, "But I can't, the memory wipe doesn't work on me for some reason. The aliens told me I had a specific mental condition preventing it."
"Help us then," Vega said "You have access to the exit door right? We can get out of here. See the outside world, see the stars even."
"I can't," Irena said, "It's a simple deal I have with the aliens. I do as they say or they kill me, and I don't want to die."
"So you'll be their dog and keep humans as cattle then?" Hamal asked speaking up.
"If you knew how powerful these aliens are, you'd think of yourself as a dog or cattle compared to them anyway." Irena said coldly. "Give up, there's no point. If you knew the truth about humans and the outside world you'd treasure a life locked in this city."
"No… no that's wrong. That's not what humans are meant to do." Vega said, "We're meant to explore, to discover what else is out there, and to see the stars. That's… that's what the humans on Earth did."
"Humans on Earth?" Irena said giving out another chuckle, "Earth, the planet I'm from Nestbula, and other planets with human colonies from the history books and video games you play? They're lies. Aliens controlled all of them from the start in order to have someone else gather resources and create colonies for them and to foster a large population of humans. For beings as omniscient as they are we might as well not even be cattle even, we might as well be ants"
"What? How is that possible?"
"Oh no don't get me wrong, those things you read about did happen it's just…" Irena began but as she did the door behind them leading to the interrogation room suddenly open.
"You know what never mind it won't matter soon."
Vega and Mira turned around to see who was at the door but quickly fell to their knees in pain as a sharp shock hit their wrists. The green alien knocked out from earlier had arrived as well. He had a few buttons pressed onto the tablet from earlier that caused the wristwatch shock for Mira and Vega.
"Thanks for stalling them Irena," the green alien said. Irena quickly did a summersault and grabbed both Mira and Vega by the wrist. As she did so the green alien took a step closer towards Hamal.
"As for you oldie, the whole city already thinks you're dead so you know might as wait for the boss and just kill yo…ahhhhhhhh"
He was interrupted however as in a single flash of a second a sharp object suddenly dislodged into the creature's stomach. It was Hamal who had been hiding a pocket knife on him the whole time.
As Irena saw this, she ran towards Hamal who in some quick thinking took the green alien's tablet and threw it along with his knife towards Mira and Vega.
Vega quickly grabbed both the thrown objects at him and took Mira's hand running with her towards the previously locked door. As he did so he took one last look at Hamal.
"Go, see the stars for me," He said before Irena chopped down on Hamal's neck causing him to faint and chasing after the other 2.
"Mira protect us with this knife, I'll try and see if this can unlock this door," Vega said tossing the pocket knife over to Mira. He scrolled through parts of the tablet to see if there was any command on it that would open the locked door.
"Oh uhhh… okay okay," Mira said clearly trembling as she held the knife with both hands as Irena approached.
"Just pretend you're a spy from Team Castle!" Vega shouted still scrolling through the tablet. At that Mira's face lit up a bit.
"I am the spyyyyy," She thought to herself suddenly becoming a lot steadier. She made some swift flashes forward causing Irena to take a step back. Before she got too into it though, Vega managed to finally find the correct menu option to open the door. He grabbed Mira's wrist as the two started running.
They made their way across the tunnel that Irena had come from only to come to the end where the door was labeled "Exit".
"Wait!" Irena shouted as she ran towards them "You don't want to do this, I know the aliens and they'll kill you if you leave this place. If you stay they'll just wipe your memory and you can live out your lives here in peace and forget all of this. They're beings with technology far beyond your comprehension, they'll find you and kill you for sure."
As she said those words, Mira grabbed Vega's shirt sleeve.
"Are you sure about this?" She asked , "Maybe she's right, I don't want to die. Were our lives really so bad? We got everything we need here and…"
"No, that's not living, that's just surviving as livestock," Vega exclaimed back, "You want to be the civilians in Age of Miliatia, or just the farm animals?"
"I'm telling you they'll kill you if you leave," Irena pleaded again "Please let's just go back with us and Spica. Wasn't that an alright life? We can watch all the movies, play all the video games, and read all the books for the rest of our lives together here in peace and make countless memories. I don't hold grudges and you guys won't remember this at all anyway"
"Yeah you know Vega maybe she's right, why are we doing this? Is it really worth our lives to…mmmm!?!?!??!"
She was interrupted however by a very unexpected action. In the 20 years of Vega's life he had played a number of dating sim games as well as had read a great number of romance novels. In that moment all the human characters Vega had played and imagined himself as took over his mind for the moment as he, without even thinking, pulled Mira close to him and kissed her on the lips.
"What… what the hell. What the hell are you…"
"We can't find out if love is real if it's just assigned to us here can we?" Vega said reciting a line from the most recent novel he had just read. Despite the plagiarism, however his line and action seemed to have maximum effect as suddenly Mira turned beat red nodding her head but dropping the knife in the process. Seeing this Vega quickly took Mira's hand once again and opened the door that said exit.
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The cold air hit the skin of Mira and Vega as they ran across a concrete path in between fields of grass. The sky above shone a beautiful nighttime sky of 4 moons and litters of stars. In front of their path were several separated branch paths that seemed to lead to different large domes. As beautiful as the scenario was however, the two could not slow down as behind them Irena quickly gave chase.
After about 10 minutes of running the two noticed a sign on one of the forks of the road that read "Galaxy train," and quickly headed that direction. As they did they noticed in the distance what appeared to be a continuously moving train with open doors that seemed to defy the laws of physics as it seemly came from a place of thin air and disappeared into a place of thin air. Behind them, a flying plate like object from the sky appeared and was rapidly heading towards them.
"Do you trust me Mira?" Vega screamed running towards the train.
"Do I look I have a choice?" She screamed back.
"Good point."
And just as the plate object started to close in on them, Vega and Mira using what was left of their endurance, jumped together landing inside the train vanishing into the unknown.
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"How did this happen?"
Back at the dead bodies room an older green alien who had just gotten out of his saucer arrived at the scene of a younger green alien with a wound on his back lying on the ground, a knocked out 80 year old Hamal, and a panting Irena who had chased after Mira and Vega to no avail.
"Sir I can..."
She was interrupted however as the alien swiftly delivered a punch to Irena's face knocking her to the ground.
"Not you, I don't care what a human has to say, you only speak when I address you specifically." He exclaimed going up to the other alien instead. Swiftly he pulled the knife out of the alien's back. He took out a small gel packet from one of his pockets and rubbed it against the green alien's wound causing the wound to almost instantaneously heal.
"Ahem, Lieutenant Dale how did this happen and where's your tablet?"
Dale however did not seem to move despite the wound healing. The older alien gave out a long sigh and then with all his might proceeded to kick Dale sending him flying towards to wall
"Owww…." Dale said getting up, "Captain Earl! Why are you here?"
"Because you're as incompetent as ever. Now tell me, what exactly happened here?
"We… we got tricked," Dale spoke voice trembling at the sight of Earl, "The old human over there hid a knife and stabbed me, then tossed my tablet and knife at two younger humans who ran outside."
"Can you confirm human, you may speak…"
"Yes exactly as Dale said Captain Earl, the two humans took the tablet and knife and ran off outside. I tried to chase them down but they managed to make their way to the Galaxy Train."
"Is that so…" Earl replied. "You two lost to 3 mere humans?"
"Yeah the old one really caught me off guard when…"
Dale's words were interrupted however as suddenly Earl walked up to him and began choking him by the throat.
"Rigel does not tolerate any escaped humans do you hear?" He said pulling out from his pocket a plasma pistol pointing it at Dale
"Wait no sir what are you,"
**Boommmmm**
An explosive sound could be heard as the Captain fired his pistol. He did not aim it at Dale however, but instead at old man Hamal lying down on the ground. A hole immediately tore through his body as guts began spilling out killing him in his sleep.
Earl sighed at Dale and reached out his hand to give him the pistol instead, "get up Dale and take this with you. I've got another one on me and we'll both need to be on guard to do some proper human hunting."
"Yes… Yes sir"
Earl then glared at Irena who was visibly shaken at the sight of the dead body next to her.
"You stay here. Capture anyone you think may be associated with the 2 escaped humans and wipe their memories. One more fuck up and it's your body that'll be lying dead."
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"Please select your destination on your tablet now!"
Mira and Vega opened their eyes after taking the leap onto one of the segments of the Galaxy Train. Completely white walls surrendered them aside from the green door they had jumped in from that was now closed.
"Where… where are we?" Mira asked, "Vega!"
She grabbed both of Vegas shoulders and began to shake him
"Vega Vega! Where are we? You read science fiction don't you, what is this?"
"Hell if I know," he said pulling away from Mira, "I've never heard of anything called a Galaxy Train before."
He looked down at the tablet he was holding and the screen showed some options on where the Galaxy Train could take them.
1. Turbula
2. Andromicus
3. Nestbula
4. Doineberg
"Well looks like we got some options here, say Mira which one of these… Mira?"
Vega had to stop his sentence midway however as when he looked up he could see tears were beginning to float out of her eyes.
"Mira what's wrong"
"I'mmm… I'm scared Vega! What the fuck did we just do," she said as she started sobbing into her arm. "I want to go back to the arcade and play games I don't want to die."
Vega put a hand on her shoulder to comfort her
"You… you won't die"
"How can you be so sure? You heard what Irena said didn't you? We're just two insignificant humans who are just livestock to these greater beings."
"Yeah but…"
"But what?" Mira cried. In all honesty Vega had no response to Mira's question. Mira was right after all. The two of them in a split second decision, decided to abandon all semblance of safety in favor of exploring the great unknown. Even to the extremely curious Vega, their current situation was extremely overwhelming on his mind and he had no idea what to say or what to do. Even so he felt in the presence the crying woman in front of him he had to say something.
"Did… did you ever play those mmorpg game at the arcade Mira? Lunescape I think one was called"
"Vega this isn't a game, we're actually going die if…"
"No… No… just hear me out," Vega spoke calmly, "Also yeah you're right we could potentially be screwed and I have no idea what I'm doing but just hear me out. Did you play that game at the arcade at any point?"
"Yeah… hasn't everyone? That's the one where you can level an assortment of skills from magic, mining, and crafting right?"
"Right yeah, what if the real outside universe is like that too?"
"That's ridiculous, it's just a game on a two dimensional screen. There's no such thing as magic, mining, and crafting."
"How can you be sure? Did you think something as ridiculous as a Galaxy Train existed until today?"
"Well yeah… I suppose not."
"And yet here we are," Vega exclaimed, "so who knows what's out there, maybe it really is like the video games we play."
"Haha yeah… I guess that could be true," Mira replied her tears drying up slightly
"You know what I loved most about Lunescape when I played?"
He took his finger and pointed it on his forehead where the tattoo that said janitor was.
"In Lunescape you could choose to be a variety of different things at any point of time. You could be a swordsman, or crafter, or even a merchant. That always seemed a lot more fun than being stuck doing one thing for the rest of your life like on Polaris."
"Yeah… I suppose that's true as well," Mira said. The more she pondered the thought the more a bit of a fuzzy feeling started to grow in her, "Hey yeah, that's actually totally right! Maybe out in the universe there're a million more possible things to do and people to become. What… what do you think that's called Vega?"
"Freedom," Vega said reciting a concept he had learned in one of his textbooks he read in the library, "whoever our ancestors are, that's what they called it."
"Freedom," Mira said reciting the word back to herself, "Yeah, I guess whatever that word means we didn't have much of that back at Polaris did we. You think it's worth dying for?"
"Ironic but, do we have choice anymore?" Vega said smiling weakly. Mira however thinking over the irony of the statement couldn't help but chuckle a little causing Vega to also chuckle.
"You know what else I've always found strange and fascinating Mira?"
"I lived with you for over a month Vega, you find everything fascinating except my body."
"Yeah… I suppose that's true," Vega said, "I do think your face is pretty though."
"Wha… what!??!" Mira shrieked turning bright red and turning away. Despite her usual promiscuous nature, due to the comment and the memory of the previous action Vega had taken to break her hesitation and run out of Polaris, Mira had been put on the defensive.
"Any… anyways what do you find fascinating?"
"Well it's kind of odd isn't it? In Polaris we read books, play video games, and watch movies containing other humans in an assortment of different settings. Despite never having any of those environments on Polaris itself, we can still understand the characters and story in them."
"Well yeah no shit, they explain everything in the tutorials of games usually. And words all have definitions, doesn't seem that odd to me"
"Yeah I know but it's like deeper than that you know? Like you said before, we've never seen a human craft, mine, or merchant before. Yet we know what those things are through playing video games. It's as if we can imagine ourselves in the shoes of characters and their experiences even if we've never lived remotely the same lives. And I don't know, don't you think the characters in stories and video games have to based off something that once existed?"
"Basically you're telling me there's a chance there're dragons out there?!?!?"
"Haha who knows maybe, it sure beats never being able to find out if there are."
"Please select your destination or you will be dropped back into onto the Dometon" A voice from the room echoed interrupting them.
"Guess we have to decide quick," Vega said holding out his tablet, "say, didn't Irena say she was from one of these places?"
"Yeah I remember, she said Nestbula," Mira replied, "I feel like we shouldn't go there if what she said about it being taken over by the aliens was correct. Let's just pick a random one quick, not like we have any idea where any of these go."
"Yeah I suppose you're right." Vega said hovering his finger over the options, "I'm just going to go with Andromicus then. Hopefully it's a peaceful city."
As he pressed down on the button on his tablet, the room the two were in suddenly began to shake rapidly causing the two of them to crash towards the back wall.
"What… what are we going to do when we get off the train?" Mira asked.
"I don't know, I never suspected we'd get this far! Let's just pretend we're exiting the tutorial of Lunescape and just make it up as we go!"
"Yeah sounds good."
After about 10 minutes of violent shaking, the room suddenly came to a stop as the two were pushed to the ground once again.
"Please as the door is opening jump off immediately. Thank you for riding the Galaxy train!"
The two of them suddenly felt the train accelerate again as the door in front of them began to open. Grabbing each other's hand, the two took another leap into the unknown