"Daytime," by Alex Menning

I was young, but I still remember the night. The cool darkness that crept in slowly with its orange glow. Changing slowly to pink, then purple, and finally…black. The quiet that came when people still slept. So many things were different then, some would say so many things were better. But those who remember the days of night and darkness grow few…and soon it will be forgotten. Yes…I was young, but I still remember the night. -Walter Cutler, Poet (2011-2092)

“Although at first scientists said it was impossible, today it has been confirmed that the Earth has in fact ceased its rotation. Still no information has been found for a possible cause, but we think it’s safe to assume there is a definite link between the stopped rotation and the massive earthquake that spanned the globe three days ago. There still has been no contact with any nations on the other side of the world. The U.S. military plans to send aircraft over several designated locations starting tomorrow on a mission to find answers. We’ll keep you updated with any new information that turns up. Thanks, and good…night.” -Ron Winters, CNL (nightly) News Broadcast, April 9, 2016

When the Earth stopped rotating, all the leaders of the countries now known as the Bright Lands came together at a massive conference. Within days they had formed an alliance and began working towards what they called “Total Unification”. Everything had come together so quickly and perfectly that a lot of people started rumors that it was all planned. It wasn’t that hard to believe. Tensions between the U.S. and China were at the breaking point during the last three months leading up to the rotation stop, and countries had been lining up behind the two world powers. Then, in an instant, all of the eastern countries that opposed the U.S. and its allies were literally taken off the map. Gone. Frozen in tundra…or at least that’s what everyone assumed. The B.L.A. had tight security all the way around the globe at the line where communication stopped, and the closer you got to the line, the colder it got. Anyone who tried to cross was apprehended. Yet another interesting piece of information that made pointing fingers at the Alliance even easier. Brightlands History Volume 1: 2016-2026, Charles Lambrey’s Essay on the B.L.A. Conspiracy.

The first formula for Daytime was so close. When they tested it on the chimps it seemed immaculate. It wasn’t until the first human tests that they started running into problems. Everything was set up like a classic experiment. They pitted the subjects taking Daytime against control subjects (who slept for eight to ten hours) in every kind of aptitude test imaginable, mental and physical. The Daytimers won almost eighty one percent of the physical competitions. They also performed significantly better when given written tests. But when they did experiments to see how long the controls could stay awake compared to someone on Daytime, the pill began to show disturbing side effects. The average human can stay awake for around sixty hours before becoming delusional. The daytime users seemed completely normal until the seventy hour mark, but somewhere between seventy and eighty hours, the test subjects began to show signs of behavior comparable to schizophrenia, only more unexplainable. They would scream, cry, talk to people who weren’t there about things that weren’t happening, laugh hysterically, urinate involuntarily, and try to do things any normal person would know to be impossible.

The pill was designed to be taken once and only once, so the effects were permanent for the first few trials. The fourth formula was given to ten people. After being awake for thirty cycles with absolutely no sign of adverse effects, the miracle pill was considered “perfect”. Dr. James Crat, the leading scientist on the development team, issued a statement saying Daytime would “leave you feeling like you’ve just slept for an entire cycle…permanently! but without the baggies under your eyes and the feeling of being the laziest brightlander on the planet.” The package read: Daytime—take it once and become well rested for life…

“…I told you there’s no way she’s top five...” Garadin woke up startled. Not because something had startled him, but because he had never had the sensation of waking up before. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it, but before he could make any sort of decision, he came to the realization that the look on the face of the old man standing in front of him was very inquisitive.

In a rush of fear and confusion Garadin jumped up out of his chair and bolted for the door. He knew where it was, and that it would open for him without the pass code. The old man shouted after him but Garadin pretended not to hear. He ran out into the hot sun and onto the platform that would have him at street level in seconds. The stop was abrupt but not jolting. He stepped off and into the hundreds of people walking, but he couldn’t continue his escape, if that’s even what it was. The sensation he felt as he scanned the street was strange and caused him to stand still. He at least remembered that, just minutes ago, it had all seemed normal, but now, very slowly, things began to appear out of place. Few people were dressed normally. Most wore completely random, mismatched clothing, and here and there someone walked in just their underwear. He saw a man in heavy duty boots running in place. Or at least almost in place; at second glance Garadin realized the man was actually inching forward slowly. An occasional car flew by at a ridiculous speed, swerving to avoid something Garadin couldn’t see, while others sat idle or crawled slowly forward. It would have been totally chaotic, but it wasn’t. Maybe because he seemed to be the only one who thought so.

He started to walk again because he couldn’t think of what else to do. The buildings blocked the sun but his shirt was still damp with sweat. He was afraid to look down at what he was wearing, but when he finally mustered the courage, he was pleasantly surprised to find that he looked pretty normal, at least according to what his mind’s eye told him was “normal.” He couldn’t help thinking maybe everyone else knew what was going on and he was the weird one, but no one was staring at him. In fact, no one was interacting with anyone else. People were talking but not to each other. Running away from the old man was looking more and more like it had been the wrong choice. He knew he could find his way back because it was familiar to him. A lot things about this strange place were. They just seemed different now.

For the first time since he had woken up he felt fear. He’d been too preoccupied with the insanity of this world to be afraid until now. He started to turn back, and something hit him hard across the side of his head. There were two blows to his abdomen and one more to his face before the car struck his attacker. From the loud crunching sound, Garadin knew the man was finished. He heard a door open and shut. Rough hands pulled him up. It was the old man. As things began to blur he could hear the raspy, gargled voice of the old man.

“Try to relax. Everything will be made clear in time.”

When he woke, for the second time in his life, he was on a brown leather couch with a thick, soft blanket over him. He turned his neck slowly and a pounding sensation in his head made him gasp.

“It’s called a headache. It’ll hurt like a bitch for a while, but I can give you something to get rid of it.” The old man was sitting in a chair across from the couch.

“What cycle is it?” Garadin managed to mumble.

“Thirteen. You’ve been asleep for a cycle and a half. I think it’s a combination of your body adjusting to the counteraction of Daytime and that beating you took in the street yesterday. Sorry I didn’t find you before they did. You jumped out on me so quick…”

Garadin felt like there were a million questions he needed to ask but didn’t know what they were. And it was hard to think with this pulsing in his head.

“I know, son. I can’t imagine how confused you must be. I’ll explain everything once you’re feeling better. Try not to think about it right now. Just sleep. You’ve got a lifetime of deprivation to make up for.” The old man’s voice was soothing in an unexplainable way. Recognizable. Garadin felt himself slip into this new found state of relaxation.

Awake again, the throbbing gone from his head, Garadin sat up. He was still sore but he felt good, rested in a way he never had before. It seemed like such a waste of time, but maybe he could get used to this sleeping business. The old man wasn’t in the room, but he walked in now with the smallest of grins on his wrinkled face.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

“Yeah, way.” Garadin realized his voice sounded different to his ears.

“Well I’m not even exactly sure what you’re experiencing right now, but let’s start with any questions you want to ask me.”

“Who are you?”

“You know. I’m guessing it just seems like anything you think you know is likely to be wrong, but the memories you have are real, or at least most of them are. People you know, places you’ve been. These things exist, just not exactly the way you remember them.”

“You’re my grandfather?”

“Bingo.”

“Well then I guess the other most obvious question is…what’s going on? I remember my mom and dad. There names are Susan and Henry, but I know I haven’t seen them in a long time. I also know that it’s never bothered me till now. I have memories of school. Facts and knowledge. But it all starts to blur at some point, and everything I can remember after that seems obscure, random, distorted.”

“Interesting…” he paused, deep in thought for a few moments. “Well you were fourteen at the time when your memories change. That was almost three years ago now. It wasn’t long after that that your parents ran off. I get random calls from them every now and then. As far as I know they’re still alive and together…but I’m not explaining anything at all, am I? You remember a drug called Daytime?”

“Yeah. Parents are required to give it to their kids when they turn five. It’s an alliance issued order isn’t it? Started with the U.S.” he remembered hearing people talking about it and one particular lesson in school about its invention and implementation into society.

“That’s right. In 2016 something hit the Earth causing a massive worldwide earthquake. Within hours the Earth stopped rotating. Much is still unknown about what hit the planet. Some say a meteor. Others are sure its aliens,” he smiled. “All we know is that there hasn’t been contact with anyone or anything on the other side of the globe since that day. And for one reason or another no one can go over there to figure things out. But you know all this crap.”

“True, but it’s nice to hear it. It feels more real now.”

“I’m sure. Anyway, a couple of years after the quake, a team of scientist came together under a man named Dr. Crat. His goal was to create a pill that someone could take and never have to sleep again. The thought was that, since it was light all the time, so much more could be accomplished without having to sleep. So Daytime was invented and sold on the web from Crat’s company, Awaketech. Once it hit the market, people went nuts trying to get there hands on it. Crat couldn’t spit out pills fast enough. It started small scale with companies requiring there employees to take it. The ones that did increased productivity by so much that the competition was forced to follow suit. Before long there was talk of the U.S. making it a law that everyone had to take Daytime in order for the economy to remain stable.

“And they did right? Followed by Canada and Brazil?” Grandpa nodded.

“Eventually the B.L.A. issued an order that every brightlander had to give their children Daytime at the age of five and take it themselves by month 9 of 2018. It worked miracles. Productivity and balance increased everywhere, inventions doubled and technology sped forward. But then the unthinkable happened.”

“The point where my memories trip out?”

“Yes. Nine years after the order, strange things started happening. The first noticeable change was in the suicide rate. It had been way down since the invention of Daytime, but it spiked rather suddenly. People were killing themselves, but not in any of the traditional ways. The majority were jumpers, which isn’t all that strange I suppose. Except witness accounts often told of people who had been acting strange suddenly running off the edge of rooftops when it was time for them to go back down to ground level. Many others died trying to do unusual things or accomplish impossible tasks.”

“I think I remember hearing about that on the news. That one is clear, but I also remember certain times when I would see someone hit the ground while walking down the street and thinking nothing of it.”

“I’m not surprised. It happens many times a cycle now.”

“But why? What went wrong? I don’t get it.” Garadin was starting to formulate ideas in his head, but none of them added up.

“There was a flaw in Daytime’s formula. It was impossible to foresee. You see…Daytime is a multipurpose drug. It had to accomplish a lot of things at once because our bodies were designed to rely on sleep. Not just our brains but many parts. Your eyes for example. Without sleep they dry out and lose focus. Your muscles get sore and stiff. Daytime had to fix all of these things. But Crat missed something. When you sleep your brain continues to think. It takes you to places and makes you see things. We call these thoughts dreams. They allowed us to do the impossible. When a person dreams, their brain releases certain endorphins, chemicals that stimulate sensations that correspond to the dreams. Crat knew of their existence but figured they would be turned off by Daytime without any special means. They were turned off but their production didn’t stop. For years these endorphins built up in the brains of every person who had taken Daytime. Eventually they started to sort of leak out. They slowly began to cause random mood swings and dazes. This didn’t alert anyone, but it didn’t stop there. More and more overflow occurred and…”

“People started dreaming while they were awake.” It was starting to make sense.

“Daydreaming, yes. Sleepwalking. Most of the world’s people all experiencing partial hallucination simultaneously. It was scary at first, so strange seeing people act like animals or talk to someone who wasn’t there, try to fly or run through a wall.”

“Grandpa…you said most people. That must mean that there are others who aren’t dreaming?”

“That’s right. There are two groups of people unaffected by Daytime, the daysleepers and the waiters. For the most part they hate each other and many members of one faction are trying to kill members of the other.”

“Why do they hate each other? In a crisis this big I would think working together would by far be the smartest thing to do.”

“It’s quite simple, really. The waiters are the people who have taken Daytime but haven’t started sleepwalking yet, and the daysleepers are the people who never took it.”

“But why do they want to kill each other?”

“The waiters are desperately trying to find a way to cure what they now call dreamdep. The daysleepers are led by a man called Riser, who wants to find a way to harness the sleepwalkers for his benefit and rule over them. So…naturally he wants to stop the waiters. Both groups consist of mostly young people, but there are some of us old cats left that never took the Godforsaken pill. Most of us are trying to help the waiters find a cure.”

“Is that how you woke me up? You’ve finally found it?” The story he had just heard was absolutely crazy. Like something straight out of a movie, and he found himself getting excited, almost passionate.

“I think so, yes. I’ve been working in secret on a way to wake people up, away from the rest of the waiters so that Riser won’t find me. But they’ve been getting close, close enough to see you today and almost take you from me.”

“Well that’s awesome right? We need to get to the other waiters and start waking people up!” Garadin couldn’t contain his excitement anymore. He was beginning to realize the responsibility they now had—to help people. He wanted to find his parents and wake them up so that they could be a family again. It felt so good to be conscious after all those years of dreaming, and he wanted them to know this feeling.

“I’m afraid it’s not quite that easy, son.”

“What do you mean? Because the daysleepers will come after us?”

“To be honest, they’re the least of my worries right now.”

“Then what’s stopping you?”

“It’s the serum I created to wake you up. It works…but not without a price. A price I’m afraid might be too great for the product to be worth it.”

“Grandpa, what do you mean?”

“The serum works backwards against Daytime, undoing everything that it has changed, but it doesn’t stop. Daytime works to keep you from being tired by reversing the processes in the parts of your body affected by sleep so that they very slowly become younger, in a sense, or at least constantly energized. I knew there was a chance the serum would revert these processes and then force them too far in the original direction. I decided to take a chance on you, in hopes that this wouldn’t happen, but I ran some tests on you while you were sleeping and it seems my fears were not without good reason.”

“You mean the serum didn’t stop once it undid what Daytime started? But what does that mean…what will happen to me?”

“I’m not entirely sure how far it will go, but it looks like it will cause your brain, eyes, and muscles to age twice as fast, cutting your lifespan almost in half.” Garadin sat silent for the first time since he had woken up. The news his grandfather had just delivered him had momentarily stopped his breathing. He stared blankly at the gray wall behind his grandfather. He found himself suddenly contemplating what was worse—a life lived in dreams that was only as real as his brain made it, or a life in reality where he died in his forties. The choice seemed easy enough, but it wasn’t his to make for himself. His Grandfather had already made it for him. The shock of hearing it without a choice made a shorter life seem like the worse option. And now the choice was theirs to make for the rest of the world. The weight of their responsibility shifted from a proud feeling to a feeling of confusion and impossibility.

Who were they to decide the fate of all those people? Who were they to have to choose? He knew what choice he would have made, but that didn’t mean anything from one person to the next. He started thinking out loud.

“How can we choose? It’s impossible. Is there even a right choice?”

“I know it’s hard,” grandpa’s voice was soft, quiet, “but you’re the one who has to choose now. You’re the only one who’s been there, experienced the never ending dream and awoken from it.” Garadin was frozen in contemplation. So many questions raced through his brain.

Have I really been living these past three years? I have memories but they’re incomplete and sporadic, nonsensical. They serve no purpose, have no meaning. I haven’t learned anything in so long. If I had never woken up I might have died without ever really having lived. Can a life lived in dreams even have purpose? This life is built on relationships. Relationships that are real and intimate. Sleepwalkers only know superficial and self serving interaction that may or may not even be with another conscious human being.

As he sat and thought, the answer became clearer and began to make sense.

“We have to wake them Grandpa. A shortened life of purpose is still at least worth living. Dreams are meant to be had lying down.”

“Hearing you say that makes me feel like I made the right choice in waking you up. I wasn’t sure until now.”

“You did make the right choice Grandpa.”

“This was the first step. There’s still much to do, my son. We must get moving.” Grandpa began to stand, but as he did there was a crashing sound as the window broke followed by a thud and a splash of red. Grandpa fell to the floor in slow motion. A second bullet came through the window moving slow enough for Garadin to see it. He tried to move but he had forgotten how. He sat poised, frozen in place and watched as the bullet inched towards the center of his forehead. It was so close now. He could feel the hot metal against his skin. The pressure built and his skull began to crack. He cried out in his mind but no sound escaped his lips.

He was standing at the end of a crowded street. The breeze off the water was cool and his body shivered as bumps formed on his skin. Garadin looked around as all eyes focused on him. It must have been the scream that made them look. They were all to busy to notice for any other reason. He didn’t have to look down, but he did, slowly. His bare skin was pale. His underwear was a weird teal color with gray designs on it. Mother had bought a few of these really cheap pairs so he would have extra. He looked back up and to the west. Across the water the pink sun was setting.

*****

Disclaimer: I started writing this story with one idea, got over have done and realized it wasn’t anything like what I wanted. I started over and this time it went more in the right direction.

I think dreams are weird and often wonder why we have them. I wanted this story to make the reader think about how and why we dream and what life would be like if we couldn’t wake up. I also wanted to pose the question of what was more important between quantity of time and quality of time.

The last paragraph is sort of like an optional/alternative ending but not exactly. I couldn’t decide whether or not to include it even though I had it in mind the whole time. I don’t know whether or not it was predictable, but if it was then pretend it’s not there…

"The Grand Experiment," by Taylor Mugge

This is the story of a very old man that lives in the woods behind my house.

1923

“Commander, we have radio contact.”

“Speakers.”

Out of the speakers on the bridge of Spaceliner SuperAwesome emitted a high-pitched tone interrupted by clicks of varying volume.

“Translation!” shouted Commander Vander.

“Apologies, sir. Language is not recognized. Begin decoding process?”

“Begin,” replied Vander.

“Decoding sequence initiated. Time estimate: 21 hours, 30 minutes.”

“Inform.”

“Yes, sir.”

The computer on board the Spaceliner SuperAwesome was a technological marvel. A hundred-some years ago, when the efforts to find a suitable foster-planet for the entire human race were doubled, all government spending by every government on Earth had gone into space exploration and A.I. technology. With these resources, A.I. was born in only a handful of years, so this computer was nothing special there, but it’s voice-recognition, grammar-checker, and language decoding capabilities had never been seen before.

Commander Rex Vander, however, had been seen before. Many times and by many people, in fact. He paid no attention to fame or fortune. He didn’t see the point in putting on a fake smile to please someone else. He cared not whether his name was known in 50, 60, or even 80 percent of the homes on Earth. It was, in point of fact, known in 100 percent of them.

His fame had nothing to do with him in particular, however. It was an odd occurrence, and no one ever asked about it, but his name, his popularity, his leadership abilities, even his face, everything about him really, had been passed down father-to-son for generations for thousands of years. This Rex Vander was the 133rd. It is an odd trait, and worthy to be mentioned, that no Vander in recorded history had ever allowed himself to be painted or photographed.

He had been commander of Spaceliner SuperAwesome for 12 years to the day. And this day was special for more than an anniversary.

The humans of Earth had been gradually using up their resources and, as one poet put it, “robbing their mother while still under her wing.” As the possibility of salvaging their home planet slowly dried up, the humans began to explore other options. Another Rex Vander (the 130th) had submitted the plan that would ultimately change the course of human life forever: Find a new planet.

While certainly not an original plan, Dr. Rex Vander was the first to show Earth’s leaders a really fiscally responsible plan of action, complete with maps of the galaxy, space routes, and possible foster-planets.

Exactly 93 years after departing, the SuperAwesome was finally nearing one of those possible foster-planets. They knew it only as Kappa 105 Sector WH103. They knew it was occupied by life forms, only no one knew exactly what those life forms were.

As the ship got closer, the ship’s hundred thousand-member crew began to grow anxious. All of them had been born and brought up on the SuperAwesome. Since the nearest possible foster planet was 93 light years away, the ship would take 93 years to get there travelling at the speed of light. So the current crew hadn’t actually signed on to the mission, it was their great-grandparents, who had all been allowed to bring along at least a wife, so as to provide the next generations of crewmembers. This generation understood nothing greater than the plight of humanity’s search for a new home and would stop at nothing to achieve it.

That is, all except one. One man alone only understood his own plight and would stop at nothing in search of more money. And it just so happened that he was first mate: Lieutenant Derriver Cecil Morgan.

Since the original crew of the SuperAwesome knew that their money would have zero value on whatever planet they hoped to land on, they didn’t care to bring any along. Thus, none of the present crew had any understanding or even the concept of money. Except Lieutenant Morgan. His parents and grandparents had told him all about it and how great it was to have lots of it (his family had been very wealthy on Earth). So Morgan, naturally enough, assumed that he would be rewarded handsomely for his valiant efforts on board the SuperAwesome. Therefore he worked very, very hard.

After exactly 19 hours and 17 minutes (the greatest computer in the history of the world was still terrible at estimates), the translated signal from the nearby planet was ready to be broadcast and Commander Vander was beckoned. In a light, sophisticated tone, the male voice of Kappa 105 Sector WH103 said, “Joining us for lunch?”

As the SuperAwesome descended through the planet’s thick atmosphere, the first thing the crew noticed was the green. Thick green. Green the likes of which they had never seen before, not even in pictures. (The current crew had never even set foot on a planet before, remember?) Kappa 105 Sector WH103 was roughly 7 times the size of Earth, so the gravity would be roughly 7 times stronger. To counteract this effect, the ship’s computer had been gradually increasing the force of the artificial gravity from 9.78 to 68.46 m/s2, the estimated equatorial gravitational pull on the planet. As a result, this crew was a much, much more muscular crew than their great-grandparents had been.

When the ship finally landed, no one could keep their muscles from twitching.
The platform opened for the first time in 93 years, 4 months, and 8 days.
And the crew tasted fresh air for the first time in their lives.
Even their great-grandparents, who had tasted the “fresh” air of Earth, would’ve found this intoxicating.

Communicating what it is like for a mouth that has only felt the grime of tanked air in a pressurized cabin to feel real, fresh, rich, sweet, flowing air is next to impossible (or so I’m told), so I won’t even try. But I can tell you this: They liked it.

Commander Vander and Lieutenant Morgan were the first to descend the platform of the great ship. As his head came below the edge of the ship, Vander was the first the make eye contact with the Chancellor. And Morgan was the first to make an idiot of himself.

To imagine the primary life forms that live on Kappa 105 Sector WH103, picture you’re average human being, now make him two feet shorter, and two feet wider. Now give him a short, flat head with a short, flat face. Take away four fingers and four toes, give him mottled tan, brown, and pinkish skin, and you’ve got it. Almost all of them were wearing what looked like snow-white sweatpants and a collar of the same material. Out of the collar, in both the front and the back, came a kind of cape-like thing that hung down to their knees. It was also the purest white.

There was a whole mass gathered around where the SuperAwesome had just landed, and one of them stood out directly in front. To aid in communication, every member of the crew had a headset with an earphone, a speakerphone, and a microphone. Each headset was linked to the ship’s computer, which would simultaneously translate anything either species said into the other’s language.

As Vander and Morgan walked the platform, Vander never broke eye contact with the one in front. Morgan, seeing his chance for quick gain, stepped ahead of Vander and, taking the hand of the main alien, promptly shook it.

A city-wide gasp of horror.

Unbeknownst to Morgan, “shaking hands” on this planet was an incredibly sexual gesture, and to do so on this occasion was an incredible taboo. However, after a few days’ observation, they all understood it to be a respectable human custom, and the offense was forgiven.

But as the city gasped, Vander grabbed Morgan’s arm and pulled it away from the alien. Putting his own arms at his side, he bent at the waist and bowed low. When he stood up, all he said was, “Greetings.”

“Greetings, fellow souls. You may call me the Chancellor, and my people are the Wobbletorvs. What people are you and what mother do you hail from?”

“We call ourselves humans, or people, or Earthlings, whatever you wish.” Morgan thrust his words into the conversation like you would an awkward sea lion. “But what do you mean by ‘mother’?”

“Earth,” enlightened Vander, his understanding as quick as ever.

“Ah, we know of Earth. She is far and small. We knew there were souls on her, but we had no knowledge of their space-faring capabilities until just recently, so we saw no gain in making contact with them.” He waited a moment for them to speak, but seeing that they were nearly speechless, he went on: “Come, let us walk, and I will teach you much about our fair mother: Mother Telemunda.”

As they walked around the center of the great Wobbletorv City (a name the humans instantly gave it, the ‘torvs didn’t have a name for it, as it was their only center of civilization), the Chancellor explained that their planet, Telemunda, is very rich in fresh water (which covers just over 50% of the surface), forests, oil, natural gas, minerals, ores, flora and fauna, everything required for paradise. The ‘torvs, while being very similar to the humans in anatomy, were very different philosophically. What we would call a “sentient life form” or “intelligent life,” they call a “soul,” meaning anything that has a soul is a soul in itself.

The Wobbletorvs themselves are hyper-intelligent, devoted to the study of every kind of science they find in the universe. They are capable of space-travel and have been making contact and forging alliances with every other space-travelling race they’ve found, which now includes the people of Earth.

From their studies of Earth, they have calculated that a Telemundan year is approximately 3 Earth years, gravity is roughly 8 times stronger (it’s a very dense planet), and the atmospheric content is about the same.

The Wobbletorvs have reached a state of perfect equilibrium with their planet, which they call their Mother, and which they worship dutifully. They mate for life, and each couple only produces two children, so as to maintain a constant population. Everyone takes only what they need, and everything they need comes from the planet’s “extras.” That is, the very old, the dead, the useless, the feeble, at least that which has already adequately reproduced. They are the keepers of Telemunda, and will accept any cost to protect her.

Their giant city only takes up one-quarter of the vast surface area; the rest is left untamed for their many wild animal species. Since there is no division in place for the ‘torvs, they have never had a war, except for those with invading races, in which the ‘torvs remain utterly undefeated. Since they are such a technological and knowledge-driven race, they have developed technology far faster and far more advanced than any other race in the known universe. Thus, any race that threatens Mother Telemunda will invariably be utterly decimated without hesitation. Period.

After several days straight of walking, talking, discussing, questioning, experimenting, testing, looking, and exploring, the humans and the ‘torvs had fairly good understandings of each other. Both races presented their scientists and xenobiologists, who all got to work immediately trying to understand the genetics and biological characteristics of each other. The only human that refused to undergo genetic tests was, interestingly enough, Commander Vander.

It wasn’t long before the artificial intelligence of the Wobbletorvian computers was able to communicate with the artificial intelligence of the ship’s computer. The humans had been planning to wait a little while longer to present their request to the ‘torvs, but their computer’s mainframe security was nothing compared to the technology of the ‘torvian computer.

Five days after arriving on Telemunda, the Chancellor was the one who brought it up: “Your ship’s computer has let it be known that you wish to present, reluctantly, a request.”

Commander Vander looked at Lieutenant Morgan. “Explain.”

A deep breath. “Ya see, here’s the deal,” began Lieutenant Morgan, “our home planet, Earth, is completely unable to sustain our population, and we need to give it a break, only for a couple hundred years or so, and we’ve traveled all these light-years to humbly request your permission to inhabit only a tiny portion of your vast planet to house our struggling population and thus rescue an intelligent race—uh, “souls”—from ultimate annihilation. Please, can you help us?”

“Of course! You are our galactic neighbors! How could we not answer your cry for help?” exclaimed the Chancellor. “We only occupy one-quarter of Mother Telemunda, this one great…city, as you call it…is the only place we live. On the opposite side is a vast landmass that could easily serve as your foster home. Enjoy Mother Telemunda for as long as you need! Only heed our wisdom and tread not on our threshold, and we shall forever enjoy peace.”

2930

It only took a few years for the word of a suitable foster-planet to reach Earth, and once it did, it took even less time for the government to prepare the fleets to transport the entirety of Earth’s population to Telemunda. Within the decade, Earth was completely deserted. And after another 93 years, the human side of Telemunda, or “Earth Prime” as they called it, was inhabited.

At first, the humans were careful not to overuse their foster planet’s resources. Couples had few children so as to lessen their impact, and everyone found it supremely important to use only what they needed. They understood that they were guests in someone else’s home. As generations passed, however, the people of Earth began to forget this truth.

Within four generations, couples began to reproduce exponentially. Within seven, they were living at the same standard as they had been on Earth. Within fifteen, they had completely overtaken their hemisphere, rapidly draining its resources.

The Wobbletorvs were utterly astounded. Never before had they even imagined a race capable of such unadulterated destruction.

The scientists among them had to understand it.

However, by the time the ‘torvs got around to setting up their observations, tests, and field experiments, the humans of Earth had nearly depleted their side. There was even beginning to arise poverty, slums, and ghettos around the central zone of Earth Prime.

By 2930 (in Telemundan years), the humans had crossed the equator and were even encroaching upon Wobbletorv City (as the humans still called it). The Wobbletorvs, of course, reminded the Earthlings of their promise to not cross the threshold, but the humans wanted nothing to do with ancient agreements that may or may not have existed.

As in any civilization of such colossal magnitude, a fair number of humans disapproved of what the majority was doing. Of these, Rex Vander the 224th was seen as the leader. And of course, leading the side of the majority, opposing Vander, was Devra Elaine Morgan, a direct descendent of Lieutenant Derriver Cecil Morgan.

Vander’s side wanted every human being to leave Telemunda forever. And that means everyone. By now, Earth was almost entirely restored (it had been nearly 3000 Earth-years since the humans had left), and with the technology and knowledge they had picked up on Telemunda, surely they could all fit comfortably on their rich planet, maybe not as comfortably as they had been on Telemunda, but comfortably nonetheless.

Morgan’s side saw this demotion of comfort as devolution. However, they did want some to return to Earth (with Miss Morgan as the new leader), while others stayed on Telemunda. Plus, they saw the warnings given by the Wobbletorvs as a threat to their rights as “true citizens.”

Thus, it was the humans who were first to declare war.

Not that it was much of one.

The first thing to happen was the attack on Wobbletorv City. The humans on Morgan’s side gathered whatever forces they could, and marched into the city. The ‘torvs saw them coming of course, and watched them marching through, Morgan at the lead, shouting orders and threats and empty promises.

The ‘torvs seemed interested at first, but soon went back to what they were doing, which only angered Morgan all the more. If she knew their secret weapon, she would have fled their planet years ago. What they had, in simple terms, was a set of giant “speaker cannons” that emitted a sound at the precise frequency to disassemble human bodies, very similarly to how some opera singers can reach the exact pitch to break glass, only much, much more complex.

They had designed it almost immediately after the human beings had shown up on Telemunda, just in case. It was up to the Chancellor when and if they were to use it, and so far, for the sake of his friendship with Rex Vander the 133rd, for the sake of compassion, as well as for the sake of science, he had not called for it. But now, the humans had simply gone too far. They were killing Mother Telemunda.

In an attempt to cause Devra Morgan anguish by forcing her to watch the annihilation of her entire race, the Chancellor called her into an inner room of the Capitol and trapped her in a soundproof cage, fit with monitor screens showing her entire army as well as many populated sites on the human side of Telemunda.

And then they fired it up.

Watching every last member of your species shriek in pain and then melt down into atomic particles would make any ordinary human being weep out of sheer terror and hopelessness. But Devra Elaine Morgan was no ordinary human being. She was genuinely upset solely because her chance of taking over luscious Telemunda was dissolving with every man, woman, and child of her kind.

Plus, it didn’t even completely work. Rex Vander the 224th was no ordinary human being either. When the ‘torvs brought him into the Capitol, Morgan couldn’t believe it.

“You’re alive?”

“Clearly.”

“How?”

“Later.”

When the Chancellor came in, he was surprisingly unsurprised by Vander’s existence. He simply walked up to the cage and looked both Vander and Morgan in the eyes.

“You Earthlings are truly a fascinating species,” he spoke in the sincerest of tones, with an expression to match. “No other force in the universe has the power to so completely devastate the resources of such a rich planet. This power must be better understood. Therefore we must create a grand experiment, one in which we place you two humans back on your home world and observe your interactions with your natural environment.”

“You can’t do this!” screamed Morgan, “You can’t just play God here! I’m not going to Earth! You can’t make me!”

“It matters not how hard you struggle, you are returning to your home world.”

“No! No! I’m a free human being and I can do other than what you say!” She was almost frantic.

Rex Vander wasn’t anywhere near frantic. He didn’t argue. He didn’t even mind, he was always meaning to go back to Earth anyway. He knew Morgan always wanted to as well, but he didn’t say anything.

“Brothers, please place them in the particle transporter and prepare for launch.”

“As thou command.”

They loaded Vander and Morgan into a large, egg-shaped metallic receptacle, inside of this was what looked like two disc golf discs (drivers) top to top, but the upside-down one was suspended about ten feet above the right-side-up one. Neither disc was fastened to anything, nor was there anything connecting them or holding them in place. They simply sat stationary, on nothing, in a giant metallic egg, a marvel before the eyes of the two Earthlings.

“They are made of what your people called anti-matter,” explained the Chancellor, knowing their thoughts. “We have found a way to harness its unthinkable power and transport objects of any size to any point in any universe. In this case, it will be transporting you two to a specific point on Earth.”

Shocked and awed, Vander and Morgan stood on the bottom disc, unable to move due to some unseen force. The last thing they saw on Telemunda was one of the Chancellor’s sad eyeballs staring at them through a small window in the large metallic egg.

When Rex Vander opened his eyes, he knew exactly where he was. It looked very different from what he “remembered,” but it was familiar nonetheless. Understand, he himself had never actually been here before, but this phenomenon is explained later. As he looked around, he noticed several things simultaneously: 1) He weighed one-seventh what he weighed on Telemunda, 2) they were by a stream in a thick forest and everything was very green, very lush, very much like Telemunda, and 3) Devra Morgan was still fast asleep in a little clearing a few meters away. As he watched the stream roll by, he tried to imagine how he was going to explain everything to her: who he was, what he was. She woke up before he had it figured out.

When she opened her eyes, she knew she’d been beat. There was no going back, no chance to lead a “happy life” now (and by that she means a life in which she is the most famous and powerful).

The first thing she did was attempt to make Vander to say more than one word at a time. It didn’t work. He just sat there. Contemplating.

Left alone on a medium-sized planet with a woman like Devra Morgan would normally make any soul lose itself within a matter of hours, but Rex Vander the 224th was a pro. Plus, Devra had lost most of her “kick.” Being stranded on a planet with your greatest rival after losing the greatest military force in your race’s great history would leave anyone somber, to say the least.

Finally, after two whole days of silence, Vander spoke: “I.”

“Yes…?”

“Have.”

“What do you have?”

“A.”

“Uh-huh…”

“Confession.”

“Well then, let’s here it!”

As you can imagine, trying to tell a story speaking only one word at a time can be very time consuming, thus, in my retelling of it, I’ll leave out Morgan’s necessary one-liner comments and get straight to what Vander is trying to say:

“I am not from your Earth, but from an earlier one. One in which there are no genders, everyone could reproduce asexually, like me. If another human didn’t add any of its DNA to you, your “child” would be an exact copy of you, a clone, with cloned memories and experiences. This is why I have not changed in thousands of years: I am an exact clone of all the Rex Vanders throughout history.

“My Earth was wiped away in order to create a new one. God has done this many times, each new Earth getting more and more complex than the previous one, each one with slight changes in the hopes that He will eventually make one that can sustain its perfection, knowing full well that He cannot. We human beings are too sinful; it is in our very nature to sin. Every ‘Adam and Eve’ has failed, as we inevitably will.”

“But, if we know what’s coming, can’t we avoid it and save ourselves from a Fall like theirs?”

“No.”

“That’s stupid. I’ll avoid it, I know what to watch for.”

“Sorry.”

“But wait, you’re from an ‘earlier Earth’? So, you’re not even a real human?”

“Actually, I’m just as human as you, although a few small details are different. That’s why I wasn’t dissolved on Telemunda, as well as why I speak like this.”

“How is this world different from yours?”

“As I said, it’s more complex. And this time God is trying something new, an experiment: He is manifesting Himself in the Chancellor. On my Earth, He walked among us. In this one, He will be as distant as Telemunda and yet as close as the Chancellor’s eye. Through the Chancellor, God wiped away the old Earth, placed the new ‘Adam and Eve’ back in the Garden, and will continually observe and watch over us, giving us everything we need.”

“Is the Chancellor aware of his role in all of this?”

“No.”

“He thinks he’s just running some kind of scientific experiment?”

“Yes.”

“Will he ever abandon us? Will he ever give up”

“No.”

Today

“And there they remain, observing us from afar, unbeknownst to even our greatest astronomers, trying to harness our incredible power, yet eternally doing the work of God.” The old man living in the woods behind my house never gets tired of telling his old story, even though it takes him forever to tell it one word at a time. “Both God and the Chancellor are watching us, and we are all members of their grand experiment.”

"Power," by Blake Norris

I look around me at the thousands of electrical wires connecting to hundreds of children surrounding what was once a ground of play. “It was such a good idea at the time, we meant it for good,” I kept thinking over and over as my mind searched for the original reason for such an invention. We just thought that we could use something simple like a playground toy for generation of electricity, I had no idea it would come to this. Pain, sorrow, anger. These are the only words that can adequately describe the phenomenon that was at this very moment happening in front of my eyes. I can't believe it came to this.

***

There used to be peace in Newamer before the Blackout. Barack Obama did a job worthy of recognition for sure, but he was the last of the truly elected presidents (though some would dispute that). After him came a man named Samuel Lightbody who proposed that America would succeed only if it was fully socialist and totalitarian. At this time, America had fallen into a huge depression and the desperation for any sort of answer to put us “back on top” combined with the overall conformity of the people in this era led more than half the population to agree and “vote” to make it so. Samuel would proceed to lead for 20 years, thereby making the presidency only accessible by divine right through a chosen royal family—the Lightbody's. As president, Samuel made a few very important changes to government policy, the main one being the reinstatement of capital punishment and marshall law as the only law. These new policies created the Dysfunction Regiment, a new police force/government militia full of more ego than Bono, more influence than Jim Jones, and more power and money than Tony Stark. They ruled (and still do rule) the country with an iron fist, killing everyone who stood against them. You see, by this time the Regiment had even legalized murder—as long as they were the ones doing the murdering—and murder they did. Samuel Lightbody's militia coupled with his sick sense of megalomania drove him to deny that anyone who stood against him or his totalitarian regime was even human at all and that killing them would be doing them a favor. There was mass hysteria by the whole nation at this new law passed and this new belief being spread, and so the country split.

Starting between the border of Montana and North Dakota, the line continued in a state-by-state zig zag that culminates in an eastbound division separating Tennessee, Kentucky, and West Virginia from the states to the south. Along this line was put a laser fence so intense and so powerful that no manner of weapons technology could even harm it. Now there was a divided union, a country split into two factions. The left side of the country was deemed the Red Faction full of people who are against murder being legalized and against totalitarianism in general. They ran themselves in an anarchy that was able to function solely by a united hatred for Samuel Lightbody and an understanding that to live peacefully a government could not stand in their way. The right side of the country was called the Blue Faction and stood for the exact opposite. This is the side where the President's home was and where his influence was the strongest. The people on this side supported the legalization of murder and adored the President's ruling style, sharing all of his beliefs with a blind patriotism. These two factions were so different that they should have fought the first chance they got, but the laser fence coupled with their hatred for one another kept them from interacting at all. That is, until the Blackout.

***

He thought that using something so simple as children's playground equipment was an easy way to generate electricity for the whole country and bring peace. We would attach a turbine to all of the toys, the merry-go-round turned on its own, the swings would turn a turbine also. Never did I guess that it would end up this way; I absolutely can't believe what I am seeing. He said that it would stay this way, and as President of the United States, he had all the power to do what he wanted. He who made gerbils and volunteer bikers ride on wheels to keep the whole country connected again. His intentions were good, unify the country, stop the war, but never did I envision it would become this. Volunteering adults are one thing, but children, and against their own will like common criminals...or slaves...

***

The Red Faction and the Blue Faction had lived in what appeared to be peace for 50 years, not fighting, but not getting along either. A tension had been brewing for years between the two factions, a tension that surely would not end well. Rumor had it that The Red Faction was building an army, a makeshift, rag-tag group of rebels with weapons technology matched only by the Dysfunction Regiment themselves. The Red Faction members were hated by the Blue so much by this time that there was no interaction or communication between the two sides at all except what was rumored to be true by Regiment soldiers. In 2168, in order to quell the ensuing rebellion, Scott Lightbody (Samuel's grandson) set off three EMP bombs off in the Red Faction territory; the bombs were named Ma Barker and her two sons, one son in Northern Idaho, Ma Barker—the largest—was planted in the Southeastern tip of Colorado, and the other son in Northern Alabama. Blocked by the laser wall, these EMP bombs wiped out power in the entire Red Faction, forcing half the country to live in a technological stone-age, thereby creating a country fully divided into the haves and the have-nots. Red Faction members were nick-named “the unplugged” by the Blue side and the Red Faction cleverly called the Blue people “shockers.”

The Lightbody dynasty was in full power at this time and murder was legal for these men as long as they had “reasonable cause” to kill, or if they just didn't like the rebel they were up against. The only way an unplugged could cross the border into the Blue Faction side was to join The Dysfunction Regiment and swear to honor the code of the totalitarian regime in power. One side had all the power, and the other side had none. And so it was this way for 25 more years...until the war.

***

In 2196, at only the age of 16, I was inducted into the Dysfunction Regiment. I was the youngest officer ever to be accepted into the Regiment because of my exceptional eyesight and ability to wield a blade. I didn't really understand why they let me in cause I didn't think I was really that special at all...I could fight I guess, but I didn't know how much that would matter. Now every thing's coming together for the best. Life was hard growing up in the Red Faction, if I didn't learn to fight I was guaranteed to get killed. It used to be so tranquil, so peaceful in our territory; nobody fought or killed or shot or dealed cause they knew that without government chaos would ensue if people broke the rules. But when we lost power, everything went into turmoil. People lost their minds without electricity and technology...it's almost as if they couldn't live without something connected to the internet or a way to communicate extra-verbally. That's why I enlisted, because there was nothing else to do. Never did I imagine I would see this, or have this opportunity. I can see him now, yelling at them to get to work, and something needs to be done.

I was a member of the Regiment for 4 years until the war ended. I did things there that I will never speak of to anyone...things I regret with all of my being. But things that were necessary, for all of this to work. Fighting for an opposing cause and killing my brothers was the thing that drove me the most insane, but it was the only way. I had to gain respect and get in good with the Senior Officers so one day my plan could unfold. Sometimes I thought I couldn't go on, when they made me quell the rebels with acid and torture people for information I almost couldn't bear it, but your heart grows hard when you are forced to give up your soul. The only thing that kept me going was the thought of ending everything, was the thought of peace. I could kill 50 of “their” men with barely a scratch on me, and it was legal. Atonement for my sins would come, but can one atone for the deaths of his brothers? Can I atone for the sins I committed while following orders? It doesn't matter, if I can change things, I will.

***

The Great Blackout War raged on for four years. Almost one-third of the 600 million members of Newamer were killed during the battle, most of which came from the Red Faction. They were rumored to have a militia with advanced weaponry, but no evidence of such a militia ever surfaced; compared to the Dysfunction Regiment, they probably had no chance anyway. The only way for the Red Faction to win this war would be for one of them to somehow infiltrate the Blue side by joining the Regiment him or herself. But everyone knows that once you join the Regiment, the power gets to you and you would never leave for anything in the world. Not even a man with the purest heart could avoid the lure of such omnipotence. After the war had gone on for 4 years a man surfaced who was next in line to be president; this man's name was Gregory Lightbody. Gregory had an idea for an invention that would give the entire Red Faction their power back. For the EMP bombs had not only wiped out the existing power supply in the Red territory, but the electro-magnetic pulses were so strong and so steady that they remained in the atmosphere for many years making newly created electronic objects almost nonoperational. But Gregory had a simple idea that would solve all of Newamer's problems and hopefully bring peace to the divided country.

***

Eventually the slides would develop rollers to generate more power and the seesaw gave electric shocks if not moved fast enough. Simple tests to get kids to play more and make more electricity that could be sold for more money that could buy more playgrounds to make more kids play on so more electricity could be made and eventually sold for more money and more power. It had to be stopped, but what could I do? I was just a man with no children of my own, so no bias right? But no, I hated to see them like this, like Hebrews building the pyramids for the pharaohs.

I had spoken to Gregory about the horror of this event before and he had always agreed with me, but never did he attempt to change his ways. The children were now being forced to play on playgrounds, their parents were being locked up if they refused. Power was a drug, and Gregory Lightbody was its poster-child addict. The megalomaniac that is Gregory Lightbody cruelly tortured the children who refused to play until they were nothing but mindless, energy-producing machines. I had to do something about it.

***

Gregory Lightbody was a hero. The best president the world had ever seen. His success brought peace not only to Newamer, but his idea was implemented all over the world. The question was simple: how can I bring energy to a place that has none? The answer was even simpler: playgrounds. Children were always playing on playgrounds and almost everything on a playground creates energy that can be gathered and used. If enough children played on enough playground equipment, a whole half of a country could easily be energized constantly for little to no cost. This was the answer that Newamer needed, and it was virtually fool-proof. Public schools began springing up everywhere in the Red Faction, making recesses that were long and encouraging the children to play on the equipment as much as possible. Health campaigns all over Newamer were convincing parents of the health benefits to letting their children play for hours on end on playground equipment. Public parks began to promote their equipment with full force and new playground stuff appeared all over the Red territory funded, of course, by President Lightbody and his crew of thugs—his “cabinet.” All of this happened under the radar, with only important members of the Red Faction knowing of its goings on, and for a while it worked. Gregory Lightbody was treated as a god, his divine right to rule even more justified as he was honored with the nobel peace prize and his face plastered on every billboard and streetcar in Newamer. But more was happening here than the average citizen realized, power was being transferred at an alarming rate to just the wrong people.

***

Gregory was my General in the war and my best friend; he trusted me with all his heart. I was determined to use this to my advantage. I had been setting up various communications through my friends in the Red Faction. They were readily available to strike whenever I gave the signal, but what would happen if it didn't work? I couldn't risk that question, I don't want to know the answer. With no kids of my own, hundreds, maybe even thousands of innocent children would be put in my place, this had to end here and now.

***

As a god himself, Gregory could not be touched. Newamer was a union again. But he was not happy. He was not going to allow this to continue. It had worked for a while and Newamer was happy but at what cost?

***

I steadied my hand upon the anti-matter, retractable sword handle tucked secretly in my right pant leg. I would have to fight, and I would have to win. The time was now. Mr. Gregory Lightbody, Mr. Satan, Mr. Megalomania himself was standing not twenty feet from me, exchanging words with some of his thugs and yelling for the emaciated children to move faster. I noticed that for one split second, he was distracted. Like a peregrine falcon, I sprinted toward Gregory. I unsheathed my blade as a vibrant noise and silvery shine illuminated from the end of the handle. This was it, milliseconds seemed like days as I sprang upon Gregory, my sword held behind my back like the inset claws of a jaguar on the run, and I slashed. Just then, the man in front of me, that man that I had learned to hate so, disintegrated and a fist like a bullet-train hit the back of my head. I turned around as fast as I could and cut down the thug who had hit me. I killed two more in my way, and went for Gregory. He had quickly sprinted to this spot, and I saw him, his anti-matter axe at the ready.

He looked at me with eyes like Bambi—confused and stunned. “What are you doing?” he asked.

EPIC MONOLOGUE about Gregory's tyranny and how he had to be stopped.

I slashed down and we collided. Quickly I switched my pivot-foot and cut crossways. He blocked that with the buckler he wears on his forearms and cut my thigh deep with a small dagger in his non-dominant hand. I was used to the pain for I had once been in the Dysfunction Regiment and I had endured worse numerous times so I kept on fighting. He then took a slash at my throat that I barely managed to dodge as I swept his legs out from under him with a powerful kick. The edge of his axe caught my leg and I somersaulted over him parrying his knife slash and cut vertically under me as I was passing over. His arm was bleeding horrendously as we got up to stare down and fight again and I took the first lunge. He screamed at me that we could work this out as I ran, that he wasn't a fighter, he was wrong, he just wanted to make the world better. But I didn't stop, I hated him and everything he stood for. He begged as I approached, he screamed as I raised my blade. And then, burning with anger, I took one final slash at an angle, so hard that I cut through his shoulder and across his whole body. He split in half with one final agonizing scream of regret and pain and fell on the ground like pieces of dense firewood. I had done it. Gregory Lightbody was dead.

I had ended the tyranny of the ages, the sin of the world, I had stopped the terrible reign of an insane man, but what would that mean for me? I would be a hero, a legend, but I would be more than that, I would be ruler. I had killed the president with one fell swoop, and according to the present day law, assassination of the president would result in instant promotion to President myself. Would that mean that I could do what I wanted with the country? Yes of course it did, I could unite the country just as Gregory had planned to do and I could do it the right way, my way. As the rest of what used to be Gregory's thugs came and bowed to me as their new ruler, I shivered with the thought of ultimate omnipotence.

***

He grinned and his eye twinkled a sadistic twinkle.

"Knowledge is Power," by Brandon Ogren

“I told ya, I don’t know what‘s going on!” As Zash cornered the man in the bar, he began to wonder if the guy really didn’t know anything else. But it never hurt to be sure, right? Zash grabbed the man by the front of his shirt, and pulled the guy face to face to make sure he got his point across.

“You’re the one that tipped off the authorities about seeing me and got the bounty on my head, even though I’ve never been here before. So were you telling the truth or not?”

“Of course I am! I SAW them take you away!”

“Where did they take me then?”

“Why are you asking me when you‘ve been there?! Why would I know what they do with criminals like you! They told me that they would make sure you’d never get away again! They said I would be safe! You’re a demon!!! How do you always escape!?”

Zash would actually like to know that himself. Ever since his twin, Kard, had disappeared and left Zash with nothing but a name, Zash had been traveling the country side, working odd jobs to get by while looking for his murderous brother. He had been betrayed by his brother, and since then, he’d had to evade the authorities and the apparent bounty that he had on him. Every time he moved on to a new location, the people’s reaction were the same. He had supposedly already been caught, but then escaped. This is how he came to be where he is now; in yet another bar, pumping the people that turned “him” in for information.

Snapping back to reality, he looked down at the guy who had supposedly turned his brother in. The guy reeked of alcohol, and Zash had no patience for drunks, especially ones that didn’t give him the information that he wanted. Maybe he should move on…

Just as he was thinking of letting the guy go, he felt a firm hand on his shoulder. As Zash took a glance behind, he saw a man of slighter build attached to the hand on his shoulder. The fact that this guy was smaller wasn’t exactly what caught Zash’s attention. It was the abnormal strength of the guy’s grip.

“Why don’t we go outside for this particular conversation?”

“Take your hand off me and I’ll consider it.”

As the man let go of his shoulder, Zash shrugged away thinking, “Damn, this guy is strong. I can already feel my shoulder start to bruise. Who is he?” As they stared at each other, Zash began to notice the crowd that had started to gather. The mysterious man leaned in closer.

“Have you considered my proposition, or do you plan on throwing a hat down and start playing the lute? I’m sure the authorities will just love to watch.”

“Tell you what, how about you tell me what you wanna talk about before I make my decision?”

“Does information about your brother interest you at all?”

Before he knew what he was doing, Zash flashed his dagger out of its sheath and had it at the other man’s throat. That really got the crowd going. Maybe he should consider a career in entertainment.

“Well as much as I’m sure you want the information to spray out of my throat, I think you’re gonna have to be a little more tactful.”

It was true too. Zash never was good with words. Just good at making other say the ones he wanted. And when he did, people had a tendency to be very observant about it, especially the town watch. “Fine,” Zash said, “I’ll play by your rules.”

“A wise decision.”

“Lead the way then.”

As they pushed their way through the crowd yelling for the town watch, out into the streets, and into the alley way, Zash had to wonder, again, who on earth this guy was. And why did he know anything about Zash or Kard? As they got away from the crowded streets, and headed down the alley, all Zash could do was think about that night.

It had happened just over a month ago. He and his twin brother, Kard, had been working on the roof of their parent’s house. Since their father was an alchemist, and had supposedly been incredibly busy with some special research, he never had any time to help around the house with anything. Later that night he heard screaming. As he woke and flew out of his bed, he had went to wake Kard, only to find out that he was missing. By the time Zash ran downstairs, it was too late. Both his mother and father were lying dead on the ground. On the kitchen table, in the glow of candle light, Zash noticed a note. It read, “I’m sorry Zash.” It was in Kard’s handwriting. At that moment, Zash had caught the scent of smoke. He turned to see that in his state of despair and confusion, almost half the room had become engulfed in flames. There was nothing he could do to save the house or the bodies in time. He had ran out of the house and into a member of the town watch from the village at the bottom of the mountain that they lived on. He immediately saw that Zash was hysteric and tried to arrest him for arson. That was the moment that revenge took over Zash’s life. He cold cocked the guard and ran through the woods, vowing that he would find Kard and avenge his parents.

Coming out of the past, Zash realized that the mysterious man had lead him to the outskirts of the village and into an empty alley. As the man turned to face him, Zash’s patience had reached it’s limit.

“Alright, we’re here. Now are you gonna tell me what I want to know? Or am I gonna have to revert to my original strategy?”

“I suppose this will do…there doesn’t seem to be anybody around.”

“Who are you and what do you know about my brother? It’s obviously something important if you didn’t freak out and panic when you saw me like everyone else did.”

“My name is Retsopmi, and you’re right. I DO know something.”

As Retsopmi said this, Zash began to notice something odd. There was suddenly some kind of high pitched noise in the air. As Zash looked around for the source, he realized it was coming from Retsopmi. Suddenly, Retsopmi’s eyes began glowing red and the noise became louder.

“Unfortunately for you, I cannot tell you.”

“GET DOWN!”

Out of thin air, a man appeared 3 feet in the air above Retsopmi and tackled Zash to ground. As he went down to the pavement, Zash looked in time to see strings of fire come out of Retsopmi’s eyes and blow a hole the size of Zash’s head into the wall of the nearest building.

“WHAT THE HELL?!”

“Questions later! Let’s go!” the hooded man said.

As the man in the hood grabbed his hand and pulled him down the alley, Zash looked behind him in time to see a strange, almost blank, look on Retsopmi’s face. What did that mean? More importantly, what the hell was that eye fire? What was Retsopmi, some kind of sorcerer? As all these, and more, questions flew through Zash’s head, the mysterious man pulled him around the alley corner.

“Do you want to leave?”

“Wait…what?”

“Do. You. Want. To. Live. Cuz the only way that’s gonna happen is if you let me get you out of here!”

“Ok, fine! Do it!”

One moment, he was looking at a growing crowd at the end of the alley, and the next, Zash was standing in a room with a bunch of glass tubes and metal casings with buttons and lights.

“What just happened?!” Zash exclaimed.

“Well, for starters, I saved your life.”

Suddenly, Zash froze. Amidst all of the chaos, he hadn’t noticed it before, but now he did. He recognized that voice. It was his own. And that meant…

“Well suppose I have some explaining to do…” said the man in the hood.

Suddenly, everything that Zash saw was red. He couldn’t feel his hands or feet. He was hot and cold at the same time. As Kard removed the hood covering his face, Zash stood there, possessed by rage he had never known possible.

“Zash, I know what you’re thinking, but you have to listen to me first.”

“If you knew what I was thinking,” Zash whispered, “then you would either be cowering in fear, or running for you life, you miserable wretch.”

Zash had his daggers in hand and running full speed in 3 seconds. He swung to kill, aiming for the throat, and sliced nothing but air.

“What the…?”

“I told you, just let me explain,” Kard said from behind.

Zash stumbled away and crouched into a defensive position. “Why does it seem that everyone is getting magic powers suddenly? Did I miss a special sale at the market or something?”

“Zash, just listen! It wasn’t me who killed our parents!”

“And you expect me to believe that, why?”

“Just listen to me. I’m not from this world. I’m originally from the parallel universe with a parallel world much more advanced than this. Both worlds has one of us in it. I’m one of you and you’re one of me.”

“What garbage is spewing out of your mouth!? How can you say that you didn’t do it! The note you left on the table was in YOUR handwriting! Don’t lie!”

“Zash, think about it. Why would I have any reason to kill our parents? And even if I did kill them, why wouldn’t I kill you?”

As these words hit Zash, all the red began to drain from his eyes. He stopped trembling. It was like everything in him just deflated. He stood and put his face in his hands. How could he have been so stupid? Why hadn’t he thought of that? He had been so hell bent on revenge that he hadn’t once, this whole time, thought of a reason why Kard would have done those things. But why had he written the note then?

“What about the note you left one the table? Why did you leave?”

“I didn’t leave, and I didn’t write that note. I was kidnapped. The note was a forgery.”

“If you knew you’re from a different world, why in GOD’S name did you keep it a secret!?”

“Because I just found out about it when I was kidnapped!”

Zash took a moment to calm down and gather his senses. There was no use in yelling at each other like this. As Zash calmed down, he looked over and saw some round metal disc attached to Kard’s belt.

“What is that?” Zash asked, pointing at the disc.

“Hm? Oh this is a teleportation device. This is how we escaped from that cyborg back in the alley.”

“A what device? And what’s a cyborg? Some member of a sorcerers cult?”

“This is a device that lets me, and anything I touch, go instantly from one place to another. The problem is that it’s a prototype,” Kard noticed Zash’s uncomprehending face, “which basically means, in this case, that I can only teleport people that are willing. It won’t work if the person doesn’t want to go. So it’s a good thing you weren’t stupidly stubborn back there or we would have been in trouble.”

“I still don’t understand though…what about that cyborg thing or whatever?”

“The people from my world were stupid and tried to make artificial people, called cyborgs, in order to make our lives easier. We became too advanced for our own good. The cyborgs started thinking because of an invention called a personality chip, and became convinced that they were better than us. Since our parents, or MY parents if it will make this easier for you to listen to, were in charge of the advanced experimental equipment, they managed to come to this world, because they knew that this was one of the more peaceful and simple worlds. My parents got here with enough time to leave me at your doorstep as an infant before they went back and were most likely seized by the cyborgs. It was these cyborgs that finally located the world that I was in after all these years and killed our parents.”

“Why didn’t the kill me too?”

“Because they didn’t suspect you of knowing anything.”

Zash stood there and took all of this information in, trying to think through it all. How could this be? His brother was himself from another world? People shooting fire from their eyes? What the hell was going on?

“I just wish there was a way to fix all of this. To make these cyborg things just disappear…”

“There is.”

Zash shot Kard in the face with a astonished stare. Well didn’t that perk a guy up?

“How?”

“Our father from my world, this world, found a way to go back into the past. He found a way to travel through time, Zash.”

“What?!”

“That’s right. We can go back and stop personality chips from ever being invented.”

“Why didn’t you ever do this in the first place?”

“I needed to know you were ok first…and I need your help. I can’t do this by myself.”

“Well lead the way!”

As Kard led Zash out and across a hallway, into another room. Inside was a large metal case with many buttons and flashing lights. Zash had never seen something like it in his life.

“What on earth IS that?”

“This is a time machine. This is how we’re gonna fix everything. It allows us to go back to when Dr. Kallyn is working on personality chips for the cyborgs.”

“Dr. Kallyn? He’s the guy we’re after?”

“Yes. If we get rid of him, everything will go back to normal.”
Alright, this is it. All he had to do is take some skinny scientist and Zash he could have his life back. “I can’t fail“, he thought.

“Lets do this.”

“Ok, since I’m the one that’s figured out how to work this thing, you go first, and I’ll be right behind.”

Zash gave a nod and stepped into the time machine. As he stood there, Kard pressed a button. A glass shield of some kind came down from the top of the doorway. From inside, Zash could here Kard’s muffled voice.

“Are you ready?”

Zash gave the thumbs up, “Punch it.”

Kard pressed another one of the buttons. Suddenly, Zash was surrounded by a blinding white light…

. . .

As Retsopmi walked through the laboratory double doors, he took the remote control out of his front pocket and changed the frequency of the personality chip inside 013’s computer. As he waited for it reboot, Retsopmi walked up to examine it.

“Ah good, he didn’t damage you at all. As much as you out power and maneuver him, humans can be unpredictable to the point where almost anything can happen.”

The cyborg stood up straight and turned to face Retsopmi, “Yes Dr. Kallyn, I was able to complete my assigned task efficiently and without harm to the subject.”

“Well done 013. And how goes the burning process?”

“Data is now at 87% doctor.”

“Good. I dislike waiting.”

As the personality transferor finished and went into cool down mode, Zash leaned against the glass inside, rubbing his eyes. Zash then looked up and saw Retsopmi staring at him. The force with which Zash punched the glass probably would have killed a man.

“RETSOPMI!? What the hell is going on?!”

Zash seemed slightly shocked at the sad look on Retsopmi’s face. “I’m sorry, Zash.”

“About what? Trying to kill me? Kind of a funny time to grow a conscience don’t ya think? Kard! What are you doing? Get out of here!”

013 turned to face Zash, “I have no reason to fear my creator.”

“Your creator? Kard, what are you talking about?!”

“013, please install the personality chip into system 183.”

“Yes Dr. Kallyn.”

As 013 walked out through the lab double doors and down the hall, Retsopmi turned back to face Zash. He had a stunned look on his face.

“Dr. Kallyn?”

“Yes that’s correct. I am Dr. Retsopmi Kallyn.”

“You’re the one that’s responsible for all of this. You ruined my life! Why are you doing this!?”

“Fine, I will explain. When your alternate parents took the alternate you of this world to your world, they broke the law.”

“Law? What law?”

“The law that we have put in place to protect your race. Your alternate parents told your parents about the situation. Our world became compromised, so we had to eliminate the four of them. The law states that no human from either universe can know about the other universe. Who knows what would happen.”

“What give you the right to make a law if you don’t even know what the outcome would be!?”

“Humans are illogical. We have made logical assumptions, and none of them promotes your race’s well being.”

“Why did you only kill my parents? Why did you leave me?”

“Because you were never aware of the truth.”

“Then what are you doing with me now? What did you do to Kard?”

“When we captured your alternate self, I made the error of telling him that we planned on transferring both of your personalities into one of us. When he heard that, he destroyed himself in attempts to stop the transfer. We only got a 64% transfer, but it was sufficient enough to convince you.”

“So why am I here? I still didn’t know about your stupid world! You tried to kill me!”

“False. I had to get you here somehow. The only way to do that was via teleportation. Unfortunately, your alternate parents destroyed much of the advanced equipment that we had, and the prototype is all that we had. We could not force you here, therefore I acted as the enemy so that when 013 ‘saved’ you, you would instinctively trust it.”

“You still haven’t answered my question. WHY did you bring me here?” Zash said as he was slowly reaching the brink of hysteria.

“We have come to the conclusion that it would simpler to decided to try and see if one from your universe can become one of us.”

“What?! No! I refuse!”

As Zash said this, the double doors opened into the lab.

. . .

“No…” Zash thought, “no that…that can’t be…me?”

As Zash watched himself walk into the lab with Kard, or 013, that imposter, all he could was stare. Nobody else could be him…right?

“Ah, I see the installment was a success.”

“Indeed it was Dr. Kallyn,” the two cyborgs replied in unison.

“Excellent. You see Zash? There’s no reason to be upset. You’re one of us and can stay here.”

“I AM NOT ONE OF YOU! I’m still in this case! See?! Here! HERE!”

“I’m sorry Zash, but we like to be as efficient as possible, so I’m going to end this.”

End it? “No….nnnNNNNOOOO!!!”

As the electric charge surged through Zash’s body, the last thought that went through his head was; maybe we aren’t meant to know everything. Give everybody too much knowledge, and we will destroy each other. After all, knowledge is power.

An Essay on Personal Identity by Sarah Kugler

We like to believe that we have identity through time, that the “me” of today is the same as the “me” of yesterday. Multiple theories of personal identity - the brain theory, the body theory, and the soul theory – support this view. They suggest that something remains constant throughout your life, and that consistency lends you a sense of self. The memory theory runs along similar lines; as long as you have the same memories as you did yesterday, you are the same person. Contrary to these ideas of self is the idea of the “river of selves,” which suggests that, rather than an enduring personal identity, we flow from moment to moment and self to self with similar fluidity.

One theory of personal identity, the memory theory, suggests that our concepts of self rise from our memories and emotional states. As we gain new memories and lose others, our identities shift. Our sense of self rises, over time, from our relationship to these memories and emotional states; as long as we have memory continuity from day to day, we retain a specific personal identity.

The memory theory contains strong similarities to other theories of personal identity, specifically the brain and body theories. They, like the memory theory, suggest that retention is vital for identity; however, they embrace the consistency of brain and body. The brain theory says you must have the same brain in order to be the same person, and the body theory makes an identical statement about the body. Somehow your brain or your body contains your identity, and that identity remains constant despite any changes which occur to either brain or body.

Another theory of personal identity is the soul theory. Basically, there is an intangible, non-physical thing within you. It remains constant through your entire life, never changing, and your identity rises from that sameness.

Whether keeping your soul or your memories, all the theories of personal identity suggest that retention matters. The body theory is easiest to observe visually, but it provides little explanation of which body parts are necessary for the preservation of personal identity. The brain theory fosters similar problems. Trying to gauge the sameness of a soul is qualitatively impossible because the soul is an intangible, unchanging, non-physical entity. Additionally, the memory theory brings its own set of problems. Imagine the conflict between a cloned person and the original person in terms of the memory theory. Both persons seem to have equal claim to their memories; however, there no unique identity exists.

The problems with all these theories of personal identity suggest that distinct, enduring personal identites, at least in the concrete terms we usually construe them, may not exist. This conclusion spurs the "river of selves" theory. It suggests that, because we gain new memories and experiances every moment, we are more like a constant flow of slightly differing persons. Each new self is a survivor of the selves that came before it, molded by their choices, ideas, and feelings. As the time between two selves increases, they become less similar. The you of an hour ago deviates only slightly from the you of this moment, but that deviation increases if we look at the you of a year ago or of ten years ago. This moment to moment changing makes us different persons. There is no “me” that persists through time, one could argue, because, though my selves overlap, they are not identical to one another. Nothing uniformly consistent underlies your being; you are just a river of selves, constatly flowing sucession of imperceptibly differing persons.

This river of selves theory also has issues, the major one of which is the difference between accidental and essential changes. Accidental changes do not end the existence of a thing; they are minor changes. An accidental change could be eating a peanut butter sandwich for lunch – your stomach now contains peanut butter and bread, and it did not before. Eating the sandwich did not alter you significantly enough to destroy the essence "you." Essential changes, conversely, alter their subjects so much that the original object does not survive. Imagine that you are extremely allergic to peanut butter, and you eat the sandwich. Your intense allergic reaction almost kills you, because of this jarring experience, you decide to dedicate your life to teaching kids about severe food allergies. That would be an essential change because it altered the previous course your life, ending your desire to be a philosophy professor and setting you on another path.

Exploring examples of strange cases helps us work through these theories of personal identity and types of changes. An example of a consistent being helps us understand our inconsistency, and that of a more fluid person depicts our constantly shifting selves. Dr. Manhattan from the graphic novel Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons exemplifies a nearly consistent being, and Eric from The Raw Shark Texts by Stephen Hall demonstrates the fluidity of identity.

Dr. Manhattan began as an ordinary human being, Jon Osterman, a nuclear scientist working for the United States government. In a freak accident, he became trapped in an Intrinsic Field Subtractor. The machine broke him down to a molecular level, and somehow, a version of his body reassembled itself a couple months later. However, this new body was not that of the original Osterman; this reassembled Jon possessed super powers. Among these powers was the ability to experience his past, present, and future simultaneously. Though Jon, renamed Dr. Manhattan, outwardly appears to move through life and time as a normal human, his inner experience reflects a constant awareness of everything that has happened to him and everything that will happen to him. Nothing surprises Dr. Manhattan, though he behaves otherwise, and readers realize his acute awareness of past and future through his narration. Because of this inner awareness, Dr. Manhattan’s personal identity nears the consistent identity we imagine for ourselves. We cannot see the future, so, even if we have plans or ideas of our future, some aspect of each experience will deviate from what we anticipate. Dr. Manhattan, on the other hand, knows exactly what will occur in each moment because he has already seen it. Everything proceeds as he foresees it going, and because of this, his personal identity never changes. Without new experiences or ideas to change him, Jon’s existence seems strange to us. He appears distant and detached from the other character’s reality. At one point, Jon comments that everyone is a puppet, but he is a puppet who can see the strings. This illustrates Jon’s skewed view of time and also demonstrates his deviation from normal human experience.

On the other end of the spectrum is Eric, the narrator of Stephen Hall’s novel The Raw Shark Texts. Rather than transitioning smoothly from one self to another, Eric experiences this shift in a rather jarring way. He wakes up in a coughing fit on the floor with no memory of his identity or his past. As the novel continues, Eric pieces together the story of who he was before he forgot everything. Much of Eric’s information comes from letters he receives from someone claiming to be “the First Eric Sanderson.” Apparently the First Eric Sanderson knew he would lose his memory; he wanted to preserve important information for the benefit of his future self, our narrator, the Second Eric Sanderson. As Eric 2 reads these letters, he learns about the character and personality of Eric 1. Though they share a body, Eric 2 never considers Eric 1 to be “the same” person as him. They do not share memories; therefore, according to the memory theory of personal identity, they are not the same person. The soul, body, and brain theories suggest that Eric 1 and Eric 2 are the same person because they are numerically identical.

Eric and Dr. Manhattan demonstrate interesting perspectives on personal identity despite their fictionality. Both characters deviate from traditional human experiences; Dr. Manhattan gains superpowers, and Eric mysteriously loses his memory. Despite these fantastical elements, aspects of their stories apply to reality.

Dr. Manhattan depicts the necessity of inconsistency. After getting stuck in the Intrinsic Field Subtractor and gaining super powers, he lost important human attributes, most obviously, the traditional human experience of time. Normal people cannot see into the future or perfectly remember the past; we live one moment at a time rather than experiencing every event of our lives simultaneously. Our status as changing creatures is vital to our humanity. Dr. Manhattan demonstrates that a nearly consistent self, someone aware of everything they have experienced and will experience, is impossible for a person. Experiences in the present do not change him because they have already altered him; by experiencing everything, he is changed by nothing. When Dr. Manhattan gained this stasis, he lost his humanity.

The example of Dr. Manhattan demonstrates that, though we may believe our selves to be fairly consistent, we remain distant from truly static beings. Some deeply ingrained attributes stay steady through our lives, but much of who we are shifts as we age and learn. If we were static, we would be more like Dr. Manhattan, beings going through the motions of life, but never deviating from the path set before us. We are inconsistent because that consistency conflicts with basic attributes of our humanity.

Eric’s experiences, rather than probing concepts of consistent human identity, propose a strange relationship between our past and present selves. Eric 1 and Eric 2 share a body, and, because of the stories Eric 1 imparts to Eric 2 through his letters, they almost share some memories. The more stories Eric 2 reads, the more he understands and identifies with the Eric that came before him. Eric 2 does not recall from his own experience what it was like to be in Greece with his girlfriend, for example; all he knows about it is what Eric 1 told him. Eric 2 does not know the trip’s minute details, what shoes he wore on the first Monday there or the color of the bedspread in their hotel. Nevertheless, he gains a faint picture of what it was like to be Eric 1, a picture similar to a memory of the distant past. To illustrate this, consider the relationship between a person at age 15 and that (numerically) same person at age 60. The 60-year-old possesses some of the memories of the 15-year-old, but many memories they would share have faded or been forgotten by the elder person. Some overlap remains between them, but with time, their connection waned.

Perhaps the connection between Eric 1 and Eric 2 nears the relationship between that person’s present self (the 15-year-old) and a self in their past or future (in this case, the 60-year-old.) A few shared memories and a body connect them, but for the most part, they are independent persons. Their goals and values differ, those of the elder person or Eric 2 partially influenced but not determined by those of the younger person or Eric. This progression of ideas and memories demonstrated by the Erics suggests that, in addition to being ever-changing beings, we are products of our former selves.

What are we, then? Do concepts of personal identity not apply to persons at all? Based upon Dr. Manhattan and Eric, some form of self endures through time, but it is not the static entity we usually imagine. This self is fluid, influenced by accidental and essential changes. As we move through time, learning, forgetting, and aging, our self almost imperceptibly changes. We are neither identical to nor wholly different from our past selves. As we grow further away from a specific self, our differences increase, but, as a survivor of that self, our connection never entirely ends.

"Burden of Proof," by Emily Papp

“Name?”

“Addison Monroe,” she answered quickly.

“Full name,” the facilitator corrected uninterestedly.

“Addison Fae Monroe,” she answered, fighting to keep a similar tone from her own voice.

The sound of the questioner scribbling notes on his clipboard was all the response she was awarded. Her stomach growled loudly, though if the man across the table heard, he made no indication. Seeing that he was still tied up in his note-taking, she glanced surreptitiously at her watch.

3:30 p.m.

In a small house in the suburbs across the city, Addison pictured her daughter, Annie, waking up from her afternoon nap. The mere thought of the three-year-old was enough to bring a smile to Addison’s face. But there was no time to consider her at the moment. The man across the table was shuffling through the small stack of papers in front of him.

He slid a booklet across the table, straightening the rest of the papers in his hands as he stood. “You have two hours to complete the questionnaire, but you may leave whenever you feel you have completed it to the best of your ability,” he explained in the same flat tone he had used before, “Please be as honest as possible.”

Addison patted down the pockets of her jacket as he turned to leave. “Sorry, but do you have a pen?” she asked quickly.

He sighed in obvious annoyance, but produced a nondescript pen from his shirt pocket. “Two hours,” he reminded, and in another second he was gone, leaving Addison to the questionnaire before her.

Two hours, Addison remembered with an internal scoff as she crossed the plaza outside the building just an hour and fifteen minutes later. The questionnaire might require some thought, but it certainly did not require such a stretch of time. Addison did not know anyone who had ever needed the full allotted time. But, then again, she had never known anyone who was infected.

The infections, as they had been dubbed by higher authorities, were the reason for these tests. According to official government statements, the infections had started six years before, though Addison imagined they had been going on much longer—simply without the government’s detection.

Infections, Alison mused to herself—it was such an inane sounding word for the gravity of the situation it addressed. According to official government statements, the infections had started six years before, though Addison imagined they had been going on much longer—simply without the government’s detection. It as something the likes of which Addison had only ever seen in the worst of her nightmares—something she never could have imagined was actually possible.

Aliens. Extra-terrestrials. Addison’s preconceived notions about such beings were only based on the movies and books to which she had been exposed as a child. But these aliens were much scarier than any Addison had ever encountered in the world of fiction. Unlike the battle-like attacks she had always seen portrayed in movies and books, their invasion and infiltration had been silent, subtle. There had been no War of the Worlds-esque ships invading the atmosphere, no laser guns, and certainly no crop circles. Instead, this invasion took place over a long period of time as the alien life forms fazed themselves into human society—taking over one body at a time in a manner that was nearly undetectable.

Even now, after all these years of research, the only way to tell if someone was infected was still somewhat subjective. This was where the tests came in. Once an alien took over a body, they generally lived different lives than the person had before. There were usually noticeable in changes in attitudes, values, habits, etc. A drastic change in any of these in any person was cause for suspicion of infection.

A nearly-silent, hydrogen-powered Vespa drew her back to reality with a jolt as it sped past her, nearly hitting her. And despite her annoyance, she was glad for it. The Crotans, as the aliens had been dubbed by the government, were a threat to be certain, but a cranky toddler was almost as terrifying and Addison knew if she did not get home soon that was exactly what she would have on her hands.

As if on a cue, one of the new the metro trains glided silently into the plaza, the unobtrusive tracks in the ground quickly turning on and off their electric current as the train passed smoothly over them. Addison moved towards the set of covered benches that marked where the train would stop and less than a minute later she was boarding the train, the RRS (Rapid Retinal Scanner) which was placed just over the doorway automatically recognizing her and charging her account for the ride.

The trains were smooth and comfortable for the most part, but even so she found the forty minute ride out to the suburbs seemed to take longer than normal. She reasoned it was because she had been forced to take a seat facing backwards—something that always seemed to make her a bit nauseous—but she knew that it was the afternooon’s test that was putting her in an off mood. She knew the tests were necessary, but it still irked her to be forced to take an afternoon off of work just to take a test in an uncomfortable room to prove that she was still her.

Her bad mood lightened considerably, however, as she got off the train and walked the two blocks to the livable—if a bit outdated—apartment complex where she lived with her mother and Annie. The garden-level apartment smelled slightly musty but Addison hardly noticed anymore. By the time she had pushed the door open, the only thought on her mind was the toddler on the other side.

Annie, for her part, was oblivious to her mother’s return—her small attention wholly devoted to a set of brightly colored block. It was not until Hannah Monroe—Addison’s mother—greeted her daughter warmly that Annie finally noted her arrival.

“Mommy!” Annie said exuberantly, her brown eyes twinkling with the natural energy that only young children were capable of.

“Hello, baby!” Addison greeted, all the weight of her day immediately lifted from her shoulders as she picked up her daughter and hugged her close, “How was your day?”

“Good, good, good,” Annie bubbled, her grin spreading from ear to ear, “We saw monkeys! At the zoo!”

Hannah chuckled, as she crossed the room. “Why don’t you let her tell you all about it while I start dinner?”

Much later that evening, far after they had put Annie to bed, there was a loud knock at the door. Addison and Hannah exchanged confused looks, and when the knock was repeated, Addison crossed the room hesitantly, peeking through the peephole. All she could see were the letters NADA plastered across and ID and badge.

She opened the door a few inches, “Yes?”

“Are you Addison Monroe?” the man asked bluntly.

“Yes, I am,” she confirmed, the confusion obvious in her voice, “And you are?”

“I am Agent Joseph Donovan. I’m with NADA,” he explained, “I’m here to inform you that you are suspected of being a Crotan. I’m going to need you to come with me.”

The room she now sat in looked almost identical to the one she had occupied earlier in the day, but while those blank walls and simple furnishings had only seemed drab and boring before, these now seemed sleek and intimidating. Addison imagined this was mostly due to the fact that instead of quietly filling out a routine questionnaire, she was now handcuffed—“A simple precaution,” Agent Donovan had assured her—and faced with not one, but two nameless NADA officials, both of whom were large and intimidating in their dark suits. The one on the right placed a recording device in the middle of the table and pressed a red button.

“Date: March 16th, 2065. Time: 10:15 p.m.. Interview conducted by myself, Agent Michael Jeffries, and my partner, Joel Cossack,” he said to no one in particular. He then turned to Addison, addressing her directly, “Addison Monroe, you have been brought here for questioning by the National Alien Detection Agency under the suspicion that you are a member of the extra-terrestrial race known as the Crotans.”

“I know,” Addison said quickly, “Agent Donovan informed me, but—”

“I am required to say that at the beginning of this session,” Jeffries explained coldly, “And now that formality is out of the way, I am allowed to tell you that I know what you are. And you won’t live to see this time next week.”

The blunt threat seemed to wake her up from the daze she had been in since Joseph Donovan had rung her doorbell nearly an hour before. A chill of fear ran down Addison’s spine and an overwhelming sense of helplessness washed over her.

“You may have her face, Crotan, but you are not Addison Monroe,” said Agent Cossock that was, if possible, even more unfriendly than the first’s, “Addison has been gone months, maybe years. You killed the person inside this body so you could use it instead.”

“No, I’m not. I didn’t. This is all a mistake. You have to understand,” Addison pleaded.

“That’s what they all say,” Jeffries said to Cossock, as if in reference to a clever inside joke.

Addison was struck silent as the feeling of helplessness threatened to overtake her completely. All she was able to do was shake her head.

“Don’t believe us? Let me show you the evidence,” Cossock said. He laid out the test she had taken four years before next to the one she had taken just that afternoon, “The inconsistencies are too obvious. Didn’t you even try?”

Addison stared wordlessly as he opened both books and began reading, “Question 42: ‘What is your biggest goal in life?’ Today you said, ‘To be a good mother.’ Four years ago, you said ‘Have fun, or die trying.’

“Question 53: ‘Where do you see your career in 5 years?’ Today you said, ‘Working in a small publishing firm.’ Previously you said, and I quote, ‘Work is for old people with no personalities.’

“And there are plenty more here. I don’t need to read them to you,” he said, sliding the booklets across the table to her, “All the ones marked in red are the ones we find suspicious.”

Addison began flipping through the pages of both books. Over three quarters of the questions were marked red. Though she knew that both she and her life had changed drastically when Annie was born, seeing all these answers in her own handwriting showed her just how different she was today. Her attitudes had changed on everything from politics to religion to personal values. She realized with a sinking feeling just how suspicious all of this must look.

She took a deep breath before turning her attention back to the agents across the table, “Gentlemen, I know how suspect this must look,” she began, trying to sound calm and reasonable, “but let me explain. My life circumstances have changed drastically since the last time I took your test. And as a result, my whole world view has changed as well. There’s nothing sinister going on here, it’s just life teaching me a lot of lessons over the last few years.”

“Our rating procedures have been designed to account for normal personal development and growth,” Jeffries explained, “This is far beyond the scale of such changes. These tests are evidence that a completely different identity is now inhabiting that body.”

“No. Please understand—”

“—but there are procedures we must abide by. According to the laws governing NADA, you must be given a fair hearing before a panel of NADA and government agents within a week of questioning,” Jeffries explained, “You are also awarded the assistance of one agent—in this case, I think, Agent Donovan, since you are already acquainted—as you attempt to gather information and evidence to prove that you are not infected.”

“And when will this hearing be?” Addison asked.

Cossack tapped away at a PDA for a few seconds before answering, “8:00 Friday morning.”

“But that’s only one day to gather evidence!” Addison exclaimed.

“Well, if you truly are innocent, then it shouldn’t be a problem,” Jeffries said smugly.

The interview ended abruptly then. Addison was released into the custody of Agent Donovan, who drove her home in the same stony silence as when he had brought her downtown. It wasn’t until he pulled into the parking lot of her apartment complex that he finally said something.

“Considering the late hour, I would suggest you try to get some sleep. We can get started tomorrow morning. I will be here at 9:00 sharp,” he said, and after Addison nodded he continued, “Oh, and I’m required to inform you that you will be under surveillance all night. Don’t try to run.”

Back inside her apartment, Hannah was awaiting Addison’s return with obvious worry. Though Addison was exhausted, she dutifully recounted the events of the night to her mother. They agreed that Hannah would take Annie to a motel for a while so that Addison would not have her underfoot while she gathered evidence.

Though the worry was obvious in her eyes, ever the optimist, Hannah assured her daughter, “Don’t worry, honey. You’ve done nothing wrong. This will all work out.”

The next morning, Hannah and a very sleepy Annie departed, leaving the apartment to Addison as she faced the task ahead. Though it had seemed overwhelming the night before, the morning brought a sense of sheer determination that drove her to overcome. By the time Agent Donovan arrived, she had the entire living room floor covered with the few boxes full of paraphernalia from her youth which had long been shoved in the back of her closet.

The knock on the door echoed through the whole apartment. “It’s open!”

Agent Donovan let himself in and greeted her curtly, “Hello. I see you’ve already started looking for evidence.”

“Yes,” Addison said, “Now I must admit I don’t really understand why you’re here.”

“I’m here to help you, kind of like an attorney in a criminal trial,” he explained.

“All right then, Agent, let me run my ideas past you,” she said.

“Yes, please do. And please, call me Joe,” he said.

She searched through the piles of papers and things around her until she found the stack she was looking for—a stack pages covered in the same chicken-scratch handwriting—and handed it to him. “Look, the same handwriting. Those pages span the last seven years,” she explained.

Joe didn’t even glance at them, but set them aside. “No good, tried it before. Writing is a physical action, and since the Crotans have no physical bodies, studies indicate that they learn such actions from the muscle memories of the body they take over,” he explained, “It proves nothing.”

“What about having my mom testify?” she asked, disappointed that her first idea was so easily explained away.

“Have you always lived with her?”

“No, I ran away when I was seventeen. I didn’t come back until about three years ago,” Addison explained.

Joe shook his head sadly, “Then that won’t work either.”

Addison pondered for a moment, glancing around the living room for inspiration. Her eyes landed on a stack of old journals. “What about my writing?” she asked, “My handwriting isn’t evidence, but what about the fact that almost all of my writing over the years has used the same style tactics, language, et cetera?”

He didn’t even need time to contemplate. He shook his head again, “Sorry, if you were a Crotan, you would look through old journals and writings to get an idea of whose life you were stealing—research, so to say.”

And so they fell into a routine—Addison would come up with some new idea, and Donovan would explain exactly why it would never work as a defense. As her ideas became more and more outlandish, she became more and more frustrated as they were each shot down.

“Fine! I don’t get it!” she exclaimed in exasperation after working for over two hours, “How am I supposed to prove that I am who I say I am?! Because obviously all of my ideas are worthless.”

Donovan sighed, “That’s just it, Addison. You’re not supposed to be able to. It’s an impossible task.”

The world seemed to slam to a stop in the moment “So what, then, the hearing’s just a sham?” she demanded, “Why have it at all then?!”

“Because the American people don’t like punishing people—even for being extra-terrestrials—without the assurance that they’ve sat a fair trial of some sort,” Donovan explained, “I’ve never once had a client prove themselves human.”

“And how many clients have you had?” she asked, the helplessness beginning to set in again.

“Over two hundred in the last three years,” he admitted with a sigh.

“Well maybe I’ll be your first.”

The rest of the day passed slowly for Donovan as Addison persisted in exploring every possible defense strategy. He tried to tell her time and time again that while her determination was admirable, it did not matter what they tried, she would still be convicted. Finally around 6:00 that evening, Addison told him he could leave, as he wasn’t helping in any way.

Donovan’s departure did not mark the end of Addison’s search, however. She was determined to find a way to prove herself innocent. She had a daughter. She could not afford to have herself imprisoned indefinitely or even executed. Annie deserved better than that.

She worked tirelessly in the night, only pausing for an hour to make a trip to the local hotel where Hannah and Annie were staying. If the worst should happen the next day, she wanted to know that she had spent one last precious hour with her little girl. She returned to the apartment and back to her work, Annie weighing heavily on her mind. It was then that finally she stumbled upon an idea that she thought might be her saving grace.

“Let this hearing come to order. This Alien Conviction Council has come together today to hear the case of Addison Monroe,” said the head council member the next morning at promptly 8:00, “Is the accused present?”

“I am,” Addison said as she stood, her voice sounding tired. Agent Donovan, who stood next to her, placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“You are charged with being a member of the alien race known as the Crotans,” the same man said, “How do you answer this charge?”

“Not guilty.”

“Then the burden of proof rests with you. Many inconsistencies have been noted in your tests. It is your duty, then, to convince this council that you are indeed the same being that filled out this test four years ago.”

“I object,” Addison said confidently.

“Excuse me? To what?” The confusion was obvious on the council members’ faces.

“To this hearing. To the task set before me,” she answered, and though Agent Donovan tried to shush her, she continued, “You have presented me an impossible task, and I object.”

“The task is far from impossible,” another woman on the council argued with a cold laugh.

“Oh really?” Addison questioned, “Then why don’t you prove that you are the same person that you were four years ago. Go ahead. I’d like to hear your arguments.”

“Well, that’s just… Of course I am… ridiculous,” she rambled, obviously thrown off by Addison’s direct confrontation.

“In fact, I’ll go as far as to say that it is impossible for anyone to prove that they are the same person they were in the past because we are not the same people that we were then. If our physical bodies can’t be used as evidence, then there is no feasible way to prove we are the same people,” she continued, “I admit it. I’m guilty of not being the same person that filled out that test. Life changes people, sometimes drastically. Are you the same person you were in college?”

Several of the council members shook their heads slightly, looking intrigued at Addison’s arguments.

“So then, using your own logic, you have just admitted that you are, in fact, a group of body snatching aliens.”

“Enough of this! We are not the ones on trial here, you are!” said the head councilman,

“Well maybe you should be!” Addison argued, “Forcing people to prove their innocence in this way is not only unfair, it’s unattainable.”

“If the accused has no real evidence to present, then I call a vote,” the same man said, ignoring her accusations, “All those who believe the accused is guilty?”

The man raised his own hand. The head councilman glared at the others, obviously trying to intimidate them into voting with him, but when it was clear it would do no good he continued dejectedly, “All those who believe she is innocent of the charges?”

The other four council members raised their hands confidently. There was no denying the verdict. Addison couldn’t stop a small smile of victory from creeping up.

“This is ridiculous! Of course she’s guilty!” the head councilman argued loudly.

“How can you be so sure?” another woman on the council challenged.

The councilman opened his mouth to retort but found no words. “You’re free to go,” he sighed, clearly defeated.