Microstory 2007: Oregon

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In summer of 1987, papa was 14 years old, and about to start high school for the first time. But remember, this would be at the same school he was before, but it was still going to be different. His mother was a teacher, so she knew how important schooling was. She knew that it was going to be a lot harder for papa than it was in the lower grades. She wanted him to have one more experience as a kid, where he could have fun, and not worry about grades yet. She also wanted him to be away from his family, because she knew that he was going to have to go off to college when he got older, so he had to learn. She found a summer camp that went for a whole two months! I went to summer camp once, but it was only for two weeks. Papa only saw his parents twice while he was there, and his sister once. I remember him telling me that he had a lot of fun, but he was sad to be away from his family and friends for so very long. He made friends there, though, that he stayed friends with. They did a whole lot of things there, like swimming, horseback riding, and even archery. The camp was in Oregon, so it took them 9 hours to get there, which is why his family didn’t get to visit him very often. The place was called Antelope Reservoir Camp, and it doesn’t exist anymore, because the people who owned it ran out of money. I would have liked to see where my papa spent so much time, but maybe when I’m older, my dad will let me go to a place that’s like it.

Microstory 1772: Archer

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I survived, against all odds. A group of men abducted me, and held me captive in a barn. Once they were ready, they released me into the woods, and told me that they would give me a five-minute head start. They expected me to run as far as I could, but I circled back, and stole one of their vehicles. When I look back on that moment, I’m filled with regret at how disappointing and anticlimactic that ordeal was. That was my chance; my chance to see what it feels like to take a life. I wouldn’t have gotten in any trouble for it, and any of them would have deserved it. I only ran, because some idiot left the key in the ignition, and didn’t give me a choice. Had I tried to fight back at that point, it would have looked suspicious. If I had just gone for it, and ended up not liking it, at least I would have known the truth. As it stands, I feel like I don’t know who I am. Am I a killer? Am I no better than those rich bastards who liked to hunt the most dangerous game? I try to move on with my life, but these questions nag at me, and refuse to relent. I wake up one day, and find myself on autopilot. No hope to stop myself, I drive to the prison to visit the ringleader. He acts like he saw this coming. Does he see something in me that no one else does? I ask him why he did it, and what turned him into the kind of person he is. Since I’m not a lawyer, this conversation isn’t privileged, so I have to worry about them listening in. I frame my interrogation like a victim who is trying to get some closure and move past it. I get the sense that he understands why I’m really here, and he frames his responses to help me work through my existential crisis. When the hunt began, someone flung an arrow at my feet, and nearly struck me. As it turns out, this is the guy who did that. He wanted me to know that he had my life in his hands. The arrow, according to him, is the purest weapon history ever came up with. I don’t know what that means, but my attention shifts to it, and I know that I have to find out.

I start learning archery on my own. I don’t want anyone to know what I’m into, so I build a range in my basement all by myself, and let internet videos teach me the basics. From there, it’s just a matter of practicing. I breathe archery, and dream about it. It consumes my whole being, and before I know it, I’m an expert marksman. I keep wondering if I’ll get tired of it, or if I’ll eventually stop feeling the need to continue, but that day never comes. I have to do more. I have to know how far that arrow flies. I feel like a junkie, chasing after something I’ll never get. The difference is that I think I can get it. I think all I need is some better targets. Out of the dozen people who tried to kill me two years ago, one of them got an easy sentence. He cooperated with law enforcement, and basically sealed all the others’ fates. He was apparently new to the crew, so he hadn’t killed anyone yet. He’s the only one not still in prison, so I decide he’ll be my first. I can’t tell you how good it feels when I watch that arrowhead sink into his kidney. It’s like witnessing a miracle; I’m euphoric. The high doesn’t last, and I must find another. Vigilante is not the word I can use for myself, though that would be a fantastic excuse. The truth is that my experience screwed me up more than I realized at first, and I have become obsessed with understanding why those people did what they did. After killing a few random criminals here and there, I determine that I’ve been sloppy and unorganized. If I want to hold onto this feeling, I have to become something new. I form my own crew, but we don’t go after normal people. We go after the rich.

Microstory 1041: Archie

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Most people think that my full name is Archibald, and because it’s kind of an antiquated name, my peers like to use it instead. My real name is actually Archer, which my parents desperately want me to be using instead, but then I’m constantly fighting this belief that I’m good at archery. Archery isn’t the last thing I would be doing, but I’m not interested in sports, and I don’t want anything to distract from my true message. I’m an active and healthy person, but my primary concern is promoting a well-balanced diet, and removing all the terrible things that the corporations put in our food. A lot of people probably don’t remember that I too ran for student body president, as a fourth candidate. Almost no one voted for me, though, because I was honest with my campaign promises, and they were not promises anyone wanted me to keep. When I started dating my girlfriend, Martha last year, I gave her my password to a certain movie and television library, because she isn’t eighteen yet. She’s stopped having very much time for it, but her viewing habits are still impacting my recommendations. She’s obsessed with learning, and finds documentaries to be the best source of her education, so I started seeing a lot of stuff on there that I wouldn’t normally watch. One of these such docs was about how corn is basically destroying the country. I won’t get into specifics here, because the topic needs its own monthly periodical, for Christ’s sake, but the takeaway is that there’s corn in everything, and the toxic waste it produces is harming the environment as much as fossil fuel. I ran my campaign on changing the way this school does business, and my fellow students either didn’t like it, or were totally indifferent. I wanted to overhaul our lunch menu, and get rid of all the magazines. Why would we get rid of magazines? Well, there’s corn in them too, which is insane. I mean, we shouldn’t be consuming so much paper anyway, because corn isn’t the only thing that’s causing us to head towards the apocalypse, but try telling that to a group of self-involved hormonal teens. Anyway, Viola was the only one who really paid attention to what I was saying, but she also realized that there was no way I would win. Instead of trying to support me, which probably would have been a waste of time, she modified her own campaign to better reflect the values that I was trying to push. As you know, she didn’t win either, and the both of us have always suspected this to be the reason, but that didn’t mean what she did was pointless. Though Riley ultimately won the election, people actually started listening to my warnings, and things are changing. The menu is still filled with tons of unhealthy ingredients, but there’s a lot less high fructose corn syrup than there was before you got here. You couldn’t walk ten meters without running into another soda machine, but they’re all gone now. I didn’t do that; Viola did, and the greatest sadness is that this revolution is only one of what could have been very many that she popularized. What other great change could she have inspired in this world if she hadn’t died so young? That’s what I wanna know.

Seeing is Becoming: Boarders (Part IV)

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“You want me to do what now?” Vearden asked.

A Gondilak doctor was standing in front of him, hands on his hip. “I would like you to cut yourself. With that knife. It doesn’t have to be too deep, but it can’t be too shallow either.”

“I’m not into that.”

“We just have to see what it looks like.”

“You do it.”

Dr. Reeder—translation unclear—rolled his eyes. He moved shockingly like a human. “Fine.” He took the knife back and carelessly ran it across Vearden’s arm.

“Oh my God!” Vearden screamed. “Does it always hurt like that?” The cut sealed up almost as quickly as it was created.

“For us, we get used to it,” Reeder replied. “Especially for those of us living so close to the Orothsewan border.”

“I was to understand that Orothsew was the name of the entire planet?”

Reeder cut Vearden on his other arm.

“Ouch again! Jeez, you never told me you were going to do it again.”

“Did I not?” He stabbed Vearden in the leg. “The Orothsew and the Gondilak evolved on two different continents, separated by a treacherous ocean. Each culture had named this planet on its own before the Orothsew progressed enough to discover us. We’ve been warring for decades. They only recently made claim to their sliver of land on our continent, which they were able to do with slightly superior technology.”

“Do you get aliens on this side too?” Vearden dodged a few more attacks, but a stealthy archer shot him with an arrow from behind.

“We do occasionally,” Reeder said while he was breaking the arrow. “But humans only ever help the Orothsew.” He pulled the back end of the arrow out quickly. “We do not know why.” He lowered his gaze, obviously preparing to drop the knife on Vearden’s foot.

“Let’s...stop this for now,” Vearden said, gently taking the knife. “I think you have enough data for the day. And I need to contact my partner.”

“She is still with them.”

“Well, it’s not my fault that you only took me.”

“Not my fault either. That is not my job.”

He sighed. “Do you have a telephone, or a carrier pigeon, or something?”

“I have no idea what those words mean.”

Vearden thought about his options for a moment. “Okay. She’s going to try to find me. But she doesn’t know the terrain, so she would request a guide or a search party. Assuming they agreed, where might we be able to intercept them? Where would they start their search for me?”

“Well, they would go back to where the ambush was, probably. But that’s still in their territory. Our operatives took great risk to get you but that’s only because they value you. For her, the leaders would never agree to cross that deep past the boundary. Your next best chance is in the Diamond Forest.”

“You have a forest of diamonds?” Vearden was excited.

“It’s shaped like a diamond,” the doctor condescended. “Calm down. Anyway, I doubt they would let you go. You are, as I’ve said, valuable to them.”

“I don’t need their permission. I am not a prisoner here.”

Reeder shrugged. “Semantics.”

“Can you help me or not?”

“I can’t help you, per se. But I can lead you to someone who can.”

He gave him directions on where to go, but it wasn’t necessary. His new liaison-slash-bodyguard took him there. They walked into a tent and found themselves with a crowd of both Gondilak and Orothsew. One such of the latter was clearly in some kind of position of authority.

“Ah, the human,” she said. “What is he doing here?”

“I was told that you could help me get back to my partner. She’s with the...um, you know, with you guys.”

She laughed. “Don’t look so surprised. This war is based on land; not race. The Orothsewan government would like you to believe that they are following a singular vision, but they are most certainly not. The majority of the population on both sides disapprove of the war, and a few of us have temporarily defected in hopes of forming a new culture, composed of the entire planet of Orolak, free from segregation.”

“Ked rihl,” one of the other Orothsew muttered in his native tongue.

“Quiet, Mujel. It isn’t a pipe dream. And please speak English in front of our guest. Those are the rules.” She looked back over to Vearden and extended her hand. “I am Uhyiopa.”

“I can’t help but notice,” Vearden admitted, “that there is a surprisingly high number of people here who speak my language. Even with the supposed hundreds of human visitors, most of you should not be able to speak it, especially not so fluently.”

“We teach it in schools now. We have determined it to be the most widely spoken language in the galaxy.”

“It is?” he asked. “How is that possible?”

“You have heard that Orolak is some kind of natural hub for alien visitors?”

“Indeed.”

“In the spirit of that, Earth seems to be a sort of ambassador homebase. It’s true that only a few hundred have come here total, but a not insignificant number of those few hundred have been transported to planets besides ours. You’re like a colonizing race, but without all the conquering. The strange thing is,” she paused for effect, “not a single one of you appears to have any control over it.”

Vearden took a second to process the information. He had already known that he and Saga weren’t the only ones. But it seemed to be so much bigger than that. The people in charge had some kind of grand design. They plan these missions, and they send their unwitting minions out into the field. No one knew who they were, or why they were doing this, but there was clearly a consensus that they existed. No one was even so much as entertaining the possibility that there was no plan at all. What if it was all just random? What if these...what should he call them, powers that be, aren’t there at all? What if people just didn’t realize that this was how the universe worked; a strange form of chaos theory where sometimes you’re simply teleported somewhere else?

“I need some air,” Vearden said, nearly hyperventilating. He walked over and pulled the flap of the tent back. What he found there was a change in scenery. He had been transported, just like before to Orolak, but this time he was back on Earth. At least, he assumed it to be Earth. He saw no Orothsew or Gondilak. The buildings looked more familiar. And he saw humans.

“Vearden?” came the voice of his sister.

“Allison!” he cried out. “It’s so good to see you.”

“You too,” she agreed. She didn’t act like he had been missing at all. “I honestly thought that you would crap out on me again. But you’re here. On time. And on the day that I asked.” That wasn’t right. Not only had he spent a few days on Orolak, but he had set out for this summer camp a day later than he had promised. Even if the powers that be had moved sent him back to Earth the moment after he first left, he would have been late, according to his sister’s schedule.

“What day is it?”

“What are you asking, V?”

“Just humor me. Please.”

She eyed him suspiciously, but felt like it wasn’t worth arguing. “It’s Tuesday, May 19.” That was the proof. He left for Orolak on Wednesday, and had already been scolded by Allison about that. He had traveled back in time.

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