Space Toll Booth

“Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say.”

“What?”

“Have you ever heard the saying, ‘In space, no one can hear you scream’.”

“What?”

“I SAID, HAVE YOU EVER HEARD…” Dave turned to look at his co-worker to see what his problem was, only to find him laughing violently on the video screen of the booth opposite. He had heard his friend clearly enough but chose this moment to prank him. “You’re an arsehole Phil.” Dave said calmly over the comm-link.

“Yeah, yeah, I am. But you knew that already right Dave.”

“Sure. Are you bored again Phil? I know it’s been a little slow, but the rush will be on soon enough, and you’ll be whinging about that.”

“Yeah, ok, I know, but tell me why I took this job again mate? I miss the beach. I should be surfin’. I miss the ocean man.”

“We all miss the ocean Dave, maybe you more than me, but that’s a past we can’t go back to.

Phil and Dave went way back, back to primary school. They met in kindergarten, fighting over the same toy. They hated each other that first day of school. They hated each other the next day too, when they argued over the crayons, and on the third day they fought over the chair they wanted to use. Their teacher separated them on the fourth day when Phil and Dave were pulling each other’s hair because there wasn’t enough Lego for the two of them. Dave didn’t come to school on the Friday which made young Phil sad. The following Monday, Phil waited at the gate for Dave and when he showed up clutching his mother’s hand tightly, Phil went to Dave, holding his hand out and apologised for fighting with him. Phil’s father had spoken to him about how to treat friends. Timidly Dave let go of his mother’s hand and shook Phil’s. They’ve been best mates ever since. That was twenty odd years ago and a lot had changed since then. Their whole world had changed.

“Those words seem all too relevant right now Phil, don’t you think? I mean, I’m not saying an alien is going to come bursting out of our chests or anything, but look around man, there’s nothing. It freaks me out sometimes.”

They both stopped to take in the vastness of the space that surrounded them, and a dread fell over them as the silence of space weighed on their psyche`.

“I would hear you if you screamed Dave. Well as long as you had your comms open.”

Dave could hear the laughter in Phil’s voice, more so when he heard Dave mutter, “arsehole.”

After many adventures and misadventures, both together and apart, Phil and Dave always seemed destined to end up together. They played the same sports, watched the same movies, and even listened to the same music. After high school they attended the same university and though they studied different things, at one time the two of them dated the same girl, at the same time, at least until they found out. She didn’t see the problem, but she didn’t know these boys, they worked out early that the one thing they couldn’t do together was share.

They tried sharing an apartment but nearly came to blows many times, until Dave moved out. After seeing the band, Ball Park Music, they were inspired to take up guitar. They went halves in buying an instrument, a scheduling fight happened, and the guitar got broken; they were twenty years old. Dave kept the guitar as a reminder.

So, how did they end up working on an interplanetary ‘toll booth’, essentially sharing a job? We’ll get to that.

***

The Earth year is 2027, but that date seems irrelevant now, and for the last few years, most of Earths indigenous inhabitants had taken to the new date system. In Earth 2025, the first visitor arrived in the form of a worldwide broadcast; like a Zoom meeting for the entire planetary population. It was sent from a nearby galaxy and distributed using our own communication satellites.

“Hello, inhabitants of Earth, don’t be alarmed,” was the first coherent message received from beings outside our own little sphere. Of course, this caused alarm on a global scale, and after the major powers realised it wasn’t any of them, they shut down their respective nuclear retaliation systems. Every hacker in the world was rounded up and questioned, but in short time it was decided, though with a lot of scepticism on all sides, that this may just be ‘the real thing’, cue Russell Morris.

The message was transmitted in most common languages like Mandarin, Spanish, French and English and a few others, with instruction to pass the message on to the remaining people through the United Nations. The short story was that we were being brought online with a larger intergalactic network of worlds across many galaxies. It would involve sharing information, combining resources, physical and intellectual; training for the new technology, they would provide, and there was a timeframe of two Earth years. The first ships would arrive then.

Needless to say, earthlings being earthlings, there was initial confusion, mainly among the various religions that had been espousing their distrust of science and poo-pooing the idea of life outside their world. There were many suicides, so many that it was declared, for want of a better term, a pandemic; the death toll equal to the recent Covid outbreak. The flat-earthers? Mental health facilities were inundated with these poor confused souls, many still screaming hoax, others just screaming.

For the majority though, it was seen as a welcome relief from the rampant corporate and government corruption, as a new body was to be formed from various areas of human intelligence. Scientists from all fields were picked alongside philosophers, engineers, teachers and medical professionals. Among these highly educated humans were a surprise group who were chosen, seemingly at random. Everyday people with no specific talent that made them stand out, just that they seemed moderate in their views. It was later discovered that they were chosen through their online activity. The funnier the memes they shared, the more likely they were picked. It seemed the cosmos had a sense of humour and creepily, they’d been watching us.

Using technology that we had already been utilising and new information that was downloaded to us, a giant ring was constructed, recycling many old satellites and space debris, as well as pieces manufactured on earth and transported into space. Every space agency across the globe was involved, every expert in aerospace science was employed along with every branch of engineering.

The ring would essentially be a gate to a wormhole. Yes of course, a Stargate. Why not? It was a lens that showed what was always there but not seen. It was the entry to other worlds beyond imagination, a crossroads to the universe, an intersection to the future. The finished structure itself would be enormous and house thousands of people, experts and the everyday person, working side by side for a common exciting goal, sitting stationary in line with the tropic of cancer.

The call went out for workers, everyone was eligible, one only needed the desire to be part of this new way. For Phil and Dave, it was not so much desire as necessity, their existence on earth was becoming difficult.

Phil needed to avoid certain dodgey groups he’d fallen fowl of. His business was selling new ‘alien’ technology to companies who wanted to get on board this new big thing, unfortunately he didn’t have ‘new alien tech’, he was trying to pass off old human technology to unsuspecting buyers; This wasn’t the first time he’d tried something like this, but it was the first time he’d been caught. Dave, on the other hand, was simply running away from himself.

It had been a couple of years since the two had crossed paths and it was a phone call between the two that gave direction for their next venture together.

“You want to do what Phil?” An incredulous Dave asked his old friend.

“I wanna get lost in space, mate. Come on Dave, there’s not much keeping you on terra-firma. Kate’s moved on, it’s time you did too mate.”

“I do have a career Phil.”

“Tele-sales isn’t a career, it’s what got you through uni. You have a degree, what happened there?”

“IT is boring. Well, it was boring until this ET shit happened. What do you want to do? They’re screaming out for engineers; you could get you a good position.”

“Yeah nah! I want a dumb job like yours.”

“Hey back off.”

“I’d be happy cleaning ‘the ring’, we all need a clean ring.”

“Idiot…Maybe you’re right though; perhaps I need a change, I don’t know about cleaning but they’re screaming for applicants, so yeah, why not.”

So it was decided, these two lifelong friends would join Space Corp, the great international entity that organised the construction and implementation of ‘the ring’. After a series of medicals and aptitude tests they found themselves, just six months after their phone call, sitting in opposite stations on the great receiving station, waiting for the influx of interstellar traffic.

The Ring was about 1000 metres in diameter and just as long. Their workspace was two large glass bubbles that protruded from the surface of the giant ring, diametrically opposite, so their conversations were over video link.

“So, Phil, where is all the money you conned?” Dave didn’t know all of the details of Phil’s business affairs, but he knew from past experience how close to edge Phil liked to live.

“What conned?” He said cheekily. “Anyway, it was all for nothing in the end. Money has no real value now, does it? Credits! What are we supposed to do with credits, buy food? Hey, do you remember Space Food Sticks? I loved them as a kid. That’s the sort of shit food I expect to be eating on this floating donut. Ooh, I could go a donut, right about now.”

“It all feels a bit communist to me, but what are you gunna do. We’re in for at least two years now, we’d best make the most of it.”

“Hey Dave, what are we supposed to do when they come?”

“I wish you would pay attention Phil. We just have to watch the monitor when the alert sounds, and for Christ’s sake, don’t hit the big red button. There is someone higher up who turns on the gate.”

“Do we know what these ships will look like Dave?”

“No, actually I’ve been a little concerned with how quickly it came about and how readily we have accepted what they’ve said. These video links tell us nothing. They could be ten foot tall and have four arms. They most likely have weapons, probably attached to their extra arms. They might look nothing like their video image.”

“Like that dating site I used. From the profile pic, I thought that he was actually a she. I mean he was cute and all, but not what I was hoping for. Anyway, not much we can do now, just sit back and wait, and hope our neighbours don’t find us appetising.” Phil added, with a shrug of the shoulders.

Unlike Phil, Dave had been paying attention to the developments of the last couple of years and had an itch that was bugging him. This whole idea was sold to the world too easily, the governments rolled over too easily, almost like they knew it was coming. Sure, governments were dissolved and replaced with a more moderate organisation, the lefties were grinning like idiots, the greenies were happy that fossil fuels were made redundant with the new technology, but Dave’s cynical mind wasn’t convinced we hadn’t simply traded one bad system for a worse one.

Dave had gone quiet, and Phil couldn’t stand the silence. It made the space outside feel like it was closing in, and he was feeling a little claustrophobic. “Mate, you good?”

“Yeah Phil, just contemplating our future. I hope these arseholes aren’t arseholes.”

“Me too. When do we get a break? I’m starving.”

“Umm, about ten minutes. You have Jordan replacing you and I have ‘other Phil’.”

“We can’t have two Phils, it’s not right.”

“Don’t worry mate, there’s only one of you. Thank God. Anyway, think happy thoughts till shift change and we’ll catch up in the cafeteria.”

Before Phil could finish his sentence, a message appeared on their monitors alerting them of an incoming visitor. The vision was projected onto their glass bubble to give them a visual representation of any incoming ships and at the appropriate moment, someone with more clout than them would activate the gate to allow the ship to enter their space. Dave and Phil looked intently at the screens but all they could see before them was what looked like a ball of flame. A clock on the screen ran backwards giving them a time of arrival and in their training, they were told this would slow down as the ship drew near and stop as the new arrival got close to the gate.

Phil looked confused. “Um, Dave, I think something is very wrong. Are they supposed to be coming in that fast, and are they supposed to be on fire?”

“I don’t like this mate. I’m gunna call upstairs…”

While he was still speaking, the ‘imminent impact alarm’ sounded. Dave saw the panic in Phil’s eyes, as he struggled to remember the procedure for such an emergency, but Dave’s mind switched into high speed and the events unfolding before him seemed to slow down to almost a complete stop. He remembered the training, he knew exactly what he was supposed to do, but he was hesitant. He had his hand hovering over the big red button. He should have already hit it, but the ramifications of this act would be catastrophic. To leave the gate closed would mean certain death for himself and Phil and the entire population of the giant ‘Ring’; to hit the big red button would be certain death to millions back on earth.

At that very last moment, Dave withdrew his hand, whispering, “goodbye Phil,” sitting back in his seat, ready to accept his fate, but suddenly the gate opened and Dave flinched as the fireball shot past them with Phil calling out, “I remembered to hit the button Dave. Phew, that was close.”