Disconnected

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

That didn’t stop him from trying.

Sound.

Pain.

Silence.

They came in that order. Everything else came later, in a fog, but those sensations remained clear. That first CRAAAAACK! It was like someone had recorded the sound of snapping bones playing the sound back to him. There had been no time to react, to be afraid. The sound so deafened thought itself.

Then pain. Excruciating pain. His skin had felt as though it were being flayed and burnt. Every motion had been agony. Lying prone had been no better. Every sensation set his nerves alight. There was no comfort, assistance, or reprieve. He was sure he would pass out. The sound of splitting bone mingled with the pain in his head, keeping him awake. He would have seized, but his muscles were locked.

All at once, it stopped. And silence greeted him. Where was everyone? Why couldn’t he hear them? There were no voices filling his mind. He went from a ball of pain to a frightened animal almost instantly. Alone and uncertain. At last, he managed, with a croak more befitting a toad than a person, “Where are you?!”

After that, his memories became hazy. The world had been indistinct initially, too bright to make anything out clearly. Still, he had been able to move. He began with his fingers but feared that the pain would return. When that didn’t happen, he moved his hand and arm until his whole body was in motion. He slowly stretched, pushing himself to his feet. His vision cleared and surveying where he was and what had happened.

Despite his horrible ordeal, his body seemed relatively undamaged. The pain must have had something to do with his nerves. Somehow his nanites had malfunctioned. He was separated from the Whole.

Was that even possible? The Whole, the collective consciousness experience of the human race. It had existed for as long as he or anyone else could remember. It had been his entire experience of being alive up till that point. Now, as he looked around, he saw himself, and he was alone.

His skin seemed pale in the light, or perhaps that was just the contrast between himself and the gunmetal floors and walls. He was in a dome-shaped room with an archway leading out. There were no windows, only the pale light, omnipresent but with no apparent source. He walked towards the arch and saw a transparent hall stretched before him. The walls were made of glass, forming a hemisphere above him. The metal floor now stretched out perhaps a few hundred feet. The lunar surface, grey and cratered, revealed itself on all sides, gleaming in the daylight. The contrast was stark against the starless sky above. He looked around, hoping to see someone, perhaps talk to them about what had happened. How had he lost contact, and what could he do to rejoin the Whole?

Walking around helped a bit; the sound of his footsteps against the polished metal helped to fill the horrible quiet of his mind. His bare feet pressed against the cold, smooth floor. So shiny, so neat, so real. He had never realized it, but your perspective was tiny inside the Whole. It distinguished you, but that was all. Usually, the hum of the other voices kept you filled, occupied, and purposeful. Now he could only hear his own. He was so focused he nearly crashed into the door when he reached the other side of the hall. He’d only just realized it wasn’t opening. He pulled up at the last second, staring.

He had never seen a door fail to open before. The doors were built to sense the mass of others. Anyone who walked into this hall would be detected, and they would open when the person was close enough. The exact distance escaped him at the moment; he had never had to remember such insignificant details alone. He would have to wait until someone came into the hall so he could ask.

Minutes passed. Henry began to pace back and forth, looking out the windows, past the outside vacuum of space to where this hall connected with the others. He thought he saw someone just on the other side of the glass for a moment. Then feeling foolish, he realized he was looking at his reflection.

It was peculiar seeing himself solely through his own eyes. When was the last time he had focused on himself alone? He couldn’t remember. He was taller than he had remembered. His hair was darker too, more brown than blonde, and his eyes were a much paler blue. Usually, he looked through someone else’s eyes, only using his own when it was necessary for the completion of some immediate task. Even then, he could always hear other people’s voices and feel their presence. It was like having someone beside you all the time.

As lonely and afraid as he was, his reflection in the glass walls gave him some semblance of company. Each smile, worry, tear, and wrinkle was visible, and they were uniquely his own. Inside the Whole, your perspective was a shared experience. He often looked at what his fellows saw and enjoyed their intimacy. And they reciprocated. You shifted so frequently through other people’s points of view that it became difficult to identify what was yours. It was never hard to find or feel almost anything. Nothing was withheld, concealed, or shielded from you. The concept of personal identity didn’t mean much. Privacy was non-existent. Shared experiences united everyone.

Except now, now, Henry, the name flashed through his mind. Was that his name? He had never really needed to remember it before. The information was available if he required it, but he had never bothered to retain it. It was the first one he had thought of since his separation. But there had been some flash of recognition, he had seen it in his eyes, and somehow he thought Henry was right.

The thought terrified him. Having a name made him feel even more lonely. Henry was just one person, and no one seemed like they were coming for him. The silence was ubiquitous; he felt as though he had gone deaf. Why was there no one around? He had been sure there was a reason he was here on the lunar surface, but he couldn’t remember what it was. Everything he knew was in the Whole, and now he was cut off.

All that greeted him was the cold of the moon outside the walls. He saw his reflection as its knees bent, lowering down towards the ground, lying down, and falling asleep.

He awoke what must have been a few hours later. At first, he thought something must have been wrong with his eyes, but as they adjusted, he realized that it was night outside. The lunar surface was almost entirely black, but the stars were out and more numerous than he had imagined; thousands upon thousands of tiny twinkling lights. For a moment, he forgot his ordeal. He beheld the night sky through his own eyes. Henry saw each star twinkling in its own time, coruscating across the sky. It was beautiful.

I’ve been up here for weeks, and I’ve never seen the sky with my own eyes, he thought. The thought stunned him. He had been on the moon for weeks, and he had never looked up. Oh, he had seen the sky but never through his own eyes. He had seen it through a computer screen or the memories of another. But never for himself.

The thought intruded his reverie, and steadily, the lights in the sky lost their luster. The silence returned.

In frustration, he struck the glass, and his hand crunched hard against it. He whimpered and, for a second time, thought he sensed another person. The faint sound of his voice echoed through the hall. It was hoarse, gravelly, and unpleasant, but it offered something to quell the silence. Inside the Whole, there was rarely a need for your physical voice. Everyone’s thoughts and feelings were already available to you. Using the physical voice was reserved for emphasis alone, where the physical pressure of sound gave weight to one’s thoughts.

He began to mutter and hum, and much like the starry spectacle before, his loneliness subsided slightly. The natural sound filled the empty hall, lending a lightness to his mood, cheering even the bleak landscape of a lunar night. Then he saw it. Henry wasn’t sure how he had missed it. He saw an island, an oasis, a great blue jewel suspended in midair. Close as he was, he could see the clouds swirling over its surface, hugging it tightly but gently, like a soft woolen blanket.

The Earth was large and bright: Home, people, a sense of belonging. All there, and here he was stuck out on the lunar desert. He was disconnected from the Whole, from everyone. He’d barely managed to remember his voice and name. He struggled to keep back the tide of silence with tuneless noise. What could he do?

The memory of the pain lingered in his mind. The nanites, linked to the Whole, had been the cause of his misery. They were the network, the glue that made the Whole possible. His experience suggested they’d been cut off somehow, separating him.

His mind turned to the dark landscape before him. Outside he could make out the shape of other domes and halls.

I’m on a lunar base, he thought. I’m here for some experiment. Yes, that’s right. I’m here to test something, but what? He could remember the purpose, but the details escaped him.

He thought back to his ordeal earlier. It had felt like hours. Reflecting on it, he suspected it had only been a few minutes.

As he scanned the outside, he tried to remember any other details about the lunar base. There must be a way back. People wouldn’t have left him here alone. He had never heard of someone severed from the Whole, but that didn’t mean it had never happened. Maybe someone would come looking for him. Maybe being disconnected like this would trigger some alarm within the Whole, or perhaps his nanites could signal a distress call.

The nanites, yes, they could do other things for him too. They made his connection to the Whole possible, but that wasn’t all. They protected his body from exposure and staved off thirst and starvation. They could even enhance his strength and agility at need. How far did those abilities go?

He couldn’t remember. Most of those protections relied upon the connection with the Whole. Without that, he wasn’t sure how well they would function. His gaze turned from the moon, looking around the hall. He took the scene for the first time since he had walked in.

It was cold, harsh, and utilitarian; the metal floor built into the lunar surface. As Henry scanned, he noticed another door built into the side, near the arch where he had first walked in. He crossed the distance studying this other door, trying to understand its purpose. It led to an airlock, to the moon itself.

His heart leaped, considering the possibility. This silence was becoming unendurable. He looked around, searching for a way to open the door. He couldn’t find anything. He muttered words, “Open, enter, let me in.” Nothing happened. He knocked, knocked again, and again, and again. He attacked the door, beating his hands against it. Fervently, then savagely. His hands bruised and bled.

He shrieked, filling the empty hall with a wail of defeat and bitterness. He looked up at the stars. Their beautiful twinkling infuriated him. His moans and cries rebuked him, telling only what he already knew: he was alone.

His gaze turned to the Earth, the beautiful globe, his hope, his home, the only place he belonged. It seemed transfixed there in the sky, looming over him. Again Henry thought of the nanites, the tiny little machines inside him that protected him from all sorts of harm. He turned back to the airlock door before him.

He noticed a keypad. He shook his head. Had that been there before? He decided he didn’t care. The keypad meant he could open the door with a code. He wasn’t sure why that would be there but reasoned it must be important.

The code came to his mind, much like his name. Again, he was forced to wonder what had happened to him. Could his sense be trusted? How much of this was really happening?

He stepped into the airlock; the Earth seemed so close now, even if he had only stepped a few feet closer. There was a flashing light but nothing else. Any other warning was probably transmitted via the Whole. He closed his eyes and felt the air begin to rush out, drawing him toward the exit.

From behind him, he heard a knock.