It's Really Not So Sweet

It's Really Not So Sweet Part 2

John W. Gilmore

Mechanics And The Like--Chapter 2

Dinner was good. Despite that the meat was printed, it tasted great, like regular steak. The vegetables were also great. They had grown them themselves an a very small hydroponic farm. All of them took turns tending to the crops so everyone would learn. Brian was the specialist when it came to farming. He was passing on the information to others while they enjoyed the benefit of having good food.

I, of course, would bum some of that good food off of them and would take take it to the Gamma Site and sell it. They also had a farm and grew food, but it was not as perfect as what you could get here. They were far from being farmers...mostly carpenters, mechanics and the like. They often had some great little toys and inventions that I could sell, sometimes, to the people who needed them if they were small enough. Why not?

I spent most of my life being whizzed around here in a computerized home for long periods of time. Maybe I could save up some credits and eventually change my work situation. The people at the sites knew that was my plan and they went along with it fully. We all thought that people should be happy at their profession. I was happy at the time, but I didn't want to do this forever.

The rainy season was fine, but the snow season was a nightmare. The constant fear of getting stuck out there was overwhelming. I had the best equipment that money could buy, but that feeling was always there. And the feeling of being alone out there in all of the snow, ice, and howling wind. Sometimes, I swear, it felt like somebody else was out there. I wondered it there were indigenous people on this planet sometimes, but I thought it was ridiculous and so did everyone else. Truth is that no one wanted to discover indigenous people or it would have made things much more complicated.

There were very few of us dumped on a whole planet that was supposed to be empty. Water, food, air, vegetation and soil that was fertile, but no humans or animals...I wondered about that. How could that be possible. I wasn't a scientist or cosmologist, but I had learned about evolution and that if a place was at the right distance from the sun something was likely to develop. Here there were many plants, but no animals. How was that possible?

No animals and no insects were around to be seen. The planet seemed like a paradise, without insects, except for the extreme precipitation. It rained on snowed for months and months only letting up so few days that it didn't even matter. This was a strange planet. I figured that I had come for adventure and here it was.

It was not likely that I would get a flight out of here anytime soon. If I did what would I do on and old burned out cinder like Earth? There was nothing left but poor people fighting for crusts of bread. This place was boring sometimes, but so was everywhere else. The long journeys alone were strange and surreal. They could be boring too, but there was something fascinating about them. Sometimes when I meditated, I could go so deep that I felt as though I was somewhere else. I loved that. My only fear was that I may not be able to come back from that somewhere else some day. In between those time and those trips, I had a chance to hang out with some interesting characters. What could be better?

After dinner we had a good dessert and a very good time, laughing and joking. We fell into a comfortable routine like when I was there before for about two weeks, and then I was on the road again. My van was packed with fresh fruit and vegetables. Some of those printed steaks were packed in the freezer, and the van and I ready to head off into the rain and go southward.

It was late autumn, or late summer if you wanted to call it that. I knew winter would be coming soon and I would be moving through the snow. I didn't look forward to that. It would be darker and colder. The roads would be more dangerous. Yet again, my vehicle could sustain me for quite some time if I ever got stuck off road. What was I worried about?

We said our goodbyes and the door slid closed. I put on my seat belt before the van, which I started calling Van, could say anything. “I am happy you put on your seat belt,” Van commented anyway. We moved down the dark, wet road making our way to Gamma site. I had no idea what to expect there and then I remembered this time slip thing. What had happened? Why had it taken me longer instead of less time?

“Van,” I said. “What happened during the time slip. Where did I go?”

“You went to your destination instantly,” It said.

“But I got there almost two weeks late.”

“You went to your destination instantly,” It repeated.

“Well my destination must not have been the Beta site because I got there two weeks later. What was my destination?”

“That is classified,” it said.

***

The rain came down ever harder. I was glad this thing was waterproof and could float. It could move through the water like a boat, if necessary. I was still afraid I would be washed off the road into some gully or something. That had not happened yet, but there was always a chance.

I had stopped talking to the van. It wasn't my friend. This thing was holding secrets from me. Who had programmed it to act so weird, and what were these time slips? I would have to wait until I got to Gamma site to find out. They, after all , were the mechanics, technicians, mechanical engineers and so on. They would know. In the meantime we just moved slowly sometimes through the mud and quickly across the rain slicked streets. We came to a rushing river. The bridge had been torn down or something. Either it had been torn down or never existed. Van kept going right ahead as if it didn't care, scaring that crap out of me.

I could hear the gears shifting and feel the water slapping under the bottom. “Hydrofoil mode activated,” Van said, as we lifted on a cushion of air moving slowly across the river. I could still feel all of the eddies and currents of the stream as if we were in the water, but we were riding above the water. It was still a bumpy ride and we were constantly turning up stream to stop from being washed completely off course. I let out a sigh of relief as we reached the far bank of the river and began to climb the steep hill. We soon came to the place where the road continued and went back to four wheel drive mode. I wondered who would have built the road without a bridge. Seemed to me I remembered a bridge being there the last time I came here, but there was no sign of one at all. Nothing.

“Wasn't there a bridge here before, Van,” I said.

“Yes John. It has been removed.”

“Who removed it?”

“That is classified.”

“I am security. I have a high clearance.”

“Classified on a need to know basis.”

“What is going on here?”

“That answer would be classified.”

I got up and went to the back to make some tea. What the heck was going on in this place all of a sudden. My hum drum, yet enjoyable life, was suddenly being turned upside down.

“Please prepare for a time slip,” Van said. What the heck? I stood there holding my cup of tea. “Three, two, one.” We pulled up in front of a large concrete building that looked more like a warehouse than anything else. A giant warehouse. It was definitely Gamma Site. I wondered how much time it had taken. It seemed instantaneous and I was wide awake that time. Yet again, where the hell was my cup of tea and why was I sitting at the table?

Obviously Trying To Smile--Chapter 3

I went to the front door. It was raining like hell; the worst it had been in in months. There was a slight chill in the air. Winter was definitely close. The front door to the Gamma Site stood open, as usually. Who was going to break in? No one lived on this crappy little planet. The rain and snow was starting to get to me. I frowned and walked in.

A big dog, teeth barred and tail wagging, came running up to me. It was a bit frightening, but the dog was obviously trying to smile. “Sit Debbie,” followed and the dog, though still very enthusiastic, sat with its whole body twisting and vibrating...just full of the desire to wag that tail and jump on me. A woman in a white coat approached. She wore black glasses, dark pants and a striped blouse. Her white lab coat was open, at the time. She walked toward me with a smile on her face somewhat like Debbie's.

“So stranger. You are finally back,” Lacy said.

“Bearing gifts,” I replied. “I have at trunk outside with some nice, fresh vegetables and fruit.”

“Fresh eh?” She walked around me and stood in the doorway looking out at the van. “They have to be at least a month old.”

“No. I just came from Beta Site. About a week old, and the meat is frozen.”

“Really?” She faced me. “Well you left Beta about a month ago. Everyone has been looking for you for the last three weeks.”

“That's impossible. I drove straight here. I even had a time slip after the first couple of days.”

“And what is a time slip?” She hit a buzzer near the door.

“Carl here.”

“Can you come up and get some food, security is here with his,” she looked at me and arched her brows, “barely legal contraband.” I grinned.

“On my way,” Carl said.

“A time slip,” I continued. “The upgraded van said it could time slip. I don't know what that means. People time slip on ships. Why would a van on a local trip time slip?”

“I've never heard of a time slip on a small vehicle. Maybe you are not being time slipped locally. You ever think of that?” Carl came rushing in with his thick rain-suit and heavy boots.

“Jesus Carl,” I said. “It's not a flood.”

“It is to me.”

“He hates the rain,” Lacy said. “But only since he's been here. Wait until it starts snowing. He'll love the rain after that.” She looked down at her smart watch and punched it a few times. “Should be in a couple of days. Hope you're ready.”

“As ever,” I said.

“That means you're not,” she said. She turned before I could answer. “You remember your way around?”

“Sure.”

“Good. Regardless, I will escort you to your room.”

“Thank you, Lacy. Are you in need of anything, by the way?”

“Not now,” Carl said rushing by with a large flat of steaks. “I'll be back for the cow food after I put this away.”

Turned out the vegetables would be just fine. How could they have lasted that long? I wondered what it was about this time slip.

***

I got to my room and threw off my rain coat, kicked off my boots, and lay right down on the bed. These long trips always exhausted me for some reason. I lay on the bed with my fingers clasped behind my head looking up at the plain white panels of a drop ceiling. Very different from the last place. I could barely hear the rain from overhead, but the window was constantly pelted with large drops of rain blown sideways again the panes.

I drifted off to sleep only to be awakened by a call on my writs watch some time later. Dinner was ready. All of the food and my necessary baggage had been removed from the van and were waiting for me near the kitchen. I made my way out and walked along a high catwalk looking down on an open plan garage/shop. Many desks were scattered throughout the large area as well as large tables with half finished projects on them, personal computers, oscilloscopes and electronic equipment, tools and tool cabinets--what one would expect in a shop.

The shop floor was gigantic. The building consisted of two floors. The lower the shop and a few small cafeterias and bathrooms down stairs and the upper floor that was residential. Several people lived here, probably 9 or 10. It was one of the larger sites, believe it or not, building an infrastructure for the coming influx of people.

I walked along the catwalk looking down. As I got closer to the end I caught the smell of food wafting out from a large room to the right. I entered. There was large room with four or five round tables, each surrounded by chairs. On the right hand side of the room there were several vending machines and computerized cooking machines that not only cooked food, but were programmed to prepare food in accord with whatever recipes were entered.

The other side of the room housed a large number of refreshment machines, trays, dishes, utensils and so on, and an actual person to help if there were any issues with all the computerized crap. I kept thinking of the time slip question.

I sat with Carl, Lacy, and a gentleman named Roger. Sally came in and pulled up a chair. I hadn't seen her in months. She had been the other security officer in this area who got tired of all of the travel and changed jobs leaving only me.

“You traitor,” I said. She smiled. “I'm the only one now.” She slapped me on the shoulder.

“Good for you. You hang in there. I told you what to expect, but you wouldn't listen. You wanted the adventure.”

“Yeah. I got a little more than I wanted, but it is good sometimes.”

“Have you run into the time slip thing yet?”

“He told me about that too,” Lacy said. “What the heck is that?” Sally laughed.

“It's the other part of the job. Do you think they pay you just for being driven around. You are doing security work off planet, or I might say, below planet.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“You are part of a security force working in the caverns below.”

“I've never heard of that.”

“I haven't either,” Lacy said.

“So what is this underground thing?” Carl asked.

“I probably shouldn't have said anything,” Sally said. “I just don't like to see you being used like that.”

“What?” I asked.

“You're being trained to go off planet to fight ETs. Don't you know that?”

“No such thing as ETs,” I said.

“You are one yourself,” Lacy said. “This isn't Earth.”

“Yeah but... you know what I mean.”

“What makes you think that a planet like this would just sit here and no one would want it. We're fighting to keep this planet. I hope you know that.”

“Sounds like nonsense to me,” Carl said. Sally just glared at him. “I'm sorry, but it just sounds crazy.” Roger nodded.

“Sounds like a conspiracy theory to me,” he added.

“Haven't you ever wondered why there are no animals or indigenous people here? The planet was burned out. The people left and then worked to terraform it and clean it up. Just when they were about done a group of invaders came in and took it over. Now they want their planet back. Or they want compensation, in the form of free labor.” She turned to me. “You are part of the free labor.”

“That is just insane. No wonder they took you off of security. You are raving mad,” I said. Lacy began to smile.

“Yeah. I'm mad. Well wait until you begin to remember what happens to you on those time slips. You won't be able to tell anybody because they'll think you're crazy. How can you go through a time slip that makes it take longer for you to get somewhere. And only you are effected. Everything else is just normal, as if time went by super fast for you, but it takes you four or five times longer to get somewhere.

“And no one believes you when you say you were just on the road a few days or hours, do they? They don't say anything, but they think that you were just off somewhere goofing off.” She looked at Lacy. “Right?”

“I wasn't going to say it,” Lacy said. “John here said he came straight here, but it has been a month or so just to get from Beta Site.”

“Well, you see what I mean,” Sally said. I looked at Carl.

“You buy this, Carl?”

“Who knows what the Cabal has agreed to.”

“The Cabal again! There is no such thing!” I said. “Everything is blamed on the Cabal. I have never seen the Cabal or any member of it.”

“You will,” Sally said.

“I am sure.”

Built Into The Cave Wall--Chapter 4

“I'm a member of the Cabal,” he said, extending his hand. “My name is Troy. It is a pleasure to meet you.” I looked around the room. Where was I. I was in a cave underground.

“I must be dreaming,” I said.

“That's the way it will seem because you are probably asleep right now. This memory will come to you as a dream. Welcome to your second job.” He walked over to a counter built into the cave wall. “Will you have coffee, or a soft drink or something? I'm here to give you your assignment for this month.”

“Thought you said I was dreaming,” I said as I approached him. “I'll take a Coke.” He hit a few buttons and a bottle plopped itself down into the bottom of the machine.

“You are dreaming, but it is really a memory being sent to you as a dream.” He headed to one of the tables and sat down. I followed. He blew on his cup of coffee. “This is a little hot. I need to work on that machine.” He looked up. “This is no dream, but you'll remember it as one. Why do you think we call it a time slip. It scrambles your mind and perception all up for a while. My guess is that you are sleeping right now after arriving at one of the sites.”

“I have to apologize to you. I really am not a member of the Cabal. I really don't know if there is a such thing. If there is no physical one though, maybe there is a mental one. The system does seem to run on with a life of it's own, you know.”

“So—so I may dream about it in the future. In that case, what am I doing here now?”

“Security, of course. We're sending a ship full of minerals to the Orion system and you will be guarding it. Just a little money to keep the Tyrinians off of our backs for a while.”

“And who are these Tyrinians?”

“They claim to own this planet. They left and said they were repairing it and planning to return when we took it over. That's a lie. We were the ones who repaired this planet. We intend to keep it. We'll play their game until we can negotiate and make the necessary alliances with other groups to put them down. That's where you come in. I mean you as security forces. We have a little contract right now to protect the planet and soon we will acquire the necessary weapons. The Tyrinians will just have to find someone else to bully.”

“This is kind of ridiculous. I am glad it is just a dream.”

“No. It will be a dream. As for the Cabal. I think we are all a part of it, don't you?” I awakened. The room was dark and quiet. I was still in Gamma preparing to head out the next day to Delta Site. What kind of dream was that? Was there any validity to it.

I had had a nice relaxing week and then this strange dream. I thought back to the conversation I had with Sally the first evening. Could that talk have made me have the dream? It was a week ago though. We hadn't talked about it since then. How would it have taken so long? Maybe I had some underlying fear of a time slip taking me somewhere like she had said. Still, the dream was very strange and seemed a bit too real. Was I really spending time on interstellar flights guarding bribes and tribute? That was a little too much for me to believe, so I rolled over and went back to sleep.

***

I was up bright and early gathering my things together. I had a few more sites to visit before circling around again to Alpha Site. To be truthful, visiting all of these sites was really very exciting. The people were very interesting. They were the type of people who didn't like where they lived and had the guts to take the chance and move. They didn't travel to a new state or country, they had the nerve to come to a new world. They were very exciting people mainly because they didn't fit in the hum drum world on which they were born.

I gathered my things together and took out my trunk. This time it was filled with things like tools and small electronic gadgets that would serve to make people's lives just a little better at some of the other sites. Delta Site was pretty big. If I got the gadgets to them they could spread them throughout the planet. What did I mean planet? We were only in an area about the size of Rhode Island. We didn't know anything about the whole planet. It was pretty arrogant to think that we knew about this planet, or even to believe no one else was here. Yet again, Earth people were pretty arrogant.

Carl loaded the trunk back onto Van. We had lunch and said our goodbyes. I headed out to Van. The door slid open and I took my normal seat in front of the small table as the door slowly slid and the van directed me, again, to put on my seat belt. I grimaced. I was sick of this thing telling me that. I put it on, reluctantly, and then we pulled away from the Gamma Site. A sense of sadness rolled over me as I looked back and remembered the great time I had just had there. The worst part was leaving these places and going to another.

I often wondered why I didn't get stationed at one place. Sally had done so. It probably was not because she didn't like the job, it was probably because of this feeling, and the loneliness while traveling between sites. If, as she said, something weird was going on during the trips between sites, that would make it even worse. Was that possible? Why no memory, if that were the case? We moved slowly and then, when we got to the road, we picked up speed. When we got to a steady pace I removed my seat-belt and got up to make a coffee.

I had an auto-machine. I just slid the cup in, clicked it in just in case the van would veer off or hit the brakes suddenly, and hit the button for coffee with cream and sugar. We had air bags in all four of the walls and on the ceiling, so it would even be hard to get hurt if we crashed.

A slow stream began to pour down into the cup. I pulled out the folding stool from the counter and took a seat while I waited. I pushed a button. The external cover on the window across from the coffee machine and sink slid open. The sky was gray like curdled milk. We passed by trees that stood like skeletons reaching upward as the leaves had fallen in preparation for winter. Only the evergreens held their bright green needles against the backdrop of the sky.

Rain wash beating against the window slowly becoming frozen rain and then snow as we moved northward. Snow season had begun. I didn't like moving around the roads on snow. The van slowed down. I knew by instinct that the road had become more treacherous, as I looked out the window and saw the landscaped covered in a thin sheet of snow. It made me shiver a little just thinking about it. Large wet flakes took the place of freezing rain pelting the windows.

“Van, please turn the heat up just a little.” I could hear the electric fan whirling as the heat begin to slowly fill the space in the back. I looked up front. There was an empty drivers seat that I never sat in. I could actually drive the van manually, but why do that? I could also sit up front and watch as it made its way around treacherous curves and broken trails, but that would even be worse. I slid the divider between the rear section and the front closed before going back to sit on the stool and drink my coffee. It was nice and hot, just the way I liked it.

The solitude felt good. How could anyone miss a job like this? To be truthful though, I think someone would have to be wounded to want this much solitude. I was a survivor of The Last War, as they called it. I was sure it wasn't. Every big war on Earth was supposed to be the last war. I had been a soldier on the front lines. There were no ETs, just stupid Earth people fighting over abundant resources and pretending as though they were scarce. The idea of changing our lifestyles if we ran out of one type of resource that everyone was using when we didn't need it anymore and moving to a new one never crossed our minds. We would fight over things no one even needed.

Competition, closed minds, and greed prevailed. Each country considered itself superior in deed if not in word, so they figured they had the right to have most of the resources and live what they considered the best lives, which meant being too lazy to do any type of work and making others work while the top level citizens played. So even play had become a commodity that was made into something scarce. We could have all played if we all shared in the work and only worked to attain what was necessary, not desired. Somewhere along the line we had gotten mixed up. We had somehow began to think that our desires were necessities and that necessities were desires. What can you expect from such thinking? A screwed up world, a screwed up mentality, and the ignorance that follows.

So here I was, angry and in pain, using the anger to cover the pain after my wife and children were incinerated in a bomb shelter designed to withstand the direct hit from a nuclear weapon. It was so far underground, they said, that it could withstand any weapon known to man. That wasn't true. The whole pitch had been a scam. They knew that we couldn't survive such a war so they pretended that these things were safe knowing full well they weren't.

The city was hit. My family went to the neighborhood shelter. I was in a different part of the county trying to sell solar and wind energy alternatives when I heard the sirens. We rushed to the shelter. The bomb landed far from us, but right on top of the city where my family was sheltered. After many weeks it was discovered that most of the people in that shelter had been roasted alive. They had been cooked like being in an oven. I was devastated and broken.

I decided to sign up and go to war to get revenge instead of dealing with the pain and suffering. Being angry and killing the enemy worked for a long time. I moved up in rank. I was part of special forces, was a killing machine, and was proud of it. The war continued for several years. During one raid I was hit by shrapnel from a grenade. My spine was injured. I had to learn to walk again. The hate even helped with that. After the war there was peace, but none inside of me. That was when the hard battle began: the battle of reclaiming my humanity and dealing with the things I had done.

The counselors didn't help. I only found my strength in religions practices, not religion. I was just as angry at most of the religious institutions because most had egged us on to fight the war instead of being against it. It was hard for me to work through the pain and suffering alone. I found a spiritual director who was part of the small meditation group that I often took part in and we went deep into spirituality. That is all that saved me. It also gave me a feeling of awe about the world and the need to see more of it and be more. I became a cop for a while which became boring very soon when I found that many of them were corrupt too. When the opportunity to have this job came up I felt that it was perfect. With my record it was easy for me to attain an off world slot as Security.

The silence and the long rides alone were good. I was a free agent. I could stop and goof off if I liked. I could stay at one place longer than the other. I had a lot of freedom, and that was what I wanted and needed. I would say the job was created for me and then this time slip shit began to happen. The very thought of it made me angry. I looked out the window and drank my coffee. I had plenty of time. I loved having time.

I got up, folded the stool back under the counter and took my seat behind the small table again. Music, I said. Something soft. Gentle classical music began to play. “So Van,” I said. “Tell me about these time slips.”

“That information is classified,” Van said.