Ludo Brax: Intergalactic Gig Worker (Chapter 43)

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I whipped my head around frantically, drinking in what I could.

The hall wasn't grand. I'd hardly even call it venerable. I'd go so far as to dispute the idea it was even a hall to begin with. It was a structure, a tent, really. It was slapdash, half-finished. Functional. Purpose-made.

40-50 people at most were cramped into its less than illustrious confines, and nothing about their actual demeanors led me to believe this was an especially honored day.

Before I could observe more, reality fritzed again.

The polish was back. The grandiose hall, the self-serious air of history in the making.

The speaker was different now. A time jump? A correction?

I turned my attention to catch what he was saying. I had the odd feeling my internal monologue was fractured in half, the part of me that was panicking struggling to cohere with the suddenly strong desire to invest myself in the weight of the proceedings.

In front of the speaker was an enormous black Obelisk, perfectly angular. Its exterior was polished, forbiddingly shiny. It looked like the too-perfect alien technology you'd see in movies that came out before we learned how lazy most aliens were.

It loathed to be observed, flaring and convulsing the more I stared at it.

Yet still, behind it, I could hear the churn of mechanical wheezing, the thump of circuits. I swore for a second I saw an extension cord.

But I didn't have time to doubt its appearance, because suddenly, I knew it was time to make a decision.

I looked down at the table before me and grabbed a small, strange object like I had always known it was there. I had the sense it was a data Drive, though its exterior was crystalline and visually loud. A bright, luminous pastel.

This felt very well suited to my tastes.

Underneath the digital costuming, I realized in a sudden rush what kind of person I was. My clothes were made of soft fabrics, light and airy. My long hair flowed naturally past my thin shoulders.

And, I noted — with a sense of giddy delight I'd have to unpack when I wasn't in the midst of Cosmic Myth Making — I was a woman.

The pressure was on to act.

Rising to my feet with authority, I sashayed a few steps forward in a manner that was both offensively exaggerated and, I have to admit, quietly liberating.

The rest of the figures at my table looked up at me with well-rendered calm. They were, I knew, counting on me to act on behalf of us all.

It was unfortunate that it had come to this, I thought, as I traipsed toward the front of the room. But everything had been so difficult lately. All the conflict. The pain. The vibes since this had all begun… they were terrible.

If we could just get through today, do what had to be done, maybe we could all move on.

Things would be easier, I reasoned, glancing down at the crystal drive in my hand. That was really all there was to—

**

The thought didn't finish.

The room lurched.

I had the sensation of falling through the floor. The familiar, stomach-dropping snap of one of those dreams where you trip just as you finally escape the debt collectors.

The kind that usually jolts you awake in your bed, several hundred dollars poorer with a new interest rate.

But this time, I didn't wake up in my body.

I blinked and winced a few times, drawing the attention of my new cohort. If they were concerned, they hid it well beneath haughty expressions.

As I struggled to regain composure, a sudden torrent of brand-new thoughts and sensations brimmed in my head. The room was the same. The hall. The ceremony.

But now I realized — if I could be said to realize anything at all — I was someone else entirely.

I scrambled to pull together something like awareness. I was, I realized, in charge again of the group of people seated at my table. But this time, my faction was different.

We, sitting closer to the front of the room than I was last time, were a stern and serious bunch. In front of me lay stacks of documents and a meticulous log where I was already scribbling hurried notes, peevish corrections, marginal comments about the mistakes the others had made.

It was, I knew, about to be my turn.

I felt a flutter of nerves, but it wasn't timid this time, or hesitant.

I assured myself of this as I glanced down at my Drive — sleek, heavy-duty, machine gray. It was specially modified with extra components to accommodate the massive amount of information we'd be contributing. No group here could claim to have worked as hard as us. This was simply the culmination of that effort.

This wasn't doubt, I told myself. It was only excitement.

So much had happened, and now, after all the pain, finally, some good could come of it.

No more chaos. No more reckless, stupid improvisation. We had an opportunity here. Architects of the only thing that would ever matter. Emotion had to be taken out of it.

As I hopped to my feet, unpleasantly faced with the masculine thud of my ungraceful steps, I rehearsed in my head for the hundredth time the words I planned to offer to History:

"Today is the day tha—"

**

The transition itself was smoother this time.

No panic. No disorientation.

And yet, the feeling that overcame me when I arrived was far worse than the others before it.

As the competing streams of my thoughts twisted together and settled, I could feel nothing but heaviness weigh deep in my core.

Sadness. Regret.

Exhaustion so total I couldn't find even an ounce of delight in the fact that I, once again, was woman.

Life is full of cruel ironies.

I didn't want to be in this room anymore, I thought, even as my careful footsteps carried me forward.

I didn't want to do this, this awful thing they were making me do.

It was his will that was the problem. That striving he had.

I cared for him. Admired him, even. Back when those were still things I did. There had been so much that we agreed on.

And now here I was. And for what?

I struggled mightily to fight away these thoughts, unsure which half of my psyche was doing the struggling. It was ego, I thought, to assume my personal feelings were of any concern here. Explicitly against everything we had worked so hard to cultivate.

And yet...

Did self-control mean resignation?

I stared down at the nondescript Drive in my hand. Characterless, beige.

It felt like a bad joke, the design. Was this truly how they thought of us? A bunch of humorless, pious freaks in rags.

I squeezed it so tight in my hand I could feel its digital facade warp around my fingers. There was sweat on the back of my neck, flush in my cheeks. A new, unwelcome feeling took residence right next to the pit in my stomach.

Hatred.

I hated them. After all I'd done to free myself, there it was. Their obstinance. Their cruelty.

But here I was. Doing their bidding.

That's when it dawned on me, the snap-sharp realization that it could be different. I...they...whoever I was. We didn't have to do this.

We could simply ... refuse.

I stopped dead in my tracks, just a few yards short of the obelisk. An uncanny hush fell over the hall. Time seemed to drag as the faces of the crowd froze and skipped in place.

I braced myself for pushback, dug my heels into the ground. My grip on the Drive loosened. Something like calm returned to my body.

And then—

The fellow members of my faction were standing next to me, shoulder to shoulder. I whipped my head to either side as the noise re-entered the room.

Had they always been there?

A helpless terror seized me as the weight of my digital costuming grew heavier, constricting and tightening around me. My fellows grabbed me lightly around either arm, guiding me gently but firmly back toward the obelisk.

To the crowd, it was solidarity. To me, it was defeat.

I felt my arm rise with the Drive.

And watched as it plunged into the Obelisk.