Chapter 2
‘Wait, what? What does it mean by “eliminate”. It can’t actually mean that it's going to murder 8 billion humans!’
“What a load of bullshit!” A young man with a stylish pink mohawk exclaims from the opposite wall. “You can’t expect me to believe that some robot that talks like C3-P0 is a threat.” A soft silence settles on us, “Right?” He asks.
“You saw what happened to those four people.”The dark complected man next to me chimes in, “I don’t think it’s joking around.”
“I mean how do we even know this is real. What if we’re on some kind of psychedelic drug, or maybe we’re dreaming.” Mohawk spits out while rubbing his perfectly muscled biceps.
“I don’t think so, sunny.” An elderly woman within spitting distance of mohawk says, “If anything I think we’re dead, and this is hell.” The silence grows heavier.
“That’s impossible! I’m a priest, there is no way that I’m in hell!” A tall thin figure of a man, with a perfect mustache retorts from another wall.
“I’m sure you wouldn’t be the first priest to go to hell!” Mohawk screams, his face growing red with effort.
Murmurs and more shouts begin to resound and cascade throughout the room. I hug my knees closer to my head and begin taking deep breaths.
A high pitch beeping pierces through the air. I immediately clasp my hands over my ears, it’s not working. An eternity passes before the piercing sound leaves the room and the echo that it left is all that remains.
The stone floors beneath me begin to shimmer. I bolt up, and as soon as I do they disappear. In its place is some sort of metallic flooring. I lift my gaze, and my field of view becomes completely filled with stars. Tens of thousands of stars. Hues of blues, greens, and reds, along with nearby planets and moons.
My mouth drops and I just gape at the view in front of me. It pricks the back of my head for a memory, but I can’t grasp it before it floats away.
I shake my head and focus my attention back to the reality in front of me.
‘I need to get somewhere safe.’
I begin to take stock of the situation. Aside from the hundred or so people, there is just one Kiosk and the empty void of space. That and a baby crawling towards the empty voidless nothingness of space.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
‘A baby!’
The baby is 100 feet away from me, but only 5 or so feet from the edge of the metallic surface that we are all on.
“Someone stop that baby!” I scream out while pointing. Every single person stops whatever it is that they are doing and turns. The baby continues to crawl towards the edge. Everyone appears to be stunned. Thankfully, someone only 20 feet away dashes out and picks up the child with only a foot left to spare.
I sigh heavily.
“That was close” a baritone voice next to me says.
I take a step back, sucking in a deep breath. It’s the dark complected man I talked with before, I guess he never moved.
He reaches out his hand, “I’m Cameron by the way.”
I hesitantly reach out my hand in response, “Lexi”.
“Nice save, Lexi.” Cameron says while gesturing in the direction of the baby.
“Thanks.” I begin twirling my hair, “But why is there a baby here in the first place?”
Cameron squints his eyes and looks around at the individuals. “Look around Lexi.” He says while gesturing to the people, “Look at all the demographics. Young, old, middle aged, White, Black, Asian, and Philappiano. The list goes on and on.”
He was right. The more I looked around, the more I saw the full spectrum of human variety. Sure there was only one baby, but there was still a smattering of other young children. A couple kids that looked like they were around 8, one that probably just started grade school, and a few young teenagers to name a few.
I squinted my eyes at the asian couple standing a few feet away. Their mouths were moving, but the words weren’t matching what they were saying. It was almost as if they were being dubbed into english.
“Hey Cameron,” I whispered, “There is a couple just a few feet to my left that look like they are talking, but their words don't seem to match up with their lips.”
He followed my eyes and stared at the couple for a while, “Yeah I think you’re right. It’s almost as if they're being translated somehow.”
‘Translated?’
I looked back over and listened to their conversation about the 4 dead bodies still lying on the floor.
“Do you think this is all a dream?” I asked Cameron, with a hint of desperation in my voice.
“I don’t know. I really don’t.” He paused for a long time. “But something is going on, and I don’t like it.”
I scrunched my mouth and nodded in reply.
I glanced over at the only landmark in the area, the kiosk looking thing. There were a few people that were circling around it. It was classic curiosity mixed with self preservation. Everyone wanted to know what it did, but noone wanted to be the first one to do anything about it. That was, until Mohawk walked over.
“Move over.” He said while elbowing his way through the crowd of people. He broke through the circle that had surrounded it, pausing to straighten his already perfectly straight shirt. He confidently walked within a few inches of the kiosk and paused, not knowing what to do next.
The kiosk bloomed to life with bright lights and holographic screens. Pictures of planets appeared in small pop up screens only to disappear and reappear in a different location. There had to be hundreds of planets. The largest screen which appeared right in front of Mohawk's face had something that I couldn’t make out from this distance, but I was able to hear the voice distinctly.
“Please choose the planet that you would like to go to.”