Sheila found herself in the rec area and her thoughts, as they always did when she was here, went to Henry. She had a strong compulsion to find him, as she always did, but this time was different. Something was wrong and urgent. As she tried to recall what it was she remembered a dream she had. Doors. Rooms. Names. It was hard to piece it together, as dreams always were, but it was significant and its impact was resonating into her waking life. It was an odd feeling; she hadn’t thought about her dreams much in a long time. Apparently she’d been sleeping deeply recently. But last night…No, the dream wasn’t from last night. It was an old dream. She dreamt it…When did she dream it? When did she sleep last? Where did she sleep? How did she get here?
A wave of dreaded realization flooded Sheila starting at her head and cresting at her heart and lungs before splashing into numb tingles down her legs into her feet. What she remembered was no dream.
Sheila breathed deeply and tried to settle her emotions. It worked. She was able to replace her dismay with determined focus. She had to get out of this place and Henry was her only way. How long ago was that night? How many memories since had been erased by these monsters? At least they hadn’t erased her memory of the night, and here she was safely in the rec room, so it was likely that her secret galavant was still in fact secret.
“Is everything all right Sheila?” Asked a masker tenderly who was standing just behind her. Had she…it been there the whole time?
“Oh, yes of course!” Sheila replied cheerily. “I was just thinking of our lesson earlier.” Sheila flashed a bright eyed wide smile at the masker. “Now, where is Hen-hen?” Sheila had never called Henry, or anyone, by that name and worried she’d given herself away.
The masker stood staring for a half-second too long, its blank metallic face revealing nothing. “Have fun dear,” finally came the response.
Sheila skipped off toward the soccer field and shouted “Thanks” over her shoulder. The soccer field was occupied on one half by a contingent of about 6 other people who were playing some form of game that apparently didn’t require the whole field. A quick scan of the rec room revealed that Henry wasn’t in his usual places. Sheila gave a more concerted effort, looking closely at each human in the room, none of which paid her any attention, just as she had never done. They all seemed so happy, blissfully passing the time doing whatever the maskers made them think was a good idea. Sheila couldn’t help but allow a sneer to form on her face but only for a moment. Then she remembered the notes in the movie cases. Perhaps Henry left her another one.
The Harry Potter movie cases contained nothing but their respective discs, as did 50 First Dates. Sheila checked Memento, Shawshank Redemption, and several others that Henry had mentioned to her in their numerous conversations. Sheila longingly remembered their times together. Their conversations of no consequence, of laughter and teasing, of silly ideas. To be back on the soccer field, lying next to each other in the grass, unaware that they were…here.
“Looks like my excellent taste in movies is finally rubbing off on you. You’ve pretty much got an all-time top-ten list there,” came the familiar voice of Sheila’s friend. Just as the dread had coursed through her body moments before, warm, soothing relief unfolded from her ears down into her heart.
Sheila jumped to her feet and wrapped her arms around Henry, squeezing with all her might.
“Keep calm, keep calm,” Henry whispered. “They monitor our emotional state, intervene when we get worked up.”
“I thought I might never see you again,” Sheila said almost inaudibly into Henry’s ear as tears welled up in her eyes. “Something seems off, I think the maskers might be suspicious. How long has it been since…”
“I don’t know but I suspect the same thing. I think it’s been a while. And I haven’t seen my masker friend who I used to watch movies with since,” Henry whispered back. “Let’s watch a movie!” Henry announced cheerfully as he pulled away from their embrace.
Henry sat down in front of the cabinet of movies below the TV and motioned for Sheila to join him. He pulled a movie out and started reading the synopsis on the back of the case. He quickly put it down on the floor and grabbed another one. Sheila noticed that he wasn’t looking at the case at all but was looking at the movies in the cabinet. He then reached for the cabinet once more but this time reached through the space he’d just made and grabbed something from behind the row of movies. He pulled his arm back revealing a stack of paper scraps and a felt pen. He immediately began scribbling on one.
THEY CAN’T SEE US HERE.
Sure enough, Sheila remembered noticing the angle of the camera when she was in the surveillance room. Henry was hurriedly scribbling more.
I CAN GET US OUT. PLAN IS IN CHICKEN RUN.
Sheila thought it was a little on the nose but was excited and happy to know that Henry was serious about escaping. He was serious about her. And he knew how to do it.
“Tell me you’ve seen the Michael Keaton Batman movies! They’re too good to miss,” Henry said aloud. A diversion no doubt.
“Umm, is that the one with Arnold Schwarzenegger as the villain?” Sheila played along as she grabbed a scrap of paper and the pen from Henry.
WHEN?
“That’s one of them, yeah, but there are three! You’re in for a treat, young lady!” Henry said as he scratched his missive.
NOT SURE. SOON. READ PLAN. BE READY. STAY CALM.
Henry looked deep and earnestly into Sheila’s eyes. Sheila gave a single nod in reply. Henry then put the paper and pen back behind the movies and put a disc into the player before making his way to his usual chair in front of the TV.
They couldn’t reveal any indication of their plot, not even through their emotions. Fortunately for the two of them, they had received countless hours of emotional control training.
As the movie ended, Henry asked Sheila to put in the second in the series. She replaced the disc and then looked back at Henry who gave her a nod and looked toward the left side of the movie cabinet.
“I don’t see the Schwarzenegger one here, maybe someone put it back in the wrong place, I’m gonna look for it,” said Sheila loudly.
Chicken Run was near the end of the cabinet, placed among some movies that Sheila had never heard of and looked very 70s. She opened the case to find it was practically overflowing with papers. In reality, Sheila quickly realized, it was only a few documents, but they were full-sized sheets of paper, not the scraps they’d been using previously. The first sheet was an official looking memo that displayed a diagram and descriptive text with numbered instructions. Though the text wasn’t in English, or any Earth language probably, the diagram clearly illustrated what looked to Sheila like a teleportation machine. It showed a platform, upon which there was a person standing in the middle of a circle, a terminal with a pad of keys was fixed to the outside of the platform. The numbered list was short and had closer, detailed illustrations for each step. It appeared as though one simply stood on the platform, entered where they wanted to go in the terminal, and pressed the big red button. Easy.
The next document was a densely formatted grid of letters, symbols, and numbers. About a third of the way down the document someone had circled some of the text. It read “Earth: 7483720730”.
The third and final document was a map. It revealed a huge grid of rooms of various shapes and sizes. Toward the bottom of the map was a large circular array of tiny rectangles. The cells. In pen, a line was drawn from one of the tiny rooms, down the corridor, and through 3 different rooms where it ended in with an X. Sheila spent a moment memorizing the information. Earth’s code would be the most difficult, followed by the escape route. Working the teleportation machine appeared to be intuitive enough not to give Sheila worry.
As she tried to memorize the information as quickly as possible, Sheila turned the documents over so she could quiz herself. The teleportation machine diagram was on the bottom and thus revealed its backside when the pile turned over. Sheila saw another illustrated diagram. This one showed a cube that had a display and a key pad on one side. The cube was shown being held in a hand, revealing its relatively small size. Again there were numbered instructions with detailed illustrations for each step. First, it looked like you were supposed to point one end at a person. The next step showed the keypad in detail, next to which was another list. Numbered codes with indecipherable text next to them. The third and final step contained an illustration of a person with waves radiating from their head. This was the mind control device.
“AHEM-HEM-HEM! SHEILA!” Henry shouted, startling her. Sheila abruptly turned around to find a masker standing over her looking down.
“What the fuck is that?” It asked gruffly. The masker then pulled a small cube from its body suit. With a sudden jerk, the masker was lurching toward the TV which sent the cube flying out of its hand. Henry was standing where the masker had been with his hand outstretched.
“I said it would be soon, didn't I?” Henry quipped with a familiar smirk. Astonished, Sheila grabbed Henry’s hand and hopped to her feet.
She quickly turned back to pick up the documents and smoothly snatched the cube where it had rolled on the floor next to her. “We’re gonna need these,” Sheila said, and then they were running.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
As Sheila and Henry sprinted, hand-in-hand, away from the TV area toward the soccer field, the group of people who were playing there all immediately fell limp to the ground. Then the features of the floor, the walls, and the ceiling all dissolved away and were replaced by a tumult of vivid, moving colors. It was impossible to discern between the floor, wall, and ceiling; and thus Sheila lost her footing. So determined not to lose her grip on the mind-control cube and documents, she let go of Henry’s hand instead and used it to support herself in the fall. She hurriedly stood back up ready to continue running but as she looked up she saw that Henry too had fallen, except he wasn’t getting back up. Sheila reached down and grabbed his arm to help him to his feet. As soon as she touched him, he startled awake but was clearly in a state of confusion.
“Get up Henry! We have to get out of here!” cried Sheila.
“Huh? Where are we? Weren’t we just watching a mov…” Henry trailed off as a look of sudden realization dawned on his face. “Is it the day? I don’t remember finishing everything.”
“It’s the day whether you’re ready or not, now get up!” Sheila exclaimed as she yanked Henry to his feet and they continued running into the formless swirl of colors and shapes.
“Do you know how to get out of here?” Sheila asked between heavy breaths.
“The far side of the soccer field. Directly behind the goal is a door that leads to the surveillance rooms or whatever they are,” Henry replied, similarly out of breath.
“That’s not particularly helpful now that the soccer field decided to go psychedelic,” yelled Sheila.
Just then, a solid square of light appeared to the duo’s left and 3 maskers hurriedly entered the color-swirling room and headed directly toward Sheila and Henry. One was holding out a mind-control cube in their direction while frantically pressing buttons on it but almost immediately gave up and slipped it into a pocket.
With nowhere to run, Sheila and Henry stopped and faced the approaching group.
“That’s it, easy. There’s nowhere to run. We are not going to harm you. Please give us the cube you’re holding and we’ll all just go back to our happy little lives,” said the masker in the middle, now approaching with more caution.
Henry turned to Sheila and they looked into each other’s eyes. Henry’s face showed the same deep seriousness as that day on the soccer field when he told her he would do anything for her, and he moved his face closer to hers. Sheila felt a lump in her throat, butterflies in her stomach, and her face somehow felt simultaneously hot and cold. She closed her eyes.
“Run. Get out. Go home.” Henry whispered. His warm breath on Sheila’s ear was intoxicating. She wanted nothing but to spend eternity with him. It didn’t matter where, or under which circumstances. They could be prisoners in the darkest dungeons of Azkaban, as long as they were together. “When I wake up, tell me to reach for the pocket and grab the cube.”
“No I don’t want to leave you…” Sheila began to say but as the words were leaving her mouth Henry was already in motion. He leapt forward with force, still keeping contact with Sheila’s hand until he was already airborne, hurling his body toward the group of maskers. As soon as Henry’s hand left Sheila’s, his body went completely limp, however his momentum carried him with full force directly into the masker on the left, crashing into him with a thud, they both fell in a heap to the ground. Everyone froze, startled at the unexpected tackle. On top of the masker on the ground, Henry snapped up his previously limp head and looked around with a confused look on his face.
“Henr…the pocket! Go for the pocket!” shouted Sheila. “Grab the cube!” The other two maskers suddenly moved to help their fallen comrade and Sheila took her opportunity to run toward the doorway from where they came. She could hear the struggle occurring behind her as she sprinted, including a loud, painful groan that was cut short by a sharp crack. Sheila allowed herself a glance back and saw that Henry was up on his feet in a fight with two maskers, the third lying still on the floor beside them.
Finally Sheila made it through the doorway and found herself in a much more comprehensible room. Seeing no-one around, she slowed her sprint to a fast walk and pulled out the map. She took an educated guess as to where her current location was and committed to memory the route to what was hopefully the way out of this prison.
Having passed down a long corridor and a few rooms furnished with desks, and computer screens. Sheila found her destination. The platform from the diagram. She hurriedly pulled up the paper that contained what was apparently the code for Earth and began typing in the code on the keypad. But when it came time to enter the final number, she hesitated, her finger hovering shakily over the 0 key. Her mind was fixated on Henry. She couldn’t leave him here, could she? It was his idea to distract the maskers so she could escape. Henry would want her to go. But why live a life on Earth without him? Could she ever feel fulfilled? Could she love someone again?
“I guess I could make anyone love me with this mind-control cube,” she thought incredulously. Sheila closed her eyes and took a deep breath to calm her emotions. And, standing on the platform, pressed the 0 key.
But nothing happened. A small display above the keypad showed the numbers Sheila had entered and she double-checked them against the papers. The code was correct. Could the paper be wrong? There was no way to know what the paper with the Earth code was even referring to. It could be something entirely unrelated to this teleportation platform, if that was what this machine even was. Sheila felt a simultaneous wave of dread and embarrassment and crumpled to her knees in dismay. It was all for nothing. She could have lived her whole life here in happiness with Henry by her side. A life without suffering, every need met. The world’s entire library of knowledge and entertainment at her fingertips. And she threw it all away. The bold red text “TERMINATED” flashed in her mind. Sheila wept.
Barely holding on to the mind-control cube and with the alien documents strewn on the floor around her, Sheila suddenly remembered something. There was a final step to the teleportation process. The big red button! Sheila jumped up and inspected the keypad again, but there was no red button, just keys with numbers and symbols and a display that still showed the code for Earth. Scanning the room, she quickly saw it. Next to the door on the other side of the room, a red button under a glass cover. The teleporter required two people to operate it. Sheila immediately started looking for objects to throw to press the button but also needed to break its glass cover. As soon as she stepped off the platform toward the button, the door slid open with a hiss. It was Henry! And someone else? A masker followed closely behind as they both entered the room.
Henry was standing slightly in front of the masker and was wearing handcuffs. His face was bloody and bruised and his clothes…Sheila had never really noticed his clothes before…were in tatters. The masker behind him also looked battered and bruised but was in obvious control of the situation as he had in his hands what Sheila could only surmise to be a weapon of some sort. And yet, Henry somehow looked relieved; and with his broad smile revealing a missing tooth he said, “I thought I’d never see you again.”
It was the most beautiful thing Sheila had ever seen.
“Sheila, you have to listen to me. You have to stay. We can stay here and be happy together. It’s not what you think, I was wrong.” said Henry. “There’s something I have to tell you that’s going to be hard to hear but you need to know.”
Sheila’s eyes shifted from Henry to the masker and then to the red button.
“We’re here for a reason. These people, “the maskers”, they watch over Earth. They protect it. They protect us.”
The masker eased its posture, looked at Sheila and nodded.
“We have technology,” said the masker, who Sheila recognized as the tender, motherly masker that taught her every day for what seemed like years. “Advanced technology that can simulate the future on Earth. We simulate all possible futures and assign a percentage of probability to each. If there’s a high likelihood that something will lead to the extinction of the human race, we intervene.”
“So I…destroy the human race? That seems impossible.” Sheila replied shakily.
“They assign a number,” Henry said. “They call it an SCI number. It represents the number of lives you’re responsible for destroying. Yours…yours is the highest they’ve ever seen.”
“I don’t believe it. I could never…” Sheila said softly. How could someone as meek and socially inept as her cause so much death? “So it must be an accident that I cause, or a butterfly effect thing, right? I make someone late and 20 years later that results in them becoming the next Hitler.”
“The simulations are accurate and take into account the complex interactions of each human life, including what effect our actions will have on the future, but we do not attempt to find root causes or alter unrelated aspects of a world. It is much more prudent to, when possible, simply remove the person who performs the act. In your case, there was a 99% chance you would be responsible for billions of deaths.” Said the masker in a tone as if she and Sheila were back in a study session discussing Dostoevsky or Planck.
“So I do it. I perform the act.” Sheila said as she looked down at the floor, still in disbelief.
“It’s okay Sheila,” said Henry. “I’m here for the same reason, everyone is. They take us and they rehabilitate us. They turn us into good people while allowing us to live without suffering."
“Against our will,” said Sheila meagerly. She was still processing all of this. It must be true. Or it was at least as good of a reason as any to abduct someone from their home and put them in a space prison. And Sheila’s number. The highest ever. With a 99% probability. The memory of the monitors in the surveillance room showing her name at the top of the list with an SCI score of a zillion. But suddenly something else flashed in Sheila’s memory.
TERMINATED
Everyone else on the list was dead. And the SCI score on every other bedroom she saw that night was zero.
“You say you bring us here to rehabilitate us. I’ve been here a while, why is my number still so high?” asked Sheila defiantly. The masker took a few steps forward.
“Rehabilitation takes time,” she said.
“Henry, how can you know they won’t hurt us?” Sheila exclaimed beseechingly. “How can you know they haven’t already and simply erased our memory of it? Who knows what they’ve done to us. They’re probably lying about everything!”
Sheila’s voice rose in volume and intensity and an almost forgotten feeling welled in her chest. A deep resentment toward those who mistreated her, those who lied to her, those who didn’t care about her, and out of the long-dormant resentment arose an overwhelming desire for retribution, respect, control.
“Although if a case proves impossible to rehab,” continued the masker, “there are alternative options.” The instant she finished her sentence, the masker raised her weapon and fired. There was a bright flash but the shot didn’t make much noise. Sheila felt as the world went into slow motion. A thought ran through her head, “it’s curious that with all the technology to this alien species, they can make their guns quiet but they can’t make a gun that doesn’t make a bright flash.” A warm sensation steadily grew in her upper right chest. When Sheila looked down she noticed she was bleeding. She also noticed she was falling backward to the floor. Sheila landed with a numb thud on the teleporter platform.
“NNNOOOOOO!” shouted Henry, and he threw himself onto the masker.
Sheila could hear the sounds of struggle but didn’t have the strength to lift her head. She could just make out the red button across the room, so close yet utterly out of reach. She then saw a bright flash, followed by two more. The room was silent for a moment. Then Henry groaned. It was like music to Sheila’s ears. A moment later a hand appeared, reaching up from the floor. It was two hands, handcuffed. But they were across the room. Sheila wanted so bad for those hands, for Henry, to be there next to her, reaching for her. She longed to be with him again, lying on the grass of the soccer field, watching movies and eating junk food for hours on end, feeling his warm breath on her ear. Instead, Henry’s bloodied, handcuffed hands were reaching up from what might as well have been the other side of the galaxy. The hands lifted the glass cover, and collapsed onto the red button.
The only person Sheila ever loved, the only person who ever loved Sheila, was dead. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t fair. Sheila was ripped from her home against her will, was brainwashed and mind-controlled, then had the only person she cared for murdered, all because a computer simulation said there was a chance that she would destroy the world.
The room began to look fuzzy. White light beamed around Sheila from above and below. She was going back to Earth. Back to all of the people that never loved her no matter how hard she tried. Her knuckles were white as she gripped the mind-control cube, her face a determined shadow of crimson rage. Then she teleported away.