The Ride by Benjie de Leon
This story originally appeared in Alien Dimensions Issue #5
One: A New World.
A flash of white light. Darkness follows the light. You’re perfectly aware of the darkness and then nothing. You black out, and you’re not aware of anything anymore. Time and space mean nothing to you. Your entire life is pretty much wiped out. That’s what I felt when I went under. I didn’t even remember entering the cryo-chamber and being frozen. I didn’t remember anything. I still don’t remember a lot of stuff. Much of it is still one big blank space, or black hole, or however you want to describe it. It’s probably an after-effect of going under in the first place. The only reason I even remember any of this at all, is because I woke up. Or more accurately, someone, or something woke me up.
“Subject conscious. Vitals signs are slow, but this is normal and to be expected from awakening.”
“Does he need any electro-shocks to rouse his system?”
“Negative. The subject should regain full mobility and consciousness in a matter of minutes or hours, depending on his general constitution.”
The voices spoke in English, but they did not sound human at all. They sounded mechanical, as if they came from some kind of voice-altering software. The best way I could put it, was that the voices sounded like they came from robots. I was about to find out that, that was a pretty good approximation.
“Are you all right?”
My eyes adjusted to the sudden light. After going under for God-knows-how-long, your body has to somehow readjust to waking up. It’s like a computer being forcibly restarted. The light was so bright I had to look away. I thought I would go blind with the sudden brightness. My muscles were sore from standing in a cramped space for so long. My thoughts were a jumbled-up mess. Random thoughts and what little memories I did have, mixed with each other in a sick collage and patchwork of awareness. The feeling was akin to many dreams I used to have, and a strange dessert I remember eating from some strange part of the world.
I was not ready to wake up. I don’t think I would ever have been ready to wake up, if it were not for my new friends.
“Come on now. It’s time to get you out of there.”
I tried to move, but I just couldn’t. I could not even speak. The shock and confusion of waking up was just too much. I felt like I was suddenly born again into a strange new world.
“You’ll have to pull him out. Be gentle.”
“Affirmative.”
I felt metal fingers clamp down on my arm. The metal was cold and hard to my soft muscles that had grown weak with lack of use. With a gentle, but firm tug, the strange hands pulled me out of the cryo-chamber and into the light.
With one powerful tug, I was pulled out of the chamber. My skin suddenly tingled, and I could barely stand. I felt more metal under my bare feet. My eyes were slowly getting used to seeing again, but I could still only make out hazy blurs, and not much else. I was completely naked, and very disoriented.
“Don’t be afraid. Your body is still readjusting itself to waking up. Any confusion, or discomfort you may feel is perfectly normal.”
Slowly, my eyes struggled to gain better focus. Eventually, I managed to see clearly and saw what was best described as two abominations in front of me. Humanoid. Both were covered in strange metal and wires. Their bodies appeared to be robotic, but patched together. Their arms were not proportional in many places, and their bodies seemed totally out of sync. It was almost like some mad scientist put their bodies together like a toy construction set. The only way I could distinguish the mad gaggle of parts in front of me was through their voices. One of them was female, and the other one male.
“Please, help me. I don’t understand any of this. What’s going on?” I mumbled.
One of them turned to look at me. Its eyes glowed red like x-rays, and it stared right through me. It had a face akin to a metallic skull.
“It’s going to be all right. You’ve awakened after being in cryogenic sleep for over a thousand years.”
The robot’s voice was female.
“You may call me Stassi. You are?”
I took a moment to process what Stassi was saying.
“Adam. My name is Adam. You said, a thousand years?”
Stassi nodded silently. I heard a whirring noise, as her head and neck craned to nod.
“You are very fortunate to be alive, Adam. We discovered your cryo-pod during a routine clean-up at the junkyard. We thought it was just junk, at first. When we saw you inside, and checked your vital signs, we realized you were still alive, and the pod was still functional. We rushed you here as soon as we could, and managed to wake you.”
It was the male robot.
“You may also call me Jaku.”
“Hello. Thank you both for saving me, I guess. Where am I? What’s going on?”
“You might not have awakened if Jaku hadn’t discovered your cryo-chamber in one of our forays for parts outside.”
“What year is it?”
It was a simple enough question, but Stassi’s answer completely floored me.
“It’s 3034.”
I couldn’t believe the number that Stassi rattled off. 3034! My head wrapped itself around the thought, as I struggled to comprehend it. I had woken up after over a thousand years. After a moment of silence, Stassi asked me something.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, yes. Thank you for the concern. I just can’t believe I’ve woken up in 3034. It’s a lot to take in, all at once.”
“I understand.” Stassi said.
Slowly, the feeling in my limbs began to come back. My eyes finally managed to take in the sights clearly. I was getting my bearings back physically. Everything else, was another matter altogether.
“I want to go outside. Take a look at the world now.”
“You may do so. But I believe it would be best if I accompanied you outside on your foray. You might find many of the changes, disconcerting to say the least.”
“All right.”
I decided to follow Stasi’s advice. After all, this was a completely alien world to me now. My whole life before this had ceased to exist. It didn’t even matter that I was once a struggling writer. I once fancied myself to be an artist of some kind, a misunderstood soul. I often found it quite ironic that I was not religious. I figured someone creative and imaginative as myself would naturally gravitate towards religion. A bigger picture, and all that jazz. I tried. I really did. However, I could not see past the mundane realities of life. It was hard to believe in a higher power when you were busy trying to pay the bills, and to basically stay alive. That was why I signed up for the cryogenics program. I figured; ‘what the hell?’ We’ll all die anyway. I might as well die, with some kind of a chance to move on. It would be my ‘higher power.’ My bigger purpose. Well, what do you know? It worked. I beat all the odds, and I survived into the future. What that future exactly was, I was still not certain. Now, I would find out.
Stassi and I stepped out of the sterile surroundings of their home, and my mind was completely blown away.
“Well, what do you think?”
I could not answer Stassi’s question. No words seemed adequate to describe what I was seeing. This was not the world I was familiar with. My eyes did not even see Earth anymore, but a completely different planet.
I cannot even say that we stepped out into a city. It was more like a technological monster. The city resembled something more like a giant computer. There were no design aesthetics to the buildings. They were only massive, cold metallic plates and wires that served a general purpose. The structures were all interconnected by wires, as various robots like Stassi shuffled around, paying us no heed. The sky was almost blotted out by various flying machines. What little I could see of the sky was not blue, but a dark shade of red. The sun was red! I could also hear a constant whirring noise everywhere, like some giant machine humming to life.
“I- I don’t know what to say.” I stammered.
“I’m sure this all must be very difficult for you.”
Stassi seemed to touch a nerve when she said that. I was never really a friendly person in my past life. I only had a few friends, and my family, but that was it. Suddenly I missed them all. I missed my children, my dog. I even missed my ex-wife.
“The people? Where are the people?” I asked.
Stassi’s answer almost knocked me out.
“There are none left. You are the only one left.”
I was in shock, but I should have expected it. It was inevitable that we would wipe ourselves out with our negligence. I was in the future, and it had finally happened.
“How did it happen? How did everyone die?” I asked.
“We’re not dead. We’ve all merely transferred our consciousness to these new robot bodies.”
I could not believe what I was hearing.
“You mean, you were once human?”
“I still am. I’ve just gotten a new body. Adam, you must understand. It was the only way to survive, because of how degraded the Earth had become.”
I was filled with revulsion and horror. I would not allow myself to be converted to one of these things! I could not live like that!
“No! I can’t allow myself to be transformed into – into what you’ve become!”
“You don’t understand. It’s not as bad as you think. Please,”
Stassi reached out her hand to me. I looked at it closely. It resembled a metal claw, more than a human hand. I would not allow her to touch me again. I instinctively recoiled in fear.
“No! Stay away!”
“Adam, please!”
“Adam, don’t try to resist. You really have no choice. You must-”
“No!”
I hastily moved away from Stassi, as she approached me. I panicked so much, I didn’t notice that I had turned my back on the edge of where we were standing. There was no ground to step on anymore, and I slipped. I plummeted to the ground below. I never realized we had been standing from the top of a building. The drop must have been over a thousand feet, straight down.
Two: Out of the City.
I thought it was the end. It had to be. The wind was blowing all over my body, and I continued to fall with nothing to hold onto.
Suddenly, I felt myself land on something. It was a hard landing, and I thought I had cracked something inside of me, but I was alive. I grabbed my aching back. It was sore as hell, but my spine was still whole. I had landed in some kind of vehicle. It didn’t have a roof on top of it, and it was just sheer, dumb luck that it caught me.
“Get out of my craft! What are you? Get out of my craft!”
The robot piloting the craft repeated the phrases over and over again. It was almost as if something inside of his brain couldn’t understand what I was, and had shorted out. The machine looked distressed.
This was my chance.
With all my strength, I banged into the robot with my shoulder. It felt like banging a soft aluminum trash can. The robot was flung out of his car by the impact. He was the only person inside the small craft.
I sat on the now, empty driver’s seat and stared at a completely alien dashboard. I couldn’t understand any of the buttons or symbols on it. There wasn’t even a steering wheel on the thing!
“What the hell is this? Maybe you could go on auto-pilot?”
I just stammered a desperate command. I didn’t expect anything from the flying craft.
“Affirmative. Auto-pilot engaged.”
I almost jumped off my seat. My desperate command worked! They really had thought of everything in the future!
The small flying car flew me around effortlessly. I was relieved to be alive, but now I had a very pressing concern. What was I supposed to do now? This was a completely alien world to me. There were just machines and no sign of any human being anywhere. What was I supposed to do, to survive?
I looked up to the red sun above me. It was a mockery of the sun I had known, and it seemed to be mocking me, and my desperate situation. I had to figure something out. There had to be a better way, aside from being turned into a robot.
“Where is our current destination?” the car asked.
In all the confusion, I had forgotten about the car. It was a valid question. Where was I supposed to go now?”
“Anywhere but here!” I said.
“I am sorry, but that is not a valid destination.” it said calmly.
Its calm demeanor was beginning to annoy me. That, and the fact that I couldn’t answer its question.
“Just get me out of the city!”
“Affirmative.”
The absurdity of the situation made me laugh. I actually managed to give the thing directions. I realized that driving had become vastly more convenient in the future. No more traffic, and long certifications to get a license. Just a good, old-fashioned computer that would do everything for you. Not bad, at all.
The flying car zoomed towards its peculiar destination. I nurtured a small flicker of hope inside of me. Perhaps once we got out of the city, I could figure all of this out. Maybe out there, I could find a way out of all of this madness.
Three: Into the Unknown.
I sat in the car for several moments, trying to catch my breath. I was oblivious to all the wondrous sights all around me. I was too horrified at Stassi’s offer to convert me into one of them. I wouldn’t allow it. I would not lose my humanity in this strange new world.
Perhaps, it wasn’t such a good idea to be cryogenically frozen, after all. Maybe I should have just lived the way everyone else did. Surely, it would have been better to just pass on naturally than wake up to this.
The sound of engines firing behind me, and a booming mechanical voice roused me from my thoughts.
“Stop! Stop right now, and come with us!”
I turned around, and saw two other flying craft right behind my own craft. They looked faster and sleeker than my vehicle. They were clearly built for military use, while my own craft was just for everyday use. This was not good at all.
“Adam! It’s me, Stassi! Come with us now! It’s for your own good!”
“No! No way!”
I shouted right at the craft’s computer.
“Drive as fast as you can out of the city. Lose those two vehicles! Now!”
“Affirmative.”
The craft responded by literally going full throttle. I heard a roar of the engine, and something burning behind me. There was a sudden increase in speed, that pulled me back to the edge of my seat. It was like someone stepped on the invisible gas pedal of the craft, and he stepped on it hard.
The craft moved faster than I could imagine, but the two other craft stayed right behind us. The craft could go fast, but there was no way I was overtaking them.
“You’re just making this harder for yourself, Adam!” Stassi said.
I ignored her plea, and held on. The craft was pushing itself to the limit.
Suddenly, I felt something hit the craft from behind. It sounded like something had attached itself behind the car.
“Clamps attached.”
I looked back and saw long cables that came from the two pursuing vehicles. The cables were attached to large metal clamps that had latched onto my flying car. With the way the car began to shake and struggle violently, they seemed to be magnets of some sort.
“Warning. Movement compromised. Cannot-”
“Keep going! Just keep going! Don’t stop!”
It was a desperate command, but I didn’t know what else to do. I heard the clanking and grinding of metal as the craft slowed down, and struggled to break free of the clamp. The car didn’t stop, and the magnets held on. Its metal plates, and other parts began to separate all around me. It was falling apart, as it tried to wrest free, in vain.
“Adam, don’t do this!”
Stassi kept pleading with me, but I would not listen. Anything was better than to become like them. The car was being violently torn apart now, and there was little left of it. The computer tried to say something but it came out in unintelligible squawks and chatter. I took one last look at Stassi. I could have sworn her red eyes were begging me not to jump, but it was probably just my imagination. There was nothing left to do. I jumped out of what was left of the flying craft, and into the unknown.
Epilogue: The Smiling Girl.
“He’s coming out of it!”
“Check his vitals!”
I opened my eyes. I was still alive, and I was lying on a bed. There were several people running around. They looked pretty worried.
“Are you all right? We thought we had lost you.”
A pretty attractive girl stood in front of me. She was smiling at me, but she was clearly trying to hide a lot of stress. Her voice sounded strangely familiar, but I couldn’t place it.
“Yeah, I guess. What’s going on here?”
I sat up on the bed, and noticed something on my head. There were wires and electrodes attached to my scalp. She pulled them off, and they came off painlessly with a slight popping noise.
“You were going on the Virtua-Immersion.”
“The Virtua-what?”
“The Virtua-Immersion. It’s a new experimental attraction we’re trying to develop for the theme park. You agreed to test it out.”
“I did?”
“Yes, you did, Adam. You said you needed the pay so you were very eager to be one of the first to try it out.”
“Whoa! You mean, I just dreamed all that up?”
She nodded.
Something was wrong here. How could I have just dreamed all of it up? I had real memories of a past life before I exited the cryo-chamber. How was that even possible? I didn’t understand, and I let her know it.
“I don’t understand. I had memories of being a writer, of having an ex-wife, and a dog, after being in cryo-chamber and..”
“The attraction is still in its experimental stages. You inputted a preferred fantasy before entering, and the software created the scenario in your brain before you went to sleep.”
“So, I wanted to have an adventure in the future?”
The girl smiled at me.
“Yes, I do believe so.”
“That still doesn’t explain those vivid memories I had of a life before being in the cryo-chamber. It felt so real.”
“You may have specified your personal preferences; however, the new software is still in its experimental stages. The software limitations, combined with your own subconscious could have generated those false memories.”
I suddenly felt anger at this new revelation. How could they have allowed me to try something like this?
“That’s just crazy! And it even sounds dangerous!”
“You did sign the contract. It’s all here in the fine print.”
The girl handed me some papers with my signature on it. It looked like a contract all right.
“Your heart rate increased to dangerous levels. Blood-pressure was up, your brain was under huge stress, everything was going bad, so we had to pull you out.”
“I guess it’s a good thing you did. You better improve your high-tech carnival ride. I’m not about to do something that crazy again.”
It all seemed to make sense. The girl kept smiling at me, even as I was still very angry. I guess she was just well-trained by her bosses. Perhaps, I was also more than a little too eager to try some untested ride like that.
“I still don’t get it. My head’s still fuzzy, and I don’t remember a lot of stuff.”
“Some memory loss was one of the expected side-effects to trying out the Virtua-Immersion. Read the fine print of the contract.”
She looked me in the eye, and kept smiling. It was almost as if the smile were pasted on her face. She was pretty, but she was starting to creep me out.
“Okay. I guess I’ll just get my pay, then and be off. By the way you’re..?”
“Stassi. My name’s Stassi.” she said, still smiling.