Colony Worlds, page 45
As couples filed out, the noise abated.
"Do you reckon any of them are going home with the same person they brought in?" Scott said, half joking.
Leanne pondered for a moment as she watched them trickle out into the cold night. "Let's hope so. I'd hate to think all of them are as screwed up as we are."
The audience thinned, isolating them together in awkward silence. They watch each other with a roving gaze, as if each was evaluating unknown possibilities. She is as beautiful now as when we met, thought Scott, although the harsh overhead lights revealed silver among the grey. His own thinning hair must look the same to her.
"What was it like for you?" Leanne asked.
Although he was certain they shared the same experience, he didn’t quite know how to begin. "It was pretty wild."
"Try me."
"I was back on Elysium, the main street of Settlers Field, until your stare threw me back here with you. When I re-immersed, we were together at Lee Point's nude beach," he said, then with a grin quickly amended, "not that we were naked. Well, not fully, but a lot more than half-naked. Why am I telling you this? You were there."
Over suppressed laughter, Leanne said, "We ended up driving to our home in Outpost Four. We went inside and watched ourselves argue."
"Yes," he said, as the sensorium continued to empty around them. "Seems we had the identical experience."
"It does seem that way, but was any of it what the sensorium intended to happen?"
"I'm not sure intention comes into it. I'm guessing the system plunders our memories and the algorithm renders whatever it finds," Scott said, just to keep the conversation going. He was enjoying Leanne's company as he used to before he started shift work on Emma Island; before the thin edge of that wedge exploited a crack in their relationship.
"Makes you wonder why it brought up those memories?"
"It’s not as if we didn’t have more shared memories once we evacuated back here."
"The best perhaps?" Leanne said and Scott saw her eyes glaze over, as if looking inward.
With a sick feeling in his stomach, he was sure she was comparing and judging memories. That’s all folks, he thought, back to reality. And yet they continued to talk until the usher told them they had to leave, saying, "There is another session in a few minutes." She seemed unfazed that they were sitting in different couches holding hands across the divide, as if this was an expected outcome.
They exchanged a worried glance as they emerged through the side exit into the Adelaide night, now darker, colder, and wet. Heavy rain had fallen since they went in. Behind them, they could hear the murmurs of excited patrons filling couches.
"My god," Leanne said, "they have no idea what they're in for."
Scott grinned, "Nor did we, but I, for one, think the money well spent."
"I don’t disagree," Leanne said, her light tone suddenly serious, "but are we really out of it?"
Her question didn't surprise him. His brief glance along the street gave him the impression that the world into which they had emerged didn't look the same. For a start, his hovercar was missing, replaced by something much older. His booked parked had been right here, outside this exit. If he was supposed to be back to reality, why wasn’t Julia waiting for him? Was his car already gone when she came out? If so, did she walk home, take a bus, or a taxi? For that matter, home where? Her place, or mine? She often slept over at his place, but hadn’t moved in yet. He knew she hadn’t taken his car; the hook's unlock code was in his implant.
Puzzled, Scott immediately felt for his implant, not surprised to find it was back now they were out of the sensorium. He reached into his pocket for the dongle to locate his car, but withdrew a set of worn keys instead. He stared at his find, his mind churning. What if Leanne was right, and they hadn't yet left the sensorium? What if everything he was now experiencing, including their exit and the return of his implant, came from immersion in a new set of projected memories?
As if to convince him otherwise, the sensorium's exit doors banged shut with a loud finality, and the locking mechanism clicked home. Scott stood bewildered at the kerb with the antique keys in his hand and stared at the streetscape. He now noticed other, more subtle differences. The street trees were smaller, considerably so, and the streetlights fewer. The road and footpath, which had been in very good condition before, now appeared in need of repair. Pools of water lay about in the dents and potholes. The traffic was noisier and smellier and there were no hooks securing parked cars. Up and down the fatigued street, all the cars were old models. His unmissable yellow hovercar was nowhere in sight.
Pocketing the keys, he turned to Leanne, and found he was still holding her hand, needing the reassurance the contact gave him. If she was sharing the same experience, then perhaps she also felt the need.
When she turned to him, away from her own survey of the street, her appearance startled him more than any of the streetscape changes. "You look years younger," he said, "a lot younger than on the beach but not as young when you were doing the washing in Outpost Four."
Blushing a little, Leanne frowned up at him. "Mid-forties I'd guess. The trim beard looks good on you, darker too."
"What?"
Without releasing her hand, Scott felt his chin.
"Soft too," Leanne said when the back of her hand touched his cheek.
He remembered this was how he had worn his beard when he left her, only returning to clean-shaven after Tara left. "Shit. this can't be happening. I'm going back to the entrance to see if I can find out what's going on."
Splashing through tiny pools of reflected street lights, Scott raced around the corner and found a billboard running across the entire front of what had been the sensorium. Posters on the billboard announced retro films he remembered seeing as cinemas tried to combat streaming. He peeked through a gap between adjacent panels and saw the old ornate facade of a theatre he used to frequent. Behind it was a deep excavation. Something in the swirl of his thoughts caused him to look more closely at the facade and when he did, he realised that one day, it would front the sensorium.
Shaken, he stepped back and into Leanne. He turned and gave her a heartfelt apology that expressed more regret than just this latest action, stepping into her.
She reached out and hugged him as if she had divined his thoughts. "I like this version of you."
"Forty years of understanding distilled into a younger body," he said, delighting in the feel of her middle-aged body pressed against his. If eighty was the new fifty, forty-five would be roughly the new thirty. He could live with that. "But this isn’t real," he said brusquely. "Any second now, this experience must end."
Leanne dropped her arms and stepped back. "Oh, ye of little faith. What makes you say that?"
"I have memories of my eightieth birthday and a brain implant that isn't available to a mid-forties me."
"I think you're wrong. I don’t think we can exit the sensorium any further than we have already. I think this is our new reality."
Scott scratched at his beard. "It itches like a real one," he said, seeing Leanne's inquiring glance. When she didn’t reply, he realised she was waiting for his opinion on her impossible suggestion that this was their new reality. "Supposing what you say is true. What we do now depends on when we are, not where."
"It's my guess that right now, you haven't left us, but are planning to," Leanne said, "which gives me an idea. Where did you park?"
"Right where we came out. I booked it as soon as I won, but it wasn't there."
She smiled. "Me too, same spot. There was a hover car there but it wasn’t mine."
"You're thinking the car we find parked there now may tell us when we are."
Leanne nodded, and Scott reached for her hand. "Come on then, let's see what we have to deal with in your new reality."
"Not just mine, ours."
"It was your suggestion," said Scott, suddenly aware they are arguing again, only now it was playful, without heat or animosity.
The billboards now continued around the corner and the exit doors were now behind a wall of posters. Even from the corner, they could see the navy, field-lifted Tata, bought with their evacuation bonus on returning to Earth, was in the park both had reserved.
The accumulation of coincidences staggered Scott as they walked, unselfconsciously hand in hand, towards the car Leanne had kept when they split up. Leanne's deep frown when she looked up at him showed she was just as perplexed that neither of them had recognised the Tata when they came out.
"This wasn’t the car that was here when we came out any more than that," Scott said, pointing at the Billboard wall. "And it isn't possible to have put all that up in the minute or two we were around the front. Either we're still in there and can't ever get out, or the impossible has happened and SPL's system has transmogrified us."
"What the hell does that mean?"
"It means you're right, that the sensorium has somehow transfigured us into this new reality," Scott said, reaching into his pocket for the keys that had replaced his dongle. Despite no longer trusting his senses, and not believing any of what he had just said to Leanne, he chuckled when he noticed her reach into her handbag at the same time. One at a time they tried their keys. Both worked.
"You realise, if this is before we split, then we have a home in Greenfields," said Leanne. Her eyes were glistening. "Don’t ask me how, or how it's even possible, but I believe the experience has ended. This reality is a second chance. The question is, do you want to take it?"
Scott couldn't find a reason not to. In fact, assuming it was real, he would like a second chance, but the rendering flaw with nocturnal jumpers worried him. He doubted it could be the only flaw. His mind circled on itself, trapped by the thought that because of it, the experience hadn't ended, despite his senses telling him this was real. The dilemma plagued him.
And turning off his implant had made no difference. There didn’t seem to be any way to exit the immersion. Not that he wanted to, for if he did, this Leanne, and this younger, more sophisticated version of himself would vanish. In the end, what decided him was what Leanne had said, when they were standing at the back of their house, 'since I can't get out, I'm going to enjoy the experience'.
Until it fails, he thought, opening the door for her. "Shall we see if we have a home to go to?"
"Wait for us," a familiar voice hailed.
Coming down the street from the corner were Norah and Kegan, now young adults.
"Hi folks," said Norah with a grin, "how was date night?"
A Final Word
There you a have it. 13 award winning stories, or 13 stories that didn’t get a prize. There’s a reason for both perspectives. The judges found my writing and story deserved an Honorable Mention, but also found more deserving stories that quarter.
In re-reading each story, I found multiple opportunities for improvement beyond grammar. I resisted the urge; it would have defeated my purpose. Each story here demonstrates what it takes to win an Honorable Mention but also the flaws that prevented them from going any higher.
Please enjoy. If they teach anyone anything, that’s a bonus.
Should a story of mine never grace a quarterly winner’s annual anthology, I will remain grateful to the contest for providing stellar authors to read my work.
I would also like to express many thanks for the encouragement I received from both the contest coordinating judge, the late Dave Wolverton/David Farland (1957-2022), and contest administrator Joni Labaqui.
Rob Bleckly
Strathalbyn South Australia, December 2023
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Did you love Colony Worlds? Then you should read The Break of Civilisation by Rob Bleckly!
On a post-apocoptytic colony world an orbiting AI, styling itself as their Godess, breeds a remnant population of its builders to find a host for its consciousness and save the planet.
Prime candidate Willard Forrester has other plans, and oathes to Kezia Leach against the AI's plan to breed him to her sister Averil Leach. Both sisters reject the AI's breeding plan but when Kezia disappears and Willard gets blamed, he sets out to find her and clear his name. The AI, its adherents and its enemies constantly hamper his search. Willard and Kezia reunite on the eve of invasion and to save Kezia's life Willard gives in, and submits to hosting the AI.
Read more at Rob Bleckly’s site.
Also by Rob Bleckly
The Restoration Legends
The Break of Civilisation
Standalone
Colony Worlds
Watch for more at Rob Bleckly’s site.
About the Author
Rob Bleckly was born in Port Pirie, South Australia. He has written stories since his teens but only after founding the Blackwood Writers Group in 1996 did he finish and submit his stories. His first submission to L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future Contest won an ‘Honorable Mention’. Over the next 20+ years he wrote The Restoration Legends trilogy. He lives with his wife Felicity in Strathalbyn, a town in the Adelaide Hills.
Read more at Rob Bleckly’s site.
Rob Bleckly, Colony Worlds
