Chapter Text
"Eye movement detected", says a feminine voice I clearly don't recognize.
I hear a zipper opening up. Or at least that's what I assume it is, judging by the sound. My eyelids part slowly when I begin opening my eyes, with the sudden lights blinding me. Where am I? A hospital? It certainly looks like it. I stare at the robotic arm that approaches me slowly, proceeding to gag when it removes some sort of tube from inside my throat. Why was that there in the first place? Was I in a coma? It's complicated to know when I don't remember anything. Not even my own name.
This is fucked up.
Can I move? Not yet, apparently. But what I can do, is cough and move my jaw slowly as I begin getting used to being conscious.
"What is two plus two?", says the feminine voice I heard a moment ago.
I know it's a computer, judging by the lack of "feelings" in its voice. What the heck is going on? I try speaking, but it's a bad idea. I end up coughing again, choking with my own spit.
"Incorrect", says the voice. "What is two plus two?"
I move my jaw again, opening and closing my mouth to chatter my teeth.
"Incorrect. You have been in an induced coma", informs the voice. "You may experiment some memory loss and difficulty speaking."
I make a small noise when the robotic arm that removed the tube from inside my throat approached me again all of a sudden, and my body jerks away by mere instinct. I roll from where I have been lying down (bed?), proceeding to drop to the floor. My hair is way too long, and it falls all over my face, blinding me slightly for a moment.
"Body movement detected."
I can't move properly... because I seem to be inside a god damned body bag. Like a pathetic worm, I wriggle on the floor, trying to get away as best as I can from the robotic arm that tries to get me back onto the bed, managing to remove the bag from my body. I immediately notice I'm almost naked (except for my underwear) under a transparent jumpsuit, which doesn't bother me at all for now.
"For your own safety, please return to the medical platform."
"Where am I...?", I manage to ask after what seems like an eternity with a hoarse voice.
"Please remember muscle function has not yet been restored", says the voice.
I back away towards one of the walls while my hand throws the objects within my reach to the robotic arm that threatens with grabbing me, making it back away as if I was some sort of dangerous creature.
Looking up, I realize there's around twenty other beds, all of them apparently "inside" the walls that rise up towards the ceiling. My eyes widen slowly. At least I'm not the only one here!
"People!", I exclaim, standing up as best as I can from the floor and supporting myself on a metallic ladder I have nearby, climbing it shakily after a couple seconds. "Hello?"
I touch a button that catches my attention on a panel, next to one of the beds, making it slide out of the wall slowly. The body that lies down on the bed is covered by a white sheet, like... a corpse. Which literally is, since the person is death. And once I have checked the other twenty-two beds, I realize I'm the only one awake in this strange place... and the only one alive for that matter. I can't believe it. Out of twenty-three people... only me.
"Where am I...?", I ask no one, climbing up the ladder towards some sort of hatch on the ceiling.
I manage to open it after a moment, entering another big area, which clearly looks like a lab. My eyes scan my surroundings until I find what seems to be a manual, going through it desperately while my eyes quickly read the words written on it. I look up after a minute or two, frowning to myself. It's strange to see there's tables attached to the wall on my left, close to the ceiling, and that there's objects in them. Why does everything seem to be on the wrong place?
"Why is there an atomic resolution scanning electron microscope?", I say all of a sudden, proceeding to look around me as if someone would have heard me. "Why do I know that? Am I smart!?"
My hands drop the manual I had been holding, proceeding to keep moving, making sure to look around. Certainly, I'm in a spaceship. Shit.
"Can I speak to the person in charge?", I say while reaching the control room. "The, uh, captain?"
"Captain Roger "Voyager" Nova. Deceased."
"Yeah... Where are the living people?", I demand, approaching a chair that's in front of some of the panels and screens.
"Dr. Rocky Ortiz. End of manifest."
"... I can't be the only person here. Right?", I ask, sitting down on the chair.
"Pilot detected", says the voice, while everything seems to come alive all of a sudden.
"No! No, no, no. Not the pilot!", I burst, standing back up. "Um... Call Houston."
"Unknown command."
"Operation Go Home in effect!"
"Invalid operation", the computer says.
I sigh heavily. Had to try.
I sit down again carefully, and I'm thankful that the ship doesn't think I'm the pilot this time. My eyes narrow towards one of the biggest screens, which clearly shows a star map. Seems to be... our Solar System.
"That's the Sun! There it is", I sigh with relief, smiling slightly to myself. "Are we like, Neptune-ish? Crank up the radio and call Earth."
"Current transmission time to Earth is 11 years, 10 months, 14 days and 6 hours", the voice informs.
"No... No, you're wrong". I laugh so I don't end up crying. It has to be wrong... Right? "I need a map."
Rolling a sphere that works like a computer mouse, I begin moving through the star map, following a red dotted line that goes from Earth to my current location. I can feel my heart begin to hammer against my ribcage when I realize where I actually am.
"That's... not our Sun", I mutter, with my bottom lip trembling slightly.
Deciding not to give up immediately, I stand up from the chair and exit the control room towards where I had seen a whiteboard. Once I reach it, I grab the marker besides it and begin scribbling numbers while my brain tries to calculate stuff, basing myself on the fuel the ship has.
Home is 113 years away, says the board after a little while, alongside a sad face emoji.
What am I doing here...?
"Are they really eating the sun?", a girl asks. "The space dots?"
"That is a great question, Rekha", I reply. "And I'd be curious what your parents think about that. I'm not sure it should come from me", I pause to clear my throat. "Hey! Who wants to play a game of... the bean bag is lava!"
I lift up a small crocheted Earth with one of my hands to show it to the kids, who start chanting "lava" with renewed enthusiasm. The bean bag is lava consists in handing over the crocheted Earth to one of the kids, with them having to answer to any question I make before it "melts" their hands. It's pretty fun, and it helps distract them from other stuff.
"What is the speed of light, Olivia?", I ask a girl, handing her the Earth while smiling.
"Uh..."
"It's melting your hands, Olivia!"
"186,000 miles per second!", she squeaks, handing the Earth back to me quickly.
"Give her a round of applause", I say, nodding. "That is awesome!"
"What is the Pretrova Line?", another kid asks.
"Pass!", I exclaim, wanting to evade the topic while tossing the bean bag to someone else.
"You can't pass", says Olivia, frowning slightly.
"I just did", is my simple statement.
The bean bag is tossed back to me as the kids start chanting "lava" once again, and I have to supress the urge to assign them homework just for being insistent. With a heavy sigh, I walk around my desk to open one of the drawers and take out a roll of red tape. Unfortunately, I will have to explain them everything, or else they won't leave me alone for the rest of the semester.
"Two years ago, a radio telescope enthusiast named Irina Petrova noticed there was a streak of infrared light from the Sun to Venus", I explain, reaching up to attach a long piece of red tape on said star and planet that hang from the ceiling with the rest of the Solar System model. "And that is now known as the Petrova Line. That's it."
"That's the dots?", a girl asks.
"They... think so", I reply, nodding and pushing my slightly crooked purple-framed glasses up the bridge of my nose.
"What dots?", demands a curious boy.
I sigh again, and I have to turn on the projector for this. On the board, a slightly blurry picture shows up, looking like static on a television screen, when in fact, is something extremely dangerous to Earth.
"These dots", I inform, rubbing the back of my head with one hand. "They sent up a probe to the Petrova Line, and this is what they found."
"Are they eating the sun?", someone asks.
"They seem... to be dimming the Sun a tiny, teeny-weeny, little bit", a slightly nervous smile draws on my lips. "It's a small whoop", I pause. "It's a small-to-medium whoop. Over the next 30 years, the Earth could cool maybe 10 to 15 degrees."
"So it is a big whoop", Olivia says, genuinely worried.
"I heard all the crops will die, the economy will free-fall, and half the Earth will die of starvation", a girl says.
"We're all gonna die!", cries another one.
"Guys! You're forgetting something", I turn up the volume on my voice to catch their attention, which is something I barely do. "That's if that were to happen, right? They're gonna figure this out", I smile. "Right now, the best minds in the entire world are working on it."
Now I remember. I was a teacher, and those kids were my students. So, what the hell am I doing here? I have so many questions that don't seem to have answers. Guess I only had to wait until I remembered everything, hoping there was something that could help, even a little.
I spend the next few "days" surviving around the huge spaceship. At least I can shower comfortably. Thanks to the rest of my crewmates being, you know, dead, I can use their clothes. With all due respect, of course. I like to think that's what they would have wanted me to do, and if I'm going to spend the rest of my life aboard this ship (I surely hoped that wasn't the case), at least I needed to change clothes every now and then.
The real question was... How long until I remembered the real reason I was here for?