Work Text:
There were numbers carved in his kitchen bar table.
Last gulps of the protein shake, clank of the empty bottle against the countertop.
Numerals stared back at him as if in a silent dare to – to do what, exactly? To lunge down, take a cover and perform a peripheral check of his surroundings, knowing that someone out there had scratched a cryptic message into his kitchen table?
Caleb’s hand clenched against the countertop and the legs of the bar stool scraped against the floor as he pushed himself up. A few steps, and he found himself in front of row of cabinets. Then, he opened the dishwasher and left his bottle there.
His military issued pistol clung cold and heavy behind his waistband as he returned to the kitchen island separating it from the living room. A slight turn of his wrist and a tablet lifted to his hand, a hologram of menu display appearing in front of him.
Security footage of his apartment confirmed there were no intruders in last 24 hours. Thermal imaging camera detected no big source of heat beside him.
The writing was barely palpable against his fingertips.
Hair-thin and precise lines hinted at someone with a stable hand, experienced in handling cold weapons. What is more, with a keen eye for the detail – numbers were readable only at the certain angle, the morning sun hitting them at that moment.
For a beat, he closed his eyes - to focus beyond static in his head (of drifting spaceship’s with broken control systems), to will himself to think and care.
A sigh of panel floor underneath him. A jingle of a chain on his jeans, a worn out material soft against his skin. The 1g gravity pulling him down.
There was a reason he did this, chose this path of work. ( And it was more vital than ever.)
Analog wall clock ticked, passing seven in the morning in Skyhaven time, a smaller clock in his clock face showing time on the international space station.
His apartment emanated quiet (of collapsing on itself star; indifferent and distant.)
Yes, sofa offered a good cover but there were not that much furniture beyond it. Why did he not furnish it further? He couldn’t remember – he could only recollect waiting for some cue which wasn’t coming.
Tick tock. Why not send the anonymous message online by some encrypted channel but break in and scratch it in a wood like some lunatic? Quite old-fashioned and unpractical.
He had to sit down to see it. Sit down at that worn out bar stool with the most space to stretch his legs.
As if the message was intended only for the person sitting there, with view of all points of entrance.
1.34... – a line of seemingly unrelated numbers; coordinates?
The wood had already darkened in place of cuts - how long was it there? Did it matter?
The question was – was he going to do something about it?
The inquiry led him to one of the safest, yet shadiest, areas in Skyhaven. Family restaurants, with the aroma of burnt oil wafting from back doors, were gradually replaced by signboards for massage parlours, karaoke bars, and nightclubs.
Skyhaven’s red light district. Or, to be more accurate – green light district.
It wasn’t publicly acknowledged, but the Farspace Fleet had embraced the fact that where the army went, certain industries flourished. On these few streets, prostitution was legalised, health checkpoints were mandatory, as historical records reluctantly documented the spread of STIs among soldiers.
There, both privacy and safety – to extinguish any seed of potential scandal – mattered most. Camera usage was strictly prohibited. Some place even went a step further, and for a nice amount of money offered peace of the mind in the form of mobile phone jammers. In return for this discretion, the army ensured the outmost protection of sexual workers – every transgression was harshly punished.
Reputable companies avoided the district’s proximity entirely, never conducting deals or informal outings there. Less reputable ones? They thrived under the ban of digital surveillance.
Caleb wasn’t sure if this was a brilliant strategic move to gather small-time criminals in one place while enforcing an appearance of order, or an oversight – but for now, the complex ecosystem held its balance.
He glanced at his watch’s screen. There was a space between the last two numbers of the coordinates– as if they weren’t a part of the sequence. Nine and nine. Double longevity and eternity, like in wedding vows?
Looking up, he saw a small hotel tucked beside a popular karaoke bar, number nine on its address plaque. Did the last number refer to a room in it, then?
Following a group of people mingling in front of the bar, he slipped into the hotel’s lobby.
Apparently, not as subtly as intended – he immediately caught attention of the woman behind the desk. One arm stretched over her head, she made finger guns at him. “Hey, handsome. You and me, and a critical mission of utmost importance – testing a mattress. What do you say?”
“Em.” Caleb blinked, glancing around the empty lobby, the red wallpaper with golden ornaments giving it air of passed splendour. For some reason, he didn’t expect being that blatantly approached. After a pause, he flashed a smile – the one that along some clever argument usually earned him extra time in a flight simulator. “I will have to ask my girlfriend if she would be interested in that.”
The woman snorted. Her posture relaxed as she leaned back and turned a page in the book on her lap.
“Sure, good luck with that, sugar.” She chewed something slowly, then looked up again, as if remembering his presence. “What did happen to your hand?”
A glance down revealed a gauze bandage wrapped around his left palm. For a moment, Caleb stared at it.
“Is it weird that I don’t remember?” This time, it wasn’t a lie. His mind blanked, not recalling any recent injury. Not one serious enough to register?
Out of the corner of his eye, the woman shook her head, clicking her tongue. “Y’all need a mother's love. Learning to shoot and kill while being barely capable of taking care of yourselves,“ she drawled.
With nothing to say to that, his lips stretched into a smile again. “May I ask for room number nine?”
Turning the old-fashioned key - given to him without any fuss or payment after the receptionist checked something in the system - he cracked open the door to Room Nine.
No body splayed across a king-sized bed. No bugs in the lamp or under the bed. No one hiding in a closet.
Just bed, a closet, and a desk. On the desk - a pile of neatly stacked papers, a dark glass bottle, and a VR headset.
At first, he skimmed through papers – printed-out articles with headlines that made him pause. He sat at the edge of the bed and went through them again.
The thing was, he realized, he couldn’t point out what connected them. Yet they all scratched at something in his brain – like a word on the tip of a tongue.
Human Microchipping : The Benefits and Disadvantages.
The Neuroscience of Dissociative Amnesia and Repressed Memory: Premature Conclusions and Unanswered Questions.
The Role of the Subconscious in Learning.
Emotions-Induced Memory Distortions.
The last grabbed his attention- dense with scientific jargon, one paragraph had been underlined :
When an individual’s mood matches the emotional valence of encoded information, emotion-specific nodes are activated, enhancing the recollection of congruent emotional memories.
Someone had scrawled in blank ink above it the words: WHAT IF YOU DON’T ANYTHING.
Tucked between the pages was a note. A to‐do list.
When Caleb read it, he raised the dark bottle to his eyes. Its content shifted in the light; half-full. A lingual spray. Didn’t it mean than the substance would hit the bloodstream quickly through the mucous membrane?
The instruction was clear: take a dose.
It could be a drug affecting his cognitive or motor skills, compelling him to do something dangerous or compromising. Or it could be a poison.
Yet, he did as told - opened his mouth and pressed the button. The substance melted under his tongue, leaving a bitter aftertaste.
He did recognise his own handwriting. As the last sentence.
If you’re here, I’m here.
A tacky catchphrase from the superhero comics he read as a kid. A promise, simple in its delivery, that once made his hands sweat and heart race in anticipation. When the hero said it, the world had no chance – he was going to show up when others needed him, no matter what, even when it seemed impossible.
Therefore, after the lab – When the sky collapsed and Wanderers came from the space, and Lumiere swept in, Caleb knew where he had to be. Up, at the front line.
The following step was clear: put on the VR headset and lie down. The duvet sank under his weight as he stretched out, googles and speakers pressing against his eyes and ears.
CONNECTED hovered in the air, the text slightly titled. Reflexively, he reached out to adjust the googles – but missed it. His hand swayed, limp and uncoordinated.
Not a stimulant, then. His arm dropped heavily against the bed, wood brushing the bandage.
Ah. His eyelids were too heavy to held them open. He did remember. His sluggish body sank deeper into the bed like into a warm swamp. The stove was right there. It engulfed him, swallowing all thoughts and sensations. He could smell the stench of burnt flesh longer that he could feel it –
Darkness.
Existing came back in small pieces.
Numbness in his leg, skin itching under his knee. A brush of air against his chapped lips.
An image of a girl under his eyelids. The pipsqueak.
His body convoluted. Lungs squeezed tight in his chest, desperate for air – but he couldn’t breathe – A sharp jolt of pain as his temple hit the corner of the desk. It released the claws around his throat.
Curling into himself, he gasped like a drowning man. Pressing his thumbs into his eye sockets.
How could he forget the importance of her? Her memory had once burned like a Northern Star, guiding sailors through the dark.
If she wasn’t right in front of him, would his mind let her slip through cracks in his memory like sand? Who would protect her?
How much time did he have before he stopped caring?
The roar of a passing aircraft cut through Caleb’s dreams. Blindly, he reached for his phone.
Once, it had been one of his favourite sounds – the sharp whizz of engine carrying through the sky, in a instance expanding world and its possibilities, and fetching them beyond the horizon.
5:57.
Two minutes later, in a T-shirt and gym shorts, he made his bed.
Another aircraft passed by. Whose favourite sound was that? The thought slipped away, like the remnants of sleep, as he went through his morning routine. Push-ups, squats, pull-ups. A protein shake, as morning sunlight scattered gold across the room.
There were numbers carved in his kitchen bar table.