Well, they certainly did something. Everyone agreed that when wearing the lens, their eyes felt way less strained. But also, the work itself became grueling after about the third day of wearing the lens. It's like our bodies would become weak and unable to keep up. But on the flip side, were also starting to remember things, like what our lives were like before all this. It honestly seemed like a miracle to even remember that there was a before this. And then some questions started to come up, like why the hell were we doing any of this? Or who the hell were we working for and why hadn't we asked ourselves that a long time ago?
In the interest of maintaining our remembering, and in hopes of answering those questions, we agreed to start a protocol of wearing the lens 2 days on & 2 days off. Folk on their 2nd day wearing it would swap it into someone's helmet who was on their off cycle. We found that if we didn't do this, after 2 days of not wearing the lens, you really didn't wanna put it back in. Though, if ya wait 3 whole days, ya start to forget that you were remembering anything at all. The protocol lets us keep our memories and stay sane. But it also provides just enough exposure to the SHOSS to prevent withdrawal syndromes, or whatever it is that's happening to us.
Some of us who've been wearing the film for a while started to develop theories. We call ourselves the Dereliction. Ya know, since we've been abandoned by all but ourselves. Our singular ethos is to pursue whatever semblance of autonomy we can gleam. So far, our best idea about what the powder is, is that the black powder must have something on it that's causing the glowing. Some of our theories about why we're here or where here is range from abstract hellscapes, to more concrete hellscapes, but none of our prospective ideas seem to suggest that we chose whatever this is for ourselves
Each day we move the powder in the fields into large oval containers, maybe a couple kilometers across in length, and when we get up, the fields are again filled with the powder. At the end of each day the oval kind of lifts itself off the ground, closes around itself, and floats off into the dark like a giant silver zeppelin. I've tried to find out what the SHOSS is exactly, or where it's coming from, but all anyone seems to agree is that when you're around it, you feel so alive, so charged. There's nothing like it. And you just feel so lucky to get to work with it.
From what I remember, it certainly has been an adventure though. I remember when Mom died. Earth made me feel sick. Everything reminded me of her. And there was that ship leaving for the archaeological expedition to the new sulphur deserts they found on GJ 34706. The money was great, but when we finally made it back, Earth was no longer my home. And I can't blame anyone. Ever since the universe opened to us, human culture has become a reflection of the bigger galactic cultures that are using humanity for their own benefits.
I remember more of what I walked away from every day. I have no idea how long it's been since we started using the film lens. There's honestly no real way to tell how much time is passing here. But we’re all remembering more and more every time we wake up, and the only through line to our experiences is that we have no idea how we got here. It's scary. The more I remember, the less I want to keep on keepin’ on with whatever this is that we're doing on this rock. The truth is, I just want to go back to that old white pickup and those rides with mom. I wanna watch the trees go by and admire the mountains reaching up into the sky. They always seemed too big to be real, and the trees, too green. The cool air coming in from the cracked window was like a reminder that it wasn't a dream. It was in fact real life. And Mom, oh my god. I miss her. I miss her every single day now that I remember. The warmth of her hand when she would grab our knee and give it a shake. She’d say, “Were on our way kiddo. Off on another adventure!” And I don't want to forget her. Not now that I have her back. For so many years I wanted to forget. But now that I know I did. That almost hurts as much as the fear of forgetting again.
We’ve tried to find a way out of here, but there isn't one. There isn't even anyone telling us what to do. Everyone's just so excited to do the work and interact with the blue glow. We haven't found anyone amongst the hundreds of races here who have been able to remember except us. A bunkmate and I have started to hold each other at night. It's as close as it gets to feeling like a human again. Recapturing a sliver of humanity has made us ask another unnerving question. If others have found out what we figured out, but this whole thing just keeps going. Then has anyone ever escaped or have all of them escaped? Or none of them? And I think I finally have an answer to that. Which brings me to my writing of this letter
Someone in the dereliction mentioned that he remembers an old story of people disappearing. It was said they were being sent back into the past to be used as slaves, forever out of reach of any sort of salvation. He said the spoils of their efforts were sent forward in time by simply being stored somewhere safe to be picked up at some unknown date in the future. At first, I figured it was just another story his parents told him. Until I woke up today and I had some semblance of a memory. It was foggy, but I remember I'd gone into cryo for an especially long job. It was some underfunded expedition to some ruins on the edge of another Galaxy. I remember darkness, and then feeling real confused. Someone was yelling something in a weird language I didn't recognize, and then that's it. That's all. There was just more cold blackness. And then I'm here. And now I'm thinking he mighta been right about what he said.
I spoke to him yesterday evening. He told me that if I were to mention Saint Stephen's in a piece of writing, that it was a name of someone important from earth. That it was a name so important that if found by a robot. It would need to be analyzed by a human for posterities sake. And if seen by the right eyes, someone could find interest in it, and perhaps it could arrive back on earth somehow, before all of this happened. So that's what I'm doing.
If you get this, Cory, and it's not too late. Please don't leave Earth. Mom has colon cancer and if she just gets it checked before it's too late then we don't have to lose her and we don't have to leave Earth. Just remember how sweet those blue slurpees were. Cool love on a warm day. Just like the look in mom's eyes. Please, whoever you are, if you're reading this, please get this note to Cory Hackshaw in Calgary, AB, Canada Earth before 2098. Please, I'm begging you. You have no idea what kind of torture this is. And to be honest, even as the one suffering it, neither do I.
Tonight, I will take my last breath, as a human being, of planet Earth. My freewill has not been broken in its entirety.
Signed. With love.
Cory Hackshaw
.....
The papers were old and crumpled and made a crunching sound as the new recruit set them down on the black metal table in front of her. A hot tear stung her cheek, and she cleared her throat. The corners of her lips were tight, and she felt lightheaded.
“Did ya find another one Shelly?” her assigned partner said as he walked back into the room.
They’d been shoved into a small office, in a back corner of a large assault carrier. She and an officer from the Ministries of Time Affairs had been tasked with combing through and logging evidence found in the Mwanidii’s ‘Vue’ slave camp on planet Nufu’s moon number 5. It hadn't been more than a couple weeks since she started with the Joint Interplanetary Agency Regulating Veu Refinement (JICRVR), and she’d consumed more distressing information in that time than she had in her whole life.
“It's just so heartbreaking that beings from all over the universe end up in these dead-ends without any say in the matter. They're essentially turned into fleshly automatons stuck in an un-ending state of servitude, completely addicted and subservient to the Veu. And this guy didn't even know it was called Veu, he called it SHOSS’, Shelly replied and threw her hands up, clearly frustrated.
“Yeah, but it's better than becoming a slave who's wholly aware of their own exploitation. Their minds are virtually nonexistent. I mean, they're so taken with the Veu that it's like they're in a state of ecstasy while doing the work.” the other officer replied.
“I don't totally disagree. But this person was aware. They must have had some mental autonomy, even if it was just in their own heads. They wrote this letter out of some kind of hope-” She was cut off.
“Or despair” her partner interjected, "the effects of raw unrefined Veu is still not entirely understood. Over the years, I’ve heard stories from people who somehow saved family members sold into Veu slavery. And if their minds weren't already carved out from exposure, then whoever, or whatever it is that comes back is literally a different person with a different name and a different life history. Some researchers even think that the Veu is a hive mind of sorts, and that it's possible for different memories or impressions to end up shared between the victims somehow. ”
She lifted her hands off the cold table, set her glasses down, and rubbed the sleep from her heavy eyes, “This one wanted to get this letter into his own younger hands. They actually figured out...or I guess, whatever it was, thought it could try and get this letter through the passage of time. He even talked about Saint Stephen. So. Something real must have been inside that person.” She rested her face in her open hands.
“It's a genuine shame that once it's all logged, all this has to be sealed.” The time Ministry agent shook their head. He slowly scanned the table covered in writings and information storage devices of all kinds. “I doubt that’ll be the only one of these stories in that mess.”
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