Category: Trunk Stories

prompt: Write a story in which a case of mistaken identity plays a pivotal role.

available at Reedsy

Desperate people do desperate things. Jen convinced herself that what she was doing was desperate rather than insane. If anyone had the cure for her mother, it would have to be the aliens.

They’d arrived on Earth a few years ago, spending an inordinate amount of time dealing with human governments, greed, and tribalism. In the end, they were given places where their trade vessels could land, sell goods, and buy from the local populace in dozens of countries. One of those alien port markets happened to be just a hundred kilometers or so from her home.

Humans weren’t allowed near their ships, and they were very careful to not let anything they called “forbidden for primitive trade” out of their sight. They had no use for precious metals, human currency, or gemstones. They traded what they brought for other goods.

Jen had been lucky, in that a large part of the recent trades at her “local” port market had been live chicks, ducklings, goslings, and rabbits. She’d bluffed her way to the back streets of the market, nearer to where their ship lay hidden, by explaining to the aliens in detail how to care for the baby birds and rabbits.

When she’d finally been shooed away, she managed to hide in the back streets, creeping ever closer to the ship. Which is how she made her way to the cargo hold with the animals, where she found herself wondering what her next step would be.

She hadn’t felt anything other than a slight reduction in her weight when they left. She knew from the spate of news stories and documentaries that the aliens came from a system nearly eight-hundred light-years away. That they could cross those distances meant they had to have the technology to cure her mother’s cancer.

How long it would take, though, she wasn’t sure. Water was taken care of, as the tank carrying it for the animals was easy to get to. For food, she carried a case of two dozen meal bars, and a couple kilos of mixed nuts. It wasn’t ideal, but it was what she could find spur-of-the-moment when her desperation turned to action.

Jen guessed they’d taken off about two hours earlier, but she hadn’t eaten at all that day. She unwrapped a meal bar and took her time with a bite of it. When she was about to take the second bite, she heard movement, and large cargo door began to open.

She ducked behind the water tank. One of the aliens was probably coming in to check on the animals. A peek around the side of the tank, though, showed that the outer doors were open as well. A dim, red sun illuminated a world no other human had ever seen.

Panic began to set in. She hadn’t planned for what came next, beyond begging for help. She ducked back behind the water tank and calmed herself. Deep, slow breaths brought her heart rate down, and helped her settle her mind.

One of the aliens ducked behind the water tank with her, holding a bundle in their arms. “You’re finally here. Put these on and I’ll get you out of the port,” the alien said in perfect English.

The bundle contained clothes like those the aliens wore, with a head covering that was somewhere between beekeeper and hazmat. The gloves only had three fingers and a thumb that sat too low and was far too long. Still, she did her best to cover herself.

She followed the alien out of the ship, through the port, and into what must be a city, though there were no cars or analogues. The roads themselves, if they could be called that, moved. Everywhere she followed the alien, the other aliens gave them space, many bowing or holding up a single, long, middle finger. For a brief moment, she thought they were flipping her the bird, until she reminded herself that these grey-skinned, black-eyed, three-fingered aliens were not human and not given to human gestures.

They finally stopped in front of a low building with a yellow glass roof. The alien led her inside, then straight through the open main hallway beneath the skylight to a back room. There, the alien unlocked a panel on the wall and led her down a winding staircase to a dim basement.

More aliens waited for them in the basement. A map on the wall showed symbols she didn’t understand.

“Is that the human?” some of them asked.

Jen stripped off the gloves and lifted the headpiece off to the astonished gasps of the other aliens. “It’s true! You’re here!” they called out.

“I am Renthion,” the alien that had led her said.

“Hi. I’m Jen. What’s going on, and how do you speak English?”

“We do not speak English, Jen, but the devices we wear around our waist translate for us.” The alien that spoke raised a middle finger. “I am Abalorth, and I am honored to be in your presence, great general.”

“Um, wait, great what?” Jen asked.

“We understand you will want to secure payment,” Renthion said. “What is your desire?”

“Oh, I, uh, I just came here to find a cure for my mother’s cancer.”

They turned off their translators and spoke among themselves. Their speech sounded more like the murmur of water in a stony brook than anything else.

Finally, they turned back on their devices and Abalorth said, “We accept the price.”

Renthion pointed at the map and began explaining what all the symbols meant. It was a war map, with different troop types and sizes and terrain on display. It reminded her of the strategy games she regularly played, right down to “this unit type is weak to that one and stronger than that type.”

“We are badly scattered, as you can see. But we have it on good authority that the human great general that will stow away on a government ship will know how to turn things around for us.”

“But I’m not a great general, I’m just—”

“Your modesty is appreciated, but unnecessary. We will leave you alone with the map for a while to make your plans. Writing materials are just there, by the map.” They filed out of the dim room and Jen sighed.

She didn’t know who they were fighting, or what was their cause, or whether it was even just. No matter what she did, though, someone was going to pay the price for what she decided. Either this group meeting in secret, or the others that had them outnumbered.

She paced the small room, stopping in front of a mirror. “What are you doing, Jen?” she asked her reflection. “Are they trying to overthrow their government? Probably, judging by the huge amount of armored type units on the other side. Does their government need to be overthrown, or are these guys religious fanatics?”

She groaned and paced some more. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the look on her mother’s face when the doctor told her they’d have to stop the chemo because it wasn’t working and there were no more options.

“Screw it,” she said to herself, “mom’s worth whatever price I put on my soul.”

Jen studied the map as if it were one of her strategy games and began scribbling out early plans and options for each unit. Then she addressed any actions the enemies might take with counteractions by the troops.

If it was her favorite strategy game, she’d have the seemingly overwhelming army defeated within twenty turns and lose at most a tenth of her own armies. She was still looking for any stupid moves the enemy might make — she’d addressed every smart, logical move — when the door opened ant the aliens came back in.

Abalorth looked over the pages of notes she’d scribbled on the smooth paper. “Can you explain your plans?”

“Sure.” Jen picked up her notes, in order, and stepped in front of the map. As she pointed to units on the map and explained their best course of action, those unit markers would move on the map. As she talked through the action-reaction portion of the combat, the enemy markers would move, and the friendly markers would follow her recommendations. She detailed everything, including the possible need to sacrifice two units in order to bring down four to six enemy units.

After an hour of explaining what took her twenty minutes to figure out, she looked at the aliens. They all sat in silence for a long minute before Renthion raised a hand, his middle finger up. “It is as our spy said, the general is a genius.”

“I’m not really—”

Abalorth and another alien cut her off with a bow, holding out a large case. “This contains an automated healing machine. It is not allowed for trade with your people, but since you held up your end of the deal, we will uphold ours.”

“But I haven’t really—”

“The troops began moving quite a while ago. It was as you said.” Renthion pointed at the map. The units reset themselves to a position in what Jen considered the “late early game.” The enemy troops were responding in some cases in the most obvious way, in a few cases the second or third most likely she’d expected.

She heard explosions outside as one of the enemy armored units barreled past their location, getting themselves trapped in a kill funnel at the edge of the city. Explosions could be heard further afield as well. Units began disappearing from the map.

Four armored units and two light mounted met up at the edge of a clearing. Jen felt sick. This was the point where the purpose of two entire light mounted units was to draw them out and get obliterated while infantry closed in from behind to mine their escape from the heavy artillery that would begin to pound them from the far tree line.

The alien numbers depicting the size of the sacrificial units began to fall until they pulled further out into the clearing. Jen found herself sweating, silently urging the enemy units to take the bait. They did. She watched them advance in formation, while infantry units moved behind them to mine their escape.

The bait units continued to maneuver and dwindle until one blinked out existence on the board. The other made a beeline for far trees when artillery began raining down on the pursuing forces. They pulled back in a hurry, almost running into the infantry units that were scattering in the woods behind them.

As the enemy retraced their steps, their unit numbers began falling, until three had blinked out of existence, and the remaining three were trapped by the damaged vehicles. The infantry reformed around them, and those three enemy unit markers also soon disappeared.

There were battles happening in other locations on the map but watching that one closely left Jen feeling sick. She’d just sent a bunch of people to their death, and she didn’t even know what for. She clutched the case with the healing machine. Was her mother really worth that many lives? What gave Jen the right to decide?

She stared at the map in stunned silence over the next hours, watching more and more of the previously outmanned units coalesce and claim more of the map. The final push was for the center of the city, where the halls of government lay.

Jen said a silent prayer to any god or gods that might be somewhere out there, to forgive her weakness. Tears ran down her face unbidden for the unknown lives that were lost. The room grew silent around her, and then exploded in sounds of joy and celebration. “What have I done?” she muttered under her breath.

The map changed to show video from the government building. Grey aliens like the ones around her celebrated as massive, reptilian aliens were led out of the building in chains. With the devices on the aliens around her, she could understand what the alien shouting into what must have been a microphone was saying to the crowd.

“We have thrown off the shackles of the bordlenorb and now are masters of our own destiny. Freedom for the people, freedom for Rorbenthor” The translators didn’t translate their word for the reptilian aliens or the planet’s name, but it was enough that Jen understood what was going on.

She didn’t feel quite so bad about the dead enemies any longer, but it didn’t assuage the guilt she felt for trading so many lives for her mother’s. She dropped the case and fell to her knees, sobbing.

Renthion sat on the floor near her. “Are you injured?”

“No. Yes. I mean, not physically, but I just caused so much death, and for what?” She forced herself to look Renthion in the eye. “I am selfish, and thought only of my mother, not what my actions would cost.”

Renthion put a hand on her arm. “Do you know why we were not allowed to trade that device?”

“No.”

“It would mean that humans would live far longer, healthier lives, and likely reach the stars sooner. The bordlenorb, our previous lords, forbade us to help any ‘primitive’ world advance.”

Abalorth helped her to her feet. “You may have only been thinking of your mother, but what will others do with this?”

“Is this something we have the technology to recreate?” she asked.

“Maybe not today, but very soon.” Renthion stood, picked up the case and handed it back to her. “Your scientists and materials experts have the know-how, it will just take some time.”

Jen sighed. “Only governments and big corporations have the resources for that, and it’ll be limited to the ultra-wealthy in the end.”

Abalorth bowed slightly. “Scarcity economy, of course. Perhaps if you had the resources, it could be shared in a fair manner?”

“Yeah, but that’s not happening any time soon.”

They turned off their devices and burbled among themselves again, checking the alien script on the map screen while they directed it to do something. After they reached a consensus, Abalorth turned back to her and asked, “Would thirty-two-thousand kilograms of gold be enough resources?”

Jen stared. “Would what? That’s — a lot of gold. Like a billion dollars’ worth? Two billion?”

“Would that be enough?”

Jen nodded. “Yeah, yeah it would.”

“Well then, general, we have an agreement, and we expect to see great things from humans in the near future,” Renthion said.

“Like I said, I’m not—”

“Nonsense. You figured out how to best use our remaining troops in almost no time at all. All of our field commanders are taking your lessons as they move forward to clearing out the last of the bordlenorb.” Renthion motioned for her to follow but didn’t make her put on the clothing again.

As they passed through the streets on their way back to the port, the passersby cheered and held up a middle finger. Renthion’s translator caught their cheers for the human great general that had freed them all.

She rode back to Earth in a comfortable seat, then was taken in a smaller craft to her home along with a vault that opened only to her touch, crammed with gold. She bid the aliens goodbye and brought the healing machine to her mother.

While the machine did its work, she began researching how to set up a non-profit research organization and how to hire top talent scientists. She would not feel at ease with her actions until she had saved at least a hundred times as many people as she had condemned to death on Rorbenthor.

Something Renthion had said on the return trip echoed through her mind. “Only a great general  weeps for the cruelty of war, even after winning it.”

prompt: Make a character’s obsession or addiction an important element of your story.

available at Reedsy

The sun had set, and the planet dominated the sky, the swirls of color it was painted with brightly illuminated. The shadow of the moon would transit the planet’s face in a while. The telescope and camera were set up to capture it when it showed.

There wasn’t much else for a Royal Expeditionary Frontier Police officer like T-937/K, “Tik” to his peers, to do this far into the neutral zone. He knew what he wanted to do, but the chance of doing it here was as close to nil as to make no difference.

He checked the time on his eye implant, setting it to hover at the edge of his vision. After double-checking that the telescope and camera were properly set to capture the transit shadow, he focused on the time remaining until he needed to start the tracking.

“Hey, Tik, how many of those transit videos do you have now?”

“Morning, Kel. If this one is good, it’ll be four good ones and half a dozen that aren’t worth mentioning.” K-371/L was a fellow officer of equal rank, but she had seniority, being a year older than he was.

“Well, better focusing on something you can see and record than—,” she cut herself off. “I mean, it’s good that you have something else to think about.”

“Rather than proving they exist?” he asked. “I swear it was them, when my parents … its image is seared in my brain.”

Kel lay on the ground near him. “You remember a lot of stuff from before you were taken in to the police crèche. Do you remember your name?”

“I don’t,” he said, “but I’m sure I had one that wasn’t T-937/K or Tik. But most of what I remember is flashes, vague images, and … that day. Why don’t you have any memories before that?”

“I was taken in at birth.”

“Oh, I didn’t know you were a legacy.”

“I’m not,” she said, “or at least I’ve been told I’m not.”

Tik held silent as the final moments ticked down and he started the telescope and camera, tracking the moon’s shadow beginning just below the horizon. “I thought the only newborns allowed were—”

“The children of officers, yeah,” she cut him off. “I don’t think any of us really know where we came from. They tell us what we need to hear in the crèche to mold us into proper officers.”

“I remember where I came from,” he said, rubbing the scar that ran down his face from temple to jaw, “even if it is just in flashes. I especially remember what happened the day my parents were killed, when the monsters were there.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I believe you.” She rubbed his shoulder. “You won’t ever be able to prove it, but I believe you believe you saw what you say you saw.”

Tik snorted a short laugh. “Thanks for the rousing endorsement.”

Kel pointed at the sky. “We’re a long way from the main shipping lanes, but do you think they might show up here?”

“I doubt it, but I’ll have a better chance of catching them if I’m looking at the sky when they do.” Tik groaned. “The transit videos are getting boring, and the great storm hasn’t changed since we got here.”

“Hey, amateur astronomer, is that a tiny moon, or an asteroid?” Kel asked.

Tik looked toward the area of the sky where she had pointed. It was too small to be any of the known moons or moonlets of the planet above them, and it reflected the light of the sun in a way an asteroid likely wouldn’t.

He removed the aiming scope from the telescope and pointed it at the object. “It’s a ship,” he said, “but not one of ours.”

Kel snatched the scope away and looked for herself. “That’s a weird ship. Maybe one of the colony freighters?”

“No,” Tik said in a near-whisper, “I think it’s them.”

“Your obsession needs to take a break.”

“No, it doesn’t.” Tik snatched the aiming scope back, reattached it to the telescope and pointed at the ship, following it manually.

Kel fell silent as she watched the telescope focus on the ship in the camera’s display. The writing on the ship was unlike any from anywhere in the Empire and Commonwealth. Not even among the civilizations outside the E&C, most of whom had at worst strained relations and at best trade partner status.

Tik’s hands shook, and he was glad the telescope was heavy and self-stabilizing. “The rectangle mark on the front of the ship, I remember that.”

“Is it changing direction?” Kel asked.

“It is.” He kept tracking the ship, even when it was only visible by a few lights as it passed through the shadow of the moon. “It’s coming toward us.”

“That’s pretty obvious,” she said, “since we’re looking more at the front than the side.”

Tik tracked the ship with the telescope as it passed overhead until it passed below the horizon. He opened the small terminal of the telescope and began typing furiously.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to get an estimate of its expected orbit.”

“To get more video of it?”

“No, I’ve got to warn command.”

“Tik, what if it’s just—” Kel trailed off.

The terminal spit out a tape with markings that could be read by a tracking console, like the one on the telescope … or in a trans-orbital shuttle. He grabbed the tape and ran for the barracks.

It was only after pounding at the watch commander’s door that he realized he’d left the telescope behind. It couldn’t be helped, this was more important.

“Come in, T-937/K. What’s got you by the tail?”

He laid the tape on the commander’s desk. “Alien vessel, currently orbiting this moon. I think it’s—” he stopped himself.

“You think the monsters have come back for you?” the commander asked with more than a hint of derision in her voice.

“Commander, it doesn’t matter what I think,” he said, “there’s an alien vessel out there with markings that don’t match anything known.”

The commander fed the tape into a reader on her desk and waited while the image on her wall changed. “Let’s just see what we have. I’m sure it’s nothing.”

The image came up and the watch commander stood in stunned silence for a moment. “Full scramble, intercept, detain and ascertain threat.”

“Yes, sir!” Tik ran out of the office while the console sent out the command to all on-duty units to intercept the unknown ship.

Tik jumped into the first open boarding shuttle he found and was surprised to see Kel already there. “I left the telescope,” he said.

“I brought it as far as the launch field when the alarm went out. It’s sitting in hangar seven.”

“Thanks.” Tik shrugged into one of the body armors hanging in the shuttle and checked that the comms and camera were working. He then grabbed a rifle from the rack, made sure it was charged, and the safety was on.

“Who knows?” Kel asked. “We might prove that one of the cryptoxeonlogy creatures are real.”

Tik sneered. “Is that what you think? They’re like the Aldeveran asteroid monster or something?”

She didn’t get a chance to respond, as the intercom crackled to life. “Approaching alien vessel. No sign of weapons, and they’ve extended a docking port. Environmentals on, weapons safe.”

Tik fastened the breather around his neck and checked again that his weapon was on safe. He lined up first to step out once they had docked.

The warning lights came on, flashing amber, as the inner door to the docking ring airlock opened. An enclosed walkway stood in front of them, open into a large bay in the alien ship.

As soon as the outer airlock door opened, Tik stepped through to the walkway and made his way into the alien ship, his weapon at low ready.

He stepped into the bay and saw them, freezing him in panic. It was the same one he had nightmares about, but it seemed even bigger in real life.

It spoke with a heavy accent. “Hello. We are researchers. We have been analyzing your signals for a long time now, and when we saw you so close to our home, we stopped for a look.” It turned toward Tik and dropped to its knees. It reached a gentle hand out and caressed the scar down his face. “It’s you. You made it. I’m sorry I got there too late for the others.”

Tik didn’t know how to respond. He’d spent every waking moment trying to find evidence of the monsters that killed his parents and took their ship, and every sleeping moment in nightmares of finding them, and now … now it was here, touching his face, and he felt no fear.

“I thought you killed them,” he said, “but I’m not scared of you.”

“I didn’t. The pirates left everyone for dead when we showed up. You were in bad shape, but one of your own people in a uniform like yours came and took you away.” Tears rolled down the monster’s face as it embraced Tik as if he were its own child.

Tik released his hold on his weapon, letting it hang by the sling as he returned the embrace. The monster … alien … was twice his size but held him gently. Tik felt lighter, as if the weight of the past had been lifted from his shoulders.

He was brought out of it by Kel stepping on his tail. “Ouch! What’s that for?”

“You found your cryptids,” she said, “but I thought you were going to hunt them to extinction?”

“I—I’ve been remembering it wrong. The monsters didn’t kill my parents and take the ship, they saved me.”

“I wish I could’ve done more,” the monster said.

“I can’t just keep calling you monster,” Tik said, “what are you? What do you call yourself?”

“My name is Alfibeth, and I’m a human. It’s a pleasure to finally have a proper meeting,” she said.

prompt: Dream up a secret library. Write a story about an adventurer who discovers it. What’s in the library? Why was it kept secret?

available at Reedsy

After nearly thirty years of research, field work, digging, and sometimes living off the land, Ana had finally found what her family had sought since her great-grandfather. The door was so well hidden that she hadn’t realized it was there until she attempted to break a bit of the surface rock off with her geologist’s hammer. The hollow behind the door resonated with the sound of the hammer on stone.

She tapped along the door to find the edges. With the chisel end of her hammer, she chipped away the encrustations that had built up along the edges.  After hours of hammering, chiseling, and digging at the base, the outline of the door was visible. Made of the same rock as the surrounding gneiss, it had gone unnoticed for untold millennia.

Ana pushed the door from the sides, the middle, the top, the bottom, looking for the smallest movement. The door didn’t budge. She sat, leaning against the door on the flat bit of ground she’d dug out. She ate some of the year-old jerky she had in her pack while the sun set.

It was a clear, moonless night, and Ana focused her attention on the whirl of the Milky Way overhead. The sight wasn’t enough to keep her mind off the stubborn door behind her and the aching of her joints from sitting on the rocky ground.

She stood and turned to take a last look at the door for the day. Even in the faint light of the stars, she thought she could make out the edges. At one corner, a flash caught her eye. She moved her head back and forth, trying to find the position that had, she thought, reflected light.

Not finding it, she pulled out her flashlight and shone it on the corner of the door where the flash was. She expected to see a reflection but saw none. She turned out the light, and there it was, except it was two flashes this time.

There was no doubt it was coming from inside, shining out a pinhole in the door seam at the upper left corner. “Monkey see, monkey do?” she asked herself. She pointed the flashlight at the corner and flashed it twice. When nothing happened, she flashed it again.

The response was five flashes. “Oh, fibbi-whatever,” she muttered. “Three and five is eight.” She flashed the light eight times. There was no immediate response. She began to worry that she’d been wrong in her counting or in what pattern they were looking for.

A loud hiss sounded as the whole door slid out away from the wall. Bright light shone around the edges of the door that continued to slide out, far thicker than she’d expected. Where she’d stopped digging in front of it, the door bulldozed its own path.

It stopped with a little less than a meter clearance between the back of the door and front of the rock wall. Beyond lay a downward-sloping walkway. It was shaped like an oval with a flattened floor. A voice echoed from within, “Enter, Anastasia.”

She didn’t know how they knew who she was, but she wasn’t going to turn back after having come so far. She stepped around the door, held by a single, flat piece of metal that disappeared into a groove in the ceiling. The metal that held the massive slab of stone looked far too flimsy for purpose, but pushing against the edges of the open door did nothing to sway the door or distort the metal support.

With a deep breath, Ana threw her pack over her shoulder and stepped into the hallway. As she continued down the hall, more would illuminate ahead of her while behind her, the lights shut off. Where the light came from was a mystery to her, but she was more interested in what lay ahead at that point.

She felt a slight, sudden increase in air pressure in the tunnel, followed by the echoing sound of the door as it closed. She pushed down the edges of panic that wanted to take hold. “I’m on my way,” she said to the tunnel.

The deeper she went, the more the temperature seemed to settle at close to fifteen or sixteen degrees Celsius. Her lips felt dry in the still air, and she applied lip balm while she continued apace ever deeper. Somewhere far underground, the tunnel curved back on itself and kept descending. After two more switchbacks, and what felt like hours of walking, she found herself in a chamber.

It was monumental in scale. The walls curved to meet at least twenty meters overhead. As the lights in the chamber came up, the far side looked a hundred or more meters away, while the doorway she was in was situated about twenty meters from the walls on either side. Covering the bottom two-thirds of the walls were row upon row of plastic-like boxes with lights blinking inside them.

In the center of the chamber was a dais with a holographic glyph floating in the air above it. Standing next to the dais was the owner of the voice she’d heard on entering. The shape was semi-translucent, the lights from the boxes behind it seeming to light it from within.  “Welcome,” it said, although it had no mouth with which to speak. Its form shifted and changed, from an amorphous blob to an array of wings and eyes, then through creatures both real and mythical, until it finally settled into the shape of a large woman with wings.

“Who are you?” Ana asked.

“I am the keeper,” it said. “You are Anastasia, the seeker, yes?”

“I’m Anastasia Kell, but I go by Ana.” Ana moved closer to the center of the chamber and the shape-shifting entity at its center. “What is your name?”

“I am the keeper. I have no name.”

“Fine, I’ll call you Odette, then. You look like an Odette.”

The keeper flapped its wings twice, then shrunk its body by adding a long tail. “That is acceptable, seeker Anastasia.”

“Please, just call me Ana.”

“Of course, Ana. Please, come to the dais for your reward. Your dedication has won through.” The keeper moved away from the dais and extended an arm toward Ana. The arm kept extending, reaching Ana’s hand twenty meters away from the keeper.

Ana was surprised that the hand felt warm and dry. She’d expected some sort of slimy, cold thing, but it wasn’t. She let herself be led to the dais. “What are you?”

“I am the keeper.”

“Are you a biological creature or a construct of some sort? Some sort of soft-body robot, maybe.”

“I am a biological construct, designed to keep a record of all intelligent life on this world. I have been keeping these records for 72,363,412 years.”

“Since what…the dinosaurs?”

“Yes. The first were theropods. Traveling in hunter groups, they had a limited language. If they had been more adaptable, they might have not been already dying out by the time of the asteroid.” The keeper changed its shape to a theropod that Ana didn’t recognize. It was about the same height as her, with three-toed feet, three-fingered hand on medium-length arms, and a slightly domed head.

“That’s what they looked like?” she asked.

“Yes.” The keeper shifted into the shape of a porpoise. “There were and are the cetaceans, of course. They have language and culture but are not in a position to leave their cradle.”

“Is that what you’ve been waiting for? An intelligence capable of space travel?”

“Yes. My creators have placed other keepers like me on millions of worlds.” The keeper changed into a sphere. “This is where I am keeper.”

“So now, humans, I guess, are what you’ve been looking for.”

The keeper changed into a primate that resembled a chimpanzee and then morphed through several hominin species shapes, pausing on Neanderthal before finishing up with modern human. “I’ve watched entire civilizations come and go without so much as a scratch to mark them in the geologic record, and yet your kind has made an indelible mark on the planet. Whether that is for better or worse remains to be seen.”

“My guess would be worse, but I’m a pessimist.”

“So you say, but you never stopped searching for the library at the heart of the world.”

“True.” Ana took a deep breath and put a hand on the dais. The holographic glyph hovering above it disappeared, and an eight-limbed creature appeared in its place.

The creature spoke in English, even though its squishy mouthparts made movements that were often in total contradiction to the sounds it made. “Welcome, seeker Anastasia. Updating. Welcome, Ana. What would you like to learn today?”

“What are my limits here? This place was hard enough to find, what kind of things won’t you tell me?”

“The records will answer any questions you have that can be answered. Nonsensical and paradoxical queries will be ignored. The library is hidden to ensure that only those ready to take the next steps beyond their cradle can find it. As such, all our knowledge is yours for the asking.”

“So, I blinked a light in a simple sequence. How does that mean we’re ready to take the next steps – whatever those are?”

“You are the fourth generation of your family that has searched for the library, correct?” the holograph asked.

“I am.”

“And you have spent the majority of your adult life in the same search, have you not?”

“I have,” she said, “but how does that–”

“Multi-generational planning and execution, combined with drive and determination, and the knowledge of basic mathematical concepts. This is enough to start with.”

“Are you just another aspect of Odette?”

“No, I am the avatar of Krshnlgik-mlOgnk, the current head of remote planetary studies on our home world of MFkst.” The pronunciation of the non-translated names sounded more like someone choking in a bowl of oatmeal than a language.

“Is faster-than-light communication possible?”

“It is. I am currently speaking with you from a distance of thirty-one thousand light years.”

“How?”

A series of formulae appeared in the space above the dais. “You may use your phone to photograph these, since memorization might be difficult.”

Ana did. “And faster-than-light travel?”

The formulae were replaced with more, some of which looked similar to the first. She photographed those as well.

“Do you have any other questions?”

“How can you claim to keep track of everything happening all over the world?”

“The keeper, or Odette as you call it, has a connection through quintillions of microscopic wormholes to points all over the planet.”

“So, would you have the contents of the Library of Alexandria as they were just before it burned?”

“We do.” Thousands upon thousands of titles scrolled by, many in languages Ana couldn’t even guess at, but with an English translation next to them.

“That might be something for another day,” she said. “Are there others out there in the galaxy or just your people?”

“There are many others,” the avatar said, as images of dozens of strange body plans showed. “We are a small part of a wider galactic community.

“You seem to be pondering something,” the keeper said. “Do not be afraid to ask your question.”

“How do we get off this rock and join the galactic community?”

The keeper morphed into the shape of a cozy chair and said, “Get comfortable.”

“Huh? Why?”

“Because,” the avatar answered, “this is going to take a long time to explain.”

prompt: Write a story about a character driving and getting lost.

available at Reedsy

Arn pushed the truck as fast as he felt was safe, and then some. The terrain was uneven, bouncing the truck like a paper boat in a storm. He swerved around unfamiliar trees with their pinkish trunks, the low brush scraping the sides of the truck with a sound like nails on a chalkboard.

He could’ve been back already if the road hadn’t been bombed to hell. The interlocking, grey canopy above hid the sky and any hope of navigation. He looked in the rear-view mirror and saw the gyro bed and attached seat in the back. A wounded pilot on the bed, the medic doing everything she could to keep her alive.

From his vantage point, the bed bounced and swung wildly, while from their perspective, the bed maintained little more than a gentle sway while the truck around them jerked around in response to the terrain. He couldn’t spare more than a glance, though, as speeding through the forest required his attention. He avoided notice of the body bag strapped on the floor beneath the bed.

“Luz, any luck on the radio?” he asked the medic.

“Negative. I’ve gotta find this bleeder,” she said, “we’re running low on synth blood.”

“External?” Arn asked.

“Internal. If you think we can sit still for a few minutes, I need to open her up and find it.”

“You got it.” He slowed to a stop, realizing for the first time that his hands were cramped around the wheel, his heart pounding and his breath ragged.

While Luz did field surgery on the pilot, Arn tried to raise anyone on the radio, but was met with only static and silence. He switched the radio to transmit a locator-only signal on the emergency channel.

“Hey, Arn, I need a hand.”

He slid out of the driver’s seat and stepped into the back of the ambulance. He grabbed gloves from the dispenser on the wall and pulled them on. “Where do you need me?”

“Hold these clamps. Don’t let go, but don’t squeeze too hard.”

“I know how to hold an artery,” he said.

“Look at your hands, they’re like claws right now.”

He flexed his fingers a few times. “Shit, you’re right. I’ll be careful.” He took control of the clamps, surprised that it hurt to hold his hands in the right position. The clamps were situated one on each side of a nick on the right common iliac artery.

Luz dug through the bin beside her and pulled out a tool. “Hold very still.” She used the tool to apply a screen around the artery where it was nicked, then filled the screen with a paste that sealed it closed.

She took back control of the clamps and released them with slow, deliberate movements, letting the artery settle back into its normal position. Luz let out a sigh. “Can you start up the suction so we can—”

She was interrupted by the sound of trees crashing down. Arn didn’t respond to Luz but dove back into the driver’s seat as fast as he could, strapping himself in even as he began to build up speed again.

“Sorry, Luz. Drain and staples for now?”

“Yeah, just get us away from the crawlers.”

The crawlers, alien behemoths of segmented, armored vehicles standing three meters high on twelve pairs of legs, could move almost as fast as Arn could drive the truck through the forest. Unlike the ambulance, though, the trees were no obstacle as the crawlers pushed them over like grass in front of them.

“We should’ve been back over the line to friendlies by now,” Luz said.

“I know. I think I’m going the right way, but with no sky, there’s no way to tell.” Arn grunted as he bounced the truck through a particularly rough patch. “Why are they wasting crawlers to chase an ambulance anyway?”

“Hey, Arn, I don’t know if you heard, but there’s no Geneva Convention on this planet.”

“I figured that out right away when they started shooting at us.” He sped up more, his body slammed against the restraints over and over, looking for anything to point him in a direction.

“Tell me again why we rushed across lines to rescue a downed pilot and gunner, rather than waiting for infantry?” she asked.

“We were closest, barely ten klicks, and MI wasn’t going to get there for at least an hour. They would’ve been crawler meat by then.”

“It would be safer if the ambulances were armored,” she said.

The crawlers never slowed, but he’d left them behind some when he saw a bright spot in the forest ahead. “There’s a clearing ahead. I’ll slow down and get my bearings.”

“I hope we’re close,” Luz said. “At least she’s stable for now.”

As he neared the clearing, he saw a crater surrounded by trees downed fanning out away from it. “Bomb crater. I’ll have to get out to see anything.”

“Don’t take too long.”

“No shit.” Arn jumped out of the truck, one of the razor-sharp bushes cutting his calf as he did. He ignored it and stepped into the edge of the bombed out clearing and looked to the sky. Based on the time of day and the position of the planet’s sun, he’d been running a line parallel to the front.

Arn climbed back into the truck and turned it right ninety degrees as he started driving again. “If I can maintain this direction we should hit the front soon.” 

The sound of the crawlers grew closer, coming from their right. “Hold on, Luz, they’re taking the short-cut. I’ve gotta go faster.”

No sooner had he said it than he pushed down the accelerator and shot through the trees at dangerous speeds. The gyro bed made thunking noises as it hit its upper and lower stops. It wasn’t the smoothest of rides for their patient, but it would have to do.

“We should be getting close enough,” he yelled over the din of the banging truck, “try the radio again.”

He whipped the truck around a tree and started to slide. Before he could regain control, the rear of the truck hit a tree, bouncing them back into a mostly controlled direction. Arn knew he was driving too fast for the conditions, but it was that or be pulled apart by the crawlers.

The forest opened up into a road crossing in front of him with a steep grade. “Hang on!” he yelled as he gripped the wheel tight and kept the accelerator floored. The truck jumped the road. For a brief second, he was weightless, he saw two crawlers approaching on the road, then they slammed into the ditch on the other side.

The truck made a lot of noises it wasn’t supposed to, but he kept it floored as it limped into the trees before stopping with a grinding groan. In the silence, he could hear radio traffic, and the sound of tracks outside.

Arn took stock of the situation. Two tanks rumbled past him, firing rounds toward the area where he’d seen the crawlers. The ambulance was totaled. He’d hit so hard that the steering wheel was bent toward the dash on one side. A puddle of blood surrounded his left foot from where the bush had slashed him.

“How’s the patient?” he asked.

“Still stable. Evac is on the way.”

“How about you?” he asked.

“I’m fine. Banged my head a couple times, but nothing serious. You?”

“I might need some stitches. One of those bushes got me. Nothing serious, though.”

Luz stuck her head into the cab and looked Arn, and the floorboards, then back at Arn. She keyed the radio again, “Make that one for retrieval and two for evac.”

“I’m fine,” Arn said. He tried to wave her away but realized there was a sharp pain in his arm when he did. He looked down to see the extra bend in his right arm where he’d broken it. “Oh, maybe not.”