Dream

I could tell myself this was only a dream and keep my eyes closed. Opening them would only unveil the reality of my situation. A cold flat surface beneath me. It offered no dream-like comfort. The smell of mildew and cement stings my sinuses as I struggle to breath through my nose. This was a prison and there was no room for dreams. Keeping my composure for seven years on a space colony hijacked by a crooked dictatorship had ended. Explosion was inevitable. I was hoping that somewhere along the way, I would be executed or the groups that escaped after the hijacking would return to liberate us. Liberate me. One of the founding leaders who stayed behind. Overtime, I no longer feared death. We are a dying species after all. The remainder of our kind was scattered into space when our planet died. Our hope was finding another inhabitable planet we could inevitably destroy. Our quality of life is deteriorating and even more so under the harsh conditions of these evil people who took advantage of a kind and vulnerable community. Our colony is one of hundreds of thousands. We were a people of ingenuity and technology, led by science and understanding. Our research helped us travel through space using efficient energy created by waste. We identify unexplored solar systems and maintained a peaceful way of life that was rapidly becoming self sufficient. I used to joke about our colony being the 'Utopian Society' depicted in old age literature. I imagined there were other colonies out there with the same hope, the same drive for knowledge and freedom. Sometimes you take a chance, try to form alliances and maybe increase that possibility of obtaining the objective of peace. Only to be snuffed out by an overwhelming force of greed. A week before my imprisonment, I started waking up at odd times in the morning. My room was dull and outside was dark. The daylights had yet to be turned on and my alarm wasn't to go off for another forty five minutes. After four days of this, I was struggling to cope with reality. My job required me to monitor the fuel and gas levels of our intake valves that filtered space debris for energy. I was so restless from this disturbance, I would often rely on the other people in my department. After our system was taken over, there were members of the elitists assigned to each department to oversee everything. Gordon, our power hungry supervisor could sense a disturbance in the air as well. I could feel him shifting in his seat as he perched high above our cubicles. He examined each one of us with his cold piercing dark eyes for abnormalities. Each hour throughout the day, the 'daylight' would adjust according to how our sun would project light on earth. I could always see the increase or decrease in light as the abnormal filters changed, fixating on that unnatural transition of light. Today the light was less noticeable in my blurred state of mind. It was as if the fluctuating numbers on the screen were serenading me into slumber. Just stay awake until lunch. Twenty minutes out. Then, for some reason unknown to me, the numbers began to drop and alerts began popping up all over my monitors. Without stirring too much, I glanced at everyone's station. No abnormal readings for them. This was being directed at me despite our hive-mind system. A few deep breathes to stay calm and slowly engaged my data. The numbers indicated something blocking the intake and no debris was going through some of the channels. The turbines on top of our colony would start to power down to conserve so that the problem could be identified and addressed before resuming full power. Gordon stood up from across the room which startled and my heart jumped into my throat. He slowly stalked out of the room, still peering over everyone's shoulder suspiciously. Again I looked at the other computers and no alarms were being triggered, no readings were declining at alarming levels. Just mine. I took out my phone and captured a few shots of my readings before shutting everything down and logging off. I joined the mass of people emerging from their dark offices to the cafeteria. I grabbed the standard lunch of filler food, liquified nutrients and sat down at the end of the table in utter confusion. Am I dreaming? "Cardwell." Came the deep authoritative voice of Gordon behind me. The cafeteria became quiet. "We are going to need you to get your things after lunch and meet us upstairs." Turning around slowly, I raised my head to meet his gaze. "Yes sir." Calm and cool. He watched me for a few moments to see if I would react in any way that would give him reason to detain me now. I let out a subtle yawn and turned around, pretending to interact with my food. I let the whispers play out and acted upon my lack of sleep; rubbing my eyes, stretching and softly sighing as I tossed the uneaten food into shoot at the end of the table. Break was over. I kept to myself as I headed back to the office to gather some things from my desk. When I got there I noticed everything was missing. I looked around the room and found a spiral bound notebook of mine caught on the roller to an open window. As I approached I could see more paperwork outside the window. When I leaned over to see if the rest of my things had mysteriously been strewn about outside, someone pushed me. In the instant I hit the ground, I heard the window shut and the blinds close. This was no longer time to analyze the situation. I needed to get back to my apartment and figure out what was going on. The parking garage where my scooter was would register my presence and the departure of my vessel so I decided to take the janitorial scooter. As soon as I hit the pavement I could hear shouting behind me and adrenaline took over. My body pressed against the scooter as I twisted the accelerator. I wasn't use to the speed and swerved into both sides of the streets. I could hear horns and the roar of sirens behind me. I turned down a side street and into a block of taller apartment buildings, maybe gather enough time to figure out what I was doing. I wasn't going home. There was no time for that. I was running for my life. Somehow they figured out what I had figured out or worse, my identity revealed. Fear felt good; reacting on instinct, fleeing, doing anything but following mindless mandatory orders. The skyscrapers climbed higher into the sky and I realized picking one to hide in was the only way I was going to buy some time. Suddenly, in all directions, were men on high powered scooters. I steadied the speed of my own and stood up on the leather seat, launching myself in the direction of a window. Luckily the impact was strong enough to break and I went crashing into a furnished room. My arms and hands stung from being nicked by the all shards of glass and I retreated into the hallway. The door to the stairs was being opened by a resident. I used my body to ram her into the door, stealing her key and pushing her out into the hallway so I could lock it behind me. I tried to pace my breathing as a hint of panic began to set in. The stairs echoed as I stomped up each flight to drown out any noise of someone entering the stairwell and heighten my panic. When I couldn't run anymore I burst through the door of another unsuspecting resident using the stairwell. "Oh I'm very sorry sir." I curtsied apologetically and smiled. He seemed very intrigued by my manners and happily waived it off. My legs felt like fire as I raced through the hallways, looking for a room to hide in. At this point my window of time was closing so I began turning every door knob. Eventually I came upon a door unlocked and jumped inside. I held my breath and listened intently but the flat was empty. All except the humming of a fish tank next to the entry way. I locked the door and collapsed onto a couch. It wouldn't be long before they traced the very obvious trail of blood to me. I managed to get my phone out of a pocket. Despite the damaged screen, it was fully functioning. Blood from my hands on the screen made it difficult to register my commands as I fumbled through files. I looked at the screen shots of my monitor. Something is blocking those valves. Maybe someone is blocking those valves. Maybe someone is trying to get into the colony through the intake valves. Maybe we're under threat from another colony invasion. Maybe all of the additional information hidden deep inside my database allowed me to get past all of the stealth modes. Maybe I was going to die in this flat. Attempting to calm my breathing didn't help the light headedness sweeping over me. I kept adjusting and squinting my eyes to see the ever dimming phone in my hand and wiping away the blood that trickled from my fingers onto the screen. The last thing I made out was an incoming message that I frantically struggled to open. It read, "Idiot." People started pounding on the door. I jumped off the couch and used the rest of my strength to ram it into the door. More shouting and gun shots. I could hear the bullets ricochet off and into the walls. I probably wouldn't have been able to tell if I got hit. I caught the daylights dim into another evening hour and stumbled to the window. My ears were ringing and I was pretty sure I was close to passing out. I pressed my bloody body against the window and opened it, looking down. I couldn't help but laugh at my pathetic attempt to flee and the fact that I'd only made it up maybe eight flights of stairs. The top part of the door crashed open and people began to claw their way through my blurry vision. I sat back in the windowsill with one leg dangling out the window. I think my final act of consciousness was muttering something about the fish tank and I let myself fall into the darkness. When I open my eyes my senses confirm a cement prison cell, worse than detainment, filled with mildew in the cracks in the wall. A steel door and rectangular monitor in the wall are the only identifiable shapes in my little square prison. My wounds had been washed and treated but not bandaged and my body aches to the point where blinking caused discomfort. "Hey" I shout and instantly regret. My chest is the center of this pain, ribs were definitely broken and anything other than shallow breathing is unbearable. I bet they had a great time dragging a lifeless body all the way here. Petite woman or not, violence is their answer for everything. Hours, days, and years could have gone by. I drift in and out of sleep for an eternity. I have a small padded mat that I finally allow myself to lay down on and stare up at the ceiling. I keep myself sane with dreams of better days, sipping the water that was occasionally brought to my cell and going over the mental images of those screen shots. The monitor flickers on and I open one eye. The transmission is grey and fuzzy. A voice is getting through the billions of networking blocks, preventing any foreign airwaves to broadcast but I can tell by the frequency that it is playing on every monitor, everywhere. "To take back," So much heavy static and high pitched ringing. "Colony 786-AMN." That's us. "Come on!" I shouted, pushing myself up against the wall. The blood rushes out of my head too quickly and my torso slides back onto the floor. "Come on..." "Colony 786-AMN.. Commander.. To take back what these pigs have stolen from us." Pigs. Idiot. I start laughing uncontrollably. "We are here to reclaim our colony from the reign of this foreign governing virus, liberate our people and restore the way of life that was shattered by this disturbance. We will fight, we will die and we will be free." The broadcast is interrupted once more by heavy static but quickly returned. "To leave without any.. First and foremost demand is the release of our captains.. Grid is under our control.. have been immobilized." My laughter quickly turns into what I can only imagine sounds like pitiful sobbing and I feel an overwhelming happiness and recognition. "Shawless, you idiot." Came his voice. I am captivated by the voice I have not heard in seven years, insulting me on a colony wide broadcast. I can die happy now.