Caught Somewhere In Time

Start reading from the beginning…

Admiral Chan was dressed very importantly, Adam thought. He wore a military uniform that had several decorations that, if Adam had even the slightest idea about what they meant, would have seemed very impressive. As it was, the Admiral merely looked like he was in charge.

“I am very pleased to meet you Adam,” the man began. Then, looking at the woman who had shown him into Adam’s cell, he said “Thank you. I’d like to visit with him privately if I might.”

The woman left the cell door open as she left, something that was done from time to time here, but which Adam guessed was not an invitation to leave. He knew that an open door did not imply that the use of the door was recommended. This was something all the children had learned early on from the Protectors.

“I received a message about your arrival from a Militia Commander here on Mars, and I came as soon as I heard what he had to say about you. Do you know what the message said?”

“I don’t understand what’s happening here.” Adam was being honest. Since arriving, no one had given him any inclination about why he wasn’t being helped to rescue his friends, or really anything at all about the world he was on. “Why are we all just sitting in a detention area when my friends, other humans, are still being held captive by the Protectors?”

Adam couldn’t read the Admiral’s expression. Maybe it was no more than curiosity in his eyes, but Adam thought there was something else there. “We will get to that soon enough,” the man answered. “First I would like to hear about your experiences.”

“What experiences do you mean?” The boy looked at the man standing there, only a step or two into the cell.

“For example, can you tell me anything about the ones you call ‘Protectors’? Anything that might convince me that what you are saying is the truth?”

“Do you think I am lying?” Adam started to get angry. His emotions had been really close to the surface recently, and while he recognized that it was happening, he was at a loss to control it. “What about my ship? I didn’t build it myself! The Protectors did! How could I lie about that?”

Chan merely looked at him calmly and asked again, “What about the Protectors though? Can you tell me about them? Who are they?”

Adam felt hot. “I have friends who are trapped. Who knows how many of them were punished after I got away, and you just want to ask me questions. I need to go back and help them.”

“I would like to help you, Adam, but I need some information first. What do you know about the ship we found you in?”

“Nothing. I only know what my Nanny told me, and I had to guess a lot of things to make it go.”

The Admiral looked interested, “You had a nanny? Was she a human, or a Protector?”

“There were no adult humans, only us kids. We all had a nanny that made sure our needs were met. Most other kids were in groups. I think I was the only one who had a nanny to myself. I think she was stuck with me as punishment too.”

“So all the adults were Protectors? Were there any Protector children, or only humans?”

“The Protectors were all adults.” Adam was getting frustrated, and was quickly losing his patience. “I don’t understand why this matters. The other kids are still there, and I promised I would come back with help. I am surrounded by humans now, but no one will help me. Why am I stuck in here?”

Chan was relentless. “What did the Protectors look like? Were they like humans, or different?”

“They didn’t look like humans, all right? They looked like, I don’t know, like Protectors look. You’ve seen them before. Everyone has, right?”

“How tall would you say they were?”

Rather than answering, Adam grabbed the pillow from the head of the bed he was still sitting on and smashed it into his lap. It felt good to physically affect something like that. He hugged the pillow slightly, and pressed his elbows into it, pinning it to his lap. He looked over at the pile of gifts and thought about ripping open some of the ones that were wrapped, just so he could feel like he was tearing something apart.

“Adam, it is very important that you talk to me about your Protectors. I want to understand what you have been through so I can help you.” The boy still remained silent, seated, and looking around the room to avoid the Admiral’s gaze. “If you won’t discuss some details about these Protectors, then I’m afraid that there will be very little that I can do for you.”

“So that’s it then. I tell you about them and in return you’ll send an army with me to help my friends escape.” Adam wasn’t hopeful, just tired of this discussion.

“Not exactly like that. I would first need to ascertain the level of threat that your friends are experiencing. Once that has been established, I would need to determine the location of these friends and devise a method of communicating with their captors to facilitate their release.”

This was not what Adam had in mind. “Ascertain the level of threat? Facilitate their release? I was born in captivity, Admiral Chin, or whatever your name is. I was the first to ever escape that I know of, and since escaping, I have been imprisoned by the people I thought would help me. I thought you were in charge! Aren’t you like a king or something? Why won’t you help me?”

“Adam, please calm yourself. I require more information before I can do anything to help you. I don’t know who you are, where you came from, or whether you are even telling me the truth.”

“So you do think I’m lying. That’s it then; that’s why you won’t help me. Well at least I know something now.” Adam resumed smashing his pillow with his elbows and looking away from the Admiral. He resented being called a liar, and he wanted to be left alone again. Quietly, Adam said to  himself, “Maybe I shouldn’t have escaped. I don’t think it has helped me, and I know it hasn’t helped the other kids.”

“If you refuse to talk to me, then I am afraid that there is nothing else I can do for you, Adam. I remain hopeful that you will change your mind, and will stay nearby for a week or two in hopes that we will be able to help each other.” The Admiral turned to leave. He had been standing for the entire exchange, since it wasn’t a very big cell, and with gifts piling up on the only other piece of furniture in the room, he wouldn’t have been able to get comfortable if he had wanted to.

“I don’t even know what a week is. Is that another time measurement like a day is? That’s the worst part about all of this, I think. At least at the colony, I knew what to expect. I don’t know anything here.”

The Admiral didn’t turn from the door, he had only stopped short of walking out of it. Having his back turned, Adam couldn’t make out any expression at all. With one foot out the door he said, “I’d like to ask you one more question before I leave you. What can I do for you to help you feel more comfortable here, so that you will want to talk with me again?”

Staring at the man’s back, Adam reflected on it a moment. “I don’t understand anything here, and I miss the other children that I have known all of my life.”

Without saying another word or giving even a backward glance, the man left. Adam was alone again.

“That was useless,” Adam said to himself. He stood up and threw the pillow onto the bed, not as hard as he could, but hard enough for him to imagine causing pain to the pillow. He stepped over to the pile of gifts and began picking through them. Some had his name written on them, others did not. Some had no wrapping on them at all. Clothes mostly, although there seemed to be a few other objects he couldn’t identify. One looked like it might be for hygienic purposes, but he had never bothered to ask what. He started three piles on the bed: one of things he couldn’t name that he would ask for help with, one of items he knew, and one of shredded paper that he was ripping off the wrapped packages before sorting them. He sorted the entire pile until he had opened every package and sorted every item.

The last item looked like some piece of clothing, in a style he had seen some people who cared for him now had worn. He put his arms through the sleeves of the open-front sweater and pulled it up onto his shoulders, not knowing if he was even wearing it right. He looked down at the text and “Mars Colony” emblem he was now wearing on his chest, and seeing it upside-down from his perspective, he guessed it was right. He put the clothes away in the small chest of drawers he was provided, and set some of the other items on top of it. When he was done with that, he moved the unknown items to a spot next to the chair it all had been piled on, and looked at the third pile still on his bed.

He looked over at the open door and decided he’d had enough of this cell. Adam scooped up all the wrapping into his arms and walked right over to the door, stopping short of it. Since he had been brought to the cell, no one had told him specifically not to leave; he had only assumed he was not supposed to leave since he had never been invited out. There had been many opportunities to see through the door into the larger room beyond, but he had only been through it once himself when he had been escorted into the cell.

Gathering up his courage, he carried the trash over the threshold and into the main room beyond. The woman who was on duty sat at a desk tapping on a darkly colored rectangle that seemed to lay on top of the desk. She looked up when he came out, but did not seem alarmed by his leaving the cell.

“Where can I dispose of this?” he asked her.

She just stared for a moment at him, and then smiled. “Follow me. I’ll show you where it goes.” The woman stood up and walked from behind the desk to a closed door close to where she had been sitting. She opened the door and looked back at him as she started through it.

“Um, I’m sorry, but I thought I was not allowed to leave.”

Standing in the open door she said to him, “Of course you can leave. Several of us wondered why you hadn’t tried to go anywhere yet.”

“But this is a detention area. This is where people go to stay, not where they come and go from. I do not fully understand human society, but I know about crime and detention.” Adam didn’t want to get into a long discussion with this person while his arms were full of paper, but he definitely didn’t understand why no one had offered to lead him out.

“That is true, but we do not have many criminals here. Normally they are only held here briefly until they can be sent offworld. This was just the only place the Martian Council thought you could be kept safe during your stay.”

Adam took a step toward her, and she moved through the door to lead him through. She turned a corner into a wide hall, and the boy followed. There were a few people moving about in this area, and it seemed that anyone who saw him looked a little longer at Adam than they did at anything else.

“All paper products go into this chute here, where it will be recycled into other paper products.” The woman pulled open what looked like a wide and deep drawer, but which actually seemed to lead down into the wall.

As he pushed the paper into the chute, he asked her, “If I am free to leave, why didn’t anyone ask me to come out, or offer to show me the complex?”

“Well, that question has a complicated answer. The simplest version of it is that we wanted you to stay nearby, but had no real reason to actually keep you captive.”

“But you are showing me around now. Why?”

“Admiral Chan wanted to meet you, so we had to arrange for you to be here when he arrived from the Earth system.” She let the chute close on its own when the paper was all inside. “Now that he has met you, there is no reason for us keep you fully secluded. You may explore the complex, but we ask that you do not leave the building. You have not been chipped yet, so you may not wander the entire colony freely, only within these walls.”

Without another word, Adam decided to take a short walk around the building. As before, people seemed to eye him almost curiously whenever they saw him, but he didn’t talk to anyone else. The building appeared to be a basic rectangle, but there was little indication of what actually went on in the building. People all seemed to be doing something or going somewhere though, moving about freely. Adam smiled to himself and his newfound freedom. A little while later, when he found his way back to his cell, he entered the outer chamber and found the same woman sitting at the desk, tapping on the little rectangle. Try as he might, he couldn’t remember her name though.

She looked up when he came in and said, “You had another guest while you were out, Adam.”

“Was it the Admiral again?” Adam rolled his eyes and wasn’t interested in being angry again right now. He was still relishing the idea that he could simply move around without restraint, something that had been utterly lacking since he had arrived here. The woman didn’t answer him though, she only smiled and pointed toward the cell, indicating that they were apparently still here.

Adam straightened himself, hoping that he wouldn’t be subjected to a bunch of questions again. He walked over to his room and looked inside. The person he saw definitely wasn’t the Admiral though, which immediately put him at ease. It was a girl, a little shorter than Adam, with a blonde braid that fell partway down the back of her light blue uniform. She turned and looked at him when she heard him enter the room. Adam saw that she had been looking at the collection of things that he had put on top of his drawers. Her face was kind, and she smiled at him warmly. He knew she wasn’t as mature as all of the other humans he had met since he had lived here, but probably a little more mature than the other humans he had left with the Protectors.

“I brought you a gift, Adam,” she said to him and pulled a small circular item out of her pocket. “Here,” she said, holding it out to him. “It goes around your wrist, I’ll help you.”

Adam hesitantly moved closer to this stranger. He inhaled slightly as he approached, and discovered she had a nice scent, something he didn’t think he’d ever noticed about a person. He offered his arm to her, and she put the band around his wrist, closing it so it stayed on. Adam wasn’t looking at his hand however; he was looking at her face. She had soft features and pale skin. Her eyelids seemed to be a similar pink as her lips, both a very subtle color, only obvious from this close. When she was finished with his hand, she pushed it back toward him and her blue eyes met his gaze.

“I am Audrey,” she said, and Adam swore to himself that he would never forget her name. “It is very nice to meet you, Adam.”

“Thank you. It’s good to meet you too.” He tore his eyes away from her for a moment to look at the gift she had placed around his wrist. It was a simple black band with a circular dial on the back of his wrist. The dial had a series of numbers in an outer ring, with other smaller circles of numbers within it. Most of the numbers were dim, barely legible, but one number in each circle seemed to have more contrast, as if it were the one a person was supposed to see. While he looked at it, the highlight shifted from one number to another in the outer circle. “What is it?” he asked.

“It’s a watch,” Audrey told him, smiling suddenly. “It’s one of the things that humans use to measure time. I thought you might find it useful.”

Continued on May 8, 2010