Perils of Freedom

“Prisoner 8246937-003519. State your name, species, place of origin, egress and destination.”

“Sixteen. Human. Unknown. Home. Unknown.”

There is silence after that. The cell is small, ten by twelve paces, a bed with a toilet and sink underneath. Everything is sterile and empty. This is the first time that I have been a prisoner, or in a prison at all. I pace the cell, trying hard not to think about how long the number had been.

Osalax Station began life as a rogue planet converted into the largest space station I knew of. I am at least two galaxies away from Home. I try not to think about that either. I told my parents I was leaving, but they didn’t believe me. No one leaves Home. No one left Home, they will have to say now. Or just presume me dead.

The room flickers a pale white. “Medical scan inconclusive; subject inconclusive,” the Intelligence says.

I blink. I have no idea what that means.

More time passes. An entity enters my cell. Some form of liquid synth they scans the room before departing. A human arrives some time later: male, military body, into a fourth or fifth rejuvenation treatment. He looks to be about sixty but is at least four times that age. No weapons; a single thought would be enough to cause the cell to deal with me.

“Interesting,” he says in a tone that speaks mostly of annoyance. “Home. Designated an aggressively low-tech world. No spacecraft can enter that solar system, transit to the world is via a relay junction on the moon and is only one-way. It is the last refuge of those who flee the wider universe for one reason or another. It is not possible to leave.”

“I did.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.” I don’t know the stranger’s name, what he put inside me. How it removed me from Home. I just know I’m here, far away from the world I knew. Without aid, without currency, with only basic clothing and a knife made of terraformed rock. I have genetic tricks, thanks to my parents.

“Very well. Come with me.”

“Am I free?”

“Yes,” he lies. One of those tricks is knowing when I’m being lied to. Another is being naturally gifted in survival.

Which is why I follow him into the hallway and he’s on the ground and unconscious moments later. It helps that he didn’t expect it. And that the cameras don’t seem able to find me. I run down a hallway, cells beyond the wall locked and hidden, find an open door, another, and step onto a concourse. A hundred species mingle and rush about, voices shouting commands – mostly in galactic Standard – and the rush freezes me for a moment.

I don’t think I’ve seen this many people in my life. I shake the thought away, reach. I don’t have any implants in me: no one can, and be part of Home. Nothing happens. I move into the crowd, one body among many. the cell I was in was definitely low security to be this close to any thoroughfare. I was very young when my parents took me to Home, but it doesn’t take long to find working kiosk and enter it. Not all species can or will use implants, so a kiosk is a free means of contacting the galactic Network.

I try for times. Unrecognized user. Other errors. Like the Intelligence in the cell. Home did something to me. Or the stranger who let me travel here instead? I have no idea. I try to picture surviving in any galaxy without access to a Network and shiver, force myself to exit the pale blue kiosk. Breathe.

This is the first time that I have been free. And somehow that extends to being free from the Network. From that data. From all that information. I take a deep breath. Another. Begin to walk. Somehow walking helps. I move toward the nearest hangar bay, judging it based on traffic and presumed pilots. I need to leave Osalax Station. I know that much, and somehow it’s as if my own need is directly me. Another gift from my parents, proof they knew what Home would do us? I don’t know. I just walk, and find a small shuttle craft. Golden trim, black body, small wings, a surprisingly large engine. The kind of craft designed to jump only a few systems, but the engines look too advanced for basic jumps.

It’s even turned on and empty. The kind of luck one only finds in stories.

The craft opens a door. I step inside. No strange stranger. Certainly not my parents. The craft sits one pilot, one navigator, space for two crew to sleep and talk.

“Prep a jump two sectors away,” I say.

“Welcome, captain. Please identify yourself.”

“Sixteen.”

“Identity noted. Jump prepped. Do you wish us to engage?”

I blink. “We need to clear a course with Osalax Station, move away from it –.”

The ship rocks a little under my feet.

“Jump complete,” the ship’s calm voice says.

I stare out of the screens that appear before me. A spaceship that can jump from within a space station and not kill everyone inside. It explains the engines a little bit.

“Ship. Why am I the pilot?”

“You asked to be let on board. And you seemed nice.”

“That not how anything happens. Can you see me?”

“Only if you wish me to? It is quite confusing.”

I sit in the pilots chair, my forehead starting to ache no matter how hard I rub my temples. I begin thinking of every way I know to find out if this is a simulation and break out of it. No one just escapes a prison by being invisible to the warden, finds a turned on experimental spaceship, becomes the pilot of it and simply escapes Osalax Station.

That doesn’t happen.

Except it did. Every attempt to prove this is simulation breaks, leaving me only with truth that makes no sense at all.

I ask ship to land on the nearest inhabited world. The headache begins to fade. Making choices helps. I can’t connect to the Networks at all, but even so I can’t shake the feeling there is something wrong with this world.

I hated Home. I hate being a stranger to myself even more.

If this is a simulation, I’m terrified of how good it is.