Unexpected Truth

in #twentyfourhourshortstory5 years ago (edited)

This is an entry for:

https://steemit.com/twentyfourhourshortstory/@mctiller/writers-win-five-steem-november-6-twenty-four-hour-short-story-contest-astronauts-develop-strange-and-unexpected-symptoms-in

The prompt is: Astronauts develop strange and unexpected symptoms in response to traveling at light speed.

tammy_in_bed.jpg
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Unexpected Truth

Tammy sat strapped in the webbed sling chair in her cabin trying to read King’s latest horror story. The words on the virtual screen in front of her kept pulsing in and out. “What the hell is wrong with my V-viewer?” she said to no one, since she was alone in the room. And, being alone in the room, no one answered her. Or did they? She heard an echo in her mind that seemed to say “Who said that? Trouble with what V-viewer?”

She reached up to adjust her headset, but realized she wasn’t wearing it. There it was, right where it should be, snapped to its holster beside her BedNet. So where had that voice in her head came from? Her V-viewer had shut itself off and folded back into the console. Maybe I imagined it, she thought. She unstrapped herself from the sling chair and glided over to her PS (personal synthesizer) and programmed in a tube of cappuccino and a bar of dark chocolate.

As she settled back into the sling chair with her treats, she called for the console to resume her place in the book. Once again the V-viewer displayed the words in front of her and, again, the words started pulsing in and out. She thought to herself that she needed to call Rick, their electronics wizard, to come and check out her viewer. She closed the console, popped the remaining piece of chocolate in her mouth, and went to get her comm-unit.

Across the ship, Captain Donovan resumed his seat at the control panel display. Looking out the observation window in front of him he marveled at the sight of the black vastness of deep space. It was a visage he never got accustomed to even though they had been traveling in this vector for almost a week now. He finally turned his eyes downward to his control panel with the thought of dictating some journal entries on their current location. But what is this? The screens’ digital readings were all pulsing and blurred. At that instant he heard what sounded like Tammy reaching out to Rick about a problem with her V-viewer. But he knew that Tammy was on down time rotation and she wasn’t currently connected to the communications grid.

Rick was in the ship’s exercise module and had just called up the robo-droid to program in a session of kickboxing. As he turned to the control board to scroll through the available scenery scripts, the menu on the console began pulsing. He then heard (he thought) someone say “What the hell is wrong with my V-viewer?” He immediately thought “Who said that? Trouble with what V-viewer?” It sounded like Tammy. He wasn’t wearing his comm-unit so this made no sense that he had heard her voice. He glided over and turned off the robo-droid and went back to the control board to shut it down. Just as he got in front of the display he thought he heard Tammy thinking about calling him to look at her viewer. Heard Tammy THINKING? What was going on here? He shut down the terminal and plugged in his comm-unit. He knew Tammy’s sleep pod was on the 3rd level, east wing so he left the exercise module and headed for the glide tube.

Captain Donovan, still in front of his pulsing display, now heard Rick’s confused thoughts about Tammy needing help with her V-viewer, and wondering how he could hear her. He picked up Rick’s thought about going to find Tammy at her sleep pod, and then thankfully, silence ensued.
As the captain got up from his seat and left the terminal, his mind felt clear again. And since he now knew that Rick was headed to the 3rd level, he decided to make his way there as well.

Tammy situated her comm-unit and tapped the ear piece to engage the network. “Rick, this is Tammy, are you online?”

Rick tapped his unit and replied, “Yes, Tammy, and I’m on the way up to your sleep pod right now. I would have sworn I just heard you asking me come up and look at your viewer, except I wasn’t wearing my comm unit.”

Captain Donovan heard the transmissions from both Tammy and Rick. He entered the conversation saying that he had heard thoughts from the both of them. “Let’s meet in the Officers’ Recreation Pod and see if we can figure this out.”

All three headed for the ORP, the Captain arriving first. He opened the airlock with his palm print and stepped inside. The ORP was one of the privileged areas being climate controlled with normal Earth gravity. Comfortable seating, various potted plants under UV grow lamps, soft track lighting and a PS (personal synthesizer) made this one of the most popular spots on the ship. “Geneva”, he called to the ship’s AI, “Bring up some soothing music and be on standby to assist us with understanding this new anomaly we are experiencing.”

Rick arrived next, with Tammy following a few minutes later. They stood looking at the Captain, waiting on him to speak. “Ok,” he began, “I’ve got Geneva in on this as well. As I seem to understand it, all three of us have had the thoughts of the others in our minds just a little while ago. Is anyone hearing someone else’s thoughts now?”

They each closed their eyes and tried to discern anything coming from the others. After a few minutes, each confirmed that were no thought transfers going on. They spent the next half hour discussing what could have caused such a thing. Why did it happen to all three of them at the same time? And why did it stop?

Geneva chimed in and said, “According to my monitoring of the ship’s internal systems and each person’s biometric readings, I can make the following observations: 1) At 21:07 the ship’s speed surpassed the speed of light for the first time in our voyage 2) at that same time all three of you had elevated heart rates and increased activity in the temporal lobe of your brain 3) at the time you were all engaged with an electromagnetic display field that began pulsing in cadence with your heartbeats.”

The Captain came up with the idea to test their mind reading abilities again by calling down the navigation screen and asking Geneva to display their current location and trajectory. He said, “I’m going to have Geneva turn on the display and we will all study it. If the display starts pulsing, each of us should think about our first pet and see if we project our thoughts to each other.”

Rick said, “Sir, I can’t do that, I’ve never had a pet.”

The Captain said, “All right then, we will think about the first autoflyer that we owned.”

Tammy cleared her throat and said, “That won’t work either, I have never owned an autoflyer.”

The Captain thought for a moment and said, “Ok, then we’ll think about someone we love, everyone surely must have now or in the past someone they love!”

Geneva booted up the display and the current solar system appeared on the screen showing the location, velocity, and trajectory for their ship. They were still traveling at just over the speed of light. Within seconds the display started pulsing as the Captain, Rick and Tammy all stared at the display and thought about who they loved.

There were three simultaneous gasps and three sets of red faces and three sets of wide eyes. While each had INTENDED to think about a family member and keep private thoughts to themselves, the very intention of hiding true feelings made it impossible not to think about them.

Captain Donovan was consciously thinking about his mother, for he truly loved her dearly, but the truth his heart settled on was that he had been in love with Tammy from the moment she had entered his command. But she was 20 years his junior in age, besides the fact that being her superior officer would make any relationship forbidden.

Rick’s pick was his grandmother, who had raised him after his parents were killed in a car crash. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for her. But what projected from his thoughts was his love for Captain Donovan, a secret that he had intended to never reveal. Rick had never known his own father and was never interested in women. A strong, older man like Captain Donovan filled some basic need he didn’t know he had.

Tammy was trying her best to think about her big brother, Ben, who had been her hero all during their childhood. Instead, Rick was the one who occupied her thoughts, try as she might not to let him know. He seemed so unhappy and lost sometimes that Tammy’s heart melted for him. Now she knew Rick was never going to be interested in a relationship with her.

The abashed group stood looking in horror at each other over what they had just revealed. How could they possibly continue this journey in close confinement for the next eight months knowing what they knew now?

If this mind reading thing continued every time they had to look at display screen for as long as they were traveling at this speed, it was going to make for a very interesting rest of the trip!

signature_1.gif

I posted this story last night before @crypt-skip had my image finished. It is so perfect for my story - I edited it in today. Thanks, Crypt-skip!

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This post was submitted for curation by: @blueeyes8960
This post was given a rating of: 0.14250073668773708
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wow - vote of 0 - thanks for the encouragement....

That was flipp'n hilarious. I loved the reveal, it was brilliantly done. Great storyline with a good character build for such a short piece.

Excellent story! I really enjoyed reading it. And I loved the twist at the end. And anytime you need more artwork for your stories please let me know, it's my pleasure.

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it. Your creation was perfect, so much better than that generic public domain pic I used originally. Maybe you start a service creating original artwork for story writers!

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Hi @blueeyes8960, Fabulous story you've brought us, I like how technology turns against humans.

The artificial intelligence chose a good reason, to meddle with memories or loved ones is a puzzle for the crew that can be easily manipulated, especially with the information that saw each one separately.

maybe in the rest of the trip you will see in their minds some kind of resentment between them that would be interesting.

excellent story, thank you for sharing. made me remember a little to 2001 odyssey in space

greetings, peace and love

Hi blueeyes8960,

This post has been upvoted by the Curie community curation project and associated vote trail as exceptional content (human curated and reviewed). Have a great day :)

Visit curiesteem.com or join the Curie Discord community to learn more.

Thank you Curie community! I've joined your discord.

What a twist of events! Love triangle, huh? 😃 You are very creative and imaginative to have come up with such a story! Well done!

I was expecting them to resolve the pulsing problems on their monitors but things came out with much bigger concern.

How could they possibly continue this journey in close confinement for the next eight months knowing what they knew now?

I too wonder how. We all know it is sometimes awkward to be with someone whom you have secret feelings.

I understand you ended the story in suspense but I wonder if you have any clear ending in mind to append to this story?

Thanks for your kind words and glad you enjoyed the story. Actually I have a couple of ideas of where this story could go, but none of them are short versions. It would take some development to go where I am thinking...

Oh you really have that great imagination for the story. Maybe you can also post whatever you're thinking as "per chapter" so it won't be a stressful read. How about that?

Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by blueeyes8960 from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows. Please find us at the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.

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Indeed, it would certainly be an interesting trip!
This space triangle was much more entertaining than the other space triangle (the arcade space shooter) hahahah

Thank you @hendrikdegrote for reading and upvoting my story. Much appreciated! And also thank everyone of you who took the time to read my story and vote or comment!!

Oh well, that was not a good idea to think about people that they love :) I wonder why they all agreed to it :) Indeed, it's going to be difficult for all of them now to spend so much time together.

I didn't know what I have expected from this story. Maybe some scientific approach from them to fix the issue. But you got me completely unprepared. This was a great ending.

I hope there will be continuation of the story as I'd love to know how they'll deal with the new situation.

Thank you for sharing!

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