Indentured (7 page)

“
That’s
the question you were supposed to ask all along!” she laughed, reaching out and patting his arm playfully, “This chip contains the identity of Tami Guzman… or Taz as my friends know me.”

“
Taz? Who… wait… the nurse lady from the hospital?” he asked, immediately getting a nod and a grin from her, “You’re the one who was there for my MRI?”

“
If you think that’s freaky, I’m also the girl downstairs that you know as Sierra. Though she’s the confused version, same as you. Once you introduce yourself to her by your real name, you’ll see what I mean,” she said, dropping the chip back into the drawer.

“
You’re one of them now? You’re the one behind all this?” he spat, clenching his fists in anger.

“
NO!” she shouted quickly, raising her hand to cut him off, “Not at all! I’m a victim the same as you, but
somehow
, at some point in the past, you and I switched some things around and did some damage to the whole mission of these people.”

This brought him back a step. He tried to process all this, going back to everything he had seen and heard.

“
You and I escaped somehow – long ago. But our escape must have been ingeniously perfect because no one ever figured out that we switched the chips and by doing so, we put a spy on the other side of the wall.”

“
I don’t quite understand. When and why did we exist as Indentures before? Do they keep making carbon copies of us?” he asked, “Do we keep living this hell over and over again?”

“
I only know for sure that we went through this all about eight or nine years ago. Since my memory only begins at my MRI, same as yours, I don’t know the details of what happened then. I do know this, however,” she said, kneeling next to the cabinet and tugging a folder out from under the cabinet, “I wasn’t left without something to go on.”

She dropped the folder next to Declan and flipped the cover open. The first paper was a small scribbled note on a torn blue sheet of paper. Declan leaned in and read it.

“
Just play along or you’ll be killed. You’re not Tami – you’re Chief Warrant Officer Brianna Rowe on a spaceship in the future. It sounds like a joke, but if you don’t play along, you’ll die. Look under the green cabinet in MedLab 2. Until then, claim that you feel some gaps in your memory.”

“
Imagine waking up to that. My first memory after the MRI back in the 21
^st
century was waking up in a glass chamber, completely naked, in a body I didn’t recognize, with a little stuffed animal that apparently I demanded to have with me upon awakening. It was just me and a little walrus with
‘tear me open ASAP’
handwritten on his fat belly,” she said, tossing the little paper to the side, “You think you had it bad? I was lost, confused, and trusting the handwritten instructions of someone I had never met.”

“
Dear Lord,” he muttered, understanding the true magnitude of their whole situation for the first time, “And you played along?”

“
I read a lot of sci-fi in my time,” she said by way of explanation, “Unless something bad happened, I had no choice but to play along and hope for the best. This folder here was the same exact folder under that green cabinet all those years ago. What you see is all that I had to go on.”

Declan lifted the top few pages from the folder, a small map suddenly slipping from his pile and fluttering to the floor. She knelt to pick it up and placed it on the folder.

“
This was just a map of the ship with scribbled notations from you. You wanted me to be able to pretend I knew where I was at all times, but even
you
didn’t know where half the passageways lead. You didn’t even know where my berthing was for that matter,” she said, “Rowe’s berthing, I mean.”

“
I can’t believe you were able to fool the crew of the ship. Honestly, I don’t think I would have believed any of this stuff if I woke up as you did,” he muttered, examining the papers before him, “Wait, I don’t get this. It says we were woken up when we got to the Beta Hydri System – two weeks before getting to the planet. You just told
us
the same thing yesterday.”

She nodded, offering no explanation, “Just read it.”

You are a crewmember of this ship in charge of a group of slaves – or Indentures as we’re often referred to. You, Tami, are (and were) one of these slaves actually, so please don’t mess this thing up. We went through a lot to get you implanted into the body of an officer…

The letter continued to explain how she should act and that she should claim that some scanning flaw must have been responsible for her gaps in memory. As he read further, it just went on to explain an identical experience for the Indentures, discovering themselves to be in the 24
^th
century and preparing to be trained for colonization of a planet.

We found a way to escape into the command portion of the ship through Storage B. Knowing there was no way we could take over this ship or achieve freedom in any sense at all, we chose to spend our nights sneaking around in these uncharted regions of the ship hoping to learn what we could.

I won’t bore you with all the details since time is of the essence, but as time progressed, we learned that we, the Indentures, were the
only
ones going to Hydrus. The plan had originally been for everyone, the command crew
and
the Indentures, to establish this initial ground base for the upcoming colony ships, but something significant had happened aboard the ship. Whatever this unknown thing was, it made the crew want to drop us off and head out. That’s where you come in. If you think this is all part of a scam, ask the Indenture named Sierra any questions that only you would know the answers. You were and
are
Sierra.

Declan continued to read, shaking his head.

“
How did Rowe die? I mean, I guess she had to die in order to be reconstructed with your information inside,” he said.

“
Supposedly an electrocution accident involving some bare wires in the exercise lab,” she said, “But I think it would be safe to assume it wasn’t an accident. It happened a few days before dropping off the Indentured.”

He leafed through more papers, some giving her what little history they could gather on Rowe. Her murder was definitely premeditated by two people who were uncommonly patient.

“
This is all so unbelievable. I almost want to pat myself on the back,” he said, setting the folder down, “Did you ever find out why they… why
we
were dropped off on that planet and where we’re going now?”

She nodded, taking the folder off the counter and sliding it back into its original hiding place.

“
All the command personnel seem intent on keeping the crew in the dark, so I’ve got no information from them. I’m an officer, but not in the line of command officers. I did however gather some interesting tidbits from the engineering guys. Personally, I believe what they told me explains it all,” she said, motioning for him to follow her out of the room, “All the USSC ships have the capability of travelling at speeds of up to 95% the speed of light. That’s a tolerable speed for our local group of stars especially since those travelling at such speeds experience a slower passage of time. But-”

“
Wait, mankind can somehow change the flow of time now?” he sputtered as they entered the passageway and headed down the long, silent corridor.

“
Seriously, Declan? We’re talking about ancient 1905 Einstein relativity,” she said, giving him a mocking grin, “He theorized, and it’s been proven many times in our own time, that both gravity and speed affect the flow of time for the subject involved. The faster you go, the slower time goes. If you reach the speed of light, time stops, which is why we can never travel at that speed.”

“
And this is real stuff?” he snickered, “Not something from your sci-fi books?”

“
Come on, it’s old news even for me. If this ship travels at 95% light speed, using Einstein’s proven formulas, you experience about a 69% warp of time. Basically, for every 10 years of Earth time that passes while we are in transit, only a little over 3 years pass for the crew of the ship,” she said, “And no, this isn’t science fiction. And
yes,
you are taking me off topic. I was trying to bring you up to speed on my investigation,

“
Anyway, as I was saying, I learned that we had a prototype engine aboard this ship called a ‘Jump Drive’, which would basically permit this ship to perform a nearly instantaneous transit between the stars – essentially travelling much faster than the speed of light. And it worked perfectly as far as anyone could tell, but it also damaged itself beyond repair in the process. As far as I can guess, we made a one-way trip to Beta Hydri aboard a ship that was supposed to return to Earth afterward using the same Jump Drive. I believe this unexpected problem is somehow related to the crew refusing to join the Indentures on the new planet.”

He followed her down another passageway, then up a short set of stairs leading to what he assumed was a computer lab of some sort. Nothing in the room resembled any of the computers of the 21
^st
century, but it didn’t require a stretch of imagination to see some sorts of processing technology in the various workspaces.

“
How long have you been living inside Ensign Rowe?” he asked.

“
Nearly eight years now,” she said, turning to him, “Eight years of obeying the secret commands of two non-existent people; spying on the crew and officers; and all the time waiting for you to be recreated so I could get some help!”

He raised his eyebrows, confused by the sudden anger behind her words. She had already turned away from him, flipping unseen switches to bring some of the equipment to life.

“
Are you mad at me for something?” he asked, examining a dark circular screen pierced by several bright green pinpoints, “Let’s remember that I’m not the same man who escaped and did all this crazy Star Trek espionage eight years ago.”

She turned to the terminal and tapped some keys, raising a three-dimensional holographic display of a bunch of triangles, dots, and dotted lines on the tabletop before them.

“
Listen Declan, I need to tell you something,” she muttered, staring blankly at the three dimensional display, “I believe you and I may have… well… let’s just say that everything I’ve turned up appears to point to the fact that we seemed to like each other a lot –
Tami and Declan,
I mean. And truthfully, I guess I could see something like that being possible based my memory of you at the hospital that night. It’s just-”

“
Wait, was there some sort of soap opera love triangle going on?” he asked, half-jokingly.

“
No!” she turned to him, slapping his forearm, “Just stop interrupting and let me get it all out right now because this isn’t easy for me. What I’m saying is this: I spent a lot of time reading and re-reading those notes and instructions from you and me. And in some ways, I felt a bit of jealousy toward that girl – Sierra or Tami or whatever you’d call her. I also felt that I should wait for you.”

She turned away from Declan as he started to pace near one of the other lit up computer displays.

“
I know it sounds completely stupid, but these were the thought processes of a medical assistant who found herself abandoned in the 24
^th
century. Anyway, that loneliness I felt progressively became unbearable and I wasn’t able to wait for you. I found someone I cared about and we clicked in a way that… well, he was the first one I truly loved. When I say ‘I,’ I’m referring to this version of Tami Guzman – me. Basically, I’m married now, Declan,” she said, finally turning to him.

He stopped his pacing when he neared the holographic display. Then he turned to her unsure of how to respond to what he assumed was a confession of unfaithfulness in her eyes.

“
So, you feel that you betrayed me or something like that?” he asked, shaking his head, “I’m not that Declan who wrote those instructions to you and so far, I haven’t really even spoken to that Indentured version of you downstairs.”

“
I know,” she replied, “And I know you probably think I’m crazy, but I guess I was just hoping you’d tell me it’s okay. You know – that it’s okay I’m married.”

“
Of course,” he replied with a shrug, “Yeah, sure. I don’t mind.”