Starman

  ”Warning. Cryo-capsule system offline. Emergency release protocol initiated.”
  Trevor slowly opened his eyelids. His vision was blurred and out of focus, as if he was looking through water. He blinked, struggling to keep himself awake. His body felt light and warm. It felt so good. But he couldn’t sleep. He knew he could not sleep.
  “Warning. Cryo-capsule system offline. Emergency release protocol initiated.”
  Trevor looked around, trying to find out where he was. He seemed to be inside some kind of small room of some sorts. There were small air ducts all around him, and a strange kind of door in front of him. He couldn’t remember how he had ended up in such a place. In fact, when he thought about it, he couldn’t even remember who he was. But Trevor did not worry. His body was floating in a state of euphoria. It was such a blissful feeling.
  “Warning. Cryo-capsule system offline. Emergency release protocol initiated.”
  For the third time, a female voice emanating from somewhere behind the door repeated the same line. Perhaps a person was out there, someone who could tell him who he was? Trevor eyed a handle in front of him. He grasped it firmly, and it felt almost familiar in his hand. He instinctively pulled it towards him, and then dragged it slowly to the right. A wave of cold air hit him in the face as he suddenly lost all sense of balance and fell forwards, crashing into the ground.
  “Warning. Cryo-capsule system offline. Emergency release protocol initiated.”
  The voice was coming from somewhere to his right. Somewhere out of reach and sight. The hard steel floor felt alien to the touch. Strange. Cold. Trevor rose to his feet and surveyed his surroundings, his sight having returned to normal. He was standing in a small corridor, with several rooms behind locked doors like the one he had just escaped from. The corridor was illuminated by a bright red color. Only the low whirring of a machine in the distance disturbed the perfect, almost ominous silence that surrounded Trevor. To him it felt like the silence slowly suffocated him. He needed to move. Had to move. Had to find someone who could help him understand who and where he was. Trevor cautiously placed on foot in front of the other, steadily making his way towards the end of the corridor. He was confused, but never frightened.
  “Warning. Cryo-capsule system offline. Emergency release protocol initiated.”
  Again the disturbing sound of a female repeated that same line. Her voice felt weird and wrong, as if she was not human at all. There was definitely something wrong going on here, something out of place.  Trevor made his way to the end of the hall, finding yet another heavy metal door obstructing his path. He tried to pull the handle, but the door wouldn’t budge at all. Strange. He noticed something he recognized fastened to the right wall. A keypad. Entering the right number sequence would grant him access. He had no idea why he remembered that, but it did not matter. He entered a random string of numbers, hoping he would get lucky.
  “Incorrect password. Access denied.”
  Trevor jumped in surprise as the very same female voice he had heard several times announced that the numbers were not correctly entered. If only he could remember the sequence. Then the door would open for him. He tried again. Seven. Five. One. Three. Three. Nine. Beep. Beep. The keypad halted for a second, and Trevor braced himself to get scolded by the voice once again.
  “Incorrect password. Access denied.”
  Trevor did not want to lose faith just yet. He had to keep trying. Perhaps he would remember it if he kept trying. His fingers floated over the light blue pad, but the voice interrupted him just as he was about to try again.
  “Warning. System lockdown imminent. Please contact administration if you require access.”
  Trevor knew what it meant. For some strange reason. He had one more try before the door would get permanently shut to prevent those without permission to leave or enter the area. He retracted his hand. He had one more try. He knew he knew the numbers. His hand found its way back to the keypad. He closed his eyes and tried to summon the memory. There was something there, something hidden in the writhing darkness. Four. Five.
  He remembered something else. A vision of a lake appeared in his mind. He looked down at his feet. They were small, as if they belonged to a child. One. Two.
  His feet started moving. Started running towards the lake. And then he soared through the sky, his body felt light and free. Made contact with water. Cold and refreshing to the skin. He floated up to the surface, and lay there motionless as his eyes drifted away to the stars above. It was his childhood dream, to venture to the stars. To free himself from the Earth. Zero. Eight.
  “Access granted.”

  Trevor stepped into a large area mostly populated by computers and machines of various sizes. Their blinking lights and whirring growled from all around him as he stepped into their territory, a territory where a man like him did not feel the slightest welcome. Still, he braved himself into the den of the predators anyway, determined that the answers to his riddles were to be found here.
  “Warning. Cryo-capsule system offline. Emergency release protocol initiated.”
  The voice was so much closer now. It was here, but it couldn’t be from the woman herself as there was not a single person in sight. Trevor followed the voice to a large computer stationed up in the very back of the room. It looked important somehow, with a massive screen hanging above it. He let his instincts guide him again. In front of him were a large row of smaller screens, lights and keys. Keys. Another keypad.
  Trevor had barely touched it when the large screen above him burst into life, and the floating head of what looked like a woman appeared.
  “System locked. Voice authorization required,” the head said as she constantly kept eye contact with Trevor. He did not dare to look away. She knew he was there.
  “Um... h-hello?” Trevor managed to force out of his mouth, much too taken aback to say anything else. But surprisingly enough, the flying head granted him access.
  “Voice recognized as Commander Trevor Nightingale. Full access granted. Welcome, commander.”
  Trevor could hardly believe what he had just heard. Not only had this strange dismembered head given him a name, but had also claimed that he was some important military figure. It was a lot to swallow. But before he could continue down the tunnel of endless questions, he was abruptly brought back to reality by the computer.
  “Commander, the ship has taken large amounts of internal and external structural damage. Do you wish to view damage report?”
  The ship? They were on a ship? Trevor decided to try asking this seemingly intelligent machine his questions instead of keeping them inside.
  “Where is this place?” he started.
  “This is the control room,” she replied. Although her voice was completely void of emotions, she almost sounded annoyed.
  “No, I mean, you mention a... ship. What kind of ship? Where am I?”
  “You are aboard the spaceship Terra, housing the last survivors of the human race. We are currently approaching the planet Mars. Estimated time of arrival: 1 hour 39 minutes.”
  It was all coming back to Trevor. Small bits of memory that suddenly jumped back into place. While the puzzle inside him was far from complete, at least he had found some of the pieces. He would have to accept everything around him as reality and hope that they were actually part of the puzzle.
  Commander Trevor Nightingale. Aboard a spaceship. Floating in the sea of stars. It all sounded so crazy, so insane and fictional. Yet, he somehow knew it to be right, and he saw no reason why the machine would lie to him.
  “You said there are humans here? Where are they?” he asked.
  “Do you want me to run a heat signature check?”
  “Err... yes, please do.”
  “Scanning... 56 heat signatures found in the cargo bay.”
  “56? That’s all? I thought you said this ship was carrying the last survivors of the race. Are you telling me that’s all there is?”
  “Yes. The ship was originally carrying approximately 150,000 people, while designed to hold 145,000.”
  “Then why can you only detect 56?”
  “I do not know, Commander.”
  “Aren’t there any other way you can find out besides scanning?”
  “Video feeds are currently offline.”
  “Why? Why are they offline?”
  “You do not have access to view that information, Commander.”
  “Access? But you told me I had full access! Why can’t I view it?”
  “You do not have access to view that information, Commander.”
  Silence. Something was keeping Trevor from viewing information that he should have been able to access. It couldn’t have been the machine. The machine did not have a mind of its own, even though the eyes that were staring back at him at the large screen seemed almost mischievous and vile. But that was the way she had been designed.
  “How do I get to the cargo bay?” he asked, deciding to take matters into his own hands and investigate further. If there were people to be found, then the cargo bay was where he wanted to go.
  “Take the elevator down to G1, then use a transit wagon to reach section 8. From there you enter another elevator up to G2 then follow signs to the cargo bay.”
  Trevor had no idea what the numbers meant, or even what a transit wagon was supposed to be. Still, he noted down the information in the back of his mind and dared himself into the elevator nearby. Strangely enough, he actually remembered the concept of elevators. How they worked.
  There were only three buttons on the panel before him. G1, G3 and G5. He pressed the correct one. Giant steel doors slid shut and the small room hummed into life as it rapidly descended down into the depths below.

  A massive and dark corridor awaited Trevor as he stepped out of the elevator. Tracks ran down the dimly lit tunnel and disappeared into the dark. Somewhere in the distance he could hear the sound of low buzzing and whirring, more sounds of machines working at full capacity.
  By the several rows of tracks were small buttons mounted on steel poles. Trevor pressed the one closest to him and hoped for the best.
  “A transit wagon has been called. Please keep yourself behind the safety line before boarding. Estimated time left to arrival: 25 seconds,” a voice from the button announced to him. Out of the dark a transit wagon appeared on the track he had chosen for himself. It screeched as it activated its brakes when reaching Trevor, expertly ending up where it was supposed to before its doors slowly slid open to passengers.
  Trevor carefully stepped into the surprisingly spacey vehicle. A wide selection of metal seats patiently awaited the Commander’s arrival, and the uncomfortable-looking seating made him guess that the transport was made with efficiency in mind rather than comfort, which was probably correct.
  He found yet another panel made out of cold, gray steel that housed several buttons with labels printed above them. Finding the right one, the machinery sprung into life as he pressed it. The door slammed shut after a voice, yet again a female one, announced that the transit wagon was getting ready for departure, formally asking anyone in close proximity to move behind the yellow line.
  Slowly, the wagon rocked softly as it started on its journey, hovering above a dark chasm that seemed to span into the infinite. Trevor tried not to look down, or even think about that he was traversing across certain death in a small vehicle designed by man with only a thick cable above him keeping him from plummeting down below.
  Suddenly, the movement stopped abruptly. The wagon swung back and forth before coming to a complete halt. Trevor heard the screech of machines in the distance followed by rumbling. Then the lights disappeared and he was left in complete darkness. He swallowed. His heart was racing. He felt an immense fear. He was alone in the dark and he didn’t even know where he was. For the first time since his awakening he grasped the concept of being mortal once more. Still terrified, he tried to calm himself, tried to convince himself that panicking would not do him any good. All he could do was to wait.
  “Emergency power has been activated. Please contact technical administration for further questions.”
  Even when he was alone in complete silence and darkness, the voice did not surprise Trevor. He was starting to get used to them, even if they were immensely irritating.
  The dim yellow colors were replaced by a soft red. Trevor speculated as to why the emergency power had been turned on, but at the very least the transit wagon was moving once again.

  “Transit wagon approaching Section 8. Please stand behind the white line until the doors are open.” The wagon slowly lost speed as it closed in on the small platform sticking out of the dark tunnel he had been travelling down. The door slid open and Trevor could finally step onto solid ground once again, at the same time hoping he would never again set foot in such a dangerous contraption.
  A red warning light met the Commander when the elevator nearby opened its doors, but fortunately it was still very much functional. The routine felt almost natural to him now, almost nostalgic. He pressed the correct button as the heavy machinery sprang to life, determined to help this one man on his travel through the unknown. Or, more correctly, through the forgotten. 

  “G2,” the female synthetic voice chimed as the doors slowly parted ways to give Commander Trevor an unobstructed view of the scenery. But the first thing he noticed was not the sights, but rather a thick and suffocating smell that bore itself into his nostrils and made it hard for him to breathe normally. He stumbled dizzily into the cold hallway that was void of anything that could resemble a sound. The deadly silence was almost painful.
  Trevor navigated the endless labyrinths of hallways and smaller rooms with the help of signs at each intersection.  The paths were spacey, the white walls smeared with grime and dust, as if the place had been abandoned for days, maybe weeks. Trevor also noticed small, black holes scattered around randomly. He passed a multitude of doors on his path, but dared not enter any of them. Something inside him was afraid of what he could find in there, and the heavy smell that had followed him all the way from the elevator was not calming his fears one bit.
  The air had grown lighter when he finally reached a massive barricade of a door that was the only obstacle between him and the loading bay. The silence seemed even heavier here, standing before this leviathan of a construction.
  “Cargo bay has been sealed. Only authorized personnel are allowed entry,” said the same voice that had been tagging along ever since he was abruptly woken up from his slumber.
  “Commander Trevor Nightingale,” Trevor said instinctively to no one in particular. There was no panel in sight, nothing that gave away the source of the voice, still he somehow knew the magic words that would let him through. At least in theory.
  “Voiceprint confirmed. Welcome commander. Please hold. Error. No suit detected. Cargo bay hangar doors are currently sealed. For security reasons, you are required to wear a spacesuit before entering.”
  This scenario did not feel right to Trevor at all. Why would he need a suit to enter if there were survivors in there?
  “Where do I find such a suit?” Trevor was unsure if the voice was programmed to respond to inquiries, but he had to try anyway.
  “There are currently 12 suits in the changing room on the other side of the cargo bay. Follow the purple stripe on the floor,” responded the always-monotone voice.
  Trevor hadn’t even noticed the myriad of colored marks on the floor that served as guidelines to important waypoints. Apparently the purple one would lead him to the changing room – and a ticket into the cargo bay. Without any other real options to consider, he started on his way down the labyrinth of white walls again.

  It took Trevor a whole 16 minutes of walking before he finally reached the other end of the cargo bay. He could only imagine the size of the room he could not reach, which made him even more determined to get inside and uncover whatever was hidden in there.
  The stripe suddenly broke away from its straight line down the hall, disappearing under one of two metal doors marked “changing room”. Trevor was just about to open the door marked with a black caricature of a male character when his feet stopped. Between the echoes of his heavy boots bouncing down the endless hallways, he thought he heard something. A sound.  He held his breath. Tried to calm the rapid heartbeats that thundered loudly in his ears. Again he heard something. The sound was isolated and short, but it was definitely there, as if calling out for attention... or help. Trevor’s instincts guided him away from the changing room, back down the hallway he had just walked. There was a door on his immediate left, a door he had oddly enough ignored, a door marked “Storage Room, Cargo Bay”. Cargo Bay. Perhaps we would find clues in there that would help him uncover the main room’s secrets. Slowly he placed his hand on the handle. It was cold to the touch. There were no marks on it, possibly meaning no one had passed through recently. Trevor leaned close, pressed his ear against the door. Tried to listen. He could make out low thuds, small bursts of sound waves erupting from behind the obstacle that separated him from the room. The door was the only thing preventing him from alerting his presence to possible hostile sources. But he had to know. He had to make contact. It didn’t matter who they were. He slid the door backwards and stepped courageously inside.
 
  Trevor did not have enough time to search within himself for any expectations to what he would discover in the storage room, but he was pretty sure it wouldn’t even come close to what he actually saw. The brief silence that followed him through the door had been torn apart by a myriad of howls, growls, barks, bleats and squeaks. Animals.  At the left wall, among various crates and equipment , were large cages of different sizes and shapes housing various Earthen creatures. Words came to Trevor’s mind. Words he had forgotten – or had not cared for enough to try to remember. Cats. Cows. Wolves. Sheep. Horses. Squirrels. Dogs. Black Labradors to be more specific. He owned one as a child. Or at least he thought he did. His memories were still clouded and unclear. Nevertheless, the sound of organics other than himself was a welcoming change to Trevor, and it made him feel less lonely.
  What was even more interesting was that there was a glass pane in the very back of the storage room, one that was possibly connected to the cargo bay’s main hall, and it was unobstructed. He could make out something in there. Finally. He ran up to the window to observe, more than happy to know that he was getting closer to the answers he was seeking. Unfortunately for Commander Trevor, he was wrong.
  The cargo bay was monstrous in size, much larger than the confused man could ever have imagined. For the most part, it was completely empty. Except for the floating debris and corpses, of course. Littered in every part of the room were hundreds, if not over a thousand, of lifeless bodies of humans, dancing peacefully in zero gravity. On the far side of the cargo bay were visible holes in the hull of the ship, the stars drifting by slowly outside. Trevor sank to his knees. Had he been too late? Had the heat signatures died out while he was scurrying around the ship looking for clues? No... the computer said there were only 56 of them. But... where? A bark brought him back from the depths of his mind. Could it be? The computer had not specified what the heat originated from. Still, he could only hope his assumption was wrong.  He started counting the cages, one by one. 28 cages, all containing two animals of the same species. 56. 56 animals. 56 heat signatures. The feeling of intense loneliness crept back to him again, crushing him under the weight of false hope. There was nothing more to it, nowhere else to go.
  Minutes passed as he tried to work on a plan, anything that could help him motivate himself to carry on, but where would he go? What could he do? He could feel the quakes beneath him, but did not care enough to mind them.
  “Calling Commander Trevor. Please report to the bridge.”
  The bridge. There was something... something there in his mind that he vaguely remembered. Something of importance. Perhaps even something that could help him.  With newfound determination, he started on his way back to where it all started.

  “Welcome, Commander,” the synthetic voice chimed as Trevor exited the elevator, still a bit shaken after being forced to ride the transit wagon again.
  “Lady, I want to access my files,” Trevor said as he approached the panel underneath the large screen occupied by Lady’s head. The Commander had not even noticed that he had suddenly remembered the AI’s name. All that mattered were the files.
  “Certainly, Commander.”
  The face disappeared, replaced by a long list of named folders belonging to Trevor. He used the keyboard on the panel to scroll through the folders. Documents. Logs. Archives. Video feeds. Reports. Private files. He was certain that was the right one, but when he tried to access it, a new window popped up.
  “Please insert password.”
  Trevor tried a number of words that came to mind, but absolutely none of them were right. He cursed out loud for his incompetence. There were answers in there. He knew it.
  A sudden shake caused the Commander to lose balance and fall over. The files could wait for now. He was on a rapidly decreasing timer, one he could not ignore.
  “Warning. The ship has taken structural damage. Would you like to view damage report?”
  Lady’s female face popped up on the screen again to announce what had transpired.
  “Please do,” the Commander said.
  “Would you like the list sorted after priority or time?”
  “Uh... priority. And filter only major damages.”
  “Leaks in the fuel tanks have caused engines to go offline and we are currently on a crash course to Mars. Power failure has caused the automated turrets to go offline. Hull breaches in the cargo bay and the observation deck. Due to a power failure in the lower sections of the ship, the transit wagon is kept operational by emergency power.”
  “Crash course to Mars? Why are we headed there?”
  “Automatic navigation is set to land on Mars. Warning. Deceleration not possible. Please change course.”
  “How far away are we from the planet?”
  “Estimated time before reaching orbit: 4 minutes 36 seconds.”
  “Who set the course?”
  “You do not have access to view that information, Commander.”
  Trevor could not help but think how typical it was that he was always kept away from the information he actually needed, the information that mattered.
  “Can you turn off AutoNAV and switch to manual?”
  “You do not have access to do that, Commander.”
  When the AI said the two first words, it stirred a memory within the Commander. You do. Youdo. He was on the right path. Yodu. And just like that, the jigsaw pieces snapped into place.
  “Lady, I need to see my files again.”
  “Certainly, Commander.”
  Once again, the face disappeared to pave way for Trevor’s folders and files. Without delay, he found his way into his private files, once again hindered by the password prompt. Trevor moved his fingers across the keyboard to form the word “YODA”, which was the name of a character from his favorite movie, a movie so ancient that not many he knew had bothered to see it. Despite the age, it held a special place in his heart.
  The window disappeared, and the folder’s contents showed up on the screen. There was only one item in the folder: a file named STARMAN. Hopefully, the file contained what he needed to override the automatic controls and save the ship. For a brief moment he wondered why he would do such a thing, but he had no time to think. Time was slowly disappearing.
  He clicked the STARMAN file and waited for it to open.
  “Warning. Audio file currently banned for use. Do you still wish to play it?”
  “Please do,” Trevor said, curious as to why he was still able to play it despite its ban.
  “Opening file.”
  At first, there was only silence. Then there was the low and distinctive sound of a guitar. He recognized the pattern right away, a melody he had heard many times before. The chord of C, followed by a G, back to C, back to G.
  “Warning. Entering the orbit of Mars in 30 seconds. Deceleration not possible. Please change course.”
  Trevor was too focused on the music to pay attention to the AI’s warning. Not that it mattered anyway. A smooth voice faded in to signal the transition from intro to verse.

  “Didn’t know what time it was, the lights were low, oh , oh.
  I leaned back on my radio oh, oh, oh.
  Some cat was layin’ down some rock n’ roll, ‘lotta soul, he said.”

  Trevor found a nearby chair and closed his eyes so he could focus on the song properly. The memories were pouring into him, a sensation that was both pleasing and disturbing at the same time. But the music, the music remained as sweet and innocent as it had always been.

  “Then the loud sound did seem to fade, aye, ade.
Came back like a slow voice on a wave of phase, hay, hase.
That weren't no D.J., that was hazy cosmic jive.”

The walls thundered around the Commander. He heard shatters. Explosions. He rose to his feet and sang with the chorus as loud as he possibly could.

  “There's a starman waiting in the sky.
He'd like to come and meet us,
but he thinks he'd blow our minds.”