Things were different. They were always different. When she came into that room, she always got a different reaction. Tends to happen when you have the weight of the world on your shoulders for more than one reason. Still, it was strange for them to all look at her in such uniformity. She didn't understand what was so different about today. They all had different looks to her based on the mission but they never looked like this.
As she reached the desk and typed her username and password onto the computer as the guard stood there and made sure that she did it, she noticed them still staring. That was unnerving. She pushed enter as she keyed the last character on her password and it and nothing came up. Not even an error message. That couldn't be right. She got permission from the guard to log off and do it again as he mechanically set it for another shot for today. Still there was nothing on that computer for her. She called him over again as she showed him the screen. He'd never seen such a thing. “Don't move.” He ordered strangely, but she knew better than to argue with a guard in this room. She'd heard about people who had done that, but no one ever saw them again.
He went over to the side of the room and went out of the door and as it whooshed behind him, it locked again. She sat with her posture stick straight in the chair and awaited his return. They were still staring at her from the high windows. She looked at them back. And now that she looked at them, she was curious. It seemed like there was bigger group than normal.
She'd never seen them gather like this so soon in the year. She wasn't anything special. She couldn't figure out what it was though that was going on. They blinked a couple of times as they noticed that she was staring back at them and they scribbled down a few notes and conferred with each other. This type of behavior was new to her. She wanted to see what it meant but that would require the capabilities of her way more modern technology and even then it was possible that she couldn't find anything. The tribunals were a strange lot that often were misrepresented in the scheme of things. They even sometimes had to have demonstrations to show that some of the information was bogus. It was just kind of routine sometimes. In recent history, a Tribunal had to show the skin of their arms to show people that they weren't different colors.
The guard came back and the door opened suddenly much to the surprise of myself and the Tribunal who turned around quickly and were now more talkative than ever. “They want to see you.” Well, the guard certainly didn't mince words she thought. Wait...who? Who wanted to see her?
So she asked the question. “Who wants to see me?” She looked back at the Tribunal, two members were exchanging glances at her occasionally and then talked in the middle of everything. She looked back at the guard and then looked back at the Tribunal and the guard looked almost sympathetic to her. She didn't even know what was coming to her, but she wasn't allowed to know. Not until she was in there and even then often times, they still didn't know what they were in for.
“You can't know. The matter is of the strictest confidentiality.” The guard told her. He led her to the other side of the room where there was another door. No one she knew ever knew what the other door was for. She figured that she was about to find out.
The guard didn't follow her into the door. He just keyed in the code and told her to go in. The tech on her wrist went back on and she excitedly looked at that little thing and started to key in the words that she needed. She typed it to the only person she could think of, her best friend for years, Quake. It was never understood why Quake had that name, but it seemed to fit. “What is going on?” Is all the message with ironically optimistic signature: to be faced with mystery is like a priceless work of art, breathtaking and unspoken for, but ultimately like looking into the face of God, you never know what you're going to get.
She was prompted to keep going though. She would just have to hope that Quake would be able to explain something of the mystery that was going on. It wasn't Quake's turn to log on to the computer so Quake should respond fairly quickly. Hopefully not deterred by that stupid signature. She thought about it more and more and she found it more and more stupid. Why would she put something like that on her text messages? It just seemed really dumb. Even for her and Quake.
She came to a wall and looked at it. There were no members of the Tribunal looking around her right here. There weren't any windows at this vantage point that they could see her through. She hadn't seen anything mysterious. But she was at a dead end. There was nowhere else to go and no one to prompt her on what to do. What was this place? Why did no one tell her about this? She still didn't know what the hell was going on and right now it was freaking her out. Her comm beeped. She looked at it hurriedly, afraid that something was going to prompt her to do something, although it hadn't yet. She looked at who it was. The little from line had Quake's name. Thank God. “Your signature has more significance than you think. Stay strong and be brave. You're gonna do great. You just have to remember to push yourself to do whatever you can to come back.”
There it was. That was all Quake had to say and that was nothing. That didn't mean anything to her. She put her hand on the wall as she stared at the message on her wrist, that really didn't tell her anything. She was trapped in a white room and all Quake had to say was push? She took that hand on the wall and squeezed it into a fist and pounded on the wall. She was alone. And soon enough, just like in the other room, she knew that she would have no contact with the outside world. Honestly, she was amazed that she got that message from Q. Nothing happened. No Tribunal, no guard, and no Q helping her made her realize that she was alone.
Nothing helped. She tried pushing at the wall, kicking it, punching it, smacking it, even stroking it. Absolutely none of it made a bit of a difference. Was this how they kept the food always in stock for the population? By just kind of locking people up with no food till they went mad and died of something, most likely starvation? Could her own people, known to be pacifists, be that cruel? And then she thought of the guard and the armor that he wore everyday. Didn't seem like something a pacifist would wear. No, something was definitely up and it was definitely up with this room. She almost wondered if she could get Quake on video chat. She looked at her wrist. She didn't know. Maybe, it was worth a shot, but it would be Quake's turn to log in soon and you couldn't be late to that. With the exception that an Offical of one of the many High Councils excused you or one the Tribunal members stood in your favor. Either of those events being likely to happen for Quake for talking to a friend on video chat and being late? Not very likely.
And then she slumped against the wall. She tried not to think about what was gong on, but she had an awful time pulling it together. This was not something she was prepared for even though Quake seemed to think so. And she did the only thing she could think of. She screamed, just to let the emotion out. It was supposed to be therapeutic. At least that was what Dr. Casmira said. And then just like that, she fell into a space that was not the room she was in before.
There were bright colors that she had only seen in pictures before, on the walls. No one ever got to be this bold. The color of walls was regulated by a high council who also assigned living spaces to people. And then on the other side of the room, there was her name. And what should have been on the computer. But why did she have to come all the way over here to get this? She didn't understand why it just wasn't on the computer. She got closer to see it. To really take in what was happening. There had to be something important about this room to her task, otherwise she wouldn't be here. There would be no point and if there is one thing that the Tribunal and the High Councils loved it was that everything needed to have a point. She got just close enough to see that her name was written in the standard form. She also noticed that there wasn't like an actual screen. Instead it seemed rather like a projection. And there was no furniture. She'd been so busy staring at the magnificent color on the walls that she hadn't noticed what was missing right in front of her.
She looked around. There were no windows and no other ways out that she could see, although she knew from experience now, that you didn't always see the exit on first glance or even the second. So she went up to her name, with her chest practically on the wall and touched it. Touched the wall and her name.
A little hologram popped up. “Adalia, welcome. You have been summoned by the Tribunal to discuss your future. The door will open in a moment, but is there anything you would like to know?” The thing said with perfect articulation as if it actually was a real person with a real jaw and those were real words coming out of its mouth. It was just so incredibly strange. The hologram just stood there and smiled like Adalia assumed she did most of her computer generated life. That wasn't a comforting thought. It was actually rather creepy, the further she thought about it.
“Why does no one tell us about this? What's this whole part even for?” Seemed like easy enough questions for the hologram to answer and probably things that she had been asked before by others. Wouldn't be so weird. Maybe she would even get some answers and maybe Quake's message would make more sense. Because even through all this, that whole quote meant nothing to her. She just thought it seemed pretty.
“There are people who are not ready to face what lies ahead. The first rooms are a testament to that. Those who get here are faced where only the elite are selected. Why is a question that you are not permitted to hear the answer to. If you are done with your questions, the door will open, are you done with your questions?” The hologram asked. She said it all very calmly like they weren't gambling on people's lives or something. Wasn't her fault, she was just made that way, Adalia had to remind herself. All machines are fallable to the err of humans. The hologram showed that. It showed its master's bias very clearly on the outside of things.
This may be the only time to get answers to her questions, she needed to make sure that they were all answered though before saying anything else. “No, I'm not done, what awaits me after the door opens?”
“I do not know. Are you done with your questions?” Well, that was never good. People generally reported the good things pretty much without complaint. It was very easy to get good news. Bad news took longer was way more devastating normally. And it all starts out with “I don't know” each and every time. Adalia knew that. She wasn't dumb like some suspected that she might be. She was actually quite resourceful when it would come to the worst. But it hadn't been the worst in a long time and she had never found the need to be resourceful again.
Adalia sighed. It wasn't going to get any easier waiting around here. “Yeah, I guess I am.” And the door whooshed open and the room was open with large windows on this side. And like she figured, the Tribunal was standing in the windows.
She took a breath and stepped into the room, remembering those beautiful colors on the walls and ready to face whatever came of this. Whatever it was, Quake told her what she needed to hear. She had to be ready to look into the face of God. There was a reason that this was never talked about. That signature held a darker meaning here than it did on her texts, but she was ready. This could be the last of many things, but she wanted so desperately to make sure that it wasn't her last breath. She wanted to make sure it wasn't the last time she saw her family and friends. And most of all, she just wanted it not to be the last time she had her sanity at hand.
The Tribunal looked at her as she walked toward the other side of the room. This dead end business was really getting annoying especially when she could see that there was something on the other side. Not like through the wall or anything, but she saw some of the Tribunal members come from behind the wall. Obviously there was something on the other side.
“If you want me to do what you want, you're going to have to put me in the situation that requires me to do it.” Adalia said very simply. They all looked at her like she had something magical. At this point they were furiously scribbling notes and the door opened while they were. No one cared about her. They had done this everyday since she could remember. Only it wasn't in a strange room that had no door, but a strange room that had two doors and a computer in it. They didn't care about you. All they cared about was some mysterious lore that they were writing as they were observing you. You were nothing but a username and password to them. Everyone was anonymous in the eyes of the tribunal. Only that idea didn't give the power to those were anonymous, it stripped them of it.
Taking the next step was hard. The room had a desk with a man behind it, and a chair that was unfilled. She looked around curiously and nothing quite seemed right. This wasn't the sensory overload or deprivation she had been going through. It all felt strangely normal and that didn't seem like a good sign. “Welcome”
“Why am I here? Where is here?” Adalia asked. She couldn't figure out what things were housed with the next obstacle. There were many things that she knew that she wasn't accustomed to in this place, because this was far away from home, even though it geographically, it may not have been very far at all. This whole business was rather frightening but she couldn't let that show on her face. That was ingrained from birth. You only got happier with a smile and if you were happy you should wear that smile at all times. He just motioned for me to sit down and that took me from my thoughts and I sat down kind of helplessly. He didn't look at me for a couple of moments, getting some more paperwork done. Paper. That was strange. People didn't normally use paper except for in school. It showed someone how to use their hands when they wrote with pens on paper. Adalia felt kind of strange just sitting there, so she repeated her questions with the faintest bit of what could be considered urgency “Why am I here? Where is here?”
He looked up at her as if she were dull. “You are here because you are special and you are ready. And here is where we get you to help us.” He said, looking back to the paperwork in front of him. It sure seemed like he wasn't having a hard time with it. Older people often didn't get the concept of the pen and paper as they had in their youth, yet this man seemed to understand it with perfect skill.
“How and what am I to help you with?” She asked, suspiciously. This still was all a big mystery to her. A chance to behold the face of God. A creature of the old world. Maybe even this man was something from the time, though the age of his skin said differently. She looked at her own hands and her own body and was interested in what was going on with her skin. If only it had a voice to tell her what was going on, although, that might have been horrible. There were nights when it was enough to have her own voice in the room. She knew it was all for good measure though. People were to live in separate rooms unless they were pair bonded or caring for a child till the child was old enough to sleep in a room by itself which was regulated by a council by birth year and such.
“You help by going back to the world and we'll send a mass comm through the entire human race, at least the one with tech on their wrists like you, with your signature. It's the key to universe.”
Adalia looked at the little tech on her wrists and thought about her signature again. She didn't get it. That didn't mean anything. It was just something pretty that she had picked up from a book of old times that had long since passed. The old times had ended terribly which is why they ended up with tech on their arms now, to make sure that something like this didn't happen again. “I don't understand. My signature isn't very interesting. It's just a quote from an old book 'to be faced with mystery is like a priceless work of art, breathtaking and unspoken for, but ultimately like looking into the face of God, you never know what you're going to get.' Frankly, it doesn't even make that much sense, but it was happy enough.” She shrugged.
“Young lady, the fascinating part of that signature isn't the words. It's that they are from an old book. Don't you see? No one else would ever in their right mind do that and you did it without even thinking. Which means you've got an evolutionary link that we've been missing and we've figured it out through you doing your tasks everyday.”
Trying to process the information, Adalia looked at him and stared for a moment. There was something about her signature and the way she picked it that was a genetic link to something. She didn't understand all the fancy words. What she did understand was what they were doing. They had hooked the computer to tell her to do things that might isolate that one thing they needed. The one thing that made her special. “So can I tell people about this? About what I saw? I still don't get why people don't tell about this place.” She said looking around. The Tribunal were still standing there and looking at them both. They never did any looking unless it was with a purpose, to jot down some notes or to whisper to one another. “Why are they just looking at us? I mean none of them have notepads or anything.”
“Is that agreement to do this on your part?” He asked with an eyebrow raising up and looking hopeful. “And they are just looking at us, because they want to get out of there just as much as anyone wants to get in there. You're the key to doing that.”
“Yes, I'll do it, but I still want to know if I can tell people about this. About what I saw.” She puzzled on the second part of his notion. He couldn't really mean what she thought he was saying. There was absolutely no way. There just could not be. “I thought the Tribunals and the High Councils liked the world the way it is right now. You mean they're just as trapped as the rest of us to that damned computer? The one that you somehow managed to hijack?!” I don't know why I got that upset that he hadn't done anything for High Powers. It's not like they did anything special for us. Still, it just didn't seem right.
He sighed. “There's no law permitting against people telling about this place, but no one has ever really survived long enough if they got through everything to tell anyone. But you will. You aren't bound by the same rules that everyone else is. And soon everyone else will have that link.” He said, pushing me back from where I came but also coming with me. And the feet above us scurried to many places, just trying to catch a glimpse of us. And he knew that he still had some explaining to do.
We stepped back into the computer room and there was no one there. I didn't know what kind of intervals they came to bring people to the computer. I only knew mine and Quake's which was nowhere close to mine. So we carried on. He put the little message into my comm and started fiddling with the recipients, finally pulling something out of his pocket and aiming it towards my wrist and pressing a button. I was prepared for my wrist to exploded, but nothing happened. Then he told me to click the send button. Turning back officially wasn't an option anymore. Still, we walked a little while and found a bench. I sat and silently begged him to tell me the rest of my answers.
“We've been trapped in this world by the past for ages. We've wanted to change things for so long, but we couldn't figure out how to do it and then you showed up. And you were young enough that it wouldn't seem to the computer that we were doing anything weird. We just typed in commands that it would recognize for you. There was no one else we could have hijacked that computer for. Only you.”
Slowly people came around. Everything seemed different. Everything seemed better. The computer, an ancient piece of controlling technology was no longer our master, but we could instead learn to make our world as we saw fit. I only hoped that world came with a few decent ideas. Because even though our world wasn't perfect, we knew it and accepted it. Who knows what being freed from all that might be like? And then I thought of the signature. The thing that made this life possible. “to be faced with mystery is like a priceless work of art, breathtaking and unspoken for, but ultimately like looking into the face of God, you never know what you're going to get.” And I couldn't help but feel hopeful. That mystery had gotten us through tyranny, maybe it would get us through freedom too. I joined Quake and smiled. “Thank you,” I said.
“For what?” Quake asked, confused.
I laughed. Quake really hadn't known what they did to inspire this whole thing. They probably forgot about the text that they sent earlier. But it didn't matter. I didn't have to tell people about what I had gone through to get this all. “For the mystery.”
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