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  THE FIELD

  OF REALITY

  A D I T YA D E S H M U K H

  D A R K N E S S | D E S P A I R | V O I D

  Copyright © 2020 Aditya Deshmukh

  All rights reserved.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Cover design: Megan J. Parker-Squiers (Emcat Designs)

  To all those who seek meaning in this difficult world, and in their pursuit of a sense of calm, create something lasting from the deep, dark void stretching all around and inside us.

  Reality is subjective.

  The Godlith,

  In the Pluto Belt

  THERE ARE MOMENTS IN YOUR LIFE WHEN EVERYTHING STARTS FALLING APART. And you cannot help but wonder where you are, what you’re doing, why you’re doing. You always believed your life is sorted, but soon nothing would make sense anymore. And you’ll start losing it, puzzling over who’s pulling the strings. Does free will exist? How can one tell?

  If you cannot tell, does it matter?

  No, William Madden isn’t a philosopher.

  But at times like these, when you’re floating in zero g, feeling air and blood gush through a cut in your suit, watching the darkness of outer space leaking through the numerous holes in the hull, hearing that dreadful call of the void…at times when you’re dying, you sure feel like one.

  Madden’s eyes burn from his sweat crawling up his cheeks and into his eyes. “Anyone?” he whispers in the helmet. “Does anyone copy?”

  The Godlith accelerates and Madden is thrown to the rear end of his chamber. He remains stuck to the wall and watches the hull. From the holes in the punctured panels, Madden can see glimpses of the war. He cannot tell whose torpedo went where or which warship the missile nuked. It didn’t matter as long as it isn’t theirs.

  Madden unzips his utility pocket above his knee, just below his wound, and inserts his hand for the wrapper. He hates being in a suit. Even with the tactile sensors on the suit’s fingers, there is no real sense of touch. The movement feels robotic and clumsy. Instead of getting the needed tool out, Madden fears he would accidentally drive it through his thigh.

  The Godlith enters a temporary shadow region caused by a gigantic ball of debris, and decelerates. The drag disappears and Madden floats freely again. Looks like we are hiding.

  When the third attempt fails, Madden removes his hand from the pocket and lifts his knee. He winces as the jerk accelerates the blood waterfall oozing from his injury. As the crimson drops rise and coalesce in front of his helmet, Madden swallows.

  “You’re losing too much blood. Please seal the wound as soon as possible,” the Suit Assistant says in a comforting voice. “You will get through this.”

  Madden nods and wills his face away from the tiny body of blood floating towards the punctured wall, then escaping into the cold space, slowly turning into red flakes of death.

  He gets back to work. Covering the wound with one hand, he braces himself. With a few wriggles, the tools emerge from his utility pocket, one by one.

  He spots the wrapper—a thin sheet of metal with a pressure seal—floating among spanners, hex keys, adhesives, welding tapes, and a dozen different tools. Grunting, he reaches out with his hand and grabs it. He positions it just above the cut and watches the wrapper descend. As it seals itself on the wound, Madden bites his lips to keep from screaming.

  After examining the seal, Madden takes a couple of deep breaths until a warning pops up on his screen: oxygen levels low.

  “Great.”

  Madden switches on his comms. “Guys, does anyone copy?” he says to the screen embedded in the visor of his helmet. “This is serious. Please get back to me ASAP.”

  Madden stares at the screen for a minute. No response.

  He sighs. “I guess I’ll have to run low. Reduce my oxygen intake. Keep sending the emergency signal. Tell them my door is jammed, the wall is punctured, and I’m losing air. And I have—how long do I have?”

  “Considering the changes you requested, about four hours,” the Suit Assistant speaks in a soft, soothing voice.

  “Yeah, tell them two hours. Unless they’re busy with their own shit.” He pauses. “Four hours, huh. Well, I hadn’t had a nap in a long time.”

  “Yes, sir, I think you have earned it. Would you like some comforting music?”

  “Sure. Play some uh…I don’t know really. Um, yeah, play some, I don’t know, sea music? Just something that will remind me of home.”

  “Understood. Would you like to send a final message to your loved ones?”

  Madden’s lips curl into a sad smile. “I have none, thank you.” He clears his throat. “Just the music, please.”

  He starts to drift in his thoughts, but bullets dance on the hull again, snatching him back to reality. Some are deflected, some penetrate right through. Madden is again slammed into the rear wall as the Godlith reaches full acceleration in a matter of seconds.

  When something really scares Madden, his response is to not walk away, but confront it. I’m going to die, aren’t I? he asks the universe.

  Everything around Madden is anxiety-inducing. However, as the pleasant rhythm of gentle sea waves hit his ears, Madden accepts reality and eases inside his suffocating suit. He closes his eyes. He would go on his terms.

  He pictures Cap on a sunny beach on Mars, gazing upon the horizon, then turning to catch him staring. He blushes and looks away. But she smiles and gestures to him to join her. He gladly does, and cannot stop admiring how amazing Cap looks in a golden bikini.

  When Madden applied for an engineering job in the Martian forces, and consequently left the planet, he knew there was a chance he would never get to return. Most of his rookie days went in imagining all the ways he would die. On the next step of training, he got the opportunity to experience death. Many times. In simulations. Laser, missiles, torpedos, frostbite, radiation, collisions, he had experienced them all.

  At the end of every simulation, he woke up drenched in cold sweat, too afraid to scream. But now that it is happening for real, Madden remains surprisingly calm.

  Maybe it’s the Cap. None of the simulations portrayed that a kinder version of death was possible. If there is his gorgeous bikini-clad Cap in it—even if it’s just a dream—fear would be the last thing on his mind. He instead looked forward to this particular head-on collision.

  Madden’s memory is fading. Few minutes ago, he knew this was just a dream. Cap in a golden bikini? Yeah, can’t be real. But he isn’t so sure anymore. As his senses start drifting from the real world to this vivid dream experience, he realizes he can’t tell the two worlds apart.

  Was the war a dream?

  Is this real?

  If you cannot tell, does it matter?

  The Godlith,

  In the Pluto Belt

  THE SOOTHING SEA MUSIC IS REPLACED BY A HARSH ALARM.

  “Battery low. Battery low. Battery low.…" the Suit Assistant repeats in her ironically soothing voice.

  Not for the first time, Madden wonders what idiot designed this system. He summons the energy to whisper, but his mouth barely moves. The small movement is too much for his exhausted body. For the love of God, stop it!

  Madden blinks and stares hard. Empty space awaits him. No lights. No explosions. Only debris scattering around into the infinity. As red dry flakes of blood appear in his field of vision, a sudden wave of energy surges through him and he
kicks away from the punctured panel.

  The panel also rips from its truss members and flies away and disappears, leaving Madden before the gaping mouth of void.

  Madden’s eyes widen. A memory of his past self stirs up in his dying brain. As a child, the idea of zero g intrigued Madden. It was his life’s dream to spacewalk. Despite working here for nearly a month, he never got a chance.

  He glances at the screen. No messages. Tears well up in his eyes. Stretching his hand, he reaches for the empty space. I guess I’ll have that spacewalk before I go.

  As soon as his foot leaves the safety of the spaceship, every cell in his body rejects the idea.

  “Because of the blood loss and low oxygen, you’re losing consciousness,” the Suit Assistant explains in that soothing voice. It doesn’t sound comforting to him at all. It’s distorted and cold and empty. Like space.

  Now that the moment is here, Madden’s experiences in the simulations align with this nightmarish reality. Raw fear possesses him. It wakes his senses and pushes him back inside.

  “Help,” Madden whispers one last time.

  The sudden boost of energy fades. The blood loss dims his senses again. The shapes in front of his visor start losing contrast. The boundaries merge, things further dim, and the universe becomes an enormous amoeba.

  The Godlith,

  At the Fringes of the Solar System

  MADDEN YAWNS IN HIS MED-CHAIR. His injured leg is strapped in tight to a support. Two tubes penetrate his thighs. He sits up and rubs his eyes.

  “How you feeling?” Omar asks.

  Omar is wearing a black T-shirt and blue jeans. His smiling face means he is trying to look nice, but the ugly cut on his cheek, which goes from his chin all the way up to his hairline, throws some seriously spooky vibes.

  Madden is about to answer, but his throat takes some time to make intelligible sounds. By then, Omar gets all flustered up.

  “Look man, I’m really sorry. It was Cap’s order to lock you up.”

  Madden coughs hoarsely. “Lock me up?” he says, his jaw shuddering. “So the door didn’t move because it was jammed or something, but because you had me imprisoned?”

  “It’s not what it sounds like. Look, we will talk about it later. First tell me how’s your leg.”

  Madden doesn’t answer. He averts his eyes and looks around the medical bay. The place is a mess. The cabinets are open. Syringes, pills, fluid packs litter the floor. The lights keep flickering.

  Fortunately, there are no holes in the wall. And there’s 0.38 g!

  “Hey, I get it you’re angry. But we really didn’t know. I’m sorry, mate. We shouldn’t have locked you up like that.”

  Madden remains quiet. Omar places his hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

  Madden looks him in the eye. “I almost died, Omar. I almost died and no one would answer me.”

  Omar opens his mouth. The door slides open and Savitri walks in.

  She is wearing a white top and orange shorts. Her lips are red hot and a new unicorn tattoo adorns her left cheek. Her rainbow-colored hair, which she usually keeps shoulder-length, has exceeded this threshold by several inches. Madden thinks the new look suits her.

  “Oh, you’re awake!” Savitri smiles. “Perfect timing. I just came in to check on you. Hey, Omar, Cap wants you. Is he okay by the way? The ship needs his engineer.”

  “Oh, yeah, poke me, use me, then lock me up like a fucking prisoner…you know what? I don’t want to work. I’m going to take a nap. And I fucking deserve it. As many as I want,” Madden says, a bit frustrated and worried he wouldn’t see the golden-bikini-Cap dream again. Things like that—even in dreams—happen only once in a lifetime.

  “I didn’t mean it like that!” Savitri says, approaching him with furrowed brows. “It was just—"

  “It doesn’t matter. I want you out. Both of you.”

  “Stop acting like a child!” Omar says, no longer trying to look nice. “You don’t know the whole story.”

  “Well, enlighten me.”

  “Let’s first see Cap.”

  Madden nods. Savitri removes the tubes from his leg and band-aids the wound. Madden flexes his thigh. His leg should be as good as new in a few minutes. Omar helps him from the med-chair.

  He stands on his feet. After spending what seemed like his final hours in zero g, the Martian gravity almost feels like a reward. As soon as his feet connect with solid ground, he cannot help but grin.

  Madden’s eyes quickly dart between Omar and Savitri, who are busy disabling the med-chair. He’s glad they didn’t see him smile. Look angry. He reminds himself, but honestly, Madden cannot stay mad at his crew.

  In his first month, they never really got a chance to know each other, except for weekly Friday drinks, a Godlith tradition. But they are honest people, who care for each other, and are some of the kindest marines he has seen. They go out of their way to answer any emergency beacons, and take prisoners instead of shooting Earthlings on sight. Sure, they sometimes make fun of Madden’s civilian quirks, like his little garden in his chamber, or watching TV soap, but they respect the work he does. They also understand he’s an introvert who needs to be left alone from time to time for recharging.

  As the trio exits the medical bay, Savitri and Omar stop, blocking his path.

  “We are really sorry for what happened. And we will definitely talk about it. But please don’t mention it to Cap. We have a bigger problem.”

  “The war? I think we ran away, right?”

  “Yeah, bigger than that.”

  Savitri swivels and proceeds. Omar follows. Madden takes a moment to imagine, then hurries after them. They reach the central deck. After climbing a ladder, they emerge in the control room.

  Cap is seated in her chair, her hand on her forehead, her eyes on the screen, sad and distant. She is drumming her fingers on the dashboard. The thin lines on her forehead are more visible than usual.

  Madden has never seen Cap so tense.

  “Cap?” Omar calls out.

  Cap turns in their direction and smiles. “Madden, I’m so glad you’re okay!”

  Madden feels like returning the smile, but a small voice in his brain wants him to demand an explanation.

  “I’m sorry. I truly am. I wish we could have done things differently.”

  Madden takes a moment to gather words. His eyes sweep between Omar and Savitri, and both nod at him to accept the apology.

  The small voice wins.

  “With all due respect, Cap, you could have done things differently by not locking me up or by rescuing me on my first emergency signal, not what could very well be my last.”

  “Madden, the—"

  Captain raises her hand. She rises from her seat. “He has every right to be angry. And so am I. At myself. At how things turned up. He deserves an explanation.”

  Madden wants to say something diplomatic like he was sure they had a good reason, or something like that. He respects Cap. He also has a weird crush on her. But all that comes out is a puff of rage. “Then explain.”

  Cap locks her eyes with him. “We had intel that you’re a traitor. That you had connections with Earth.”

  Madden screws his face. “What the fuck?”

  “Yeah, I was ordered to space you.”

  Madden shudders. Glimpses of him in the open airlock, without a suit, freezing in the cold vacuum, flash in his mind. He shakes his head and narrows his eyes.

  “So that’s why you sent me there to inspect the electronics. And while I was working my ass off in that zero g, which by the way I hate, you locked me up and discussed what to do with me? After all I have done, Cap? You doubt my loyalty?

  “Yeah, my grandparents come from Earth, but I’m not Earthborn. I’m a Martian!” He pauses. “Why do you doubt me? Is it because I choose not to assist you with all the weapon stuff? It’s not that I don’t know where I belong. It’s just that I simply can’t. You’re raised to be soldiers. Me? I’m an engineer. I build things, not destr
oy things.”

  “No one is doubting your loyalty,” Cap says.

  “Yeah, I know it’s just been a month and we don’t really know each other.” Savitri nudges him. “But we wouldn’t be here without you always running around trying to fix the ship.”

  “You must understand that it’s my responsibility to ensure the safety of my crew. If I were given legit information, including your criminal history, I would have spaced you,” Cap says, maintaining a neutral tone. “But given the lack of intel, and our trust in you, we decided it would be best to keep you somewhere safe till the authorities came or till we got more intel. If they failed to provide proper information, we would tell them we already spaced you. We also jammed your comms so no one would be able to contact you. We knew even we wouldn’t be able to hear anything from you, but it was a risk I had to take. I’m sorry for what happened. But honestly, we had no time to come up with a better plan.” Cap nods at him. “You’re one of us now. I have your back.”

  Those bullets did almost have my back. Madden doesn’t know what to say. He is still mad at them for not talking this through with him, but he also understands how things like these work. There’s never enough time. If he was told Mars considers him a traitor, he would have lost his shit right then and by the time he would calm down, the authorities would already be here.

  “So, what happened next? I’m still in trouble?”

  “The message turned out to be a hoax. A pretty smart plan, actually. The same message also had something that blocked us out of our own weapon systems. We couldn’t attack, just run. And not just us, nearly half of all Martian ships, all those who were jumpy and entered that comms channel without verifying the code. Then, for Earth, it was just a child’s game.” Cap sighs. “It’s a miracle we survived.”

  “Miracle?” Savitri giggles. “Cap flew us out of there at an insane speed, dodging the missiles, going past the debris and the asteroids…it was a hell of a ride.”