Displacement Zero - A Character-Focused SciFi Novel

Aurelie and DesUas sat in the hard plastic chairs and did their best not to stare at their feet. Aurelie felt like a naughty child again, being reprimanded for acting out

Actually, that’s exactly what was happening, except now she was a naughty adult.

“Aurelie, please come in,” said the receptionist, a tiny, stick like creature with acrylic nails attached to only one of their two sets of hands. “DesUas, you may return to your office and begin processing the Dinerburg. Please dispose of your waste receptacle of vomit on your way out.”

DesUas climbed to her feet, mouthed what Aurelie could only assume was good luck (translation headsets didn’t work with that sort of thing) and left out one door. Aurelie got up, and headed through the other, marked H13 on the frosted glass.

AURELIE read the screen in front of her, next to her boss’s boss. I’M SURE YOU’RE UNDER NO ILLUSIONS AS TO WHY WE HAVE CALLED YOU IN TODAY.

She blinked, looking around the room for another individual. When she didn’t see anyone, she swallowed, and turned her gaze back to H13.

“Yes, because you think we were stream jumping. But we weren’t! We were-“

DETOURING PAST A UNIVERSE IN ORDER TO GATHER INFORMATION ON YOUR DISPLACEMENT NUMBER. WE KNOW. I SUGGEST YOU HAVE A SEAT.

She grabbed the only chair in the room, which had the approximate surface texture of unfinished concrete with a heft to match, and slid into it when she failed to fully pull it out from against the desk. It was difficult to keep her eyes from darting, as she wasn’t sure where to look. The switching between singular and plural first person pronouns was throwing her off more than she cared to admit.

Being reprimanded by your superior was one thing, but being scolded by a sentient hydrogen cloud was entirely too much.

H13 was so named because it consisted of approximately 13 moles worth of hydrogen atoms, clumped into pea sized grains that swirled rapidly around a central intelligence hub. Aurelie did not understand H13- she did not know where it derived its energy, what aspect of it was the thinking, conscious bit, how it was hooked up to its computer screen, or whether it was capable of sensing external stimulus.

Unfortunately, querying different races about their physiology was incredibly faux pas, and from Aurelie’s quick attempts to research it H13 seemed to be unique throughout the known universes; so, she had no way of learning how a sentient cloud of roughly 13 moles worth of hydrogen atoms came to be working at the Bureau of Space Time Management.

Let alone how it had been promoted to a middle management.

AURELIE, DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE SEVERITY OF YOUR ACTIONS?

“No, not really? I didn’t do anything, or affect anything- we were just in orbit for, what, 140 seconds? How is that severe?”

YOU DISOBEYED A DIRECT ORDER TO NOT TRAVEL TO HOMINUS G. IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT YOU DID THERE, BUT THAT YOU WENT THERE AT ALL.

“But-“ Aurelie paused and composed herself; she didn’t want to sound like a petulant child, and she didn’t want to argue herself into more trouble, even if this entire thing was ridiculous. “I understand, and I’m sorry. However, I don’t believe management understands the severity of what this is for me. Finding displacement zero is incredibly important to Humans. You could say we have a…” She forced a smile around gritted teeth that probably looked more like a grimace. “An obsession with the narrative of it.”

I’M PERFECTLY AWARE OF THIS. HOWEVER, CULTURAL DIFFERENCES ASIDE, YOU PUT YOUR OWN WANTS AND DESIRES ABOVE THE NEEDS OF THE ORGANISATION.

“Your hydrogency-“

PERHAPS IF THE TIMING WERE DIFFERENT AND THE UNIVERSE WERE DIFFERENT THEN THE SITUATION ITSELF WOULD ALSO BE DIFFERENT.

“I’m not going to ruin the universe-“

HOWEVER, WITH THIS UNIVERSE GOING IN FOR MAINTENANCE AND THE DIFFICULTY OF COORDINATING THE EVACUATION OF THE ENTIRETY OF THE SC, IN ADDITION TO THE SENSITIVE NATURE OF HOMINUS G-

“I’m a trained agent, I’m good at my job-“

I HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO REVOKE YOUR ACCESS TO THE SPACE-TIME MACHINES AND ASSIGN YOU TO DESK DUTY FOR THE FORSEEABLE FUTURE. AS I SPEAK, DESUAS IS RECEIVING NOTIFICATION THAT THE SAME RESTRICTIONS HAVE BEEN APPLIED TO HER, DUE TO HER PARTICIPATON IN YOUR UNSANCTIONED ESCAPADE.

“DesUas didn’t do anything, it was all on me-“

YES, DESUAS DIDN’T DO ANYTHING, INCLUDING STOP YOU. PLEASE RETURN TO YOUR OFFICE AND CONSIDER YOUR ACTIONS AND THE CONSEQUENCES THEY HAVE HAD ON THOSE AROUND YOU. IF THERE IS NOTHING ELSE, I HAVE WORK I NEED TO RETURN TO AND YOU’RE GETTING BLOOD ON THE CARPET.

“No, now wait, you have to understand what this means to me, we can’t be done-“

GOODBYE AURELIE.

Though the hydrogen cloud did not change position, the screen powered down. Aurelie looked between it and her boss’ boss; then sighed, pushed herself to her feet, and left the office.

She made it two corridors before kicking over a waste receptacle and letting loose a stream of curses.

Now what was she going to do?

***

Aurelie couldn’t face going back to her office- not just yet. She didn’t want to see her coworkers and explain that essentially her last chance of getting home had vanished. Nor did she want to have to face DesUas after the Aredbyne had been penalised for Aurelie’s actions. Instead, she ducked into a small supply closet, found an upturned bucket to sit on and pulled out her handheld screen.

Humans’ original planet she searched, wanting to know anything, everything, about that blue and green marble that they had soared above. The Complete History of Earth was one of the results suggested for her. Checking origination of the source, she saw it was from Hominus G, and dated just a few hundred years before the universe imploded.

“Okay, let’s find out about Earth,” she murmured, and settled down to read.

As it turned out, Earth was amazing.

In terms of structure and layout, it was unusual to say the least, with the single near moon, the tilted axis, the protection from collision afforded to it by larger planets further out in the solar system. She read through early blue-green algae, trilobytes, the Cambrian explosion, Earth’s inhabitants evolving to walk on land- oh, Dinosaurs were from Earth it turned out.

Thanks to Space-Time Machines, there was video footage of ancient volcanic eruptions, and a herd of parasaurolophus calling to each other, and early Humans that hadn’t yet learnt to talk foraging for brightly coloured fruit, and someone called Tsai Ing-Wen making a speech in front of a roaring crowd of more Humans than she’d ever seen in one place, and, and...

The jungles were incredible, filled with rainbow birds and lizards and flowers. The icy tundras were incredible, windswept and beautiful. The oceans were incredible, filled with schools of fish and mammals that were-holy moly that’s a big mammal.

And the food. Oh man, the food. As Aurelie scrolled through photo after photo of rainbow food, things called sweet potatoes and cranberries, pineapples, purple carrots, pistachios, avocados, coconuts, plums, her stomach started to growl. Primitive Humans had eaten other animals, but at some point they’d evolved past that, and looking at the dishes that were being presented, videos of families sharing a half dozen plates, Aurelie figured out why she could barely keep her weight up.

Because damn, if that was the food Humans were meant to be eating, then no wonder 23 years of choking down spaghetti had left her so disillusioned.

But she kept reading, and the notes moved beyond foods to cultures, and she gawked at the clothing that Humans used to wear- bright, flamboyant robes and headdresses, Humans dripping in gold and silver and platinum, adorned with various crystals, painted red, who had permanently injected ink into their skin or mutilated themselves so that the raised scars showed a pattern. They were pierced with wood or bone or metal or clay, in the ears and their noses and their lips, eyebrows and nipples and… oh dear.

And then she read about the wars the Humans had created, first on foot or horseback, then in huge armoured vehicles, and when they had created remote systems through attacks with unmanned flying devices. Wars fought without soldiers, where the only casualties seemed to be buildings and civilians.

Aurelie searched up the word ‘genocide’ and wished she hadn’t.

But it got worse.

Because for some reason they had decided to split the atom and then stick that into weapons, things called nuclear bombs and warheads and missiles, photo after photo of debris clouds shaped like fungus and deformed Humans from the side effects of the radioactive fallout.

The table of contents listed five world wars. The last one was why the Humans had to leave Earth, their home, entirely. The entire planet was coated in a thick layer of ash and smoke and the very air was nuclear: it became clear that life wasn’t sustainable, at least not for a few dozen millennia. Manned space travel was already a thing, and there were Human colonies on their moon and the nearest planet, but with the invention of cryogenics they started migrating. Outwards, ever outwards, and as far as the source was aware they’d never returned home.

Aurelie leaned back against the cool plaster of the darkened storage closet, and closed her eyes, and tried to reconcile everything.

Tried to imagine the beautiful bright clothing and fruit and coloured dye that they would throw at each other giving way to slate grey nuclear winter.

Tried to imagine sitting on a space shuttle and watching the glowing blue orb shrink away to nothing.

Wondered if the children and grandchildren of the people who had fled had the same burning desire she had, to find a home they’d never even been to. If that’s why they kept expanding.

The door of the utility room opened, snapping Aurelie out of her reverie.

“Oh my gosh. Aurelie? What happened?” Cora blinked down at Aurelie in open shock. Aurelie blinked back up, then managed a weak smile. She had managed to forget about her bloody hands, her aching everything, and the fact that she was still mud-splattered and probably coming up in bruises.

“Hey. Um. Hi. Yeah. Imma- I’m going to leave.” Scrambling to her feet, Aurelie made to push past the shorter girl, but Cora grabbed her arm.

“Are you alright?”

“What, yeah, I’m totally fine, why are you even asking?”

Someone watching might wince from second-hand embarrassment, but it was normal: this was how Aurelie always acted around Cora.

“Because you look like you’ve been attacked. And you’re crying.”

“Firstly, because I was attacked, but secondly, um, no I’m not.” Cora raised an eyebrow. Aurelie reached a hand to her face and was shocked when it came away wet with tears. Damn. How did that happen?

“Was the attack to do with your assignment?” Aurelie nodded. “But you’re crying because of your displacement number?”

“How do know about that?” Cora returned her eyebrow to normal resting position just so that she could immediately raise it again. Aurelie felt the heat of a blush begin to spread across the back of her neck, and she prayed it wouldn’t reach her face.

“Everyone knows about it. The Chitinous Farers are terrible gossips, as is Alvedo. He told me all about it when we got lunch earlier.”

“Oh.”

There was a long silence.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Cora asked finally. Aurelie sighed, and pushed her hair back from her face, wincing as the movement broke the scabs. From the feel of it, there was a new smear of blood on her forehead.

“I wouldn’t know where to start. I wouldn’t know what to say. I-“ she swallowed, to stop her voice from breaking. “I should probably get back to work. I’ve been in this closet too long.” She moved to leave again, but Cora didn’t retract her hand.

“Aurelie. It’s not good to keep things bottled up. You’re a Human, you need to talk about your problems. You can’t suppress everything.” Cora’s eyes were kind, and Aurelie’s heart hurt. She wanted everything to stop being so difficult. Why was everything always so difficult? She shook her arm free.

“Yeah, but it’s like you said. I barely even know how to be a Human.”