By my watch, I’ve been here a little more than two days. I don’t have any supplies. I only had a bottle of water with me, which is now empty, and I could really go for a cheeseburger right about now. Extra cheese, with bacon…A large poutine…At least air’s not a problem, I think. The sphere is about fourteen thousand cubic feet, so I’ll die of thirst long before the CO2 kills me.
If I’m right and I’m in the ocean—I’d most likely be in the Atlantic—there’s just no way anyone will find me here. I can probably last a few more days, but I’m having a hard time concentrating already, so if I’m gonna try anything, I think today’s the day. I wish I could just walk in any direction, but I can’t keep the balance on a flat surface without Kara. Plus I can’t see anything, so I’ll just end up throwing Themis flat on her face if I try moving.
I listened to the log I made that morning and I took some notes. I’ll walk you through them in case this doesn’t work. There’s a button on the top right of the console, looks like an “M” with a bar across. That’s what I started with—we hadn’t found any use for it and it looked…move-y—and all the sequences I tried were a combination of that, some numbers and “go.”
Rose thought we might try something like longitude and latitude, but Themis wasn’t made here, and it’s hard to imagine a two-coordinate system that would work like that on different planets. Even if you assume all planets rotate on a relatively stable axis, that’ll only give you a natural starting point for one of the coordinates, either a pole or the equator, but there’s no natural starting point perpendicular to that. Longitude is based on a completely random spot on the east–west axis. I don’t think the aliens we’re dealing with ever heard of Greenwich Mean Time.
If they were to use a two-coordinate system, it would make much more sense to use Themis herself as a reference point. Coordinates zero, zero would be where she is, and you could go from there. The problem then, if you used something like longitude and latitude, is that the numbers would mean different things depending on what planet you’re on. Longitude and latitude measure an angle from the center of the planet, so the distance on the surface for, say, one degree would be greater on a larger planet, a lot smaller on a tiny one. The bigger the planet, the less precise the navigation system would be.
There are other ways to imagine this. What I was really hoping for was a much simpler system. Just point Themis in the direction you want to go, punch in a distance, and that’s it. One number, not two. Wouldn’t be superprecise over long distances. You couldn’t jump from New York to—I don’t know—Paris in one shot. You couldn’t get the direction precisely right at such a distance, but you could jump the Atlantic, then just…hop from place to place and adjust the direction along the way. It had very little chance of working, but I thought it was more fun to search for something I knew I could use.
I started small and tried to make Themis move by a distance of one. I didn’t know one what, exactly, but I figured I’d probably end up somewhere on the empty lot in front of the hangar. So…I tried what I thought was the MOVE button, then 1, then GO. Nothing happened, of course. I tried in reverse, nope. Hold the MOVE button, one, then release. There aren’t that many ways to do this, and I think I tried them all. It occurred to me that it might just not work because teleporting yourself one unit might be stupid, like taking one step. I went crazy and tried with two. No good. I gave up on the simple solution after that and decided to try with two numbers instead of one.
I tried the numbers separated by GO, by a pause. At some point, I tried this: hold the MOVE button, press two, pause, two again, release. Nothing great happened but the console made a sound, like it does when we do something right. I did it again a few times. All I got was the sound. Then I got frustrated and my log is more or less useless after that. I hear myself screaming “two” a few times, then I’m here. In short, I don’t know what I did, but it starts with that sequence. I know I punched in at least four numbers, so either we’re dealing with a two-coordinate system and I’m an idiot for inserting pauses, or this is a crazy four-dimensional thing and I’m gonna die inside a rock, in space, four thousand years ago.
Anyway, I’m about to try to replicate what I did. I managed to wiggle Themis around so I’m facing in the opposite direction. With any luck, I’ll get frustrated the same way and end up right where I started.
Before I inadvertently blow myself up, I have a message for my wife…Kara, I love you. I’ve had two days to just sit and think about how crazy my life has been since they asked me to sign an NDA and go look at some panels in Chicago. I found myself feeling…grateful. Grateful Rose trusted me. Grateful we found this big-ass alien thing. But the thing I’m most thankful for is meeting this crazy, stubborn pilot with a chip on her shoulder. Kara, none of this would have been as much fun without you taking jabs at me every step of the way. I got to have my legs crushed, got turned into a T-800…We blew up an airport! I wish we hadn’t killed Rose, but it turned out OK, sorta. Hell, we got to wrestle with aliens! Who gets to do that? Anyway, if I don’t make it, please don’t feel like I was robbed of anything. I lived plenty. I had a blast.
I never got to tell you how sorry I was. I’m sorry I made you feel like you had to be something you weren’t. I’m sorry I made you…dim your light, when all I ever wanted was for it to burn brighter. That sounded good.
I want you to be happy. Find someone. You have my blessing if he’s not a dick…and not too good-looking. Don’t be too happy with him though, but…you know…be happy. Of course, if you can be happy without the guy. Just…I don’t know what I’m saying…I…I don’t want you to be miserable because of me. If I’m dead, I’m dead. You can’t hurt me. Do what you need to do. I won’t be looking down on you from the heavens. I doubt they take pretentious assholes with an accent, and you know how much I’m afraid of heights.
I guess that’s it. Oh! Almost forgot! If you find Themis and I’m dead, you might want to clean the floor right behind your station. Seriously, give it a good scrub.
OK. Here we go! Hold. Two. Two. Release. I love that sound. Two. Go. Nope.
Hold. Two. Two. Release. Two. Two. Go…Nope.