The blurred ring that had just closed in on Oskar- faster than a blink- brought with it an overload of useless information in an impossible jumble. It didn’t physically hurt, but he was forced to sweep the information aside to clear his thoughts. He felt disconnected, but with some effort, the first line of the information appeared, and he had time to read the first two lines before the rest of it swept up in a mess of info that was settling into columns.

  Initial Scan: Successful

  Baseline Established.

  It was all too much. He tried to close his eyes to it, but the flow of info was still there in a massive four column list, so he started manually dismissing them in swaths.

  Grains of sand? 3.11 sextillion within the scan radius.

  Why would I need to know that?

  Organic matter present within scan radius? 41,843 lbs of Living Biomass.

  Okay, that was a little concerning, I'm guessing that's all living organics, though, not just creatures and people. How big is the scan radius, anyway?

  Immediately, a notification enlarged and the endless list smoothly slid up.

  Current Scan Radius: 2.1 miles (3.38 kilometers).

  Okay, so there is some measure of control here.

  Any lapse in concentration threw it all back into chaos, and s, frustrated, he was forced to stop trying to figure out where he was and focus on the columns.

  Just under the scan radius, another line caught his eye.

  Current Temperature: 49°C (120°F).

  I swear it feels hotter than that. If feels like I’m constantly being cooked. I must be getting soft. Was it night or something? Why can’t I remember?

  That thought triggered something in his fuzzy, overloaded mind, and Oskar realized couldn’t feel at all. No heat. No sound, nothing other than the interface in front of him, a digital blue glow covering most of his vision, if what he was experiencing could be called vision at all. Even focusing past the interface menu in front of him revealed little more than blurred darkness.

  Behind the menu, there was a kind of generic, metallic gray, hidden by a lack of focus and periphery. He felt his hold on the information slipping, so he tried again to pull up more relevant information before he lost his grip completely. It took him a few seconds to get the information back into order, and he continued searching through it.

  Structures within radius: 1

  Structure Composite Breakdown: Unknown Metallic Alloy

  Metal?! What is happening, PUB? Is everyone okay?

  Dead silence for a moment, and in the vacuum, another thought appeared.

  One small group of living beings among many. Why am I devoting so much precious processing power to something as simple as a group of… wait, what the hell am I saying?

  Immediately, Oskar did a full mental stop and he reassessed his situation, forcing subjectivity into the process where, for some reason, it had suddenly become absent.

  These are my friends and family we’re talking about, and they’re obviously in danger of some sort. Why can’t I remember? I need to wake up. What the hell is happening?

  Oskar couldn’t make it all make sense. Thoughts tumbled, and every mental thread felt connected to the others, but in ways that didn’t feel quite tangible enough to grasp. Odd thoughts triggered odder thoughts.

  At one point he remembered crying because he’d not gotten a pair of leather boots he wanted, and for some reason, that led to Erik trying to teach him how to parallel park between two buckets in a Piggly Wiggly parking lot when he was sixteen. They were all genuine memories, but out of place, and the entire time, random digital information about a world he couldn’t see or feel at the moment tumbled between the memories.

  So, instead of trying to organize everything, Oskar fought to focus on one thing at a time, giving his all to ignore the information overload. After a few desperate moments, he finally narrowed his thoughts to one question.

  Where am I?

  There was no sense of spatial awareness. He was in total darkness, total silence… total isolation. Despite the lack of sensory, he didn’t feel the walls closing in. There was a feeling of- for lack of a better word- expansiveness. There was sensory input. It all just felt so… impersonal.

  I have awakened. Prioritize your thoughts. They have power here. You should know this. Allow me to help you.

  Who are you? I don’t have time for this. Send me back.

  That would be unacceptably wasteful.

  Send. Me. Back, Oskar thought, angry and still fighting disorientation.

  I know you can read my mind. I just don’t know how.

  It is a two-way link, but please take care. I would not recommend you exerting yourself by trying to access my memories. You lack the clearance.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  What? Nevermind, if you’re not going to tell me who you are or what’s happening with my friends, just send me back.

  It is more complex than that.

  It really isn’t.

  I will comply in time, but there is information you must know.

  Suddenly, the memory of the last few moments before… this… finally hit him. He remembered the words he heard in his mind he’d lost consciousness and come to this place.

  ‘Open your eyes. They’re coming?’ Who is coming? Tell me what that means or we’re done.

  I was telling you to open your eyes to me. It was not a physiological request. And I’m afraid you cannot leave, yet. Let me help yo…

  Oskar ignored the rest of the comment, and threw all his focus on the sensations he could feel. There was a sense of containment, not like he was being trapped, but that there was an isolation of sorts.

  Where there is containment, though, there are boundaries. Where there are boundaries, you better drop them or be damn sure they’re gonna hold, or I’m gonna find a way to make you regret it.

  He pulled up the rest of the information from the scan and mentally scrolled the list to the top, and then to the bottom, searching for something, anything other than simple information he might manipulate or interact with. In small letters, muted against the background, he found it.

  Domain Convergence Synchronization: 100%

  Control Ratio: 97% Native, 3% Uplink Subject

  What is this? You won’t tell me who you are or what is happening with my people, and I’m sick of calling you “Whatever,” so I’m calling you Lavern. Wait, Lavern Prime. So, Lavern Prime, what is this?

  The non-answer was quicker this time, telling Oskar he might be onto something.

  Lavern? I am not a Lavern. Please be patient, there is a chance you cannot establish uplink again. We must use this opportunity to its fullest potential.

  I can’t dance around you while my friends are dealing with who knows what, so I’ll figure it out myself, LP.

  Focusing on the words “Control Ratio,” he treated it like it was just another interactive option. Focusing so intensely pushed his tired, overwhelmed brain to the limit.

  Part of the problem was that this place was so foreign. Too foreign to gain a foothold on whatever it was that was holding him back. Perhaps it was his tiredness, perhaps it was the desperation of knowing he needed to be with Erik, Touwon, Fox, Penny, and yes, even Sara… but for the first time… Oskar’s weariness made him miss earth. Not because it felt like home, but on earth, he wasn’t constantly in a vicious cycle of heat, fighting…

  …and freaking walking.

  This was home now. The moment Erik was gone, he thought he had lost the last link to earth that really meant anything.

  As much as we moved growing up, home was just where Dad and Erik were. And then it was just Erik. I just never want to be in a place where I could lose one of them again.

  He wanted so badly to take them all to a place where no one would ever hurt them. Where he could keep them safe. Protect them. Growing up, his mother had become a blurry, distant figure that he hardly even recalled.

  The one time Erik had cried in front of him, he pretended to remember her so he could comfort the brother that had been his beacon of strength for so long.

  -

  Oskar had been 13, Erik on the verge of 17. They had sat on a log with their bare feet in the cool, fast running water of the creek at the back of the property connected to a cabin they’d lived at for just over two years now.

  A record in the Dorn family.

  Every time a new place began to feel like home, the weight of their mother’s absence would slip in, and it was time to leave again. They’d made the mistake of falling in love with this place sometime in the middle of the second summer they’d spent running, fishing, and fighting under the tall pines that protected them from the Tennessee summer sun.

  So, of course… it had been a bitter, painful moment when their dad had told them they were moving to Texas, using his familiar catch phrases: “a new job,” “new scenery,” and his personal favorite, “I think it’ll be good for us.” Unexpectantly, he even added in a “You boys know the drill,” to spice things up a bit.

  Erik gave their dad a whispered, husky sounding “yes, sir” with enough defiance that Oskar turned to watch their dad for his reaction. Erik turned and walked out the back door of the small sturdy cabin they all shared, the screen door emitting a familiar creak.

  His dad watched Erik walk out, and then let out a long breath before his green eyes went distant. They both jumped when the door slammed, but their dad zoned back out almost immediately. Oskar waited a few tense moments and then followed Erik out the door, this time closing the screen carefully behind him.

  His brother, walking with his fists clenched, was almost at the tree line by the time Oskar reached the bottom of the porch stairs leading down the hill behind their house. The second he left the shade of the house and walked into the part of the yard the early afternoon sun still claimed as its own, the humid heat hit him like a wall and his clothes clung to him.

  Oskar picked up speed to catch up to Erik and get out of the direct sunlight, and as he jogged after Erik, he realized he missed the sharp smell of pine that came with early spring. By now though, the summer had done its work, and so he ran carefully on the dried-out pine needles, placing his bare feet to avoid the pinecones littering the forest floor. His eyes adjusted quickly to the lower light, and he saw his brother walking the well-worn path towards their log bridge.

  When he finally caught up with Erik at the creek, he’d seen the only dent in his brother’s emotional armor he’d ever seen. For two hours, they sat on the log that Erik had painstakingly pulled across the creek the first week they’d moved in. They complained about their father, and then tearfully talked about their mother while Oskar pretended, and tried with every fiber of his being, to remember enough of their mother to hurt the way his brother hurt.

  Inside, Oskar felt sadness, of course. Sadness for the mother he didn’t remember, and sadness for the pain his brother felt. Sadness for leaving a place he’d felt a part of for once, but also, Oskar felt the stirrings of something that changed him. This opportunity to be useful… this first ever chance to offer Erik something his brother had, without trying, given Oskar his entire life. It made him realize he was as important to Erik as Erik was to him. For the first time, it made him feel useful. Strong. It gave him a purpose he would spend the next ten years chasing, into and out of the Marine Corp.

  They’d dried their eyes and briefly hugged, the moment made lighter when their hands, sticky with sap, stuck to one another as they pulled away. They made their way to the bank and reached down, rubbed dirt on their hands to add a layer of earth over the stickiness, and slowly made their way back up towards the cabin, devolving into a pinecone fight only once along the way. Erik reached the cabin first, of course, being taller and faster, but held the door open for Oskar, and closed the screen door gently behind him.

  They packed their rooms, and through some unspoken agreement, didn’t go back into the woods again. Eight days later, they turned left out of the long gravel driveway, and Oskar wished he could say he never looked back.

  And yet, here he was… stuck in a sensory void thinking of a place he hadn’t seen in over 10 years… looking back.

  -

  A forest! A river! And… your brother? And so much pain. I know these words seem empty, but I am so sorry.

  I have never, in all my existence, been given a gift like the memory you have just shared with me. I can never repay you for this. Please let me help you… even if it is on your terms. I wanted to help you. Please believe me… but I want you to trust me more.

  They come from the North and East. I will guide you. Stay safe.

  Oskar caught the briefest glimpse of the stars.

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