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The lights of Sydney sparkled on the water, and the historic Opera House shone like a white flame in the distance. Ben took Olivia’s hand in his, and turned to face Field, who’d agreed to marry them despite the Program’s protocols.
As Ben looked into Olivia’s eyes, he felt a joy like he’d never known. This all seemed too good to be true.
The thought stuck in Ben’s mind like a dagger. His training came to the surface, and he started to wonder if perhaps it was too good to be true.
And that’s when things started to change. He smelled acrid smoke coming from somewhere on the vessel, and the faint sound of an alarm. Suddenly, his viewpoint shifted. He abruptly found himself staring at the ceiling, as if he’d fallen over on his back. But it wasn’t the ceiling of the yacht. It was an unfamiliar place. Olivia’s face moved into his view.
“Ben, Ben can you hear me?”
Her hair was disheveled, and she had a gash on her cheek from which a trail of blood ran down to her collar. She was sweating heavily and seemed highly agitated.
“Wha -- what’s going on?” Ben mumbled.
“Ben, can you stand up? We have to get you out of here, now.” She lifted a thin silver ring from the top of his shaved head and tossed it aside.
“Where am I? What’s happening here?”
“You’re aboard an Anxeliss attack ship. I just disconnected their mind-control device. You’ve been lying here in a sort of stasis, being fed nutrients and a steady stream of lies. Right now, we have about four minutes to get out of here.”
“That can’t be,” Ben said. “I was just with you, we were getting married. But before that – before that they had brainwashed me. But I got out of that, and we prevented their assault on Earth.”
“All of that was an illusion, Ben. They’ve been manipulating you. Look, we need to get off this ship.”
She grabbed Ben, throwing his arm over her shoulder and helping him to stand. Ben’s joints were stiff from spending so long on his back. He looked at his body as he stood, and saw that his scars had returned. Heading toward the door, he spied his tool belt sitting in the corner of the room. He grabbed it and they left the cell behind, heading down a corridor. Smoke billowed from various open doors, and sirens blared.
“Did you do all this?” asked Ben.
“I had to do some creative engineering of this ship’s propulsion systems,” Olivia yelled over the noise. The ship rocked violently for a moment, causing them to have to brace themselves against the wall. “You know how my ground transports are always overheating, well, I put that experience to use on a large scale. I sabotaged the coolant system. We only have seconds before this entire vessel blows.”
“How are we going to get off?”
“I docked with the ship. We’ll just have to return to my shuttle and hope we can get out of the blast range in time.”
They scurried through the halls, encountering no one along the way, and finally found the vacuum port. They stepped through the airlock, closed the hatch, and stepped into the shuttle.
Olivia jumped into the pilot’s seat and fired up the engines. She broke away from the Anxeliss ship and pushed the shuttle to maximum in-system velocity. A huge explosion lit up the viewport and rocked the tiny ship.
Before the bright flare in space had a chance to dim, a figure emerged from the shuttle’s storage compartment. A hideous, barely humanoid beast with bright red skin and four arms towered over Ben. Six tusks protruded from his face, and his claws were long and sharp. Enormous drooling fangs appeared as the creature appeared to grin -- and there was something about the eyes. They stared at Ben, penetrating him.
“Axo,” Ben whispered, recognizing his captor without his disguise. He reached for his weapon, but it was not there. Thinking quickly, he grabbed his trusty metal ball from his tool belt and rushed the giant alien. He rammed the climbing tool up against Axo’s throat and activated it. The long, sharp pitons shot out of the ball, lodging in Axo’s leathery neck. Silvery blood spurted out as he staggered back.
But then Axo seemed to recover. He growled and raised his claws high in the air, preparing to strike Ben down.
A hot blast from behind Ben whizzed past his ear and burned a gaping hole straight through Axo’s chest. He fell to the floor, smoke emanating from the massive cavity. Ben turned back to see Olivia holstering her weapon. He turned back and stared at Axo’s corpse for a long moment, then moved to the front of the shuttle.
“Alright,” said Ben, settling into the co-pilot’s seat. “Explain all of this to me.”
“Three weeks ago, you disappeared.”
“The Lunatropolis mission.”
“Right.”
“Wait – that was only three weeks ago?”
“Yes – keep listening, and it’ll make sense,” Olivia said. “You’d gone dark without the appropriate protocol. I knew something was wrong, so I pleaded with Field to put me on the case. That’s when he told me about Project Dreamer.”
“And what exactly is that?”
“Field had received intel indicating that Axo was mounting an invasion of the System. Axo is that dead thing over there on the floor, and the captain of the ship we just destroyed. He was a power-hungry maniac from the Anxeliss system in Galaxy M36, who traveled from system to system, enslaving entire worlds, using his various mind-control machines to rule as a ruthless dictator over many systems.”
“Where’s his army? How did he take over alone?”
“His army was comprised of the very people he would conquer. He’d use entire civilizations against themselves, all under his mind-control. His method was simple: find a top-level defense operative – in this case, you – and abduct him. Brainwash him. Read his thoughts. Then use him.”
“And so he was planning on using me, by keeping me strapped to a mind-control machine aboard his attack ship?”
“According to our intel, that’s how he coordinated his attacks.”
Ben pondered what had happened. “It was weird – it seemed like the first few hours or days I was just hanging in a void. It took a while before I even interacted with anybody in the illusion Axo created.”
“From what I understand,” said Olivia, “it can take a while for his mind-machine to drill into your psyche. It must have taken a lot longer with you because of your intense mental training. You’re a tough nut to crack,” she smiled.
“So, first, he made me believe he was a good guy,” Ben continued, talking his way through it, as much to inform Olivia as to try to make sense of it all. “He made me believe that he had recruited me to be a planet-saver with a jurisdiction of the whole universe. Then he made me think that I had figured out his game. Then he watched as I saved Earth from him in a simulated attack – even though I thought it was real – and he used my own protocols and scenarios against us. He knew everything that I would have done in that situation, and used that to come up with his attack plan.”
The pieces started to come together for Ben. He’d inadvertently given up his countermeasures and strategies. “Because he was reading my mind, he knew about our cloaked minefield in the Oort cloud. He was prepared for our satellite defenses. And he knew the internal workings of the Program like an insider – our team structures, assignments, even our codes and passwords. I gave him everything he wanted!” Ben thought back on the events and the self-recrimination started to sink in. “So, by making me believe that I had saved Earth, I had actually doomed it, because Axo knew the strategy that I would use to help the Program and the Establishment defend Earth.”
“You had no way to know that he was using you Ben.”
“But I played right into his hands.”
“You were under his influence for three weeks straight, Ben. You’ve fared amazingly well. Our data indicates that most of his previous abductees don’t usually last nearly as long. And they usually end up practically brain dead. You have shown remarkable mental sta
mina and strength of will. Besides . . . you didn’t actually give Axo what he needed.”
“What do you mean?”
“When Field took our intel to the Establishment Echelon, the Echelon Council studied it and returned to Field with a plan.”
“Project Dreamer.”
“Right. They told Field he had to choose a top agent to be implanted with false memories and erroneous intel. Misleading data and fake strategies. All designed to lead Axo into a trap.”
“Field chose me,” said Ben, realization finally dawning.
“And Axo fell for it.”
Ben fumed inside. “Field could’ve just asked me. I’d have done anything he’d asked. He didn’t have to trick me into this.”
“Actually, he did have to. If you’d gone into this with any knowledge of the true assignment, Axo would’ve spotted the deception when he probed your mind.”
“I still can’t believe Field would do this to me,” Ben said through gritted teeth. “He sold me out. Sent me on a suicide mission, without my consent, just weeks before retirement.”
“Believe me, I had a few choice words for him myself when I found out he’d done this to you,” said Olivia.
“You didn’t tell him about us, did you?”
“No. I just told him I was angry that he’d done this to one our own. I didn’t let on that there was anything between us,” said Olivia. “I insisted on mounting a rescue operation, but Field refused. He said Project Dreamer had to run its course in order to succeed.”
“Somehow I don’t think you took no for an answer.”
“Oh, I took the answer, then I crammed it down Field’s throat. I told him I’d quit the Program if he didn’t give me access to a shuttle.”
“Nobody quits the Program,” said Ben.
“That’s exactly what Field said. But he looked in my eyes and knew I was serious. And here I am.”
“You always did know how to get what you want,” said Ben with a smile. He sat back and reflected on his recent, twisted past. “So, all of our defense plans – the ones I provided Axo – they’re not real. And on top of that, do you have any idea how bad Axo messed with my mind? I’m still having a hard time accepting reality.”
“When I infiltrated his ship, and I found you in the mind-link chamber, I viewed the files on a screen. I saw all that had happened, in a kind of time-compressed replay. I had to know what was going on before I tried to release you from the machine, because I didn’t want to do anything that might hurt you. So, yes, I did see some of what Axo was doing to your head. And then I understood why Axo had taken so long to implement his plans. He couldn’t just rip the information from your mind, because of your training. He had to coax it out of you through a complex deception with the mind-machine. I’d say that the fact that it was difficult for Axo probably made the Program’s deception all the more convincing.”
“I have just one question: how can I know that this is really real? I’ve just had my reality shattered multiple times. It’s like waking up from a dream within a dream within a dream. How do I know I’m really awake now, and not still having my mind messed with?”
“That may take some time. When we get back, Field will have you debriefed, and then he’ll probably require you to undergo some counseling. You’ve been through a lot. But no matter what happens, I’ll be here for you.”
Ben reached over and put his hand on Olivia’s. “Thank you.” He thought for a moment, then said, “When we get back, I’m going to give Field a piece of my mind. No pun intended.”
Ben considered all that had happened, and about all Olivia had risked to rescue him.
“And what about us? What will happen now?” he asked.
“The Program is the Program, Ben. Tomorrow just happens to be your retirement day. As for me, I have no choice but to stick with our plan: in one year, when I retire, we’ll get married. If you wait for me.”
Ben examined Olivia’s face. His eyes came to rest on the scar over her left eye. That beautiful scar – yet another anchor to his real life. “Actually, I think we may have another option,” Ben said with a smile, gradually accepting that this was no longer a machine-induced dream. The fact that she’d said they’d have to wait a year was realistic. After all those too-good-to-be-true dreams that had been forced into his head by Axo, it felt good to see things more clearly, to see things as they really are. He was finally emerging from the daze of the mind-machine. As they approached Earth orbit, it all started to sink in. “Somehow, waiting just doesn’t feel right now, considering you didn’t wait to save my life.”