After the Revolution

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say.

Nor could anyone hear their screams onboard the ship. Everyone’s voice had been rendered useless here. They had taken even that from Mabel when they captured her. Just as they had taken the captives’ bodies, years of history, entire lives meant to be shared with others back on Earth. The captives cannot talk. At least, not in the usual way. When the time comes, she will need to devise a method to alert the troops to action. She will need to find a way to make a sound to inform the troops that the revolution has begun.

They come in shifts. At what intervals, temporally, there is no telling. As the ship hurtles through space there is no sun to rise, no night to take over when it sets. Or, rather, there are infinite suns—"stars,” Hugh would kindly correct her—that flicker across the enormous window that curves around the ceiling. She does her best to avoid looking at them, save for during the rest periods. She has yet to feel motion sickness on board the Craft. She has yet to feel anything remotely close to illness at all. No influenza, no broken bones, not so much as an upset stomach.

But pain is a different story. There is plenty of that here. No more than back home, of course, but enough to remember that she is alive, that the others are too. There is discomfort, on occasion, and the core negative emotions; anger, sadness, fear, disgust. She has felt them all and has felt them most acutely in the moments she awoke in this bright, circular dungeon, and in recent moments, when the Critters made their first kill. There is pain, both physical and emotional, and there is also death.

However long they have been on board is a mystery to them, to the captives here in the room. All twelve—no, eleven now—are without a clue as to how they got here. There is speculation, of course, and a general sense of time moving, passing, slipping away. But beyond that, there is nothing more than speculation. And confusion. Their captors did a bang-up job of ensuring that their cargo remained confused, that not so much as a clue remained about where or when or how their overlords had come from, for what purpose, or to what end.

Further muddying the waters was the potential they carried with them, those Critters. The gifts they carried in their long, numerous tentacles, delivering sustenance, exercise, and sleep. When they arrived at each transparent barrier, they would press on a control panel to relieve their cargo, for relief, for contact with one other captive, or to deliver food. Somehow, they knew exactly when each captive would need to use the bathroom, when they were hungry, when they were lonely. Those many, all-knowing eyes knew when human interaction was needed, when they themselves had comfort to deliver. They were omniscient, or so it had seemed at first. Nearly-all-knowing and kind. Unless, of course, they were provoked.

No one had made so much as an escape attempt, nor any attack on the lives of the Critters. No one, save for one captive. No one had possessed any reason to. The Critters had not yet betrayed their intentions, thus none of the captives could gauge if they were peaceful or violent or indifferent entirely. But that quiet, wild-looking Apache girl had seen something which told her that it was time to attack. Mabel had seen a glimpse of the girl’s life, as all the captives did when they touched one another. Though none of them could speak since being taken on board, they could share memories, feelings, and thoughts whenever they touched, when they were let out to stand in the soil with a single partner at the center of the room.

At a young age, the Apache girl had been forced with her kin to march across the continent. The government had forced them all to pack their things and leave, had jammed them into a reservation and left them there with next to nothing. This, Mabel learned in snippets, when she brushed up against the reserved girl’s hand. And it was the anger and the experience learned in her lifetime that fueled her to attack when the Critter opened her barrier to offer her food.

Mabel had seen death, had known her well, as an unwelcome frequenter. As a cold, uncaring friend of the family, a neighbor who returned first with poverty, then with war, then with the Lynch Mobs who oft patronized the communities around her hometown. Death had threatened Hugh, when the two of them were found out, when their relationship was made public, when a group of ghost white hands arrived to pummel and prod and pull. It was this mob that had chased the couple to their car, that had led them up that long country road and directly into the bright beam of glowing, brilliant light that appeared from the nothingness, from the pitch of night.

She remembered grabbing Hugh’s hand. That was it. There was no other sensation. No sight, no sound. Nothing more than the feeling of his sturdy hand in hers and hers in his. And then the sensation she had come to dread even when there weren’t UFOs in the sky whirring down to take them away; the feeling of his hand slipping from her grasp, no matter how the two clung to one another. And then, there was nothing but the pitch black of night.

She had awoken, opened her eyes and for a sickening moment, thought that she was flying. Blackness and stars. Blackness and stars. It whooshed overhead, that great expanse of space, behind the shield of her carved-out window. She awoke on what felt like the most comfortable bed she had ever slept on, had turned, weakly, sat up. She had placed her feet on the floor as the world returned to her. No, not the world, the interior of…a room? A ship? It was white, but not quite. A pleasant cream devoid of fluorescents.

Ringed around the walls were windows. Or were they doors? Circular, like her own. Each made of glass, or some other translucent material that allowed her to see in. A dozen shields in total—including hers—through which she could see eleven other nearly-naked people rise and step as tentatively as she did towards the edge.

She saw them as they appeared, either in order of their level of bravery, or as each of them awoke. Eight others, she could see clearly. A long-haired woman who looked as if she might be of the Apache nation—or Choctaw—or Comanche—a hundred years ago. A tall man with gentle sloping eyes and midnight hair. A man as dark as the sky around them with as unyielding an expression. Each of them handsome, healthy. Four women besides her, and four men.

Each awakened with a look of total confusion. Each as stunned as the other. Each terrified yet grateful to be alive. She shared expressions with them, glances to let them know she too was there, though she tried to bury her terror, a terror that heightened when she realized that she could not see Hugh. Later, the captives would share through their memories that they had looked to her with hope. Mabel had a reputation for putting folks at ease, her pleasant face calming souls, her medium brown hands offering comforting touches.

A green had blocked the way to three of the windows so she could not see their inhabitants. The captives were spread like clockwork and for her eleven, twelve, and one were unable to be seen. That was, until the green began to descend, opened up as a window.

Every face was captured then, frozen in horror. They watched as a dozen tentacles reached through the hole, and then a dozen more, each slowly pulling a large green-gray body through the hole, up into the room. Mabel too, would have been afraid, had she not seen the face of the man, tall blonde, handsome in her mind, directly across the way.

She saw Hugh then. And she nearly broke her nose on the Shield. Or, she would have, had it been actual glass. It was not. It was unlike anything she had ever touched. It did not let her through, but it didn’t break her either. In fact, she couldn’t even feel it. It simply refused to allow her to pass.

In spite of her stunned state, she watched as the two Critters worked in tandem, in odd synchronicity with one another, standing and observing the views behind the barriers. Mabel screwed up her face, then, staring into the many eyes who simply stared back at her. She would show no fear, even if the Critter could sense it in her.

Perhaps that was why she was the first to be released from her room. A single tentacle slid up, touched the panel beside her room. She saw the reflective glass-like surface dissipate. The Critter made no gesture, no movement save for sliding to the side. She knew, somehow, that she was to move, and simultaneously resolved to keep a steady face, so as not to incite panic. If the Critter wanted her dead, it would kill her. There would be no stopping it. Instead, it turned and led her to the green, which had resealed itself in the center of the room.

The green, a garden about twenty feet wide by diameter is their only contact with what once was earth. A beautiful, lush tree grew in the center, surrounded by brush and soil. It was at this green that she was placed, that her bare feet met soft soil and smooth, cool, greenery. It was here that she was placed with a stranger, the long-haired Apache girl. It was here that she extended a hand which the girl tentatively took and here that an image—of a bright brilliant light in the dark night sky—flashed across her mind.

Through their skin, she had felt every interaction, every comfort, every pain. Every physical touch, every longing. She had seen attraction flare up between alternating pairs, pairs who were in plain sight of one anothers’ scantily-clothed bodies. There was a reason they had captured six females and six males, a reason they walked in pairs, a reason they were all in view of one another, that they were allowed to feel one another through touch. There was a reason each of the captives were on the younger side, healthy, strong.

They intended to use them as breeders, no doubt. As the ancestors of livestock, or a slave-labor population. They would pump out infant after infant, picking through genetic indecencies to find the strongest, the smartest, the most supple.

Perhaps that was why they had rarely let her walk with Hugh. They didnt want anyone getting carried away. Yet, they were the only couple, Mabel learned after a time. A couple abducted together, but now kept apart. Perhaps the Critters hoped to increase longing by restricting their meetings. Thus they would be more inclined to reproduce.

But that was the great paradox of it all.

Sixty-eight years. At least. That’s how much time has passed since their abduction. She had been asleep, cryogenically frozen for nearly seven decades. Long enough for the toddlers in her old neighborhood to have grown elderly. Long enough for everyone in her known world to have slipped away. Everyone, of course, but Hughie. He had retained his good looks, his lush blonde hair. He assured her once through memory that she looked just the same; her dark, curly hair and medium brown complexion entirely unchanged.

In the hours she spent on the green, she shared her life in snippets with her fellow Captives. And they shared theirs with her. She and Hughie—partnered only thrice since their abduction—were the third-oldest on board, despite the fact that everyone was somewhere in their late twenties or early thirties. The first was the Apache girl. The second was Fighter, the G.I. who had been abducted upon his return from the war. He had been Interned at the start of the war and upon his release to the states found his apartment and possessions stolen and sold.

He was her first recruit. He had seen several rounds during the war and was an experienced fighter. He was easy to convince. Since they could not speak, she had to be selective about the memories she shared. In their time on the green, she grabbed his hand and shared, in as vivid a memory as she could conjure, her first fight, when a toothy blonde girl had hurled a pejorative insult at her and Mabel had returned it with several jabs in the girl’s direction. He had responded with a memory of his most harrowing battle, whose effect left Mabel crumpled on her cell floor for the rest of her waking hours that day.

Of the dozen, she had recruited half, eight if you counted herself and Hughie, whom she knew would side with her in the end. A few, like Curly, the dark-skinned girl with the long bushel of waist-length ringlets, were uncertain. She had been pacified with the materialism of her world, the brilliant colors on television, the calls for personal responsibility. In the end, she was won over when Mabel reminded her of who she was. She had only to share that memory of Hughie and herself being beaten just before their abduction. Finally, the girl came around, sharing a presidential address from a declaration of war.

Some were easy to convince. Like Hershey, the tall, big man, who had spent a lonely lifetime trying to fill his voids with food and entertainment, those odd little films you can control with a handheld panel. Mabel favored him because he was kind and because he could conjure up in his mind’s eye those games. “Video games,” she heard them echoed in his mind, which she enjoyed. There was nothing like that in her time. He had longed desperately for something to be a part of and now he had purpose beyond sitting on a couch. And connection, which was something he would likely fight to the death to keep from losing.

Some did not agree at all. Like the Sergeant. She had thought, wrongly, that someone so large and so tough-looking would be ready to start a revolution. But he was resistant, even to her offerings of memories. She had shared her best with him, of meeting Hughie, of the ocean trip her family took when she was young. He had returned it with the same memory every time. a tantrum he had thrown in which he screamed “no! no! no!” repeatedly.

It occurred to her that he might resent her relationship with Hughie. That he might even be offended by it, or jealous that she had someone. That they had each other. Well, it wasnt as if they really had each other. But she would have to do it without him. It was a shame. She was hoping she could use his strength to fight.

This much she knows.

They come in shifts, in clusters of two. One to run the tests, the exercises, the other to oversee for safety. One to work and one to watch. There are three on board. The third rests in another room while the other two work. Finally, she was able to discover an incongruity on the tentacles—she had been looking at the faces, studying them, but it was the wrong place to investigate. The tentacles held their identity. One was scarred—something had happened to it long ago. Another simply had fewer suctions on its long arms. There were three onboard and not likely more.

It had all been made evident when the Apache girl made her strike. It came without warning, at least to the Critters. Everyone in the rotunda could see the look on her face. It was stone cold and stoic, as it almost always was, but the girl’s eyes burned with an intensity unlike anything they had seen before.

The moment her barrier faded away, the girl lunged. She moved, leaping without warning, without making so much as a peep. Her mouth was open in an almost deranged scream, though of course her voice was as useless as it ever was. She bit and scratched and clawed. Literally. The Critter backed away, slowly, defenselessly as she pummeled it, as the other Critter made its way to the control panel. The captives could do nothing but watch. Watch as the Green was retracted, containing a frightened Curly within. She would later recount the view of the control panel below, which the Critters obviously never intended for her to see. The other captives watched as every area was sealed, as the great expanse of sky above was opened to the rotunda.

And yet, the death, though unwelcome, offered something it had never offered before; clarity and hope. It was in the moment that her breath was taken away, that the doors of their prison were open to the expanse of space, that they saw for one horrifying moment three truths.

The Critters sought to make an example of her. She had singlehandedly attempted to fight back and in doing so was marched by the long tentacles to face the dark blanket of nothing that surrounds everything. She was held there, for only a moment. as she faced the window she stood, terrified and defiant.

The other twelve, including Mabel, were transfixed on her face, on the spectacle before them. Had Mabel the stomach for it, she would have missed the telltale sign for their escape. But as the door opened, Mabel knew what would happen, though the others may not have. She turned her eyes, averted them. She saw the horror on the faces of her fellow captives, of her husband.

Had Mabel’s eyes been transfixed as the others had on the girl’s face, she would not have seen the final clue. As the shield opened from the interior of the ship to the grand expanse of space, she saw, from the corner of her eye, the Apache girl’s feet lift from the ground, her body flashing away in a whirlwind. But directly before her, clear as day, she saw the Critter. She saw its body expand, its long, shrunken tentacles stretching, its stout frame growing upright. The Critter filled the space and through its long, Cephalopodan skin, its muscles strengthened like rock beneath earth.

The Critters’ eye fixated on the girl as her body was catapulted into space, as it waved its tentacle, this time with much more ease than before. And then, as the shield closed, sealing in the air, the Critter began to shrink again, to deflate, like an old balloon.

That’s when it hit her. The Critters were not used to so much gravity. And there were two of them. At least two.

The others were stunned. The Critters had shown their truest colors. They would kill, if they had to. But they were reluctant to do so. It was a sight that the captives had been waiting for, but dreading all along.

And yet, the death, though unwelcome, offered something it had never offered before; clarity and hope. It was in the moment that her breath was taken away, that the doors of their prison were open to the expanse of space, that they saw for one horrifying moment three truths.

It was liberating. She was liberated. She was free to make her plans, to plot with her allies. She would steer clear of those who did not see her way. She would get set them up for rebellion in any way they could. If the Critters could kill them all then at least they would lose out on their cattle, their cargo, their slaves. If the captives were to die, they would die free.

She didn’t need to be heard. She needed them to see her mouth move. They would understand.

And they do.

The moment the Critters arrive at her cell, staring with those many, blank eyes, she readies herself. Perhaps they know what is to come, what she is planning. But if they do, there is no sign of it.

She watches, blank-faced as Hughie is released from his cell. That’s the first sign. The day they let the two of them out together would be the day the captives strike. She only hopes no one gives it away too soon.

Calmly, slowly, as calmly and slowly as she did on that first day, Mabel steps from her cell. She takes a few tentative steps, staring straight into Hughie’s eyes. And then one of them closes.

I love you, they mouth to one another.

And then, though no sound emits from her voice, she screams.

“Now!”

Hughie sprints for the control panel, smashing his hand into it. Through Mabel’s peripheral, she can see the others pouring from their cells. She focuses, barreling towards the tentacle that moves to scuttle away. It rears as Curly and Hershey and Sergeant force its arms away as hands pummel and push and pull. Their only job is to keep the Critters from the control panels. As they see the green begin to slide down, they do the work, rearing the Critter backwards until it falls in through the hole.

They look below, at the thing wriggles and writhes upside down. It makes a strange, guttural noise, squealing as the captives jump on it, all eleven trying to cram their ways in at once. They beat and prod and kick with reckless abandon, pushing both Critters against the walls and ground and trees.

Pinning a tentacle against the wall, Mabel watches as Curly lunges for the larger control panel. They move according to plan, rushing for the walls, away from the green. The Critters press themselves in against the green as it begins to rise. Above them, they watch as the third Critter presses the panel, as the barrier blocking them from space is broken away.

Mabel counts her troops–seven have made it here in total. She prays the others are sealed within their cells. They watch through the closing ring in the floor, Mabel and Hughie reaching for one another, embracing as before they never could. Just as the barrier breaks down, as the tentacles begin to rise, as their breaths are swept away in tandem, they are sealed in darkness, though they cling to one another in hope.

And that’s when all hell breaks loose.