“Cameron, if you truly believe we are no more than a dream in some Beatle lovers head, I don’t think there is anything I can say to convince you otherwise, but I choose to go by the facts. And the fact is that billions of human beings were here at one point in time and simply not here the next. I have no proof, but I think the explanation is clear enough.”
“It is?”
“Of course. Isn’t it obvious? The people are not here because someone took them away.”
“What? No way.”
“Then tell me, what happened? There are no bodies, no destruction, nothing.”
“I don’t know, maybe it was one of your alien visitors with a ray gun that just zapped them all into nothingness.”
“If one person a minute were removed from this planet, it would take thirteen thousand years. Even at a hundred a minute, it would still take 130 years. I think we would have noticed your alien with a ray gun,” Loeb said.
“Maybe it was a really big ray gun and he got them all in one shot, you know, like the Death Star?”
“As I recall that destroyed the planet as well, didn’t it?”
“So they’ve done some upgrading. I don’t know. What difference does it make? Everyone’s gone, and we’re still here.”
“It makes all the difference in the world to me. If we assume that whoever is behind this is benevolent and that we were simply left behind, it behooves us to find out if there is still a chance we can rejoin the rest of our race. If, rather, we assume that this was an attack of sorts, we should stop looking now and start hiding.”
“Which do you think it is?”
“I would think if another race had eradicated our species in a prelude to colonization that they would already be here, and we would have seen them. On the other hand, if they came for raw materials, they are in for an unpleasant surprise. In either case, we would know they were here. But in my mind, there seems little point to attacking a planet as insignificant as Earth.”
“Maybe they came and took everyone to be slaves on their home world.”
“Six billion slaves? That’s a lot of mouths to feed, and I don’t think we’re talking about Pharaohs in space ships.”
“Maybe they’re using us for food.”
“If so, wouldn’t it make more sense to grow us in our native environment and harvest us here as needed? Cameron, I would be more than happy to discuss any other imaginative speculations you might make, but to answer your question directly, I believe that those who are responsible for this did so with good intentions.”
“You mean like to save us? But you said yourself that it would take hundreds or thousands of years. There would have been announcements, meetings, plans… We would have known about it.”
“We didn’t know about it because it all happened in an instant of our time.”
“Okay, that’s impossible unless you’re now saying you do believe in giant ray guns.”
“Actually no, it’s not. Space and time are relative, and the only logical explanation for such an event is that whoever did this was able to fold space and time to accomplish a centuries-long task in an instant.”
“You mean time travel?”
“That’s precisely what I mean.”
“So they traveled back to some point in time…”
“12:21:12 p.m. on 12|21|12 to be precise.”
“And they gathered up as many people as they could and took them away in their space ships or whatever, and when they came back again…”
“They returned at exactly the same instant of our time and moved another group off the planet.”
“So for us, it all seems to happen in that same moment even though it takes them hundreds of their years. That’s pretty deep, Dr. Loeb. Is that even possible?”
“Indeed it is — if one were actually able to fold space and time. Then he could be anywhere he chose at any time he chose without having to travel there using more conventional methods.”
“So they could have transporters, or a star gate, or something like that?”
“I would assume so.”
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“So why didn’t they take us, Dr. Loeb?”
“If this were an exam and you got five wrong out of 6.8 billion, it would still be an “A.” No one is perfect, Cameron.”
“So we’re a mistake? That’s comforting.”
“Or perhaps, as the good reverend said, we were left behind for a reason. Perhaps they left us here to gather up the other stragglers.”
“So when they came back again they would take us all in one shot on the last bus out of town. That makes sense. We need to find that bus station, Dr. Loeb.”
Cameron cleaned up. Loeb went to the computer in the study to continue his search, and Michael retired for the evening. Later, Cameron brought Loeb another pot of coffee.
“Any luck, Dr. Loeb?”
“Not really. The only activity on the Internet is automated. There have been no more views of the video. Nothing.”
“I just have one more question. If they were saving us, what do you think they were they saving us from?”
Loeb gave up searching sometime in the middle of the night. He couldn’t sleep, and instead wandered the hallways nursing a headache and fighting back the nausea that had been bothering him on and off since that day in the city. He thought about it, and it made no sense: the world spins on its axis at over one thousand miles per hour, orbits the sun at over sixty-seven thousand miles per hour, rotates with the rest of the galaxy around its center at 490,000 miles per hour, and it all travels through infinite space at a staggering two million miles per hour. How was it he felt motion sickness from the simple act of walking?
He stopped to rest in a chair near an archway leading to the other wing of the lodge. A security camera’s red light blinked on. It had been dark when he’d first entered. He was sure of it. The camera rotated toward him, and the lens spun to focus. Loeb stood up and waved: “Is anyone there? Hello?”
The light blinked out.
Cameron, Michael, and especially Bowen were less than enthusiastic about being dragged to the north wing second floor hallway by Loeb, but his urgency prevailed. They watched the security camera for several minutes before the light came on again.
“There!” Loeb pointed.
“It must have a motion sensor,” Cameron said. “They all do, don’t they?”
“Not that I saw, and if it did, why the delay? Where are these monitored?”
“The cameras for the entire compound are monitored continuously from a secure room off the barracks, or at least they were. I can’t believe there’s anyone still in there. It’s been days. There’s also a feed into the shelter command center, but no one’s there either, Dr. Loeb. No one’s anywhere.”
“Take us to the monitoring room, Cameron.”
“So much for the element of surprise,” Bowen waved at the camera. “And you bastards can probably hear every word this dipstick is saying, can’t you?”
“There’s no microphone, Bowen. I checked.”
“This is bullshit, Loeb. It’s hooked to a dumb computer just like everything else around here. It has to be. We searched the place. There’s nobody here.”
“For once, I’m inclined to agree with Mr. Bowen,” Michael said. “And, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going back to bed. I don’t feel well.”
“Maybe there are motion sensors around here somewhere, and you just can’t find them, Dr. Loeb.” Cameron shrugged: “And it is kind of late.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” Loeb agreed.
When they were out of the hall, Loeb motioned them into an alcove. “I’m going to the barracks. The possibility that someone is watching us, but has chosen not to communicate, troubles me. I could use your help for this or your pistol, Mr. Bowen.”