"If I could travel back in time and do it over..." I said, gazing out the window like a dog awaiting an overdue master.
I couldn't eat or sleep. Sometimes it felt like I could barely breathe. I'd screwed up and lost the woman I loved, now I couldn't get her out of my mind. Shareen's face floated ghostlike in front of me wherever I went, whatever I did. Those pixie-like features. Those penetrating green eyes. That cascade of sand-colored curly hair hanging about her shoulders. The curves of her -
"She's gone now," said Torquay. "What's done is done. We gotta get your mind off things. 'Member when we'd take those weekend trips back at Rocketbilly U?"
I smiled. "You mean the camping trips or the 'trips' we took on those crazy tabs? Where'd you ever get those?"
He shrugged. "I mean both. And it just so happens that I have in my possession the craziest tabs ever. Highly illegal of course."
"Of course. Can't be crazier than those aquatic mutation tabs. After 16 hours underwater the gills felt perfectly normal. I wasn't just swimming like a fish. I thought like a fish. What could be more crazy than that?"
"Let's just call it a mystery tab. We'll go camping and take it in the woods. Expand your horizons. Get your mind off Shareen. It's your chance to move on. You in?"
I didn't want to move on from Shareen. But Torquay was a good friend. I'd known him almost as long as her. A weekend of fresh air and seeing weird lights or laughing our heads off - whatever those tabs did - was fine. I was ready to get away from the world for awhile.
Five hours later we were enroute to the alien ruins in the forest. Technically you weren't supposed to disturb the ruins but it was kind of a grey area. Few people went there and nobody patrolled it. Torquay's groundtruck was heavily loaded with enough supplies for 50 people. A huge cargo trailer dragged behind. It swayed around a curve, its shock absorbers groaning under the strain. Torquay said he didn't feel like camping light.
I brought up the topic of Shareen but he kept trying to shut me down. I persisted. "You knew her even before I met her. How could she expect me to just drop everything? Join her in this rebellion I didn't even know existed? Decide in one hour between an unknown future with her and normal life? I have a good job. I'm in debt and more debt but who isn't. Tuition, housing loans, energy loans, food and oxygen loans, it adds up. But compared with so many, my life is OK. I've got a good job, a sports aircar, my health - that's got to count for something."
He paused, choosing his words very carefully. "We always knew you'd be a success, ever since you got that classified internship. You had a plan and you executed. Information Tech Administration. You worked hard and were good at it. Look at you now - a classified level city administrator with access to passcodes and systems spanning the planet. No wonder that little band of rebels of hers would want you onboard. You have a lot to offer."
I shook my head. "I'm no rebel. I don't believe in trying to overthrow anything. It's too big for me to change. It's all part of a cycle. Societies flow and evolve. There's a science behind it. Not a science I know, but science. Like a machine. Something moving forward with its own logic. Not something you can just fix by banding together with a bunch of malcontents and having secret meetings to try to change the world. I'm not a world changer. I just do my job the best I can. Collect my pay. Wash my aircar and zoom around in it."
"But you thought about leaving it all behind. Thought about stepping into an unknown future with her and her secret band of outlaws not because of discontent with society or belief in establishing a utopia. Because of love. You thought about giving it all up to be with her and pledge your life to support the group of miscreants she believed in. Rebels you'd never met, didn't even know she'd been involved in all those years."
"All those years?" I asked, "How long?"
Torquay's groundtruck hit a washout and all 6 of its big knobby mud tires struggled for grip. The hub motors whined and growled. The truck rose up the rise, dragging its huge and overloaded, sagging cargo trailer. The trailer's hub motors came to life to assist. They spun and threw dirt.
We crested the ridge and there saw glittering alien ruins. Spires and domes rose in translucent splendor like diamond-dusted grey glass. Small bits of color sparkled within their dusky haze. Trees and vines sprawled over the low areas but many buildings were intact and unmolested, jutting hundreds of meters high. The ruins extended far into the distance. Towers, cubes, and octagonal constructs shimmered in the spreading orange glow of sunset. It had been a living city, pulsing to the life-beat of aliens unknown. They abandoned it just before humans settled the planet. Took with them all their records, their technology. No pictures, no video screens, no tele-books remained to give any clue what kind of creatures they had been. What they looked like or how they lived. As if they'd intentionally left as few clues as possible. As if they'd wanted to disappear, and did.
"This is it," said Torquay. He steered into a clearing bordered by spiral towers and translucent rubble. "We better set up camp before the sun goes down."
We set up tents, chairs, a boombox, and lights on poles. We turned on the electric grill and placed upon its horizontal slats some steaks, onions, peppers, and pineapple slices. Soon they sizzled and emanated wondrous smells. We drank beers and laughed about our Rocketbilly University hijinks. Replayed how I'd risen in the ranks of Comptrom Corp's infotech managers. How Torquay had bounced from job to job and title to title, seemingly unemployed much of the time yet making good money. Enough to remain independent, a renegade perpetually at the fringes of the system.
When the food was done we feasted and drank more beer. Caramel colored stars and crimson nebular wisps of the Kalemma cluster spanned the darkening sky. Clickets chirped in the trees and distant proto-owls hooted through the woodland expanse. Then the three moons rose and lit the landscape with a pale blue glow almost as bright as day.
Torquay pulled a small pack from his pocket and dumped the contents into his palm. Two pink pills. The illegal tabs! He handed me one.
I leaned back in my chair and examined it. It glowed faintly, illuminating the lines of my palm. "What's it do?"
Torquay swallowed his tab and gestured for me to do the same. I did, washing it down with the last of a beer. He became serious. "We're only halfway to our destination. This will take us the rest of the way."
At first nothing. Then a buzz intensified, coming from everywhere and nowhere. It blotted out the forest sounds. Torquay spoke but I had to strain to hear him above the din. "Don't freak out," he said, we're about to get small. Really small."
I felt like I was sliding down a hill but nothing physical happened yet. With sweaty hands I gripped the plastic armpads of the folding tubular metal camp chair. "What about all our camping gear? If we shrink won't we fall out of these chairs? Or be stuck high up on them?"
He shook his head. "It doesn't work like that. It's more than just chemical. All our stuff shrinks with us."
It did. With a sudden jolt of vertigo and a violent weightless whoosh there was a tear in reality and we fell through it. Our chairs, camping lights, grill, Torquay's truck and trailer, the boombox, everything we'd brought with us stood still. But around us and our stuff, reality expanded. The trees that had been 10 meters tall now towered into orbit. Bits of sand became the size of boulders, then mountains. What we'd brought with us looked normal, but the terrain had a weird plastic look to it, a bulbous quality, as if it were all composed of air-inflated rubber. Some parts gleamed with a hard gloss like polycarbonate. I stood up. It was firm underfoot.
"Welcome to the microworld," smiled Torquay. "You're smaller than a speck of dust now."
"A hallucination? Some kind of tek-tab that brings on a VR simulation?"
"Nope. Absolutely real."
Mammoth fern-like trees swayed nearby. The ground shook with pounding. Something crashed trees to the ground as it approached. A spleen-chilling roar shook the air.
"Come on!" said Torquay. He ran to the trailer, popped open its side door, and withdrew two hefty machineguns and bandoliers of grenade rounds. I took the gun and bandolier he handed me and noted the grenade launcher mounted on a rail below the gun's main barrel.
Another roar, louder and closer, and we were showered with spittle. A horrific head parted the giant fern trees. Spiky protrusions surrounded a huge beak-like snout lined with jagged razor teeth. Multiple primitive eyes peered down at us. Bristly long tendrils angled towards us and quivered.
"Dragon flea!" Torquay yelled. "Light it up!" His gun fired on full auto, every third round a tracer. The beast howled and drew back.
Stunned by the spectacle I paused. The dragon flea's beak flung more droopy, viscous spittle over us. Its antennas directed towards me and it lunged closer. I chambered a grenade round and aimed for the mouth. The round left its launch tube with a resounding pop and found its intended mark. It lodged within the back hinge of the gaping maw. The dragon flea's mouth worked open and shut as if it were chewing a lozenge, then the grenade finally exploded. BOOM! Half the beak was blown off. Now that thing was pissed. It charged towards us, slashing downward with puffy horn-tipped arms.
I was about to send another grenade down its gullet when it abruptly paused and jerked upright. Turned its head to face behind. A heavy drumming thundered the air. It throbbed the ground under my feet. Like a slow motion stampeed of proto-bisons.
Breaching the tops of distant folliage, a hundred bulbous shells like the backs of turtles bobbed up and down, approaching. Several long spear-like barbs protruded from each back. They clambered on segmented, cone shaped legs. At their mouths four thorn-like mandibles glistened - each mandible the size of a groundtruck. I saw no eyes. Maybe they sensed using the stiff three meter long hairs on their legs.
"Dust Mites!" yelled Torquay.
The dragon flea turned its body to face them, howled and bristled its spines. A dense clump of plants moved just past its feet. Fan-shaped lime colored bushes parted and humans rushed out. They were dressed like normal folks but some carried spears. Others, submachine guns. I knew one of them. Shareen!
She glanced over her shoulder at the onrushing herd of dust mites and sprayed at them with her compact machine pistol. Its hail of bullets scattered small holes across the beasts' armor-like hides. They seemed not to notice or care.
One swooped its head down and picked Shareen up in its mandibles. Her pistol fell from her grasp as she struggled to get free, kicking her legs in the air.
I aimed at the soft spot where one front leg joined its body, then squeezed the grenade launcher's trigger. With a whoomp the grenade fired and lodged itself in the joint, then exploded in a burst of yellow flame. The base of the leg disintegrated and the whole leg fell off, causing the dinosaur sized dust mite to topple forward. It dropped Sharleen and she fell to the ground in front of me.
"You OK?" I asked. Dozens of massive round backs rose above the fern trees and blocked the light from the 3 moons, plunging us into shadow.
She leaned against me unsteadily and nodded.
Humans ran past us. Several of them gathered around a device and hastily set it up on a tripod. Its control panel lit and they turned it to point towards the unrushing monstrous hordes.
A synthesizer tone warbled the air. An invisible force pressed against my skin and eardrums.
"Ultrasonics," Sharleen said.
The dust mites halted and the dragon flee cringed. They staggered away from the device and into the woods. Gradually they all disappeared into the distance.
The device's operators turned it off and began packing it back up into carrying bags.
"Sharleen -"
She hushed me.
The humans gathered in front of me and she took her place at their lead. Her eyes glistened in the moonlight. Her breast still heaved with heavy breathing but she was composed, regal. She spoke to me in a formal voice loud enough for all to hear.
"You've got your second chance. To join us. We don't bring in many outsiders." Torquay watched from the edge of the group.
I shrugged. "But I'm no rebel. I don't believe in rebelling or changing society."
She nodded. "We don't either. We can't change the trajectory of societies. We wouldn't even try. Our answer is to drop out. Become small. So small we're not seen, not noticed. We monitor their information systems, take power and resources here and there, but we never interfere. It's been like that for five hundred years. We have whole cities in the microverse. On every planet. Each generation recruits a few others - quality people with useful skills. People who seem to just disappear one day and no one knows where they went."
Plants rustled and parted nearby and another group emerged from the foliage - alien creatures in sparkling robes. Part reptile and part insect, like a cross between ant men and lizard men. They assembled nearby.
Sharleen waved her hand at them. "The native people of this planet, builders of the ruins."
They bowed their heads toward me.
"We established our base here just before the other humans arrived to colonize this planet. These native people saw that they couldn't stop the tide of interstellar colonization that would soon wash across their shores. But they didn't want to be part of its laws or culture. So they joined us in the microverse."
She reached her hand towards mine. "Will you join us in the microverse, Krom? Join me?"
I realized I was still holding my gun at the ready as if I might need to blast another microscopic mega beast at any moment. My hands ached from gripping the gun's checkered grips so hard. Clicket chirps and proto-owl hoots testified that peace had returned. I slung the gun over my shoulder.
"Of course," I said, and took her hand. We followed the others into the dense forest of feather-like ferns to begin our new life together.
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