This is a collaborative story between TheEquestrianIdiot2.0 and myself. If you want to review, that's great, but really, at least 80% of the credit goes to him. Send the guy some love. Enjoy!
In the infinity that is space, suns are but grains of sand. A white dwarf is barely worthy of notice. A small spacecraft like the lifeboat of the vanished vessel Nostromo is almost too tiny to exist in such emptiness. It drifted through the great nothing like a freed electron broken loose from its atomic orbit.
Yet even a freed electron can attract attention, if others equipped with appropriate detection instruments happen to chance across it. So it was that the lifeboat's course took it close by a familiar star. Even so, it was a stroke of luck that it was not permanently overlooked. It passed very near another ship; in space, 'very near' being anything less than a light-year. It appeared on the fringe of a range spanner's screen.
Some who saw the blip argued for ignoring it. It was too small to be a ship, the crew insisted. It didn't belong where it was and ships talked back. This one was as quiet as the dead. More likely it was only an errant asteroid, a renegade chunk of nickel-iron off to see the universe. If it was a ship, at the very least it would have been blaring to anything within hearing range with an emergency beacon.
But the captain of the ranging vessel was a curious fellow. A minor deviation in their course would give them a chance to check out the silent wanderer, and a little clever bookkeeping would be sufficient to justify the detour's cost to the owners. Orders were given, and computers worked to adjust trajectory. The captain's judgment was confirmed when they drew alongside the stranger: it was a ship's lifeboat.
Still no sign of life, no response to polite inquiries. Even the running lights were out. But the ship was not completely dead. Like a body in frigid weather, the craft had withdrawn power from its extremities to protect something vital deep within.
The captain selected three men to board the drifter. Gently as an eagle mating with a lost feather, the larger craft sidled close to the Narcissus. Metal kissed metal. Grapples were applied. The sounds of the locking procedure echoed through both vessels.
Wearing full pressure suits, the three boarders entered their airlock. They carried portable lights and other equipment. Air being too precious to abandon to the vacuum of space, they waited patiently while the oxygen was inhaled by their ship. Then the outer-lock door slid aside.
Their first sight of the lifeboat was disappointing: no internal lights visible through the port in the door, no sign of life within. The door refused to respond when the external controls were pressed. It had been jammed shut from inside. After the men made sure there was no air in the lifeboat's cabin, a robot welder was put to work on the door. Twin torches flared brightly in the darkness, slicing into the door from two sides. The flames met at the bottom of the barrier Two men braced the third, who kicked the metal aside. The way was open. Time to grab the spoils.
The lifeboat's interior was as dark and still as a tomb. A section of portable grappling cable snaked along the floor. Its torn and frayed tip ended near the exterior door. Up close to the cockpit a faint light was visible. The men moved toward it.
The familiar dome of a hypersleep capsule glowed from within. The intruders exchanged a glance before approaching. Two of them leaned over the thick glass cover of the transparent sarcophagus. Behind them, their companion was studying his instrumentation and muttered aloud.
"Internal pressure positive. Assuming nominal hull and systems integrity. Nothing appears busted; just shut down to conserve energy. Capsule pressure steady. There's power feeding through, though I bet the batteries have about had it Look how dim the internal readouts are. Ever see a hypersleep capsule like this one?"
"Late twenties." The speaker leaned over the glass and murmured into his suit pickup. "Good-lookin' dame to boot."
"Good-lookin', my ass," His companion sounded disappointed. "Life function diodes are all green. That means she's alive. There goes our salvage profit, guys."
The other inspector gestured in surprise. "Hey, there's something in there with her. Nonhuman. Looks like it's alive too. Can't see too clearly. Part of it's under her hair. It's pinkish."
"Pink?" The leader of the trio pushed past both of them and rested the faceplate of his helmet against the transparent barrier. "Got a weird lookin' tail, whatever it is."
"Hey." One of the men nudged his companion. "Maybe it's an alien life-form, huh? That'd be worth some bucks."
Mabel Pines chose that moment to move ever so slightly, stirring within the confines of deep hypersleep. A few strands of hair drifted down the pillow beneath her head, more fully revealing the creature that slept tight against her. The leader of the boarders straightened and shook his head disgustedly.
"No such luck. It's a . . . . Pig?"
"Pig on a ship, guys. Now I've seen everything."
Listening was a struggle. Sight was out of the question. Her throat was a seam of anthracite inside the lighter pumice of her skull; black, dry, and with a faintly resinous taste. Her tongue moved loosely over territory long forgotten. She tried to remember what speech was like. Her lips parted. Air came rushing up from her lungs, and those long-dormant bellows ached with the exertion. The result of this strenuous interplay between lips, tongue, palate, and lungs was a small triumph of one word. It drifted through the room.
"Thirsty."
Something smooth and cool slid between her lips. The shock of dampness almost overwhelmed her. Memory nearly caused her to reject the water tube. In another time and place that kind of insertion was a prelude to a particularly unique and loathsome demise. Only water flowed from this tube, however It was accompanied by a calm voice intoning advice.
"Don't swallow. Sip slowly."
She obeyed, though a part of her mind screamed at her to suck the restoring liquid as fast as possible. Oddly enough, she did not feel dehydrated, only terribly thirsty.
"Good," she whispered huskily. "Got anything more substantial?"
"It's too soon," said the voice.
"The stuff it is. How about some fruit juice, or something"?
"Citric acid will tear you up." The voice hesitated considering, then said, "Try this."
Once again the gleaming metal tube slipped smoothly into her mouth. She sucked at it pleasurably. Sugared iced tea cascaded down her throat, soothing both thirst and her first cravings for food. When she'd had enough, she said so, and the tube was withdrawn. A new sound assailed her ears: the trill of some exotic bird.
She could hear and taste; now it was time to see. Her eyes opened to a view of pristine rain forest. Trees lifted bushy green crowns heavenward. Bright iridescent winged creatures buzzed as they flitted from branch to branch. Birds trailed long tail feathers like jet contrails behind them as they dipped and soared in pursuit of the insects. A quetzal peered out at her from its home in the trunk of a climbing fig.
Orchids bloomed mightily, and beetles scurried among leaves and fallen branches like ambulatory jewels. An agouti appeared, saw her, and bolted back into the undergrowth From the stately hardwood off to the left, a howler monkey dangled, crooning softly to its infant.
The sensory overload was too much. She closed her eyes against the chattering profusion of life.
Later, by perhaps another hour or an entire day, a crack appeared in the middle of the big tree's buttressing roots. The split widened to obliterate the torso of a gamboling marmoset. A woman emerged from the gap and closed it behind her, sealing the temporary bloodless wound in tree and animal. She touched a hidden wall switch, and the rain forest went away with an effortless blip sucking all the grandiose world into digital nothingness.
It was very good for a solido, but now that it had been shut off, Mabel could see the complex medical equipment the rain forest imagery had camouflaged. To her immediate left was the medved that had responded so considerately to her request for first water and then cold tea. The machine hung motionless and ready from the wall, aware of everything that was happening inside her body, ready to adjust medication provide food and drink, or summon human help should the need arise.
The newcomer smiled at the patient and used a remote control attached to her breast pocket to raise the backrest of Mabel's bed. The patch on her shirt, which identified her as a senior medical technician, was bright with color against the background of white uniform. Mabel eyed her warily, unable to tell if the woman's smile was genuine or routine. Her voice was pleasant and maternal without being cloying.
"Sedation's wearing off. I don't think you need any more. Can you understand me?" Mabel nodded. The medtech considered her patient's appearance and reached a decision. "Let's try something new. Why don't I open the window?"
"I dunno. Why don't you?"
The smile weakened at the corners, was promptly recharged Professional and practiced, then; not heartfelt. And why should it be? The medtech didn't know Mabel, and Mabel didn't know her. So what. The woman pointed her remote toward the wall across from the foot of the bed.
"Watch your eyes."
Now there's a choice non sequitur for you, Mabel thought Nevertheless, she squinted against the implied glare.
A motor hummed softly, and the motorized wall plate slid into the ceiling. Harsh light filled the room. Though filtered and softened, it was still a shock to Mabel's tired system.
"Oh yikes."
Outside the port lay a vast sweep of nothingness. Beyond the nothingness was everything. A few of Gateway Station's modular habitats formed a loop off to the left, the plastic cells strung together like children's blocks. A couple of communications antennae peeped into the view from below. Dominating the scene was the bright curve of the Earth. Africa was a brown, white-streaked smear swimming in an ocean blue, the Mediterranean a sapphire tiara crowning the Sahara.
Mabel had seen it all before, in school and then in person. She was not particularly thrilled by the view so much as she was just glad it was still there. Events of recent memory suggested it might not be, that nightmare was reality and this soft, inviting globe only mocking illusion. It was comforting, familiar, reassuring, like a worn-down teddy bear. The scene was completed by the bleak orb of the moon drifting in the background like a vagrant exclamation point: planetary system as security blanket.
"And how are we today?" She grew aware that the medtech was talking to her instead of at her.
"Bleh. Terrible." Someone or two had told her once upon a time that she had a lovely and unique voice. Eventually she should get it back. For the moment no part of her body was functioning at optimum efficiency. She wondered if it ever would again because she was very different from the person she'd been before. That Mabel had set out on a routine cargo run in a now vanished spacecraft. A different Mabel had returned, and lay in the hospital bed regarding her nurse.
"Just terrible?" You had to admire the medtech, she mused. A woman not easily discouraged. "That's better than yesterday, at least. I'd call "terrible" a quantum jump up from atrocious."
Mabel squeezed her eyelids shut, opened them slowly. The Earth was still there. Time, which heretofore she hadn't given a hoot about, suddenly acquired new importance.
"How long have I been on Gateway Station?"
"Just a couple of days." Still smiling.
"Feels so much longer."
The medtech turned her face away, and Mabel wondered whether she found the terse observation boring or disturbing "Do you feel up to a visitor?"
"I have a choice?" The idea of patient allowance seemed shocking to Mabel. She was at their mercy, and they humbly allowed her their options.
"Of course you have a choice. You're the patient. After the doctors, you know best. You want to be left alone, you get left alone."
Mabel shrugged, mildly surprised to discover that her shoulder muscles were up to the gesture. "I've been alone long enough. Ah, whattheheck. Who is it?"
The medtech walked to the door. "There are two of them actually." Mabel could see that she was smiling again.
A man entered, carrying something. Mabel knew his fat, pink, bored-looking burden.
"Waddles!" She sat up straight, not needing the bed support now. The man gratefully relinquished possession of the small pig. Mabel cuddled him to her, rejoicing in the oinks and tiny squeals the ovine replied with. "Come here, Waddles, you ugly old moose, you sweet ball of love, you!"
The man who'd brought the good pink news with him pulled a chair close to the bed and patiently waited for Mabel to take notice of him. He was in his thirties, good-looking without being flashy, and dressed in a nondescript business suit. His smile was no more or less real than the medtech's even though it had been practiced longer. Mabel eventually acknowledged his presence with a nod but continued to reserve her conversation for the pig. It occurred to her visitor that if he was going to be taken for anything more than a delivery man, it was up to him to make the first move.
"Nice room," he said without really meaning it. The visitor had slicked back bleach-white hair and a round face. He looked like a country boy, but he didn't talk like one, Mabel thought as he edged the chair a little closer to her. "I'm Gideon. Gideon Charles Gleeful. I work for the Company, but other than that, I'm really an okay guy. Glad to see you're feelin' better." The last at least sounded as though he meant it.
"Who says I'm feeling better?" She said as she stroked Waddles.
"Your doctors and machines. I'm told the weakness and disorientation should pass soon, though you don't look particularly disoriented to me. Side effects of the unusually long hypersleep, or something like that. Biology wasn't my favorite subject, you see. I was better at figures. For example, yours seems to have come through in pretty good shape." He nodded toward the bed covers.
"I hope I look better than I feel, because I feel like the inside of an Egyptian mummy. Hey, You said "unusually long hypersleep"- How long was I out there?" She gestured toward the watching medtech. "They won't tell me anything."
Gideon's tone was soothing, paternal. "Well, maybe you shouldn't worry about that just yet."
Mabel's hand shot from beneath the covers to grab his arm. The speed of her reaction and the strength of her grip clearly surprised him. "No. I'm conscious, and I don't need any more coddling. How long?"
He glanced over at the medtech. She shrugged and turned away to attend to the needs of some incomprehensible tangle of lights and tubes. When he looked back at the woman lying in the bed, he found he was unable to shift his eyes away from hers.
"All right. It's not my job to tell you, but my instincts say you're strong enough to handle it. Fifty-seven years."
The number hit her like a hammer. Fifty-seven too many hammers. Hit her harder than waking up, harder than her first sight of the home world. She seemed to deflate, to lose strength and color simultaneously as she sank back into the mattress Suddenly the artificial gravity of the station seemed thrice Earth-normal, pressing her down and back. The air-filled pad on which she rested was ballooning around her, threatening to stifle and smother. The medtech glanced at her warning lights but all of them stayed silent.
Fifty-seven years. In the more than half century she'd been dreaming in deepsleep, friends left behind had grown old and died, family had matured and faded, the world she'd left behind had metamorphosed into who knew what. Governments had risen and fallen; inventions had hit the market and been outmoded and discarded. No one had ever survived more than sixty-five years in hypersleep. Longer than that and the body begins to fail beyond the ability of the capsules to sustain life She'd barely survived; she'd pushed the limits of the physiologically possible, only to find that she'd outlived life.
"Fifty-seven!" Mabel clutched the sheets, a tightness in her chest as she let the passage of time sink into her mind.
"You drifted right through the core systems," Gideon was telling her. "Your beacon failed. It was blind luck that that deep salvage team caught you when they . . ." he hesitated. She'd suddenly turned pale, her eyes widening. "Are you all right?"
She coughed once, a second time harder. There was a pressure. Her expression changed from one of concern to dawning horror. Waddles squealed loudly and leapt away. Gideon tried to hand her a glass of water from the nightstand, only to have her slap it away. It struck the floor and shattered. Mabel grabbed at her chest, her back arching as the convulsions began. She looked as if she were strangling.
The medtech was shouting at the omnidirectional pickup "Code Blue to Four Fifteen! Code Blue, Four One Five!"
She and Gideon clutched Mabel's shoulders as the patient began bouncing against the mattress. They held on as a doctor and two more techs came pounding into the room.
It couldn't be happening. It couldn't!
"Nonoooooo!"
The techs were trying to slap restraints on her arms and legs as she thrashed wildly. Covers went flying. One foot sent a medtech sprawling while the other smashed a hole in the soulless glass eye on a monitoring unit.
"Hold her," the doctor was yelling. "Get me an airway, stat!"
An explosion of blood suddenly stained the top sheet crimson, and the linens began to pyramid as something unseen rose beneath them. Stunned, the doctor and the techs backed off. The sheet continued to rise.
Mabel saw clearly as the sheet slid away. The medtech fainted. The doctor made gagging sounds as the eyeless toothed worm emerged from the patient's shattered rib cage. It turned slowly until its fanged mouth was only a foot from its host's face, and screeched. The sound drowned out everything human in the room, filling Mabel's ears, overloading her numbed cortex, echoing, reverberating through her entire being as she . . .
. . . sat up screaming, her body snapping into an upright position in the bed. She was alone in the darkened hospital room. Colored light shone from the insect-like dots of glowing LEDs. Clutching pathetically at her chest she fought to regain the breath the nightmare had stolen.
Her body was intact: sternum, muscles, tendons, and ligaments all in place and functional. There was no demented horror ripping itself out of her torso, no obscene birth in progress. Her eyes moved jerkily in their sockets as she scanned the room. Nothing lying in ambush on the floor nothing hiding behind the cabinets waiting for her to let down her guard. Only silent machines monitoring her life and the comfortable bed maintaining it. The sweat was pouring off her even though the room was pleasantly cool. She held one fist protectively against her sternum, as if to reassure herself constantly of its continued inviolability.
She jumped slightly as the video monitor suspended over the bed came to life. An older woman gazed anxiously down at her Night-duty medtech. Her face was full of honest, not merely professional, concern.
"Bad dreams again? Do you want something to help you sleep?" A robot arm whirred to life left of Mabel's arm. She regarded it with distaste.
"No. I've slept enough."
"Okay. You know best. If you change your mind, just use your bed buzzer." She switched off. The screen darkened.
Mabel slowly leaned back against the raised upper section of mattress and touched one of the numerous buttons set in the side of her nightstand. Once more the window screen that covered the far wall slid into the ceiling. She could see out again. There was the portion of Gateway, now brilliantly lit by nighttime lights and, beyond it, the night-shrouded globe of the Earth. Wisps of cloud masked distant pinpoints of light, cities alive with happy people blissfully ignorant of the stark reality that was an indifferent, cold cosmos.
Something landed on the bed next to her, but this time she didn't jump. It was a familiar, demanding shape, and she hugged it tightly to her, ignoring the casual squeak of protest.
"It's okay, Waddles. We made it, we're safe. I'm sorry I scared you buddy. It'll be all right now, okay? It's going to be all right."
All right, yes, save that she was going to have to learn how to sleep all over again.
An impromptu story, I know. You see, tEI2.0 & I were talking about all sorts of crazy ideas that Gravity Falls could adhere to, and this one just so happened to pop up. We really loved the idea, and bless that man's drive, he just said 'screw it, we'll do it live!' and here we are. Chestbursters and stuff man. Wow.
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Thanks for reading!
-EZB & TheEquestrianIdiot2.0