Transcriptions: Part 1

Below is a transcription of a small handwritten account of what has been happening to me, dated as best I could.

TD: 3:78:3729

It has been two days since they let me out of that tiny room. They took away Ruya's computer, finally and yesterday they did not let me out to visit her. Today, though, I woke up in my new room (which has a whole wall that is literally barred like a prison cell) to someone sliding in a tray of food. It was someone new, a woman I would gauge to be in her thirties. She was as formally dressed as anyone else I've seen in the building.

I wasn't able to get a word out of her but I ate breakfast either way.

Turns out that the meal was not without a catch.

Whatever they put in it knocked me out after, I assume five or six minutes and I woke up (with no idea of how much time had passed) in the passenger seat of a van outside of the hospital. Ruya's condition was mostly unchanged according to the nurses but somehow as I sat there I got the really bad feeling she was slipping farther away.

The suits gave me several good hours with her and then sent someone in to escort me out. I made the trip back to this place blindfolded, they offered me dinner and then sent me back to this cell.

Not a single person answered a single question I asked and I have so many.

After I scarfed down the meal they handed me what appears to be an atlas of the continent I live on and told me to start familiarizing myself with it, local areas first and then spread out.

I still have no idea where to start, I have no clue how far I am from Ruya's or what “local” even is.

But maybe if I do what they say they'll help me. I don't know, that feels too hopeful

TD: 3:80:3729

I've been staring at the map and made very little progress. I know the names of several cities around Ruya's, the name of the state (province?) that they are in and get a general feel for the landscape around there. The continent we're on has six countries (discounting a small colony on the west coast) all of which are divided into several provinces, though. I'm assuming that I'm anywhere near her but I could be hours away. I had to double check whether it had been a rotation or two since the last thing I scribbled on this pad.

They're promising me that I can see Ruya tomorrow. I might even be allowed to go by the house and pick up my own clothing instead of this suit. I meant it literally when I said they wanted me to suit up. They told me my studies are going to have to “accelerate.”

TD: 3:81:3729

Getting fairly late now I think, but the long and short of it is that I did manage to get hold of my clothing. The shirt, shoes and pants I arrived in are still holding together mostly, and I'm wearing them now. Feels a little bit like home but smells like Ruya's place. She is unchanged, though at this point, you can really tell that her usual hair color is not her natural, you can tell she has been fed nutrients through a tube and you can tell she has not been moving around. You can see the damage this has done to her.

It's damage that, as my captors remind me whenever possible, I caused.

They gave me a book to read. At least it's in a language I can understand. It's a handbook, all about procedures. I saw an acquaintance's basic training handbook after he came back from bootcamp once. It reminds me of a mixture of that and a rule book. I get this really bad feeling I'll be armed soon. Which is really bad when you're at the mercy of some faceless and nameless organization.

Guess it's not faceless after all, actually.

I've got a face.

Fuck that word, “faceless.”

And that monster. What do they have to do with him?

Final thoughts on the book: Most of the rules seem to be not to give out any information whatsoever. At all. Not even the time of day if you can swing it.

----------

TD: 3:84:3729

They have had me isolated in that fucking small room I was originally in for showing signs of mental illness. They tell me it's normal in those who have traveled. I think there is supposed to be a capital T in that. What they don't know and won't until they confiscate and read this in a few hours is that it might be a completely valid concern. Or maybe not. Two rotations ago, on the 82^nd I was being 'observed' while I 'studied.' (That's a kind way to say that they had a guard posted outside of my “Room” to make sure I didn't simply sleep the day away out of petty revenge for not being allowed to go to the hospital.)

I experienced something I haven't experienced in a long, long time and I forgot what it was like for it to be disturbing or novel.

I lost the better part of a day... but I gained something so much more rewarding.

I think it was a gift. That's insane, but it is.

Sean, my brother, he's alive. He's not happy, he's not well but he's alive and with his friends. I saw all three of them together. They look like hell, they're running from something, but they're together. I could fucking weep.

I saw home and I saw the only relative I love.

Fucking spooks can take this paper but never take that away from me.

TD: 3:86:3729

They took the page but gave it back. I'm sure they just think I'm going insane. Either way, I believe in what I saw.

TD: 3:89:3729

This quadrant is almost over and things are getting to be strange. I haven't had any more “episodes” as it were, but I have been given the option of familiarizing myself with the protocols given to me and following them or staying confined to my cell (they've let me out of the smaller room I was first kept in again.)

The vast majority of this, as I said, is simply to be quiet and let others talk. You never want to reveal any information and most importantly, under no circumstances are you to physically engage with a “Traveler.” Like me.

It explains why absolutely none of them have ever tried to physically assault me.

TD: 3:91:3729

The end of a quadrant.

The start of something else.

The usual morning came and went and I kept my head down and studied. I didn't think I had a chance in hell of getting to see Ruya today. I was right, but it still wasn't a usual day. Someone showed up about an hour after I woke up and only gave orders but no information. The concept of pure surrender is to hurry to along to shower, shave, put on makeup that “softens the lines of your face,” dress in a suit you've never seen before and get blindfolded, put into a van and injected.

(All of this without a struggle, because what would the point be?)

I was not knocked out but I was high as a kite. Apparently when someone is laughing or making jokes, not even the spooks' driver can remain a stone wall of secrecy. Not that they got most of it. I know that at one point I started screaming. “DON'T USE THE FLASHY THING ON ME, K,” directly into the face of one of the men who first visited Ruya's place. They were unamused.

Men-In-Black, man.

I made my first mistake while I was drugged up and in the back of that van, though.

It wasn't all fun and games for me, after a while I just got irrationally angry and I think in the end I asked them if they knew about the “Tall Faceless Fuck.” They didn't say anything but that of course means that they didn't say they did not. They did however give me another shot and I think that put an end to screaming or laughing or joking. We traveled for what may have been hours or a day or maybe a few minutes. That sedative was the strongest thing that has ever been in my system, even more than whatever they gave me the first time around. Why did they give me anything I wonder?

When we stopped it was the middle of the day in a busy city. The biggest on this world I've ever been to, which constitutes the biggest of three I've seen. I've noticed something that makes me curious about this world, this culture. I've never seen a building more than three stories high. If they need more space than that it is typically underground. Which, by the way, may be an explanation for why I never see windows when the spooks keep me wherever it is they keep me. I was pretty out of it on the way to the van, so I really cannot recall. As for on the way back? Well, they had to sedate me again because I think I lost it a little bit.

We sat there in dead silence for a while , like they were waiting for me to come around. At one point, the man to my left (one of the two who visited me at Ruya's home) reached over and physically slapped me. Considering I was restrained the only thing I could do was wince, but it did its job. The adrenaline made me a little more aware. Then he reached out and forcefully turned my head toward the window and held it there before speaking his only words the entirety of the trip.

“Blue jacket, red trainers.” (Sneakers.)

I looked for someone in a blue jacket and red trainers and I saw him and recognized him.

Now I know what they meant by “don't you want to meet yourself?”

The man in the red shoes and blue jacket, sipping what passes for coffee around here, was me. His hair was dark black, his skin complexion was closer to Ruya's than mine, but in every other way I might have been watching a video of myself. I was mostly in control of my self, ready to mark it down to drugs in my system making me suggestible, until I saw a boy who looked like Sean, my brother come to meet him.

Suffice it to say when I started to bang my head against the window and yell, they quickly gave me another shot and I wasn't awake until I was hanging half in and half out of my “room” with someone ordering me to walk on my own.