RECV EDC: 10DEC2018
COMM MODE: DSN REFLECT
CODED ABST: D/M/C
CRC: 2080749424 3456
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I always assume I'm going to get caught; it helps me run.
When I started transmitting after my escape, I did it
because there were some things I felt like I needed to put
out into the ether, things that I didn't want to die with
me.
This is my third transmission. I'm not dead yet. The
Corporation hasn't managed to wrap their tentacles around me
so far. I've had the time and opportunity to share the
things I want to share, but I haven't done it.
For the past half-cycle I've been hopping smuggling
cruisers. Those pilots will do anything for a price, and
they don't give a shriveled ipfthog for the Corporation. I
know, because I used to be one of them.
During all of the sleep units on these hops, I've been
ripped from fitful and unsettled REM stints by a jarring
vision. I guess I could call it a dream, but it's more like
a demonic incubus, a specter, a harbinger. I claim that I'm
not a coy dramatist, but I'm lying to myself. I didn't used
to be this way.
In the vision it is night. I'm on some planet in an
unidentifiable industrial district, but not a dense one.
Large metal buildings are dispersed over a slightly sloping
expanse, and I'm at a high point so I can see across the
landscape. All is darkness, but not the cool darkness that
you normal experience in an average atmosphere, single-star
system. It's warm, almost uncomfortably hot, and there is a
dull orange light everywhere. I look, and notice that all of
the buildings are starting to burn.
Fear grips me, and I search around for my friends. Names I
haven't even thought of for ages come to my lips, and I
call out as if I expect them to come running. I want to save
them, to escape. In the distant sky, I see a fire tornado
form. It is coming toward me.
I call again, and as I turn to search the black and orange
horizon, I see a person in the shadows. They are standing
still, but somehow we are moving closer. I can't scream. I
can't run. As the figure advances into the light of the
nearest burning warehouse, I see the face. It is my own.
All of this I can tell you freely, but I can't tell you the
one thing that I desperately need to tell you. Somehow it's
not real. It's just a part of the dream, a nightmare that
was foisted upon my waking conscience by the Corporation. It
can't be real. I won't lend it credence by vocalizing it. I
am still afraid.
Thankfully, I'm done hopping. I've re-designated, and this
last frigate is approaching a system that should afford me
at least a little respite from the Corporation. I'll book
and pay for transport for another hop, then I'll give it to
some street urchin that wants nothing more than to get off
planet. I'll take his place, and enjoy the rough and heavy
rest of the rejected and forgotten homeless, for a time.
When I transmit again, it must be with a clear mind and
purpose- otherwise, I see no point in continuing these
messages.
One last thing before I reflect this: the names, the old
friends that I remembered in my dreams; I remember all of
them still, now in my waking moments. I can see their faces.
Some of them I haven't seen or heard from since I was a
small child. I don't know how this is happening, but my
soul burns with a frenzied despair that it might have
something to do with my waking nightmare.
