Entry 4

It had to be a dream. I kept telling myself it had to be a dream. However, the rocking chair I sat in certainly felt real and I never remembered feeling time in a dream. The minutes I sat down alone on the patio felt like hours or maybe days as my mind played over the events of the day. It had started off normal enough, but then John had been shot. If I had seen the bullet bounce off of him like he was Superman or if he had secretly been wearing body armor, I would not have been surprised. However, John had clearly been shot. I had seen the blood and the wound. Not even a superhero could survive that.

Another thought occurred to me as I rocked gently in the chair, waiting for John. Maybe this was not a dream. Maybe there had indeed been a struggled in a convenience store and John had indeed been shot. And maybe I had been shot too. If I had been shot then either I was dead and this was some part of the afterlife or I was severely injured and delusional.

I hoped if I had been shot that my fate was John’s. If he lived, I wanted to live. If he died, I wanted to die. I could not imagine my life without John. He had been there my entire life. He had been my only real family. He had taken care of me. He had read me stories and helped me with my homework. I could not imagine my life without him. Life without John was meaningless. John was all I had.

“Carlee?” A door creaked open and John stepped onto the patio. My eyes immediately went to his chest. His t-shirt had been replaced with a pristine button-up blue shirt, so I could not tell if he was still wounded. I supposed people would not still have their wounds in the afterlife. “Carlee, are you alright?”

“Are we dead, John?” I asked, looking up at my big brother who had never lied to me before. If we were dead, John would know it. If he told me we were dead, I would believe him. I would just be happy that we were both dead together.

“No, Carlee, we are not dead,” John answered, coming and sitting in the rocking chair beside mine.

“Then is this a delusion? A dream?” I demanded. “How did we get here?”

“Transporter, like in Star Trek,” John answered. I stared at him dumbly. Star Trek was one of John’s favorite shows. I had seen almost every episode with him so I knew what he meant by a transporter. The transporters were what beamed the crew from the ship to other ships or to the surface of planets. It was instantaneous travel.

“So we were transported to music camp?” I asked. If such technology existed, why would we be transported to music camp?

“We’re on a spaceship, Carlee,” John answered, his blue eyes studying me with concern.

“We’re at camp,” I pointed out, wondering how he could possibly confuse a rustic music camp with a spaceship.

“This is essentially a holodeck,” he answered, continuing his Star Trek reference. “Gene Rodenberry actually got a lot of his ideas from the Ovleen, the species that builds these vessels. The Society of Anthropologists was pretty mad about him broadcasting such ideas. They could not punish him, since he was after all human, but the repercussions in the Society were unprecedented.”

“What?” I demanded. Holodecks, Ovleen, Anthropologists? What in the world was he talking about.

“I should start at the beginning,” he said. “Carlee, Earth is just one of billions of planets in the universe and it has fairly primitive life. There are millions of more advanced species and races that exist. Do you follow me?”

“Theoretically,” I responded. John and I had discussed the possibility of alien life before. I believe in possibility of alien life. We were just a small planet in a backwoods galaxy. The universe was huge. It was seemed very arrogant that we would think humans were the only life to exist.

“No, not theoretically, Carlee,” John said. “What I’m telling you is true. Have I ever lied to you?”

“I don’t know. What is all this?” I demanded, beginning to think our very existence might be a lie.

“I have never lied to you,” he assured me. I didn’t feel very assured at that moment. Nothing felt real. “You are the one being in the entire universe that I cannot lie to.” I stared at him blankly, so he continued to explain.

“So millions of more advance beings exist and have their communities, just like we do. Some of their scientific communities are interested in and study more primitive cultures such as Earth – but you can’t really know how a species is really is if you’re a stranger among them.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” I admitted. “It’s like going to Europe. They judge you because you’re American and treat you like that. You can never truly know what it’s like to be French.” Thinking about the idea made my brain start working without it considering the events from earlier in the day. It was good to think about a theoretical idea.

“Exactly,” he said, regarding me with a smile. “So what would be the best way for aliens to obverse a primitive race without them knowing? To truly know what it’s like to be treated like one of the race?”

“Disguise I guess,” I said, but John gave me a look that said he knew I was not really thinking about his question. He knew I could come up with a better answer once I fully thought about his idea.

“Well, I guess if you were an alien you would want a disguise so completely that you would be thought of as one of them,” I thought aloud. “You would need to become the people you’re studying to know best how these people truly act.”

“No one can truly know a society without being part of it,” John agreed. “The observer would have to not just act like the observed but think like the observed. How can someone ever be so integrated if they are foreign?”

“They wouldn’t,” I responded. “Only someone raised in that environment could truly think like the people in the environment. The alien would have to be disguised in infancy and raised among the people.” I paused, looking at my brother suspiciously. “You’re not going to tell me I’m an alien are you?”

“No,” he said with a smile. “You are one hundred percent human. One hundred percent Earthling even. Your parents were one hundred percent Earthlings. You were born on Earth. You are not an alien.”

“You said ‘your parents’,” I observed, studying my brother with uncertainty. Was he saying he was an alien? “But John, we have the same parents. We must. We look so much alike.” I could not remember our parents. John did not either. It never crossed my mind that we might have different parents. Everyone said how similar we looked. We had to have the same parents.

“I was designed that way,” he said, his smile gone. His face was very serious as he looked at me. “Carlee, I’m not human, but I’m not exactly an alien.”

“What does that make you?” I asked, startled. Was the universe not divided up simply into humans and aliens? You were either one or the other. You were either a native of Earth, or you weren’t. Perhaps being born on the moon might be considered some middle ground, but the moon certainly did not have aliens. Surely Neil Armstrong would have said something if the moon had a civilization. Unless there was a major cover up.

John said something, interrupted my rambling thoughts. He realized I had not heard him so he repeated it. “Carlee, I’m an android.”