Len blew a bubble of cinnamon gum and looked up at the stars through the trees. The July heat hadn’t left the woods after the sun went down and she felt sweat trickle down her back. The day had started out poor then somehow managed to get even worse. Len looked around at her camp site. She’d thrown up a small tent which held her sleeping bag and her utilitarian, black, handbag. In the distance she could hear the French Broad River roar through the small town of Hot Springs, North Carolina. The small fire she’d made crackled and threw the occasional spark up into the late summer sky. Len pulled out her phone to check the time; 10:45. The phone had no service which suited her just fine.
A white F-150 extended cab pick up truck drove around the bend at the end of the campsite she’d rented, its headlights illuminating her red Honda Civic parked twenty feet from her. Len shook her head. She knew the truck. It belonged to her ex. Her senior high school boyfriend. She’d broken off the relationship a month before prom because of his brutish behavior. After high school, Len went on to community college with an eye towards a state university and Justin had gone on to work at at a brewery, loading trucks.
Justin pulled in beside Len’s car. The truck’s headlights pointed down on the small campsite, casting an ugly modern glow. Justin opened his door, increasing the volume of bro-country escaping from the cab. The white man killed the engine but left the headlights on and jumped out of the needlessly elevated vehicle. He squared his shoulders and nodded to Len as he walked towards the camp.
“What are you doing here?” Len demanded. She stood up to face him.
Justin ambled over to the fire and looked down from his six foot perch. “I don’t like how we left things at the bar.”
“What do you mean?”
“You disrespected me in from of my friends. I can’t let something like that slide. Not out here in the real world. This isn’t high school, no more games.”
Len laughed. “The real world? How did I ever date you?”
“The way I see it, you make out with me and we’re even.”
“There is no way I’m making out with you.”
Justin leaned over Len and she could smell the alcohol on his breath. “You never should have broken up with me.” Len leaned away from Justin and stared right back up at him. Before she knew what was happening, Justin had grabbed her arm, pulled back his other arm and made a fist. That’s when a black orb dropped from the sky.
The orb shimmered with light from the truck and reflected it back in unexpected directions. It appeared to be about the same size and shape as a bowling ball. The orb paused above them then crashed into Justin’s head, causing him to slump to the ground, unconscious.
Len had left her family earlier that day after an argument with her parents. Frustrated, she’d grabbed her purse and driven away from her suburban home north of Asheville. An avid hiker, she always kept a camp bag in the trunk of her old but serviceable Civic. Len had driven up I-26 away from her problems while streaming her favorite metal albums from her phone. She sang along with gusto, filing the car with earnest off-key anger. The car speakers dinged with incoming texts that she ignored.
Without realizing it, Len had pulled off the highway and started down the two-lane slalom course that ended at the French Board River in Hot Springs. Once she made it down to the valley, the road moderated its chicanes before crossing the river into town. Len drove into downtown which held a few small brick and mortar buildings. The town housed hot springs, obviously, a bar and a couple of provision shops for Appalachian Trail hikers. The A.T. made its way through the center of town, its only urban detour on its 2,200 mile trek from Georgia to Maine.
Len took the first left turn after crossing the French Broad River and pulled into the parking lot of her favorite campsite. She got out of her car and stretched her cramped hamstrings then walked into the small one room wooden rental office. She rented a campsite at the far end of the camp, by the river. After paying, she got back into her car and drove across the street to an old brick two story building. The place didn’t have a name out front but she knew it as the Spot. She parked her car on the street and made her way into the bar.
On the inside, the Spot held booths along the left wall with a scattering of tables in the rest of the room. The back wall held a bar with half a dozen craft beer taps. A door to the right of the bar led to a screened back porch.
Right now, the place was empty of patrons. Len made her way back to the bar where an old analog clock showed the time as a quarter to five. The bartender looked up from her crossword and smiled. A middle-aged woman with blue hair and swirly tattoos covering her arms. “What can I getcha?”
Len shrugged to herself and ordered an IPA. She took a sip of the pint and the hops hit her tongue with a burst of rye flavor. She reached into her bag and pulled out her phone, a cracked Android several years out of date. Her brother Chris had texted her several times, “where are you?”
Len texted back: camping in hot springs too angry
She got an immediate reply from her brother: mom is pissed but dads okay they just worry cause you sound too nonconformist
Len: so what if I am?
Chris: they’re mad cause they don’t want to see you get in trouble
Len took a sip of IPA and tried to remember her mindfulness meditation lessons. She noticed her breathing and focused her attention on nothing else. Then her elbow got jostled and Len opened her eyes and looked up into the grinning face of her ex boyfriend, Justin.
“Hey beautiful, long time.” Justin’s big grin spread out his untrimmed beard. He was wearing ratty red shorts and a black wife-beater. He’d tied his black, dirty, hair up into a man-bun.
Len gave Justin a half smile. “Hey.” For a panicked half second she worried about how she locked. She almost never wore makeup and her long brown hair went halfway to her waist. She was wearing field pants for hiking and a black t-shirt from one her favorite local metal bands. Then she remembered that she didn’t care what Justin thought of her.
Justin laughed, “It’s too early to be sleeping at the bar.”
“My bad.” She didn’t feel like explaining mediation to Justin.
Justin turned and waved over a couple of guys who looked more or less like him. “This is Jake and Kyle. We work trucks together at the brewery.” The guys said hello then turned to the bar to order beer.
Against her better judgement, Len spent the next couple of hours drinking with her ex and his co-workers. The new guys weren’t bad. They reminded her of a lot of locals; they worked in the tourist trade but would never be able to afford the wares they sold.
At seven, a band started to setup on the porch and the group migrated to the patio with a dozen others and sat at long picnic tables. Two guys setup at one end of the porch with a guitar and fiddle. They opened their set with mountain music then moved into covers of pop songs. Kyle pulled some moonshine out from his bag and started passing it around to his friends under the table. Len refused, not wanting to get drunk.
After an hour of playing music, the duo took a break to get beer. Len thought it would be a good time to say her goodbyes. She stood up and caught Justin’s eye. “It was good to see you and meet your friends but I need to go setup camp.”
Justin smiled and nodded. “You want some help with tha’?” His words slurred at the end.
“I’m good. Nice catching up.”
Justin leaned over too close, his breath hot in her face.”I thought maybe we could go rent one of the hot springs together.”
Len resisted the urge to roll her eyes and laughed. “You wish.” With that she stood up and left the Spot.
Len stumbled backward from the floating orb and collapsed onto the ground with a thud. She almost choked on her gum and had to spit it out. After a fit of coughing, she managed to ask, “am I losing my mind?” The orb didn’t reply. “So you’re just the black marble of god that falls from the sky to save me?”
Pine needles rustled behind a tree at the edge of the firelight. Len turned her head from the black orb to the new intrusion. “Who’s there?”
A latino stepped from the darkness into the light. The whites in his eyes reflected in the glow of the headlights and Len could find no ill intent in them. Then she realized he was naked. Len stared as the man walked to the fire and sat down across from her. He wore no clothes but his nakedness did not appear to concern him.
“Your shock will pass as you become used to your new normalized reality,” the man said. “Our intervention on your behalf came not at random. For some days we have tried to determine the best time to approach you.”
“Who are you?”
“I am Miguel. Or rather, I am a clone of Miguel.” Len, startled by the night’s events, remained uncharacteristically silent. “I have been created by the alien to which you speak,” he pointed at the orb, “in order to gather information from your world. I am a clone of a man who is fine, he remains unharmed.”
Len looked around the campsite. “Are there hidden cameras anywhere? Is this a joke?” She didn’t wait for an answer before rushing on, “Why me?”
“We are what you call seekers. We are on a quest for an understanding of the nature of the universe.”
Len laughed. “Then why are you talking to me? I don’t know anything! My parents hate me, my ex hates me and my brother’s mad at me for abandoning him. Where are you even from?”
“Our creators sent out probes like ours hundreds of thousands of years ago to learn what other worlds know of the origin of the universe and the meaning of life. You are the first planet we have come to in our journey that holds intelligent life to ask the question of.”
“Wait, so this is like a religious studies exam or something? Oh, my, god, did I take molly?”
Miguel spread his hands, bowed slightly and smiled. “We seek to interact with many types of people. Our probes have used your digital media to assemble a list of people, old and young, to help us on our journey. We identified you as a good representative for your cohort.”
“Why not just download our brains?”
Miguel laughed. “We are here to learn, not destroy. We have found that while simulated life can navigate deep space, learn new languages and build clones of human bodies, what AI cannot do is experience consciousness. To do that requires biological life. So I have been grown with a human body to experience your understanding of reality. That will then be translated and sent back to our builders for analysis.”
“Dare I ask how your body was made?”
Miguel sighed. “We sourced the organic material from deer. I know this will upset you but not all choices can be perfect.”
Len held down the vomit she felt at the back of her throat. “What about you? What happens to your body?”
“You are exposing exactly why we sought you out! This is a penetrating question. We will do no harm to this Miguel 2.0. To me. When we leave the solar system, I will be left behind to live life in anyway I can manage.”
Justin moaned from beside the fire. Miguel stood up and turned around in one fluid motion, exposing his toned rear to Len. He turned his head over his shoulder and looked back at her. “I will check Justin’s truck for appropriate apparel.” He headed up the small grade to the truck and climbed into the cab. A few minutes later, he came back to the fire dressed in work boots, jeans and a black t-shirt with a brewery logo. “I found his work clothes. They are not too ill-fitting and mostly clean. I suggest that we leave this place before he awakes.”
“Will Justin be alright?”
“You care for this man that assaulted you?”
“I do not wish him harm but I do not like him.”
“This is an emphatic response. He will suffer no long term ills he is not otherwise predispositioned for.”
Justin sat up and held his hands to his head then opened his eyes and looked up at the orb. “What’s happening?”
Miguel leaned over the prone man. “You hit your head and you’re dreaming. lay back down and sleep.” Justin put his arms under his head and stretched out on the ground beside the fire. Miguel came over to Len and offered her a hand up from the ground. “We should leave.”
Len leaned over to speak to him with a lowered voice. “Where would we go?”
“I have no place in mind. Away from here so that we can talk. Let’s take your car.”
Len knew this to be a bad idea in general but going with Miguel felt like the thing to do. Like maybe it would be the most important thing she’s ever done. She crawled into her tent and closed the flaps, pulled off her t-shirt, snapped her bra back on then put her shirt on over it. After getting dressed, she rolled up her sleeping bag, exited the tent and folded up her temporary home with expert ease. She loaded her sleeping bag and tent bag into the trunk of her car.
Miguel left the orb and came over to the car. “Are you ready to go?” Len nodded a response and Miguel walked back over the fire and squatted. He picked up dirt from the ground with his hands and smothered the fire. When he’d finished, he made his way back to the car. “Let’s go.”
Miguel got into the passenger side front seat as Len got behind the wheel and pulled the keys out of her bag. She put the bag into the backseat then started the car. Her speakers emitted a loud beep as the bluetooth synced with her phone. “Where should we go?”
“Let’s leave this town. But first, you have to show me how to put on the seat belt.”
Len drove her car out of the camp on a one lane gravel road. After a mile, she went through the open gate and stopped at NC-209, Hot Spring’s main road. She turned left at the stop sign and could hear music coming from the Spot as she passed. Len then drove the car through downtown and kept going down the empty two-lane road away from the lights. After a couple of miles of silence, Len looked over at Miguel. He sat with his hands in his lap. “What happened to the black orb?”
“It is following us up there.” Justin pointed at the ceiling of the car.
“Can you talk to it?”
“Sort of. It reads minds so I just think at it. It also sends me messages.”
Len nodded like everything Miguel said made sense. Like he didn’t sound like a schizophrenic. “How long will you be doing research?”
“I am told you think of my creators as the ‘orb,’ so I will refer to them as such. The orb came here without bodies, as probes only. They created me and others like me for this single interaction. They will then leave us here. To them this is more merciful than killing us. They strive to be as ethical as possible on their quest.”
“They made you for me? That’s crazy!” Len laughed. “Are you my soul mate too?”
“My personality is determined by the hardware in my head and the upload I received. I know a lot more than the typical two day old but the orbs did not give me my clone’s memory, just his DNA. They did give me some of their knowledge. Enough to have this conversation.”
“How long is this research supposed to take?”
“Not that long, a few hours of conversation should be enough data for them.”
“Hardly feels worth it.”
“They are creating an encyclopedia of belief in order to look for patterns to the origin of life.”
“They don’t already know the answers?”
“It is the fiercest debate among their people. It is why the orbs were sent out, to see what the rest of the galaxy thinks about the origin of life and the meaning of the universe.”
Len slowed the car down as she came to a bend in the road. An ancient souvenir shop stood by the road, its roof having caved in. Len pulled in beside the old wooden structure and put the car into park. “I can’t have a conversation like this and drive. I have no idea what the answers to those questions are. I can’t help you.”
Miguel nodded beside her, his face illuminated by the green dash lights. “Tell me how that makes you feel.”
Len pounded the steering wheel, “Horrible! What’s the point? Why is life so hard? Why won’t my family accept my decisions? It’s why I meditate, to try and exist outside of the fear.”
“So if you could ask your creator, if one exists, one question, what would it be?”
“Why did you make us to suffer? Is it for your enjoyment or for some other purpose?” Len let out a slow breath. “You know you’re screwed right?”
“Why do you think so?”
“You don’t have any papers, right?
“No, I do not have any documentation. I will try to pass myself off as an illegal and hope the authorities are merciful.”
“You showed up here the wrong time for mercy. If they catch you, you’ll end up in a forced labor camp. This hasn’t been a good place to be undocumented since the pandemic. You know about that?”
“I have only a limited understanding. Can you tell me what happened?”
“Back when I was in elementary school, a pandemic swept the world. We went on lock down, they closed the schools, the whole country. They started to open things in the summer but the virus mutated and came back in the fall even worse. That's when the president halted the elections and called for martial law.”
“How did it feel to live through this?”
“Surreal. Just a real sense of loss. Too young to know what to think. But things only got worse. The states out west refused to accept the president’s martial law. He ordered the military to arrest the governors and they called out the National Guard. It turned into a huge standoff that dragged on for weeks. Eventually the military picked up its hardware and left the West.”
“Did any of the other parts of the country rebel?”
“The northeast tried to but the National Guard supported the military more there. And the virus had swept those states too much. They needed help. The Feds arrested the state government of New York and that was it. We’ve been that way ever since, two countries claiming to be the United States.”
“How has your life changed?”
“Not much here in Western North Carolina. We just learned not to insult the government. At least not on social networks. Some of the leaders in Asheville got in trouble. Like I said, not a good time to seek mercy.”
“The virus is gone then?”
“It’s gone, mostly. There are still outbreaks in places but I hear rumors that those are fake news to keep us in line.”
Miguel looked troubled. “I am feeling that this is not such a great place to have been brought by the orb.”
Len reached over and and grabbed Miguel’s hand and squeezed it. “Can they help you?”
“I don’t know. Do you know somewhere to see the sunrise? I saw it yesterday and it filled me with strong emotions.”
“Sure.” Len put the car back into drive.
Half an hour before dawn, Len and Miguel stood outside of the car in a parking lot at the foot of a hiking trail. The sky started to turn light blue as they headed up the path. After a fifteen minute hike they ended up in a field of low grass on top of a bald mountain. The path bisected the bald into two fields filled with wild flowers.
“Where are we?” Miguel asked,
“We’re at Max Patch. It’s a bald mountain right where the Great Smokies and the Blue Ridge come together. It has amazing 360 degree views.”
The sun started to peek through the clouds on the horizon and they turned to look as the mountains came into view all around them. The mountains appeared in hues of smoke and gradients of blue. Miguel wiped a tear from his face. “It’s amazing.”
Len crossed over to him and took his hand. “This is my favorite spot in the world.”
The black orb reappeared from the sky above them and floated downward. Miguel closed his eyes. “The orb says they have gathered all they can from this world. They thank you. Then there is something else. Something about an ethical dilemma they’ve been put in by your government. About the suffering of their creations. Oh, no, no, hold on!”
Len stood back from Miguel and yelled up at the orb, “what are you doing?”
A flash of bright light shot from the orb into Miguel and he simply ceased to exist. The orb then circled Len then flew into the sky, leaving her alone on top of the bald mountain.
Len fell to her knees and put her hands in her lap. Her fingers trembled so she laced them togther.. “I guess I’ll do what my parents want. Do what my parents want. Parents want, parents want.”