Escape

Posted on 05 Apr 2019 @ 8:22pm by Lieutenant JG Sofie Ullswater

700 words; about a 4 minute read

Erin Kelly rides through the bush.

Nobody chooses to live in a place like this, it is desolate and empty, a vast expanse of nothingness, almost like space. Sometimes that's what we want though - sometimes we look for escape - sometimes we need to get away from the rest of the world. That's why I'm here and that's why Erin Kelly is here.

What makes us who we are more so than the stories we tell and how we tell them. Tales passed down from generation to generation. Its a way of forming self and group identity. I know who my family are because of the memories of Christmas meals and many old anecdotes. I know who my people are through the folklore from the legends of Wenceslaus to Wordsworth. I know who I am from riding through the outback.

With my Snider-Enfield bouncing against my side and the sun beating down overhead I keep moving. There is a town up ahead, I have visited it many times. Its not a safe place though, the police know I'm in the area and are on high alert. Even with my entire gang there is no way I could hope to rob the bank there. Its part of the Kelly legend though that I should work it out anyway. Kelly laughs in the face of danger and scoffs at the efforts of these police to prop up an unjust regime of greed and prejudice. So long as I'm on the holodeck that's me too.

I see a family mourning at the town's cemetery. A dead police officer. I killed him.

A sudden wave of emotion crashes into me. These people are colonists, they have travelled pretty much as far as human possible to build a new life in the antipodes. Now some of them are dead. There's a colony in the Latari system, far out from Earth. Some of those colonists are dead now too.

I push it out of my mind. I'm here to escape. I'm here to tell a story about the heroic Erin Kelly, fighting for the downtrodden and the meek. My rifle feels more heavy now. I thought I could escape here, I thought that here I could be whoever I wanted to be, I thought I could tell a story that didn't end in thousands of people dying horribly in a volcanic eruption.

But it follows me. It would follow you too.

How many children? How many mothers and fathers? How high was the cost? And what was it buying?

Life isn't a story, there's no narrative justice, no catharsis or conclusion. Those people will never see another Christmas. The children will never grow old. The folklore will not be passed down. These people are dead and what's more their home is dead, the place they built, the idea they built. A new start among the stars.

I turn away from the town and head back out into the depths of the outback. I drive the horse on, faster and faster. I want to escape. I want to get away from everything. Here I'm Erin Kelly, bushranger hero. Out there I'm nothing.

I hear a beeping from my pocket, its an alarm telling me that my slot on the holodeck is nearing its end.

Time to be nothing again.

-------------------------


Sofie stood at the door of the lab. There was little movement other than the steam that lazily wound its way up from her mug of tea. She sighed deeply and looked into the room. There was a console waiting for her, built into the desks of the lab. She would sit there and analyse. Analyse reams of astrometric data, unfiltered telemetry, and most pressingly the data from the Latari colonies.

Erin Kelly wouldn't just sit down and do it. She'd be out roaming the stars living life like she may well be arrested, or die, tomorrow.

But Sofie Ullswater was not Erin Kelly.

She ran a hand through her hair and entered the room. She set her tea down on the desk and collapsed back in her chair. Calling up the latest data set from the sensor banks the ensign set to work.

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