Short Story - Recognition (Patreon)

Just reposting some old writing prompts.

_____

One hundred and thirty six worlds.  One hundred and thirty six  Earths.  The first one, I'd barely managed to get the funding to  actually build the breach device.  The second one, I was too confused  about what had happened to do anything of use.  But after I got my  bearings, and started to understand, I did what I could, where I could.   I tried to help, when possible.  I tried to survive, when I could not  give aid.

The safety protocol always kicked in if I was at almost certain death.

I'd kept a journal, as best I could.  Sometimes I had to recopy my  notes from memory, and I lost details along the way.  But the one thing I  always held onto with perfect accuracy was the tally.  One world I'd  started from, one world where I hadn't tried.  Ninety eight worlds made  better.  Seven worlds Saved.  Sixteen worlds Survived.  Thirteen worlds  Lost.

Now, I stood on world one hundred and thirty seven, and something had changed.

"Welcome!"  Read the banner.

It was bright red and white, and it sat atop a constructed stage in  the middle of the park.  Bright green and orange and blue confetti  rained down, some of it metallic so as to sparkle in the beautiful warm  sunlight of this June day.

I stood there confused, probably looking like an idiot with my mouth  open.  Normally, when I landed on a new world, the worst case scenario  was people noticing me.  Even worse if it was a police state, and I  needed to avoid notice at all costs.  Sometimes, I'd hit low-tech  planets that had seen me enter, and worshiped me as a god, or hunted me  as a demon; those were always a toss-up.  But this looked like a  perfectly mundane park in the middle of a suburban city

Except for the two thousand people in seats, and another who-knew how  many around the grass of the park, staring at me expectantly, as I  landed on stage.

The flickering radiation of the breach process faded away behind me,  leaving me totally exposed.  Off to one side of the stage, an older  woman stood, looking at me appraisingly.  She had short white hair, and a  clean red and black suit on.  Her face was strangely familiar, but that  happened to me a lot.  Fashion changed a bit from world to world in  terms of color and cuts, but I could always tell someone who prided  themselves on their suit.  They were usually politicians.  She wasn't  the only one looking at me, though.  The entire crowd seemed to be on  the edge of their seats, staring silently.

At first, I thought that I'd interrupted some kind of election  ceremony, and that I could maybe still have a chance to play this off as  a prank and slip away.  But then that woman started walking up to me.

"Welcome!"  She said, her voice echoing through the loudspeakers set  up around the area.  "We've been waiting for you for a long time!"

The crowd exploded into applause and cheers; fireworks were shot off  from handheld launchers, noisemakers cut the air into excited stripes.   It was a beautiful, joyous, clamorous mess.  I couldn't hear  the next thing the woman said, and she laughed to herself as her words -  and the laugh - were drowned out by the riotous cheering.  She smiled  at me, though, and I smiled back; a thin line on my mouth as I tried to  decide if I should cut and run before this got ugly.

But she had me curious.

After a few minutes, she waved her arms in the air, and the noise  finally started to die down.  Her next words were more of a recitation  than a speech; they had the cadence of something that had been spoken  again and again and again.  Tradition.  History.

"Forty three years ago, Doctor Malcom Zerman noticed something  strange on one of his imaging sensors."  Interesting.  I'd known a  Malcom, back at MIT all those years ago.  "It confused him at first, but  it was very real, and he set out to prove what might make it happen.   In two weeks time, that same detector picked up the signature again.   And then again a month later.  With data in hand, he set out to build a  tool to find the source, to unlock this minor mystery of our universe."   She smiled, and sighed theatrically.  "Our universe?  No.  The  universes.  All of them.  One year later, when he'd built a dozen  prototypes and constantly threw them out for being imprecise, that  signature came through again.  And this time, we were able to see.  For  the first time, beyond the walls of reality, the mystery that all  mankind had waited to hear the answer to.  And what was it?"   She  turned to me, and her words became more personal, less rehearsed.  "That  was your first trip."  She said quietly.  "Well, not the first; that  was the one that set Malcom down his road.  But one of the early ones."

The crown were leaning forward, watching me like hawks.  They'd heard  this story before, it was clear.  They knew the words, but they didn't  know this part.

"We found the walls between the universes."  She yelled out to the  audience.  "We found ways to watch them, as their Earths played out  stories just like ours, and yet, so different.  In our limited way, we  observed; focused through the lens of the disturbance that tracked its  way across the spaces of all realities."  Again, she turned to me, and  stepped forward, taking my surprised hands in her own.  "We have seen  you struggle, and falter, and despair.  We have seen you fight and teach  and build.  We have seen you succeed and fail, we have seen you leave  worlds in smouldering ruin, and in glorious utopia.  We have traced your  path across the place behind the stars, and we saw you approaching us."

I wanted to run, to hide.  This was worse than being worshiped.  This  was being a celebrity.  This was just begging for these people to  either hand me too much power, or shoot me when I wasn't looking.

But the woman didn't notice, or care, she rolled on.  "My entire  life, I, and so many of us, have seen your acts.  We saw you trade for  the end of your aging, we saw you build a weapon that cracked a moon.   We saw you trade your 'life' on one world for that of a single child,  and we saw you spend a decade on a single woman.  You are known to so  many, by so many names.  The Destroyer, The Architect,  He-Who-Does-Not-Kill, Teacher, Lover, Friend, Partner.  So many, and  more.  And to us, to our Earth, united in our knowledge of you; the Hero  of a Hundred Worlds."

She paused, and took a long breath, her speech having winded her.  I  couldn't blame her, really, she looked to be at least eighty.  "Now."   She said, blinking tears from her eyes as the crowd sat silent.  "We  offer you a place to rest.  A time of peace in your journey, should you  so choose.  And, perhaps, a chance to meet some of the people who can  best appreciate all you have done.  Tell me, Mr. Gladwell. Will you stay  a while?"

I didn't know what to say.  A hundred and fifty years of adventure  hadn't actually prepared me for this.  And it was a bit unfortunate that  the first words that made it from my brain to my mouth were, "A hundred  and five."

"Hm?"  The woman raised an eyebrow in an expert Spock impression.

"A hundred and five worlds."  I said, trying to smile in earnest now.   "Well, depending on how you interpret my tally.  Either a hundred and  five, or seven.  The seven were..."  I choked on the words, unable to  really say it.

But she could.  "They were the important ones."  She muttered to me,  out of range of the microphone on her lapel.  "A hundred and five, eh?   Well, we'll need a new name for you!"  The crowd let out a low roar of  laughter.  "A hundred and six, now, I suppose.  You can count us  properly improved by your acts, I think."  She turned back to the crowd  and the cameras and raised her hands in the air.  "People of Earth!  A  warm welcome for the Hero of A Hundred And Six Worlds!"

The applause and boisterous laughter hit like a wall.  Through it  all, she smiled at me, holding my own hand in the air like a returning  champion.  Out of the corner of her mouth, she muttered to me, "I'd love  to see you stay, a lot of us would, but I think we'd all understand if  you felt like you needed to go."

Now, for the first time, a real smile made its way to my face.  "I  think that makes it an easy choice to rest a while.  Tell me, does this  world have coffee?"  I asked.

"We've never been able to figure it out, no.  Though we've seen it repeatedly on your journey."

I slung my heavy pack to the ground.  "I'll need somewhere with  hydroponics equipment."  I said with a grin, loud enough for the sound  system to pick up.  "If I'm going to be exploring your world for a  while, I'd like to have my morning coffee.  And lucky for you, I happen  to have some to share."

The woman leaned in and hugged me suddenly.  "You know, my  great-grandfather always told me about you.  We live a long time here."   She said, noticing my surprised look.  "Even when the 'casts started,  and we could watch your adventures live or taped.  He always said he was proud of his brother.  It didn't matter that you were from another Earth; he was just glad that part of you lived on."

One hundred and thirty seven worlds.  And only one consistency among  all of them.  Only one version of Raymond Gladwell got the safety  protocol on the breach device working before the explosion at the lab  that night a hundred and fifty years ago.

Maybe it was time for a rest.