The Big Red Thread

A simple machine, they said.

Just one little test.

I was in the mood for something new. Four in the morning and raining fit to build an ark, and me fresh out of my latest disaster and thoroughly pickled. Try this new thing, all my mates were saying. It’s like those dating sites, but it’s guaranteed to work.

They forgot to mention it cost a fortune. They’re decent guys, though. Everybody chipped in a bit.

So I went into this place that looked more like a research lab than a single’s bar, and more like a Buddhist temple than either. Cocktails with prayer beads and bio scanners. Hell of an ambiance.

And at the heart of it all, the Lifeline Portal. The big red thread.

Funny, how the military poured trillions in funding to get this tech, and now all we can do with it is matchmaking. We wanted guns and got love.

The science says that there’s a force that connects all of us, that holds every thinking being tethered in a net across the world. A whole mess of threads, each one tying you to all the others. They can’t tell what exactly makes some connections stronger than others. But they can measure it. And they can show it to you, for just a moment.

I didn’t know all this when I went in. That came later.

So I sat there, strapped in and boozed up. Incense in my nose and disclaimers in my ears, ready to see what all the fuss was about. The line locked in, the portal whirred into life in front of me.

And I saw you.

They said it was the strongest connection they’ve ever seen. I know we joke about love at first sight, about destiny, and all that. But when the world is so big, galaxies and galaxies of life and people, how often do we find our true connection in our tiny slice of space? How can we even imagine that kind of bond?

Four seconds of visual transfer, carved into my heart. In all my life I had never seen anything like as beautiful. Not a trace of human in you, but in four seconds I knew you better than what took me thirty years to learn about myself. I saw kindness, and softness, and fear, and pain. I saw despair for a future that would never be, and the steely nerve to keep trying for it.

I saw you look up and see me, a ghost in the air, rimmed by the glowing portal. Then I knew that it was real, because I could see you changed by me. I felt your eyes in me; felt you pull out all my secrets. I could see you falling in love with me.

It was amazing. It was a revelation. And then it was gone.

I tried to go again, but it wouldn’t work. Quantum, they said. It’s always quantum. And there I was, with no idea who or where you were in the big wide universe. All I had was a purpose.

I needed to find you. I needed to ride in on a white starship and rescue you from whatever was hurting you so badly. I needed to catch you and keep you and be with you for the rest of my life. I still need to.

I won’t say that we were destined to be together, because that sounds like finding you was easy. I was a low ranking intelligence officer on a shoestring budget. You were an unknown alien living somewhere in the general area of all of space. But I don’t think anyone could have guessed how driven I was.

I needed to understand the Lifeline Portal. In seven months I was fluent in the field. I needed the power and knowledge that only high-ranking positions could give me. In two years I was promoted three times. I needed to explore as much unknown space as I could. In ten years we had launched more probes and ambassador vessels than we had in the last century.

How much can one man do, when everything he does is for one single purpose? I had the greatest motive that anyone has ever had. I had the promise of absolute, perfect happiness, and all the cheap substitutes, the shiny toys and trinkets, were left by the wayside. I fought past all my rivals who had only wanted power, and got more power than they could have ever dreamed.

And I still couldn’t find you. I sent your description everywhere I could. I remembered your face as clearly as when I first saw it. And no species we met could match, or had ever seen anyone like you.

For twenty-three years.

And then I met a border trader, at the furthest edge of our reconnaissance. He told me about a huge, savage empire with a black hole at its center. About brutal creatures that hold a hundred races enslaved. He told me about a small, struggling revolt led by one race. And then he pointed at my picture of you.

I know the who and the where now. The how is easy. I’ve called in all of my favors and pulled all of my strings. I’ve made promises and bargains and bribes and threats. I’m coming. And I’m bringing the fleet with me.

Twenty-three years and I’m almost there. The thought of you, my soul mate, my true connection, has kept me going all this time. But I wonder, what have you done with the same vision and the same motivation?

What if I get there and you’ve already won?