The Elias Anomaly

Fourteen

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Since the discovery of his circumstances Joseph continued to regard them as 'unfortunate'. For this reason he had not had occasion to feel any kind of positivity or wonder. On his space journey through the Disc, however, there had been such an occasion. The journey itself had only lasted thirty five minutes. Thirty minutes of the space ship being on autopilot, completely outside Joseph's control. Following this five minutes where he had located Dulcie, made contact and agreed to meet her at her home planet.

The initial thirty minutes was a measure programmed into the space ship by the Agent. This had given the alleged digital life form time to dismantle his space station. After which it could disappear off. Going wherever digital organisms go when they're not harrassing people. It left Joseph with a few moments alone to consider his own position.

Not that he had right away. Upon setting foot inside the ship that would bear him into the wild black yonder Joseph had enjoyed an experience. It was something that he had never thought he would feel inside the Cluster, a tiny thrill of awe and wonder. Of course, he still knew that he was inside a simulation. He had been kidnapped, following which a weird guy had tried to sell him an unbelievable story. Still, this was a space ship and Joseph liked space opera quite a bit.

The ship bore design features clearly implemented by another aficionado of galactic melodrama. It was around sixty feet long. It's entire length was gleaming white. It proudly displayed a long serial number emblazoned along the side. A logo decal painted on one projection mounting. A swooping metal shell housing a pair of massive, square engines on the right hand side. On the left there was no matching display. Asymmetry in the design of the livery was one of those small touches that made it seem real for no reason whatsoever.

The ship was an elongated oblong cuboid. A couple of short stubby engine housings stuck out of the sides just over halfway down. A cargo lift sat forward of this underneath the ship. Next to the cargo lift was a set of retractable metal steps hanging down from the ship's hull.

Joseph wasn't going to enter his first proper spaceship (fake proper spaceship, whatever) up a set of steps. He rode the cargo lift into the heart of the vessel. He marvelled at the smooth mechanical retraction of the stairway once the cargo lift had locked in place.

Once inside the ship Joseph walked through a tight corridor. He passed by numerous doors that he promised he would investigate later. He emerged from the passage into the brightly lit bridge of the vessel.

Whoever had made this artifact had combined a futuristic design with a love of multi-coloured lights. Many of these housed under buttons embossed with black stencilled lettering. Each a brief description of some exotic function. All of this beneath a layer of dry, worn grime that fans of space fiction found essential to the appreciation of the epic nature of the genre.

Space was great and all but unless everything was bore marks of use it couldn't be considered to be the real deal. None of this was the real deal, Joseph knew that. Even so, the design was doing such a convincing job. For the first time he wanted to stop qualifying all his thoughts with such caveats.

Sitting in a swooping red leather chair a thought occured to Joseph. The probable reason for this vessel's slavish adherence to this fannish space opera concept. This was the first plex he'd entered that had no real-world counterpart. Galleons, wild west saloons and even automata driven by clockwork all had historical precedent. All space opera had was a bunch of illustrations and movie sets.