In the end, it was some days before Ionis made good on his promise. It took me a long time to catch my breath. It had been the first time I had ever run without purpose and it had been exhilarating, and terrifying in its implications. Once I was able to speak the queue of people wanting to talk and to ask questions of me had created such pressure I didn’t feel I could say no.
After that, there was a brief tour of the facility, and in the midst of the chaos and noise, all thought of 00001 dropped from my mind. I asked about seeing outside, where all the people lived, and Ionis only shook his head and told me I was not ready. He was right, but I didn’t know that yet.
The most difficult thing to get used to was the change in the routine and habits of my body. I noticed the thirst first. Normally I can drink water a couple of times a day and that is plenty. Here though I was thirsty almost immediately. Barely an hour or so after a sip of water and my body cried for liquid. The hunger came next. I’d never needed to eat so badly. Fortunately the staff there were all in the same boat. There was a range of food and drink the like of which I’d never seen. Vegetables and plants shipped from other countries, some even from farms off-world apparently. I was used to the two or three things that were in season being the only option. But then I barely ate more than 2 or 3 times a week when I was still and stable. Here it was multiple times a day. I guess when you eat that much the variety is more important to you. I was grateful for it. Some were too grateful based on the shape of them, carrying excess food stores around like an animal preparing to hibernate.
The final thing that hit me on that first day was the tiredness. As the end of the day approached I felt shattered. I thought it was the run, but Ruth explained that they all did it. Sleeping every night! For them it was normality, and I guess it made sense in an evolutionary way. Be hidden and safe in the dark, where danger could lurk. For my ancestors though, with movement so infrequent, we were almost always safe from danger. I collapsed into bed that first night and slept profoundly.
I awoke feeling more refreshed than I had ever felt, and ravenous. Again I thought of following up with my new friends, but again I was distracted. Breakfast in the facility canteen was a memory I will hold onto until the day I die. Bacon and Eggs! What plants must produce food like this? Another thing to add to my growing list of questions. Another thing to be blown to the back of my mind by the speed of the world flying past me.
The days blurred, and it was with surprise that Ionis brought me a small cake and announced it was the end of my first week in this dimension.
“Thank you for sharing this time with us, Jason”, he said.
“The pleasure was mine, Ionis. I have lived more in this week than I have in my entire life. And to think, all I needed to do was jump to another dimension to find it!”
Ionis laughed. “I’m glad it’s worked for you as well. I hoped it would.” He became serious again. “I want to talk to you about something you said on the day you arrived with us. I think you might be able to help us all.” He looked at me questioningly. “If you are up for trying.”
“What do you mean? I’ve been happy to talk to your physicists and socio-biologists and any number of representatives of all the ‘ists’ on your world.”
“You have, and we are grateful. I didn’t mean all of us in this facility. I meant all of us in this dimension. To help us avoid the fate of the others.”
I said nothing and thought for a moment.
Ionis could not help but fill the gap. It was a habit they all shared. Beyond a seconds pause and they jumped back in. It had been infuriating at first but I was becoming used to it.
“I mean, there is no pressure, and I’m sorry to put this on you, and I haven’t even shown you the world outside yet.”
“There is no need to be concerned. I would be happy to help in any way that I can. Why do you believe that I may be able to help?”
Ionis looked at his hands, and not at me as he spoke. “For all the things that you are, that we are not. I said to you once that life on your world can seem heartbreaking. That purpose is hard to find in people. Well, life on my world can also be heartbreaking. For we sometimes have too much 'purpose'. That is why I cannot show you the world outside this facility. That is why the code for this place is 00012 and not 00001.”
I waited, then realised he needed interaction to continue. “Please, go on.”
“We live faster than you do in your dimension. Most dimensions do. All that we have found so far except yours. The biggest single thing they all share is destruction. Of worlds, of nature, of each other. Your people tred so light upon the earth. So slow, so deliberate. Eating only the plants that grow in the place they are grown. Consuming no meat.”
“What is ‘meat’?”, I asked.
“When you consume another animal. It is grown and prepared to be used as food.”
I turned pale and gagged. “You tear animals apart to eat? That’s barbaric. I’m glad I have not had to see that. Why would you do that with the range of food you have? Is bacon not good enough for you?”
Ionis opened his mouth to speak then seemed to think better of it. “Yes”, he said. “I guess it is. And it’s a lot of time and effort and energy expended in doing so. The issue is that we all live at speed, and consume at speed, and have more children at a greater speed than your people. There is no punishment in longevity to chase your offspring around so almost all choose to do it, some several times.”
As he spoke my brain explored how this would extrapolate out. “How do you not run out?”
“Run out of what?”
“Of everything”, I said.
Ionis looked up from his hands and I saw the pain in his eyes. “We do run out, Jason. We run out and when there is nothing left we move on to a new dimension and start again. And with that possibility in peoples minds, even the tiny efforts we made to manage our impact has gone. We are like locusts, moving from planet to planet, and some of us would like to stop. We don’t know how far the dimensions go. There may be an end. What if we don’t know that its too late until it is. I think our people need to slow down, and I believe you can help us.”
We sat in silence again. This time Ionis did not fill it. I think it had taken a toll to put that into words.
“Ionis?”, I asked. “Can I see what I would be up against?”
He nodded and handed me his screen. “Please. But I have to warn you some of it will be difficult for you to watch. If I were you I would start with school history, psychology and sociology books and we can go from there.”
I dialled up a syllabus, opened the first file and started reading. Except to eat, and to shout at Ionis, and frequently to cry, I did not move again for nearly 3 days. By the end, I was ready for two things. A long sleep, and then to begin. To pour the sand of my own life timer into a purpose that was bigger than my own existence. It felt incredible.
