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The door opened.

Dan lifted his head.

An officer stood outside.

For a moment, Dan thought they were releasing him.

Instead, another man stepped through the door.

He was thin, perhaps in his late fifties, with peppered hair that looked like it had been cut without much care. He carried a folded blanket under one arm.

The man turned as the door closed behind him.

He looked at Dan.

Dan looked back.

The man smiled.

“What are you in here for?”

“A fight.”

“That makes sense.”

Dan frowned.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Your face.”

Dan touched his cheek. It hurt.

He had almost forgotten.

“What about you?”

“Speaking out.”

Dan smiled.

“That’s not a crime.”

“It is when you tell the truth they want to hide.”

“Who are they?”

“Regulation. The Council. You know, the people in power.”

Dan studied him.

“I think I know you… Aren’t you the crazy guy?”

“That’s what they want you to believe. That I’m crazy.”

“I’ve heard about you.”

The man placed the blanket on the empty bunk.

Dan watched him.

“Jeremy… Jeremy Larsson.”

The man looked over.

“So you know my name.”

“Everyone knows your name.”

Dan leaned against the wall.

“They say you’ve been going around telling people Helios isn’t real.”

Jeremy sat on the edge of the bunk.

“I never said Helios isn’t real.”

Dan laughed.

“That’s not what I heard.”

“You heard what they wanted you to hear.”

“That sounds like something a crazy person would say.”

Jeremy smiled.

He did not seem offended.

Dan expected him to argue.

Instead, Jeremy unfolded the blanket and spread it across the bunk.

For a while, neither of them spoke.

Dan could still feel the alcohol in his head, but it was fading. Without the noise of the Mirador, everything from the evening felt stupid.

He closed his eyes.

“So what did you really say?”

Jeremy turned his head.

“Helios is real.”

Dan opened his eyes and stared at him.

Jeremy continued.

“The original crew boarded Helios. The launch happened. The first part of the mission probably happened almost exactly the way we were taught.”

Dan waited.

“But?”

Jeremy looked at him.

“But Helios never went to Ross 128.”

“So where are we?”

Jeremy paused.

“We’re near Jupiter’s orbit.”

Dan laughed.

He could not help it.

Jeremy watched him quietly.

Dan shook his head.

“This is better than what I heard.”

Dan stood and walked toward the sink.

“So let me understand. Helios launched from Earth, flew all the way to Jupiter, and then everyone just decided to pretend we were traveling to another star?”

“Not everyone.”

“Sure. Of course.”

“The first generation knew.”

“And the second?”

“Some of them probably knew. But they knew less.”

“And then what?”

“Every generation knew less.”

Dan shook his head.

“Convenient.”

Jeremy leaned forward.

“Helios was part of an experiment.”

“What kind of experiment?” Dan asked with a smile.

“To determine whether humans could survive a multigenerational mission.”

Dan stopped smiling.

Jeremy continued.

“Think about what the Seeder Project was trying to do. They were sending hundreds of people into isolation for centuries. No resupply. No rescue. Limited resources.”

Dan stared at him.

“So they built Helios to test whether the Seeder Project would work?”

“Yes, exactly. They built it to test whether people could survive under similar conditions.”

Dan looked around the holding room.

“And they sent us to Jupiter?”

“No. They sent us to the Sun-Jupiter L5 point.”

“What’s that?”

Jeremy smiled faintly.

“They don’t teach you anything in school anymore.”

Dan rolled his eyes.

“A Lagrange point. It follows Jupiter around the Sun, about sixty degrees behind it.”

“And that helped them how?”

“It gave them isolation. Distance. A hostile environment. No possibility of someone opening a door and walking outside.”

Dan shook his head.

“I’ve seen the stars.”

“On panels.”

“We have the observation deck.”

“With cameras and controlled access.”

“We rotate.”

“Yes.”

“There’s gravity because the rings rotate.”

“Yes.”

Dan stared at him.

“We’re traveling through space.”

“Yes, we are. So are Earth, Jupiter, and all the planets.”

Dan frowned.

“What’s the problem then? You’re agreeing with everything I said.”

Jeremy looked at him.

“Good lies are built out of things that are true.”

Dan was quiet.

Jeremy continued.

“You don’t have to fake everything. You only have to fake the part people cannot verify.”

Dan folded his arms.

“So Navigation is lying.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You just said they are faking it.”

“No. I said the information you receive comes through systems you didn’t build and cannot verify.”

Jeremy continued.

“At some point, everyone aboard Helios started trusting the same information because the previous generation trusted it.”

Dan shook his head.

“That is ridiculous.”

“I’m not asking you to believe me.”

“Then why are you speaking out? Why are you telling people?”

“I’m asking you to prove me wrong.”

Dan laughed.

“That should be easy.”

“Then do it.”

Jeremy waited.

Dan pointed toward the wall.

“Open an exterior hatch.”

Jeremy smiled.

“There are no exterior hatches accessible to people like us.”

“How about the Mirador panels?”

“Controlled.”

“EVA.”

“Controlled.”

“Everything is controlled according to you.”

“No, not everything. Only the things that could prove where we are.”

Dan stared at him.

“That’s convenient.”

“Yes.”

“For your theory.”

“For theirs.”

Dan rolled his eyes.

Jeremy looked at the ceiling.

“They designed it that way.”

“Who?”

“The people who started the experiment.”

“And they convinced everyone to go along with it?”

“No. I already told you. The first generation didn’t need convincing. They volunteered.”

Dan laughed louder this time.

“Why would anyone volunteer to have their children lied to?”

“For the same reason people volunteer for anything.”

Jeremy’s expression changed slightly.

“They believed they were doing something important. Something good.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Dan said.

“Of course it does.”

Jeremy continued.

“It was the only way to make the experiment real. As real as they possibly could.”

Jeremy paused for a moment.

“If you know you can leave, then you are not truly isolated.”

Dan said nothing.

“If you know Earth is still there and you can call for help whenever you want, then you do not behave like someone crossing interstellar space.”

Jeremy leaned forward.

“But if you are born inside the experiment…”

Jeremy continued.

“If everyone you have ever known believes the same story…”

Dan interrupted him.

“Then you believe it too.”

“Yes.”

Dan looked at the door.

“Okay. Let’s say you’re right.”

Jeremy waited.

“Why would they keep doing it?”

“To see if it works,” Jeremy replied.

“For hundreds of years?”

“If the real mission is supposed to last centuries, how long would you run the test?”

Dan said nothing.

“Fifty years?” Jeremy asked.

Dan looked away.

“If you’re testing a society designed to survive for hundreds of years, you need many generations.”

“So we’re just… what? A test?”

Jeremy nodded.

“Captives. We’re captives.”

Dan laughed softly.

“That’s dramatic. You really are crazy.”

“We’re back to that.”

Dan lay down.

“All of this is stupid.”

Jeremy did not answer.

Dan stared at the ceiling.

After a while, he said, “What about Earth?”

“What about it?”

“We communicated with Earth.”

“Yes, at the beginning we did.”

“So those messages were fake?”

“Not necessarily. They were probably real. Those people knew they were part of the experiment.”

Dan frowned.

“So they started lying.”

“They started isolating the next generations to make it more realistic,” Jeremy said. “If you know someone can come get you, then scarcity is different. Fear is different. Conflict is different.”

Dan shook his head.

“That would be in the records.”

“Which records?”

“All of them.”

Jeremy smiled.

“The records you access through Logminter?”

Dan did not answer.

Jeremy continued.

“Change the history early enough, and eventually no one remembers that it changed.”

“That would take generations.”

“Exactly.”

“People would talk.”

“Some probably did.”

“Someone would hear them.”

“Maybe someone did.”

Dan frowned.

Jeremy looked at him.

“You’ve heard about it already.”

The room went quiet for a while.

Dan thought about the conversation.

“Good night.”

Jeremy looked over at him.

“Talk to you tomorrow, kid.”

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After Dan was released, he saw Jeremy again two days later.

Then again the following week.

At first, Dan only wanted answers.

Jeremy gave him questions.

How could anyone aboard Helios verify where they were?

Who controlled the exterior cameras?

Who decided which records were available through Logminter?

Dan began asking his friends first. Then other people.

Most laughed.

Some did not.

Mateo was one of the first to stop laughing and take him seriously.

Within months, small groups were meeting in cabins and quiet corners of the Plaza.

Jeremy spoke about evidence and verification.

Dan spoke about something simpler.

Choice.

“We were born into this mission,” he said during one gathering. “None of us agreed to it.”

Someone near the back answered, “Neither did our parents.”

“Exactly!” Mateo shouted. “We weren’t given a choice.”

The name came later.

Captives.

Dan disliked it at first.

Mateo loved it.

People began calling the group the Captives.

Then the questions became demands.

They wanted to end the Disconnect.

They wanted access to Navigation data.

They wanted independent control of the exterior cameras.

The Council refused.

Safety, they said.

Security. Operational control. Tradition.

The Captives heard something else.

For them, this confirmed that the Council was hiding something.

The largest demonstration happened outside the Navigation office.

More than twenty people filled the corridor.

“Let us see the truth!” someone shouted.

Others repeated it.

“Let us see the truth! Let us see the truth!”

Dan stood near the front.

Mateo and Jeremy were beside him.

A line of Regulation officers blocked the entrance.

Dan pointed toward the sealed doors.

“If we are where they say we are, then prove it!”

People cheered.

Someone pushed forward.

Regulation pushed back.

For a moment, the crowd moved as one body.

Dan stepped toward the doors.

Jeremy grabbed his arm.

“Don’t.”

Dan turned.

“This is what we came for.”

“No,” Jeremy said.

Jeremy looked toward the Navigation office doors.

“We don’t want anyone getting hurt. This is a peaceful protest.”

Dan stared at him.

Mateo moved forward.

The crowd surged again.

An officer shouted for everyone to move back.

Someone threw something.

Then Regulation moved.

People screamed.

An officer stunned Mateo.

Dan was pulled to the floor.

Jeremy disappeared into the crowd.

Kyla stopped reading. She felt someone watching her.

Julian was standing near the table.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m reading a story Alex sent me. It’s for an assignment he’s working on.”

Julian walked closer.

“What story?”

“The Captives.”

He smiled faintly.

“I know that story.”

Kyla looked at him.

“You do?”

“Yes, I read it years ago. It was written by Jim… something.”

Kyla looked back at the display.

“Jim Burbank. He wrote it in 2622.”

“It’s a little strange, don’t you think?” Julian said.

“A little. But did you know it’s based on real log entries?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“The protest really happened. In 2565.”

“I didn’t know that.” Julian paused for a moment. “I remember it had a sad ending.”

Kyla looked at him.

“Come on, Julian. You ruined it for me.”

Julian put a hand on his forehead.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

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Thanks for reading Kyla’s Diary, a novel from the Theogenic Universe. New chapters will be published weekly. Subscribe to continue the journey aboard Helios.

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Kyla's Diary - Chapter 24: Captives