Enter the Systems Engineer

"Did you double check the tracker?" A distant male voice floated in.

"I triple checked." A female answered.

"Good. Load the profile." The deep, gravelly male voice was becoming louder now, almost coming from right above.

Michael blinked his eyes open and then immediately shut them tight to block the bright overhead light. He then carefully opened them back again. As he focused his eyes, the two blurry objects in front of him crystallized into a man and a woman, both in military uniforms.

"Mr. Michael Best?"

Suddenly, memories came rushing in. The man in dirt brown trench coat, his collar drawn up high, goggles on. The cold nozzle of a pistol against his forehead. And then nothing.

Michael sprang up and sat stiffly on the bed, scanning the room he was in, as well as the two beings in there with him.

"Mr. Michael Best." The man sounded a little impatient the second time. General Artemis Heron, the badge on his shoulder said. Major General, Cricolithis Army.

"Who are you?"

"Are you Michael Best or not?" The man sat on a chair facing the bed Michael was sitting on. The woman was standing against a nearby table.

"I died. Do you understand? I died, did I not? How am I here?" Michael's voice was shaking, despite his best efforts.

"Do you need some water, Mr. Best?" The lady had a softer voice. Kalina Chauve, Colonel, Cricolithis Army.

"Water will be good."

The female officer handed him a blue drink. Michael finished the entire glass in one long swallow.

"Let us try again." General Heron drew his chair closer, his tall, imposing figure covering every inch of Michael's vision. "Mr. Michael Best."

Michael hardened his face for a moment. Then, without any warning, tears came unbidden to his eyes, and he turned away. How could he die? How could he? His mom and dad would be so distraught. His four or five friends would be sad too. Suddenly, he turned his gaze to the man again, studying his face. No, that was not the man who shot him.

"Do you know who shot me?"

"No one shot you, Mr. Best. You were never really there." The female officer informed him.

Michael gaped at her with open moist eyes.

"We will tell you what we know. But first, you must confirm your identity," General Heron said with a sidelong glance at Colonel Chauve.

"Okay, yes. I am Michael Best. Born and raised in Chicago. Today was my twenty-sixth birthday, but then," Michael's voice broke, "someone shot me. That is what I remember. They pointed a gun at me, and here I am." Michael looked down at his clothes.

"Thank you."

"So, what happened? Do not lie to me. I remember what I wore from this morning, and where did this blood come from?" Michael pointed at the splatters of dark red on his maroon shirt and jeans.

The two officers exchanged a glance.

General Heron sighed and extended a tablet to Michael. "We will give you a couple of hours. All your data is in this tablet." The two officers stood up and walked towards the door of the room. "We will check on you later, but do not try to leave. The door only opens from outside."

Michael vainly tried to recall if he did something crazy the night before in case this was all a bad dream. Finally, despaired, he turned on the tablet.

<Fingerprint recognized> The tablet announced, and its screen lit up.

[User Name: Mikael De Besches

Race: Human

Role: Systems Engineer- Level II

Qualifications: Bachelors in Software Engineering

Skills: Fixer]

Michael giggled like a mad man. That was not at all how he would describe his skill set in his resume. Fixer meant something else in his dictionary, and that amused him. Suddenly, he rechecked the tablet. He then threw it onto the bed and ran to the steel door, pounding on it heavily.

"You got the wrong man, guys!! I am Michael Best, not Mikael Besches!! Can anybody hear me? Guys?" The pounding continued for several minutes, after which he gave up and returned to the bed that was covered in a white sheet. In fact, the only speck of color in the entire room was Michael himself. The rest of it was entirely white, other than the blue drink in the glass pitcher. He poured some more and drank. He, then, retrieved the tablet and continued to browse.

[Date of Birth: 03/13/7089

Birthplace: Grekos, Aurora, Universe-643

Education: Tischketshwan University, Aurora, Universe-643

GPA: 4.2

Work:

Rover Technologies, Aurora, Universe-643: Year 7115-7116

Legend Systems Inc., Crocolithis, Universe-X: Year 7116-7118

Briar Industries, Earth, Universe-1: Year 2018-2021

United Systems Verse, Cricolithis, Universe-X: Year 8257- ]

The curser of the screen was blinking in the empty space after 8257-. Michael scrolled to the next page, which was empty too. He spent the next two hours weighing every single possibility behind his current situation. He was dreaming; he was going mad; he was in a reality show, and this was all a prank; he actually died, and this was afterlife; and the last possibility, that he was somehow in a parallel universe, and everyone here believed he was this Mikael person. Michael remembered how Kensley yelled at him this morning and how he flung his resignation letter at the arrogant man, but it all seemed so small now, so trivial. Michael walked over to the metal table nearby, painted in white, and grabbed the bag of snacks lying on it.

"Vacuum dried plaintain chips." He read the label and then turned around the bag to browse the ingredients. Satisfied, he opened the packet and retrieved a chip. Just as he was about to put it in his mouth, the metal door to his unit slid open, and the two officers from earlier stepped inside, with a third person following, dressed in a white robe with arm flaps like wings.

"Mr. Besches? You must not remember me." The young man in the white robe padded up to where Michael was sitting. "I worked as the entry-level engineer under you when you were here."

"I go by Michael now." Michael put the chips in his mouth and chewed on it, its sound somewhat loud in the pregnant silence of the room. "I do not have a clear memory of anything since…."

"Since it has been so long ago." The young man sat on the bed beside Michael. He moved his long hair to his back, a rare hue of platinum blonde like molten silver. "We understand. See, I do not have a very clear memory of anything either since it has been so long."

The young man must have noticed the blank look on Michael's face.

"Let me introduce myself. I am Master Ishu, director of United Systems Verse."

"I do not recall the name."

"I am not surprised. Universe migrations can do that. Did the tablet jog any memory from your past?" The young man was casual yet assertive, a force of nature.

"Only that I may not be who I thought I was."

"That is correct, Mikael, I mean Michael. Thousand years ago, you worked here with me, we believe."

"Then, how did I end up on earth?" Michael pounced on that question.

Master Ishu put his hand in the chips bag and took out a plaintain chip for himself. "At the moment, I do not have an answer to that." He spoke in between the cracks of the chip. "All I have found is that there was a dereliction in your record in executing your duty, and then I believe you left. Unfortunately, that was also the time from when my own memory logs have been wiped clean."

"Is that why you guys kidnapped me from earth? On suspicion of some crime?" Michael tossed the bag of chips across the room, which was skillfully caught by the female officer, Colonel Chauve. She then quietly placed the bag on the table.

"No, we did not kidnap you from the earth. We simply brought you back." Master Ishu exchanged a glance with the general and then continued. "You see, we at United Systems Verse oversee every single system of the universe, biological, physical, astronomical, gaming, you name it. You can think of it as the Central Processing Unit for the entire universe. One small glitch and the whole universe will fall apart."

"So this all has to do with me being a Systems Engineer?"

"Not A Systems Engineer. The Systems Engineer. The one who envisioned United Systems Verse. Unfortunately, we lost you when the USV project was in its nascent stage. But you laid down the nuts and bolts of the system, its skeleton, even though you do not remember now."

Sounds about right, Michael thought, with the insanely high 4.2 GPA that Mikael had under his belt. "If you have it up and running now, what do you need me for?"

"We discovered a glitch in it recently, a bug. Maybe it is just an isolated incident, or maybe it is related to the one that you were sent away for. But we need to know which it is." An uneasiness was palpable in Ishu's voice.

"And what if I do not remember? Will you send me back to earth?" Michael wanted to fall to his knees and plead.

"Yes, we will send you back to earth." Ishu stood up and walked to the door. Then he paused and looked back. "Its physics is breaking, and we need someone to fix it."

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