What might have been
Preface
What might have been is a piece of player-created fiction written by Casiella Truza. Originally published on the blog Ecliptic Rift.
What might have been
Like everyone else in the transportation terminal, he stood transfixed while watching the reports come across the data screens.
He didn’t travel often. Wife, children, and a government desk post tied him down. But he didn’t get the urge to travel, either, so this suited him just fine.
Something had changed a few months ago. He found himself thinking more, reminiscing, examining the paths he’d not followed earlier in life. What if he’d studied in a different field? What if he’d not taken this position? What if they hadn’t had children? What if he hadn’t married her?
Perhaps these questions occur to all men of a certain age and station. Not all men had the access he did, though, working for the Republic Security Services. So he began to indulge his “what-if” dreams, furtively examining a file here and there. He reasoned that he hadn’t hurt anyone, as he hadn’t passed on the information to anyone or even saved it. But what about that recruiting officer that had pulled him into the RSS? What happened to the students he knew who’d entered the Fleet? Had anyone analyzed the relation of career trajectory in the RSS with family status? What about his own wife’s past?
The inquiries turned into an addiction for him, the endless data dumps like a drug that kept his mind off his own dreary life. They provided far more interest for him than just processing CONCORD criminal reports and trying to keep the peace when he got home.
One of his what-if scenarios drifted to a girl he’d known back in school. Time had dulled his memory somewhat, or perhaps burnished it, so that he could no longer see her face so precisely in his dreams. But as he thought more about their relationship, or at least their friendship, he believed he saw more potential in that past than he’d realized. Perhaps his life would have turned into something better, or at least different, if that had gone somewhere.
And that tormented him.
So now he dug further. She’d moved to Luminaire sometime in the distant past. He found her dossier and kept reading. In fact, now she was a civilian employee for CONCORD, working in their Yulai datacenter as some sort of budget manager.
An eternity of restless nights later, he had enough. He needed to see her, to know what could have happened. Late one night, after the children had been put to bed, he coldly informed his wife that he had to travel and didn’t know when, or if, he’d return. No, he didn’t want to discuss it. Yes, he’d contact them later. No, he didn’t want her to try to find him. Yes, of course his job knew.
She stared at him with un-cried tears in her eyes as he finished packing his bags and left for the shuttle terminal to catch a liner for Yulai.
Then it happened, and, like everyone else in the transportation terminal, he stood transfixed while watching the reports come across the data screens.