Security Screenings

As always, the traveler felt guilty about enjoying herself when there was so little, objectively speaking, in which to take pleasure: it was the slow departure from everyone and everything that turned her on. In fact, she made a point of never confiding to her family how these long jaunts from home and hearth represented a form of self-renewal simply by virtue of how they plunged her, outbound and fiercely awake, into the sense of being someone else.

With the compartment dim so that the starlight could lance her eyes more deeply, she gazed into the limitlessness and welcomed the continuous stream of quiet thrills it offered. This was not the first time she had taken the galactic shuttle, and, as on previous occasions, she loved the gliding rush of it all. Just inhale, then exhale, and in that brief interval she was occupying millions of different locations in these black corridors, thick with vacuum.

Of course the opportunity to meet new people, but not be bound to them, was part of travel’s pleasure as well. And thus it was with a certain amount of non-anxious expectation that the traveler tapped the open-channel command on her console to indicate she was online. Immediately she was hailed by a fellow passenger who had been paired with her based upon their pre-boarding intent-screens.

The traveler activated the audio link so that they could speak but kept the cam-link closed—not to be rude, but to preserve a kind of natural ladder of acquaintanceship. Eventually they might meet in, say, the café sector, but for now she was content to be faceless. Meanwhile, the stranger began the friendly overtures that would render him no longer a stranger.

“Head still swimming from the intent-screening?” his voice asked.

“No, I’m used to it,” remarked the traveler, and then added a clarification so as not to seem brusque: “I travel quite a bit, you see.”

Commenting that the same was true of him, the stranger replied that, as a result, he was apt to hear the strangest of tales…

It seems there was once a planet (the stranger began) that, in its efforts to curb criminal acts on intra-atmospheric flights, had actually screened the physical bodies and possessions of travelers. In this practice, which clearly demonstrates how backwards this society must have been, anything brought aboard was inspected via magnetic resonance and other primitive technologies. Even subservient life forms were deployed to detect unauthorized substances in these “air-ports,” as they were called.

Lacking the elegant solution of the intent-screen, this planet’s governing body engaged wrongdoers in a cat-and-mouse game involving the general population, which it dared not trust. Travelers were obliged, for example, to remove electronic hardware from its housing and isolate it along with various items of clothing. At one point an individual removed several of his teeth and constructed an ad hoc weapon by attaching them to a specially designed comb. Consequently, taking bitewing x-rays became standard procedure.

With escalating efficiency, the state prohibited personal adornments such as jewelry, eyeglasses, and prosthetics. Over time these were joined by flammable objects such as paper-based books, or hair, as well as metals of any sort, even those required by communication devices. Compelling its customers to disrobe entirely and submit to an exhaustive body search had, of course, a detrimental effect on the travel industry, but security advocates politely insisted that there were no feasible alternatives.

And then a great wave of infections washed over the land. The confined spaces of the aeroplane became powerful disease vectors, and soon the only travelers were business travelers. Gradually, and perhaps because the term “business” is so flexible, they themselves became commodities shipped by their employers, items of import and export. Naked, thoroughly shaven, and more than slightly chilled by the circulating air currents in the cabin, they needed to be incessantly entertained and thereby pacified.

At some point, and here the history becomes murky, a cultural shift occurred and traveling itself became punitive. Since it entailed subjecting oneself to an endless array of probes, degradations, and surgeries over a period of days and weeks, the standard security screening was meted out for crimes of mixed severity. In short, evildoers were now welcomed as passengers rather than shunned. These criminals, as well as those simply unfortunate enough to make air reservations, were compelled to lie on conveyor belts that neatly anaesthetized them, dismembered their corporeal beings, and placed the parts in various plastic tubs which could then be scanned with greater facility.

In its final stages, this system of humane and highly organized slaughter became the preferred method of euthanasia. When one stated one was “going on a trip,” friends and family would hold a spirited farewell party before dropping off the beloved at a transportation center whose towering smoke stacks were usually visible from miles away.

Upon finishing, the stranger laughed briefly and then, as if to cover the grisly aspects of his tale with a footnote, added, “Who knows? All of this may be pure rubbish…”

For the traveler, though, her head clearer than ever, such conjecture was beside the point. She wanted to know how her intent-screening had matched her to such a macabre and distasteful individual. Indeed, she was still contemplating the matter worriedly when she abruptly went offline moments later.

Almost instantly she returned her gaze to the darkness beyond until, in time, she closed her eyes. Even then, though, she continued to look and search and look and search despite the fact that, as she reminded herself, there really was nothing to see.