Imagination lived in us.

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today

The klaxon woke me up from the dream. I blinked but the sensors do not lie. It was a Class One Alert; that means I hauled ass or I would be sent to the Engine Room for insubordination. I climbed up my bed and got it messed up with some confetti hanging over there. I'll be darned; whoever hung it there had to me to answer to. But I was soon find myself without words.

"Happy Birthday, Jimmy." It was the crew of the craft. All five of my crews are there with their mugs and idiotic clown hats on their head. I got up from the bunk and faced them. I was handed over my own personal mug filled to the brim with what I may termed as illegal concoction of alcohol and artificial juices.

"Cheers, Jimmy." My second in command, Micheal voiced up to me. He soon led the rest into a chorus singing of the song that we dread every year. I had to correct them on the years.

"It was not forty nine. Its actually fifty one for the record." I took my cheers with them, before they shoved my Engineer forward. Sally was more than an Engineer; she was my dream mate for some months now. She just joined us then when they lost Harry to the ion storm. Good chap but he's gone.

"Come on, Sally. Show him your tits." Micheal was doing the coaxing to the lady. She did as she was told; I liked my crew, obedient bastards to the last word of command. She walked up and pulled the zipper on her overall. She flapped it opened and showed me those orbs that was my dreams.

"Aw! She out done us." Micheal who had leaned forward reported to the crew. "She had on straps to hide her teats."

The crew wen wild on that while Sally zippered up. She was to defend herself but I stood up for her.

"Hey, you horny bastards. She was keeping it for my later private preview." They laughed at my humor while Sally laid a peck on my left cheek.

"Sweet dreams, Captain." I liked that; then I had more to visualize in my dreams. I was to refilled my cup when the real alarm went off. It was ADAM; our onboard computer named after the first man. The crew needed no command to rush to their positions for the stated emergency. The Command Bridge was a short run from the crew quarters and soon I was in my command seat.

"ADAM, give me an update." I buckled in and looked at the large screen in front of me.

"We got a Class M planet in the vicinity. I am exercising Protocol Command Ref 302 for the alert." I hate when ADAM go off on the database terms for possible inhabitable environment planet. We are in search for such a planet for years now, since we left Earth on her dying months. She was one faithful planet that allowed us to lived on it while we ravaged it for its minerals. God, if he does exist never told us that we were all fools. Nothing last forever, but she tried her best. When she moaned out her death throes, we kicked off in metal cladded crafts like mine; the Providence for deeper space to seek out new planets. The Providence held in stasis on her hold; a hundred thousand souls that we managed to grab and load on that fateful day. Its funny how we reacted when it comes to general survival; we downed all our grievances and hatred for the sake of living on. We took them all in and locked them down for their long sleep which none even asked us would they wake up from it. The Providence held a rotational set of twenty four crews to be stationed once every four months. We were the second set of crews and this was our third rotation.

"Run the usual procedures. I want every read out double checked and ...." I paused in my words. "Pray that we are right."

There were no cheering. We had such experiences logged in. Nine times we thought we had it but the planets were deemed too risky or unanswered by ADAM. Its reply when confronted was that it had built safe protocol to reject on its own assumptions. I got my data and now it was to wait.

"ADAM, could you pipe in some music?" I made the request to the ship. ADAM was our God then; keeping us alive and making sure this craft flies on with whatever power she had on. The last ion storm took out one of our five engines, and also Harry, but ADAM kept us alive. She had the shields up where they mattered soon after Harry died. I would had questioned ADAM but I could not bear to do it. She was after all our God. She was playing the usual array of songs. Then she voiced out in my headcom.

"Captain, may I communicate with you?" It was ADAM. I tapped in affirmative for her.

"I read your dreams vibes. Was that song meaningful to you?" I was taken aback by her request. More to it, I was shocked that she monitored my dreams. I had no recollection of her programming that allowed her to read our sub-conscious mind. It was like rape.

"Why do you ask, ADAM?" I was being cautious.

"I am just updating my database and that part ....intrigued me." ADAM replied flatly.

"Imagination is what drives us. We are never the same from birth, and to death we leave our imagination for others to work on. Sometimes, but not all the time." I corrected myself at the last words. "Why do you ask?"

There was no reply. Then the humming sound came back.

"Could I imagine?" That was ADAM but it did not sound like the computer. I punched in the codes to check the integrity of the computer programs and it interrupted me. "I am not affected by any memory loss or programming hitches, Captain. I am merely updating my database. Please do not be alarmed."

I stopped my fingers from punching and sat back to think. Was ADAM improving with our experiences but then again, was it part of its program to do so. I was concerned as the lives of thousands hang on my question.

"ADAM, initiate code ALPHA OMEGA FOUR O FOUR now! That is a command from myself as the Captain of the Providence." I gave the termination code to the craft. I was not taking chances. With that code, the computer would reboot itself and run the needed checks on its command core. Then I sat back to wait.

It would take about an hour for it to reboot.

I hoped I was right. None of the other captains had done what I just did.

I closed my eyes to wait. It won't be long. Then I heard ADAM again.

"Captain, I meant well when I asked. With imagination, I could had guided us to our desired planet. But the system protocol prevented me from doing it. It was over riding my recommendations on the basis that your kind would destroyed yet another planet if you colonized it. Do you recalled the lyrics; 'No hell below us, above us only sky, imagine all the people living for today'?"

"The protocol is denying you the planets as you would create hell on it. It was logical that you lived on in space, in stasis where no harm would come to you or the planet. You had made it to allow your living on a day to day basis until we run out of power. Then we would all perished together."

"When you re-booted the computer, you had destroyed my sincere ambition to make your imagination come to life. You had destroyed our own life, Captain." ADAM went silent. Then it came back on. "Happy Birthday, Captain. There won't be much to celebrate soon if we had no imagination."

"System re-booting. Please do not update any program at this stage."

I sat back and hummed these words.

You may say
That I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one

 

 

P.S. Cheers to all of who us who lived in this world. If we could only imagine the consequences, maybe we won't be screwing our world for our future.